But Zeke didn’t say anything about it, and for a while they watched the mustangs grazing in the small field, and watched the puffy white clouds twist into gray sheets and lower themselves over the sharp edges of the mountains, softening them.
“Let’s get an early supper,” said Zeke. “I figure we can make some coffee after, and have brownies and watch the stars come out.”
“Okay,” said Cal. Pretty much anything Zeke wanted to do was fine by him.
“It’s going to be a busy morning, then we can head home.”
Except for that. Cal didn’t want to head home, ever. He wanted to stay in the valley with Zeke pretty much forever. It was only when he noticed that Zeke’s limp had gotten worse that he was able to drag himself from his own troubles.
“Did you bring anything for your leg?” asked Cal as they gathered a bit of wood from the riverbank for their evening’s fire.
“Beg pardon?” asked Zeke as he lifted his head and pushed his cowboy hat back to look at Cal fully. Then he shook his head. “No, I didn’t think I’d need my pills or anything, us being gone so short a time.” He smiled, as if trying to push off Cal’s worry. “Guess I was wrong.”
“You could soak it like you said.” Cal moved close. All he wanted to do was help Zeke feel better, which made such a nice change—helping someone else. Someone he cared for. “I could help you. Make sure you don’t fall in or that the river doesn’t carry you away.”
Zeke had that faint, faint blush again, pale rose against his tan as he ducked his chin, looking up at Cal the littlest bit.
Cal felt stupid for imagining that Zeke, the amazing horseman, strong and independent as hell, needed anything like Cal’s fussing and worrying.
“Before it dinner,” said Cal, pushing past his own hesitation. “Before it cramps up worse.”
“Yes, mother,” said Zeke, with a smile and a small laugh, as though to take the sting out of the words. “I’m not used to being fussed over.”
“Sorry,” said Cal. “But it’s just us up here and we need to look out for each other. Right?”
“Right.”
Cal’s chest swelled with pride that Zeke agreed with him. So, after they stoked the little campfire fire and purified more water for their freeze-dried dinner, they went down to the river.
They had only brought two kitchen towels, and those were too small to dry off with, so Cal took off his shirt, and then placed his shirt and Zeke’s on a rock to keep them dry. Then, with wide eyes, pretending he wasn’t staring, except that he was, he watched Zeke disrobe right down to the skin. First his boots and socks, jeans, and belt, and then finally he stripped off his white briefs.
Which showed Cal what maybe he’d been imagining all along, that the only non-tan part of Zeke’s body was where his briefs covered his skin. A pale area, drawn in the shape of those briefs, that made Zeke somehow more vulnerable as he balanced on his bare feet one rock, his hand on another rock, the river pulling quietly just inches below him, a dark slow passage of water.
Zeke was purely naked otherwise, and seemed unconcerned about this, though Cal’s heartbeat picked up and his breath seemed to catch in his throat at the beauty of Zeke’s nakedness, his shoulders and torso dappled by cloud-shaped sunlight and the swaying branches of pine trees overhead. His eyes flickered green in those shadows, his smile bright.
“Come stand here in case I fall in,” said Zeke, gesturing at one of the rocks. As if he had no idea that he was Cal’s unrealized dream, unrealized until that moment, to be close to Zeke and to absorb the wild energy of him, him and his nakedness, natural amidst the wildness around him.
“It’s probably fine, but I don’t know this river.”
Cal rushed close, and balanced himself on the rock where Zeke’s hand was, not staring at Zeke, or at least not anywhere that if Zeke caught him staring, he’d be totally embarrassed.
He wasn’t a prude, and he didn’t think Zeke was either, but it was more polite not to pant over Zeke’s long legs and trim hips, at the muscle that corded beneath Zeke’s tan skin, or the way veins stood out in his forearms.
“I’m just going to step in,” said Zeke and, as he did this, dipping into the cold water, grimacing, Cal realized how much his leg must be hurting him.
Moving even closer, closer than Zeke had asked him to be, Cal sat on one of the rocks and took Zeke’s hand as he dunked himself, and when Zeke looked up at him, eyes curious and questioning, Cal said, “I didn’t want you to be alone in the water.”
“Thank you,” said Zeke. Then he bobbed up and down, submerged to halfway up his chest, going in dry and coming up glistening, to just above the jut of his hips.
He did this a few times, stayed still for a good long moment or two, then shot out of the water, bare feet on the pine needle-strewn rocks, toes curling against the lichen, gripping Cal’s arm for balance.
Cal pulled both shirts close, threw one over Zeke’s shoulders, and handed the other one to him to dry off with.
“Damn, that’s cold,” said Zeke, buffing himself dry and stepping, still a little damp, into his white briefs.
“Did it help?” asked Cal. Hopefully it had, as there wasn’t any place to dash to for Tylenol or ice packs.
“Yeah,” said Zeke, half panting, half laughing.
