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It’s lonely in the foothills. Purple flowers and harsh mountain grass, little rocks lilac in the sunset. The air is fresh, faint birdsong echoing up the valley from the woods, soon it will be dark enough for the owls to come ghosting out of the trees, looking for dormice in the mountainside wilderness. It’s almost barren, so full of life but empty — like eagles rising high on hot air in an empty, empty sky.
Steve leans low over his Morgan’s neck, feeling the old leather of the saddle creak between his thighs, petting her mane soft in the sunset. She’s not got a name, Steve thinks it’s bad luck, she’s a chocolate Morgan with a wild streak, a low thrumming chaos to her tread. Steve still doesn’t know if he’s going to sell her next time he’s in town. The cattle are moving slow below them, eating their way through the wild flowers and grasses. It’s lonely, the way they speak to each other in low voices, chewing cud, and Steve and the Morgan wait voiceless on the ridge, watching, neither of ‘em knowing a language anyone in miles speaks. There probably should be someone else up here, helping him watch the herd, someone to talk to, but there isn’t. There’s just the rocks and the stones glowing deeper purple now as the sun sets fire to the horizon and the blue sky is going indigo, indigo, fading to black.
The herd is slowing now, the evening is still and silent and empty but for the wordless mumblings of the cows and somewhere an eagle calling, voice singing down the crags and ravines. “Time to stop, hey?” he murmurs to the Morgan, rubbing her neck still. Her ears twitch, trying to understand his speech, them the lonely walkers up here in foreign foothills.
*
Spring wanes on into summer — hot and gibbous as the moon on wild, swelling nights, clear skies and stars like gold panned sand — bringing the cattle up and down the foot hills, on silent baking days and through voiceless summer storms. He don’t loose many of ‘em, the cows want to stick together, even though he’s the only one driving them. There’s one night of hot rain, where the wind comes barrelling up from the flat plains below, roaring and ripping at his tent, the Morgan screaming where she’s hobbled, the cows bellowing, rain battering them down; Steve spends the next few days herding the cattle up again, where they’re strewn like autumn leaves in a gale all across the mountain, below the heavy grey clouds.
They go slow as the heat picks up, driving them slow, would be faster with a partner. Coyotes watch them, hunger starved, eyes on the little summer calves. Steve sits on the Morgan with his shotgun slung over his lap, waiting for them to get close enough to shoot, the big mamma cows watch too, swinging their heavy necks and blowing hot air. Only two coyotes manage to take a calf, the rest get trampled or shot.
After the big storm, the weather goes right, hot dry days that Steve spends driving them from one spring to the next for water, listening to the hawks cry in the lonely mountain air, watching them with claws on the crags. The Morgan settles, a little sway to her step like a drunk as they move slow behind the herd, and then fast when she needs to be, running down coyotes and spooked heifers.
By the time the weather starts turning cold, the days greyer and shorter, fall driving in on a sharp wind, they’re where they need to be. Riders come out from the town and help him drive them over the plains, they seem surprised to find him alone, like they don’t know Old Jim won’t deal out more money than he needs to.
“Long summer,” says one of them, stroking his mustang’s neck, saddle new and shining, lasso never used, “will be a harsh winter.”
They let him stay in one of the old farmhand steads. Steve listens to the shirts flapping on the line, watches the heavy grey clouds booming in over the flats, lightning strikes and glory, until spring comes again.
*
This time it’s sheep and cows, round the mountains again, milling about from the round-up in the big field. A spring rain is trickling from the brim of his hat, making the Morgan’s reins rainslick. He’s ready to be lonely up in the mountains again, only her for company below the big open skies, can’t wait for the sound of moth wings on tent canvas and the way the wind blows cold on hot days when they’re high enough to see for miles, to hear birds of prey screeching and see them diving from hot air swells for mice, ready to watch for mangy coyotes and hunker down from summer storms.
“Gotta ride them to Deadwood a’fore fall,” says Mulligan, chewing tobacco smacking between his teeth and then spit in the grass. “Case’ wants ‘em.”
“I’ll get ‘em there.” Casey Gallagher’s an impatient dick, but Steve’ll get them there. “Ride out in the morning.” The Morgan snorts like she understands, but she don’t or they’d have more to talk about up in the foothills.
“You’ll not be alone this time,” says Mulligan. “’Nother one of you boys came down here, June’s had to have him up in the inn, she hates having you cowboys in the inn.” Mulligan frowns up at him, leaning on the fence post, rain running down his grizzled cheeks. “You and him leaving at first light.”
“Right you are, Mulligan.” He thinks of the silent mountains and the bird calls and the sounds of the cows talking, he hopes — Gee-Oh-Dee save him, he hopes it ain’t some bastard. He hates spending days up in the quiet with one of those dirty men, who talk to much about hollow things, when Steve has to talk less than he would alone. “Ah’ll see you then.”
*
The mountains watch them as they strike out, the two of ‘em riding far apart in the colourless light of dawn, turning slow to lemon yellow in the mists, sky rolling to some icy cloud-spotted blue. The sheep and cows are mumbling, wandering through the dewy grass, mellow as anything.
Steve keeps his hat low and watches the man on his Rocky, whistling in a way Steve’s gonna find annoying less than a league out. “Who’s that then,” he mutters to the Morgan, peeling his gaze away from the man, “who’s that?” The foothills are lonely, Steve reminds himself, could do good to have company, keep himself from going mad up there with only the far off eagle calls and the Morgan speaking her own language.
*
When Steve’s plating up the chuck, the man with the Rocky says, “Name’s Eddie.”
Steve glances at him out of the corner of his eye. The sky is scored with stars, stretching from one black horizon to the other, the fire flickers against the cold spring night, there’s damp in the air and it’ll probably rain again come morning. Eddie’s eyes are dark, face weather cracked enough that Steve knows this isn’t his first trail. Their horses are snorting together out in the dark with the sleeping cattle and sheep, Steve don’t know the first thing about talking to people who aren’t horses.
“Steve,” he says, mumbles really, handing the man a bowl of chuck. “Please’ to meet you.”
“You as well,” says Eddie. “Thanks.” He raises the bowl then digs in.
They don’t talk much more, the night turns alive with bugs, the horses snorting, the cows chewing cud. They each have their own tents, Steve doesn’t know what to say when he goes into his, so he doesn’t say anything at all. Through the canvas, he can hear Eddie settling down to sleep as well.
*
The foothills feel just as lonely as they hit them, low where the fingers of the mountains reach out and ripple the plains, the air feels heavy with dew.
Eddie sidles his Rocky up. “Could stick to the plains. Longer, but less hilly.”
Steve doesn’t know how to say he likes the great aching silence of the mountains, the watercolour drops of the flowers and the tough grass, the eagle screeches along the spine of the west, the curve of a lasso snap in cool mountain wind, doesn’t know how to say all that without sounding like a girl. “Grass is better up there,” he says finally, rubbing the Morgan’s flank like a child squeezes the corner of a babe’s blanket. “An’ less drink which means less outlaws.”
He shrugs, long and languid, his dark eyes looking up the ridge. “Sure, that’s true enough.”
So they cut on up the foothills, where the grass and wildflowers grow tougher and little rocks glow lilac as the sun sets, musical wind tinkles through pines that fumble up out of the plains at the mountain edge, some great bird is calling up and down the ravine above them, the bulging blue-grey clouds warn rain.
*
Spring drizzle turns the mountains grey, fog rolling down towards the plains from above them, hiding the herd and muting the animal sound. If Steve had been up alone, it would have been like the whole world fell away. He and Eddie stay close, always at least keeping the silhouette of the other clear through the fog, moving on slowly through the dew wet grass, trying to keep the herd together.
“You ever seen it as bad as this?” Eddie asks, riding in close again, chewing a purple clover between his teeth.
“Ah, yeah. Not the worst I’ve seen it,” says Steve, watching the hulking shape of a heifer rolling through the fog ahead. “When it clears we’ll round ‘em up again, no problem.”
“If we were lower down…”
“Too late for that now.” Steve likes the fog, the deadened silence of it. Emptying the world to just this patch of grass or that, cold enough you don’t have to think about much else. “It’ll clear by afternoon.”
Eddie nods slow, leaning out over the head of his Rocky, standing in the stirrups like he might see further through the fog. “S’ppose so.”
He’s pretty for a man, Steve thinks.
*
It’s a warm day for spring morning, the herd so mellow they’re hardly moving. They still haven’t struck down the tents, lounging about in the grass still, watching clouds bumble slowly over the blue sky.
“You do this a lot?” Eddie asks. “You seem to know the mountains.”
“Yeah. Normally alone, though.”
“Alone? Must get lonely. Don’t you lose all the herd?”
“No,” says Steve, even though it is lonely. People think lonely is bad, that’s why he never says he is lonely. Lonely is a good thing, sometimes, when the world is just you and a horse and a herd and the wild. It’s like love, some crazed and unknowable sort of thing — mountain ranges like love bites on the earth. “S’good and quiet.”
Eddie don’t say anything else before they start knocking down the tents, Steve wonders if he thought him rude.
*
They’ve struck a little higher, the air cool and clear and good. Steve splashes into the spring up to his waist, clothes left on the grassy bank, letting the mud and grit and riding sweat wash away as he plunges his face below the surface. He gulps it down out of his hands, cleansing water inside and out. It’s so early the sky is still violet, the moon hanging luminous but fading above the orange rush of the sunrise. Water streams down his back as he tips his head up to watch the stars wink out like dandelion seeds blown away by child’s breath.
He hears footsteps and then there’s Eddie, standing by the edge of the spring, watching Steve. “Sorry,” he says.
“S’okay,” says Steve. He rubs his face with cold water again.
“You gonna mind if I come in too?” says Eddie, there’s something weighty about his stare, like the moment before squeezing the trigger.
“No, I don’t mind.”
Eddie starts stripping and Steve doesn’t watch, turning away to look back at the still fading moon. The mountainside is so quiet, so lonely even with Eddie here. The barren, empty, lifelessness; no civilisation for miles and miles, no eyes watching but Eddie’s. He feels warmth close against his back, can hear Eddie breathing, he swallows.
“Yeah?”
“I don’t mind,” Steve repeats. “Yeah.”
Eddie’s hand is hesitant on his hip, Steve still doesn’t turn around. There’s a swelling sort of silence in his ribcage, like wild indigo nights and cool fresh grass and delicate petals chewed up to cud and the warmth of a horse between your thighs — Steve doesn’t know how to breath right, how not to cling to the warmth of a hand on his skin and the sky going ice blue in the morning and the mountains so lonely they might never be found.
He turns, the water rippling about his bare hips, Eddie’s thumb brushing over the bone. He cups his hands beneath the water and lets it run over his wrists as he lifts them, then cascade over Eddie’s chest. With his hands he washes Eddie’s chest, washes sweat salt and mountain dirt from his skin, Eddie’s fingers grow tight on his hip, he doesn’t draw away.
*
The Morgan and the Rocky snuffle at each other as they stand on the ridge, knees close enough to touch, watching the herd below. The both smell like cold water and old leather, the mountains boom with silence from one end to the other, gleaming spine of the Wild West.
“We’re taking it too slow,” says Eddie, “we’ll not be at Deadwood by fall.”
Steve shakes his head, so does the Morgan, her ears flapping. “We’re making fine time,” he says, “seems slower than you think.”
Eddie’s still watching him like he doesn’t know what to make of him. Steve doesn’t want him to make anything of him, he wants to stay the same, he wants to stay as unknowable as the turning of seasons and the mountain cats.
*
Indigo to black goes the sky, Eddie doesn’t set up his tent. He crawls into Steve’s after him and they lie in the cold dark, listening to the animals up and down the mountainside, theirs and wild alike. Other men Steve as driven with take it too seriously, setting up watch all night, Steve only does that when the coyotes and wild cats get too brave, it’s less fuss to herd them back up in the morning, to fall asleep listening to the animals and wake when they do, silent and voiceless as they are.
“Yeah?” Eddie asks.
“I don’t mind,” Steve says.
He wakes with Eddie curved against his back like the spine of the mountain range, arm curled around Steve’s stomach, lemon yellow sunlight falling through the canvas, scratching of grass in the wind against the guide ropes, Eddie’s breathing against his ear. He crawls out of the tent, Eddie’s hand falling from his waist as he slips out of his grasp, dew wet on his knees.
The Morgan snuffles his hair and the Rocky watches him, blinking deep brown eyes just like his owner’s.
*
Spring is deepening again to summer, the days growing long and sticky, rounding out wide and heavy. The herd wanders along, zigzagging between the cold high points and the low warm valleys of the foothills.
“You got a family?” Eddie asks.
“Nope.” They’re picking their way through the sheep on foot, checking them for pregnancies still underway and lame feet. “You?”
“Nah,” he says, grabbing one of the lambs as it leaps past and checking the little hooves quick before dropping the squirming bundle of legs and wool back onto the grass. “No time, with this job.”
Job , Steve thinks, looking around them at the mountainside. Some job. Freedom, is more like it. No family with this kind of freedom . “That’s the way it is.”
Eddie nods. He’s beautiful against the backdrop of wool and wildflowers, skin going as lilac as the rocks in the sunset, dark eyes glittering.
*
They first kiss when it rains, a dour sort of drizzle — a spring bleeding out to summer rain, the life blood of the season falling from the sky — turning the world to grey. The sheep are sodden, milling about below an overhang of rock, the cows are lying in the grass, keeping patches of it dry. The hobbled horses keep their heads bowed, manes dripping with rain.
They sit in the tent, watching through the flap, listening to the pattering on the canvas.
“No point getting up just yet then,” says Steve, leaning his chin on his knees. He can feel rain spray on his face, he lets the canvas drop, the light is lemon yellow again like the morning he first woke up in Eddie’s arms. The tent smells of warm skin and sleep sweat. He glances at Eddie, his face is very close. Eddie always takes every step closer, he must be tired of it, of Steve always keeping half a pace ahead.
In the lonely quiet of the mountains, the ridge that forms the spine of the Wild West, a love bite bitten up out of the earth, and lazy breaths, bare shoulders and a moon still luminous in early morning violet skies, spring water in the warm cradle of the lonely foothills, Steve presses forwards to kiss the morning rain from Eddie’s lips. It’s dry and almost chaste for a moment until Eddie starts taking those steps forwards again, now Steve has stepped forwards to meet him, then they turn something else like wild mustangs kicking up dust, romance like tobacco chew spit and drinking old spirits.
Eddie pushes him back and down and kisses the loneliness into him like pressed dry flowers and the cry of a hawk echoing over the rocks. Steve’s hands find the back of Eddie’s neck, the sunburnt warmth of it below his palms. It’s nothing as poetic as Steve makes it out to be, just kissing as the drizzle spatters down on the tent canvas with the light as yellow as a storm, it feels like something he can’t put into words that aren’t ugly. Spit and lasso, the smell of a man, the sound of herd animals.
It’s something more beautiful than that.
*
Summer turns the grass yellow and brittle down in the plains, but up where the mountain springs water eternal, the grass stays green for the herd as they drive them on to Deadwood. There’s more laughter, it makes the loneliness feel fuller as they ride, horses close together, talking in low voices like the cows.
Blue jeans and leather, aureate sunsets, running off the coyotes. The world feels full , barren but full. Paradoxical in a way Steve can’t reason out. He worries about leaving the mountains, same way he always does, but this time he’s worrying about leaving something of himself here — he’s afraid of leaving the memory of Eddie, pressed flat like the wildflowers after the cattle goes tramping through, in the mountains with the wheeling birds of prey and the cold winter winds. He thinks about how many men he’s gone with through this wilderness and never seen again, cattle drives that fade in his memory, he wonders if he’ll forget how dark Eddie’s eyes are.
It gets so hot they ride with their shirts open, sweating in their jeans, the horses picking slow over the ridges. The sheep leave wool like cotton candy on the rough stumps of dry trees and thickets, the cows whip flies from their great heaving sides with their tails.
They kiss when the sky goes indigo and the world is so quiet it might not exist at all.
*
It goes too fast, even when summer is at her heaviest, days so long, but they seem gone in the blink of an eye. When Steve rides alone it seems like the summer drones on and on, now it fades faster than a hawk dives.
The last night, before they leave the foothills, they’re lying sweaty in the tent, smelling of sex. They hold each other close even though it’s too hot and Steve watches Eddie’s face while he plays with his curls, the tiny curve of his eyelashes, a mole beside his mouth.
“Will you come riding this way again?” Steve asks.
Eddie looks at him in the dark of the tent, the moon shines through the tent flap with a faint breeze. “You don’t mind me being on your trail, mountain man? I thought you liked the good quiet, and the mountains being lonely.” He’s whispering, quiet as the whickering of the horses and the cows muttering to sleep.
“I don’t mind,” he says. “Being lonely with you is just as good.”
He shuts his eyes, smiling. “I’ll be up this way again.”
Steve swallows tightly in the lonely foothills, his skin warm and sticky. “Good.” The mountains seem to echo with it, with them.