The more time he spent in Ned’s company, the more he realized Ned had become a different man—hunched over, unkempt, with a long matted beard and a bush of hair carelessly chopped off in a few places. Ned had been a chunky man when they’d met. He hadn’t gotten any taller, but he did seem larger, sturdier, no longer a boy. He used to have a softness about him, but that was all gone now. The bare forearm that peeked out from between the folds of fabric that were left of the cut sleeve was all muscle, but where there had previously been freckly skin was a mangled mess of flesh.
He was nothing like the man Cole used to love with a fervor only a young man could feel. Back then, he’d have stepped into a burning building for that bastard, naive, and too elated to notice warning signs, like that time Ned had tried to shoot Zeb and claimed it to be an accident, or when he’d sabotaged the initial plan of the train robbery. Or how he’d watched Scotch die in Three Stones without even trying to plead on the poor man’s behalf. Had Cole not been so blind, he’d have seen the truth beneath the lies instead of trying to excuse Ned’s actions every single time. But he was foolish no more.
The light shone straight into their eyes as they descended toward Beaver Springs, and yesterday’s howling wind was reduced to a mild breeze. The snow glinted like diamonds on the branches of pines and firs standing proud like young girls ready to dance in their finery, and Cole was eventually forced to lower his hat in an effort to protect his eyes from the glare.
Lars was in excellent spirits and wouldn’t stop talking. About the bounty. About the weather. About all the things the Wolfman had done. Ned wouldn’t answer any of his queries and moved forward like a dog dragged by an iron leash, which left Cole as the only conversation partner.
The constant noise was giving Cole a headache already, but he clung to the hope that if all went well, they should arrive in Beaver Springs by evening. If he didn’t get to speak to Ned by that time, he would be forced to come clean to Lars, and he didn’t want to, because he didn’t owe his story to him just because the two of them traveled together and fucked.
“Should we set up camp?” Lars asked, as if sensing Cole’s discomfort. “We could try to make it tonight, but it’s probably another five hours. We’d arrive tired, and I don’t know about you but I’m not keen on moving when it’s so dark I can barely see the trail ahead. I want everyone to see us, and look fresh. You could take a photograph of me and the Wolfman.”
What Lars described was the last thing Cole wanted. They would not return to Beaver Springs in glory, because he would gut Ned O’Leary before they came anywhere near town, but to achieve that, he’d have to hide his true thoughts even deeper than usual.
“I like the way you think.”
“I need to piss,” Ned grunted from the back. His voice had a deeper quality to it now. Or maybe his throat was just raspy from an impending cold, because they’d made him eat snow when he’d felt thirsty.
Lars gave Cole a pointed you-or–me look as he dismounted.
“I’m not touching him,” Cole said, glancing at Ned to make sure the distaste in his voice had been noticed. He jumped off his horse, and sank knee-deep into the fresh white fluff.
“You know I’m the gentleman of us two,” Lars sniggered and yanked at the chain attached to his saddle so hard Ned fell over. With his hands cuffed at the back, he couldn’t save himself from dropping face-first into the snow, and Lars gave an amused laugh. “Look at that. We got ourselves a living bowling pin!”
“Don’t damage the merchandise,” Cole said, staring at Lars in warning. His hands had curled into fists on their own. It wasn’t that he didn’t want Ned to suffer, just that Lars didn’t have the right to mete out the punishment.
He walked up to Ned and yanked him back up by the heavy fur coat, staring at Lars rather than him.
Lars shrugged. “They pay us to get him alive, not whole.”
“When we chase down a man from your past, you’ll get to make decisions. But this bird’s mine,” Cole said before shoving Ned at Lars.
Their eyes met in a fleeting moment of tension, but Lars didn’t brutalize Ned any further and pulled him away.
It had been a whole day, and Cole hadn’t gotten to be alone with Ned for more than two or three minutes at a time. Maybe he should forego his arrangement with Lars and flee with Ned deep in the night? That would not do, though. Cole still believed in loyalty and he would not leave a friend with nothing, even if he could somehow pack Ned on horseback and ride off without being heard.
He furiously removed a layer of snow where he wanted to set up the campfire and ventured between the trees on the lookout for wood. The afternoon sun shone through the branches, but with so much snow everywhere, the forest remained dusky, intimate.
In happier times, he and Ned would sneak out to places like this and steal moments of happiness they ought not to share with anyone. It had been their secret world of gentle kisses, possessive touch and closeness beyond anything Cole had ever experienced with another person. He’d thought it was love, but Ned O’Leary had coal where a heart belonged and used Cole’s feelings against him.
Was it possible that he’d even feigned his tears at that telegraph office in Three Stones? Cole wouldn’t have put it past him, since manipulation used to be Ned’s bread and butter. It would have been a smart way to get what he wanted. After all, he’d suggested to Cole they should leave not long before.
His nape tingled, as if he were being watched, and he looked to the side without thinking. Lars and Ned cast a shadow on the snow, and in a moment of throat-stinging anger, Cole saw his partner hold Ned’s cock for him. Suddenly breathless, Cole broke off a few branchlets from a young tree and spun around, venturing off to find more wood.
It didn’t matter. Ned O’Leary would die tonight, regardless of who touched his prick.
By the time they all sat next to a crackling fire with coffee brewing in a little pot, the sun was in its descent but Cole was nowhere near getting to speak to Ned alone. Maybe he should have been the one to take Ned away. He’d get time to question the bastard, and could have let Ned soil himself anyway.
Once everything had been set up for the night, Ned was sitting on the fallen tree trunk he was also chained to, and Cole was opposite him, staring at the flames. The blessed silence was over when Lars leaned in to whisper.
“He has a nice dick. I’d suck it if he didn’t smell so bad.”
Cole didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
“Shut up. I don’t wanna listen about his unwashed poker.” Cole scowled, but as he lowered his head, his gaze still strayed to Ned’s thighs, which filled his buckskin pants so well. It didn’t matter how good-looking Ned O’Leary used to be, because he deserved being fucked with a branch wrapped in nettles, not getting his cock caressed.
“You’ve been awfully sensitive since we came here,” Lars said, sipping the coffee he’d poured into his cup. “You wanna unload some of that frustration?”
“We haven’t properly washed in a week. Aren’t you ever tired? I just want to be out of these damn mountains,” Cole hissed, wondering whether Ned had overheard Lars’s veiled proposal. Perhaps the creaking of the burning wood and the wind whispering in the treetops would have been enough to keep it to only one side of the campfire.