CHAPTER EIGHT No Prisoner #3
Gideon looked at him.
Jude touched his face.
“Honest,” he reminded him.
Gideon pressed his forehead to Jude’s.
“I thought I’d lost you in the kitchen.”
“You came back.”
“I had an escape route.”
“You came back.”
“I would always come back.”
Jude’s expression broke open.
He kissed Gideon with something beyond urgency.
Their bodies moved again.
The encounter built through pressure, friction, mouths, and hands until the need between them overtook speech. Gideon kept one hand at Jude’s face, watching him. Jude gripped Gideon’s shoulders and held his gaze.
When release came, it passed through them in the same ragged breath.
They remained against the canyon wall afterward.
Jude’s forehead rested on Gideon’s shoulder. Gideon’s arms enclosed him. Neither rushed to cover himself, apologize, or invent a reason for what they had done.
There was no shame waiting beneath the hunger.
Only two men breathing together.
Alive.
Partners.
Jude lifted his head.
“You scraped your hands.”
Gideon looked down.
Both palms were raw from the stable, the canyon, and bracing against stone. Blood darkened several small cuts.
“I’ve had worse.”
“Sit.”
“That wasn’t—”
“Partner,” Jude said. “Sit down.”
Gideon obeyed.
Jude retrieved a canteen and clean linen from the saddlebag. He knelt between Gideon’s knees and took one of his hands.
The position recalled the cave.
But everything had changed.
Gideon was not helpless. Jude was not restrained. The care moved freely in both directions.
Jude poured water across Gideon’s palm.
Dust and blood ran over his fingers.
“This will sting,” Jude said.
“You appear pleased.”
“A little.”
He cleaned each cut.
Gideon watched Jude’s bowed head, the sunlight in his dark hair, and the concentration with which he removed every piece of grit.
“You nearly died saving Marisol,” Gideon said.
“So did you.”
“I told you to use the rear door.”
“And abandon you?”
“You were supposed to escape.”
Jude looked up. “Partners appear inconvenient.”
“So I’m learning.”
Jude wrapped the worst cut and lifted Gideon’s palm to his mouth.
He kissed the linen.
The tenderness struck more deeply than the violence of their encounter.
Gideon touched Jude’s cheek.
The reopened lip had stopped bleeding. He cleaned it with the corner of the cloth, then examined the bruise above Jude’s eyebrow.
“Turn,” he said.
Jude did.
His shirt hung from one shoulder. Gideon drew it up, settled it across his back, and guided each arm through the proper sleeve.
He fastened the buttons.
One by one.
The task should have been ordinary.
It felt intimate enough to require silence.
At the final button, Gideon’s fingers rested against Jude’s throat.
Jude placed his hand over them.
“No chain,” he said.
“No.”
“Still here.”
Gideon looked at him.
“Still here.”
They reached Cinder Wells near sunset.
The settlement occupied a narrow strip of land beside a dry railroad spur. One mercantile, one saloon, a telegraph office, and a stable surrounded a water tower that had not held water in years.
Gideon stopped on the ridge above town.
“Too exposed,” Jude said.
“We need food.”
“We have enough for one day.”
“We need information.”
“That generally proves more dangerous.”
Gideon gave him the field glasses from the saddlebag.
Jude examined the main street.
His body went still.
“What?”
Jude handed him the glasses.
Fresh posters covered the wall of the telegraph office.
Even from the ridge, Gideon recognized the black border and bold heading.
WANTED.
Two faces appeared beneath it.
The first crude drawing resembled Jude closely enough to identify him.
The second showed Gideon.
They waited until darkness before approaching on foot.
The horses remained hidden inside a ravine. Gideon removed the badge from his vest and placed it inside his coat. Jude pulled his hat low.
Cinder Wells had quieted. Music came from the saloon, and two men argued beside the stable, but the telegraph office stood empty.
Gideon crossed the street.
He tore one poster from the wall.
The printing ink remained fresh.
JUDE CALDERWANTED FOR FIVE COUNTS OF MURDER, ESCAPE FROM FEDERAL CUSTODY, AND THE MURDERS OF SHERIFF HARLAN RUSK AND DEPUTIES OWEN DANNER AND CLAY MERCER.
REWARD: $1,500DEAD OR ALIVE.
Jude read over Gideon’s shoulder.
“Rusk was alive when we left.”
“So were the deputies.”
“Perhaps his personality finally became fatal.”
Gideon looked at the second name.
DEPUTY U.S. MARSHAL GIDEON SHAWWANTED FOR THE MURDERS OF THREE SWORN OFFICERS, AIDING THE ESCAPE OF JUDE CALDER, THEFT OF FEDERAL EVIDENCE, AND CONSPIRACY AGAINST THE UNITED STATES.
ARMED AND EXTREMELY DANGEROUS.
REWARD: $2,500DEAD OR ALIVE.
AUTHORIZED BY THE OFFICE OF MARSHAL AMOS CUTTER.
Jude read the amount twice.
“Two thousand five hundred.”
Gideon folded the poster.
“They want the evidence more than they want us.”
“No.” Jude looked at Gideon’s name. “They want you more than they want me.”
A lantern flared inside the telegraph office.
Both men retreated into the alley.
They returned to the ravine without entering the mercantile.
Beneath the cover of darkness, Gideon showed Jude the two posters again.
Jude compared the rewards.
“I’m offended.”
“You should be grateful.”
“I’ve been wanted for eight months. You become an outlaw for three days and immediately command a better price.”
“I have professional connections.”
“Corruption.”
“Jealousy.”
Jude looked at him.
Then he smiled.
The expression held exhaustion, danger, and something Gideon was beginning to recognize as happiness whenever their survival briefly allowed it.
“Two thousand five hundred dollars,” Jude said. “You may be the most expensive man I’ve ever touched.”
Gideon took the poster from him. “You have touched many expensive men?”
“None worth the cost.”
The humor faded.
Jude reached inside Gideon’s coat and touched the badge hidden there.
“Cutter can print what he wants,” he said. “This still belongs to you.”
“A poster says otherwise.”
“A poster once said I murdered Noah.”
Gideon looked toward the lights of Cinder Wells.
“What matters, then?”
Jude’s hand moved from the badge to Gideon’s heart.
“Who knows the man behind the paper.”
Gideon covered Jude’s hand.
Fresh ink declared both of them hunted.
The law named them murderers.
Harrow placed a greater value on Gideon’s corpse than Jude’s because Gideon had crossed the final line between enforcing the official truth and exposing the real one.
Gideon had become an outlaw.
Yet beneath the stars, with Jude’s hand over his heart and no chain binding either of them, he felt less imprisoned than he had while wearing the badge without question.
He folded both wanted posters and placed them beside Cutter’s kill order.
Then Gideon and his partner mounted their horses and disappeared into the dark.