by Sarah Black
A man standing behind him spoke. “That shy-boy act is very appealing, isn’t it, Brandon?” David turned around, and Quanah Parker’s old lover—what was his name? Colton something—was standing in the shop, a sneer on his handsome face, his arms crossed over his chest.
Brandon looked between them, his face wary. “Hi, Colton. I didn’t know you were back in town. Have you met David Miller?”
“Yeah, I have. Quanah Parker introduced us yesterday.” He turned to David. “I have a friend at Boise State. I called him last night. There is quite the scuttlebutt going around. Seems like you left under a cloud? Some sort of sex scandal?”
Shock burned in the pit of David’s stomach. He shoved his shaking hands deep in his pockets. Oh no. Just like last time, just when he was feeling happy enough to fly without wings… Quanah Parker would be so embarrassed. He had introduced David to Damien, to his friends, and then… This getting around, his stupidity, his… Wait a minute. Wait a cotton-picking minute. Did this asshole realize he was talking to the recipient of a nomination for the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize? David tried a little sneer of his own. “Well, you know Boise. Any sex is worthy of a scandal.”
Brandon laughed, took his arm, and pulled him behind the checkout counter. After Colton had left the shop, the door banging behind him, Brandon shook his head. “David, you have never seen two more miserable people than Colton and Quanah Parker when they were sleeping together.” His face was gentle. “I think you must be good for him. He seems happy.”
“Did he call you?”
Brandon nodded. “He did. I’m not sure if you’re supposed to know that. Are you in trouble? Did something happen down at Boise State?”
“Yeah, something happened, but I don’t know that I’m in trouble. Maybe just stupid and clueless. And embarrassed.”
“Maybe just young,” Brandon said. “Give me your e-mail, and I’ll drop you a line when I get the reading arranged. I’ll leave a message for you at Tootsies too, in case you’re too busy writing poetry to turn on your laptop.”
David raced back up the street and burst into Tootsies. “Quanah Parker, you are not going to believe this! The Lenore Marsh—”
He had interrupted something. Colton was standing in the shop, and he and Quanah Parker were nose to nose. They were both so beautiful. David felt a pang in his chest. Big and strong and handsome, real mountain men, both of them. No wonder they fell for each other, like two halves of some lovely mythical story about the West. Colton was wearing his sheepskin coat, had a buffalo-felt Stetson in his hand the exact golden brown of his hair.
Colton turned to him. “Believe what?”
“Nothing.” David looked from one to the other. “Quanah Parker, do you need some privacy? I can step out.”
He shook his head. “We’re fine, David.”
“Did you really fuck a stranger in the backseat of a car in the parking lot of the Top Hat? And let somebody get a picture of it? Jesus. I didn’t know people still did that after they were eighteen. One of your students? Is that why they canned you?”
David couldn’t think of anything to say. And why should he say anything? Quanah Parker was silent as well, watching David’s face carefully, leaning against the front counter, and the silence lengthened until Colton turned to Quanah Parker. “You’re a fucking idiot. Maybe your little Stanley life is the one for you, after all. You settled for that, and now you’ve settled for this.”
Quanah Parker didn’t move, and Colton pushed through the shop door.
David stood there, feeling like shit on a stick. Quanah Parker held out an arm to him. David walked forward blindly, let Quanah Parker pull him in. He rocked David against his big chest, and David felt lips on his hair. “So what’s your big news?”
The bright white excitement filled his chest again. “Sand Creek! It’s been nominated for the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize. Can you believe it? I mean, really! Can you believe it?”
* * *
David went to the grocery store to buy bananas and sweet clementines for Mr. Running Bear. Maybe fresh fruit in addition to his steady diet of sausage and bacon would be good for his heart. Quanah Parker waved him out, muttering about needing to get some work done before any more old boyfriends acting like drama queens burst into the shop. He was finished by lunchtime, though, and took David out to celebrate the good news. David had a lovely green chef’s salad, and Quanah Parker ate a massive burger called the Duke. With hand-cut fries. “You’re eating an alpaca lunch,” Quanah Parker said. “You’re gonna be starving by suppertime.”
“We’ll be home for supper, right?”
“Yep.”
David thought for a moment of the tiny cabin, the cold stove, the mountains of canned beef stew waiting for him, and he had a slight sinking feeling in his chest. He sipped from his crystal flute of fresh-squeezed orange juice, and the feeling passed quickly.
Quanah Parker grinned at him and folded a fry into his mouth. “Do we have anything to discuss?”
David shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
“Then I’m going to make a suggestion.”
“Okay.”
“Why don’t you use your grandpa’s cabin for work. To write your poetry. And come live with me. And be my love.”
For a moment David remembered that feeling, standing on a rock out in the river, his moccasins starting to slip out from under him. Then he closed his eyes, took a little leap in his mind to rock number three. He wiggled his toes. He was steady. He was good. Alpaca from Jerry Garcia and buffalo-hide fishing mocs. His feet were very, very happy.
* * *
Stanley Schoolhouse, Christmas Pageant
The teacher had started getting squirrelly around Halloween, and come Thanksgiving she flew home to Phoenix to see her parents and didn’t come back. David was talked into subbing at the school by the persuasive cowboy poet from the Stanley General Store. Maybe the math curriculum was suffering a bit, but the reading levels were skyrocketing since David had instituted an hour of personal reading time in the afternoon and was reading The Golden Compass aloud to the whole school. The four kids in kindergarten mostly fell asleep in their little fleece sleeping bags. The first- and second-graders romped around the playground, pretending to be armored bears. But the older kids were getting it. Several of them had already checked out copies of The Subtle Knife, and the bossy girl David secretly thought of as Hermione had finished The Amber Spyglass. David was pleased.
They were going with a Native American theme for the Christmas pageant. Instead of a manger, they had erected a tepee on the school grounds, and Fred and George, Crazy Horse, and Jerry Rice were standing in for the more traditional animals. The fourth- and fifth-graders had drawn a map of the world and shaded the traditional lands of indigenous people in 1809 and in 2009. The eighth-graders had researched Sand Creek and drawn a pictograph of the massacre on the sides of the tepee. They were letting the little kids color in the pictures with washable markers. Mary and Joseph were wearing buckskins and moccasins, preparing to read aloud their original poems celebrating the birth. The baby Jesus was wrapped in a small Pendleton blanket. David was very proud.
Amy Prentiss came up to him, holding a cup of cider and a Christmas cookie shaped like a tepee. “David! I’m so happy to see you. Don’t you ever answer your e-mails?”
David hugged her. “Only when I want to, Amy. What are you doing here?”
“I thought I would see how you felt about coming back. Things are a little thin around the department. I’m sure I could talk the dean…”
David was shaking his head. “Amy. You must be joking. Leave Stanley? Not before all the stars fall from the Idaho sky. Have another cookie. Try one of the pemmican angels. The kids made them out of an authentic recipe, real juniper berries.”
She fed the last bit of her tepee cookie to Crazy Horse. “That’s okay. You like it here, don’t you?”
David looked around, studied the broad back of Quanah Parker. He had a couple of Native American wis
e men slung giggling over his shoulders. Jerry Rice was nibbling on the pocket of his jeans. “It’s home.”
THE END
Loose Id Titles by Sarah Black
Border Roads
Colorado Gold
Slow Fires
The Lincoln County Wars
The Three Miracles of Santos Socorro
Erotic Interludes
Cinnamon Toast and Sex
Featuring the characters from Slow Fires
“Murder at the Heartbreak Hotel”
Part of the anthology Partners in Crimee
With Josh Lanyon
Sarah Black
10 Things About Sarah Black
Sarah likes to drive around on empty, red-dirt roads on the Navajo reservation in a beat-up blue Ford Ranger pickup. Unfortunately, she still doesn't know how to change a flat tire.
Every Christmas, Sarah tries to make her grandmother's fudge recipe, the one on the back of the Hershey's cocoa box. So far no luck. This year she's going to break down and buy a candy thermometer.
Sarah has a secret addiction to reading books from Mother Earth News about building your own house. Right now she is reading about Cordwood and Cob.
Sarah will use any excuse to buy cashmere sweaters from Land's End. She has even been known to do it without an excuse.
When she was young, Sarah wanted to marry Barnabas Collins, the vampire from Dark Shadows.
Life goal: To visit all of America's National Parks.
Sarah has lived in: California, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Mississippi, Texas, Arizona, and Alaska. Also Italy, and one year in the Persian Gulf on the Hospital Ship USNS Comfort.
First pet: Janet, a red-eared turtle the size of a quarter. During a hurricane evacuation in 1968, Sarah's father carried Janet in his pocket wrapped in a damp washcloth, inside a plastic bag.
Sarah has a secret crush on Brett Favre, and believes that he redeems the sins of the rest of the NFL. He is one of the few remaining quarterbacks playing who is not young enough to be her son.
When she can't sleep, Sarah gets up and reads a random selection from the Oxford English Dictionary. Sometimes those words show up in her stories.