Well Traveled

by Margaret Mills

  “How much of a mile?” he asked, digging into his pocket and pulling out a penny.

  “You’re at least two or three hours behind him, I’d say,” she offered.

  Gideon tossed her the penny, and she snatched it out of the air as easily as she’d been scooping up jacks. “You share that with your friend there,” he told her.

  “He’s not my friend,” she said, wrinkling her nose and tossing her head, “he’s my brother.”

  Gideon laughed at the disdain she had for the pronouncement. “I’ve felt that way about my own brother a time or two,” he admitted. And about his sisters, even more. “Now, which way’d he go?”

  After he’d let Star drink her fill at a public trough, bought her a bag of oats, and rubbed under her saddle blanket with a piece of burlap, Gideon mounted back up and left town at a trot. That whole stop couldn’t have taken him ten minutes, and they made good time to the next wide spot in the road.

  Clayton was no more than that. He and Jed hadn’t even paused in this place. But Gideon did, to get some grub he could eat in the saddle and stretch his legs. He ought to be ashamed of just how much his back ached from a few hours at a trot, but as long as he found Jed before the Sierra Nevada started rising too tall in front of him, he didn’t care. There was no way he’d find Jed if he let him get past Stockton. Too many different routes left that town, and maybe Jed wouldn’t want to ride back through Jackson, after he’d traded off the horse Mrs. Hennessey had given him. Maybe he wouldn’t even go directly home, once he’d stopped in a city alone.

  Gideon walked stiffly out the other side of town, leading Star along and staring hard at the road for the mark of an unshod pony. He didn’t find it in the dry rutted parts, nor in the smooth center. He worried he wouldn’t find it at all until he remembered Jed’s habit of walking on the roadside, where the earth was softer, the gravel more sparse.

  There. And just to the left of the horse’s hoofmark was the indentation of a boot he recognized. When had he learned to recognize Jed’s walk? Probably all that time he’d spent staring at Jed’s ass, he thought with a sigh. Jed could chase him right back to town, and probably would. But Gideon would rather be chased away than let this chance go without a fight.

  The sun had lowered so far that Star trotted into her long shadow before Gideon decided he’d best slow her down, maybe start looking for a camp for the night. He couldn’t stomach the idea though, because Jed was an early riser and would put more hours, more miles between them before the sun was decently up. So he slid off his horse, scratched her neck in mute apology, and felt his mouth moving before he properly heard the sounds. It was Star’s ears swiveling his way that let him know he was chanting. Jed’s chants, words he didn’t even know. Fear that he was praying to a false god stopped the sounds for a minute, but no longer. Jed had prayed to these nature gods his whole life, and if they were good enough for Jedediah, they were good enough for him. Even if Gideon didn’t know what the hell he was asking them.

  The sun set, and Star’s head was hanging low, and still he pushed on, watching the road carefully and letting Star pick her way through the shadows. The moon had been up for a time, full and round, but its light was no match for the setting sun or the dusk that settled over the land. “Not long before that full moon gives us all the light we need,” he promised her. “Once the sun’s gone, it’ll be bright enough to read a newspaper by.” It wouldn’t, but it’d be plenty bright to keep moving.

  It was, and bright enough to see the markings in the road—and the ones that weren’t there. He wasn’t sure how far he went along before he realized he wasn’t seeing the prints of either unshod hooves or Jed’s boots. Star snorted her annoyance when he stopped and dismounted, kneeling down with a tired groan. Rising to a stand and staring off toward the dark shadows of the horizon, relying only on the full moon that arced toward its zenith, he had to admit that the damned moon he’d promised his darned horse wasn’t doing as good a job as he needed it to. But he thought Jed might be behind him now. He found a certain dark humor to the idea of lying in wait for him, then jumping out of a bush when Jed passed him on the road. That humor was far outweighed by the idea that if he tried, Jed would likely shoot him before he recognized him for who he was. That, or be so mad he’d ride his horse to death to get away from him.

  Some things, Gideon had learned long ago, you just didn’t do to an Indian you respected.

  On the other hand, there were many, many things he wanted to do to Jed that he was right positive Jed would allow.

  “Must be a creek around here somewhere,” he told his horse, talking now just to break the night-time quiet as he peered into the darker shadows along the roadside. He couldn’t hear water burbling, and now that he was standing still he had to wonder if there weren’t wild animals he ought to be afraid of, roaming this area at night. Probably not. Probably, there were too many people, too many homes and plowed fields to welcome more than skunks and raccoons, a smart fox, or coyote. “There’s nothin’ here,” he assured himself, and scritched Star’s ears to make sure she wasn’t listening too hard for danger.

  How the hell did Jed prefer this, being alone in the dark with nothing and no one around him to keep him warm at night and watch his back when the wild got too close?

  Gideon smiled and shook his head at his fancy. Jed was as at home in the wild—and as much a part of it—as Gideon was at home in a show ring. There wasn’t nothing for him to fear here. Still, if he’d been traveling with a friend maybe those wild pigs would never have caught him unawares. That rattler sure had been better faced by the pair of them, than by Jed alone.

  Gideon was glad for the sharp shadows the moon cast over the land, painting it in silver. It was enough, barely, for him to get a good look at the road and confirm that Jed and his pony hadn’t passed this way yet.

  They’d left the road somewhere behind him. Gideon was sure of it.

  “Come on, girl,” he whispered, clicking his tongue against his teeth even as he pulled her head around. “Don’t seem fair, making you go back and forth all day, does it?” But once they’d turned around, it didn’t take long at all to recognize where he was, even in the dark: this was the last place they’d camped. On the left side of the road, he could see the little path they’d turned off on, hardly a trail at all. He’d missed it the first time because he wasn’t looking for it, because he hadn’t considered that Jed would go back to somewhere they’d been together, and because, truth be told, he hadn’t recognized it coming from the other direction. But as he stood at the place where the grass was rough and looked a little torn down, he remembered how he’d watched Jed sleep, and how he’d wanted to touch and resisted.

  “Jed!” he called quietly, more a whispered hiss. Hell, there could be robbers or drunks bedded down in that pretty spot he and Jed had shared. Wild things sure as hell weren’t the only dangers when you neared cities the size of Oakland. “Don’t go shootin’ me, now!”

  He saw the pony first, tied off in the same place he’d tied off both the horses three nights past. Its dunskin coat reflected moonlight like shadows on a pond. Star nickered and the pony whuffed an answer, and Gideon was so relieved he’d found Jed that he didn’t notice when the man snuck up on him.

  “Gideon.” The word was as loud as someone shouting from a street corner, because Jed stood not a foot behind him.

  Gideon jumped hard and fast enough that Star danced back on her hind legs. “Shit! Shit, Jed!” He fumbled his hand at his hip, where instinct had had him reaching for his gun. “You looking to get shot?”

  Jed shook his head, but his teeth flashed white in the moonlight. “Were you not just worried that I was going to shoot you?”

  Gideon glared at him, swallowing his heart back down into his chest where it belonged. “You know, not five minutes ago I was thinking about you, about the fact that some things, a man just doesn’t do to a man he respects!”

  “Yes?”

  “Yes!” Gideon sniped. “He don’t sneak
up on him and scare the bejesus out of him, is one of them!”

  Jed frowned and nodded. “Yes….”

  “Well, then, why the hell…?”

  “You said a man doesn’t do that to a person he respects,” Jed said. Gideon could hear the smile in Jed’s voice even if he couldn’t see it on his face.

  “Oh, har har,” Gideon said, resisting the urge to rub at his chest. Here he’d thought he was all settled down standing in the dark by himself, and the man he’d come running after had just scared ten years off him. “Help me with my damned horse.”

  Jed eased up beside him and pulled off Star’s saddle and blanket, hefting them over to the pile of his own things. When he came back and put a hand to her side, Jed blew out a low breath and pulled off his shirt, using it to rub her down. The shirt would come away wet and smelling of horse by the time he got done. “You have ridden her long and hard,” Jed admonished.

  Gideon wanted to feel ashamed for that, but he’d worked her in a good cause, and she was young and fit and lighter than she’d been two months back. He knew she’d be all right, or he wouldn’t have pushed her. “Yeah, well, you could’ve left slower, and I wouldn’t have had to.”

  “I—” The sound of Jed’s teeth clicking together sounded loud in the dark, and Gideon could count the number of times Jed had almost let something slip like that on one hand.

  The anger left Gideon as fast as Jed had scared it into him. “What?”

  If anything, Jed’s thin lips pressed into a flatter, tighter line, and Gideon knew what he’d get for his troubles if he pushed now: nothing. So he pulled off Star’s bridle and scratched her cheek, and took Jed’s shirt when Jed finished one side, working down her other, feeling her legs for warm spots and checking her over as best he could in the dark. “You’ll be all right, girl. You done good today,” he told her.

  Once he had her settled, he turned to find Jed just standing there facing him in the little clearing, his body silhouetted by the moon and the expression on his face completely hidden. “What?”

  Jed didn’t say anything, didn’t even move.

  “What, Jed? What were you gonna say, before?” He closed the space between them carefully, since finding the man was the easier part in all of this. Now that he’d found him, he could run him off if he said or did the wrong thing. Hell, he’d probably run him off anyway, but at least he’d have tried to keep him.

  When he stopped a couple of feet away, Jed said, soft as a whisper, “I left as slowly as I could.”

  It didn’t even take a thought to get his hands into Jed’s hair, holding his head tenderly and wishing for more light than the full moon had to offer. “I love you, Jed,” he said, pouring all the earnestness that had grown in him and all the loss he’d felt on the days leading up to Jed leaving, and all the fear he’d felt on the road today that he might not find Jed again. “I walked around San Francisco, saw all sorts of things I’d like to show you, beautiful things, crazy things. Even saw Indians that nobody was bothering. And they didn’t do nothing for me, without you there to share ’em with.”

  “Gideon,” Jed said, and he sounded so sad, Gideon didn’t want to hear anything he might think needed saying with that tone of voice.

  “Don’t, all right? We’ll talk all you want tomorrow.”

  “And tonight?”

  “Whatever you want, Jed. Or whatever you don’t.”

  It turned out that Jed wanted a lot more than Gideon had expected him to. They were still plenty close to the Pacific and the inland bays that the nights were chilly no matter how warm the days got. So it made sense that when Jed moved to strip away Gideon’s clothes, Gideon would be cold. But he wasn’t.

  They made love—and it was love, Gideon knew that in the way Jed touched him, urged him with gentle and demanding caresses, encouraged him with low sounds that Gideon knew he’d been holding back all this time. Jed led, and Gideon let him, but they both wanted the same thing—the pleasure of each other’s bodies and the joy of being together.

  Jed lay back, drawing Gideon down onto him, into him, with a sweetness that hadn’t been there, their first time together or even their last. He still wanted Jed as much, but it was more than that. The last couple of times, they’d been feeling like goodbyes to him—whether the Sioux had a word for it or not, they sure did know how to say it. Tonight it felt more like relief, even if they were only postponing their goodbyes for a time. There was no rush, no hurry to the end, but they didn’t try to hold off and store every little bit of it for lonely times, neither. Jed held him close, closer than he had before—at least, closer than he had before he got so close to coming he couldn’t control the clutch of his hands or his legs or any other part of him. It slowed their movements but made Gideon more aware of the body beneath him, of the man himself.

  He was so glad to be with Jed, to have him here and now, to be able to think and feel how much he loved him, that he didn’t have to work to control himself or to pace himself to satisfy Jed’s needs. He even tucked his face into the fast-beating pulse at Jed’s throat and said it, said “love you,” over and over again like it meant more than just the words themselves. He said it like Jed said his prayers, as his hips rolled of their own accord, and his cock slid into the place he thought of as his now, rubbing up against parts of Jed that made Jed’s supple body writhe and rock like a boat on big waves. With the next thrust, he slid his cock deep and held there, pressed flush up against the firm muscles of Jed’s ass, and said it again: “Love you,” barely able to tolerate the fact that he’d been too much a coward to say it before now.

  He wasn’t quite there when Jed found his release, but the kiss Jed gave him, wet and tender and sighing breath into his mouth, and the keening sound Jed made that sounded like great pain, but wasn’t, did as much to undo him as the ripples of Jed’s flesh around his cock.

  They held on to each other through it, gasping into each other’s mouths as pleasure shook them both, and when the climax ebbed away, maybe Gideon held on even tighter.

  “Let me breathe,” Jed gasped after a time, and Gideon dragged his arm from where he’d wormed it around the small of Jed’s back and carefully pulled away, freeing his cock from Jed’s body and moving just far enough to lie only half-atop him, instead of all the way.

  “That better be enough,” he said, trying to grumble. “I’m damned tired from all that riding today.”

  “Then you need far more exercise,” Jed said lazily.

  Gideon felt his lips twitching, and was glad of the darkness. “Just think how cold you’d have been out here without me to keep you warm,” he mumbled into the smooth, sweet skin of Jed’s bare shoulder. “Speaking of which… you need your other shirt.”

  “I do,” Jed mumbled, and yawned.

  Gideon frowned and tried to rouse himself. “I’ll fetch it,” he offered, but he didn’t move and Jed didn’t try to make him. Instead they stretched to grab what was near them—Gideon’s undershirt that Jed had peeled off with the rest of Gideon’s clothes, the trousers they’d stepped out of that lay piled right by Jed’s blankets. It took a little longer to work most of them on, but Jed wasn’t stupid and no matter what Jed liked to imply, neither was Gideon.

  He fell asleep sharing Jed’s blankets because his bedroll was still in his hotel room, a good day’s ride away.

  WHEN Gideon woke the next morning the sun hadn’t made it over the hilltops to the east, but it scattered plenty of light to see by.

  Jed was already up and gone, and with sleep clouding his mind, he wondered if he was alone again and would have another hard day of hunting ahead of him. But as he woke enough to register the chill in his toes he recognized Jed’s blankets, smelling the man himself in them. He heard the horses in the distance, both of them, and he smiled, wondering what Jed was going to complain about whenever he got back from wherever he’d gone.

  He forced himself up, gritting his teeth at the cold bite of early morning air, did his business, and he was back stirring up a fire when
Jed eased into the camp, carrying a string of fish. “Good,” he said, his voice grim, “we can eat and be on our way.”

  There was something sharp in his tone, and Gideon looked down to where the dry, smaller twigs were taking the flame to hide his face and the smile he felt stretching it. Jed was pissy—that was a good sign.

  “Yep,” he agreed, “we can. We can head back to the hotel, grab up my stuff—”

  “You mean you and Star,” Jed cut him off, his tone harder. Fighting the bit, Gideon thought. But he’d gentled animals all his life—domesticated creatures, sure, but his talent had to work on a wild thing like Jed. It had to.

  He drew a breath then stood and turned to face Jed, meeting his gaze. “No, I mean you and me. Star and your pony, too, but you and me, Jed.” He reached out, pleased when Jed didn’t pull away but stepped forward into his arms. “I came to find you, and it wasn’t just for another night between the blankets—no matter how good those are.” He stepped closer, sliding his hand up Jed’s arm to cup his cheek. “I don’t aim to let you walk away from me.”

  Jed did back away then, drawing free of Gideon’s hold. “Gideon,” he said, but the word was slow, and so sad that Gideon hurt for him. “We cannot—”

  “Why?” he asked, cutting off the words he didn’t want to hear. “Why can’t we, Jed? There are lots of places we can go and be together—hell, we could work in the show, live like my ma and pa do. They ain’t married but I’ve got three sisters and a brother as decent as me, and nobody thinks nothing of it. I know—” he held up one hand, rushing on as Jed started to cut him off, “that it’s different from what you and me got, I know that. But show folk, they don’t care as much as most other folk. We got Indians in the show, Jed, you’ll have others like you—not Sioux, but Injuns, at least.” When he had to stop to catch his breath, Jed jumped in.