“Can you assign me to something I can do on my own?” asked Cal. “I wanted to talk to you, but I’m so rattled, I just need to be on my own.”
On his own was how Cal had probably handled a lot of things in his life, and it almost broke Zeke’s heart to imagine it.
“Saddles could use some polishing,” he said, quite softly. “But I don’t want you working hard. Use your left arm, mostly.”
“Yes, boss,” said Cal, and if there was a bit of a smile in his voice at Zeke’s fussing, it only made it hurt all the more.
As he stood aside and let Cal walk past him, he kept himself from reaching out, and wondered why he was like this. As Cal disappeared into the woods, the rain began to come down again, light dripping sounds through the trees, the patter on the roof.
He had let Cal leave without stopping him because he was trying to be responsible, sure. He had obligations to the valley, and to Cal.
But also, he was afraid. Deep down. Afraid of how e felt.
Galen’s words still echoed in his ears. His affection—his love—for Cal felt like dangerous new territory that he had no idea how to navigate. Give him a woman like Betty Lou, and he knew exactly how it went. Dating. Courtship. Rings. Wedding. Full stop. Only he’d been waylaid from that, his course detoured from everything that felt normal.
To admit that he loved Cal—was that what this was about?—was to go all in.
Zeke wasn’t a halfway kind of man. Wasn’t a man who loved men. ButCal?—
Cal was different.
A tangle of ideas spun around inside of him, far too complicated for him to unravel, but they all started and ended with Cal.
Chapter 27
Zeke
Right now, in the wake of Cal’s absence, Zeke needed to be active, so he went to his tent, shoulders hunched against the rain, gathered his laundry from the trip, and dragged it back to the small hut behind the mess tent. There, he threw everything, darks and lights, into the wash, and while the machine went through its cycles, he went back to his tent, and took out the rifle that he’d stored beneath his cot.
On their trip to rescue the mustangs, the rifle had gotten used, exposed to the weather, bounced about. He took out the small pouch of cleaning cloths and tools, and set the rifle to rights, soothing himself with the task, focusing on the small details until his heart calmed down and he could think straight. At least straighter than before.
He’d never cared that Galen was gay, or other men were, or women, or who anybody loved. Love was love, he knew that. But how did the idea of it apply to him? Did it change him if he admitted how he felt about Cal?
He had no idea.
At dinner, he sat with Galen and Bede, because the two of them were wrapped up in each other, laughing over some private joke such that they barely noticed Zeke didn’t say a single word.
Across the mess tent, he saw Cal sitting with Gordy, and if the two of them talked more than five words to each other, Zeke wouldn’t have believed it. Cal still looked white faced and bruised around the eyes as if dark internal thoughts were pulling him to bad places.
Zeke longed to go to him, but Cal had asked for distance, so Zeke would give it to him.
Cal deserved better than Preston. That was one thing Zeke knew for sure.
His whole body shivered with the memory of how he could have given Preston a good beating to begin with. It was the wiser choice to just send him on his way, but the foreign feeling of violence, the desire to harm, tightened the back of his neck. That wasn’t like him, not at all.
Zeke cleared his place, his dinner half eaten, and left the mess tent because it was going to be movie night, on account of the steady rain. Zeke had no energy for conversation, no desire for hot buttered popcorn. No wish to watch Cal from afar, and stay hands off.
In the morning, it would feel more normal, he was sure of it. So he headed back to his tent, grabbed his things, took a long shower, and lay in his cot for a while, pretending he was reading, pretending that he planned to take the rifle back to its secure locker in the supply hut behind the mess tent.
He didn’t do any of these things, merely lay on his cot and listened to the rain and wished with all of his heart that he and Cal were up in Aungaupi Valley, snug in the single tent, while the rain came down and they listened to the river roar. Listened to the sound of each other’s heartbeats.
He finally crawled into bed and clicked off the light. The last few days had brought him an amazing adventure, the kindest touch, and now heartbreak. Or maybe he could man up, and pullGalen aside, and ask him what the hell was going on with him so he could figure out what he needed to do.
He fell asleep to the sound of the rain, the constantpatter pattersound so rhythmic and natural that he thought the burst of light that awakened him was lightning. But it wasn’t. It was the light from a flashlight, draped in a bandana, being held by someone sitting on the floor of his tent, curled up to the size of a slender dark shadow.
“Cal?” asked Zeke, his voice thick with sleep and some confusion. “What are you doing on the floor?”
For a moment, there was only the sound of the rain. Then Cal took a breath and said, “I wanted to be near you, but I didn’t want to wake you.”
