The City of Lovely Brothers (18 page)

"I ain't gonna oppose it. Ain't I always said Calvin was cut out to be merchant, Julia?"

Calvin turned to his wife. "What do you think, Darcie? That's what's most important."

She went up to him and gave him a peck on the

cheek. "I like the idea, Calvin. I'll be glad to have a general store on the property. It's a shame there ain't no champagne left to toast it."

"We can toast it with our coffee after lunch,"

Caliban said. He was happy both about the new babies and the store.

* * * *

"I'm stuffed," Nick said as he climbed into the wagon beside Caliban. "Made a pig of myself. But smoked turkey, how often do we get that? It's always beef, beef, beef."

Living alone on the range eight miles from the

nearest house —Caleb's— they didn't feel they had to take 22precautions to hide their relationship at home. The six-foot fence around their yard, built to keep the coyotes from their chickens, was a more effective barrier against prying eyes, not that any came round often to pry. Inside the stockade they almost always went naked in warm weather. Calhoun rarely brought the herd to graze on their side of the property, and he would not let the animals come closer than half a mile from the house. When he did, he and the two to four men with him would occasionally drop in for supper, and those not on watch might stay the night. Caliban would sleep in Nick's room then, which he did anyway unless Nick was sleeping in his, and let Calhoun have his bed, and the ranch hands bunked down on the floor next to him. But today was a Sunday, and no one would be coming around.

They ripped off their church clothes. "Last one to the pump cleans the chicken coops!" Nick yelled, racing out the door.

"No fair! You know I can't run!"

"You can clean chicken coops, though," Nick called back to him.

Caliban hobbled after him at slow lope, his body rocking at twenty-degree angle when he stepped on his right and his dick swinging wildly, like the pendulum in a grandfather clock gone haywire. "Maybe I can scrub the floor of the coop to a high polish and we can fuck on it with 22the chickens looking at us and cackling—"

"That's disgusting."

"…and we can take the eggs back to the house and pretend we can have kids."

"You really are hankering for a kid o' your own, ain't you, Cal?"

"I won't deny it, but in a way, I feel all the kids at the school are mine. My brothers' kids, the ranch hands'

kids… Hey, cut it out!"

Nick had been working the pump handle, and when

the water began pouring out of the spout, he splashed Caliban with cold water. "I thought we come out here to wash up," he said. "You remember to bring the soap?"

"What's wrong with that bar on top of the pump?"

He grabbed it, wet it, splashed water onto Nick's back, and began soaping him. He stood behind him and lathered his shoulders and upper arms, rubbing hard, as in a firm sensual massage, then down toward the small of his back.

The air was thick with dust, and there was a breeze, so standing outdoors just a few minutes had coated their naked bodies with the yellowish powder already on their faces and in their hair.

"Hey, that scratches!" Nick complained.

Caliban looked at the bar of soap. Bits of gritty sand were stuck in the side he had been scrubbing Nick with. He 23turned the bar over and worked up a lather between his shoulder blades where he had just been washed, and used the suds to soap his buttocks and in the cleft between them and his upper thighs, reaching between his legs to soap his balls and play with them. Then he made more lather for his chest and belly and reached around him to soap them, and next his penis, lovingly, his eyes closed to imagine what his fingers saw.

When Caliban had washed Nick from head to toe,

he handed him the soap for Nick to wash him in turn. Nick lathered it on his own chest and washed him with his hands.

Then they used the gritty soap to shampoo their hair and rinsed off under the pump.

Caliban winked. "Simultaneous sucking, right?"

"You're so sexy when you use big words," Nick said, caressing him. "Let's make it real good this time."

"Isn't it always good?"

"It's always great, terrific, but we mightn't get a chance to do it again for another couple o' days. Hooner could be coming over tomorrow or the day after." Nick had special names for the Caldwell brothers he used only with Caliban; when others were around he called them by their full names. Calvin was Calv, Caleb Cleb, and Calhoun Houn or Hooner. He always called Caliban Cal wherever they were and whoever was there. At night in bed, during 23teasing foreplay, he sometimes called him Banni, but when their toying turned to passion he called him Cal.

Caliban seemed surprised. "What makes you think Calhoun will come see us? Did he say something to you?"

"Nope, it's just a feeling I have. He's gonna talk about Darcie and the baby."

"Why should that make Calhoun come over? Don't you think he's happy for Darcie?"

"He's happy enough for Darcie. It's Calv he'll be wanting to talk about. Didn't you see Hooner looking at him when Calv was gloating?

"Calvin wasn't gloating."

"What would you call it, then?"

"Proud? Tickled? Elated?"

"You are so damn sexy when you use them big words."

"You think you know my brothers better than I do."

"Ain't I always right?"

"No, just most of the time. Do you think he'll come tonight?"

"No, for sure not on a Sunday. And he won't come alone, just to talk. He'll come with the herd, so you won't think he just come to give you an earful about Calv. Let's not talk about that now. Let me hear another of those big words of yours." "Asshole!"

"Uh-uh, not today. Today it's a simul… What was it you called it?"

"A simultaneous suck."

"How do you expect me to keep my hands off your dirty boner when you talk big to me!" And he went down on him.

Caliban held on to the pump for balance and braced himself against it. Standing for a blowjob tired his hip, and Nick always took his time, stopping to examine his cock in minute detail, as if he were an entomologist and it a recently discovered, exotic insect he had to describe for a scientific journal. Nine times out of ten, he would tell Caliban about his foreskin, which he had seen every day for three years, how wonderful it was, loose, not tight like his, which made it easier and more fun to play with, and he would pull it back as far as it went and call the head an all-day sucker or sugar candy and start licking away at it.

Nick held Caliban's buttocks with his thumb right below his hip bones, which made standing easier. Caliban let go of the pump and steadied himself with his hands on Nick's shoulders while Nick buried his face in Caliban's groin and Caliban's cock at the back of his throat. Caliban put both hands behind Nick's head and held it tight against him. Jaggers Jr. had been lying curled up a few yards from the pump, watching. A sudden blast of hot, dusty wind sent him scampering to the door to scratch to be let in.

"This wind!" Caliban said, releasing his grip on Nick's skull. "We're going to be caked in dust. Let's go inside and do it the way we agreed."

They splashed on another quick rinse-off of the dust that had settled on them since they had finished their bath, opened the door for Jaggers Jr. and followed the dog into the house. "Do you think Calhoun might come tonight after all, and bring Jake for a visit?" Caliban asked. Every so often the boy came to stay two or three days with them when the weather was fine. They would lay a blanket for him to sleep on the floor of Caliban's room. Nights were warm in summer.

"You're really crazy about that boy, aren't you?"

"Why shouldn't I be? I'm his godfather. I used to change his diapers for Julia when I went to see him as a baby. I couldn't do enough to help out with him. He's the closest I'll ever have to a kid of my own. And is he ever smart! He's the brightest kid in his group at school, and the youngest. I think he's going to grow up to be a doctor, like Jacob Brewster."

"You ever see him again?"

"Doctor Brewster? No, but I've often thought it 23would be nice to pay him a surprise visit. Calvin was talking about going to Billings to buy some kind of new farm invention you can only get in a city. I bet he won't want to leave Darcie alone here now that she's pregnant.

Why don't you and I go for him? I'm sure Caleb will watch the place for us and feed the chickens."

"We'd take the wagon?"

"How else? We'll need it haul back whatever equipment he's thinking of getting. We've never taken a trip together. We could build campfires by the side of the wagon to cook our supper, and then climb into it and make love under the tarp."

"Or under the stars. An outing to Billings for just the two of us 'd be nice, but right now I want to make love to you without no tarp over us."

The wind picked up during the night and continued blowing most of the next day. It raised so much dust they couldn't see but a quarter-mile beyond the fence if they stepped outside, and they could barely make out the fence from inside the house because the dust lay thick on the window panes. They spent the day indoors.

The wind died down in late afternoon, and a light ten-minute drizzle settled the dust. The sun rose bright and clear the next morning, but the temperature had dropped and storm clouds were moving in from the west.

"Calhoun won't be bringing the herd this way if there's going to be a storm," Caliban said. "So you see you were wrong."

"I don't answer for the weather."

The air turned chill, and they stayed in their clothes, as if it wasn't the middle of summer. Toward three o'clock the wind started blowing, and thunder rumbled on the far horizon. At around five the storm broke, with lightning claps and heavy rain.

Caliban had been sewing a new work shirt for Nick.

He was trying it on one last time before Caliban doubled-stitched the seams, standing very still in his socks and long 23johns with his arms out to the side so as not to be stuck with one of the many pins holding the shirt together. They heard horses come into the yard, and Nick turned to look, burying a pin deep into his flesh where his right arm attached to his shoulder. He hollered a loud "Yowch" as the front door swung open, and a very wet Calhoun came into the kitchen accompanied by two very wet cowherds.

"You're bleeding!" Caliban said. "You've gone and stained the shirt before I've finished making it."

"We interrupting something?" Calhoun asked.

"Just a fitting."

"Caliban makes clothes?" one of the herders asked.

"Ain't there nothing he can't do?"

Nick shook his head no. "I expect you've come to bunk here for the night," Caliban said. "Get out of those wet clothes. You're leaving a puddle on the floor. You can take blankets from my room and wrap yourselves in them.

How did you manage to get so wet?"

"Storm broke when we were about five-six miles from here. Closer to Caleb's, but you got more room for us here. See you fellas gave the outside a new coat o' paint.

Looks good."

The men took off their jackets, shirts, boots and dungarees. They were soaked to the bone. "Looks like we'll hafta take it all off," one of the herders said. They went into Caliban's room and came back with blankets around their naked bodies.

"Pull up chairs for yourselves," Nick said.

"Coffee hot?" Calhoun asked.

"Pour yourselves some."

They moved the chairs back from the table and sat in a semi-circle, watching Caliban make a few last adjustments to the shirt and carefully slip it off Nick while they sipped their coffee.

"I'm afraid we gotta impose on you for supper, too,"

Calhoun said. "No way we coulda lit a fire in this hurricane. Hope there'll be enough. Smells good, too.

What's in the pot? Pork and beans?"

"Cal's making chili with beef."

"He cooks fancy, too?" said the same herder who'd been impressed by the shirt. "Caliban's gonna make someone a fine wife someday."

"Chili and beef ain't fancy," Nick said. Then he joked, "But he's already taken, and I couldn't ask for none better… sometimes."

"Nick's mad because he hasn't been getting any. He made me clean out the chicken coops when it was his turn, so I've been holding out on him."

The men roared with laughter.

"But he's happy now," Caliban went on, "because 23you'll be taking my room tonight, so I'll have to go back to his bed."

They laughed louder. "You two ain't really gonna sleep together," Calhoun guffawed.

"The floor's too hard for my hip, and Nick's too selfish to give up his bed."

They laughed so hard that one of the cowherds

choked on his coffee.

After supper, Calhoun said he had something he

wanted to talk over with his brother in private. The ranch hands went into Caliban's room. Nick stayed. Calhoun raised a questioning eyebrow.

"I keep no secrets from Nick," Caliban said.

"Whatever you tell me he'll hear from me later."

Calhoun hesitated. "I ain't sure."

"Think back to the personal things we've said to each other as brothers. Nick knows all of them. Has he gone around blabbing them or given you a hard time about any of it? Wouldn't you rather know what he knows?"

"It's about Calvin."

"What'd I tell you?" Nick said.

Calhoun looked up, surprised.

"Nick said you'd be coming over soon to get something off your chest," Caliban explained, "something to do with Calvin. So you see he knows more than you 23think. I want you to look on Nick as family."

"I do look on him as family."

"Then out with it. And if there's anything you want me to know and I'm not around for you to tell me, you can tell it to Nick."

"It's just that you don't tell me things about Nick."

"I tell you things; I just don't tell you everything.

Do you tell me everything about you and Julia?"

"It ain't the same thing. Julia's my wife."

"Well, we were only joking that Nick's my husband, but we live together and we're together all the time, and we plan on staying together after he gets married and brings his wife home here. Nick and I have our secrets, just the two of us, just as Caleb and I did when we lived here together and all the ten years we shared a room."