by Blair Aaron
"Drop your gun," Jaidon said to Stetson. He obliged. Jaidon picked it up and started to hand it to Jamie, who acted confused. "Oh I see. Well, cowboy, let's go. Walk in front of me so I can shoot you when you try to run."
They walked out of the cave, past Stetson's truck for several miles through the desert. After a while, the flash light revealed a barbed wire fence in the distance, with a figure tied to one of its posts. As they got closer, Stetson's heart sank at the sight of Carter hanging on the side, his hand beaten to a pulp and the rest of him whimpering from exhaustion.
"Here's your buddy cowboy." Jaidon's eyes seemed greener than ever with the evil vibrating out of them.
From his peripheral vision, he could see Jamie laugh nervously as he dropped the cell phone Stetson gave him on the ground, crushing it under his feet. Jaidon laughed with him. "Looks like there's nobody to help you now, fucker." Jaidon and Jamie were working together all along.
He poked Stetson to a nearby post and then pulled out a giant rope. As he sat down the rifle on the post and switched the gun from one hand to another, Stetson's hunting instincts took over, and he jerked his elbow back as hard as he could, planting his thick tricep right in Jaidon Marsh's mouth. He could feel Jaidon's teeth break under the weight of the blow, and Jaidon fell back, screaming. As he did, he dropped the gun where Stetson snatched it from mid air. Without thinking he shot in the direction of Jamie who fell back screaming, as a bullet grazed his shoulder, and then he fired in Jaidon's direction, blowing his face off all at once. Jamie ran off screaming in the night, and Stetson shouldered the rifle around his torso and the pistol in his tight pants. The worst was over.
He looked up at the pitiful Carter, who could barely move. He reached out and touched his hand to assess the damage and then used his hunting knife to cut Carter loose. The anger Stetson felt in those moments at the sight of Carter's battered hand might have made his head explode. One shot was not enough. He wished Jaidon would have suffered longer, because he had caused so much suffering to Carter.
Stetson brushed his finger across Carter's cheek, who was unconscious but alive, in one piece, intact. He took Carter from the post, knowing no other way to show his affection than simply carrying him, sleeping in his arms, all the way back to the truck in the darkness of the night.
CHAPTER SEVEN
He lay Carter down on the bed of the truck and put the rifle back into the metal box. The sound of the box woke Carter up and he sat straight up, looking around at his surroundings.
"Oh God. You saved me," he said. "Where's Jaidon?"
"Dead. I blew him to hell," Stetson said, almost proud.
"Oh God. How did you find me?"
"I'm a good hunter boy."
"I'll say." He looked down at his battered hand.
"You gonna be all right?"
"Yeah it's just my hand. He didn't get much more of me, because I fought him off with a shower rod. Thank God I put clothes on before he found me in the restroom," Carter tried to laugh at the situation. Stetson stepped forward, a burning passion growing in his heart, matched only by the gratefulness that his mistake with Carter wouldn't turn out to be fatal. It was a mistake he could make up for. When he looked at Carter he could feel that same desire he had had for Lee Ann, but this time it was much more immediate and all-consuming. He was so mad at himself for letting Carter go unprotected in this world, and he vowed to himself that Carter would never go alone in the world again.
Without thinking, Stetson found himself on top of Carter, kissing his neck and lips furiously. He was afraid to completely kiss him for fear of smothering him, but Carter was receptive to his advances. He lied down on the back of the truck, while Stetson continued to make love to him, running his massive hands up and down Carter's torso. Carter shivered with pleasure, but Stetson could sense there was a sadness in him, maybe a fear of being hurt, like Stetson himself was afraid of being hurt, because of his history. He remembered Carter's mom said something about his friend Maddox being killed and realized this was the source of Carter's pain. It all made sense now what happened to him a year ago, around the same time Stetson himself discovered his own love betraying him. For some reason this made Stetson trust Carter more, despite the history of bad relationships and trust issues Stetson had endured. He actually loved Carter more easily than his father or Lee Ann, because of this shared tragedy between the two men. He intensified his kissing, ripping open Carter's shirt, exposing him in the moonlight. Carter seemed nervous and Stetson stopped.
"It's okay bud," he said. "Don't worry. I'm here." Carter smiled, a single tear flowing from his right eye. He grabbed Stetson's head from behind and pulled him closer to kiss him. They continue to make out for several minutes before Stetson took his his shirt off, a single stratch made by the barbed wire he rubbed against his shoulder. Carter ran his fingers across his lightly, as if he were trying to rub it away, angry that someone would hurt the person he loved. He wrapped his legs around Stetson, who ran his own hand down Carter's torso. Stetson continued kissing down Carter's chest, and Carter realized the difference between making love to men versus women was without a doubt the forcefulness of the lover. Women must have been light and emotional, communicating their affection through meaning behind their kiss. Men, on the other hand, made all the sucking, licking, stroking, and kissing the sole way they showed their love. And for the first time in a long time, Carter felt glad to be queer.
Stetson jerked his pants off, and then continued kissing down Carter's underwear, until he got to the inside of his thighs, biting him lightly but forcefully. Carter shook with longing. Then for the first time ever, Stetson took Carter in his mouth, licking and sucking him with the fervor of a new lover. He was no longer afraid of the relationshiop in that moment.
He continued tasting Carter who indicated he was going to come, and warm fluid filled Stetson's mouth. He did not consider the implications of what had happened, but simply that he was closer than ever to Carter. As things calmed down, Stetson looked up from Carter's lap.
"We should go to the police," Carter said. "You shot him. If you wait, they'll think you did it." Stetson nodded in a agreement. As they rode back to the police station in silence, Stetson reached over to touch Carter's wounded hand in the darkness.
"Look at what he did to you," Stetson said. Then he squeezed Carter's wrist tight.
At the police station, Carter followed Stetson through the front double door. When the police caught the sight of Stetson entering, a look of recognition fell across their face, as if they had just met an infamous celebrity. Stetson approached Presley Watkins, who did not delay in responding to the situation through his walkie talkie.
"Code red, code red," he said, quiet. Without saying a word to Stetson, he grabbed him by the wrist, as a child would grab a giant. "Stetson Carthswaite, you are under arrest for the murder of Jaidon Marsh. You have the right to remain silent, and anything you say can and will be used against you in the court of law."
Stetson looked in shock over at Carter, whom the police were dragging away against his will.-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE TRIAL
I
Officer Michael Ingrams, naked and in the process of undressing his wife, slipped his tongue down his wife's throat, the night the police department called him to announce his promotion to Detective Sargeant. He started out in criminal justice in college, dreaming that he would make it to Quantico, Virginia, where he would study serial killers and how their minds were built, so the promotion sent positive vibrations through his life. On the other hand, the fact that he lost his erection right at the moment he was entering his wife and that his feelings for her, which had been up until this point in his marriage strong and everlasting, suddenly evaporated, gave a sinister undercurrent to the announcement of his promotion over the phone.
Something about his relationship with his wife nagged him for the past few weeks; he came to the shocking realization something was missin
g in his relationship, like a knock off soda tastes almost, but not quite, the same as the real thing. Nevertheless, he loved sex for its own sake, and no one needed to ask him twice to penetrate his woman. He loved kissing for the sexual stimulation it brought him, and she probably noticed he kissed her in wet sloppy bouts for the pure excitement it brought him. Affection was at most incidental. He pulled her lavender panties off and curled her naked legs around his waist, hiking her waist up a little so he could slip inside her wet folds. She put a pillow under her waist to prop up her body. Mike could feel the soft wet warmth of her pussy touch the tip of his dick, which tingled with electricity. He always preferred the tactile sensations of sex to using his imagination, even as a teenager. His entire body was far more sensitive to touch than it was to sexual stirrings in the space between his ears.
His wife reached up and licked the side of his neck, as the cool air chilled the path she traced with her tongue. There was a mirror in the back of the room, where she could watch him gyrate up and down on her body. Watching her man's butt cheeks squeeze in a soft rhythm, along with the accompanying wave of pleasure in her nether regions amplified her arousal tenfold, she claimed. She grabbed his ass with her hands squeezing his butt like it was a mound of dough, pliable to her touch. She ran her hands up and down the inside of his chest and stomach area, where there was a patch of black hair over his chest muscles. As he pumped into her in a repeated fashion, grunting softly, his breath blew her bangs out of her eyes. She reached down to feel his hard penis at the base of a mound of pubic hair. Even when Mike was working hard, on top of her, his sweat exuded a faintly sweet aroma in the room. His wife thought to herself how ironic it was, that her husband was in many ways the prettier of the two, and the fairer, with his burning blue eyes and black hair. There was not an inch of his body she didn't desire. He was, to her, a home she never remembered having on an exotic island she'd never been to, simultaneously fulfilling in tradition and exciting with newness.
"Oh, Mike," she said, as he pumped away inside her, in the back of his mind anxious to come and make a quick getaway for the shower. "Who was it?"
"The office. I've been promoted."
"Fantastic kid," she said. He slid inside her back and forth, saying nothing.
II
Carter Simmons could feel the same punch to his gut that he felt when he lost his first love that night by the hands of Jaidon Marsh. The feeling in his gut was something that became a familiar omen of terrible tragedy in Carter's life. His stomach hurt the day Jaidon had beat him to a pulp in his house and then stuffed him like a doll into his trunk. His stomach hurt when Presley Watkins interrupted Stetson's attempt at doing the right thing by explaining what happened during the fight at the dinosaur dig. Stetson was arrested, and the punch in the gut that gnawed at Carter had not subsided. Things were going to get worse if Carter didn't take things into his own hands. Carter didn't have the hunter instincts that Stetson had, but he had intuition that told him bad things would happen if you were charged with first-degree murder in a town like Baggs, Wyoming. He knew Stetson's integrity had put him into a bad situation which he most likely could not escape from. No one would help Stetson, not a single soul; and if someone did want to help, they would never stand a chance against the pressure of the local society, with its visceral, primal, and witch-hunting instincts.
After the police arrested Stetson, Carter spent the next 12 hours, without a shower or change of clothes, fighting his way into the visitor's area of the local jail. The guards and clerks showed no signs of an understanding for due process, cruel and unusual punishment, or general human decency. They ran things the way they wanted to, which was to say, they ran things according to whim and caprice.
"Sir we cannot help you," the lady told him, as she chewed gum while also talking on her cell phone. "I don't have access to that prisoner. They put him in maximum security area for what he did."
"He didn't do anything," Carter said. "There's a difference between a charge and a conviction. Does he not get some kind of phone call? Are there not visiting hours?"
"Sir look at the sign hangin' over ya head. Does that sign say 'midnight on a Saturday'?"
Carter glanced above him at the sign, which displayed standard business hours during the weekday. He didn't answer the clerk and walked away, collapsing in the blue plastic chair in the foyer of the police department. Things were hopeless. He just could not figure out why Detective Watkins thought Stetson had murdered Jaidon, or how he even found out that Jaidon had been shot. Carter figured the police must have arrived after they left, or maybe Stetson's cell phone had given him a single unnoticed moment of reception. He remembered for a second the fact that his brother Jamie was still alive and that maybe he had something to do with all of this.
III
"This trial is expected to last two weeks. We move very quickly around these parts, as you'll see. We're also short-staffed so many of our deputies will be assisting us in the jury selection process. Is there anything about the length of scheduling of the trial that would interfere with your ability to serve?"
Lieutenant Presley Watkins plopped his pen into his mouth, waiting for an answer from the man sitting to the right of him. The man seemed somewhat uneasy about Watkins, whom the district attorney had commandeered from his usual investigatory assignments for this "special circumstance," as they called it. Presley Watkins was very familiar with Jaidon Marsh's criminal history, but he was also acutely aware of the circumstances surrounding Marsh's death. Stetson Carthswaite and Jamie Simmons had entered his office determined to find out who took Jamie's brother, Carter. Watkins had sensed an aggressive impulse in Stetson; when Jamie Simmons entered his office at the crack of dawn, his face bloody and nose broken, claiming that Stetson shot Marsh in cold blood, Presley was not surprised. Stetson had rubbed Watkins the wrong way from the moment they met. He just knew there was something off about Stetson.
He assured the D.A. there was no conflict of interest. This was not a sham comment. Presley believed with all his heart that Stetson Carthswaite killed Marsh and that it was not in self-defense. Marsh may have had a rap sheet a mile long, but a crime is a crime, and it was Presley's job to seek justice, particularly in this circumstance, where he was privy to special information pertinent to the crime committed. No matter what, no matter how, Presley Watkins would make sure that Stetson Carthswaite went to the electric chair for the crimes he committed.
The man in front of him averted his eyes, choosing instead to look at the ground, out from under Watkin's heavy gaze. He was a mechanic, Latino, with no priors, fully legal. The presiding prosecutor returned from lunch, spaghetti sauce dribbled on her white shirt. She plumped down into the empty metal chair beside the hispanic mechanic. She took a deep breath and smiled, parsley stuck in her main tooth.
"As a general proposition," she said, looking at the mechanic in his blue jump suit, "do you think that a police officer is more likely or less likely to tell the truth than a witness who is not a police officer?"
The mechanic thought for a moment. "Neither. Police officers are people just like anyone else. He would tell the truth, unless he was trying to save hisself from something he done."
The prosecutor smiled. "Good answer." She looked over at Presley Watkins, whose smile turned into a scowl.
The day wore on, as Watkins watched scores of people move in and out of the court room. The people he thought would serve well on a jury, unafraid of sentencing the man to the justice which he deserved, were all chosen as backups. And, on top of that, the people he thought were the softest about letting a man get away with murder were the prosecutor's top choices.
Three of the chosen people he found especially abhorrent were the hispanic mechanic, a waitress with red hair and witch's nose, and a slight, frail pharmacy technician. All these subjects were sympathetic to what they called "the wrongfully accused," and it was clear to Presley that these fools were so soft, so forgiving, so gullible, they would let a murderer go free, ev
en as he stood on the witness stand with his arms still covered in blood.
And that, for Presley, simply would not do.
--
Presley Watkins stood outside the door of Mr. Hernandez's car garage. This was the first of three people Watkins had determined were not fit for jury duty, people who stuck a thorn in his side on the path of justice. He finished his cigarette and crushed it into mulch on the pavement. The sun beat hard and hot down on the back of his neck. Watkins was only somewhat nervous as he watched from several yards away that Hernandez handed a mysterious plastic bag to a customer from behind two large trash bins. Hernandez was never caught selling drugs, but Watkins knew everything about everyone in Baggs. The court of law may have dictated that Hernandez was innocent until proven guilty, but Watkins knew the truth. It was his duty to make sure he stood in Hernandez's way to getting a spot on the jury. Sure it was illegal, but the courts were slow and plodding and, in Watkins' eyes, criminally inefficient.
But suddenly he got a better idea, and checked his watch. Two hours until sundown. He decided he would find Hernandez in his element, and then call Michael Ingram, his new partner, for backup.
He spent the next few hours getting drinks at the local bar where most drug deals took place. As the sun set, he could see Hernandez pull into the parking lot after work. Mike Ingram sat in the car next to him.
"You know we have to see him actually make the deal," Ingram said.
"No. We'll do what we have to do. I'm glad you came along, kid. You're better off hitting the ground running. Don't you think?"
"I guess. Are you sure this is legal?"
"Of course not. We can't help it, though. He's guilty, I saw him earlier make the deal. I've known for years. I know everything that happens in this town, sir. But you're a good man, so I know you'll watch my back. Right?"
"For sure, Lieutenant. If he's guilty, I definitely don't mind bending the rules."
