Mark Wildyr's Blog, page 8

Joseph and Jose (Part 1 of 2 Parts)

 Markwildyr.com, Post #201

Image Courtesy of Twitter

 

Thanks, Donald, for the guest post last time. Got an unusually large number of hits, but no comments… unless they went directly to him.

 

 I have a short story for you this week.

 

* * * * *

JOSEPH AND JOSE

                                                             

News traveled around our little town about as fast as the flu in wintertime. I first heard it when I went to the drug store for an ice cream sundae during Christmas break from my senior year in high school. Between slurps of his malted milk, my best friend Hank Nickerson told me we had some Mexicans in town now.

“We do?” I asked. “Since when?”

“Since yesterday. They moved in the old Hawsley place. I hear they’re fixing it up.”

“It’ll take some fixing,” I replied. “Are we supposed to call them Mexicans or Hispanics? Or maybe Latinos? Or even Spaniards?”

“I dunno. All I know is we’ve got some among us now. Anyway, it’s a family of four. Mom and dad, a son and little girl. The guy’s…you know, the son, he’s about our age. Girl’s maybe ten or so.”

That would make the kid about eighteen. That meant we’d be seeing him in school come January.

That piece of news wore itself out in a hurry, and I didn’t give it another thought. That’s not quite right. I saw the family, father and son, at least, down at the feed store while I was picking up oats for my mare. The kid gave me a start. At first, I thought he was a pretty girl… a girl with an Adam’s apple. Then I saw some dark spots along the sideburns and on his chin that’d turn into whiskers someday. From neck down, he didn’t look like a girl either. He was built slender but strong, if you know what I mean. They keep it warm in the feed store, and he had his sleeves pushed up so I could see his arms were muscled and corded.

After that, Christmas came racing up and pushed everything else out of my head. And the week between that holy day and New Year’s, my dad always freed us from chores so my sister and I can have a real vacation. I generally spend mine squirrel hunting, and the day after Christmas found me deep in the woods doing just that. I don’t bring my dog Chipper on a squirrel hunt because he tends to bark at everything that moves. So it was just me and my trusty twenty-two rifle traipsing around in the brush that day.

About an hour into my hunt, I caught a whiff of smoke. Not much chance of a forest fire in the winter with snow on the ground, so it must be more hunters. Curious, I set about locating the source. Tracking wisps of smoke isn’t an exact science, and it took a little effort to find something that hadn’t been there the last time I was in the area. A rude shack. And I do mean a rude shack. It was made out of cut poles lashed together with stout cord with brush stuck in most of the gaps. Smoke escaped from a smoke hole at the apex. Smoke meant somebody was in there, so I backed off and resumed hunting.

I wasn’t having much luck on the south side of Little Beaver Creek, so I decided to try my luck on the other side. As I stood on the bank, I could see it was covered with ice. I tested its strength with half my weight, and when it held, I stepped out onto the ice. Sometimes the creek floods when the ice becomes thick enough to impede the flow. Then when it starts to thaw, upstream water overtakes the plugged places and makes the creek look like a quarter of a mile wide river. But today, I could clearly see the water rushing past beneath the ice.

Right in the middle of this train of thought, something went “crack” beneath my boots, and I scrambled to get back on shore. As I turned for dry land, my feet went out from under me, and down I went. Hard. Hard enough to splinter the ice beneath me.

Little Beaver wasn’t a deep stream, but when you enter it flat of your back, it’s deep enough to soak everything you’ve got. The shock of the freezing water was enough to paralize me for a long moment, which meant the creek had a good run at me. My head never went under, but most everything else did.

I came up and crawled for shore with my clothes and my pack soaked. Even my twenty-two dripped water from the barrel. I made it to dry land shivering so hard I could hardly stand. Needed warmth. Never make it home in this condition. As I fumbled with my sodden pack for matches I keep in a waterproof pouch, I fixated on that smoke I’d smelled. Where was that shack? Seemed like my brain had frozen, same as everything else. I stumbled around aimlessly until I realized this was serious. I needed to shape up or check out.

Heading off in the direction I thought right, I eventually saw—my olfactory senses were no longer working—little wafts of smoke. I was walking on frozen stilts by the time I reached the shack.

“H…hello! Anyone in there? I…I need help.”

I heard scuffling a moment before the rude door opened. I had enough sense left to recognize the Mexican kid. A blanket of warm air hit me in the face as I realized he was shirtless and in a pair of shorts. What the hell?”

“Hey, man, what happened?”

“Ice broke on creek. Fell in.”

He reached out an arm and took my rifle. “Get in here before you freeze.”

He helped me over the threshold, and it was like walking from a freezer into an inferno. Probably wasn’t all that hot inside, but compared to the outside… it was an inferno.

He closed the door behind us and immediately began tugging at my dripping clothing. Actually dripping. Icicles had started melting.

As soon as he had my coat and shirt off, my torso was warmer. He pushed me onto a blanket he’d spread and started tackling my right boot. I tried to unlace the left one with semi frozen fingers, but he was yanking on it before I’d halfway finished. He rummaged in a pack he had and tossed me a towel before pushing me flat of my back and tackling my trousers. I was so numb I didn’t even object when he tugged off my undershorts.

I came to my senses enough while he was spreading my clothing to dry on the other side of the fire to realize I was stark naked… and didn’t give a damn. In moments he was back and snatched the towel from my hands, rubbing me vigorously.

“Man, you gotta get dry or you’re going to catch pneumonia. Might already have.”

“My mind was clear enough to understand what he was saying… and to realize he didn’t have an accent. I lay there and let him dry everything I had including my privates. When he was satisfied, he worried at me until I got up so he could put down a dry blanket. I fell on it and lay curled up, still shivering like crazy. After that, I sort of went out of it.

 

* * * *

I’d say Joseph was in trouble., wouldn’t you? How much help will this newcomer to town, this perfect stranger give him? It’s only human to give others help when they’re in distress, but there’s help and then there’s help.

Please friend this site. Apparently, that matters in the internet world.

As indicated on the last post, Charlie Blackbear has been published as an ebook by JMS Books.

My contact information is provided below in case anyone wants to drop me a line:

Website and blog: markwildyr.com

Email: markwildyr@aol.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/mark.wildyr

Twitter: @markwildyr

Now my mantra: Keep on reading. Keep on writing. You have something to say, so say it!

See you later.

 

 

Mark

 

New posts the first and third Thursday of the month at 6:00 a.m., US Mountain time.

Miasma, a Literary Novel (Guest Post)

 Markwildyr.com, Post #200

 

My pal Don Travis has guest posted snippets of our mutual pal Donald T. Morgan’s novel Miasma on his dontravis.com blog. Now, I would like to provide a platform for the book, as well.

 

Donald tells us the first draft of the novel is finished, and he’s presently in the first edit (2nd draft). This novel is set in southeastern Oklahoma—from which we all three hail—in 1944 toward the end of WWII. This is at the height of the Jim Crow era in that part of the country. Donald’s aim is to portray the era as he saw it as a Caucasian. He did not experience or see many of the horrors that prevailed in other parts of the country, but this is what he observed. He chose to tell his story through the eyes of a ten-year-old Colored girl with a gift for music.

 

Many of us, even those who grew up in Oklahoma, did not know that some of the earliest Blacks in the state came as slaves when Andrew Jackson instigated the forced migration of the Five Civilized Tribes from their traditional homelands to Indian Territory, as the Prologue of the novel informs us. Here are the Prologue and first Chapter of Donald’s novel.

This is a long post, but I hope you’ll stay with it to the end.

 

* * * * *

MIASMA

By Donald T. Morgan

Prologue

December 1837, Western Arkansas Territory

The old Cherokee’s phlegmy voice barely reached Bantu from the sled. “Stop. I gotta rest.”

“Not yet, Massa Elder. Soldiers won’t let us. But I hear tell we almost there.”

Bantu knew no such thing. His hearing, along with his strength, faded day by day. Weeks of walking over mountains and crossing deep rivers in the dead of winter did that to a man. Even a strong one. No longer aware of the crusted mud and fallen branches beneath his heels, pulling the sledge without spilling his master into the slick muck grew almost impossible in a steady drizzle of sleet and snow. His eyelids stuck together.

In the distance, a lion roared, a hippo grunted. A vervet disappeared into the foliage. He blinked. There was no monkey, no lion, no river horse. His mind wandered off sometimes like it was done with this endless trek. Times that made it better; at times, tougher.

He longed for a loving voice crooning his name. “Bakari.” The Cherokees hadn’t called him anything but Bantu. He’d not heard his name in the four years since his own chieftain had sold him to slavers for his lack of respect. He’d had a big tongue for an eighteen-year-old warrior. He swiped gunk from his eyes with his upper arm, cursing softly at the realization tears, not sleet, had frosted his lids. They might of made him a slave, but he was also a man, and Bantu men didn’t shed tears.

All around him, silent men, women, and children shuffled along with stiff, gaunt faces, mute testimony to the hunger and sickness and pain of the journey. He abandoned the path to go around a frozen body in the snow—real or spirit—he didn’t know, didn’t care. The Indians had a name for this road. The Trail of Tears.

Slogging onward, the weight of a thousand… two thousand eyes staggered him. Countless wispy tendrils that had once been red-brown arms plucked at him. Piteous, soundless pleas rang in his frozen ears. “Take us with you. Join us. It makes no matter which.”

They’d once trudged this same tragic path, reaching no farther than this spot or the next one before death snatched them away. Ghosts. At one time, that would have terrified him. Now it was of no import. He staggered onward.

This particular band of Cherokees and their Black slaves—among thousands forced from their ancestral homelands—started the long walk in Eastern Tennessee, and many had already died. The old Indian on the sled, known to his tribesmen as Dull Hatchet, was the last of the Elder family, save for a grandson who’d slipped past Andrew Jackson’s troopers and fled into the hills before Old Hickory got his hands on the family. The Whites coveted the land, Bantu speculated when he was in his right mind. Especially the rich farmland of red men like the Elder family.

His master cried out again, and Bantu laid down the shafts of the pony drag—nothing but two lodge poles supporting a deerskin bed—to check on him. “Yassuh?”

Elder’s chest rattled as he spoke. “Get me Tall Pine. He’ll make you stop. I need my rest.” The old man rarely called his family by anything but their American names.

“Massa, yo boy is dead. He set after a soldier and got stuck with one of them bayonets. And the missus passed right after that.”

Elder fell back on the deerskin sled and closed his eyes, his breathing syrupy. Bantu picked up the poles and dragged the sled once again, as he had for the two days since the mare died. Occasionally, he lurched past a long-stemmed plant he figured was the Cherokee Rose. Come spring, it would open its five white petals to reveal a gold interior. Massa Elder claimed it was born of women’s tears, but Bantu had a more mundane explanation. Others before them had planted the medicine roses along the way as a blaze for the trail they’d one day travel back home.

Hours later, as the soldiers called a halt for the day, a three-striper tapped him on the shoulder. “Boy, how long you gonna haul around a dead man?”

He put down the drag to check his master. The soldier was right; the old man was gone. Bantu stood puzzling over how he felt about the death of the Cherokee. He was unable to come up with an answer.

While others ate and tended sores and wounds, Bantu hacked a hole in the frozen ground and laid out Massa Elder best he could before sorting through the bundle of belongings that had ridden on the sledge with the old Cherokee. He needed to salvage what he could for his new master.

Bantu froze. Who was his new master?

A shiver stronger than anything the winter had laid across his back shook him. The muscles in his exhausted legs trembled. Should he run before someone realized there was no one to claim him? Run where?

His insides felt like hot lava while his skin shivered and puckered in the cold. Whatever the future, he’d need what the old man carried. Most of it, Bantu abandoned, but he hid a small bag holding silver and copper coins and one big gold piece—as beautiful as anything he’d ever seen—inside his ragged jacket. An English pound, the old man had once told him.

Fretful and avoiding the others, he ate what little food remained and picked an isolated spot to settle in his blankets, the cold, damp night made a smidgeon more bearable by adding Massa Elder’s covers to his own.

Early the next morning when the soldiers roused their flock of human sheep, a tall African warrior called Bakari rose and marched westward with the others toward an uncertain destiny.

Chapter 1

Colored section of Horseshoe Bend, Oklahoma, Wednesday, May 31, 1944

Miasma Elderberry wasn’t afraid. Not exactly. But every time she set out for Honky Town her nerves played tricks, making her go all jerky at times and giving her a million pinpricks down the back. Little Colored girls was about as welcome downtown as head lice. And it never got no better, no matter she had to go every two or three days to check for mail down at the post office. It didn’t have no Colored entrance, so she always had to take to the alley and knock on the back door. That was better than standing in line with Whites, even if she could of. She kept a sharp eye out for boys. They was the nastiest. The big folks mostly didn’t even see her unless she got in their way. Little girls looked at her like she oughta be in a zoo or stuck out their tongues, but the boys? They’d trip her if she wasn’t sharp. Them curling their lips at her was worse. Seemed like a promise of something to come.

On top of that, all they talked about was the big war going on across the ocean. Didn’t hear as much about it where she lived, even though some of their Coloreds was over there fighting in it. She shuddered to think about them bombs falling down on folks, blowing them into little pieces like chunks of meat in a rabbit stew. They couldn’t all be bad people, even if most of them was White.

She glanced up the gravel road to the top of the hill. Two blocks up and three down right into a world where you don’t say nothing and your feet don’t make no noise. Did White folks feel the same way when they come to Colored town? She wrinkled her nose. Never know, ’cause none of them ever set foot there, less’n it was the police.

Today, she didn’t mind any of it, up or down. Today was her tenth birthday, and she had a shiny nickel in her pocket, enough to get five whole jawbreakers if the store had any. Sometimes they was hard to find. Sugar rationing, her mama said. Funny how a nickel was way bigger than a dime, but that thin little dime bought twice as many jawbreakers as a five-cent piece.

Should she have one piece of candy a day or one a week or one a month…so they’d last longer? Or maybe she oughta share them with her friend Tizzie. Miasma frowned. A birthday present ought not bring a problem along with it. Her scowl deepened. She didn’t like giving her money to Whites, but doggone it, Mr. Dinkins’ little neighborhood store was plumb out of jawbreakers. Claimed sugar couldn’t be wasted on foolishness like that. But somebody said Whitten Grocery downtown had some big, juicy gobstoppers. She sure hoped they didn’t ask for ration stamps, ’cause she didn’t have none.

As usual, when she took her first step out of Colored Town on the way to the White part of Horseshoe Bend, she broke into song to ease the tension. “Onward Christian Soldiers” seemed right because she was passing the Baptist Church with its stubby white spire rearing up in the air, pretending to hold a bell that never was. Without thinking about it, she lifted her knees high and took to marching to the beat of the hymn ’stead of walking. Her clear, strong voice stayed true to the tempo but played with the notes. She liked making each song her own.

As she neared the top of the hill, her eyes went to the big house to the left of the road. Sometimes the old White man who lived there came out to watch her pass. He liked her songs, probably. Sure ’nough, there he was, standing at the fence under the oak tree at the back of the house.

She raised her voice as she switched to “The Old Wooden Cross,” and took pleasure in his wide smile. An old smile but a good one. He raised his hand in greeting; she wiggled the fingers of her left hand in return and kept on walking and belting out the hymn. After another block, she closed her mouth and kept her eyes focused on the road ahead of her. The closer she got to town, the more her skin puckered, the slower her steps became. “Ain’t nothing bad gonna happen,” she muttered beneath her breath. Done it a hundred times, and nothin’ had happened yet. Don’t mean it never would. Stay sharp, you’ll be okay. Done with arguing with herself, she squared her shoulders and scooted on down the road.

Some of the downtown stores had signs about “No Negroes Allowed,” and there was one a block to the west that went all the way. “No Dogs, Indians, or Negroes.” Whitten’s just had a side entrance labeled for Coloreds. That was better’n standing in the alley to buy what she wanted.

Miasma eased inside and took in the high, white ceiling and lime green walls stretching clear to the far side of the store. Couldn’t see no people, but that was because they wanted it that way. Tall shelves made it look like this was a separate store so White folks didn’t have to put up with Coloreds. Wasn’t of course, but that’s what they was aiming for. That was all right, the shelves facing her held a gazillion things to buy if a body had the money.

She studied the goodies in a glass counter for five minutes before a man sauntered over and exchanged her nickel for six jawbreakers. She thought the clerk counted them wrong and started to hand one back until he smiled and winked at her. She returned the smile and left with enough candy for six whole months if she just had one on the last day of each month. Problem solved. And they looked as sweet as they ever did, sugar shortage or no sugar shortage.

Whenever Miasma was in her own neighborhood, she skipped most everywhere she went, usually busting out in song, but downtown, all she wanted was to be invisible. She oughta of gone up the alley, but she walked straight up the sidewalk covered by an overhang that kept the sun out when there was one, and the rain off when there wasn’t. The stores sure looked more interesting than they did from the back. Why’d they need so many stores? One looked like it didn’t sell nothing but clothes. Another one was for hammers and nails and stuff like that. Farther up, one had a sign saying “Five and Dime Store.” What did that mean? Some didn’t have windows, so she didn’t have no idea of what they was. And why was there so many cars parked with their noses edged up the sidewalk? Head-in parking, she’d heard someone say. Lordy, she’d heard a new car cost something like eight-hundred dollars. Was there that much money in the world?

At the corner alongside of the drug store, she crossed the street and began the hike home. She couldn’t sing because she had a whole month’s worth of candy tucked in one cheek and didn’t want to risk spitting it out without meaning to. The jawbreaker was still there—although considerably smaller—by the time she passed the white house on the hill. Didn’t matter if she was singing or not. The old man was nowhere about.

After two more blocks she ran into Tizzie right in front of the Baptist Church and hammered her plan by handing her best friend a jawbreaker. That was all right, it was the extra one the clerk give her. She still had a four-month supply.

Tizzie’s real name was Letitia, but nobody called her nothing but Tizzie, and it suited her right down to a T. Miasma figured a person’s name ought to fit. Her friend’s mama had done her hair in a long pigtail right down the back of her neck. Miasma’s braids ran down behind each ear and rested on her shoulders. Tizzie’s head mop tended to frizz, but Miasma’s didn’t. Kids sometimes claimed she had made hair, but she never used nothing to straighten it. Most likely some of the Elderberrys’ Cherokee blood showing up.

Tizzie shifted the big jawbreaker to the other side of her mouth and wished Miasma a happy birthday before handing over a cut-out book of paper dolls. Miasma recognized it as Tizzie’s favorite toy and half the figures was missing, but she didn’t mind. They always played paper dolls together, so it wasn’t no matter who owned the book they came out of. They found a patch of grass struggling to survive the Oklahoma heat and settled in the shade of a live oak beside the church to choose new dolls to play with.

Getting them out of the book without tearing them was sometimes a problem, but the big husky man and the girl with a teasing look cooperated and came out whole. They were White, but that didn’t matter. Nobody made Colored paper dolls. One time, her and Tizzie took crayons and painted the faces black, but that wiped out all the features and made it look like two shiny, black balls sittin’ on somebody’s shoulders. So they’d quit doing that.

An hour or so later, James Hugh Dinkins wandered over and plopped down beside them. “What you two birds up to?”

“Mindin’ our own business,” Miasma said.

She didn’t particularly like James Hugh even if he was awful cute. He was bigger than them—not much older but way bigger. And he played rough. Sometimes he used words the church wouldn’t like. Of course, so did Mama, but it wasn’t Miasma’s place to judge her mother. James Hugh was another matter. The first time he said “shit,” Miasma told him straight off not to talk that way. The second time, she pinched his arm. He jerked away and scrambled to his knees, wild-eyed.

“Hey! You stop that.”

“Will when you stop talking that way.”

“Ain’t none a yo business how I talk.”

“Is when you talk it around girls.”

“Well, don’t flip your wig.”

She figured he wanted to hit her, but if he did the other boys would claim he fought girls ’cause he wasn’t tough enough for boys. Wasn’t true. James Hugh was bigger and meaner than any of them. Funny how what others thought put a halter on a boy. Still… best not pursue the matter. James Hugh’s old man owned the only store in Colored Town, and sometimes he shared things his daddy give him. That was funny too. How a boy could be onery one minute and cut the next.

James Hugh took out his frustration by snatching the paper dolls out of their hands and ripping them in half before stalking away. To keep from using up two more cut-outs, Miasma put the bottom halves out of sight, stuck the torsos in the sand, and played like the two was swimming and flirting in a lake. Tizzie griped it didn’t seem real because they wasn’t in swimming suits, but Miasma had her way. After all it was her birthday.

A few minutes later, James Hugh sneaked up on them and tossed something on the ground before running away. Tizzie yelled “Peckerwood” at him, but Miasma snatched what he’d left, another cut-out book, smaller and thinner than hers but a paper doll book all the same. As Miasma ripped off the cellophane cover and thumbed through it, she gasped in surprise. One of the figures was a Black boy in a spiffy Army uniform. There wasn’t no colored girl to go with him, but he was handsome and smiling and favored her dead daddy’s picture on the table beside their ratty old couch.

Right on the spot, Miasma decided to take a crayon and color a girl for him. But she’d do it better this time. Maybe a brown or gray crayon instead of black. But she had to do something. She sure couldn’t have that humdinger of a Colored man running around with a scrawny White girl. Even if it was just paper dolls, that wouldn’t be right.

* * * *

Ah, that brought a rush of memories from my childhood. Some of them good, some of them not so good. But it was what it was, however socially blind many of us were… or perhaps chose to be.

 

Please friend this site. Apparently, that matters in the internet world.

 

As indicated on the last post, Charlie Blackbear has been published as an ebook by JMS Books.

 

My contact information is provided below in case anyone wants to drop me a line:

Website and blog: markwildyr.com

Email: markwildyr@aol.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/mark.wildyr

Twitter: @markwildyr

 

Now my mantra: Keep on reading. Keep on writing. You have something to say, so say it!

 

See you later.

 

 

Mark

 

New posts the first and third Thursday of the month at 6:00 a.m., US Mountain time.

Ben and Jeff

Markwildyr.com, Post #199

 Image Courtesy of Alamy.com

 

Apparently Gabacho is a character I ought to pay more attention to. Readers seem to like him.

 

But for today, it’s a piece of flash fiction.

 

* * * * *

BEN AND JEFF

Puffy white clouds with blue underbellies stacked up to the east, hiding the sun, but the rest of the sky was a clear cobalt over the two friends lying in the grass of a fallow field on a rare day off from school and chores. Jeff looked his age, while Ben appeared two years younger than his buddy. But in truth, he was eighteen, as well.

“Ben?”

“Yeah?”

“What you thinking about?”

“Sex.”

Jeff came up on his elbow and scowled. “Not either.”

“Am too.”

No you’re not.” Jeff waved an arm over Ben. “You always puff up down there when you’re thinking about sex.”

“Not always.”

“Do too.” Jeff pointed. “See, you’re doing it now.”

“Course I am. You’re looking at it.”

“Hard not to when it’s growing like that.”

“Wouldn’t be growing if you weren’t looking.” Ben paused. “What’re you thinking about?”

“Well… sex now, since you brought it up.”

“You asked.”

“I was gonna say that cloud over there looks like a dragon.”

Ben pointed. “Yeah, and that one over yonder looks like the state I’m in.”

Jeff squinted. “Does, kinda. But it looks more like mine. Bigger.”

“Ha! How do you know it’s bigger?”

“I’m bigger’n you are all over. ’Sides, I’ve seen you in gym class.”

Ben snorted. “Not like this, you haven’t. You think you’re bigger, prove it.”

“I’m not in your condition.”

“Well, get there so we can measure.”

“Measure? How’d talk about clouds end up being about measuring our things?” Jeff wanted to know.

“Didn’t start out that way. Started out me answering your question about sex.”

“Wasn’t a question about sex.”

“You getting off the subject. You afraid to measure?” Ben looked down at himself. “Look, it grew some more.”

Did seem that way. His britches looked like a miniature tent. Jeff glanced around nervously. “Somebody’s gonna see.”

“Come on! Nobody in this field except for us. Besides, we’re kinda in a little hollow. You sound like you’re afraid to measure.”

“Not afraid. Don’t know why I’d want to do it, that’s all.”

“Well, hell!” Ben exclaimed, grabbing his trousers and jerking them down. “Now you’ve seen mine, so you gotta show me yours.”

“No law says that,” Jeff exclaimed, beginning to squirm a little.

Ben fished for something to say. “Law of equal friendship.”

“What the hell. That’s not a law.”

“If it’s not, it oughta be. Come on.”

Jeff reluctantly tugged his britches down. “There.”

“Crap, you gotta get it hard if we’re going to measure fair and square.”

“Aw….”

Ben reached for him. “Here, I’ll do it for you.”

Jeff’s eyes scanned the horizon frantically as he batted Ben’s hand away.

“Like I said, nobody around.” Ben reached for him again.

This time, Jeff just lay back while his buddy massaged him. Felt kinda good. Good enough to get him aroused.

“Damn!” Ben exclaimed. “You wasn’t kidding.” He scooted over so their hips touched. Man, you way bigger than I am. I cede the field to a superior force,” he rambled, thinking he’d read something like that somewhere. But he kept on holding onto Jeff, and pumping his fist just a little.

“Uh,” Jeff mumbled, unable to keep his hips from moving.

That made Ben bolder. He pumped harder. “Feel good?”

“Uh… guess so.”

“So you do me. Fair’s fair.”

“I don’t know….”

Ben grabbed Jeff’s hand and pressed it down on himself. “Fair’s fair,” he repeated.

Both of them grew a little more as they lay side by side, Ben’s left leg over Jeff’s right, fists moving, first at a leisurely pace, then more urgently.

The clouds had moved over half the sky and turned a bit grayer by the time both boys spasmed and lay breathing heavily, as if unwilling to be the first to move or speak, and both thinking that if there wasn’t a law about mutual relief… there ought to be.

 

* * * *

After writing this, I realized it’s one of the very few pieces I’ve written from the omniscient point of view. For non-writers, that means you know what both characters are thinking simultaneously, and are not limited to the awareness of the “viewpoint character.” Seems to work all right here. Be interested in knowing if you think it worked.

 

Still need reviews of Wastelakapi, on Amazon…indeed all the Wildyr books. I need stars, guys. ALSO, please friend this site. Apparently, that matters in the internet world.

 

By the way, JMSnyder Books is republishing Charlie Blackbear as an ebook on the 8thof this month. I’m told that print books should start coming out soon.

 

My contact information is provided below in case anyone wants to drop me a line:

Website and blog: markwildyr.com

Email: markwildyr@aol.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/mark.wildyr

Twitter: @markwildyr

 

Now my mantra: Keep on reading. Keep on writing. You have something to say, so say it!

 See you later.

 

Mark

New posts the first and third Thursday of the month at 6:00 a.m., US Mountain time. 

Gabacho Moves On (Part Two of Two Parts)

 Markwildyr.com, Post #189

Part one was well received. Even got a few “thank yous” on my personal links. It was my pleasure, guys. At any rate, let’s see how this episode of the Gabacho story ends. I’m thinking of doing a novel based on this cool customer called Gabacho. But first, I’ll have to finish the project I’m presently working on… which is going very slowly.

 

Sorry today’s post is so long, but I didn’t want to make it a three-parter. Please stay with me to the end.

 

* * * * *

GABACHO MOVES ON

 

I was right about papers not being a problem at the border. For years, American citizens could cross into Mexico simply by showing a valid stateside driver’s license. Getting back across was just as simple… the same license. Then they’d started tightening things up, requiring a visa. The system hadn’t totally caught hold yet, and by a little artful arguing, I rode into New Mexico without much difficulty. My first night on US soil, I found myself in Columbus—that bootheel town of Pancho Villa fame. It’s a quiet town, and no one was looking for itinerant help, so I had to turn loose a little of my stash in order to spend the first night in a proper bed in quite a spell. I was so tired, I didn’t even think about going to a bar. After a supper of posole and tamales in someone’s kitchen that served as a local café, I headed for the mattress.

A day or so later, I located a ranch hiring for the fall gathering, and signed Slick and me up for the roundup. For a week, we had found and keep for the both of us, and I left when the job with done with my savings boodle a mite fortified.

****

I’d never been to Deming before, and although it was bigger than Columbus, it was about as quiet. Well, maybe the night life was a bit rowdier. Bella’s Place was like a hundred other bars I’d frequented in Texas or Oklahoma, or anywhere else, I guess. It was a local joint. Everyone seemed to know everyone else. And the little gal who took my order could easily have been one who had served me south of the border. Cute, Hispanic, and busy eluding the grab-ass just about every male customer in the joint was trying. Except for me. I took a table in the corner by myself and nursed a beer, watching the action around me. I figured the big, noisy table nearest the entrance was all drovers from a single ranch busy trying to outdo the nearest table, populated by hands from a neighboring spread. How long before the good-natured taunts thrown back and forth turned nasty as time went on and the beer flowed?

I was so caught up in watching the by-play, I didn’t notice the stranger until he pulled out a chair and took a seat.

“You new in town?” he asked in a deep voice. “Name’s Billy. John Billy.”

“Gabacho,” I replied automatically, accepting his strong grip. “So what do I call you? John or Billy?”

He shrugged his broad, impressive shoulders. “I answer to both. Most call me Shep.”

“Okay, but I’ll call you John.”

John Billy was about my age, my height, my everything. Except even in the dim light of the bar, I could see his hair was dark brown or black and his eyes dark, almost certainly the same as his hair… brown or black. From his cheekbones, I guessed he had some tribal affiliation, although he wasn’t a blood. Likely a breed. Good-looking one too.

I nodded to the two raucous tables. “You belong to one of them?”

He gave a bark of a laugh and shook his head. “Naw. I got my own little spread.”

The light went on inside my head. “Shep. Shepherd, right?”

“Right. A sheep man right in the middle of cow country.”

I frowned. “Does that spell trouble?”

He shook his head. “Not this century. Maybe lots in the previous one. They leave me alone, and I ignore them. It’s a good arrangement.”

“They don’t mind you invading their watering hole?”

“Not this one.” He inclined his head. “Out there, they get a little testy when I do it.”

“Land and water. That’s what it’s all about, right?”

“You got it. And before you ask, I’m Navajo. Or at least part of me is.”

I smiled. He’d made it easy. “How big a part?”

His answering grin was lazy. “Not quite clear on that. You can get in an argument about that on one side of my family. You?”

My turn to shrug. “English, a little Scotch and Irish. Garden variety Anglo, I guess.”

John and I spent a pleasant hour jawing while the two cowboy tables got louder and louder. When it looked like my question about it turning nasty was working up to an answer, John drained his glass and sat it down with a thump.

“About time I cleared out of here. You too, if you know what’s good for you. When these guys start swinging, they tackle anybody still standing.”

“Good advice,” I said.

Once outside, he offered me his hand again. “Good to meet you, Gabacho. Where you headed?”

“Right now, I’m headed up the street to find a motel that’ll take me and Slick.”

“Slick?”

I nodded to my horse hitched to a signpost at the side of the bar.

He glanced and Slick and then back to me. “Look, if you’re up for an hour’s ride, you can toss your bedroll at my place.

“Sounds good to me. You got a car or are you walking?”

“He pointed toward Slick with his chin. “My roan’s over there beside your gray.”

We mounted up and rode in silence until I asked who was taking care of his sheep while he was in town?

He answered with something that sounded like “Leech” with a syllable or two hanging on the end of it.

“Leech?” I asked.

“Close enough.”

He your hired hand?”

“Sorta.”

I met Leech when we got close to John’s camp. This big old black dog of uncertain parentage came running up belting out a chorus of yips and yaps and deep belly barks. John dismounted and calmed him.

“Meet Leech,” he said, as I stepped out of the saddle to settle Slick down. “Actually, his name is Dog in Navajo. But Leech will do.”

Billy introduced Leech to Slick and me. Horse and dog immediately became frienemies. Leech liked to get in a nip, and Slick like to get in a kick. After we tended our horses, I took a good look around. Jon hadn’t built a traditional hogan, but his lean-to bore a slight resemblance to one. I immediately saw how clever he was. The half-shelter caught the heat from a cookfire and kept his back warm on the cool nights.

“This your home ground?” I asked.

“Nah, this is kinda like a line camp. Got two or three of them scattered on my lease.”

“This reservation land?”

He shook his head. “BLM. I got me a lease on a patch of it.”

After a bowl of mutton stew, I felt like a tick full of blood, but I needed to clean up before taking to the blankets. John showed me how he did it. He shucked every stitch and took a sponge loaded with suds to himself. The guy looked like a snowman in the desert before I threw off my clothes and did the same with a second sponge. Even though we rinsed off with two pots of water heated over the open fire. It felt good, but I was still sorta soap slick.

John saw my discomfort. “There’s a final act to this.”

“Which is?”

As an answer, he let out a yell and made for a big stock tank, vaulting over the side and into the water. I was right behind him, and landed right on top of the guy. But I didn’t worry about that. The desert might be hot by day, but the nights were cool, and that damned water went it one better. It was cold.

When we got ourselves separated and right side up, he put his hand on top of my head and took us both under. I got the idea, and gave my hair a brisk brush before going up for air.

“Wowie!” John shouted when he surfaced. “Bracing, right?”

“Bracing? That your word for it? Man, I got no gonads left, they turned blue and floated off somewhere.”

“I felt a hand brush me. “Nah, they’re still there, but I don’t know what color they are.”

I looked at him, his dark skin gleaming in the bright moonlight, and he looked at me. Then without a word, we came together in an explosion of kissing and groping and panting.

I pulled away and fixed him with a stare. “Let’s get out of here and see just what color they are?”

“Good idea,” he said, putting a hand to the side of the tank and vaulting out. I had a glimpse of his shiny butt before he disappeared over the side. I wasn’t far behind him, although I probably wasn’t as graceful as he was climbing out.

When I reached the fire, he tossed me a towel so I could start rubbing life back into my limbs. When I glanced at him, he was drying his hair, as long and lustrous as any woman’s I’d ever seen. Dammit, and he was as desirable as any of them too. So how did I get this thing back on track?

John took care of that. As soon as I stepped into the shelter of his half-hogan lean-to, he clasped me in his arms and planted a kiss on my lips. My groin grew warm as his covered mine. An altogether pleasant feeling. As nature took over, we seemed to have dueling armatures down there. He laughed and pulled me down on his blankets. After a few minutes of wrestling, I realized something was wrong. He put words to it.

“We’re both after the same thing, ain’t we?”

“‘Fraid so.”

“We ain’t… wha’cha call it? Compatible.” He squinted at me through the darkness. “I’m a top.”

I shrugged. “Me too.”

“Crap. I was really looking to—”

“I don’t know about you, but I’m gonna cum. And you’re gonna help me do it.”

John went defensive. “I’m not—” He interrupted himself. “How’m I gonna do that?”

I took him by surprise and pushed him on his back, me atop him. “Like this.” I started humping his belly. After one startled minute, Juan laughed aloud, making his stomach muscles dance. Felt good.

“I can live with that as long as I get my turn.”

“Ab-absolutely,” I panted, already working up a sensation or two.

For minutes the only sound was that of the two of us panting and murmuring encouragement. It took a while, but eventually, I felt the familiar buildup, the internal roiling, and then release. Release in great, halting thrusts and spurts of semen across his ripped abs. I finally stopped moving and gloried in the stickiness between us.

With a roar of anticipation, John flipped us over and attacked my belly with what felt like a bar of iron. Lubricated by my own semen, he went at it hard, punctuating his gasps with yells of joy and anticipation. He only faltered at the end, and even in the darkness, I could see him lick his sensitive lips as his eyes rolled up in his head. Then he came with an explosion and some wild expressions in his native language that caused the flock to shift and Leech to answer with a long, yowl that somehow seemed pregnant with lust!

****

I woke the next morning covered in one of John’s Navajo blankets. I threw it off to find myself naked and encrusted with dried cum. I brushed it off, chuckling at how much fun it had been to get in this condition. John and I might not be “compatible,” but we still found a way to get it on.

I glanced up to spot him fully clothed and seeing to the needs of our animals. He glanced over as I rose and raised a hand when I reached for my britches. I paused and endured his glance.

“Gabacho, you one hell of a man.”

“I can say the same for you. My belly’s sore from the beating you gave it.”

“You think mine ain’t? Glad it worked out.”

“Me too, amigo.”

“So what happens now?”

I pulled on my clothes as I answered. “I go on my way.”

“And where does that lead to?”

“One of these days I’ll amble into Huntsville.”

He screwed up one eye. “Not the place with the big walls?”

I laughed. “No, not the state pen, or at least I don’t plan on it. But the way my sex life’s turned this past year, I can’t be too sure. No, Huntsville’s home. Where I was born and grew up.”

“I’m gonna remember you, man.”

“So will I. Never forget you.”

His lips smiled. “Someday, you gonna be going about your business, and you’ll hear a sheep bleat. You’ll look around, but there won’t be one. And you’ll know Slow Walker is thinking about you.”

“Slow Walker?”

“That’s my Navajo name. You the only white man in the world who knows it. Keep it close.”

“Nobody’ll hear it from me.”

I mounted Slick and turned his nose toward Deming. I knew from the quick way John bent to wrestle with Leech, he was feeling something. Me, I felt like there was a string with one end fastened to my belly button and the other to that sheep camp.

I hadn’t gone a mile before I heard it. The bleat of a sheep. And there wasn’t one in sight. I pulled up and looked back the way I’d come.

“I hear you John Billy… Slow Walker. I’m thinking of you too.”

I doffed my hat, adjusted my vest over my shirtless chest, and plodded on in the general direction of the great state of Texas.

* * * *

I can’t help wondering how Gabacho rationalizes that his last three assignations were with men, not women. I suspect the first two were novelties. Trysts simply because he was pursued with no emotions involved. But his time with John Billy seems a bit different.  What do you think?

 

I’m always thirsty for reviews of Wastelakapi, on Amazon…indeed all the Wildyr books. I need stars, guys. ALSO, please friend this site. Apparently, that matters in the internet world.

 

My contact information is provided below in case anyone wants to drop me a line:

Website and blog: markwildyr.com

Email: markwildyr@aol.com                                                                

Facebook: www.facebook.com/mark.wildyr

Twitter: @markwildyr

 

Now my mantra: Keep on reading. Keep on writing. You have something to say, so say it!

 See you later.

 

Mark

 

New posts the first and third Thursday of the month at 6:00 a.m., US Mountain time.

 great state of Texas.

Gabacho Moves On (Part One of Two Parts)

 Markwildyr.com, Post #188

By popular demand, Gabacho returns to the post this week. Apparently, some of you hombres liked the kid. So here we go.

 

* * * * *

GABACHO MOVES ON

 

Perched atop the flea-bitten gray I called Slick, I worked my way west toward the Antelope Springs border crossing. I’d arrived in Mexico naked and dripping wet after swimming the Rio Grande, but I wasn’t of a mind to go back stateside that way. It woulda been quicker, but quick wasn’t the thing at the moment. I was seeing new countryside, finding work when I could at a ranch here or a bar there to keep from spending the last of my pay from Rancho Salvador. I speak the lingo pretty good, so there wasn’t a problem from that standpoint. Fording the river the way I did, I didn’t have papers, but the border guards hadn’t been requiring them all that long, so I wasn’t worried on that score.

Slick and I were headed west again after an overnight stay in a little no-name village, and along about evening time, I spotted what looked to be a campfire a little to the north of me as the long shadows began stretching out the evening. I’d had pretty good luck at finding welcome at such spots, so I turned my pony down the dusty trail toward the flames. I made plenty of noise, “halloin’” the camp well before I got there. A welcoming noise rose, so I continued until Slick was standing in plain sight of the fire’s glow.

“Hola,” I said, nodding in the twilight.

“Hola, Gabacho,” came two or three answering voices. Sometimes it seemed like I was never a stranger because I was always hailed as gringo or Gabacho. Gringo if they weren’t too careful about being polite, and Gabacho if they were. That was a tag they hung on Anglos, especially ones that were fair. My curly brown hair with honey highlights and blue eyes qualified, apparently. I’ve introduced myself to people with my own name, Gary Hawthorne only to be told “No, I was Gabacho.” So I quit offering my legal handle and simply answered to that.

“Evening,” I responded. Sitting horseback until invited to dismount. Once it came, I saw to Slick’s needs, ground hitching him near a small stream where there was plenty of grass. I heard grunts of approval as I rubbed him down before approaching the three men.

They turned out to be drovers for a ranch with the improbable name of Rancho Punta de Flecha… the Arrowhead Ranch. They offered coffee and beans and tortillas, which came in handy at the moment. I hadn’t had anything all day except for some jerky from my saddlebag.

They were an amiable group, and we were soon comfortable with one another. They quickly wormed out of me that I’d spent several months on Rancho Salvador and had good things to say about how the place was run. It seems the ranch, and especially its long-time foreman Bartolome Barca, ranked high in this part of Mexico. It took a good quarter of an hour to discern there were actually four of them. One fellow sat deeper in the gloom, somewhat removed from the fire’s glow. I caught the gleam of his eyes before I actually saw him, giving me something of a start.

“Don’t worry about Don Tomas,” said the one called Juan, who did most of the talking for the group. “He don’t say much, but he hears everything.”

With that criptic remark, Juan returned to talking about Texas longhorns. But a little later, I heard the low rumble of a voice from the darkness.

Juan waved a hand in the air. “Just Don Tomas. He’s got one a them little teléphonos he carries around with him. Always talking on it.”

“You called him Don Tomas, not Tomas.”

Juan dropped his voice and leaned toward me. “He’s the patrón’s son. He rides with us sometimes. Ain’t a bad vaquero.” Juan wagged a hand back and forth. “But you know, he ain’t one of us. Don’t join in with us much.” He tossed the rest of his coffee on the fire. “Welcome to stay the night. Any old piece of ground will do.”

“Thanks, I’ll take you up on that. But I need to wash up. I been traveling all day.”

Juan nodded over my shoulder. “Back down there about ten meters, they’s a pool. Welcome to use it. Mite chilly, but it’s good water. And the snakes has already gone to bed.” He laughed at his humor and started making ready to turn into his blankets.

I collected Slick and wandered down the creek until I found the pool Juan had been talking about. After ground hitching the pony, I sat down on a rock to slip off my boots. Then I stood and shucked every stitch to slip into the cold water and scrub away the day’s grime. I’d finished my task and was wading back to the shore when a dim outline of someone sitting cross legged on the bank startled me. I saw moonlight catch in the eyes and knew who he was before he spoke.

“It’s me, Tomas.”

“Gave me a start.”

“You as good looking as Carlos said you were.”

“Carlos? Carlos Salvador? How do you know Carlos?”

“From school. I guess I met you the same way Carlos did. Buck naked coming up out of the water.”

I chuckled. “Guess so. I swam the Rio del Norte and came out on the bank where he was.”

“He says you’re good.”

I licked my lips. Was Carlos blabbing about what we’d done the day I left the Rancho? I tried to put another spin on it. “I can hold my own with most of the vaqueros.”

“Yeah, he says you’re a good cowhand, but you’re better at something else.”

“Like what?”

He rose from the ground and moved closer. A warm hand cradled my testicles. “Like screwing. He says you turned him every way but loose.”

I brushed away his hand but didn’t take offense. “What is it with you hidalgos. You all talk English better’n I do.”

His hands cupped my buttocks and pulled me into him. In truth, his warm touch was welcome. The night was chilled, and I was wet. I pushed him away and picked up the towel I’d laid out from my bag.

He took it from me. “I’ll do that.” It wasn’t a question; it was a statement. So help me, I let him. He dried me—all of me—very thoroughly and got me aroused while doing it. I finally found my voice.

“Hey man, we’re standing out here in front of God and everybody.”

“I don’t know about God, but everybody—all three of them—have turned in over in that grove. Nobody can see us here.”

When I didn’t answer, he dropped to his knees and clasped me around the waist. I lost the will to protest when his tongue went to work. Half an hour later, he lay beneath me trying to muffle his grunts of pleasure as I pounded his trim butt. Carlos and his big mouth had given me a reputation to live up to, and I damned near got a hernia meeting expectations. But when Tomas gathered his clothes later and staggered off to his own blankets, he looked as if he was walking on rubber legs. Pleased, I cleaned myself up, and dropped into the bedroll to sleep away the rest of the night.

When I woke the next morning, the others had moved on, leaving behind a small pot of chili and beans. After last night’s workout, the repast was welcome. Finished with my breakfast, I pulled on my britches and boots, and donned the vest I customarily wear to protect my back from the sun. I seldom bothered with a shirt.

Slick seemed ready to travel, so I slapped leather on him, mounted up, and did just that… traveled.

 

 

* * * *

So Gabacho’s on the move, returning—sooner or later—to the States. For a womanizer, he’s been getting a lot of male flesh lately. Wonder if that bothers him? Maybe we’ll find out next time.

 

I continue to ask for reviews of Wastelakapi, on Amazon. I need stars, guys. ALSO, please friend this site. Apparently, that matters in the internet world.

 

My contact information is provided below in case anyone wants to drop me a line:

Website and blog: markwildyr.com

Email: markwildyr@aol.com                                                                

Facebook: www.facebook.com/mark.wildyr

Twitter: @markwildyr

 

Now my mantra: Keep on reading. Keep on writing. You have something to say, so say it!

 

See you later.

 

Mark

 

New posts the first and third Thursday of the month at 6:00 a.m., US Mountain time.

A Look at CHARLIE BLACKBEAR

 Markwildyr.com, Post #187

The photo is the old cover 

 

Apologies to all. I screwed up. Didn’t get the settings right, and Thursday’s post failed to publish. I didn’t notice the lapse until tonight, so I corrected things. JMSnyder Books is going to republish Charlie Blackbear, so I thought I’d give you a look at that book. Hope the following catches your interest.

 

By the way, lots of interest in my “Gabacho” story, so we’ll likely see more of him at a later date.

 

* * * * *

CHARLIE BLACKBEAR

 

PROLOGUE

A key in the door brought him half awake. It looked like morning on the other side of his lids. He blinked and rubbed his crusted eyes. A maid entered, gasped, and backed out quickly. The light from the doorway before she shut it behind her like to of turned him blind. He looked down at himself. Nekked.

His mouth was dry. Hard to swallow. Head throbbed. Man, musta been some drunk. Wished he could remember more of it. Where the hell was he, anyway?

Despite the headache, he tried to remember. Something about passing out and getting left behind. Started walking. Caught a ride. Yeah, that was it. Some white dude gave him a ride to town. The guy had a motel room where they could sack out for the night. They’d shared a bottle before the lights went out.

Suddenly he bolted straight up on the mattress. Son of a bitch! He remembered coming awake creaming in the bastard’s mouth! Then what? Shit, he’d passed out again. He scrambled out of bed, but the guy was gone. Cleared out.  The dude had left a message and a couple of twenties. He got pissed off again reading the note.

You were wonderful. I’ve never had an experience like last night before, and I’ve had a few in my life. You don’t run into many your age who are uncircumcised these days. You’ve got something to be proud of there. So young, and yet so well-endowed. It must have been good for you because you ended up whooping and hollering.

I hope you don’t mind, but I used your leg after that wonderful experience. I tried to do it again for you this morning, but you didn’t get hard, so I just stood beside the bed looking at your angel face and hunky body while I took care of myself. Hope I meet you again someday. I left a little something for you in gratitude. I also paid another day on the room in case you wake up after checkout time. So you have the room for another night if you want it. Wish I could be here with you.

John

He tossed the note aside. The fucker’d bought and paid for him. Used him like a whore. Skin crawling, he rushed to the shower, lathering up and scrubbing so hard his skin was raw. Then he stood under the pelting water, drawing a breath that was almost a sob.

Crap! He wasn’t a fucking queer.

 

CHAPTER 1

 

April 4, my eighteenth birthday. Took its own sweet time rolling around. Talk about Indian time! They was pretty good years, till a drunk ran my old man off the road two summers back. They always talk about drunk Indians killing white folks. Well, this whitey wiped out my mom and dad, two brothers, and an aunt. Only reason I not laying over in the graveyard with them, I was out to my uncle’s place helping him catch a pony. Been with him ever since. My aunt was his woman, and since they didn’t have kids, him and me was all we had left.

At first, things was okay with him, but then he took to the bottle to make the hurt go away. Damned near everything went but the hurt. His old pickup broke down and was rusting away on blocks in front of the house. His job dried up. They couldn’t abide never knowing when he’d show up. His horses got sold for bottles of booze and cases of beer. The last thing to go was him caring for me, but that was dead too. We was nothing but a habit now. Oh, we got along okay…except when I tried to steal his bottle. And that was whenever I could.

Only reason we’ve still got a roof over our heads is we live way out in the boonies on this little Indian reservation. When the pickup went down, I scrounged a bicycle from the dump and fixed it up enough to get around. It’s got harder to do lately, because things leaned up a bunch last winter, and riding that bike sure worked up an appetite.

Toweling off from a bath, I examined myself in the cracked mirror. What I saw looked Grade-A-Choice-Prime. I’d been fed good till the accident, so I was filled out like a full-grown man. My belly was sorta gut-shrunk since coming by a meal got harder, but my chest was deeper than most guys I know. I like my face and thick black hair, and from the way girls came on to me they must like it too.

I figured out my cock was good for something besides pissing the year I turned thirteen with Mazie Longbow out behind the scrub bushes at Rock Springs. It was big even back then. Pretty soon I heard it going around that I had the biggest one in school. After that, I got my candle lit pretty much whenever I wanted.

In fact, the big fucker kept me in booze and groceries last spring when I ran onto this white woman in town looking for somebody to take care of her yard. I piddled around in her lawn grass until she invited me in for a cold drink. After that, I took care of her belly grass for the summer. She couldn’t believe it when I told her I was just seventeen; course, I look a couple of years older’n I am. She claimed I looked and screwed better’n any man she ever knew. I was sorta sorry when she’n her old man moved out-of-state, even if I was getting kinda tired of showing up once a week. Too much like a job.

Funny thing. I’ve never had a steady girl. Never did form a real attachment to one. I’d latch on real tight for a couple of weeks, making her feel real special, and then start looking around for another one.

Most of my buddies was guys who’d hang around and drink with me after my folks was gone. Couldn’t get away with it when they were around. Not too hard to get hold of alcohol even if this is a reservation and I’m underage. I got real close to a couple of guys—drinking buddies—but it only lasted till one got serious about a girl. Then I’d forget him and go hunt up another best buddy.

I have to admit getting taken care of nowadays wasn’t as easy as it used to be. My own fault. I’ve been through all the available girls on the reservation and in Blue Valley, the town just outside the rez. I had a reputation now...love ‘em and leave ‘em. So except for three or four who always give it to me when I’m desperate, my wick wasn’t getting dipped much without going to new territory.

Well, today Charlie Blackbear was going to new territory. Charlie Blackbear, that’s me, eighteen-year-old-Plains Indian super stud. There was a powwow over at Flynn’s Corners about a hundred miles down the road, and I was gonna find me something new. If I was lucky, I’d latch onto a white woman who liked red meat so I could put something in my pocket alongside the lone dollar bill already there. Then I’d hunt me up some of the Native fluff I liked and treat myself to a birthday present.

I worried over which would work up more of a sweat: riding the bicycle or walking the long, sunny mile from the house to the highway. I ended up riding the bike and hiding it behind some rocks. It was a good hour before a car passed. That one ignored my thumb, but the next one, a new Buick, drifted to a halt. The driver was a white man in his late twenties. I always look at them close, sizing them up in case of trouble. He had good muscles, was better’n six foot, and carried forty pounds on me. I’d have to mind my manners with this one.

“Hop in,” he said. “My name’s Bart. Where you headed?”

“Charlie,” I said, briefly shaking his outstretched hand. I was right; he was strong. “Flynn’s Corners.”

“Heading for the powwow? Saw a flyer back down the road,” he explained.

“Yeah, thought I’d go scare up a girl.”

“A young fellow like you ought to have a steady one.”

I gave him a grin. “Rather get lots of them once, than one of them lots.”

He laughed and slapped his knee. “And I bet you get lots too.”

A little macho bragging would probably go over with this guy. “Run through most of them around here. Looking for new territory. Bet you had your share.”

“I guess I have at that.”

He bought us steaks at a truck stop between Blue Valley and Flynn’s Corners. I’m not bashful, so I really stuffed it down. Hell, I didn’t know when I’d get to eat again. Old Bart kept right up with me. Before we left, we went in to take a leak. He stood at the urinal right beside me, and I was feeling funny about sneaking a peek when he snorted.

“Damn, Charlie! You’re hung like a horse.”

I got embarrassed for some reason, even though I been hearing that shit ever since I was in junior high. I shook it off and stuffed it back in my pants. “You ain’t no slouch, neither,” I said in an offhand kinda way.

“No, but I’m a bigger man than you are. If I had one as big as you built to my scale, I’d put a mule to shame.”

We laughed our way to the car and talked about a lot of stuff that didn’t mean nothing. Bart was an architect on his way back home to Santa Fe, New Mexico from a business trip. I told him about my folks and staying with my uncle who lived in a bottle nowadays. Come to think of it, I hadn’t laid eyes on Uncle Jim in a week.

When he let me off at the powwow, Bart asked about a good motel. He thought he’d stay overnight and take in some of the powwow before heading on home tomorrow. I told him about the fanciest place I knew.

There was already a pretty fair crowd milling around the fairgrounds, but I couldn’t find a woman, red or white, that looked like she had some money. I wasted time on a gal gussied up in a fancy jingle dress, but when I put the moves on her she backed out because her boyfriend was in town.

Managed to rub up against another pretty little thing a couple of times in the crowd so she’d get an idea of what I was carrying. She didn’t seem to mind, but her folks hunted her down, and her dad looked mean as hell. It didn’t seem like that was going nowhere, so I split.

When I went in the rest room to take a leak, I kicked a wallet somebody had dropped. There was fifty dollars in cash and some credit cards in it. I didn’t want trouble, so I just took the cash and tossed the billfold back where it was.

Since I had a little money now, I ate two burritos and had a soda pop, using the time to find out the bootlegger was hid out back behind the rodeo stables. A dozen guys was hanging around the area pulling on bottles or draining cans and trying to ignore the smell of horseshit. I knew a couple of them. One was Homer, a guy I used to pal around with till he got married. I ransomed a bottle and moseyed on over to where he was sitting against a fence talking to another guy. I gave him a handshake and joined them.

I don’t know where the rest of the night or my money went. I remember Homer hauling me to my feet, saying the fairground was closing, but I thought about him deserting me for some woman and shook him off. I got sorta snorty, so he just left. I hunkered back down to finish my bottle and get a little sleep.

The cold woke me up in a dark and deserted fairground. Cussing, I climbed over the fence and stomped out to the highway. It musta been a good mile, and it was freezing! I was shaking like a quaking aspen by the time a car came by. Thought it was gonna pass me up, but it pulled over a way down the road. I tried to run, but nearly fell on my ass, so I just plodded along, halfway expecting it to lose patience and pull off. It didn’t though, just sat there blowing little white puffs out the tailpipe like it was sending smoke signals. I thought it was that Bart fellow, but it was a ’97 Caddy, not a Buick. The inside was nice and warm. Either the guy had a blurry face or else I wasn’t seeing too good. He was a white man—who else would have a new Caddy—in his thirties. First thing I asked was if he had anything to drink.

“Had enough already, haven’t you?” he asked.

“Fuck no!” I shook my head, and it kept on shaking like it had a mind of its own. Ha! My head had a mind of its own! That was funny.

“I’ve got a bottle, but it’s packed away in my suitcase.”

“Bar,” I slurred at him.

“Closed, partner. It’s two-thirty in the morning. My name’s John.”

“Charlie.” I held out my hand. He took it.

He wanted to know if I was from around here. When I shook my head again, he asked if I had a place to stay. When I said no, he invited me to stay at his motel room so we could break out his bottle and have a party. Sounded good to me.

John got a room with one of those great big beds. Wished he’d of got one with two, but it wasn’t the first time I bunked with some guy at a party. He unpacked a quart of bourbon. Not my favorite, but it’s alcohol. He went in the bathroom to clean up, so I got right down to drinking. Breaking the seal on the bottle, I sat cross-legged in the middle of the bed and took a big swig before remembering this was a white man. He’d probably get his ass in an uproar over drinking after an Indian. So I found one of those little plastic glasses and poured it full.

A chunk of the liquor was gone before he came back out, but it didn’t seem like he minded. After he claimed his share of the bottle, it disappeared kinda fast. Once it was gone, there wasn’t anything else to do but turn in. I sorta remember stripping down to my skivvies, but that’s about it.

I had weird dreams. I was doing it to this girl I rubbed up against at the powwow, and she was great. No, that wasn’t right. She was doing it to me, ‘cause I was just laying back and enjoying it without doing none of the work. I was gonna cream all over myself if I didn’t wake up, so I started struggling up out of the pit. I came semi-conscious about the time I busted my balls. I felt my jism shoot, and it wasn’t any dream! My cum was squirting out into something wet and warm.

That John guy was blowing me. Son of a bitch! The bastard was sucking my dick! I oughta get up and beat him to a pulp, but I just didn’t have the energy. I’d beat on the bastard tomorrow. I drifted off again while he was still sucking on me.

The next morning, the sound of a key in the lock woke me up. A maid came in, saw me, and scooted right back out. Then I found forty bucks and the note saying how much he liked me. Sucker had sense enough to clear out before I came to.

I showered in a rage. I’d of killed him last night if I hadn’t passed out. When I came out of the bathroom, the same maid who woke me up was peeking in the door. I stopped, holding the towel in front of me.

“Want your room cleaned?” she asked, staring at the towel.

“Yeah, you can come on in, but I’m gonna get dressed.”

She came inside and closed the door, so I figured she liked what she saw. She wouldn’t of been bad, but I just didn’t have the energy. She looked kinda disappointed when I boogied out before she finished making the bed.

* * * *

Well, Charlie set off to get some for his eighteenth birthday, but it didn’t quite work out the way he planned it. Hope you’ll give me some stars when the book is published by JMS Books.

 

I continue to ask for reviews of Wastelakapi, on Amazon. I need stars, guys. ALSO, please friend this site. Apparently, that matters in the internet world.

 

My contact information is provided below in case anyone wants to drop me a line:

Website and blog: markwildyr.com

Email: markwildyr@aol.com                                                                

Facebook: www.facebook.com/mark.wildyr

Twitter: @markwildyr

 

Now my mantra: Keep on reading. Keep on writing. You have something to say, so say it!

 

See you later.

 

Mark

 

New posts the first and third Thursday of the month at 6:00 a.m., US Mountain time.

Gabacho – Part 3 of 3 Parts

 Markwildyr.com, Post #186

 Photo Courtesy of Pinterest

Once again, the perspicacious among you will note that I skipped from Post 159 to Post 186. That’s what the site tells me the number should be. I didn’t start numbering the posts early on, so that’s likely the reason for the discrepancy.

Well, last post, Gabacho was beginning to feel like a piece of meat two dogs were fighting over. But our intrepid hero can handle himself. Let’s see how he does it.

 

* * * * *

GABACHO

The next day, I watched Reina make her way across a broad pasture making straight for me and Slick. I’d been riding fences and come to a place that needed repair. Ignoring the approaching rider, I dismounted and started mending a broken strand of wire. In a few minutes, Reina pawed the ground, and Carla slipped from a fancy, silver-trimmed saddle to stand right beside me.

“Gabacho.”

“Hola, Carla. Out for a ride?”

“Out looking for you.”

“Me? Why?”

“I want you to take me to a dance tonight.”

“Tempting as that might be, I can’t,” I said.

“Why not?”

“I’m committed to sitting on my ass on a little stool while your brother swipes paint on a canvas.”

“He can wait.” She moved closer… closer than she should have and looked up into my eyes. “Blue,” she murmured. “Blue like the sky.”

“My eyes? Uh yeah, I guess”

Then she took me by surprise by stretching up to give me a kiss.”

I forgot I was dirty and sweaty from a day’s work and enfolded her in my arms. I had to admit, I felt that kiss right down in my stones. I pulled her closer, but she squirmed away.

“Maybe that will change your mind.”

I swallowed hard a couple of times before reluctantly squeezing the next words out of my voice box. “Wish I could, but I’m a man of my word. When Carlos finishes the painting, I’ll go wherever you want.”

She lifted her head and glared at me. “One time offer. Tonight or forget it.”

“Carla, I wish I could. But—”

She didn’t wait for me to finish. Carla mounted Reina, swept me with a haughty glance—lingering a moment on my fly—before galloping across the big pasture, leaving me standing there with a groin a lot fuller than when she arrived.

****

I wasn’t in a very good mood when I entered Carlos’s studio that evening. I glanced at the canvas on his easel, but it was covered.

Carlos noticed and put a teasing lilt to his voice. “You show me yours, and I’ll show you mine.”

I stomped over to the stool. “Let’s get this over with.”

“What put you in a high mettle?”

Geez, both of them—brother and sister—spoke better English than I did. And that dug a little bit too. “You’re interfering with my social life,” I snapped.

“Aha! Carla’s made her move.”

I hadn’t heard anyone say “Aha” since I was in short pants. “Whatever.” I plopped down on the high stool.

“Not that way,” he said, moving over to position my boots the way he wanted. “And the shirt—”

“Yeah, yeah,” I said, ripping it off.

He put a hand on my chest. “You have the most interesting pectorals,” he said. “As soon as I saw them half-covered by your vest, I knew I wanted to paint you.” He gave a laugh. “Of course, that brown, curly hair and those blue, blue eyes, and that narrow nose contributed.”

“Come on, stop yapping and get to painting.”

“Wait a minute. What’s that on your cheek?”

I started to feel my cheek, but he brushed my hand away and moved in for a closer look, His finger rubbing me right below my left eye.”

“What is it?” I asked.

“Just a speck of something. It’s gone now.”

Then he took me by surprise. I froze as he came closer. He paused a moment go gaze into my eyes before placing his lips against mine. I don’t think I intended to do it, but my mouth opened, and Carlos invaded me with his tongue. So help me, His kiss grabbed me by the innards too I felt myself stir even before he placed his hand over my groin. A sudden image of old man Salvador galvanized me. I pushed him away.

“What’re you doing?” I asked, brushing my lips with the back of my hand.

“What I’ve wanted to ever since I saw you naked on the banks of the Rio Grande. You’re muy macho, Gabacho. But you already know that. The door is locked, amigo. We can do whatever we want.”

“And you don’t think Carla has a key?”

He frowned before his smile returned, making him as handsome as his sister. “That would be her problem.”

“Carlos, pickup your paint brush, or else I’m leaving.”

“Okay, okay. Another time, no?”

“No,” I said, without any oomph behind it. I couldn’t help but notice he had a semi-erection as he sent about his work. What had he said? You show me yours, and I’ll show you mine. Hell, he’d already seen mine. I was tempted to remind him, but that would just start things all over again. My lips tingled… just as they had after Carla kissed me in the pasture.

****

Over the next week, Bartolome, the foreman of the Salvador spread started to ride my ass, sometimes with cause, sometimes without. He was a formidable forty-or-so muscular man who’d probably been someone’s dreamboat a few years back. He’d been even handed up until then, so he or Don Guillermo must figure I’m getting too cozy with the kiddos. That made me think my spell here on the ranch was limited. So it was time to make a move or move on… probably both.

Carla had stopped acting frosty was soon as my posing days with her brother drew to a close. Only then did Carlos allow me to see the portrait he’d painted. In fact, Carla and I both saw it at the same time after Carlos invited us to the studio.

I was shocked—pleasantly so—when he unveiled the painting. There I sat. No question about it. Gary Hawthorne—Gabacho— perched there on the stool looking just like the one standing in front of the painting gawking.

“Bueno, Carlos,” Carla said. “You captured him.”

I silently agreed, although the crotch looked a little fuller than it was. I couldn’t help but glance down. Well, maybe not. Both of them caught me in the act and laughed aloud.

“Oh, no, Gabacho,” Carlos said. “I paint ‘em like I see ‘em. Don’t make them look better or look worse.”

My cheeks flamed, and I got out of there in a hurry.

After chow, I lay in my bunk and did some cogitating. I glanced at the vaqueros joshing back and forth among themselves and realized I was comfortable at the ranch. Nonetheless, my time here was about to run out. Had I been away long enough for the dustup north of the Rio Grande to die down? Yeah. Probably.

A minute later, I knocked on Bartolome’s door—he was the only one with a private room in the bunkhouse—and gave notice. I saw in his black eyes that he understood, and he settled up with me—in dollar bills—and approved my taking off without waiting for a replacement. After that, I packed the few belongings I’d brought with me and stowed them behind the saddle on Slick. Once outside of the yard, I pulled up and took out my cell phone. After dialing a number, I waited for an answer. When it came, I said, “Line shack Number 1. One hour.” I hung up, stripped off my shirt, donned my vest, and put Slick in a slow walk to the west.

I figured I’d arrive first, but when the shack came into view, one of the ranch’s Jeeps was already parked beside the door. I dismounted beside the vehicle and stepped through the door.

I didn’t have any doubts about my decision. Hell, I could always find a woman, but when was I gonna find a guy as pretty as a woman and as willing as Carlos Pablo Salvador y Bachicha?

* * * *

I guess you can’t fault Gabacho’s logic, but which of the twins would you have chosen?

 

I continue to ask for reviews of Wastelakapi, on Amazon. I need stars, guys. ALSO, please friend this site. Apparently, that matters in the internet world.

My contact information is provided below in case anyone wants to drop me a line:

Website and blog: markwildyr.com

Email: markwildyr@aol.com                                                                

Facebook: www.facebook.com/mark.wildyr

Twitter: @markwildyr

Now my mantra: Keep on reading. Keep on writing. You have something to say, so say it!

See you later.

 

Mark

New posts the first and third Thursday of the month at 6:00 a.m., US Mountain time.

Gabacho – Part 2 of 3 Parts

Markwildyr.com, Post #159

Photo courtesy of Pinterest

I received some nice comments on part one of “Gabacho.” The perceptive will notice that this is the second of three parts, not two. As I told you last week, I hadn’t finished the story. I have now, and it took two more “tellings.” At any rate, here’s part two. Hope you enjoy it.

 

* * * * *

GABACHO

 

I usually wear a short vest without a shirt during the workday. It keeps the sun off my back, but exposes my chest and allows for a little air to circulate… even though as often as not, it was hot air. But when Carlos was around, he spent so much time studying my exposed flesh, I got the feeling I ought to cover up or else do something about it. And the temptation to do something about it was growing stronger by the day.

One late afternoon, he caught me in a remote pasture doctoring a cut on a half-grown steer. Wished he’d showed up a little earlier, he could have helped me bring the ornery critter down. As it was, he applied a healing salve on a trembling leg while I held the steer immobile. When we were finished, I let the calf go, and he rose with the wounded air of a British earl who’d just been insulted. Then he put as much distance as he could between himself and us.

Carlos handed me the medicine to put in my saddle bag, a lazy grin curling his patrician lips. “I wanna paint you, Gabacho.” He put a hand to his chin and let his eyes wander. “But I dunno if I want you in that little vest that covers a little and shows a lot, or if I want you desnudo.”

“Nekked?” I said, adding a snort for good measure. “Good luck with that.”

His smile grew wider. “But you forget. I’ve already seen you. And I remember every detail. I could paint you right now without you shedding nothing.”

“Is that a threat?”

Carlos dry-washed his face. “Nah. Just talking. But it’s a temptation.”

“Resist it,” I said in a low voice.

“Okay, if you’ll sit for me. Vest on or off, your choice.”

“We are talking about with my britches on, aren’t we?”

He laughed. “Yeah, if you insist. This evening?”

“Where?”

“In my studio. Right after chow.”

“Okay… I guess.”

I’d not seen any of Carlos’s work, so I didn’t know if I’d come out looking like a clown or a monster, but I was pretty sure I wouldn’t come out looking like me. After he reclaimed his black and rode away, I finished scouting the pasture and headed for headquarters.

After that first day, I’d eaten with the other vaqueros, slept with them in the bunkhouse too, and learned they were a decent bunch of men. Their card games tended to get a bit wild sometimes, but I didn’t often risk my money on the turn of a card. I was pretty good at poker, but the best way I know to get on the wrong side of a man is to take his money in a card game when he doesn’t really know how handy you are with the double shuffle. I was more a checkers man where everything’s right there on the board. Juego de damas, they call it down here.

After the meal, I showered and changed to clean clothes, remembering at the last moment to pull on my vest. Carlos opened the door almost before I knocked. He smiled… and then his face fell.

“What’s the matter?”

“You’re wearing a shirt.”

“I usually wear a shirt, except when I’m working in the sun.”

“No, no! Take it off.”

“Jeez, let me get inside first, okay?”

He was ready for me. He had a blank canvas on the easel and a graphite stick lying on the table beside it. He got me out of my shirt and in my vest in short order and seated me on a stool at a slight angle from the easel, one boot on a rung, the other one on the floor. Then he posed me with my hat in hand, but was careful to position my arm so it didn’t block a view of my crotch. I thought it funny but indulged him anyway. After he arranged the lighting the way he wanted it, he retreated to the easel and picked up the graphite stick, his handsome face taut with concentration.

“Do I have to stay completely still?” I asked.

“No, you can move to relieve muscle strain, but stay in that general position.”

“How long is this going to take.”

“Only about thirty minutes or so tonight.”

“Tonight?”

“Yeah. I’m just doing the sketch tonight. You gotta sit for me when I start doing the painting.”

“Damn,” I muttered.

“Can I get you a cervezaor something?” he asked, his eyes shifting rapidly back and forth between me and the canvas.

“Nah. Don’t want a beer. Not right now, anyway.”

A little while later, the door opened, and I glanced up to see Carla enter. I caught Carlos’s pained look, but he said nothing. She walked up beside him and gave both me and the drawing a good once-over.

An impish grin claimed her lips, making me wonder what I really looked like in the sketch. “Looking good there, Gabacho.”

“Carla,” Carlos said, ‘you know better’n to barge into my studio. What if I was doing a nude painting of him?”

She smirked. “Even better.”

“Go on, get out. You’re disturbing my concentration.”

She ignored him. “Gabacho, when he lets you go, come to the house and have a drink with me.”

“Sorry, he’s having some drinks with me. Might make an evening of it. Or go to town to la Cerveceria.”

Carla took exception to that, and a little dustup occurred in the local lingo far too fast for me to keep up. But it was clear that I was the subject of discussion.

Oh crap!

 

* * * *

The plot stiffens… uh, deepens. Wonder what happens next posting?

 

I continue to ask for reviews of Wastelakapi, on Amazon. I need stars, guys. ALSO, please friend this site. Apparently, that matters in the internet world.

 

My contact information is provided below in case anyone wants to drop me a line:

Website and blog: markwildyr.com

Email: markwildyr@aol.com                                                                

Facebook: www.facebook.com/mark.wildyr

Twitter: @markwildyr

 

Now my mantra: Keep on reading. Keep on writing. You have something to say, so say it!

See you later.

 

Mark

 

New posts the first and third Thursday of the month at 6:00 a.m., US Mountain time. 

Gabacho – Part 1 of 3 Parts

 Markwildyr.com, Post #158

 Photo courtesy of Pinterest

  This week, I’d like to do a short story, which will be published in three parts. The title came to me first, and I built the story around the name. I once knew a man everyone called Gabacho to the point that I don’t even recall his legal name. He was tall, dirty-blond, and blue-eyed. Sort of like the protagonist of the story, except that I made him brown-haired. Apparently in Spain, Gabacho is a derogatory term for a Frenchman or European male. In Mexico, I believe it is a common term for an outsider, particularly a gringo.

At any rate, I hope you enjoy the story.

* * * * *

GABACHO

 

The instant my fleabitten gray gelding, Slick by name, stepped out of the waters of the Rio Grande onto Mexican soil, I ceased being Gary James Hawthorne and became Gabacho. I spoke enough of the lingo to know that was a common term for outsiders, especially gringos with brown hair and sky-blue eyes. And it didn’t take long for the point to come home. I was standing bare-assed naked while retrieving my clothing from a waterproof bag when a voice startled me.

“Hey, Gabacho! You like to go skinny dipping?”

I whirled to spot a slender figure sitting on a log. I’d assumed this was an unoccupied stretch. At first glance, I took it for a girl, but the voice was definitely masculine… a light baritone.

He rose and dusted the seat of his pants, a grin claiming his lips.

I held up the package. “Didn’t want my clothes to get wet.”

“Orale, you a good-looking dude. How come you swimming the rio, ‘stead of coming across a bridge? I look over there, I gonna see some badges shinin’ in the sun?”

As he drew closer, my confusion grew. Probably somewhere around twenty, his face was as pretty as any girl’s I’d ever seen. But the Adam’s apple and the broad shoulders gave lie to the features. This was a guy, all right. But damned if he wasn’t starting to get to me, especially when I saw where those dark chocolate eyes were looking.

“Nope. No badges. Just wanted to go for a swim.”

“You ain’t a killer or a thief or nothing?”

This kid didn’t have much of an accent. Sounded like anyone north of the river. Course, I knew a lot of the border Mexican kids managed to go to school in the States.

“Just a cowpoke looking for a change in the scenery. Heard the señoritas were friendly, so thought I’d give it a try.”

He nodded to my groin. “You know how to use that, they’ll be mucho friendly, no?”

I drew on a pair of shorts and stepped into my denims before I was as dry as I’d have liked. “I get your drift. Where am I, anyway?”

“You on the Rancho Salvador.”

“Rancho?  You mean ranch?”

“He nodded, his gaze now centered on my bare chest. “You got it.” He moved closer. “You don’t gotta get dressed on account of me.”

I leveled a look at him, probably not the one I intended because of his beautiful, tanned skin and full lips that looked like they could pout one minute and smile the next. A headful of dark curls didn’t help my concentration. I pulled my shirt over my shoulders and started buttoning it. “Yeah, I do. Otherwise you might regret it.”

I was right. His sweet smile instantly became a fetching pout. “Doubt that.”

“Who’re you?” I asked to get back on solid ground.

He drew to his full height, an inch or so shy of my six feet. “I am Luis Pablo Salvador y Bachicha.”

“Salvador, huh? Any kin to the Salvador this ranch is named after?”

“Mi padre… you know, my papa.”

I finished dressing and stowed the waterproof bag. “I'm Gary Hawthorne."

"No, you're Gabacho."

I shrugged my acceptance of his judgment. "Sorry if I’m trespassing. Show me the quickest way, and I’ll clear out.”

He threw a graceful hand toward the river. “Quickest way’s the way you come.”

“The next quickest.”

“Tell you what. You come have a meal at the headquarters, and the foreman might have a job for you.”

“Who’s the foreman?”

“Fella by the name of Bartolome.”

“If you’re your daddy’s boy, how come you aren’t the foreman?”

An amused laugh bubbled up out of him. “I play at ranching. Bartolome, he works at it.”

“How come you just play at it?”

“Me, I’m an artist. Rather paint a horse than ride him. Good-looking gray you got there.”

I patted Slick’s neck. “Yeah. He’s a good one.”

“Cutting horse?”

“The best.”

He grabbed the reins of a handsome black gelding standing nearby. “Come on, I’m getting hungry. You’re invited.”

I was experiencing a few hunger pains of my own by the time we finally raised the ranch house. Willows and oaks, and pines threw shade over a rambling, two-story white house, an equally big barn, and a few supporting structures. A stunningly beautiful Appaloosa trotted into the corral and raised her haughty head to watch us approach.

“That’s Reina, my sister’s mare.”

“She’s well named. She looks like a queen,” I said. “And she knows it, I’ll bet.”

“Carla don’t let nobody ride her. Not even papa.”

A woman strolled out of the house, a quirt in her hand, and raised an arm against the sun to look our direction.

“That’s Carla. Sometimes she acts like she’s la reina around here.” He laughed aloud. “Guess she is too, come to think on it.

Upon arriving at the corral, we dismounted, and my confusion deepened. Carlos came off the porch to meet us. Except it wasn’t Carlos. It was his female image minus the Adam’s apple and broad shoulders. They could have been twins. Hell, they probably were twins. And she provoked the same reaction in me, a stirring in the loins, a heightening interest.

We dismounted, and Carlos introduced us, a bit of amusement playing over his features.

“Carla, this is Gabacho, Gabacho, this is my sister, Carla.”

She reached out a gloved hand, and I bowed to plant a polite kiss on it. “Pleased to meet you, señorita.”

“Call me Carla,” she said. “Are you taking lunch with us?”

“I invited him,” Carlos said.

She turned back toward the veranda. “The dining room, not the cook house. Thirty minutes.”

We unsaddled and rubbed down our animals before setting them free to dip their long noses into convenient buckets of oats. After that, I washed up in a basin despite my recent bath in the Rio Grande.

****

A man joined us at the table. A stout, florid man introduced as Guillermo Juan Salvador y Ramos, the patronof the Salvador family. Two things stood out immediately about this impressive man. He was no fool, and he was not a man to be trifled with. Before that uncomfortable meal was over, he’d figuratively pinned me to the wall and knew everything about me, including the fact I’d fled the States about an hour ahead of the law on a beef arising from a brawl in a bar. It wasn’t the kind of charge that had a long life, so if I could stick it out south of the Rio Grande a few months, it would lose its luster. By the end of the luncheon, I had a job as a wrangler on the Rancho Salvador. Carlos gave me a sexy grin while Carla unleashed a pleased smile. Now all I had to do was figure out which one was giving me a hard-on.

I reconsidered. No, all I had to do was stay clear of both of them until I could go back home. Don Guillermo likely wouldn’t countenance the hired help taking either one of his offspring to bed.

 

* * * *

Well, is that a set-up or not? Which way will the wind blow, I wonder. I don’t know because I haven’t finished the story yet.

 

I continue to ask for reviews of Wastelakapi, on Amazon. I need stars, guys. ALSO, please friend this site. Apparently, that matters in the internet world.

 

My contact information is provided below in case anyone wants to drop me a line:

Website and blog: markwildyr.com

Email: markwildyr@aol.com                                                                

Facebook: www.facebook.com/mark.wildyr

Twitter: @markwildyr

 

Now my mantra: Keep on reading. Keep on writing. You have something to say, so say it!

 

See you later.

 

Mark

 

New posts the first and third Thursday of the month at 6:00 a.m., US Mountain time.

Gabacho – Part 1 of 2 Parts

 Markwildyr.com, Post #158

 Photo courtesy of Pinterest

  This week, I’d like to do a short story, which will be published in two parts. The title came to me first, and I built the story around the name. I once knew a man everyone called Gabacho to the point that I don’t even recall his legal name. He was tall, dirty-blond, and blue-eyed. Sort of like the protagonist of the story, except that I made him brown-haired. Apparently in Spain, Gabacho is a derogatory term for a Frenchman or European male. In Mexico, I believe it is a common term for an outsider, particularly a gringo.

At any rate, I hope you enjoy the story.

* * * * *

GABACHO

 

The instant my fleabitten gray gelding, Slick by name, stepped out of the waters of the Rio Grande onto Mexican soil, I ceased being Gary James Hawthorne and became Gabacho. I spoke enough of the lingo to know that was a common term for outsiders, especially gringos with brown hair and sky-blue eyes. And it didn’t take long for the point to come home. I was standing bare-assed naked while retrieving my clothing from a waterproof bag when a voice startled me.

“Hey, Gabacho! You like to go skinny dipping?”

I whirled to spot a slender figure sitting on a log. I’d assumed this was an unoccupied stretch. At first glance, I took it for a girl, but the voice was definitely masculine… a light baritone.

He rose and dusted the seat of his pants, a grin claiming his lips.

I held up the package. “Didn’t want my clothes to get wet.”

“Orale, you a good-looking dude. How come you swimming the rio, ‘stead of coming across a bridge? I look over there, I gonna see some badges shinin’ in the sun?”

As he drew closer, my confusion grew. Probably somewhere around twenty, his face was as pretty as any girl’s I’d ever seen. But the Adam’s apple and the broad shoulders gave lie to the features. This was a guy, all right. But damned if he wasn’t starting to get to me, especially when I saw where those dark chocolate eyes were looking.

“Nope. No badges. Just wanted to go for a swim.”

“You ain’t a killer or a thief or nothing?”

This kid didn’t have much of an accent. Sounded like anyone north of the river. Course, I knew a lot of the border Mexican kids managed to go to school in the States.

“Just a cowpoke looking for a change in the scenery. Heard the señoritas were friendly, so thought I’d give it a try.”

He nodded to my groin. “You know how to use that, they’ll be mucho friendly, no?”

I drew on a pair of shorts and stepped into my denims before I was as dry as I’d have liked. “I get your drift. Where am I, anyway?”

“You on the Rancho Salvador.”

“Rancho?  You mean ranch?”

“He nodded, his gaze now centered on my bare chest. “You got it.” He moved closer. “You don’t gotta get dressed on account of me.”

I leveled a look at him, probably not the one I intended because of his beautiful, tanned skin and full lips that looked like they could pout one minute and smile the next. A headful of dark curls didn’t help my concentration. I pulled my shirt over my shoulders and started buttoning it. “Yeah, I do. Otherwise you might regret it.”

I was right. His sweet smile instantly became a fetching pout. “Doubt that.”

“Who’re you?” I asked to get back on solid ground.

He drew to his full height, an inch or so shy of my six feet. “I am Luis Pablo Salvador y Bachicha.”

“Salvador, huh? Any kin to the Salvador this ranch is named after?”

“Mi padre… you know, my papa.”

I finished dressing and stowed the waterproof bag. “I'm Gary Hawthorne."

"No, you're Gabacho."

I shrugged my acceptance of his judgment. "Sorry if I’m trespassing. Show me the quickest way, and I’ll clear out.”

He threw a graceful hand toward the river. “Quickest way’s the way you come.”

“The next quickest.”

“Tell you what. You come have a meal at the headquarters, and the foreman might have a job for you.”

“Who’s the foreman?”

“Fella by the name of Bartolome.”

“If you’re your daddy’s boy, how come you aren’t the foreman?”

An amused laugh bubbled up out of him. “I play at ranching. Bartolome, he works at it.”

“How come you just play at it?”

“Me, I’m an artist. Rather paint a horse than ride him. Good-looking gray you got there.”

I patted Slick’s neck. “Yeah. He’s a good one.”

“Cutting horse?”

“The best.”

He grabbed the reins of a handsome black gelding standing nearby. “Come on, I’m getting hungry. You’re invited.”

I was experiencing a few hunger pains of my own by the time we finally raised the ranch house. Willows and oaks, and pines threw shade over a rambling, two-story white house, an equally big barn, and a few supporting structures. A stunningly beautiful Appaloosa trotted into the corral and raised her haughty head to watch us approach.

“That’s Reina, my sister’s mare.”

“She’s well named. She looks like a queen,” I said. “And she knows it, I’ll bet.”

“Carla don’t let nobody ride her. Not even papa.”

A woman strolled out of the house, a quirt in her hand, and raised an arm against the sun to look our direction.

“That’s Carla. Sometimes she acts like she’s la reina around here.” He laughed aloud. “Guess she is too, come to think on it.

Upon arriving at the corral, we dismounted, and my confusion deepened. Carlos came off the porch to meet us. Except it wasn’t Carlos. It was his female image minus the Adam’s apple and broad shoulders. They could have been twins. Hell, they probably were twins. And she provoked the same reaction in me, a stirring in the loins, a heightening interest.

We dismounted, and Carlos introduced us, a bit of amusement playing over his features.

“Carla, this is Gabacho, Gabacho, this is my sister, Carla.”

She reached out a gloved hand, and I bowed to plant a polite kiss on it. “Pleased to meet you, señorita.”

“Call me Carla,” she said. “Are you taking lunch with us?”

“I invited him,” Carlos said.

She turned back toward the veranda. “The dining room, not the cook house. Thirty minutes.”

We unsaddled and rubbed down our animals before setting them free to dip their long noses into convenient buckets of oats. After that, I washed up in a basin despite my recent bath in the Rio Grande.

****

A man joined us at the table. A stout, florid man introduced as Guillermo Juan Salvador y Ramos, the patronof the Salvador family. Two things stood out immediately about this impressive man. He was no fool, and he was not a man to be trifled with. Before that uncomfortable meal was over, he’d figuratively pinned me to the wall and knew everything about me, including the fact I’d fled the States about an hour ahead of the law on a beef arising from a brawl in a bar. It wasn’t the kind of charge that had a long life, so if I could stick it out south of the Rio Grande a few months, it would lose its luster. By the end of the luncheon, I had a job as a wrangler on the Rancho Salvador. Carlos gave me a sexy grin while Carla unleashed a pleased smile. Now all I had to do was figure out which one was giving me a hard-on.

I reconsidered. No, all I had to do was stay clear of both of them until I could go back home. Don Guillermo likely wouldn’t countenance the hired help taking either one of his offspring to bed.

 

* * * *

Well, is that a set-up or not? Which way will the wind blow, I wonder. I don’t know because I haven’t finished the story yet.

 

I continue to ask for reviews of Wastelakapi, on Amazon. I need stars, guys. ALSO, please friend this site. Apparently, that matters in the internet world.

 

My contact information is provided below in case anyone wants to drop me a line:

Website and blog: markwildyr.com

Email: markwildyr@aol.com                                                                

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Twitter: @markwildyr

 

Now my mantra: Keep on reading. Keep on writing. You have something to say, so say it!

 

See you later.

 

Mark

 

New posts the first and third Thursday of the month at 6:00 a.m., US Mountain time.