Way of the Heron

The Way Of The Heron

By C. T. Creekmur

Chapter Eight

Follow The Heron's Song

Part I

Author's warning: This story depicts men performing sexual acts upon one another that immature people might find shocking. If graphic depictions of sex between men upsets you, or if you are under 21 years of age, then DO NOT READ THIS! - go read something else!

Please understand that this is a work of fantasy and fiction, set in a time when safe sex was unheard of. It is not intended to provoke or promote promiscuity or abandonment of common sense where sex is concerned. Especially in this day and age.

Though historical personages are mentioned, none of the principal characters are based on real individuals and any similarity to such is coincidental. This story is copyrighted (c) by the author and may not be reproduced in any form without the specific written permission of the author.

Historical Note: Most of the action in this chapter happens between late April of 1868 and early May of 1868, but at the end, it follows one particular group of heron men's activities on to the winter of 1868 - 1869.

And now, on with the story!

FOLLOW THE HERON'S SONG

Hun Tzu, the outcast...

Lou Tyrone, sick in spirit...

Job Byrd, running from trouble...

Eric Vaal & Sam Alden, driven from the land of their birth because of the forbidden love they shared...

Bill Axford, returning to his brothers...

All searching for a dream, a home in a land of gentle, kindred spirits...

Listening for the music that calls to their souls...

Guiding them on their paths as they heed the inner urge to...

FOLLOW THE HERON'S SONG

• Day 1 - April 25 -

A warm, late April breeze blew gently from the southwest, playfully tossing and riffling the long, brown hair of a heron man as he traveled. Zeke Barnet's horse was wending its way along a rocky trail paralleling the foaming mountain stream called Heron Creek. Zeke was dressed completely in the native fashion, with deerskin vest, leggings, breechclout and moccasins.

A dark, rounded river pebble hung from a cord around his neck. Its smooth surface bore the engraving of a birdlike glyph, a sign of brotherhood among those who were known as heron men. The cadent, easy gait of Zeke's horse caused the pendant to sway gently and bounce against the man's muscular, tanned, sparsely haired chest as he rode along.

Zeke had spent an enjoyable couple of days at Roman Rock, the Elxa tribe's main settlement. He had journeyed there at the request of his teacher, Falling Star, with messages for certain members of the tribe. And now he was on his way back to the shaman's home, the cave of mysteries.

The horse he rode, named Bucephalus, was the property of one of Zeke's heron brothers, Phil Caddell, whose tribal name was Big Otter. Phil had asked Zeke to take care of Bucephalus while he was gone. He and his lover, Mark Nutley, also known as Dark Fire, had gone to the town of Port Bolon to buy supplies. Zeke knew their trip would be a play-journey, full of love for one another. He was happy for Phil and Mark, just as he knew they would be happy for him and the man he was now traveling to join.

After two days on the trail, Zeke was at last approaching his goal, a cave hidden among the western foothills of the mountain the heron men called Zoraxte. As he rode along in the April sunlight, he conjured up the image of the man he hoped to find at his journey's end. Thinking of his partner, Asa Sykes, caused Zeke's thoughts to stray, going on to more amorous imaginings. He was moved to sigh a poem.

I'm traveling far in this beautiful land, traveling to find a most beautiful man...

His spirit is strong and wild as the wapiti, his love is as wide and true as the blue, blue sky...

Zeke's mount snorted loudly and shook its head just then, jangling the metal parts of its harness noisily. The heron man laughed at the interruption. Then he reached to scratch behind his mount's ears, soothing the animal.

"What's the matter with you, Bucephalus? Don't you think Asa would like that song?" he grinned. "Maybe I oughta try singing more generally, eh? Let's try again."

Ah, it is spring again! And those I love, my Elxa brothers, call to me!

And Nizano, your brother, is drawn to you! How we will love...

In flower-pocked fields and hillsides we will lie; naked as babes, bathed in sunlight, and the joyous glow of each other's love...

Ceasing to recite impromptu verse, Zeke craned his neck to look up the trail. Just ahead, it left the creek and sloped upward. The black rock rubble ground noisily beneath his horse's hooves as Zeke reached out and ran one hand reverently across the carved surface of a standing stone set beside the path as he passed. He felt the arcane glyphs engraved upon it slipping away under his fingers, symbols whose importance only a heron man would recognize and understand.

Bucephalus strode effortlessly up the last few hundred feet to Zeke's goal. They came to a plateau and stopped. Not far away, Zeke could see the entrance to the cave of mysteries, a place sacred to the Elxa tribe and the home of Falling Star, their premier shaman.

Raising his eyes higher, Zeke spied a colorful, spindly object perched on a rock ledge high above the cave. A sky-cradle. Zeke knew whose it was. Had he not helped prepare the native grave not too long ago? He gazed at it, sadness welling up in his chest as he thought about his old friend, the Elxa elder Xaculi.

But Zeke's grief had already been replaced by determination. A determination to carry on the work Xaculi had done, to labor tirelessly in the interest and defense of the heron men, the tribe who had adopted and loved him, had taken him in when the rest of the world had abandoned him... Like one stream flowing into another, that thought seemed to mesh perfectly with the feelings that leapt up in his heart as Zeke caught sight of his beloved mentor, Falling Star.

The older man had just appeared at the entrance of the cave of mysteries. Zeke noticed how the shaman paused just outside his home. A small prong of rock protruded from the cliff face nearby, and Falling Star's newest friend, a red tailed hawk which had recently moved into the area, was perched on it, preening itself contentedly, undisturbed by Zeke's arrival.

Falling Star was wearing a lavender colored blanket, knotted above one shoulder like a sort of serape. As he advanced towards his apprentice, his long black hair was tossed playfully this way and that by the wind. His eyes, dark, dark indigo pools, watched Zeke gravely as he drew nearer. His face was ageless rather than aged. He might have been fifty or five hundred years old, it was hard to tell.

"Welcome back, Nizano."

"I and the others have done as you asked, my father," Zeke responded in the Elxa tongue as he dismounted near Falling Star.

"So the trackers have been sent out?"

"Yes. Is Asa here?"

"Not yet. You are the first to return."

"Oh."

"Is there any other news?"

"Yes. Big Otter has gone downriver, to the coast, with Dark Fire. Red Hand and Southwind have done likewise. And Tolatil has gone that way to visit friends along the Umpqua. All have promised to keep a careful watch for any travelers."

"It is just as I have dreamed, Nizano," the shaman said, caressing the younger man's bare muscular arms and chest with his eyes. "My spirit guides told me many besides the ones I asked would be vigilant for the wise one we expect. I have dreamed that and much more, this past winter."

"What else have you dreamed?"

"Come inside and I will tell you."

Zeke unsaddled the stallion and turned him loose in the rocky field behind the nearby stone and timber cabin. He stored the horse's equipment inside the stable attached to it. Bucephalus went to join the chief's mount, a scar-faced sorrel that was already grazing there, along with a droop eared mule.

When Zeke came back, carrying a small pack of supplies he had brought from Roman Rock, the Elxa elder turned and led the way into the cave of mysteries. They passed through a long gallery that sloped gently downward and opened up into a larger, hemispherical chamber. Odd figures and weird symbols limned on the rocky walls could be dimly seen by the light of a low fire.

"Are you hungry, my son?"

"No," said Zeke as he set the pack against the wall near an opening that he knew led to Falling Star's personal space. "In fact, I have brought much smoked venison and fish, and some tobacco too, in case you needed it."

Falling Star tugged at the knot that held his colorful serape in place and it fell, leaving him suddenly naked in the flickering firelight. Zeke's eyes widened as they swept across the brown-skinned handsomeness thus bared as the Elxa shaman calmly picked up and folded the blanket before setting it aside. Then Falling Star reached out to touch Zeke's cheeks gently, stroking the short, dark beard that adorned the man's face and enjoying the longing that suddenly shone in Zeke's eyes.

"You are very kind to me, my son."

Zeke trembled as he felt his desire rising sweetly within him. When Falling Star turned from him to put more wood upon the fire, Zeke took the opportunity to contemplate the shaman's bare backside. The interior of the cavern brightened as the flames grew.

The fresh illumination caused Zeke's attention to shift to the roughly curved walls of the cave of mysteries. Eldritch, intricate symbols were daubed here and there seemingly at random on the uneven stone all around the two men, in every shade and hue one could imagine. Many of the varicolored images limned there were familiar to Zeke, but there were some new ones and these roused his curiosity.

A red wolf and a violet flower were drawn above a yellow bird. A blue arrow pointed at an orange theroid image, which Zeke recognized as a hyaena-thing, a representation of a spirit opposed to the heron men and the forces that favored them. A round cream colored object touched with red and black around its edge was pictured, along with other signs just as puzzling to the apprentice's gaze.

"Tell me," Zeke asked, pointing.

Wordlessly, Falling Star indicated to his companion that he should sit before the firepit, then squatted opposite him. The shaman stared into the crackling flames for a few moments, gathering his thoughts. Then he raised his eyes to Zeke.

"These new paintings have come from my contemplation of the things I saw during the ceremony of the shaking tent," he began. "The spirits that guide our tribe have also told me word that the heron men are not just a legend has spread. In some of my medicine dreams, I have seen a brother returning, as well as five new men coming to us this year. Of the newcomers, one comes because he is sick in spirit and seeks a cure. Another comes and knows it not, for he flies from danger, blindly, like a wounded animal. Two already walk in our ways, but know it not, and they must know it, lest their love give nothing back to the Earth."

"You have spoken to me of this mystery before, Falling Star, when you explained to me the properties of the spirit wings all men of our nature are capable of producing and using to concentrate and direct the energy they raise when they have sex, especially with those whom they love and who love them back."

"Ah, yes, Nizano, like your love for Sees Far, and like his for you. It is strong and deep. Its organic, potent force attracts the essence, the energy of life itself to the places where you make love. Like a bird building a nest in a favored site, this mighty power creates life in those places where the heron men love, and protects and nurtures it.

"The legends of our tribe tell us how this land changed after our predecessors arrived here long ago. It was a good land, and fair, but after a few years the positive influence of the love made by those men, the effect of the energies they raised upon the land, was plainly evident, making the valley of the heron bloom. Their love for one another nourished the land they lived upon, just as ours continues to do."

"And this is so for all of our tribe?"

"Look about you," Falling Star smiled, flashing strong, white teeth. "Is not our land lush with tall trees and medicinal plants, our streams full of fish, our forests teeming with game?"

"And our love did that!" Zeke marvelled.

"And more," the shaman nodded. "It is a mystery that few Elxa truly understand, and only the great Blue Badger ever grasped it fully, though he did not live long enough in the flesh to make use of what he learned. But complete understanding of our way is not required. It is enough to know that love will attract life, wherever it is made, and whoever makes it.

"But when two male lovers understand this principle, it is possible for them to control and channel the unique, primal forces their lovemaking evokes. To join the wordless songs their man-loving male hearts hold and resonate with. And direct the power of this ageless duet to accomplish miraculous things.

"The last of the five newcomers of whom I speak is a man wise beyond his years who comes to us from beyond the western sea. My spirits tell me he has the potential to walk this path of power, to grasp its amatory secrets as Blue Badger could, a youthful man who would have much time to teach and lead our tribe into a deeper knowledge of the vast potentials of manlove." Falling Star paused. "You have heard the legends that speak of the shaman Blue Badger."

"Yes," nodded Zeke.

"It is said he could summon this power at will. But the secret was lost after his death. Like many others, my teacher, Ikukua, spoke with Blue Badger in medicine dreams and learned that what he achieved could only be done by living man-loving men. A physical body is needed to channel the power our lovemaking evokes, or so we all believe. It would greatly gladden my heart to see such love-magic wielded again by the members of our tribe."

"Asa has spoken to me of the odd sensations he has felt when he used his power to see into the futures of other heron men. He touched me and saw me chopping wood before I felt a wave of the same love-power. And Red Hand has told me he believes what Asa sees is the same power Blue Badger once mastered."

"I also believe that is what Sees Far felt." the shaman nodded, using Asa's tribal name. Zeke went on.

"Until now, I only knew for sure that two men from New England, partners, were coming here. One of them is the nephew of Southwind. Tulun has gone to the new town of Grant to meet and guide the pair to us."

"Yes, like Southwind and his partner Fire Wolf, before they came to us, these lovers are men who walk in our path unawares. They are coming home to us, as Southwind and Fire Wolf did."

Zeke smiled, recalling the handsome pair, Will Dern and his redheaded partner, Silas Trent, known in the Elxa tribe as Southwind and Fire Wolf, respectively. He remembered their coming the previous fall, two men needing help and following visions of hope. What they had found was a world of unexpected possibilities, a realm where their love was respected and shared and celebrated by other men like themselves.

"And the others?" Zeke asked.

"Our spirits guide the one that flees toward us, for now. Tasokah has set the sick one on the path to us, and seeks the wise one as we speak, but he is not alone in this. I have alerted other trackers to be on the lookout for him. However, I am sure the wise one could make his way to us on his own, such is his sensitivity to the energies of life that we conjure with our love."

"Tasokah is very handsome," Zeke breathed, images flashing through his mind of some magical summer days in the previous year, ones spent with his native heron brother.

"As are you, my son."

A wave of desire made Zeke stand up suddenly, pulling impatiently at the knotted thongs which held on his leggings and loincloth. Falling Star inhaled sharply as the garments fell away and his apprentice's eager member swung free, it's rosy-purplish head already swelling and emerging from beneath a dark foreskin. Zeke went to stand before his still-sitting companion and the heron shaman's tongue and mouth took in the offering lovingly.

"I love you, Falling Star... " Zeke breathed as his senses were overwhelmed by the beauty and pleasure of the act.

Lower Heron Creek rippled green as it murmured languidly on its way to the Pacific. Canoes could navigate its placid, broad and deep waters easily from its junction with the Umpqua almost up to Roman Rock. Along the creek's wooded banks, many small encampments were maintained by the heron men. One such camp was called home by a member of that tribe.

Mayati sat alone before his isolated lodge, facing the flowing, faintly sounding stream. He wore only a breechclout and a small, oddly marked stone that hung around his neck. A thin, bluish streamer of smoke arose from the low-burning campfire beside him.

The native's face was grave as he gazed pensively across the moving surface of those dark and whispering waters, as if searching for something. And he was, for the meaning of the medicine dream he had recently had. The Heron Spirit himself had appeared to ask Mayati to stay in his camp and wait for a great thing that was about to happen.

'What could it be?' Mayati thought as he watched a turtle slowly climb out of the water to sun itself on one of the numerous rocks that protruded from the surface, just as he himself would do after a swim.

After a time, Mayati sighed, letting go of the expectations engendered by the Heron Spirit's visit. He reached for a flute fashioned from the leg bone of a deer and closed his eyes as he brought it to his lips. As he played the song of the heron to the surrounding woods, the piquant melody drifted lazily away with the smoke from his fire.

It was nearly noon when a train noisily chugged into the station at Grant. Grant was a new town, growing up fast around the railstop roughly midway between Port Bolon and Douglas City. Like many other such settlements, its location was due solely to the whim of some railroad company bureaucrat, who in all probability would never see the results of his decision firsthand.

A lean, red headed passenger on that train craned his neck, trying to see as much of his new surroundings as possible from the window of his compartment. Eric Vaal was far from the only home he had ever known, and wondered what a new life in this strange land would be like. Then a throat cleared, and he looked to the seat across from him, to regard his partner, Zeb Alden.

Zeb's light blue eyes rested on Eric quizzically. He was physically bigger than Eric, a bear of a man, and at six foot two he was three inches the taller of the pair. A mane of honey blonde hair with a beard to match adorned his head. Zeb found the suit he wore restrictive. He could feel the cloth grate his skin whenever he moved.

"Sure looks different than New Hampshire, doesn't it, buddy?" Zeb asked quietly, reaching out to place a hairy hand on Eric's knee and squeeze lovingly as he spoke.

"I sure hope looks aren't the only difference," his partner replied. "I'm sick and tired of living like we did back home. Always lying and sneaking around, when every fiber of my being wanted to cry out publicly how much I loved you!"

"Well, don't start yelling just yet, buddy!" Zeb grinned. "Your uncle said it'd take awhile to get to the valley of the heron from here."

Eric grinned back at Zeb, who allowed his hand to slip further up his friend's leg and squeeze his thigh, his eyes narrowing. Eric knew that look well. It was the same as if Zeb had said, 'I love you'.

"You remember last night?" asked Eric, a sudden hoarseness in his voice betraying his emotion. "You going down on me in the dead of night, the train rattling along through the dark, everyone asleep except you, me and the engineer? If only we could do that now... "

"Patience and discretion," Zeb said, nodding toward the crowd milling on the platform.

"I know that's what my uncle's letter said, but I can't wait to be alone with you again."

"You know I feel the same."

Zeb reached past Eric as he spoke and pulled down the shade, cutting off the public's view as he planted a fierce kiss on his man's lips. Knowing that was all he could do for the present, Zeb stood up quickly and retrieved two worn suitcases that held their belongings. Eric grinned as he noted the sudden bulge that showed in the crotch of Zeb's pants.

'Soon, my love... ' Eric thought, sighing as he followed Zeb off the train.

The station was a bustling place. Eric and Zeb got off and elbowed their way through the throng that milled about the platform. There were railroad workers coming and going, people waiting to depart or greet arrivals and porters busily handling luggage and freight.

From Grant, the men understood that they would have to travel on horseback to reach their ultimate destination, the valley of the heron. Fortunately, they were not going it alone. According to the letter from Eric's uncle, they were to be met in Grant by a man named Trev.

After a brief search, they found a public bulletin board of sorts that had taken over a side wall of the depot. Notes impaled on nails waved in the breeze like so many ragged flags, carrying messages from and for a multitude of people. It took awhile for the pair to find the one meant for them.

'Eric and Zeb, you can find me at the Purple Stables, behind the train station' the note said. Under it was the name 'Trev' scrawled in a singular, undulating hand.

"Purple Stables," Zeb intoned, as he removed the note. "An odd name, eh?"

Eric took his suitcase from Zeb, an old thing battered by the journey across a continent, before they set out. As the note had said, they saw the stable as soon as they rounded a corner of the station house. The name of the establishment was painted over the entrance in the boldest purple paint they had ever seen.

"I guess this must be the place," Eric grinned to his partner, irony dancing in his blue eyes.

"Can I help you gentlemen?" came a voice from the dark interior as the pair paused at the stable entrance.

"We're looking for a man named Trev," Eric blinked, his eyes adjusting to the dimmer light. "My uncle sent him to meet us... "

"Oh, yeah, we've been keepin' an eye out for you two," the man replied, stepping closer so they could see him.

His dark brown hair and beard were short and they could see stray tufts of dark chest hair peeking out from under the collar of his work shirt. The sleeves were rolled up, revealing an impressive and hairy set of arms. The rest of his muscular body was of medium height and his movements suggested a strong, calm self-assurance.

'Now there's a damn good looking man,' thought Zeb. 'Look at those arms... strong as an ox, I'd wager.'

"I'm Hiram Calhoun, part owner of this here stable and a good friend of Trev's. Welcome to Grant."

"Thanks, we're glad to be here. I'm Eric Vaal. And this is my partner, Zebulon Alden."

"Call me Zeb," the bigger man said, reached to grasp Hiram's outstretched hand.

Shaking hands, Zeb squeezed a bit harder than was necessary while searching Hiram's eyes. One of the stablemaster's bushy eyebrows went up quizzically and Zeb released his hand with a grin. Eric grinned too, to himself, guessing what was going on in Zeb's mind.

"Trev ain't here just now, but you can store your gear in the tack room with his. Follow me on back and I'll show you where."

Hiram turned and walked back into the stable. Zeb regarded the man's backside thoughtfully, noting the way his buttock muscles rolled as he walked, under the faded denim of his workpants. Zeb felt a pang of raw lust pulse through his body.

"Where is Trev?" Eric asked.

"Out buyin' supplies. He was comin' to Grant anyway to do that, so your uncle asked him to guide you two back with him," Hiram explained as he opened the door of the tack room.

"Oh? Well I think I'll take a walk around the town and stretch my legs," Eric said, as he and his partner put their suitcases down in an empty corner.

"I want to rest a bit," Zeb said, glancing from Hiram to Eric.

'My eye,' Eric mentally snorted, but gave Zeb a wink that meant 'good luck'.

"That's not a problem," said Hiram. "It's quiet here in the back. No one to disturb you."

"Thanks," Zeb returned.

'I think Zeb wants to be disturbed... by Hiram,' Eric mused as he left the stable.

"Where does the railroad go after it leaves Grant?" Zeb asked, after an awkward pause.

"Northeast, to the upper valley of the Willamette, and eventually, Portland." Hiram said, letting his gaze slide across Zeb's beefy chest. "If the track had been built a few miles further west, it would've passed through Port Bolon. A few miles east, and Douglas City would've gotten it. The citizens of both towns aren't pleased, I can tell you! A lot of their businessmen have moved to Grant since it was founded here by the railroad, halfway between the two."

"Where's False Pass? Eric's uncle mentioned that town in the letter he sent to Eric."

"Just a day's ride east of Douglas City. The valley of the heron is about another day beyond there. Will Dern and his pardner's cabin is a couple of days north of Roman Rock, the heron men's main camp."

"How do you know so much about them?"

Hiram answered by reaching up to unbutton his shirt. Zeb licked his suddenly dry lips as he watched brown fur explode from the opening. Hiram's hand pulled forth a small black stone that hung around his neck to show Zeb.

"See that?"

Zeb looked closer and saw a stylized bird engraved on the stone.

"It's an Elxa glyphstone," explained Hiram. "Every heron man wears one. You can trust any man you meet in these parts who has one."

Zeb reached out and touched it. As if by accident he let his hand graze hairy flesh as he did. Hiram's eyes narrowed.

"You and your pardner'll be wearin' ones just like it before too long, if I'm any judge of character."

"You think so?"

Hiram grinned in reply. Zeb felt his desire rising, but held back, enjoying the anticipation. Then Hiram went on in a lower tone.

"Lotsa men up around that way have pardners, I guess they all think the same way," Hiram said, watching Zeb intently.

"How about around Grant?"

"There's some of our kind here too, of course, but they keep a low profile for the most part. And by the way, it's best not to talk about the heron men or the valley of the heron in public."

"Why?"

"Grant is still a pretty wide open town and our political institutions are very new. Some of our recently arrived 'leading citizens' here are already jockeying for power. They're an insufferable, self-appointed lot of carpetbaggers, if you ask me. I'm sure that there's more than one of 'em unscrupulous enough to use the 'threat' the heron men pose to scare their way into elected office if they found out about the tribe."

"Sounds just like the way it was in New Hampshire."

"Hell, boy, you'll find that attitude everywhere, except up in the valley of the heron. I shore consider myself lucky that I ran into them fellas."

"How'd you find them?"

"Pure accident," Hiram said, smiling at the memory of it. "There I was, followin' the Umpqua after driftin' down from Seattle, mindin' my own business, when I hear someone playin' a flute. I followed the sound to a native named Mayati, and he took me to Roman Rock where I met the rest of the heron men."

"When did this happen?"

"Late last May. I was invited to join the tribe and stayed in Roman Rock for the winter with another heron man, name of Heyoka. Then, when spring came, I heard about this new city bein' built and drifted over here to take a look around. Ended up startin' a stable."

"Is Heyoka your partner?"

"It was sort of a winter thing between us. We... we were good to one another, that winter," Hiram responded wistfully.

"What do you do for companionship in Grant?" asked Zeb.

"I have other pals who I hell around with, but they're mostly from up the way you're goin'. My business pardner is one of us, though he hasn't gone to the valley of the heron yet to join the tribe. So far, we've just fooled around with each other when the mood strikes us, but I find he's growin' on me more and more as time goes by. Maybe him and me'll... well, I guess we'll see... " Hiram's voice trailed off.

"What's his name?"

"Lars Ulfsson. He's a Swede from Minnesota, and a blacksmith. He used to work in Douglas City, but like some other businessmen, he moved here to get more work. Nicest guy you'll ever meet."

"I've done a little of that, back home."

"Blacksmithin'?"

"Yes."

"You look like you're built for it," Hiram said, taking the opportunity to squeeze Zeb's arm, feeling the muscles.

Zeb grinned but chose not to otherwise reply just then. Hiram's hand gripped the firm biceps a bit longer than was necessary. Zeb felt his desire sharpening, becoming more urgent. Hiram went on after a moment or two.

"Yep," he sighed lightly, "it's shore nice to know guys who have the same notions about how to have fun."

"Can you tell me what kind of fun's on my mind right now?" breathed Zeb.

"I reckon so... " the older man said quietly, reaching out again to run a hand across Zeb's broad chest, up to his shoulder. "I'd shore like to see you nekkid."

"Same here."

Even as Zeb said that his fingers were busy as they began to unbutton his shirt. Hiram watched as Zeb's thick, dark blonde chest hair puffed out through the open shirt front. The stable owner whistled softly in appreciation as he reached out to touch and tug gently on a stray tuft of pale fur.

"I... I'll hang out the 'closed' sign," Hiram said as he licked his suddenly dry lips and swallowed, "so's we can have some privacy."

Topping a wooded rise, a young man reined in his horse next to a clump of young cedars. He twisted in the saddle and looked behind him. Tired blue eyes gazed anxiously back along the way he had come.

He carefully studied the sparsely wooded lands he had been crossing for what seemed like an eternity. Raking pale blonde hair back with one sweaty hand, he concentrated. The rider forced his fatigued eyes to focus as he looked for any sign of pursuit.

There did not seem to be the slightest movement in the country he had traversed. His troubled gaze ran along the treetops. He was searching for a faint sign, a plume of dust that might have been thrown up by another rider, but no such sight could be seen.

He continued to look however. He sat in the saddle as if frozen, only his head and eyes moving. The tense watcher ignored the little aches that riddled his fatigued body from riding for so long.

'Can't see anything... ' he thought at last, relaxing a little, 'but that don't mean nothing... '

He reached to gently pat his mount's shoulder. It was damp with sweat under his stroking fingers. The young man's lips puckered with concern as he whispered.

"I'm sorry for pushin' you so hard, Alice, but there ain't no help for it. I can't let that pig Mueller get his claws in me again... "

Unbidden, unclean memories flashed at once through his mind. Images of the leering, scarred face and those hated, drunken hands, grabbing, forcing, degrading... And worse, giving, to anyone who could pay...

"That fine ass of yours is a gold mine, Job!" the despised voice smirked again in his mind. "I know lotsa lonely guys out here who'd pay good money to get in that saddle of yours... '

Then the feeling of triumph blossomed within him as Job recalled how he clouted the sleeping pimp and hogtied him in an embarrassing position, prior to galloping off on his trusty mare, Alice. Two days of riding followed, always looking over his shoulder. Fear haunting him, expecting any moment to be grabbed again by Mueller's hated hands...

'I'd rather die'n go back, that's for sure... ' Job thought grimly.

Urging Alice forward again, the young man continued southwestward. The terrain was rising and becoming rougher and more thickly wooded. Job was already deep into the eastern foothills of the southern Cascades.

Job had often seen those lands from a distance in Maury City. From that town a deep blue mountain range, studded intermittently by snowy, glittering peaks, towered in what seemed to Job to be a benevolent fashion. He now rode towards that trackless wilderness in his desperate flight.

From the first, the range seemed to beckon to him in some mysterious way. Job had developed a vague notion of taking refuge somewhere among those remote crags, of finding a place in that forested vastness where he could hide from his erstwhile pimp. He fixed his eyes resolutely on the sharp summit of the tallest of the icy spires.

'Gotta keep that biggest peak in sight, the one Bill told me about, to guide me,' Job determined silently. 'Zoraxte, here I come... '

On the western side of that same rugged range, another traveler had stopped to rest by the banks of a creek that flowed towards the south. He had recently crossed the heavily forested watershed between the Willamette and the Umpqua, following a course set for him by the ancient ivory instrument he now fingered gently and reverently. He gazed at the intricate markings on its yellowed surface intently, taking a reading of the natural forces around him, ones invisible to the average human eye.

The object, a lo-pan, as it was known in China, was a necessary adjunct to an archaic, native science called feng-shui, or geomancy. It was based on the belief in the existence of subtle energies that flowed ceaselessly beneath the earth's surface. The living pulse of the planet which influenced all life upon it, whether that life was aware of it or not.

The lo-pan itself was round, an inch or so thick and perhaps a foot in diameter. A compass was imbedded in its center. Concentric circles spread outward from that point on the odd disk. All were divided and subdivided into fractions of circles by many lines that radiated away from the compass, like the spokes of a wheel.

Each of the arc-sections contained Chinese characters. Some were engraved in red and others in black, standing out in stark relief against the yellowed material. It was a superb example of the ivory-carver's art, masterfully fashioned and finished, with all the cunning skill an ancient civilization was capable of.

Although the man who manipulated this unusual, quasi-mystic device had been born in China, his appearance was not typical of a native Chinese, beginning with his eyes: they were an unexpected icy blue, sharp and arresting. Hun Tzu was tall for his race and an uncharacteristically brawny musculature showed itself through his paler than expected skin. Another quite un-oriental trait was his hirsuteness: his torso, arms and legs were lightly furred with fine hairs, somewhat lighter in color than the short brown whiskers of the full beard he sported.

Hun Tzu allowed his fingertips to brush gently across one particular section of the circular ivory tablet while his brow furrowed in thought. The Chinese geomancer read the ideograms carved there, searching for their import, judging the subtle shades of meaning each one carried. At length he raised his head and gazed off into the distance, in the same direction the stream he was sitting beside flowed, southward, and knew he was on the right track.

At the same time, he noted three obstacles in his path indicated by the lo-pan. Two of these were far away, to the east and southeast, too distant to be of immediate concern. The last lay just ahead of him. Hun Tzu quickly decided how to deal with it.

Carefully, he wrapped the arcane disk up in a length of white silk, oddly and subtly embroidered with beige thread. The light falling on the rich material made it shimmer in its inimitable way as Hun Tzu slipped it back into his knapsack. Shouldering it, the man began to follow the stream south.

The ground along the bank was surprisingly springy underfoot. The black earth was moist and rich with many seasons' worth of fallen leaves and evergreen needles. A deer crossed the man's path, glanced at the human without any fear in its large, liquid eyes, and leapt across the creek to disappear in a thicket of rhododendron.

'This is indeed the place of peace I have sought for,' Hun Tzu thought as he pursued his way through the shadowed, moistly fragrant forest.

As Eric walked down the main street of Grant, he could not help but marvel at how new everything looked. It seemed to him that crews of carpenters and laborers were busy working everywhere, throwing up buildings with fancy fronts. The smell of rough cut lumber and drying paint was redolent in the air.

But as the novelty of being a tourist wore off, Eric was left feeling rather self-conscious. The dude suit he wore differed greatly from the ordinary, functional and tough work clothing of the townspeople. He felt marked.

Because of that, Eric did not go into the Queen of Spades, the first saloon he happened to come upon. It was quiet inside the bar, as the afternoon rush had not yet begun. However, he did cast a quick, thirsty glance over the batwing doors as he passed by.

Only an indistinct gloom met his eyes. It hid all details of the figures who moved about within, like ghosts. But the dim atmosphere could not mask the unique odor common to bars. A miasmic mix of stale beer, tobacco smoke, human sweat and other, unnameable scents...

'Dark and smelly... a typical bar. Oh well, I don't guess I need a drink that bad,' he thought as he walked on.

Continuing on as far as the main street had been laid out, which ended at the foot of a steep hill, Eric passed a couple of vacant lots before encountering the aptly, if not enticingly, named Dead End Hotel at the very end of the road. He sat down on to rest for a moment on an empty bench out front. There were few people to be seen, but Eric became aware of two men talking quietly, seated on the next bench. Eric was not in the habit of eavesdropping, but when he caught the gist of their conversation, his ears automatically pricked up.

"...so this guy Peterson up in Douglas City developed a crush on some blacksmith, by the name of Lars. Lars later came here to Grant to become a pardner in a business, a livery stable. They say Peterson took it pretty hard when Lars left."

"Lost his reputation and his love."

"Oh, you heard about it, Jeff?"

"Yep."

"How?"

"It's all our mutual friends can talk about, lately. They won't stop repeatin' that juicy bit of gossip until every man like us in the whole state knows about it, more'n likely."

"You think Peterson was in love?"

"Either that or it was a damn good imitation," Jeff snorted. "I heard every time Lars came around, Peterson would sigh and give Lars looks of longin'. Everyone could see how he felt."

"Did you happen to hear whatever became of Peterson's pardner, Lou?"

"Nobody knows, Don. He took off for parts unknown last fall, after gettin' fed up with Peterson's crush on Lars, most likely. By the way, do you know where this Lars works?"

"The Purple Stables."

Eric's attention was really grabbed by that.

"Hmm. That's interestin'. My horse could use some new shoes... "

"You thinkin' of goin' there?"

"Why not? I'm curious to meet this fella."

"Are you gettin' tired of me, Jeff?"

"No, of course not. What gave you that idea?"

"You know why. I know you don't like havin' to meet me on the sly like this all the time," Don began, squirming in his seat, "but if the bank got wind of us, I'd lose my job. Bookkeepin' is all I know how to do. Believe me, Jeff, I don't like keepin' how I feel about you secret any more than you do... "

"I just don't see how havin' a friendly drink together in the saloon every once in awhile would brand you, Don. If we don't talk about us, no one else will. Or maybe you think everyone in Grant has me pegged for a faggot and would think the same about whoever's hangin' out with me?"

"No, I don't think that, Jeff. I'm just worried about losin' my job... "

"Don't worry so much, Don. In another year or so we'll have enough money saved so we can get away from fools like the ones who run the bank. We'll buy that ranch I showed you. I'll run the cows and you can take care of the books. And in our free time, do whatever we want. Speakin' of which," Jeff said, standing up and stretching, "you wanna take a little ride with me? Out to that swimmin' hole we found together?"

"Let's go, handsome," Don responded happily, thinking of their special place, where they had first met, and the games they had played in the calm, cool waters. Both men eagerly looked forward to more of the same of those erotic activities.

Eric watched the pair get on their horses and leave, heading into the hills behind the Dead End Hotel. The couple had been so intent on their conversation, they never seemed to have even noticed that Eric was sitting nearby. Eric frowned, thinking of how Don and Jeff's lives sounded similar to what his life with Zeb had been like in New Hampshire.

Why did people like himself and Zeb, Jeff and Don, arouse suspicion and hatred wherever they went? What had they done to deserve it? It was a mystery that Eric was sick of and he hoped his uncle was right, that the valley of the heron was a refuge where he and Zeb could live as they wanted, openly loving each other, in peace.

Somewhere in the vast woodlands to the northeast of the valley of the heron, a scar-faced man named Mueller was forced by his injuries to stop in his trek across the Oregon wilderness. A wicked pain was bedeviling him, filling his bandaged head. It was almost as strong as the burning rage, the bitter hatred, that possessed and spurred Mueller onward in his dark quest.

He prepared his meal alone, resigned to not being able to go on for the rest of that day because of his injury. He sat by his fire and twisted the can opener carefully, feeling it bite into the metal, ripping it. Mueller found he enjoyed the sound the can made as it came apart, and the grisly images it inspired, flaring darkly in his mind.

'That little cocksucker'll squeal like this when I catch up with him,' he thought grimly, remembering the public humiliation he had suffered, the coarse catcalls that had met him wherever he had gone in Maury City of late. 'I'll cut him slow, real slow, like this... '

Again, the utensil bit and sliced metal little by little. The action produced a high, rending noise as if the can were in pain. The scar in Mueller's cheek deepened as his lips curled tightly in an evil grin. He was thinking ghastly thoughts, planning the form and manner his bloody revenge would take.

'Soon, Job, soon... '

As the afternoon wore on, a mounted man wended his solitary way along a dry, rutted trail. The lone rider was of medium height and build, with light brown hair and a slightly darker beard. The dusty excuse for a road he followed passed eastward through a district called Edmund's Bridge Valley and led eventually to the town of Douglas City.

Before long, the man saw a farmhouse ahead and wondered as he approached if he should ask to stop there for the night. Before he could make a decision however, the door of the house opened. A large man wearing overalls stepped out onto the porch and stretched, yawning hugely. His beard fell halfway down his chest and was as black as a raven's wing.

'He shore is a big'un,' the rider thought, as he lifted a hand in greeting.

"Hello!" the man responded at once, advancing to meet the stranger. "Welcome to my home. I'm Seth McClun."

"My name's Louis Tyrone, but I go by Lou," answered the traveler.

"You bound anyplace special?"

"Up east of False Pass. I thought I'd have a look at the country thereabouts."

Seth's eyebrows twisted at once, raising a bit at the reply to his query. The big farmer looked Lou over again, as if with new interest. Lou wondered what the man was thinking.

"It's gettin' late. Want to bed down here for the night?" Seth asked genially.

"Why, yes, thank you," replied Lou in surprise, not expecting the invitation. "That's right neighborly of you."

"I was just on my way out to the pump to clean up before dinner. You're welcome to join me, if you'd like."

'Is the Pope Catholic?' Lou thought, but tried to sound nonchalant as he replied.

"I suppose I oughta get rid of the trail dust."

"Come on then."

Seth went to the pump and took off his boots and overalls, throwing the faded blue fabric over a nearby hitching post. As that was all the clothing he wore, he stood completely naked before Lou's hungry stare. Lou tore himself away from the arousing sight to put his horse in the barn, unsaddle him and pull down some hay for the animal, before rejoining Seth.

"You pump for me and I'll pump for you," Seth bargained when he returned.

"Fair enough."

Lou drank in the sight of Seth as the big farmer ducked under the stream of rushing water and washed with a brick of pale soap. He watched the muscles flex, the sinews stretch, the way the hair on Seth's chest flattened and gleamed in the afternoon sunlight... After Seth was done, rinsing off one last time under the gushes of pumpwater, he straightened up and grinned at the hungry look in Lou's eyes.

"Am I the first fella you ever seen nekkid?" he chuckled.

Lou ducked his head.

"Sorry... "

"No need to be, friend," Seth said in a gentler voice as he pressed the excess water off his body with the flats of his hands.

"Actually," Lou managed, floundering about for an excuse, "I was lookin' at that stone you're wearin'."

"Oh?" Seth asked, his hand going to his glyphstone unconsciously. "I only received this a little while ago. You got one?"

"No, but I met a fella recently who wore one just like it. He's the one who put me on the trail I'm followin', to find an Indian tribe called the Elxa."

"Take your clothes off, Lou," Seth suggested softly, "and you can tell me about your friend as you wash."

Lou doffed his clothes and stepped up to the pump. Seth hesitated a moment, smiling at the way Lou's cock hung heavily down. Then he began pumping with an easy rhythm.

"Ooof!" Lou puffed in surprise as the first stream from the pump hit his bare skin. "That water's sure cold!"

"It's good for you," Seth chuckled. "But tell me, what was the name of this fellow you say you met?"

"Tasokah," answered Lou as he scrubbed himself furiously, hoping to get the freezing bath over with as quickly as possible. "You know him?"

"Can't say that I do. But then again I don't know all the men who wear these stones. Why, just a few days ago, another heron man stopped here on his way over to Grant."

"Tasokah?" Lou asked hopefully as he straightened up. Seth stopped pumping and let his eyes roam at leisure across Lou's naked body.

"No, a white man named Trev. I'd never laid eyes on him before, but once I saw his glyphstone, I knew he was okay."

"Where'd you get your stone?" Lou asked as he dried off.

"I have a friend who lives up there in the valley of the heron. Big Otter's his tribal name. You'll probably meet him sooner or later when you get there. He visited me not long ago and brought it for me."

"Are you a heron man then?"

"I've sorta been invited to join. I need to go up that way myself sometime soon, see their chief, before I could be considered a full fledged member of the Elxa tribe."

"That's what Tasokah said I ought to do," Lou said as he dressed.

"And you're goin'?" asked Seth as he pulled on his overalls.

"Yep."

"Well, it's a good two or three days' ride you have before you. Come on inside. My pard Tyler ought to have some dinner ready right soon."

Hun Tzu stopped in his trek when he saw an oddly shaped boulder. The portents revealed to him by the lo-pan had advised him to watch for just such a landmark. He turned aside and found a thicket to conceal himself in. Hun Tzu did not have to wait long before he saw the obstacle his geomancy had forewarned him of.

"...I don't know if we should be here, Billy Bob!" an approaching voice worried.

"We haven't see any of those damn marks, Cletus, so we're safe!" came the somewhat irritated reply. "Now be quiet or you'll scare off all the game!"

Hun Tzu watched as two white men in well worn buckskin garments came up to the stream, on the bank opposite his hiding place. The one called Cletus reached out to touch his comrade's shoulder, and when he had Billy Bob's attention, pointed silently upstream. Moving carefully in his cover, Hun Tzu looked to see what had drawn their attention.

A large elk was standing motionless perhaps a hundred yards away. As Billy Bob brought his rifle up and drew a bead on the animal, the elk casually stepped behind a copse of sugar pines. Signing to his companion to stay quiet, the man with the rifle led them towards the elk, and away from Hun Tzu.

Using their distraction and his stealth, Hun Tzu slipped away from the spot and had soon put distance between himself and the hunters the lo-pan had warned him against. He was not afraid of them. His knowledge of the martial arts would have been more than enough to incapacitate them had they wished him bodily harm. But his teachers had held that avoidance of conflict was an art as difficult to master as any fighting skill. Knowing there was nothing more before him to hinder his journey, Hun Tzu continued to follow the southerly leading trail boldly.

The fatigue that ached in Bill Axford's spine did not take his mind off his concerns. Nor the harsh, repetitive sound of his pick as he struck rock, and struck again. He scarcely saw the wall of the mine before him as he worked, so deep was he in thought.

'Damn... first Leroy... and now Job... losin' all... my friends... around here... '

Bill's thoughts moved to the rhythm of his labor. Two other workers nearby were conversing loudly, over the sound of their work. They laughed suddenly, catching his attention. But he already knew what the joke was. All of Maury City was abuzz about it.

'Everybody's still talkin' about Mueller and his wooden dildo... '

His pick struck sparks off a rock.

'Ain't never heard of such a thing... '

A hunk of silver ore fell away from the wall.

'Who'd wanna stick anything like... like that up his ass?'

He kicked the mass aside for the shovelers.

'Lotsa live cocks around Maury City that would've been right happy to oblige him... '

He struck the wall again.

'Just as well that he cleared outta town... '

Another spark.

'He'd have never heard the end of it... '

Later, after being paid off for the day's work, Bill went to his favorite saloon, the Mineshaft, and ordered dinner. The steak was tough and leathery, the potatoes a little overdone, but the food there was not the main attraction. That particular bar had a 'reputation'. It was popular with the men like himself who lived in Maury City.

Bill noted the other bar patrons who came and went, miners like himself, cowboys from the surrounding ranches, off duty soldiers from Fort Seward, all drinking, playing cards or eating. The majority of those men's eyes held a wary hunger as they scanned their surroundings. A hunger Bill fully understood.

While he ate, Bill watched as the men talked, or slapped backs, or stood rubbing shoulders at the bar sharing a bottle, knowing that despite their casual air, they were constantly on the alert. Sharp eyes looking for the slightest hint or sign of interest from any of their comrades. A wink, a smile, a meaningful tilt of the head was sometimes all that passed between two men before they left the saloon together, to pursue their newfound acquaintance in some more private place.

More than once an apprising glance was turned in his direction. It must be said: Bill was a handsome man. His rolled up sleeves revealed a pair of sinewy forearms, a visual sample of a body hardened by months of work in the rich silver mines.

His arms were hirsute, covered with fur the same chestnut color as his hair and beard. In the right light they glinted red, like a dark stone that gives off sparks when struck with steel. Bill was flattered by the attention he received.

But the recent loss of his two close friends, Leroy and Job Byrd, a pair who looked more like brothers than the first cousins they actually were, was still too fresh in his mind. Bill was still grieving and simply did not feel ready to join in with the other men's games just yet. Later perhaps...

"Hi, Bill."

A voice interrupted Bill's random musings. Bill looked up to see a quite handsome, dirty blonde headed and bearded, leanly built man, another good friend of his. Eli Hunter was one of Maury City's deputy sheriffs.

"Hello, Eli."

"How're you doin'?"

"Okay."

"I wanted to let you know, we haven't heard anything about Job yet. But we haven't given up lookin' for him."

"You won't find him, Eli," sighed Bill. "After what happened to him in Spring Hill, he'll never trust any lawman ever again. Believe me, I know him."

"Hey, it wasn't our fault... "

"I know. The law has to followed. Even when the law's wrong." Bill muttered bitterly, pushing away his empty plate and getting up.

"You goin'?"

"Yeah."

"You sure you don't wanna stay and talk? Ben and I... "

"I'm not feelin' in a sociable mood tonight, Eli. Maybe some other time."

"Okay Bill. See you later."

The look of disappointment in Eli's green eyes made Bill hesitate.

"I'm sorry, Eli. I know I shouldn't blame you or Ben for what happened to Job, and I don't. I still think of you two as my friends. I just need a little time."

"Take all the time you need, Bill. Ben and me'll be ready to play with you again when you're ready," he winked.

"You sure think about sex a lot!" smiled Bill.

"No more than any of the other men in the Mineshaft," Eli smiled back, glad he'd coaxed a smile out of his friend. "Besides, look at who's talkin'! A real live heron ma... "

"Eli!" hissed Bill, glancing around to see if they had been overheard.

Besides Leroy and Job, only Eli and Ben knew Bill was a member of the Elxa tribe, and Bill wanted to keep it that way. He was not afraid for himself, but did not want to have to answer too many questions, like where the Elxa lived. He did not want to be responsible for an influx of curious men into the valley of the heron. Bill understood it was the job of the Elxa's protective spirits to select whom they judged were ready for what the heron men had to offer, and guide them to the Elxa.

"Sorry, Bill."

"It's okay. I'll see you later."

Bill bought a bottle of whiskey from the bartender before beginning the trip back to the ramshackle cabin he squatted in on the edge of town. There was nothing for Bill to look forward to there but another night of lying alone in a cold bed in an empty, cold place... Once there, he poured himself a drink, but just sat looking at the glass of pale brown fluid in his hand, deep in thought.

'Wasn't always like this,' he thought. 'I coulda stayed in the valley of the heron. Can't remember why I left now... '

Bill set the drink down. His hand came up and absently fingered the oddly-marked stone that hung about his neck. Like a magic talisman, it summoned vivid memories.

Flashing impressions of bright fields and deep, dark caverns, smooth coppery skin and gentle games played out under the sun, arose to flicker sweetly in his mind. Bill remembered how he had encountered a handsome brave named Tolatil in a mountain meadow one warm September day of the previous year, and through him, discovered a world Bill had thought was a myth, the domain of the heron men, a legendary tribe of man-lovers. Bill recalled the pleasant things Tolatil would whisper to him as they lay together in the sweet-smelling grass, sweating and exhausted by their mutual passion...

Ah, beautiful one! Brother of the bear, furred soft and red-brown!

The strength of love is in your arms, your thighs, your hips...

A mighty power, given to me, driven into me...

Tolatil had led Bill into the mountains, to a cavern where the chief shaman of the heron men lived, and together they had spoken of many things. Falling Star had guided Bill on a spirit quest, and he became a member of the Elxa tribe. Bill would never forget the joy he saw in Tolatil's eyes when he emerged from the cave of mysteries wearing his glyphstone. But then came the more melancholy memory of leaving that wondrous place, because Bill thought he needed to find work for the winter, make money.

'That musta been the dumbest thing you ever did, Bill Axford... '

He picked up the glass again and sipped liquid fire.

'Tolatil didn't need money... '

He stared at his wavering reflection in the surface of the liquor.

'Winter's over now... '

Bill swallowed another jolt of whiskey.

'And Falling Star said I'd be welcomed back anytime... '

Sudden determination possessed and energized the man. Bill tossed the last of his drink off before moving to pack his few belongings. Saddling his horse, he rode away from Maury City, heading southwest in the late afternoon light.

Bill thought about saying goodbye to Ben and Eli, but decided it might raise more questions than he wanted to answer. Besides, the heron man reasoned, he was sure he would see them again, for Bill intended to speak to Falling Star about them. They seemed to be just the type the Elxa would welcome into their tribe.

Eric waited for what he felt was a suitably diplomatic length of time before returning to the Purple Stables. The sun was sinking and as he entered the shadowy alley that led to the business, he saw another man standing before the closed doors, reading a sign hung there and looking puzzled. When the man noticed Eric, he turned to face him at once.

The stranger was of medium height and wiry in build. He looked to be in his mid thirties. A wavy dark beard fell almost halfway down his chest, lying against a faded blue flannel shirt. Eric felt a sudden dryness in his throat, a pang of desire.

"Eric Vaal?" the man asked.

"Yes, but how... "

"I know your uncle Southwind well."

"Southwind?"

"Yeah, that's Will Dern's tribal name. Didn't he tell you that?"

"I don't think so."

"Well, anyway, you shore look like a younger version of him, exceptin' for the hair, of course," the man said, looking Eric up and down in open appreciation.

"That's my daddy's fault. He was from Norway. Everyone's a redhead there, or so I hear. Who're you?"

"I'm Trev Barker," the man said, tugging at a rawhide cord around his throat. An Elxa glyphstone pendant popped out of his shirt collar for Eric to see. "My tribal name is Tulun. I was sent to guide you to the valley of the heron."

"Glad to meet you," said Eric, eyeing the stone.

"Same here... "

'I'd sure like to get to know you better,' Eric thought, before speaking aloud.

"Should I call you Trev or Tulun?"

"Either will do fine. There is a sort of custom that says you shouldn't use one's real name except when talkin' to or about one's lover, but that's not required," he explained. "Come to think of it, maybe you shouldn't call me Tulun while we're in town."

"Oh?"

"We ain't in the valley of the heron yet, son. It's better to be safe than sorry. And you and your pardner - Zeb was it? - will have to trust me if I'm to get the two of you there in one piece."

Eric frowned, recalling the things he had heard Jake and Don speak of. "You think the townspeople here would make trouble for us if they thought we had anything to do with the heron men?"

"Let's just say," began Trev, "that some folks can't stand seein' people who are doin' what makes 'em happy. It reminds 'em how they can't be happy themselves, 'cause of the restrictions they've imposed on their own lives."

"Like the dog in the manger," Eric murmured through a frown, almost angrily, "if they can't express and enjoy who they really are, they feel bound and determined to make sure no one else does either."

"Exactly. Misery loves company."

The men lapsed into somewhat chagrined silence then. Each recalled the thousands of petty vexations straight society had inflicted upon them in the course of their lives. Like so many other men like themselves, this baleful influence they had been dominated by from their birth had shaped characters adept at dissembling masquerades and with a mastery of indirection.

But always in the background there was the somber awareness of the injustice and hypocrisy that loomed behind their oppression. They and all other men like them were scapegoats, excuses for those who needed reasons to hold onto power, proclaiming themselves 'concerned' that 'society might fall into chaos' if 'certain activities' weren't forbidden and those indulging in them strictly punished. Nevertheless, the pair chose not to dwell on such negativity for long. Especially since each man found himself attracted to the other. They found it quite impossible to be depressed and sexually aroused at the same time.

"I wonder where Hiram is," Trev mused, turning back to the closed doors of the Purple Stables. "It ain't like him to close up shop in the middle of the day."

"I believe he and my partner Zeb are... uh... in there... you know... um... together... " Eric stumbled.

Trev rolled his eyes.

"Well, if that's how it is, how's about you and me goin' shoppin'? You're gonna need some tougher clothes, where we're goin'," the heron man said, eyeing the dude suit Eric sported.

"I know. Zeb'll be needing some too," Eric murmured, watching Trev's eyes.

'I wonder if he likes what he sees?' thought Eric.

"You know his size?"

"Nine and a half inches," Eric responded unconsciously, his attention all on Trev, whose laugh brought Eric abruptly back to reality.

"I can see we're gonna be friends," he said, swatting Eric's backside playfully. "Let's go get you out of those dude clothes. I know a general store here in Grant that has everything you'll be needin'... "

"Uh... " interrupted Eric, "Zeb and I, we, well, we didn't bring a whole lot of money with us... "

"You won't be needin' it. Southwind already gave me enough to outfit you and your pardner for the journey."

"Oh?"

"Between his trappin' and his pardner's prospectin', they do okay."

"You mean Silas?"

"Yeah, also known as Fire Wolf," Trev informed him. "And if you and your pardner stay on to help 'em run some cattle and horses on their land, like they plan, who knows?" Trev paused, looking into Eric's blue eyes again. "But I'm sure you already know that there's more to life than just makin' money."

"Try telling that to a banker," replied Eric, recalling again the conversation he'd overheard earlier.

"I don't know how much Will told you in that letter he sent you, but I'm takin' you and Zeb to a place where money means nothing. In the valley of the heron, the rich men are the guys who have the same kind of feelin's for their pardners as you have for Zeb."

"It sounds almost too good to be true."

"You'll see," Trev said confidently, as he led the way out of the alley.

As the shadows lengthened, Hun Tzu left off following the south-flowing stream and found a suitable spot to camp for the night. After consulting the lo-pan, he set out snares in the area it indicated and waited. Within an hour he had caught two young rabbits which were soon spitted and roasting over his campfire.

He also found a patch of wild mushrooms nearby. He impaled them on sticks and toasted them over the flames. They proved to be a delicious aperitif.

Later, his belly pleasantly full, he reached for his knapsack and rummaged through it. Drawing forth a bamboo flute, he began to play a lilting, plaintive tune. The solitary strain of music floated upwards and seemed to echo and reverberate delicately amongst the dark evergreen boughs that sheltered his camp.

In the hayloft of a stable in False Pass, a native sat still and silent on his blankets. They were spread out on the straw beside a small window that looked out onto the end of the Clearwater River, flowing to join the Umpqua no more than a few dozen yards away. The low flame of a lantern was all that warded off the darkness all around. Tasokah's eyes were closed. He tried to concentrate on his mission, hoping the spirits who were friendly to his tribe would give him a sign.

'The wise one will be coming up the Umpqua, that much is sure,' Tasokah thought. 'Tomorrow, I will follow the Clearwater to its divide and then down the trail that leads to the talking stone. I will wait there at the camp near where the creek flows into the Umpqua until he passes by. Falling Star says the wise one is coming to us, and he is never wrong. Still, it was hard for me to leave the beautiful white man, Lou... '

Tasokah's thoughts began to stray. His mental discipline dissolved before the memory of Lou. The last time he had sex with Lou came back to him in every sweet detail.

He recalled waking up in the cold pre-dawn darkness, facing a wall of Lou's cabin. Tasokah had felt the white man's hairy chest crushed against his back. Lou's left hand was resting on the native's belly, the other hairy arm was crooked under Tasokah's head, the hand lying still and relaxed before Tasokah's face.

Tasokah touched Lou's index finger with his tongue and it quivered, moving slightly closer. The action excited the heron man. He sucked the tip of the digit slowly into his mouth, caressing it as he had Lou's cock the night before, gently, lovingly.

Tasokah closed his eyes as he sucked slowly and thought of Lou's manhood, the hot-rigid length of it, the valley on the underside of the flaring head, smooth and round as a river pebble... Lou's breathing changed and Tasokah knew he had awakened. The pressure against the heron man's lower back grew as his bedmate's sex began to swell and lengthen.

The index finger moved, sliding deeper into Tasokah's mouth. It probed, pressing against his tongue, brushing across the edges of the teeth. Meanwhile, Lou's other fingers were moving too, rubbing and stroking the smooth skin of Tasokah's face.

Tasokah came back to the present at that point, summoned by the feel of his male member hardening, pushing uncomfortably against his loincloth. It was the work of a moment to remove the suddenly restrictive garment, allowing him to stroke himself. Then he resumed recalling his last time with Lou as he touched himself.

Lou's other arm moved, the hand opened and spanned Tasokah's waist, feeling the hard muscles of his abdomen under smooth skin, a thumb grazing across a nipple. A sweet aching began low in the heron man's belly. The hand retreated for a moment and Tasokah could feel Lou's body lean slightly away from him.

There was a faint rustling sound, of something scraping on wood, and Tasokah remembered the pouch of Elxa salve strategically placed by the bed. Then the hand was back, cool and slick with the dark amber grease, strong fingers gliding easily down the crack of his ass. One finger, two... The heron man gasped around the finger in his mouth as the others probed his manhole sweetly, lubing it well before withdrawing.

Then there was a slight movement, the hairy belly retreated, and then a blunt pressure, urgent, insistent. Tasokah concentrated on relaxing, opening, as Lou's prong slid in, slow... so slow... The night before, Lou had been much more forceful with Tasokah, at the heron man's request, driving himself into the coppery body with all the force he possessed.

Now, Lou slipped into his partner's quivering hot dark inner space gently, so very gently... Until the heron man could once more feel Lou's belly fur crushed against the small of his back. Until he could feel the sweet, mirific volume of Lou's phallus living within him, filling him up...

Then the left hand returned, still cool and slick, leaving a glistening fulvous trail snail like across the heron man's belly as it sought for his genitals. Tasokah thrust blindly from his hips, impatiently seeking Lou's hand. The white man found and gripped Tasokah's hardon as the native pushed, achingly, against that hand, the pressure, the slickness, the warmth...

Lou's words blew breathily across Tasokah's ear, his beard hairs rasping across it sensuously.

"Ready?"

"Go... "

'Oh strange, beautiful white man, thrust yourself into me! Take me now!' Tasokah fairly screamed in his mind.

Lou moved in Tasokah as his hand stroked the native's rod. Moaning around the finger in his mouth, Tasokah was soon at the point of no return. White bursts abruptly struck the rough wooden wall wetly, leaving a thin, uniquely scented jelly to run slowly downward.

The sweet shocks racked Tasokah's body. His muscles involuntarily clinched on the miraculous fullness moving inside him. It drove Lou in turn to his release.

White salt fire bursting forth, exploding outward, shooting in, in... Into black, numinous realms, into spaces between spaces, into a passion cave, burning with mysterious fire... being filled... being fulfilled...

"Ga... Gawd... Tasokah... la... I love... I love you... " Lou gasped brokenly, thrusting hard into the heron man's spasming being.

They were lost in each other, transformed into a pair of wild, orgasmic creatures, driven to seek release with all their power. Then the past and the present blurred and overlapped as Tasokah came in great milky spurts, leaping upward. His semen flew, arcing through the window, a white rain that fell to spatter in the dust of the corral below.

Tasokah's breath had barely returned to normal when he heard the sounds of movement in the stable below. He heard the creaking noises as the ladder rungs were grasped and someone pulled themselves up. A dark face appeared at the edge of the hayloft.

"Tasokah? It's Nick. Can I come up?"

"Certainly, my friend," the heron man invited.

"Felix is with me," Nick said, coming over to Tasokah. The native could see another man pulling himself up into the hayloft. "We thought you might like some company tonight."

"Of course," Tasokah smiled as the men lost their clothes and added their blankets to Tasokah's. As Felix and Nick moved to sandwich the native between them and explore his body with their knowing hands, Tasokah sighed as he relaxed and thought how good the Way of the Heron was.

• Day 2 - April 26 -

"Fire Wolf."

"Hmmmm... " the man whose tribal name had been spoken hummed, reaching out across the bed sleepily, expecting to touch his lover. "Will... you back already?"

As his consciousness returned, the man noticed that his bed felt wrong, hard and uncomfortable. And the smell that filled his nostrils was moist and earthy-sweet, like fresh grass growing in an open field... Silas Trent's eyes snapped open.

Silas could see at once that he was no longer asleep in his cabin. He lay outside, naked in a mountain meadow, under a sunny, friendly sky. Another man was standing over him, also naked, regarding the red-haired white man with deep violet-black eyes.

"Falling Star... " Silas whispered, letting his eyes run from the kind, ageless face, down the broad chest and muscled torso, to the heavy, thick-headed cock.

"No, Fire Wolf, I am a spirit, one of those who protect the Elxa. If you prefer I take another form... "

"No, you're fine." The prospector looked around again. "Am I havin' a medicine dream?"

"Yes. And in this sacred place, one may see many things," the image of Falling Star said cryptically. "One of my young birds has fallen from its nest. It needs protection, and love. Will you care for it?"

"Iffin' I can find it," Silas drawled, sitting up. "Where's it at?"

"Look."

The spirit lifted a bronzed arm and pointed. Silas turned his head and gazed in the direction indicated. He found to his surprise that his eyes had become endowed somehow with the power to see distant objects quite clearly.

Silas saw a ravine somewhere to the northeast of the cabin he and his partner, Will Dern, called home. In it stood a sorrel horse with its reins tangled in a thicket, hopelessly caught. And close by, a blonde haired figure was lying very still, face down in the grass...

"My Gawd... " Silas exclaimed as he glanced back at the Elxa spirit, his eyes wide with shock.

"Do not fear, my friend. You are looking not only over many miles but through time as well, into the near future. You see what will happen soon, and you must be ready to help when that which will happen does. Now look again."

Silas obeyed and committed the details of everything he had seen to memory. In addition, he saw his cabin as well, and several landmarks that stood along the way between his home and the tragic ravine. And further beyond it, many miles away, Silas saw a chestnut-haired white man he did not recognize, sleeping peacefully in a camp protected by a rock ledge.

"He is Il-Xochitl, a brother to us," the image of Falling Star explained. "Remember his face."

Silas nodded and the spirit went on: "You must go now, my brother, swiftly... "

Silas sat bolt upright in bed, as aware as he had been only a few seconds before. He was alone in the darkened cabin. Will had gone to Port Bolon with Red Hand to record their land deed as well as for supplies and Silas had elected to stay at their home until his lover's return. But not any longer.

He dressed quickly, then went out to feed and saddle his stallion, Jeb. It was very early in the morning and the sky was only just beginning to brighten. Jeb dipped his nose into the generous portion of oats his master provided and chewed sleepily as Silas moved about him, readying the horse to ride.

Later, once he was more alert, Jeb kept turning his head to watch as Silas rapidly stuffed the saddlebags with the things he thought he would need, no doubt wondering what the all the rush was about. The stallion stamped a hoof once or twice in mild irritation, moving Silas to coo and pet him each time he did. At last the man mounted and turned in the saddle to take a look at the cabin and its surroundings in the light of dawn.

Silas frowned at a rectangular space marked by posts with string stretched between them that stood a little ways to the west of the cabin. And at the stones, some loose, some fitted into a foundation following those guides. The work would just have to wait until he got back.

'It's a good thing Will took his horse and both our mules with him to Port Bolon,' Silas thought as he stroked his long, ruddy beard, 'no critters to worry about feedin'.'

"Git up, Jeb," Silas called softly to his gray stallion. "We gotta go."

Hun Tzu awoke to a gray, misty world. He found his woolen blankets permeated with a mildly distasteful dampness and he sat up, throwing them off. Then he looked about himself in surprised wonder, at his oddly obscured surroundings.

In a mixture of curiosity and pleasure, Hun Tzu watched clouds of vapor rising like smoke from the surface of the nearby stream and drifting away into the woods. It was the first time he had encountered this phenomenon in his travels since coming to North America. And he knew it meant he was nearing his goal, for the strange ivory disk that guided him, the occult lo-pan, had forewarned him to watch for such a sign.

By the time the sun burned away the singular fog, Hun Tzu had broken camp. Resuming his course of the previous day, he followed the southward flowing creek. It was his hope that the Umpqua would not be far now, and it was so. After about an hour or so, he reached his goal.

Standing on the gravelly bank of the river, Hun Tzu found its waters tinted green by the sunlight that filtered down through the trees that crowded its banks and overhung its course. He had been prepared to follow the Umpqua upstream from that point on foot. But then his sharp blue eyes spied a somewhat unnatural-looking clump of vegetation crouching near the shore.

Investigating, he found a canoe hidden under a heap of dead branches and grass. Hun Tzu knelt and studied an intriguing design painted in blue on both sides of the front of the craft. He ran his fingers over the curling symbol wonderingly. It seemed to him to be a stylized bird and he smiled, for it reminded the geomancer of an ancient Chinese song of manlove.

Hun Tzu had seen canoes before in the course of his travels through the Northwest. However, he had never used one. So it was not surprising that he began badly, almost dumping himself and his belongings into the river as he learned to balance himself in the tipsy craft.

At first Hun Tzu's efforts were clumsy as he tried to get the canoe to move upstream. But, as time passed, he got the hang of it. Soon he was wielding the paddle easily.

He could feel the muscles of his back working, stretching and knotting with each stroke that took him upriver. The Umpqua's dark waters flew from the end of his paddle as it rose and fell. The spray arced and glittered like strings of liquid emeralds in the tree-shaded light.

Hun Tzu found time to scrutinize and admire the land around himself as he paddled. Huge mossy stones peppered the river. Some rested on its banks, others rose from the waters.

He steered easily around the miniature islands, which at times were mere rocky humps, only inches above the current. Sometimes Hun Tzu would reach out to touch them as he passed. He enjoyed the feel of the water-smoothed rock slipping away under his fingertips.

The stones reminded Hun Tzu of a peculiarly Chinese artform, one indulged in only by royalty and the very rich. There were guilds of skilled artisans who sculpted rock with water, sometimes taking a hundred years to produce a stone with a shape that represented a sublime ideal in Chinese thought, but at the same time looked like a random product of nature. Such objects were prized possessions, placed in private gardens to be contemplated by the elite of the Chinese Empire and those few who were allowed access to such privileged enclaves.

'But here such stones can be seen by anyone,' he thought.

All along the way verdant trees of all types and sizes grew right up to the shoreline. One of these caught Hun Tzu's eye as he neared it. It was an ancient, enormous willow, a hoary monarch of the forest.

The willow's size allowed its vinelike foliage to drape partway across the Umpqua. Hun Tzu deliberately steered his canoe through the green curtain, just to feel the leaves trail across his skin. Everything was cool and dark green beneath the living canopy.

A pair of resident jays screamed hoarsely when they caught sight of the intruder in their refuge. The vexed birds launched themselves from their perch and arced down and up on azure wings. They looked like lost bits of blue sky fluttering against a vast, swaying green backdrop.

Hun Tzu craned his head back, looking up at the tree's thick, twisted limbs stretching upward and outward, high above him. The light bark of the branches stood out starkly against the inner foliage, forming a domed sky of dark green overhead as he passed beneath the huge boughs. The traveler almost felt a sense of loss when he floated out into the sunlight again, as if he were leaving the old tree's protection.

He began to hum a tune in time with the strokes of his paddle. Soon he was softly chanting the song he had been reminded of earlier, an ancient ballad that celebrated the legendary love of two men. Hun Tzu's voice seemed loud amid the vast calm of the wilderness around him, echoing among the rocks and in the shadows of the white alders and lacey vine maples.

Lord E sailed, upon his aquamarine barge, engraved with all manner of birds, small and large. He took the air, lying at peace, beneath coverlets of azure fleece. As the rowers rowed, they sweetly choired, hymning the love Mei felt for their great lord. 'Who is this Mei?', Lord E asked, noticing the song at last. A nobleman approached, eyes downcast, to confess his secret love at last. 'What a day, what a fine day is this, since it allows me to share your boat, my prince! O unworthy me, my heart desires yet more, I long for the caresses of my sovereign lord!' 'Come, love-struck, and share my divan!', Lord E cried, as he pulled the precious coverlets aside. 'Share this noble seat, recline thou at my side! Be my brother on this memorable ride!'

'And where are my brothers, I wonder?' Hun Tzu thought, as the last syllables of his song drifted away across the rippling, green waters. 'When will I find the ones I seek, who share my spirit, my desires for the touch of another man?'

About midday, Hun Tzu noted signs of human activity. He found a spot that was obviously used as a ford, and saw odd marks on the trees that lined the rough trail that crossed the Umpqua at that point. It seemed as if someone meant to widen the path, but there was no one in sight, and Hun Tzu continued on his way.

Quite soon after that, Hun Tzu had reached the beginning of a small lake. He skirted its western shore as he paddled south. As he had expected, the solitary traveler picked up the Umpqua again at the southern end of the lake and continued upstream. Soon Hun Tzu encountered another stream, flowing strongly into the Umpqua from the east.

Looking up the tributary, Hun Tzu took note of an unusual landmark. A great, rounded rock lay embedded in the earth, its entire surface scored with carved designs. Not far away from it was a neglected campsite, set well back from the creek's sandy bank.

It was composed of a tumbledown wickyup and a blackened, cold firepit. Despite its desolate appearance, there were signs that the spot was regularly used as a fording-place, possibly a convergence of trails used by the local inhabitants. But the site's current forbidding aspect would have done little to tempt any traveler to stop there and Hun Tzu continued on his way.

After another half-hour, Hun Tzu noticed a standing stone by the river. It bore the same glyph that ornamented his canoe. And from the way the stone had been set up, it appeared to be a marker, pointing towards a wide creek that emptied into the Umpqua from the west.

He paused to consult the lo-pan again. Reading energies beyond the ken of most men, he found the path destined for him indeed turned at that point. Soon he was paddling up the Umpqua tributary, carefully watching for more signs of the men he was seeking.

That same morning, Trev set out from Grant. With him went a loaded pack mule and his two charges in tow. They rode horses Trev had borrowed from Lars and Hiram's stable.

Eric was eager to go. His partner was too, although Zeb's enthusiasm for the adventure was tempered somewhat by the stiffness and scratchiness of his new jeans. For the first hour or so as they rode along, Zeb shifted often in his saddle, vainly seeking a comfortable position.

Trev had already bought all the supplies he needed before Eric and Zeb's arrival in Grant. Once the pair had gotten there, outfitting them had taken a mere afternoon. All three then had dinner at a local hotel's restaurant, before returning to the Purple Stables.

There, Eric and Zeb met Lars, Hiram's business partner. When it came time for the men to turn in, Eric and Zeb decided to spread their blankets out up in the haymow, to get a bit more privacy. During the night, to judge by the noises that came up to them from below, the other three men seemed to be enjoying themselves as thoroughly as Eric and Zeb did each other.

Now, as Grant dwindled in the distance behind them, they talked of this and that. But mostly they spoke about the heron men. Trev was astonished at how green Zeb showed himself.

"Will we see any Indians?" he asked innocently at one point.

Trev grinned wryly to himself, attempting to curb his mirth, before twisting around in his saddle to eye Zeb.

"Oh yes."

"I hope so. There's so much I'd like to know about this country, and I suppose the natives know all there is about it. Say, Trev, do you know what the Indians called this land before white men came here?"

"If my friend Katchikoa were here, I'm sure he'd say 'Ours'!" Trev grinned, keeping his face turned away so the tenderfoot could not see how close he was to bursting out loud with laughter.

"Zeb," Eric began, slightly annoyed at his lover, "the Elxa are an ancient Indian tribe! There are more natives in it than there are white men! Don't you remember what my uncle Will said in his letter?"

"No, I didn't recall that part. How many white men are there in the Elxa tribe?"

Trev's face became thoughtful, as he counted on his fingers.

"I make it a dozen or thereabouts, scattered throughout the valley of the heron, not includin' you two. And of course there are many other whites who live in False Pass. And then there's Nick... "

"Nick?"

"He's a black man, a real nice cuss. He lives in False Pass with his pardner, Felix, and his younger brother, Alex. Alex is pardnered up with an orphaned Chinese boy called Lo, that Nick and Felix took in last Summer. Nick is also a 'big' man, if you get my meanin'."

"Do you know that from personal experience?" Zeb asked cattily.

"Let's just say that I'm not one to kiss and tell. But I will tell you he's the number three heron man in the length department, if you catch my meanin'."

"Who's number one?" asked Zeb, suddenly very interested.

"Once you've spent some time at Roman Rock, you'll find out."

"Awww!" Zeb moaned in mock frustration.

"Zeb's upset because he really enjoys taking a big one," Eric explained with a laugh to Trev. "It makes him feel like he's accomplished something, stretched himself."

"Sounds like something gets stretched!" Trev snorted.

They all laughed at that, then Trev went on.

"Some people climb mountains simply because they're there. So it's no surprise to me that someone might look at sex that way, always lookin' for bigger and better things. But never bein' satisfied like that, a guy might not recognize a kindred spirit for the lust that dazes him, like a fog in his head."

"You sound like a philosopher."

"I'm just repeatin' what Falling Star told me once." Trev turned in his saddle to give Zeb a serious look. "I sure hope you know how lucky you are to have a pardner who loves you."

"I do," Zeb replied in an obviously heartfelt way.

The gap between the younger men's horses closed and Eric's leg brushed up deliberately against Zeb's. Eric meant the touch to be a substitute for a kiss. Zeb felt his cock stir and reached to adjust his basket through the scratchy jeans.

"You okay?" Eric asked.

"Yeah, it's just these new pants," admitted Zeb. "I'll be glad when I can get outta them."

"I will too!" Eric chuckled. Trev laughed as well.

"Tonight, buddy... " Zeb promised as he grinned back at Eric.

Will Dern rested on a bench in Port Bolon. He had been busy visiting various mercantile stores and suppliers, bargaining and accumulating goods to take back to the valley of the heron. Now he was taking a break, observing the other inhabitants of the town.

Port Bolon, built on an ocean bay where the Umpqua emptied itself into the Pacific, was no longer the rough trading post Phil Caddell had described to Will. Phil, or Big Otter to his heron brothers, had seen it over a decade ago, when he had been but newly arrived in Oregon. Now, Will thought Port Bolon was beginning to look like a downright civilized town: saloons, stores, banks, hotels and other businesses were numerous and flourishing, thanks to all the coastal trade that passed through the harbor.

Most of the new buildings sported fancy fronts and were painted, a particular point of civic pride. A few were of brick, another novelty. Some things were the same however. A noticeable absence of women. It was a perennial fact of life on the western frontier.

A fact of life that was not a problem for a surprising number of men. Frontier culture had long ago adapted to the lack of females and most men saw nothing wrong in helping each other out whenever the need arose. And if they found a buddy with whom they could drink and gamble and work with, and who was also good in bed, they usually counted themselves quite lucky.

The footfalls of the men going about their business in the town thumped on the wooden sidewalk, making the boards beneath Will's bench vibrate and clatter. Buckskin-clad trappers like himself, grave-eyed natives masking whatever inner feelings they had for the white man's town and ways under impassive visages, strutting sailors from the small coastal trading vessels and sinewy, sunburnt farmers. Will watched them and wryly noted the ways they interacted.

Their eyes were always searching, alert. When shaking hands or slapping one another on the back, or brushing against each other, they looked for the faintest sign of response, of interest. Will grinned to himself.

'If it weren't for the authorities tryin' to keep things 'civilized' around here, Port Bolon would be no different from Roman Rock or False Pass,' Will thought wryly, grinning to himself, 'a community of men doin' everything together, and I do mean everything! I'll have to mention this to Red Hand when I see him again this evening.'

Falling Star's lover had accompanied Will on this supply trip and was watching over their camp outside of town. Will thought about his previous visit to Port Bolon earlier that year with Phil. Both of the trappers had gone to dispose of their winter haul of furs, buy supplies and, additionally in Will's case, to put in a claim for the lands he and his partner Silas had lived on for almost two years. Will had recently gone to the land office again to finalize his claim. Now all he had to do was wait for the surveyors to show up, which would take awhile as they were very busy.

Will smiled as his thoughts shifted to his and Phil's friend, the banker Richard Ardley. He had dropped by to say hello and found that Richard's handsome clerk, Mike O'Reilly, had moved into his home with him and the pair were lovers. Will was happy for them and knew Phil would be too, once Will told him the news.

Will also listened to Richard's ambitious plans. He was trying to get backers to help finance a project to build a spur railroad line between Port Bolon and Grant, to make it easier to transfer goods from ships to boxcars and vice versa, increasing trade. It sounded like a good idea to Will and, thinking about the rich gold deposit his partner Silas had found recently, Will decided to talk to his lover about investing some of their windfall with Richard. But Will had to chuckle to himself as he tried to imagine himself and Silas as rich railroad barons.

Will recalled how he and Phil had made their way back to their homes in the valley of the heron after their first trip to Port Bolon together. But no sooner had Will gotten to his, or so it seemed to Will, Red Hand had come visiting. His motive was to ask for Will's company on a return trip to Port Bolon, which Will had intended to make, to finalize his land claim, but not quite so soon.

With Silas' help, Will had begun to lay the stone foundations of a barn near their cabin when Red Hand came calling. And by then Will had found he was in need of some things he had not thought of getting during the previous trip. So, leaving Silas to carry on until his return, Will had gone back to Port Bolon with Red Hand sooner than he had thought he would.

After a time, Will got up to complete that day's bout of shopping. He had to admit that being in a town was a diverting change of pace. But already Will missed the cool streams and quiet woods of the valley of the heron. And, not least of all, his partner, Silas.

Riding... riding... day and night and now day again...

'Gotta keep goin'... '

Harsh morning sun glaring down through the branches overhead...

'The light hurts... everything hurts... '

Fighting fatigue...

'Can't keep my eyes open... '

Over a ridge...

'I'll close my eyes for one second... '

Down into a ravine...

'...just for one second... '

The horse buckling beneath him, falling forward...

"ALICE!"

A rush of air against his face...

Black nothingness...

The prairie-grass dividing, its special odor breathing, I demand of it the spiritual corresponding, Demand the most copious and close companionship of men...

Those that go their own gait, erect, stepping with freedom and command, leading not following,

Those with a never-quell'd audacity, those with sweet and lusty flesh clear of taint,

Those that look carelessly in the faces of Presidents and governors, as to say 'Who are you?'

Those of earth-born passion, simple, never constrain'd, never obedient...

Thus Phil Caddell recited, reading to his lover from a small, leather bound volume of verse. All the while, a cool breeze wafted through the camp in the deep woods, carrying the rich fragrance of green, growing things. It ruffled the feathery, dark emerald ferns all around the site and caressed the men's naked bodies lovingly.

Mark Nutley's head lay cradled in the big trapper's lap, one bearded cheek pressed against a hard belly. The skin there was as thickly haired as Mark's face was. Every breath he drew was full of Phil's scent, intoxicating, exciting...

The cowboy could feel the coiled bulk of Phil's magnificent cock beneath the back of his scalp. It was a plump, living pillow, full of pulsing warmth. Mark sighed in utter, complete contentment.

Mark thought again of how that miraculous enormity had recently filled him, possessed him, completely. Like a great lodgepole pine growing, growing inside him, up and up, to pierce a sky of soft-warm-slickness. Then sudden lightning seemed to strike, and the tree was transformed into a column of throbbing, liquid light that exploded warmly in the very center of his being, the physical proof of Phil's love permeating and becoming one with him. Again, Mark sighed heavily.

Tall trees towered protectively over their camp and outspread blankets. Surrounded by miles of forested wilderness as they were, they could easily imagine themselves to be the only men on earth. Ostensibly, they were on their way to Port Bolon, but that was just an excuse for them to have a play-journey, to wander where they pleased and make love whenever they felt like it.

"That fella shore writes well," Mark murmured, as Phil paused to turn a page. "What'd you say his name was?"

"Walt Whitman. I picked up this book of his poems in a new bookstore at Port Bolan the last time I was there. The clerk thought I was pulling his leg when he saw me, a rough-looking trapper, come in and ask what he had in the way of poetry."

"Well, he probably never met a literary backwoodsman like you before. But ol' Walt there, he sounds like he's one of us. I wonder if he'd come visit the valley of the heron if we asked."

"He'd have to make a long trip," grunted Phil. "I understand he lives in New York City."

"New York City?!" the cowboy exclaimed, opening his eyes wide to look at Phil. "How can he live in a place like that and write so well about bein' close to nature?"

"He holds it in his heart, the same way you and I and the rest of the heron men do. No matter where we are, in city, town or wilderness, our feelings, our love, the people and things we cherish, remain the same, always. You know that no matter where I am, or what I'm doing, I love you, Mark."

"Phil... " Mark breathed.

Their lips met, arms reached and held. Curling around each other like vines of flesh, their bodies came together, united in mutual, open eyed passion. The breeze played with the pages of the temporarily forgotten open book, flipping them lazily, as if it too were reading the poet's lyric gospel of male camaraderie.

Lou led his horse under the noonday sun, walking along the top of a dusty ridge overlooking Douglas City from the north. His gray eyes glanced in the direction of the town and he sighed, fighting back his desire for a drink, knowing he could not go down there. He looked to the east and saw sharp mountains rising, their peaks capped in clean white, gleaming brightly against an azure horizon, beckoning to him.

But his eyes were drawn down to the town again and old memories came flooding back, not all of them pleasant. Lou remembered leaving Douglas City the previous fall after cursing his partner, 'Pete' Peterson, fed up with the man's antics, buying young men and making love to Lou only when he felt like it or needed something. But the final straw had been Lars.

Lou could not believe it when he found out about the crush his partner had on the handsome blacksmith. He was not the only one who saw at once how one-sided the situation was, with all the passion on Pete's side. Lars' natural friendliness unfortunately encouraged Pete on in his thinking that he had a chance with Lars. Ludicrous as the situation was, it still hurt Lou, a lot, and he told Pete so, before getting himself very drunk and leaving Douglas City.

Lou got so drunk he passed out as he rode, and his horse was left to take its own path, somewhere to the northwest, up into the thick evergreen forests that dominated the ridges on either side of the Umpqua river valley. When he came to, Lou found his horse had stopped before an old abandoned cabin, deep in the woods. For lack of anywhere else to go, Lou stayed there. The cabin had not been used for a long time, but it was still sturdy and had a decent fireplace and potbelly stove to provide warmth. After a few minor repairs, the cabin was good enough for Lou to spend the winter in.

Loneliness was the keynote of that winter for Lou. He hunted alone, he gathered wood alone. He sat alone next to the stove as the winter storms howled outside, lay alone in bed, trembling in his blankets as he touched himself, trying to remember what the touch of others had been like...

It was long and cold, that winter. But it gave Lou time to reflect, time to think about his life and what he ought to do with it. As the seasons turned and the spring thaw began, he still had not come to any firm conclusions and was almost as lost as when he had first arrived there.

Lou remembered the day when the warmth of early spring had tempted him outside. He began walking around the cabin, eyeing its defects critically and wondering if it was worthwhile to put any more work into it. Then he had an odd sensation. Puzzled, he turned and saw another man, a native, standing motionless and silent by a tree not ten feet away from him.

'How could anyone move so quietly?' Lou thought.

At first, he cursed himself for leaving his gun inside. Then Lou realized that if the native had wanted to harm him, it would have already been done. He lifted a hand in greeting and was surprised when the man addressed him fluently in English.

His name was Tasokah and he stayed with Lou for many days thereafter. Tasokah made the half-forgotten, simple pleasures of human companionship real again for the white man. And, unexpectedly, of touching and being touched in return.

Tasokah told Lou many things in those days he spent with him. He spoke of a lush land lying in the shadow of a great mountain in the southern Cascades, peopled by a tribe of gentle men, men of his nature, who sought only to love and help one another, the legendary heron men. And of their wise shaman who had seen Lou in his medicine dreams, knew of his man-loving nature and needs, and invited him to visit the valley of the heron.

Lou had listened to his visitor describe the heron men and their ways in profound surprise. Tasokah's revelations proved to be the exact opposite of what Lou's erstwhile partner had imagined. Pete had often spoken of the legend of the heron men, but his ideas about the lost tribe were twisted and absolutely depraved.

Pete delighted in speculating crudely on the kinds of sadistic sex acts the 'savage' heron men practiced, sickly fascinated by degraded thoughts of white men captured and forced to submit to gang rape and endure devious sexual tortures at the hands of the 'dirty redskins'. Pete had even written a story about the secret native sexual society, a copy of which Lou still had. He showed it to Tasokah.

The hero of the fictitious piece, set in the very early days of Oregon's history, when there were few white men in the country, was a handsome redheaded specimen of vigorous manhood named Roy, a mountain man who was captured by a party of heron men and taken back to the tribe's hidden camp, lost in the Cascade wilderness. Along the way, Roy was forced to submit to a wide variety of sexual indignities that showed the author's imagination to be both vivid and perverted. But the real action started once Roy arrived in the heron men's mountain stronghold.

Roy found himself stripped and tightly bound to a post in a way that made it almost impossible to move. Beforehand, a brave had thrust greased fingers deep into the white man's ass. Roy had thought he was going to be gang raped again, but he soon discovered the reason for the thorough lubing.

The post he was bound to had an enormous 'attachment' strategically placed so that the white man's ass would be impaled and stretched upon it. Roy gritted his teeth as his captors positioned him carefully on the thick wooden dildo and then tightened his bonds, forcing Roy down onto the clublike prod. Once Roy had become somewhat accustomed to the object distending his guts, the heron men began to conduct a ritual of calculated cruelty.

Roy's captors tormented him by repeatedly bringing him to the brink of orgasm by genital stimulation, but not allowing the man to shoot. When they saw Roy was half out of his mind with the desire to come, wiggling his ass around the thick dildo in a vain attempt to gain relief, one fellated him over the brink, while two others simultaneously pierced his nipples with long, sharp thorns and inserted gold rings through the bloody wounds as Roy writhed helplessly in pain/pleasure. Dumped in a teepee after his ordeal, Roy was nursed by another captive, a blonde white man, Bill, who had undergone the same painful rite at the hands of the sex crazed savages.

As Bill cleaned his wounds and put salve on them, the men exchanged stories. Roy learned to his dismay that the rings in his nipples were the symbols of his new status as a sex slave to the heron men, marks that gave any member of the tribe the right to use his body in any way they wished, at any time. Bill also showed him the 'clothes' like his own that Roy would have to wear from then on: a rawhide string tied around his waist and a scrap of leather to hang from the front, which barely covered his genitals and left his backside bare and available to any heron man who desired it.

"Until your nipples are healed, the redskins will leave you alone," Bill said, "But after that... "

"How long have you been here?"

"Three months. I was trappin' up north of here when I was captured."

"Is there any chance of escape?"

"I tried," Bill shuddered, looking away. "When they recaptured me, they did things to me that I don't wanna talk about... "

"Hey, I'm sorry," Roy said, seeing the tears welling in Bill's blue eyes. He hugged the man and Roy hugged back hard.

"They're animals, Roy," Bill hissed. "The heron men are fascinated by our white skins and different colored hair, but they don't give a damn what we feel or think, as long as they can make us squirm while they have their way with us, get their rocks off and laugh at our pain... "

"Hush. You ain't alone anymore, buddy. We'll get through this together."

"Roy... those brutes... they don't do this... "

"What?"

"Hug, gently touch, like this... it feels so good to me... "

"Bill, I promise I'll do whatever I can to make you forget what they did to you... "

"Will you... make love to me, Roy? Nice and slow and gentle? Not the harsh ass poundings those savages do to us... "

"Yes, Bill, I'll be gentle. And I'll hope you'll do the same for me... "

"Oh, yes, Roy... " Bill managed as their lips met and they moved to lie together on Bill's sleeping pallet of plush animal furs, the one he would share with Roy from then on...

Though Roy had more abusive and degrading adventures with the heron men of Pete's warped imagination, the love he shared with Bill kept both their spirits from being broken. In the end, he escaped with Bill, but by then, neither man could forget their experiences. They kept the rings in their nipples as a reminder of their ordeal together, and perhaps, in a barely conscious, perverse hope that someday, somehow, they would once again become the sexual playthings of the heron men.

"He is a sad and lost man," Tasokah murmured as he finished the manuscript and laid it aside. "His spirit would need much healing before he could come to us... "

"You think Pete could become a heron man?"

"I believe all men of our nature have the potential to be our brothers," Tasokah gently answered. "Some, like Pete, require more care and love than others."

"The only reason I kept that," Lou pointed to the manuscript, "was that I liked the love scenes between Roy and Bill. I never believed a word of what Pete thought the heron men were about... "

"I know," Tasokah soothed. "You wanted a love like Roy had with Bill, a gentle love... "

"Yes... a gentle love," breathed Lou, looking at Tasokah.

The heron man represented a reality Lou could not deny. And Lou felt drawn to Tasokah in a way he had never felt before. Tasokah took Lou's hand and smiled.

"Come," he nodded towards Lou's bed. "Let me show you how the heron men really make love... "

Eventually, sadly, Tasokah had to leave, to go in search of a man who was coming to join the heron men. Following Tasokah's directions, Lou headed southeastward alone, not expecting to meet any more heron men until he reached their hidden valley. But the evening before, he ran across a farmer named Seth McClun. After a good meal, he had ended up sleeping in the same bed as Seth and his partner, Tyler. What a night that had been!

The next morning they had shared a hearty breakfast and heartfelt vows to get together again sometime. As Lou prepared to go, Seth gave him a friendly warning against passing through Douglas City. Lou winced, thinking of his ex-partner, Pete, who still lived there, and answered that he was already planning to avoid the town.

Lou frowned at the memory of his life with Pete. Inside, he knew that the game-playing larcenous man he had been was dead. A thing that had shriveled and died during the long, lonesome winter.

Then Lou realized he had stopped while he was lost in thought. Still looking at Douglas City, he muttered a curse under his breath. He knew he had no time for daydreaming and started walking once again.

"Come on, Ol' Joe," Lou breathed as he tugged gently at his stallion's reins, "we're goin' on to the valley of the heron."

I could not believe My spirit-sight, Showing me a lover With fiery hair... Redder than An autumn leaf! Blazing like A crackling fire! A man who burns With a love-flame, To match my own Desires and passion...

Tlaccotan whispered love to his lover, caressing the pale body beside him as they lay together. Their blanket was spread out in the afternoon shade of a copse of aspens and lacey vine maples, near Roman Rock. But not so close as to preclude an expectation of privacy.

Greg Walsh reached out with his right hand. Three fingers and a thumb slid knowingly across the warm-hard topography of the dark coppery body pressed so tightly against his. Finding nipples hot like volcanic cones, undulating plains-belly and the dusky mesa that towered above its edge, threatening to erupt... Neither of the men spared a thought for Tavani's old sawmill injury at that point.

So perhaps it was empathy that moved Tlaccotan to grasp his partner's maimed hand and raise it to his lips. A gentle kiss stirred the rusty hairs that curled across the remaining fingers, carrying more meaning than any words Tlaccotan might have spoken to his lover. Tavani sighed and they both moved at once to embrace, to quench sudden desire, to express without words the feelings they evoked in one another...

The early afternoon shadows had hardly begun to lengthen when Tasokah reached the mouth of the westward-flowing creek he had followed since crossing the divide between it and the Clearwater. Tasokah had spent the night in False Pass, sleeping with Felix and Nick in the hayloft of the livery stable the couple ran, sharing their blankets and their love. A few hours after he left False Pass, the heron man had encountered a man fishing in the Clearwater, named George Ormonde, whose son Goody was the newest member of the Elxa tribe. George had insisted Tasokah stop and have lunch with him, an invitation that led to the men spending time making love on a grassy slope above the rippling river.

His journey that day had indeed been a full and pleasurable one. As he gazed on the juncture of the creek with the rippling green waters of the Umpqua, and the unique landmark that crouched nearby, the talking stone, a huge boulder covered with native carvings, Tasokah felt the pleasure of knowing he was closer to his home. The rough trail he had taken there continued down to the water's edge, and emerged on the other side.

Tasokah followed the track with his eyes until it was swallowed up in the shadows of the forest beyond the river. He knew two of his heron brothers, Southwind and Fire Wolf, lived in a valley somewhere off of that trail to the northeast, and that Big Otter and Dark Fire planned to build a cabin somewhere along the same track, but his path did not lead him in that direction. The native turned to the more immediate task of repairing the neglected campsite he had come upon.

After cutting and trimming some young green shoots into whips, Tasokah stripped the damaged wickyup down to its framework and patiently began to repair it. The supple wands were incorporated into the ovoid form, replacing broken sticks and restoring its original domed shape. Tasokah then stretched a weathered, but still serviceable, deerskin over the woven support.

To finish the job, Tasokah covered the hide's convex surface with a layer of thick, ragged bark shingles. A few of the irregular slabs were so rotten they crumbled as he handled them, necessitating replacements. The newer shingles lacked the growths of moss and lichen that had staked their claims on the others and in the end they contrasted in the domed whole quite starkly.

The sepia-gray-green result resembled nothing less than the rough carapace of some ancient, monstrous tortoise, cast upon the shore by an errant wave. Tasokah looked over his handiwork, satisfying himself that it was complete. Thus with little effort he had set up a shelter ample enough for three men to sleep comfortably in.

Tasokah dug out the firepit, relined it with rocks from the river and gathered firewood. From a vantage point along the shore, he speared some fish for his supper and ate well. As he tossed the last of the fish bones into the campfire, the sun was declining, reddening the western horizon, and he sighed.

Long shadows stealing across my camp touching me as gently as my memories of you touch me...

Tasokah's voice trailed off. Again, Lou's image loomed sweetly in his mind. He scratched absently at the ground, drawing a curling figure in the sandy soil, a birdlike symbol that expressed a deepness of the soul only an Elxa tribesman would understand.

'Where are they now?' Tasokah thought as he studied his handiwork, thinking of the men he had been sent to find. 'Lou, strange, beautiful white man, and the wise one Falling Star has seen coming, from beyond the western sea... ?'

Awareness slowly returned, lifting Job's mind gradually out of the well of thick, unfeeling darkness it was sunk in. The first thing he was aware of was the dull pounding of pain in his head. He felt the rough-soft itch of a woolen blanket falling away as he moved his hand slowly to his aching brow.

He massaged the lump he found, trying to recall what had happened and why he smelled smoke. Then everything rushed back suddenly and Job lurched upward in a near panic, sitting up and throwing off the blankets that covered him. He regretted it at once.

"Oww!" he cried, holding his throbbing head.

"Whoa there youngster, take it easy," came a low, friendly sounding rumble. "You're safe."

Through the spots that swam before his eyes, Job saw a red-headed, thickly-bearded man in his mid to late twenties squatting by a campfire. He was looking at Job, concern playing about the corners of his blue eyes. Spits and a frying pan lay before him over the fire, momentarily forgotten.

'Stranger... good-lookin' cuss too... ' Job noted, despite the pounding in his temples.

Slowly, so as not to make the pain worse, Job turned his head and looked around. He found himself in a camp next to a stream that bisected a small clearing surrounded by huge Douglas firs. Beams of afternoon light sliced down through the densely needled boughs, taking on a green tint. There were no other people to be seen.

Job let out a sigh of relief when he saw Alice. She was grazing quietly on the far bank of the stream, neck to neck with a great gray stallion. Job turned back to the stranger, who had resumed his cooking.

"That was quite a tumble you took," the man commented as he turned a spit.

"Tumble?" murmured Job, continuing to stroke his forehead.

"From your horse."

"Oh."

"You're lucky nothing was broken. Nothing that I could find at least. How do you feel?"

"Weak as a coonhound fed on creekwater," Job mumbled, making the man grin.

"You remember what happened?"

"Yeah. I think I fell asleep and Alice musta stumbled... " a sudden worry crossed the lad's mind, concerning his horse. "Is she alright?"

"Alice? Your horse? Yes, she's fine. I checked her out."

"Are you a horse doctor?"

"Livin' way out here in this wilderness, you've gotta know a little of everything to get by," the man smiled, offering a cup. "Here, drink this. It'll ease your pain."

"What is it?"

"Willow bark tea. An Injun medicine."

"It's bitter," Job said as he tasted it, glancing over the cup's rim, studying his benefactor.

"Actually, I'm a prospector," the man went on blandly. "By the way, my name's Silas Trent."

Job got up and walked unsteadily to the stream without answering. The cool water felt good as he splashed several handfuls on his face and drank. He pushed damp, pale hair back with one hand and returned to sit on the blanket, facing Silas.

"I'm Job... Job Byrd."

"Byrd?"

"That's right," Job answered, wondering at the sudden look of surprise Silas shot him. "You heard of me?"

"Not directly, no."

"What does that mean?" he asked suspiciously.

"That'd take a whole lotta explainin', son," Silas said, thinking of the medicine dream that had led him to Job's unconscious body. "And even then, chances are you probably wouldn't believe me."

"You're lyin'," decided Job, his voice taking a hard edge. "Mueller sent you after me, didn't he?"

"I'm not in the habit of lyin', or of lettin' folks accuse me of lyin' neither, boy," Silas said gruffly.

"Then you don't know Mueller?" Job breathed. The relief in his voice was palpable.

"I've never heard of the fella before."

There was a pregnant silence in the camp for awhile, broken only by the crackle of the fire and the sizzle of cooking food. Job rubbed his head again, his forehead furrowed in either pain or thought or both. Silas paused and thought too, considering what the lad had told him so far.

'Something's really put a scare in the boy,' he concluded mentally as he poked absently at the fire.

"I take it," Silas went on, reverting to his earlier, friendlier tone, "that this Mueller ain't exactly a friend of yours. You runnin' from something?"

"Yes."

"What?"

"I'd rather not say."

"If you're in trouble with the law... "

"Ha!" Job laughed mirthlessly. "The law got me into this jam."

"Why don't you tell me about it?"

Silas' quiet question drifted away with the smoke form the fire. All of Job's past experiences told him to clam up. But Silas' voice, his eyes, seemed to hold genuine concern. It had been a long time since Job had felt that from anyone.

"I guess I owe you for helpin' me," he drawled in resignation, "so I'll tell you my story. I warn you though, you might hear some things you won't like, but that's your problem."

"I've been around and heard a lot," Silas grunted. "Tain't likely you can shock me."

"Well, I came out here from Arkansas last year with a cousin. Poor Leroy, he thought land was free out here. We learned different in a hurry. He went to work in a mine. I tried to join him, but the foreman thought I was too young and puny to swing a pick all day, so I ended up doin' odd jobs for the men around the minin' camp."

"Where was this?"

"Maury City."

Silas nodded, recalling the one time he had visited there. Maury City was a prosperous town, built near a rich mining district, about seventy miles or so to the northeast as the crow flies, on the semiarid eastern side of the Cascade range, north of the next closest town, Steens Station. Job took another sip of the willow bark tea before he went on.

"It didn't take long before I found out there was other ways of makin' money in Maury City... "

Silas' expression did not change and Job went on.

"A lotta them men there was lonely. No women, no partners... Well, I started... " Job turned away from Silas suddenly. "You say you're a prospector, so you oughta know what goes on in them camps."

Job felt a hand on his shoulder then, strong fingers gripping gently, sympathetically...

"Was that the first time you ever... "

The whispered question trailed off, unfinished. A part of Silas was suddenly angry. It seemed to him that a mining camp was no place for any boy to learn about man-to-man sex.

Silas could imagine what it must have been like. Being taken by a hoard of anonymous johns, so many that their faces would be a mere crowded blur in the lad's memory. Men who sought only their own pleasures, selfish and taking. The kind who had to buy because money was all they had to offer to anyone.

They would have had no real concern for the boy they were using. Not one of them would have taken the time to teach him about the joys of giving, and true male camaraderie. All the lad was likely to learn of his own worth was how much it was measured by the hollow clink of silver and gold, hearing that cold, metallic clatter instead of the words of love and respect every boy's spirit needed for it to grow and thrive.

It was the antithesis of the Way of the Heron, and the older man hoped fervently that it was not too late for healing. Even as all that flashed through his mind, Silas was surprised when he saw Job turn back to him. In spite of himself, the lad was grinning as he replied.

"Aww, hell no. Growin' up in the Ozarks with all my brothers and cousins, sleepin' five and six to a bed, I learned early and quick how to give and take, and enjoy both. That's partly why I went with Leroy. I liked him better'n the rest and outta the bunch, we was the only two who didn't start into chasin' pussey as we grew older. I loved him, and he loved me, so we stuck together."

"Like me and Jesse."

Silas mumbled those words quietly, almost unconsciously, feeling relief for Job's sake. He was glad the lad knew what love was. He would be better able to appreciate what the heron men had to offer. The prospector took back his hand.

"Who?"

"Jesse, my brother," explained Silas, turning away to check the food. "He's been dead a long time."

"He went and left you alone? Just like Leroy did me?"

Silas' head spun around in surprise, his ruddy eyebrows twisted upward. His reaction startled Job. The lad sputtered on.

"I mean, everything was fine for the two of us until Leroy got himself killed."

"How'd it happen?"

"A mine tunnel caved in on him. It just about killed me, too," Job paused, feeling old grief for a moment, before angry words came pouring out of him. "And then that lyin' pig Mueller comes along, tellin' me I need somebody to watch out for me, like Leroy did. And I believed him, like a carnsarned idjit! Before I knowed it, he was pimpin' me out to men without my say so, guys I didn't wanna touch with a ten foot pole. So I lit out. Figured I didn't owe Mueller nothing."

Job paused to pick up his cup and sip more of the medicinal tea. His blue eyes were hard as they stared unblinking into the fire. Silas frowned as he considered what he had heard of the lad's predicament so far.

'Seems like Job and good luck have been strangers for a long time. I hope I can do something to change that.'

"And?" Silas asked after a short time.

"I made my way to a town called Spring Hill and got a job in a general store."

"I've been there," Silas nodded.

"Well, you can imagine how surprised I was when Mueller came after me. He showed the local magistrate a letter he said Leroy'd written, making Mueller my legal guardian. I could see it was a forgery, but I couldn't prove it. So the lawmen turned me over to him."

"How old are you, son?"

"I'll be eighteen in June."

"So... He took you back to Maury City? Put you back to workin' for him... "

"Yeah," Job cut him off, "and I played along, lettin' him think he'd broke me... "

"I've only known you for a short time, Job, but I'd say breakin' you was a man-sized job."

"Thanks," the youth grinned, obviously appreciating Silas' compliment, before he went on with his story. "I was patient, like I said, watchin' and waitin' for another chance to escape. Finally, Mueller let his guard down and got drunk in the cabin we were sharin'. After he passed out, I brained him and tied him up good, gagged him too. Then I... "

Job laughed. Silas looked at his companion expectantly. The lad scratched his head, searching for words.

"Mueller had this... thing... he whittled outta wood... a sorta substitute," Job grinned and winked mischievously, "for the real thing, if you catch my meanin'. Before I left I jammed that thing in him and left him like that, his pig ass stickin' up in the air and that thing pluggin' him. It was probably was the first thing anybody would've seen when they found him."

Silas watched with amused eyes as Job drank from the cup again. He swallowed the last of the tea and set the cup down. Then Job smiled as he began to speak again.

"I almost wanted to be there to see him when he woke up and realized the pickle he was in. I'll bet he had a headache so bad it'd be like the day after he'd drunk all the whiskey in Oregon!"

"So you took Alice and vamoosed," Silas continued, amused by the kid's gumption and trying hard not to show it. "Rode night and day until you dropped right here."

"I didn't take her, she belonged to Leroy, and what was his is mine now, as well as the money... " Job caught himself too late.

'Hell,' he realized in a flash, 'if Silas was a robber, he wouldn't have helped me... '

"What money?"

"Our savin's. Or rather what's left of 'em. Mueller helped himself to it, sayin' he had a legal right as my guardian."

"Hmm," Silas scratched his beard slowly as he considered the lad's story. "That might be a problem."

"Why?"

"Well, I'm not doubtin' your word, Job. In fact, this Mueller fella sounds to me like he needs a little hangin'. But iffin' he catches up with you, I'd suspect he wouldn't have no trouble convincin' a jury that you're a robber and a horsethief, seein' as you got no proof of anything and he's got the law behind him, as your legal guardian. Then most likely you'd be the one to get the rope collar."

Job looked into the fire without responding. He was obviously trying to control his expression, but Silas had seen the fear that showed itself momentarily in the young man's face. Silas paused to inwardly curse himself for mentioning hanging to the boy. Then another thought occurred to him.

"What does Mueller look like? I oughta know in case he comes after you again."

"He's about your height and stockier, with black hair and a beard, but it doesn't cover up the scar he has on his left cheek, shaped like a J," Job said, running a finger across his cheek, tracing a hook shape, to show Silas, "and I expect he'll be on my trail."

"For the time bein', that's probably the best assumption to make," Silas agreed. He grinned in spite of the somber subject they were discussing when he added gayly: "Son, it sure sounds to me like you raised hell and put a prop under it!"

"It's a gawd-damned mess I'm in alright, Silas."

Job admitted that in a dejected tone. He looked up at his companion as if he meant to go on, but although his mouth opened, nothing came out. He turned his head, coughed and tried again.

"Whatcha think I oughta do?"

"I think," Silas began, turning to check again on the cooking food, "that we oughta eat. I don't know about you, but I ain't much good at thinkin' on an empty stomach!"

Hun Tzu paused in his journey upstream, breaking the rhythm of his paddle strokes. The canoe slowed as the man strained his ears, wondering if they were suddenly playing tricks on him. But again, a thin, hollow sound came to them, an auletic emanation floating delicately across the tree shadowed waters of Heron Creek.

'A flute!' he marvelled, and began to paddle once more.

Lou had pushed his horse a bit, in order to make up for the time it had taken him to detour around Douglas City. Joining up with the main trail again, he followed it east until yet another dusty track connected to it. A crudely lettered sign planted at the fork pointed down the other, southwestward leading trail to another town, Cedar Flat.

Lou continued east towards False Pass, as Tasokah had instructed him to. As he rode along, he rolled and lit a cigarette. He used tobacco he had gotten from Tasokah, and the wild leaf proved to be stronger than the store bought brands Lou was accustomed to.

As Lou inhaled the pungent smoke, his thoughts turned to Tasokah, his lithe form, the supple, coppery body, the night-black hair... A jumble of emotions were engendered by the memory of the native's touch, but chief among these was the desire to possess Tasokah again, to feel his body, his passion... The potent tobacco seemed to amplify Lou's desires.

"Tasokah... " he breathed.

The expelled smoke curled off along with his plaintive sigh. Lou liked to imagine it floating across the miles, to wherever Tasokah was, and wrapping itself around his body, caressing it as Lou would have liked to. By the time Lou threw the butt aside, his head felt light and he determined to use less of the native tobacco in his next smoke.

Though the late afternoon sun still shed plenty of light, Lou began to look for a suitable clearing to spread his blankets for the night. He had walked and ridden a long way that day and weariness pulsed dully in his back and thighs. Then he spied a building in the distance.

In a few minutes, Lou was looking at a cabin with a barn adjacent. A lamp was burning within. He could see a table through one of the windows and a man seated there, reading a newspaper. He had black hair and was clean shaven.

As Lou approached the house, the man must have heard the clop, clop of his horse's footfalls, for he put down his paper and got up from the table. Lou noted his unhurried manner and stopped to wait. The door of the cabin opened and the light from within sharply silhouetted the form of a tall man.

"Good evening," Lou called.

"Evening," the man returned.

"My name's Lou. I was headed for False Pass when I saw your light. Would you mind if I bedded down in your barn tonight?"

"No, of course not. By the way, my name's Chris."

"Well, I won't bother you any more. I'll tie up my horse and turn in. I've had a long day on the trail."

"Have you eaten already?"

"Not since this morning."

"Well, hitch your horse in the barn and then come in. Hunger's a hard companion to ride with."

"Can't argue with that."

Lou dismounted and led his horse into the barn. After putting ol' Joe in a stall, he pulled down some hay for him. Lou patted his stallion's side affectionately.

"Sorry dinner was late today, boy," he apologized. "When we get to the valley of the heron, you can rest and graze until you're fat as a hawg!"

Lou ran his hand across ol' Joe's flanks before leaving his trusty animal to his dinner. As he closed the barn door, he caught the aroma of something cooking on the evening breeze. His mouth began to water as he headed for the cabin.

The building was a spacious, two room affair. The front part was dominated by an ample cookstove, the heat from which filled the cabin pleasantly. A sturdy table and set of chairs stood nearby.

"All I've got is some deer stew and biscuits and coffee," Chris offered as he fed the firebox from a neat stack of wood.

"Sounds good to me."

"Have a seat," Chris replied as he dipped a ladle into a steaming pot, stirring.

"Thanks. You're mighty hospitable."

"You goin' up to False Pass for any particular reason?" Chris asked companionably, as he poured and pushed a cup of coffee towards Lou.

"Well, actually, I'm headed east of there."

"Not much to see, up that way."

As the black haired man said that, he reached for a bowl. Lou noted the unique native designs etched and painted on the outside of the piece of pottery and wondered. He decided to take a chance and tell the truth.

"Not accordin' to the fella who put me on this trail."

"Who was that?"

"A native. His name's Tasokah. I'm hopin' I'll meet up with him again real soon."

"Oh?" Chris said, the tone of the man's voice changing as he turned to face his guest. "I know Tasokah. You must be goin' up to the valley of the heron."

"How'd you know that... ?"

Lou fell silent when he saw Chris move. He lifted a hand to his collar and his fingers yanked on a rawhide cord looped around his neck. An Elxa glyphstone popped out from under Chris's shirt, black and shiny, except for where the curling lines of a birdlike symbol had been etched upon it. The object was by now a familiar sight to Lou. He gazed at the glyph and then looked up into Chris's eyes.

"You too?"

"Is it so hard to believe?"

"No, it's not that. I mean I thought I'd have a hard time findin' other heron men. But it ain't been that way at all."

"We ain't hard to find, if your nature is the same as ours," Chris responded as he shoved a steaming bowlful of stew topped with a biscuit towards his guest. "Eat."

"What about you?"

"I already ate. And there are some things I think I ought to let you know about, so you eat and I'll talk."

"Okay," Lou said around a mouthful of hot venison.

"Well, you should know that there are heron men or their supporters livin' all along the Umpqua and the trails between Port Bolon and the valley of the heron, so when we have to travel, we know where we can find friends in case of need."

"I ran into a fella named Seth and his pardner Tyler the night before," Lou admitted, swallowing.

"Yes, I've heard of 'em, though we've never met. I hope that soon they'll be followin' your trail, to get the blessin' of Falling Star."

"Does he decide who's a heron man and who ain't?"

"Well, I've been told that if your spirit's right, you're a heron man whether you know it or not. They say when Falling Star invites someone to join, he's just callin' a brother home, to let him know how special he is. But he does insist on a spirit quest, so that the new member can confront and deal with whatever inhibitions or fears they might have."

"Oh." Lou pondered that. "Have you been on a spirit quest?"

"Yes."

"What happened?"

"Well, that's usually something we keep to ourselves."

"Sorry."

"Don't be." Chris paused and took a breath, looking at Lou appraisingly. "Actually, I think you'd benefit by hearin' about it. I saw an old friend, one who'd been murdered awhile ago, before I knew anything about the heron men. Jerry was the closest thing to a pardner I'd ever had up until then and I'd vowed to hunt down and kill the man who'd caused his death."

"Did you?"

"No. Fate beat me to it. Jerry's killer was lynched after he raped and murdered a boy in Douglas City."

Chris shuddered inwardly at the memory of the way the man had died, castrated by an angry mob before they strung him up.

"So you couldn't avenge your pardner then," Lou said softly, bringing Chris back to the present moment.

"No, and it ate at me until Falling Star sent me on a spirit quest. In it, my buddy Jerry came to me, lookin' and smellin' and soundin' just the same as he had in life, and he told me I'd been released from the vow I'd made to avenge him. He said he was at peace and wanted me to be too. Then, before he left, we made love. It was wonderful and sad at the same time, 'cause I thought it'd be the last time I'd ever see him."

"Wasn't it?"

"No, oddly enough. Every once in awhile since then he comes to me in my dreams and it's just like old times, talkin' and lovin'. It feels real, just like it did in my spirit quest."

"Huh!" Lou said as he scraped the bottom of his bowl. "That sounds mighty peculiar."

"Lots of peculiar things happen in the valley of the heron."

"Tasokah told me a lot of friendly spirits live there," Lou said through a mouthful of biscuit, "no doubt they have something to do with that."

"That's what we believe." Chris eyed Lou's empty dish before speaking again. "Here, have some more stew."

"Thanks, it's mighty tasty."

"...and so it came to pass in the time of Blue Badger that... "

Falling Star paused in his recitation of the Elxa tribe's history, an oral bequest from the past which he was now passing on to Zeke Barnet, his apprentice whose Elxa name was Nizano. The shaman's pupil was puzzled by the interruption. Then he realized the elder was looking past him. He turned and looked as well.

He could see the mouth of the cave of mysteries far away, framing a small, irregular patch of azure sky. As he watched, that bright spot was dimmed. Zeke knew then that someone had entered the cave and was coming towards them.

"Welcome, Ho'va," Falling Star murmured, as the visitor neared the fire the shaman and Zeke sat beside. "What brings you to my home?"

"Greetings, Falling Star, Nizano," he began, sitting down by the fire. "I have been wandering on my own in the dry plains to the east, beyond the mountains, and I am now on my way back to Roman Rock."

"What have you seen?"

As Falling Star spoke, his eyes were lit with a sudden alertness. Zeke was attentive as well, recalling what the heron shaman had told him of Fire Wolf's recent vision of Xaculi and the warning the deceased elder's spirit gave of trouble coming to the valley of the heron from the east.

It was only one of many such forebodings of late. And added to it was what Zeke had been told by Falling Star about the things the heron shaman had learned through the awesome ceremony of the shaking tent. Perhaps Ho'va had seen something that would throw more light on these mysterious matters.

"More white settlers, more barbed wire fences dividing the wounded land, gashed and torn by plows," The Elxa brave began. "The iron road grows like the pine tree, throwing out branches in all directions. My eyes have been troubled by these sights, and my dreams as well. In them, I feel as if something vile and unclean is approaching our land, an evil force raging, hate-filled and mindlessly searching for something to kill."

"Stay with us here this night, Ho'va," Falling Star said thoughtfully. "We will speak further of your dreams, and see if we can find their hidden meanings."

"Trev? Are we going to be traveling after sundown?"

"No, Zeb. There's a farm just ahead. We'll spend the night there."

"What if they don't want us staying there?"

"Seth won't turn us away. He's practically a member of the tribe himself."

"Practically?"

"Well, he hasn't visited the valley of the heron yet, to see the chief and get his blessin'."

"Who is the chief?" Eric asked.

"Falling Star."

"You've seen him?"

"Oh yes. The first time I saw him we talked awhile, about myself and the sort of life I'd led. And then he sent me on a spirit quest. Afterwards, I told him everything I had seen and he interpreted it for me. Then he gave me my glyphstone and the others welcomed me into the tribe."

"What did you see on this 'spirit quest'?" asked Zeb

"Well, that's kinda personal... "

"Sorry, I didn't mean to pry."

"No harm done."

Trev paused, looking thoughtful as he rode along for a minute or so. Then he turned to Zeb and spoke up again.

"You remember what we were talkin' about earlier? About how some folks are always lookin' for bigger and better things?"

"Yes."

"Well, let's just say that the Elxa spirits pointed out to me, in no uncertain terms, that quality is more important than quantity, as far as love-makin' is concerned. Ah!"

"What?"

"I can see the lights of Seth's homestead now."

"What's that?" asked Job.

Silas had just finished washing the cookware as the twilight deepened. Wanting to go in himself, he had started taking off his clothes. He draped his shirt on a rock next to where he had placed his boots and paused to look down at where Job pointed, to his crimson furred chest.

"This?" Silas asked, his hand going to his glyphstone.

"Yeah. I knew a fella in Maury City who had one just like it."

"Really?" Silas tried to sound casual as he dropped his pants and waded into a deep portion of the stream. "Who was that?"

"Bill Axford. He was a real nice fella," Job paused, enjoying his memories of his friend before going on. "He was the only one there I gave myself to for free, besides Leroy of course. He was something special, a friend of Leroy's, too. He told us the stone had something to do with a society or something, of men like us."

"That's true enough," Silas returned noncommittally before ducking his head under the water to shut out any more of Job's questions. A number of thoughts raced through his mind then on different tangents, like stray bullets in a gunfight.

'Job's kinda young to be knowin' so much about the heron men... '

'Hell, he knows too much already to be babied, that's for sure... '

'And that Elxa spirit did send me after him, so he must think he's old enough... '

'I guess he's gotta learn about us, sooner or later... '

'Gotta take it slow, that's what... '

Silas came up for air gasping. When he looked back at the camp, he saw Job moving blankets, building one bed for the two of them. It was not long before Job noticed the older man watching him work.

"You mind? Iffin' I sleep with you?"

'So much for takin' it slow... ' thought Silas wryly, composing a reply in his head.

"I suppose," Silas said carefully, "you've gotta notion of what might happen iffin' we do. Do you really think you're up to it? After that tumble you took?"

"You tell me," Job smiled in reply as he started to strip off his clothing.

Silas gave a low whistle as Job's pants fell. A startlingly long whiteness, jutting out from a pale hairy crotch, was illuminated by the firelight. His smooth-skinned body was on its way to becoming angular and wiry, though a trace of adolescent roundedness remained in his features that was not unattractive.

'Damn! It looks like Phil's gonna have some competition when this boy's full grown!' Silas thought, eyeing the ample cock the lad sported.

"Like what you see?" Job asked, his half-hard organ bobbing impudently before him as he joined his companion in the stream.

"Better not let Jeb see that big tool of yours. He'd hide his head in shame."

"Who's Jeb?"

"My stallion."

They both laughed. Then, more serious, they reached out, touched, washed one another, a tentative prelude. The tactile exploration continued after they had dried off and crawled under the blankets, long after darkness had fallen over their camp, long after the stars appeared to blink through the evergreen boughs overhead...

"Nice and easy, Job," Silas breathed. "We got all night, plenty of time... "

"You know," Chris began, as Lou pushed his second bowl of stew away, empty, "you don't have to sleep with your horse tonight, unless you wanna... "

"You and me?"

"Yes. If you'd like... "

"Well, sure. Lemme clean myself up some first... "

"The pump's right out front."

Lou went out into the gathering darkness and pumped himself a bucket of water. Then he stripped and splashed himself, his bearded face, his chest, his backside and genitals. Anticipation already had his cock hanging downward heavily as he dried off.

Carrying his clothes over one arm, he came back into the cabin. Chris had moved the light to the other room, and was already getting in the wide bed when Lou returned. Lou caught a fleeting glimpse of a pale, narrow butt and swallowed hard.

Lou laid his clothes across a chair and got in on the other side. Chris leaned over to blow out the light. In the sudden darkness, Chris rolled into Lou's arms, kissing him passionately.

"Eager?" Lou whispered.

"For a damned handsome cuss like you? Hell yes!"

Lou ran a hand down Chris's back, down to the cleft of his buttocks. Chris moaned softly. Lou let his fingers sink in, finding the hot manhole and feeling his desire rise.

"I caught a glimpse of your ass when you got into bed."

"Yes?"

"Gave me ideas."

"Oh yes... "

"I'd sure like to... "

"Yes," Chris agreed, his voice suddenly hoarse with desire.

"You got anything to make it easy?"

"Yeah."

Chris reached under his side of the bed and came up with a small pouch filled with the same grease Tasokah had introduced Lou to. Handing it to Lou, Chris turned to lay face down on the bed, his hands gripping the headboard. Lou dipped into the leather bag gathering a gob of fulvous goo and slickening his stiff cock with it. Then, putting the Elxa lube aside, Lou probed Chris's ass with a slick finger.

Trembling slightly, Lou lowered himself to the ready, puckered opening. His cock glistened in the moonlight, dripping precum, and Chris half turned to look at it. Lou noticed and grinned.

"See what you've done to me, pardner?" he breathed.

Chris turned over the rest of the way and reached out, running a forefinger across Lou's cockhead. A thick drop of precum oozed from the slick slit, adhering to his fingertip, and he brought it to his lips. Lou began to shake with desire as he watched.

"You taste good."

Lou found he could not reply.

"Come up here," Chris ordered.

Lou did as he was told, moving forward to straddle his bedmate's chest, bringing his cock close to Chris's lips.

"Howdy, stranger," Chris whispered to the warm wand of flesh hovering before his hairy lips.

Chris took just the tip of Lou's cock in his mouth at first, sucking gently, slowly. It slipped in further and Chris's tonguetip danced over the rigid hotness, probing the slit, the satiny cleft below it, pushing back the taut foreskin, gliding achingly over the exposed glans, tasting, feeling... Lou pulled away abruptly after a minute or so of the sweet torture.

"You okay?" Chris whispered.

"I'm fit to bust," Lou gasped. "Do you want me like this, in your mouth? Or... "

"No."

Chris rolled over and raised his hips, ready to meet Lou's thrusting loins. Lou guided his dripping cock to Chris's asshole. Chris gasped as the blunt, insistent pressure came suddenly, pushing in and in...

"All the way, cowboy... " Chris said through gritted teeth. "Get in the saddle... ride me, Lou... "

Through the haze of lust that dulled his brain, Lou looked down at Chris, spitted on his cock, a writhing mass of knotted muscle and dark furred skin. He wanted to say something loving, to tell Chris how handsome he was, how beautiful, but the words would not come.

His desire, and the pride Lou felt at being the one Chris wanted in that special way, was so intense, Lou could hardly bear it. Seldom in his life had Lou been so turned on by someone he was making love to. Then Lou began to move, unable to control his desire any longer.

"Chris... Chris... "

Lou gasped the name as he thrust, deep into Chris's being, feeling the sweetness within him building, rising, reaching a frenzied crescendo and then crashing, bursting, pumping liquid masculine fire down, down into secret caverns of blazing passion. Chris moaned in pure pleasure, feeling the brute power of the man as Lou drove into his being fiercely. Lou shuddered and fell onto Chris's back, dazed by the sheer power of his orgasm.

When Lou recovered, he turned Chris over and kissed him, his eyes, his lips, his chest, his nipples. He kissed his way down the slim, hard, hairy body, seeking the center of his bedmate's being. Chris cried out, a wordless keening noise of passion as Lou's lips and tongue surrounded his engorged and aching cock sweetly, almost immediately bringing on Chris's own release.

Shot after shot of sweet male essence blasted hotly against Lou's eager tongue. He sucked greedily, relishing the taste. It was not until Chris's cock, soft and shrunken, had slipped from Lou's mouth that he moved to kiss his bedmate again. Chris recognized the savor of his own jism on Lou's lips and kissed back hungrily. Exhausted by their passion, the men cuddled up together and fell asleep.

'This sure is a nice spot for a camp.' Bill Axford mused.

He looked over his surroundings again, feeling rather self-satisfied. He lay before a small fire, warm and dry, while just a few feet away, rain pattered monotonously. Every so often, a muted mutter of thunder sounded afar off as the isolated storm passed over.

His blankets were spread out beneath a rock ledge he had discovered by chance just as the shower began. But it had not taken Bill long to realize that he was not the first visitor to that place. Some unknown artist had spent a long time industriously decorating the underside of the ledge. Strange painted figures, weird animal shapes and obscure symbols danced across the uneven rock face.

Bill lay on his back looking up at those odd markings. They reminded him of the ones he had seen the previous autumn in Falling Star's home, the cave of mysteries. The man idly wondered if the heron shaman or some other member of the Elxa tribe was responsible for the markings above him. Or perhaps they were the work of another, earlier, long vanished tribe.

Whoever had chosen that spot to do his work had chosen well. The space beneath the ledge was high and wide, the ground dry and sandy. In short, a perfect campsite. It provided more than enough room to shelter Bill's horse as well as himself. He glanced over at the animal, its head drooped in sleep.

The man had already eaten and now lay wrapped up next to a dying fire. Bill turned on his side, propping himself up on one elbow and scratched his beard thoughtfully. He gazed into the lividly glowing coals as if he were a pyromancer, a pagan seer who looks for omens and signs in dancing flames. Bill was trying to conjure up a memory.

'What was it that Falling Star called me? Il-somethin. Ilx... Il-Xochitl! That's it! Sounded a bit like my English name, but in his language it meant, lemme see... damn! I gotta remember it, or else they might think I don't care... '

Bill lay back again and relaxed. The hiss of a million raindrops falling in the darkness beyond his refuge filled his ears, dulled his senses. The arcane glyphs hovered protectively above his bedroll. He gazed at them until sleep claimed him. Almost immediately, or so it seemed to Bill, the sound of the rain resolved itself into a voice from the darkness that spoke to him, a voice that was calm, powerful and filled with a primordial mystery.

"Il-Xochitl! Flower-of-autumn!"

"That's it!" Bill responded instantly, sitting up. "I remember it now! Il-Xochitl is the flower of autumn... "

His voice died away as he looked around. The rock ledge, the rain, his camp and horse, all were gone. In the unexpected light of day, Bill stared at his new surroundings.

A golden sun far more glorious than the sun Bill knew shone joyously down on where he sat, in a grassy meadow the heron man recalled well. The effulgent light caressed his bare skin lovingly and seemed to draw forth a lambent response, not only from him but from everything else it touched upon. It was as if the subtle auras of all things were made visible by the prefulgency, the superior brightness, of that kindly sun.

'This is where I met Tolatil,' Bill realized, 'the heron man who brought me to Falling Star... '

As the man thought those words, he looked eagerly about himself, half-expecting to see Tolatil nearby. But Bill seemed to be alone, surrounded only by tall grass and a colorful smattering of wildflowers. Then he caught a movement out of the corner of his eye.

Turning, he saw a naked man, a white man, wading towards him through the hip-deep verdure. The wryly smiling face seemed familiar, framed by a blonde mop of hair and a short beard the same pale color. Then Bill was almost overcome by shock as he recognized him.

"L... Leroy?! Leroy Byrd?!"

"Don't be scared of me, Bill. I won't bite you," the dead man said quite amiably as he came closer and sat down next to his friend. "It's nice here, ain't it?"

"Where are we?"

"Well, that's a hard'un to answer. Does this place remind you of anything?"

"It looks to me like we're in a part of the valley of the heron... " Bill began, glancing around before his eyes returned to Leroy. "But how can it be? I was asleep in a camp to the north, miles from there... er, here... "

"Your body's still in your camp. Your spirit's here now," Leroy attempted to explain. "This is a place some call the spirit realm. Men like us, with natures like ours, come here after their deaths, or visit it in their dreams, like you're doin' now."

"I don't understand. If I'm a spirit, why does everything feel solid to me?"

"Because everything around us is spirit too, a sorta astral reflection of the Earth, unspoiled by man's activities. This looks like part of the valley of the heron, but it's an ideal representation of the Elxa tribe's land in subtle matter."

"Where'd you pick up them big words?"

"There are other fellas here, and they've been tryin' to explain a lot of things about this place to me, ever since I got here. I've gotta admit that sometimes I have a hard time understandin' what they're talkin' about. But that ain't the most important thing right now. I need to talk to you about Job."

"Job?" Bill repeated.

"Yeah. I'd like to ask you to take care of him for me. Though he won't admit it, he's still just a kid."

"Sure, Leroy. If I'd been in Maury City when you di..., er, had your accident, I've have taken Job in. But Mueller got to him before I knew. And by the time I did know, Mueller had gotten the law to declare him Job's guardian. And then Job ran away. Now I don't know where your cousin is... Er, do you know about Mueller?"

"Yeah. I know. At first I was so mad at the way Mueller was treatin' Job, I was fair fit to bust, but now I know what's waitin' for that skunk when his time's up, and brother, it ain't gonna be anything like this!" Leroy almost growled, waving his hand to indicate the lush and idyllic countryside that surrounded the two men.

"That's good to know, Leroy, but what about Job?. Where... "

"He's safe for the moment, with an Elxa tribesman named Fire Wolf. But Job's not out of danger yet."

"Is there anything I can do?"

"Maybe. But for now, you just keep on headin' for the valley of the heron, and stay put when you reach it this time, you hear? There's lots you could learn from the Elxa, things you can't find anywhere else. Besides," Leroy looked away as he spoke, "something big's about to happen."

"What?"

As he asked that question, Bill followed Leroy's gaze. Strangely, Bill found he could discern every detail of a place that was obviously many miles away from where he and his friend sat. It was a camp set up near the edge of a wide creek. Oddly, it was night there.

A pair of beached canoes lay not far from a guttering campfire. The low flames illuminated two men Bill did not recognize, a native and a pale skinned and bearded Oriental, making love slowly under the stars. Somehow Bill knew the intertwined couple were involved with the 'something big' that Leroy had spoken of.

"Are you ready to go back?"

As Leroy asked the question softly, Bill realized with a mild shock that his friend was touching him. One hand was lying lightly on his thigh, unexpectedly feeling as warm and as vital as living flesh. New possibilities occurred to him even as he answered.

"Do I hafta? Right now?"

"No, not if you don't wanna."

"I don't," Bill breathed, reaching out to touch his friend in return, by now not surprised to feel the rhythm of a living heart beating beneath the mat of pale fur that covered his chest. "It's been a long time since anyone touched me like you used to, Leroy... "

"I've missed you too, Bill... "

As the murmured reply was spoken, Leroy lowered himself, stretching out in the long, cool grass alongside Bill. They kissed and their bodies came together in a slow, but urgent need. And they clung to one another long after their orgasms had shaken the land and sky in that spirit place, everything in it attuned to the masculine energies that the union of their man-loving male hearts raised, their piquant passion resonating throughout the subtle substance of that alternate universe like the reverberations of a great bell.

Their love had created a bridge, a connection between the worlds the two men inhabited. And for a moment, some sacred and vital mystery, a sublime, profoundly loving force, flowed and refreshed. Channeling itself between man and man, between land and sky, between the worlds of spirit and matter...

"Thank you, Bill," Leroy whispered, holding his friend close. "You've pleasured me and given me some of your strength, so I can do what I might have to do, later on... "

"That's nice... " cooed Bill, too relaxed in the afterglow of their lovemaking to question his partner's words.

"I'll come back to you tomorrow night, Bill."

Leroy's voice was changing, sounding less human and more like the wind in the treetops...

"You do that. Any ol' time you want... "

Bill turned his head for another kiss as he spoke. But when he opened his eyes, he saw the nose of his horse, inquisitively nuzzling his face. The man sat up at once in his rumpled blankets, amazed by his dream, if indeed it had been just a dream.

The heron man saw the sun peeping over the eastern horizon, illuminating a clear blue sky and flooding his campsite with new light. A fresh wind was shaking the branches of the surrounding trees and the wet leaves flashed like mirrors as they moved in the light of dawn. Bill thought he could still hear Leroy's voice in the murmuring noise they made...

• Day 3 - April 27 -

Tasokah awakened in the early, indistinct light of dawn. The dew on the grass outside the wickyup seemed to glitter surrealistically in the dimly lit, newborn morning. The heron man sat up and gazed out of his shelter, across his camp and towards the river.

A bank of dense fog met his eyes, a common sight in the valley of the heron. The vapors writhed slowly above the Umpqua, like a second river of pale mist, flowing silently around the trees and through their twisted branches. Tasokah rose from his blankets and walked naked through the fog, becoming himself as indistinct as a coppery ghost, and stepped into the river.

The coldness of the Umpqua's waters made no impression on the native's skin, inured as he was by a lifetime of swimming and bathing in icy mountain streams. Tasokah waded until he found a spot that was waist deep and ducked himself under. As he came up, he turned his head quickly, causing the water to stream from the ends of his long black hair in glistening arcs, roiling the mists as the drops flew through them and splashed back into the river.

While squeezing the excess water out of his hair, Tasokah turned to the east and perceived the newly risen sun. It was showing itself dimly through the thick haze, a huge, dull red ball. It glowed like a heated metal disk suspended in an albescent sky of gaseous alabaster or moonstone mist.

Tasokah slowly lifted his hands to the sky, palms upwards, as if he were attempting to reach out and touch the untouchable, and spoke. He intoned an ancient prayer, one reserved to honor the rising sun. It was a welcome to the new day and a thanks to the Great Spirit for allowing him to see it.

As he came to the end of his devotions, Tasokah felt something brush gently against his leg. Glancing down, the heron man saw an odd-looking stick floating by on the current. He picked the small twig up and scrutinized it, his brow furrowing in thought.

The wand was about six inches long and its neat ends showed plainly that it had been deliberately trimmed by human hands. Portions of the bark had been carefully peeled away, to create a unique pattern whose meaning only another heron man would comprehend. Tasokah read the talking stick and then dropped it back into the shadowed waters, before turning his eyes upstream.

'So,' he thought, 'the man from beyond the western sea, the wise one I was sent to find, is ahead of me.'

Tasokah returned to the wickyup, dressed and ate some jerked deermeat and dried berries for breakfast. Then, after making sure the fire was out, he rolled up his blankets and gathered his few belongings. Shouldering his full pack, he proceeded calmly upriver. Tasokah knew there was no need for haste. The talking stick had told him that the man he sought for was safe and in the company of a fellow heron man.

As the sun climbed higher, the bright morning light fell full force on a certain barn in Edmund's Bridge Valley, finding numerous cracks in its eastern wall. Stray rays pierced the dark interior like golden fingers, illuminating the dust motes that floated lazily in the air, making them glow like flecks of weightless fire. In a corner of the loft, the soft snores of two men disturbed the quiet air where they slept, sending glinting particles spinning crazily above their resting place.

Eric and Zeb were peacefully tangled up in their blankets and each others' arms. As the angle of the sun gradually changed, the bright spots on the wall traveled down, amorous sunlight trailing across their naked bodies, and the added warmth coaxed them to wake up. It was Eric who moved first, running one hand slowly across Zeb's lightly furred back.

"Umm... Good morning, handsome," Zeb yawned in response to the tender, intimate touch.

He turned over and stretched, reaching out at the same time to encircle Eric's torso with his arms and burrow deeper under the warm covers. Zeb nuzzled and kissed the closest part of Eric's body he could reach, which happened to be his side below the arm. Eric suddenly jumped, struggling to get away.

"Stop that!" he gasped as Zeb's bushy beard scraped across sensitive flesh. "You're tickling me!"

"You weren't like that last night," came a muffled voice from under the blankets.

"Last night, as I recall, you were giving all your attention to an entirely different part of my body!"

"Oh, that's right... "

Eric felt Zeb's beard move. It left a trail of scratchy kisses across his torso, through his belly fur and down to his cock, lying plump with the blankets' warmth. Already it was growing in anticipation...

"Oh, Zeb... " Eric breathed. "My love, my world, my all... "

Warmth upon warmth, surrounded and possessed Eric's sex, from Zeb's busy tongue and lips. Zeb kissed the scrotum and nipped lightly at the underside of his lover's cock. His hot breath rasped, scalding sensitive flesh and making Eric shiver.

Thus Zeb urged his lover up until he could nuzzle the fully erect, rigid length lovingly. In ancient times the god Priapus, represented by enormous phalli, was adored with rich pomp and mystic rites. That is, until the sexually repressed minions of the defunct, so-called son of Jehovah suppressed the 'pagans'. The deluded followers of the dead carpenter forced their unnatural, nature-hating cult on everyone they could, torturing and killing whomsoever was blasphemous enough to disagree with their interpretation of 'the truth'.

This bloody legacy of violent and obstinate intolerance had been handed down through the ages. Though the one church broke up and became many, still its myriad teachings were like a collective curse on mankind. Hate-filled canons, glorifying hetero men and consigning everything non-masculine to hell or vile servitude, self-congratulatory and anti-nature, impressed by one deluded and hidebound generation onto the next.

This insidious pestilence, disguised as an enlightened monotheistic religion of peace, had reached out across time and space to bedevil both Zeb and Eric. By an accident of birth, the men had been raised in a land dominated by puritan prudes, the worst sect of a bad lot of protestant cults. But in that sanctimonious environment, so inimical to the 'sin' of enjoying physical pleasure, especially between two men, they had managed to survive.

Eric and Zeb had found a hidden strength in their friendship and love. It gave the men the fortitude to resist the nigh-perpetual denunciation of their inner natures and physical desires, and remain free in their hearts and spirits to give homage where they knew instinctively it was due. No ancient Greek or Roman ever showed as much devotion to Priapus, the erect god-symbol of life, as Zeb was at that moment to the deity's avatar, represented by his lover's stiff and vital cock.

All the while, Zeb's fingers were moving, seeking. They caressed the red-furred backside gently, sank into the cleft, and found the tight manhole, still slick with the fulvous grease manufactured by the heron men which Trev had introduced them to. Zeb pressed through and in to move teasingly, knowingly, against moist-hot elastic velvet, expertly caressing Eric's firespot. Eric felt pure delight tingling inside him, rising to inspire him, and he whispered quietly to his lover.

When we were boys, I loved you like a brother.

Now we are men, And I love you like a man:

Freely, strongly, deeply...

Zeb showed how deep his appreciation was for the improvised verses in a wordless manner. His tongue and lips moved and answered, but the language they spoke was a mirific, slick, tactile sweetness. It was a hungry asking, prompted by an urgent need.

It was an ancient, primordial tongue, as old as man-love itself. Eric's inner nature understood that language well, knew what it wanted, and gave all he could in reply. Zeb received the sudden, sweet-hot flood of Eric's tangy ichor gratefully, savoring it in a daze.

It would have been no exaggeration to say Zeb swallowed Eric's seed in a mental state not unlike that of a priest who drinks communion wine from a consecrated chalice, believing fervently that he imbibes the blood of a martyred god. From Zeb's viewpoint, Eric was the primal source and sweet nourishment of his life. Eric was far more worthy of his adoration than the pale, emaciated dead man worshipped so joylessly by his relatives and neighbors in New Hampshire, their minds mired in ignorance and warped by hatred for anything or anyone that was 'different'.

The two men shifted positions to kiss, lips pressing, tongues dancing. Eric tasted his own seed and felt Zeb's stiff manhood prodding his belly insistently. He pushed his unresisting lover away, down on his back and whispered, "I love you," before lowering his head. Zeb groaned aloud at the gentle, knowing, flexile heat, surrounding sensitive flesh, falling into sweet, familiar patterns.

"Oh, buddy," he moaned softly, reaching down to caress Eric's red hair, the gently bobbing head, tenderly, "my best buddy... "

Hun Tzu awoke to another misty morning. He lay still beneath the blankets he shared, soaking up the warmth from the body next to him, listening to his companion's heartbeat, his gentle breathing... and remembering. Remembering last night's joy...

At last he moved, turning his head. A pair of shining black eyes were open and looking into his own, probing. It seemed a long time before their owner spoke.

"Good morning, my love."

The whisper of that magic voice broke the spell. They turned to one another, touched, kissed. Reaching for each other, reaching again for the sublime bliss they had shared the night before...

"Good morning, Mr. Nutley."

Dark Fire frowned at the ironic use of his name as he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and yawned. He cast a wry glance at his partner, who was kneeling naked by the fire, presiding over some skewers as he reheated the leftover venison from the previous evening's meal. Then Mark grinned in appreciation as his gaze ran over Phil's herculean physique, the thick body fur, the startling white length that hung down pendulously from his dark haired crotch, and the long foreskin that almost brushed the ground whenever Phil moved.

"Good morning, Right Honorable Philip Caddell of Swansgrave!" he merrily returned.

"Okay, Mark," Big Otter grimaced, wincing at his aristocratic British title. He was reminded of his problematic relationship with his noble family and shook off the memories at once. "I give. No more surnames."

"Okay, Phil."

Mark realized he had troubled his lover and regretted it at once. Fortunately, a fine distraction was immediately at hand. As he spoke, Mark dramatically threw aside his blankets, exposing himself. He wanted to allow his partner to enjoy the sight of his nakedness as well. His gesture proved the saying that an unclothed man cannot lie about what gives him pleasure.

Almost at once, Phil's magnificent organ twitched, began to swell and rise. Soon Polyphemus was rigid. Phil had bestowed the odd name on his oversized cock as a humorous allusion to the one-eyed giant of Greek mythology. It stood unbelievably tall in the bright morning sunlight.

Mark's body responded as well. His cock kept pace with Phil's, swiftly growing to its full erection. But the two men continued to just look, enjoying the effect each was having on the other, letting the tension mount until one or the other could stand it no longer. It was Mark who broke first.

"Take me!"

Mark cried those words suddenly in a strained voice. At the same time, the cowboy rolled over on his belly and spread his legs, waiting, aching for his lover to spit him again with that huge ramrod, to fill and take him completely, utterly. The big trapper was on him in a flash, pausing only long enough to slicken his mighty organ well with a scoop of the Elxa's dark amber salve, that indispensable adjunct to the tribe's amatory pleasures. Phil's rigid flesh glided inward, easily, irresistibly, into the welcoming center of Mark's being, in, in, to the very hilt...

"Mark... " gasped Phil brokenly as he began to pump. "You... all... my all... "

The great fir trees that towered over the camp watched, solemn, silent and protective. The men's gasps and groans as they sought sweet release rose to softly echo in the green branches overhead. There the sounds of shared masculine passions mingled unintentionally with the smoke from their burning breakfast.

Will opened his eyes to see a new day. He sat up and stretched, taking a deep breath as he did so. The fresh air was redolent with salty, ocean smells.

His gaze swept the area, a deserted beach. He looked across the undulating dunes and the irregular piles of driftwood and wrack tossed up by the sea and beyond, to the rolling waves and the flat, indistinct horizon, so different from the clear and jagged demarcations between earth and sky he was used to seeing in the mountains. But he could find nothing of particular interest to focus on at that moment.

He and his companion had elected to make their camp beneath the odd trees that grew where the forest gave way to the beach. Their branches were fantastically twisted and bent landward by the prevailing winds. There was a creek close by and the shady site was also a comfortable distance outside the town of Port Bolon. Like most heron men, the pair valued their privacy.

Will looked inland and saw the horses and mules grazing peacefully amid the trees where they had been tethered. Then he heard a twig snap and turned in the direction of the noise. He could see Red Hand approaching, carrying an earthenware bowl.

"Good morning, grandfather," Will said respectfully, speaking in the native dialect the heron men used. "What do you have?"

"Good morning, Southwind," the older man returned, watching with bright, black eyes as Will arose naked from his blankets and looked around for his clothing. "I checked the fish traps and prepared what they caught to be cooked. We will eat well."

Smiling, the native took a seat by the firepit with the bowl of fillets and rekindled the flames. While Will went off to answer nature's call, Red Hand broke out the skillet. By the time Will returned, bearing an armload of driftwood for the fire, the aroma of frying fish pervaded the air and was enough to make his mouth water.

"Tell me, my son," the elder began nonchalantly as Will came and sat beside him, "did you dream last night?"

"Why, yes, I did."

"Tell me about it."

Red Hand's quiet request did not surprise Will. Nor was he misled by the heron man's continuing to cook, as if that task occupied his complete attention. Will knew the elder would be listening closely to his every word. He drew a breath and began.

"I saw our cabin. Everything seemed okay as I looked around, but I did not see Silas, and that bothered me."

"It would be strange if that did not," Red Hand murmured. "Fire Wolf is a very handsome man who attracts many eyes. His absence would disturb many besides yourself."

"Anyway," Will grinned, knowing how pleased Silas would have been by the compliment if he had been there to hear it, "I noticed the horizon beginning to darken, as if a storm were approaching, but it was in the northeastern part of the sky. I have rarely seen bad weather come from that direction to the little valley where our cabin stands."

"Was that all?"

"No, but it... it is hard to explain. It was just some dark clouds, but when I looked at them I felt, well, not afraid, but... menaced, somehow, like the clouds hated me and wanted to hurt me. I stood there and watched them drift nearer and nearer, and then I woke up."

"Hmmm," the elder commented wordlessly. He lifted a browned fillet and carefully placed it in the bowl to cool before he spoke. "I too have dreamed of a dangerous force that seems to be on its way to the valley of the heron."

"Do you know what it is?"

"I know only that it is evil."

"That sounds very serious. If only I could warn Silas... "

"Be comforted by this: in my medicine dreams of this evil, I have sensed an erratic, confused nature in it. It is all but blinded by hatred, and my guiding spirits tell me that its entire attention is focused on a hunt."

"Do you know what it is hunting?"

"A yellow bird," Red Hand said cryptically, deftly turning out the last fillet from the skillet. "Let us eat now, and consider what our dreams are trying to tell us."

In Seth's barn, all was calm once more. All that could be heard was the quiet panting of two men, exhausted by their passion. As the minutes ticked by, their breathing gradually returned to normal and the red headed man turned gratefully to his partner.

"Zeb, that was wonderful."

"You weren't half bad yourself," Zeb chuckled. "Are you feeling as hungry as I am?"

"Well, I've sure worked up an appetite."

"Can't imagine how," smiled Zeb, running a hand down Eric's chest, smoothing the ruffles out of his crimson fur.

"Well then, let's go and see if breakfast's ready."

"I doubt it," snorted Zeb. "What with Trev bedding down with Seth and Tyler! Too bad we couldn't join them."

"Besides the fact that their bed would've been too small to hold all of us, the commotion would've probably broken it!"

"Maybe it's broke already!" Zeb laughed.

"Well, let's go see. If they're all still asleep, we can cook breakfast for them."

Later that same morning, somewhere in the northernmost reaches of the valley of the heron, two men halted their horses by a stream. A clump of firs towered over the spot, bathing it in cool shade. As they watered their mounts, the younger of the two spoke up.

"Is it far to your cabin?"

"Nope. We'll be there before noon."

"Then there's no rush," Job replied, reaching out to lightly touch his companion's backside suggestively.

"Again?!" Silas muttered in mild dismay.

The sweet memory of the previous night flashed again in Silas' mind. Not unexpectedly, after having heard Job's story, Silas had found the lad to be quite a versatile partner in love-play. The older man could still feel a tender ache that lingered deep in his vitals, a tingling reminder of the deep, expert fucking he had received from Job's more-than-ample cock early that morning.

'It's a good thing I brought plenty of that Elxa grease with me... ' Silas thought.

"You ain't tired, are you?"

"No," Silas lied, glancing around before pointing. "Lean up against that tree there... "

'Can't let this young rabbit know he's plumb tuckered me out... ' the heron man thought as he knelt before Job.

Silas' fingers moved deftly, popping buttons and opening the fly. The prospector reached in and carefully worked the rosy-pink, rubbery bulk of Job's oversized genitals out of the faded denim that scarcely managed to restrain them. Cradling the fat testicles in one hand, Silas inhaled Job's musk and nuzzled his companion's impressive cock. Already it was plump and heavy with anticipation.

Silas' expert ministrations helped Job along. Soon the lad's magnificent tool was standing high and proud in the cool woodland shadows. Silas had to draw back and pause for a moment, just to admire it.

"Damn if that ain't the purdiest sight... "

Feeling Job's hands behind his head, gently urging, Silas went back to work. Job let his head fall back, panting as his sex throbbed under caressing fingers, was hot against moist lips and hotter tongue... The miracle tongue... Drawing Job in, deep into the center of a world of liquid friction, rapt with glorious warmth and sweet slickness moving achingly, unendingly...

"Silas... heron-man... " Job murmured dreamily, giving himself over to the delicious pleasure, the awesome beauty of the act...

"That's strange."

Bill Axford murmured those words unconsciously as he scanned the ground ahead of him, frowning in puzzlement. This was wild, unpopulated country he was riding through, so the chances of bumping into anyone else were rather slim. Yet he had come across unmistakable signs of a trail headed in the same general direction he was, towards the valley of the heron.

He dismounted to inspect the spoor more closely and saw the marks of shod hooves in the earth. That meant white men, two of them it seemed, but something about the tracks still struck Bill as being wrong somehow. Then suddenly he saw it.

'Those two weren't ridin' together,' he realized. 'One track is a couple of days older than the other... '

Cautiously following the tracks, Bill soon came to a deserted camp. To his eyes it looked well lived in, as if the occupant had stayed there for more than a single day. It certainly was a disgusting sight.

His eyebrows arched in surprise when he saw the trash left scattered about. Empty tin cans and the butts of store bought cigarettes littered the clearing, testifying to someone's expensive tastes and slovenly habits. Displeasure curling his lips, Bill knelt by the firepit and felt the barest trace of warmth still coming from the ashes.

'Left this morning,' Bill thought. 'Now why would some rich tinhorn be trampin' through this neck of the woods, followin' that old trail? Whoever he was, he sure is a pig!'

After looking around a little more, Bill set to work cleaning up the spot. He dug a hole to bury the cans and butts and poured some water on the remains of the campfire to make sure it was out. As he worked, he thought and by the time he had finished, his plans were set. Not wishing to meet up with the tinhorn, Bill spurred his horse up and over the next ridge to the west, knowing the more direct route would put him ahead of whoever had left the messy camp.

The moment he reached the top of the ridge, Bill was startled by the sound of a gunshot. Instinctively, his hand went to the gun at his hip and he looked in the direction of the noise. He saw three figures standing perhaps a couple of hundred yards away from his position, to the north.

None of the trio had seen Bill because all were standing with their backs to him. The eldest, a black haired man who appeared to be about the same age as Bill, was looking away, apparently at whatever he had just shot. Two boys were yelling and jumping by his side, and Bill caught their excited words.

"You got him, paw!"

"What a shot!"

Bill nudged his mount into a walk, towards the group. As he hoped, the jangling of his horse's harness alerted them to his approach. The boys pointed and exclaimed, while their father calmly turned to face the stranger's approach. Bill noted the way he held his rifle, not threateningly, but the way he had seen the soldiers at Fort Seward do, in a manner that left them ready for anything.

"Hello," the man smiled companionably through a thick black beard as Bill stopped his horse.

Bill's eyebrows raised when he heard the word the man had spoken. It had been uttered in the tongue the heron men used. His eyes darted to the man's neck and spotted a familiar, unique pendant worn there.

"Hello," he returned in the same tongue, trying to remember what his friend Tolatil had taught him the previous autumn. "It looks like you had good luck hunting."

The rifleman laughed.

"What?" Bill asked, switching back to English.

"You said: 'It looks like you're nice hunters'!"

"Well, I'm out of practice speakin' Elxa. I've spent the past winter in Maury City."

"You know about the tribe?"

"I'm a member." Bill reached up to his throat and yanked on the rawhide cord there, causing his glyphstone to pop out and settle on his shirtfront. "My tribal name's Il-Xochitl."

"Oh, yes! 'Flower-of-autumn'! I've heard of you. I'm called Zarokoa... "

"Led-by-a-bear," Bill translated, hoping to redeem himself linguistically. "You can call me by my regular name if you like. It's Bill Axford."

"Pleased to meet you, Bill. I'm Bern Cruzet. These are two of my sons, Jael and Joel. Say hello, boys, Bill here is a heron man, just like me and Caleb and Wiscoup'a." The boys obeyed and Bill went on. "Our cabin isn't too far from here. You're welcome to come over and visit if you'd like."

"I'd like that a lot, Bern, but I've had a medicine dream that directed me to get to the valley of the heron as soon as I could."

"I understand. If I hadn't obeyed the medicine dreams I had last winter, I wouldn't have my sons," Bern replied, reaching out to hug his boys to his sides.

Bill wondered what Bern meant. The boys were black haired and blue eyed, just like Bern. He had assumed they were his biological sons, but was not sure after hearing Bern's words. Bill let it go, knowing he did not have time to ask questions about things that were none of his concern.

"I'll keep you invitation in mind, Bern. I didn't know any heron men lived this far north."

"Well, it's a long story about how we ended up here. I'll be happy to tell it to you when we have the time."

"Okay then," Bill said, taking hold of his reins. "Oh! I almost forgot."

"What?"

Bill told Bern about the trail he had found, making the man frown.

"Thanks for the warnin'. I'll tell my pardners to keep a sharp lookout for strangers. The one that left that camp you found sure don't sound like he's one of us."

"I agree," Bill returned as he urged his horse around. "I was hopin' to get ahead of him by headin' directly over these ridges," he pointed. "The trail I was followin' tended in that direction, so I hoped by goin' directly this way to pick it up again, that is, if I'm not too far off my reckonin'."

"You're not," Bern pointed also. "Keep headin' thataway and you'll find it again. We use that trail when we go to Roman Rock."

"Thanks Bern."

"Ah, about your medicine dreams, are they predictin' trouble?"

"No, but I was told something important was gonna happen soon, though I wasn't told what it was gonna be. I got the impression it had something to do with two heron men I haven't met yet. In the dream, I saw them in a camp together, somewhere on lower Heron Creek, I believe."

"Oh."

"Why? Have you seen trouble?"

"Yes," Bern began, switching back to the Elxa dialect, "but I do not want to scare the boys. Besides, the warnings are vague, about something bad to the southeast, headed our way. My pardners and I were considering making the trip to Roman Rock ourselves, to speak with Tlaccotan about our dreams."

"What is it, paw?" asked Joel.

"Aw, he's talkin' Injun again so we won't understand!" Jael grumped.

"Then mebbe you oughta learn Elxa!" smiled Bill before looking at Bern again. "I'll keep what you said in mind, Bern, and I'll be seein' you."

"I look forward to it," grinned Bern as Bill rode off. He and the boys waved goodbye.

"Well," Bern said, turning to his sons, "that buck I shot ain't gonna get up and walk back to our cabin on it's own! Let's go and get it."

Felix Amante pushed open the doors of his stable in False Pass, letting the new sunlight flood inside and wash the lingering shadows of night away. He paused in the doorway, clad only in his boots and a pair of jeans, taking a deep breath of the clean mountain air and ruffling the fine black hair on his chest. Then he spotted a lone rider who appeared at the far end of the short and dusty main street of the town. Felix studied him as he approached.

He was of medium height and build, with light brown hair and a full beard that was slightly darker. As he reined in his stallion before the stable, Felix looked into the rider's eyes and was surprised by them. They were a light gray, a color Felix had never seen in any other person's eyes before.

"G'morning," the rider drawled. After looking the handsome Hispanic over with an apprising eye, he noticed the small engraved stone pendant lying against the stablemaster's finely furred chest.

"Buenos dias, amigo. Can I help you?"

"Yes," he replied, swinging off his horse. "I need to find a man named Robert Vaughn. I understand he's the Marshall here. Oh, and some breakfast for my horse."

"No problem," Felix said as he took the horse's reins. "Robert is our Jefe, our town sentinel." He pointed across the narrow street. "You'll find him in the saloon eating breakfast, most likely."

"Thank you kindly, er... What's your name?"

"Felix."

"I'm Lou."

They gripped hands.

"Your message, is it any trouble?"

Lou hesitated only a moment. If Felix had not been wearing an Elxa glyphstone, his instinct would have been to brush the question aside. But by then he was getting used to being open with anyone who wore that emblem.

"No, no trouble. I just have a message for him, from Chris Barlow."

"Ah! He will be happy to hear from his partner."

Lou nodded and turned to go towards the saloon, noting that it was the only such establishment in the town. A small part of him had winced when he was reminded that Chris already had a partner. Lou sighed to himself as he remembered the superlative sex they had shared and enjoyed, last night, and early the next morning.

Chris had turned the tables on him, that morning. He had mounted Lou and ridden him good and hard as dawn brightened the sky. Lou's hand moved to brush the seat of his jeans as he walked, still feeling an afterglow of sweet aching in his backside.

Lou found himself hoping Robert knew what a good man Chris was and how lucky he was to have him. And that thought, the kindly - loving? - interest he took in Chris's happiness, was a new sensation. It felt good, quite good, so Lou let it be and just enjoyed it.

As he approached the saloon, which also purported to offer rooms and baths to the public, Lou took a moment to regard the sign hanging out front. The Trail's End. Lou smiled to himself.

'Not yet,' he thought, 'not for me.'

"Howdy," the bartender greeted Lou as he pushed his way through the batwing doors.

"Mornin'," Lou returned. The stocky man behind the bar looked to be in his late thirties.

"What'll you have?"

"You got beer?"

"Yep, the best in these here parts."

"That's because it's the only beer in these here parts."

The words came as an amused snort from somewhere behind Lou. Lou turned and saw two men sitting at a table, having breakfast. One was of medium height with a compact build, his hair was black and a long beard adorned his face.

The other was the same height as Lou, lean, with chestnut colored hair. His blue eyes gazed out of a clean-shaven, weather-beaten face. The way they met Lou's, the position of his body, all spoke of his confidence and ready strength.

'That must be Robert,' Lou thought. 'Good lookin' cuss... '

"Hey, mister, you wanna bath?"

Lou turned back to the bar and saw a Chinese youth. The lad looked to be in his early teens. Lou shook his head.

"Sorry, son, but I don't have the time. I only stopped here to relay a message."

"Well, next time then. You just ask for Lo, that's me. I give good baths. And my friend Alex too," he said pointing. Lou looked and saw a black youth of about the same age, sweeping the floor nearby. "We'll wash you good, all over!" Lo winked.

"I'll keep that in mind," smiled Lou, thinking he understood that there was more than cleanliness involved in the kind of baths Lo and Alex offered.

"Here you go, cowboy," the bartender said as he set a foaming mug before Lou. Lou noted how he had pointedly ignored the earlier comment from the nearby table. "By the way, my name's Matt... "

"Tell him what the locals call you around here, Matt."

Lou saw then that it was the bearded man who spoke. Lou realized he was also the one who had spoken before. The bartender picked up a towel and started to industriously wipe down the bar, although it did not seem to need it as far as Lou could see.

"You ignorin' me, 'Eight Dollar Jack'?"

"Yep. But that'll change if you keep up the sass!"

"How about you, stranger?" he asked Lou.

"No, I'm not ignorin' you at all."

"Just get into town?"

"Yes. I'm lookin' for the El Jefe, Robert Vaughn."

"I'm him," the other man at the table responded.

"I kinda thought it was you," Lou said, stepping over to the table and handing the clean-shaven man a folded piece of paper. "I was asked to deliver this to you."

"Thanks," Robert said, opening the note.

"Have a seat," the sheriff's companion invited.

"Thanks. My name's Lou."

"I'm Mel, you just met Robert, and our bartender, Eight Dollar Jack."

"I was under the impression his name was Matt."

"It is, but Eight Dollar Jack's a more descriptive name, indicative of one of his, er, personal characteristics."

"You mean he's a big man, where it counts?" Lou ventured boldly.

Lou already suspected Mel was a heron man since he was breakfasting with Robert. Chris had told him his lover Robert was an elder in the Elxa tribe, a blood brother of Falling Star. So Lou figured a little risque talk in that place was okay.

"Yep. He can knock eight silver dollars off the bar with his... "

"Hush, Mel. Lou?"

Mel trailed off, seeing the serious look in Robert's eyes. The two men turned to the sentinel. He spoke to Lou softly.

"Have you read this?"

"Of course not. I don't read other people's mail!"

"Well, Chris speaks highly of you. Are you goin' up to the valley of the heron, like he says?"

"Yes."

"Well, Mel here was leavin' to go there today. Maybe you could travel with him."

"I've got no objections to that," Mel spoke up at once. "I kinda figured on hittin' the trail after I'd finished breakfast, but if you need some time to get ready... "

"No, all I need is something to eat myself and I'll be ready to go."

"Hey Ralph," the Jefe called. "Another plate of eggs and sausage over here."

Lou looked and saw the person Robert had spoken to, a dark haired youth with watery blue eyes who looked to be about eighteen. Ralph nodded in understanding and went into the kitchen. Robert leaned over and whispered.

"Ralph is Matt's pardner."

"Oh," Lou replied.

"While we're waitin'," Robert began, "let me read you part of the note from Chris."

My soul, Dry and empty Like a summer arroyo...

Come my love, Bring your passion Like a desert thunderstorm...

Take me, Fill me, Overwhelm me...

"I didn't know Chris was a poet." Lou began.

"All Elxa tribesmen are poets," Mel stated. "You'll be singin' songs like that to some lucky stud before too long."

Lou's breakfast arrived just then, saving him from having to respond. He felt a bit embarrassed and dug into the meal to conceal it. It was quite tasty, compared to meals he had eaten in other saloons.

Lou soon had cleaned his plate. He washed it down with the beer, which he had to admit was as good or better than what he was used to. He put his hand in his pocket, fingering some coins.

"How much do I owe?"

"Nothing. I'll treat you."

"You don't have to... "

"Forget it. Well, you wanna get your horse and meet me back here in a few minutes? We're burnin' daylight, as they say."

"Okay."

"Lou?" Robert asked.

"Yes?"

"Thanks again."

"When you see Chris, give him this from me," Lou said, boldly planting a kiss on Robert's thin lips.

"I promise you, he'll get it back, with interest," the sheriff said, smiling beatifically.

"Why do we have to avoid Douglas City?"

Zeb asked that as the three travelers left the trail, following Trev as he struck out to the northward. Trev had explained earlier that he was going to skirt around the town. But the reason was still unclear to his companions.

"Well, there's some there who know a little about the heron men and they ain't very friendly towards us, especially one rabble rouser by the name of Peterson. We've found it's better not to go anywhere near Douglas City, if we can help it."

"You know any more heron men out this way?" Eric asked.

"Yes," Trev answered, glancing at the angle of the sun. "We ought to reach Chris Barlow's cabin, just outside of False Pass, by nightfall."

"This trip's been a lot easier than I imagined."

"And more enjoyable for you, eh, Trev?" Zeb added.

"It has at that," he admitted. "And I ain't even fooled around with you two yet."

Eric glanced at Zeb who returned his gaze. Their faces were both holding questioning expressions. Trev waved his hand in the air, a casual gesture.

"It's for you two to decide. But I'd be a liar if I said I hadn't thought about the possibility."

"Here we are," Silas announced, as his and Job's horses moved into a stump-ridden field.

Job studied his companion's cabin. It was a modest structure, built up against the south face of a huge boulder. On the east side there was a new corral. The recently split wood railings that defined it stood gleaming whitely in the sunlight.

On the west side, a pile of stone and some logs had been laid out. As they approached, he could see stakes driven into the ground and string marking off straight lines. Job pointed at it.

"What's that gonna be?"

"A barn, we hope," Silas grunted, swinging down from Jeb. Job's eyes narrowed.

"Who's we?" Job asked suspiciously, leading Alice to the corral, a few steps behind Silas and Jeb.

"Me and Will Dern, my pardner." As Silas spoke he opened the gate, led Jeb inside and began to unsaddle him.

"You got a pardner?" Job frowned in irritation as he followed suit.

"Yeah, he's gone to Port Bolon for supplies. I don't expect him back for a month, at least."

"That's convenient," Job said flatly, hefting the saddle off Alice and plopping it next to Silas' gear outside the corral. "What's he gonna say when he hears about me?"

"Whatcha mean... " Silas asked, turning to his companion as he closed the gate. His words trailed off as soon as he saw the unexpected glint of anger in the young man's eyes.

"You know damn well what I mean, Silas! He'll kick up a fuss, and I'll have to go. Hell, I might as well get now, no reason to stay here and wait for it... "

"Job," Silas sighed as he reached out to grasp the lad's shoulders, "it's not whatcha think."

"Oh?" Job grumbled, trying to shrug off his companion's hands. Silas held on resolutely.

"You're not a heron man yet, so I can't expect you to understand how things work around here. So please, just try to believe me when I say no one's gonna be upset about you and me, not even Will. And you can stay on here with us as long as you like."

A pained expression passed across Job's face. The instincts for self-preservation he had developed while working for Mueller were warring with his recently acquired trust in Silas. When Job did not respond right away, Silas went on.

"You remember last night?"

"Hell yes, I remember it!" Job muttered. "Tain't likely to ever forget it as long as I live!"

"You was givin' all you had, weren't you?"

"Yeah!"

"Was I holdin' back any? Like I was thinkin' of somebody else?"

"No... " Job responded. "No, you weren't... "

"That's the Way of the Heron, Job. All your life, you've been surrounded by people like Mueller, taught to hold back, deny love and not trust your feelin's. So was I... "

Silas paused and gathered his thoughts.

"Think of a man who needs glasses to see. To him the world's a blur, so he'll try different glasses until he finds a pair that lets him get around with the least amount of stumblin'. That sound reasonable?"

"Yeah."

"Well, the world's a blur to children, so their elders teach them things, try to fit 'em with glasses, so to speak, so they can see the world and make their way in it without too much trouble. Problem is, too often, those glasses are 'one size fits all' and for men like you and me, they make seein' worse. So we either stumble along blindly, spendin' most of our time in the dirt like Mueller, or we make our own glasses that work for us, so we can see the way that's right for us and live life in our own unique way, not seein' and livin' in ways that other people who ain't like us think we oughta."

"And Will?"

"When my pardner meets you, he won't see you as a rival. I promise you, he'll be seein' a new little brother, and I'm sure he'll love you as much as I do, Job."

"You... love me?"

"Whatcha think I've been doin' since we met?" Silas chuckled. Then he paused and grew more serious. "Job, you don't think I'm just foolin' with you, do you?"

"No, Silas, you're a heron man. like Bill, and Bill told me and Leroy we could always trust any man who wore that sign," Job said, pointing at his companion's glyphstone. "It's just hard... after what Mueller did to me... "

"I can imagine, Job. And of course it's hard for you to trust folks again after something like that. But I ain't gonna hurt you or lie to you. I just want you to be happy and understand what the heron men are all about."

"I think I can see it, a little," Job admitted. "But you talk like you feel sorry for Mueller."

"I do."

"Even after I told you what he's done to me?!"

"I don't condone what he did, Job, not one bit, I just mean to say I understand why he's the way he is."

"Silas... I'm... I'm sorry I cussed at you, earlier. I was mad and didn't think... "

"It's okay, Job... "

Silas reached out, pulling Job to him and they hugged. For a few moments, a blank contentment reigned. Then Silas felt a familiar, long warmth swelling, pressing insistently against his inner thigh. He drew back so he could look Job in the face.

"Again?"

Job grinned and nodded.

"C'mon... " Silas sighed, leading his young companion into the cabin.

Having left the Umpqua, Tasokah picked his way along the banks of lower Heron Creek. At some points along the way, the riverbanks narrowed and vanished into sheer canyons of moss-covered rock, forcing Tasokah to strike out away into the forest in an arcing track that eventually brought him back to join the stream again. The sun had already declined somewhat from its zenith when he heard a dulcet sound, the thin, high music of a flute.

Tasokah had heard that tune many times before. It was the song of the heron, a medicine song of his tribe. But there was something else, something deeper, more profound, about this performance.

He puzzled about it briefly. Then Tasokah realized there were two flutes playing together. The instruments produced an auletic duet that deeply stirred his soul.

He slowed as he rounded a bend in the stream and saw two men. Tasokah recognized one of his heron brothers, Mayati, at once. But the other man sitting nearby was a stranger to him.

Mayati's handsome companion was of a race unknown to Tasokah, dark-haired and lightly bearded, with strange almond-shaped eyes that fairly blazed an icy blue. Evidently he was the man whom Falling Star had sent Tasokah to find. The heron man paused in mild surprise, taking in more of an unexpectedly beautiful and erotic sight.

The pair of musicians were naked, sitting on closely adjacent humps of dark stone that jutted up out of the green waters. Above them, an enormous, overhanging myrtle shaded them, its delicately fragrant foliage waving in the breeze, scenting it. Sunlight falling through the moving leaves dappled the men's bodies in ever changing patterns of light and shadow.

Tasokah saw that their cocks were erect as they concentrated on making music to one another, as if making love in a novel, intangible way. The pair had not seen Tasokah yet, and he hesitated to reveal himself, wondering what to do. He did not wish to disturb them, but wanted to understand what they were doing, why their music touched him so deeply.

The haunting music made his spirit ache sweetly and his body responded to the unusual stimulus. He was aroused by the sight as well as the sound, and set his pack down before pulling his loincloth off. He leaned back against the bole of a huge tree where he could covertly watch the pair and stroke his hard cock, utterly at ease, allowing himself to be possessed by the mysterious power carried by the song.

As his excitement mounted, Tasokah felt a new sensation, as if the notes of the music were striking his man-loving male heart, playing it, making it sing its own song of love and power, tapping into the very source of his life, a pure, immaculate, loving radiance. Tasokah could not understand what was happening to him, but his instincts told him it was good and right. He relaxed into it, letting the benevolent power flow through him, trustingly surrendering to it.

Each note of the duet seemed to caress his body like leaves falling on a still pond. Expanding waves of a subtle, aethereal energy emanated from his body with each touch of the music, pulses of a force invisible and seeking, searching lovingly for other man-loving male hearts like his own. Tasokah knew somehow that he was broadcasting his love, sending it forth as a call and a caress to his brothers

He made love to the song as much as to himself, and felt the old, familiar, exciting warmth growing within him. Even as his orgasm approached, the power in the music seemed to understand and crouch, readying itself to spring. Tasokah came.

Before this, the ripples of energy coming from his heart had been gentle and small. But Tasokah's orgasm caused something that felt like a nova in his heart, and a vastly stronger wave of love energy burst outwards from him, expanding away to seek out others of his nature. It was so strong, so beautiful, so indescribable...

"Tlaccotan."

The Elxa elder looked up from the simmering kettle he was presiding over. His lover Greg Walsh looked up as well, from his seat nearby where he was cutting up vegetables. The pair had volunteered to prepare the evening meal that day for the men at Roman Rock.

"Yes, Katchikoa?"

"I want to ask your advice."

Katchikoa's eyes flickered to Greg and back again to Tlaccotan. Greg noticed. He put down his knife.

"I'll leave if you wish to speak privately."

"No, Tavani, that is not necessary."

'I ain't never seen Katchikoa like this before,' Greg thought, his eyes idly tracing a pale scar that snaked across the dark skin of the Elxa brave's left shoulder, 'almost like something really bad is botherin' him.'

"I have had a strange dream," began Katchikoa, "and I think I know what I must do, but perhaps your wisdom can make my path clearer."

"What did you see?" Tlaccotan asked.

"I saw a strange violet flower, blooming out of season near the cabin of Fire Wolf and Southwind. Then I heard the sound of thunder and saw a vile demon casting nets, trying to snare a small yellow bird. I feel the spirits that guide our tribe want me to go there."

"I agree. It was a powerful dream. You must go at once. Take my horse, he is the fastest in the camp."

"I will take good care of him."

"And you," Tlaccotan said, touching Katchikoa's cheek lightly, "take care to return to us safely... "

All three men were suddenly distracted and glanced to the west, as if they had heard a sound from that direction. Except that there had been no sound. Not an ordinary one, that ears could detect, but a more subtle call, to their man-loving male hearts...

"What the..." Greg began.

None of them could say exactly what it was they had felt. And before Katchikoa's departure, others approached Tlaccotan, seeking the Elxa elder's opinion of the odd occurrence. Greg saw how perplexed his fellow tribesmen were, and wondered.

'Everybody here in Roman Rock felt it,' he realized.

Goody Ormonde paused as a puzzled look crossed his face. A strange sensation had come over him while he worked deep underground, digging in a side shaft of the mine his father had built to get at a large vein of silver ore, in a canyon near Horn Creek. He put down his pick and went back to the main gallery and called out.

"Pop?"

"Yes, Goody?" a distant sounding voice called back.

"Did you call me?"

"No."

"Did Gabe?"

"No, son, he went to town, remember? Anything wrong?"

"I thought I heard something," Goody answered as he turned to go back to work.

"That's funny," he heard his father reply, "I thought I heard you callin' to me!"

'Damn, that's strange!' Goody thought as he hefted his pick again. 'I coulda sworn I heard someone calling to me. And it felt like someone who loved me!'

Zack Weir was kneeling beside the pond near the cabin he shared with his partner, Eben Hale. He had been engaged in washing some clothes. Abruptly, he paused in his task. Unbending from his crouch over the washboard, Zack cocked his head, listening.

At first he thought he had caught the sound of Eben's footfalls, and thought he was returning early from a visit to Roman Rock. The sound he had heard - or did he feel it in his heart? - made him think of his lover, the way he smiled, the feel of his skin... It had summoned all the love Zack held for Eben forth, taken strength from those tender feelings, then rebounded away with renewed vigor, stronger than before, seeking more man-loving male hearts like Zack's to touch.

"What in the heck was that?" he wondered.

Phil sat up, suddenly awake and alert. All was quiet in his forest camp. The sunlight filtering down through the trees was cool on his bare skin.

He looked over at his lover. Mark continued to sleep next to Phil, a satisfied smile faintly shadowing the dark haired man's lips. He had been done in by an afternoon of frenetic lovemaking.

"Mark... " the trapper whispered over the body of his lover.

Mark's cock and balls lay sprawled limply across one thigh. Moving carefully, so as not to wake his lover, Phil leaned down to kiss the pale length of soft flesh lightly. He smiled and breathed.

...around the air, through boughs of laurel and fir, cool waters sound and from the rustling green, sleep seems to drip to the ground...

"A bit of paraphrased Sappho for your dreams, my beloved friend," Phil murmured, before bestowing another kiss.

For a time thereafter, Phil just sat there and listened. He was not sure what he was listening for, but he listened anyway. As he did, he pondered the nature of the matchless sensation that had awakened him.

'Music... or a loving touch... or was it both?'

Bill paused in his trek. Again he swung down from his horse to study the ground. The tracks he saw there seemed different somehow.

'Are these the ones I crossed before?' he thought, scratching his beard. 'Sure don't look like it... These are two shod horses ridin' together. Due west.'

The man frowned to himself.

'I know I'm ahead of that tinhorn by now. Sure hope I don't run into him.'

He straightened up and squinted at the angle of the sun.

'Plenty of light left. I oughta use it to get as far south as I can today.'

Bill looked back at the ground.

'I've got a funny feelin' about them tracks, but Leroy told me to get to the valley of the heron, pronto.'

The memory of last night sent a thrill up his spine. Bill jumped back in the saddle and spurred off, heading south. He had not gone far when he heard... or felt... something.

Bill was instantly aware of a presence, like someone was nearby. Though he did not feel threatened, he fingered the handle of his gun instinctively as his eyes searched the surrounding forest. But he saw nothing and eventually continued on his way, not knowing what to think of the odd occurrence.

A dark-haired man looked up, and took in his surroundings. Besides the animals, there was nobody in the stable except him and Lars. The handsome blacksmith was hammering, loudly but carefully, forging a large pair of hinges for a barn door.

"You hear something, Lars?" he called.

"Are you kiddin', Hiram? The world could come to an end and I'd never hear it over the sound of my hammer! Still... " Lars' voice trailed off and his face became thoughtful.

"What?"

"Now that you mention it, there was something here a moment ago. It felt like it does when you touch me, gently... "

Their eyes met. Hiram cleared his throat nervously and returned to pitching a bed of clean hay into one of the stalls. As Lars' hammer sounded again, Hiram decided he had to tell the blacksmith how he felt about him, after closing time. Lars thought as he worked, wondering about the odd dream he had recently had. A red haired man who spoke a language that sounded like what his parents spoke, Swedish, had come to Lars. Lars knew enough to figure out the man's name was Ulf, but not much more. He wondered if it were a medicine dream and if he should talk to Hiram about it as his hammer rose and fell with a steady rhythm.

"...so there I was in this bar... "

Mel was regaling Lou with a story about himself as they rode. But suddenly he fell quiet and looked around himself as if searching for something. Lou waited in puzzlement.

"Lou?"

"What, Mel?"

"You just hear something?"

"No, can't say that I did."

The travelers continued their journey to Roman Rock in silence for a little while. Mel cocked his head, listening for some time with a thoughtful look on his face before eventually resuming his tale. Lou wondered briefly what had disturbed him; he had seen, heard nor felt anything. Then Lou's eyes fell to the seat of his companion's faded jeans cradled in the saddle and fell to contemplating the possibilities the coming night might hold.

Mueller stood looking over a small clearing he had come to. Patches of flattened grass, a cold firepit within a carefully laid circle of stones, the prints of shod hooves stamped into the earth, all these told him Job had been there. But not alone. As Mueller wondered who the runaway had met up with in what he thought was uninhabited wilderness, something touched him.

"Ow!"

Mueller's hand shot to his head as a sudden pain stabbed tormentingly. As the hurt receded, old rage came back to take its place. Black, bitter, devouring everything, even itself.

'Job,' he thought, fingering a wickedly sharp knife, 'I swear you're gonna feel a hundred times worse than me when I catch up with you... '

Yves Rebour was working in his shop, patiently shaping yew boughs into bows. His old fingers seemed to move of their own accord, so practiced were their movements from years of work. He had reached for a tool he needed when he felt a gentle, inward touch, a knock at his man-loving male heart.

As if in a cascading kaleidoscope of images, Yves relived his life with his lover, Dan Epps. Over forty years of tenderness and conflict, good times and trying times. The experience left him with a deep sense of gratitude toward whatever had come to him, reminding him of the great debt he owed his lover.

"Yves?" a voice outside the workshop called, a few seconds later.

"Oui?" he answered as the door opened, framing Dan's form.

"Did you feel something?" Dan asked as his eyes searched Yves's anxiously.

"Oui, my love," he replied. "It was wonderful... "

Dan spoke no more, but moved to embrace his partner of many years. Lips touched and hands moved in old, but still sweet rhythms. Their man-loving male hearts sang, and the mysterious power took that wordless song's unmatched virtue with it as it fared onward, seeking for more men of their nature...

A seabreeze blew fresh and salt-clean through a campsite near the town of Port Bolon. The two men who resided there were talking quietly. The language they spoke was the tongue of the Elxa tribe.

"Did the trading go well today, Southwind?"

"Yes, grandfather. We nearly have everything we came for."

Red Hand smiled serenely and let his gaze stray towards the ocean. Will noticed and glanced in the same direction. The undulating sea presented an ever-changing vista.

"Are you thinking of the wise one you told me about?" Will asked, as he turned his attention back to tightly binding up a bundle of goods for the trip back.

"Yes, I am," Red Hand smiled at Will, approval writ on his face. "You are deepening into the Way of the Heron, Southwind."

Will started to speak, but was stopped by a new sensation. He felt something inside of him leap for joy, strike sparks from his heart, and then flash away. He knew it was looking for other men of his nature to touch in that same blissful way. Red Hand's visage changed, he gasped quietly. But soon his eyes became grave. They told Will at once that the heron elder had experienced the same sublime sensation.

"We must return to the valley of the heron immediately."

"What..." began Will, so surprised he lapsed back into English.

"It was his power we just felt," Red Hand explained, rising to help his companion begin to pack for the journey back. "The power wielded by the man whose coming was foreseen by Falling Star, the wise one from across the sea."

At almost the exact same time, not so far away in Port Bolon, in the office of the Oceanic Bank of Oregon, Mike O'Reilly looked up from the ledger he was writing in. He glanced around himself questioningly, wondering what he had just felt, so much like the sensations Richard made him feel. He wondered again at his love for the older man, and the way Richard returned it, as the door to Richard's office opened.

"Mike?"

"Yes, Mr. Ardley... I mean Richard?" Mike smiled.

"That's more like it," Richard smiled back. Since they were alone, Richard came over and placed his hands on Mike's shoulders. "Did you call me?"

"No... in fact, I just thought you called me! Funny thing, though. Now that I think of it, it was more like a touch... "

"Like this?" whispered Richard as he stroked Mike's shoulders.

"I love you," Mike sighed.

"I love you," returned the banker, lowering his head so they could share a kiss.

"You say something, Chris?"

Robert Vaughn called to his lover softly. They were alone in Chris Barlow's cabin, a little ways outside of False Pass, wearing only their jeans, taking a break from a earlier bout of lovemaking. Chris stood before his stove, checking the progress of a stew he was making for their supper.

"No," Chris replied over his shoulder. "But... I just thought I heard something too."

"What did it sound like to you?" the jefe asked, his eyes straying out the window across from the table where he sat at. There was nothing, no one to be seen on the rough road that passed by Chris' home.

"It's funny, but it seemed like I felt it more than I heard it."

"Yeah, me too."

Robert got up and walked over to his lover. Embracing Chris from behind, he ground his crotch into the other man's backside. Chris sighed, feeling the hairy chest rasp the skin of his back, listening to Robert's low whisper.

You told me once I was the first To ever ride in your saddle... It moved me to tears It still does... Every time with you Is always like the first time, like finding you anew...

Chris turned and they kissed passionately. Taking Robert's hand, he led the way back to his bed. The men tossed aside their pants and fell into the wide bunk together, striving to touch at all points, consumed by their fiery desire...

Trev's ears suddenly perked up and he looked around, peering into the shadowy woods around him. Eric and Zeb were trailing along behind Trev, talking quietly as they rode along the forest trail that bypassed Douglas City. Except for them and the pack mule, there seemed to be no one else in sight. He shook his head in uncertainty as he muttered to himself.

"I coulda sworn I heard music... "

"Trev?"

"Yes, Zeb?"

"You hear something?"

"I dunno. I thought I did."

"So did we."

Woody Quade glanced up when he heard someone enter the general store he helped run in False Pass. He smiled at the dark-haired young man who approached the counter. Putting down the newspaper he was reading, Woody greeted him.

"Hello, Ralph."

"Hi, Woody," he began. "Did those glass mugs that Matt ordered come in yet?"

"I believe so. Didn't he order a couple of cases of whiskey too?"

"Yeah, I... "

Ralph was interrupted by the sound of another person entering the store. Both men looked to see a green-eyed young man with light brown hair and a short beard. He smiled at the men as he approached them.

"Hi, Woody, Ralph."

"Hi, Gabe," Ralph answered.

"What can I do for you?" asked Woody.

"Dad sent me to see if those supplies he ordered had come in."

"I'll check."

"How's George and your brother Goody doing?" Ralph inquired, as Woody went to the back of the store and had a few words with his partner. Dusty Laird came forward to place a box behind the counter as Gabe answered.

"We're all doin' fine," smiled Gabe.

"Will we see you at the bar again this weekend?"

"Sure," Gabe grinned, thinking of the fun he had had with some of the men who patronized the Trail's End. He, his father and his brother were all inclined towards the kinds of recreations False Pass had to offer and had availed themselves of them often since moving onto a piece of land to the east of the town, on Horn Creek.

"How's the minin' comin'?" Dusty asked.

"Just fine," Gabe said as he dug into his pocket and placed a couple of silver ingots on the counter. The 'miner's bricks' were common currency in the west, made by miners who melted down their own ore. Dusty picked one up, hefting its weight as Gabe went on. "I hope that'll be enough to cover the bill."

"Feels like it," Dusty judged. "I'll let you know how much it's worth once I've had a chance to assay it. In the meantime, your order's in the back. I'll go help Woody to bring it out."

"Thanks. Dad's been... "

Gabe fell silent as all three men felt something pass through the building, touching their inner beings as it went. It felt like a lover's caress to their man-loving male hearts, evoking fond thoughts of their partners. The trio just stared at each other, unable to articulate whatever it was that they had just felt.

"Dusty?" another voice called, seconds before it's owner, Woody, appeared from the back room to confront the three nonplussed men. "What just happened?"

Don looked up from the ledgerbook he was working on. The lobby of the Bank of Grant was void of customers and there was only one other man within sight, a fellow clerk, sorting through a pile of receipts. Don frowned to himself, slightly perplexed.

'Now what the heck did I just feel?' he thought. 'If I didn't know better, I'd have guessed that Jeff was calling to me... '

On the other side of Grant, another man was stacking a shipment of flour, helping out a friend of his who ran a mercantile store. Fine dust sifting from the cloth sacks frosted his red-brown hair and beard. He put another bag in place and another gentle puff of whiteness stirred the air. Suddenly, he felt he was not alone.

Jeff froze as he sensed something different in the space all around himself. It was like a whisper to his heart, louder than a thousand voices. Or else, a gentle, loving touch, that made him think longingly of his partner, Don. The mysterious experience brought the memory of their most recent time together back to Jeff.

They had been at their pool, a widening in an isolated stream outside of town, the place where they had first met at. Two bodies coming together in the cool waters, the urgent need, the shattering release... Jeff shook his head, unable to believe that their initial meeting had occurred less than a month ago. Already he felt as if he had known Don for years.

'Don't know what that was,' he mused, returning to his task, 'but it sure felt awful nice... '

Silas paused in the midst of his task. He and Job were putting rocks into place, building a foundation for the future barn. Sweat beaded and dripped from his bare skin as he hefted and positioned the stones. They were working naked, a whim of Job's.

Something had touched the older man in a way he had never felt before. Or had it? In some way, it felt like Will touching him. In another, it was like hearing Mayati play the song of the heron in a way that caressed his body as well as his ears. He looked up suddenly. Job's puzzled face was turned towards Silas.

"You hear something?"

"I'm not sure," Job answered.

"I could swear... "

"What?"

"I thought I felt... music."

"You mean 'heard', not 'felt'," Job said, coming over and putting a hand on Silas' forehead in exaggerated concern. "Mebbe this wasn't such a good idea I had, us gettin' nekkid out here like this. You must be comin' over with sunstroke."

"And you gotta be careful about sunburn," returned Silas, taking the hand and kissing it.

"Ain't burnin' yet," Job judged, looking at his pink shoulders.

"We can take a break in the pond over yonder, if you've a mind to it."

"Sure."

"Say," Silas began as they walked toward the water, inspired by the way Job's impressive cock swung as he moved, "would you like to hear a poem?"

"A poem?"

"Heron men know many ways to make love. Singin' songs to each other is just one of 'em. Usually we make 'em up, but a friend of mine, Big Otter, told me one once that reminds me of you. He said it was written by an Arab whose nature was like ours, many centuries ago."

"Oh yeah?"

Silas cleared his throat and began to recite:

Elongated as a cloud, Drawn out by the wind... Ample as the curved side, Of a majestic jar...

Length of a man's forearm, or more, Glans like the head of a young pup... Worthy of all adoration, Massive, lustrous, robust and strong...

Superbly lively, And madly lustful... Behold! I am its pleasure-garden! Its owner holds the key to the gates!

Let it frolic in my being's center, Deep in the refuge I have prepared for it! Let it roam at leisure in the Hidden places of my delight!

Asleep, a coiled snake, Waiting to strike! Roused, a white sea, Of hot, drowning waves!

"Whew!" Job grinned, scratching his head. "You might have to explain some of them words to me, Silas."

"I can see a part of you that understands it good enough!" Silas smiled back, indicating the lad's rising cock.

"I can't help it!" laughed Job.

"Again?"

"Sure."

"C'mon... "

Bern Cruzet was mucking out a stall in the barn when he felt the odd, but loving touch. He looked up at the hayloft where his partner, Caleb Havre was making some repairs. Caleb's red bearded face appeared to look back down at Bern.

"Did you call me, Bern?"

"No, but I just felt something... "

"Me too, it was mighty odd, but really good at the same time... "

"Yeah, that's just what it felt like to me."

"I know what it was, my brothers."

Both men looked to see the third member of their triad, the native heron man, Wiscoup'a. The half masked man came nearer. His single eye shone bright with emotion.

"Falling Star spoke with me about his medicine dreams when I saw him last. He foresaw the coming of a new brother to us, a wise one who would discover a way to release the power of our man-loving male hearts. I believe it was his power we just felt... "

"Paw!"

Joel Cooke appeared at the entrance of the barn.

"What is it, son?" asked Bern.

"I just felt something funny, Jael and Jed too!"

"Come, son," Wiscoup'a murmured as he lifted Joel so that the boy could ride on his shoulders. "Let us go back to the house. I will try to explain it to you and your brothers."

Tolatil paddled evenly, rhythmically, gliding smoothly upriver. The muscles of his naked back danced beneath his skin as they worked. The green waters of lower Heron Creek fell languidly from his oar, dark, liquid emeralds flashing brilliantly in the strong, afternoon sun.

The heron man was returning to his home, having carried messages from Falling Star to the chiefs of the various coastal tribes. Some of their leaders had replied and Tolatil's small pack contained a number of their letters, the words painted in colored inks on rolled scraps of deerskin. Suddenly, he froze in mid-stroke.

The native looked around himself carefully, but saw only a pair of juvenile squirrels chasing one another in the tree branches overhanging the creek. He strained his ears, but all he heard was the distant, hoarse cry of a heron flying unseen somewhere overhead. The canoe lost its impetus and began to drift downstream. Tolatil wielded his paddle, making headway again, wondering as he did so.

'Something... a melody? a touch?... called to me, to my heart... or did it call to all hearts like mine? I must find out if any of my heron brothers felt it as well... '

North of the town of False Pass, an old trail followed the Umpqua into the valley of the heron. It was seldom used, being a longer way than another path that followed the Clearwater, but the Umpqua route had been selected for a new wagon road. Somewhere along that route, four tanned, breechclout clad heron men were busy clearing brush and marking trees for later removal. The Umpqua sparkled as it flowed past them. At the point where they currently worked, the proposed road was only a few paces from the south bank of the river.

The men's shared home was not far from where they worked. They had moved into the area several years earlier after joining the Elxa. At first they had lived in False Pass, with other prospectors like them. Later, they had found and worked a deposit of gold on a creek that flowed north into the Umpqua. The mine provided enough for them to build a home and live simply. They had also carved a small farm out of the forest along their creek and worked it in common. Life there, with their Elxa friends, was good.

"Where're you goin'?" a blonde haired and bearded man asked as one of his fellow workers, a big man, leaned his axe against a tree.

"I need a drink, Mike," he answered as he turned towards the river.

"I believe it is time for a break," another added as he ran a hand over his sweaty chest. He was the darkest of the four, a sign of the native blood he carried.

"You don't have to twist my arm, Tomas," the fourth, a short man showing a generous growth of red body fur returned with a smile as he laid his axe aside and kicked off his moccasins. "Only I want a swim!"

Soon all four had discarded their scanty garb and were in the water. After a bit of horseplay and swimming, they settled down on the sunny bank in pairs to dry off. The big man turned to his partner, the red haired man, and murmured quietly.

Deeper than this river, stronger too, my love ever flows always towards you...

"Rob... I love you... " the other replied softly.

As they kissed, something odd thrilled through their bodies, a dulcet wave, a gently caressing touch, a tender call to their inner man-loving spirits...

"What was that?" Rob asked, wide-eyed.

"Shane? Rob?" their companions called. "Did you just feel something?"

"Yes," Shane answered as the group sat up to look at each other.

They puzzled over the strange, but good, feeling for awhile. Having lived with the magic of the Elxa so long, all of them recognized the experience as one somehow connected with the mysteries of Way of the Heron. Before they went back to work, the four agreed to go into town that evening and ask Sheriff Vaughn about it. As an elder in the Elxa tribe, 'Chief Holy Irons' as some called him in fun, he might have an explanation for the momentary wonder they had all felt.

Crack!

Keen blade shining in the sun, arcing down...

Crack!

Swift, sharp, sure...

Crack!

Again...

Crack!

Wood split and fell. Zeke Barnet reached for a another piece. Abruptly he stopped stock still. Something that could not be denied or ignored - a subtle, wondrous, mirific mysterious force - was calling to him, whispering gently and sweetly to his man-loving heart...

"Asa?"

He straightened up and looked around as he spoke his lover's name. Zeke had been chopping wood by the stone and timber building that stood near the cave of mysteries. Except for the neatly stacked piles of firewood and the two horses that grazed peacefully in the nearby field, he was alone.

"I could have sworn I felt Asa's presence... " Zeke muttered softly. Then he remembered that Asa had forseen this, he, Zeke, chopping wood when a wave of love-energy touched him... "Ah... " he sighed.

Then a movement at the corner of Zeke's eye brought him around. Falling Star had emerged from his home and was standing naked at the jagged rock entrance of the cave of mysteries, gazing skyward, his face a mask of deep thoughtfulness. Zeke sighed at the sight of the hard, sun-touched body, the coppery skin, the long, shining hair, the thick-headed cock, hanging plump and low...

"The essence, the power of love... Summoned by the wise one... " the Elxa shaman murmured, as if he were whispering a secret in the ear of the turquoise sky above.

"Tasokah!" To the native heron man, the voice that came to him sounded at first as if it spoke from another world. But the urgent call resolved itself into something quite closer as it prodded him to full consciousness. "Tasokah! Tasokah, my brother, awaken!"

Tasokah opened his eyes. His wet body was cradled in Mayati's arms. The other man he had seen earlier, the stranger in whom oriental and caucasian features were blended handsomely, was squatting nearby, watching the two heron men intently.

"What... what happened?"

"You fainted," Mayati explained, concern plainly writ across his face. "We heard you cry out and then saw you fall into the river, like one stricken senseless."

"I came while listening to your music. But there was something else... something wonderful that touched my heart and overcame me. Did... did you feel it too?"

His two companions glanced at one another briefly. They knew exactly what Tasokah was talking about.

"Yes, we did," Hun Tzu said, looking steadily into Tasokah's eyes as he stood up. "It was beautiful beyond words."

"Please, may I hear it again?"

"Rest, my brother. And later we will play for you again," Mayati crooned.

"Never have I... I... I have no words for what I experienced."

"We have liberated that which lives in your heart, and in every other man-loving male heart. A pure essence of love, a numinous power incapable of description, attuned to our special inner natures." Hun Tzu attempted to explain.

"It was love... calling to my heart... yet somehow coming from my heart as well... " Tasokah whispered.

"A heart call," breathed Mayati.

"Yes," Hun Tzu agreed thoughtfully. "Yes."

"Come to our camp now and rest, Tasokah," urged Mayati, helping his fellow tribesman to his feet and retrieving his pack. "We will bring you food and drink so you will be strong when we play for you again."

While Mayati saw to Tasokah and made him comfortable, Hun Tzu wandered away from the camp. Climbing a bluff that overlooked Lower Heron Creek and the surrounding countryside, he paused awhile to admire the vista, before moving to open his sack. Soon he was holding the lo-pan out before himself, manipulating it.

He had hoped to find out when it would be best to attempt the Heart Call, as Mayati had named it, again. But as he turned the disc and eyed the alignments, he saw, once again, one of the obstacles he had seen before, but now it was more ominous. He looked away to the northeast, and then back at the occult tablet again, wondering.

"Shie-kwei?" he murmured, his momentary surprise causing him to lapse back into speaking Chinese.

"What did you say, my love?"

Hun Tzu's head spun around at the sound of the question. Mayati was standing nearby, regarding him with grave, black eyes. He marvelled at the handsome brave's stealth.

"It is perhaps nothing."

"Yet your eyes are troubled."

"If they are troubled, it is because they cannot see as well as I would like," began Hun Tzu as he put the lo-pan away. "I sensed something, a dark presence, an eldritch disturbance, to the northeast."

"What was it you called the thing? A 'shie-kwei'?"

"Yes. Perhaps I chose my words wrongly when I named it."

"Why? What does the word mean?"

"Evil spirit."

Hun Tzu sat down, a pensive look etched on his face. Silently, Mayati joined him. The Indian's hands reached, touched and pulled his companion's body close.

"There are no demons here, my love," he murmured, warm lips brushing Hun Tzu's ear voluptuously.

"Ah, but I see one already."

"Where?"

"Here," said Hun Tzu slyly, tracing a growing outline in the heron man's breechclout with the tip of one finger.

"Then you must exorcise him," Mayati smiled.

"I will," he said, cuddling closer to his friend. "My lips will hold him tight and my tongue will move, speaking silent spells that will draw forth his strong essence, vanquishing him - but only for a short time, I fear!"

Mayati smiled, sighed and spoke softly.

We lie on the cliff-top in a patch of sweet grass, above the warming sun, below the gleaming waters, between us, a love that warms and gleams while your eyes reveal secrets your lips cannot tell...

The men kissed and fell back into the tall, fragrant grass, giving themselves over to the desire that burned in them both.

When Tasokah awoke from his nap he looked out from the lean-to, expecting to see Hun Tzu or Mayati in the camp. Instead, he saw another canoe drawn up on the riverbank, next to the one Hun Tzu had used, and a new person, another native, sitting by the fire and roasting rabbits. Tasokah recognized him at once.

"Tolatil!"

"Ah, you are awake, Tasokah," he smiled. "Are you hungry, my brother?"

"Yes," Tasokah affirmed, joining his friend by the fire.

"Who else is here?" asked Tolatil, slicing off a rabbit hindquarter and handing it to Tasokah.

"Mayati and a newcomer, Hun Tzu."

"That is an unusual name."

"He is the wise one whom Falling Star has been waiting for, the man who comes to us from beyond the western sea." Tasokah took a bite and chewed, swallowing before he spoke again. "You have not seen them since you arrived?"

"No. When I got here, I saw only you. But three different sets of footprints told me two others were here as well."

"What brings you here?"

"I was returning to Roman Rock from a trip to the coast. When I saw you, I decided to stop here, for I needed to talk to another heron man. You see, I had a strange experience, earlier in the day, as I was coming upriver. It was as if I... suddenly felt music within my being... it was like a subtle spirit-call to my heart... "

"You... you felt it too?" Tasokah hesitated in mid-bite, astonished by his companion's admission. "I thought it was only me... "

"Do you know what it was?"

"Mayati has named it the Heart Call. The wise one says it was the pure essence of the love we hold in our man-loving male hearts. He can summon it forth, somehow."

"It was beautiful beyond words," sighed Tolatil.

"He said he might try to conjure up the love-force again, this evening."

"I look forward to that. And if I can help, I shall."

"As will I," Tasokah nodded in agreement.

Eventually, Mayati and Hun Tzu returned to the camp. They had not been entirely preoccupied with each other, as evidenced by the number of grouse they had snared and brought with them. When they saw Tolatil, they greeted him happily.

In the time it took to dress the birds and roast them over the campfire, Hun Tzu tried to explain what he and his companion had been doing. The Heart Call was an attempt to summon up the loving inner essences of man-loving men like themselves. Both Tasokah and Tolatil could testify to how successful it had been, relating their individual experiences for the others.

Tolatil did not understand all that Hun Tzu told him. But he took the rest on faith, knowing instinctively that the power he had felt touch his heart earlier could do nothing but good. And knowing more about it, the heron man looked forward to doing his part in summoning forth the numinous force of their love again.

Time passed. The men ate and afterward they swam in the river while the shadows grew long and the skies began to darken over the land. As twilight approached the four men sat around the fire and prepared to play the spirit music again. Together they would attempt to evoke the subtle, loving power of the Heart Call.

Tasokah and Tolatil kept time on two small drums as the flutes sounded. The notes of the song of the heron floated softly across the surface of the gently rippling river. The tune echoed among the shadows of the trees that lined its shore.

Soon, the haunting melody was causing the musicians' spirits to resonate with love energy once more, stronger now that four were involved in the calling. From those four, the sensual power of the Heart Call swelled, built upwards, prepared to go forth. To sweep across the valley of the heron, and beyond, to seek other men of their nature...

"Leroy?"

Bill Axford stood up, somehow back in the warmly lambent meadow he had visited the previous evening. A moment before, or so it seemed, he had been relaxing before the fire in his camp after eating supper. But he wasted no time in trying to understand the hows and whys of his uncanny transition from Earth to this subtle, in-between place, a realm of spirit, as Leroy had described it. Instead, he looked around himself anxiously as he called out his friend's name.

The splendid sun had just set. The western sky was still ablaze with a glorious crimson echo of its prefulgency. But even without that effulgent presence, Bill's surroundings glowed warmly.

In fact, he could immediately see a great difference all around himself. Everything his eyes beheld, the trees, the streams, the hillsides, even the grass that waved gently like a green sea around him, seemed to phosphoresce and scintillate with a new intensity. It was as if something were powerfully amplifying the inner spirits of all things there, causing their auras to shine forth with extra vigor.

"Hello, Bill."

He turned. Leroy Byrd was there, the same ghostly light playing all over his body. Leroy's blonde hair sparkled numinously as he reached out and took Bill's hand.

When he looked down, Bill could see his hand, and the rest of his body too, was gleaming in the same singular, mysterious way. At Leroy's touch, the mirific glow surrounding their naked bodies grew stronger. Somehow, Bill knew the uncanny light that played about them was being nourished and strengthened by the tender feelings the men cherished for one another.

Bill was led to the shelter of a great, coruscating oak tree. A lustrous blanket was already spread out there on the shimmering grass. Leroy kissed him, and they sat down.

"Leroy, what's happenin' around here? Everything's shinin', so much brighter than the last time I was here... "

"Look."

Bill followed Leroy's glance and saw afar off, with the same strange telescopic vision he had experienced in that spirit place before, four naked men sitting around a campfire on the banks of lower Heron Creek, two of whom he recognized. He had seen them the first time he had been in the spirit realm. They were playing flutes, and their new companions kept time on drums. The music they were making, the song of the heron, seemed a physical, living thing, rising, growing...

Bill watched in utter amazement as the music the four heron men played took on a vast physical form, plainly visible in the sky of the spirit plane he was visiting. It built up and up, becoming a great, scintillating pillar of pale violet spirit light, reaching to touch the sky, towering over the astral realm, sublimely beautiful and roiling with unknown, ominous power. It might have been invisible to those who were invoking it, those musicians who sat and played around a campfire somewhere in the valley of the heron, but it was no less real for all that.

"Leroy, what is that!?"

"It's the Heart Call, my friend," Leroy murmured in Bill's ear. "It'll be a summoning forth of the love that resides, sleeping, in each man-loving male heart that exists in the valley of the heron. And far beyond it, too... "

Every object in the spirit realm around the two men seemed in suspense, even the air, waiting for... Something... Then Bill could see it, the incredible power coursing rhythmically throughout the luminous column in time with the cadences of the song of the heron.

That it was alive, Bill had no doubt. And somehow he knew its touch would impart life, renew the spirit, fill all living things whose inner nature was the same as his and Leroy's to overflowing with the sheer joy of being alive. That was what everything was waiting for, in this realm where every object was attuned to the same vibrations that resonated lovingly and sensuously within the heron men's man-loving male hearts.

Reaching some arcane point of no return, the numinous, photic shaft suddenly spread outwards in all directions. Falling, flowing, cascading across the land, a radiant, mammoth tidal wave, as if emanating from some otherworldly aethereal sea of love. The softly glowing objects it touched as it passed seemed to burst into lilac flame, their inner natures catalyzed, enhanced, magnified and energized.

Despite his revelations about the phenomenon, Bill could not help but be instinctively afraid of the approaching tsunami of rolling, coruscating, orgiastic energy. It seemed miles high and wide, full of lambent, sensuous power, swift and utterly unstoppable. The leading edge of the mysterious spirit-force drew closer, looming over the two men.

"Leroy, it's gonna hit us! What'll we do... "

Leroy silenced his friend with a kiss. The glowing wave of mirific love-energy passed over them. And suddenly Bill's man-loving male heart was sweetly ignited, filled, filled to bursting, overflowing, burning ardently with a bright, lavender flame of pure, untrammeled love for Leroy, and for all his spiritual brothers. As they moved together, Bill and Leroy created more of the same energy, a smaller wavelet of joy that radiated outwards from their straining bodies, riding the crest of their orgasms, seeking out other men of their nature to enrapture and empower...

The initial, powerful wave of primal, amatory energy swept over Roman Rock, causing every man there to stop whatever they were doing, except for those who happened to be making love. All others suddenly yearned for the touch of a friend or a partner and fairly soon a wholesale orgy was going on in the Elxa settlement. Dozens of new waves rippled out from the men the Heart Call touched, amplified by their orgasms.

Gabe Ormonde entered the cabin he shared with his father and elder brother, glad to be home again. It was built just a stone's throw from a deep, pondlike widening of Horn Creek. On warm days, the water was prefect for swimming.

Gabe shrugged off the backpack full of supplies he had brought from False Pass and put it on the kitchen table. Hearing some familiar sounding moans, he grinned to himself as he followed the amorous noises to his father's bedroom. As he suspected, Gabe discovered George and Goody writhing together on the big bed. Stripping quickly, he joined them.

"Hello, Gabe," George breathed, pausing to hug his younger son.

"Hi, pop," he chirped. "Goody takin' care of you?"

"Oh, yeah," the elder Ormonde sighed. Goody had not said anything because his mouth was then full of his father's hard prick. "Get up here, son," George invited, "and let me suck on that big ol' delicious pecker of yours."

Gabe did not wait to be asked twice. George came while servicing Gabe and Goody maneuvered to fuck his father without interrupting Gabe's pleasure. George was soon hard again and Goody smiled at the sight, glad to know his pop was so happily turned on. The three moved determinedly towards their individual releases, moving closer, closer... Then the aethereal wave of ecstatic love-energy generated by the Heart Call washed over them.

All three men cried out in sensual wonder as they shot simultaneously. Their orgasms were fierce, unparalleled, feeding the mirific force that ignited the potent love they held for each other in their hearts. taking from that well of male passion without depleting it, actually multiplying the robust love of the men in some arcane fashion, before rebounding, flying away to find other man-loving male hearts to touch in the same incredible manner...

Mike O'Reilly moaned like a lost soul as Richard Ardley gently bore into his younger lover's body. Both felt so full of love as they coupled, driving each other resolutely to that highest point, the cliff that towered above the sweet abyss of release. But then something miraculous washed over them, causing their feelings of love for one another to increase exponentially in a manner as inexplicable as it was ravishing. They shot together, gasping in wonder as the Heart Call flew away from the astonished pair, stronger than ever...

Joel Cooke was feeling about as good as he had ever felt, sandwiched between his brothers. Jael's boner was moving in his ass, and Joel was hunching his stiffy into Jed's behind. It was a little early for the brothers to playing those sort of games, but then dinner had been early that day, too.

Leaving the boys to clean up, Bern had gone to spend the evening and night with Caleb and Wiscoup'a in the native's teepee, set up in the forest a little ways to the south of the Cooke homestead, where another big hot spring had been found. Bern told them that Wiscoup'a wanted to talk with him and Caleb about the strange, but good, feeling they all had experienced earlier that day. The boys knew the partners would probably end up doing the same things to each other as the Cooke brothers were doing right then.

Then the power of the Heart Call rolled through the little valley they all called home. The boys gasped and hugged each other as their young hearts leapt and sang with the love they felt for each other and for the three men they had come to regard as their foster fathers. Joel felt Jael squirt in his butt as he did the same to Jed. As soon as Joel was done, Jed rolled over and hugged his little brother as he rubbed his hard dick into Joel's belly desperately and soon shot off all over it.

"I've never seen you make so much spunk!" Joel wondered, looking at the gooey mess that glistened on his torso.

"C'mon Jael," Jed gasped as he caught his breath. He had never come so hard before. "Help me clean Joel up!"

"No!" It was Joel's turn to gasp as his brothers ran their tongues across his body, lapping up Jed's sticky savor and tickling at the same time. "Help!"

"Stop wigglin', Joel! We're almost done!" Jed managed between slurps.

Afterwards, Jed had no trouble convincing his brothers to come with him into the woods to the south of their farm, where the hot spring was, and wash. Cleanliness was not their only objective. All were hoping to eavesdrop outside Wiscoup'a lodge and catch their foster fathers groaning and moaning in shared passion.

But instead, they found the men soaking together in a tree-shaded pool of steaming water dug conveniently near the native heron man's lodge. The vent in the earth that the hot spring issued from smoked a short distance away. After discovering the resource, they all had worked on digging a pool and lining its bottom and edges with flat stones. A channel to guide the hot water into the pool finished the job.

"Hello, sons!" Bern beamed when he spotted them. "You wanna come in?"

"Okay, as long as we're not interruptin' nothing," Jed said, causing his brothers to snicker.

"No, not at all," Wiscoup'a said, matter-of-factly. He went on, provoking more giggles from the boys. "We have already made love a couple of times already. Now, we old men have to rest. We are not like you young rabbits, who can go anytime you wish!"

"Did you feel that good thing again?" Joel asked as he lost his clothes and slipped into Bern's lap.

"Ah, yeah, we did," answered Caleb, as Jael chose to use him for a seat as well. Caleb recalled how the three of them had been cuddling in Wiscoup'a's lodge when the mirific force smote them, turning their gentle lovemaking into an incredibly intense sexual experience that left them neither sated nor exhausted. At Wiscoup'a's suggestion, they had retired to the hot spring afterwards to relax and discuss what had happened.

"We were just talking about it," Wiscoup'a added, as Jed let him gather the twelve year old into his arms. Jed felt the native's big soft cock against his bottom as he sat on Wiscoup'a lap and sighed, wondering what a big, hard, man's cock would feel like inside of him. "Perhaps it would be good for you to listen. I believe what we felt was something Falling Star spoke to me of, the last time I met him."

"Okay," Jed agreed for the all the boys as he snuggled against the heron man's broad, smooth chest, feeling good, safe and loved.

Hiram closed the doors of the Purple Stables, ending another day of work. He glanced nervously at Lars, busy putting his tools away for the night. Hiram felt he could not put off his feelings any longer and took a deep breath before speaking.

"Lars?"

"Yes?"

"What did you think of them heron fellas?"

"Why, they were right nice. Why?"

"I just wanted to know your opinion."

"Well, I haven't met a heron man I didn't like," he smiled. "And that includes you."

Hiram tried to keep from trembling.

"Lars, I... I want you to be my pardner."

"I am your pardner," he said, turning his blonde head to look at Hiram, quizzically.

"I don't mean the business," Hiram explained. "I mean... dammit, Lars, I'm in love with you."

Lars just looked at him and Hiram stumbled on.

"I love you and I want you to come to the valley of the heron with me. I want you to know what I know, be my pardner in everything, forever."

Lars stepped closer to Hiram and kissed him, callused fingers reaching around to stroke and caress Hiram's back gently and lovingly. Hiram leaned into the blacksmith's larger body, clutching it as a drowning man holds onto a broken mast in a raging sea. Hiram shook with emotion.

"Easy, pardner, easy," Lars cooed.

Lars maneuvered Hiram over to a pile of hay and laid him down on it. Then Lars stood and began to remove his clothing. Hiram watched spellbound as Lars' hard body, fleeced with pale hairs, was slowly revealed.

Hiram started pulling urgently at his own clothes. His cock flew up as he pushed his jeans down, already drooling precum as it hovered above his hairy belly. Lars paused to grin at the state Hiram was in. To Hiram, Lars' smile was like a benediction.

"You're a good man, Hiram. I'm proud to be associated with you, in business or anything else."

"Do you... love me?"

"Now and forever."

"How... When... "

"Hush," Lars said, kneeling to kiss Hiram. "I've had this feelin' growin' in me for awhile now. I didn't say anything, 'cause I was afraid of what your reaction. The heron men are... well... so carefree and footloose. I was worried you might think I was tryin' to tie you down."

"Well, not all of us," Hiram smiled. "And here I was worried that you weren't feelin' the same things I was!"

"Well, I do." Lars gripped Hiram's forearm, an intensely serious look suddenly appearing on his bearded face. "Pardners then, Hiram? In everything?"

"Yes, oh yes, Lars!" Hiram gasped happily, returning the grip. "Forever!"

Lars spoke softly:

I will love you As much as I can, As strongly as I can, As completely as I can. You will live in my love And I shall live in yours Together, forever.

"Lars," Hiram exclaimed, wide-eyed, "you sang to me!"

"Then I guess I'm a heron man already. I seem to know this... this... whatever it is you want me to discover in the valley of the heron. But whatever it is, it can't possibly be as good as this, us alone together, you spread out all nekkid before me, your love glowin' in your eyes like a piece of red hot iron as you look at me, as we get ready to... "

"Lars... "

Lars cut Hiram off with a kiss, hugging him close, bringing their naked bodies together in a sensuous embrace. And then they felt it, a wave of something absolutely wonderful sweeping through them, catalyzing the newly declared love they held for each other in their hearts, setting it ablaze, and sending it out. The orgiastic mystery touched them as they coupled, and, strengthened by their love, reached out yet again...

Across town, in another part of Grant, two other men were locked in mutual passion as well. Jeff's rigid rod was driving deep inside Don, who could tell by the tempo of his partner's strokes that Jeff was very close to the edge. Don's own manhood was being ground sweetly into Jeff's hairy belly with every thrusting movement of Jeff's hips as Jeff came down to kiss Don long and sweetly.

The Heart Call crashed in on them, suddenly. Both of their orgasms were triggered and they gasped in unison at the kaleidoscopic feelings surging irresistibly through their united bodies. The amorous force touched them, and then was gone, magnifying the power of their love, and being magnified by it.

In Edmund's Bridge Valley, Seth and Tyler felt the Heart Call as they ate dinner. Their concern for food vanished, replaced by a hunger for each other. Seth laid himself on his back on the kitchen table and Tyler took him, urgently, as the wave touched their love and rebounded away.

Like concentric ripples in a great pond, the sensuous waves spanned outwards from the hearts of the lovers it found, echoing and reechoing, striking other waves, generating new ones. But unlike waves in water, this sensual energy did not subside. It grew with each man-loving male heart it touched, filling the aethereal spaces between them with untrammelled masculine joy...

Robert Vaughn felt the delicious. orgiastic mystery force caressing his man-loving male heart sweetly as Chris Barlow mounted him, the deputy slipping into the sheriff's lean body like a hand into a glove. Chris felt the mirific spirit-touch as well, allowing a new deepening into the love he held for Robert. The experience was so achingly sweet...

Not long before this, and not far from where the sheriff and his deputy writhed, locked together in unparalleled passion, more loving bonds were being forged. Up in the hayloft of Chris Barlow's barn, Trev had gotten the wish he had made earlier in the day. Lying between the two younger men he was guiding to the valley of the heron, he rested in the afterglow of their first bout of shared lovemaking. Trev knew more was certain to come.

Zeb's head was lying on Trev's thigh, closely studying the man's spent cock. He was intrigued by the circular scar that marked it, just below the naked glans. Neither he nor Eric had ever seen a circumcised penis.

"Trev?" Zeb asked as he handled the man's cock gently. "How'd you lose your foreskin?"

"Oh, that," sighed Trev. "Well, I grew up in an orphanage. When I was fifteen, the people who ran the place brought in a doctor to circumcise all the boys."

"Why?" Eric exclaimed.

"Because the fools thought it would keep us from jerkin' off," muttered Trev. "Of course, it didn't, but we had to put up with taunts from the local boys whenever us orphans went to the swimmin' hole from then on, teasin' us about havin' parts of our peckers cut off. I've met some guys who didn't like it, once we started playin'. Does it bother you, that I don't have a foreskin?"

"No!" both men exclaimed together.

"Did we act like it?" asked Eric.

"I'm sorry if I brought up bad memories," Zeb added.

"It's okay, lotsa guys ask me about it. You don't see many cut peckers out here on the frontier," Trev shrugged, as he changed the subject. "Tell me, how'd you two meet?"

"Our daddies' farms bordered on each other," Eric explained.

"So you were neighbors."

"Yeah, and best friends from the first time we met," grinned Zeb, reaching over to tousle Eric's red hair playfully. "You remember, buddy?"

"Of course I do! We'd gone out one beautiful spring day with our daddies to walk the border between their farms and repair the rock wall that divided them. It was an old New England custom, meant to keep everyone concerned familiar with the boundaries of their properties."

"Being six years old at the time, you can imagine we were more interested in playing than in fixing fences," Zeb added.

"Yeah, and we been playing together ever since. I think we know each other better than we do our own brothers."

"Well," Trev began, "I'd like to thank both of you gentlemen for the opportunity of gettin' to know you better."

"Did you hear that, Eric? We do it with him one time, and he thinks he knows us!" Zeb laughed. "Trev, you ain't seen nothing yet!"

Soon Trev and Eric and Zeb were tangled together in a complex constellation of gripping arms and straining bodies. Just as Trev thought it could not get any better, the aethereal power of the Heart Call broke upon them. The trio gasped as their hearts fairly erupted with love. The mysteriously sensuous energy swirled about them and shot away again as quickly as it had come, but stronger than before.

Nick Jones kissed Felix Amante long and deeply in the stable they ran together in False Pass, savoring the familiar sensations each elicited in the other as the lovers writhed in a pile of fresh, sweet smelling hay. The black man's big fist moved determinedly, encircling both their cocks hotly, urging their liquid release. They came, sticky whiteness leaping in tandem to spatter dark, sweaty skins, just as the Heart Call hit them.

The wave of love shocked them with a deeply moving multiplication of the feelings they held for one another. Again, a new ripple surged outward from them, their passion filled hearts, riding the force of their love, seeking for others like them to touch and enrapture. In a place like False Pass, it did not have to go very far. Most of the men of that town, if they were not heron men already, shared the same nature as the heron men had, and, as had happened at Roman Rock, the men of False Pass were moved by the mirific touch of that love force to turn to each other in urgent desire...

Across the street from the stable Nick and Felix owned, Matt Able watched in amazement as the men in his saloon turned to each other to satisfy their suddenly aroused desires. Woody Quade was soon bent over a table, his pants around his ankles, as his partner, Dusty Laird, mounted and rode him. Lo and Alex were grappling behind the bar, kissing as they tore off one another's clothes in their urgent need.

Shane MacMann had turned to his lover, Rob Knox, and the pair were also lost in their desire for each other. Both were amazed that after so many years together, they could still feel the wonder of discovery in the depth of their feelings for one another. But neither spoke of that, unless one counted the ways their hands and lips expressed the men's inner desires.

Those were only a few examples of the sudden eruption of mansex that occurred in the saloon. Shane and Rob's partners, Tomas DeAmanto and Mike Gray, were similarly engaged. Old Jakob was being caressed by two of his handsome sons, one kissing him, the other busy unbuttoning the blacksmith's pants to get at his parent's stiff tool. But Matt never saw the end of the unexpected spectacle. His own partner, Ralph, soon came and dragged the astounded bartender away into the kitchen.

Next to The Trail's End saloon, in the town doctor's combination office and home, Cy Orwins was sharing his bed with Russ Seton. These two men had only recently paired and were still discovering each other, exploring the feelings each inspired in the other. The mysterious, amorous power summoned by Hun Tzu and his fellow musicians touched them gently as they made love.

In a twinkling moment of time, the coupling men got a tantalizing glimpse of the depth their feelings for one another could reach. They sensed the unguessed potentials in their love that neither man had imagined, and gave themselves over to the enthralling vision. They sweetly and completely surrendered to the intangible beauty of a ideal masculine union both desired above all things...

The shadows were stealing silently across a camp along Heron Creek, roughly midway between Roman Rock and the cave of mysteries. A fire burned brightly, illuminating the two men who reclined in its light. A hearty meal had left their bellies comfortably full and now Katchikoa and Ho'va conversed in the Elxa tongue, a quiet, sibilant murmur that passed through the air between them as easily as the thin smoke that rose from the burning wood.

"I have been to see Falling Star, Katchikoa."

"Oh?"

"We spoke of many things and your name was mentioned. He would like to speak to you."

"Do you know why, my love?"

"Remember what I was speaking of earlier? About my journey to the eastern edges of the heron country?"

"Yes."

Katchikoa shifted uncomfortably, thinking of the things his lover had related to him. Of a vague danger he, and many others besides, had sensed coming from the east. At least it seemed unconnected to the warnings in Katchikoa's own medicine dreams, which the pair had discussed.

They had also spoken of the strange, but benevolent spirit-touch Ho'va had felt during his journey from the cave of mysteries to Roman Rock. He was carrying a message from Falling Star to Tlaccotan, and in the course of his travels, he encountered his lover. Katchikoa told Ho'va of how the men at Roman Rock had felt the same thing and both wondered how many other heron men had felt what they and their friends had earlier that day.

"I believe Falling Star wishes us to go to the east of the valley of the heron and scout those lands, see what there is to be seen and listen to what may be heard," Ho'va went on. "Perhaps also to speak with the elders of the tribes who live there, and learn what they know."

"Before the moon has turned again, I will go to the cave of mysteries," Katchikoa began, tossing more wood on the fire, "and if Falling Star wishes it, I will go. And I will go gladly, if you are to accompany me, my brother, my love."

Ho'va smiled and reached out, touching his companion's bronzed arm, tracing the outline of the biceps with one finger, lightly, tentatively. The men shifted positions, moving closer together. Their intent might have been to go slowly and savor the love they would make, but then the Heart Call reached and broke upon their camp, inflaming their ardor. Dusky copper limbs flashed in the firelight as they began to grapple, moving to appease the flesh hunger that suddenly flared and possessed them, touching urgently, their ardent love sending new waves of tender energies outward...

To the west the spirit-power flew, where it overtook Phil and Mark in their camp somewhere along the lower Umpqua. They felt it strike hot sparks from their hearts as they stopped what they were doing and turned to each other in sudden desire, hugging and gasping, their wits ravished by the utter beauty of what the power revealed to them. Of themselves, of their heron brothers, of the potential of their love, revealed in a single flashing moment of time. Away the living energy raced again...

At another camp on the Umpqua, Will moaned softly, responding to Red Hand's experienced touch. Something wonderful had washed over them, waking Will from an after dinner nap to find his companion busy. Red Hand's lips and tongue caressed his rigid cock as he lay there, and Will gave in to the slickly tactile pleasure.

He felt the ripples of pure joy from the phenomenon striking his heart, drawing forth sparks of love. When he came, another burst of love energy radiated out across the land, to his brothers. Then Red Hand mounted the white man and began a bout of slow, sensuous fucking the likes of which Will had never before experienced...

Eben Hale rested in Zack Weir's arms, glad to be back home. Both men were more than content to hold each other and just savor the familiar warmth between them. But when the wave of otherworldly energy passed over their isolated cabin, their desire for one another reignited, became urgent, undeniable. Again, another pair of man-loving male hearts sang the song of their mutual passion, feeding the eldritch force, and the Heart Call moved on, relentlessly...

"My uncle has a hat like that."

Silas looked up from his meal. Job was hooking a thumb at the coatpegs on the back of the door that led into the stable. Silas' Confederate officer's hat with its tarnished metal decorations hung there, a timeworn, gray felt relic.

"He used to tell us stories about the war all the time."

"Oh?"

Job took another bite of venison and went on.

"Were you in the war?"

"Yeah."

"What was it like?"

Unbidden, unwanted, the memories played themselves back in Silas' mind anyway, summoned by Job's innocent request in a scintillating moment of time. Again he relived the days of weary alertness, always moving, almost always hungry, nights of restless sleep, broken by the slightest sound. Flies and filth and death.

His senses were again assaulted by the earsplitting booms of the cannons and the stinking smoke of battle rolling through the tress. It was sometimes so thick you could not see colors, tell friend from foe. The combatants became a mass of ghostly figures grappling in the acrid, evil-smelling haze. He even recalled the looks of disbelief in the eyes of the bluebellies when he would plunge his bayonet into their bodies...

"He shore was proud of havin' been a solder." Job said, his voice cutting harshly through Silas' grim reverie.

"I dunno what war he was talkin' about, son," breathed Silas. "Shore doesn't sound like the same one I fought in."

Job got up and went to stand behind Silas, hugging the older man from that position as he whispered, "I'm sorry."

"There's nothing to be sorry for. It ain't your fault iffin' I don't like thinkin' about the war," the man drawled, becoming aware of a blunt something pressing against him. "Job, what're you pokin' me in the back with?"

Even as he asked, Silas realized what it was. He turned to look at Job wryly. The lad was grinning like a fool, his impressive cock standing at half-mast and making a startling bulge in his pants that bumped up against Silas through the backrest of the chair.

"Again?" he asked, trying to keep himself from laughing.

Job nodded enthusiastically as Silas' grin widened.

"You mind if I finish my supper first? In case you haven't noticed, I ain't made of iron!"

"Oh," Job began slyly, "I plumb forgot about your age. Can I get you a blanket against the cold? Or a pillow for your tired ol' back?"

The legs of his chair grated noisily against the floorboards as Silas pushed himself away from the table, jumped up and pulled off his shirt all in one motion. Job darted away laughing, doffing his clothes as well and pelting his pursuer with them. Finally, Silas pinned the writhing, giggling, naked youngster down on the bed and growled at him in mock vexation.

"I'll show you who's tired, you young whippersnapper!"

He brought his lips down on Job's, just as the sensuous spirit music reached them, a tender caress from a world of love. Their kiss became urgent. They struggled to touch at all possible points, feeling their emotions reach an intensity neither had ever known before. Again the amatory power raised by the Heart Call touched and then rippled away from their racing man-loving male hearts, still actively seeking...

In the cave of mysteries, Zeke was making love to Falling Star, slowly, sweetly. They had been friends, and often lovers, in the past and knew each other's bodies as well as they knew their own. They were rapt in the familiar, sweet rhythm of their passion when the Heart Call's wave of aetheric, amorous force crashed in on them.

They gasped in dismay as their love flared up like a dry pine log set alight. Even though Falling Star had expected something like this and had spoken of it to his apprentice, the reality was astounding to them both. Zeke came almost instantly and Falling Star's body answered his, both men wracked by shuddering, ecstatic tremors as a new ripple of the sublime, sensuous energy raced away from their spasming bodies to find more man-loving male hearts.

"It is the man from beyond the western ocean, Nizano," Falling Star panted. "His medicine is very strong, much stronger than I foresaw."

"What else can he do?" asked Zeke, still in awe of what had just happened. He could feel more ripples of love energy reaching him and resonating in his heart, echoes of passion emanating from the hearts of their heron brothers.

"Do not hold any expectations of this, do not imagine any barrier to it," Falling Star answered, welcoming the waves of erotic energy as they came, washing over his spirit sweetly. "What we are feeling now is the essence of love itself, and this primal force can accomplish anything, if we let it, my brother."

"What do you mean, Falling Star?"

"Ah, do not be alarmed, Nizano. This joy must be shared."

The heron shaman reached into a large earthenware pot and retrieved a leather sack, handing it to Zeke. He looked inside it and then at Falling Star, questioningly. The medicine man nodded at his apprentice affirmatively and Zeke turned to go.

He went out from the cave and down to the edge of Heron Creek. Opening the bag, Zeke took its contents, many oddly carved and colored sticks, and tossed them one by one into the rushing waters that ultimately flowed down to Roman Rock and into the Umpqua beyond. Then he returned, eager to know again the loving touch of the heron shaman.

Mueller's horse was spooked. It would have bolted if it had not been securely tethered. Wide-eyed, it watched its master writhing in utter agony on his blankets, heard his wordless, howling bellows echo around the trees and off the rocks of the isolated spot he camped in.

Mueller's hands gripped his wounded head uselessly as the pimp suffered in a way he had never felt or imagined before. He was racked and tormented by a new pain in his skull, waves and waves of it. A spasming, heated anguish, striking him like the lash of a demonic whip, again and again...

'Pete' Peterson cried out as he sat bolt upright in his bed, bathed in sweat. He had been awakened by a horrific nightmare, a vision of slavering, hideous beasts padding on hairy paws through an ill-smelling wilderness of barren rock formations, hunting with a desperate hunger, one that could never be assuaged, but the worst thing was that he had been one of them... He shook uncontrollably in terror, because the dream had seemed so palpably real...

And besides that, the nightmare left him with the same feeling of unease that he had experienced earlier that afternoon. As he had been walking along the main street in Douglas City, he suddenly felt as if some reproving force had slapped his face. He could sense the connection between the two events, but it explained nothing, only heightening his anxiety. He reached for the bottle of whiskey he kept next to his bed and upended it, seeking oblivion.

Mayati and Tasokah and Hun Tzu and Tolatil played until their own need was too strong to ignore. Putting aside their instruments, they turned to each other. The numinous power of the Heart Call that they had summoned was left to gradually fade away, though it echoed sweetly throughout the valley of the heron and far beyond for some time thereafter, like the reverberations of a great bell, kept alive by the multitude of man-loving male hearts it had found and touched and opened...

Earlier, before the Heart Call's wave of love energy had been generated, Mel and Lou had stopped for the night and made camp in the forests somewhere to the north of Roman Rock. They could have reached the native town if they had wanted, but both wanted to be alone together, for one night at least. They ate sitting side by side before the fire, chatting and enjoying each other's company. Finishing, Mel wiped his hands clean on his jeans, leaned back and sighed.

"Umm?" Lou questioned wordlessly.

"You know," Mel began, shifting to lie on his back so he could stare at the starry sky, "sometimes I can't help but feel like an unholy trespasser in these woods, sort of like a pagan who's blundered into a cathedral."

"Are you a religious man?"

"I used to be a preacher, Lou. I ran a mission on the Willamette and spoke out against everything the heron men stood for. But, because my nature was the same as theirs, something I couldn't deny, I was eventually converted by them."

"I'm glad."

"Why?"

"Because if you hadn't, you wouldn't be here with me now."

Mel turned his head to look at Lou.

"Guess it's a good thing we spread our blankets out together. We kinda knew... "

Mel felt Lou's desire and pulled the man to him. They kissed, tentatively, a prelude to more. Mel breathed in Lou's ear, his long beard prickling Lou's shoulder.

Gray as the sea fog, Your eyes call to mine... Bright like the fire, Your desire warms me... Come, my brother, Let me comfort you...

"Mel... "

"Hush."

They lay there together for some time. As they continued to kiss, their hands went on voyages of discovery, seeking knowledge of their bodies, their geography, their ridges and valleys. Reluctantly, they paused long enough to strip and get comfortable in their blankets.

More tactile discoveries were revealed as bare flesh pressed against bare flesh. They were soon feeling warm under their blankets, warm and safe. Mel reached and smoothed back Lou's dark hair.

"You know, I've never seen eyes like yours, all gray, like a fog at sea."

"I like your beard," Lou answered, stroking the black length of it. "I hope mine comes out as good as yours."

"Do you like playing like this? Not rushing into it?"

"Yes. It feels like we got lots of time, even though we'll reach Roman Rock tomorrow... "

"Now we are together, Lou, now... "

Unable to stop himself, Lou kissed Mel again. They kissed as long as they had breath to do so, before Lou lowered himself, exploring his companion's body with his lips and tongue.

Mel sighed heavily as his nipples were kissed and nipped lightly. Across his belly, downward... He felt the wet shock as his cock slipped into Lou's mouth, the sensual, sudden, intense heat...

Heat answered heat. Mel's orgasm seemed to him like a fountain of fiery sparks, flying up from a great bonfire. They shot upwards, away into infinite blackness...

Lou lifted his head, putting his arms around Mel, drawing him close and kissing him again. Mel opened up to the kiss and tasted his own seed being fed back to him, drop by salt sweet drop. His hands came up to stroke and caress Lou's back, gently, lovingly.

"What about you?" asked Mel, as the kiss came to an end.

"I can wait," Lou whispered.

"I wanna feel your love in me Lou, soon... "

Lou looked deeply into Mel's eyes and saw the need that shone there...

"All right, I won't wait," he muttered at last. "Roll over."

Mel did as he was ordered. As he moved he reached out to grasp a small leather sack of the special slave the heron men used in situations like the one he was in. He had placed it on the edge of his blankets earlier in anticipation. Mel handed it to Lou without speaking. Lou took the lube and stoked his cock with the fulvous goo until it glistened in the firelight.

Mel felt Lou's fingers move across his buttocks, leaving shining, snail-like trails on his skin. They sank into the black haired cleft, found the pucker and pushed tinglingly in. One finger, two, three...

"Lou... "

Mel gasped as he writhed his hips, feeling Lou probe and stretch. Lou could stand it no more. Withdrawing his fingers, Lou lowered himself into the hairy cleft, finding the trembling opening.

Lou pushed against the pliant ring and his cock sank into a mirific realm of fiery moisture and liquid heat. Mel groaned, feeling the pleasure and the pain as Lou's manhood slid inside of him. Lou's hairy loins came up against Mel's smooth ass, prickling it.

"Oh... Lou... "

"Mel... I don't know how long I can hold back... you're so beautiful... Mel... I love you... "

"I love you, Lou... Take my love, take it now... "

The Heart Call washed over the men, pushing them over the edge as it had most of the others it had found in their condition. But there was a difference this time. Whereas Mel was almost paralyzed by the sublime explosion of love in his man-loving male heart, Lou felt nothing so transcendent or tender.

For Lou, the sensations imparted to him by the Heart Call were all carnal, physical. He became a raging, spasming, snorting, drooling, ferine thing, suddenly wild and savage, pounding into Mel's body with all his might. And shooting his sperm with a force he had never felt before, that made his balls tingle as they were utterly drained. The image that formed in his mind, a background of sorts to the bestial ecstasy he felt, was one of hot, viscous, translucent comets soaring through a sunless sky, falling, impacting, exploding against the moist velvet surfaces of eternally dark, quivering, living worlds of inner man-space.

Both men collapsed. Done in by their passion and the powerful feelings evoked by the wave of love energy that had passed over them. And still the little ripples generated by other lovers touched them softly, making them gasp as they lay beneath the stars, panting for breath.

Long minutes passed and the numinous power that had touched them gradually abated. But the men were left feeling alert and energized. They continued to cling to one another in the aftermath of their frenetic lovemaking.

"Are you alright?" asked Lou, softly.

It was a breathy whisper, stirring the hair around Mel's ear.

"I'm nowhere near alright."

Mel paused for a moment, just for meanness, as he felt the little shock of Lou's body stiffening against his in alarm.

"Enraptured would be more like it!" Mel sighed. "Or maybe transcendent, perhaps... "

"You... " Lou snorted, sounding more relieved than annoyed. "Turn yourself over. Let me look at you."

As Mel squirmed to face him, his belly hair, matted with the sticky ichor of his second cumming came to rest against Lou's skin, causing him to shiver.

"Sorry, Lou... "

"Don't be. I oughta wash anyway. I should've before I made love to you tonight... "

"You smell good, like a man... "

"Mel, what happened to us?"

"I don't know, but it sure was wonderful."

"What... what about that other thing... " Lou began, uncertain.

"What?"

"I was rough with you."

"It was a nice kind of rough. I liked it."

"I was scared I'd hurt you."

"Well you didn't, so don't worry about it."

"This time. But if the next time I do?"

"We'll worry about that the next time."

Mel kissed Lou's pensive face, the forehead, the eyes, the lips. He breathed in a faint odor clinging to Lou's beard, tobacco smoke? Then a thought occurred to Mel.

"Did you feel anything... strange? While we made love?"

Lou's eyes held a startled expression.

"Yes. Like something was makin' me strong and wild, that's why I road you the way I did, roughlike. I'm sorry, Mel... "

"Hush," Mel said, pulling him closer.

"It wasn't my fault."

"I know."

"I'm afraid you'll leave me... "

"When I do, it won't be because you hurt me or I think badly of you, Lou. It will be because I must. At some point I need to bring my partner here... "

"Damn it to hell," Lou rumbled.

"What?"

"You are gonna leave. You just said so."

"Once we reach the valley of the heron, you will learn our ways and be much happier."

"What about this... problem?"

"I can think of a few besides me who would gladly help you deal with it," Mel grinned slyly.

"Do you remember I said I love you?"

"How could I forget?"

"But if I went with others... wouldn't you mind?"

"You're confusing love with possession, Lou. I love you and I want you to be happy. I wouldn't bring you into the valley of the heron unless my brothers could love you as I have."

"But they have... special pardners, don't they?"

"Yes, some do. The rest pair off in the winters and, more often than not, the same pairs come together again and again, year after year. But the rest of the year we all do as we please, staying together or roaming, looking for new love," Mel said, running a finger down Lou's nose, "just as I found you."

"Who'd you stay with last winter?"

"My partner, Larry."

"And I suppose you've met up with other heron men, before and since then."

"Oh yes... "

Of all the men he might have thought of, Mel sighed at the memory of Kalahoetamic. His smooth skin, the hair so lustrous and black. His need, and Mel's desire...

"He's something special to you, isn't he?"

There was a note of mild annoyance in Lou's words. Mel chose to ignore it. He went on casually.

"His name was Kalahoetamic."

"An Indian?"

"Yes, most of the heron men are. Besides me, there's probably only a couple dozen or so other white men in the Elxa tribe."

"Does his name have a meanin'?"

"You'll laugh."

"What is it?"

"I thought it was cruel of Falling Star to give him that name when I first heard of it," Mel went on deliberately, pretending not to notice Lou's growing impatience. "But as time went by and I grew to know him, it seemed the prefect appellation for him."

"What does his name mean!?" Lou demanded.

"Hole-that-cannot-be-filled." Mel grinned.

Lou laughed uproariously, the sound booming through the evergreen branches above them.

"Insatiable?" he managed at last.

"Who knows? After you meet up with him, his name might change to 'Hole-that-is-well-filled'."

"Hah!" Lou ejaculated, then continued more seriously. "The pardner you spoke of a moment ago, was it Kalahoetamic who you were gonna see when we met?"

"No, Larry is my lover. He decided to stay in Port Bolon for the winter, and I ought to return there soon and see how he is. But first I have to take these supplies to Roman Rock."

"I was thinkin'," Lou began, "maybe, if only for the time we're together on this trail... "

Images of Kalahoetamic flashed handsomely in Mel's mind. Mel lifted a hand and caressed Lou's face, touching bushy eyebrows, exploring a hairy cheek. It seemed to Mel that Kalahoetamic's image smiled knowingly and approvingly before fading away.

"Ah, yes, we will be together... "

"And you will love me?"

"Of course."

"And after we reach Roman Rock?"

"Lou, Lou! Now is important, not next week or next year," Mel breathed. "We must love each other now, while we can. For who can know the future?"

"It's just... for once, I'd like to hear someone say it was just him and me, together forever."

"Do you wanna hear me lie to you?"

"No."

"Then please believe me then when I say I love you with all my heart and soul, right here, right now. And when I bring you to our heron brothers you will learn our ways and you will be happier than you can imagine, because you will understand yourself, your special nature."

"I think I might bust wide open if I was any happier than I am right now."

"Speaking of busting, if you don't let go of me soon, I'm going to wet your blankets."

"Our blankets, you mean," Lou corrected as he let Mel get up.

"Ours," Mel answered, bending down to kiss Lou before going to the edge of a nearby stream.

A star-filled sky could be seen through gaps in the overhanging foliage, as well as a nearly-full moon, descending towards the west, as Mel strode to the streamlet. Standing astride the rill, he relaxed and shot a long, golden arc outward. It foamed and smoked where it hit the swiftly flowing water, all rushing away to a distant sea.

'Larry, my love, what are you doing now, I wonder? Why, oh, why didn't you come with me to the valley of the heron?' Mel thought as the pressure in his loins eased.

Finished, Mel returned to the men's shared blankets. They cuddled up against each other, Lou on his back and Mel clinging to his side, his head on Lou's chest. The dull thump, thump, thump of Lou's heart lulled Mel to sleep.

the end of part I

of Follow The Heron's Song

the eighth chapter in the series

'The Way Of The Heron'

by C. T. Creekmur

comments or suggestions are welcome at tcreekmur@hotmail.com

Copyright (c) 2009 by Charles T. Creekmur

"All Rights Reserved"

submitted to www.nifty.org 1/22/2009