Whispers of Old Winds (3 page)

M
ICHAEL
STANDS
naked above me, his smile foretelling some mischief he’s about to make. I raise my head, and he gently pushes it back down with his toes. “Slip off your shorts,” he says.

I look at him, at the spread of him going upward. His legs are open like a V turned on its top. His dick is hard, pointing slightly up, and the black tuft of hair topping it is like short strands of silk from some exotic Moroccan bazaar. I see the flatness of his belly, and his chest has two distinct layers of muscle. His nipples are red-brown dots, erect nubs that beg for the touch of my tongue. His chin, mouth, nose. His eyes show that naughty smile in them. His hair, his black hair is feathered at his forehead.

“Alright,” I say, tugging at my shorts and slipping them down to my thighs.

He spits on his hand and then moves his hand to his ass. Silently, he eases himself down, grabbing my dick as he does, and he….

But, damn, Michael, I’ve got this bitch of a headache that….

W
HEN
I
open my eyes, I see darkness. I try to raise my right hand to wipe my eyes and find resistance. My head throbs with pain. I tug with more force and am able to pull my arm from whatever is holding it down. I wipe my eyes and still I see darkness. Across my chin, I feel warmth. I move my hand and touch what’s against my chin, and, yes, it’s Digger’s mouth, his breaths rapid and full. I dig out the snow that is packed around our faces and find there is a hollow space, a void above our heads as if something is bracing the snow above us.

“Digger,” I say, and there is no response. I struggle to move my arm to my side and then I feel what I know is a ski pole. I grab it.
Which way is up?
I work up some spit and huff it out of my mouth. I feel it drool down my chin to my neck.
Good.
Up is up.
I feel the ski pole, determine that it is, luckily, perpendicular to me, and I thrust it upward. There is resistance, but I keep working at it, and finally I feel it move freely. I see a pinprick of light above. The pole is about four-feet long.
Okay, not that much snow covering us.
I struggle to make the pinprick above larger, and it does get larger. I feel a slight downdraft of air. The vortex, I think, or whatever it was that was swirling within the bowl is funneling air down to us.

I can now see that Digger is lying slightly off to my side, his head bent toward my own, his mouth over my chin. “Digger,” I say again. The only response is his breath, now slightly slower than when I first sensed it.
What to do?
“Keep the hole open, you idiot,” I answer myself. “You want to breathe, you keep the fucking hole open.”
But what else?
I try to move my legs and feel only an enormous weight on them. Darkness again descends and I wiggle the pole. As I see the light again, I know our way out is only three, three and a half feet above. “Digger!”

Again, no response.

I close my eyes and again feel the ache in my head. Whether I black out for a moment or not, I don’t know, but….

I see you, Michael, sitting in your shop—the tourists enjoy watching you work—your face as serious as it ever gets, and your brown eyes stare at the canvas on the easel before you. You are painting a black bear reaching for wild berries. You’d started the painting only days ago, and now as I see the bare outline of your subject, I glance at the photograph from which you are working.

“I remember when you took that,” I say. “It was our first month up here.”

“The beginning of our second month.” You smile, as you turn to look at me. “You remember everything about that pic?”

“Of course.” And I do.

We had hiked up the mountain, took the trail that bottomed out at a meadow that showed an extravagant display of wildflowers and grasses. We walked to the middle of it, sat, and you pulled a bottle of red wine from your pack.

After we’d both taken a few swigs straight from the bottle, you lay down on your stomach, your elbows to the ground, your head propped on your palms. “Do you know what I like best about this place?” you asked.

“No,” I said, sitting by your side, seeing the lovely pooch of your ass against your hiking shorts, your brown hair against your neck, the spread of you as lovely as the meadow itself.

“I like the gift of it. Like out of nowhere, unexpectedly, it’s Christmas, my birthday, the Fourth of July, New Year’s Eve… all in one,” you said.

“Yes,” I said as I lay next to you. I ran my palm down your back and over your ass, then fingered the spread of hair along your neck
.

“Awwrgggg.” Digger’s vocalization snaps me out of my reverie.

“Digger,” I say, and not wanting to let go of the ski pole, I nudge my face against his. “Digger!”

“Ah,” he says, and I feel him attempt to move.

“We’re okay. Stay still.”

“What… happened?”

“The bowl ate us,” I say.

“Wow.”

“Yeah.”

“The dead guy?”

“Him too.”

“Wow,” he says, and I feel him again attempt to shift his weight.

“Try to stay still. We’ve got to take this slowly.”

“Okay.”

I see that the light from above is again fading and turn my attention back to swirling the ski pole. I move my head back to Digger. “Digger?” There is no response, but I feel his breath again against my chin. “Digger!” When he doesn’t answer, it occurs to me that he’s coming in and going out of consciousness.
What happened during his fall?
I feel the throb in my head and remember something hitting it hard and assume that something was Digger’s head.
Great!
Now, what?

I hear myself sigh and again close my eyes.

I was fucking you, Michael, that day in the meadow when you suddenly reached back with your hand and stopped me.

“Look,” you whispered, moving your hand and pointing to a copse of wild berries not far in front of us.

I looked, and there was a black bear settling himself before the wild fruit.

“Get my camera,” you whispered.

I grabbed the camera from where you’d sat it beside us.

You gently pulled the lens cover off, focused, and snapped four pictures as the bear reached for the berries. You set the camera down, wiggled your ass, and said, “Come inside me.”

I want to smile with that image, but I can’t. I feel the lump in my throat.
God, oh, how I love him
.
I’m here, Michael. Digger and I, we’ve got a little situation here that I’m not sure I can get us out of. I’m just not sure….

“No,” I say. “We’re going to survive this.”

“Wha….” I hear Digger’s whisper.

“Digger, wake up. Stay awake.”

“So… sleepy.”

I raise my head as much as I can, grab a bit of his cheek in my mouth, and bite him. Not hard, but just enough that it gets a reaction.

“Ow!”

“I said, stay awake.”

“Trying….”

I again move the ski pole. My head is hurting like a son of a bitch, I can’t feel my feet, and my fingers are starting to tingle.
Shit! Shit! Shit!

I turn my head away from Digger, and there is Michael.
We can do this, Sam. You and I. Together. We can beat this thing
.

That had been only our second night together, and I’d told him those three words—I love you—and he had repeated them to me. We’d slept then, but I awoke from the nightmares, the persistent, horrible baggage with which I’d come back from the war. The images, the sounds, the odors of that damnable place, where the difference between life and death was too often just a mere instant. An enormous boom, a cloud of dust, soldiers and Marines dead and dying, children screaming under the broken bodies of their mothers, who had tried to protect them, knowing well before the soldiers did that once again Allāhu Akbar was at hand.

I’d crawled out of the bed, left him there, his breaths deep, his head turned away from me. I’d gone into the living room, backed up against the wall, and let my body slide down. As I’d sat on the floor, I put my hands to my face. When I’d taken them away, Michael was sitting opposite me, as naked as I was. His eyes… oh, his eyes staring into mine, a question on his face.

“I can’t do this,” I’d told him. “I can’t bring you into my life right now. I’ve got…. Oh man… I can’t do this to you.” I’d lowered my eyes from his stare.

“The war?” he’d asked.

“Yes.”

He’d pressed his fingers against the bottom of my chin. I’d raised my head then and again looked into his eyes. And he’d said those words: “We can do this, Sam. You and I. Together. We can beat this thing.”

I feel the new wetness on my face and realize it’s Digger’s drool or snot seeping from him as he’s managed to rest his head on mine. “Digger,” I say.

“Yeah?”

“You staying awake?”

“Trying.”

“Okay.”
Me too, Digger
. “Can you move your arms?”

“Haven’t tried.”

“Try it. Slowly.”

He grunts with the effort. “Yeah, just a little.”

“How about your legs?”

I feel a slight movement against my own legs. “Good.”

“Don’t think I can stand up, though.”

“No. Don’t try it.”

“What are we gonna do, Sheriff?”

“I’m working on it.”

“It’s getting cold.”

“Ah, it’s not that bad,” I say.
It is cold, Digger. And it’s only going to get worse
.

“Really sleepy.”

I think I hear him say
creepy
as I again turn my head away from him and close my eyes.

You’re smiling, Michael. You have something behind your back, and you move this way and that and won’t let me see what you have. Finally, I pin you against the wall, reach around, and grab your hands, which are clutched behind you.

“I made it,” you say.

I manage to pull your arms out from behind you, pry your hands apart, and I see a small figurine of something crafted from wood. “What is it?”

“It’s a badger.”

“Okay.”

“It’s for you.”

I pick it out of your hand and hold it up. I tell you that you’ve done a good job. It’s so lifelike, and you’d stained and lacquered it. “Beautiful.”

“It’s an Indian symbol, a charm,” you say. “You squeeze that and you can do anything you put your mind to.”

“Does it work?”

“You’ll just have to find out.”

I open my eyes, and I’m afraid to let go of the ski pole, but I need to do something right now. I very carefully open my hand and find the pole is secure, staying where it is. I move my hand to my face, then shove my hand down along my body, finally to my waist. I dig out the snow from alongside my leg, stick my hand in my pocket, and squeeze the badger. “Do your stuff, buddy,” I say.

“What?” Digger says.

I slide my hand out of my pocket and reach for the ski pole. “Nothing,” I say as I swirl the pole.

“I’m really getting cold.” I feel Digger’s lips mouthing those words on the side of my face.

“I want you to try something.”

“Okay.”

“Move your arms, your hands. Can you do that?” I feel him try.

“Yeah. A little.”

“Try to unbutton your coat.”

“No. I’m cold.”

“Digger, if we can open up our coats, maybe our shirts too, we can… share our heat.”

“Oh,” he says. “My right arm is stuck. My left arm….”

I feel his left arm move, and he manages to get his hand under him. He then tries to raise himself slightly, and he does. Again, I sense there’s something solid above us, between us and the snowpack.

“Yeah,” he says. “I can do this.”

“Get me unzipped too,” I say, feeling the movement of his hand slowly working his own zipper down. “I’ve got to hang on to the ski pole.”

“Why?”

“Keeping the air coming in. It’s in my right hand. I can’t let go. Unbutton your shirt too. Then mine.”

“Gotta rest a minute,” he says, and I feel him slump back down, his mouth now against my cheek.

“Okay. Try to stay awake.”

When he doesn’t answer, I again wiggle the pole. The throb in my head seems to explode for a moment, and I close my eyes. I wonder what Michael would say if he could see us. I wonder….

Dear heart, what are you doing right now? Oh, yes, you’re there, aren’t you? You’re closing your shop, and you take one last look at the loving space you’ve created—your paintings, the wood carvings, the photographs. I see you smile now as you look at the junk you’ve had to display because that’s what the tourists seem to want: The tom-toms, the dreamcatchers, the moccasins: all the stuff that has lately come from Pakistan and China. I see you lock the door behind you, walk to the old pickup we bought from Melissa and Audra, get in, and head out of town.

Oh, Michael, don’t go to the cabin. Come here. Come up the mountain to the bowl. Digger and I are…. We’ve got a little situation here, Michael, that I don’t think we’re going to…. No, I won’t say it. We, you and I, have another Christmas to share.

Our Christmases have always been… special. Not a month had passed since we met when we decorated our first tree. Do you remember? I didn’t want to, but you… oh, you insisted because you said…. You said it was the least we could do for the tree that was dying and would soon be dead. You did it for the tree.

Then we, you and I, sat on the floor in front of the tree and traded gifts. I gave you my dog tags, placing the chain over your head and around your neck. You pressed the metal to your chest, saying that now I must tell you where the tags had been and why they seemed to pulse with sadness. I said I would, but I haven’t yet really told you anything except about that night when Joe Hill pointed and said, “Look! There.” You gave me a small painting on porcelain of a brown-eyed boy with a sprig of hyacinth in his hair. You said it was a self-portrait done in the springtime, finished on the equinox, and…. And I….