On Trail
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Sonny groused, “The cantle,” and jiggered his heavy saddle to sit more comfortably on the Mule-Called-Spot. He hated the name with a vengeance. For years, it had been just “the mule” or whatever expletive suited the occasion, but now he was supposed to address the beast as if it deserved dignity instead of a two-by-four upside his ornery skull.
“The horn.” Michael was moving beyond argumentative to the point where it was safer being on the other side of something, anything, than to invoke a more assertive point of view.
“Oh boo-fucking-hoo, Warden Brooks. Who’s the one who had a monster dick nearly shoved out his throat?”
Michael grinned. “Monster, huh?” He strutted around the mustang and adjusted the breast collar. “Didn’t rightly hear any complaining, Tex. In fact, I made you sing like a boys’ choir.”
Rubbing his ass, Sonny shrugged and pretended super-dick hadn’t delivered more than once. Muttering, “I need a fucking rest day from that rest day,” he maneuvered Spot into position and prepared to mount.
Michael came up behind him, in stealth mode. The spurs jingling as they connected with the rocks sort of ruined the effect, though the tongue in his ear and two warm hands cupping his privates made up for the blown entrance. Sonny snickered. When Michael was around, and that was all the time, he found himself prone to turning even the most innocuous thoughts lewd and downright dirty.
“What’re you giggling about, Tex?”
“About you being a bad influence.”
“Really.”
The tongue did a thing, then another thing. The thing with a thing was it distracted Sonny from thinking clearly, what with his blood supply so easily diverted to points south. He opted to concede defeat rather than find out just how far Michael was willing to push to get his way. “Okay, the horn’s the worst. You happy now?”
“Not yet.”
“Fuck, now what?”
“Turn around.” Michael looped the mare’s lead rope on Sonny’s left hand and the reins in his right. “Lean against the fender.” Spot shifted slightly. Sonny got a sinking feeling in his belly his sudden capitulation had simply piqued Michael’s interest. The man clearly didn’t like losing, but he also wasn’t keen on winning unless he’d earned it.
Sonny figured his learning curve for all things Warden Brooks had just ratcheted to a new level.
Michael said, “Here, hold these while you’re at it,” and distributed his two geldings’ reins and lead rope such that Sonny was forced to manage all four animals. For what purpose was still to be determined.
He didn’t have long to wait as Michael kicked his legs apart, then quickly undid the zipper, spreading the fabric just enough to access his cock. When the mule twitched, Michael barked, “Whoa, Spot,” as he knelt to assess the goods on display.
“Jesus, Brooks. I think he likes you better than me.”
“How’s that?”
“He listens to you.”
Michael chuckled. “Maybe you should, too.”
Sonny sucked air as Michael’s mouth swallowed his erection to the root while nimble fingers massaged the seam in his jeans, driving the denim into the crack. He felt stretched and vulnerable, plastered against a movable object, his center of gravity shot to hell, and his arms and legs in an X. Sort of like being on a St. Andrews Cross, though he’d never actually seen the real deal except on some porn videos, so he allowed his imagination some wiggle room. Wiggling seemed a bit counter-productive, what with Spot and the gang in position to draw and quarter him without notice.
To distract his thoughts from that scenario, he looked down. Naughty blue eyes gazed upwards as tongue, lips and teeth teased him into a state of bliss. Managing a few hip thrusts, he panted, “Why are you doing this?” He didn’t expect an answer, but Michael stopped and gave him an assessing look.
“Well, Dr. Rydell, seems I recall you saying you preferred research to just about anything.” He squeezed Sonny’s balls, eliciting an oof in response. “So, that’s what this is.” He suckled the prominent vein.
“Wait, research? Research... fuck...for... Jesus... for what?” Michael’s mouth was magic. He had never been a believer in magic. Now he wondered how he’d live without the warden’s special brand of it.
“Cantle. Horn. Any of that ringing a bell?” A thumb invaded the slit, turning Sonny’s eyeballs inside out. “Figured you nailed the business end of the cantle, but you needed the horn part worked on. For a fair comparison.”
The horses had backed apart far enough, Sonny wondered if he was going to pop his shoulders. Only the mule stood rock solid, giving him a platform to lean against.
Sonny grunted, “You’re evil,” before singing his praises to the heavens... Goddamn that’s good... Fuck, fuuuck... as Michael milked him into a boneless hulk.
Clucking at the horses, Michael urged them forward, relieving the strain on Sonny’s shoulders. More gently than Sonny expected, he did up the zipper and button as he pressed a chaste kiss on Sonny’s lips, leaving a residue of warm, salty cum for Sonny to savor.
“Mount up, Tex. We need to get on the road before this day’s shot.”
“I’m not sure I can.” Sonny stared at the stirrup, then the mule, and calculated how many hours he would need before feeling ready to tackle the mountain of spotted ugly just waiting for payback for being co-operative.
“It’s not a request, Dr. Rydell.” Michael cupped his hands to give Sonny a leg up.
The simple act of bending his knee, and stretching the stiff fabric over his ultra-sensitive cock, was excruciating. Before he knew what had happened, Michael launched him into the saddle. He landed as lightly as possible, saying a prayer of thanks he’d managed to hit the center and not the two bones of contention—the cock-killer saddle horn, or the butt-beater cantle. It wouldn’t have surprised him one bit if Michael had succumbed to his baser instincts and pitched him on one or the other of the offending objects just to prove his point.
Sonny muttered, “I’ll get back at you for that, Warden.”
In answer to the warning, Michael took Sonny’s left hand and turned it palm up, lowering his head to run his tongue across the lifeline. The hair on the back of Sonny’s neck stood on end at the sensual display of affection. He leaned down to cup Michael’s face, the words on the tip of his tongue, sharing space with anxiety and indecision. Although the time wasn’t right and hesitating seemed wrong, it didn’t take a genius to know it was a war he wasn’t going to win anytime soon. Regret, on the other hand, often came early and stayed late.
Feeling a flush spreading over his skin, he pulled away, promising, “I will have payback, I promise you.”
Smirking, Michael retorted, “Oh, I’m counting on that, Tex.”
****
Michael considered their options. He swiveled in the saddle and said, “We could do this the slow way, circle around the entire meadow together and see if that trail pops, or we can split up, each do half. What’s your pleasure?”
He guessed Sonny’s answer was ow fuck ow, but he kept that to himself and nodded agreement when the man picked door number two. He pointed toward the northern end where the now slow-moving stream meandered back into a stand of trees. “Stay high until you see a decent crossing. I don’t want to have to haul you and that mule out of the mud.”
“Spot.”
“What?”
“You said to call him Spot.”
Michael snorted as Sonny wheeled his mount and the midget packhorse in a semi-circle and ambled off in the direction indicated. It seemed he might indeed be a bad influence on Dr. Rydell. The longer they were together, the more glimpses of Mister Zero were coming out to play. Just the thought of that had his belly flip-flopping and his cock doing a slow waltz instead of its usual salsa.
He’d taken care not to let Sonny see how sore he was. A stud muffin had standards and he wasn’t about to admit to any vulnerabilities. Not yet, though he sensed, with Sonny, there might come a time when he really could let down his guard and be himself. Whoever that might be. It had been a long time since he’d peeled off the armor protecting him from everyone, including himself.
He admitted that he’d been a surly, prickly son-of-a-bitch for so many years it came natural now. The short fuse, the anger management issues, being prone to shooting from the hip—or the rifle—all of that had roots back when he had been a short, fat, and in desperate need of a clue teenager. Pimple-faced, greasy-haired and the pride of nobody, not even his parents, though his mom had tried. He wasn’t laying blame necessarily. God knew, he’d been a hard kid to love.
And now that he was a grown man, not much had changed. That Sonny found him tolerable company was light years ahead of where he usually found himself when it came to the social niceties. His boss put up with him only because he was gone most of the year, hiking or packing into the wilderness and keeping his crimes and misdemeanors under the radar.
Of course, shooting a guy in a campground populated with open-mouthed tourists and sports-enthusiasts had more or less outed him to the public. It was no wonder the suits had flipped out.
Michael mumbled, “Okay, time to lose the psychobabble. We’ve got places to go, things to see, research to conduct. And some well-deserved tent time at the end of the day.” Red’s ears twitched in agreement.
The forest was dense but not like eastern woodlands with undergrowth so thick you’d need a machete or a bulldozer to make your way through. While this particular section had a heavy concentration of spruce, the dominant species was lodgepole pine, spaced wide apart. That made it feasible to wend your way through and around the stands of trees, if you weren’t too set on straight line travel.
The snowmobile trail passed just to the north of Timber Lake. He was banking on being able to spy the lake at elevation, then work their way down to it. What he’d find when they got there was anybody’s guess. The lake wasn’t on their current stocking list for brook trout so whatever was there was likely pretty puny pickings.
Just as he reached back to reposition his canteen, he saw the mule trotting toward him. Before he could register what’s wrong with this picture, the beast came to a halt and ducked his head to graze. Michael noted he was missing a rider. And his bridle.
Alarmed, he stood in his stirrups, about to shout Sonny’s name when the man came limping through the high needle and thread grass interspersed with sagebrush, dragging the mare and her burden behind him. Even from a distance, Michael could see Sonny’s mouth moving. He didn’t need to hear the words to get their meaning.
When Sonny got close enough, Michael called out, “You lose something?”
“Don’t start.” He held up the bridle. “Found your damn trail, Warden.”
“You want to explain what happened?”
Sonny ignored him in favor of slipping the bridle back on the mule and securing the throatlatch with both a clip and a plastic cable tie.
“Not a good idea, Tex.”
“Fuck, now what?”
Michael fished his folding knife out of his jacket pocket, then undid a latigo string from his saddle, handing both down to Sonny. “I’m not jerking your chain, Tex. You need shit to break out here. That plastic bridle’s never gonna do that. Secure the throatlatch with this leather piece. It’ll give your boy a fighting chance if he gets himself in a bad situation.”
Sighing, Sonny accepted the tools and set about fixing his mistake. Once he had the mule’s bridle on and adjusted for fit, he said, “Found the trail. It’s hard to see. I tried going down it for a ways to make sure it was what we thought instead of just a dead end.”
“Take it Spot didn’t agree?”
“Don’t know about that so much. What he did was rub his head on a tree and pulled the bridle right off. Apparently I didn’t do the snap up quite right. He bolted, me and Peanut here didn’t.” Sonny mounted and grimaced. “Ass two, cock zero.”
Michael raised his eyebrows but swallowed the obvious comeback. When a man was genuinely hurting, physically and ego-wise, sometimes it didn’t do to make it a big deal or to push a man to his limits, even if you were joking.
If he should have learned anything growing up, it was that jokes weren’t always funny. More often than not they cut deep, designed to hurt whether it was deliberate or not. While others laughed, the victim often didn’t.
The one thing he didn’t like about himself was he’d picked up that habit and made it his own. If he had the sense God gave geese, he’d have figured out by now that turnabout wasn’t fair play. Not fair at all.
Michael thought, I’m learning, Dr. Rydell. Give me ten years and I might get there.
Sonny pointed uphill where the grassy lane detoured from the relatively easy going they’d enjoyed for nearly three hours. “What goes up must come down. I’m not fancying having the guys slide downhill on their butts, fully loaded. Think we should make the turn here?”
Michael grunted agreement. He pulled the map out and refolded it so only the section they needed was displayed. “Lake’s not much more than a spot on here. Scales too large for any useful local detail.” With one inch equaling two thousand feet, a typical topo map packed a lot of information into a very small space. What it didn’t tell you was the best way to descend a ridge on horseback. That came by trial and error, and they’d already had more than their fair share of errors on this trip.
Sonny crouched and leaned over the map, giving it the same assessment as Michael. “Not that I’m keen on volunteering, but Spot’s probably the best judge of what’s doable and what isn’t. If we let him lead, he’ll find the best way down.” He shrugged. “It’s a theory.”
“You trust him enough?”
“Most times no, but today... looking down that ravine? Yeah, my money’s on him getting us there in one piece.”
Michael quickly dismounted and said, “Let me have your mare. I’m going to tie her to the mustang so I can hang on to both of them while you and the mule scout ahead.”
Sonny objected, “It’s no trouble, I can handle her.”
“I know you can, but what you can’t handle is the mule deciding he needs to do something else at the drop of a hat and pulls a u-ey. He does that and you get tangled up in lines? Ain’t gonna be pretty, Tex.”
When Michael finished securing the pack horses, he checked the mule’s breeching and tightened it another hole. Remounting, he directed Sonny to head southeast.
“How do you know the lake’s in that direction?”
Since Michael’s guess he’d be able to see the lake from the ridge hadn’t panned out, he’d had to rely on his other senses. Tapping his nose, he said, “I smell water.”
“You do not.” Sonny sniffed the air and wrinkled his nose. “All I smell is me.”
“All the more reason to get your ass in gear.” Michael chuckled. “No pun intended.” He tucked the map away and gathered the reins. “I’m hoping what I heard about the lake is true. If so, you’re gonna have a very pleasant surprise waiting for you.”
“If it’s a mermaid with a cold beer, I’m in.” Sonny nudged the mule’s flanks with his heels and took the slope at an angle.
Michael called after him, “That’s merman, dude. And if you want in, in you’ll get.” Sometimes teasing was just teasing. And sometimes it came with a side of innuendo and a promise of things to come.
****
Sonny waited for Michael and the pack horses to negotiate the last of the steep incline onto a relatively flat section. At some point Michael had untied the horses, allowing them freedom to proceed at their own pace. His mare, Peanut, handled herself well, despite the bulky panniers and the saddle pack with his weather and other instruments. They were all three of them strung out in a line, converging on his position.
As Michael pulled alongside, Sonny said, “You were right, I can smell the water now.” And what he smelled didn’t make sense.
“We’ve come in on the downstream side.” Michael pointed to a gap in the trees. “If we follow the creek to its source, I’m betting that’s Timber Lake.”
As if on cue, the mule headed in the direction indicated, confirming once more the jerk understood English just fine, and that he really did like Michael best. And that was too damn bad. He’d found his warden first, and he planned on keeping him around. Sharing wasn’t his strong suit.
Sonny asked, “Why’s it called Timber Lake?” It wasn’t a stupid question. All the features got named one way or another, be it with map co-ordinates, a numbering system or descriptive terms that had appealed for whatever reason to the person in charge of such things.
Michael explained, “There’s a number of tie hack camps scattered all through the Snowys. West of here is the Brush Creek location on the Saratoga side. It’s positioned on a stream with easy access to where they cut trees for railroad ties. Last time I saw it there were four, maybe five, log cabins standing, though the roofs were gone.”
“You mean there’s a camp like that near here?”
“Used to be. The lake’s actually a fair distance from the tie camp, but the loggers explored the region pretty thoroughly, searching out the best stands of timber suitable for ties. Whoever found the lake named it. Been a long time since anyone’s used those camps. Most of them had access to roads. Where we are, it’s not nearly that developed. There’s a track that skirts Rock Mountain and dumps into the Arlington area. I don’t know enough of the history to give you any more particulars.”
“Might be worth looking up when we get back.”
Michael grinned. Seamus Rydell was definitely a researcher at heart.
They emerged onto a flat pan of alpine meadow and marshlands with a fair-sized creek meandering through the grasses and a carpet of alpine forget-me-not. Michael pointed out a section of marsh marigold in the wetter areas. In all directions, the ridges loomed around them, soaring a thousand feet or more.
Sonny grumbled, “Smells like sulfur.”
Michael sniffed appreciatively. “Promised you a surprise.”
“Get out of town. Are you telling me there’s a hot spring?”
Grinning, Michael said, “Apparently the rumors were true. Come on, Tex, let’s find us a spot to pitch our tent. I have a powerful urge to get naked.”
“Is it safe?”
“We’ll find out. You got sensors, right?”
“I don’t think I’m going to need them.” Michael stared at Sonny curiously, his eyebrows shooting toward his widow’s peak. Urging the mule forward, Sonny said, “I already got lift-off.”
Michael stared at his lover’s retreating back, muttering, “Well, dayyum.”