“We got us a station agent,” he says, and the kid listens, forgets about me so I steal a sideways glance because I can’t resist. Part of me is asking what in God’s hell is happening but the rest, including my dick, don’t care.
The boy’s pink mouth is full lipped like a woman’s. I consider how those lips might feel on my cock, then force myself back to the conversation.
The cabin we inhabit on the Coote ranch is some distance from the main house where Merle Coote and wife reside. Merle allows us the place as we keep him supplied with stolen horses and money. We are careful never to be tracked there. After a job we hole up at Moncton Canyon or some such out of the way spot until there is no posse about. Then we come back to the ranch.
The cabin sits in a cottonwood grove alongside a decent stream and is a fine place to rest up between jobs. Town is not too far and we are known to spend our loot there, sometimes too quickly at the gambling tables. I know no other life, and now as I see Jesse, the boy, about to take it up, I wonder if he’ll be like me, ruined for honest work.
Abel says something that makes Jesse laugh, and I see a wide smile, good teeth. The ache in me is familiar below the belt but not so above. My life has left little room for matters of the heart, but that organ seems affected now as much as the one in my pants, although something also seems lodged in my gut. This is not the usual way, like with Harlan, where we come upon one another and have us a fuck.
I find myself welcoming the feeling Jesse brings, and I can’t take my eyes off him. My hands itch to get at him, not so much to fuck as to run my fingers over that golden skin, to pull away the clothes and pet him. As his smile fades and his mouth closes, I think how it would be to have mine upon his. The urge is strong to do that, but I never kissed no man, no woman neither. Harlan and me don’t do such things, don’t pet one another, just bare the necessities and do it.
Two weeks have passed since the Medford job, and much of our money is gone. Some we gave to the Wainwright family who were down on their luck and about to starve, Sam Wainwright taken sick, wife nowhere to turn and three kiddies to feed. We bought clothes and food, which was most welcome. Much of the rest went to card games in town. Now Merle says we need to bring him some horses, so before we rob any bank or train we have that to do.
Jesse and Abel take bunks in the cabin, Abel in Neely’s, which don’t seem to bother him. I make it a point to be inside because I crave sight of the kid and sure enough, he strips off his shirt. This all but takes my breath away, and I bring myself to the table while stealing looks at a sturdy frame and more of that palomino skin. He’s well developed for such a young man, hard work in his past. His tits are more brown than pink which excites me as it’s more of that mix. No hair on him, smooth all over, and I think of my tongue on him, licking his places, and this gets me to what he has in his pants, which causes me to flee the cabin so I don’t make a fool of myself.
I walk down to the stream where I attempt calm, but the urge is upon me and I give it free rein, think of Jesse naked, black patch of hair between his legs and a fresh young cock. My own is stiff and when Harlan joins me beside the water and says he thinks we’ve done good with the new men, I pull him into the trees and fuck him hard and quick.
Merle’s wife Sarah gives us supper up to the house, and Jesse eats like a starving man. I keep my head down while the others talk about where to find horses to steal, when to do the job. Jesse is directly across from me, and I look up now and again to see him because he is unlike the rest of us who are worn and ragged with rough beards and coarse skin parched by outdoor life. Jesse looks just born, set upon this earth whole and beautiful. Thinking on this causes the ache to take me over, and I start to worry others can feel the heat, because Jesse looks over at me and holds his eyes to mine like he knows I’m captive to him. Then he smiles a little and goes back to his stew, and I am left struck not only by his attentions but by the thought that he is no outlaw.
I know there is a world beyond the one familiar to me, big cities like New York and San Francisco, and I think that’s where Jesse belongs, dressed up among others who lead honorable lives and have no idea what it is to be on the run. But I have to stop myself thinking such things because the here and now is that he is part of our gang, so the most I can do is keep him from making a mistake and getting shot.
Abel don’t pay much attention to the kid. After supper they don’t spend time together, Abel drinking whiskey with Vern Lockhart and Bob Fisher who are the rest of our gang. Jesse climbs into his bunk with some paper he brought along, some sort of picture I’d venture. Looking at it, he don’t seem to care where he is, like the paper takes him away from us, and it makes me want to see what he sees, so I get up from the table as if to stretch, wander over near to him and look down. He can’t help but know I’m there beside him, and I like that he makes no move to hide his picture. I find myself greatly relieved it’s no girl but is instead a rough pencil drawing of house and barn, corral, fields beyond. And I wonder if he made this and if it might be the place he and Abel come from, and my heart presses on me terrible, like it could push out of my chest, because he is such a boy, holding onto what likely is gone, otherwise he wouldn’t be here with Abel looking to outlaw.
“You draw that?” I ask and he nods. “Home?” I ask and again the nod, and I see he don’t want to talk about it, but I want to keep on. “You draw anything else?”
“Sometimes,” he says in near a whisper, which makes it feel like we’re talking secret.
“Other places or can you draw people, too?”
“Been known to. Only kept this one.”
He don’t sound sad about this, only resigned, and I wonder what all has been left in that house and why his brother is making him become one of us. But I can’t say that here, and it fills up in me, this wanting him but also wanting for him. So I back off, go outside for a smoke.
“Why’d Abel bring the kid?” I ask Harlan when he joins me.
“Folks took sick and died so Abel went to look after him.”
“This ain’t no looking after.”
Harlan don’t say anything more and I fear he, by way of knowing me, can see I’m all churned up by the boy. “Jesse’s old enough to find work and make his own way,” I offer.
“You want him out of the gang?”
“Not saying that, just he doesn’t seem outlaw material.”
“Who in hell is?” Harlan laughs. “You raised up to rob banks? Christamighty, Frank, none of us chose it. Likely Abel didn’t neither, and Jesse is old enough to have a say, and it appears he ain’t said no.”
“I suppose.”
“Why’s this after you?”
I pass a few seconds thinking to keep my secret but surely Harlan can see the beauty before us. And before I can rein myself in, I’m telling it. “Jesse is a beauty. Don’t you see that? I never seen such beauty in a man, skin all golden and dark eyes and pink lips, almost a woman’s mouth.”
My prick gets hard from such talk but it’s my middle that feels good saying it out loud.
“You looking to fuck him?” Harlan asks.
“It ain’t all about fucking.”
“Hell it ain’t,” he growls and he shoves a hand down to my crotch. When he pulls me into the barn I don’t resist and when he fucks me standing I think on the kid and how he’ll bend like this, feel my prick going at him like Harlan’s at me.
I don’t come while he’s at it, so soon as he’s emptied and pulled out I turn and push him into the hay, then get my dick into him, but all the while I’m thinking on the kid.
“You don’t need to fuck no kid,” Harlan says as we lie in the hay after. “You got all you can handle right here.”
“Yep,” I say, though I know better. And I realize then, in a moment similar to the one when I killed a man at fourteen, that my life is changing, and I may one day have to shoot Harlan Crawford. I also see how the Crawford gang might not be the only way ahead. This excites me while at the same time brings a dread cause I don’t want to kill Harlan, but he has laid down a line I have already, in mind at least, crossed.
I don’t sleep much that night. I listen to snores and to a hand working a prick, knowing it’s Jesse, and I get a hand onto mine to share in the pleasure.
Next day all six of us ride some distance to steal horses belonging to Enoch Murphy. Vern brought word that Murphy had acquired a small herd and was coming down from Wyoming, which made them easy pickin’s as they had but three men. Our plan is to pull the job around sunset when they’ve settled in for the night. Vern figures them near Backtrack Canyon, so we head there after one of Sarah Coote’s good breakfasts.
Abel and Jesse ride together much of the way, same as me and Harlan, and I am further taken by the boy astride his horse. It’s a little brown and white paint, more Indian pony, which adds to his mix. I think how he’d look in buckskin pants and moccasins, shirtless, face painted. He rides like he’s born to it, and I think on those legs around me while my dick is in him.
Jesse is told to stick by Abel, just follow what he does. Near dark we find the herd tucked into the canyon. Harlan and me approach from the east, snaking down the canyon wall to surprise the men in their camp while Abel and the others appear up front. Though I’ve done this about a hundred times before, it seems new and I watch Jesse, who I find watching me.
Murphy’s men make a mistake by putting up a fight, so we shoot two and the other gives up. We take their horses along with the herd and drive them halfway to Merle’s before we make camp. We keep watch on the herd in shifts, and when I volunteer so does Jesse. As the others settle at the campfire, we are left to guard the perimeter.
The moon has seen fit to provide us its whole self, casting a blue light over the prairie. Astride our horses, we should ride separately but neither makes an effort toward this. Fortunately the stock remains quiet, so we just keep an eye out.
“How’s it feel?” I ask him.
“What?”
“Being an outlaw—because you are one now.”
“Don’t know,” he says, not looking at me. The light keeps half of him in dark, the other half that blue color, and I see his lips parted as if words are there but he can’t get to them. The ache in me grows strong.
“This your idea or Abel’s?” I ask.
He shrugs and I see he don’t much care what he is or where.
“Any way I can help?” I ask.
He turns to me and maybe its night come upon us or maybe just me pushing my desire onto him, but he don’t look sweet no more. He looks like some hungry wolf cub, and he smiles a crooked sort of thing, a leer maybe. Not a word is needed.
I get off my horse, pull him from his, and we stand between them as I take hold of this creature who has gotten inside me. “I mean to have you,” I tell him as I pull him to me. His mouth opens like he’s thirsty, and I see a bit of tongue which drives me near insane so I do it, put my mouth to his, tongue to his, and, lordy, how we grind against one another as we taste and kiss and lick.
We are at the back of the herd, well out of sight, and so I open my pants, get out my hard prick. Jesse drops his drawers and turns, presents me his bottom, and there in the moonlight between the horses I fuck him.
I want to howl with pleasure. As I shove into him he rocks back at me and tells me to fuck him. Over and over he says it, and we set us up a motion I’d have to call a galloping fuck, rocking back and forth as I drive my thing up him. But it’s too much, and my juice boils in my balls, and I start to come, spurting my stuff into him and telling him I’ll fuck him to kingdom come every day from now on. I keep this up till I am empty, but even then I don’t want to let him go. I pull him back against me, which causes me to slip out of him, but I rub the whole of him, reach around for his cock, which is soft, so he must have let go while I was in him.
Then I turn him to me, and I have me a real kiss. Not urgent, just take my time with my lips on his and he responds in kind, holding on to me, nether regions together.
The horses stir as they smell the sex. “We keep on, they’ll stampede,” I finally say and Jesse chuckles, and I like making him happy.
“I want to keep on with you,” I add. “You’re like no other man, ever.”
“What about Harlan?”
Here I close my pants and he does likewise. “Harlan and me just fuck,” I say. “It’s different with you.”