Interlude

It was the end of the week, and Danny came home late, long after it was dark. A harvest moon hung over the treetops as he parked his car beside Mike's pickup. He switched off the engine, cutting short a Simon and Garfunkel song on the 8-track,

Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down . . .

And Rusty, came walking stiffly toward him in the headlights, wagging his tail, glad to see him again.

The lights were on in the house. Supper would be waiting for him. When he stepped out of the car, he felt the cool air of a September evening. The day had been warm--with a lazy, warm Indian summer afternoon--but now that the sun was down, it was clear that Old Man Winter was on his way once more, and it wouldn't be very long.

He slipped into his corduroy jacket and grabbed his leather briefcase--big and bulky as a saddle bag, full of books and papers to grade--from the back seat. Then he headed for the house.

Inside, the kitchen was steamy, and Mike was at the stove stirring a big pot of chili with a long-handled wooden spoon. There was cornbread in the oven and on the countertop a box from the bakery in town, with either a pie or a cake.

Friday nights were always like this when Danny was away all week at his teaching job in Kearney, a little celebration with a home-cooked meal, but tonight was something different. Rich and Ty were leaving in the morning. It would be the last time together for the four of them.

Mike put the lid back on the pot and walked over to Danny. "Welcome home, bud," he said, giving Danny one of his bone-crushing hugs and a long kiss.

The touch of their bodies coming together, after five days apart, was always a deep and almost wounding pleasure, the feel of Mike's skin and muscle under his shirt as Danny reached his arms around him, their legs nudging together, and the soft pressure of their cocks swelling in their jeans.

Danny felt his desire rise in a rush of yearning. There had been times when they'd turned the heat off under whatever was cooking on the stove and gone to the bedroom for a while, pulling off enough clothes to let the passion of the moment take them. Done, not all that long later, shirts unbuttoned and pants around their ankles, they'd lie together in each other's arms, recovering, until Mike would say, "Ready for some supper now?"

"Fuck, yeah," Danny would say, hungry enough to eat a horse.

That was typically not the kind of welcome Danny got when there happened to be house guests. The two of them, in fact, were there now in the doorway from the TV room, each of them coming across the kitchen to hug Danny, too--Rich first, with a quick, rough embrace, and then Ty, who held him warmly, squeezing him tight.

There'd been at least a round or two of beers already by that point, and as they sat down around the table, Mike put one in front of Danny before taking the cornbread from the oven and then serving up big steaming bowls of his chili.

"I hit it good and hard with the chili peppers," he said, "so take 'er easy."

"Holy shit," Rich said, his mouth already full.

"Burn your tongue?" Mike said.

"No," Rich said, his eyes starting to water. "It's just the way I like it."

He grabbed his beer, as Mike laughed, and drank down several gulps.

Danny looked around the table, and while part of him would be glad to have the place to himself and Mike once Rich and Ty had left, he was going to miss them.

* * *

Ted filled the bathtub with hot water as he got out of his clothes and then eased himself in. The bathroom in the old farmhouse he'd been renting didn't have a shower, just this old claw-foot tub, big as a horse trough. He relaxed as the heat soaked into his tired muscles. He'd been working on a couple of big canvases since morning and had to quit when the daylight began to fade. His hands and forearms were streaked with the bright colors he'd been painting with.

Ed had gone to town to bring home some pizza. It would be mostly cold by the time he got back, but as long as Ed didn't eat all of it on the way, he didn't much care. With the jug of Gallo Paisano he'd already started into--there were no wine glasses in the kitchen, so he poured some into a beer mug--it would go down just fine.

Painting may not have looked like hard work, and Ed had often said so, but it was as exhausting as any physical labor Ted had ever done. At the end of a day, you were weary enough to drop straight into bed--forget about supper.

He reached to pick up the mug from the floor and took a slow drink of the wine, the warmth spreading inside him. Then he set it down again and slid deeper into the water until it was up to his chin. It felt almost like he was floating.

Some time later--it could have been only a minute--he woke from having dozed off. The noise he'd heard was the house door being thrown open and slammed shut again, and he knew Ed was back from town.

He came into the bathroom first thing. "Here you are," he said stepping up to the toilet and unzipping his fly to take a leak.

"Get the pizza?" Ted asked.

"Yeppers."

"Leave any for me?"

"You'll be happy to know I did," Ed said, his head tipping back, eyes closed, as he started to pee. "Oh, mama, I was overdue for that."

"There's miles of bushes between here and town where you could have stopped for a piss."

"What, and let the pizza get cold?"

Ted laughed. "You're a crazy fucker, you know that?"

"It's why you love my ass. You know it," Ed said. He was still peeing.

"What makes you think I love your ass?"

"Cause you're always rubbin' it."

"I'm just amazed by the size of it. I don't know how you fit it into your jeans. They must just beg for mercy."

"So you got a scrawny ass and you think you can talk."

"You never complained about it before."

"I'm not complaining," Ed said. "Besides, you should never insult a man while he's taking a leak." He stopped peeing in the toilet bowl and turned to point his dick into the tub.

"Hey!" Ted said, sitting up, the bathwater surging suddenly around him.

Ed laughed and faced the toilet again, finishing up. Then he went for the pizza box and set it on the sink. He pulled out a piece and handed it to Ted.

"You're not gonna wash your hands first?"

"You've had my cock in your mouth and you want me to wash my hands?"

"I wasn't thinking about your cock," Ted said. "Who knows where your hands have been?"

"Fucker," Ed said and handed him the box. "Help yourself then." And he bit into the piece of pizza he was holding.

"You gonna object if I save myself a trip to the kitchen for a glass and drink outta the same mug as you?" he said, still chewing.

"Go ahead."

Ted took a thin, droopy slice of the pizza and angled the point of it into his mouth. As he bit into it, the sauce under the cheese slid down his chin.

Ed was having a long drink of wine while unbuckling his belt with one hand and shucking down his jeans. Then he sat on the edge of the tub to pull jeans, shorts, shoes and socks from his feet and drop them in a tangled pile on the floor. Finally, he took off his shirt, rolling it into a ball and tossing it into the corner, and slid backwards into the water.

"I'm realizing something," Ted said.

"What's that?"

"You'd have gone ahead and pissed in the water if you weren't planning to get in yourself."

"Is that what you think?" Ed said, grinning, and he reached to Ted's face and wiped the pizza sauce from his chin with his thumb.

Then he licked his thumb and leaning forward kissed Ted. It was a long kiss, Ed's tongue pressing deep into his mouth, and Ted felt Ed's fingers gliding along the inside of his thigh and then holding him there between his legs.

* * *

Lonnie was in the big hay shed, loading up a flat-bed wagon with bales to take over to the stables. It was a job that could wait for tomorrow, but he was keeping himself busy, while Baxter returned from one of his trips somewhere to pick up a horse.

The sun had set long ago, and only the faintest light lingered in the western sky. Inside the shed it was too dark to see without the headlamps on the tractor, and they shone brightly against one wall, casting a shadowy illumination up into the rafters and the far corners.

He'd pulled about ten bales from the stack and laid them neatly side by side on the wagon when, looking out the wide doorway of the shed, he saw the lights of a truck in the distance, topping the crest of a rise and coming toward the ranch. It was Baxter; he was back.

By the time he'd finished loading up the hay, Baxter was parked by the stables and coaxing the horse he'd brought, out of the trailer and to a stall inside. Lonnie could see their silhouettes against the light that shone over the stable door. Baxter's gentle voice, as he talked to the horse, carried softly to him on the night air.

He felt his heart quicken knowing that the man he'd come to love was now home and there was only this last bit of work to do before the day was done and they'd be together again--a quiet supper and then to bed. He climbed down from the trailer, his legs almost trembling in his jeans, and walked over to the tractor to switch off the lights.

He'd drive the load over to the stables in the morning, after Baxter's horse had settled down. No telling--after a long trip to a strange new place--how the horse would take to the sound and looks of a noisy tractor coming up out of the darkness.

"Well, hello, my friend," Baxter said as Lonnie got there. Baxter was lifting a saddle from the back of the truck to carry inside.

There was a carry-bag full of tack and rope. "You want this, too?" Lonnie asked.

Baxter nodded, and the two of them went into the stables. The new horse, a sorrel mare, was already eating meal from a bucket and seeming to be content.

"She looks happy to be here," Lonnie said, taking a few steps toward the stall.

"She's a sweetheart." Baxter lifted some flakes of hay into the feeder for her. "We got her just in time, I think. Her owner doesn't know beans about horses."

The two of them stood, side by side, quietly watching, and one of the other horses stood to gaze at her and nicker from across the way. Somewhere, in the autumn evening air, a cricket lazily chirped.

"That you I saw workin' late over in the hay shed?" Baxter said, putting his arm around Lonnie's shoulders.

"Just waitin' for you to show up."

"Had a slow-down coming over the state line. Big rig went sideways in the road."

"Bad?"

"Naw."

They fell silent again, watching, and Lonnie felt himself melt with pleasure pressed against the body of the big man beside him. In his jeans he felt his underwear start to tighten.

"You eat?" Baxter said.

Lonnie shook his head.

"Got a couple sandwiches in Ogallala--submarines they call 'em. They're on the seat there in the truck."

Lonnie went to the truck and opened the door. He found a white paper bag and brought it back to Baxter, who softly opened it, the paper rattling and making the new horse raise her head, her ears turned sharply toward them. Then, after a moment, she went back to pulling hay down from the feeder, unconcerned.

They sat down on a hay bale against the wall, and unwrapped the sandwiches. There were little packets of mayonnaise and mustard, and Baxter couldn't get them open.

"Can you believe this?" he laughed. "The guy who dreamed this up wasn't thinking about a old workin' man's fingers."

"That's why you got me here," Lonnie said. He took them one by one and pulled the ends off each packet, then squeezed the contents into the open sandwiches.

"That's not the only reason," Baxter said, and his knee pressed against Lonnie's.

They ate the sandwiches without talking, and Baxter got up just once to bring an aluminum thermos of lukewarm coffee from the cab of the truck. He poured it out into the screw-on cap, and the two of them passed it back and forth as they ate until it was gone.

When they were done, Baxter reached up to switch off the lights. After a few moments, they could see well enough in the moonlight filtering in from the doorway to make out the stalls, the tack hanging along the wall, and the pitchfork and brooms leaning neatly where Lonnie had left them. They could hear the new horse sigh and lie down in the straw.

"I think she's gonna be just fine," Baxter whispered.

Lonnie pressed against him as they sat there on the hay bale, and he put his hand to Baxter's chest.

"And you're fine already," Baxter said to him, putting his arms around the young man. "Aren't you?"

Lonnie nodded and said, "Yup," his hat brushing against the side of Baxter's face.

With his free hand, Baxter unfastened some of the snaps on the front of Lonnie's shirt and slipped his hand inside. He caressed his smooth chest and then bent down to find a nipple with his mouth, stroking it with his tongue while Lonnie tried to swallow back the moans that rose from deep within him.

Baxter's hand had now dropped between Lonnie's thighs, and Lonnie's legs jerked wide apart with a will of their own.

"You get hard so fast," Baxter said when he found his erection in his jeans. "Almost puts an old man to shame."

"There's no call for that," Lonnie said. He loved Baxter's cock any way it came.

And he knew what he'd said probably didn't make any sense, but he just wanted to cry out with the intensity of the pleasure he was feeling. Already he was opening his belt buckle and scooting his butt forward on the hay bale to pull down his zipper, all without any thought. And in a moment he felt Baxter's warm breath on his cock.

* * *

Kirk walked into the double-wide from his truck and found Owen on the couch, drinking a beer and reading the newspaper. He'd taken a shower and had a towel wrapped around him.

"Guy's having a auction down in Custer county tomorrow. You wanna go check it out?"

"What's he selling?"

"Everything, it looks. Livestock, equipment. Got a couple all-terrain vehicles. We could use one of them."

"Your dad hates ATVs."

"Well, it ain't up to him."

"I thought it was."

Kirk got himself a beer and sat down on the couch next to Owen.

"You have any luck today with that red-face cow run off over to Riley's?" Kirk said.

"Only wasted the whole goddam afternoon. She joined up with one of Riley's wild heifers, and his boy and I chased the two of them all over hell." Owen still had his head in the newspaper. "Went through three fences."

"Sounds like fun."

"They'd still be running, but they got stopped trying to cut across a slough. It's all marshy there, even this time of year. The heifer finally made it out, but that red-face went in up to her ass. Took both of us with ropes to pull her out, and then not before she gave me a good drag through the mud. Riley's boy about busted a gut laughing. I coulda decked that kid."

Kirk chuckled. "Sorry I missed that."

"The little shit. He's all of about fourteen. And you should see him throw a rope. He can't miss."

"What we got for supper?" Kirk said.

"What we always got. Long as you make it."

There was a wobbly coffee table in front of the couch, and Kirk put his boots up on it.

"I think I'll let you starve a while," he said. He put his hand down on Owen's leg and felt the long hard muscles under the damp towel.

Owen turned a page of the newspaper and kept reading. "You finish patching up that roof on the cow shed?" he asked.

"Yep, we did 'er. It's ready now for the snow to fly."

There was a long shed, the oldest thing standing on the ranch, that got used in the winter when the calving started. The old man had put off fixing the roof until he'd got a deal on some galvanized sheeting, and then it had lain stacked up long enough to almost disappear under several seasons of dust and leaves before they'd got around to doing the job.

Kirk and one of the ranch hands had worked most of the day, the warm autumn sun on their backs as they bent to set the sheets in place and then hammered in the nails. Cows drifted in from one of the pastures to drink at the water tank and watch them for a while before drifting away again.

"Says here we're gonna get average temperatures for the next 90 days and average precipitation," Owen said, reading from the newspaper. "If you can believe that."

"What's it say down here?" Kirk said slipping his hand under Owen's towel until his fingers found his balls.

"Sure as hell ain't nothin' average. Could even break some records."

"Seein's believin'," Kirk said, pulling on the towel now until it came loose from Owen's waist.

"You're startin' something that's not gonna put supper on the table."

"You tryin' to tell me you're hungry?"

"Fuck, yeah, I'm hungry. You weren't out chasin' goddam wild cows and missed your dinner."

"With that kinda attitude, I can see why your wife packed up and left." Kirk had his hand over Owen's cock now, as it surged to life, warm and damp under his fingers.

"It wasn't any attitude, wise ass, and my wife didn't leave me. We split up 'cause I'm queer as they come. Which you already know."

"All boils down to appetite, though, don't it?"

"Huh?"

"You're always hungry for something." Kirk reached up now to stroke Owen's belly. "Lean and hungry."

Owen finally closed the newspaper and looked at him. "Sometimes, I don't know what the fuck you're talking about."

Kirk slid over against him now, his hands and arms slipping around Owen's naked body, pushing him onto his back. "You understand this, don't you?" he said.

Owen reached between Kirk's legs, fingers stroking the dusty, sweat-soaked denim until he found his hard-on. He tossed the newspaper onto the floor.

"Now you're talkin'," he said laughing.

* * *

It was evening at the nursing home, and Oscar had eaten supper with Cecil as he often did, pushing him to the dining hall in his wheelchair and then helping him with his food. Spooning up the soup always took the two of them, Oscar lifting the spoon to his old friend's lips and Cecil slurping it into his mouth, as if he enjoyed all the noise he was making.

The rest of the meal he could usually handle by himself--especially anything he could eat with his hands, like hot dogs or grilled cheese sandwiches. Oscar would then hold his glass for him so he could drink his chocolate milk, while Cecil with his trembling hand guided the straw into his mouth.

"Was there ever a time you didn't like your chocolate milk?" Oscar would say, remembering their years together. "I drove to town to Safeway one day in a goddam blizzard, just cause you ran out of Hershey's syrup. I musta been a damn fool to do that."

Their conversations were strictly one-sided like this--Oscar doing all the talking--that is, if you didn't count the way Cecil touched him, often reaching to pat his arm or his hand, or just looking at him from time to time with his smiling eyes.

Faltering and silent, struck almost speechless by the stroke that had leveled him like a lightning bolt, he had taken days to acknowledge Oscar's presence at first. And just when Oscar thought his old friend would never recognize him, there was that moment that made his own heart stop with a thump in his chest.

Cecil had brightened as they played a game of checkers one day, suddenly giving him a grin. Then he'd reached out toward Oscar's wrinkled and sun-beaten face and gently put his hand to his cheek, his eyes registering a deep understanding. He wanted Oscar to know that he hadn't been forgotten and, no matter what, all was forgiven.

Oscar hadn't known until that moment how much he'd regretted parting company with Cecil all those years before. He'd had a dark thought and a grumpy mood now and then when he remembered how they'd split up, but he'd always been able to blame Cecil and his godalmighty stubborn streak. Now he knew he'd been as much to blame.

"Yeah, it's me--Oscar," he'd said. "You old fool, pretendin' not to know me."

Cecil grinned a little wider, then jumped three of Oscar's checkers, landing on the end of the board.

"King me," he'd said, the words coming clearly like he'd been waiting for the chance to say them.

"Sonofabitch, you ain't beat me yet," Oscar said, and for the rest of the game it was almost as good as old times, except that Cecil didn't say another word.

And while his awareness of Oscar seemed to come and go over the weeks that followed, there was this daily routine that grew between them. He'd be waiting in his wheelchair each morning when Oscar arrived, and they'd spend the day together, Oscar talking in long monologues and Cecil nodding sometimes and staring off into the distance--like neither of them was there at all, just time traveling.

With the help of one of the male nurses, Oscar would get Cecil bundled up and take him out for a ride in his chair along a sidewalk that meandered through an acre of grass and scrubby bushes that grew behind the nursing home.

A bridge crossed a drainage ditch, and you could follow an old railroad bed now asphalted over as a Rotary Club project for the town's bikers and walkers. After a half mile, it ended at a road that ran along the edge of town, where trucks and cars passed on the way to the sale barn. When the wind was right, there was the smell of the stock pens where cattle and horses waited to go in for auction.

The two of them would stop there together--Oscar leaning on the handles of the wheelchair--watching the world go by, listening to the birds in the trees and feeling the breeze blowing around them. As September arrived, goldenrod bloomed in the fence lines and tufts of milkweed began drifting from the big pods that split open on their stalks.

"We've seen and done a lot, you and me," Oscar would say and recollect some memory from twenty or thirty years ago. Cecil would listen--or seem to--a little smile on his face. He might nod and tap his fingers lightly on the arm of his chair. Oscar liked to think it meant he was saying, "I remember that, too."

But it may have meant nothing. Oscar wished that Cecil could talk, and he still hoped some day he'd find his voice--his brain and his tongue unscrambled--so it could be more like old times between them. He'd know what the man was really thinking.

Now it was night again. They'd been out to the sale barn road and come back as the autumn sun sank behind a bank of clouds in the west, and they'd had their supper together--chicken noodle soup, shepherd's pie, vanilla pudding with whipped cream, all washed down with chocolate milk for Cecil and weak coffee for Oscar. After that they'd sat in the TV room together watching "Sanford and Son."

"You like this show?" Oscar said.

Cecil nodded, tapped his fingers and didn't take his eyes from the TV set.

After that, because it had been a long day and Cecil was looking tired, they went back to his room.

"You want me to help you get undressed for bed?" Oscar said.

The first time he'd asked this, Cecil had looked at him oddly and seemed a little unsure. But after the second or third time, he'd begun not to mind, and now his sigh, Oscar knew, meant he was ready for this last ritual of the day.

He unbuttoned Cecil's shirt, taking his time. Then he opened his pants and pulled them off, so that he was finally sitting in just his underwear. Then after he'd been to the bathroom and brushed his teeth, Oscar helped him into the bed.

A nurse looked in. "You two boys doing OK in here?" she wanted to know.

"We're not exactly boys anymore," Oscar said, a little sharply. The woman put his teeth on edge, but nothing he ever said seemed to change her attitude. She was always cheerful--and probably glad Oscar was doing a job someone on the staff would have to be doing themselves.

"Two boys," Cecil said when she'd stepped out of the room.

Oscar looked at him, surprised. "What did you say?"

Cecil just looked back at him, as if he'd surprised himself. And wanting to repeat what he'd said, he discovered he couldn't.

"I think I know what you mean," Oscar said, pulling the sheet up over his old friend. "We may be a couple of old farts, but we'll probably never grow up."

His hand rested for a moment on Cecil's chest, and Cecil took his arm from under the sheet to put his hand on top of Oscar's and hold it there. And they smiled and looked at each other, until Cecil got sleepy and closed his eyes.

* * *

Marty and Virgil had an apartment across town from campus. It was in the basement of a house with an entrance from the driveway. The landlords were an old couple, both deaf, and besides playing the TV really loud some nights, they were easy to get along with. Both of them, in fact, were sweet as grandparents to the boys.

A coffee cake might show up on their kitchen table--the door to the apartment was never locked, and there were no keys anyway. Or there would be leftovers from a church supper in the refrigerator. They were growing young men and not supposed to go hungry.

Marty had moved in the weekend before school started. He'd decided not to enroll at the college, but took a job at a lumber yard, where they put him on a forklift and kept him busy all day.

"I'll be the working man," he told Virgil. "You go get your education."

This had disappointed Virgil, who pictured them together each day, taking the same classes, having lunch together in the cafeteria. Going back home together at the end of the day.

"I'm not ready for that yet," Marty had said. "I got too much other stuff going on." By that he meant, Virgil guessed, the fact that he'd left home again--and again under a cloud of disagreement with his father--and was living on his own, in a new job, in a new town.

"And there's you to get used to," he said. They were sitting together at the A&W eating burgers and fries in Virgil's car, which was on permanent loan now from his aunt Doris. Her boyfriend Duane, she explained, was more than willing to take her anywhere she wanted in his pickup.

"Me to get used to?" Virgil said, slurping down a root beer float.

"Yeah, like who drinks those things anymore?" Marty said pointing with a french fry to the mug Virgil was holding. "They're for kids."

"Hey, so I'm still a kid," Virgil laughed. "I'm gettin' used to you, too."

"Meaning what?"

"I dunno," Virgil shrugged. "Nothin', I guess. I just wanna be between your legs right now."

And their conversations always seemed to revolve around to this. There was not enough naked time together as they called it. And about this they were in agreement.

Virgil had helped Marty move in, filling the backseat and the trunk with boxes of his belongings, a stereo, fishing gear, a couple 4-H trophies and some clothes. Marty's mom had given him a sweater she had knitted.

"It was supposed to be for Christmas, but you'll need it before then," she said, putting a smile on her face for them, but not happy at all. You could tell.

She seemed to like Virgil. At least she acted that way. But Marty's dad was nowhere around that day, and no one spoke of him. Because of that, maybe, Marty had been quiet all the way to Kearney. Didn't say more than a half dozen words.

He had not come out of himself until they had carried everything into their apartment, stacking the boxes against a bare wall in the unfurnished living room, where someday they promised themselves, there'd be a couch with a TV and they could sit together with their feet up, drink beer and stay up late watching the late movie.

For sure, Virgil said, they had to have one by the World Series. It looked like it was going to be the Reds and the A's. Virgil didn't want to miss that.

Marty had stood there looking at the boxes, in a kind of daze, and Virgil had finally stepped up behind him to put his arms around him, pressing against his back and stroking his chest and his belly.

"You're here now," he said, sliding his fingers under his tee shirt.

"Yup," Marty said and then laughed. He reached with one hand behind him and felt for Virgil's balls.

"Is it naked time?" Virgil said.

"Damn right."

And they had taken each other right there on the bare floor.

Three weeks later, they were already into the routine--Virgil every day to classes, Marty to his job at the lumber yard. Evenings they had supper together, Saturday nights were beer and pizza, and Sundays were a day of rest, which meant hanging around the apartment in their underwear or, if it wasn't raining, sunbathing in the backyard.

This Friday night, Virgil waited as usual in his car for Marty to get off work. After he punched a clock somewhere inside, he came ambling through the gate along with the other employees, carrying a hard hat and a lunch box.

As always he looked so handsome walking there in his work clothes, a denim jacket pulled over a plaid flannel shirt, wearing his jeans, and his heavy-soled boots. He looked tired, but glad to be going home, and he smiled as he waved goodbye to the other men and headed for the car, spying Virgil there behind the wheel.

"Hey pardner," he said, getting in.

"Hey." Virgil started up the car and they drove off, the car filling with the smell of wood shavings, fuel exhaust, and sweat from Marty's clothes.

They small talked as they drove across town, the late afternoon sun turning the trees golden in the slanting autumn light, and with Marty there beside him, Virgil felt his cock already stirring in his jeans.

"Got something to show you when we get home," he said.

"Whatcha got I haven't seen already?"

"TV. Guy I know sold me his old portable for twenty bucks."

"Hot tamales," Marty said.

"Thing is, the only place it gets a signal is in the bedroom."

"That's a problem?"

"No, we can have naked time while we're watching TV."

"That's what I'm thinking."

Virgil's cock took another lurch against his thigh and started feeling awkward. He had to reach into his pants to work it free again.

"You already gettin' a hard-on?" Marty said and laughed. "Me, too. We're just a couple of horn dogs."

When they got home, they went straight to the TV, which Virgil had put on a chair he'd brought in from the kitchen. And they sat together on the end of the bed, watching the six-o'clock news. The picture was a little snowy and the speaker made Walter Cronkite's voice sound flat and tinny, but having the outside world suddenly there where they'd never done anything but make love and sleep was a great novelty.

During the commercials, Virgil slid his hand between Marty's legs and stroked along the inseam of his jeans, and by the time the news was over, they were stretched out together on the bed.

"You still got that hard-on?" Virgil said between kisses.

"Never went away."

"I can take care of it for you."

Marty opened his jeans and pulled down his underwear, his long erection swinging out in front of him. Then he reached for Virgil's belt buckle.

Virgil was already sucking him by the time he got Virgil's cock into his own mouth, and while the TV droned on, they lay together making muffled noises, their faces buried in each other's warm crotch.

* * *

George had to do some talking, but he got Don finally to agree to a weekend off for him and Slim. And not just off work, the two of them sleeping late and loafing all day in the bunkhouse, but leaving the ranch and driving all the way to Scottsbluff.

It was Slim's birthday, George explained. He was getting up there in years, and was overdue for a little celebration.

"How old is he?" Don wanted to know. He was standing in the open door of his truck, where he'd squeezed himself under the dashboard to replace a blown fuse that was keeping the turn signal from working.

"Old as the hills, don't you think?" George had said. Being Indian, he could talk like this to Don who wouldn't expect him to be more than vague and roundabout about such things.

"Fifty? Sixty?" Don said, peeling back the plastic on a packet of little fuses he was holding between his fingers.

George had shrugged. He knew for a fact that Slim was going on fifty-three, but if Don was willing to believe Slim was older, it could do no harm.

"Hell, how many days were you thinkin'?" Don asked.

"Leave Friday noon. Back Monday night."

"What do I do if I need you while you're gone?" Don had bent down to squeeze his big frame under the steering wheel again to peer under the dashboard.

"Chad'll come over," George said. Chad was a young cowboy from a neighbor's ranch who had helped with the spring branding.

"Chad don't know this place like you do," Don said, but George could tell by the sound of his voice that Don was coming around. "Besides, if there's a rodeo anywhere in drivin' distance, you know that's where he'll be."

"I already asked him."

Don pulled himself upright again, the job done. He took his hat from where he'd put it on the seat and set it back on his head.

"A real boss would be a hard-ass and just say flat-out no," he said. "You understand that, don't you?"

"You'd be in your rights."

"Why am I saying yes then?"

George just gave him a little smile and said, "Thanks, boss."

And so it was decided. He and Slim had left the ranch that Friday noon and arrived in Scottsbluff by nightfall. They'd checked into the old railroad hotel in town and after changing into a new pair of levi's and his best boots, Slim had joined him in the bar for beer and whiskeys. Then they'd had a steak dinner in the restaurant with a round of stingers afterwards and big pieces of chocolate cake.

George had pulled a little candle from his vest pocket and lighted it from a pack of matches he'd picked up in the bar. He'd popped the candle into the frosting on Slim's cake before he could reach for his fork, and then he'd grinned and said, "Happy birthday, pardner."

"Gosh," was all Slim could say, marveling at the sight of the burning candle, as if nothing like this had ever happened to him before. And--who knows--maybe it hadn't.

"You gotta blow out the goddam thing," George said.

Slim nodded and grinned a while longer, his fork still in his hand, and finally he sucked in a lung full of air and blew.

"I got something for ya," George said as the candle smoldered, and he put a leather string tie down on the table beside Slim's plate. It had a silver medallion the size of a fifty-cent piece, with bits of turquoise.

"This is yours," Slim said, recognizing it.

"Yeah, I want you to have it."

"You can't give me this," Slim said, objecting.

"There something wrong with it?"

"It belongs to you."

"Not any more. It's yours now."

Slim put down his fork and carefully picked up the medallion, studying it.

"Put it on. Let's see how you look," George said.

Slim slipped the narrow leather cord over his head and patted the medallion into place on his chest. Then he looked into George's eyes, speechless, an expression on his face of disbelief and gratitude.

"Now eat your cake," George said, more than a little embarrassed by it all. And they ate without speaking until they had cleaned their plates, pressing their forks into the last crumbs and then into their mouths.

They were in good spirits as they stepped outside into the cool autumn night and took a walk along the deserted streets ambling slowly until they came to a lighted marquee glowing above the entrance to the town's movie theater, the Rialto.

They hadn't planned on seeing a movie, but it turned out to be a western with John Wayne--not George's favorite cowboy actor, who'd killed more than any man's share of white Hollywood actors dressed as redskins--but then they were not real Indians anyway, and John Wayne wasn't a real cowboy either. And more than anything, Slim seemed more than willing to pay a buck at the box office to see it.

It was called "The Cowboys," and they'd missed only the first ten minutes of the second show, sitting there in the dark with a handful of other people scattered around the theater.

"There's the Duke," Slim said as they sat down, and George could tell from the sound of his voice that this was a birthday treat almost as good as a string tie with a silver medallion.

It turned out to be not a bad movie, with a fair body count after a big shoot out, but none of them were Indians--just white guys trying to kill each other.

Long before John Wayne got out the guns, though, Slim had reached over to George in the darkness and taken his hand, holding it warmly there between George's legs, squeezing it now and then at the good parts.

The tenderness of that rough hand in his took George more than a little by surprise. But somehow it seemed all right. And he knew there was a good chance before the night was done that when the two of them got back to the hotel room and crawled into the big bed, they'd probably do more than hold hands. And that was OK, too.

* * *

Ellis watched the sun sinking behind the Rockies as his plane lifted from the runway at DenverAirport and rose slowly into the sky, headed for Billings. He'd been back to Nebraska for his father's funeral, and his thoughts were heavy with the whole week of viewings and services and people coming to pay their respects. And, of course, there had been all the emotions to deal with, his mother's and his sister's.

His mother had wailed as he held her at the graveside, the minister having said his last words, trying to console her. "What am I going to do without him?" she had sobbed to Ellis as he held her frail body to his chest.

His sister Kathy's feelings had been more mixed--relief on the one hand that the old man had finally given up the ghost after years of being a constant burden with his failing health. And on the other hand? Her usual resentment that Ellis had abandoned them all--though it had happened years ago now--divorcing his young wife and making a new life for himself far away in Montana.

She also knew the reason he'd done it. Never marrying again and showing up like he did the last time, with a friend little more than half his age--Deacon--he'd made pretty clear that he'd never developed the interest in women he'd surely been born with.

Which was a shame, so she said. He was a handsome man, and with his calm, patient manner he would have made such a good father. And so on.

They'd had one last go-round, sitting at the table in her kitchen, the morning after the funeral. She was angry again as she reminded him how unfair it all was, his leaving her to look after her ageing parents all by herself.

"Look at it this way," he'd told her. "You don't have a queer brother in town embarrassing you in front of everybody who knows you."

"Don't talk about yourself that way," she said, never more than half able to accept the truth about him.

He'd shrugged, poured himself another cup of coffee, and looked out the kitchen window at the maple tree in his sister's back yard, its leaves turning autumn gold. The two of them would never get beyond this, and he yearned to be gone again, away from his family's expectations and this endless flat land, which now held the remains of his father.

With the long lay-over in Denver, he'd had a chance to feel the beginnings of being back where he belonged. Outside the windows you could see the mountains--the surest sign you were not in Nebraska anymore. And walking around the airport there were men in cowboy hats and boots.

Tomorrow he would be himself again, slipping into the life he'd left behind, as easy as pulling on his old Luchese boots, working as a veterinarian and driving his truck out to ranches to look after people's sick cattle and horses.

He'd even forget the one clear realization that struck him as he watched the coffin being closed for the last time--with his father now gone, he was next in line to deal with the Grim Reaper. Watching the ebb and flow of other people--all strangers--as he waited at the gate for his plane, he'd felt the chill of that thought again.

He was alone in the world in a way he hadn't been before. The thought of his father didn't trigger inside him the old feeling of something--someone--pushing back at him. Instead, there was a vacancy there, like a cold draft in an empty room.

Still, a solitary life was better than no life at all. And he vowed to live the rest of his years to the fullest, whatever they might bring. What that meant for him right now was the warm, rough touch of another man--and the yearning for it swept over him as he sat looking out the porthole beside him at the setting sun.

He'd called his home phone from Grand Island and again from Denver and there had been no answer. Deacon had sent him a postcard weeks ago from Edmonton--without saying what he was doing in Canada--and there'd been his closing words, "See you soon."

Which could have meant days, or weeks, or months. Ellis had learned not to count on him. About the time he'd decide Deacon was gone for good, he'd show up again and move in like he was there to stay.

The nights would then be full of lovemaking. And it was love. There was no other man Ellis felt so much tenderness for--and missing him with such fierceness when he was gone surely meant something. It wasn't just because Ellis spent nearly every night alone. When was the last time he'd had sex anyway? The Fourth of July, at the rodeo in Bozeman?

He'd met a stock dealer from MilesCity at one of the bars and gone with him back to his motel, where the guy had finished off a bottle of tequila, and as he'd taken off his shirt, a wedding ring had fallen out of his pocket onto the floor.

He'd wanted to be fucked, and Ellis had obliged him, but his heart had not been in it. To keep hard, he'd done what he did on the nights when masturbation was the only thing that would help him get to sleep--he closed his eyes and imagined himself with Deacon.

A surge of warm affection then rose in him, and he felt his naked skin flush with aching desire. The man from MilesCity lay on his back, sighing, "Yes, yes, oh yes," almost doubled over under Ellis as he thrust deeper into him. And in the last moments before he came, the man bucking against him and the bed rocking against the wall, it was almost as if he'd made Deacon materialize there out of thin air.

But there was nothing to seal the illusion. With Deacon, his legs wrapped around Ellis, the two of them would have embraced and rolled up tightly together, wet with spent cum, and the kissing once it started would not stop.

Looking down now at the man under him, still lost in an ecstasy and reaching to pull on his full cock, Ellis simply froze where he was, braced upright on his knees and his fists, which were buried in the bed sheets. The man's face and chest were damp with sweat, his hand in a kind of death grip as he jerked off, bobbing faster and faster.

Eyes tight shut, he moaned, his head lifting from the pillow, finally crying out as he came in sudden spurts that shot onto his hairy belly. Then he fell back, his legs dropping to the bed, like he had passed out cold.

Ellis had pulled out of him after a moment, and he'd gone to the bathroom to take a shower. When he came out later and reached for his clothes to get dressed, the guy was still lying there, asleep. He would wake up tomorrow, naked, hung over, and butt sore. He might remember Ellis; he might not.

This was not living life to the fullest, he knew, but damned if he knew what the hell to do about it. Just keep putting one foot in front of the other and do the job he'd been given to do. It was something he did well, and he could take pride in that.

He had phoned his answering service in the morning to say he'd be back for work the next day and to pass the word on to anyone who called. He'd phone again tomorrow morning before dawn and pick up any messages. By sunrise, he'd be on his way to some rancher who needed him, and life would be back to normal.

It was dark in Billings when he landed. Stepping from the plane he could feel that a weather front had passed through and the temperature was falling. As he walked across the tarmac to the terminal, a sharp, cold wind swept around him and quickly penetrated his jacket.

Slipping through a glass door into the building, he saw people waiting at the gate for passengers, some calling out when they saw someone they knew, others already hugging or laughing and slapping each other on the back.

Pushing through the crowd with his carry-bag in one hand, he felt in his pocket for his truck keys and started trying to remember where he had parked in the long-term lot.

"Hey!" a voice came from beside him and he glanced over for a moment without stopping. He saw only a young man standing there, hands in his pockets, watching Ellis walk by.

Then he stopped and looked again. The guy was smiling at him now and coming toward him. "You gonna say hello or not?" he was saying.

It was Deacon.

"What are you doing here?" Ellis said, setting down his bag.

"What's it look like?" Deacon said, glancing around at the other people and then back at Ellis. "I'm here to welcome you back." He just stood there when he got to Ellis, his hands still in his pockets.

"How'd you know I was here?"

"You weren't home when I got there, so I called your answering service. They said you were flying in tonight."

"How'd you get here?"

He stuck out his thumb. "Hitched."

Ellis shook his head and couldn't help grinning back at Deacon's smiling face. "Well, you're a sight for sore eyes, that's for damn sure," he said. He wanted to put his arms around Deacon and hug him hard, but he thought better of it. Hugs could wait.

They walked together out the entrance and headed for the parking lots, where they found Ellis' truck under a lamp post glowing in the night. He tossed his bag into the back and they got into the cab.

The doors slammed shut, Ellis just sat for a moment, letting his feelings well up in him as he looked over at Deacon.

"We're gonna fuck each other silly tonight, you know that, don't you?" Deacon said and laughed.

"You bet your life." And Ellis thought of his dead father in the cold prairie ground.

"I can't wait," Deacon said. "Let's go."

* * *

"Can't you sleep?" Rich said in the darkness, turning to Ty who'd been lying there restless beside him ever since they'd switched off the light more than an hour ago.

Ty sighed. "No."

"You thinking about tomorrow?"

"A little."

Everything was packed and ready to go. They'd be climbing on the Harley when the sun came up and heading west. How far west was hard to say. Rich knew a guy in Phoenix who'd put them up till he got a job, and there was just enough time before winter to get there. They'd go south from Colorado Springs and across New Mexico into Arizona. If the weather held, they'd take a side trip to the Grand Canyon.

It was not a long distance for someone like Rich, who'd been all the way around the world, humping the back country of Vietnam. But for Ty, who didn't know much but growing up in a small town in Iowa, it had to be something a whole lot bigger than he'd ever done before.

He knew Ty would be OK riding behind him on the bike. They'd gone on several day-long rides together and Ty had taken to it easy as anything. He'd even bought himself a helmet with stars and stripes on it like the guy in Easy Rider.

He had a trust in Rich that made him seem fearless, and though Rich had never really liked taking on another rider, Ty's presence behind him was a kind of comfort.

"You havin' second thoughts?" Rich asked him and reached under the sheet to put his hand on Ty's shoulder.

"No."

But Rich wasn't convinced. "Sounds like you might be."

"I was thinking about my family."

Rich slipped his hand now to the back of Ty's neck and stroked his hair with his fingers. Ty had let it grow in the five or six weeks since they'd known each other.

"Your folks are still home to you," Rich said.

Ty stirred, his head turning under Rich's hand, and he reached over to touch Rich on the chest.

"I dunno. Home is here with you in Mike's house. And now Danny, too."

Rich thought about this. "It's been home to me, too, but I can't stay here. I need to have a place of my own somewhere."

"Why?"

"I never thought about it. It's just what a man does." He pulled the two of them closer together under the sheet. "And I want you to do it with me."

Ty was quiet for a while.

"But if that's not what you want," Rich said and didn't say the rest. He had already decided to go without Ty if he wanted to stay behind.

And he didn't like to think what that would be like. There would be a lonesome emptiness for a while, and there was no predicting how heavy that would weigh on him or how long it would last, but he knew he was strong enough now to go on. In the time he'd been here, he'd recovered some of the faith he once had in himself.

"When I said I was thinking about my family," Ty said, "I meant I was wondering whether they'd take me back if you went without me."

"I don't want to go without you."

"But you do want to leave."

"If I don't leave now, it'll mean staying here all winter. I can't ask Mike to let me do that."

"Couldn't we find our own place around here?"

Rich hugged Ty now, holding him close. "It's Mike you can't do without, isn't it?" he said.

It came to Rich now that this might be their last night together. And he knew that he couldn't leave Ty without making love to him one more time.

There might be sex enough on the road and in the nights to come, but when would it ever be like this again? This warm tenderness that he felt. This deep desire to hold on and not let go.

"If I have to choose between you and Mike, I choose you," Ty said.

"But you'd rather not have to choose at all. I know." He took Ty's face in his hands and kissed him. "Ah, my Tyrone," he sighed and kissed him again.