“My parents used flint,” Jed replied, a fairer trade of information than Gideon usually got. He had the impression Jed was glad of his company tonight, and even if that was just fanciful imagination, he liked the idea of it in his head. “Build up the fire,” Jed said, rolling to his feet and reaching for his rifle. “I will find meat for dinner.”
“Ain’t really that hungry,” Gideon said, thinking about bathing in the pond. He kind of wanted sunlight for that, so he could see what he was doing. See what Jed was doing, too.
“You’ll be hungry at breakfast,” Jed replied.
Gideon shrugged and held his hand out for Jed’s rifle. Everything but Gideon’s handgun was packed in trunks and traveling with the show, but he had no trouble with Jed’s Winchester. “I’ll see to supper and breakfast, you see to the fire.” Jed looked doubtful enough that Gideon rolled his eyes. “I shoot for a living, Jed,” he said, exasperated. “I haven’t had any trouble scaring up food yet, have I?”
Jed’s doubt cleared, but he still shook his head. “I will leave you to future hunts then,” he said easily. “I know this area. I will be faster at flushing out game.”
Gideon wanted to argue so Jed would relax and get off his leg, but they’d traded off hunting since that first night, and Jed was walking well by now. “Fine,” he said, and set to pulling out his gear while Jed walked into the shadows.
He laid out his bedroll and plopped down on it, tugging off his boots and socks and wiggling his bare toes in the grass. Maybe Jed was right, he thought, looking at how his socks wanted to stand up on their own. Maybe he needed a bath more than he’d thought.
He got up and found himself a creosote bush and used his pocketknife to cut a long, scraggly branch, then shucked off his pants and shirt and, after a brief hesitation, his underdrawers, and threaded everything onto the branch. With a piece of string he tied it off and dropped the whole pile of laundry into the fast-moving part of the creek, the better to kill any fleas that had hopped on for a ride west. Then he sat back down to feed the fire, dressed only in his hat and his oilskin coat. He felt half a fool, but the picture made him smile, too, a naked cowboy catching the last of the evening sun while he waited for his buddy to bring home dinner.
He never heard the rifle crack though, and after a time Jed returned empty-handed. Gideon earned himself a surprised look for his dress, no doubt, and Jed launched into an explanation without being provoked. “I saw ducks in the reeds along the pond,” he said. “Too small to waste bullets on though. I set snares.”
“Don’t seem like many folks have camped here before us,” Gideon said, just making conversation. He’d seen no charred ground from older fires, and as pretty as this spot was, that was a bit of a surprise.
“Indians, mostly,” Jed said. He tilted his shoulder and started walking, so Gideon followed, to a circle of stones some hundred feet out from the pond and well away from the train tracks. Enough boots had traveled across this ground that he’d first mistaken it for a game trail. But it widened around a cold fire pit, with trampled grasses and even some marks on the charred stones. Gideon had little talent for tracking, so he shot Jed a surprised look.
“You knew this was here? You’ve—what, been through here before?”
“Yes. Many of my people travel this route east or west.”
“On foot,” he said, testing.
“Mostly. Horses….” He paused, clearly looking for words that wouldn’t offend, “Indian ponies tempt white men.”
Gideon couldn’t fault the logic of that. White people’s horses tempted thieves, too. If Star weren’t plenty fast, and he’d been traveling alone, he might have been looking over his shoulder more, himself. “Why didn’t we camp here, then, if there’s a fire pit already?”
Jed led the way back to the flickering light and shadows of their fire, much nearer the pond with its tall grasses and stubby trees. “Bath,” he said shortly, then after a brief pause added, “More private. And the snares, now. We’ll likely have duck or rabbit for breakfast.”
“What about supper?”
“Thought you weren’t hungry,” Jed replied easily, then started stripping off his clothes.
Gideon cleared his throat and pretended not to watch, not even when the buckskins came off, revealing a narrow ass and lean legs… and the long scar that Doctor MacCray had worsened when he’d dug out the infection in Jed’s wound. But the wound looked a lot better now. Jed had been right about the infection being the worst of it.
“What?” Jed asked.
“What, what?” Gideon countered, tearing his eyes away.
Jed said nothing more, just moved to the creek and started scrubbing his body down with coarse sand. Gideon, who’d packed no soap, decided to try it, too, and knelt a few feet from Jed to copy his movements. His efforts brought a smile to Jed’s mouth, so Gideon quirked an eyebrow at him. “What?”
“You are learning the way Lakota children learn,” he said quietly, scrubbing a hand full of sand up his arm and into his armpit. “They watch their elders and copy them, only asking questions when they do not understand.”
Gideon chuckled at the thought of that and at the image of Jed, a rail-thin kid, rarely wasting words as he mimicked what his daddy must have done. He cleared his throat. “That the way Indian kids learn most things?” he asked.
Jed nodded. “Most things,” he said.
Was there a certain weightiness to his voice, or was Gideon just being fanciful? He shrugged off the thought and followed when Jed stood and moved to the pond, wading in waist-deep then bending backward to duck his head under the water. The water was cold, but Jed was right; it wasn’t nearly as bad as some of the creeks they’d crossed that were mostly fed by the snow on the mountains. Still, it was cold enough to shrivel his prick and bring goose flesh up everywhere else. By the time he hurried out he was past ready to drag his bedroll almost into the coals of the fire and plop down, wrapping his coat back around him and watching Jed, who still stood by the pond, naked as a jaybird, wringing out his long, glossy hair. That got blood pumping south, reaffirming his manly parts and annoying the crap out of him. They were only three days into this trip, with at least three weeks in front of them, and already, Jed’s form was driving him right round the bend.
He slid his arms into his coat and his bare feet into his boots and dug out the pemmican he had bought back in Livingston, handing across a strip when Jed came over and wrapped his blanket around his hips like a woman’s skirt. Rock-hard nipples stood out from the flat chest, casting tiny pointed shadows. Gideon sighed and dragged his eyes away before he invited a scalping. “Coffee?” he offered.
Jed nodded. “Warm.”
Gideon filled the pan in the creek and set it near the coals, poured in a measure of coffee grounds, and sat back to wait. The silence preyed on him, just the sounds of running water and birds calling, not even cattle lowing on this barren ground. He watched the sun slide behind the western hills and sighed, disgusted at himself. Seemed he’d be taking matters in hand when it was dark enough, and picturing that flat butt and those perky nipples while he did. He tried to recall Miss Lila’s body—he’d seen her naked a couple of times—but he was hard pressed to hold the image, not with this living, breathing, pretty man beside him.
When the water boiled, he pulled the pan off and filled two cups, passing one to Jed and watching him grimace at the bitter taste, then cup his hands around the tin, soaking up the warmth. “You burned it again,” Jed told him.
“You were as near the fire as I was,” Gideon groused, moody now. “You could’ve pulled it off.”
Jed sighed and nodded, and Gideon watched the light from the fire glint off runnels of water that dripped off his hair and down his bare back. “I could have.” Then he glanced over at Gideon and grinned. “So could you.”
Gideon huffed out a breath and took a deep gulp of bitter coffee, feeling the warmth of it spread through him and pretending it didn’t taste as bad as Jed said. It did; he couldn’t make c
offee worth a damn, never had been able to. Seemed like the more complex a thing was, the more likely he was to do it well. “Reckon we might as well put our heads down,” he said after a time.
“Fetch your clothes from the water,” Jed reminded.
Gideon huffed again, as annoyed at the way Jed made the words an order as he was by the fact that he’d plumb forgotten about them, but he got up anyway and tromped creek side to fetch back his stick and his clothes. He threw them over a bush to start them drying before he rifled through his suitcase in the dark for a fresh change. Behind him, Jed pulled a clean, if rumpled, cotton shirt from his bag and slid it over his shoulders, but the man made no move to button it. Gideon sat back down on his bedroll, pulled off his boots and put on clean socks, and he was reaching for his drawers when Jed knelt beside him and put his hands on Gideon’s bare shoulders, gentle pressure encouraging him to lie back on his bedroll.
He stiffened against the pressure. “What are you doin’?”
The pressure on his shoulders eased, and Jed knelt back on his haunches. “Men sometimes say things they don’t mean, when they think another is dying,” he said, sounding uncertain.
Gideon’s mouth dried, and his throat tried to close up on him. “I… what?”
“I heard you, when you said your words. That you wanted things… that you did not take advantage.” Jed frowned, hard enough that even with only firelight and stars to see by, the hard lines of it were drawn clearly on his face. “‘Take advantage’…” he said, as if he were testing the words in his mouth. “You may take advantage now.”
“I….” He resisted the urge to shove Jed away for the insult and growled, “A man don’t take advantage of nobody.” He knew what was being offered, knew the brave knew he wanted it, and it made him feel smaller than an ant on the ground to be thinking about accepting.
Jed didn’t react to the harsh words, though. He just tilted his head and nodded as if to himself. “As I thought. Still, if you want me, I am yours.”
Gideon swallowed again, powerfully tempted. “You… you go for men?”
Jed nodded.
“You ain’t just trying to pay me back?” Not that he might not still accept, but he’d sure as hell feel bad about it, after.
A shrug this time, and Gideon felt the weight of Jed’s eyes on him. “Perhaps a little. But no, I would not trade something I was not willing to give. Not even for my life.” He leaned forward again, and water from the strands of his hair dripped down onto Gideon’s bare thigh. “Now. Did you think you were speaking to a dead man or a living man, all those days ago in that room?”
Gideon’s body responded so quick, he thought he might sprain something. He reached, pushing his fingers into the cold hanks of Jed’s long hair, and pulled him forward. Jed hesitated at that, and kept his mouth closed for the kiss Gideon urged on him, even when Gideon used his tongue against the seal of his lips. “What?” he asked, drawing back a little and trying to see in the firelight.
“Lakota do not….” Jed touched his own mouth with a fingertip, rubbing his lips before he reached to touch Gideon’s. He bent forward, though, and pressed his closed lips to Gideon’s. Gideon didn’t try to open his mouth again. He just stretched back on his bedroll and grunted his pleasure when Jed’s weight stretched out atop him. It was good, better than it had any right to be with long wet hair drawing chill fingers over his shoulders and chest. Better than last night when he’d lain awake thinking about Jed’s mouth and things that had nothing at all to do with kissing.
A rush of heat swept him at the thought, and he buried his face against the join of Jed’s shoulder and neck and breathed in the clean, cold, earthy smell of the man. “Lakota do other things with their mouths?” he asked, hopeful as hell.
Jed had tucked his arms in along Gideon’s ribs and levered himself above Gideon on his elbows. His hair hung down, screening his face from the weak light of the fire. “Like what?” he asked, and rolled his hips, brushing his smooth, hard cock against Gideon’s.
Gideon had to grind up against that, it felt so good. “Like sucking private parts,” he panted.
He heard a short laugh, warm and amused, before Jed’s weight settled more fully on him, and Jed’s hands cupped his face, holding him still for another quick, close-mouthed kiss to his lips. “I know how to do that.”
Good Lord, did Jed know how to do that. Gideon propped up on his bent arms and watched, shivering as that cold, wet hair trailed fast down his body, and shivering some more when Jed’s warm, wet mouth engulfed the head of his prick with no hesitation at all. He felt the chill of air when that sweet hot mouth opened around the head of his shaft, and worried for a second about something Miz Howard had said about how redskins smelled funny. He didn’t want to smell funny or taste bad, because this felt too good to give up after one time, and they had weeks on the trail to do it again and again.
Whatever Jed thought of the taste of him, the man’s mouth drew off only for a second before the heat was back, and Jed was sucking down more of him.
He grunted at the pleasure of it, that mouth doing more to him than his imagination had allowed for. Jed’s tongue was wide and wet as it licked up the length of his shaft before catching on the flare near the tip, and despite himself, Gideon let his eyes fall closed and his head fall back to hang limp between his scrunched-up shoulders. He was caught up in the space where his thoughts and hopes from the night before met the reality of this minute. Dropping flat on his back he reached with both hands for that wealth of hair, but as soon as he touched it, Jed’s head jerked off him and away.
“Don’t—” Jed started, and Gideon leaned up on his elbow, trying to peer through the darkness. The fire was close enough to cast bright glints of light down Jed’s side, to show Gideon the length of one thigh outside his own, to show the shadow of Jed’s cock where it jutted out from his groin and the lean line of his body, even the ribs that showed after fever had eaten all the fat off the man. But there wasn’t near enough light to penetrate the screen of hair and show him whatever was hiding on Jedediah’s face.
“Jed?” he tried. “I wasn’t—” He didn’t know what he was or wasn’t, so he started over. “I like your hair. Wet like that, it feels like water flowing through my fingers.”
After a second’s silence, Jed’s hand returned to his cock and stripped it once, forcing Gideon’s belly muscles to ripple in want and his hips to thrust up into the touch. “All right,” Jed said, and bent back down.
Gideon accepted the offer but carefully, gathering up the hanging hair and clutching at it and doing his best not to try and guide Jed’s movements. He’d had a man or two who liked to take over the show, and didn’t particularly appreciate it himself unless he was real, real overheated, so he reckoned he could understand the hesitation. Still, there wasn’t any hesitation in Jed’s work down there, not in the firm suction or the flat stroke of his tongue, not in the hand that gripped his shaft and slid the skin up and down it, working him fast and sure. It seemed like seconds before he was on the edge, and just like he would with a gal, he grunted out, “Gonna come!” in time to let his partner pull away.
Jed did, sitting upright astride his thighs and using both hands now, one pulling strong and sure, the other polishing over the head as his cock spat jism, slick and warm, that Jed swiped over the head and down the shaft, making it feel even better.
Gideon lay there shuddering until he couldn’t take no more, then he reached, grasping Jed’s wrists to tug the hands off him.
“Too much?” Jed asked, letting his hands be drawn away and up to Gideon’s chest. Both were sticky-warm, and Gideon figured that meant another bath before they broke camp tomorrow, but he chuckled at the question.
“Real good,” he praised. “Just enough.” He panted, letting his fingers play with the backs of Jed’s hands, feeling sharp bone and lean tendon as his breath slowly began to settle. “You like it, too?” he asked. “Getting your prick sucked?”
Jed’s answer, like many o
f his answers, wasn’t in words at all. He just climbed off Gideon and stretched out beside him, on the edge of Jed’s bedroll furthest from the fire, turned his head Gideon’s way, and waited. Gideon didn’t have any trouble returning that favor, not even just in his socks and raincoat, which he knew he’d find funny when he thought about this in the future. Jed didn’t touch him, didn’t guide him at all, not with hands or words, but his body was taut with the need for release, and Gideon ran his hands around the narrow waist, measured the curve of his hip, and sucked the smooth, dark cock all the way down.
Like his smell, the taste of Jed was different, woodsy and with a hint of musk, but clean and cool. Gideon had been with other men whose smell put him off long before he got this close, but Jed’s taste was new and different and easy on his tongue, and rich enough for him to want more. His cock wasn’t the biggest Gideon had ever seen, but it was big enough, filling his mouth just right. Polite, too, not struggling to get down his throat or bang against the top of his mouth, but letting Gideon do the entertaining.
Jed didn’t grunt or groan, which disappointed Gideon some but didn’t surprise him. Jed wasn’t what he could call an overly vocal man. Jed was more what he could call practically mute, he thought, his lips stretching tighter as his mouth tried to smile. Still, it weren’t but a couple of minutes before Jed’s hand touched his forehead, pushing his head away, and he sat back, watching as Jed grasped his shaft and milked it the last of the way, watched it spit and surge, white droplets turned gold by firelight arcing onto his concave belly.
On his back, his hair didn’t get in the way, and Gideon greedily watched the way pleasure drew itself on Jed’s face, the way his teeth pressed together, and his lips pulled back almost in a grimace that Gideon knew didn’t have nothing at all to do with pain.
He grinned, fonder than he ought to feel, and grasped the tight balls, tugging them gently and watching how Jed handled his manhood, storing away the speed of the stroke for future reference.
Well Traveled Page 8