On the Trail to Moonlight Gulch

by Shelter Somerset

  “I suppose anyone would fear that,” Tory said, eager to erase any embarrassment caused by Franklin’s confiding in him.

  Franklin fluttered a laugh. “I used to have a dog, a yellow retriever named Ash. She was a good companion. Then she just up and died one day, and I never got another one. I liked having her around. Guess I just didn’t want to deal with another dog dying on me. Maybe it’s best I’m alone. If I couldn’t even handle the death of a dog….”

  “Isn’t there anyone for you to fall in love with?” Tory maintained a casual tone, though his insides churned with longing—accompanied by an eclipsing sense of despair.

  “Not out here,” Franklin said toward his knees. “Most of the women are whores. The good ones come out married. No decent woman would travel to the Black Hills alone and single, unless invited. Did I ever mention to you about the girl I once corresponded with?”

  Blood drained from Tory’s face. He heard himself gasp. Or had the booming thump of his heart reverberated in his ears? A cold silence swarmed him. In the stretching darkness, Tory could barely make himself answer. “No,” he said, unable to hear his own words over his pounding heart, “you never told me.”

  “I met her from one of those nonsensical matchmaker periodicals.” When Franklin mentioned Torsten P.’s name and that she lived in Chicago, Tory thought he might fall off the bench. The reality of his charade engulfed him like the deepening night. Franklin had inadvertently forced him to face a mirror, and what he saw horrified him. Deception and selfishness gaped back at him.

  “I reckon I was desperate.” Franklin sighed self-effacingly. In the flickering torchlight, Tory watched Franklin shake his head and smirk. “I was a fool to think it could amount to anything.”

  Tory did not want to face Franklin, not even in the dim glow of the torchlight that flickered in the breeze. Yet sorrow forced him to gaze at him. He noticed the lines on Franklin’s face move in odd directions, the caverns deep and rugged. His horseshoe mustache cast a dark shadow across the left side of his face.

  “I never even told Wicasha about her,” Franklin went on, his eyes faraway and moist. Crickets began to awaken as the last vestige of evening twilight dissolved. “Not sure why I’m even telling you. Reckon you’re easy to talk with.”

  As the crickets joined the night birds in their avian chorus, Franklin recounted the story Tory knew all too well. Hearing Franklin’s voice rise and fall with emotion with the details of why he’d decided to submit an advertisement to Matrimonial News, his thoughts after reading Torsten’s first letter, and the utter disappointment that he had endured after she had stopped corresponding with him out of the blue, Tory remained frozen, his eyes unblinking. Shame, regret, and sympathy paralyzed him.

  He observed the top of Franklin’s Stetson as Franklin poked a twig at the dirt. Apparently Tory’s silence had smothered Franklin’s candor. His cheeks flushed with what seemed bashfulness.

  Wanting to foster Franklin’s confidence in him again, Tory said, “I guess you sometimes never know why people do the things they do.”

  “Women are a fickle animal, that’s for sure,” Franklin said, chuckling. “Queerer than three-dollar bills. Could never figure them out.”

  “I suppose we’re all like that, in a sense.”

  “You never told me if you got a girl back home,” Franklin said. The tone of his voice, rich and thoughtful, forced Tory to look toward the darkening sky, absent from time and place, where the first bright stars glittered from billions of miles away.

  “No,” he said under his breath. “I don’t have a girl.”

  “No one at all?”

  He wanted to share his experience meeting Joseph, and how he too thought he’d met someone special, only to have it thwarted by calamity. But he knew revealing anything so blunt would shock if not horrify Franklin. Yet the drive to keep the deepening connection between him and Franklin could not be subdued.

  “I was in love once,” he said, sitting up on the bench and wrapping his arms around his shins as the cool breezes off the mountain peaks increased. He rested his chin in the cleft of his joined knees. His entire relationship with Joseph van Werckhoven played out in his mind like a stage play. “It wasn’t that long ago,” he said. “We had a wonderful short time together.”

  “What happened?”

  How could Tory phrase it so that Franklin would think he was talking about a woman? “An untimely death,” he said, hoping that would be adequate. Franklin’s thoughtful repose proved it was.

  “I guess you’re young enough,” he said. “You’ll meet someone new. Me, well, I’m getting up there. Almost forty. My time has most likely run out. That advertisement was my last-ditch effort.”

  Tory thanked the heavens for the cover of night so that Franklin would not see the tears fall down his cheeks, along with the shame and craving that polarized him, convulsing the muscles around his mouth. He looked back at the infinite sky. Iridescent stars overhead appeared brighter, like millions of tiny candles. Their harmony failed to mollify the conflicting emotions burrowing under his skin.

  Tory needed Franklin to know. Needed to convince him that someone had loved him, even if it meant preserving the deception. “I’m sure Torsten loved you,” he said. “I’m sure of it. How could she not? Her father must have interfered with her correspondence with you. Did you ever think of that?”

  Chirping crickets filled the ensuing silence. “I did,” Franklin breathed. “When she stopped replying to my letters, I thought about hunting her down in Chicago, if only to make sure she was safe and unharmed. I worried she had fallen ill. But then I realized I’d be chasing after a mirage. I really didn’t know her. I had no idea what she looked like or even what her family’s name was. She gave me some mysterious initial.”

  Brazen remorse overwhelmed Tory, but also relief. He hadn’t mentioned in any of his letters to Franklin his surname, after all. Yet nowhere could he escape from the torment of what he’d done to Franklin Ausmus. He craved to somehow ameliorate his pain.

  “You had a girl during the Civil War, didn’t you?” he said. “Wasn’t she there waiting for you when you returned home?”

  Franklin chuckled. “I was just fourteen when I joined with the Union,” he said. “My girl was nothing but a schoolboy crush. She’d fallen in love with another fellow while I was away at battle. We were young, not likely things would’ve worked out one way or the other, with or without war.” He paused a moment and joined Tory’s gaze heavenward, reflecting on the shimmering stars, perhaps reliving scenes from the war, past interludes, a faraway life. He shrugged and looked back to earth. “After I realized my old girl and I weren’t meant to be, well, I just hit the road. I was a war veteran out making my own way before I turned eighteen.”

  “All that must’ve been difficult,” Tory said. “Especially with your injury.”

  “Stuff happens,” Franklin said. “You gotta do what you gotta do.”

  “At least the war had ended,” Tory said. “I can’t imagine how horrible that must’ve been.”

  “Most people never know how such things get started,” Franklin said. “It’s like a storm that blows in over the mountains. It comes, and you hunker down and wait for it to pass. We had no use with worrying over whether it was horrible or not.”

  “I guess I grew up spoiled. I’ve never experienced a war.”

  Franklin chortled. “You will, don’t worry. There’s always a war around the corner somewhere.”

  Tory shivered. “You think that Bilodeaux will come back here?” He had to learn what Franklin thought about the issue. Sleep would never come without some reassurance. Franklin failed to provide it.

  “He’ll be back,” he said flatly. “He might keep himself scarce for a while. But he’ll be back.”

  “What will you do when he does?”

  The implications of Franklin’s extended pause loomed as clearly as the surrounding night. Franklin had no need to express his thoughts. He would resort to killing Bilodeaux if
he must. If Bilodeaux didn’t kill him first.

  Franklin fiddled more with the stick, chucked it away. Tory felt as if Franklin had tossed him across the yard.

  “Why does he have to bother you so much?” he said. “Why can’t he just mind his own business?”

  “He’s just that way, like a lot of folks.” Franklin wiggled his mustache. “Maybe I should just pan the gold, if that’s what the world wants from me.”

  Shudders coursed through Tory. At first he thought he was shivering from the chilly winds coming off the mountains. Then he understood that a new fear had seized him and was shaking him like a cougar would its prey.

  “Don’t, Franklin,” he said, almost in a cry. He sat up straight, the soles of his boots flat on the earth. “Please don’t pan for the gold.”

  Franklin gazed at him under the brim of his hat in the jitter of torchlight. “Why so adamant?”

  Recollections of all the people he’d come across since he’d first stepped onto the stagecoach in Cheyenne City rumbled in Tory’s mind. So many of his fellow travelers had looked leery, suspicious, with greed seeping from their hearts like oil. He remembered the old silver miner on the stage north of Chugwater talking about how he hadn’t even wanted the silver but that it had come so easily, he couldn’t resist. Eventually, he’d become subservient to it. He’d wandered the country like a man sleepwalking, looking for more and more. Many in the town of Spiketrout had proved little different.

  The night before, Tory had told Wicasha that he wished Franklin would pan the gold and toss it to whoever wanted it for no reason other than to get everyone off his back. Now, he realized the folly of his proposition. Franklin would never be able to give people enough. Gold enslaved men. Turned them into savages. Men would kill just for the chance of procuring it, as Bilodeaux had proved when he’d killed Old Man Johnson. Tory could not bear the slightest possibility that gold might seduce Franklin in a similar way.

  He thought it curious how in nearly every language that he knew the words for gold and God were similar. In Swedish, “guld,” and “Gud” echoed the English words “gold” and “God.” The French called kings “roi,” akin to their word for gold, “or.” Was it all a mere coincidence? Or had humans long ago created a connection between gold and gods that had bled even into their languages, their very souls?

  Tory would rather face off the raiders than risk Franklin becoming like them. He wanted to state his concerns without pretense. “I’m afraid,” he said. “I’m afraid the gold might change you, like when people drink they sometimes act differently, some even violently. Don’t pan for the gold, Franklin. Don’t ever think of it again. Please, promise me you won’t. Promise me you won’t let the gold take hold of you.”

  A strong breeze came down from the rock face as Franklin opened his mouth to speak. “The evil of the Black Hills placer gold isn’t the gold itself,” he said, pronouncing each syllable, as if to make Tory understand the precise meaning of his words, “it’s that it brings wealth too easily. That’s what turns men into savages. When riches come to them like in a dream, effortlessly, without the need for using their minds or bodies, they become beasts who cannot stop wanting more. I’ve seen it happen to better men than me. Just look at the town of Spiketrout. Look around—who’s decent and who isn’t? The deadbeats want whatever comes trouble-free, whatever someone else got.”

  “Then you agree,” Tory said, sitting straighter, his fingers clasped firmly around the bench. “You understand how evil it is. Please, please, Franklin. Don’t pan for the gold. Tell me you won’t.”

  Franklin cracked a smile. “You like the way I am, huh?”

  The air shifted. Static charges rode on the back of the increasing wind. The tiny hairs on the nape of Tory’s neck stood stiff. An animal scavenged near the woodpile. Wordlessness lingered for many seconds.

  “I like the way you are, Franklin,” Tory said unflinchingly. “You’re just about the most perfect person on earth, one arm and all. There’s more wealth in your shunning the gold than all the gold in the world.”

  The whites of Franklin’s eyes reflected the light of the torch as he gazed at Tory. He seemed to mull over Tory’s tribute. Chuckling, he shook his head and picked at the dirt on the ground. “I’m not all that,” he said. “I’m just a hog farmer from Tennessee trying to mind his own business.”

  “And that’s exactly what makes you heroic.”

  A gentle silence descended upon them. They remained like that a good ten minutes, listening to the night birds and the crack of twigs from the nocturnal rodents foraging under the shelter of night, until Franklin, inhaling, stood and stretched. “I best get to bed. Been a long day.”

  With his one arm, Franklin snubbed the torch flame in the cold fire pit until gray smoke snaked toward the incandescent constellations. He left the extinguished torch sticking out of the pit like a lance.

  Inside the cabin, Franklin lit a lantern. He held it to his face. The green of his irises sparkled like emeralds. “You sure that cot’s doing all right for you?”

  “Yes, I’m sure.” Tory had just slipped off his boots and day clothes and was climbing into bed in his union suit.

  “I feel badly making you sleep there,” Franklin said. “But it’s all I got.”

  “It’s more than enough. Really.”

  “Maybe I’ll craft another bed. Been thinking of doing it.”

  “You don’t need to do so much. You’ve already given me an opportunity to live and work on your homestead. That’s more than any man should ask for.”

  “It’s been no trouble. Well, reckon I’ll be turning in. If you need anything, just let me know.”

  “All right.”

  “Good night, then.”

  “Good night.”

  TORY had no idea how long he’d been asleep—five minutes, an hour, half the night?—when he thought he was freefalling in a dream. Then he realized he was awake, struggling as someone reached for him. Half-dazed, he thought whoever it might be was trying to suffocate him. The interloper groped, squeezed, choked him, twisted his arms, pinched his waist, grunting and moaning. Sour breath blasted heavy in his face. Someone was trying to force him off the cot. He gasped for air. His undergarments were pulled and yanked. He wanted to scream, but his tongue cleaved to his dry palate each time he tried to yell. Suddenly, he felt the sensation of someone lifting him and carrying him away.

  Chapter 22

  FRANKLIN had been lying in bed awake, unable to sleep after such a chaotic day, when the heated blood had begun to pound in his ears. At first, he had thought the intensity of the trial had prevented him from sleeping. But the preceding events had not been what raced inside his mind while he’d tossed about in his feather bed, his hand like a clamp over his head.

  He’d been picturing Tory sleeping in the cot just on the other side of the wooden partition. He’d remembered back to when they’d bathed in the creek pool. He couldn’t have helped but notice his figure. So subtle, yet firm and masculine. Like the granite rocks smoothed by the gentle flow of the creek.

  And his words from a few hours ago. So sweet. He really did care for Franklin in a way Franklin had never thought anyone might. He had referred to him as heroic. The heat that had begun in his cheeks had spread like a wildfire throughout his entire body.

  What thoughts had traipsed through his mind?

  He’d clutched the bottom sheet with his hand, willing down the spasms. Squeezing his eyes shut, he’d hoped to rid himself of such images. Then that spicy boy from Richmond had appeared in his mind’s eye. While on furlough in the South’s capital, he had paid the boy for sex. The boy had been flirty, pushy, his intentions without pretense. Franklin had not needed the renter to have fooled him. He knew what he had been doing with him in the alley behind the tavern. He knew what they both had wanted.

  Franklin’s body had twisted like a torqued chain ready to unwind with a snap as he squirmed atop his bed. Heat had built in his groin to the point of pain. His top sheets had l
ain in a knot by his feet from his having kicked at them. Smoldering breathlessness had compressed his chest. His mind had gone swirling in heated blindness like a sizzling summer thunderstorm.

  He had wandered to the side of Tory’s cot as if in a spell, unable to contain the mounting force. He couldn’t recall how long he’d stood there, staring down at the young man and watching his chest rise and fall rhythmically under the sheet. He had noticed Tory was aroused, and had ogled him, wanting to reach for him. When he finally had, it had been as if someone had moved his arm for him. Now, with Tory’s muted yelps muffled in his ears, he found himself carrying Tory, fumbling with him in his one arm, determined to keep him tight to his chest.

  He already had Tory’s union suit stripped down to his waist by the time he tossed him onto his feather bed. How he had accomplished it without dropping Tory to the wood floor, he could not answer. Tory tore at Franklin’s undergarments, struggling, twisting, punching, kicking. Shaking and frightened. Franklin could feel his own heat rising from under the cotton fabric as his skin was exposed to Tory’s touch.

  His senses in the dark weakened. He smelled, heard, saw almost nothing. But the sensation of touch intensified. The feel of flesh was like bee stings striking raw nerves. Suddenly, Tory’s struggles abated. His muscles slackened. No doubt he understood fully what was happening to him, and he no longer fought to get away. He longed for it as much as Franklin.

  Tory was allowing it. Wanting it. Demanding it.

  The rest of their undergarments fell in a combined pile on the floor. They rolled on top of each other, kneading each other’s flesh. Tory submitted to Franklin, melding with his body. Franklin’s heart raced with a fury he feared might bring him near death. Yet he cared little. He needed, wanted Tory then and there. Damn the consequences. Tory was giving himself to him. And he was going to take him, determinedly and without reservation.