#ben rumson

Pardner dragged Ben back to their tent, grateful for the mule. His leg and shoulder ached, especially in the rainy weather. But the mule did its work without complaint.

“Stupid mule,” said Ben as he half dismounted, half fell from its back, spitting at it.

Pardner ignored him. “You’re a good mule,” he told it. It was a job to hitch it to its post with the crutch and the bum shoulder, but he managed all right. “A decent mule, anyway. Ben?”

He found Ben inside, taking a nip of whiskey straight from the bottle.

“None of that,” said Pardner, though he knew better than to take the bottle away altogether.

“If I’m going to be muddy drunk, better to be very drunk,” Ben retorted. “I’m already very muddy.”

“So clean off,” Pardner told him. “Your other set of clothes is dry, at least.” He dug the clothes out of a saddlebag and thrust them at Ben. They reeked of sweat, but they were as clean as clean got between wash days.

Ben made a face. “Can’t bear it.” He did lean out the tent flap to clean the mud off his face, after some prodding.

Pardner, who happily owned more than two sets of clothes, resigned himself to losing one of them. “Here,” he said gruffly, thrusting a clean set at Ben. “We’re of a size, or close enough. Get yourself clean first.”

Ben wiped at himself, grumbling. Pardner knew him well enough by now to catch the friendly tone beneath the grumble. He was a grump, but a soft-hearted one, underneath it all. Honest too, for a given value of honest. Pardner was still trying to make up his mind about the rest. They didn’t make men like this in Michigan. Or if they did, his family didn’t associate with them.

For a moment, Pardner felt a pang at that thought, remembering his little brother, buried now in a pauper’s grave far from the gold fields. It wasn’t right that he should be here, striking it rich, while Johnny rotted with the worms. The rest of the Newel clan didn’t even know. Pardner’s letter was in the hands of a fur trapper who’d promised to post it at Yuba City if he could. It might be months before it passed into their hands, if it made it at all.

In a way, Pardner was glad Ben had christened him with a new name and never bothered to ask for the old. It made the change in his life easier to accept. Sylvester the farmer had died with Johnny. Pardner was just beginning. He could be anything.

Ben toweled off his hair with the driest part of his muddy shirt and stripped off the rest of his kit. Pardner averted his eyes as best as he could. He’d seen naked men before, of course. You couldn’t avoid it, out here. But he’d known Ben all of a few days, and now they were stuck together in a tiny tent in a torrential downpour that seemed fixed to last for days. It paid to be prudent, in these cases.

He’d been caught looking at men too long before, and only his older brother’s good reputation had kept him out of bad trouble. Better to let Sylvester Newel’s problems die with Sylvester Newel.

Something caught his eye, though, and he coughed.

Ben raised an eyebrow. “You have a comment on my equipment, Pardner?”

Pardner tried not to blush. He could feel it when he didn’t succeed. “Nothing of the sort,” he said carefully. “That’s an interesting tattoo.”

Ben glanced down, frowning in a way that showed he’d forgotten it was there. “Oh,” he said. “That. Lost a bet.”

The tattoo was blurred the way amateur jobs often were, but the intent was certainly glorious. A vaguely Chinese dragon, coiled around Ben’s upper thigh. Its tail pointed suggestively to the aforementioned equipment.

“Quite a bet,” said Pardner, and that was that.

With no hope of a fire, they ate cold beans from a tin, passing it back and forth.

“It’s good I stocked up,” said Ben after a long silence. His earlier funk seemed to have cleared with clean clothes and decent food. And he didn’t look half bad in Pardner’s work clothes. “You know, Pardner, you’d be a decent companion if you weren’t so damn quiet all the time. You made a promise, didn’t you?” He grinned, showing all his yellowed teeth. “Solace me.”

Baked bean juice shot up Pardner’s nose. He coughed. “What does that mean?”

Ben shrugged. “Now, don’t take a swing at me if I’m reading you wrong. That’s bound to happen from time to time. But you look like you might be raring for some solace yourself.” He gestured to Pardner’s lap.

Following his point, Pardner was embarrassed to discover that he was half-hard already. He squirmed in his seat, feeling like a schoolboy called to the front of the class. “I don’t know what you mean,” he said weakly.

Ben shrugged. “That may well be. I’ll just bed down over here, and if you get it into your head to join me, well, that’s just how things go sometimes between mountain men.”

Pardner shivered. Maybe it was the cold night air and maybe it was something else. He put a hand in his lap, just resting there, and felt his cock harden through his clothes as Ben stripped to his drawers and made himself a nest of horse blankets.

“It’s fixing to be a mighty cold night,” Ben said loudly. “Be a shame to waste all this body heat of mine. Downright impractical.”

Pardner hesitated. But Ben was just steps away, asking for it, and part of Sylvester Newel had waited for a chance like this all his life. No one would disturb them on a night like this. “Okay, Ben,” he said, heart in his throat. “I’ll share some heat with you.”

He could hear the predatory grin in Ben’s voice as he shucked off his outer clothes. “That’s the spirit, Pardner.”

Lightning flashed in the darkness as Pardner worked his way into Ben’s blanket nest. It was warm in there, a sweaty man-scented warmth that made a deep part of his stomach twist. He let Ben fold his arms around him until they were as close as two spoons in a drawer.

“Now what?” Pardner whispered after a time.

He felt Ben shrug. “That depends on you, I reckon. What manner of solace do you need, Pardner?”

Pardner swallowed hard. He knew what he wanted, but not what it was safe to ask. “Your mouth,” he said at last.

Ben whistled. “Awfully forthright for a Michigan farmer. All right.” He set to work unbuttoning Pardner’s underthings and freeing his cock, then whistled again. “Now there’s a sight. Every whore from here to New Mexico will be gunning for you if you let word spread about this thing.”

“Is it too much?” Pardner was beginning to realize that he had nothing in the way of sexual experience, while Ben seemed to have spent the past thirty years fucking his way west.

“There’s the voice of a man who’s not gotten it wet as often as he should.” Ben rubbed his hands together. “I’m not spilling out the oil we’ve got when we don’t know how long the storm’ll be, and I don’t like you enough to kill myself trying to take that thing dry. So hands and mouth it’ll be. Sound good?”

Pardner just barely managed a nod. Then, remembering the darkness, he said, “That’s fine with me.” What kind of oil did you use for a maneuver like that? Surely not lamp oil. The cooking stuff?

“And it seems a bit of liplocking’s only fair, for good luck,” said Ben. He was on him before Pardner could process the words.

Ben Rumson kissed like he was trying to distract you long enough to pick your pocket. Pardner, who didn’t have pockets and shared all his possessions with Ben anyway, just tried to hold on tight. The tongue work was a surprise, but he opened his mouth and did the best he could.

It didn’t come naturally, exactly, but it was nice. He’d wanted nice.

He’d wanted Ben.

The thought came as a surprise, but it was true. Ben was plug-ugly, but there was a beauty to the way he moved through the world, extending consideration to those he deemed worthy with a secret elegance that took a few tries to notice. Pardner wanted… He wanted…

“Quit thinking so much,” Ben hissed, pulling out of the kiss for a moment. “It’s distracting your tongue.”

Pardner did his best, mouthing at Ben’s neck and jaw.

“Don’t mark me up, now,” Ben instructed. “I don’t want to wear a scarf in the scorching weather we’re like to get once the rain lets up.”

Pardner obeyed, trailing lower to bite at Ben’s chest.

“Some kind of piranha,” Ben muttered, but his gruffness couldn’t disguise how pleased he was. “All right, unlatch. I believe I promised you my mouth, and Pardner…” For a moment, their noses touched in the darkness. “I always keep what promises I can,” Ben declared. The stale whisky and beans on his breath washed over Pardner, and somehow it wasn’t terrible.

Ben was already hard at work before Pardner had the strength to formulate a response. Never having been with a man, or anyone, really, he didn’t know what to expect until Ben got there.

“Can’t quite swallow this monster down, so you’ll have to settle for hand stuff on the lower half,” said Ben, every inch the consummate professional.

Pardner idly wondered whether Mad Jack or the others had ever done this with him. Until tonight, he’d have sworn that none of these manly mountain men felt that way about each other. But now he had cause to think about it, it occurred to him that Rotten Luck Willie had an outfit for every day of the month, and Mad Jack was awfully close with his roommates.

“You’re distracted again,” Ben said, pulling back from Partner’s cock with a wet pop. “I’m getting too old to do this sort of thing for someone who doesn’t appreciate the work that goes into it.”

“I’m appreciative,” Pardner assured him. He did his best to focus on Ben: the motion of his head, the way his tongue drew little circles on the head of his cock, and his hand.

“Do they all come circumcised in Michigan?” asked Ben after a time. His hand didn’t slow.

“Haven’t asked,” said Pardner faintly, trying not to move his hips too much. His leg was healing well enough, but it twinged if he moved suddenly. To say nothing of the bum shoulder, which the horse doctor who’d patched him up said would be alerting him to rainstorms for the rest of his life.

“Can’t say I’m as familiar with the workings here, but I reckon I’ll do okay.” Ben paused. “You’ll tell me otherwise.” The statement had the tone of a threat.

“Of course,” said Pardner quickly.

“Good, because we’re bunking together for a while, or until one of us tires of the arrangement and puts down the funds for his own tent. Seems like I ought to get in some experience doing things right.”

Pardner chuckled in spite of himself. “And here you’ve been trying to tell me what a lazy, no-ambition bum you are. Pull the other one, Mr. Rumson. I know you better now.”

“And you’ll know me better still,” said Ben with a hum. He spat into his palm and used it to work over Pardner’s cock with both hands while they talked. “I’m a bum, all right, Pardner, and I’ll thank you not to say otherwise where anyone of consequence can hear. Ambition I have, only as far as it’ll help me fix on a state where I don’t need to work for a spell. Way I see it, keeping my Pardner happy is the surest way to skive off every now and again. Better still if you’ll return the favor one of these nights.”

“I will tonight, if you’d like,” said Pardner, who never liked to leave a debt of any kind hanging over his head. “I might not have the practice you have, Mr. Rumson, but I’m not a lazy man and I’m willing to learn. Aah!”

Ben had done something with the tip of his tongue that made Ben see stars. At the sound, he did it again.

“I’m going to…” Pardner hissed between his teeth. “Pretty sure you don’t want me to shoot off in your mouth, Mr. Rumson.”

“Mmm-hmm,” Ben corrected, tongue still hard at work.

Pardner didn’t have the strength to argue with that. He came hard, hands clasped over the back of Ben’s head, and watched him swallow it down.

“Cleaner that way anyhow,” Ben explained roughly. “That matters out here.” He gave Pardner’s softening cock a parting stroke and sat up. “I won’t ask you to return the favor tonight, injured like you are. That wouldn’t be right.”

Pardner hesitated. “When I’m better,” he said at last. “I owe it to you.”

“If you insist,” said Ben, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. He rolled over in the nest of blankets and was out like a light in minutes.

“Night, Ben,” said Pardner with a soft smile.