When my father became too weak to stand up for long and his sermons were interrupted too frequently by bouts of coughing and strangled breaths, I took over the Sunday services. I’d never been to Bible school as such nor really heard a spiritual call to the life of a preacher, but it fell to me slowly and I accepted the tide of events. Pa had been certain of my Bible study and proper understanding. I’d had twenty-three years of his constant tutoring and fierce discipline. Ma died soon after I was born, so he’d raised me in his own way of cool affection and intense attentions. I learned as much by observation as by reasoned explanation.

The world was a harsh and bitter place shadowed by sinful purpose and stained through with temptation of evil thoughts and deed. No love of fellow man nor woman was to be trusted or relied upon. Only the love of God was to be sought, and that came with reservations and a high cost in self-denial and atonement. Life’s bare purpose was morbid endurance and humility. Of that fact I had no doubt.

Had I the spine for the job I’d taken up was yet to be discovered. Pa left me a heavy mantle, but an honorable one to uphold. I was glad for his legacy. I had a large house and a stock of winter supplies, coal and wood and stored back victuals. There was salt bacon and ham in the smoke house and dried beans and flour in the larder. I had money left after his funeral, in accounts he’d set up for both the church and for our comfort and security. Not many other young men were so well off, at least not out there on the frontier of civilization in the wilds of Colorado. Our mountains were spare and hard as well as heavenly beautiful. I lived as a shareholder in my surroundings. I fit in and if I felt the cold of granite rocks in my heart, then I also appreciated the chill grace of my situation. My father was a good man. I had a fine, high goal set before me.

Beyond conducting Sunday worship services, my vocation was centered performing funerals and other social rites, but my daily duty was the care of ill and injured people as we had no doctor nor clinic nearer than Denver, a hundred miles away. The widow Johansen kept her house for distressed women, and I only gave them prayers and Bible study and supplies as I could manage. The barber, Fallona, took in men who needed nursing and made them welcome in his small shop. But Mr. Fallona died, too, soon after Pa.

So it was when the pair of Maillot and Henry came to town with Henry’s leg strapped to a wooden pole and the break healing but fevered that I took then into my house. I put them into my father’s old room on the ground floor in his wide iron bed. Maillot was near weak as Henry from their long trip down from the hills and from the constant tend of his partner.

They would ordinarily have been big rough men, but at their arrival they looked more like weak puppies, and both showed ribs beneath the skin when I helped them bathe and lay down in clean sheets.

Dan Currant brought them up to the house. He worked at the stables and had found them as they came down the trail from Appaloosa Road. He built up a fire for us in the sick room and then heated up beef soup and held their heads up as I spoon fed the both of them. I didn’t give much chance of Henry living through the night and prayed Maillot’s efforts to bring his partner to safety were not in vain. He was near as skeletal as his friend. Dan had known both men in the past and said they were too toughened and too stubborn to die. He scoffed at my concern.

“Just needing some grub and sleep. Men like these don’t lay down, give it up and die. They’d both be cursing and fighting if they thought death was standing close. They’ll bide!” he pronounced, and I felt the easier for his sureness.

With my permission he made a pallet on the rug by the hearth after dark. I gave him a blanket and he rolled it up as a pillow for his head, shirked out of his vest and boots, and was snoring before I left their room for the chill peace of my bed upstairs.

I woke in the night and, still in my nightshirt, went downstairs to check on the patients. Dan was awake. He had stripped off his clothes and was bathing himself in front of the low fire. “Come on in, Preacher,” he whispered as I hesitated at the doorway. “They’re sleeping easy. Henry’s fever broke and he’s sweating, now.”

(c) Gene Moore

I went to stand by the bed and Dan joined me. He was naked and modestly held a towel over his privates. I touched Henry’s forehead and it was cool. There was a sheen of moisture on his face, glinting golden in the firelight. Dan used his towel to dry the sleeping face. His touch was gentle. Maillot slept curled on his side, facing his injured partner and his hand extended over to rest on Henry’s arm. They both slept deeply and quiet. I thought the picture of them together was an illustration of devotion. It touched me in my heart. Most any personal affection I daily observed had become a pang and a piercing to my side.

“They’ll be fine as fiddle in a day or two. Be easy. Guessing they was about starved up on that mountain. Don’t know how they got down the trail in their condition, but the worst is over now. They’ll mend.” Dan was sure and certain, but his calm didn’t show in his face. He didn’t seem to know a smile or soft expression, this man. His face was leather hard with lines and pulled into a constant squint.

I moved back from the bed. My cold bare feet found the comfort of the rug before the fireplace. Dan came away and got back to his bath. He bent over a basin on the floor and dipped a cloth to sluice down his long hard flanks. I’d tended many a sick or injured man, undressed them and cleaned their bodies and dressed their wounds, but Dan appeared as the first naked man I’d ever looked upon. I suppose it was because of his health and strength. I guess I admired his well-muscled frame in an aesthetic way, but it still sent a shameful ripple down my spine and I turned my glance aside. I was quite used to men depending on me and my usefulness, but in point of fact I quite missed being able to lean on my father in times of worry. I was glad of Dan’s presence and I told him so.

“Ah, nothing else to do. We got no trade at the stables. Rather be here seeing they get care than be off wondering about them. They’re good men, Preacher. They used to stay here over the winter and they helped build many a cabin round about for families going to farm. Broke land and chopped trees like it was a lark. Always came down in fall with a load of meat and skins, glad to share around with any who could use it. Can’t think what disaster brought them to this state!”

We talked low, in murmurs, and watched the men sleep peacefully. Dan dried himself off and wrapped my blanket around him like a robe. “Go on, Preacher. Go back to bed and sleep easy. I’ll sleep now, just that floor was getting hard and cold.” I surmised the tightened squint passed for his smile.

“Come up and sleep in my room. You’ll catch your death on that floor and be in a sick bed yourself.”

“Aye. I’ll thank you for that comfort. These bones don’t bend to a hard floor like youth. Our charges will sleep away the night and likely the morning, too.” He let one side of the blanket drop as he put out an arm to rest on my shoulder. “Lead me to your bed, I’ll come gladly.”

His powerful body gleamed in gilt flickers and offered the strength of its nearness. There was an ache in me I couldn’t name but I feared it was not godly to indulge this gross passion for the touch of friendship and bare skin. I shrugged my shoulders from his grasp and led the way upstairs. I couldn’t withdraw the offered comfort of my bed and explain why.

Dan brought the heat of the fireplace with him. His leg near burned where it touched mine but my bed was narrow and I couldn’t move away. I sought refuge from his nearness in prayer and stillness. I crossed my hands at my chest and said it was the carelessness of sleep that made him curl against me and let his palm slide over my belly below my tensed diaphragm. But I slept, too.

I believe it was hours later – I know I had slept – when his palm smoothed down my belly to rest on my privates and I drifted from deep tide to shallow, smiled inert when pleasures of the body soaked from his warm hand to tingle the stirred blood beneath my thin flannel shirt. His lips found mine in silent dark, and if I kissed them it was only a dream I kissed.

Men could not behave in such an irrational manner; it could only be dreams that follow such a course. I held my thoughts at bay and observed the sensate plunder of my hands over his strong chest and arms. His skin was lightly furred with fuzzy hairs, not so smooth as mine, and his muscles harder when I molded them to my grip. Some long frozen figure inside my fancy danced, and tight bent limbs unlaced and melted to a joy outside the mortal pattern and above the limits of allowance for a vale of tears. I was not for the moment a singular spirit locked in pitched despair and prisoned by gutted fears. I found an archway into the luxury of kindness, an orchard of ripened sun-sweet fruit. I slipped into a well of generosity and drank a spate of dry tears.

With morning sun came threat of full wakefulness but dread passed as I open my eyes to an empty bed. Dreams don’t linger unless they’re pinned down and marked. I let them go. Dawn swept the night away in quickened light. I rose and dressed against the morning chill.

My life would go onward in light of day and shadows could not sink me. That was my prayer. But as always, an unanswered one left abandoned to exposure in the elements. The deep shame pinched at my shoulders and tightened the skin across my brow. Would I were free to run I would, but the duties of my father’s house and his legacy kept me pinioned to this place, and I need but ask His forgiveness and try to be a better, albeit a stronger man.

I stepped down the stairs with a briskness born of business and a need to cover my fears. Bless the Lord, Dan was gone from the house. I gave silent thanks for small blessings and set about cooking breakfast and seeing to the needs of Maillot and Henry.

Dan was right in his assessment of the patients, anyway. They both roused but soggy and weak. I soothed their worry best I could do so and bade them both to rest and let the healing have its way.

With fresh coffee smells coming out from the kitchen, Maillot begged for a cup. Henry alone was ready to pass back into stupor.

When he’d loudly slurped most of his coffee from his saucer, Maillot asked for the pisspot. I let him sit up on side of the bed to drink but he wanted to stand up to urinate. He swayed on his feet. I held him steady with an arm around his waist and the touch felt different from all the times before when I’d nursed after a sick man.

A well of darkness beckoned to my thoughts, but I shook off the mood for the moment, gave my attentions to this poor man in need of my help. My own concerns for my soul must wait for prayer time. I had no leisure for self-pities.

“There, there now ... get back in bed, would you?” I had to deny him a second cup of coffee, the stimulant would not do for him. I offered warm milk instead, but Maillot shivered with distaste.

“No thanks, Preacher, my blood runs on coffee and beans. Only way I can drink milk is with whiskey and nutmeg at Christmas.” He mimicked a clowning face. “Now if’n you got a touch of whiskey ...?”

“Not likely, huh?” I shoved at him. “Get your rump back in bed. I’ll give you biscuits and gravy if you don’t beg for devil’s brew. Nothing but warm milk if you keep it up.”

“Aw, you’re a hard one, huh? Your pa always kept a medicinal bottle in his pocket, I know that well enough!” He grinned.

“It helped his cough.” Then I grinned. “Now don’t you start coughing! I know a faker when I hear it.”

“Reading my mind, you are!” he grumbled good-naturedly as he crawled back beneath the covers. As he settled, he reached over to touch Henry’s face and then planted a kiss on that lean and whiskered cheek.

“He’ll be all right.” I assured him. “He passed through his fever last night. He’s gonna mend just fine.”

“He damn well better.” Maillot sighed and dropped his head to his pillow. “I can’t do without him, Preacher. Can’t say I’d want to try.”

There was room for a sermon in there. I didn’t fill it. A man should lay his trust to the Lord and not to another mortal man. Times of dire worry, a man might say any foolish thing. I would serve better by getting a warm meal in the both of them. Let the Lord move the soul; He knows I’m not fit to try at the moment. I’ll tend the flesh as best I could.

Out in the kitchen my thoughts bent back on themselves. I could make a breakfast in the dark and had done so in times. I let the full regrets of the night flood over me and shake me. My very hands trembled as I cracked open eggs, brittle shells that could never be mended. My knees were watery and frail.

I slammed the cast iron skillet on the old iron stove. The big sound helped me get out of my head, made me free of shame a moment, just a bit. A touch of anger flashed. Did I lay blame at Dan? No, I was not capable of it. Pa would say a man is master of his own will, not a servant to others. I could not spite Dan for the weakness that was in me.

For a man shall not lie down with a man as with a woman. That was a sin. I had sinned. Not the first time, but somehow it felt like the worst time.

When I punched Jimmy Brown in the face, I went home and cried as I confessed to my father. I knew it was wrong and I did it anyway because I hated Jimmy Brown. He was a cruel boy who taunted the little kids and scared the girls.

“It’s all right, son.” One of the few times I can remember Pa touching me. He tousled my head, lifted my chin to see my face. “The Lord knows you acted out of a love of justice and righteousness. He forgives you because a boy is inexperienced and innocent and short on judgment, and He loves you as you love justice and right. Little boys commit little sins, easy to forgive. It’s the grown men who commit the worst sins, when they know better and they act for their own pleasure instead of acting for His best plans.”

That’s why I felt so bad. His words floated back to me. I was a grown man now and I knew it was wrong and against the Bible. Still, I acted out of my own pleasure. I put my pleasure before His plans. That’s why it burdened me so. ”Lord, Lord,” I begged. “Make me strong enough to follow your way. My spirit is willing. Give strength to my flesh that I may do Thy will.” And I let it go.

The kitchen heated up and I opened the back door to let out some of the smoky heat. Fresh, sparkling morning sun flashed down the mountainside and filled the air with brilliant promise and joy. I nodded to the sun. Good morning, sunlight. I do love the light.

My heart was lifted, eased and calmed. It was then I saw Dan making his path towards the back gate. All my resolute promises to God wavered and faded to smoky tendrils. Just the sight of Dan’s strong stride as he came up the path, his sun-hardened face, his graceful sway of wide shoulders. It quite took my breath.

There was a weakness in me, absolute. I felt a certainty that my flesh could not refuse that touch of affection and warm care. If he offered me a kiss I would swoon, yet be afflicted deeply if he did not.

I turned back to my stove, set my hands to task and duty. I heard Dan at the wood pile. He began to chop and splinter off fresh kindling. I silently thanked him for just a few minutes of respite to set my guard, to armor my weak heart.

Dan came in behind me as I was busy; biscuits near browned, gravy to keep stirred, and eggs almost done.

“Morning, Farrell.” He called to me as he unceremoniously dumped his armful of kindling into the box by the stove. “How’s our patients?”

“Quite recovered,” I called over my shoulder. His use of my given name was startling. Might have been a year since I’d last heard it. I’d become Preacher to all, without a single close family or friend to recall me to my name. The sound of it gave me a smile, so pleasant to recall the easy boyhood years. But it was not seemly now for my position and his. “Go wake them. See they’re readied as breakfast goes off cold so quickly.”

I did not want Dan to linger, his nearness was a bother, so!

“Aye, I’ll get them up.” But he stepped near, laid a hand on my shoulder. “And did you rest well last night, Farrell?” There was no improper jest, no leering tone of voice. He asked as if he cared for my welfare. It sank me, flooded away my firm resolve.

When I turned my face to his across my shoulder, I met his eyes and solid countenance with soft affection. “Aye. I slept well. Did you?”

“’Pon my soul! I do believe I did.” His brow then did a tiny rise, as if surprised at the notion. “Rarely slept so well, I’m thinking.”

His grip tightened slightly, then he dropped his hand and went off to check on the men.

I shivered, but heat flushed to my face and neck. The stove was overheating, I declared. Removing the meal to the table, I damped off the stove pipe, left the oven door wide and hoped it would cool before it smoked up the kitchen with soot.

When I took my loaded tray into Father’s old bedroom Dan had our patients sitting up and he washed their faces against protests. Laughter was a musical noise in that room.

“Hey! Do you smell that?” Maillot shoved Dan’s wet cloth aside.

Henry looked weak, but his voice was strong. “Still dreaming, are we? I thought I caught a whiff of ham!”

“This bounty is just for Dan, payment for his nursing you through the night.” I joined in their light mood. “I’ve milk and honey heating up. A bit of biscuit sopped in warm milk is all a sick man needs.”

Their shouts were irreverent and coarse, my name was quite discolored by their usage. I laughed. It felt good. ”Perhaps I’ll give you a bite of soft eggs, then. No gravy, too rich for your weak state!”

“Gravy! He’s made gravy, Henry! Ask his secret.” Maillot turned to me. “When Henry tries to make gravy we have to slice it thin and chew it.”

“Complaints, always he complains! Tell him he might try cooking for himself a’ times!” Henry called round Maillot’s shoulder.

Both of the men had made remarkable recovery. Their spirits were strong, as Dan had assured me. I felt a relief flow through me. Too many men had passed so easily, drifted lightly into death. Tending the ill had not often been a rewarding duty.

“If the exposure and the trip off the mountain didn’t kill you, then I guess my cooking will do you no harm.” I set the tray on the old library table ... went about to portion out the meal into low bowls.

“Let me get up, Danny Boy! I’ll set to table, I will.” Maillot struggled and swung his bare legs to the floor. “Jesus, it’s a cool morning, eh?”

“I’ll poke up the fire a bit.” Dan helped Maillot to stand. “Here, make a robe of this blanket.” Dan draped the blanket around the thin shoulders and helped the man to get into Father’s reading chair. “How’s that?”

“The nearer I get to yon victuals, the better I feels!” Maillot laughed.

I pushed the table closer to him then went round to shove his chair under the edge. “Close enough?” I asked.

“I can reach the spoon ... Preacher? Another coffee would start me off sweet. I beg you!”

Dan was helping Henry to slide nearer the side of the bed. He put one more pillow behind his head. “Can you sit there long enough to eat?”

“Give me head a chance to stop whirling. Lord, I’m some floored!” Henry complained.

“Don’t tell the Lord about your pains, Brother Henry! Just thank Him for a friend that brought you down off the mountain and got you safe here.” I patted Maillot on the shoulder. “You’ve earned coffee, yes sir. I’ll fetch it. You eat. Get your strength back.”

“Aw, if we didn’t run flat out o’ eats, I’d have let him die in his bed! I was starved into desperation and came down to eat. Just drug his carcass along as it was convenient.” Maillot grinned a wolfish grin.

“Aye, we know you never loved him!” Dan laughed. “Not as if you been living with him twenty years or so!”

“Not love but duty!” Maillot professed. “Somebody has to look after the weak ones, take on the burden of their care!” Maillot spoke with his mouth full but made his words clear enough to get a rise from Henry.

“Breaking my damn leg? Is that how you take care of me?” He grabbed Dan’s arm. “Beats me like a stubborn squaw, I swear! Treats me awful if nobody’s by to see.” Henry grinned at his own fabrication.

“Oh, yeah. Everybody knows, Henry. But we’re scared of him, see? None dares to interfere. He shot Ruben Saunders and gave us all to know how mean he is.” Dan was going on but Maillot interrupted him.

“Shooting Ruben Saunders was not mean, it was charity to the town! That card shark was cheating his way to owning this town! Why he —”

“He gave Henry here a gold watch, that’s why you shot him. We all knew that!” Dan laughed, slapped his leg.

“As foolish as you talk, Dan Currant? Somebody ought to shoot you!” Maillot grinned, bent lower over his bowl.

I listened carefully to the talk flying round, the tone was amused and caring even if the words were rough. I thought God would listen to the hearts, forgive the more blasphemous jests.

When I took the coffee pot inside and the cups, Henry pushed a bite aside to tell Dan, “Ruben was a good-looking man, much more handsome than Maillot, there. I think that galled him. You know how vain he is.”

“Here, get some more food inside you. Your weak head is causing me alarm.” Dan laughed. “No man was ever better looking than Maillot there. You know damned well!”

“Not so handsome as all that!” Henry got it out before Dan shoved in a spoonful of soft eggs.

“Was never my looks that kept Henry at my side all these years, Daniel. It was the way I brought back the venison and kept his belly full!” Maillot accused.

“And since he couldn’t never cook worth a damn, he kept me around to do his cooking and serving up,” Henry muttered.

One might think the two men enjoyed their insults, the way they swapped out. But seeing the faces, the smiles, the warm glances, I never took a word seriously. These might be brothers, so close was their bond and trust. I served coffee around, sipped my cup at the mantel and found the charity to envy such support and kindness as hung solid behind the taunts. I was quite caught up in the moment until Henry suddenly swept me far back in time and distant memory.

“Last time we slept in this here room was the night your momma died, Farrell. Your pa was so torn up he drank a quart of rye whiskey and we lay each side of him to keep him in bed. He wanted to go running through the streets and screaming her name. He sure loved that woman, that he did!”

The room went silent, the hush held weight and chill. I didn’t speak for fear of choking.

“It kilt something inside him, boy.” Maillot turned to look over at me as I leaned on the mantel. “He weren’t never the same man after she went. I ’spect you never knew the man, not as we knew him.”

“He was a bitter man.” Dan spoke for me. He wasn’t much older than me, his knowledge of my father was only slightly longer than mine. “And hard to love.” He glanced at me with a raised brow. I nodded, closed my eyes.

Maillot shoved back his bowl and cup. He stood and pulled his blanket robe tighter. “Let me, Dan. I’ll finish feeding him.”

Dan stood and came over by me. He just stood near.

Maillot sat beside Henry and loaded a spoonful, set it to his partner’s lips. “We’ve said too much, I reckon.” He looked into Henry’s face.

“No.” I lifted my face. “Not enough, Maillot.” He glanced my way. “Was my father ever a warm and loving man? Did he ever care about friend or family?” My voice trembled, near tears. Dan put an arm across my shoulders. I did not lean into him as I felt I was invited to do. I stood stiff.

“As kind a man as ever took a breath of Colorado sky. He celebrated the living and the small joys of survival. Yes he did.” Maillot went on feeding Henry. Henry watched his face with a soft trust. One hand came from under the covers to lay along Maillot’s arm.

“Those of us that knew him then, we felt as if we lost a friend when he changed, forsook the earth for some dream of Heaven. He left us behind, you see? He lost the courage to love, I believe.” Maillot’s words spoke to some deep and empty well in me. It began to fill, slowly.

“Your mother was a rainbow, lad.” Henry spoke but stopped, shook his head slowly.

“Lucinda? Lord. We were all in love with her, I think. Everyone who knew her,” Maillot explained. “But your pa, he bet it all. He put everything he had on that one single hope and he didn’t know how to do less. He gave her all he had.” Maillot watched me. “This very morning, I told you if Henry didn’t make it I’d never make it without him, I saw that look on your face. You disapproved. It’s terrible, I know, and likely sinful, to give so much. But Farrell? I’m that much like your pa; I don’t know how to hold back.” Then he turned to Henry and kissed him on the lips. Sweet and gentle, a soft kiss that seemed a parody of romantic images. Two graying old men, both frail and badly withered, no blush of youth left to soften the foolishness of such an act.

I stared, moved and sorely touched. That delicate kiss communicated as much to me as any words might ever tell. God is love. I’d repeated it some hundreds of times but never knew what I was saying. Too young, too inexperienced and too blinded by convention.

The love of God, I finally grasped, meant more than disciplined self-denial and harsh holding to mean and stringent rules. That well within me filled and overflowed. Sunlight broke through morning mists and flooded the bedroom. I felt as much warmth from the sunlight as from the fireplace behind me. Dan’s arm tightened as he stared into my face, and I leaned into his arms, relieved and wiser and happier than I’d ever been before.