Scared Stiff

by Laura Baumbach, William Maltese, Josh Lanyon

  Robert leaned forward, started unbuttoning Cody's shirt. His chest was broad and strong, with only a few rough black hairs around the nipples and scattered across his golden skin. Robert pushed the soft chambray off his shoulders, pushed the shirt down to his wrists and held them captive.

  "Now, Cody. The easiest way to tie a man up is to let him get tangled up in his own shirt. See how easy this is?” He eased closer to him, one knee between Cody's thighs, and held his wrists tight. Then Robert leaned in and kissed him, tasted surprise and the warmth of the setting sun on Cody's mouth. He took his time, counted Cody's teeth with his tongue, felt the other man soften a bit under him and become passive.

  He leaned up again, tugged the shirt off. “But I'm not really into that. When men are tied up they can't use their hands."

  "What do you want me to do?” Cody's face was sweet and humble.

  Robert took his hand, pulled him up from the bed. He unsnapped Cody's jeans, then started tugging them down his legs. Cody's thighs were long and muscled, with sparse, curling black hair. Robert ran his fingers down those muscles, felt them bunch and lengthen under his touch. Cody's cock was stirring again, but Robert just finished tugging the jeans down, let Cody lean on his shoulder to kick off his boots and push the jeans down over his feet.

  Cody stood back up, reached a hand for Robert's chest and touched gentle fingers over his heart. “Can I undress you?"

  "Yeah, baby. You can.” And Robert watched his face as Cody bent his head to the job, his bottom lip caught between his teeth, one button, two, three, four, then Cody slid the shirt off his arms, tossed it to the end of the bed.

  Then Robert's breath caught in his throat. Cody leaned down, pressed his mouth to Robert's nipple, sucked it into his mouth, a slow circle with his tongue. Cody held him by the shoulders, moved to the other nipple, sucked him in. “I can't decide which is my favorite,” he said, moving back to the first, and Robert's skin was sparking and hot, a flush moving up his neck, and Cody looked into his face and reached for the waistband of his jeans. “Can I?"

  Cody was smiling just a little, that same gentle, searching look that had been on his face the first time Robert had seen him in the river. “You can do anything you want, Cody."

  His cheeks flushed red, and he lowered his head, kissed Robert on the mouth, and Robert could feel his tongue, could feel his hands, busy at his waist, the button, the zipper, then soft denim sliding over his hips, and Cody's hands moving over his ass, holding them tightly together. Two erect cocks, separated by a couple of layers of thin cotton poplin boxers, one pair pale blue, one pair plaid.

  "I'm going slow,” Cody murmured against his mouth, and Robert couldn't help but smile, because Cody may have been going slow, but his cock was most certainly not, it was rambunctious and eager and turning toward Robert's; his hands were most certainly not, kneading Robert's ass, sliding under the elastic waistband of his boxers, warm hands on cool skin. And Robert's breath caught in his throat again when Cody pushed his boxers down and reached for his cock, held it in his fist, just that fast, a squeeze and a handshake, and his mouth was still going about its slow, sweet business.

  Robert thrust once against Cody's fist, and they both groaned, then laughed, and Robert pushed him gently away. He dropped the boxers, stood there with his hands on his hips, letting Cody look at him, remembering how it felt to have a man look at his naked body, to want him.

  "I want to take pictures of you."

  Cody's eyebrows flew up. “You mean, like, naked pictures?"

  "Yeah. Did you know I was a photographer?” Cody nodded yes. “I'm going to show you what you look like. Sometimes you've got to see the evidence with your own eyes.” Robert shoved him gently toward the bed again. “And I can see what a hard-headed boy you are. I'm gonna have to work hard, and convince you over and over and over."

  Cody shook his head, grinning. “I went to sleep in the chair, and I woke up a porn star!"

  Robert laughed and tugged Cody's boxers down. “Yeah, baby. You got that right. Now get on the bed and spread your legs."

  "What?” Cody froze.

  Robert reached into his camera bag, shoved under the table. “Just lie back, honey, and think of the Queen."

  "What?"

  Robert laughed out loud. “You're gonna like this, Cody. You'll get into it, I promise.” He raised the light meter. Cody was showing a little interest in the camera now. “Go on, baby.” His voice was gentle. “Get on the bed so I can check the meter."

  Cody crawled across the bed, then rolled over to his back and sprawled out. Robert pushed the pillow around a bit. “Put your hands up above your head, Cody."

  He lifted his arms, big muscles bulging, and Robert ran the light meter over his body. “Oh, maybe just a little taste. Don't move now,” and he reached down to the bed, licked Cody on his chest, high under one arm, down the inside of his thigh, up the underside of his cock. Cody was staring up at the ceiling, breathing like he was seconds from hyperventilation, and Robert raised the camera and started shooting.

  Cody's body was muscled, long, alive, and Robert could feel his heart coming alive with the images of this wild beauty in his camera, with the knowledge that it was his, if he desired it. He was laughing, moving around the bed, and the look on Cody's face nearly stopped him dead, fear and love, desire, lust, yearning, yearning, yearning, and he raised his camera and stole the picture like a kiss.

  Robert put the camera down and climbed on the bed, climbed on top of Cody's big body, and their hips moved together, lifting and thrusting, cocks tangling and sliding against each other. The orgasm caught him and he felt swept out to sea, sensation swamping his chest, his belly, his balls, and Cody grabbed his hands, twined their fingers together, reached up and kissed him. Cody's tongue thrust into his mouth and he was coming, coming, coming, and their sticky semen mixed and smeared across their skin.

  * * * *

  Chili, then more love. Cody looked like he was thinking about a third bowl of chili, but instead he pulled his notebook out and flipped through the pages. He stopped at one, tapping the paper. “Robert, I need some paper. Bigger sheets than this."

  Robert pulled an old spiral notebook out of his camera bag, tore some sheets out, and handed them to Cody. He didn't look up. “Thanks. This is the one that's been bugging me.” He started making sketches, copies from the field notes he's taken earlier in the onion field. Finally he sat up and pushed the paper across the table to Robert. “Does that look like anything? Anything you recognize?"

  Robert studied the sketches and shook his head. “Cody, I don't think so."

  "Okay, how about this?” He changed the sketches a little. “I wonder if these are metal fittings or latches of some kind. Like on a hinged wooden box. Or on a tool or weapon of some kind."

  Robert studied the sketch again, nodded his head. “Yeah, I see what you mean."

  "This is the shape of the box, if it is a box, and we have fittings on the corners, a front latch here, and hinges on the lid.” Cody sketched this out, and they compared the two drawings. They were close to the same.

  "Cody, what is it?"

  For the first time since Robert had known him, Cody's face looked grim. “See how long the box is? I think rifles. I think this is a case of rifles. That's why we were seeing so much metal. We won't be sure without digging up the site, Robert, but I think, most probably, the buttons belonged to military uniform shirts. We've got three different sets of buttons. And I can't imagine why you would bury a uniform shirt without burying the soldier in it."

  Robert whistled between his teeth. “So we've potentially got dead and buried soldiers, and buried rifles. Wow. I don't understand. What kind of Indian massacre is this supposed to be?"

  "I'd like to know that myself."

  Robert studied his face. “Okay. You call it. You're the anthropologist."

  He shook his head. “I shouldn't really call myself that. I haven't finished the degree, and I'm not..."

  "This guy, Chili
Rellenos. I hear him talking sometimes through your mouth. Was he, by any chance, on your dissertation committee?"

  Cody grinned at him. “You're right. But Robert, I don't think he's gonna take me down. Not now you've made me into this hot porn star."

  They smiled at each other across the kitchen table, and Robert reached for his hand. “Can you stay with me tonight?"

  Cody nodded, followed him across the room to the bed. Robert climbed between the sheets, exhaustion swamping him suddenly, his leg so stiff he could hardly pull it into the bed after him. “Val, rub that sore spot for me, okay?"

  Cody climbed in after him, his big hands moving to the scar on Robert's thigh, kneading the muscles that were in spasm. Robert rolled over suddenly and looked at him. “Did I just...?"

  "Hush now.” Cody leaned up and kissed him sweetly. “Go to sleep."

  Robert thought later that the dream was so vivid because he was exhausted, his emotions in some tangled stew of joy and trepidation and sexual release, and the strange tenderness that bloomed in his chest whenever he looked into Cody's face.

  It was 1882, and the last of the native tribes had dropped to their knees and slipped on their yokes under the boots and guns of the US Cavalry. The Blackfoot were one of the last, and the buffalo hunt had just failed. Winter was coming. They were facing starvation. Some of the women had come to the fort, to try and find work, or food.

  "Captain Carmody, sit down, man.” Val took his hat off and sat opposite the older officer. They were both wearing the blue wool uniform of the US Cavalry, with shiny brass buttons and polished black leather belts. “Boy, you cannot keep going on this way! I'll support you, make no mistake, but you've got to stop! We all know what's happening, but the Blackfoot, they're doing it to themselves when they start drinking. That's where their food's going. The whiskey, it's poison for them. They could settle on the land we gave them, learn to plant crops..."

  "The woman wasn't drinking when they attacked her, Colonel. But the men were. I don't see why it matters that she was a Blackfoot. She was hired to do laundry. She was doing the laundry. Three US soldiers, on duty, attacked her. They were drunk. The woman is dead. Those men need to hang."

  The colonel leaned back in his chair, as if trying to get away from the younger man's vehemence, and his fury. “Well, Captain, I can hang them for being drunken on duty, that's no problem. But do we want to start a precedent here? I just don't see hanging them for the woman."

  "Colonel, I will resign my commission now, this very moment, if you release the soldiers who raped and murdered a woman at this fort. Any woman deserves as much consideration, Blackfoot or Chinese or African or a woman as white as your own daughters."

  The colonel stood up, his face shading red above silver whiskers. “You think I'll accept the resignation of your commission? I've known you since West Point. Don't do this. You've always been like a son to me. But since we came out West, since you got involved with these Indians, I feel like I don't even know you! I hear what the men are saying about you, son. That you have an Indian living out on your place. Living ... with you. That you're sleeping in a damn tipi, for God's sake. Boy, we've got to stop this kind of talk. It can ruin a man. Rumors fly back to Washington like the wind, Val, please..."

  Val stood up, looked across the desk at his Commanding Officer. His eyes were sad, but his jaw looked like a rock. He took a folded piece of paper from inside his uniform and dropped it on the desk. He saluted, then turned and walked out of the office.

  The big gates to the fort were open, and the plains outside were covered with people, transport wagons, tipis, the stink and bray of mules, horses, oxen that stood with drooping heads as if they were dead on their feet.

  The noise, the heat, the smell was nearly unbearable, but it was nothing to the simmering fury in Val's chest. Robert had never felt him like this, but the murderous fury was like something living and black wrapped around his chest. He walked across the compound to the brig, kicked the door open. The young Master-at-Arms leapt to his feet and saluted, but Val pushed past him and went to the cage.

  Three men were sitting on the dirt floor. They were wearing uniforms but the wool was filthy and sodden, smelled like cheap whiskey and dung and blood. Val looked them over one by one. The oldest had long, greasy gray-brown hair and beard, dirty gray eyes and brown teeth. His name was Jackson. He was a drifter, had come out west to find another fight after the south had gone to her knees in bloody defeat.

  He spit in the dirt, squinted up at Val. “You came to see how we was doing, Captain? Ain't that sweet, boys."

  One of the other men in the cell giggled and nodded. The tow-head with the crazy blue eyes picked at a sore on the back of his hand until it started bleeding, then he raised his hand and sucked on the wound. They called him Billy.

  The third man was Santiago, a Mexican with pretty, liquid dark eyes and long black hair, and scratch marks down his face. He was the one who had started beating the woman, Val knew. She had scratched his face while he was raping her, and then the three of them had taken turns beating her to death.

  Jackson looked up at him, picking slowly at something lodged in his teeth. “Maybe we'll go visit your boy, Captain, that fine young Indian buck. Give him some of the same."

  Val stared into his eyes. “You escape the hangman's noose, and I will put a bullet between your eyes.” He pointed at the other two men, one after the other. “And yours. And yours. You can count on it."

  Jackson stood up. “We'll be seeing you again real soon, Captain."

  The quiet and the green grass, the soft sounds of the river and men doing honest work. They were at the site of the cabin, but the cabin wasn't built yet. Two men lifted a tree up on sawhorses, and each started at an end stripping off the limbs and bark. Sunshine and clean sweat, and the sweetest air Robert had ever smelled. Val and the Blackfoot man met in the middle of the tree and looked at each other, not speaking. The only sounds were men breathing and the river flowing. Val smiled a bit and said his name, “Akecheta."

  And the other man looked at him, his face very private just for a moment, like a door opening. Then they turned away and each took an end of the tree. They rolled it over and started work again.

  They slept that night side by side in the cool, quiet space of the tipi, fingers touching, but Val woke up when he smelled the smoke. Something was burning. The Blackfoot man reached for his tomahawk, said something to Val in a language Robert didn't understand. Val shook his head, checked his rifle and ducked through the door of the tipi.

  A gun fired, and Val fell backward, clutching his bloody shoulder. Santiago dragged him out by the arm, then Jackson and the tow-head with the crazy face came through the doorway of the tipi. Akecheta sank the tomahawk into Billy's forehead, then Jackson clubbed Akecheta across the face with the butt of the rifle.

  He fell to his knees, and Jackson grabbed his long black hair in his fist, forced him to crawl outside the tent. Val was on his knees, too, blood soaking his shirt. They looked at each other for a long moment. Jackson raised the rifle, let the sharp end scrape across Val's cheek. Then he moved it, pressed the barrel against the Indian's face. “I want you to see this, Captain. You watching? Watch close, now."

  Santiago grabbed Val's head, forced it around. Jackson's teeth were bared. The Blackfoot man started speaking softly, the sounds of the words rising and falling like music. “Shut up! Don't try your Indian curses on me."

  He reached down and pulled the trigger, but Akecheta jerked his head out of the way. Jackson hit him again with the wooden stock of the rifle, and it splintered in his hands. Val had his knife out now, the knife he had been using to peel bark, and he cut the Mexican's throat, then sank the knife into Jackson's neck up to the hilt.

  Blood poured out of the wound, spilling down his chest, bubbling out of his mouth, and he reached up, tried to grab the knife out of his neck. Val reached for the rifle and shot Jackson through the forehead.

  Akecheta reached for Val, wrapped his arms a
round his chest. They were leaning into each other, foreheads touching. Spirits, ghosts, something slick and shiny and evil started rising from the dead bodies. They twined and twisted together, thin screams and howls as the forms changed, tortured animal figures with ripping claws and fangs, until they moved together, twisted into a strange dance, and they were snakes, rattlesnakes, eyes slits of glowing emerald, forked tongues tasting the air with delight. The ghost snakes moved around Val and his lover as they held each other, unaware, danced and tasted their skin, slithered up their bodies.

  The three snakes moved away, thrusting and sliding against each other in an evil parody of sex, and then they sank into the ground. And back in the cabin, a hundred and thirty years later, Robert opened his eyes and reached for Cody's hand.

  "Sheesh!” Cody twined their fingers together and held on tight, his clammy palm at odds with his lighthearted words. “Were those snakes? I really hate snakes."

  * * * *

  When he got out of the shower, Robert went out to the porch, sat in his chair and picked up the journal and pen he had left there the day before. The dream, it was too strange, too real, and why was he sharing dreams with Cody? Something was going on, and it felt like it could get dangerous. He needed to figure it out, needed to stop whatever was happening. But a part of him wanted the dreams, loved this peek at Val and Cody, his Val and Cody, living other lives. Cody brought him a cup of coffee, stood next to his chair and dropped his hand on Robert's head.

  "That was wild last night, Robert. The photography, I mean. The hot sex.” He shrugged. “I don't know what's going on with these weird dreams. I mean, that's ... that's too strange ... I guess it should be scaring me, but I'm having a hard time thinking about anything except the way I feel. The way you made me feel. I can still taste you.” His hand stroked back over Robert's hair, settled heavy and warm on the back of his neck. “I'm totally carried away, Robert. What are you and Val cooking up for me next?"