Two Sides of the Same Coin

by Jake Mactire

We got camp set up pretty quickly. It was just unloading the camping equipment from the saddlebags, scouting out space for the sleeping bags, taking care of the horses, and getting a fire started. Since it was supposed to be clear, we decided against setting up the tent. I cooked up some canned beef stew and noodles. That, some dried apricots and water completed the meal. Conversation with Mike was like pulling teeth.

  “So how do you like workin’ on the ranch?” I asked.

  “It’s a job.”

  “You from Washington originally?”

  “Nope.”

  “Where ya from?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “What, you’re a wanted man?” I laughed.

  The answer after a few minutes was a cynical, “Nope, don’t want nobody and I ain’t wanted by nobody.”

  I just couldn’t imagine not having any friends, so I asked, “No friends here?”

  “Friends’ll just stab you in the back. Those closest to you will screw you every time. I don’t need that shit,” he replied angrily. In fact, it was spit out with such venom it removed any desire on my part to continue the conversation.

  “Well, I’m gonna turn in,” I said, pulling off my boots and socks. I stood up, doffed my hat, and began unbuttoning my shirt. I noticed Mike was closely watching me. I unbuckled my belt and unbuttoned my jeans. I stepped out of them and began rolling them to make a pillow. Now, I’ve been told enough times I’m easy on the eyes—tall, olive skin, black hair and beard, with a pair of green, not hazel, eyes. Work in San Francisco, the gym, plus an active lifestyle had given me a good amount of muscle on a lean frame. I stood there in my T-shirt and boxers. From the corner of my eye, I could see Mike trying hard not to stare and not quite managing it. I thought, hmmm… he might not play for the other team after all. Either that, or he knew I’m gay and was uncomfortable with it. Just to be a teasing bastard, I turned to face him. My T-shirt was clingy cotton and showed off the muscles in my pecs. Although my boxers were loose, my legs are really muscular, and I’ve seen enough to know I don’t have anything to be ashamed of in the locker room. Enough of a bulge showed to hint at that. I made a show of scratching my belly to uncover the thick treasure trail, which disappeared into the waistband of my shorts. I turned around and bent over purposely to arrange my sleeping bag. I took my time getting into it, making a big show for Mike. I lay down, looked over at him, and said, “Good night.”

  I almost chuckled at his confused sounding, “Uh… yeah, you too,” which was probably more pleasant conversation than I’d gotten from him all night.

  I’ve never been reluctant to let folks know I’m gay. I don’t introduce myself, “Hi I’m gay Jeff,” but I don’t hide it either. It was common knowledge on the ranch, so Mike must’ve known. He was still wearing his long-sleeve thermal T-shirt, so he slipped it off, then kicked off his boots and pulled off his socks. I was watching with my eyes half closed. As I’d mentioned before, he sure was nice to look at, and he didn’t disappoint me. He was pretty well muscled, too, better than I had thought when I first met him. His red beard seemed to shine in the firelight, which also seemed to highlight the fine film of hair on his arms and legs. He was facing my direction as he rolled up his pants for a pillow, and I noticed he’d been more than a little turned on by my earlier strip show. He looked good enough to lick all over in his blue briefs . He jumped fairly quickly into his sleeping bag. I did see as he crawled in, that his ass was beautifully framed by the thin cotton of his briefs. What I could do with that ass. He looked over in my direction after he was safe in his sleeping bag. I was pretty sure that the red in his face was not due to the reflection of the campfire. I smiled as I drifted off to sleep, hearing him tossing and turning, clearly bothered—or better said hot and bothered—by my actions.

  IT HAD been a long time since I slept out under the stars. I woke to a cold fall morning. The day was just beginning, and it was still a dark twilight. The birds were gradually beginning to sing and chirp. I could see a glow over the hills to the east where the sun would rise. The fire was dead and the air was fresh, with a hint of wood smoke. The Methow Valley had to be one of the most beautiful places on God’s earth. From the fully wooded foothills of the Cascades to the desert by the Columbia River, the terrain was hilly and had a wild beauty to it. It felt good to be home. I lay in my sleeping bag for a few minutes enjoying the play of light on the hills and mountains around us, the sounds of the place coming to life in the morning, and the clear air which smelled of pine. Mike was softly snoring in the bedroll across camp, but after a few minutes he began to stir. A mischievous thought crossed my mind. If my little show last night had thrown him off balance, maybe if I did something similar this morning, it might keep him off kilter today too. I stood up and made a big deal of stretching. I walked over to the water jug in only my underwear and got some water and began to build the fire and make coffee. I purposely crouched down where Mike could see up the leg of my boxers. I expected him to stare and he didn’t disappoint me. I threw a few handfuls of coffee grounds in the pot with water and set it on the fire to boil. I walked over to the edge of camp in full view of Mike and let loose with a long morning piss. About halfway through, I realized that it was cold! I suddenly felt like I was turning blue and hurried to finish and get my clothes on.

  Once I was dressed, I got out the saddle pack with some granola bars and dried fruit. As I was adding some cold water to the coffee pot to settle the grounds, I saw Mike jump up real quick like and grab his pants. He was hopping around trying to get his pants on and trying to conceal a massive erection peeking out of the top of his briefs. When he had finished dressing, he came toward me, and I handed him a mug of coffee. He muttered something, which might have been “thanks,” and grabbed some dried apples and a couple of granola bars. He seemed to be doing some deep thinking from the frown of concentration on his face. After a few minutes he looked at me and said tentatively, “Jeff?”

  “Yeah?” I answered.

  “Uh… I um… just wanted to tell ya, I’m sorry about your dad. He was a good guy,” he said softly. “He was a good guy, and he treated me real well and real fair. He talked to me and listened to me.”

  “Thanks. You’re right. He was a really good guy. I couldn’t have asked for a better dad. I appreciate it, Mike; I’m glad you two were there for each other to talk to.”

  “Uh-huh.” I guess that was the civil conversation for the day. Silence descended once again as we packed up camp and made sure the fire was out. I wasn’t gonna make much of an effort at conversation after trying several times yesterday. Much of the morning was spent riding in silence. I wasn’t too upset by the silence as it allowed me to focus on all the natural beauty of the valley. We were riding in an area of the ranch that spread out toward the high Cascades. The pine trees gave the air a natural fragrance, which pine “air fresheners” have never been able to duplicate. The sun was bright and the day was warming up nicely. Occasionally we’d see some deer grazing off to the side. I had counted several eagles and was enjoying the view of the meadows, burned golden by the fall sun.

  “Hey, Jeff?” Mike’s words broke my period of silent reverie for the beautiful country through which we rode.

  “What’s up?”

  “You don’t like me much, do ya?”

  “Can’t say as I’ve seen too much to like. You’re really easy on the eyes, both face and body, but the way you act and some of the stuff out of your mouth is plain ugly. You don’t make any effort to show much likeable.”

  “Thanks for the honesty.” He gave a disgruntled reply.

  “Let’s water the horses in the creek up ahead in the woods and have lunch.”

  “Okay.”

  After getting to the creek, dismounting and pulling some bread and spam from the saddlepack, we sat down on some rocks.

  “Ya know, Mike, I’d like to be friends, or if that’s not possible at least get along. You make it awful difficult though. Every time I try to talk with you, you
don’t want to talk, or I get some smart-ass response. How am I supposed to be friendly if you won’t meet me even halfway?”

  He seemed to consider this for a long while. When he finally looked up at me, his expression was conflicted, almost tortured. It was the saddest, most alone expression I’d ever seen.

  “I’ve been on my own since I was sixteen. I’ve really been fucked over by people, so it’s kinda hard for me to trust anybody. Your dad said I try to drive ’em away before they can get close.”

  “Seems like you talked with my dad a lot.”

  “That bother you?”

  “Hell no, my mom died quite a few years back, and now that I live in the city, I was worried he’d be lonely. If he saw you as someone he could talk with, that’s great by me.”

  He seemed to think about that for a few minutes before responding. “He was real proud of you. He kept talking about his son the cowboy artist, and how someday you’d be famous. I asked ’im once if it bothered him you was a fa… gay, but he said no, as long as you’re happy that’s all he wanted.”

  I was the one who didn’t answer right away. I knew my dad felt that way although he’d never said it in so many words. When I came out to him at sixteen, his only response was, “You think you can be happy that way?” Full of teenage rebelliousness I’d shot back a quick yes. His response was, “That’s all that matters then.”

  “Thanks for letting me know that. It means a lot.”

  He gave me the first genuine smile I’d seen from him. It lit up his face. Even with the constant scowl, he was a handsome man. When he smiled, he was really stunning. He realized I was looking at him just to look. He averted his gaze from mine and reddened slightly.

  “The guys would all go into town or into Wenatchee for a Saturday night, and I never felt comfortable goin’ with ’em. After a while they stopped invitin’ me. Your dad noticed and began askin’ me to have a cup of coffee or maybe a beer. He treated me like a person, not just some dumb hayseed.”

  “Uh-huh,” was about all I could manage. My throat seemed awful tight. The sharp stab of grief hit me again.

  “Yeah, he listened to me. I always reckoned that he valued what I had to say. I ain’t never had anyone treat me that way before.”

  “Like I said earlier, I’d be your friend, or at least civil with ya if you’d let me.”

  The look he gave me was long and appraising. He then gave me a half smile and said, “I don’t really know how to act around friends, but I’d like that. I mean, I’ll really try. Now, what’s your life like in San Francisco?”

  “You heard of a starving artist? That’s me. I do my bronze sculptures and I’m beginning to sell a few. Most of my money comes from being a waiter.”

  “Yeah, I’d bet the way you look, you get a shitload of big tips from both men and women.” He turned bright red when he said this, and I had to turn away to hide a smile.

  “It pays my share of the rent.”

  “You got a roomie?”

  “I got a boyfriend; we been together about ten months now. I moved in with him a couple of months ago.”

  “Why isn’t he out here with you? Your dad just died. He didn’t even come for the funeral?” Mike had gotten a bit of an angry look on his face.

  “Robert doesn’t really like it out here. He’s a city boy.”

  “How’d you guys meet?”

  “I was buckin’ in the Bay Area Gay Rodeo. He came up and asked me to dance in the dance hall, said he’d noticed me buckin’.”

  “I’ll be damned, a gay rodeo and two guys dancin’? I’m guessing you mean two-steppin’.”

  “Yep, we started dating not too long after that.”

  “You guys happy?”

  I considered the question. The first few months had been a great deal of fun. At the rodeo, Robert was impressed that I was a real cowboy with shit on my boots. He liked the competition number on my back. If I said “ain’t” or used some saying like “ya couldn’t swing a dead cat without hittin’… whatever,” he’d laugh. After a while it seemed to me I was his personal trophy cowboy. He could parade his butch boyfriend in front of his queenie friends. Lately though, I wasn’t sure just why I was with Robert. He was demeaning about my bronze sculptures and was always harping on me to get a job as an accountant and give up my art. It wasn’t to his taste he said anytime I tried to show him a sculpture that I thought turned out really well.

  God forbid now if I were to have shit on my boots. He’d freak. And there was the constant pressure to give up competing in the gay rodeos. Also the outdoors is one of my passions. I love to ski, snow shoe, hike, canoe, and camp. Robert had no interest in any of that and wasn’t really supportive of my doing so. If I even mentioned hunting or fishing, I’d get a disgusted look like I killed Bambi’s mother.

  He was also constantly correcting my grammar, and every time I would use some saying, he’d answer, “How quaint,” in a very sarcastic tone. I was beginning to think that the only thing that was holding us together was the sex. It was good, very good. But happy? I wasn’t so sure anymore. It had been exciting and fun when we got together, going places around the Bay Area, picnics, live music, good restaurants, just a good time in general. It was an introduction to a whole new world for me. Now that world was beginning to seem cold and inhospitable. I wondered what happened.

  “Every relationship has its ups and downs,” I replied. “So tell me a little about you.”

  “Jeff, it’s really tough for me to talk about myself. I just don’t wanna go there.”

  “You sure I’m not gonna see your face on a wanted poster in the post office?”

  A momentary flash of anger crossed his face. I could tell he was trying real hard to control himself.

  Finally he said, “No. When I’m ready I’ll talk about it, fair enough?”

  “Fair enough, bud.”

  “Jeff, why’d ya leave the ranch for the city? The little I seen of ya, you really seem to like it here, plus it’s real easy to see you got friends here.” That was a good question, and one I had been asking myself a lot lately. At first it was fun to live in the city, all the restaurants, so much live music, and so many things to see and do. Coming back to the ranch and the valley made me realize just how much I’d missed it, and just how much I really didn’t fit in living in San Francisco. I had thought as a gay man, it was someplace I should go and experience, but it wasn’t me. The concrete was depressing, and everyone was always in a hurry. I finally answered Mike’s question honestly.

  “I thought at first it would be interestin’ to live in a place with so many other gay guys and so much to do. Now though, I really don’t know. I keep askin’ myself that same question.”

  We rode on in silence for the next couple of hours, but this time it was a companionable silence.

  It was coming up on dinnertime when we arrived at the highest point of our ranch. The land was all wooded, and water was much more abundant. There were still broad meadows up here and the cattle loved it. This part of the ranch backed up to the Okanogan National Forest. There were forest service roads not too far, but for the most part the recreational vehicles stayed far enough away as to not spook the beeves.

  “Looks like part of the fence is down up ahead. I reckon it was a good idea to ride fences.”

  “Yep,” Mike answered in his laconic way.

  The break was in a flat place at the edge of a meadow and right by the trees. As we rode up and got closer, it became obvious that this was not a normal fence break. The posts were still standing firm, but the barbed wire had been cleanly cut and pulled back. I dismounted and squatted down to look at the ground. The tracks plainly showed that a group, five maybe six head of cattle had been herded out beyond the fence. I looped Charlie’s reins around the fence post and walked along the trail of cattle tracks.

  “Somebody cut the fence and drove the cattle out,” I said to Mike.

  “You able to track too?”

  Distractedly I answered, “Nothing much to i
t other than looking at the tracks left behind. Like here it looks like there were two guys on horseback who drove the cattle out.” I followed the trail about one-hundred yards into the trees. I saw where an unimproved track bore the signs of truck tires and a line in the dirt which indicated to me a ramp had led down from the truck. The hoof prints from the cattle ended where the ramp began.

  “What the fuck!” I swore in frustration. “It looks like we been hit by rustlers!” I felt like I was in some B Western saying those words.

  “I been hearin’ reports of cattle rustlin’,” Mike continued in an almost condescending voice. “Seems they been hittin’ around here lately. With the price of beef goin’ up, it’s worth the risk to them.”

  Immediately I began to think about how close the ranch seemed to the break even point. We’d need every head to make a good profit when roundup time came. The random thoughts kept coming back: losing my dad, the ranch close to failing, the questions about my relationship and my living in San Francisco. I felt overwhelmed and very alone. I wished that Dad were here to talk to. The anxiety, grief, and sense of being totally unable to control the situation were channeling into anger, a useless and uncalled for anger.

  “Hittin’ around here, where?” I asked Mike with some panic and a great deal of anger in my voice.

  “Well, your dad told me we’d lost about fifteen head so far. Sheriff has been lookin’, but nothin’ so far.”

  “He told you and he never bothered to mention it to me in any of our calls or e-mails?” The anger was beginning to rise, and I felt almost betrayed.

  “Lotta good you woulda done off in San Francisco. I reckon he just didn’t want to worry ya.”

  I walked over to Charlie, untied his reins, and swung myself up to the saddle. Mike was watching me. From the expression on his face, it was clear that he’d enjoyed seeing me swing my leg up over Charlie to saddle up. I was pissed as hell about his remark, probably because it was the truth. I was also more than a little hurt that my dad, who I’d considered really close, hadn’t bothered to tell me. Unfortunately, that hurt and the defensiveness caused by Mike’s offhand remark came out in hot anger and a desire to hurt.