Hunted

Hunted

(Looking for action in Durango; finding almost more than he can handle.)

The rented Jeep Wrangler sputtered and died as Ben was approaching the base of the Vallecito Mountains northeast of Durango, Colorado, and, with a muttered “Shit,” he guided the vehicle over to the side of the road. There wasn’t any secret why the old Wrangler had died. It was out of gas. Ben had rented the car for the summer from a used car dealer down in Durango as soon as he’d arrived here. It had taken a while to figure out that the gas gauge was misleading. He’d fought with that all summer. Today, he’d been coming down from his uncle’s place in the mountains to fill the Wrangler up, but he’d made a wrong turn, spent an hour getting back onto a road he recognized, and the gas hadn’t held out.

With another curse, he grabbed the gas can from the floor in front of him, got out of the car, and, looking up at the hot sun and cursing that he’d come away just in jeans and boots and no shirt, he started the trudge down the mountain. He had no idea how far he’d have to walk on the side of the dusty road before he got to a gas station. He’d been filling up in Durango when he could and from his uncle’s tank up on the mountain property most of the time, but he’d found out that morning that his uncle’s tank was tapped out and wouldn’t be refilled for a couple of more days.

Although well under six foot, Ben was built solid. He was in his second year in the football program at Penn State and had been sent out to his uncle Will’s remote place in the Vallecito Mountains for the summer to toughen himself up more, trim down a little, and help Will with the renovations of the A-frame hanging on the side of a mountain slope that Will had bought. That done, he’d gone on to put in a fence around a horse paddock. By late July he’d accomplished his mission. He was deeply tanned, with blond highlights coaxed out of his hair by the sun. Through hard work, as planned, his torso had been cut to perfection, and his thigh and arm muscles were bulging. He’d run nearly every day, clocked by his uncle, and had cut several seconds off his mile. Having gained muscle and weight while trimming off excess fat and running time, he’d return to Penn State as a perfect scat back—fast, agile, and with a low center of gravity. The house renovations were done and the fence finished and half painted.

He’d be leaving to go back East in two weeks, and it couldn’t be quick enough for Ben. The summer workout had been great and his goals met, and the dry summer climate of southwest Colorado and the perpetual sunshine and semiarid scenery of the San Juan mountains had been invigorating. But the isolation of the mountains and the company just being him and Uncle Will day in and day out had been frustrating. Ben had needs and in State College an older man, a rich Penn State alumni who owned a string of car dealerships, took care of Ben’s needs—both financial and sexual. Here there was only Uncle Will, who Ben wasn’t sure about in the sexual department. Will was quite presentable, but he was Ben’s uncle. So he was taboo, serving more as a source of frustration than a help in Ben’s summer of doing without.

Ben was keyed up and more than ready to get back into the grove and into Chas Engleston’s bed in State College.

It was these thoughts of sexual frustration and ticking off the days until he had a man who could get him off that were droning through Ben’s mind as he walked in the heat down the dusty edge of the road in the direction of Durango, more than twenty miles to the southwest, with little promise of a gas station before that. At least Ben couldn’t remember having seen one when he’d driven down to Durango before.

Ben was brought out of his reverie by a beat-up old blue and rust Ford pickup passing him from behind and pulling over on the shoulder ahead of him, kicking up rocks and dust.

When Ben reached the passenger door of the truck, it opened, and the man at the wheel straightened back up in the seat and turned his face toward the passenger door. He was dark skinned; bare-chested, like Ben; chiseled-bodied, with straight, black hair cascading down to his shoulder blades; and worn faded cut-off jeans, dusty construction boots, and a black leather necklace, with a turquoise-studded amulet dangling between two bulging pectoral muscles. He was tattooed, the most prominent one being the wings of an eagle stretching across his upper chest. He was probably pushing forty but not too hard. The squint lines in his face reflected many hours working outside in the sun. He had a slightly Asian cast to his face, and his smile was guarded.

“You stranded?” he asked as Ben came up to the open door, scrunched down, and looked into the interior of the truck, which was in a lot better condition than the bodywork was.

“Ran out of gas,” Ben answered, raising the gas can to back up his claim.

“That your Wrangler back there?”

“My rented pile of shit, yes,” Ben answered. “The gas gauge lies.”

The man laughed. “Climb in. I’ll take you to a gas station. None close by, though. Put the can behind the seat.”

“Thanks,” Ben answered, slid into the passenger seat after depositing the gas can and closed the passenger door. “Thanks, man. Hot out there.”

“Yep. Not a day to be walking out of the mountains without a shirt.”

“No, that wasn’t smart of me,” Ben said.

“Maybe it was. It got you a ride,” the man said. “You’re one good-looking, cut dude. My name’s Ed.” He rushed in getting the name in, as if, once having given a signal, he gave Ben an excuse to ignore it if he wished and concentrate just on the name exchange. Ben caught the signal and didn’t want to ignore it. He was sexually charged, and the man was sexy and gorgeous. There was an aspect of mystery about him—and danger. Ben had seen some Native Americans around this summer, and this guy could easily be one.

“I’m Ben. Just here for the summer, working for my uncle up in the Vallecito Mountains. Would you have stopped for me if you didn’t think I looked good?”

The man turned his face to Ben and gave him a steady look. Ben returned the look. They were beginning to reach a mutual understanding of interests.

“No, probably not,” the man admitted. He flashed a smile at Ben but then turned his attention back to the road, waiting for the next gambit, if there was going to be one.

Ben had been here before, done this before. “Nice country around here, but a little dull. I’ve been here all summer and haven’t seen much action yet.”

“Been down to Durango? That’s about all the place there is for action around here. What sort of action were you looking for?”

“Well, clubs, bars. The sort of place a guy would go to be with other guys.” There, Ben thought, it was out. It was up to this hunk to pick that up or not. After a short period of silence, he added, “But am I assuming badly? Did I say something that upsets you?”

“No, you asked just the right question . . . Ben. There’s Colorow’s down in Durango. That’s a men’s club. Just men. A hookup bar. I can vouch for that.”

“Colorow’s? What sort of name is that?”

“That’s where the name of the state—Colorado—comes from. Colorow was a famous Ute chieftain. The name got corrupted into Colorado.”

“A Ute chieftain? Is that what you are? Are you Ute? My uncle says there are a couple of big Ute reservations around here.”

“Yes, I’m Ute,” Ed answered. “The Southern Ute Indian Reservation covers most the territory south of here down to the border of New Mexico. I come from there. But I work on a ranch on the border of the reservation southeast of Durango.”

“I’ve never been with a Native American before,” Ben said.

“You mean you haven’t been in bed with one before—a Native American man?”

“Yeah, I mean I’ve never been laid by one before.” Might as well get the top-bottom issue sorted out, Ben thought.

“We have dicks just like every other man,” Ed said. “In fact maybe bigger than most.” Then he gave a dry laugh. He didn’t follow that up immediately, as if maybe he’d gone too far—that maybe Ben wasn’t signaling as clearly as Ed hoped he was and would ask him to stop the truck and would get out. But Ben didn’t do that.

They drove for a while in silence.

“So . . . ,” Ed said, trying to be nonchalant about it and staring straight out of the windshield and over the hood of the trunk, “So, you take dick, do you?”

“I prefer to bottom, yes,” Ben answered.

“You know,” Ed said, “When we do get to a gas station, it’s going to be a long haul for you to get back to your Jeep . . .”

“But maybe you’d be willing to take me back?” Ben asked. “If you’ve got the time and I’ll do you a favor in return? Do you top?”

“I’ve got the time,” Ed answered in a low, guttural voice. “And I give cock—if a guy thinks he’d like to have cock from me.”

“What’s not to like?” Ben said. They rode on for a bit in silence before Ed spoke up again.

“You say you haven’t seen the Ute reservation yet? I know where there’s a really nice lake on the reservation not far from here. Maybe you’d—”

“Sure, I’d like to see that,” Ben said.

“Gotta say I like what I see. I got hard just seein’ you on the road.”

“I had my hopes about you too,” Ben responded.

Ed parked the truck in the shade in a stand of trees at the top of a hill overlooking a small lake. When he’d turned off the ignition, he moved an arm along the top of the seats behind Ben’s head and turned his face to Ben’s, giving him a tentative smile. His hand went to the back of Ben’s neck, and he ran strong fingers up into the sun-kissed blond hair at the back of the young man’s head.

They moved into the kiss together, Ed gently pulling Ben’s head toward him, and Ben leaning in for the kiss. Ed’s other hand went to Ben’s crotch, finding him hard, and Ben moaned at the intimate touch of another man that he hadn’t felt all summer.

When they came out of the kiss, Ed murmured, “I’d like . . . ,” but Ben had anticipated him and was already dipping his head, working the older man’s zipper, and pulling out a thick, hard cock. Ben’s lips descended down the shaft, squeezing it tight, and Ed, moaning deeply, lay back in his seat, the fingers of both hands dug into the hair on Ben’s head, as Ben gave him an expert, but not fully completed, blow job.

“You’ve done this a lot before,” Ed murmured, with a deep sigh.

“Never with a sexy Ute before,” Ben answered.

“It’s not too—?”

“You’re huge in thickness. Just the way I like them.”

“You’re a slut,” Ed said, with a guttural laugh.

“At the moment, I’m your slut. Use me. Give it to me hard; be my daddy.”

Ben sat on the cock in Ed’s lap in the passenger seat, facing the dashboard and rising and falling on the shaft by the leverage of his feet, as Ed grasped Ben by his pecs, worried Ben’s nipples with his index fingers and thumbs, and licked and nipped between Ben’s shoulder blades.

With a groan, he pushed Ben off his lap, growling a “Not yet. In the back of the truck.”

He pulled Ben out of the truck and virtually carried him around to the back. He lowered the tailgate, revealing a couple of sacks of feed in the bed of the truck. Inserting Ben’s ankles into the loops at each corner of the truck chassis that held the tailgate up, he laid Ben on his back on the sacks of feed, pulled the young man’s buttocks to the edge of the tailgate, grasped his hips, thrust inside him, and fucked him to a mutual ejaculation.

All the time, using his core muscles to rhythmically thrust his pelvis up to meet Ed’s downward thrusts and to help establish the quickening pace, Ben egged him on, telling him how beautiful his body was; how masterful and big he was—and indeed he was what they called beer can thick; how powerful his thrusts were; how well he filled and worked Ben’s channel; how deep he was getting, which was pure emotion, as Ed wasn’t all that long; how far up into the heavens he was taking Ben . . .

At the moment of release, Ben already having beaten himself off, Ed held, as deep inside Ben as he was going to get, throbbing, and Ben clutched the older man’s buttocks, digging in his nails, and Ed came down for a kiss, reaching for Ben’s tonsils with his tongue. Ben trembled and Ed shuddered, releasing his ejaculate and filling out the bulb of his rubber.

This wasn’t the usual fuck for Ben. This was intense, emotional—something special to think about. Someone special.

As the rust-blue truck pulled up to the side of the Jeep Wrangler an hour and a half later, and Ben gave Ed a grin and a last kiss and gingerly exited the truck, full gas can in hand, he said, “Colorow’s in Durango, you say?”

“That’s the place,” Ed answered. “They’ll love you there. Just be careful. Cowboys can be rough.”

“You’ll be there sometimes?”

“I’m there often enough. Always up for some sweet ass.”

“I’d like you . . . again.”

“Me too,” Ed answered. “You’re something special. I don’t want to sound casual about it. You’re something special.”

Ben smiled, almost shyly. “Thanks, man,” he said, raising the gas can in salute.

“No, thank you,” Ed countered, turning his grinning face to the road, and raising dust and small stones as he pushed off.

* * * *

Will Lassiter stood there in the doorway of Ben’s bedroom, somewhat confused, as Ben packed his bags.

“It’s been great, Uncle Will,” Ben said, “but we’ve finished with what I came here to help you with and spring football training is starting early. I might as well leave early.”

“But your plane reservations,” Will said.

“Have been changed already. I’ll go into Durango for tonight and drop off the Wrangler. Then I’ll fly out tomorrow, up to Denver, and from there, a direct flight to Philadelphia. No need for you to come into Durango to see me off. We can say our good-byes here.”

And that was that. After lingering over lunch so that Will wouldn’t think that Ben just couldn’t wait to be gone—although that was the case, even if that partly was because Ben needed to resist temptation—they said their good-byes, and Will stood at the door of the A-frame cottage and watched Ben drive away.

Was it Ben’s imagination, or did it seem that Uncle Will was particularly disappointed to see him go? Will had drawn closer to him over the last week or so, touching him more, leaving his hand to linger on his arm or shoulder or the small of his back more—like now, when they were saying good-bye and Will continued holding Ben’s hand for longer than necessary. Was it because Ben had recently been so completely laid that he saw the interest and longing in Will’s eyes now? If Will wasn’t his uncle—and they’d rarely come in contact before, so it wasn’t like they really felt related—Ben could have gone with Will. Ben preferred older men and Will was quite well put together. The rugged life of the Colorado mountains helped keep him in shape and he was a handsome man. But he was Ben’s uncle—well, half way, as Ben’s mother’s mother and Will’s mother weren’t the same—so Ben wouldn’t give into that temptation.

An hour later, Ben had entered the gates of the 1,700-acre Shadow Ranch southeast of Durango, snuggled up against the Ute reservation, the position that gave the ranch its name, and drove the half mile to the main house. He was met at the front door of the house by the towering figure of Jock Crane, decked out as the classic big ranch owner in flashy Western duds, sporting a leathery tan, a flowing gray mane, a large frame with enough meat on it for him to be considered overpowering without quite being fat, and a big welcoming smile.

A servant took Ben’s suitcase out to the bunkhouse where Ben was to spend the last week and a half of his originally scheduled visit in the West, and, putting an arm possessively around Ben’s waist, Jock Crane guided him into the master bedroom of the main house, tossed him onto the bed, tore off his clothes, and banged the shit out of him for an hour. Late in the hour, the gangly and wiry, but iron strong, ranch foreman, Sling, entered the room and tag teamed with Jock, banging the shit out of Ben himself and slapping him around, in turn, while Jock watched, tossed back scotch, smoked a cigar, and pulled on his cock. When Sling was done, Jock gave Ben another half hour of his cock, and the two left the young man there, panting, his legs still bent and spread, his mouth formed in a slight, satiated smile, when the dinner gong sounded and the two ranchmen went off to inhale their steak and potatoes.

This change in Ben’s plans for the end of his summer vacation out West had come about three days earlier, when Ben, being sent down into Durango by Will Lassiter to bring in some supplies, had made a stop near the edge of town, within sight of the stockyards, to check out Colorow’s, the gay bar the Ute, Ed, had told him about.

Ben found the bar in the early afternoon. In keeping with the pace of work in the area, the place was nearly deserted when Ben went in and bellied up to the bar. He ordered a beer; was carded, and, to the barkeep’s surprise, passed; and was barely getting around to asking the barkeep about business and gay nightlife in Durango, when two men entered the bar. The one taking the lead was a tall, older, commanding-figure man decked out in Western wear. The guy following in his wake was a thin, wiry, slightly younger man in the serious ranch working gear of a tartan plaid shirt, worn jeans, scruffed cowboy boots, and a worn Stetson hat.

Seeing Ben at the bar, the two whispered briefly to each other and then approached, the older man settling onto a barstool in the direction in which Ben was facing, and the wiry one saddling up behind Ben.

“Can I buy you a drink, son?” the older man asked in a confident, overloud voice.

“I’ve already ordered a beer,” Ben answered.

“I’ll cover it,” he said, nodding to the barkeep, who nodded back. “Howdy, Clyde,” the man said to the barkeep, thus establishing himself as a regular here.

“Howdy back at ya, Mr. Crane,” Clyde answered. “The usual?”

“Right,” Crane answered. “And whatever Sling wants. And this good-lookin’ young man is on my tab now too.”

“That OK with you, sport?” the bartender asked Ben in a “Do you know what this signified?” voice.

“Sounds good to me,” Ben answered.

Scotch on the rocks was presented to the older man and a beer to the man standing behind Ben, the older men served before Ben.

“New here, son? I don’t think I’ve seen you in here before.” Crane looked at Clyde, the barkeep, who nodded a signal that Ben was legal.

“Yes, my first time,” Ben answered, impressed by the size and bearing of the man. “Just here for the summer—two more weeks. I go to school in Pennsylvania—college.” Adding that it was college was his way of signaling he was legal. Ben had entered the bar prepared for some action.

“You know what kind of bar this is?” Crane asked, eyeing Ben pointedly.

“Yes sir,” Ben said, giving Crane a level stare back. “I asked around to find out where someplace like this was in Durango.”

“So, you know that young, good-lookin’ guys like you come in here to get laid.”

“Yes, sir,” Ben answered, without batting an eye. “That’s what I came here for.”

“You’re not at all shy, are you?” Crane asked, with a big smile.

“No, sir. You don’t mince words either. Does it put you off that I don’t tease?”

“Not in the least,” Crane said.

That’s when Ben felt the hand of the man behind him. He’d taken hold of Ben’s belt in back. Ben knew he wasn’t going anywhere now without effort. He hadn’t come in here to back away from an encounter, though, and the man facing him looked rich and he looked like he knew what to do with someone with Ben’s needs. He also looked like chances were good he was hung and masterful—not just from his size but from the cocky way he carried himself. Ben wasn’t that sure about the guy behind him, holding onto his belt, though.

“And you get that old farts like me come into places like this to find young guys like you to lay.”

“Yeah, I can understand that, I guess.”

“You can take a big cock?”

“Aren’t they the best kind?” Ben answered.

“You got family here? Or a man of your own? Anyone know you’re in this bar—or in Durango?”

“No,” Ben lied. “I’m here all alone. Closest one who knows me is in Pennsylvania and there aren’t many there who know I’m doing the West this summer.” It was a strange question, but Ben wasn’t giving it much thought. The older man, Crane, standing in front of him, was feeling up his crotch now, and the other guy—did the man call him Sting or Sling, or something?—was feeling up Ben’s butt as well as hanging onto his belt.

“Does going with two men put you off?” Crane asked.

This too seemed a strange question, Ben thought. Two men were feeling him up now and he hadn’t flinched. “No, sir.”

“I’ll give you $100 for the use of your ass for an hour—and $50 for Sling here to have you afterward for a half hour.”

“Just like that?” Ben asked, impressed and aroused that it was put out there just like that—that he was offered money at all.

“Yep, just like that. They got rooms upstairs here. I’ll pay for that too.”

Once upstairs, Crane commanded Ben to take off his clothes, and as he stripped, so did Crane.

“Pose for me,” Crane said when they were both stripped and he was sitting on the foot of the bed—Sling was leaning up against the door, as if to stop Ben if he chose to try to bolt, and leered at Ben.

“Turn around . . . slowly. Again. And flex for me.” Ben did so, as Crane spread his thighs and took his cock in his hand. As Ben had thought would be the case, the man was hung—thick and long. He was chunky without being fat—solid and muscular.

“Not tall, but an athletic build,” Crane said. “What sport?”

“Football—and tennis,” Ben answered.

Crane snorted. “I don’t consider tennis a sport. Sturdy legs, though. Can you run?”

“I play scat back on the university team,” Ben said, with some pride. “I run every day out here and have taken two seconds off my mile time.”

“You’ll find that useful. Nice dick. Work it up for me.” They squared off, each working his own dick, each eyeing the other’s dick.

“How old?”

“Nineteen,” Ben answered.

“You sure about that?”

“Yes. Want to see my license.” Both Crane and Sling laughed, and Ben looked around to see that Crane already had his billfold and was rifling through it. Sling nodded to Crane.

“Turn, bend over, and spread ’em—the cheeks,” Crane specified. And when Ben had, Crane said. “Spread the hole with your fingers. Ah, you open right up. You’ve been used.”

“Yes,” Ben answered. He thought he probably should be irritated or embarrassed by this, but it aroused him. The man was hung. Ben was going to get a good fucking. That’s what he’d come to this bar looking for. He even was going to get paid for it.

“Recently? How recently? Was he hung?”

“Three days ago. He was thick.”

“Good. You’ll want to open up well. Face me again. Work your cock up with your hand. No, not standing. Go down here. Go down on me.”

Ben gasped and choked as Crane made him deep-throat his cock, holding the young man’s head against his crotch until he heard Ben gag. Ben sputtered when his mouth was released. He was concentrating on getting his breath and he barely heard Crane say, “OK, spike him Sling.”

The next thing he knew, the other man had soared across the room, grabbed Ben by the hips, lifted him from his knees, and slammed him down on the bed beside where Crane was sitting. Ben hadn’t seen it, but Sling had stripped, had gone hard, and had sheathed himself. He grabbed one of Ben’s wrists and bent one of Ben’s arms behind his back and painfully upward. He grabbed a handful of Ben’s hair with the other hand. He cruelly thrust into and up Ben’s channel with a godawful long cock and pumped the young man hard, shaking the flimsy bed and banged the brass headboard against the wall.

“Too rough for you?” Crane called out.

“No, sir,” Ben answered in a slightly pained voice.

Sling pumped Ben for a good fifteen minutes before coming. He’d forced Ben to go up on his knees on the bed, and Crane reached under the young man’s belly and milked his cock, with Sling not shooting off until Ben had.

Sling rolled off Ben and Crane took up the position he’d left, working a thicker cock inside Ben than Sling had had. He established a slow-to-fast rhythm fuck, his hands grasping Ben’s hips to hold the young man in place. Ben didn’t object to this in any way. He’d come to the bar looking for a rough fuck. He was getting a rough fuck.

Sling moved to the bed above Ben, grasping the young man’s wrists and holding him in place, while he waved his cock in Ben’s face until Ben got the idea and sucked his cock while Crane was riding his ass.

Afterward, Ben lay in place, belly to bed, moaning and nearly purring, as the two men used the bathroom to clean themselves.

When Crane came out of the bathroom and while he was dressing, he said. “You say you’re here for two more weeks.”

“Not quite. Two days less than that,” Ben answered, his voice subdued, half wanting one or both of them to come behind him and fuck him again.

“And you say you’re here alone.”

“Yes, I’m here alone.”

“I have a ranch east of town. I’ll pay you $2,000 to come stay at the ranch until you fly out, for you to take whatever Sling and I give you during that time. Think about it. You have until Sling comes out of the shower and dresses to decide.”

So, three days later Ben drove down from the Vallecito Mountains to the Shadow Rranch, knowing what he’d find there, wanting what he’d find there, and getting fucked royally as soon as he arrived.

After he’d cleaned himself up a servant showed him out of the house and to an outbuilding, where the staff ate its meals. There were about a dozen men eating at a couple of long tables. To the surprise of both of them, one of the men was Ed, the Ute hunk from a few days previously.

“You work here?” Ben asked.

“What are you doing here? You don’t want to be here,” Ed said, as he motioned Ben to sit. He looked around the room and must have decided he didn’t like who was observing them, because when Ben asked him why he shouldn’t want to be there, he clammed up and didn’t speak again until after Ben had finished eating. He then motioned Ben to follow him outside and headed for the door.

“Mr. Crane paid me to be here until I flew back to Pennsylvania,” Ben said.

“Crane? You didn’t—?”

“Fuck him? Yes, and the ranch foreman too. I ran into them at Colorow’s, in Durango—the bar you told me about.”

“Listen, I didn’t tell Crane about you—that you were randy and would put out. I didn’t tell him anything about you,” Ed said, his voice nervous.

“I never thought you did. What’s the matter?”

“Probably nothing. Listen, don’t act that we’ve ever met before. You sleeping in the big house?”

“No, I don’t think so. My suitcase has been taken to a room in the bunkhouse, I’ve been told.”

“Good. I’m in there too,” he said, and then he was standing, looking around nervously, and he was gone.

He wasn’t gone forever, though. Late in the night, Ben heard the door to his room open. Even though they weren’t big, there were separate rooms in the bunkhouse for the living-in workers. The hall light was on and Ben was able to recognize Ed, so the young man didn’t challenge him or anything—Ben just moved the covers off his body, revealing that he was sleeping naked, and turned onto his back.

Ben opened his legs to the Ute hunk, as he came done on top of him, spreading his legs, bending his knees, and pressing his pelvis up to Ed by leveraging his feet on the mattress. They kissed, Ed embraced Ben closely, entered him deeply, and took him swiftly.

Afterward, still lying on top of Ben, although taking most of his weight on his knees and elbows, still inside the younger man, Ed urgently whispered to Ben. “I was serious at dinner. There’s some bad shit going on here. In the morning, you need to get back in that Jeep and ride the hell out of here.”

“I don’t know that I can now that I’ve found you are here.” Ben ran his hands over the Ute hunk’s hard body. Ben knew Ed wanted him again. Ben knew he wanted Ed again.

“I’ll give you my number. I’ll meet you somewhere else. Anywhere else. Just not here. You need to get out of here.”

“Not just this minute, though,” Ben said, still trying to take this lightly—assuming that Ed was jealous that he was letting Crane do him and that the ranch foreman, Sling, was taking a piece of him too. Ben wasn’t sure himself that he wanted to just be giving it to Ed. “Not just this minute,” Ben repeated. “You’re hard inside me again. You’re going to fuck me again.”

“Yes, I’m going to fuck you again,” Ed growled. And then he did.

* * * *

Ben got to breakfast in the staff dining building late the next morning. Ed had been in his bed when he went to sleep, exhausted by the virile attentions of the Ute hunk, but he was gone when Ben woke. And he was on a horse, with a couple of other ranch hands, ready to go out on a fence-mending job when Ben emerged from the bunkhouse.

“Remember what I said,” Ed called out to him. “This morning.”

“Yes, right, this morning. After breakfast,” Ben said as he walked on to the dining building.

He wasn’t sure whether he’d really leave right after breakfast or not, though. He wasn’t one to sneeze at the $2,000 Crane had offered him to be here for the next week. He’d have to mull that over breakfast. As it turned out, Ben hadn’t even finished his breakfast when Sling was coming into the dining building looking for him.

“Wolf that down and get your tail out here,” Sling said, coming up beside Ben and making plain that if the young man didn’t rise for the table himself, Sling would pull him up and hustle him out. “We’re going hunting today.”

“Hunting? I don’t hunt,” Ben said. “Don’t know the first thing about it.”

“No one gives a shit whether you can hunt or not,” Sling said. “You can fetch and carry, and Mr. Crane wants another set of muscles for his hunting trip up into the mountains.”

When Ben came out of the building, Sling possessively bundling him along, he saw that four horses were prancing around in the dirt courtyard between the buildings. Crane was on one horse already, there were two horses saddled for Sling and Ben, and there was a loaded pack horse.

Ben could tell which horse was his. There were rifles hanging in holsters off the saddles of Crane’s and Sling’s horses. There wasn’t one on his horse. The packhorse was carrying quite a load.

“We’re taking all that?” Ben turned and asked Sling. He was gesturing at the pack horse.

“We hunt until Mr. Crane is satisfied. If that takes a couple of days in the mountains, he still wants to be comfortable. Now get on that horse and don’t hold us up. And don’t tell me you don’t know how to mount and ride a horse.”

“I know how to mount and ride a horse,” Ben shot back, not too politely. Sling fucked great but he was an asshole otherwise.

“Well, Mr. Crane and I know how to mount and ride you—and we’re gonna be doing a lot of that on this hunting trip—so don’t give me none of your lip.”

Ben buttoned up his lip and concentrated on not making a fool of himself in mounting his horse, pointing it toward the mountains on the south side of the ranch, and keeping up with the other two men as they rode out onto the range.

All thought of getting in his Jeep and escaping the ranch had drained completely from his mind.

* * * *

This was Ben’s first summer in the mountains of Colorado but it wasn’t his first experience of riding horses. His uncle had horses and Ben rode them regularly, but other relatives of Ben’s had ranches or farms and horses too. So, he had no trouble keeping up with the other two as they road up into the mountains at the south end of Shadow Ranch. Crane told him they were still on his property and would remain on his property, so he didn’t fuck what the hunting regulations or licensing requirements were.

“What are we hunting?” Ben asked.

But the only answer Crane gave was, “You’ll see.” Sling said little or nothing himself. He just rode close enough to Ben and kept such a controlling eye on him that Ben thought the man was more his jailer than Crane’s ranch foreman. One thing had been made clear to Ben—well, two things. He was along to fetch and carry, but, more important, he was along to provide the men with a fuck toy.

At noon they stopped by a mountain stream, and Crane commanded Ben to strip and cavort in the stream for his viewing pleasure while Sling set up lunch. This, of course, didn’t surprise Ben, and he stripped down and did as commanded. This was what he was being paid $2,000 to do. After they’d eaten, with Ben told to remain naked and Crane watching him move around and fisting his cock while he watched, Sling took out several lengths of leather strips.

“Go over to the fir tree over there,” Crane said to Ben.

As soon as Ben realized that he was going to be bound in the tree in such a way that his arms were bound with the leather straps over his head and his legs spread and his ankles bound on other branches so that he essentially was in the same sling fuck position that Sling had taken him in Crane’s bedroom back at the ranch the previous day, Ben half objected. “You don’t need to do this.”

“I want to do this,” Crane answered. “Remember, I paid you for your ass for however I wanted to take it.”

And take it both Crane and Sling did, stripping off their jeans and briefs and coming in between Ben’s legs, grasping his hips, impaling his channel on their hard cocks, one after the other, and fucking him to their completions. The boughs of the fir made a swishing sound as the men pulled his channel on and off their cocks, Crane being thicker and more demanding on Ben’s channel walls and Sling longer and more demanding in reaching up into Ben’s intestines. It was OK with Ben, though. Both men slapped him around a bit, but it only added to his arousal, and he arched his shoulders and head back and gave the men the responses of being taken gloriously that he knew they wanted to hear. Ben was beginning to get a glimmer of what the two were hunting.

The afternoon ride was rougher on Ben. Not only was the ground rockier and the incline steeper, but his ass was more painful—not just from the fucking but also because Crane had made him hold in a big butt plug. “I want you open for me for later,” Crane had said.

Later came in the twilight, after a ride along the tree line near the summit of the mountain, settling down in a glade in a hollow, the men putting up two tents, Sling fixing supper, and then Crane commanding Ben to strip again. This was when the two men doubled Ben. He’d never taken two at the same time before, but the butt plug, indeed had kept him open, and, with Crane standing in front of him, crouched, with Ben’s thighs resting on Crane’s thighs, and Sling standing behind him, grasping his waist and controlling the rise and fall of Ben’s body, the two men both drove their cocks up inside Ben’s channel and fucked him to a three-way ejaculation.

Afterward, Ben completely cowed and submissive to any manipulation, Sling draped the young man, belly down, over a saddle resting on the ground, tied off his wrists around the trunk of a small tree above his head, spread his legs, and staked out his ankles. During the evening, while they were sitting around the campfire and drinking whiskey, Crane and Sling, as the mood struck them, mounted Ben’s ass and fucked him again.

After dousing the fire, they simply covered Ben with a blanket and went to their separate tents to sleep.

Ben woke the next morning to the pain of being kicked in the side. He opened his eyes to find both men already dressed, grinning, and resting their rifles, business end pointed to the ground and standing on either side. Sling pulled the blanket off Ben. While he was unbinding Ben and Ben turned over and sat on the ground, rubbing his wrists to dispel the numbness, Crane laughed.

“You asked what we were coming up here to hunt. We’re here to hunt you.”

That didn’t surprise Ben, until, with a laugh, Crane continued. “With our rifles. We like our game to have some intelligence. It’s a good thing for you that you’ve shaved two seconds off your running time this summer. It’s time to take advantage of that. Run. In any direction you want.”

“Wait. You can’t . . . you can’t just—” Ben muttered, scared and confused, but then he yelped, as Sling gave him a swift kick in the bare buttocks.

“You agreed that we could do whatever we wanted to you,” Crane said. “This is what we want to do to you. We want to hunt you down and shoot you. You should have asked for more clarification.” He laughed.

“You heard the man,” Sling growled. “Run. There’s no sport in shooting you here, but we’d do it piecemeal for the pleasure of it, if that’s what you want.”

“No, wait,” Ben said, but he’d come up into a crouch.

“It’s sport. You’ll get a head start,” Crane said, nudging Ben’s shoulder with the barrel of his rifle. Then, when Ben didn’t take off, he fired the rifle close to Ben’s bicep, kicking up stones that cut into Ben’s shins. Ben went up like a jackrabbit then and headed for the densest section of trees, downhill from the camp. When he reached the fringe of the foliage, though, he turned around, looking panicked, and cried. “No, you can’t do this.”

Sling laughed, raised his rifle, and fired. The pain on Ben’s arm, although it was only grazed by the bullet, was searing and a shock that mobilized him to turn and stumble through the undergrowth in a zigzag pattern. He heard two more shots, but he kept running, using whatever he could as cover in his fight for evasion and survival. The ground was rocky, but they’d let him keep his athletic shoes on the previous night. Now he knew why—it was more sporting. It might prolong their hunt. His panic carried him swiftly downward. He had to reach the ranch. It didn’t matter that it was too far away to get to in time or that he didn’t know if anyone would help him even if he got there. He knew know why Ed wanted him to clear out. He knew too why Crane had asked him all those questions about if he were here alone. He hadn’t mentioned his uncle, but that didn’t matter anyway. His uncle thought he already was back in Pennsylvania.

He moved around for some twenty minutes, getting better and better at not making noise. From time to time, he knew someone else was out there—that he wasn’t alone. And once a shot had come very close, but Ben had dived into the underbrush and scrambled away on his knees and elbows.

Another time he heard a shot, but it wasn’t close by. The shot was misleading, though, because it made him think that they were getting farther away. He hadn’t given a thought to the possibility that they had split up, but obviously they had. He tripped on a tree route and sprawled onto the ground on his back. He went up on his elbows but he found that he was looking into the barrel of a rifle. Crane was at the other, stock, end. He was grinning.

“Say good-bye, son. You were a great lay. You’re even better blood sport.”

Ben shut his eyes tight. He was too exhausted to fight it anymore. He had always thought that the shot that got you would be something you didn’t hear. He was wrong about the shot this time. It rang in his ears. He opened his eyes. The expression on Crane’s face was one of great surprise as the spot of red in the middle of his chest blossomed like an opening rose and he crumpled to the ground.

* * * *

Ben held Ed inside him, clutching the Ute’s buttocks and comforted by the weight of the man’s body on his, until Ed’s legs were cramping and he rolled off to the side. Ed cupped Ben’s chin in his rough, calloused hand, the manly texture of it sending a chill up the young college student’s spine, and kissed him tenderly on the lips.

“How did you know? You warned me,” Ben whispered.

“I didn’t know for sure. Young men have been brought to the ranch to service Crane and Sling and just not been there anymore after the two had gone on hunting trips up into the mountains. When I returned to the ranch last night, they were on another hunt and you weren’t there. But your Jeep was still there. It took me most of the night and the rest of the day to track you up to the top of the mountain. This is my people’s land. I know it better than Crane did.”

“What now?” Ben asked.

“Now you stay here until your flight leaves and we’ll drive down into Durango and leave off the Jeep, just like everything is normal. Then you’ll be out of it. No one but Crane and Sling knew where you’d come from—or care. They’ll look for them and eventually find them, but there won’t be anything linking them to anybody. I’m known to be up here tonight at the reservation. No one here will say anyone else is here. They’ll hide you until the day of your flight. The Jeep is in a barn nearby. No one will connect it to the men’s disappearance.”

They were on the Ute reservation south of the Shadow Ranch—in the compound of Ed’s extended family. They had come down the mountain and, at night, Ed had gone in and gathered up all of Ben’s gear and they’d driven away in Ben’s jeep, with Ed’s horse tied to it. Everyone else on the ranch had been celebrating the absence of the rancher and foreman and all were dead to the world after being drunk on their tails. On the way to the reservation, Ed took his rifle apart and they stopped and buried pieces here and there. The rifle that killed Crane and his foreman would never be found.

Ed rolled over and sat up on the side of the bed.

“You aren’t leaving me, are you?” Ben asked.

“I have to. I have to go back to the ranch and act like nothing’s happened. Someone will get you to the airport if I can’t.”

“I understand, but try to be there,” Ben said.

“I’ll do what I have to do,” Ed answered. “You understand that this is it for us. For your protection, you have to go back wherever you came from—I’ll forget where that is—and live your life. Just be more careful who you sleep with from now on.”

“I want to sleep with you. I’ve never had anyone who—”

“Try to forget me,” Ed said, leaning over for one last kiss, and then he was gone.

But forgetting wasn’t that easy for Ed, either. The night before Ben was to fly out to Philadelphia, Ed returned, climbed into the bed, and made totally possessive love to Ben, pinning him to the bed and fucking him again and again throughout the night.

He wasn’t there in the morning, and didn’t take Ben down into Durango—two of his brothers did that, using another Jeep in addition to Ben’s for them to have a way to get back to the reservation. But when Ben opened his carry-on bag for inspection at the airport, he found a slip of paper with a cell phone number on it. He carefully inserted it into his wallet, knowing that someday—not soon—but someday, he’d call the number.