by Sarah Black
The old man was failing fast. That’s why Oscar and Cal had made this trip. Red had told him on the phone that it was almost his time. The handsome, daredevil cowboy that Oscar had worshipped since he was old enough to stand was now so shaky that he needed a walker. The lush red hair that Red had kept in a ponytail his whole life had faded to white and was so thin that his scalp showed through.
Red kept forgetting to put on his hat, and Oscar couldn’t stand to see his head looking so fragile and exposed. Oscar had rigged up a little hook on the walker and sewed a loop on the edge of Red’s old straw Bailey so he could keep it close.
Red was all he and Cal had of family, home, and acceptance. He was the only person from either of their families who was happy for them, happy that they found each other and were in love. When Red was gone, he and Cal would be on their own.
“I think we found your spurs, Uncle Red.” He held one up.
“You did it, boys!” Red took a shaky step forward. “So, got any idea what I wanted them fancy spurs for?”
Oscar shrugged. “Nope.”
Cal tipped the black Stetson back on his head. “I think you want to be buried in them.”
Oscar turned and glared at Cal, but Red just cackled. “Relax, kid,” he said. “Don’t get uptight with your man. He’s right, but he’s not right. You’ll see. Bring them over here.”
When Oscar and Cal stood in front of him, he took the spurs in one hand. “Put your hands on these spurs, boys. I think something is gonna happen. If it does, I want you two to go with me for a while. Nothing happens, you strap these beauties on me when you bury me.”
Oscar reached out and held the spurs. Cal hesitated, then put his hand on top of Oscar’s. “Now don’t panic, kids,” Red said. “You can always come back. I promise.”
The spurs were colder than they should have been, and the metal had a bit of give, like flesh. Oscar kept his eyes tightly shut, just like when he was a little boy and thunder scared him under his bed. He heard Red start to laugh. Cal reached over and grabbed Oscar’s belt.
When the spurs went still and felt like metal again, Oscar opened his eyes. Cal was still there, holding on to him. Red looked like he was forty. His hair was like a flame down his back, and red whiskers shaded a strong jaw. He was wearing old leather boots and faded jeans, and his blue eyes were clear.
Red looked down at his hands, then up again at Cal and Oscar. “Goddamn, boys! I knew it – I knew they were telling the truth.”
Red strode off toward his little log cabin. Cal stared at the cabin, then turned slowly in a circle, keeping a firm grip on Oscar’s belt.
“The light pole’s gone,” he said finally. “No electric wires going to the house. No road or driveway. No car.”
“Okay,” Oscar said. “What just happened?”
Red came around the corner of the house leading three horses. They had leather saddlebags and bedrolls behind the saddles.
“Wow. That was fast.”
“He didn’t have time to saddle those horses! Either we went with Red to heaven,” Cal said, “or we’re in the fucking Twilight Zone, man.”
“Calm down,” Oscar said. “Red told us we could go back.”
“Unless he isn’t Red,” Cal hissed under his breath. “What if he’s some alien or something?”
“I’m not an alien, boy,” Red said, tossing him a pair of reins. “I’m just a cowboy, like I’ve always been. But, when I was young, I did meet these three hombres. Strange men from over the border in Mexico. We camped together for a few weeks on the banks of the Pecos River. Before we split up, they gave me the spurs. Told me to use them when it was almost my time.”
He handed Oscar the reins to a pretty, dark gray Appaloosa. “I don’t know what it all means,” he said. “I just wasn’t quite ready to say good-bye to you boys. Don’t be mad. I thought you wouldn’t mind riding with me a little ways, just to say good-bye.”
They rode toward the river. Oscar had a sudden memory of Red, maybe thirty years ago. They had been out riding horses, like today. Oscar could remember the smell of Red’s neck, leather and sweat and horses, and the feel of the denim jacket under his cheek. He must have been four or five. He’d fallen asleep in the truck on the way home, and Red had carried him into the house. Red had looked then like he did right now.
The land they were riding through looked like it always had, only more so. The junipers with their waxy blue berries smelled strong and fresh. The sky was wide and clear and crystal blue. There were birds everywhere – mountain jays, painted bunting, and woodpeckers with their brilliant scarlet heads. The scrubby underbrush was full of jackrabbits and prairie dogs. Cal rode up beside him. “It smells different, like there’s no pollution. Maybe we went back in time.”
“We’ll find out soon enough. Let’s just enjoy it.”
Red got them settled into a campsite by the river. Red had always loved the cowboy way – the company of the horses, cooking cowboy stew over a wood fire, sleeping propped against a bedroll and listening to the night animals, watching the stars spread themselves thick as marmalade against the night sky.
It had been some years since Oscar had camped out along the Pecos River with Red. His memories were all tied up in the rhythms of slow autumn afternoons – riding horses across empty, golden land, learning to love solitude and quiet. Oscar wasn’t freaked out. Red was happy. Whatever was going on, this was okay, just a wonderful, long afternoon good-bye.
Cal pulled the bedroll off his saddle and shook it out. “Can we zip these together?”
Red chuckled. “No zippers, kid.”
“Your tres hombres won’t freak if they catch me snuggled up to Oscar, will they? I assume we’re expecting them?”
“I’m not really sure what to expect,” Red said. “But they seemed like adventuresome boys to me, tell you the truth. I don’t think we need to worry about them. You two just go on ahead and be yourselves.”
Oscar let Cal arrange the bedrolls together on one side of the campfire. He walked over and squatted down next to Red. “Uncle Red, are you going to be here in the morning?”
“I expect so,” Red said. “There was coffee in the saddlebag. But if I’m not, then thanks for riding with me, son.”
Tears filled Oscar’s eyes. He ran his hand over Red’s hair, just like he’d done when he was a kid.
“Go on now, boy,” Red said, pushing him gently away. “I’m going to take a walk and say good-bye to the river. You spend some time with your man.”
Oscar walked to the other side of the fire. He pulled a saddle over to the bedrolls, then lay down and leaned his head up against it. He knew Cal would be able to see his tears, even in the dark.
Cal sat down next to him. “Uranium.”
“Uranium? Are you kidding me? Who cares? Uncle Red is dying, and you’re still trying to figure out what those spurs are made of?”
“I care, Oscar. I was planning to have a long life with you. On Earth. Listen, I love Uncle Red, too, but I want to go home after he goes wherever he’s going. I want you to come home with me, so we can keep on living.”
Oscar reached a hand for Cal’s ankle. The brown leather of his boots was soft from careful cleaning with the saddle soap. “Sorry. So, the spurs are uranium. What’s that mean?”
“I don’t know.”
They were quiet for a while, feeling the cool night air flowing in low to the ground, smelling the old golden smells of autumn leaves and smoke from a juniper fire. The crickets started their evening songs.
“Red’s having a hard time letting you go, Oscar. He’s spent his whole life loving you and taking care of you. These last few years he’s looked after both of us. Hard to walk away from all that love.” Cal pulled another saddle over and leaned back against it. “What if you can’t feel love anymore after you’re gone? I mean really feel it, in your stomach and in your chest? What if we can never feel it again, the way we feel it now when we touch each other?”
“You think Red’s been alone his wh
ole life? Just so he could look after me?”
“Don’t get yourself worked up, Oscar. Red did what he wanted to do. I get it, myself. I mean, I think I’d spend a lifetime with you, if I could.” Cal pulled off his boots and shucked his jeans down his legs. He pulled off his flannel shirt, too, then changed his mind and put it back on. “Let’s get you out of those Wranglers, cowboy. You can’t sleep with your boots on. No, what I mean to say is you can’t sleep with me with your boots on.”
Night had fallen, and the firelight played across Cal’s skin. He looked like burnished copper, and the hair on his stomach and between his legs was suddenly dark and mysterious. They studied one another in the glow of the campfire, and then Oscar moved into his lover’s arms.
Cal slid his big hands down Oscar’s back. They moved together, a slow dance to a sad cowboy song, watched over by the crickets and the horses and the firelight.
Oscar loved the way their hips fit so perfectly together. Cal lay to the right, he lay to the left, and their erect cocks touched and danced and slid against each other. When it was time, Oscar lay down on the bedroll and Cal lay over him. Cal opened his mouth, and Oscar put his tongue inside. Cal tasted sweet and complex – like yearning, like something he’d been waiting for. Oscar reached between them and held them together in one hand. He came first, like he always did, with a wallop of passion and need that knocked him flat. Always had, with Cal.
Cal moved against him with that slow rhythm they had come to love, as slow and gentle as the end of an autumn day, like the ripe golden color of a pumpkin, like the taste of a pomegranate pulled apart and spilling its scarlet seeds. Cal spilled against his stomach, and his fluid was sticky and hot. Then Cal was breathing again, drowsing against his neck, and Oscar carefully pulled the bedroll up to cover them.
When Oscar woke in the morning, he could smell coffee perking over a juniper wood fire and hear Red and Cal laughing together somewhere nearby. He closed his eyes, smiling.
Cal walked over and squatted next to him. “Open your eyes, cowboy. I’ve got your coffee.”
He took the cup. Cal was smiling, his dark hair tousled from a night of sleeping outdoors. His blue flannel shirt smelled like sex and wood smoke. “Cal, you look good enough to eat.”
Cal leaned over and kissed him. His tongue tasted like coffee, and his chin was rough with new beard. “Speaking of eating,” Cal said, “take a good look around. I think somebody slipped us some peyote in that chili last night.”
Oscar took a long sip of his coffee, then sat up suddenly. Cal looked normal, maybe a little hotter than usual with his scruffy beard. But the sky was a peculiar lemon yellow, and the mountains were cotton-candy pink and lime green. The river running next to their campsite had turned the soft orange of ripe cantaloupe.
“What the hell?”
“We ain’t in Kansas anymore, Dorothy.” Cal stood up and reached a hand down for Oscar.
“How’s Red?”
“He’s a cowboy on a happy trail, man. I’ve never seen him like this.”
“I have,” Oscar said, slipping his arm around Cal’s waist. “This is what he was like when I was a kid. I just lived for the times Red would carry me off. ’Course,” he said, “now I’ve got you for that.”
“Come on, boys,” Red said. “This bacon’s almost done.”
The coffee, bacon, and biscuits tasted so good that Cal wondered if it was some sort of alien food. Red said no, that food cooked outdoors over wood always tasted this good.
Cal stood suddenly, looking toward the horizon. “Tres Hombres of the High Lonesome,” he said. “Look lively, men.”
The three men walking toward them over the bright blue grass looked like Mexican banditos from some old Western movie. Black cowboy hats, dusty boots and jeans, long, shaggy black hair.
“The good, the bad, and the ugly,” Cal muttered under his breath. Oscar looked over at Red. The sun and the moon were rising in his eyes. Red stood up and dusted his hands against his jeans. He reached for his straw Bailey and fitted it carefully on his head. Then he started walking toward the men. When he got close, he started to run.
The man on the end was slender and graceful, with black hair curling past his shoulders and black leather chaps. He started running, too, caught Red around the waist, lifted him up and spun him around. They were both laughing. Then he backed Red up against the trunk of a cottonwood tree and was kissing him with enough passion to set the leaves on fire.
“Holy shit!” Cal said, reaching for Oscar’s belt and pulling him close. “Did you see that? You better stay close to me, Oscar. I don’t want one of these bad alien brothers to lure you over to the dark side.”
Oscar laughed. “Not likely.” He watched his beloved uncle with his lover, feeling peace steal over his heart. Red’s cowboy hat hit the dirt, and the man had his hands in Red’s hair. It spilled over his shoulders like a river of fire, and the man buried his face in it.
The tallest man was lanky, with a full black beard. He took the horses’ reins, murmuring Spanish words of love into their ears and stroking their soft noses. The third hombre approached Oscar and Cal.
Cal stepped forward, looking tough. He still had a firm grip on Oscar’s belt. The man had a long black moustache and a black leather eye patch. A livid red scar extended down his cheek from under the patch. He grinned at them, a flash of white teeth.
“You’re the boy, right?” He gestured toward Red. “We would have taken him a long time ago, but he said he had to stay and watch over a boy he loved.”
Oscar nodded, feeling the tears start down his cheeks. “Yes, I’m the boy.”
“It’s okay, hermano,” the man said. “He knew it would be waiting for him. The love, I mean.”
The man studied Cal, then looked at Oscar again. He felt a delicate touch in his mind, like a velvet hand stroking his brain. The man’s face was changing, the Easter-egg colors of the landscape flashing across his black eye.
“I guess I can see why Red needed to stay,” he said. He swung himself up into the saddle, and the Appaloosa pranced happily. “You’re welcome here, hermanos. Use the spurs. You can wait here for each other when the time comes.” He laughed softly. “Uranium. That’s a good one.”
The lanky bandito took the other two horses and walked over to the cottonwood tree. Red’s handsome lover climbed up first. Then Red threw a leg over the horse and wrapped an arm around the man’s waist. He looked over at Cal and Oscar, his eyes flashing cotton-candy pink, cantaloupe orange, lemon yellow. He tipped his cowboy hat to them. The men turned their horses and rode away toward the quiet mountains.
Cal tugged Oscar closer. “Did you feel something? When that guy…”
“Yeah,” Oscar said. “Like my brain was a kitten and he was petting me.”
“He wasn’t petting my brain.”
“What?” Oscar looked up into Cal’s face. “What did he do?”
Cal grinned down at him. “It was more like he was measuring me.”
“Are you kidding me? You were felt up by some sort of alien bandito?”
“Relax, cowboy. He was hot, though, with that eye patch.” They started walking. The landscape was changing, the bizarre candy colors fading to red and quiet gold and dusty sage green.
Oscar studied their boots. The old silver spurs looked good.
Sarah Black
“These are my boni- fides.” Richard Boone, Big Jake
Sarah Black is a veteran and a retired Naval Officer. She is the daughter of a veteran, the sister of a veteran, the niece of a veteran, the granddaughter of a veteran. Proud to serve.
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