Hot Valley

I want to tell you that I am alive, that I am well, that I have not forgotten you, and that I am writing this letter to relieve the feelings of a heart too full. I hope that you are safe at home, that you remember the words of a friend who never wished you anything but happiness, and who will always cherish the time he had with you. I know, and you know, that I can never send this letter, but writing it and keeping it by me through the dark days ahead is some comfort.

I have settled in the place to which I swore I would never return, Richmond, the Rebel capital, a place where I have few friends and many enemies. The town looks superficially the same, but is totally different. The faces wear a new expression: one of fear, and hope, and hatred, rather than the uniform expression of haughty pride that they once wore. I have met no one I know. What is one more shiftless, rootless black man in a town full of freaks and oddities of every color? War has brought the circus to town, every day of every week. Up is down, wrong is right, day is night, and in such an environment I can live in relative safety and seclusion while I decide how best to shape my future. I know that my father is dead, that I have been defrauded of the inheritance that he promised me by the connivance of my so-called brothers, those jealous thieves who resented my presence in the house from childhood. Should I pursue them, punish them, and secure what is rightfully mine? Or should I, as the Good Book teaches me, turn the other cheek?

We shall see what Fate washes my way. Once again, my life is a blank slate. I thought, when I moved to Vermont, that I would turn a new page, accepted by your family and townsfolk, able at last to make something of my education. That dream is over. It has faded, just as the cuts and bruises that I took with me from Bishopstown have faded. I did not leave town without a warm send-off by Windridge’s gang. Or did you not know? He made some unpleasant friends at his anti-abolitonist rallies, the scum of the North who wanted nothing more than to ape the nigger-hanging ways of their Southern brethren, and who saw my friendship with your family, and particularly my friendship with you, as all the pretext they needed for stringing me up from the nearest tree. I escaped, and took great pleasure in busting a few noses as I did so. I stole Windridge’s horse, and left its owner writhing in the dust as I galloped to freedom. They were too fat, and too slow, to catch me.

Happy to have escaped with my life, it did not take me long to realize that my dreams were shattered and my heart broken. Why did I ever meet you, Jack? Why did we allow ourselves those dangerous intimacies? You and I are from different worlds, and we should never have come so close. I believed at first that we could be friends, that we could tame our baser passions and prove to the world that men like us—for I do believe, Jack, there are thousands of us, who crave the love and companionship of our own kind—could live noble and blameless lives. But we know how that dream ended, in the filth of a stable.

I could think of nothing else as I rode out of town, the road blurring in front of my eyes. I could see only your face, your lips, your taunting smile as you lay there in the straw daring me to take what I wanted but I knew I must never have. I thought of the other men to whom you had given it—so casually, so cheaply!—in the bars of Bishopstown, in the woods, on the floor of the boiler house that same afternoon. I saw you, Jack, and I watched for as long as I could before the urge to kill someone drove me away.

I puked until there was nothing left to bring up. I had been kicked in the stomach, of course, that was the reason—and yet I felt as if I was voiding all the love that I felt for you, Jack, all the sweetness that had turned to bitter bile. I was empty. I remounted my horse, my guts in pain, and rode slowly into the night.

Ill-equipped as I was for life on the road, I had no alternative but to avoid towns and large settlements and to put some distance between myself and Bishopstown. I slept that first night in the woods, under my coat; luckily for me the night was dry and I was unmolested by animals. I woke up aching and sore in my limbs, but rested and ready to face whatever fortune might throw at me.

Fortune played her first trick: the horse had worked loose from its tether in the night and gone, presumably to find its way back to Bishopstown. I cursed my carelessness, and the stupidity of the horse: it deserved a better master than Windridge. I was alone, and on foot.

Whichever way I turned, the path seemed strewn with dangers. As a lone black man, on whichever side of the political line, I ran the risk of being arrested, declared “contraband of war,” and set to work on the railroads, a fate I will avoid at all costs. But New England, far from being the haven of tolerance and opportunity I had fondly imagined, had dangers of a subtler sort. I thought, by and large, my best chance lay in the South, to return to Virginia, claim whatever remained of my inheritance, and then to continue my travels as far west as possible, to California, maybe, or even into Mexico. Away from all these fine gentlemen and their not-so-fine friends, from ladies who smile at you in church but whisper behind your back in the street.

And away from you. Poor Jack—poor, childish, brave, fond Jack, too spoiled to know what life could do to an ill-matched pair like us! We were nothing but a danger to each other. I thank God that I never took the final irrevocable step that would have bound us together, however much I may have longed to do it.

Putting on my shirt, I munched on a piece of stale bread that I had managed, despite my haste, to shove into my bag, and I quenched my thirst with water from the stream. The first priority was to equip myself with the necessities of life—a horse, if possible, warm clothes, a weapon, blankets, food. I had a little money, all that I had saved, rolled up and stuffed into the toe of my boot. It was enough to feed me for a few days, to make a few necessary purchases, but it would not furnish me with a mount or the means to protect myself. Those things I would have to earn or steal.

The other side of the mountain, there was a village where I knew there were farms; and where there were farms, there was work, and outbuildings, and horses, and all manner of useful things for a man in need. My inclination is to be honest, but I’ve seen enough of how the world treats an honest man to consider the alternatives.

The sun was up, and the farms would be busy, and I thought this the best time to present myself as a hired hand—and also, if I was lucky, get a little breakfast into the bargain. The first establishment that I found was a run-down farm, just a house and a barn with a few ill-tended vegetable patches, a cow in desperate need of milking and a handful of scrawny chickens pecking for worms in the yard. But there was smoke rising from the chimney, and a good smell of coffee, so I braved the yapping of the mangy yellow dog that snapped at my heels, and presented myself at the door.

I knocked, although the door was open, and shouted a hello. There was banging within, and an upper window was flung open. “Get away from here!” came a high, frantic, female voice. “There’s nothing for you! My husband will come out and shoot you!” I could tell she was on the verge of tears, and I had no desire to frighten her further—not least because she was waving a shotgun out the window. I bowed, and tried to look harmless.

The gun started waving again, and she passed a hand across her brow, pulling back loose strands of brown hair. I reckoned she was 30 years old, but she looked tired and careworn, as everyone does these days. I knew there was no husband in the house, no man at all, possibly just her, and she knew that I knew. It was better for us both if we maintained that convenient fiction.

She banged the window shut. I walked over to the cow, found a clean-looking pail in the shed, and started milking her right where she stood. She bellowed loudly as the first few squirts came out, but soon she was calm and the milk flowed, thick and copious, into the pail. If nothing else, my efforts would be rewarded with a cup full of that.

The woman stood on her porch, watching me with her arms folded. It would have been so easy to knock her on the head, steal her gun, ransack the house for money, and run. Plenty of men would have done it. I think she expected me to do it, and knew herself to be at a great disadvantage. War has made women like her vulnerable. I suspected that her husband was away fighting, that she was left, like so many, on her own, to scratch a living from the soil, unsupported by family or friends. I could not bring myself to add to her woes.

An hour later, almost faint with hunger, I sat on the edge of the porch with a mug of coffee, a hunk of cornbread, and a pork chop, still sizzling from the pan. There were apples and milk waiting for me indoors. I ate ravenously, tearing the meat with my fingers; she had not given me a knife. She watched me nervously, still scared, but delighted, as all women are, to see her food appreciated.

Her hands hung down by her side, and her face crumpled. And then, in a gesture she had made a dozen times before, she pushed back her hair, straightened herself up, and swallowed her grief. “Well,” she said, “we live in wicked times, that’s for sure. And when my husband gets back from the—” She looked crestfallen, as if she’d given away too much.

“Yes, from the lower field,” she said, smiling for the first time. “Well, then we’ll get this place going again, and we’ll be fine with our neighbors, and you’ll come back and we’ll show you our gratitude for your kindness. But till then, there’s nothing I can give you. Unless you want my dog. Can’t eat him, he don’t give milk or lay eggs, and he ain’t much use as a guard.”

I saw the loneliness and fear that made up her day-to-day life. I might have stayed there, licked the farm into shape, kept her safe—but how long before I was chased out of town again? And this time they wouldn’t hesitate to kill me. A black man shacked up with a white woman? It was their favorite nightmare.

The roll was bulky. I could see from the expression on her face that it was best not to look inside it just now. Instead I expressed my thanks, and walked on, with many glances back to that brave, lonely woman as she stood, watching and waving, at her kitchen door.

Regaining the relative shelter of the woods, I unrolled the blanket and took stock of its contents. Two clean white shirts, a pair of pants, a pair of thick woolen socks, and even, to my astonishment, a large hunting knife. I took it from its sheath and felt the edge; it was as sharp as a razor.

And so I found at my first stop several of the necessities of life, but I was still lacking a few essentials. I knew I had to move quickly; word of my presence in such a small community would soon get around, and I was reluctant to travel much further on foot. A horse was at the top of my shopping list.

Keeping to the woods, I skirted two more farms where the yards were busy, the comings and goings too regular. I had not consciously decided that I was going to steal a horse; the plan seemed, instead, to have formed itself in my head without my wishing it.

Dropping down behind the house to avoid being seen from the windows, I ran quietly to the stable and looked in. There were three horses in there, all sound-looking animals. And there was something else: a stable boy. He was crouching at the furthest of the three stalls, picking at the horse’s hoof with a small knife. He was half naked; his shirt was hanging over a saddle rack, presumably to protect it from the muck that inevitably comes with horse husbandry. For a moment, I could study him unobserved. He was a strong lad, perhaps 19 or 20 years of age, with curly brown hair that could do with a trim, a snub nose, and freckles across his face and neck, extending over his broad upper back. There was a patch of hair on his chest and a little on his stomach, standing out in stark relief from the milky whiteness of his skin. As he delved away with his knife, the muscles bunched and extended under that skin; his lower arms were sunburned to a brick red. It was obvious that he was well fed, and could look after himself in a fight. But he was, I reckoned, shorter than me by a good six inches, and if it came to a simple trial of strength, I could overpower him in a second.

I had no desire to harm him, however, not least because I was enjoying looking at him so much. Where you, Jack, are smooth and slender, with blond hair and a skin that tans gold, this lad was stocky and sturdy—a worker, rather than a student of life. And he was good at his work; with a final, deft twist of his knife, he shot a jagged stone the size of a walnut out of the horse’s hoof, and stood up, patting the beast on its big brown behind.

I thought it better to announce my presence, not least because he had a knife in his hand, so I coughed gently. He didn’t jump. Instead he just looked toward the door, shielding his eyes against the light, which was behind me and put me into silhouette.

“No, it’s not Ben,” I said, taking a step forward. When he saw me more clearly, his hands went to his sides and he adopted a defensive posture. The muscles in his chest bunched up, with two pink buds on top of them that looked good enough to eat.

“And maybe not.” We stood facing each other, and I became aware of the scent of his sweat above the smell of the horses—a rich scent, like wood smoke. I was already half-hard from watching him at work, and that smell finished the job. I saw him glance down toward my swollen crotch, and his body relaxed.

In answer, he turned around and dropped his pants. “How does this look? Good enough for you?” He bent forward slightly, and parted his ass cheeks with his hands. Through the dark hair, I could see his pink hole. My head swam, and all the frustration of the last months blinded me. God knows, Jack, I was aware of the dangers. But now, all my fears had been realized: I was an outcast, struggling to stay alive. And, you see, I needed that horse.

I leaped forward, fell to my knees, and dived in. My tongue found his asshole and started licking. He gave one loud “God damn!” and then surrendered to the experience. His ass tasted of sweat, but it was clean and sweet as I lapped at it. My cock was like an iron bar inside my pants, and it was desperate for release. Unwilling to relinquish his ass, I started struggling with my belt and buttons, and ended up losing my balance and rolling over in the straw of the stable floor.

His eyes goggled, and his mouth fell open. “Gee… I’ve never seen one that big before… I don’t know if I can… Well…” He started toying with it, stroking the underside with his fingertips, tracing up to the tip, where my foreskin was starting to pull back. Finally he grasped it, and moved his hand up and down. With each stroke, more of the head was exposed. He appeared to be transfixed. I reached around with one hand and found his cock. He was still rock hard, so I guessed that any misgivings he had about my size were not enough to scare him off. We stayed that way, playing with each other, for a while, as the sun illuminated the dusty straw and the horses occasionally snuffled and stamped in their stalls.

He lay down beside me, his head near my stomach, so I could play with his curly hair while he made a few tentative licks and kisses on my cock. It had been a long time since I was touched there, and I could have wept with relief. Finally he opened his mouth wide and took the head. I rubbed the back of his neck and encouraged him gently downward. When he’d got the measure of me, and was working his lips up and down my shaft with increasing pace, I moved my hand over his shoulders and down his back until I could play with his ass. I kneaded the white, elastic flesh of each cheek, and then, by poking and prodding, I found his hole. Wetting my finger with spit, I pushed it into him to the first knuckle, then the second. He didn’t stop sucking, but started moaning. He was ready.

He rolled off me and, lying beside me, kicked off his boots and pants. Now he was completely naked, while I was fully clothed, with my pants open and my shirt pushed up. The contrast—his nakedness and my clothes, his white skin and my black—made me even more eager to fuck him.

I thought I would have to break him in gently, but this jockey knew exactly what to do. Springing up, he placed a knee on either side of my hips and, holding my prick, guided it to the target. He ass was wet and open, my dick was lubricated with his saliva and the juice that was flowing out of the tip. All I had to do was brace my hips slightly upward, and I entered him. He bit his lip and closed his eyes, still holding on to me. Then, relinquishing his grip, he started to lower himself. He took it slowly, and I didn’t thrust, unwilling to hurt him—but, when he reached the thickest central part of my shaft, he stopped.

His thigh muscles were tensed; I stroked them, and they felt like steel. His cock had gone soft and was nestling in his bush like an acorn. With one finger, I stroked the hairy passage between his ass and his balls, then the tight skin of his ball sack. His cock stirred back to life, and as it grew he moved himself gently around my cock, getting used to the feel of it inside him. Then, as his dick began to swell and climb, his ass suddenly relaxed and he sat all the way down.

In response, I gently thrust. His cock danced further upward until it was rigid against his bush. He reached around and felt the lips of his ass stretched around me, and squeezed my balls. He started to move, meeting my thrusts, and gradually the motion became faster, bigger, harder. My dick was getting even bigger inside him, and his ass took everything I could give him. He settled into a rhythm and, supporting himself with one hand braced against my leg, started to jerk himself off.

I put my hands behind my head again, tensed my stomach muscles, and shoved my dick as far inside him as I could. He responded by thrusting his ass up and down like a pump; all I had to do was stay still and let him do the work. Finally, he screwed his eyes up and started squirting all over the muscles of my stomach. His ass clamped around me as he came, and we remained locked together as he emptied himself of every drop.

To my surprise, he neither went soft nor made any attempt to dismount. He leaned forward and kissed me full on the mouth, then, pulling me up and forward, rolled over onto his back. Somehow, I kept my cock inside him. He pointed his legs at the roof and said, “Fuck me. Hard.”

And so I did. I nailed him to that stable floor. Sweat was pouring off me, dripping from my forehead and the end of my nose onto his face. We kissed, eating each other’s mouths, bruising our lips. His spunk was now smeared from my stomach onto his body; we were glued together. The scent of sweat and sperm and horse shit filled my nostrils. I braced myself on my arms, lifted myself a little so I could look into his eyes, and fucked him harder than I had fucked anyone before. He pushed his prick forward, so I could see that he was still stiff. His face, neck, and chest were flushed a bright pink, the same color as the head of his dick. When I started to come inside him, he moaned and squirmed, but stayed staring straight into my eyes.

We lay like that for a while, until our breathing had slowed and the position became too uncomfortable to sustain. I pulled out of him and immediately plugged the hole with two fingers. With one arm around his shoulders, lifting him so he was resting partly on my lap, I kept fucking him that way until he brought himself to another climax.

We cleaned up with straw, dressed ourselves, and then, without much discussion, saddled the horses and rode quietly away from the stables. When we had covered a couple of miles and reached open country far from any habitation, we slowed to a walk and he told me his story.

He had been orphaned at the age of six, when his mother died in childbirth. His father, who had traveled west to seek out a new home, had been killed in an outbreak of cholera just after Eddie was born. He and his infant sister were looked after by a succession of relatives, none of whom really wanted them, until the girl was sent into service in Boston and Eddie, at the age of 15, was left to fend for himself. He’d worked his way around the local farms, finally finding the position as stable boy, groom, and man-of-all-work where I found him. His employers, a tight-fisted couple whom he described as wretched Puritans, had fled the area at the first news of Confederate incursions out of Virginia, imagining that they would have their throats cut by Rebel soldiers within days. He had not heard from them in weeks, and kept the farm going as best he could. When I found him, he had been on the verge of selling the horses and joining the army.

We sold the third horse, a sorry-looking gray mare that looked far from roadworthy, to a traveler we met on the road. He got the horse; we got razors, soap, blankets, matches, and a couple of water bottles. I know who got the better bargain.

Thus equipped, we turned south, and rode all day until we pitched camp just above Shelburne Falls. We lit a fire, made beds in an abandoned hut, and settled in for the evening. Eddie prepared our dinner, and we slept together, rolled in blankets, as warm as two bears in a cave. As he breathed gently in my arms, I allowed myself to believe that I had found the friend I had so long searched for, and that the open road, the woods and mountains, would give us the freedom to live and love in peace.