Well Traveled

by Margaret Mills

  “Nah, go ahead,” the man said. “Watch out for that white mare over in the back, she likes to bite.”

  Gideon nodded, dropped Star’s reins, and slipped through the fence posts. “Easy,” he whispered, edging up to the dun. Its ears swiveled, and it threw its head, but it let Gideon approach it, and held still while he lifted each dark, unshod hoof, then checked its teeth. “It’s somewhere around seven years old, Jed,” he called out. “Older’n the one you got now, and smaller.”

  “I am also small,” Jed said with a shrug. He’d walked up to the corral fence and crossed his arms across the top post to watch Gideon check the horse over.

  Gideon frowned and walked back to where Jed stood, leaning on the fence from the inside. “You sure about this?” he asked, low, as he came in close to Jed. “You don’t know anything about that mustang—”

  “I know enough,” he cut Gideon off. “I know it is of this land—it is not natural for it to stay here, in this corral.” He took his hat off and tossed his head, making his hair fly back over his shoulders. The mustang saw the movement and whuffed, tossing its head, ears and eyes trained on Jed.

  “That bay is yours,” Gideon tried again, but he was watching the mustang, too. “You’ve got a title—”

  “I have a piece of paper that says this horse is mine, but it is only as good as the name of the man who signed it. Here,” he waved his hand around in a small circle, “the people may know Sheriff Bishop. But as we ride further away, his name will mean less and less. A man like me, an Indian, may not be accepted on a fine horse like that, Gideon. We both know it. Being with you might make it safe for a while, but when we part I will have a big, young, white-man’s horse, with a piece of paper signed by a white man. Even if other white men believe that a sheriff signed over the horse to me, some may not have reason to honor the deal.” He pointed his head when the mustang snorted and stomped a hoof. “No one will look twice at an Indian on an Indian pony.”

  Gideon thought Jed must have rocks in his head to think that he could go anywhere and people wouldn’t look. He was fine and strong, and he carried his strength around him like most people wore a warm coat. He was the kind of man people looked at—even people who didn’t have the same kind of interest Gideon did, even when Jed tried to make himself seem like nothing much.

  Gideon might have thought that when he’d first met Jed, injured and weak and feverish. He might have made the mistake of thinking it for a time after, even. But even if he hadn’t seen what Jed had done to them marauders back in that shot-up camp, he couldn’t look at Jed and see anything but a strong, independent, and solitary man. A man who knew how to take care of himself even when the odds were against him.

  “You don’t leave here with folding money for this trade, I’ll call you a fool to your face,” Gideon warned him.

  Jed’s smile showed all his teeth, and Gideon returned it in kind.

  After Jed made the deal—and did indeed have more money in his pocket than any time Gideon had ever seen him—Jed asked the man for directions.

  “We don’t need directions, Jed,” Gideon scoffed. “Straight west, follow the sun….”

  The livery man, Bob Grisham, laughed out loud. “If you want to get stuck in a bog or drown trying to cross all the inland bays up here, sure,” he said. “You got the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers up there, mister, and Suisun Bay, the Carquinez Strait—they all backflow when the Pacific tide comes in, and they’re a pain in the ass on a good day.”

  “I’ve been on a train from Sacramento to Oakland a dozen times or more, Mister Grisham,” Gideon said, rankled. “Ain’t never had a problem.”

  Grisham shook his head. “On a train you wouldn’t, but I’m betting you don’t know how many coolies died, laying those tracks back in the ’60s and ’70s. If you go south, you’ll hit Stockton. After that you can go straight west just like you want to, and miss all the water.”

  Jed raised an eyebrow at him. “Do you wish to swim to San Francisco, Gideon?” he asked.

  Gideon felt the flush heat his neck and grumbled, “How far’s Stockton from here, then?”

  “Not more than fifteen miles,” Grishom replied. “It’s the route I take when I have to go somewhere.” Under his breath he added, “It’s the route everybody takes.”

  Gideon felt the flush heat him further, and Jed’s superior little smile didn’t help matters at all. “He’s the guide,” he finally grumbled and tried hard not to stomp away from the livery.

  Jed caught up to him quick enough. “So stubborn,” he teased, and more quietly, “so young.”

  “I’m twenty years old, Jed,” he groused. “I been a man for years now.”

  “Your parents coddle you,” Jed shot back.

  Gideon turned on him and planted his hands on his hips. “You tryin’ to pick a fight?”

  “No,” Jed said softly. Softer still he said, “Perhaps I am trying to heat your blood, though.”

  This rush of heat, Gideon was powerless to stop, and it went south instead of north, curling in his belly and making his cock twitch. “We ain’t leaving this town without a supper somebody else cooks,” he said, though all of a sudden he was in a hell of a hurry to get back on the road.

  Half an hour later they rode right into the huge, low disk of the sun, Gideon on Star and Jed on his new pony, turning south and putting the sun to their shoulders when they picked their way out of Lodi. Gideon had insisted that Jed buy him a hot dinner with some of his extra cash, and Jed, surprisingly, hadn’t argued about it. But Gideon hadn’t asked Jed to stay in town, in a bed, and Jed hadn’t offered that. Tonight, Gideon wanted to be wherever Jed wanted to be, and they both knew it.

  The sun had dropped below the horizon before Jed turned off the road and found them a place by following a trickle of a stream. They tramped through tall grasses turned brown by summer sun, and rode right into the edges of a copse of oak trees that grew tall on both sides of the creek banks. A bend in the stream had dug out the bed, and it was deep enough there for them to wash up—cold, mountain cold, that shriveled his little stallion and made his balls try to crawl up inside his body, but clean and clear and waist-deep when he waded in. Jed gathered wood while Gideon cleared dead leaves and twigs until a struck match showed him black, loamy earth, then he dragged handfuls of rocks from the creek’s edge to scatter into the hole. He almost tripped into the little hole in the dark, which earned him a low chuckle from Jed.

  He’d have glared at the man, if only there’d been enough light for Jed to see it, but the moon wasn’t up yet and the deepening dusk didn’t penetrate the tree canopy, so Gideon didn’t waste his time on the effort. Jed started the fire while Gideon unsaddled and tethered the horses and dragged their gear near, dropping it on the ground. He hadn’t really expected a fire, since they’d left the cooler night air at higher altitudes and had already eaten dinner, but Jed set out his pan and started coffee. Gideon rubbed his hands together, unaccountably eager, and held them out toward the heat, using that excuse to look at the man who squatted beside him. Jed looked like he usually did, serene and peaceful and self-contained, but there was something else there tonight that got Gideon’s blood stirring: long, silent looks his way, and a set to Jed’s mouth that Gideon wanted to kiss off him. He barely tasted the coffee when he drank it, because his attention was all on Jed.

  And Jed knew it. He wasn’t being coy or dragging things out, but he was being purposeful. Every motion seemed steadier and more intent than the one before it, and Gideon felt his cock hardening before either of them said a word about laying out a bed. When Jed finally emptied his coffee cup, he rose tall and straight and grabbed up Gideon’s bedroll, laying it out and folding the top over. Then he untied his own blanket, spread it out over Gideon’s bedroll, and pulled it back. That looked mighty inviting, and with a quick glance Jed’s way, Gideon pushed back to his feet and bent to tug off his boots then shrugged out of his coat.

  Jed fell onto his backside, tin cup still in his hand, and
looked up to watch him, which did all sorts of things to Gideon’s insides. He was a showman at heart, but this didn’t seem like the time for a performance, so he just watched Jed watching him, and kept stripping down, taking off his pants and, after a brief hesitation, skinning out of his underdrawers, too, to reveal his cock, already hard and seeking. He stood there, warm in California’s autumn air, but a shiver coursed through him anyway, just from the way Jed’s eyes took him in.

  “Lie down,” Jed said, and Gideon scrambled to the bedroll fast enough to earn a low chuckle from Jed. “So young,” he thought he heard Jed say, but the words floated between them quieter than most of Jed’s chanting.

  “I’m a grown man,” he shot back, more teasing than defensive this time. He reckoned Jedediah Buffalo Bird, of all the people in this world, knew just how much a man he was.

  “But you act like a child, in this,” Jed said, plenty loud enough for Gideon to hear this time. Oddly though, his words held no rancor, just more of that gentle teasing Jed seemed to like to do at his expense. Gideon couldn’t complain, not when Jed rose and stripped down, smooth and easy. He was gratified to see that Jed’s cock was hard, too, and his gaze got stuck on the end of that pretty length, where firelight caught a glimmer of fluid at the tip. Without a thought he sat up, reaching out to catch Jed by the back of one wiry, hard-muscled thigh.

  “Come here,” he murmured, pulling Jed toward him.

  Jed frowned but took two steps forward. It was close enough. Gideon slipped his tongue out to catch the clear bubble of fluid at the tip and sighed around the flesh when Jed’s breath caught. One of Jed’s hands eased through his hair, and for a second, Gideon thought Jed might pull him away. He pulled harder, trying to draw Jed closer, taking the head into his mouth.

  “Gideon,” Jed hissed, and his fingers started to tug, “you do not need to do this.”

  Gideon backed off long enough to say, “Oh, yes I do,” then dived back down on it.

  Jed’s cock fit his body, firm and straight and just big enough to fill Gideon’s mouth well, and Gideon set up a slow sucking, sliding his lips down the shaft and back up, working hard to get a moan from the man. When it came, he lifted a hand and cupped Jed’s balls, rolling them in their sac, and another little groan choked out of Jed, like he was struggling to hold it in. Hell, he probably was. Jed had a whole hell of a lot of self-restraint, more than Gideon would ever try and claim. But his hips started working, and Gideon relaxed, letting the shaft slide toward the back of his throat, resisting a groan or two himself at how good all of this was, how unique to his life so far. He’d had more than his share of men, but to keep one over weeks like this, and such a good man—well, it let him know a little better why his mother and father had stayed together and happy for so long, because the familiarity, the knowing someone else’s body and heart, too, made all of this so much better.

  Too soon, Jed tugged at his hair hard enough that Gideon had to let his head be pulled from its task. “What?” he asked, blinking as he savored how the firelight played shadows over Jed’s form.

  “Lie down,” Jed said, and Gideon felt a shiver of anticipation slide through him. He didn’t know what Jed was planning, but he’d already learned that when Jed told him to do something in that tone of voice, the result was going to be good for them both.

  He stretched back, resisting the urge to take hold of his own aching shaft, and watched as Jed fished through their bags for the leftovers from dinner: sweet butter he’d purchased at the restaurant, paying extra for the little tin, and Gideon sucked in a slow breath. Yeah, that’d be good. That’d be real good, out here in the quiet and peaceful night, with a fire burning bright enough that he could see what they were doing and remember it.

  When Jed straddled his thighs, he thought he knew how this was going to go, but instead of buttering him up, Jed curled over him and licked up his shaft, making him buck against Jed’s weight across his legs. Jed, hands on their bedrolls to either side of Gideon’s waist, looked up his body, all mysterious and foreign and intent. “I will take you,” he said, more order than offer, and all the muscles in Gideon’s body tightened at the words.

  “Yeah….” He swallowed, licked his lips. “Yeah, do that.”

  He followed where Jed’s hand guided, rolling to his belly and watching the fire dance while Jed’s strong hands worked at the dense muscles of his ass, kneading at the cheeks. Gideon thought he could come just from that touch, from anticipation, and from the way his cock rubbed against the rough fabric of his bedroll. But it felt like Jed was inside his head, because the kneading stopped, and Jed gripped his hips hard, lifting them a few inches off the ground.

  “Stop that,” Jed ordered, “or it will be over before it begins.”

  Gideon hissed a breath when he heard the tin lid scrape against the container, and he hissed again when one slender finger found and pressed into his hole. Jed had done that before, dry, but not with this plan in mind, and Gideon felt his cock pulse in time to his racing heart. “You don’t hurry up, it’ll be over before it starts, anyway,” he huffed out on a laugh. Everything he knew about the world told him this shouldn’t be so good, but everything he knew about Jed rejected what he’d learned before. His body felt hotter than that fire burning near, so that when one finger turned into two, and then Jed’s weight settled along his back, Gideon felt like they’d throw sparks between them.

  “Be ready,” Jed whispered, breath and long hair tickling his shoulder just before Gideon felt the snub, smooth head press against his hole.

  He was ready, more ready than he’d ever been. But Jed didn’t move, his body so still that Gideon couldn’t even feel him breathing. “C’mon in, Jed,” he whispered urgently. He wanted it, wanted the pressure and the burn and all the good that would follow.

  Jed tensed briefly, then a slow push came, pressing against his body, trying to open him up. He tightened instinctively, but before he could do anything about it, Jed murmured, “No, Gideon, let it happen.”

  It wasn’t the words, but the layer of desperation in the other man’s voice that got to Gideon. He turned his head, trying to see over his shoulder, wanting to see what that sort of need looked like on Jed’s face, but Jed’s hair hung down, hiding him.

  Jed made a low noise as he pushed forward again, and the pressure on parts that hadn’t felt it in too long made Gideon offer up some sounds of his own. The burn grew as the head of Jed’s cock breached him, but Jed stopped before it overpowered Gideon’s senses. “Good,” he gasped out, “feels good, keep going.”

  “Soon,” Jed said, the word more breath than sound against his skin. “Wait.”

  He didn’t want to wait, he wanted to feel Jed all the way up inside him, wanted Jed to own him. It wasn’t a startling realization. He knew already how deeply he cared for Jed, but he’d never had this physical want as intensely as he did now, the want to be possessed by a man, just this way, belly-down in the dark, giving it all up and over. “You move or I will,” he warned, earning a huff of hot breath on his shoulder blade.

  “So young,” Jed breathed again, and pushed home, right on through.

  Gideon’s body was all mixed up, and he had to work to keep it open, to push his ass back until he felt the full weight of Jed’s hipbones against the cushion of his butt. It hurt, but it hurt good, better than anything he’d felt in—maybe ever. He’d had men inside him before, but it’d never felt this good. It was like him and Jed were made for this, like Jed was supposed to be doing this, just this way.

  “Gideon,” Jed whispered, his body trembling like a leaf. Gideon could feel the tremors where their skin touched, from the backs of his thighs all the way to his shoulder where Jed’s lips moved soundlessly against the flesh. “I—”

  “Don’t,” Gideon said, gasping. “Move, Jed. Move.”

  Jed did. It was slow at first, as if he were scared but couldn’t stop himself—which Gideon could understand. He forced himself to move, too, forward, away from Jed, until he felt the tug that w
arned of separation. Then he pushed back and was rewarded with a groan as Jed reseated himself deep, so deep, like he was in Gideon’s heart and not just his ass. Gideon pulled forward again, and Jed groaned again, and the movement was smooth and sharp and energetic. Jed pushed forward, faster this time, and pulled back instead of stopping. Gideon moved, too, but he was slower now, waiting to see what Jed would do—and Jed took control.

  It was deep and thorough, as if Jed were laying claim, taking possession of him in a way that no one else ever had—in a way Gideon had never invited anyone else to do. Every movement zinged through him, sparking heat and friction and a pulsing electricity that pushed him close to the edge, driving him up toward release. His cock felt too heavy, as if the weight of release was too much—but he knew that feeling wouldn’t last long. His body was poised, ready to spring the release as soon as he dropped his guard.

  Jed didn’t give him much chance to, though. A strong hand bruised at his hip as it worked underneath him, and Jed’s sure touch to his cock shocked him, coursing through his whole body. One firm tug, two, and Gideon hoped to hell Jed had picked them a good spot and there wasn’t a home over the next rise, because the yell he let out would have brought folks running. He couldn’t help it, though, couldn’t stop it—not the noise, not the gush of pleasure that geysered down and out of him, not the sudden furious pounding Jed gave him from behind, inside, all the way through him. His muscles went lax, trapping Jed’s hand between him and his bedroll, and it was all he could do to breathe and come, breathe and come together, like every breath in made room for more pleasure to pour out. When Jed’s hips stuttered and pushed home one last, harsh time, Gideon whimpered for it, for how well Jed fit him and how good it was.

  And because things this good weren’t meant to last.

  He was mourning his losses before his cock stopped spitting, and surely before Jed’s did, slicking him up inside and making him squeeze his muscles to hold everything right where it was, right in this surfeit of sensation and feeling.