Chapter Seven No Lies After Dark #2
It began gently, a request rather than a strategy. Hank’s resistance lasted long enough for Drew to feel it, then disappeared. The trail boss caught him around the waist and drew him across his lap.
Desire pressed visibly between them, but neither rushed to satisfy it.
Their mouths moved slowly. Drew opened Hank’s shirt and touched the scar at his ribs. Hank traced the shape of Drew’s back beneath his clothes, pausing wherever muscles tightened.
No wager governed them.
No one won.
Drew settled with one knee on either side of Hank’s hips. “Look at me.”
Hank did.
“Who do you see?”
“A man who lies badly.”
Drew almost laughed. “Hank.”
“A man trying to become better than the name he will not give me.”
The answer broke through every defense.
Drew kissed him with sudden desperation. Hank held him through it. Their clothes opened beneath trembling hands, yet the scene remained slower than hunger wanted. Each layer removed became an act of trust.
They lay beside the fire on Hank’s coat.
Face-to-face, there was nowhere to hide.
Hank’s arousal rested hard between them; Drew’s answered.
Their bodies moved together, but the deepest intimacy came from maintained eye contact.
Hank allowed Drew to see need without turning it into command.
Drew allowed himself to be held without using seduction to redirect the questions.
When pleasure rose, Hank spoke Drew’s name as if it were already enough.
Drew nearly answered with his full one.
Andrew Whitaker.
The words reached his throat.
He swallowed them.
Afterward, Hank kept him close. Drew rested one hand over the trail boss’s heart. It beat slower beneath his palm.
“I almost told you,” Drew said.
“Your name?”
“Yes.”
“What stopped you?”
“Fear.”
“Of me?”
“Of losing the only place I have chosen for myself.”
Hank touched his hair. “You may lose it by waiting.”
“I know.”
They lay beneath the stars until the fire burned low.
At some point Hank kissed his forehead.
Drew felt the gesture more deeply than everything before it.
He lifted his face. The word love existed suddenly, whole and terrifying, between one heartbeat and the next.
Hank saw it.
His own expression opened in answer.
Neither man spoke.
Drew kissed him once more, softly, then rested against his chest.
They slept for less than an hour.
The cattle woke them.
A crack of gunfire came from the river. Then another.
The herd surged east.
Hank was standing before Drew understood the direction of the sound. They ran toward the horses, fastening clothes as they moved.
Flames appeared along the south bank—not a wildfire, but three torches rolled through dry grass on ropes. Riders shouted from the darkness, pushing the cattle toward the river crossing where scouts waited.
“Turn them north!” Hank yelled.
Men mounted around him.
Drew reached Ghost and swung into the saddle. Hank caught his bridle.
“Stay with Sam.”
“I can help the point.”
“Stay with Sam.”
The order held fear rather than distrust.
Drew nodded and rode toward the western flank.
The herd pressed forward in panic. The main body had not yet broken into a full run, but cattle at the front crowded the riverbank. If the leaders entered too fast, animals behind would crush them.
Sam rode along the edge, calling to the men.
A shot came from the ridge.
His horse reared.
Sam fell.
Drew reached him first. The older man lay twisted, one leg beneath him. His horse ran riderless toward the cattle.
“Sam!”
“I am alive.” Pain whitened his face. “Get me out of here.”
Drew dismounted and dragged him toward a shallow wash while hooves shook the ground. Will Carter arrived and helped lift Sam onto Ghost.
Hank appeared through the dust.
“His leg,” Drew shouted. “Maybe his ribs.”
Hank took one look and made a decision. “Carter, ride him to camp. Drew, with me.”
They turned the leaders less than fifty yards from the river.
The work required every rider. Hank and Drew moved together without thought, closing gaps and redirecting the frightened cattle north. The private honesty beside the fire became practical trust in motion. Hank pointed; Drew understood. Drew opened space; Hank used it.
By sunrise, the herd had settled.
The attackers were gone.
Sam’s leg was not broken, but his knee had twisted badly and two ribs were likely cracked. He cursed the men who carried him to the wagon and then cursed them for moving too slowly.
Near the river, Hank found a dropped telegram beneath a dead rider’s saddle blanket. One saboteur had fallen when his horse stumbled. He had escaped on another mount, leaving equipment behind.
The paper bore a Red Mesa stamp.
D.W. confirms alternate through Black Tooth. Rourke exposed at north ledge. Proceed if river attempt fails.
Hank read it twice.
Drew approached, leading Ghost.
“What is it?”
Hank held out the message.
Drew recognized Calvin’s phrasing. The initials stared up at him like a verdict.
“I did not send this.”
“D.W.”
“I know what it says.”
“Who else uses those initials?”
“No one.”
Hank folded the paper with precise care. “You told me they had the map.”
“They do.”
“You told me Black Tooth was the safer route.”
“Because they expect the river.”
“They expect both.”
Drew looked toward the ridge. “Calvin wrote this to make you doubt me.”
“Why?”
“Because I refused to give him the map.”
“But he has it.”
“He took it after I refused.”
Hank’s face revealed nothing.
Behind them Sam cried out as Cookie tightened a bandage. The sound made every lie heavier.
Drew stepped closer. “No lies after dark.”
“The sun is up.”
“I did not send it.”
Hank looked at the telegram, then at him.
He wanted to believe. Drew saw that plainly.
Trust was no longer a gift Hank could offer without risking other men.
“Black Tooth,” Hank said at last.
Drew’s chest tightened. “You are taking the canyon?”
“The river is watched. The southern route adds twelve days. Black Tooth is dangerous, but narrow enough to defend.”
“It may be what they want.”
“Every road is what they want now.”
Hank mounted.
He addressed the crew. “We move in one hour. Sam rides in the wagon. Double scouts. No one leaves the line.”
His gaze found Drew.
“You ride where I can see you.”
The words echoed the stockyard, but the meaning had changed.
At Red Bluff, Hank had wanted to expose a stranger’s secret.
They broke the private camp before full light.
Drew buried the fire while Hank saddled both horses one-handed, favoring the shoulder strained during the cattle surge.
Neither mentioned the intimacy of the previous night or the word that had nearly passed between them.
The promise of no lies after dark seemed fragile in morning, as if truth possessed hours of operation.
Hank handed Drew the coffee pot. "Drink."
"That sounds perilously like an order."
"It is."
Drew drank. The coffee was thick, bitter, and hot enough to hurt. Hank watched until he swallowed, then took the pot from him and drank from the same rim.
The act was so casually intimate that Drew's body reacted before caution. Hank saw the shift beneath Drew's trousers; Drew saw the answering tightness in Hank's stance. Daylight had returned all the risks their fire had briefly suspended, but hunger did not respect the boundary.
"We should go," Drew said.
"Yeah."
Neither moved.
Hank set the pot down. He touched one finger to Drew's lower lip, collecting a drop of coffee. Drew caught his wrist and kissed the rough pad of that finger. Hank inhaled sharply.
"Daylight," he warned.
"I noticed."
"Promise only held after sunset."
"Then this cannot be a lie."
Hank's eyes darkened. He stepped close enough for saddle leather and denim to press between them. The kiss lasted seconds, but it carried the weight of everything they refused to say. Drew's hands settled at Hank's waist. Hank held his jaw, firm and careful, before pulling away.
"Now we go," Hank said.
They reached the main outfit before noon and found Sam feverish in the medicine wagon. The surge had cracked two ribs and opened a deep wound along his side. He objected to being carried, examined, bandaged, or addressed in tones suggesting concern.
"You sound well," Drew told him.
"You sound expensive."
"I am told that often."
Hank climbed into the wagon and sat beside Sam. The older men spoke quietly while Drew heated water outside. Their friendship required little performance. Hank checked the bandage, Sam criticized the route, and both pretended the care was merely operational.
Will approached with the coded telegram they had found after the surge. "Ben broke the rest of the cipher," he said. "Initials at the bottom. D.W."
Drew's stomach tightened.
"Could be anyone," Will added, watching him.
"It could."
"You know railroad men in Red Mesa."
"Many people do."
The answer was technically true, which made it a violation of the previous night.
Hank emerged from the wagon. His eyes moved from the telegram to Drew's face. "What's wrong?"
"Sam needs willow bark."
"Asked you."
Drew held his gaze. The sun was high. No-lies after dark, they had agreed, giving cowardice a schedule. He could confess now. Say Calvin sent the telegram after stealing the map. Say D.W. stood for the name Hank already knew, or for Drew Whitaker, the name he did not.
"I am concerned about him," Drew said.
Hank's expression changed by less than a breath. "Get the willow bark."
Drew walked away knowing he had been heard correctly.
Sam's fever rose through the afternoon. The nearest doctor lay south in Red Mesa; the attackers knew it and had blocked that route with cut fences and scattered herds. North, Black Tooth Canyon offered the only chance to put distance between the outfit and Warren's riders.
Hank gathered the crew around the route map. "Broad trail runs west, adds two days," he said. "We don't have two. Canyon cuts straight north."
Ortiz shook his head. "Walls too tight. One frightened steer, whole bunch piles."
"Weather's clear. We move them in strings and hold the remuda back."
"Telegram says they expect us north," Will said.
Hank looked at Drew. "What do you think?"