Earth and Sun, Cedar and Sage

by Margaret Mills, Tedy Ward

  Tossing the blanket down, he drew a fresh, deep breath and coughed as cold air shocked his lungs and pretty much every other part of his body. The temperature had dived in the night, freezing the water right out of the air and leaving it dry and painfully cold. The light didn’t help; it was well past dawn and the loft was far too bright after the darkness and warmth under the blankets and burrowed into the hay.

  But Jed was out there somewhere, and he had never edged in close last night, that he remembered, but he vaguely remembered Jed’s restlessness. That was worrisome.

  He stomped into his boots just to get some feeling in his toes and stuck his hat on his head before hurrying down the ladder. Seemed like quite a few people about for such a cold day; two boys oiled tack in light of the barn’s open double-doors, and a girl in coveralls swept the packed earth of the barn hall. Jed was mucking stalls, his long hair braided back and his sleeves rolled up. He’d been working long enough to have a light sheen of sweat even in this weather, and his coat was nowhere to be seen. He didn’t seem to be aware of Gideon, and as Gideon drew closer, he understood why: Jed hummed, the soft rhythms of one of his songs. He said those chants cleared his head for honest labor, and Gideon had no reason to doubt it. He stood for a few seconds, just listening and watching. He could do this for… too long, he realized as the crunch of heavy boots on the dirt floor finally permeated his ears and he turned to find the smithy nearing him.

  “I can see why you’d want to keep him close,” the man said, tilting his head toward Jed. “Good worker, damned good.”

  At the sound of the smith’s voice, Jed had turned, straightening when he saw Gideon. Gideon smiled at the smith, looking past him to catch Jed’s eyes, noticing the dark circles under them. “Yes, he is,” he said quietly. “Better than I deserve, I reckon.”

  Jed’s lips twitched; Gideon saw it because he knew to look for it, but no one else would have.

  The smith shrugged doubtfully. “Name’s Clement, by the way. If you work like he does, I could use you boys for a day or so.”

  “Doing what?”

  Clement hooked his thumb backward. “My place is back there. Roof damned near blowed off in the storm last night. If he gets this place cleaned up and you and my girl see to the horses, me and my boys there could patch up the roof before the next storm blows in.”

  “You know when you’re expecting it?” Gideon asked.

  “Doc Taylor’s rheumatism says we’ll have a sunny Christmas,” Clement said, “but not long after we’ll see a lot worse than this.”

  “I’ll—” he hesitated and changed “ask him” to, “I’ll tell him. Jed,” he called, and he waited for Jed to give him that look. “You close enough to done here that you’ll come eat breakfast?”

  “Bring something back, you don’t mind,” Jed said, and he turned back toward the stall, keeping more than his usual distance. He was really pissed about last night.

  Gideon didn’t waste time over breakfast, ill at ease that he was here while Jed was working. He grabbed biscuits and bacon for his lover and headed back to the livery to find Clement and his boys already at work on the roof. The sound of nails biting through tin made Gideon’s teeth hurt, and he hoped it wouldn’t take long.

  “Those for me?” Jed asked, pointing his chin toward the biscuits. He was spreading fresh straw in the stalls and loose stalks had caught in his hair and clothes. It was an effort not to reach out and touch, but Gideon managed to settle for just brushing Jed’s hand as he handed him the food.

  “Beautiful day,” he said as Jed ate. “Almost too nice, bright enough to blind you. Cold, though. Reckon the ice is going to stay on the ground for a while.”

  Jed nodded and swallowed then said softly, “Nice day to be traveling.” There was a sharpness in his tone, either a demand or a rebuke, Gideon wasn’t sure which.

  “Soon enough,” Gideon said. “What needs doing?”

  Clement came back by the time he and Jed had worked the man’s six horses and then haltered and walked the horses being boarded here. “You boys about done?” he asked.

  Gideon looked up at the bright sun, noted how high it was in the sky, and nodded. “Reckon so. Good horses you’ve got here, Clement.”

  Clement smiled, proud. “Yep. So what’ll you boys be doing today?”

  “Well,” Gideon said, “you said there might be some place to hole up for a bit?”

  “Yeah.” He looked around to where Jed was brushing one of the other horses. “You’re welcome to stay here.”

  Gideon tried to think how to say it but in the end, he just gave up. “Christmas is coming,” he said lamely.

  Clement blinked. “You boys don’t seem like the type for celebratin’ Christmas.”

  “The angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.’,” Jed quoted, and Gideon could see Clement stiffen, could tell the man didn’t quite know how to take that. Jed saw, too, and trailed off. “Catholic missionary school,” Jed said. “Got introduced to God when I was thirteen.”

  Gideon didn’t smile; he’d heard Jed say “your god” before, plenty of times. But Jed didn’t say that to strangers, out of respect or healthy fear, Gideon didn’t know. And he realized he ought to ask about that too.

  Clement seemed surprised but thoughtful, and in the end he just nodded and offered a puzzled smile. “Well, I reckon that abandoned mining camp would be all yours.”

  That would be good. If they found a place dry enough with a chimney for a fire, they could settle in comfortably for a few days.

  “If it don’t work out up there, you’re welcome back here,” he said. “And my offer stands; I’ll pay you for your time if you want to work a few days. Or just his, if you’d rather rest up.”

  “Thanks,” Gideon said, glancing to where Jed stood watching them over the back of the horse. His face was expressionless but his eyes, tired and red, held worry. “But I think he could use the rest more than me. I’ll check in with you in a couple of days. After Christmas.”

  Jed blinked and the worry was gone, replaced with the calm acceptance Gideon was used to.

  They made their way to the local store, picking up a few things they didn’t normally keep on the trail: eggs, a couple of potatoes, and an onion. The storekeep told them where they could buy a chicken, if they were of a mind, and Gideon nodded his thanks.

  “Chicken?” he asked when they left the store. “Been a time since I had a good piece of chicken,” he added hopefully.

  “Waste of money,” Jed said, and Gideon sighed; Jed wasn’t wrong, and they had two thousand miles of road between them and New Orleans. The money he’d deposited at the Wells Fargo branch in Sacramento wasn’t going to last forever.

  “All right then,” he said, trying to be agreeable. “Let’s go.” He swung up on his horse while Jed grabbed his own horse’s halter and started out on foot, his boots a quiet shuffle through the rocks on the road. It was a beautiful day, still bright, but cold enough to leave ice on the ground and sprinkled along the landscape. It glittered from shadows and the limbs of trees, giving the world a sparkle that seemed just right for Christmas time. He blew into his palms and glanced over to Jed, who had stuffed his hands, reins and all, into his pockets, and pursed his lips. He didn’t know whether to sneak back into that town and buy Jed a new pair or beat the tar out of whoever’d done this and take Jed’s gloves back for him. Either way, he reckoned Kris Kringle knew what to deliver for Christmas morning.

  They found the place easy enough, just off the track, as Clement had said, a collection of low buildings set close enough to the river to hear the constant rush of it. The banks and surrounding hills were steep and rocky, which explained why some farmer hadn’t homesteaded this place. As they neared the compound, Jed walked ahead, his hand on the knife he carried at his hip. Gideon stayed back, still mounted, his rifle across his thighs but easy to aim if
he had to.

  Jed walked along the fronts of the buildings, peering inside but never moving out of Gideon’s sight. As he walked back toward Gideon, he nodded. “Just us, I think. Smells of wood smoke, and there’s manure over there that doesn’t look too old. Reckon someone camped here a few nights back, but they’re gone now.”

  As he caught up Pony’s reins, Jed nodded toward the building farthest away and in the worst state of decay. “Not sure about that barn,” he said.

  Gideon grinned. “I’ll keep Star with me. You?”

  “Same,” Jed said. “I like that place.”

  The house must have belonged to the owner of the mining claim, because it was clearly better built than the five shacks around it, and the front window even had real glass in it, just like in town. He was surprised nobody had scavenged that for themselves. Jed shouldered open the front door, and they peered around inside, found bits of furniture too worn or heavy to have been carted away, and the signs that whoever had passed before them had picked this place too; a mattress in decent repair lay near the chimney, and a heavy iron pot sat on the hearthstones. “For you,” Jed said as he rolled it over.

  The afternoon sun was high in the sky by the time Gideon had the place tidied up and suitable for living. When he stuck his head out the front door, Jed’s horse and rifle were nowhere to be seen. Maybe he was hunting grub.

  More plundering of the nearby shacks yielded a straw broom and old rags, and two main rooms of the house were as clean as they could be when Jed returned. Jed stopped in the doorway and looked around, his eyebrows climbing in surprise.

  “You were gone a long time,” Gideon replied without censure. He worried though, when Jed went hunting alone; too many folks saw an Indian with a weapon and imagined raiding parties and dead bodies. The Indians he’d known, three men and a woman who traveled with Bill Tourney’s Traveling Western Show, a few he’d bumped into up north, and now Jed, had less interest in killing than most white folks did. More respect for life too. Gideon shook his head and turned back to the fireplace where he’d lit up a sticky pine bough to test the draft on the chimney.

  “Got rabbits,” Jed said, but he stepped up close and knelt behind Gideon, laying one hand on his shoulder.

  “Rabbits’ll be damned fine,” Gideon offered in return, reaching to cover Jed’s hand with his. It was cold. “So what are we going to do about your gloves?”

  “Nothing to do,” Jed said, and Gideon sighed.

  “You should have told me then,” he griped. “We’ll get ’em back.”

  “It’s not—”

  “We’ll get ’em back,” he said, harder. Letting someone steal from Jed felt worse than letting some son of a bitch steal from him, because Jed couldn’t really even defend himself without seeing the inside of a jail or worse. “Next time we go into that town, you show me who took ’em.”

  Jed nodded and pushed his cold hand up under Gideon’s collar, leeching warmth from him that Gideon was only too glad to give.

  “You should’ve told me,” he said, tilting his head forward to give Jed more bare skin to touch.

  “Wasn’t important.”

  “It’s important to me, Jed.”

  “No, it’s not.”

  “What? I—”

  “No,” Jed said, a harder word than he’d spoken in weeks. “If it was, you wouldn’t risk everything just to get your leg over. You wouldn’t risk folks dragging me through the streets behind a horse, maybe getting yourself hanged, just because you want to come!”

  “I…” he paused, realizing just how mad Jed was at him for last night. “It wasn’t that much of a risk,” he said stubbornly. “And I needed you, Jed.”

  Jed’s lips thinned into a hard line. “No man needs anything enough to risk that.”

  Gideon couldn’t quite argue, but he couldn’t quite agree, either. He’d never felt for anyone, man or woman, what he felt for Jed, and sometimes Gideon felt like he did need to consummate it just that badly. “You should have—”

  “What?” Jed asked. “Told you it was stupid? I did. I was ready to hit you, if that was what it was going to take.”

  “Well, I didn’t know you were that mad.” He was ready to go on, to let Jed know he really was that sorry, but Jed moved his hand off his neck and around to cover his mouth.

  “You know now. And you won’t do it again.”

  Gideon sighed. It was hard, loving a man, and one older and wiser than him. Hard too that the man he loved was a half-breed, hated or feared by whites who had no damned right to feel either, not when it was the white folks who’d caused all the trouble, running Indians off their land. He hadn’t really thought about it much, and he’d been real friendly with the braves and the squaw in the traveling show. He hadn’t believed any of the shit most people did about Indians, that they were good for nothing, violent heathens. He’d never known folks more civilized. But he hadn’t thought much about how hard it was for them, either, worse than for the darkies, in some ways. Hell, a black man could carry a gun and own property these days. “I won’t do it again,” he said, meaning it. “You tell me, and I won’t do it again.”

  Jed nodded once, satisfied. “And if I tell you the gloves aren’t worth a fight?”

  Gideon grinned. “I ain’t that nice.”

  Jed sighed but nodded his acceptance, and Gideon turned on the hearth to gather his man in close. Jed had to give up some things, too, for this thing they shared, like his acceptance of the way too many people thought they could treat him. Not if Gideon Makepeace had anything to say about it. The pine bough flared at that moment, and the smoke drew nicely up the chimney.

  Well before sunset the room was warm enough that Gideon had his coat off and a tin mug of fresh coffee in his hands. Jed had skinned and cleaned two of the rabbits, and they were cooking in the small fry pan he carried, along with some potatoes and onion. They had spread their bedrolls over the mattress and carted in enough wood to keep the fire going strong through the night. Jed was in the old kitchen settling the horses now; through the door into the kitchen, Gideon could hear his partner’s low voice and slow words, the tone of affection he used on animals and Gideon and little else.

  Outside, dusk was falling, and if he stood by the window and craned his head back, Gideon could see the first of the stars through the glass window that faced out toward the river. They should cover this window, he thought, for warmth and for privacy should anyone else come along, but the view was something else. He’d found Jed standing before it three times already, just staring out at the steep hillside and spindly trees that climbed up the river’s banks.

  When he heard the shuffle of booted feet on the rough board floor, he grabbed up the potholder and poured another mug of coffee for his lover. Jed came through the door, closing it behind him to keep in the heat. His hair hung loose now, one side falling over his shoulder. It gleamed in the soft light of the fire and the light off the two candles Gideon had lit, and Gideon thought of how it would look spread out on the mattress, thick and cool and soft. Even better was the thought of what Jed would look like naked and spread out on the mattress, his dark skin warm under Gideon’s hands. No way Jed could object to it here, in the middle of nowhere with no one around.

  “Horses are set for the night,” Jed said, coming to stand near the fire. He held out his hands to it, reminding Gideon of the theft of his gloves. He wondered what else the bastards had taken from his lover and the unfairness of it sparked his temper again.

  “Here,” he said, holding out the mug of coffee. “Hot and fresh.”

  Jed took it with a nod of thanks, his long fingers wrapping gingerly around the warm metal as he sipped. After he swallowed, he leaned forward, catching up the wooden spoon he used for cooking and stirring the food in the skillet. “You need to move it around,” he chastised, pulling the pan back from the flames. “It will burn.”

  Gideon watched him toss new herbs that he’d collected somewhere out there into the pan, fascinated as he always was by t
he many things Jed knew. “Where’d you learn to cook?” he asked, sitting back against the warm bricks of the hearth. Jed didn’t cook often unless they were on the trail, but when he did it was always good, and hearty too.

  Jed shrugged, turning the skillet with a sort of skill that came from practice. “This isn’t cooking,” he said. “This is keeping you from cooking.” He looked over with a tiny grin, but Gideon just raised his eyebrows expectantly. “My ina—my mother—mostly,” he answered quietly, and Gideon squirreled away the new word. “Prepare everything first, ready it for a short fire,” he said like he was quoting someone. “In the winters, we learned how to make food fast and make it last as long as possible, so we tried to make it taste as good as we could.”

  “On the res?” Gideon asked, even though he knew already. Jed only used the word “we” when he referred to his years with his family. “You miss being there?”

  Jed was quiet for a while, and Gideon wondered if he was going to answer. Eventually, Jed stood and unbuttoned his coat, sliding it off his arms, and said, “I miss many things about that life. But it is of little value to miss something that can no longer be.”

  Practical, so damned practical, but it made Gideon’s heart ache at what his lover had lost. It wasn’t much, to hear Jed tell of it, but there had clearly been love there, and having had so little besides that didn’t seem to make the missing of it any less. Gideon pushed himself up and moved to Jed, taking him into his arms. Jed startled at first, but he settled quickly as Gideon pulled him close. “Value ain’t the issue,” he said quietly against Jed’s hair. “I can’t be a kid again, but I can still miss those times with my folks, after a show, when they were wound up on a good performance and happy and everything was a joke.”