RIDING SHOTGUN by Claudia Dante

Sonny Goss has everything going for him. He's still not 22 years old, and already he's a rising star in red-hot niche movies, and working for an ambitious director-producer. Paul Jordan's films are still in the zone of soft-core, but Paul has big plans to evolve into 'erotic fantasy' catering to the gay DVD market. His company -- Take A Chance Pictures -- is expanding fast, and his current project, Howl of the Black Wolf, is the biggest, most expensive movie yet to issue on his label. Sonny Goss has the starring role of saddletramp and gunfighter, Matt Ridley, who's in love with a shapeshifting young shaman, John Black Wolf.

Sonny's starting to get noticed, and the future looks bright ... save for one thing. He's alone, and he wants so much more than one night stands with beautiful guys he meets 'playing cowboy' in a notorious LA club know as The Corral. It can be a dangerous place to play, but Sonny turns on to the 'midnight cowboy' fantasy, even while he envies his friend, gorgeous First Nations actor Jeff Lucas, who's costarring with him in the gay Western that's tipped to kickstart a whole new genre.

The incredible fantasy of John Black Wolf haunts Sonny -- as does Jeff. But Jeff is secure in a happy, settled relationship, leaving Sonny stranded and falling back on The Corral, where he goes just to watch, to let off steam. The fantasy is piquant, powerful.

Meanwhile, there's a very real half-wolf called Jason ... a soundstage at Universal where the Western action is rather more intimate than the usual spurs'n'saddles ... and there's a stalker menacing Sonny. Crazed fan, or vigilante on a personal quest against out gay actors working in fringe movies...? Sonny's starting to run scared, and calls his producer. Paul Jordan has the reputation of a 'fixer,' and he knows everybody in the gay side of the industry...

Enter Jim Colby -- ex-cop turned Hollywood P.I., who walks into Sonny's life as a hired gun, a bodyguard, and turns his world upside down, inside out. Jim is Sonny's dream, walking on two legs ... but Jim is hiding a secret of his own, and it won't take Sonny long to find out about it. It's fireworks between them from the first moment: the cowboy fantasy is about to become a sizzling, delicious reality, and for Sonny, nothing will ever be the same. Jim Colby is about to take him places he only daydreamed about.

He's about to get what he's wished for ... with interest!

ISBN: 978-0-9872328-2-3
Publisher: DreamCraft
Length: 42,000 words
Format: PDF, Epub, Kindle
Heat rating: 4
Price: $3.99
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Read an excerpt

Chapter One

Hot water felt so good after a day in the dust and heat. Sonny Goss turned, let it pour over his back and ass while he listened for the phone. He spread his legs, leaned his palms on the shower glass, let the water do wonderful things to every nerve ending in the center of him. The flood of sensation made him think of the night ahead. From the shower, he could see the foot of his bed, and the clothes laid out there.

Crisp black denim waited for him, and hand-tooled Lucchese boots, a black linen shirt, bone-bead belt and Diamond Jim Stetson -- all genuine, no cheap knockoffs. The ensemble had set him back a cool grand, with the diamond studs in his lobes and the Ambre Topkapi that would be shimmering on his skin -- hot, sweat-slick and lustrous with pheromones by midnight.

The best thing about being Sonny Goss was, he could afford it all -- and the cherry red '71 Mustang Mach 1 in the garage under the apartment building. Often, he had to pinch himself, make sure he was still awake, not dreaming while he killed time, crashed on a friend's couch, where he had been just twenty months ago.

A chance audition changed everything. The part had looked bad, but he was desperate enough after six months on Nick's couch, eating noodles three times a day, to go read for anything. He was the thirteenth guy in line, and there were twelve chairs.

He sat on the floor, read an old car magazine, and by the time he made it into the hot, dark little cubbyhole they were using for an audition studio, he could not have cared less about actually getting the part.

Maybe that was what Paul Jordan was looking for -- he saw the character of Tommy Hathaway, in Dirtwater Duke, as a badass with attitude to match. A twenty-year-old drifter with a smart mouth, a fast gun, and a taste for ripe young cowboys who very soon learned what the words 'hard ridden' really meant.

The movie was crap, but as Paul predicted, it made money. Sonny liked to think he owned an 'ear' for dialog, and Paul Jordan might have been a good director with a talent for raising movie bucks from starry-eyed wannabe investors in California's gay community, but he was a lousy writer. So Sonny adlibbed most of the words coming out of Tommy Hathaway's mouth, and after that, let his body do the talking for him.

Twenty months later, he had eight movies to his credit -- two had been screened on Starz, one was top-selling on the gay DVD list, and Sonny Goss's face was looking out of posters and video trailers on forty websites. He had been featured in The Advocate, and here! was getting interested.

He looked up into the mirror opposite the shower and gave himself a grin. Even to his own eyes, it looked like a damned smug grin. Then again, he had a reason to be smug. He had done it. He had gone from being the gay kid kicked out by his father for bringing home a boyfriend and daring to fuck in the sanctuary of his own room, to being the poster boy for Take a Chance, Paul Jordan's company.

They were filming on a stage at Universal this week, headed out on location in another four days. Sonny could not wait to get out of the soundstage, back into the open air. One corner of the vast area was currently set up as the barn, for the night scene where one of the movie's eight sex scenes was being filmed.

The set was closed, and guarded to keep out visitors. Yesterday, the same space had been set up as the interior of the cabin belonging to John Black Wolf, with the big brass bed and the quilt made of patches of every color of rabbit skin. Wrestling there with Jeff Lucas, who was playing John, was fun. Understatement, Sonny thought as he turned off the water and stepped out of the shower.

He grabbed for a towel, flicked off the bathroom lights and headed into the bedroom, where the lamps were on, illuminating the room in a dull gold. Jeff was Canadian, half Native, from someplace in upstate Ontario. He was 22, a year older than Sonny, with long limbs and dark eyes, and hair so long, he could almost sit on it. He was perfect for the part of John Black Wolf, and Paul Jordan was gambling on the chemistry between him and Sonny.

Howl of the Black Wolf was the most expensive movie Take a Chance had ever produced. This one had horses; it had location filming, and two actual stunts -- as distinct from the sex scenes, Sonny thought with a chuckle while he toweled down -- as well as fourteen digital special effects shots, which were being done by a studio in Malaysia.



That handful of shots was costing more than the rest of the movie combined, and Paul was shitting bricks over them. He knew they, plus the stunts and location work, would make the difference between Howl being just another glossy gay soft-core flick, and a real movie with a fantasy twist.

Sonny had fallen in love with the project as soon as he read the script, even though Paul's dialog was as crappy as usual, and would have to be rewritten on the set, probably with three minutes left before shooting started. The dialog in Paul Jordan's movies was the least important element. The sex was usually the first thing anyone looked at -- 'tastefully explicit gay love scenes,' as Paul called them.

But Howl was more than soft-core. John Black Wolf was a skinwalker. He shifted shape between human hunk -- a six foot two, broad-shouldered young stallion who had had Sonny drooling since day one -- to a big black wolf with blue eyes and fangs the size of steak knives. The digital effects shots were essential -- these days, nobody would buy simple cross-fades or stop-motion animation. Jeff Lucas had to really turn into the wolf right before the eyes, and take the audience's breath away.

Actually, Jeff was changing into a wolf-cross called Jason. The animal trainer was another Canadian, Cooper Barlowe from Vancouver. He had actually bred Jason, who was half timber wolf, half Belgian Shepherd, black as midnight, with the bluest eyes Sonny had ever seen.

Jeff had already filmed one half of the scene, three days before. He stood under blue lights, made to simulate moonlight, and tore off his clothes. Naked, glorious, from the great slabs of his pecs to the cock and balls that hung like rich fruit between the big, football player thighs -- he spread his arms and legs and arched his back -- and froze right there. A Malaysian studio called Hydraulic Frog (where the hell did they get these names, Sonny wondered) was doing the 'bridge' between the human end of the shot and the other, wolven, end.

Cooper had brought in Jason, and the wolf was perfectly behaved. He stood on his mark while the lights were reset, then looked right at his handler and, on cue, like a proper actor, bared his huge fangs, threw back his head and howled.

The sound made Sonny's hair stand on end. Like Paul, he was dying to see the finished scene, where Jeff ripped off his clothes (the rushes of that part of the scene gave Sonny a huge boner, so it was a safe bet, this part of Howl was going to become an Internet legend) and morphed into Jason, howling at the moon, before he loped up to the camera and away out of frame.

It was the first time Sonny had ever been enthusiastic about a project he was filming. The others were all 'work.' Each low budget job was shot in a week or two, usually using a warehouse in Anaheim as a 'stage,' and they were mostly about a group of great looking young guys having a lot of sex. Paul wrote them, as well as producing and directing -- and what sent the Take a Chance movies apart from the bulk of soft-core was that Paul could usually find a really good excuse for the sex scenes.

Sometimes there was a thread of unrequited love, or it might be a forfeit for unpayable gambling debts, or a joke being played on a straight dude who rapidly discovered that he was nowhere near as straight as he had thought he was. And when the guys got down to business, it was always shot with taste and style. That was Paul Jordan's magic.

Howl of the Black Wolf had just as much sex, but a whole lot more story, and Sonny was excited to be heading out on location Tuesday morning. The company would be in a flyspeck town in northern California called Weott, on the Redwood Highway east of Avenue of the Giants.

The scenery was guaranteed to be superb. Four trained horses were coming down by truck from Oregon. Jason would be filmed loping through the redwoods in shots processed later to look like moonlight. And Jeff and Sonny would get naked and make out in places that would render the video sex shiveringly exotic.

Mostly dry now, he threw the towel back in the general direction of the bathroom. He was still waiting for the phone -- it was on the chest by the bed, mocking him with silence. Not even a text. Sonny gave it a glare, but he was not surprised. He had left voicemail for Jeff an hour before, when he got home.

'Hey, man, you want to get out tonight? Thank God it's Friday, or whatever? I'm going to The Corral, if you're interested. Call me, okay?"

Three or four times a month, Fridays or Saturdays, Sonny went to The Corral. The nights all started like this, with the daylight faded to colors of twilight and the sounds of evening traffic coming in through the open windows with the view of rooftops and dusty palm trees. LA smog would be hanging over the horizon like a brown pall in the sunset. He would shave, shower, grab a snack, change into the kind of threads that would get him through the door at The Corral --

Get him into the basement, where it all happened, much later, when the dancers were drifting on out in couples and trios and quads. The bouncers would be on duty at the side door in the muck and dark of the alley, and the real action would be starting. The Corral was aptly named, and just thinking about it gave Sonny an icy-hot thrill, a shiver down his spine.

He was a mere spectator, but part of the thrill was knowing, he could be in it. He could be a player, in there with the rest of them. One day; one night. Not today, but one day.

Maybe Jeff knew about The Corral -- it was no secret -- and maybe it was not his scene. Sonny might have been disappointed, but he was not surprised. Jeff had a lover stashed someplace in Toronto, a real estate broker who was always texting, calling, emailing, as if he did not trust Jeff not to sleep around while he was out here. Sonny had never even heard the guy's name, but the guy need not have worried. Jeff Lucas got a lot of offers, but he never accepted them. Not yet, anyway. He was as faithful as John Black Wolf was to his on-screen lover, Matt Rigley.

Sonny played Matt Ridley with a drawl, skin-tight blue denims, a Winchester over one shoulder, and a mouth always hungry to go down on John ... and he envied Matt, who was a fictional character right out of the head of Paul Jordan. Matt had the one thing Sonny had never had.

The worst thing about being Sonny Goss? Not being able to connect. There was always plenty of sex -- never any shortage of offers and, unlike Jeff, he never hesitated to take them. But the next morning was all about Pop-Tarts and coffee like black paint, and a door closing behind a guy who never looked as good in the morning light as he had at midnight or two in the AM ... and who always walked away.

He sighed, and gave himself another look in the mirror. A hard look. Naked. He looked good, and he knew he did, with long legs, hard-worked muscles, dark brown hair and eyes, from his Italian grandmother, smooth chest that barely even needed to be shaved, and a cock that was thick and golden when it was resting, and stood s good eight inches when it was interested. His skin was tanned evenly, with just the pale strip around his hips of the Speedos line. His hair was thick and long -- Paul liked it that way; he knew what suited Sonny, and the character of Matt Ridley.

The reviewers on Dirtwater Duke had called him 'surreal as an evil angel, with innocent eyes and wicked mouth.' Sonny pouted at himself, examined his shave and shook out the still-wet hair. It was rapidly drying in the warm evening air. The breeze was still almost hot, and getting heavy with car fumes. He ought to close the window.

He ought to be going through the pages for tomorrow's shooting, as well, but the dialog was hardly essential to the plot. If Paul was on schedule, he would be humping Jeff on a hay bale in the barn set, before the stagehands took it all to pieces and rearranged it as the cave interior, with a bunch of Styrofoam slabs that looked convincingly like rock. Some of them were so old, Charlton Heston was probably acting in front of them, in the original Planet of the Apes.

He had eight lines of dialog tomorrow, and they were bad. Paul was not getting any better at putting words into actors' mouths. If he was as good at putting words there as he was at putting his dick here, he would have been brilliant. The script was lying on the chair, on the other side of the bed. Sonny picked it up on his way to the window.

INT. NIGHT -- The Barn. Matt and John meet for the first time in a week. John wants to tell Matt about the roughnecks who suspect him of being a shifter, and are in the woods, laying traps for the wolf. But Matt is too hungry for John's body to listen.

"Save it -- tell me later," Sonny said in Matt's drawl. "You know what I want. I didn't come here to talk."

And Jeff would say, in that deep voice with the rich accent hinting of other cultures, other worlds, But this is important, Matt. You have to listen to what I'm saying to you.

"So I guess I'll listen real good when you can tell me the whole story ... but later, much later, after I've had what I came for," Sonny/Matt would drawl as he opened the buckskin shirt wide, shoved it back over John's shoulders, trapping his arms in it to hold him.

Camera closes in tight on his face as he stoops to John's chest, takes his nipple between his teeth and bites down. John gives a cry of pain and then a groan of pleasure, he tosses his head, and we hear the wolf howl in his voice. His fingers clench into Matt's arms and they wrestle down on a bale of hay ...

"Jesus, Paul, that's shitty dialog, man," Sonny groaned, "you're getting worse."

More likely, Paul was getting just plain lazy, because he knew Sonny and other bright, smart young actors like Jeff Lucas could adlib when they hit their marks; and in any case, the jeans were off in the next half minute, and all the talking was done with hands, lips, cocks.

It was like that at The Corral, in the hours after the front doors closed and the bouncers took station at the side door. The unsuspecting public was never likely to wander in. Every guy in the basement knew the score and was there for the thrill of it. Actions spoke louder than words.

Nobody cared where a guy was from, where he went to school, what he drove, what he did for a job. It was all about the broncs in the corral, and the cowboys outside of it ... who was going to get roped and ridden, and by whom, and how.

The old familiar thrill raced up Sonny's spine again and he dropped the script. The beer he had left on the table by the door, with his wallet and keys, on his way to the bathroom, was still cool enough to wet his throat. He took it to the window, intending to let the hot night air finish drying his hair before he slid into the black jeans, put his feet into the tooled Lucchese leather.

He was reaching for the window, ready to pull it across, shut out the car fumes, lock up for the night, when he looked down into the street. The streetlights were on. The sky was orange, reflecting the city lights. No stars -- not in LA, not inside of Sonny's lifespan. And down below, on the sidewalk right opposite, standing just outside the pool of blue brightness cast by one of the big streetlights, was that face.

That man. Again.

Always the same man, the same face, looking at him with the wide eyes, not even blinking, just staring, as if he could shoot lasers into the middle of Sonny, cut out his guts, or perhaps his soul.

The beer was forgotten and warm on Sonny's tongue. He swallowed with an effort as he saw the face, locked eyes with the man. This made forty times he had seen that face, in two weeks. At first he had assumed the guy was paparazzi, but he never seemed to carry any visible camera. He did not even have a phone that would take the kind of crappy shots few magazines would buy -- these days, digital was all about high quality.

It was an older dude -- he had to be at least fifty, Sonny thought, dressed in jeans and teeshirt and windbreaker, even though it was hot tonight. He just stood there with his hands in the pockets of the jacket, like --

Suddenly Sonny's blood turned cold and he stepped back from the window. Maybe he had seen too many movies, but the way the guy had his hands in the pockets of a jacket, on a night light this --? Gun in the pocket?

His heart thumped as he sidled around, grabbed the cord and yanked it hard to close the drapes over, and then continued on, back to the chest by the bed, and picked up his phone.

Still no text from Jeff, and no missed calls. This time, Sonny hardly bothered to notice. His fingers went through the ritual by themselves. Paul was top of his contacts list, and in seconds the phone was calling. Who else did you call, when you were scared shitless, and right in the middle of a major production -- or the most major production Take a Chance had ever undertaken? You called your producer.

Calling, and getting an answer, were not the same thing. "You have reached Paul Jordan," Paul's nasal voice said in his best level, casual but 'don't mess with me' manner. "I'm busy right now, but leave a message and I'll get right back to you."

"Hey, Paulie, man, call me. Soon." Sonny swallowed hard. He knew he sounded weird. "I think I'm ... I might have a problem," he said, hating voicemail. "Make it fast, all right? Thanks, man."

He hung up but kept the phone in his hand as he returned to the window. He slid along and looked through the crack between the drapes and the window frame ... and swore. The guy was gone. Or had he stepped back away from the light? Was he standing in the deep shadows at the side of the apartment building across the way? "Fuck," Sonny whispered. "Come on, Paulie, call, goddamn it!"

Montana, Mine, by B.K. Wright

Intro:

“Montana, Mine”, addresses a young man’s inner struggles with his sexuality and also his denouncement of his family’s empire, as well as his courage to allow himself to love by following his heart.

Excerpt:

To be sure, Brandon’s life lay before him just as the great Ashcot empire lay before him, as he awaited the limousine that would transport him to what had been determined by years of tradition the beginning of his adult life. “Well, here goes,” Brandon said to himself as the driver loaded the last of his bags into the car. As the limo pulled out of the driveway Brandon could hear the sounds of the grand Ashcot estate grounds coming to life, the workers talking and laughing as they began their daily routines. There were too many now to even begin to know their first names as Brandon had so many years ago. Brandon longed to be one of them right now, so unfettered, they, doing as they wished with their lives, no premeditated destiny for them. To Brandon that was freedom. Unlike them, however, Brandon was being driven straight to a life which was destined to be meaningless and lonely if it were to be anything like those who had gone before him, as he knew it would be. Solace would be found in a bottle of Jack Daniels or in the arms of a woman other than his wife. Looking out the window of the limo, Brandon recognized the familiar landmarks which he had seen many times before while visiting his father’s and grandfather’s alma mater.

This past year on the ranch and away from the family business was a welcome change from the mundane life of prep school. Brandon had never felt so free. He lived among the ranch hands, many nights sleeping outside under a star studded clear blue sky. Unlike his life back east, he had plenty of free time to experience new adventures and meet new people, people who were happy with their lives on the ranch, the simple way of life, people to whom prestige and money were not required to validate their existence. It was during this year that he had met Dylan.

Although Dylan was thirty-four and Brandon only eighteen, the two of them had formed a bond which both knew would not be easily broken. Dylan’s life had not always been an easy one, as his parents had died just a few years earlier in a plane crash while on their way to visit Dylan’s sister and their very first grandchild in California. Dylan’s family was his fellow ranchers as well as the ranch itself. Life here symbolized stability to Dylan, a stability a part of which was lost at the burial of his parents. Brandon listened intently as Dylan recounted the events of his life, feeling a bit intimidated as he was so much younger than Dylan and wasn’t sure he had the resilience Dylan seemingly had. These conversations lasted longer and longer as the summer heat gave way to the crispness of the fall, sometimes lasting long after the sun had disappeared into the horizon.

Brandon was still a little intimidated by Dylan’s physical stature. He was so much bigger than Brandon. His hand covered Brandon’s like an umbrella, his chest was much broader than Brandon’s, his legs the size of tree trunks, and everything else was a lot larger too. But he also felt safe and protected when he was with Dylan because of his large size. Brandon leaned against him and Dylan placed his arm around him which was also large, and placed his free hand over Brandon’s.

Dylan seemed a million miles away, and Brandon asked again if anything was wrong or if he had done or said something to upset him. Dylan loved how sensitive Brandon was, so was quick to assure him. “Absolutely not, buddy,” he said as reassuringly as he could. He put his arm around Brandon as they walked the rest of the way. Keeping anything from Brandon was not what Dylan wanted to do, and keeping something as important as this from him was going to be extremely difficult. Brandon knew his father had cheated people in the past, but stealing from Dylan’s family the land that he too had come to love would devastate him. Adding to that the fact that his father had forced Dylan’s family to pay rent on what they rightfully owned as well as work as hard as they had to do so, Dylan didn’t know what this would do to Brandon. He could not let him find out about this. He would share this information with his sister as soon as she returned, however, and ask her if she knew anything about this which he was certain she did not as she blamed Preston Ashcot for the death of her parents.

~B.K. Wright~

http://www.beautobeau.com/

Find me on the GLBT bookshelf

Christmas Catch

Coming this week from Pink Petal Books, a heartwarming Christmas tale about a cowboy and former Air Force pilot.

Blurb: Mitchell Caulfield’s soul is as wounded as his body once was. The former Air Force pilot, forced to retire after being shot down over Afghanistan suffers from PTSD. Working as a bodyguard to supermodel Riley Forbes, Mitch accompanies the model and his wife home to the ranch for Christmas. There he meets Riley's cousin Grayson, a former rodeo star who now runs Forbes Ranch. Can the magic of Christmas bring two men from diverse backgrounds together? And will they open their hearts to the possibility of love?

Excerpt:

Mitch rolled to his back, arms spread wide, his head thrashing on the mattress. “God, noooo!” he moaned.

Gray realized his words weren’t reaching the former pilot. Tentatively, he reached out and stroked his fingers lightly, in what he hoped was a soothing manner, over the side of Mitch’s damp face. Moving with the speed of a striking snake, Mitch grabbed Gray’s wrist in a vise-like grip as he rubbed his face against the palm.

“Don’t leave me. Don’t leave me here to die.”

Naked fear dripped from every word sending a wave of sympathy over Gray. He was locked into an uncomfortable position, one knee and one hand on the mattress for balance, the other hand held between Mitch’s.

Before he could figure out how to get out of the awkward pose, Mitch yanked his hand, tumbling him down onto the bodyguard’s hard frame. To Gray’s immense horror, his cock stirred as his hips involuntarily ground into Mitch’s.

“I’m so glad you’re here.”

Mitch’s sibilant whisper came right before his mouth took Gray’s in a searing kiss. Shocked to the core, Gray could do nothing but acquiesce when Mitch’s tongue sought entrance to his mouth. With heated strokes, the pilot’s hands roamed over Gray’s naked back while his hips thrust upward, pressing his erection firmly against Gray’s.

Lust swept through Gray as he let his tongue tangle with Mitch’s. Until this moment, he hadn’t admitted how attracted he’d been to the ex-Air Force officer. He knew the military had a don’t ask, don’t tell policy and because of it, many gays steered clear of that career path. Mitch looked straighter than a het man and hadn’t set off Gray’s gaydar at all, so he hadn’t questioned the
possibility that the man was more than he appeared. This, despite the fact that Gray himself was a walking advertisement for not broadcasting his sexual preferences via his appearance.

“Oh, hell. You’re so hot,” Mitch murmured, his hands slipping between their bodies to unzip Gray’s jeans, before rolling him to his back.

Head spinning, Gray found himself naked and spread beneath Mitch’s body in a matter of moments. He stared up at the man’s brilliant midnight blue eyes.

Shit. The other man was 100% wide awake.

“Mitch, I-I can…” His mouth stammered the beginnings of an explanation for being in Mitch’s room, but the pilot cut him off with a quick, hard kiss.

"Shut up, Gray. Unless you’re going to tell me to stop.” He rubbed his cock against Gray’s and his eyes darkened. “You’re not, are you?”

"I-I…” Gray tried to order his scattered thoughts. “You’re gay?”

Mitch smiled, his handsome face lighting with amusement. “As gay as you. Now, do you wanna talk or do you wanna fuck, cowboy?” The pilot’s hand stroked over Gray’s bare abdomen and settled around the thick erection that curved along his belly.

Eyes narrowed suspiciously, Gray said, “You seem to have gotten over your nightmare.”

Pain flashed in Mitch’s dark blue irises. “They’re bad when I’m in them, but I usually wake quickly. Sometimes I don’t even remember the details of the dreams. I fell asleep thinking about you, wondering how I could get you to notice me.”

He shrugged. “Bad as the dreams can be, I’m sorta grateful to them tonight.”

Gray accepted his explanation of the nightmares. Then his brain registered the rest of Mitch’s words. “Notice you?” His brows rose. “I’ve been driving myself nuts ever since you got here wondering how to get my cousin’s straight bodyguard out of my head.”

A rich chuckle escaped Mitch and he stroked Gray’s cock slowly. “You thought I was straight? Didn’t Riley tell you I’m as queer as a three dollar bill?” he said with amusement.

Gray’s hips began thrusting toward Mitch as pleasure spiraled through his body. “I can see I’m gonna have to have a little chat with my cousin. Riley didn’t tell me jack,” he grumbled.

“Well, I’m gay and you’re gay. I think you’re pretty damn hot and I can tell…” Mitch broke off and rubbed his thumb over the head of Gray’s cock, spreading the pre-cum over it. “… you seem to like me too. So how about it, Gray? Tell me I can save a horse and ride a cowboy.”

A groan broke from Gray, half pleasure from the feel of Mitch’s hand pumping his cock and half disgust at the trite old cowboy joke. “Condoms? Lube?” he panted, suddenly uncaring that he appeared a total slut. Sometimes being a manwhore could be an advantageous thing.

From Tengo una Pistola by Bryl R. Tyne

M/M/Transgender Western Romance

My eyes recognized morning before my head did. I squinted into the rays escaping the muslin tacked over the small window. Blinking numerous times, however, failed to clear my vision or my mind. I rubbed my eyes . . . stretched . . . . Yep, it was morning.

Not that I dreaded mornings, no. Most mornings I hopped out a bed, eager for whatever the day may bring. But not today. Again, I stretched, my body reassuring me it had plenty a rest. And I had. But much like the residue adhering the hair and skin on my stomach to the sheet, my troubles glued me to the bed. She was still here, in my place.

Nothing were more aggravating than waking up without Mitch by my side. Guess he’d outgrown me. At twenty-six, he were well past prime settling-down age. Though, at the thought of him settling for the likes a Carmen as wife and mother, I laughed. My humor at the impending situation ended as easily as it had begun, as my worries shifted to Mitch leaving to make his own life with the wench.

Disrupting my thoughts, aromas of fresh eggs and fresher coffee wafted into the room; least he had breakfast going. I breathed the scents in deep as I climbed from the bed and threw on my clothes.

Maybe the she-devil were still laid up, fast asleep. If Mitch gave her a riding like only Mitch could give, wouldn’t surprise me if she slept well past noon. I shook the unsavory images from my mind as I tugged on my boots then crossed the den.

Wouldn’t do me a lick a good to start out the day on the ornery side a things. Besides, exactly when Mitch planned on leaving weighed heavy on how I approached the topic. Last thing I wanted were to piss him off, have him high-tail it out a here as fast as his horse would carry him. One day at a time, I reminded myself on a long inhale as I rounded into the kitchen.

First thing I noticed, Mitch weren’t at the stove. No, the polecat sat kicked back in his seat at the table. Grin plastered ear to ear, he hummed, fixated toward the stove, toward that shifty female looking to be cooking him breakfast.

She sure weren’t cooking for me, I made up my mind as I took a seat next to Mitch. I wouldn’t let her.

Two-timin’ bastard, humming . . . . I shook my head at his well-rested ass. Were only one reason he hummed. If Carmen had eyes in the back a her head, she’d a winced from the evil-intent cast her way.

“Sleep good, Denton?”

Mitch straightened in his chair. Coffee in hand, he turned to me. “Pretty good, I reckon. You?”

Funny what having a lady around can do to the size of a man’s balls. Though he put on an unusually tough front, I noticed the unsteadiness of his hands as he sipped his coffee. Score one for the old man.

“Buenas días, Senor Samms.” Carmen smiled at me, setting a piled-high plate before Mitch.

I could a done without seeing that kiss she so delicately placed on his cheek. She scurried back to the stove as, jaw set, I snubbed her greeting. Breakfast smelled damned good though. I eyed Mitch’s plate. “That an omelet?”

He washed his bite down with a swig of coffee. “And fried potatoes.”

“Potatoes? This time a year?”

“Pretty resourceful, ain’t she,” he said, matter-a-factly and with a wink.

My stomach rumbled as I looked toward those green and salmon colored skirts, ruffles swishing this way and that before the stove. All right, I’d concede, this one time, on account a the fact I needed a good meal to start the day. I picked up my fork, anticipating breakfast. Even afforded Carmen a slight grin as she set a plate on the table in front of me.

I weren’t going soft or anything; just showing my appreciation. Long as she stayed away from me and mine . . . . I shoveled in a heaping bite as Mitch busied himself eating. Guess I might have to accept he weren’t mine any longer.

Before realizing I hadn’t a cup, I grabbed for my coffee.

“Lo siento. Aquí.” Warm breath and soft lips brushed my left ear as Carmen handed me a steaming cup from over my shoulder.

I welcomed the drink but shied away. Damned perfume could knock a man silly. She settled in the seat opposite one grinning Mitch. Setting my cup on the table, I failed to see what was so damned funny between them and returned to my food as they commenced to chattering back and forth.

Last I knew, Mitch didn’t talk Spanish. He weren’t too bad though, I reckoned, but my attempts to ignore the banter tired. Being left out in my own place ate at me. They continued, until I shoved my plate ahead. Between them, it skidded to a stop. Senseless noise halted; two sets of eyes looked my way. Having garnered their attention, I addressed Mitch. “Since when did you start speakin’ her language?”

Carmen’s immediate giggle told me that may a been the wrong question to ask. Mitch held in another chuckle as he looked to Carmen. “Been practicing a while, I reckon.” With his head, he motioned my way. “Tell the man, Carmen.”

For a second, her eyes widened. She looked at Mitch as she spoke. “El es muy bien.”

I could see a pink tint coloring her cheeks as she used her fingertips to hide a glowing smile. Compared to yesterday evening, she appeared almost modest. Maybe she weren’t too bad, for a female. Or so I reckoned before she began batting those lashes again, and I felt what could be none other than womanly toes, in all their agility, making their way purposefully along the inside a one of my knees.

With a start, I got to my feet, stepping away from my overturned chair, which bounced once from the floor before settling into a slow rocking motion. Weren’t no way in hell I’d follow Mitch down that path.

I grabbed my hat and stormed outside. Plenty a work to be gotten to. Time didn’t wait. Not for me.

Excerpted from Tengo una Pistola by Bryl R. Tyne

Buck Goes to the Barn Dance

http://bookworld.editme.com/Longhorns
Buck Goes to the Barn Dance
(Buck Goes to the Barn Dance is excerpted from the novel, Longhorns, by Victor J. Banis, published 2007 by Carroll and Graf, Publishers, now Running Press)

The Hansen farm was the next property over from the Double H, so they were the nearest of neighbors, but this was Texas, and neighbors did not mean close. It was a twenty-mile ride from house to house, and that was going directly across the prairie instead of by road.
The three cowboys set out in the gloaming, but it was night by the time they arrived there and hitched up their horses. There were other horses by the score, and buggies and wagons from around the county, and some had even ridden out from San Antonio in fancy carriages. Texans mostly lived a hard life, and they took their fun where and when they could find it.
The Hansen’s enormous barn had been cleaned out for the occasion, bales of hay put around for the men to sit on, and chairs brought from the house for the ladies. The dirt floor was watered and packed down for dancing, and the glow of scores of lanterns made the inside of the barn as light as day.
The boys had dressed in their best. Buck had washed and scrubbed until his hands were red and raw and his face just about glowed. He put some bear grease on his hair to try to hold it in place—with only modest success, since one or two shiny curls insisted on spilling across his brow, grease or no grease—and he picked his teeth clean with a sprig of wintergreen from the garden, to be sure that his breath was sweet.
One of the hands, who was close to his size, loaned him a fancy shirt that had come all the way from down Mexico way, embroidered across the front with red and white roses. Buck was rightly proud of the dungarees he had bought while he was in Galveston, which were the height of fashion just then, and he got the attention of one or two of the hands earlier in the day while he knelt bare assed by the horse trough for the better part of an hour to scrub his trousers to a fare thee well, so that they were spotless now and nearly as good as the day he had bought them. He had purchased a new bandana at the Mercado when he was in San Antone the week before, yellow as the eyes of a wildcat, and he wore that tied at his throat, and his white snakeskin boots were cleaned and polished, to where you could just about see your reflection in them.
Only his Stetson was old and shabby. He would like to have replaced that, but there hadn’t been the time, and he hadn’t wanted to ask any of the boys about borrowing one, since a cowboy’s hat was a personal thing and something he was hardly ever without. Buck wore his own, old one, for the ride here, and though he felt somehow half naked without it, he hung it over the horn on his saddle and strode hatless with Les and Red toward the light that spilled out the barn door.
Glancing at him as they went in, Les thought the boy looked right fine. It appeared to him, surveying the room, as if Buck was the handsomest young fellow in the place, in fact. For some reason, it made him feel downright proud to have the boy alongside him like this, and his chest kind of puffed out, like. If there were any unattached girls present, he felt sure they would sit up and take notice.
Red looked at Buck, too, as they went into the barn, and found himself wishing after all that him and Buck were back at the ranch. Damned if the boy didn’t look like he was good enough to eat. Well, it was hard to imagine that any little girl here wouldn’t feel the same, seeing him, so maybe this idea of Les’ had been a good one after all.
There was a moment of stillness as the three stopped in the barn doorway, and even the musicians at the far end of the barn let their music trail off as everyone turned to look. Old man Hansen himself, though, came quickly across to welcome them, his wife at his side, and after a moment, the hum of conversation started up again, and the fiddlers picked up their tune and began to scrape and saw again.
“Mighty glad you could come,” Miz Hansen greeted the cowboys. She was near as tall as her husband, a big boned woman with a sun-dried face like a prune, but her smile was friendly and her eyes shone warmly.
“Mighty good of you to have us,” Les said, and introduced the two with him.
“There is some punch over there where the ladies are standing at that long table, if you are thirsty from your ride,” she said, waving a hand in that direction, “And I expect that one or two of the fellows might have something stronger, if you were to ask around, but of course, I know nothing at all about that.” She smiled and her husband gave the boys a wink as if to say they would get to that later.
“Reckon you should meet the rest of my family,” Hansen said. He led the way across the open floor, where a few couples had begun to dance together. His three sons stood with their friends off to one corner, all of them wearing the farmer kind of overalls that cowboys disdained.
“You know my oldest boy, Ron,” Hansen said, “And this here is Brett, and the youngest, Tom.” His oldest boy, Ron, ignored the hands that were offered, but the other two shook with the cowboys, although they did not look too enthusiastic about it, particularly when it came Buck’s turn.
Buck did not much mind for himself. He was a half-breed, and he was used to the idea that some people didn’t care to shake his hand, but he took offense at seeing Les and Red rebuffed, since he felt certain that they were the better of any man present. If either of them minded, though, it did not show on their faces. You might almost have thought they had not even noticed when Ron turned his back on them.
“And these are our daughters,” Miz Hansen said, and led the cowboys to a pair of young ladies seated on wooden chairs nearby. “Emma is our oldest. She will be getting married in the fall.” Emma was tall and willowy, plain of face, although she might have been pretty if her lips had not been set in such an icy line. She only nodded at them without saying a word, and quickly averted her eyes.
“And this is our baby, Margaret,” Miz Hansen said, indicating the other girl.
“Maggie,” the young lady corrected her. “Margaret makes me sound like an old maid, Mama.”
“I don’t reckon anybody would mistake you for that,” Buck said, grinning, and she responded with a little giggle and bowed her head, blushing shyly, but not before she had favored him with a friendly smile. “Not as pretty as you are.”
She was pretty, too, Les thought, with hair the color of corn silk, and cheeks that needed no rouge to paint flowers on them. He began to feel that maybe this had been the right idea, after all, to invite Buck to come along with them. If that little girl couldn’t run some of those crazy notions of his out of that Indian’s head, he reckoned nothing could. After which, maybe he could have some peace back at his ranch, which was greatly to be desired.
The fiddlers launched into an energetic polka, and more couples joined the enthusiastic movement on the dance floor.
“Say,” Buck said, “That music has my toes to tapping, Miz Maggie. What do you say, the two of us take a whirl?”
Maggie giggled again, but she held out her hand to him and got up from her chair. “If it’s all right with Mama?” she said, and gave her mother a quick glance.
The pause in her mother’s reply was no more than a heartbeat long. “No sense in wasting the music,” she said, and turned to Les. “Would you care to try your luck with an old farm woman?” she asked.
“Thank you most kindly, ma’am,” Les said, “But you’d be lucky to have the use of your feet by the time I got done stomping on them. I never did learn how it was done. Now, Red, here, he knows his way around a barn dance.”
“If you would do me the honor, ma’am,” Red said, taking his cue, and led her onto the floor.
Les and Hansen stood together and watched the couples twirling and jouncing energetically. The polka ended and was followed by a reel, the dancers lining up in facing rows. Les saw that several of them were looking sideways at Buck, like they were not quite sure that they ought to be on the floor with him, but he was with their host’s daughter, and while one or two couples retired to the sidelines, most chose to wait and see.
If Buck noticed their reluctance, though, he paid it no mind. He gave a tap of his foot, and seemed to fly across the floor with his partner, dashing at the line of dancers before him as if he would run right into them, then spinning his partner about with graceful abandon, her skirt billowing in a cloud about her legs, and a swift promenade while the others clapped time. There was the rippling sensuality of a gamboling colt in the easy swing of Buck’s hips and thighs, and the other dancers on the floor with him forgot entirely their reservations, and found themselves instead sharing his boyish delight, and threw themselves into the dance with renewed vigor, the men determined not to be out-danced, and the ladies thrilled to be whirled about with such manly enthusiasm.
It came as no surprise to Les to see that Buck was as light as a feather on his feet, and it seemed as if he and the girl were enjoying themselves mightily. She laughed at something he said, smiling up at him, and it was clear enough that she found him pleasing to look at.
Well, shit, who wouldn’t, Les asked himself? The boy was truly a treat for the eyes, all fancied up the way he was tonight, as sweet looking as an angel, if he was full of the devil inside, with them dark curls of his and that big grin, and built as lean and hard as an Indian pony.
Les was immediately embarrassed by those thoughts, though. A man wasn’t supposed to notice about another man being pretty, was he? Hell’s bells. What was happening to him? It seemed any more like he didn’t hardly even know himself.
He dragged his eyes away from the dancers and turned to Hansen. “I guess I could use something to wet my whistle,” he said, “If there was anything a little more interesting than that punch your wife mentioned.”
“I think we can find the right thing,” Hansen said, with a friendly smile. “Let’s us stop over to the house for a minute.”
#
Red escorted Miz Hansen back to her chair after their one dance and thanked her for it, and was relieved that she did not expect another one. He thought that his dancing was about the same thing as watching a dog walk on his hind legs. You were so surprised to see him doing it at all, you just about didn’t notice that he was doing it so badly.
He watched Buck and the girl, gliding about the floor now in a two-step, as elegant as his reel had been spirited, and he was happy to see how well Buck danced. He kind of wondered where and how he had learned it. However it had been, though, it was clear that the girl was enjoying herself, and the looks she was flashing up into Buck’s face were plenty pleased.
For some odd reason, that gave Red a pang. But that was the way of it, wasn’t it, he told himself quickly. A boy and a girl met, and fancied one another, and generally they did something about it, and maybe they even got hitched in time. That was not likely to happen in this case—he had seen the quick glances that Miz Hansen gave her daughter and Buck while they danced, and it was certain she would not welcome a half-breed Indian into her family, if she did let her daughter dance with one.
More than likely, though, Buck would get himself hitched in time, if not with this filly, then with another one day. It saddened him to think that what he and Buck had going between them would mostly likely come to an end when that time came.
“Well, it ain’t come yet, not over one little dance or two,” he told himself. He took his tobacco pouch out of his pocket, and made to roll himself a cigarette, but then he looked around at all those bales of hay, and decided to do it outside after all.
Wouldn’t do neighborly relations any good to burn the barn down in the middle of a dance.
#
Buck saw him go, and when he had escorted Maggie, laughing and with her yellow hair falling across her face, back to her chair, he excused himself and went in search of Red. He found him by the glow of his cigarette, in the shade of a live oak at the far edge of the farmyard. Red passed the cigarette to him as he walked up.
“Looks like you are enjoying yourself some,” Red said.
“Been a while since I done any dancing,” Buck said, laughing softly in the darkness. He took a puff off the cigarette and passed it back.
“She is a pretty little thing,” Red said.
“That she is.”
“You getting any ideas?”
“What kind of ideas?” Buck said, and looked at him in the darkness, just able to make out his face, and laughed again. “Well, I ain’t no farmer, exactly, but I have never minded doing a little plowing now and again, when the opportunity presented itself.”
He reached to put a hand on Red’s shoulder and gave it a friendly squeeze. “Don’t you be worrying none about that, though. Girls like that, they don’t get themselves tangled up with half-breeds, except for some wrestling out behind the barn, which I got no objections to, but I can take it or leave it. I told you before, I like what I like, and I ain’t forgetting who my friend is.”
“That never even crossed my mind,” Red said, but he felt better for hearing that said.
#
When they came back inside, Buck saw that Maggie’s oldest brother, Ron, was engaged in some serious sort of conversation with her. They appeared to be having an argument. She tossed her head at something he said and gave him a fierce glower.
Buck walked over to them and, giving Ron a nod, he said to Maggie, “I was hoping you would favor me with another dance, Miz Hansen.”
“The dancing is over,” Ron said.
Buck glanced at the dance floor, where other couples two-stepped lightly to the beat of the music. “Looks like some are still at it,” he said.
“Let me make it plainer, then,” Ron said, “We are done dancing with you.”
“Ron,” Maggie said, “I told you to leave it be.”
“Well, now,” Buck said, smiling at the young man, “I had in mind dancing with your sister, but I guess I could accommodate you, if you are wanting it badly enough. The thing is, I only know the man’s part, by which I mean to say, you would have to be the girl of it.”
“You come outside with me, half breed,” Ron said, looking nasty, “And I will give you a dance all right.”
Buck took a moment to consider this in silence. Over Ron’s shoulder, he saw Red hurry out the barn door—going, he supposed, to find Les. He knew exactly how Les would feel about his making any trouble. The last thing he wanted was to cause Les any aggravation—of that sort, anyway.
“I ain’t of no mind to fight with you,” he said.
Ron sneered. “I might’ve knowed you would be a chicken,” he said.
Buck looked around. Others had begun to notice them and to listen to their exchange. Still seated in her chair, Maggie was red with mortification.
“Oh, Ron,” she said. Beside her, her sister Emma smirked and looked hopefully from one to the other of the two young men.
“I guess I could teach you a step or two,” Buck said with a sigh. “Whyn’t you lead the way, then, seeing as this is your dance?”
“Come on, then,” Ron said, and began to shoulder his way through the crowd that had gathered. They went out into the barnyard, a distance from the barn, so that they were mostly in shadows. Buck stripped off his shirt as he went, since it was borrowed and he would not want to give it back with no blood on it. His bandana went too, and he tossed them to the ground, and unlaced his holster, and the sheath for his Bowie, and put his weapons aside with his shirt.
Ron began to do the same, but seeing his opponent like this, he couldn’t help having some second thoughts. Parading around on the dance floor the way he had been, Buck had looked more like a frolicsome boy than a man to be concerned about, but now that he was shirtless, flexing his muscles as he waited, he looked like someone to be reckoned with.
Ron looked at some of the boys crowding around the open door of the barn. “Someone go find Brett and Tom,” he yelled, “Tell my brothers to get their asses out here.”
One of the boys in the throng turned toward the barn and yelled, “Brett, Tom, Ron is fixing to kick the shit out of this half breed.”
A minute later, the two younger Hansens, neither as tall as their brother but both of them thickly built, rushed out and pushed their way through the crowd.
“Hang on, there, brother,” Tom called, and Brett said, “I’m wanting to carve me a piece of that Indian’s ass while you are at it.” Tom already had a Bowie in his hand and Brett pulled his from the sheath strapped to his legs as he ran.
They stopped abruptly. A six foot three inch cowboy had stepped directly into their path, his feet planted wide, his hands resting on the handles of his six shooters. While the brothers blinked, trying to take this in, the big red headed fellow came up to stand alongside him, hand on his gun as well.
“What you cowboys got on your mind?” Brett asked, making a show of bravado.
“We got on our mind that those two over yonder will have themselves a fair fight, one on one,” Les said. “Without no help from you two and without no knives.”
“Well, who says you got any right to say how things will be, here on our farm?” Tom asked, but he took a step back so that he was half behind his bigger brother.
“It ain’t me saying it,” Les said, running his fingers over the butts of his guns. “It is Mister Colt’s idea.”
“Maybe we could just tell you and Mister Colt to go somewhere and mind your own fucking business,” Brett said.
“You could,” Red said, speaking calmly, like a man without a care in the world, “But you wouldn’t want to if you had good sense. Some people don’t take kindly to being smart mouthed.”
Tom took another step behind his brother, and Brett swallowed hard and slipped the knife back into its sheath, but he put his hand on his gun instead.
“You ain’t scaring me none with them damned guns,” he said, “Hell, I got me a gun of my own, if you are looking for a shooting match, and I know how to use it, too,” and he started to draw it, but it hadn’t begun to clear its holster, before he saw that there were two six shooters aimed right at his middle section. Damn, he hadn’t even seen the fucking cowboy’s hands move. The other one, the redhead, his gun was still holstered, but he was grinning from ear to ear like he had just heard a good story.
“Shit,” Brett said, shoving his gun back down into his holster, “Ain’t got nothing to do with us anyway, that’s between the two of them, seems like to me. Say, Tom, I hear some of the boys have got them some Pensacola rye down back of the house, and I reckon I am feeling a mite thirsty. Whyn’t you and me go get ourselves some?”
“I could use a snort myself,” Tom said. They began to move in the direction of the corner of the house, backing up at first, and then turning and moving quickly.
“Hey, where you guys going?” Ron called after his brothers, but they didn’t answer, they just kept going, not quite running but not exactly walking either, until they reached the corner of the house and had disappeared around it.
“You come back here, Brett, Tom,” Ron called after them, and got no reply. “Damn chicken shits,” he said, and spit at his feet.
He turned back to the half-breed and took stock of his situation. Damn, what worried him the most was that the guy didn’t look like he was scared at all, even though he stood a head shorter than Ron himself. Didn’t even look nervous, in fact. What it was, actually, was he looked like he was fucking crazy, now that Ron took a good look at him. The shirtless half breed stood kind of in a crouch, like a cougar getting ready to spring, his muscles still shiny with sweat from the dancing he had done earlier. His eyes glittered in the moonlight, it almost seemed like there were sparks coming out of them, and the way he grinned, his teeth showing, unnerved a fellow. There was something else too, that he did just then, that Ron had never seen nobody do before: the Indian’s nostrils flared as he stood there waiting, like he was sniffing the air, or something—like an animal, looking for a scent.
Ron suddenly thought of when he was a boy, and older fellows had scared him with stories of Apaches, the things they did when they were in hand fights. He had heard of one, sprang on a man and ripped the fellow’s throat wide open with nothing but his teeth. There was another tale, too, about a fellow, got into a hand fight with an Apache and had his balls clawed right off him while they was wrestling on the ground, the Apache just reached down and grabbed a hold of them fast as lightning and tore them loose before the other man knew what was happening.
Remembering, Ron felt a little shiver of fear zigzag its way up and down his spine, and all at once it felt like he was about to take a shit in his britches. Sure thing, this fucking Indian looked plenty crazy enough to have something like that in his mind. He did not much care for the idea of losing his balls, let alone having his throat ripped open.
“Shit, I ain’t of a mind to fight with no half-breed Indian trash,” he said, buttoning his shirt up again. “I got me more important things to do.”
He turned his back and began to walk away, but you could see that he was listening for any movement behind him. Buck was motionless though, until Ron had disappeared after his brothers, walking a bit faster as he got further away.
Buck looked at Les and Red then. “I didn’t start it, Les,” he said. “Don’t be sore at me.”
“I know you didn’t,” Les said, holstering his guns.
“And I appreciate your help, boys, really, I mean it,” Buck said, donning his shirt and his bandana, and strapping his weapons on, “But I wasn’t worried about that peckerhead. I could’ve took him on with one hand tied behind my back, him and his piss ant brothers too.”
“Sound mighty sure of yourself,” Les said with a grin. “He is a pretty good sized dude, appears to me.”
“Reckon so, but he was scared shitless,” Buck said. “I could smell it on him.”
“Like them Indian horses do?” Les asked.
Buck grinned back at him. “Guess it just runs in the blood,” he said. “Anyway, once you got a fellow scared, you got him half beat already.”
“Reckon you could have whipped him, at that,” Les said. “Didn’t mean to say that you couldn’t. Imagine you could have easy enough, as long as a fight stayed fair. We was just providing knife insurance. Ain’t got no mind to see any of my cowhands carved up by a couple of polecats.”
“I am much obliged to you for that.” Buck stepped forward and the three of them shook hands all around, in a strangely formal sort of acknowledgment of their comradeship.
“You planning on any more dancing?” Les asked.
Buck glanced at him, and toward the barn, and thought of little Maggie, but there wasn’t much likelihood now of any trips behind the barn, and he knew well enough that nothing more than that was ever going to come of it.
He looked back at Les and shook his head. “I reckon it would just cause trouble for her with her brothers,” he said. “They won’t forget they was humiliated, and others to see it happen. And by a half breed, that will make it worse.”
“Then I expect we might as well be heading for home,” Les said.
Red said, “Unless you want to wait and dance with old Ron there and his brothers when they come back, looked to me like they was pretty light on their feet,” and they all three laughed.
#
When they were on the trail for home, Buck looked from one of his companions to the other. The night smelled of sage and dust, and the faint scent of something dead and decaying that came downwind at them, a stray steer, maybe, that the coyotes had brought down, but a long ways off. The air was warm and dry, and fine for riding.
He thought about the two of them backing him up the way they had, and he felt like his chest was about to bust with happiness. There wasn’t anything in the world better, the way he saw it, than to have a couple of true friends, cowboy friends. He began to sing at the top of his lungs: “Oh, bury me not, on the lone prairie….”
“If I had known you was going to howl like a wounded coyote,” Les said, “Reckon I would have let them boys cut you up back there.”
He larruped his palomino up to a gallop, and after a moment Red and Buck spurred their horses and galloped alongside him, Buck between the other two, the three of them pounding across the plains, feeling free in the way that only a cowboy can feel free, on his horse, out on the range.
Out of nowhere Les, who was not as a rule a man to show excitement, yelled at the top of his lungs, “Yippee-i-o, cowboys.”
Buck answered him by throwing back his head and giving a coyote howl, and they all three laughed, for the sheer joy of being cowboys and being alive, and riding through the summer night together, the hooves of their horses beating a steady thrumedy-thrumedy-thrum on the iron hard ground.