Rick hangs up before the end of the recording.
Hurt and confused, he picks up the glass and heads for the kitchen. He doesn’t know what to make of the lack of Ed’s usual reassurance of his love. It had become his hallmark at the end of every call. Rick gets to the sink and absently rinses out the glass, placing it in the rack. He stares out the window, remembering.
“Rick, I love ya. I’m never gonna stop tellin’ ya that. I never said it to Jerry. Never once and that was wrong o’ me. But I’m gonna say it to you now and every chance I get. I am so damn lucky to get another chance at lovin’ someone like this.”
Ed had said that as they lay next to each other after their first time together. Laying naked in Ed’s arms in his tiny loft apartment over the stable at Valley View Ranch, Rick had responded with a kiss and tears.
Tears fall again now as Rick stands at the sink. He wipes them away angrily with the back of his hand.
Suddenly Rick knows what he has to do. He makes a quick check of the cabin and heads out to the barn and saddles up Shadow. He’s going to go down the mountain. He’s going to see what’s goin’ on at Hidden Valley Farm.
* * * *
After putting Shadow, without untacking him, in his stall in the main barn down in the valley, Rick heads for the house. Rusty, Ed’s Australian cattle dog, gets up from the porch and comes up to him, tail wagging. “Where was you last night?” Rick asks as he reaches down and pets the animal. “You’re supposed to run off intruders. Didn’t do much of a job, didja?”
He checks the open garage as he walks by. Both his and Ed’s Blazers are there, and the F-150 is parked in its usual place under the carport next to the horse trailer.
Took Jerry’s…whatever, Rick thinks. In his haste to get away the previous night he hadn’t even checked to see how Jerry had gotten to the farm.
Rick stops on the wide front porch with his hand on the doorknob.
* * * * “Well, who’s gonna carry who over the doorstep?” Rick quipped to Ed as they arrived at the door of the farmhouse on the day they were to move in.
“It shore as hell ain’t gonna be you carryin’ me,” Ed had replied, and with a swift movement that caught Rick off-guard, he picked him up and threw him over his shoulder like a sack of grain, kicking the door open as he did.
“Put me down, you old fool. You’re gonna throw your back out agin and then what?”
“I’ll show you what!” Ed replied laughing.
* * * * He takes a deep breath, lets the memory fade, and steps inside. It’s quiet as a church on Monday morning.
He walks through the living room, listening to the mantel clock ticking rhythmically, sounding strangely loud in the empty house. Everything is in place. Rick walks down the hall past the kitchen. Looking in, there are two whiskey tumblers and two coffee mugs in the drainer next to the sink.
Musta had a good old time last night, he thinks sardonically.
At the end of the hall he sticks his head in the guest room. His heart sinks. The bed is made. There’s no sign anyone has slept there.
Rick looks in the only bathroom in the house, located between the two bedrooms. A duffle is on the floor. Shaving gear and a toothbrush he doesn’t recognize are on the vanity. He takes a deep breath, which he releases through his nose.
The door to their room is ajar. He doesn’t want to open it. He doesn’t want to see evidence from the unmade bed of where Jerry Taylor spent the night. He closes his eyes.
* * * * “Don’t stop! Man, don’t,” Rick moaned when Ed pulled out of him, breaking their union as they made love that move-in day.
Ed had carried Rick all the way down the hall and dumped him on the floor because the furniture was still on the truck. He then proceeded to undress as Rick lay on his back, propped on his elbows, watching. When Rick started to take his clothes off, Ed stopped him.
“My job,” he said softly, tenderly, as he proceeded to removed Rick’s garments one by one.
When they were both naked on the carpet, Ed prepared Rick for what was to come.
“Don’t stop,” Rick said again as Ed pulled out.
“Don’t intend to,” Ed replied as he straddled Rick and slipped Rick inside him.
“That better?” he said, smiling. “We ain’t never gonna be separated. One way or the other, me in you, you in me, we’re gonna be together, always be one man.”
Ed continued to switch back and forth between the two unions, until Rick cried out as he filled Ed with his cum. Ed reunited himself with Rick and completed the tender yet passionate joining. Finally, lying gently full-length on top of Rick, Ed covered him, neck, shoulders and face, with kisses.
“Always gonna be one. Always gonna be one. Welcome home, darlin’, welcome home,” he said over and over.
* * * * Rick pushes the door open. The bed is made. No evidence anyone has slept here either. No evidence they haven’t. Rick walks over and sits on the edge of the bed, his head in his hands, his elbows on his knees.
* * * * Ed had sat that way once before in his little apartment. They’d just finished making love. They were still naked. Rick sat next to him. He sensed there had been something on Ed’s mind all evening. Ed sighed deeply and then spoke slowly and deliberately.
“I want to do it right this time. Last time with Jerry I was too scared to do it and it cost me…us…Jerry and me both.”
Rick listened. It seemed as if Ed was more thinking out loud than talking to him.
“I’m still scared now, but this time it ain’t gonna stop me,” he continued as he sat up straight and turned to look at Rick.
Locking his eyes on Rick’s, he said, “I don’t know if I’m queer or not, but I know I loved Jerry and being with him…like this.” He pointed to the bed behind them. “Just being with him anywhere, anyway, doing whatever, made me happier than anything.”
Rick smiled.
Ed took another deep breath. “And I love you the same way. I got me another chance ta be happy agin and I ain’t gonna let it slip by just cuz I’m scared. So, Rick, if ya feel that same way, and I shore hope you do cuz this is gonna sound damn stupid if ya don’t, could we get us a place here somewheres and…”
Ed closed his eyes like he was screwing up his courage, then said, “And live together and be partners or whatever they call men like us?” Ed finished by opening his eyes, which took on a pleading look.
“That’d make me ‘happier than anything’.” Rick responded, echoing Ed’s earlier statement.
“Well, damn!” Ed shouted. He stood up and pulled Rick to his feet and into his arms. “That means we must
be…be…engaged!” Then Ed blushed at his own words and Rick laughed while kissing him.
“You laughing at me, boy?” Ed said with a big smile.
“Yes, cowboy, I am. You are so damn special.”
* * * * Rick lifts his head. He looks around the room…their room. “Damn you, Jerry Taylor! Why couldn’t ya jista stayed dead?”
He gets up and walks out into the hallway. The sound of voices from the living room cause him to freeze where he stands.
“God, it’s good ta see ya agin.” It’s Ed talking. Rick leans against the wall and closes his eyes. He doesn’t want to hear this.
“Cowboy,” comes Jerry’s voice, using the same nickname Rick has for Ed, “Linda told me she got this phone call from someone up here in Missoula saying they didn’t know if they should call or not, but they wanted me to know you had been killed. Kicked by a cow in the head, Linda said they told her. When I heard that, I just about went to pieces.”
“Who woulda called her?” Ed asked.
“No one. Like a fool, I saved all your letters and she found ‘em. Figured out what was goin’ on between us and made up that story to get back at me.”
“That’s when she musta called me, too,” Ed said. “Called and said you’d been killed a few months earlier in a tractor accident plowin’ a field. Said she was going through your things and found my number. Said you’d mentioned
me as an old friend you used to rodeo with and she thought I might like to know of your passing.”
Jerry’s voice came again. “She was mad as a hornet. Demandin’ to know the whole story. I told her everything then. She ranted and raved for about two hours and then said she wanted me out of the house. I moved out and we got divorced about a year later.”
Despite the mixed emotions he feels, Rick can’t help but be moved by the situation that had torn Ed and Jerry apart. Jerry’s wife must have really hated him to go that far. The men in the other room continue. From the sound of it, it seems like they are replaying the same conversation over and over as if trying to convince themselves it’s really happening.
“Then, like ya told me last night, you come up here to sell your dad’s place after he dies and, shit, you run into my daughter, Becky, and her husband, Frankie, coming out of Spencer’s Grocery,” Ed is saying. “How’d you know it was them?”
“From the pictures I seen a Becky. You showed ‘em to me a couple a times when we was together, remember? You sure was proud of her.”
“Still am,” Ed continues.
“Well, after we made our howdy do’s and all,” Jerry continues, “I says I’m an old friend of your daddy’s and tells her how sorry I was to hear of your passing. Damn, they looked at me as if I had taken leave of my mind, and Becky says, ‘Daddy ain’t dead. He’s livin’ up in the valley north of Missoula.’ Well, you know the rest. The one thing they didn’t tell me about was Rick.”
Rick stiffens.
* * * * “Are you gonna tell Becky and Frankie about us?” Rick asked Ed as they drove in the truck behind the real estate agent’s Cadillac on their way to see a small farm for sale in the valley.
“You gonna tell Stephen and Carla?” Ed shot back, a little louder and more defensive than Rick expected.
“Well, they kinda already know,” Rick replied quietly. “I mean they know I been takin’ their boy, Ben, up for riding lessons, and I moved ma horse fifty miles away jist ta go trail ridin’ with you. I been staying up there almost every weekend for over a year. Fer God’s sakes. Yeah, they kinda figured it out. Least ways they weren’t surprised when I said we was gonna try and git a place together up in the valley.”
“Do they know ma name?” Ed looked uncomfortable.
“Yes, they know your damn name. Ed, look, I don’t want ya to do anything that is gonna make ya squirm but…don ‘cha think it’d be better with your kids for it to come from you? I mean, how ya gonna explain quittin’ your job and movin’ in with a man up near the mountain? Or was ya plannin’ on keepin’ me a secret?”
“Okay, okay, I’ll do it. I don’t want to lose you like I did Jerry for not standin’ up to the truth. I’ll do it…maybe next month.”
“Ed!”
“All right, shit, all right. You win! I’ll do it tomorrow!”
Rick laughed. Ed shook his head but in the end he had laughed, too.
* * * * “Don’t they know about you and Rick?” Jerry asks. “Oh yeah, they know. I finally told ‘em. Rick kinda shamed me into it. I kinda skipped over the part about how we was intimate and all. They didn’t need to know that. But they kinda figured it out when they come up to see the place. Big mouth Rick says, ‘No, that’s the guest room,’ when Becky’s little girl, Jenny, asked if it was my bedroom. Since we only got two fuckin’ bedrooms, and no one’s sleepin’ in one of ‘em, and there’s only one bed in the other one…well…I think they got the picture.”
“They’re not too happy about that part of it, then?”
“Don’t know whether they are or not. Never asked ‘em and don’t intend to.”
“And you?” Jerry asks. “You okay with people knowing now?”
There’s a wistful tone to the question. Rick knows why. Ed’s fear of exposure led to their separation. He feels sorry for Jerry despite the anxiety this conversation was causing him. “Don’t rightly care one way or ‘nother. Nobody’s come after us yet with baseball bats…so…” Ed chuckles. “I guess I’m okay with it. Jerry, I’m so sorry I was scared of people knowin’ when we was…”
He breaks off. As if to change the subject, he says, “I still can’t believe it. Can’t believe I can be standing here holdin’ ya in ma arms agin. I shore have missed ya, Jerry Taylor.”
That’s more than Rick can take. He holds his breath, tries to muster up some courage and a gracious acceptance of the inevitable, but it’s too much too ask. His world is crashing down around him. He walks to the doorway to the living room and sees Jerry and Ed locked in an embrace.
“Excuse me,” he says with a steely tone to his voice, trying valiantly to control his emotions. “I jist came down to see how ya was doin’…and I see you’re doin’ jist fine.”
Ed and Jerry break apart, startled at the sound of Rick’s voice.
“Rick,” Ed starts, “Rick, wait you gotta hear this—”
Rick cuts across him. “I heard and seen enough for one mornin’.”
He pushes past the men, ignoring both their pleas to listen to what they have to say. He heads out to the barn, pulls the still saddled Shadow out of his stall, and gallops off toward the mountain, leaving Ed in his dust running after him, calling his name.
* * * * By the time Rick reaches the cabin he’s calmed down. He dismounts and leads Shadow into the barn. He’s ridden hard up the mountain and the summer heat has caused them both to sweat. He unsaddles the gray gelding and leads him to the wash stall. There he sprays lukewarm water over the sweaty animal, raising a white foam of dissolved salts from his body. He wipes the water from Shadow’s back and sides with a sweat scraper and walks him into his stall, where Rick feeds him some hay and begins to groom the horse as he eats.
It’s gonna be okay, he thinks. I always knew Jerry was his first and truest love. He never made no issue about keepin’ that from me. Now he’s back. I’ll get over this.
Rick leans his head against his horse’s shoulder. “No, I won’t! If I lose ‘im, it’ll never be the same,” he says out loud, fighting to maintain his composure and not spill the tears that threaten to leak from his eyes and roll down his cheeks. Shadow turns his head to Rick and tries to nuzzle him.
Rick hears a horse. He quickly wipes his face, puts the brushes away, and heads out into the sunlight. Ed is just dismounting.
“Rick—”
“I understand, Ed…I really do. Jerry’s back and I understand. I always knew where I stood with Jerry and you, so I truly do understand.” He holds up his hands, palms toward Ed, and looks away.
“No, you don’t,” Ed starts.
“Yeah, yeah, I do.” Rick tries to sound casual. He turns and walks toward the cabin so as not to let Ed see the pain on his face, the tears that have returned. “So, it’s okay. I…” He continues to walk away.
“Rick…Rick…God damn it. Rick! Listen to me!” Ed crosses the space between them in two strides. He grabs Rick by the shoulder and spins him around. Eyes full of concern and love hold Rick’s. “He’s got a partner!”
Rick’s mouth slowly opens in surprise.
“A what?”
“Jerry’s got a partner. He’s moved on, just like I did. When he found out I was alive, he jist came to find me ta see me once more and well…get the past in the past.” Ed smiles a sad but reassuring smile. “You don’t go back, you know.”
Rick stares at Ed for a full minute, trying to comprehend what he’s just heard. He looks at the face he loves so much, the deep brooding eyes, the wry smile, the crinkles around the mouth. “Oh,” he whispers sheepishly.
Ed kisses him, turns him around, and begins walking him to the house with an arm over his shoulder.
“You get yerself in there and take a shower. You stink! I’m gonna put Red up and I’ll be right in to join ya.” He swats Rick on the butt to send him on his way.
Rick turns and stands on the top step of the porch, watching as Ed walks back to the paint horse standing patiently where Ed left him. Rick leans against the roof post, shaking his
head and smiling. It’s been quite an eighteen hours.
Ed picks up the reins and leads the horse toward the barn. He catches sight of Rick on the porch and calls over his shoulder, “Oh, yeah, Jerry’s guy? Name’s Richard, too, just like you. Ain’t that a hoot! We both got us a Dick! Now git, we got us some serious making up to do.”
Rick turns to the cabin, laughing, and hears Ed’s laughter as well.
All will be well on the mountain once more.
THE END
ABOUT TERRY O’REILLY Terry O’Reilly is a retired school teacher living a quiet life in the Midwest with his three dogs and his horse. He began writing several years ago at the urging of a friend and fellow author. He has books available through several publishers, including Amber Allure Press, Aspen Mountain Press, eXcessica Publishing, and JMS Books LLC. Writing has become an important part of his life, allowing him to explore his own thoughts, needs, and feelings, as well as learn about other cultures and eras as he researches his stories.
ABOUT JMS BOOKS LLC Founded in 2010, JMS Books LLC is owned and operated by author J.M. Snyder. We publish a variety of genres, including gay erotic romance, fantasy, young adult, poetry, and nonfiction. Short stories and novellas are available as e-books and compiled into single-author print anthologies, while any story over 30k in length is available in both print and e-book formats. Visit us at jms-books.com for our latest releases and submission guidelines!
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