Two Spirits (10 page)

"A guy can only ride one at time. But
there's room in the garage for two."

Trey's heart tripped into its Morse code
tapping.

Say you'll stay.

Say you'll stay.

Say you'll stay.

If he did, he wouldn't have to hide that he
was gay. Not when the sheriff openly kissed his male lover and was
obviously part of a threesome. Not that it'd be a secret anyway if
he lived here with Tenino.

Yesterday, their waitress's eyes had been
full of speculation, but the next time he and Tenino entered the
diner, she'd have her answer. There'd be no hiding he was Tenino's
lover.

His skin iced and pebbled. His throat
locked. His heart banged harder, this time saying
coward,
coward, coward
.

The shotgun went into a sheath secured to
the ATV. Tenino rolled the four-wheeler through the open
doorway.

Trey closed the door. The ATV engine rumbled
to life. He slid onto the seat behind Tenino and within minutes
understood why they hadn't taken the Jeep.

The trail was steep and narrow and
pock-marked. It was dark in places, shaded by thick evergreen
trees.

Every low spot sent a shower of muddy water
over their legs and had him wishing for jeans instead of
sweatpants. It felt like they were heading straight up the side of
a mountain and when they finally leveled out and cleared the trees,
Trey's breath caught.

Below was a valley with vast tracks of
old-growth forest containing trees that had been alive for
thousands of years. And in front of them, around them, above them
were snowcapped mountains.

Tenino cut the engine and Trey slid from the
seat. Tenino got off the four-wheeler and the two of them stood on
a small rocky plateau that felt like an ancient gateway.

In the distance the storm gathered. Dark
clouds formed and reformed, served as a backdrop for splintered
bolts of lightning.

Thunder rolled across the land. Power
vibrated through the air, primal, unstoppable,
uncontainable—destructive but also life-giving.

"Thunderbirds fly here," Tenino said and
Trey could only nod. In this moment, in this place, with this man,
he could believe in legend and myth.

Longing filled him, sinking in like talons
driven into his heart. Tenino had said he was whole in these
lands.

He wanted what Tenino had found here, that
sense of being whole.

It's just a matter of courage
, his
heart scratched out like a chalked message across a blackboard.

Tenino was more than a gay man. He was a
cop. A Native American. A protector, a son, a cousin, a thousand
other things.

While I'm hung up on only one of those
things, being gay. And have been since I was twelve and got an
erection for Aaron
.

He'd been convinced he was going straight to
hell then. He'd become certain when the fantasies became more
detailed and erotic as he grew older. And he'd never confronted
that belief, not in high school, not in college, not when he moved
back home to take care of his mother.

And now? If a student or friend or fellow
teacher came out to him, would he think their desire to be with
someone of the same sex was a sin?

No. Hell no. A thousand times no!

The first drops of rain hit, cold and
gentle, but they didn't chill him. He turned toward Tenino, hooked
a hand in the front pocket of Tenino's jeans and pulled him
forward.

"Thanks for bringing me here," he said,
initiating the kiss.

He regretted the dishonesty he'd brought to
his relationships with women. But he wasn't sorry that there hadn't
been anyone before Tenino.

Tenino's arms wrapped around him and it was
like being home. Their tongues rubbed, twined, their bodies
heating, needing, finally driving them apart so they could get
somewhere and satisfy the desire.

"Ready?" Tenino asked, voice husky, dark
raptor's eyes probing, as if sensing the difference in Trey, the
peace he'd found for himself.

He'd try and explain it when they got back
to the cabin. "Ready."

They got on the ATV and Tenino fired the
engine. But as the four wheeler kicked forward, the phantom sound
of drums beating had Trey looking back and his heart syncing with
the
thump, thump, thump, thump, thump
of quickening
drums.

An old man sat astride a horse where no man
or horse could be. They were on the edge of the precipice as if it
really was a gateway, as if they were the land personified.

Braided into the man's hair and horse's mane
were red, yellow and blue feathers. They lifted and fluttered,
caught and played with by the wind.

The ATV hit a crater. Trey blinked and the
old man and horse disappeared.

Real? Imagined? Something else to talk to
Tenino about when they got to the cabin.

Thunderbirds fly here, Tenino had said. And
in these lands, Trey was willing to believe he'd actually seen the
old man on horseback.

They headed downward, and the descent was a
death defying ride that was equal parts exhilaration and terror. He
clung to Tenino, was fairly certain he'd left his heart and stomach
and most of his nervous system somewhere higher up on the mountain
by the time they got to the smooth, wide, gentle trails.

The wildness coursing through him needed an
outlet and he knew just what form it should take. His arms loosened
so his hands could go to the front of Tenino's jeans.

"I take it you like living on the edge,"
Trey said, exploring the bulge he found, deciding one wild ride
deserved another.

"Shit," Tenino said, his voice catching.

Trey measured the length and hardness of the
erection protected by denim, then found the button, the zipper, and
freed them.

The four-wheeler slowed, bucked with the
unintentional application of brakes.

Trey wrapped his fingers around Tenino's
cock.

"Unfair," Tenino panted.

Trey laughed. "Definitely fair. Any jury
would rule in my favor after what you just put me through."

"You enjoyed it."

"And you're enjoying this," Trey said,
exploring the soft skin and wet tip of Tenino's cock.

Tenino hit the gas and raced to the cabin.
Stopping the ATV a few feet away from the garage, he covered the
hand on his dick. "A quickie then I was thinking we could head to
one of my cousin's places. Tonight's the night a bunch of us
usually get together to talk smack and do karaoke."

Trey's heart rabbited. His arm muscle flexed
and if not for Tenino's hand covering his, he'd have snatched it
away from Tenino's cock like a kid caught doing something
wrong.

Tenino released him. "Does that mean you're
going to go back to pretending you're not gay?"

"I'm gay, already, okay?" But he'd only just
gotten all right with that. Couldn't coming out to the world wait
another day?

He slid off the ATV. Grabbed the garage door
handle. Pulled.

A gun fired from somewhere to the right of
the building. Tenino jerked and fell forward, tumbling off the ATV
and landing on his back.

"No!" No. No. No. No. No.

He grabbed Tenino. Dragged him into the
garage.

Rain beat against the roof. It was muted by
the thunder of Trey's heart, his frantic, harsh breathing.

Blood soaked the front of Tenino's jacket.
It leaked from the corner of his mouth along with bubbles of
air.

No
!
No!
This couldn't be
happening.

Trey stripped his jacket off, pressed it to
the wound in Tenino's chest and applied pressure.

Footsteps crunched gravel, getting closer
and closer.

Too late he thought about the shotgun in its
sheath on the ATV.

His hands shook but he pulled Tenino's gun
from the shoulder holster. He needed to get to a phone, a car,
to—

"You betrayed me," Patricia said, stepping
into the doorway, a gun held against her thigh. "You ruined my life
and destroyed my family. Now you're going to pay."

Trey found the gun's safety and pushed it
into the disabled position. His hands were covered in blood. His
mind was a white haze consumed with the will to survive, the
absolute need to do whatever it took to save Tenino.

Patricia laughed, a sound holding a deep
well of hatred, a thirst for violent revenge whose origins were
anchored in the abuse she'd suffered as a child at the hands of her
father and uncles. She smiled savagely as she brought the hand
holding the gun up.

Their eyes met. Held for a surreal
instant.

Trey pulled the trigger.

It struck her in the heart, only she wasn't
one of the paper targets. She crumpled and lay face up in the
storm, eyes staring blindly as the rain struck.

He dropped the gun. Pressed his palms to the
wadded, bloody jacket on Tenino's chest. There was no movement
beneath his hands.

His gaze jerked to Tenino's face. A sob
choked Trey at seeing lifeless, dulling eyes.

"No!" He covered Tenino's mouth with his
own, forced his breath into Tenino's lungs.

Breathe dammit.

Breathe dammit.

Breathe!

The fabric of his soul ripped with each
exhalation of breath, with each press of palms against an
unresponsive chest.

"Come on, come on. Fight! I'll go to your
cousin's place and kiss you in front of everyone if that's what you
want. I'll stand in the middle of Hohoq and announce I'm gay if
that'll make you happy. Hell, I'll do in front of my school, in my
classroom, in my mother's house. Wherever we're together, just come
back to me, dammit. Live!"

Talons ripped through his heart and tore it
out of his chest. His tears rained on Tenino and agony seared his
throat.

"It should have been me who took that
bullet. You didn't deserve this. Please. Please. I'll take your
place. This is the land of the Thunderbird, let one of them strike
me with lightning and bring you back. Please."

He choked on another sob. A man's voice
said, "His spirit flies."

Trey jerked, looked up and found the old man
he'd seen earlier. He was crouched on the other side of Tenino
wearing only a loincloth and moccasins and the feathers and beads
braided into long gray hair.

"Help him, please help him. Let me take his
place."

The old man offered a wooden cup. "Your
spirit calls to his, and his to yours. Drink and you will be able
to find him. Your spirits are meant to soar together."

Trey took the cup between bloody fingers.
Swallowed the honey-gold offering in a gulp.

There was a wrenching sensation.

The gray cold of nothingness.

And then an awareness of movement, as though
he was the wind sweeping over a land shrouded by fog.

He felt a presence, a mass of air moving to
his side so they became twin jets of air streaming through
nothingness together.

Slowly they merged and melded, became
one—and a drum beat behind them, its rhythm steady and insistent,
commanding spirit back to flesh.

The pain was almost unbearable, a death and
birth. Voices joined the drumming. Heat burned away the chill of
nothingness as a song rose and fell, reached a
crescendo—stopped.

Trey gasped and opened his eyes.

Tenino bent over him, his shirt and jacket
bloody, but his skin smooth and undamaged where the bullet had torn
through the clothing.

"Am I dreaming?" Trey said through the
blockage in his throat. Had they wrecked the ATV?

Tenino flashed a grin and his eyes heated.
"We'll get back to the subject of my starring in your dreams from
now on." He took Trey's mouth in a kiss that was primal, consuming.
And Trey met each tongue thrust, pulled Tenino down so they lay
chest to chest, cock to cock.

And he didn't care who might walk in and see
them. He wanted everyone to know they were together.

Pleasure soaked into every cell. He felt
engulfed by fire.

"We should call this in," Tenino said,
husky-voiced, breathing hard, shuddering with the same need Trey
felt.

Slowly Trey became aware of rain pounding
against the garage roof. A flash of lightning drew his attention to
the open doorway and Patricia's body.

Real. Not a dream. Not a violent nightmare
induced by a head injury.

He fisted his hand, the hand that had held
Tenino's gun, aimed and pulled the trigger.

He'd killed. He'd killed someone he'd
once—

"Don't go there," Tenino said, hard heat in
his voice. "You did what you needed to do to stay alive. If you
hadn't you'd be dead. And so would I."

His eyes snapped back to Tenino's.
"How—"

"You came after me."

Tenino's mouth slammed down on his again.
But savage moved into a gentle melding of body and soul.

It reached into Trey's chest and wrapped
around his heart like the phantom talons he'd felt when he was
sitting in the diner and watching the shadow of an imagined
thunderbird.

The kiss ended and raptor-like eyes bored
into his. "You brought me back. That means you're stuck with
me."

"I can deal with that. There are worse
things."

"Oh, yeah?"

"Yeah." His gaze strayed to Patricia's body.
He felt a stirring of pity, for the victim she'd once been. But it
was overridden by relief that the threat was over, by a hatred for
the monster she'd become, if not an abuser herself, then a person
who knowingly lived on the wealth gained from child pornography,
who willing participated in the business of selling it.

He shuddered and Tenino gave him a quick
kiss. "Let's call Tekoa and get this behind us. There's more you
need to know, but I can't show you until after this is
handled."

He rolled off Trey, stood and offered a
hand, pulling him to his feet. A kiss followed and Tenino said,
"Trust me. The wait will be worth it."

"I trust you."

They left the garage. Showered together.
Dressed in clean clothes.