Disorder in the House [How the West Was Done 2] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (12 page)

But to what avail? What was all this flying about showing him? Other than indulging in a passion for gossip.

Tonight was different. Tonight he soared with a purpose. He wasn’t just content to flit about from tent to tent or even to speed over the horse corrals or the river, where he breathed in the fresh rapids and grasses, the fish frisky and jumping in their early morning constitutional. No, tonight he maintained the question in his head.
Where is Shady Barnhart?
With this in mind, Garrett thought he could get some answers.

He knew he had to get away from Laramie City to do so, but before he left, he saw an odd thing. His spirit swooped into the saloon of the Frontier Hotel. A fellow with a thick, elaborate moustache sat with Simon Hudson, drinking ale. Garrett was irritated he should have to look at this mundane business, especially as they seemed to only be discussing the old college days at Amherst.

His irritation seemed to propel him onward, for his spirit soon rushed up and away from the town. The dimly lit prairie opened up below him as he flew up the windswept slopes of the Laramie Mountains, populated with gnarled, deformed pines. Heartened to know he was heading toward Sherman Summit and the Dale Creek Bridge, he gladly soared over ridge after barren ridge. He raced up the dizzying slope of the bridge following the train tracks, and when his spirit shot out over the summit, he hovered there for a few seconds, enjoying the scene.

Up here, he could hover as though in a cottony cocoon, imbued with joy at everything. He still thought about daily human life back in Laramie. For instance, he was very pleased with the recent turn of events with Levi. He had never voluntarily allowed another man to touch him, but when Levi had grabbed his cock, it seemed right and natural. It was as though they were two old spirit friends coming together—as though he’d known Levi in a previous incarnation.

Garrett knew that Spiritualists believed that life continued in some angelic form after death. So he supposed he was a Spiritualist and should ask Liberty if he could borrow some of her father’s books. His—or rather, Paddy’s—prophecy that Levi would arrive in town indicated some sort of connection between them, some predestination that the paths of their lives would meet and converge. It did not seem strange at all that Levi had suddenly frigged his penis to completion. Perhaps Levi was accustomed to doing that with other men. It wasn’t so unusual on the prairie, where women were scarce.

So Garrett just hovered over the Dale Creek Bridge and the summit where so many tracklayers had toiled and suffered, attacked by Indians. His ghostly body shivered to see a lone pine tree in the rising sun. Having fixated on it, his spirit automatically streaked to get a closer look. Yes, here it was. The Lone Pine Tree, sticking out of a great crack in an enormous boulder.

However, just as he strove to inspect the tree closer for the body of Caeser Moxus, his soul flashed to another location entirely. It was a small Indian encampment of tipis, and outside one of them, some people were binding a
wakan
man into a buffalo robe. As Garrett swept closer, he saw they were binding a small boulder, a symbol of the gods, into the wrapping with him. They tied all his fingers and toes, wrapped the entire package in cords, then rolled him into the tipi.

Now seeming to float at about human eye level, Garrett entered the tent. It looked as though this
wakan
man would heal one who was sick. Garrett recognized the ill man as Brave Buffalo, one of the bogus signers of the bogus treaty at Fort Sanders. The
wakan
fellow wailed and moaned the usual prayers.

Having these four souls I make my campfires.

The day that is determined for me, may it come earthward.

Where have you gone, bird? Behold your friend.

With a crown of glory, I come forth.

That was the language of the sun as it rose in splendor. A young man then gave a wild yell and all torches were extinguished. The
wakan
man became fearful as a wind rose from nowhere and rattled the tent furiously. He called out, “Come carefully. Your father is very weak. Be careful.”

The gods paid no attention, and a drum and a deer hoof rattle hanging over the
wakan
fellow’s head were beaten and shaken violently by invisible hands. Brave Buffalo’s teeth chattered with fever and fear—Garrett could feel the emotions of each person in the tipi. Everyone was terrified of the gods that would bang the drum and rattle the tipi so ferociously. The tipi was full of the little demons who babbled wildly, but even Garrett, who was familiar with the language, couldn’t make out what they were saying.

Becoming suspicious, Garrett removed himself from the tent to see what was going on outside. There hadn’t been any wind before. And lo and behold, what did Garrett discover but two white fellows standing outside, shaking the tipi by its framework of lodge poles.

Garrett went even closer to inspect the men.
Moses Taggart. And Shady Barnhart.

Automatically his fist drew back to strike Shady.
Give me back my wedding ring, you bastard!
But it was as though he were punching through mud. His normally powerful uppercut was like the feeble slap of a schoolboy. In fact, his punch didn’t even connect, didn’t slow Shady down in the slightest from his enthusiastic quaking of the tent.

Of course, Garrett tried again and again. He even went over to Moses and attempted to smite him down, calling forth all the spiritual powers he was unfamiliar with to assist him. Again, it was as though he were trying to wallop some fellow underwater. That made sense. He didn’t have a body.

Yet his anger at the charade these shysters were perpetrating only mounted. He tried roaring as loud as he could and didn’t elicit the tiniest response from either toad. His anger was nearly blinding him. Or maybe it was the rising sun that started to obliterate the vision of the two chiselers. But the entire encampment soon shimmered away into a soft and fuzzy glow.

Garrett looked around. Where was he?

“Garrett, my friend.”

Caeser Moxus!
Garrett was being addressed by the ghost of a dead Indian chief!

Garrett saw Caeser then, but he was mainly a floating face being eaten up by the heavenly glow.

“Yes, Caeser?” They didn’t speak through their mouths but through a sort of mind communication.

“You have seen what those men are capable of. What they are doing to us.”

“Yes, Caeser. And it’s my mission to capture them, to serve out justice. Can you tell me where you are buried? I believe you’re buried by that lone pine tree I saw.”

“Yes. Come soon. Brave Buffalo will die soon with the lies of that
wakan
man who is working in cahoots with those white men.”

“I aim to, Caeser. But first we have to stay in Laramie and protect a white woman from some cold waters. Do you know anything about that?”

Caeser’s ghost answered Garrett something along the lines of, “I don’t know anything about a white woman.” Not a terribly helpful fellow when it came to matters that didn’t concern him. Obviously, the afterlife didn’t grant one omnipotent powers over things beyond one’s scope.

And then the vision was gone. Garrett was back in his bed, as though he’d been tossed there by a giant hand in the heavens.

He gasped and clutched his blanket to his chest.

“So has Paddy gotten ahold of you yet?”

Garrett looked up from his sawing as though surprised to see Levi standing there. He was hunched over a sawhorse, clad in only his long red drawers, chaps, and his worn Wellington boots. Each motion of his arm with the saw against the boards only served to ripple the muscles in his back and shoulder, fascinating Levi.

Garrett didn’t let go of his grip on the saw. He stood with feet spread wide apart, as though he’d posed there for the express purpose of arousing Levi. “Not in so many words, no. But I’ve been having these sorts of”—his free hand demonstrated something birdlike and fluid—“visions, I guess you could say. Visions I have when sleeping. Last night after…” He looked to the ground, perhaps in shame at recalling their encounter the night before, and he started afresh. “Last night I, or rather, my spirit, decided to take flight around Laramie.”

“Really?” Intrigued, Levi put a booted foot on a block of wood. “What did you see? Anything compromising?”

“Actually, yes. You wouldn’t believe the things that go on in this town. Do you know that newspaper fellow, Henry Zuckerkorn? Boy, does he like spanking ladies wearing uniforms. Anyway, that wasn’t the important thing. I wound up flying, or whatever you want to call it, over the Dale Creek Bridge. That’s where I saw the lone pine tree.”

Levi raised his eyebrows. Garrett was certainly becoming a first-class medium, and he constantly astonished Levi. If Garrett weren’t a man, Levi would almost say he was falling in love with him. He had the utmost respect for him, admired and trusted him, and he lusted after him. Were not those the requirements for this elusive “love” people professed to know about? “Do you think you could lead us to it?”

Garrett nodded. “We could probably find it. It sticks out from the landscape surrounding it. But this part is incredible, Levi. I was in the camp where Brave Buffalo’s tribe has been driven. He’s sick, dying maybe. I was inside the tipi when it began to rattle, scaring everyone. Well, guess what.”

“What?”

Garrett looked at him pointedly, pausing for effect.
“Shady and Moses were there, shaking the tent to scare people.”

Levi paused, too, to let this sink in. “Do you know where the encampment was? They move all the time.”

“That’s the problem. I just appeared there suddenly, so I couldn’t give you a map. But maybe this
wakan
fellow Caleb Poindexter could give us an idea. He’d know where Brave Buffalo is currently residing.”

“Yes, Liberty said she’d find him for us. Rather an odd fellow, isn’t he? Slinking around dressed like an Indian.”

Garrett shrugged, a beautiful play of pectoral muscle against his shimmering, slick skin. His hairless chest looked to be constructed of polished wood. “He’s a blacksmith who comes into the fort sometimes to collect the supplies for the tribes. He’s a mystic, a
wakan
fellow, probably one of those who got brain injuries in the war.”

“Does he seem simple to you?”

“Not at all. I can tell by his language that he’s highly educated. Like you.”

Levi nearly lowered his eyes in humility. He should have said something modest, like “I’m not that educated.” But the fact of the business was, he
was
educated. A Harvard graduate, he’d been a journalist in Chicago for the
Tribune
before having his heart stomped upon by his fiancée, a beautiful vixen by the name of Myrtle Cedarberry. Levi didn’t even like to think about her name anymore, much less picture her face. That she had thrown him over because she didn’t agree with his ideologies had tossed him into a tempest of questioning ever since. That was probably why he’d taken such a low-paying and remote job as Indian agent. He could rant his opinions freely, but there wouldn’t be that many people around to hear him.

Instead, he said, “Thank you. I can tell you’re educated, too. How did you learn to read and write?”

“My master taught me. He was starting to go blind, and he wanted me to read the papers and other things to him.” He shrugged. “He was my pappy.”

Levi was stunned. It was one thing in the South to have a white father but quite another to go about mentioning it. “So, I take it he was rather a nice man?”

“A nice man who wanted someone to read things to him. Listen,” said Garrett, in another tone of voice entirely. Now he did set down the saw and boldly faced Levi. The smell of fresh sweat meant that Garrett would soon be bathing again, a prospect that caused Levi’s cock to expand pleasantly. “About last night.”

“Yes, about your vision. I really feel obligated to remain near Miss Hudson until we can figure out—”

“Not about the vision. About this.”

And Garrett kissed him.

Levi had never kissed another man, and it was a strange new experience. He fell into it easily, relishing the taste and velvety feel of Garrett’s delectable lips against his. Garrett knocked his Stetson off to grab a handful of his thick hair, to hold his face to his. But with all things manly, they were soon locked in a clinch. Garrett’s long arms fully surrounded him and bent him back a little, as though he held a beloved woman, and Levi had to raise himself on his toes a bit to meet him face-to-face.

Garrett’s warm, cowlike tongue licked his lips, and he parted them eagerly. They licked each other like giant cats, all muscular limbs and musky scents intermingling, Garrett’s slick chest leaving a damp imprint on Levi’s shirtfront. It was stimulating and different to run his fingertips along the base of Garrett’s skull. Having only kissed women before, it aroused Levi to feel the massive skull. There were no fragile, birdlike bones here. Everything about Garrett was raw, elegant, and succulent.

Garrett’s long cock rose up and knocked against his thigh, and he ran his hand down Levi’s back to grasp his ass and grip him close. The long, stiff penis now rubbed against his own erection, sending delicious shivers into Levi’s balls, and the two men snorted hot breaths against each other’s faces.