Chapter Six Red Mesa #3
“Then keep him out of my herd.”
The words were controlled, but hurt lived beneath them.
Drew stepped closer. “Hank.”
The trail boss looked at the livery door rather than him. Dawn had begun whitening the street. Men would arrive soon.
“Be ready to ride in twenty minutes,” he said.
He walked out.
Drew stood alone beside the open saddlebag.
A folded note lay beneath the remaining clothes.
He removed it.
Rourke will lead you to the truth or to his grave. Your choices decide which.
There was no signature.
None was needed.
Drew tore the note into pieces.
Outside, the train whistle sounded again. The railroad ran east and west from Red Mesa, carrying Warren’s will faster than any man could ride.
Drew fastened his saddlebag and followed Hank toward the herd.
The distance between them had returned with daylight.
They left Red Mesa beneath a bleached morning sky.
The town looked harmless in daylight: adobe walls, warped boardwalks, a church bell sounding the hour.
No sign remained of Calvin Morse except the missing map, and no sign of the night Hank and Drew had spent together except a tenderness in Drew's body and the clean shirt folded beneath his trail coat.
Hank checked every saddlebag before departure. He called it preparation after the theft. Drew watched him search flour, cartridges, bedrolls, and medical supplies with methodical calm. When he reached Drew's gear, he did not ask permission.
"Looking for another crest?" Drew asked.
Hank's hands paused on the leather.
"Looking for what was taken," he said.
"The map is gone."
"Anything else?"
"Not that I know."
It was the wrong answer. Hank wanted a man to know his own secrets.
He removed Drew's spare shirt, shaving kit, and a narrow book of accounts. Beneath them lay the brass railroad crest Hank had found before dawn. The symbol showed a locomotive passing beneath a crown, absurdly ornate for an object meant to fasten a case.
Hank held it between thumb and forefinger. "Family business ties."
"Yes."
"This ain't a business card. Came off an executive dispatch box."
Drew had carried it for years because it opened doors at stations owned by the Whitaker line. "It belonged to my family."
"Belonged?"
"Belongs."
"Which?"
Around them, men loaded the wagon. Every sound seemed unnaturally clear: a buckle closing, a horse stamping, Sam coughing near the remuda.
"Both," Drew said.
Hank put the crest back. He repacked the bag with more care than Drew expected and tied it shut.
"Ride near the wagon today."
"Is that punishment?"
"It's an assignment."
"You kept me beside you after believing I met a lover in an alley. Now a piece of brass makes me dangerous?"
Hank's gaze flashed. "A lover would've been your lie to keep. A stolen route gets men killed."
Drew could not dispute it. The night in the hotel had changed nothing about the map in Calvin's hands. Worse, Calvin now knew enough from their whispered meeting to suspect where Drew's loyalty had shifted.
"I did not give it to him," Drew said.
"Believe you."
"Do you?"
"Believe he stole it. Don't know why you had it."
The distinction was brutal and fair.
Hank mounted and rode to the head of the column. Drew remained by his saddlebag with the crest inside and the memory of Hank asleep beside him only hours before. Intimacy had made the deception more painful; it had not made it smaller.
Sam came alongside leading a gray mare. "You're on point with me."
"Hank assigned me to the wagon."
"Hank told me to keep you where I can see you. Wagon wheel blocks my view."
Drew swung into the saddle. "He is investigating me."
"He investigates weather. Don't take it personal."
"He does not sleep with weather."
Sam coughed to disguise a laugh. "Not for lack of trying."
They rode out as dust lifted behind the herd. Hank did not look back, but Drew felt the absence of his attention as keenly as he usually felt its weight.
For the first miles, Sam asked practical questions. Where had Drew learned to ride? Who taught him railway accounting? How did he know Red Mesa's hotel keeper? Drew answered as truthfully as he could without speaking his surname.
"You ever meet Warren Whitaker?" Sam asked at last.
Drew's horse took two more strides before he answered. "Yes."
"What sort of man?"
"One who considers affection an inefficient form of leverage."
Sam studied him. "Sounds like you know him."
"Many men know Warren Whitaker."
"Hank knows you're lying."
"Hank has known from the beginning."
"Different thing, knowing a door's locked and hearing somebody load a gun behind it."
Drew gripped the reins. "If I tell him now, he may put me off the drive."
"Maybe."
"The map is in railroad hands. Someone has to anticipate how it will be used."
"Could tell him that too."
"Without proof, it sounds like an argument for keeping a spy close."
"You a spy?"
Drew looked toward Hank. The trail boss rode against the bright horizon, broad and solitary in the saddle. "I was."
Sam said nothing more for a long time.
At noon they stopped near a shallow draw.
Drew helped water the horses while Hank and Ortiz inspected the herd.
When Hank returned, his sleeves were rolled and sweat darkened his shirt.
The sight struck Drew with embarrassing force.
He remembered the hotel room: clean water running over Hank's shoulders, rough hands made gentle by exhaustion, the quiet way Hank had reached for him after waking.
Hank caught him staring. Desire answered in his face before suspicion reclaimed it.
"Walk with me," Hank said.
They followed the draw beyond camp. Cottonwoods screened them from the crew, though voices remained near enough to remind them privacy was temporary.
"Sam ask questions?" Hank said.
"Many."
"Answer any?"
"Most."
"Not mine."
Drew turned to him. "Ask one I can answer without destroying what is between us."
Hank's expression tightened. "That's the problem. Whatever truth you're carrying already sits between us."
"Last night was true."
"I know."
"How?"
Hank closed the distance. He put one hand against the cottonwood beside Drew's head, not trapping him, simply containing the restless energy between them.
"Because I know when a man gives himself," Hank said. "And I know when he holds something back. You did both."
Drew's breath changed. Hank's body was close, his heat distinct beneath sun and trail dust. Arousal tightened visibly through Drew's trousers; Hank's response was immediate beneath worn denim. Neither pretended not to see.
"You make truth very difficult," Drew murmured.
"No. Make lying expensive."
"And if the price is losing you?"
Something vulnerable crossed Hank's face, gone almost before Drew saw it. "Might've been cheaper before Red Mesa."
Drew lifted his hand to Hank's shirtfront. One more inch and their mouths would meet. He wanted the kiss with a hunger sharpened by fear, but taking it now would turn desire into distraction—the very accusation he had earned.
He lowered his hand.
"There is danger ahead," he said. "The stolen map shows every water stop and crossing to Copper Ridge. Whoever has it will not merely follow us. They will arrive first."
"Whoever?"
"Railroad men."
"Which railroad?"
Drew held his gaze. "Whitaker."
Hank's jaw set. "And you know their methods."
"Yes."
"How?"
"After sunset."
Hank stepped back. The loss of his warmth felt like weather changing.
"Don't use night like a priest's screen," he said. "Truth ain't cleaner in the dark."
He returned to camp alone.
That afternoon Drew rode beside the wagon as ordered. Hank ranged ahead, doubling scouts and changing their next camp without explanation. The new route added six miles but avoided the water stop marked most clearly on the stolen map.
Drew recognized the decision for what it was: Hank had believed his warning even while distrusting its source.
Near dusk they crossed a low ridge. The herd filled the valley below like moving rust. Hank waited at the crest until Drew reached him.
"Camp beyond the cottonwoods," he said. "You ride night watch with me."
"To keep me near?"
"To get answers."
"Those are not mutually exclusive."
Hank's eyes traveled over him, hot and unwilling. "No."
The single word promised a night neither man was prepared to survive unchanged.
They descended side by side but without touching. At camp Hank spoke privately with Sam, then inspected Drew's saddlebag again. He held the railroad crest in the last orange light, and Drew watched recognition gather into suspicion.
Until Red Mesa, Hank's doubt had been a challenge between them, sharpened by attraction and sometimes rewarded with truth in pieces. After the stolen map, it became something colder. His suspicion fell across Drew like the shadow of a drawn weapon.
This time, it felt earned.