Sweetwater

by Lisa Henry

Maybe it was a miracle that had placed Elijah in Dr. Carter’s care. Most likely it was proof that God was cruel. How could Dr. Carter look at Elijah and not be disappointed? Not compare Elijah to what he’d lost and find him lacking? Christ, if he only knew what Elijah had done with Harlan Crane . . .

  “Give me your hands,” Crane had said, and it had never even occurred to Elijah to refuse.

  He could still feel where the leather strap had bitten into his wrists. He could still feel the ache in his ass. And even though it had hurt, he’d never told Crane to stop. Elijah hadn’t opened his mouth at all except to whimper and gasp.

  Elijah wasn’t the son that Dr. Carter had wished for. He wasn’t a son anyone would wish for.

  He stepped into the shade of the porch of Dawson’s butcher shop.

  The bells on the shop door moved as Elijah pushed it open, but he didn’t hear the sound they made. He took his apron down from the hook and tied it on.

  Lovell came out from the back. “Trouble at the Empire last night.”

  Elijah’s guts twisted.

  Lovell thought he hadn’t heard. “One of the McCreedy boys got shot last night at the Empire.”

  “No, sir,” he said, relieved. “It was at one of the cardrooms, not the saloon.”

  “Ah.” Lovell nodded. “Did the doc see him?”

  “The bullet was in his lungs,” he said, enunciating carefully. “Nothing he could do.”

  “Ah.” Lovell nodded toward the broom leaning beside the door. “You’re late anyhow, and Dawson’s in a foul temper. Better get to work.”

  Elijah nodded.

  Lovell frowned. “You all right, Elijah?”

  “Yes.” Elijah took the broom. He began to sweep and kept his head down to avoid Lovell’s gaze. He was suddenly afraid of what the other man might see in his face.

  There was no funeral in town for Harry McCreedy. His brother and cousins took his body back from Mr. Johansen to bury on their claim. There were worse places to be buried, Elijah supposed, than surrounded by sweet-smelling sagebrush, under the ever-changing sky. The same day, Thaddeus Sherlock and the other deputies finally returned with McCreedy’s killer in their custody after he’d given them the slip at Miner’s Delight and they’d had to run him down up in the hills. Anders was a Swede, and Elijah heard that at his trial in Mrs. Morris’s kitchen, he’d broken down and cried. He’d admitted his guilt in halting English, then gave a great long speech in Swedish that nobody could understand.

  He was taken down to Cheyenne to be hanged, and it was forgotten in a week or two. Other scandals and gossip competed on the front pages of the newspapers: rumors of new finds in the valleys, upcoming elections, trouble with the Shoshone, and the railroad.

  Nobody, as far as Elijah could tell, knew what he’d done with Harlan Crane.

  Elijah was relieved, but something nagged at the edges of that relief, something that whispered to him that maybe if nobody knew, then maybe he could go back. If he could just look at the man again, then maybe he would understand what had happened between them.

  No. It was dangerous.

  He forced down the strange unknowable need inside him and tried to forget it. Most of the time it worked. Daylight scared it away, but at night, it regrouped, redoubled, and kept him awake for hours as Dr. Carter slept nearby.

  Three weeks passed, and the cowboys came into South Pass City again. This time Elijah watched them. He saw the same man he’d seen at the Empire: the square-jawed man with the narrow gaze. Twenty head of cattle this time, which wasn’t much at all. Not for the fucking risk anyway, like Dawson told the cowboys. The rest of the conversation passed beyond Elijah’s hearing—low, warning tones that put him on edge but ended in a handshake between Dawson and the leader of the cowboys.

  And when they were done slaughtering, Dawson put an envelope in Elijah’s hands and told him to take it to Harlan Crane.

  This is fate, Elijah thought as he walked toward the Empire. Whatever happened here, he hadn’t gone looking for it.

  The hairy man was on the door again, with a different whore this time.

  The cowboys were already drinking inside. Again, the one with the square jaw narrowed his eyes at Elijah, and there was something in his gaze that was . . . not hostile. It was speculative. It made Elijah’s heart beat faster, and he looked away quickly.

  Crane was in the barroom that night. He smiled knowingly when he saw Elijah and beckoned him over.

  Elijah ducked his head as he crossed the room, the shame inside him warring with something else. Something stronger. Crane saw him and understood him. For better or for worse—for worse, mostly—Crane saw him. It was unthinkable not to go to him.

  Crane said something to the woman sitting next to him. She stood up and walked away, and Crane gestured at her chair.

  Elijah sat, anticipation tightening his belly.

  “Do you have something for me, boy?”

  Anything. Heat climbed to Elijah’s face as he put the envelope on the table.

  Crane slipped it into the pocket of his waistcoat. He raised his hand, and suddenly there was a glass in front of Elijah.

  “Drink up, boy.”

  The whiskey burned. He blinked away tears.

  Crane dropped his hand below the table. “Good boy, Elijah.”

  Elijah sucked in a breath as he felt Crane’s hand on his thigh. A single touch, and his cock was hard. A single touch, and he knew he’d give Crane whatever he asked. Drop to his knees and suck his cock in the middle of the saloon, probably. He squirmed away, horrified by the thought. “Please, sir. No.”

  Not here, where anyone could see.

  “Don’t ever say no to me, boy.” Crane dug his fingers into Elijah’s thigh. “You hear me?”

  Elijah breathed quickly. “Yes, sir.”

  Crane picked up the bottle at his elbow and poured Elijah another glass of whiskey. “Drink.”

  The second time it burned less, but Elijah’s eyes still pricked.

  The world was tilting again. Any second now and he’d fall. Breathless.

  He looked around the saloon, dodging the cowboy’s gaze. Maybe this was nothing but what it looked like: two men drinking. Nothing wrong with that. There wasn’t a man in town who’d never been inside a saloon for a drink, except maybe Thomas Spicer with his little Bible. Even Dr. Carter visited the saloons. For work, mostly, but he came home with whiskey on his breath all the same.

  “Stay away from the cardrooms, Elijah, won’t you?”

  This wasn’t one of Crane’s cardrooms, and he wasn’t Harry McCreedy. He didn’t get drunk and gamble. Didn’t go looking for fights.

  “And the saloons.”

  But Dawson had sent him. Fate had.

  Under the table, Crane slid his hand up toward Elijah’s crotch. His skin prickled at the touch. His cock stiffened.

  He thought of the way the blood had run down Harry McCreedy’s scarred back. The wages of sin, he’d thought at the time. He wasn’t Harry McCreedy, but he was a fucking fool if he thought this wasn’t just as dangerous.

  “You work hard tonight?” Crane asked him, his lips turning up in a smile.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Crane lifted his glass and tipped the rest of the whiskey down his throat. “You ain’t done yet.”

  Heat coiled inside Elijah. He watched Crane’s mouth, wide-eyed.

  “Gonna fuck you hard, boy,” Crane said. “Gonna fuck you ’til you scream.”

  There it was. There was the fall. And there was Elijah, breathless, going over the edge.

  He lifted his wide gaze from Crane’s lips to his eyes. Right up until he spoke the words, he told himself he was going to refuse, even though he knew it was a lie. Right up until then.

  “Yes, sir,” he whispered instead.

  Elijah lost the night to his whimpers, his moans, and his breathless sobs.

  It was almost dawn when Crane finally rolled over and started to snore.

  Elijah dressed quickly, quietly, and let himself out of C
rane’s room.

  Downstairs, the barroom was empty except for a man sleeping slumped over the table and one of the whores who was smoking a cigar as she adjusted her garters.

  “Hey, sweetheart,” she said, her painted lips shaping the words. “Want to try something different?”

  Elijah turned his face away.

  The first time was ignorance, but last night wasn’t. Couldn’t blame last night on anyone but himself. Couldn’t blame the fact that he’d go back on anyone else, either.

  The big, hairy man at the door caught him by the shoulder as he passed. “Hey, kid.”

  Elijah watched his mouth.

  “You ever get tired of fucking for free, you come and see your friend Walt, huh? Dress you up like a fancy boy and you’d make more money in a night than half the pussy in the place.”

  Fuck you.

  He wasn’t stupid enough to say it aloud, and after a moment, Walt laughed and released him just as he tried to pull free.

  Elijah stumbled off the porch and into the muddy street. He caught himself before he tripped, and hurried away.

  Is that what they thought he was at the Empire? Some kid on track to becoming a whore? Maybe he was. The realization caught him in the stomach, as brutal as a punch.

  He imagined Crane’s smile, imagined him saying, Hands and knees, boy. These men are gonna fuck you real good.

  He imagined the sting of humiliation and the fear that would turn his guts to water. He imagined his useless fucking tears, and he imagined exactly what he’d say: Yes, sir.

  Because he wouldn’t say no. Because all of those things—the humiliation, the fear, the tears—were the price he paid to be fucked. He ached for it, and Crane knew it. So did Walt, he guessed. How long until the whole fucking town knew it? He hated that the guilt only really caught him after. He hated that every time he went back, he risked being seen and Dr. Carter finding out. He hated this strange burning need inside him that made him reckless, and careless of the risks of discovery. Like Dawson and whiskey. Would he be that pitiful soon? Going back time and time again to the thing that could only ruin him.

  Elijah drew his coat around his body, shivering at the thought. He smelled bad. Sweat and cum. He needed to get home and wash it off before Dr. Carter woke up.

  The town was quiet now, but the slowly brightening dawn was snuffing out the stars at the edge of the sky. Elijah blinked, rubbing his eyes. He’d be tired all day now. He’d fuck up, probably, and Dawson would yell at him. Not that it took a mistake for that to happen. Dawson was just an asshole.

  Elijah walked past the livery stables. He liked the smell of horses and hay. Even the manure didn’t bother him. He’d carried buckets of it home before, to dig into the garden. Not that he’d ever had luck with anything besides beans. He’d tried carrots once, but they never grew. Maybe they didn’t like the soil, or maybe Elijah was no gardener after all. He had better luck with chickens and pigs than vegetables.

  “Kid.”

  Elijah started at the hand on his shoulder and twisted his head.

  He didn’t recognize the cowboy at first. Close up, even in the gloom, he looked younger than Elijah had first thought. He might have still been in his twenties.

  “Where you walking to, kid?”

  Elijah took a step back. “Home.”

  “Saw you at the Empire tonight,” the cowboy said at last. Something about the way he pitched his voice, low and calm, meant that Elijah couldn’t escape his words.

  He jerked his chin in a nod.

  “You go there a lot?”

  He shook his head.

  “Don’t talk much, do you?”

  He lifted his gaze to the man’s eyes, to check if that slight smile was mocking or not. He couldn’t tell in the darkness, but it made no difference to his blush. “No, sir.”

  The cowboy folded his arms over his chest. “I brought those mavericks into town for Dawson. Don’t think you saw me.”

  I saw you.

  His face burned again. He shoved his hands in his pockets.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Elijah, sir.”

  “Grady Mullins,” the cowboy said. “Most people call me Grady.”

  Elijah didn’t know what to say to that, so he nodded again.

  “How long you worked for Dawson?”

  “Two years, sir.”

  “Butchering’s a good trade.”

  “Yes, sir.” Not that Dawson was learning him up to do anything more than sweep the floor and scrub the counters. All that Elijah knew about butchering he’d learned from Lovell.

  Grady smiled again. “I thought maybe you were working at the Empire now.”

  Elijah formed his words carefully, trying to push down his rising panic. “I go there to drink, sir. I ain’t a bartender.”

  “Never thought you were, Elijah.”

  His heart froze. He balled his trembling fingers into fists. “I go there to drink.”

  Grady’s gaze held his in the gloom. “That all you do?”

  Grady knew.

  Grady wanted it.

  For a moment, Elijah wondered if he could let it happen.

  Grady was better looking than Crane, younger too. Would it feel the same with another man? Would Grady’s callused fingers coax bruises from his skin? Would his cock taste different? Would it hurt so much going in? Would he pull Elijah’s hair and swear when he came? Would he tie Elijah’s hands and laugh as he squirmed, until he finally reached down and brought him off?

  Did Elijah even want different, or just more of the same?

  A part of him wanted it. He wanted the cowboy to push him to his hands and knees, or up against a wall, or whatever would be hardest, fastest, whatever would make him hurt and take it all at once. But it was bad enough he’d let one man fuck him.

  “I gotta go home now, sir,” he said instead, knowing that he slurred the words.

  Grady nodded. “Take care, Elijah.”

  Elijah didn’t look back.

  When he reached the cabin, it was still dark. Dr. Carter was lying asleep in his bed, one arm hanging over the edge. His mouth was open in a snore that Elijah couldn’t hear from the door. When he was a kid, he’d sometimes curled up beside Dr. Carter and put his head on his chest and felt him rumbling the same as thunder. He’d liked the way that Dr. Carter’s whiskers had tickled.

  Elijah moved carefully in the darkness.

  The kettle was still warm and had been moved to the foot of the stove so that it didn’t boil dry unattended overnight. Elijah wrapped a cloth around the handle and carried it over to the washtub. He stripped, dropping his clothes on the floor. Himself first, clothes second. He tipped a little of the warm water into the tub, squatted in it, and scrubbed soap over his body. His hands looked almost brown against the pale skin of his torso.

  Elijah washed quickly and then tipped some of the warm water from the kettle through his hair, shivering as it ran in rivulets down his body.

  Then, crouching naked over the tub, he scrubbed his clothes.

  Later, lying awake as daylight began to filter into the cabin, he told himself he’d never go back.

  He told himself a hundred times, even though he knew it was a lie.

  They never stayed more than a few days in South Pass City before heading out again. Grady liked being out in the open, away from towns. Away from the law, mostly.

  A day after leaving South Pass City, the weather turned bad.

  The clouds built up over the afternoon, bringing the night in early. By dusk, it had started to rain, sharp and cold. Sleet, more than anything. Miserable fucking weather. The trail, already churned up from whatever wagons had passed through recently, turned quickly to mud. The horses stumbled. In the end, it was safer to walk them than ride.

  Grady kept his head down, the brim of his hat funneling a channel of water in front of his face.

  It took another hour to get to the cabin.

  The cabin had been built by a fur trapper—an old Scot called McCord—
who was friendly enough with Grady and his cousins, and let them sleep on the floor in front of the fire when the weather was bad in return for some tobacco or whiskey or whatever they could spare. The cabin was a few miles off the trail and hard to find at the best of times. Grady worried they’d already missed it by the time they rounded the bend.

  The place seemed untouched since the last time they’d been past: just a split-log, flat-roofed cabin with an enclosed stable behind it. Dale and Cody led the horses around back. Matt banged on the cabin door. “McCord? You home, McCord?”

  The door swung open, and the old man peered out into the rain. “Well, it’s the Mullins boys. Get in here before you freeze.”

  Grady tugged a tin of tobacco out of his pocket and handed it to McCord. McCord stepped inside the cabin, and tossed the tin to the woman.

  The woman. He’d had never heard McCord call her anything else. She was Sioux, he thought. Youngish, dark, a severe face. Grady had no idea if she even spoke English, although she seemed to understand it well enough. She sometimes muttered at McCord in her own language, and Grady didn’t know if she was cursing him or not.

  Dale and Cody entered the cabin.

  The woman scowled at them all.

  McCord chuckled at her. “You boys been keeping well?”

  “Yes, sir,” Grady said.

  “You doing another run before winter?”

  Dale lit his pipe. “Yeah. You got a list for us?”

  “Whiskey and tobacco, same as always,” McCord said. “If you’re passing. And some snuff for the woman.”

  “We’ll be back again before the first snow,” Dale said.

  Grady exchanged a glance with Matt. “I’m gonna go see to the horses.”

  He headed out into the rain and around the back of the cabin to the small stable. He wasn’t sure he could bite his tongue if he had to listen to Dale tell McCord about their next run to South Pass City.

  They were supposed to be ranchers. That had always been the plan. Get enough money to buy some land of their own, instead of always working for some other man. Or stealing from him. Ever since Uncle Robert had sold his land for whiskey, or lost it at cards, Grady and his cousins had told themselves that one day they’d own a ranch. The future was in cattle. The real money was there, not in any mad scramble in the dirt for gold. But maybe they were fools too. Grady had been thinking that for a while lately.