Feeling creepily like a body snatcher, Garrett watched as Levi removed a necklace from the chief, for purposes of identifying it to his tribesmen. He was glad when Levi crunched it up and put it in his own pocket.
“What you doing down there?” yelled the engine driver. “Whose body is that?”
“Don’t worry.” Levi waved up at the fellow. “I’m the agent from Fort Sanders.” Quieter, he said to Garrett, “Would you like to say a prayer? Something in Lakota?”
Garrett closed his eyes and became still within. He strove to recall the words used at the last Sioux funeral he’d been to. “Ate Wankantanka, Mitawa ki…” he started out. My Father, Great Spirit. Who sends the wind and the white snow from the north, to make your creation clean and pure. Father, make me clean and pure within my heart, that I may be accepted in your sight and judgment.
He was surprised the Lakota words came back to him so easily. It had been three months since he’d attended a Sioux funeral. He was the unofficial interpreter at the fort, the official fellow being a bastard from Yankton who didn’t know beans about Indians.
As he spoke the Lakota words, a vision came to him. Out of the blue, he saw a white man’s hand shoving a bag full of what he knew to be hollow eagles’ quills into a recess in a cliff’s face, sort of a small natural stone cave. He didn’t know how he knew the bag was full of quills, and he didn’t know who the white fellow was.
“You have added another day to my life, for which I give you thanks with all my heart. Amen.” The image of the hand and bag was gone, and there was no point in telling his partner about it, since he had no idea what it meant.
Except that Garrett knew that eagles’ quills, in the hands of white men, usually contained gold.
* * * *
Garrett held Levi in his arms, his silken head cradled in the crook of his arm. Levi’s hand strayed absentmindedly across Garrett’s chest, and he was probably thinking about the mission ahead of them—to find Shady, following the map Caleb had drawn for them.
They were spooning together under their buffalo robes because it was cold. Simple enough. But feeling Levi’s naked haunch against his hip was making Garrett hot. When Levi brushed his fingertips against Garrett’s nipple, his cock stiffened, jerking the buffalo robe in the light from the campfire.
Garrett tried to change the subject. “When you wed Miss Liberty, we probably won’t see each other anymore.”
Levi’s response was instantaneous. He popped his head up to glare righteously at Garrett. “Not at all! I still have to work at the fort, you know. I’ll have to distribute future annuities to Indians, even if Shady didn’t.” He laid his head back on Garrett’s chest and resumed his remote stroking.
“But where will you live with Liberty?”
“I don’t know.”
Garrett knew it was Levi’s destiny to marry Liberty. Paddy had told him so. But the idea that he’d have to remove himself from their vicinity—the idea that he’d never again be able to do something as simple as hold them in his arms and kiss them—filled his stomach with doom and dread. Garrett didn’t want to sever relations with them. Levi and Liberty brought an affection and security to his life he hadn’t felt since before the war.
As if he now wanted to change the subject, Levi’s hand drifted over Garrett’s abdomen, quickly meeting up with his bulging cockhead. Levi cupped it as he peppered Garrett’s exposed throat with small, gentle kisses. “I’m not going to stop knowing you,” Levi said.
Knowing you. There was a big difference between knowing someone and continuing to make love with them. Perhaps Garrett became insecure then and wanted to cement his hold over Levi. But he reached out to the satchel that he’d placed near his head, withdrawing a tin of bear grease. Bear grease was useful for many things such as greasing saddles and hair, but now Garrett took a big palmful of it, sensuously applying it to Levi’s cock. Levi flung the buffalo robe back and unfurled his spine, stretching slowly and sinuously as Garrett massaged his prick.
The cock gleamed erotically in the moonlight, and as Garrett pumped, he realized he was jealous of Liberty. She would get to share Levi’s bed, to make intimate decisions about their mutual future. Garrett would be tossed back to his cook’s kitchen at the fort, making giant cauldrons of chile con carne for apathetic and bored soldiers, listening to their belches and brawls as he tried to sleep at night. Alone.
Garrett released the cock and got to his knees. Displaying his backside to his partner, he handed him the bear grease tin. The meaning was promptly evident to Levi, who eagerly kneeled behind Garrett, smoothing a finger full of grease against his anus.
“You sure you want this?” Levi hunched over his partner, his erection bobbing between Garrett’s thighs, brushing his ball sac. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You’re not going to hurt me,” Garrett scoffed. He knew the implication, the roundabout taunt about Levi’s prick size, would rile him.
It worked. Levi positioned his cockhead against the anal ring and pushed. Garrett breathed, trying to relax. He had never been impaled by anything other than the ivory dildo, which was considerably narrower than the penis now spearing him. When Levi grabbed his erect tool and stroked it lovingly, Garrett did relax. Maybe this was part of The Pleasure of Woman book that he hadn’t read. Some method two men used to control each other’s reflexes and responses.
It was working. Garrett relaxed his backside as he concentrated on the hand frigging him, and the cock slid inside him until it almost reached that sensitive spot—the spot Levi had reached with the dildo before.
“I want you to fuck me, Levi.”
Levi murmured into his ear, “I want to fuck you. God, I want to fuck you. You’re an absolutely delicious thoroughbred, Garrett. I’m going to screw you until you cry out in ecstasy. I want to watch your seed shoot across the grass.”
Levi’s nasty talk aroused Garrett to greater heights. He raised one knee and placed his foot flat on the buffalo robe to give Levi better access, hunching over submissively, squeezing his own ball sac for lack of anything else to hang onto. It was a thin line between pain and pleasure. The fist pumping his meat brought waves of desire into his pelvis, filling his balls with thrilling lust. Gooseflesh rose on the globes of his ass as Levi fell into a humping rhythm, sighing and shivering with rapture as he fucked him.
“That’s right,” Garrett encouraged him. “That’s good, Levi. Keep screwing me. Shove that big prick right up my ass. Plunge that fat, well-hung cock inside me. I want to feel you explode inside of me—Ah!”
It came unexpectedly fast. Levi’s cockhead hit the sensitive spot far up inside his rectum, triggering a massive ejaculation. So Levi got his wish, as a shining arc of Garrett’s jism shot several feet across the grass.
Garrett gasped and clutched the hand that frigged his cock. Levi’s cock pulsed wildly inside his channel as he came deep inside Garrett. Garrett reveled in the submissive sensation of being fucked, being the receptacle for such a delicious, massive load of semen. Levi clutched his chest to him, gasping rhythmically as he stabbed Garrett’s ass with his jerking prick.
At last they fell down onto the buffalo robes, limp hands splayed across their stomachs, sighing at the starry bowl above them. The fire was fading into extinction, the charred wood crumbling as it hissed and collapsed upon itself.
Levi pulled a robe up over them. It was odd that he gently kissed Garrett’s face. Garrett shivered, wondering if this were Levi’s swan song, his final act of love before committing only to Liberty. Of course they would continue to “know” each other. They had to work together at the fort. But would Levi turn aside his head in shame every time he had to come to Garrett’s kitchen for his daily bowl of stew?
Garrett sank into such a deep, all-encompassing sleep that he had no visions at all. His spirit didn’t soar over the surrounding countryside. In fact, when he woke, his last memory was of Levi nuzzling his face into Garrett’s underarm. Garrett wrapped his arms around his lover, trying to think on
ly of the moment and not of the desolate future.
Chapter Seventeen
They crested the ridge of the Laramie Mountains. It protected the valley where Caleb’s map indicated they’d find Brave Buffalo’s people. Levi held a glass to his eye to get a better view of the cook fires and tipis. About fifty tipis were spread across the green carpet below, people milling around in the smoky mist of this early morning hour.
“We should find Shady’s camp,” said Levi, as they had already discussed. “Shady’s not liable to be hanging around the people he’s terrorizing.”
“We could find the crooked wakan man first,” Garrett suggested.
That was a new idea and entirely possible, but Levi was skeptical. “And do what? Torture him into telling us where Shady is hiding? No, his camp’s got to be up here somewhere, within quick riding distance of the encampment. No sense in riding in there to shake everyone up.”
Garrett added, “They probably wouldn’t believe you that their wakan fellow is in cahoots with Shady anyway.”
So they circled the valley, passing under fantastic rock formations where a giant hand had stacked up boulders as big as ten men. They rode under a cloud of spotted orange-brown butterflies. They must have disturbed them, and the butterflies gave away their position when the gathering rose as one and fluttered overhead. But Levi had to wonder if Caleb’s spirit infused them, so he followed the path they seemed to indicate, bringing them lower and closer to the Indian encampment.
As he rode, Levi’s mind wandered back to Garrett and the intimacy they’d enjoyed last night. He didn’t want to give up Garrett, and he knew Liberty didn’t want to either. Didn’t Liberty’s sister Ivy savor an unusual relationship with both Marshal Tempest and that Captain Park who had translated the erotic manual? He would have to ask Liberty about it.
Perhaps he would have to accept Simon Hudson’s largesse if he wanted to build Liberty a proper house. He didn’t want her living in the schoolhouse, as so many schoolmarms did. Or he could go back into journalism like his friend Henry Morton Stanley. But a newspaper might send him to the Ottoman Empire to be imprisoned, like Henry. He could be of no use to Liberty if he was languishing in Istanbul eating bugs and wondering where his expedition had gone.
Perhaps he could go back to the Tribune in Chicago and write for them about the ever-changing and wild Western frontier. But eventually they’d send him somewhere else. Journalism was not conducive to raising a family.
A family! Why was this thought suddenly crossing Levi’s mind? Well, that’s the way his thoughts were trending lately, since bumping into the stunning and brazen Miss Hudson on the train. It occurred to him she wasn’t the sort to want children, with all of her talk about pessaries and family limitation. She didn’t seem the sort to take kindly to “involuntary motherhood,” the talk of all the suffragists. But for the first time in his life, Levi found himself yearning for a child.
Oh, this was ridiculous! He didn’t even have enough grubstake to build Liberty a proper house. He was content with her covering her womb with acacia gum, for now.
Ahead of him, Garrett had stopped. Levi rode abreast as Garrett whispered, “What in the hell…”
Levi looked where Garrett was looking. On a bare knoll below them, he could make out a couple human shapes engaged in some activity. Thinking they may have stumbled across a romantic tryst, Levi raised his glass.
This was no romantic tryst. Levi could tell by the foxes’ tails attached to his heels that one figure was the wakan fellow they sought. On the ground next to him lay his ceremonial pipe dressed with a fan of eagles’ feathers.
“That’s Shady,” Garrett breathed.
“What’s he doing?”
It looked as though the other, wiry figure in the battered slouch hat was kicking something. Levi focused the glass and saw that Shady was kicking bones.
“Bones? What are they—bison bones?” Levi had to look twice, squinting and focusing on the bones, to realize that the femur Shady kicked was much larger than a buffalo’s. How could that be? The bison was the largest mammal on the prairie. Only an elephant might have a larger femur, and Levi doubted that anyone had transported a bunch of elephant bones to this remote spot simply in order to kick them.
He handed the glass to Garrett. “Why would he be kicking bones?” Now it looked like Shady was jumping up and down on the oversize bones. “Would they use bones to make some kind of ceremonial tea or something?”
“That’s not what they’re doing,” Garrett whispered. Soberly, he handed the glass back to Levi. “It looks like he’s destroying dinosaur bones.”
Dinosaur bones? Jamming the glass back into his eye socket, Levi asked, “Dinosaurs? I’ve never stumbled across any of those, although I’m sure it’s possible. Why would he be destroying them?”
Garrett said, “The fossil remains of the mastodon are thought to be the bones of some god. This is probably a place of worship, and Shady means to scare the people further when they discover the bones all shattered and scattered about.”
Levi lowered the glass. “Let’s go get him.”
Girding their gun belts around their waists, the two men set off down the slope. Levi wore his revolvers with their butts to the fore for a quick draw. He wasn’t concerned with Shady getting the drop on him, even though they were heading onto the treeless knoll. Levi had spent many a boring hour at Standing Rock practicing his shooting, hitting bottles. He was a quicker draw than any other white man he’d seen. That, coupled with the fact that Garrett split off from him and would sneak up a rise behind the wakan medicine man, gave Levi the grit to proceed in full view down the rise.
Shady whipped his head around to view Levi. He paused with his foot on a rib bone that was entirely as big as Shady’s decrepit, crumpled body. Of course, Shady’s hand instantly went for his holster, but he didn’t draw, merely yelled, “Who are you?”
Levi waited until his horse had ambled closer and he could dismount. “Levi Colter,” he said, trying to sound affable. “New Indian agent out at Fort Sanders. Your successor.”
Instead of being glad to meet a fellow Indian agent, Shady Barnhart squared his shoulder and squinted suspiciously at Levi. “What’re you doing way out here? Shouldn’t you be back at the fort getting all your supplies in order?”
“I would be,” said Levi, “if there were any supplies to get in order. But it seems you left me with absolutely no supplies, aside from a sausage grinder.”
Now Shady tried the brotherly approach. Hiking up his pants, he tilted his head and drawled, “Well, I reckon you’ll just have to start from scratch selling your next shipment of supplies.”
“It’s not just the supplies, Shady. It’s the land you’ve been selling to settlers. Land that was meant for Indians.”
At that, an owl hooted from somewhere over the lip of the knoll. The wakan fellow jumped in the air at the sound. Levi almost laughed at the way his treacherous limbs went all stiff and he leaped back several feet. The hooting was odd, because Levi didn’t think there was a single tree down there, so where would the owl be perched?
Shady was unperturbed by the sound. “Well, you can look forward to many such economic transactions yourself, Colter. I was even kind enough to leave you some land to sell. I wasn’t able to make the transaction for that piece over by Serendipity Ranch, since old Caeser Moxus went and died on me.”
“Before you could forge his signature.”
Shady grinned toothlessly. “Yeah, heh heh. I forged it rightly enough, and you can use my penmanship as examples for your future dealings. The key to drawing the squished turtle is, you’ve got to make its face look rightly anguished, with squinty little eyes and—”
That was it. Levi pulled the bracelets off his gun belt and stepped around behind Shady.
“What you doing, Colter?” Shady shrieked. The wakan fellow’s eyes got big and round, and he ran over the edge of the knoll with hands held out in front of him as though feeling for invisible bushes. Apparently he start
led the owl there, for more hooting was heard.
Levi didn’t care. “Arresting you, obviously.” He had only snapped one cuff onto Shady’s wrist when the diabolical Indian agent yanked himself free. He did a jig over to a pile of stones that had obviously been erected for ceremonial purposes, kicking frantically at them. He was a thrashing fool with the bracelets flying, and it was difficult for Levi to get a bead on him with his revolver.
So Levi strode to the pile as he leveled his revolver at Shady’s chest, the chest being the biggest target. “Off that pile, Shady. Give me your weapon.”
“No one’s getting these damned rocks and bones!” Shady wailed. “I’m sick of these heathens burning shit, flinging dung, and yammering stuff that don’t make no sense! You’re not taking me in, Colter!”
One of his more strenuous kicks dislodged a round stone beneath his feet, and Shady went falling to his ass among the rolling boulders as the pyramid disintegrated around him. His right, cuffed hand reached for his pistol, but Levi was quicker on the trigger, shooting off one of Shady’s fingers.
“I don’t want to have to shoot you again,” Levi said honestly. “So you’d best stand up and let me finish cuffing you.”
But Shady seemed possessed by some irrational thought patterns, for he struggled to his feet, cupping his bleeding, cuffed hand to his chest, and skittered back toward the mastodon bones. Almost wearily, Levi followed. What other limb would he have to shoot off? He’d rather bring the fellow back to the fort alive for proper justice to be administered. Since Shady was a government agent, he doubted it would involve Judge Lynch. However, if Levi delivered Shady to Brave Buffalo’s tribe…
As Shady stomped on the bones some more, uttering slogans about red men and their final destruction, Levi merely reached out and lifted Shady’s revolver from its holster. He placed it in his own holster that wasn’t currently in use. He would just have to wait this one out, until Shady ran out of energy or had stomped all the bones to smithereens.
Disorder in the House [How the West Was Done 2] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Page 15