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They came down out of the mountains to the sound of thunder, their horses scuffing and sliding through the scree at the bottom of an old cart track they followed to the edge of the escarpment, where unknown time and unmeasured rain had washed the path away to sheer cliffs. Below them the plains rolled toward the distant range, vast and green under a darkening sky. There was lightning in the clouds and moments later more thunder, and in the plains there were the small, muted shapes of half a dozen head of hereford.
The rider in the lead pulled up his horse and sat and waited for the one who followed.
"Yonder they go," the first rider said, resting his hands on his pommel.
"About to be standin' in a thunderstorm," the second rider replied, squinting out from below his dusty hatbrim.
"You wanna turn back?" the first rider asked. His name was Luke.
The second rider spat and squinted a little longer. Looked up at the clouds. His name was Din.
"We done come this far," Din said, and turned his horse to follow along the edge of the escarpment, the two men letting the horses pick their way down the uneven terrain, leaning back in their saddles when the trail was steep, until at last the gravel and rock gave way to sand then scrubby brown chaparral and green grass and the horses blew and threw their heads, glad it seemed to be shot of the mountains and Din and Luke loosened their reins and the horses broke into a restless lope, then a gallop.
The first of the rain fell long before the lightning was overhead, just as they were running through the open land. It fell in sheets so that they rode in and out of it, and by the time they pulled up a few hundred yards from where the cattle grazed they walked again under rainless dark skies and the tall grass whispered at their stirrups and horselegs and the horses would reach down to pull a blade now and then to chew. The lighting was already moving off westward.
From where he rode a little behind, Din watched Luke out ahead, man and horse wet through, watched Luke lean forward to slap his horse's neck and tip the rain off of his hat brim. In just a few months Luke had gone from a fearless kid who couldn't sit a horse to save his life, to a fearless kid who sat one, if not quite like he was born to it, at least like he might one day.
They walked down into a valley just deep enough that they lost sight of the cattle grazing in the next, then trotted up the hillside as the thunder rumbled overhead. When they crested the hill the cows had already begun to move on.
"I don't know about you," Luke said as he pulled up his horse, "but I don't want to chase these fuckers all night. Not soakin' wet in the dark."
"Let's go on ahead," Din said, "cut 'em off. We won't get 'em up those mountains. It's the canyon and river for us."
"Sleepin' under the stars tonight?" Luke asked with a light in his blue eyes.
"Unless you brought a tent in your saddlebags," Din said.
"Alright then." Luke smiled, wide and bright in the murky afternoon, then trotted out ahead.
"Not too fast," Din warned as he caught up, because however well Luke rode now, he was still learning to punch.
"I know it."
"Don't come right at 'em."
"I said I know it."
Slowly they worked the cows back around toward the range, moving the animals reluctantly out of the grasslands and out of the rain and into an arroyo where a little stream of rainwater came down from the mountains and where the cows stopped to drink and the horse's hooves sucked in the mud.
At dusk they crowded the cattle into a small corral made by a curve in a towering line of limestone bluffs, closed off by a fallen tree and the men and the horses and the fire they built from old bone-white wood and chaparral.
They staked their horses and laid their saddle blankets out to dry on some rocks and stood their saddles in the sand near the fire, leaning against them as they ate a supper of tortillas and tinned beans with hot sauce and Din watched the firelight on Luke's face, the warmth of it drying his hair, both red and golden in the light of it. Then they unrolled their soogans and spread them out near the fire, and both shucked out of their wet wranglers and ropers and even their already drying shirts, then spread those out too, until they wore only their hats and damp underwear and dry socks.
"I recall owing you a fuck in the mountains," Luke said.
He was standing over Din where Din leaned against his saddle on the blanket and Din looked up from the yellowed paperback he always carried, just stared up at him for a long time, the black shape of him against the firelight behind him, slim hips, square shoulders, too-long hair and a grin he couldn't see but he knew from a hundred days on the ranch, from a handful of such encounters as Luke was suggesting.
"You'll scare the cattle," Din said and went back to reading.
Luke dropped to his knees, blocking out enough of the fire with just enough light reflected from Din's own body that Din could begin to make out his face. He was grinning but not the grin of a boy nor even of a boy too reckless for his own good, but of a man who had done the reckoning of his actions and the consequences that might be born of them and had deemed them satisfactory.
He held something in his hand.
"I can be quiet," Luke said softly.
Din didn't speak but sat up and took off his hat and Luke did the same, then he pulled Luke by one arm until he was closer and let Luke kiss him, kissed him back. Luke tasted like hot sauce and coffee and the tinniness of the stream water they'd boiled for the coffee and Din thought of how, in books, these kinds of moments, this kind of want was equated to hunger and that maybe now he understood why.
"What you got there?" Din asked when they parted and Luke was still clutching something in his hand, his white underwear tented at the front.
Luke showed him.
"I come prepared," Luke said.
"Maybe I ain't," Din said and Luke shrugged.
"That's your business. You let me handle mine."
Then Luke kissed him again and leaned up and away to tug at Din behind his knees, to get him to stretch out until only Din's head rested against his saddle and Luke was pulling Din's underwear down around and off of his hips.
"Don't throw 'em in the sand," Din said.
"I ain't," Luke said.
"Set 'em out to dry."
"I am! Jesus!"
"Don't fucking swear neither."
Luke shook his head, his tongue in his grinning cheek, the firelight shining there and in his eyes.
"You about done?" he asked.
"I'm done," Din said.
Luke smirked down at him from between the V of Din's bent knees and touched himself through the cotton of his underwear, touched Din too, and Din thought he would kiss him again, wished it so, but Luke only shuffled back and bent his head to suck noisily on Din's cock and Din almost moaned but was quiet for the horses, the cattle, and the dark silent sky overhead.
"That's good," he said softly and put his hand in Luke's hair, soft as a new foal, and watched Luke in the firelight and the first of the moonlight, moving up and down on him and now and then casting his eyes up to catch Din's. "That's good," he said again and lay back.
There was something wild about Luke, there always had been. Something untamable but malleable, like all the best cutting horses he'd ever ridden, who needed just a little spite in them to make them worth anything. Luke didn't need to be broken, only reminded now and then that he had a job to do and a job worth doing and a home and somebody to answer to.
"I thought you was prepared for more than that?" Din asked, though he was still caressing Luke's hair gently.
Luke pulled off of him with a noise and frowned.
"That's called foreplay, asshole."
"I think it's played itself out. Fetch me that lube."
"I got it," Luke said and slapped Din's hand away. "I said I got it."
Then Din lay back again and Luke pressed cold, slick fingers against him, just pushing at first, massaging, and it was all Din could do not to touch himself or to groan and Luke seemed to know and hushed him and whispered dirty things into the quiet too-wide space between them, one hand on Din's knee as if to steady him, sat back on his haunches still in his tented underwear.
Luke pushed inside him with one and then two fingers and a third shortly after and Din ached so hard he thought a light breeze would make him come, but he waited. He waited and he turned his head and closed his eyes, unable to watch Luke any longer, unable to hold off the inevitable if he did.
Then he felt Luke pull away and he turned again to watch the silhouette of him stand and strip out of his underwear, rimmed golden and shining beneath from the light of the flames and blue above by the light of the moon, like some chimeric being sent to demand Din's atonement or Din's worship. Din would have given him either.
"Goddamn," Luke said down at him watching Din stroke himself on the blanket in the sand and Din wondered what he must look like, hadn't wondered before then.
"C'mon, pardner," Din said and sat up and Luke came to him, knelt again between his legs to kiss him, sloppy and obscene, until Din pushed him away and demanded he get on with it so that Luke shook his head like he might be tempted to leave off but Din knew he wouldn't and Luke knew he wouldn't and Din lay back again as Luke rolled on the condom he'd brought.
Then Luke leaned over him and Din wrapped his legs around Luke's hips and waited, relaxing, letting the pressure of Luke's cock pushing against him burn just a little, just for a moment, and then he put his heels to Luke's ass.
"C'mon," Din said again, like he'd say it to a horse, but Luke was too distracted to notice and then they were moving together, fast and a little rough and distantly Din heard the rustle of hooves in the sand and wondered what sort of beast they must have looked like to the animals, but then all was quiet but Luke's breathing and his own breathing in tandem.
"Luke," he whispered softly, or thought he had done so, but it must have had some bite because Luke pushed up off of him a little and stopped moving, frowning down.
"I swear if you're gonna keep complainin' I'll leave you here to take care of yourself."
"No," Din said, shaking his head, spurring again with his heels until Luke snapped his hips again and they both stifled a moan. "That's good," Din said, "fuck, that's perfect."
"Yeah?" Luke asked, gaining momentum again.
"Yeah.
"Perfect?"
Din couldn't see his smile but knew it.
"Yeah, fuck yes. Yes."
"Perfect, he says."
"You're fucking perfect," Din whispered and pulled Luke down hard by the neck, the muscles there straining beneath his grip and kissed him hard and long until he came between them and it was all he could do to not bite Luke's lip or his own.
"Don't come yet," he said when Luke pulled out of him and tossed aside the condom and started to jerk off. Din sat up, touched his arm. "Set astride me."
Luke stopped stroking, whining and clenching his fists around nothing as he knelt silently, clearly close to the edge so that he gritted his teeth but after a moment he cooled and moved into Din's lap.
"You're so goddamn bossy," he said.
"I'm the boss, ain't I?" Din said. He had poured some of the slick lube onto his fingers while Luke had recovered and now he reached between Luke's legs to cup his balls, to press fingers against his perineum.
Luke gasped and Din quieted him with a kiss.
"Ain't I the boss, Luke?"
"Yessir," Luke whispered, the fight gone out of him, hands light on Din's shoulders, the way he'd been taught to hold reins.
"The sooner you learn that the better off you'll be," Din said, his voice surprisingly steady as Luke squirmed against him, wriggling down to make Din enter him.
"Din," he said.
"Quiet now," Din soothed. "Take it easy. Push against me."
Luke settled down and Din pushed inside, two from the start, curling and scissoring as Luke canted his hips forward.
"Relax," Din said, "find your rhythm," and Luke nodded, breathing, hips moving in the gentle forward rhythm of a lope as Din did the work, one hand on Luke's side to steady him until Luke dropped his forehead cold and sweaty against Din's shoulder, making the softest noises, soft enough that Din wondered if he really heard them.
"Alright," Din said, "you can touch yourself. When I tell you to I want you to come."
"Yessir," Luke said again.
Din mirrored Luke, rested his forehead against Luke's shoulder so that he could look between them to watch Luke touch himself in the firelight, felt his own cock stirring again. "That's good--almost. You alright?"
"Yessir, I'm okay."
"Good. You ready?"
"Yeah, please. Please."
"Come on then, come for me, Luke."
Afterward they cleaned up in the little stream and redressed in their warm, dry underwear and mostly dry shirts against the chill of the night and then sat for a while holding each other as the moon rose higher.
"If you cut and rode as well as you fucked," Din said at one point, "you'd make a pretty good cowboy."
"I'll set the first watch," Luke said, grinning, and Din didn't argue, having seen the kid's bunk light on late into the night.
He fell asleep watching the bright stars crowded like a hundred million cattle in the black night so that he dreamed of driving across the dark plains a herd of luminous creatures, with light in their bodies and light in their peculiar faces, too many to reckon, beasts unknown to the waking world yet unstrange to his dream self.
When Luke woke him the moon had moved across the sky and he wondered what it was like up there among the stars, what distances a man must travel from one to the next, how many lifetimes must be lived between one small point of light and another.
Before dawn they dressed and packed their bags and fed the horses and ate for themselves the last of the tortillas and swung up and headed back toward the ranch. They crossed the river at midday through a shallow piece and loitered there for a while as horse, cow, and man alike all had their fill of water and cooled their necks or their muzzles.
"Gonna have to change my name on the roster," Luke said as they drove the little herd down out of the hills and toward the ranch only a few miles now down into the valley.
"Why's that?" Din asked.
"On account of me earnin' my new name."
"Did you?"
"I did. You oughta know, you gave it to me."
"The hell I did."
Luke grinned. "Mr. Perfect. You don't remember? You said it enough."
Din sighed, pushed his horse on down the hill and toward the edge of the herd grazing there. They parted to let horse and rider pass through.
"I don't reckon you're ever gonna let me forget it."