On the Trail to Moonlight Gulch (29 page)

Chapter 22

F
RANKLIN
had been lying in bed awake, unable to sleep after such a chaotic day, when the heated blood had begun to pound in his ears. At first, he had thought the intensity of the trial had prevented him from sleeping. But the preceding events had not been what raced inside his mind while he’d tossed about in his feather bed, his hand like a clamp over his head.

He’d been picturing Tory sleeping in the cot just on the other side of the wooden partition. He’d remembered back to when they’d bathed in the creek pool. He couldn’t have helped but notice his figure. So subtle, yet firm and masculine. Like the granite rocks smoothed by the gentle flow of the creek.

And his words from a few hours ago. So sweet. He really did care for Franklin in a way Franklin had never thought anyone might. He had referred to him as
heroic
. The heat that had begun in his cheeks had spread like a wildfire throughout his entire body.

What thoughts had traipsed through his mind?

He’d clutched the bottom sheet with his hand, willing down the spasms. Squeezing his eyes shut, he’d hoped to rid himself of such images. Then that spicy boy from Richmond had appeared in his mind’s eye. While on furlough in the South’s capital, he had paid the boy for sex. The boy had been flirty, pushy, his intentions without pretense. Franklin had not needed the renter to have fooled him. He knew what he had been doing with him in the alley behind the tavern. He knew what they both had wanted.

Franklin’s body had twisted like a torqued chain ready to unwind with a snap as he squirmed atop his bed. Heat had built in his groin to the point of pain. His top sheets had lain in a knot by his feet from his having kicked at them. Smoldering breathlessness had compressed his chest. His mind had gone swirling in heated blindness like a sizzling summer thunderstorm.

He had wandered to the side of Tory’s cot as if in a spell, unable to contain the mounting force. He couldn’t recall how long he’d stood there, staring down at the young man and watching his chest rise and fall rhythmically under the sheet. He had noticed Tory was aroused, and had ogled him, wanting to reach for him. When he finally had, it had been as if someone had moved his arm for him. Now, with Tory’s muted yelps muffled in his ears, he found himself carrying Tory, fumbling with him in his one arm, determined to keep him tight to his chest.

He already had Tory’s union suit stripped down to his waist by the time he tossed him onto his feather bed. How he had accomplished it without dropping Tory to the wood floor, he could not answer. Tory tore at Franklin’s undergarments, struggling, twisting, punching, kicking. Shaking and frightened. Franklin could feel his own heat rising from under the cotton fabric as his skin was exposed to Tory’s touch.

His senses in the dark weakened. He smelled, heard, saw almost nothing. But the sensation of touch intensified. The feel of flesh was like bee stings striking raw nerves. Suddenly, Tory’s struggles abated. His muscles slackened. No doubt he understood fully what was happening to him, and he no longer fought to get away. He longed for it as much as Franklin.

Tory was allowing it. Wanting it. Demanding it.

The rest of their undergarments fell in a combined pile on the floor. They rolled on top of each other, kneading each other’s flesh. Tory submitted to Franklin, melding with his body. Franklin’s heart raced with a fury he feared might bring him near death. Yet he cared little. He needed, wanted Tory then and there. Damn the consequences. Tory was giving himself to him. And he was going to take him, determinedly and without reservation.

His tongue explored Tory’s neck, ears, nose, mouth. Tory bit on Franklin’s nipples and roved his tongue over his chest, then licked down to his navel. Franklin writhed, thrusting his belly upward. Defeated by desire, he rolled Tory onto his stomach, onto his back, onto his side, repeating his movements over and over, tossing him about as if he were an extension of Franklin’s body, a new arm sprouting from his stump.

Tory whispered words in Franklin’s ears that sent him into overflowing passion. He was telling him what he wanted. Telling him what he needed. Flipping him onto his back, Franklin spread Tory’s legs with his thighs and pushed down into him; Tory pulled him closer. His stump, muscled with two decades of use, balanced him against his left arm while he went wild with Tory’s submission. Invincibility and power propelled Franklin. Tory’s moans and movements exclaimed that he wanted more. He pulled Franklin in tighter, demanding that Franklin follow through.

The earth rocked with the rhythm of their bodies. Pounding and thrusting, reaching and pulling. Tory chewed on Franklin’s horseshoe mustache; Franklin met his bites with his tongue. Ecstatic shivers coursed through his blood. Tory’s feet traced the length of Franklin’s legs. Franklin wrapped Tory with his arm, pushing onto him with his weight. The release of anger, tension, apprehension, fear, and hunger carried him into another consciousness.

They ended with a final biting spasm, Franklin’s back arched in a moment frozen in forever.

He collapsed on top of him. They remained motionless. Residual vibrations seemed to pitch the feather bed. Exhausted and drained, Franklin rested his head on Tory’s chest. He had never needed release so badly. But it was more than the stress of imprisonment and the trial. Burning desire for Tory sleeping mere steps from his bed had controlled his movements. Tory felt good in his one arm, under him, beside him, against him. Tory’s legs wrapped tight around his hips long after they had emptied themselves.

They did not speak. Heavy breathing lingered. Restless sleep overtook them. They dozed, twisting and sighing, pawing for each other in their dreams. During the night, feeling each other’s heated bodies near, they made love three, four more times, sleepily, dreamlike. Their open mouths tracing along their necks and ears. Their hands grabbing in the fog of their fatigue, yet propelled by a profound hunger. Franklin taking Tory more and more, deeper and deeper.

Finally, Franklin lay depleted. With the expanding morning light, he could see Tory more clearly in the blue glow as it descended over them like a solicitous mother pulling back the blanket of darkness. Tory had fallen into a full sleep. Wavy blond hair splashed over the pillow. Soft curls were matted to his moist forehead. His chest rose with each breath, still labored from their lovemaking.

Tory’s body had grown harder since Franklin had first seen him in the buff while bathing in the creek. Two weeks of rugged subsistence work had tightened his muscles. Franklin had felt it beneath his initial resistance. He gazed at the smooth lines, the subtle hairless and taut flesh that crested over mounds of muscle and bone.

He thought back to their lovemaking. He had been greedy, drunk for Tory. And during their second, third time making love, when he’d thought he wouldn’t survive, Tory had done something Franklin had never imagined a man would do for another, not even a renter. Tory had taken Franklin into his mouth. Completely and willingly. The sensation of his hot, moist tongue was like a million expressions of love, caring, desire. The ultimate submission. He grew aroused again.

Yet he left Tory undisturbed. He was in deep slumber, Franklin could tell. His eyes were closed like a porcelain doll’s, twitching as if in rapturous dreams. And so Franklin also lay beside him as if in a dream.

A mellow pink flush seeped from the window as twilight acquiesced to dawn. He could see the mountains awash in a salmon-colored glow. Groggy, he draped his arm over Tory’s pelvis and rested his head on his chest, listening to his drumming heartbeat, like the galloping of an approaching horse.

Franklin failed to realize it before it was too late, but blending with Tory’s heartbeat
was
the galloping of an approaching horse. He struggled to lift his heavy head to see who had come onto the homestead. But it was too late. To his astonishment, Bilodeaux stood staring down at him and Tory as they lay naked on the feather bed. Franklin froze in disbelief. Bilodeaux, his sidearm in hand, looked on unblinkingly. The smell of whiskey swept down from his flaring nostrils. Amid the emergence of a subtle sneer, he turned away, sans words, before Franklin could react. The sound of his stallion’s hooves faded.

Chapter 23

W
HY
had Bilodeaux shown up at Moonlight Gulch at the crack of dawn? What had he wanted? Had he come for some final attack after failing to accomplish his scheme to frame Franklin for Johnson’s murder? What would he do now that he’d seen him and Tory in bed together, their naked, tangled bodies plainly depleted after a night of voracious lovemaking?

These were the thoughts that had churned inside Franklin’s mind since he’d stirred to find Bilodeaux staring down at him and Tory in bed four mornings ago. Few answers surfaced. He needed a confidant. But how much could he reveal to his best friend, Wicasha? They were close, but both men had kept their personal lives mostly to themselves. Each appreciated the other’s lack of curiosity. Franklin had not even told Wicasha about the silly advertisement he’d placed in
Matrimonial News
what seemed like ages ago.

He needed to feel Wicasha out about what Bilodeaux might do, while giving away as little as possible about him and Tory’s relationship. The impulse to confide in Wicasha proved too overpowering to ignore.

He and Wicasha were building a barbwire fence that Franklin had ordered from Chicago back in July, which he’d stored in the barn, hoping he wouldn’t have to use it. After Bilodeaux’s latest antics trying to implicate him for murder (and especially since his barging in on him and Tory), Franklin realized he had no choice but to erect it. They had started two days ago and were on the final segment. He had no idea how effective the fence would be, but he had to do something. The October sun was hot, and both men were building a healthy sweat.

Wiping his forehead under the brim of his hat with the back of his hand, Franklin said, “What do you think Bilodeaux might have next up his sleeve, Wicasha?”

He had phrased the question simply and directly. Wicasha, Franklin knew, appreciated such manner of phrase. Speaking equally straightforwardly, he said, “He has something planned, there’s no doubt. You can expect him to act ruthlessly. He’s desperate. Like a fox caught in a trap, he’s predictable only in that you can expect him to lash out in some unpredictable way.”

“Have you any thoughts of what that might be?”

Wicasha held a wooden post in place while Franklin, with his one arm, skillfully hammered it into the hole they had dug in the black soil. Both men had to spread their legs wide to balance themselves against the slope of earth. Franklin’s mule, Carlotta, snorted and swatted black flies with her tail while she waited to pull the cart loaded with the posts and barbwire. Wicasha delayed answering until Franklin finished hammering.

“He killed a man, Frank,” he said. “He shot him between the eyes in cold blood for no reason other than to frame you for it and get the untapped gold on your land. If I know mankind well enough, his violence will only get dirtier, much like how it works with war.”

They moved to the next foot-deep hole, one of about eighty they had already dug around the perimeter of the property. Carlotta followed with the cart, aware of her responsibility after already spending two days under the hot autumn sun. Most of the inserted posts had barbwire attached, and they had installed a small gate for Wicasha to come and go between his camp and the homestead and another larger one across the Spiketrout trail. They usually hammered five or six of the posts in place before backtracking and attaching the barbwire.

Franklin squinted into the sun, took a deep breath, and inspected a cut from the barbwire where his long-sleeved shirt and canvas glove had failed to protect his skin. “That worries me,” he said, disregarding the itchy abrasion on his wrist and reaching for a post. “I wonder in this war that he’s chosen to wage against me just which one of us will show the most violence.”

“Man can be pushed to defend himself to great lengths,” Wicasha said as he aided Franklin in securing the post.