THE OUTCAST OF LONELY ROCK, CHAPTER ONE
"Upon Finding a Stranger's Campfire"
By Tommyhawk1@AOL.COM
WWW.TOMMYHAWKSFANTASYWORLD.COM
I walked for a long time, while the sun beat down upon my uncovered head (cowboys wear those big-brimmed hats for a damned good reason!), feeling all my energy draining out of me the longer I walked. When the sun finally dropped behind a particularly large hill on the horizon, I was grateful and thanked that hill, for with the shadow came a blessed relief from the heat and I was able to pretend that I wasn't as thirsty as I actually was.
But as the sun sank lower behind the hills and the sky darkened, a strong wind began to blow with a stern chillness to it, and the temperature dropped quickly, until far from being hot, I was cold and shivering. I had been warned about the extremes of temperature by my uncle's letter, but it hadn't sunk into me that a day that had been so hot could turn so cold in the space of only an hour or so.
I heard a mouth-organ playing, and I turned my head, saw a dim glimmer of light from not far away; someone had built a campfire in a depression in the land. Hiding their light from whom? Indians? But none were nearby, all had been chased away by the United States Cavalry some years before. Bandits, then? But I had already encountered the local bandits, and if they had ridden nearby, I would have heard or seen them. Whoever it was, he was a stranger.
I would go to him and beg for his assistance.
I walked up quietly, wanting to look him over before I spoke to him; the day's events had made me cautious. If it turned out to be those two bandits, I would slip away and take my chances on finding somebody else tomorrow. There were ranches and settlements scattered liberally about this area; I was not in a complete wilderness.
I made it stealthily up to the edge of the depression, as much as I dared for the land sloped inwards gently. I saw then the campfire, blazing away, using to my surprise real logs for its fuel (I had understood that timber was so rare upon the plains that it was necessary to burn dried animal dung for a fire, and that it was not as unpleasant a practice as one might think, as it burned dry and with almost no odor.) Some small, skinned animal had been suspended over it to roast. I saw the horse tethered there to a small bush only a few inches high, and more bushes were about. I saw the saddle and other gear laid out by the fire. And I saw...I saw the water. A fair-sized pool of water sparkled in the light of the campfire, glistening red as the wind that had sprung up rippled the otherwise still water.
I didn't see the owner of the campfire, but seeing the water I nearly forgot about caution, for I was thirsty and no longer able with the sight of water to ignore that thirst, I looked about me and then walked down to the water and when bent over, about to drink, I stopped.
Some water is bad, especially on the plains with their high-alkali content. But was this water bad? I had learned this much of use from the dime-novels, I had first to watch for signs of life about free-standing water. Until I saw an insect or plants in the water, not just nearby, I could not trust it would be safe to drink.
I began to look about, the sky making the water a dark mirror, opaque to my questing eyes. Any sign of life within, however small, and I could drink.
"It's safe, go ahead and drink." came a voice behind me.
I turned with a start, looked at a man who almost blended with the night, all in black and with black hair and a mustache. Only his face was clear to me, and the glinting red shaft of the gun he pointed my way.
"Go ahead and drink, young fellow. he said again. "You look thirsty. It's safe."
I considered this; poisoning a person with tainted water was certainly a way to remove a potential menace while your own hands stayed clean. This shows how much the day's events had taken my innocence from me, that I could be suspicious of everyone and everything.
Then a frog jumped out of the water and moved about, seeking the insects of the night. Life in the water; I could drink. I laid down and lapped from the pool like a dog; it was heavy with dirt and grit, but I didn't care, it was wet and I could eat a little more sand to quench my thirst.
I finished and rose up, looked back. The stranger had returned to his campfire, his gun back in his holster, and he was lounging, relaxed and at ease. A big man wearing black clothing that was barely lit by the campfire light, so that he was shadow more than shape. But his body was big, strong, masculine, him leaned back against his saddle like a pillow, his near leg stretched out and the far leg with the foot flat on the ground, his arm resting on his knee while the other propped him up, he looked strong, comfortable, resting in the manner of a panther after a kill, his body shining in lines redly from the flickering campfire.
"You got any food with you?" the stranger queried.
"No, sir." I said. And my situation clear in my mind, I didn't hesitate to beg. "Do you have any you would share? I'm hungry; I've been walking most of the day."
"Can you pay me for it?"
"No, sir." I admitted. "Not right away. When I get to Lonely Rock, I could get you some money, though."
"Not going to Lonely Rock. I'm heading north." the stranger said. Then he looked at me. "But come on over and squat, I'll split this rabbit with you. Just killed it an hour ago."
"I didn't hear a shot." I said suspiciously, but going over to the campfire just the same; I was cold.
"Don't waste ammunition on a rabbit." the stranger said. "Sit still and they'll come up to you. Close enough for you to chunk them with a rock. Good aim with a rock and a man can eat pretty well out here. Want to pick up a rock and go try it?" He grinned at me.
I had to smile back. "Not just now." I admitted. "Not if you'll share."
"Come on over. Why are you out here walking? You're heading the wrong way for Lonely Rock, it's that way." He pointed.
He was feeding me; I told him the story of who I was and where I was heading, and the bandit attack on my stagecoach. I left out only the aftermath of that attack. "So I just set out walking while they searched the stagecoach. They didn't try to stop me." I concluded.
"They'd've done you a favor if they had." the man said.
"No, they wouldn't have." I said dourly.
He saw, I guess, that this was a touchy subject and fell silent. After a time, I said, "I'm forgetting my manners. My name is Benjamin Mott." He nodded an acknowledgment and I waited, then said, "What's your name?"
He stood up lazily, picked the rabbit up. "Rabbit ought to be done by now. Hope you don't mind eating with your fingers."
"I don't mind. Right now, I could eat it raw." I said. "But what's your name?"
He looked at me. "Son, out here, you learn not to ask a person's name. He'll tell you what he wants you to call him when he's ready." He took out a large knife from his belt and whacked the rabbit into rough halves, handing me the front part and keeping the hind part for himself. I had more bulk but with less meat on that bulk; he'd divided it fair. "Fact is," He said. "Right now I'm in between names I care to use."
"Oh. So, what do I do until then?" I said. "Just say 'Hey, you?'"
"You can make up a nickname for a person, if you think you can make it stick." he said. "And if he won't get riled up enough by it to shoot you for it. So pick what you want to call me, but remember who's got the gun."
This was an unusual situation! I thought about it while I tore at the rabbit with my teeth, and said, "I could call you Rabbit."
"No you couldn't." he said laconically.
"I'm sorry." I said. "I'm new at this. Then how about Hunter?"
He thought about it, nodded. "That'll do."
"Okay, I'll call you Hunter." I said. "You can call me Ben."
Something nearby yipped, and it wasn't very far away. Almost a dog bark, but there was something foreign in that sound, higher and more savage. Then I heard more, and I shivered. "Those wolves sound close." I said.
"Coyotes." he judged. "And I reckon they are."
"So what do we do?"
"Stay next to the fire and sleep with one eye open." he said. "That's what I'm going to do. Usually they know to leave humans alone."
"Okay." I said. I followed his example and chunked the bones of the rabbit into the pool.
He pulled out his harmonica again and began to play it. I didn't recognize the tunes, but that was my ignorance and not his playing, he was good with that little mouth-organ.
The coyotes yipped again and they were closer than ever. The horse smelled them and began to whinny nervously.
"Hunter?" I said.
He stopped his tune in mid-note and said, "What?"
"Could I sleep next to you?" I said. "I haven't been out in the wilderness before, and...."
A howl ripped the air, and snarls nearby, the horse whinnied again and Hunter shouted, "Ho, there, steady down." And the horse obeyed, shuddering and whuffling with its nostrils.
I was blind to dignity, I got up on all fours and skittered over to next to Hunter. He let me get right up beside him and I pressed myself against his strong side.
"I thought you came out here to be a rough and tough cowboy." was his only observation of my behavior.
"I did." I said. Then smiled, embarrassed. "Okay if I learn how a little at a time, though?" He chuckled, a small soft sound within his chest.
Another series of snarls; the coyotes were fighting. I clutched at him and again, he let me. "What are they doing?" I asked in a whisper.
"Probably found the guts and hide of that rabbit." he said in a normal voice. "Sounds like they're out where I skinned and cleaned it. Never clean your kill too close to your campsite, that just invites the scavengers like coyotes right into your camp."
"They'll leave when they finish it?"
"Probably." he said.
"Is that why we threw our bones into the water?" I said.
"Yep." he replied.
Another loud series of snarls and I clutched him again. Then I was ashamed, for they moved away soon after. "I'm sorry." I said. "I'm acting like a baby."
"You're in a strange place, all alone." he allowed generously. "It can make a fellow nervous."
"I'm glad I found you." I said.
His hand moved and came up to encircle me, clutch my outside arm. I looked at him, and his eyes were somehow both obscuring and revealing at the same time and somehow that combination told me what was on his mind.
He wanted me. He wasn't going to insist or force or try anything other than things like his arm around me, a little at a time, see if I was willing. If I wasn't, he was going to back off.
And seeing that...well, the emotion I had was a pretty simple feeling, but explaining why I had it is pretty complex. I had been forcibly violated some hours before, you'd think that sexual contact would be the last thing on my mind. And it would have been, maybe, except for everything else.
I was alone in a strange place, and he knew all about how to live in this land. I was afraid, and he was my protector. He had safeguarded me while the coyotes came and went, taking my fear of him with them as they departed. I was safe with him.
More than that, his actions were noble and clean. Whatever his past, he wasn't going to do anything to me I wasn't willing to. You have to have been taken down, used, to understand how precious this self-control is, the permission to give yourself at your own pace and in your own way. He was letting me choose.
Finally, I had been violated, dirtied by the two bandits. He could wash them away, renew me, make me whole again. With him, I would no longer have to look back just at the bandit's violation, I would have also the memories of a pair of strong arms around me, a gentle touch, a giving as well as taking. It would balance out the pain with pleasure, the degradation with dignity. He would give me my soul back again.
As I said, a simple emotion with a complex reason; I saw the desire in his eyes and they sparked my own, and I was reaching up for him, offering my lips to his, if he wanted them.
He did; he kissed me, and his mustache tickled my nose and upper lip, thrilling my skin as his arms reached to encircle me, pulling me onto him, my chest pressed against his larger one, my legs falling to either side of his body so that our crotches intermeshed, his face uplifted by the saddle he reclined against, so that his face was easily, eminently kissable.
His hand stroked down my back and found the top of my pants, snaffled inside the waistband and suddenly my pants were too tight about my body, I wanted them off! And his hand, rough from prairie work, cupped one of my buttocks and palped the cheek, almost a massaging squeeze and the pain of my earlier violation awakened only to slumber once more, this time forever. I sighed in happiness at my feeling confirmed; this man could cleanse me, wash away all the pain, now and forever.
I snuffled into his mouth as his tongue snaked out and tasted mine, my fingers working at my fly pressed between us, trying to get the thrice-cursed clothing off from my body, I had to be bare to be washed, I needed my body open and available to him, so that he could purify me.
Hunter shifted, found a place where his cloth-covered cock could rub against my body and began to hunch upwards, small, soft sounds escaping his lips, like the sigh of the wind.
I hated to tear myself away from Hunter's lips, from his arms, but the demands of love had to be satisfied; I pressed myself downwards, feeling his erection pressing now against my stomach, against my chest, and I let my cheek touch his firm hard body, so warm, so strong, so safe, and after that brief pause of reassurance to myself (he's real, he wants me, I need him), I scooted down and found my face at the juncture of his thighs.
The buttons on his fly were stiff, the clothing Hunter wore was new and strong-fibered, but I managed to undo them though my fingers trembled at the effort of dexterity, I managed at last to free the cloth from itself, and opened the pants to a palpable whoosh of warmth and male scent that danced on my face and entered my nostrils, an intoxicating stimulus and I snaked out the tall, strong, dark prick from its hiding place along one jeans leg and swivelled around like a pole on a grinding wheel, long and stiff, it pivoted and, freeing thus from the trousers' cloth, it sprang upwards to its full glory with a new burst of deep, intensely male aroma, this now-more-powerful bouquet of manhood making my mouth water, so that I had an abundance of my saliva to lavish upon it as I bent over and pressed my lips against the luxurious head and opened my mouth, letting my moisture flow around the strong, purple bulb, feeling its soft-velvet texture as it caressed my lips and tongue and roof of my mouth, and I groaned at the sheer power it exuded, the rich uxorious silk of it as the head slid down to my throat and I was filled with his prong, it was like I nursed courage from its salty presence and now the night was no longer cold, the wind was no longer harsh, the sounds of the plains were no longer foreign, for now it beat within my very temples and comforted my soul, for this was the primal sounds of life itself.
And now I serviced this dark warrior of the night, this lone kindly stranger, feeding upon him while I granted him pleasure; he still kept his sounds of joy small, as if he felt furtive and secretive even in our lonely camp, but the sounds that did successfully flee from his lips were heartfelt and sincere blessings of gratitude.
His cock was so strong, so firm, it felt so much alive and vibrant within my lips that I nursed it some time in blissful enjoyment, loving the sounds of joy he made as I suckled him, feeling a very part of this wide new land, and then the sounds of his pleasure turned to a gentle sucker.
"Here, now, not much more of that." Hunter said to me. "I wouldn't want to end this so soon. Come, shuck those pants and let me have a chance at those smooth round buttocks of yours. I've wanted them since I saw you bending over to drink."
I was loathe to release his body, but could not doubt the sincerity of his request. I released him, stood up, looking down at his body, still a black figure against the woolen blanket, that danced with orange highlights from the fire, but his cock, which was coated with my saliva, was a flickering burning pillar in that light, it was an orange tower of fiery manhood that beckoned to me.
I shuffled down my trousers, found myself balked at my boots which I had neglected to remove, and fumbled with the mess for at time.
"Here, let me." Hunter said and I put up one of my legs to him, awkwardly, expecting him to help me off with my boots. Instead, he grasped the bottom of my trousers and gave a tug, I nearly tumbled, but held upright by hopping, and he got the leg down and then the rest of it followed easily enough.
"Now give me the other." He said.
I obeyed and this leg against yielded to him, and soon I was standing, bare from my waist to my calves, but still wearing my new boots.
"Now you're ready." Hunter observed.
I was. I straddled him and sat down upon his stomach, reached behind and guided his heavy dong to my buttocks. I wanted to be on top, I wanted to be in control, for only in this way would I separate this event from the morning's violence, and somehow he picked up that part from me, for he relinquished his aborted effort to rise up himself, lay back and let me control.
His cockhead was larger than the one which had inserted itself in me that morning, and my body winced from the thick plum-shaped invader, but I was not to be denied and it found a purchase within the tucker of the muscles of my sphincter and once it had that hold, it was easy enough for me to press myself back upon it and it went in with a felt-but-unheard pop, of a sudden it was inside me.
"Ah, there's the head of it." Hunter told me unnecessarily. "Take your time, kid, I know it's a whopper."
"The bigger they are, the harder they fall." I quoted at him from my textbook.
He laughed. "Well, it's hard all right, but I don't know about the falling part of it."
My body had relaxed after a few convulsive clutches, I then pushed down again and now the wide globe of his glans was plowing its way into my body. He gave a real groan then, the very first one, and his tongue briefly darted out unbidden before curling back inside. And I pushed again and his tongue again revealed itself.
I threw my head up and let out my own groan of satisfaction; I had him now and I would take him all within me! I began to force this massive pud deeper into my body; I felt it washing me clean as it passed into me, so I had to take all of it; I grunted and rutted like a common farm animal in my lust.
"Whoa, now, steady down, kid." Hunter warned me. "Don't bust yourself up; you're taking it too fast!"
His kindness was a laving soap upon my spirit, though I did not heed them, I was now pressing with his balls up against my buttocks, I had him all, all of him!
"All of you." I sighed out. "I got all of you!"
"Yep, I reckon you do." Hunter allowed. "Now what are you going to do?"
I relished this moment a little longer, but the hot pud inside of me would not be denied; when Hunter wearied of my stillness and ventured a few tentative thrusts up with his buttocks, I galvanized into action and began to move myself upon him, bouncing up and down the way a novice rider bounces in the saddle of a galloping mare; I bounced upon this stallion stranger, and he groaned, rubbed his hands on the insides of my thighs, and his cock heated rapidly up inside my buttocks.
And now our groans were the howls of animals in the wilderness, he and I were the beasts that others should fear, for we vented our passion vocally now, our groans and yelps of joy feeding on each other, and when he grabbed my cock in a panting, lust-fluttering grip and began to yank it back and forth with his hard, calloused hands, all horned with rustic labor, I immediately felt my climax seize me, and this time I welcomed it for the longtime friend once more, the familiar sense of unreality, the sense of oneness with the entire universe, the tingling tremor throughout my limbs and digits, the way my toes would always curl up against the ball of my foot and clench there in a near-painful manner, all this was old and accustomed sensations, and I was shriven, I climbed the height with practiced ease and once there, I rode the avalanche of my ejaculation down from the crest once more, flying with the jets of my sperm that landed upon Hunter's black shirt, soaking his dark chest, and he grunted, his eyes became almost comically wide, and he flushed a deep scarlet beneath his tanned face, and roared, and I felt his sperm pumping into me the way water fills a pail, a splashing about, curling wave that settled down only to be redisturbed by the next jet so that it rippled and collided into interior jets of desire that washed through me, seeking equilibrium deep within my bowels.
My climax wrung me dry and dropped me and I fell onto my dark-clad lover's chest while he still grunted with the last dregs of his own passion and upon that rippling, strong chest I rode as if in a cradle, safe, protected, loved and I let my lassitude steal over me. I barely felt him gently pull his flaccid cock out from my buttocks (that cockhead of his wanted to remain within me, and I would have enjoyed having it there despite the awkward position for sleeping, but then he shifted me to beside him yet still within his embrace, and pulling covers up over us, I felt the warmth of his body and the warmth of the coverings replacing the warmth of the now-dying fire.
We arose the next morning very early, breakfasted upon some hard biscuits he carried in his saddle-bags, hard with their age of nearly a week since baking but better than nothing, and he saddled his horse, brought me up behind him and we rode back the way I had come.
I clung to him for safety upon the moving horse and for fear. If the men were still there...but they were not. Instead the stagecoach was still sitting there, and in the distance down the road, more a cloud of dust than a form, I could see a group of riders from the direction of Lonely Rock.
"That'll be the stagecoach hands from the Lonely Rock way-station." opined Hunter. "You just stand there like you've been waiting here all along."
"Will I be seeing you again?" I asked him, feeling timid now that we were parting.
He cocked his head. "Reckon we might. We'll see where the wind takes me."
And he turned his horse, dug in with his heels and rode back across the trackless wasteland, but I had no fears for his safety.
I spent the time waiting for the riders in finding my clothing and my bag which had been strewn about liberally. My money had not been found, all three dollars of it was still inside its hiding place. I gathered up my other belongings (nothing had been taken from it though the pockets of the clothes had been turned out by the bandits) and waited for the riders.
I would be in Lonely Rock by noon, and at my uncle's ranch by the same nightfall.
END OF CHAPTER TWO
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