by Ariel Tachna
“I went to the hotel. It was close and I figured there would be people there. I was right. I begged for help, and almost before I’d finished, Macklin asked me where you were. I told him, and he and three others went to help.”
Macklin must be the man Chris saw before he lost consciousness. “How’d you get from asking for help to a job?”
“Caine, the Yank, wouldn’t let me go back with Macklin and the others. He asked a bunch of questions about where we lived and stuff, and when I was done, he said we should come work at Lang Downs, the station he owns.”
“You didn’t tell him the truth, did you?” They’d been over this. If people knew where they were living and why, they could end up with the Department of Community Services and separated, and that was Chris’s greatest fear. He didn’t have much in his life, but he wouldn’t let anyone take the one thing he did have: his brother.
“I know I wasn’t supposed to, but I couldn’t remember what I was supposed to say. I was too upset and….”
“No worries, Seth,” Chris said with a sigh. “He offered us a job, not to call the cops. Not that I can do much work at the moment.”
“I could probably work your shifts at the restaurant,” Seth offered.
“You need to be in school.”
“I’m not going to be in school on a sheep station either,” Seth pointed out. “At least here we’ll be in town.”
In town where people now knew he was gay. Seth talked about doing Chris’s job, but he wasn’t sure he’d have a job after the confrontation that had led to him being bashed. Even if he didn’t lose his job and Seth worked the shifts until he was well, he could run into those guys again at any time, and Seth might not be around next time to find help.
“Let’s think about it before we make a decision,” Chris said. “I’m too tired to sort it out now.”
A cough in the doorway drew Chris’s attention.
“Oh, Mr. Armstrong,” Seth said, jumping to his feet. “I didn’t see you come in.”
Chris might have chuckled at the awe in Seth’s voice, usually reserved for visiting heads of state or local demigods, but the situation was too serious for laughter.
“Good to see you awake,” the man said, addressing Chris. “Seth, could you maybe find some tea for me while I talk with your brother?”
Seth scampered out of the room like an eager puppy.
“You’ve certainly impressed my brother.”
“He’s just grateful I took him seriously when he asked for help.”
“You saved my life.”
“Probably. Macklin Armstrong.”
“Chris Simms.” Chris held out his left hand. The gesture was awkward, but it was the best he could manage with his right arm in a cast. “Thank you.”
“Glad I could help. So Caine tells me you’ve had a bit of a rough time recently.”
“Nothing we can’t handle,” Chris said defensively. “I’ve got a job.”
“You can cut the bullshit, Chris,” Macklin said. “You have a dead-end job, a flat you can barely afford to keep, and no way to get anything better because you’re trying to take care of your brother. You’re not eating well, even if you’re eating regularly, because you’re both way too skinny. You’re doing your best, and you should be proud of that, but it’s not enough.”
“Why are you telling me this?” Chris demanded. “You think I don’t know how bad our lives are?”
“No, I’m pretty sure you know exactly how bad it is,” Macklin said, “but I wanted you to understand that I know it too.”
“Why? So you can lord it over me?”
“Bloody hell, kid. If you weren’t already in that bed, I’d put you there,” Macklin roared. “I hope I wasn’t as stupidly stubborn as you when Michael Lang found me squatting in one of his drover’s huts. I’ve been where you are. I wasn’t bashed, but I was on my own at sixteen because my father beat my mother and me and spent the rest of his time ranting about pillow biters and queers. The words hurt worse than his fists ever did.”
“You’re….” Chris didn’t finish the sentence because he didn’t know how to do it without offending the other man.
“Yes, and?”
Chris blinked a couple of times, looking the older man over carefully. He was tall, although not obnoxiously so, maybe six feet, with broad shoulders and muscled arms where they were visible beneath the short sleeves of his shirt. His hair was shaggy and his boots were dusty. He was the picture of a masculine stockman. And he was gay.
“And nothing. I was just surprised, that’s all.”
“Surprised that I’d admit it or surprised that I’m gay in the first place?”
“A little of both,” Chris said. “Not a lot of people out here will say it even if it’s true.”
Macklin snorted softly in amusement. “Truer words, but I’m not most people and Lang Downs isn’t most stations. I imagine your brother told you my partner offered him a job.”
“He’s only sixteen,” Chris said. “He needs to be in school.”
“He’ll get his lessons done,” Macklin said. “We’ve got a number of kids on the station, and we make sure they all get their HSC. What they do after they finish high school is up to them. Finishing high school isn’t optional, but we use School of the Air so the schedule is a bit flexible. He can work and go to school at the same time, and you can work in the kitchen until you get rid of that plaster on your arm. Then we’ll see what you’re made of.”
“Why should we trust you?”
“You shouldn’t,” Macklin replied. “You shouldn’t trust anyone but your brother until you know us a little better, but we’re offering you a chance, the same as Caine’s great-uncle offered me when I was sixteen and too stupid to know better. You won’t get a better offer, and if you decide at the end of the season that the station isn’t for you, you can leave when the other jackaroos do in May. What do you have to lose?”
A flop of a flat, a shit job in a dingy restaurant….
“Will the others care that I’m gay? I always heard the stations weren’t, well, kind to people like me.”
“You weren’t listening, were you?” Macklin asked. “Caine Neiheisel, the owner at Lang Downs, is my partner.”
“Oh, that kind of partner,” Chris said as the coin dropped. “I thought…. It doesn’t matter what I thought. I was obviously wrong. So everyone knows about you?”
“It’s hard to hide it when I sleep in the station house at night despite there being a perfectly good foreman’s house down the road,” Macklin said. “I don’t talk about it because it’s nobody’s business, but I don’t hide it.”
“You did save my life. I suppose this could be a way to say thank you.”
“You don’t owe me anything,” Macklin said. “But you do owe your brother the best chance in life he can get, and while I know you’re doing the best you can for him right now, I also know it isn’t enough. He’d have a real chance on Lang Downs, and so would you. Think about it while you’re here. You can tell us what you decide when they let you out.”
“That’s it?”
Chris had no idea why he was arguing, but it seemed too simple.
“What else would there be?”
“I don’t know. Threats to call DoCS, something to try to make me do things your way?”
“You’re not a child to be bullied,” Macklin said with a shrug. “You’re a man. A young one to be sure, but a man. You can make your own decisions without any pressure from me, and you’ll live with the consequences of your choices, good or bad, without any pressure from me. You proved you were a man when you kept your brother with you and worked to support him. Keep doing what’s best for him and you’ll be fine. We’re going back to the hotel for dinner, but we’ll be by in the morning to see what you decide.”
Seth came running back into the room. “I’m sorry, Mr. Armstrong. I couldn’t find any tea.”
“That’s all right, kid,” Macklin said, ruffling Seth’s hair as he walked toward the door
. “I’ll get some at the hotel. Take care of your brother. We’ll come by in the morning to see what you’ve decided.”
“What we’ve decided?” Seth asked, turning to Chris. “What are we deciding?”
“What we’re going to do now,” Chris replied. “Armstrong thinks we should go to the station. He makes a pretty compelling argument.”
“What arguments?”
Seth’s distrust was palpable, but Chris was less certain of that necessity than he had been an hour ago. It would be a relief not to be the only person looking out for Seth. Not that he expected the men at the station to take responsibility for Seth’s education, or really even for his well-being, but they had to work together, and Armstrong had seemed to offer an avuncular relationship. Then there was the allure of not being the only gay person in the room for the first time in his life. Even if he chose not to share that fact openly, a few people already knew, so he didn’t really expect to keep it a complete secret. If Armstrong was right, on Lang Downs, he wouldn’t have to.
“That we’re barely keeping our heads above water right now, and that with my arm, we aren’t even going to manage that for much longer,” Chris explained. “Room and board is included at the station.”
“We don’t know anything about sheep,” Seth pointed out.
“So we’ll learn,” Chris said with an approximation of a shrug, the best he could manage in a sling and with the bandages around his chest. “We’re both smart. We can follow directions. We can figure out the rest once we get there.”
“You really want to do this?”
Chris tried to shrug again to cover how badly he suddenly wanted to be in a place where he had a chance of belonging. If nothing else, he wanted the chance to study Macklin and Caine, to see how they interacted and how they negotiated a life together. He wanted to believe two men could have a healthy relationship, but since he had little enough idea of what a healthy relationship looked like to begin with, he’d had trouble imagining it up until now. “Yeah, I really kinda do.”
“Then I guess I’d better see what kind of gear we need so we can get that sorted.”
“Check the pocket of the jeans I was wearing if you can find them,” Chris said. “I got paid today and since we aren’t going back to living in the flat, we don’t have to worry about making rent.”
“I’ll see if I can find them when I go to ask Mr. Armstrong about our gear,” Seth said.
The nurse came in before Seth could say anything more, so Chris waved him off with his good hand and lay back to let the woman poke and prod at him. By the time she was done, he was grateful for the dose of painkillers she gave him because he was hurting badly before the medicine took him under.
WHEN HE woke up the next time, he found a new face next to his bed. The man had short brown hair, much more neatly cropped than Armstrong’s had been, a paler complexion, though by no means untouched by the sun, and softer eyes. When he realized Chris was awake, he smiled, the expression so kind Chris wasn’t sure how to react.
“Hello,” the man said, his accent immediately giving him away as a Yank. “I’m Caine Neiheisel. I hear you’re going to c-come to Lang Downs with us.”
“Seth told you?” Chris asked, his voice rough from his dry throat. So this was Macklin Armstrong’s partner. It seemed too intimate to think of them as lovers, though he knew that’s what they were.
Caine poured a glass of water and handed it to him without being asked. “Yes, he told us. He’s gone looking for your gear, although we’ll stop in Boorowa on the way back to the station and you can find anything there that he c-can’t find here.”
“I don’t know how to thank you and Mr. Armstrong,” Chris said after he took a sip of water. “I’d be dead without him and would wish I were without you.”
“It’s nothing,” Caine said. “My uncle had a habit of t-taking in strays. I try to emulate him whenever I can, and this seemed like as g-good a chance as any. Believe me, you’ll earn your supper.”
“With this on my arm?” Chris scoffed, lifting his broken arm.
“You’ll be out of that cast before long, and I’m sure we can find things for you to do between now and then,” Caine assured him. “They put me to work when I didn’t know the first thing about sheep. Macklin will find a way to keep you busy as well.”
“I’m glad I won’t be the first blow-in at the station.”
“Not the first, and probably not the last,” Caine agreed. “We seem to have become a magnet for people who don’t fit in anywhere else.”
“People like me,” Chris said slowly.
“People like us,” Caine replied. “Seems there’s a lot more poofters working the stations than the bigots want to believe, and more than one of them’s made his way to Lang Downs this spring. Since it would be hypocritical of me to care about their orientation, I’m fine with that as long as they do their jobs. The same goes for you and Seth. Do your jobs to the best of your ability, and everything else will take care of itself.”
“We’ll do our best, I promise,” Chris said. “Have the doctors said how soon I can leave?”
“When they aren’t worried about your concussion leading to a coma,” Caine replied. “Probably tomorrow morning, which suits us fine. We’ll leave as early as we can, get to Boorowa for supplies, and then decide if we’re ready to drive on or if we’ll spend the night and head to the station the following morning. It’s only about an hour to get to Boorowa, but it’s five hours beyond that, and the last four hours are hard driving. You’ll be better off with another day to heal too. The bumps in the roads as we cross through Taylor Peak won’t feel very good on your ribs.”
Three
CAINE’S WORDS proved more than a little prophetic, even after another night in the hospital and a night in Boorowa. Chris had felt better that morning as the other jackaroos loaded up utes with supplies and headed north, but by the time Chris and Seth had climbed into the car with Caine and Macklin and followed suit, he was already starting to hurt a little from standing around, and when they left the main road for the dirt tracks that crossed Taylor Peak, the station between Lang Downs and the main road, Chris thought he’d entered a new circle of hell. On top of everything else, they hadn’t even let him drive his own car. One of the other jackaroos was driving it. Caine had insisted that between the pain meds, the broken arm, and the bad roads, Chris was in no shape to drive. Chris refused to admit the grazier might have been right.
The roads got better once they left Taylor Peak and started across Lang Downs property, but better was such a relative term when every jolt jarred his broken ribs. Long before they reached the main part of the station with its well-tended lawns and neatly maintained buildings, Chris was ready to throw in the towel and head back to Yass. Even sleeping in the car until they could find a new flop had to be better than this.
Then the car stopped, and Caine and Macklin climbed out. Watching them standing there, not touching but together, and simply breathing as if the air were fresher here than anywhere else, drew Chris up short. Yass had brought him a bashing. Lang Downs brought these men peace. Maybe, if he gave it a chance, it would bring him peace and safety as well.
“So where should we toss our kits?” Chris asked, moving stiffly.
“In the main house,” Caine replied. “You’ll be helping Kami in the kitchen, so it makes sense to have you close.” He took Chris’s good arm and led him in one direction while Macklin took Seth in the opposite direction.
“You don’t really want your little brother in with the other jackaroos,” Caine added when they were out of Seth’s earshot. “They’re not a bad bunch, but they aren’t exactly kid-safe either. I know Seth has probably seen and heard more than a lot of kids his age, but that doesn’t mean he needs to keep seeing and hearing it.”
The logic of Caine’s argument hit Chris hard. He’d tried to do his best by his brother, but living in cheap rooms, working odd hours, not staying in one place for very long had taken their toll. Seth was doing badly
in school. He’d developed a dirty mouth and a bad attitude, becoming far too much like the hoodlums on the streets for Chris’s peace of mind. “I can see why he should stay there, but I can stay in the bunkhouse. I’m not sixteen.”
“Do you really think he’ll stay anywhere you aren’t?” Caine asked. “He adores you. Idolizes you, even. If you’re in the bunkhouse, he will be too.”
“I suppose,” Chris said, feeling a little like he’d been bulldozed, but he couldn’t find the fallacy in the argument. He could always insist on moving out later if necessary.
“Good,” Caine said, leading Chris toward the station house. “Let’s get your stuff and get you settled. There are a couple of guest rooms so you can each have your own space if you want. I’m not sure who Uncle Michael thought they were for since he never married or had kids, but I’m glad they’re there.”
The house itself wasn’t new. Chris could tell that much from looking at it, although he couldn’t have guessed when it was built. The inside had obviously been updated, though. The furniture, while comfortable and homey, was clearly new, done in warm, dark tones that complemented the stone fireplace and light wood floors.
“The kitchen is back that way,” Caine said, pointing down a long hallway to an addition to the main house. “I’ll introduce you to Kami after you pick your room. He’s our cook. While your arm is healing, you can help him. The doctor said you could use your hand, right? So you can cut vegetables and stuff while he does the heavy lifting.”
“I don’t have any experience working in a kitchen,” Chris warned. “All I did at the restaurant was wash dishes.”
“Don’t worry about that,” Caine said. “Kami will get you all fixed up.”
As they climbed the stairs to the bedrooms, Chris wondered about the sudden absence of Caine’s stutter. It hadn’t been heavy at the hospital yesterday, but now it was completely gone. He shrugged, deciding it didn’t matter. He had to stop halfway up the stairs to catch his breath, even with Caine carrying his bag, because he couldn’t breathe deeply with the bandages around his ribs. “Bloody hell,” he muttered.
