9. Hudson
Chapter 9
Hudson
T hey got back in the truck, and Hudson drove as fast as he could without attracting attention. The shortest route was back the way they’d come, along Highway 211, under the highway, and then to the turnoff to Farthingdale Ranch.
After they passed the green-painted gate, Hudson cut left and drove on the dirt road to the top of the hill, past John Henton’s cabin, and down the switchbacks. Which now, in the rain, with the gray misty fog among the tree branches, seemed steeper than they had been before.
By the time they reached the gravel parking lot, the rain had almost stopped, and the only sound, once Hudson turned off the engine, was the faint plop, plop sound the raindrops made as they fell from the dark pine trees.
Hudson made himself get out of the truck. As he went around to the other side, he saw Gabe, wearing a thick jacket and his cowboy hat and carrying a flashlight. He’d been waiting for them.
Fear jolted through Hudson. Next to him, Ty moved close, as though he considered Hudson his protection.
“Dinner’s already over, guys,” said Gabe. He shined the flashlight at their feet and sounded like he wasn’t quite sure how mad he was at them. “Did you not have any idea of the time?”
Hudson could lie. He could say, We got lost. We missed the turn and had to backtrack. It was raining. We helped a woman with her flat tire . But the words didn’t come.
Ty spoke up, shivering, rain-drenched, just about fearless. “I wanted to go for a drive, and Hudson was kind enough to take me.”
There. That would pass for the truth. Wouldn’t it? Except, what might have felt right only days ago—leaving someone else to take the blame—was leaving a bitter trace.
“We wanted to drive forever and not come back,” said Hudson. “We didn’t get very far before I realized we didn’t have a plan. Not even a foolish one.”
He could feel Ty looking at him, the half-dark hiding his expression.
To Hudson’s utter surprise, Gabe nodded.
“Sometimes it happens like that. But you know, I meant it when I said the valley is about trust. When your work is done, you can typically borrow a truck and go for a nice long drive. I’ll even give you money to buy sodas or iced coffee. All you have to do is ask.”
Prison hadn’t been like that. The real world certainly wasn’t like that. But here, in the valley, a curve of earth scattered with trees, fed by a small river, it was like that. Pleasant enough to feel surreal. Pleasant enough, at the same time, that he wanted to believe in it.
“Here’s your change, boss,” said Hudson, holding the money out.
“Was it a nice drive?” asked Gabe as he took the change, the crumpled receipt.
“Yes, boss,” said Hudson.
It would be hard to express any of what he’d felt standing in the rain at the top of that bluff with Ty at his side. The sense of connection. Of Ty’s fey beauty. How the rain had shut them off from the rest of the world to the point where anything seemed possible.
“You aren’t in trouble,” said Gabe. “And Maddy really loved her roses. So go get changed and come to the mess tent. The cooks have saved some dinner for you, and the rest of us are setting up for movie night, on account of the rain.”
A little numb, Hudson hurried with Ty in the darkness to change into dry clothes. Shrugging on their jean jackets, they went back to the mess tent, where Gabe was waiting for them.
The mess tent was ablaze with light and movement. Hudson wanted to go back to his tent and stare at nothing until he could come to grips with the fact that he was going to have to adapt, and a whole lot faster than he felt able to. He was going to have to leave foolish dreams behind. Leave the idea of him and Ty working as a truck-driving tag team behind.
It had felt pure and good to dream of a truck-driving partnership with his fair-haired, fey-eyed tent mate and let his heart be free that way. Better that than to deal with how heartsick he was at the five years he’d lost.
He had driven off in the rain because Ty had asked Hudson to drive him into the unknown and never come back. At that moment, his heart thudding, that had seemed the better option. The best option.
He needed to stay where he was. Why would he ever leave a situation which was exactly what he needed it to be, with decent work, hot food, clean sheets?
He needed to say no to Ty the next time Ty presented him with an option like that. Lighting out and never coming back. He’d been stupid to say yes to Ty.
He’d been stupid saying yes to Roger, as well. He was going to be sick thinking about the moment he’d said yes to Roger for a good long while.
Now, standing on the top step to the mess tent, watching the tables and chairs being moved, the screen being set up, he was aware of Ty at his side, looking up at him.
“Hudson,” Ty said, his voice low beneath the happy bubble of conversation swirling around them. “It was my fault. I almost got us into trouble with my stupid suggestion.”
“It wasn’t stupid,” said Hudson. “Foolish, maybe. But not stupid.” He was lying to Ty. It had been both.
He watched Ty watching everyone, watched Ty’s face growing tight, shoulders curled forward.
“Maybe we should just grab our dinners and eat in our tent,” Hudson said. Maybe Ty wouldn’t want to join him, but he, Hudson, needed the peace and quiet of his own space.
“Is that okay?” asked Ty. “Will they mind?”
Squaring his shoulders, Hudson marched around the people setting up for movie night, pulling Ty in his wake, and found one of the cooks.
“We’re kind of beat,” Hudson said. “Can we take our dinners and eat in our tents?”
“Sure,” said the cook, barely looking up from his task of cleaning a grill. “I’ll wrap up some meatloaf sandwiches and fries for you. Just be sure to pick up after yourself and throw away your trash. You don’t want mice in your tent.”
“You got it.”
The cook dug in the fridge and found a plastic bag that looked like it had two to-go boxes in it. “Come take this, and any drink you want. We have iced tea, soda, milk. Whatever you like. Here you go.”
Ty grabbed two bottles of iced tea and Hudson took the plastic bag. And then led the way out of the mess tent, sighing as his body released its own tension.
“It’s all so overwhelming,” said Ty as he trotted beside Hudson, and then behind him, doing his best to keep up with Hudson’s long strides. “Maybe we should join them and get used to it faster. Having fun, I mean.”
Hudson slowed down. “Do you want to?” He’d go back to the mess tent and join movie night, if it was the smarter option. It would be smarter if he meant to stick around and finish his parole in one piece.
“No,” said Ty. “Not really, but eventually we’re going to have to.”
Together, they followed the path to their tent. The damp grass soaked them from the knees down, and Hudson counted himself lucky that he had a tent mate who was flexible.
Once in their tent, they settled on their respective cots and tore into their meals, which was homemade meatloaf sandwiches with plenty of mayonnaise and ketchup, French fries, homemade coleslaw on the side, nice and crunchy, a little fruit cup, and even a homemade oatmeal and chocolate chip cookie.
It was a whole lot like a school lunch, except for being more delicious, and it made Hudson feel like a kid again. He drank down his iced tea in three gulps, and then eyed the empty to-go boxes, and the used napkins and plastic cutlery.
“I’ll take it back,” said Ty.
“No, I’ll go.”
It would give him a chance to stretch his legs anyway, and to take another look at what happened on movie night. Which would be a whole lot of nothing, surely. Nothing dangerous, anyway.
The men were sitting in rows munching on popcorn and candy. They barely even looked at Hudson going around the edge of the mess tent to throw the trash away.
By the time he was on his way back to tent number eight, it was raining again. When he got there, Ty was standing just inside the tent flap, looking out.
“Do you want to go?” asked Hudson. When Ty nodded, Hudson said, “I’ll watch for you.”
Ty got undressed so fast, it made Hudson blink.
Ty was still thin. His ribs showed and his hipbones jutted out. Still, and maybe Hudson was imagining it, but Ty looked better than he had the day before. A little more sleek, the bruises fading.
Ty looked at Hudson, like he was waiting for permission, like he was depending on Hudson to tell him it was okay to go walking in the rain. That Hudson didn’t think he was a fool.
“Wear flip-flops at least,” said Hudson, not sure whether he wanted any of this, the care of Ty. Responsibility for another human being. He pointed with his chin at the white shelf where Ty had put his stuff. “You don’t want to slice up your feet.”
“Sure,” said Ty. He grabbed his flip-flops and hurried out into the rain, pausing only long enough to put the flip-flops on his feet rather than carrying them.
Hudson stood at the open tent flap and watched him go along the path, where he seemed to vanish. Or, at the very least, amidst the darkening woods and the silvery rain, Hudson couldn’t see him.
Ty wasn’t likely to get eaten by a bear or other wild creature who thought he looked like a mighty tasty snack, but Hudson didn’t move from his vigil.
It was pleasant, anyway, to stand there and listen to the rain on the roof of the tent. To slice his flashlight through the rain. To inhale the cool air and count himself lucky. To think in the rain-dappled silence without the distraction of Ty.
He’d had another two years to go on his sentence, but the vigilante citizens of Chadron had been furious when they discovered how the chain gang was being run, so the rest of his sentence had been wiped out. Everybody’s had.
Now here he was, out two years early from his seven-year sentence, all because somebody with a government job had wanted to make extra cash by hiring out convicts at twenty-five cents a day, which had resulted in the cruel treatment of the prisoners in his care.
Hudson’s life was now totally different. Had he known how it would all turn out, he might have withstood the cruelty more easily.
Hudson was about to go out into the rain and drag Ty back to the tent, where it was warm and dry. Just turning to grab his jacket, he saw Ty step out of the woods. By the light in the tent, streaming through the rain, Ty seemed a mere slip of movement, silver-lit and graceful as he walked closer.
“You done?” Hudson asked. He stood to one side to let Ty enter, then zipped the tent flap closed. “Here’s a towel.”
Hudson knew he was standing too close as Ty buffed himself down, his rain-drenched fair hair falling across his eyes and dark brows as he bent forward for a moment. When Ty straightened up, his teeth were chattering.
“Get some damn clothes on,” said Hudson, doing his best to be gruff as he stripped to his briefs and a t-shirt for bed.
Over the past five years, he’d seen more men naked than he cared to remember, to the point where the male form had less draw. Look away, look elsewhere, whatever.
But looking at Ty, so slender, shivering, with his fey eyes and dancing hair, Hudson felt himself twitch, as though his body was putting him on notice.
Ty pulled on gray sweatpants and a white t-shirt, but he was still shivering. Irritated by those chattering teeth just as much as he was bothered by the idea of Ty suffering from the cold?—
Abandoning thoughts of a hot shower, Hudson watched as Ty began to get into his cot. Hudson reached for the pull string on the overhead light.
And paused. Maybe one night of kindness would be okay. One night only. Then he would shove all of his feelings away and stay safe. Whole. Heart unbroken, and as solid as ever.
“Get over here.”
“What?”
Turning off the light, he crawled between the sheets of his cot.
“You heard what I said.”
He heard Ty’s footsteps in the dark, then felt Ty sit on the bed.
“You don’t even like me,” said Ty.
“I like you well enough,” said Hudson. “This is just to get warm.”
With a grunt, he flung back the covers, took Ty in his arms, and rolled over on his left side. Then he pulled the covers back up, and felt Ty slither against him, a soft movement, Ty’s skin on his arms and face cool against Hudson’s skin.
Like a silky cat, Ty sighed and expanded into the space, as though he belonged there. Hudson closed his eyes against the darkness of the tent and focused on the feel of Ty in his arms.
It was so simple, this closeness. Ty, tucked against his neck so close the fair hairs on the top of Ty’s head scratched his skin. Reaching up, Hudson scooped the hair smooth in a long, slow pet, then let his arm fall along Ty’s slender waist.
Ty shifted in his arms.
“Too much?” he asked, sighing as Ty’s warmth soaked into him. It was the nicest moment he’d experienced in five long years.
“No,” said Ty. “It’s fine. It’s perfect.”
He fell asleep with Ty held close, both of them warm and safe and still.