Chapter Twelve Hunger Has a Name #2
Afterward Hank lay on his back with Drew half across him. Their shirts made a poor pillow. The blanket had twisted around their legs. Somewhere near camp, a horse shook its mane and a night bird answered from the creek.
"This is scandalously comfortable," Drew said.
"Rock in my spine."
"You destroy every poetic moment."
"Rock don't care."
Drew found it and tossed it into the darkness. Hank settled deeper into the grass.
"Better," he admitted.
For a while they watched the stars. Drew knew the constellations by the names in books. Hank knew which ones turned toward dawn and which could lead a rider north after cloud cover broke. Their knowledge no longer competed. It fitted together.
"Tell me about the house," Drew said.
Hank's hand moved lazily at his waist. "You've seen it."
"I saw it for one afternoon before we started the drive. Sam slept on the porch and six men were repairing fence. That is not the same as knowing it."
"Roof leaks over the pantry. West window sticks. Pump freezes in January."
"Charming."
"You asked."
"What room faces east?"
Hank was silent long enough that Drew lifted his head.
"Bedroom," Hank said. "Sun gets in early."
"Do you hate that?"
"Used to."
"And now?"
Hank looked at him. "Might not."
Drew imagined morning light across plain boards, boots beneath a shared bed, Hank waking severe and warm while coffee waited on the stove. The image was so modest it frightened him more than any grand promise. He had lived in houses with twenty bedrooms and belonged fully in none of them.
"I would like a desk by that window," he said.
"Plenty room."
"And shelves."
"You own that many books?"
"I will."
"Then floor needs bracing."
"There should be curtains."
Hank groaned. "Knew this would turn expensive."
Drew traced the scar along his ribs. "Can we keep the old table?"
"Table's ugly."
"It has knife marks from every trail crew you ever hired."
"Exactly."
"Then it stays."
The answer pleased Hank; Drew felt it in the hand that drew him closer.
"You mean it," Hank said.
"About the table?"
"Home."
Drew sobered. "I do."
"Even if Warren keeps the money."
"Especially then."
"Ranch ain't easy. Some years it ain't profitable."
"Neither is a railroad when one's father spends the treasury hiring murderers."
"Winter gets lonely."
"You will be there."
Hank's throat moved. "Yeah."
"Then I expect I can survive the hardship."
They kissed again, gently this time. Drew understood the questions beneath Hank's warnings.
Would he stay after comfort replaced danger?
Would the polished heir wake in a leaking ranch house and regret what the trail had made him promise?
Drew could not prove a lifetime in one night.
He could only tell the truth and continue telling it tomorrow.
Near midnight, Sam approached the edge of the rise. He stopped well before the blanket and cleared his throat with unnecessary force.
"Coffee's on," he called. "Night riders changing watch. Nobody needs anything from this particular patch of grass, so I told them."
Hank did not move away. "Appreciate it."
"Did not do it for you. Mr. White turns murderous without sleep."
"Director of interference," Drew called back.
Sam's chuckle receded.
They dressed but did not return to their separate bedrolls.
Hank brought coffee and the second blanket from camp.
Men at the fire looked up, saw him carry both to the rise, and looked down again.
Will gave Drew a brief nod. Ortiz shifted the picket line so no rider would pass too near.
Acceptance came without speech, all the more moving for its plainness.
Drew sat beside Hank and wrapped both hands around the tin cup. "Does it trouble you?"
"What?"
"That they know."
Hank considered the camp below. "Troubled me more when they didn't."
"Why?"
"Made every look at you feel stolen."
Drew leaned into his shoulder. "You watched me bathe in a public stockyard."
"That wasn't stolen. You displayed yourself like merchandise."
"A successful sales method."
"Still negotiating terms."
Their cups touched. Hank's hand settled over Drew's beneath the blanket.
The drive had stripped privacy from them in stages.
Men slept within feet of one another, bathed in rivers, tended wounds without ceremony, and learned every voice in fear.
Yet secrecy had survived inside that lack of privacy, a wall they built each time they left camp separately or returned from opposite directions.
Tonight the wall was gone. No one celebrated it.
No one punished it. The world simply continued around them.
"What happens if the agent refuses the papers?" Drew asked.
"We find a judge Warren doesn't own."
"And if the stockyards close?"
"Break the gate."
"That is not a commercial strategy."
"Worked on the river chain."
Drew smiled, then grew serious. "He will try to kill you. The orders make that plain."
"He already tried."
"He will try where law can call it confusion. A stockyard dispute. A frightened animal. One shot among many."
Hank turned Drew's hand palm up and traced the riding calluses he had examined on the first day. "Then you watch me."
"Always."
"And I watch you."
"Always."
The old word no longer sounded like suspicion.
They reviewed the counterplan until each branch was clear.
False tracks toward the low pass. Ortiz carrying the decoy map.
Will riding ahead to the federal livestock agent.
Sam holding the sealed originals if Drew was taken.
Hank leading the herd by the ridge. Drew entering Copper Ridge publicly enough that Warren could not make him vanish without witnesses.
"He'll use your mother," Hank said.
Drew went still. "She has been dead twelve years."
"Men like him use the dead best. They can't contradict."
Drew stared into the coffee. Warren had always framed obedience as tribute to the woman who had kept peace by yielding. Your mother understood duty. Your mother knew what this family requires. He had heard the phrases so often they possessed her voice.
"Then remind me she taught me to ride before he forbade it," Drew said. "Remind me she hid novels inside my accounting books."
"I will."
"And if he offers the railroad?"
Hank's thumb moved across his palm. "I'll remind you what it costs. Choice stays yours."
Drew looked at him sharply. There it was again: the one gift Warren could never imitate. Hank would fight for him without deciding who he had to become.
"I love you," he said once more, testing how naturally the words could live in his mouth.
Hank kissed his knuckles. "Get some sleep."
"That is not the customary reply."
"Love you too. Sleep."
Drew lay down smiling. Hank stretched beside him and drew the blanket across them both. Within minutes, the rhythm of his breathing deepened. Drew listened to the camp: low voices, cattle shifting, a spoon against a pot. No one came to separate them.
He rested one hand over the papers inside his coat and the other on Hank's chest. For the first time since opening Warren's letter at the stockyard, his loyalties did not pull him in opposite directions. The man, the mission, and the life ahead all pointed north.
Sleep came without dreams.
Drew woke before dawn to orange light.
For one peaceful second, he mistook it for sunrise.
Then smoke crossed the stars.
Hank sat up.
The entire southern horizon burned.
Warren’s men had set fire to the grassland.
The wind carried the flames directly toward the herd.