Walking to the Stars (10 page)

"Mmm?” Samuel murmured when Nick lifted the covers and slid under the covers behind him.

"Go back to sleep,” Nick said, settling his arm around Samuel's chest, covering Samuel's hand with his own.

Nick wasn't naked, no amount of desire would make him walk around the farmhouse naked in winter, but Samuel had no shirt or jumper on, and Nick nuzzled his face against Samuel's skin, breathing in deeply, pressing his lips against Samuel's shoulder.

Even that was enough to make the iron bedstead creak, so Nick stopped and reluctantly let his head fall back onto Samuel's pillow.

It was blissfully warm, wrapped around Samuel, and Nick put some effort into ignoring what his body thought of the whole situation, and willed himself to sleep.

The pre-dawn crashing in the house seemed even more forceful than usual, waking Samuel from a deep sleep. Someone was curled up beside him, someone warm and alive and being very persistent with his cock, grinding it against Samuel's arse in a way that could only be described as provocative.

Samuel was provoked, intensely provoked, and he thought maybe they were just going to act on this when a huge clatter sounded from the kitchen, and Nick groaned.

"You wouldn't believe what I was dreaming,” he said against Samuel's neck. “It felt fantastic."

"I would believe it, and it will feel fantastic,” Samuel said, rocking back against Nick. “Want to find out for sure?"

Crash. Slam.

"Or maybe not,” Nick said,

Samuel surreptitiously reached down and squeezed his own cock through his borrowed trousers. The material was rough against his skin, coarse wool, and it would take days to dry, so coming wasn't an option, not right away.

Metal banged against metal, then the plumbing belched, and Samuel said, “I think you should know, I'm suffering here."

"You're not the only one,” Nick said, and it sounded like his teeth were clenched. He lifted the covers off, letting in a freezing draught of air.

This time, on the ride out to the camp, Samuel kept his hand firmly on Nick's thigh. Nick had left Samuel at the house, wearing a borrowed raincoat and swearing at the photovoltaic cells, trying to get a working array hooked up to the batteries Nick and Josh had hauled over to the shearing shed, and gone out to do his rounds and clinic.

When he'd come back, Josh was still out on the tractor, putting in the oat crop, but the meter in the top of one of the batteries was flickering into life, indicating the cells were still putting out some power.

Samuel had hoped, given that the house was empty, that there could have been a little celebrating, but Nick had just packed him into the van to go to the camp. Girdagan and her new baby were more important than finally getting to touch each other, Samuel should have remembered that.

They repeated the process of stopping at a rock again, but this time it was on the other side of the road from before. Samuel spent some time, hand against the rock, looking at it closely. A rock that size, as wet as the rest of the forest, should have moss and lichen growing on it, but it was clean, spotlessly clean. Maybe the Noongars kept it clean?

Nick's hand slid around his waist, steadying him and drawing him closer, and Samuel turned with difficulty, into the embrace.

Nick was getting more confident, more adventurous, each time they kissed, and this time his hands slid inside the back of Samuel's trousers, cupping his buttocks through cotton, torture of the best kind, making Samuel moan and grind against Nick.

No one was around, not another person or vehicle within earshot. Samuel pushed a hand between their bodies to fumble with Nick's fly buttons, and someone laughed behind them.

"Dr. Nick's kissing Samuel, unna?” Talgerit said, and Samuel wiped his mouth unsteadily and reached for his crutches.

"Talgerit,” Nick said, and he reached down and did up the button that Samuel had managed to get undone. “I wish you wouldn't sneak around like that. Where is everyone meeting?"

"Not sneaking, just walking quietly,” Talgerit said, and he pointed into the forest, lifting his arm from beneath the animal skins he was wearing. “Through there, by the pond."

It was slow going, getting through the forest, even with Nick and Talgerit holding branches aside for him and helping him over the rough ground, and Samuel was just about exhausted, soaked with sweat under his waterproof jacket, and almost stumbling, when the undergrowth gave way to a clearing around a small pond.

People waited there, Noongar men, sitting around a fire on a flat rock, and Nick helped Samuel lower himself to the ground close to the fire.

"You all right?” Nick asked quietly, and Samuel wiped the sweat from his eyes and nodded.

"Just exhausted,” Samuel said equally quietly, and Ed squatted down in front of Samuel and Nick. He was dressed in rags; that and his grin should have made him look harmless, but he was exuding power, and it made Samuel feel incredibly vulnerable.

"Dr. Nick wants to talk, unna?” Ed said. “About white Samuel, eh?"

"Yes,” Nick said. “If Ed will allow me to?"

"Talk,” Ed said, and he settled back on his heels, beside Talgerit and the other men that Samuel didn't know.

"Samuel needs to go to Perth, on whiteman business,” Nick said. “Important business. Whitemen are going to go to the moon and the stars, make new lives there, but first Samuel has to get a machine from Perth and take it to his home. He needs Noongar help to do this. Will you help him?"

"You going to the moon, Samuel?” Talgerit asked. “Can I come with you?"

Samuel shook his head. “Not me, Talgerit. I have to stay here and fix things. Maybe you could go to the moon instead of me?"

Talgerit looked pleased, smiling smugly and crossing his legs beneath his skin cloak.

"You're not a clever man yet,” Ed said, pointing at Talgerit. “You're not a Featherman yet. Tell me about this machine, Samuel. Does it fly to the moon?"

"No,” Samuel said, wondering how explained how accurate the clock was to someone who had probably never owned a watch. “It can measure time forever, and always be right. Time flows differently out between the stars, or at least we think it does, and this clock can measure it."

"Forever?” Ed said, his eyes widening. “It can measure time in the Dreaming?"

Samuel went to ask what the Dreaming was, but Nick's hand on his knee squeezed and he cut in and said, “Yes. It can measure time right from the very beginning, to the very end."

Silence settled in the clearing, from the men, and somewhere in the forest a bird called out, high and clear, ringing through the forest, through the undergrowth and around the clearing.

They sat like that for what felt like an eternity, until Samuel's legs were numb from sitting, flies crawled across his face, and he had to fight back the urge to swish them away.

Then Ed began to sing, low and deep and tuneless, rumbling words that made no sense to Samuel, that went on and on. Nick touched Samuel's arm, and patted his own knee, and Samuel lay down on the wet ground and rested his head on Nick's knee.

The song went on, and Talgerit and Nick and the others murmured along sometimes, and Samuel watched the ants come out onto the soil, scurrying along, carrying grains of sand, and the song began to get inside his head.

He felt like he drifting off, as though the forest was melting away and he was flying over the land, above hills and streams and rivers, as if the whole world was unfolding in front of him.

He jolted awake when Nick shook his shoulder. It was dark now in the clearing, apart from the fire, and his body was tired and stiff from the cold, and he struggled to sit upright.

When Samuel managed to get upright, Talgerit was standing naked beside the fire, and he seemed to be painting stripes on his body with white goop.

"They've agreed to help, or at least Talgerit has,” Nick said quietly.

Josh was all bewildered sleepiness, holding the door open, candle in his hand, while Nick half guided, half carried Samuel into the kitchen.

"What...?” he asked, rubbing at his face and blinking. “Is Samuel hurt?"

"Build the fire up,” Nick said, and he lowered Samuel down in front of the stove.

Samuel had stopped crying, at least, sometime during the drive back to the farm, when the morphine Nick had given him had begun to work.

Josh knelt down in front of the stove, opened the damper, added kindling and then hacked up a mallee root, and dropped the oven door open to let more heat into the room.

The water in the kettle was still warm from the last time it had been boiled, and Nick poured some into a bowl and added a pinch of salt.

"You can go back to bed, Josh,” he said. “Samuel has just been scarred, that's all. I'm going to take care of him, then put him to bed."

Josh shook his head disbelievingly, and went back to bed.

Nick carefully undid Samuel's raincoat, and Samuel whimpered and opened his eyes. “Is it over?” he asked distantly.

"All done,” Nick said reassuringly.

Samuel looked up at Nick, pupils pinpoints, and nodded. “With you?” he asked. “Don't want to sleep alone."

"With me,” Nick said, and he undid the string at the waist of Samuel's borrowed trousers and pulled them down carefully.

Candles waited on the shelf, beside the stove, and he lit another couple and put them beside the bowl of water.

Ed had dressed Samuel's wounds carefully, but it still wasn't good enough in Nick's opinion.

"Look at me,” Nick said gently, and Samuel opened his eyes again. “I need to clean you up,” Nick said. “That's all."

The wounds across Samuel's unplastered thigh were packed with moss, and it took a little while to get the moss off and the wounds clean, but Samuel was quiet and held still. Then Nick poured more water into another bowl and added salt. He soaked some gauze in the water and carefully wrapped it around the wounds. He layered clean dry gauze over the bandage, then turned his attention to Samuel's chest wounds.

They were much easier to care for, and he just wiped them over with clean water. Ash from the fire had been rubbed into them, the same as his own new cuts, to give the distinctive ridges, so the wounds didn't need to be opened up and cleaned. They could be left to heal without dressing.

It took effort to get the groggy and miserable Samuel back on his feet, then into Nick's bed, but Nick managed, and when Samuel was curled up under the covers, Nick went back into the kitchen. He emptied the bowls of water, put away the gauze, closed the damper on the fire and refilled the kettle, then blew all but one of the candles out.

He'd put Samuel to bed naked, and he stripped himself before he climbed in beside Samuel. This was a night when they needed the skin contact, no matter how cold the room was.

Samuel was cold, really cold, and Nick couldn't tell if it was from the time they had spent naked in the forest, or if it was the morphine, but it didn't really matter which it was. He curled up behind Samuel, wrapping himself around the man.

"What about the women?” Samuel asked. “How is a woman initiated?"

Nick drew the blankets tighter around Samuel's shoulders and kissed the back of his head. “I don't know,” Nick said. “That's women's business. Maybe the process of childbirth is considered initiation enough?"

"Does it hurt more than this?” Samuel whispered, and Nick hugged him tighter.

"Yeah,” Nick said. “It does, at least as far as I can tell. That's why it's so amazing that women keep on having babies. Try and go to sleep, it'll help."

Samuel made a sleepy sound, and Nick closed his eyes in the dark. His chest hurt, where the new cuts were, but that was nothing compared to the ache in his belly from having watched Samuel being scarred.

Light crept into the room and Samuel was alone when he woke up.

He wanted to curse or cross himself, but Nick was right; after what he had gone through the night before in the clearing in the forest, he no longer had the right to cross himself.

He didn't know or understand what it was he'd seen, only that everyone had shone white, brighter than the fire even.

He must have made a noise because the door swung open and Nick appeared, mug in his hands. “I brought you tea,” he said, and Samuel struggled upright in the bed and when the blankets fell off him, it was freezing cold.

"I need to piss,” Samuel said.

"Thought you might,” Nick said and he reached down under the bed and pulled out a bottle. “Here you go. I'll leave the tea here, give you some privacy."

Samuel really didn't feel like getting up, so he propped the bottle on the chest of drawers beside the bed and pulled the covers back up and reached for his tea.

A few minutes later, while Samuel was deep in nostalgic ruminations about the inadequacies of chicory as a coffee substitute, Nick pushed the door open again.

He took the bottle away and brought Samuel a wet cloth to wipe his hands, then sat on the edge of the bed and handed Samuel a sweater. “Here,” he said. “This'll keep you warm. You probably don't want to think about putting clothes on the bottom half of you today at all."

"Or ever again,” Samuel said ruefully after he had pulled the sweater on. “I had hoped that the first time we saw each other naked might be less painful than that."

Nick chuckled. “Me, too."

"Is Talgerit really going to guide me to Perth?” Samuel asked, and Nick smiled at him.

"You can ask him yourself. He's going to come over and sit with you so I can go to clinic and do a couple of house calls."

Despite his doubts, Samuel did manage to pull a pair of Nick's trousers on and hobble out to the toilet, and then to wash himself, at least superficially, in the bathroom sink.

Once he'd brushed his teeth, things began to seem better, or at least bearable, and he hobbled back to the bedroom to find Nick stripping the sheets from the bed.

"Won't be a moment,” Nick said, helping Samuel to a chair. “We both bled on the sheets last night."

Samuel's hand went to his chest.

"What are yours like?” Samuel asked, and Nick turned from tucking a sheet in and unbuttoned his shirt.