Chapter Eight Black Tooth Canyon #2
“Because I have hidden more from Warren than I ever hid from you.”
“That is not possible.”
“I omitted your mortgages. I concealed the alternate water. I refused the ledger. I warned Calvin away.”
“You gave him the route.”
“One report. Before the poisoned spring.”
“And the map?”
“He stole it in Red Mesa.”
“From the bag you left unguarded while you were in my bed.”
Drew flinched.
Hank saw.
For one moment pain almost softened him. Then betrayal returned.
“Every time I touched you, did you remember what you were sent to take?”
“Yes.”
The answer was honest and terrible.
Hank turned away.
“But I remembered because I hated it,” Drew said. “Because every hour with you made obedience impossible.”
“You continued.”
“I was trying to learn enough to stop him.”
“You decided for me.”
“Yes.”
“You decided I could not be trusted with the danger around my own men.”
“Yes.”
“Like your father decides for everyone.”
Drew had no defense.
The likeness was exact.
Hank picked up his coat.
“We move.”
“You need rest.”
“Do not tell me what I need.”
“Hank—”
“Did you write about the spring?”
“Yes.”
“Did you write about me?”
Drew’s throat closed.
“What did you tell him?” Hank demanded.
“That you were disciplined. That the men were loyal.”
“What else?”
“That you carried debt.”
Hank looked sick.
“I did not give amounts or names.”
“You watched me surrender to you while measuring my weaknesses.”
“No.”
“That was your assignment.”
“It stopped being my reason.”
“When?”
Drew stepped closer. “At the pump. The dry creek. The arroyo. Every time you looked at me as a man rather than an asset carrying my father’s name. Pick any moment. All of them were real.”
Hank backed away before Drew could touch him.
“Do not.”
The single word ended the movement.
Drew lowered his hand.
They left the cave separately.
The northern opening had been sabotaged too, though not collapsed. Wire stretched across the trail at chest height, disguised with dust. Had the herd reached it, the first riders would have been torn from their horses.
Drew cut it.
A path climbed the western wall. They followed it toward the ridge, Hank increasingly pale. Clouds gathered again above the canyon. Thunder sounded in the distance.
Halfway up, Hank’s leg gave out.
Drew caught him from behind.
“Let go.”
“No.”
“I said let go.”
“And I said no.”
Hank struggled once, then pain took the strength from him.
Drew lowered them both to the ground. He sat behind Hank and held him upright against his chest, one arm around his waist, the other supporting the injured shoulder.
“You may hate me after we return,” Drew said. “You may send me south without a horse. Until then, I am keeping you alive.”
Hank’s head rested unwillingly against him.
The closeness awakened another involuntary response in both men. Their bodies remembered trust even while their minds stood among ruins. Drew’s arousal pressed against Hank through their clothes, and Hank’s answered with painful, unwanted honesty.
Hank laughed bitterly. “Even now.”
Drew closed his eyes. “Especially now. I almost watched you disappear beneath that wall.”
“Wanting does not absolve you.”
“I know.”
“Stop using it as proof.”
“I am not. I am telling you my body is the only part of me that never lied.”
Hank went still.
Rain began in scattered drops.
Drew pulled his coat around both of them. The position echoed nights of intimacy, but nothing softened. He held Hank because the man was injured. Hank allowed it because survival outweighed pride.
Yet when thunder rolled overhead, Hank’s hand found Drew’s where it rested at his waist.
Their fingers linked once.
Neither acknowledged it.
They reached the southern ridge near dusk.
The crew had cleared a narrow path through the slide for men and horses but not cattle. Will and two others met them above the canyon with a spare mount.
Sam saw Hank’s bandage and tried to stand from the wagon.
“What happened?”
“Charge on the east wall,” Hank said. “Wire on the north trail. They planned both ends.”
Sam looked at Drew. “He save you?”
Hank’s silence answered.
Drew helped him dismount.
Hank turned to the assembled crew.
“This man’s name is not Drew White.”
Men stopped working.
“He is Andrew Whitaker. Son of Warren Whitaker.”
Recognition moved through the group.
Will’s expression hardened. Abel Dunn’s eldest son reached for his gun.
Drew stood alone beneath their stares.
“He joined us under false orders,” Hank continued. “He gave the railroad information about our route.”
“Hank,” Sam warned.
“He also saved my life today and helped prevent the stampede at the river. No one touches him until I decide what comes next.”
The protection felt like another wound.
Hank faced Drew.
“You are no longer part of this crew. You do not receive orders. You do not draw wages. Once we clear the canyon, you ride south.”
“No.”
Several men reacted.
Hank’s eyes became dangerous. “You mistake protection for permission.”
“I heard you. I am refusing.”
“You have no place here.”
“My father caused this. Luther Briggs is still ahead of us. I know Warren’s methods, his agents, and the evidence required to stop him.”
“I will not risk another man because you want redemption.”
“I am not asking you to.”
“What are you asking?”
Drew looked at him before the entire crew.
“To repair what I broke.”
Hank’s expression did not change.
Drew continued. “You do not have to forgive me. You do not have to touch me again. But I will not ride away while the danger carrying my name remains ahead of you.”
The words exposed more than a declaration of love would have.
Hank looked toward the blocked trail.
“Carter,” he said. “Give him a horse.”
Will hesitated. “You said he is not crew.”
“He is not.”
Drew accepted the spare reins.
Hank entered the medicine wagon without looking back.
The door closed between them.
That night, Drew slept beyond the circle of bedrolls without a fire. The canyon walls rose on either side, holding the day’s echoes.
His full name was finally in the open.
Drew slept beyond the nearest fire because no one had offered him a place beside it.
He arranged his bedroll beneath a shelf of stone, close enough to answer if the crew needed him and far enough that anger could cool before becoming action.
His ribs ached where falling rock had struck.
Fine grit remained in his hair no matter how often he shook it loose.
Across the broken canyon, men worked by lantern light to widen the path for the herd. Hammer blows echoed off black walls. Every sound resembled the first crack of the explosion.
Hank stood near the chuck wagon with his wounded shoulder newly bound.
He issued orders as if blood loss had no claim on him.
Only Drew knew the weight Hank had allowed him to carry while they crossed the rubble, how the older man's breath had failed twice, and how intimately fear had lived beneath his anger.
No—Sam knew now too. Sam knew because he watched everything that mattered.
The second-in-command approached with a tin cup and stopped just outside kicking distance.
"Coffee," he said.
"Is it a peace offering?"
"No. Coffee. Peace costs more."
Drew accepted the cup. It was scorched and bitter. He drank anyway.
Sam lowered himself onto a stone, protecting his injured ribs. "You knew about the railroad wire."
"Yes."
"Water hole too?"
"I found a survey stake after the cattle died. I hid it."
Sam's face revealed nothing. "Remuda?"
"I saw Briggs near the lantern. I told Hank only after the horses were recovered."
"Red Mesa?"
"I met my father's agent. He stole the route map from me."
Each admission made the coffee taste worse. Drew had told the crew the broad shape of his betrayal. Sam demanded the particular stones from which it had been built.
"Telegram?" Sam asked.
"Mine. An early report. It did not order the attack that injured you."
"But it told them where we'd be."
"Yes."
Sam looked toward the canyon mouth. "Man can drown another without meaning to kill him. Water don't care."
Drew closed both hands around the cup. "What do you want from me?"
"Truth. Seems everybody does."
"I have given it."
"No. You gave facts. Why'd you save him from the rockslide?"
Drew stared at him.
"Could've stepped aside," Sam continued. "Your father gets the trail, you get to go home. Why shove Hank clear?"
"There was no time to think."
"Exactly."
The answer Sam wanted frightened him more than the crew's anger. "Because I love him."
Saying it here, to someone else, made denial impossible.
Sam nodded as if confirming a count. "And does he know?"
"He knows I deceived him."
"Wasn't what I asked."
"No."
"Then don't use love as a defense until you give it to the man it's meant for."
Drew looked across camp. Hank had finished with the crew and was speaking to Ortiz beside the remuda. Even at a distance, Drew could read strain in the set of his shoulders.
"He ordered me to leave," Drew said.
"He did."
"Would you have me ignore that too?"
"I'd have you quit pretending obedience and abandonment are the only choices."
Sam rose with difficulty. "He'll need willow bark before sleep. Cook has it. Don't bring it yourself. He'd throw it at you."
"Your counsel is contradictory."
"Life's complicated."
Drew fetched the medicine and gave it to Will. He also found a clean strip of linen, folded it, and placed it with the water bucket outside Hank's tent. He did not knock. He returned to his bedroll and listened.
Minutes later canvas moved. Footsteps crossed the dirt. Then stopped.
"This yours?" Hank asked from the darkness.
Drew sat up. Hank stood between fires with the linen in one hand. Without his coat, the outline of the bandage showed beneath his shirt. His face was unreadable.
"The outfit's," Drew said. "I only carried it."
"Sam?"
"Will."
"They're both interfering old women."
"Will is twenty-nine."
"Practices early."
For half a breath, something almost familiar passed between them. Then Hank remembered what familiarity had cost.
"You need anything?" he asked.
The question was pure trail-boss duty. Drew answered in the same language. "No."