Chapter 2 – Chapter 2

Sunday was the first of two days off for Frank, and he rode out along the dirt road paralleling the Platte River away from the town of North Platte and the Buckhead Ranch male brothel. Oskar had given him directions to his ranch, and Frank was almost there when he came upon some sort of community gathering. At first he thought it was a church service, but it was mid afternoon already, and he quickly was able to see that, though the women and children appeared to be wearing what they would to church, they were gathered around tables, packing up what looked to have been a picnic, and the men were dressed in work clothes, some stripped to the waist, and were raising a small barn. The log cabin beyond it looked derelict enough that this might have been a deserted homestead. But not, Frank thought, if they were having a barn raising.

It was more of a big shed than a barn, but, nonetheless, it looked like they were working hard to get it up by nightfall—and were falling behind in the task.

Frank had been raised to be neighborly and he'd been to many a barn raising. The barns on his family's spread in Pennsylvania had always been raised this way, so he turned his horse into the yard, rode up to the house, dismounted, and tied his horse's reins to the porch railing. He was stripping off his shirt, preparing to go help on the barn when a man, in his mid thirties, came out of the house.

Frank took his breath it. The man was the spitting image of his own father, but a bit younger, somewhere between his father's age if he had still been alive and his own. His father had died at thirty-six, though, so, here, standing in front of Frank, was the image of his father when he'd lost him—and when the family had been forced into the poverty that eventually led to Frank doing what he was doing.

"Yes, may I help you?" the man asked. It wasn't lost on Frank that the man was looking at his bare chest rather than in his eyes. The man looked weary, but his eyes narrowed when he looked at Frank.

"Saw there was a barn raising as I passed, and I was taught never to pass one by without helping."

"Thank you, but it's almost over. There's no more food laid out anymore, and the families are beginning to pack up to leave."

"The barn's not all up yet, though," Frank said. "It looks like there's a few more hours of light up there. And it looks like it might rain tomorrow. Best to get the roof over it before the day ends."

"It doesn't look like that's going to happen," the man said, a sadness in his voice. He was fully dressed and not out helping on the barn. It made Frank wonder if he was crippled or something. But then he heard a voice, couched in pain, coming from inside the cabin.

"Pete? You out there? 'Fraid I made a mess in here. Need your help."

"On the porch, Sven. Be there in a minute," the man, whose name evidently was Pete, called back into the house. He turned to Frank. "Sorry. Have a dying man in here. It's hard to get away. Been hard for a while. I thank you kindly, but . . ."

"I'll just go over and see what I can do to help on the barn," Frank said gently. "You go in there and do what you have to do."

Pete gave Frank a grateful look. "Thank you kindly again, then. There's no food from the barn raising, but maybe, if you have the time, you'll tarry afterward and I'll feed you some supper before you're on your way again."

It was almost a hungry look the man was giving Frank, and Frank could imagine how isolating and difficult it was for a man to care for a dying man—probably his father—alone. And from the looks of the condition of the homestead, the man had been a long time dying and needing constant attention.

"Sounds good to me," Frank answered. "I'll be going over to the barn now."

While he was nailing planks of wood on the barn roof to get it closed up, with another man nailing at the other end who he was chatting with, Frank asked, "Who is this Oskar men have been talking about who didn't come to the barn raising?"

"That would be Oskar Swenson, just the next ranch over. This is the first barn raisin' hereabouts where he wasn't front and center and doin' the work of three men. We'd got this one up well before dark if he'd been here. Looks like we'll still make it—get it under cover at least—thanks to you comin' along."

"Is this Swenson man sick today?" Frank wondered whether he should go on to Oskar's place.

"Naw. Guess it's about him and Sven and Pete. Bad blood there. Not something we talk about if we can help it. It's probably good he didn't come. There'd be too much tension in the air."

"Sven?" Frank asked.

"The man dying in that cabin there. Don't know if this work is all for nothin'. Don't know what Pete plans to do with this ranch when Sven goes. It was Sven who did the ranchin'. But not much use to talk about it. You got any extra nails over there I can use?"

Frank got the "we don't talk about it" message.

Pete was shy and nervous throughout a very good dinner despite his need to run back and forth between the two rooms. There were only two rooms in the cabin, the bedroom the dying man was in and the main "everything else" room, other than the outhouse, which, as with nearly every ranch in the West in 1915 was "out there."

At first Frank hadn't understood why the man was so nervous, but it began to dawn on him when he'd looked into the bedroom and had seen that the man in the bed wasn't old and decrepit; he was maybe in his mid forties. Another one of those big Scandinavians whose families had immigrated to this part of the States to farm or ranch. The man was probably only second generation, and now that Frank thought about it, when he heard him call for Pete, there had been a distinct accent in his voice.

He wasn't Pete's father and he wasn't his brother either, Frank, didn't think, unless the mother had really been messing around.

"So, how did you come to this?" he said over some sort of delicious peach cobbler they were eating for dessert and a cup of coffee. Pete could cook for him any day of the week, as far as he was concerned.

"To this?"

"Taking care of another man full time like this. He isn't your father or your brother, is he? It looks like you're devoting your whole life to him. Is he paying for you to do this? If so, why you rather than some housekeeper who could nurse him as women can better than most men?"

"I nurse him quite well," Pete said, flaring up a bit.

"I'm sure you do. You certainly feed him well if he'll take it. But you obviously are tied to him full time. What happened to the old barn?"

"It fell over—and then burned."

"This cabin looks like it would do so too if these weren't solid logs it's built with. The question remains."

"He's more to me than a father or brother," Pete answered in a small voice.

"Now, I knew that, but I think you needed to get it out and say it. And if you think that matters to me in some judging way, you're wrong. I understand."

"You understand?"

"Completely. How long has it been since you two have made love?"

"Made love?"

"Had sex. With each other." Frank wasn't going to let him avoid this.

The small voice again, without being able to look at Frank. "Almost a year. No, maybe already a year."

"Any other man taking care of you now?"

"No."

"Do you really think Sven in there would have it that way—would make you deny yourself if he couldn't give it to you?"

Pete didn't respond.

"Look at me, Pete. I said, look at me. There. Why are you being so shy with me? Is it because I repulse you or you fear me? Or because you fear that you could want me."

Pete was making a gurgling sound, but he eventually managed to whisper, "Because I could want you. Because . . . because I do want you."

"Come here," Frank said, pushing his straight chair back from the table and against the wall and opening his arms. "I said, come here. You need something. I have it to give."

Pete rose and took a couple of steps toward Frank, who leaned forward, grabbed the man's wrists, and pulled him to where he was standing between Frank's spread thighs.

Pete let out a low moan as Frank pushed the older man's shirt up from his trousers and exposed his flat belly. Frank kissed the man's navel and laid his cheek on the bare skin of the belly, which was trembling at his touch, while he unbuckled and unbuttoned the trousers and pushed them and the under linen down to the floor. Pete already was barefooted.

"Step out of them. You won't need them for a while."

"Why?" Pete asked nonsensically.

"Because we're going to fuck. I'm going to give you what you need."

With a groan, Pete did as bade and Frank lowered his mouth to Pete's cock. The table, and the butter on the table, was within reach. Pete gasped as the greased fingers found and entered his passage. He came quickly on Frank's face.

"I can't . . . sorry . . . I can't remain standing." His legs were wobbly and he was only being held up by the strength of Frank's hands grasping his waist.

Frank chuckled. "I don't intended for you to stand up." He had managed to unbutton himself, expose his cock, and work it up while he was giving Pete head. So it wasn't a long trip for him to lift Pete by the waist and settle his greased channel down on his cock. He pushed Pete's shirt up to his armpits and attached his lips to a nipple and started raising Pete's pelvis up and down on the cock with the strength of the arms embracing the man's chest.

Pete gasped and threw his own arms around Frank's head. Completely into the fuck, Pete raised his legs and pressed his feet against the logs of the wall on either side of Frank's chair. Using his feet for leverage, he took over the stroking. Rising and falling on the cock, faster and faster, forcing the cock deeper and deeper.

"God, god, you're good at this," Pete babbled.

"I do this for a living," Frank answered matter-of-factly. "You're pretty good at it too. Some things you don't forget to do, right?"

They both let out a small cry as they came almost simultaneously.

This must have been enough to wake the man in the other room.

"Pete? What is it? Pete."

Pete lifted his face from the kiss he and Frank had been locked in as they both flowed for each other. "It's nothing, Sven. I'll be in there in just a minute."

"I have to go to him," he whispered to Frank, his voice full of regret. "Thank you for this. I will be a bit. I know you need to be on your way. You can go ahead and go. But . . . thank you . . . You were right. I needed this. What do I? . . . I don't know what men pay for this. You said you do this as a job."

"Not you. I don't do you for a job. I did you because I wanted to fuck you. Don't sell yourself short. And because you needed it."

When Pete returned to the main room, Frank was stretched out naked on a rug in front of the fire in the fireplace.

Pete moaned.

"Didn't I tell you I wasn't finished fucking you? Maybe all night long."

Frank fucked him on the rug-covered dirt floor in front of the fire, with Frank kneeling, his knees under Pete's buttocks, holding Pete's waist, and Pete's torso arched back to the ground, his weight on his shoulder blades and his arms stretched out, with his fists opening and closing to the rhythm of the fuck.

They slept in each other's arms for an hour or more. And then Frank mounted Pete's buttocks as the older man lay on his belly, in a drowsy state, and rode his ass to another ejaculation.

Pete woke at dawn, on his back, with Frank reversed on top of him and closing his mouth over Pete's cock. Frank's cock was pressing at Pete's cheek and he just opened his lips and Frank filled his mouth cavity.

Breakfast was just as good as supper had been, and before leaving, when Sven had called for Pete again and, with a look of gratitude Pete went into the other room, Frank took one more look around the room. It wasn't much, but what was here was tidy and kept up well. A contrast to the ranch grounds. Pete was no rancher, but he was the perfect companion for one.