McLeod, Anitra Lynn - Dirty Cowboy (Siren Publishing Classic ManLove) (9 page)

“So, tell me, how does it work?”

“I don’t rightly know.” While he spoke, Dalton traced his finger along Everett’s chest hair.

“You have this skill, and you don’t know nothing about it?” Everett paused. “Or do you just not trust me enough to tell me.”

Up Dalton’s head came. “If I didn’t trust you, I wouldn’t have shifted to save you.”

“Good point.” Chagrined, Everett kissed the tip of Dalton’s nose.

“I don’t remember how it started. Honestly I don’t. But I think it had something to do with avoiding being hit.”

Everett tensed.

“Relax, it was a long time ago.”

“How old are you?”

“I was twenty-three the day I realized I could do this curious thing, if the conditions were right.” Dalton paused. “What year is it?”

“1877.”

There was a long pause while Dalton figured the numbers. “Oh, my. I’m quite a bit older than you.”

But he wouldn’t say exactly how much older. Not that Everett was worried about that. While Dalton spoke, Everett sifted his fingers through his hair. Even damp, the strands were amazingly soft.

“There’s a catch, though, to this ability. Once I shift, I forget that I was ever human. I just go until the heat abates, and then I drop into dust, waiting for the heat to return.”

“What pulls you out of dust form?”

“Water.” Dalton chucked his chin to the downpour outside. “I was settled in for the night when the rain started. I can stay in that form if I wish, but something was telling me to turn.” He lifted his head until their gazes locked. “I missed you.”

“Did you now?”

Dalton nodded. “I shifted, and of course I couldn’t remember anything, which is another reason I don’t shift often.”

“It wipes your memory away?”

Dalton nodded. “I remember. Eventually.”

“That’s why at the spring your behavior was so curious. I thought whoever left you there had beaten you.” Everett left off that he’d been afraid they’d done something much worse to him.

“That spring damn near killed me.” Dalton sat up but turned so they were facing each other in the flickering light. “I hit it, and it started to pull me in. The only way to save myself was to shift.”

“But why were you just laying there?”

“It had been years since my last shift, and I couldn’t remember how to be human.”

“Why were only your feet in the water?”

“I kept my feet in the water to prevent me from shifting back. I wanted to try to remember my history.”

“Did you?”

“Not right away, not until I was with you for awhile. When I did remember, I realized I didn’t want to.”

“Bad memories?”

“Beatings, hatred for being different. That ever happen to you?”

Nodding slowly, Everett understood exactly what he meant. “There was a feller in San Antonio who seemed interested in me. He was always smiling and seemed, encouraging, I guess. And so one night, when things were quiet, he and I went for a walk. Not too far, just a ways into the woods. He was aggressive with me, and talked dirty, which I liked, but when I asked him to give back to me, he beat me senseless.” Tilting his head back, Everett pointed to the scar under his chin. “He wore a ring that left that mark.”

“I’m sorry he hurt you.” Dalton leaned up and kissed the scar.

“You’re sweet.” Everett kissed the tip of Dalton’s nose. “But that man taught me to be leery of men who seem too welcoming.”

“I learned that, too.” Dalton rubbed his cheek against Everett. “Like you, I was always longing for someone to be with, but finding only heartless men who would use me and then cast me aside.”

“What made you come back to me?”

“I shifted without knowing why, and then I saw your light. Something warm filled my chest, so I moved toward that glow. When I heard you whistling, my body shivered, and then I saw your face.” Dalton cupped his chin. “I remembered watching you chasing dust devils and wanting to go near you, but I was confused.”

“Confused by what?”

“Wanting you when as a dust devil I want for nothing.”

“I thought I had gone mad and imagined you.”

“I thought that, too.”

They made a lazy kind of love then slept entwined. After dawdling in the morning, giving the land time to dry out and warm up from the rain, they finally set off.

Each night when then stopped, Everett built the fire, Dalton cooked, and together they rolled around in the back of the wagon. Where before Everett hated traveling, he didn’t mind so much with Dalton. They fell into an easy rhythm, spending most of their time in companionable silence.

After standing to get the lay of the land, Dalton settled into the seat next to Everett. “Looks like a town up ahead.”

“Finally!” Everett had had enough of the lonesome prairie to last a lifetime. “A bath, good eats, and a real bed.”

Dalton nodded excitedly. “Although, to be fair, I don’t mind my dirty cowboy.”

Everett got a little lost whenever Dalton looked at him like that. And his chest felt funny. All tight and loose at the same time, like his body just couldn’t make up its mind about how it felt.

When they climbed to the top of the gentle hill, Everett saw the town in the distance, but a lone man stood in the middle of the trail, blocking the way. It was the same gunslinger who had accosted them before.

“Been waiting for you two to show up.” He spit a big wad of brown into the dirt. All Everett’s hopes and dreams for a happy life splattered like the wad of tobacco juice. “That trick you pulled”—he pointed his gun at Dalton—“caused my companions to leave me, which cost me my livelihood. So I’ve been staying at that Podunk town.” Using the gun, he pointed over his shoulder in the general direction of the town. “I’ve been coming out here everyday so I could thank you boys right proper.” He spat another giant wad into the dust and Everett caught a strong stench of whisky. “For what you did to me, I’m going to take everything you have, including your lives.”

Before Dalton could shift, the man lifted and emptied his gun. The shots were so loud it was as if someone had clapped his ears. Blood splattered up from Dalton’s chest, and Everett tried to reach out to help him, but his arms wouldn’t work right.

Baffled, Everett looked to the spot right over his heart. A huge, red-rimmed hole decorated the front of his shirt and burrowed right into his chest. Marveling that there was no pain, Everett just sat staring at his chest. There was no pain at all. He was going to die, and it wasn’t going to hurt. But then he looked at Dalton. All the things they’d never get to do, the words they’d never get to say, the fun they’d never get to have—that squeezed his heart hard. That’s what hurt. Everett toppled forward out of the wagon seat. He would have fallen into the rigging, but he grasped the edge and landed on the side.

When he looked up, he saw Dalton flying out of the wagon seat. He landed on the ground beside him. A look of horror ate up the beauty of Dalton’s face as he considered Everett’s wounds while completely ignoring his own. Shortly thereafter fury twisted Dalton’s features into something truly demonic. This time Dalton didn’t bother to take off his clothes. The garments ripped off him as he transformed.

Whatever glee Everett felt at watching Dalton twirl after the gunman was lost when Everett realized his life was slipping away. Red rivers poured off his body to make little lakes in the dust. The longer he watched, the more the gray crushed in around his vision. His only regret was that he hadn’t told Dalton he loved him.

With the expertise of a man cutting a steer from the herd, dust devil Dalton plucked the gunman from his horse, lifted him into the air, then threw him down to the ground. His mount bolted toward town unhurt, but the man would not be so lucky. Over and again Dalton picked him up and slammed him down until his body gave with the floppiness of a wet rope. Only then did Dalton stop.

Shrinking down into a cone about the length of Everett’s hand, Dalton whisked over to where Everett lay.

“I just wanted to say that I love you. Never told a soul that. I don’t even know if you can understand me.”

Dalton spun up his arm, which tickled despite the pain. As he traced over his chest, Everett breathed in the dust that Dalton kicked up. He wondered if he was breathing in bits of Dalton. He thought that if he was, that was a good thing, so he would take a bit of Dalton with him wherever he went in the great beyond. When he coughed, blood and air burbled out the holes in his chest. Settling right over the topmost hole, Dalton spun faster and faster until blood was lifted up into his inverted cone.

Baffled, a few breaths from death, Everett wasn’t sure what Dalton was trying to do. Kiss him good-bye, maybe, or get as close as he could to try to hold him in the only way a dust devil could. When Everett felt Dalton twirling down into his chest, he wanted to scream with the pain, but nothing came out. The deeper Dalton went, the smaller his cone became. When Dalton was gone, darkness swept over Everett’s eyes.

There was a long time of not knowing where he was or even what he was. Everett was formless and free, racing along the hot surface of the prairie. All he knew was pure sensation with no demands from his body. No hunger, no thirst, no pain. There was pleasure, though, once he discovered the other dust devil.

Everett had been spinning across an open bit of ground when another dust devil crossed his path. This one danced around him, whirling so fast it pulled dust from Everett. As he tried to go around, the dust devil blocked him. When Everett twirled backward, the dust devil followed him. Confused, Everett tried every direction he could move without losing his form by bumping against a scrub brush. When he inadvertently cornered himself, the larger dust devil pounced.

When they merged, his soul collided with Dalton’s, and everything, all he’d forgotten, came rushing back—the time they had shared, the love they had made, the dreams they had wanted to build together, and the horrible tragedy that had wrenched them apart.

If he’d had form, Everett might have cried for almost losing Dalton again, but the pain was swirled away and quickly forgotten as Dalton infiltrated him. Bound together, they danced in the sunlight and slept when night fell. Through the winter they were inert, but as soon as the heat came, they set to swirling across the prairie again.

Every day was an adventure, every night a quiet time of conversation. Together they withstood stampedes, raging storms, and freezing snow, but always the heat returned and eventually they rose into the air together.

After a time of sharing, Everett learned how to lift himself without the heat or the wind. Like a newborn colt, he was wobbly at first, and unable to stay aloft. He’d grown accustomed to using the rolling waves of hot air that moved horizontally across the surface of the land. Dalton taught him to create his own updraft. When he learned this trick, they were no longer bound by the weather. Even in the depth of winter they were able to move freely about the land. The cones they made were small, but they didn’t need size to enjoy the simple bliss of their existence.

But, like Everett always said, good for one thing usually meant bad for another. It was wonderful to have a companion, and to share his existence so intimately, but both of them recognized they needed more. There was deeper pleasure to be had in human form. Knowing just how amazing their merging bodies could be made the prospect both terribly alluring and woefully terrifying.

What if they shifted and forgot?

That was what petrified Everett and made him reluctant to give up what they had. He wanted to be with Dalton again, to kiss him, to hold him, to merge their bodies and hear him make that plaintive moan, but he was so afraid of losing him he wouldn’t take the risk.