Chapter Ten The Price of Staying
The dry basin lay west of the pursuit route, hidden behind a line of low sandstone ridges.
Drew had seen it on survey maps in his father’s office. Warren considered the land worthless because no railroad could cross the broken ground cheaply. Luther Briggs considered it useful because a spring ran beneath the northern wall and no local cattleman knew it existed.
Drew reached the ridge shortly after sunrise.
He dismounted before the crest and crawled the last twenty yards through sage.
Below him, nearly six hundred stolen cattle crowded around the spring. Briggs had twelve riders, more than Hank could safely challenge. Two men watched the eastern entrance where the obvious trail arrived. Three others held the herd. The rest rested among the rocks.
Hank had not reached them yet.
Drew studied the basin.
A narrow cut opened along the western wall. Surveyors had rejected it as a rail route because of the grade, but a small group of riders could pass. More important, the prevailing wind moved west to east. If the cattle were turned into the cut, dust would conceal them from Briggs’s men.
Drew mounted and rode south.
He found Hank’s group near noon, traveling north along the obvious tracks.
Will raised his rifle when Drew emerged.
Hank did not.
“You followed,” Hank said.
“Yes.”
“I told you not to.”
“You also told me I am not crew.”
Even Ben Dunn almost smiled.
Drew dismounted and drew a map in the dust. “Briggs is in a basin two miles north. Twelve men. Eastern entrance guarded. Western cut open.”
“How do you know?” Hank asked.
“Whitaker surveys.”
Hank flinched at the name but studied the drawing.
“The cut holds cattle?”
“Three abreast near the top. Wider below.”
“Where does it lead?”
“Back to open range west of our camp.”
Will crouched. “If we enter from the west, we can turn the herd before Briggs knows we are there.”
“Six men against twelve,” Ben said.
“Seven,” Drew replied.
Hank looked at him. “You do not have to buy your place with blood.”
“I am not buying it.”
“What are you doing?”
“Staying.”
The word settled between them.
Hank examined the ridge line. “We wait until dark.”
They divided the plan.
Will and Ben would circle east and create enough noise to draw the guards from the herd. Hank, Drew, and the remaining riders would enter through the western cut, take control of the lead cattle, and drive them out before Briggs reorganized.
The hours until sunset passed beneath strained silence.
Drew sat apart, cleaning his rifle. Hank checked his shoulder bandage and pretended not to watch him.
When darkness came, they rode.
The western cut proved narrower than Drew remembered. Rock scraped their boots. Horses picked their way down loose stone while the basin opened below.
At the eastern entrance, three gunshots sounded.
Briggs’s guards rode toward them.
Hank raised one hand.
They descended.
Drew reached the lead cattle first. He recognized the old red cow from the night they began the private wager. She watched him with suspicious calm.
“Come on,” he whispered.
He looped a rope loosely around her horns and turned toward the cut.
The cow resisted.
Gunfire answered from the eastern wall.
The herd moved.
First ten cattle, then fifty, then a dark river followed the red leader west. Dust rose around them. Hank and two riders held the southern flank while Drew guided the front.
A man appeared above the cut.
“Whitaker!”
Luther Briggs’s voice.
Drew looked up.
Briggs aimed a rifle.
Hank saw him and fired first.
The bullet struck rock near Briggs’s boot. His shot went wide, hitting Drew’s horse behind the shoulder.
The animal collapsed.
Drew came down beneath it.
Pain flashed through his hip and ribs. The cattle continued moving around him, hooves striking stone inches from his head.
Hank turned his mare into the flow.
He reached down with his good arm. “Take hold!”
Drew caught his wrist.
Hank dragged him clear as the wounded horse struggled and fell still.
They rode double long enough to escape the narrowest point. Then Hank stopped beside a riderless mount and pushed Drew toward it.
“Can you ride?”
“Yes.”
“You are bleeding.”
“Later.”
Briggs’s men closed behind them.
Drew mounted and took the lead rope again.
They drove the stolen herd into open country.
Will and Ben joined from the east, one carrying a wound along his arm. Briggs pursued for half a mile before abandoning the chase. He had lost the cattle but preserved enough men for the next attack.
By dawn, the recovered herd rejoined the main drive.
The crew met them with exhausted cheers.
Drew dismounted and nearly fell.
Hank caught him.
Blood soaked the side of Drew’s shirt where stone had torn the skin. His hip would not bear weight. He had lost the borrowed horse and most of his gear in the basin.
Ben Dunn approached.
“You found them,” he said.
Drew nodded.
Ben offered his hand.
The same hand had struck him the day before.
Drew took it.
The gesture did not forgive anything. It acknowledged the price paid.
Hank carried Drew to the medicine wagon.
“I can walk.”
“You cannot stand.”
“I can stand with assistance.”
“That is a complicated way to say carried.”
Sam shifted on the narrow cot to make room. “Put him down before the two of you begin flirting through medical disagreement.”
“We are not flirting,” Hank said.
Drew’s arm tightened around his neck. “He always sounds like this when aroused.”
Hank nearly dropped him.
Sam smiled through the pain in his ribs. “Good. Betrayal has not killed your sense of self-preservation. You never had one.”
Once Sam moved outside, Hank closed the wagon door.
Privacy changed the air.
Drew sat on the edge of the cot. Hank cut away the torn shirt and washed blood from his ribs. The wound was broad but shallow. Bruising spread over the hip where the horse had pinned him.
Hank’s hands shook.
“You are angry,” Drew said.
“I am deciding whether to strike you or hold you.”
“Your shoulder makes the first unwise.”
“The second is not better.”
Hank cleaned the cut.
Drew hissed.
“Sorry.”
“You are not.”
“I am.”
The quiet admission made Drew look at him.
Hank stood between his knees, holding a bloodied cloth. Fear remained visible beneath the anger.
“When your horse fell,” Hank said, “I thought the next hoof would take your head.”
“I thought the same.”
“You sound calm.”
“It already did not happen.”
Hank threw the cloth into the basin. “You do not get to treat your life as disposable because you feel guilty.”
“I rode because I knew the basin.”
“You rode because I told you to stay.”
“That influenced the speed.”
Hank caught the back of his neck. “This is not a joke.”
“No.”
“What do you want from me?”
Drew looked up at him. Even injured and exhausted, desire moved through his body. Hank’s closeness made the response visible beneath his torn trousers. Hank noticed, and his own arousal answered with equal clarity.
Drew did not use it to escape.
“I want you to believe that staying was my choice,” he said.
“One choice does not erase the others.”
“I know.”
“Stop saying that.”
“What would you prefer?”
“The truth without surrender attached to it.”
Drew took Hank’s hand and placed it against his bare chest. His heart beat hard beneath the palm.
“The truth is I would rather have died in that basin than watch you lose these cattle because of me.”
Hank’s face tightened.
“The truth is I would rather be poor beside you than own every mile of my father’s railroad. The truth is I love—”
He stopped.
Hank’s hand pressed more firmly over his heart.
“Finish it,” he said.
Drew could not tell whether the words were hope or command.
He chose honesty.
“I love the man you are when no one needs you for five minutes. I love the man who rests his head on me and lets me wash dust from his shoulders. I love the man who pulled me from under that horse even while he hated me.”
Hank’s eyes shone.
“That is not the same as loving me,” he said.
“It is every part you keep hidden. It is the closest I have come.”
Hank leaned down.
The kiss was raw and frightened.
Drew pulled him closer despite the pain in his ribs. Hank’s hands moved carefully, avoiding wounds, yet desire intensified between them. The front of his trousers pressed hard against Drew’s leg.
“This is not forgiveness,” Hank whispered.
“No.”
“I still do not trust you.”
“I know.”
Hank almost withdrew at the phrase.
Drew caught him. “But you came back for me.”
“I always will.”
The words arrived before either could stop them.
Drew stared at him.
Hank closed his eyes, then rested his forehead against Drew’s.
Their reconciliation began there—not with pardon, but with a promise neither had intended to make.
Hank washed every trace of blood and basin dust from Drew’s body. The care became sensual by degrees. Cloth passed over skin. Fingers lingered. Drew opened Hank’s shirt and checked the canyon bandage in return.
When they kissed again, tenderness replaced panic.
They allowed desire to rise without forcing it toward an ending. Hank held Drew on the cot, careful of his ribs, while Drew traced the line of his back. Their bodies remained visibly aroused, but the deepest relief came from being able to touch without pretending the touch solved everything.
A knock sounded at the wagon.
“Hank,” Sam called. “Unless medical practice has changed considerably, the patient should not be making you breathe like that.”
Hank pressed his face into Drew’s shoulder.
Drew laughed for the first time since the canyon.
The sound loosened something in both of them.
That night they met beyond the fires.
Drew moved slowly because of his hip. Hank carried both bedrolls without comment. They settled beneath a stand of juniper where stars showed through the branches.
The second intimacy was gentler.
They kissed until urgency gave way to warmth. Hank told Drew about the first calf he had delivered alone at twelve. Drew described being expelled from an eastern school for fighting a boy who insulted a stable hand. The stories were small, ordinary, and therefore precious.
Drew laughed against Hank’s mouth.
Hank smiled.
It transformed his face.
“What?” Hank asked.