ChapterFour
We arrivedat the Lone Vale cabin in the late afternoon, the trip to Copper Falls setting us back several hours. If you looked up the word desolate in the dictionary it would have a picture of this slice of Wyoming. The cabin, rough and aging without much grace, sat on the edge of the Jante River on pastureland that was thick with wild grasses. This two thousand acre stretch was split between grazing for the cattle and BLM land. Bureau of Land Management land was open to outdoor activity as long as the people using it left the land as they found it.
Some of the local scouts that partnered with Prairie Smoke brought their clients out here to hunt for elk, moose, whitetail or mule deer, and if they were really adventurous sort mountain goats or bighorn sheep that scampered up and down the sides of the Tetons. Mountain goats were a hot item as they were threatening the native Teton Ridge bighorn sheep with some sort of pathogen transmission as well as simply taking valuable food from the bighorns. So hunters were encouraged to remove as many of the non-native goats as they could.
This stretch of Prairie Smoke property was pretty isolated, so most of the time there was little sign of anyone. We kicked up a few mule deer as we rode the fence, checking the barbed wire and fence posts. We found several spots that would need attention—some new barbed wire or a rotted post that needed to be replaced—as well as the need to spray to keep the weeds off the electric fencing. There was only a short stretch of electric fed by a solar-powered fence charger out this far. Mostly it was barbed wire.
We rolled up to the cabin that sat in a riparian corridor, the trees that grew along the river opening up a bit where the old waystation lodge had been built. The mountains towered over us, the peaks reaching up to kiss the soft white clouds. Once the engines of the ATVs were cut the only sounds were birdsong, wind moving through the firs and maples, and the soft rumble of the Jante River. It was low now, the spring thaw long gone, but the waters still churned in certain spots upriver. Right behind the cabin was a deep hole that we used for watering the cattle throughout the year.
Looking at the rundown cabin filled me with various emotions. The last time we were here I’d touched Will as a lover, stroked his thick cock, my face buried in his throat, my lips resting on the pink, yellow, and blue lizard tat. He seemed unfazed by the past intimacy we’d shared here, but I strongly suspected he recalled what had taken place. Or at least had a hazy memory of something sexual taking place.
“I’m starving,” he said, sliding off the four-wheeler then stretching his arms way over his head. His T-shirt rode up to expose his stomach. It was firm and lightly hairy, mostly a fine dark treasure trail that slipped under the waistband of his jeans. I tore my hungry gaze from that tempting sight.
“Let’s unpack the supplies.” I hurried to get to work, toting a cooler filled with non-perishables into the cabin. A small skirmish broke out when Will opened a cupboard to stash the powdered milk and boxes of cereal and found a red squirrel. The rodent leaped out and landed on his shoulder. Will screamed and flailed. The squirrel, who had thought he’d had a nice place to live, took off like a rocket, tail up as he raced out the open front door. I was laughing so hard I couldn’t breathe for several minutes. Will was not amused. He swatted me with his hat. I swatted back. Things kind of escalated then, both of us playfully grappling.
“How dare you laugh when a man’s life is on the line like that?” he asked as he tried to get me into a headlock. I had some height and some weight on him, but he was strong and quick.
“Killer squirrels.” I snorted in amusement, slapping a hand on the back of his thick neck then pulling on him until he was wedged under my arm. I nearly had him in a submission hold when he poked me in the side. I squealed and danced away as he hooted in glee about finding my weakness. “Tickling is cheap.”
“Whatever it takes to win.” He winked, picked up our hats, then tossed mine to me.
With no reply to that, I slapped my hat back onto my head and wearing a smile went back out to help carry in another box of dry goods and bedding, which was simply our sleeping bags and the pillows from our bed. The bunk beds sat on one side of the one-room cabin, on the other was a fireplace and the small food prep area which consisted of two cupboards, a sink with a hand pump, and a rough-cut island. There was a small table made from pine boards, two chairs, and a window that looked out at the river. Tour complete. We set the long-range walkie-talkies on the table then made ourselves a fire in the stone hearth. The window was nailed shut so we cracked the door to let some of the smoke and heat out. Temperatures had been dipping into the mid-to-lower forties the past few nights, so I planned to keep the fire going even though it was close to eighty outside at the moment.
“Be right back.” Will made a trip to the outhouse, returning quickly to inform me that when I used it to keep an eye on the spider in the corner by the ceiling. “I think it’s a black widow. And not the sexy Avenger either because I’d be down with that.”
I gave him a long look while feeding kindling into the fledgling fire. I so wanted to ask him if he were straight or if he were bi or if he had just been experimenting with me that night. Instead, I grunted at him to open some beans for dinner.
“Man, this is like real Jeremiah Johnson bullshit,” he mumbled as he cranked the old-fashioned can opener. Using a pot that had been left here by a previous cowboy—we had to wash it out first which was another issue for Will having to pump for water—we finally managed to get a fire hot enough to warm our beans. We dipped some flat bread into the pork and beans as the coffee perked away over the fire. The ancient percolator plopping along steadily hanging from an iron hook over the flames.
“My grandmother had a hand pump in her kitchen,” I commented after the meal was over and we were enjoying coffee strong enough to curl your lashes, with some lemon cookies from the Copper Falls grocery store. “I remember playing with toys while she cooked and seeing her use it. She also had one of those wringer washers. I thought it was really cool and begged to help her do wash when I was there.”
“Why did she do shit the hard way like that?”
“It was all she knew. And she swore that the new-fangled washers didn’t get the clothes as clean as her wringer washer did.” I shrugged and dunked a cookie into my black coffee. We’d forgotten to bring sugar but there was powdered creamer for Will. “Also things on the rez kind of lend themselves to not spending cash on new stuff when the old stuff and ways still work. My grandfather refuses to give up using paper calendars and writing checks even though he has a smartphone and can do all of that shit online.”
Will snorted in amusement. “Your grandfather is cool. First time I met him he told me the filthiest joke I have ever heard.”
“Was it the one about the little boy asking his mom how to spell ‘scrotum’ and the mom replying that he should have asked last night as she had it on the tip of her tongue?”
“Yeah! Oh shit, I roared. I didn’t think boomers told those kinds of jokes.”
“He’s a walking encyclopedia of dirty jokes. Dude can’t remember where he left his phone or glasses, but he can recite a joke someone told him in nineteen sixty-seven.”
“Your Kenruh is cool as shit.” He dunked another cookie into his mug. This was just about the most perfect evening I’d ever experienced. The sun was low now, night was just a few hours away. It was too late to do much work on the fencing, which would wait until tomorrow. So we were just chilling, talking, relaxing. I loved it when Will was being Will. The true Will not the asshole Will. “I don’t remember my grandparents. They died before I was born.”
“Where did you grow up?” I suspected it was not on a working cattle ranch. The man knew nothing about cattle, horses, or nature.
He moved his gaze from me to his boots propped up on his side of the table. His hat rested on the pointed toe of his right boot.
“I was born in Chula Vista, but we moved to Nevada when I was two. Mom married some loser realtor. After that marriage blew up, we ended up in Utah where she hooked up with some Mormon guy. He was okay. Didn’t care that I was pan but he was too normal for her, and we wound up living with some asshole who ran a motorcycle repair shop in Sarasota Springs. She married him and then all the shit started going down between me and him. He was not as accepting as Mike the Mormon when it came to the LGBTQ kid living under his roof.”
I sat there, mouth parted, stunned to the center of my being about him coming out and confessing that he was pansexual. He’d never once said a thing about it. In truth, he acted like he was ashamed of his sexuality or of anyone knowing he liked guys.
“So you’re not straight,” I said into my cup as I watched him through my lashes.
“No. You know that though.” My fingers went numb. How I held onto the steaming cup of coffee was anyone’s guess. So he did remember what went on here. I felt a flush race up my neck to my cheeks. He gave me a cockeyed look. “Dude, you look like you swallowed a fucking prickly pear.”
“I didn’t…” I swallowed some hot coffee to wash down the glob of emotion wedged in my throat. “I thought…you never once said that you remembered…that night.”