On the Trail to Moonlight Gulch

by Shelter Somerset

  Silver smoke from the cabin billowed skyward. Inside, Tory was warming last night’s Swedish stew, which he’d called kalops. A warm yellow glow from the fire and lanterns danced behind the windows.

  How long had they remained in bed? Four hours? He flushed thinking of it.

  Recalling his heated moments with Tory, Franklin could not prevent his mind from roving back to Bilodeaux when he had walked in on Franklin and Tory that first night after they’d made love. The question remained—why had he come? What had made Bilodeaux enter his cabin without knocking (Franklin hadn’t heard a knock, anyway) and brandish a gun at such an early hour? Of all the times Bilodeaux had charged onto Moonlight Gulch, he’d always remained outside, shouting for Franklin to appear. Save for a few occasions, he’d never even bothered to dismount from his stallion. Had Bilodeaux come to the homestead to murder Franklin in cold blood like he had Clayton Johnson?

  Franklin heard the creek gurgle in the distance, a gentle fiddle-like music. Eyes glowed by a tree stump. A raccoon. The same one that had ventured close to the cabin in autumn for the past three years. Franklin had dubbed him “Green Eyes” for the way his irises shone in the darkness. Tory had said Franklin’s own eyes glowed like a raccoon’s at night. Franklin hadn’t received so many compliments in ages. He sighed.

  Wicasha had said Bilodeaux was predictable only in that he could be expected to lash out in some unpredictable way. What more surprises might he have in store?

  Little reason to let his anxieties develop into a far worse adversary than Bilodeaux, Franklin concluded. The weight of worry alone might beat him down. For now, life continued. Inhaling, he stepped back inside the cabin to the zesty aroma of stewing venison.

  “I WASN’T sure at first, but now I know.” Wicasha chuckled. “Your eyes can no longer lie.”

  “What’re you babbling about?” Franklin glared at Wicasha from under the brim of his hat. They were sitting by the blazing fire pit, enjoying what might be the last temperate evening of the season while shucking green beans. Wicasha sat at the plank table, Franklin leaned against a tree stump. Flames cast oscillating shadows on Wicasha’s crinkling face as his chuckles turned to solid laughter that seemed to shake the last of the remaining leaves from the aspens and birches.

  His broad shoulders quaking, Wicasha continued to shuck. “At first, I thought you might’ve been attracted to him for the same reason Bilodeaux or the big chief was to me,” he said. “Just for your pleasure, just to have a body next to you. But now I can see I was wrong.”

  Franklin, his face heating, turned back to his bowl of beans. He snapped each one as easily with one hand as Wicasha did with two. “What do you mean?”

  “Don’t hide the truth from me, Frank. Not after all I’ve told you. For one thing, your cot has been folded and stored for days.” He snickered again. “Where’s the chikala wasichu been sleeping? With Carlotta?” He laughed harder.

  Hot blood seared Franklin’s cheeks. He removed his Stetson, hooked it on his stump, and combed his hand through his hair, which Tory had recently trimmed and was still wet after his kettle bath. Replacing his hat on his head, he said, “That’s enough from you, Wicasha. There’s nothing to poke fun of here.”

  “I’m not poking fun, Frank. Me of all people wouldn’t do that. You know my history, about me being a winkte.”

  Franklin fell silent. This was all so strange to him. It was one thing for Wicasha to reveal his true self, but to have to talk about it openly? “Then why are you giggling like a drunken hurdy-gurdy girl?” he said under his breath with his bowl of green beans balanced on his lap.

  “I just never imagined you with another man, that’s all.” Wicasha’s tone was more level. “But I can understand why. That Tory, he’s not bad. A good friend. He found my camp all alone after you were hauled to jail for Johnson’s murder. He said that he had used the aid of raven guides to find it, then followed my stream. I wonder how a city boy could be so swift learning things.”

  They sat silently. Franklin gazed at the fire, the flames sweeping away the hard discomfort of Wicasha’s candid words. His lover—it seemed so strange to call him that now—had a reasonable mind. Other than his fear of fire, he was as rational as a young man could be. Franklin wondered if he was frightened now, alone in the cabin, staying clear of the bonfire. Tory had said he had chores to do. Franklin wanted to stay with him, comfort him. Wicasha’s company was embraced as usual—an entire week had passed since he’d last seen him. But Tory… he belonged to him and no one else. The thought thrilled him. Wicasha must’ve detected his subtle shiver.

  “The way you feel, Frank… it’s not so bad.”

  Franklin pondered for a moment, the beans snapping under his fingertips. “Am I a winkte?”

  “Do you feel like one?”

  “No, not really. I see Tory as, well, as someone whose company I like a lot.” He flushed. “That’s all. I’m not looking at other men the way… the way that you might.”

  “I would say you’re not a winkte.” Wicasha paused, then continued. “You wouldn’t be the first man to seek another man’s affections, Frank. I saw it even in the cavalry when two soldiers, far from home, isolated from any good women, would find themselves drawn to each other. They would pretend like it wasn’t happening. But I could see it as clearly as if they were waltzing together in the middle of camp. Tory is a looker with a gentle spirit. No surprise you would fall in love with him in a place as lonely as Paha Sapa.”

  Wicasha was right. Franklin had fallen for Tory. He couldn’t say when it had happened. Perhaps at the trial, when Tory had stood so bravely before the judge and defended him. Or maybe much earlier, when, the morning after he’d found him in the barn loft, he’d awakened to the smell of frying bacon and brewing coffee. His wonderful coffee that he always cracked an egg in, Swedish style.

  Franklin felt something with Tory. As profound as what he’d experienced with his former girl back in Tennessee, the one who’d recoiled from his stump and run off with a Confederate soldier.

  At times, Franklin missed his aloneness in the woods, but over the years his bachelorhood had grown heavy. Tory, a wistful, wonderful breeze, brought scents of comfort to his small parcel of earth. With him, he had the best of both worlds.

  Occasionally, he fantasized about the feel of a woman, but the image of her lying beneath him would be fleeting. Tory would inevitably replace her. To his own pensive surprise, his arousal would magnify.

  No, Franklin was not like Bilodeaux or the Lakota chief, who had both taken Wicasha as their concubine. Franklin respected Tory. He was not a mere plaything. He had not used him to release the stress from a needless murder trial. Deep inside, he knew. Tory meant more to him than Wicasha had meant to Bilodeaux or his chief.

  The emotions were real, as real as at any other time in his life, as were the aching yearnings. And he resented Wicasha for having mocked him for it.

  The spit of sparks from the fire seemed enough to express Franklin’s angst. He settled back against the tree stump and brought his feet closer to his haunches. “You knew all along, didn’t you, Wicasha?” Franklin grimaced. “You told me all that stuff while we were putting up the barbwire fence already knowing about the two of us.”

  The sides of Wicasha’s mouth curled upward. Franklin snorted, shook his head.

  Wicasha chuckled. “I had suspected you had laid down together for pleasure,” he said, “but nothing like what I see now. You surprise even me with the love you two have for each other. I’m envious.”

  With the snap of the beans and the crack of the fire, they kept to their task in silence. Finally, Franklin rested his hand in the bowl and gazed into the fire. “What’s it supposed to feel like to love a man?” he asked, almost to himself, or to the spirits that might be hovering above the shadowy mountain peaks.

  Wicasha peered at Franklin, dark eyes wide and gleaming in the flames. “Same as a woman, I reckon,” he said. He turned back to his beans. “Maybe harder. Men can be competitive
with each other.” Then a wide grin thinned his lips. “But maybe it’s better. You don’t have to worry about reading a man’s mind. Even Lakota women gripe when her husband or beau fails to know her wants before she does.”

  The first real levity in many months tickled Franklin. In that instant, he realized—why worry over what brought him so much pleasure and joy? He needed to embrace his relationship with Tory in the same fashion he embraced Tory himself.

  Yet concerns still nagged him. Henri Bilodeaux. Franklin could not think of his and Tory’s relationship without images of his adversary haunting him. Bilodeaux was a vicious animal, capable of taking and devouring everything in sight. He stalked the forest like a rogue, without any fear of consequences for his dastardly actions. And Franklin knew the bastard had eyes for Tory.

  Chapter 25

  FLUFFY, wet snow spilled over the Black Hills, covering Moonlight Gulch. A gentle calm accompanied the colder months that Franklin had always loved. Tory knew this from one of the letters Franklin had sent him. He had written that winter in the Hills was like “a massive white dove enveloping one with its wings.” Franklin had also stated he liked that the cold locked the gold in the creek pool and “temporarily froze the greed in men’s souls.”

  Tory cherished the colder months in the Black Hills too. Confined with Franklin in the cabin, he sensed a new, broader domesticity linking them. He and Franklin Ausmus truly were sharing a life together. Like a fawn appearing on the edge of the forest, nudging the snow in search of pinecones and moss, their union filled him with a sense of magic.

  The approaching winter also meant Wicasha went missing from the homestead more and more. Tory worried he had chased him out. Franklin assured him that Wicasha, like a bear, often hibernated in the winter inside his teepee, wrapped in buffalo skins, emerging only to eat, drink, and whatever else living creatures do.

  One of the few appearances Wicasha made in November was during Thanksgiving. He and Franklin had made it a tradition to feast on the holiday together. Ever since Abraham Lincoln had declared it a holiday in 1863, Franklin had said he’d taken Thanksgiving rather seriously. Tory cooked a lavish spread of goose, kalops, carrots with fried onions, baked potatoes, pickled green beans, buttered biscuits, mulberry pie, and Tory’s special baked Swedish treats. They had devoured the feast without leaving a morsel for the forest creatures. Tory’s first Thanksgiving was one he’d never forget.

  Tory had already learned from Franklin that Wicasha was a winkte. He’d heard in Chicago that some Indian tribes openly practiced same-sex love, but he had never invested much time considering what that might be like for them. Whenever the three of them were together, Wicasha never spoke about it. What was there to talk about? They were all comfortable with one another’s kinship, and they needed to express few intimate words.

  Winter’s arrival did not spare Tory and Franklin from outdoor work. They still had to pile hay for the livestock (which entailed shaking it free from frost), slop the hogs, feed the hens (although their egg production in winter dropped by half), chop extra wood, and keep a snow-free path from the cabin to the barn and outhouse.

  But the fallow field and shorter daylight hours allowed for extra time together indoors, just the two of them, alone. Franklin stitched rugs and crafted wooden bowls and spoons. Tory started keeping a journal. He wrote by lantern for hours at a stretch. Some occasions they spoke not a word. Domestic bliss filled the cabin, underscored by the warmth from the stove. Tory never tired of the sound of the crackling and hissing pinewood, as long as he didn’t have to sit near the flames.

  Franklin seemed to find Tory’s strange habits and fears amusing. Without complaint, he’d load the wood into the stove and stoke the fire, something he had always done for many years, anyway. Tory’s awe for Franklin intensified. He garnered strength watching him work with one arm. Eventually, Tory began to take his dexterity for granted.

  At Christmas, Franklin surprised Tory with a buckskin jacket he’d sewn. Tory had watched him work on it since September when he’d first arrived at Moonlight Gulch but had never imagined he’d intended to give it to him. In exchange, Tory pulled from under the feather bed a shaving set that he’d bought in Spiketrout in October and had kept hidden since. Franklin’s elongated smile proved Tory had made a smart purchase.

  Often on cold, dark nights, Tory read aloud to Franklin from one of the four books he’d brought from Chicago or from one of Franklin’s tattered ones, or he’d recite from memory favorite passages of Walt Whitman. Franklin always grinned whenever Tory read to him. The look on his face, rosy and cheery, radiated simple happiness. He seemed to enjoy hearing the sound of Tory’s voice.

  The best moments were when Franklin stood and stretched after long periods woodworking or sewing and wandered over to Tory and kissed his head for no apparent reason. A frisson of power and warmth would overcome Tory. He’d lay aside his stirring spoon or pencil or book and wrap his arms around his new beau.

  Tory never tired submitting to Franklin’s touch. Inhibitions no longer hindered their passion under the glow of lanterns or the ambient light of a snowy day. They searched each other with their hands and tongues, whispering their hearts’ longings, exposed and unrestrained.

  One time, while Tory poured hot water into Franklin’s kettle bath by the stove, Franklin simply stood, lifted Tory, and, leaving wet footprints across the cabin floor, laid Tory out on the bed. To the crackling of the wood fire, they made love until a chill reminded them that the embers needed feeding.

  “Does it seem odd to you to lay with a man the way men are meant to with women?” Tory dared ask while Franklin stoked the fire. Tory lay sprawled on the bed, naked and spent. “Do you miss the touch of a woman, Franklin?”

  Franklin remained quiet, contemplating. His brown skin had faded during the winter, and Tory found the faint freckles on his nose and cheeks delightful. Flames from the fire reflected in his eyes like tiny green orbs. Franklin’s answer? He strutted to the bed, climbed on top of Tory, and pecked him with many kisses until Tory’s giggles left him coughing.

  Franklin’s lifting Tory off his cot and tossing him onto his bed that hot and muggy October night after the murder trial hadn’t really surprised Tory. He had sensed the stirrings inside Franklin, as he often did with men. If anything, Tory was shocked that Franklin had acted so quickly and with so little self-scorn afterward. Franklin’s steadfastness had reaffirmed what Tory had guessed from the first time he’d read his advertisement in the Matrimonial News: Franklin harbored a strong, strident masculinity—so potent he was like the lone bull sitting upon a hill, dauntless in his desires.

  Once Tory had realized who had carried him off, he had relented to Franklin’s power. To feel his body pressing into him, melding with his, had swathed him in a surreal fervor. He had whispered into his ears, begging Franklin to do as he pleased, to take him fully. The days that followed carried the suggestion that Tory had another grasp at romance. He and Franklin Ausmus had become lovers. Not even nature dared to question it. Bachelorhood might not loom in Tory’s destiny after all.

  Guilt for having written Franklin those letters chafed him at times, usually when Tory was studying Franklin from across the cabin while he focused on a task. He’d see the workings of his mind comingle with the movement of his hand and knees that he often used as second and third hands, and realize that, along with his unwavering strength, Franklin was a gentle lamb—a man who kept to his own business and had harmed few in his life outside of the mandates of war. At times, Tory found himself on the verge of confessing his deed, his lips puckered, the words poised on his dry tongue. Franklin, annoyed with Tory’s staring, would finally ask, “Speak your mind, Chicagoan.” Tory answered only with flushes and chuckles. He never could reveal the truth.

  Could Franklin accept that it was Tory—and not Torsten P.—who had written to him seeking to be his mail-order bride?

  In February, they celebrated Tory’s twentieth birthday. With the snowshoes Franklin had cra
fted from buckskin and pine, they hiked along the creek. Tory, wearing one of Franklin’s hefty bear-fur coats, stood over the frozen creek pool and tried to see down to the bottom. Air pockets resembling diamonds obscured his view. The crunch of snow and frozen twigs joined their light chatter as they tracked a snowshoe hare to the barbwire fence but never found him. Melting icicles hung from the pine branches. The hazy sun warmed their exposed faces.

  Tory lamented the first tangible sign of the lengthening days. Winter, sheathing them in solitude, had safeguarded them from all the tribulations of the world, walling off the pillagers. He enjoyed being stuck in the cabin with Franklin, when all he had to do was stand, turn his head, or utter a sigh, and Franklin would glance up with a smile or press his bushy mustache firmly against his mouth.

  Yet spring released the fragrances and sounds that tickled Tory. Fever for adventure and exercise, to spread his arms to the Black Hills, lifted him early from bed each morning along with the sun and ushered him out the door. In those moments he missed Chicago the most. He’d reflect on his time with his comrades and their springtime baseball games or strolling the busy avenues where he would watch people and all the commotion.

  Tory was not alone with his restlessness. The spring also aroused more agitation from the animals, particularly the hogs. One early April day, when the last of the snow had melted, Tory stepped outside the cabin, wondering why the swine were fussing. Franklin, stomping around the pigpen, seemed beside himself.

  “What’s the matter with the pigs, Franklin?” Tory said, walking to the pen. “I can hear them squealing inside the cabin.”