“Okay,” said Bea, seeming well satisfied she’d gotten her way.
Driving as carefully as he had ever done, Clay guided the truck up the road to the pasture, stopping to let Austin undo the gate. Then, after they’d driven through, he paused to let Austin close the gate before getting in the truck again.
After that, it was a slow, slightly bumpy ride to the ridge, from which could be seen the unbroken line of foothills and behind that the range of mountains, starting with Iron Mountain and all the way up till they disappeared on the horizon. To the right was the flatness of green, grassy fields sloping up and sloping down, but always remaining low beneath the blue, cloudless sky.
A bit of a breeze accompanied them halfway down the ridge to a spot that Clay knew, a flat bit where they could park the truck and get out and Austin could paint. There wasn’t anywhere for him to go to give Austin his privacy, but this time, somehow, that didn’t seem to matter.
Austin simply gathered the black canvas bag from the back seat and took out his paint things. Then, to Clay’s surprise, Austin handed to him and to Bea each a pad of watercolor paper, a small tray with little squares of watercolors, a paintbrush, and put in each paint tray’s well, a bit of water.
“Now,” said Austin. “You paint and I’ll paint—”
“And then we’ll have a contest!” shouted Bea, splashing her water all over her shirt.
“No, no,” said Austin as he patiently filled her little well with more water. “We’re not going to judge the paintings. We’re just going to enjoy doing them and seeing what everybody came up with.”
“I like it,” said Clay.
While he could paint the broad side of a barn with ease, he was not an artist and this wasn’t a task he was good at. Still, it was fun to find a place to sit near the edge of the small dirt parking lot to where the land sloped down and down, and then to swirl the paintbrush in water. To smear the brush in the dry blocks of paint, and then to whoosh the brush across the paper.
He did his best to mimic the enormous amount of sky compared to the green high prairie, and was well pleased when Bea came to sit beside him, echoing what he was doing. She had a bright blue smear of paint already across her cheek, and her paper contained large blocks of shapeless color.
Her smile was bright and when she bumped her head against his arm, his heart swelled, for that was the gesture she did with her dad when she was happy or too full of emotion to express herself with words.
A bit of wind tugged Bea’s paint tray out of her hands. When Clay leaped for it before it went over the edge of the ridge, his own paint tray flopped upside down, the water drying into the earth inside of a heartbeat.
“There’s dirt on it now,” wailed Bea, holding up his tray.
“Doesn’t matter,” said Clay as he sat down next to her once more.
He showed her his painting, broad stripes of blue for the sky covering most of the paper, with a thin line of green at the bottom. Grey and purple to the left for the mountains. It was a dumb painting, really, for there was no light source, no indication that the sun was shining, but Bea took it from him and held it up to the sky.
“You made it look exactly like what it is,” she said. She wrinkled her nose as she handed him her painting. “Mine is just blobs.”
“True,” said Clay, taking the painting to admire it, holding it to one side so the colored water wouldn’t drip on his jeans. “But they’re colorful blobs.”
Off by himself, Austin was silently painting, and Clay wondered if he was painting the landscape alone, or if he was adding them into it, two shapes on the edge of the ridge, suggestions in paint, a ghostly cowboy and a ghostly daughter.
And indeed, when Austin was done, that’s exactly what he showed to them both. Only instead of being colorful blobs or a painting that was a wash of color only, Austin’s painting had a form to it.
He’d painted the far horizon, but used all the colors he could see, evoking the energy in the view, the vibrant light and, looking at the painting, Clay could imagine he’d caught the cool breeze in the colors, as well. And then, yes, he’d included two small shapes in the lower right side of the painting, under which he’d signed his name.
“Thank you for suggesting this,” said Austin. He handed the painting to Bea, then took their paintings from them to look at. “There’s a lot of love in these,” he said, nodding slowly like Clay imagined an expert in New York might do. “They’re wonderful. Now, who’s hungry?”
Austin packed his paints carefully away while Clay, even more carefully, helped Bea into the back seat of the F150 and made sure her seat belt was buckled and that her hands were in her lap before he shut the door.
It was then that he and Austin could share a moment, just a moment, to stand close and kiss. Their lips met, and Clay gently pulled Austin to him, grabbing onto Austin’s belt with a tug until their hips met as well.
“Is that a paintbrush or are you just glad to see me?” asked Clay, teasing and soft as he felt Austin’s erection against his, layers of cloth between them.
Austin looked at him, his eyes wide, reflecting all the green of the valley below.
“I don’t know,” said Austin, almost whispering. “I was just so relaxed, so damn happy to be here with the two of you—It’s been happening in the mornings, now, too. Do you think it will stick around? Will it go away and come back?”
“I don’t know,” said Clay with a shrug, not letting go of Austin. “If it does, it does. It’ll come back. We’ve got time.”
Just then, Bea knocked on the window, and mouthed the words,Ug, kissing,at them, but she was smiling too, showing that she was teasing.
Clay kissed Austin, then, more urgently than before, cupping the back of Austin’s head in his palm, sighing into the kiss as he listened to his body’s response. Strange how good it could feel to be aroused by love in addition to passion. Strange to be standing in the sunlight, loving on this good man, though he had to laugh at Bea’s expression that they werestillkissing.
