by Kim Fielding
“Thank you.” Henry set his burden onto the splintery porch floor. But he didn’t seem eager to leave, and Orris… good Lord, Orris could look at him all day.
“Would you like to sit a while?” Orris asked. “I can get you something to eat or drink.”
Henry’s broad smile was enough to make Orris weak at the knees. “I’ll pass on the food and drink, but I wouldn’t mind sitting for a spell. I don’t get much conversation.” He sat in one of the chairs.
Orris sat too, thinking how lonely it would be to live all alone in the forest, nothing but a ghost for company. Orris didn’t much care for crowds, but even he wouldn’t fancy complete solitude.
For several minutes neither of them said a word. Henry seemed comfortable, though, and his gaze was frank and friendly. Finally, he grinned slightly. “Do you like it here, Orris? Or do you miss the city?”
“I’m getting used to it. It’s very different, of course. But beautiful.”
Perhaps that was the correct answer, because Henry gifted him with that stunning smile again. “I’ve never seen a big city. I’d be uncomfortable.”
“Where are you from?”
Henry leaned back in his seat as if he intended to stay there awhile, which pleased Orris so much he couldn’t hide a grin.
“My parents sailed to California in 1850,” Henry said.
“Were they looking for gold?”
“No,” Henry replied with a small chuckle. “Money ain’t important to us.”
“Then why did they come?”
With a sad smile, Henry looked away, staring across the road at a muddy field. “Used to be more of us,” he said quietly. “Never a lot, but more. We had… communities. But that was a long time ago. Men started burning the forests to make cities, and they invented guns. Machines. Life got harder for us.”
Orris wondered exactly who “us” was. A small religious sect? A persecuted community like the Gypsies? He didn’t ask, because it didn’t seem right to interrupt Henry’s story, especially when the story seemed to bring him such pain.
But when Henry remained silent a long time, his eyes focused far away, Orris cleared his throat. “So your family immigrated for a better life?”
Henry returned his attention to Orris. “Yes. My parents and a few others came to California. Me and Charles were born a few years later. But it turned out things in California weren’t that much easier. We still….” He rubbed the back of his neck. “My folks died. Some of us moved up here. But now it’s me and Char— It’s just me left.”
Orris was used to longing for things he couldn’t have. But he’d never wanted anything as badly as he wanted to rise from his chair and draw Henry into his arms, to offer him the comforts of flesh and blood.
“Do you still have people in California? Or in Europe?”
“Dunno. Maybe.”
More silence passed between them. Orris didn’t know what thoughts passed through Henry’s mind. It seemed presumptuous to even speculate. But Orris had an odd certainty that a particular part of Henry’s heart was mapped exactly like his own: a barren land that despaired of experiencing anything but loneliness.
And then Henry shocked Orris by reaching over to squeeze the top of his hand. “Tell me about New York, Orris. What’s it like?” He took his hand away, but Orris could still feel the warmth.
“It’s crowded. Dirty. Dangerous, sometimes.”
“Where did you live? I heard of buildings five, six stories tall. Like mountains full of people. Did you live in one of them?”
“No. Our house had just two floors, plus a cellar and an attic. The attic was always miserably cold in the winter and like an oven during the summer. I felt sorry for the servants who had to sleep up there.”
“Servants.” Henry had tilted his head quizzically. “So you have a lot of money.”
“No. My father has a lot of money.” Orris shrugged. “I quite literally haven’t a penny to my name.”
“Me neither. Money, gold… they’re hard. Lifeless. Smell bad. Got no use for ’em.”
“I wish I could say the same,” Orris replied a little wistfully. “But I’m afraid I can’t hunt for my suppers as you do.”
A strange intensity burned in Henry’s eyes. “Maybe not now. But you could.”
“Are… are you offering to teach me to hunt? Because I’m not good at all with a gun. Samuel tried to teach me and was not at all successful.”
Henry’s teeth flashed white when he smiled. “I don’t need a gun to hunt.”
Orris didn’t know what to make of that statement. Really, he didn’t know what to make of Henry at all. The man seemed uneducated, almost feral, and yet his intelligence shone through his simple words. And everything he said seemed to have a dual meaning, like a secret language that Orris couldn’t quite understand. Orris felt an almost physical tug toward Henry and wanted to believe Henry felt the same—but couldn’t possibly hazard finding out if that were so.
“There must be something good about the city, Orris. Tell me.”
Because Henry seemed sincere, and because it had been a very long time since anyone had seemed particularly interested in what Orris had to say, Orris complied. He spoke about museums and concerts, about restaurants and theaters. He described Central Park, with its polite facsimile of the wilderness. And he talked about the jumble of languages one heard on the street, the shops with every imaginable luxury, and the people who were heartrendingly poor.
Orris spoke longer than he had in years, but Henry appeared fascinated by his words, asking many questions. Orris had never before felt so… interesting.
He was in the midst of discussing one of his university classes when he accidentally mentioned Daniel’s name. His tongue stumbled, causing him to blush.
Without Orris noticing, Henry had managed to move his chair closer and had angled it a bit so they were facing each other more than they faced the road. Now Henry leaned forward until he was close enough for Orris to see the little specks of blue and gray in his eyes.
“Why did your family send you away, Orris?”
“I told you. I disgraced them.”
“How?”
Orris did not owe this man an answer. They barely knew each other, after all. He could refuse to respond. He could generate a falsehood, reinvent his own history. He should do this.
Veritas liberabit vos, said the Bible—the truth shall set you free. But that was a lie because the truth had sent Daniel far out of reach and banished Orris to the opposite end of the continent.
Ah. But wasn’t that a kind of freedom too? Freedom from starched collars and droning sermons, freedom from his father’s disdainful glares.
Orris looked Henry steadily in the eyes. “I disgraced my family by being a sodomite,” he said—quite loudly.
Henry did not flinch or sneer, nor did he move away. “What happened to your lover?” he asked.
It wasn’t the response Orris had expected, and it took him a moment to answer. “He’s gone.” He didn’t explain the rest—how in the few dizzying, terrifying days after they were discovered in bed together, Orris overheard a servant saying that Daniel was being sent abroad. Orris had hurried the several blocks to Daniel’s house, harboring visions of running away together, sharing a life in Germany or France or Italy or… or anywhere. But Daniel had turned him away. It seemed he couldn’t abide the thought of losing his family’s financial support. Orris boarded a westbound train just two days later.
“Good,” Henry said, which wasn’t at all the proper answer. Except then he stood—quite suddenly—and grasped Orris’s upper arms, drawing him out of his chair. And then Henry gently but firmly pushed Orris back until he was pressed against the white-painted wall of the house, until their bodies were flush, until the scent of leather and sweat was thick in Orris’s nose.
“You can say no, and I’ll stop,” Henry whispered into Orris’s ear. Good Lord, he was so solid and strong and sure.
Orris took a deep breath before tilting his head slightly.
“I won’t say no.”
Henry growled. The sound came from deep in his chest, and it made Orris’s entire body vibrate. And when Henry licked him—his tongue moving slowly from Orris’s ear down the taut curve of his neck to the edge of his collar—Orris very nearly lost his mind. But what truly undid him was when Henry kissed him. No chaste brushing of lips; no tentative fumbles. Henry pressed his tongue into Orris’s mouth and his groin against Orris’s hip. Orris clutched at him and pushed his own body forward.
He’d never kissed outdoors. It was wonderful. The road was very lightly traveled—sometimes days went by with no passersby. But as far as Orris was concerned, the entire population of New York City could have been gathered there in the mud, goggling at the porch, and he wouldn’t have stopped what he was doing. Why would he when need thrummed through his body and Henry’s, as natural and primal and huge as the mountains themselves.
Without breaking their kiss, Henry fumbled at Orris’s shirt buttons. Good. They would have skin. Orris wanted to taste every inch of him.
But then Henry froze and pulled away, his head tilted upward. “You have a new niece or nephew, I think.” His voice was raspy.
“I…. What?”
“Healthy, judging by the crying. Sounds strong.”
Orris heard nothing but his own thudding heart and coarse breaths.
Henry took a step backward. He let one hand linger on Orris’s arm for a moment before drawing farther away, just out of reach. “No,” Orris protested.
“I reckon your family will be looking for you soon. Orris, I want— Well, don’t matter what I want. I know your life changed pretty drastically when you came out west, but what I have to offer, it’s a whole different world. You shouldn’t accept my offer lightly.”
“I don’t know what you’re offering.”
“Exactly.” Henry smiled. “I’ll give you some time. Time to make choices. You gotta know what you really want, Orris. Someday you could get on a train and head back to New York. But sometimes when we travel, we can’t go back. So we better make damned sure that’s where we want to go.”
“But I do—”
“Time, Orris. Ain’t no hurry to do it all at once.”
Henry stepped off the porch, then turned back to look at Orris. Unnoticed by Orris, the rainfall had increased, and now the water darkened Henry’s hair and ran down his face. He pointed at the fabric-wrapped bundle of deerskins. “Thank your brother for me. Wish him well with the new baby.” And then he loped away.
7
Jesse Orris Spencer was a screamer. Although he wasn’t an especially large baby, one wouldn’t know that based on the volume and vigor of his bellowing. His parents were delighted with his vocal outrage over hunger and discomfort; they said it was an indication of his health. But Orris—who’d cried a bit himself when he learned he was to be his nephew’s namesake—secretly wished Jesse could be healthy a little more quietly.
Late winter might have been a slow season on the farm, but spring was not. Ploughing and planting needed to be done, and then the fields needed weeding. More lambs were born, and chicks and ducklings hatched, which meant more time spent feeding them and caring for their varied and inevitable ailments. Everyone would have been exhausted anyway, even were it not for Jesse’s interruptions of their sleep.
They lost a few birds to raccoons or foxes, but no more lambs, and Samuel suspended the nighttime watches. Orris fell into bed each night sore and bone-weary, and if he dreamed, he didn’t remember it when he awoke.
It was a happy time for all of them. Samuel and his family were thrilled with the new baby. Even Lucy smiled more often, and once or twice she even cracked a small joke. The girls were pleased to help care for their brother and proud to be taking on more of the household chores. Samuel strutted around, grinning more widely than any Fifth Avenue millionaire.
And oddly enough, Orris was happy too. For the first time in his life, he felt pride in his body. He would never be as well built as Samuel, but Orris had developed strong muscles on his arms, chest, and legs. Physically, he could do far more than he’d dreamed. Sometimes in the chill mornings, before he dressed, he ran his hands over the flat planes of his belly and the new contours of his upper body, and he smiled as he imagined Henry’s hand instead of his.
Even these many weeks later, he could still taste Henry’s kiss.
The rigors of farm life didn’t give Orris much time to think about Henry, at least at a conscious level. And perhaps that was just as well, because Orris’s thoughts on the matter were… murky. When he tried to understand what Henry was offering him, Orris’s mind flinched away, as though he was keeping secrets from himself.
So instead of contemplating the matter as a scholar might, Orris remembered the taste of Henry’s mouth, his intoxicating earthy scent, and the press of their firm bodies together.
Dinner came later now that the days were longer, and by the time food was served, everyone was famished. Tonight Orris had a third helping of meat and bread and a second generous slice of pie. Afterward he and Samuel ambled outside to the porch to watch the stars peek through tattered clouds. Orris sat in the same chair Henry had, and imagined he could still feel Henry’s warmth.
“I reckon in the fall we’ll send the girls to school in town,” Samuel said without preamble.
“I can teach them here.”
“I know. But they’re getting older. They should spend more time around other young’uns. And I could use your help for other things. You’re right handy to have around.”
Orris smiled. “Thank you. But it’s far for them to walk, isn’t it?”
“There’s children ’round here who walk farther. I reckon once in a while I can give them a ride, when I have to fetch something from town anyhow.”
They watched the breeze pick up and set the treetops aflutter. An owl called from somewhere close.
Samuel cleared his throat. “I want you to know something, Orr. Me and Lucy, we weren’t all that excited about taking you in. We figured you’d be a burden.”
“I’m sorry,” Orris said, not looking at him.
“Me too. I mean—you were still just a boy last time I’d seen you. And you were always off with your nose in a book. I didn’t picture you adjusting well to farm life. Sure didn’t picture you mucking out horseshit or lugging lumber around. But you’ve done those things, Orr. Done them well. You ain’t a burden. Not even close.”
Now Orris did look at his brother, and if Orris’s eyes were slightly watery, well, perhaps that was understandable. “Thank you. And thank you for… for giving me a place when I had nowhere else to go.”
“Well, that’s what I’m trying to tell you. You got your feet under you now. Maybe you’ll decide one of these days that you want to strike out on your own. Someone like you—smart, strong, willing to work hard—he’s got plenty of opportunities out here. But you’re truly welcome in this household. Stay forever and that ain’t a problem. And if you leave, you can always come back. Anytime. This’ll always be your home too.” Samuel smiled. “You helped build it.”
Samuel’s words dulled a pain Orris hadn’t even realized he’d been suffering. “Thank you. I’m grateful to you and Lucy.”
“Maybe someday you’ll find a woman and—”
“I won’t.”
“You don’t have to…. It doesn’t have to be about that kind of love. Maybe you just find someone who you feel comfortable with. Someone to work at your side, keep you company in the evenings. That’s not such a bad thing, is it?”
Orris thought for a moment. “Would it be enough for you?”
“No,” Samuel answered with a sigh. “I reckon it wouldn’t.”
Jesse’s cries woke Orris in the middle of the night, and he couldn’t fall back asleep. He ended up getting dressed—fumbling for his clothes in the darkness—and heading outside. The wind had cleared the clouds away, and a nearly full moon shone brightly. Orris didn’t need a lantern to make his way to the sheep paddock.
&nb
sp; The animals were awake, huddled together at the spot farthest from the forest. Every now and then, one of them baaed. He felt a little sorry for them, always having to fear predators. Yet he couldn’t blame the predators, who had to eat. Besides, Orris and the rest of the household had dined on lamb themselves the night before—and it had been delicious.
If Orris stood in a particular spot near the corner of the fence, he had clear views of both the house and the wooded hills. The house glowed slightly in the moonlight. It was a very modest structure; in New York he’d seen grander carriage houses. But even with the windows dark, this house looked safe and welcoming. His own bedroom was plain but cozy, with a good bed, a colorful rag rug on the floor, and a few of his nieces’ drawings tacked to the walls. Right now the walls were whitewashed, but Samuel and Lucy had discussed with him the possibility of wallpapering them soon.
And then there was the forest, which rose up the hill and, as far as Orris knew, continued forever. He’d walked into those trees only once, when he’d accompanied Samuel to Henry’s cabin. They’d been walking quickly then, and he hadn’t had the chance to take in many details. He wondered what mysteries were hidden there, what creatures stalked through the green.
He wondered whether Henry was in his cabin right now, maybe thinking of him. Instinct told him not—he believed that Henry was probably outside under the same sky as him.
Orris turned around and gazed into the paddock.
He didn’t startle when a soft chuff sounded behind him. In fact, he realized he’d almost expected it. He turned back unhurriedly.
A wolf stood perhaps fifteen feet away. Orris hadn’t seen the wolves clearly last time, but this was a magnificent animal, large and powerful without being bulky. It held its head erect, with pointed ears cocked slightly forward and eyes gleaming brightly. The fur around its neck formed a thick mane. Orris wondered what it would feel like to bury his fingers in that pelt. Would it be soft?
There was nothing aggressive or threatening about the wolf’s posture, nor did it seem afraid.