Author’s Note: I had an interesting thing happen with this chapter. My characters took over. What I had planned for them was not what they wanted, and what they wanted surprised me. Here, I merely report the facts.

The Mountain Speaks

The next morning, after their usual routine of pissing followed by oral hygiene, they made love again.

Adrian’s ass, despite the ointment Nathan had applied the night before, needed a break, so they kept it simple. They held each other. They kissed. They played with each other’s cocks, and after heating each other up, they spun around and came in each other’s mouths.

Nathan knew of no finer way to start a day.

He did wish to accomplish many camp chores. As he had said, he needed to wash clothes, but he also wanted to clean the tent, the bed of his truck where he cooked, as well as all the cooking gear. Over breakfast, as always, ever testing, he told Adrian his list to see what he would offer to do. Adrian had his own list. He had never had a chance to clean his bicycle and pannier bags, but he was curious about Nathan’s clothes washing system. Nathan told him it involved hauling many buckets of water from the river. He used a double bucket system and very little soap. So Adrian volunteered to haul water, which was the hardest job.

Cleaning the tent was was fun. They merely emptied everything out then picked it up and shook it. Adrian thought that would be a good opportunity to smooth out the ground underneath again. While he did that, Nathan spot cleaned the sleeping bags and draped them on the truck to fluff and dry. He delighted Adrian with his trick for getting his shirts as smooth as if they had been ironed by hanging them dripping wet from hangers and using his hands to smooth them as they dried.

“Brian taught me that. He said it was a navy trick.”

“He was in the navy?”

“No,” he said, smoothing one of Adrian’s shirts on the clothesline. “He had an old boyfriend who was. Brian had a thing for men in uniform.”

Nathan chuckled at the memories. He told Adrian, “It’s interesting, but now instead of feeling sad every time I think of him, I feel happy.”

Adrian was using a tiny strip of chamois to clean his bicycle’s wheel spokes. “You got closure. That’s what they call it, right?”

“Yes. I think you are right. I keep feeling him nearby. He’s like a happy bird who comes to visit.”

“Yeah,” Adrian agreed, “I feel like I kind of somehow know him. It’s weird, but after we get the cleaning done, let’s go to his spot.”

“Why?” Nathan kidded, “Are you thinking of seducing me there?”

“No, not at all,” Adrian quipped back. “I was thinking of tricking you into skinny dipping and then pretending to be embarrassed by my big boner and then offering to suck your dick!”

“Oh, you faggot! I bet you use that line on all the boys!”

“No, only, like, fifty or sixty of the hottest ones!”

They had their chores finished before lunch. As planned, they went to Brian’s pool for “a dip.”

Once there, as they undressed, Adrian asked “Is this risky? Nathan? I mean there’s still a bunch of people at the campground and all those kids running around.”

“We’re just skinny dipping, Adrian. I’m sure all the locals know the scene here. We can confine our sexy stuff to the water, so if anyone stumbles upon us, we’ll have a way to chill until our dicks go down.”

“Well, I thought I saw that red-headed kid and his buddy upstream.”

“Hmm. OK. But I saw Billy leave in his truck, and it looked loaded up. It’s Sunday, so you’ll see the place clear out. But yeah, let’s keep an eye out.”

“OK.”

However, Adrian’s worry nagged at Nathan. After bathing briefly, he stood atop the large boulder at the head of the pool and surveyed the scene around them. He could see no one, but he did hear the high-pitched shouts of children from somewhere upstream. He looked in that direction, but still saw no one. From the way the sound bounced around, it was hard to tell directions and distances to sources of sounds in that canyon, so he waited and studied with his hunter’s senses. He did not feel observed.

He turned to look at Adrian who was happily spinning around in the water. “I’m getting nothing on my “danger radar,” Adrian. They seem to be pretty far away.”

He heard what sounded like a blast from a boat’s horn. Maybe it was one of those silly horns used at sporting events. It repeated three times. Looking in the direction of his camp, he saw one of the women from Eli and Billy’s group standing on the bluff. Out of the corner of his eye, he detected movement. Yes, there were the two small boys he had met. The red hair of one was unmistakable. They were running in the direction of the campground. They were wild kids, but it seemed they had been trained to the sound of that horn!

He turned to smile at Adrian. Standing seductively, he reached down and flipped his penis around. “Looks like we are in the clear. You want some cock? Gay boy?”

“I want cock.”

Nathan stepped down into the water and leaned against the rock. He never knew which way Adrian wanted to go. He could flick from bottom to top in an instant. He could be quiet and passive or loud and agressive.

Adrian whooshed to him through the water and placed himself below Nathan.

“Yummy!” he tittered as he hefted Nathan’s cock and rubbed against his face while, looking up at Nathan. “After I suck your big dick, will you fuck me with it? Daddy?”

Evidently, his changeable boy wanted to play bottom. That was fine with Nathan.

Everything about Adrian was fine with Nathan.

All the rest of that day, they did almost nothing at all. In the late afternoon, they took a trip into town to get wifi access. Nathan handled business and Adrian called his mom and did his always incredible amount of texting. Nathan tried to give Adrian privacy while he talked to his mother, but he noticed that Adrian was being purposely vague about when he was coming home. He promised to give his mother a definite ETA “within a couple days.”

Nathan did not inquire about that, and Adrian offered nothing. For a treat, they had an early dinner in a fine, yet homey and rural, restaurant. They shared chateaubriand served with all the elegant, French style sides.

Over that delicious dinner, so well presented and professionally served, Adrian finally brought up the topic of his homecoming. “My mom keeps bugging me about coming home. I mean, it has only been like what? Four days since I called her from Santa Clarita? Fuck. Why are females so fucking high maintenance?”

“You are asking the wrong guy, Adrian, but I know a lot of poofs who are worse.”

Adrian grinned at that. “Well, Tanya and Diane are not like that, but the funny thing is I tell ’em everything without having to be bitched at about it.”

“Is your mom bitching at you?”

“No. I exaggerated. I take it back, but she is stressing. She really is.”

“Dude, you have been gone for almost a year. It is a mother’s right, don’t you think?”

“Fine! Gang up on me!” Adrian said it with a grin.

“Well, Adrian, I’m looking at only another day or two here, if that helps.”

“Yeah. But I am in no hurry to go home, Nate, you know?”

“I know. But your mom needs you. You ever call your dad?”

“Nah… Er, well, not much. The girls keep him informed, and he never bugs me. He and I actually don’t need to talk much. He never gets all butthurt. I really, really like my dad, Nathan. Did I ever tell you that?”

“Not in so many words, no, but I have gotten that impression all along, even though you and him do battle.”

Adrian sighed. They said no more on that topic that night.

Fire, Water, and Sacred Vows

The next morning, Nathan had it in his mind to give Adrian a tour around Mt. Shasta, and ever the sexy guy, he thought of a certain road to the north of the mountain called the “Military Trail” with its almost non-existent traffic would be a great place to let Adrian fulfill a fantasy – that was to blow him while driving.

It was a bit of a drive to get to the turn-off. Mt. Shasta was perhaps fifty miles wide at his base. So it looked to Nathan. The roads around it were some distance away. Always, one was within sight of that mountain, and it always seemed to be so far away. While the area where they camped was lush and green, the country to the north of the mountain was dry and largely barren. It was high desert, and this represented yet another variation of California’s many climates. The trees were stunted. The brush was gnarled and dusty. There were many outcroppings of reddish rock.

Adrian was naturally curious about it all.

Driving up Highway 97, to the east of Interstate 5, still not at the turn-off, Nathan, trying to answer his questions, said, “I wish I knew more geology, Adrian, but well, I hear this region is a geologist’s paradise. It has many mixed types, sedimentary, igneous, and metamorphic rock, all jumbled up together, but it is mainly volcanic, that is – igneous. When we get back into town, let’s stop at a bookstore and get some books about the mountain and the region, huh?”

“Yeah. But why do they call this road we are heading to the “Military” trail?

“As I understand it, the road was built to move troops fast through the region. I am not sure from where, to where, or when, but I’m guessing post Civil War? Do you have reception on your phone? You could look it up.”

“Aw, uh, no… Hmmm. Your car phone does though. Let me check.”

Nathan had gone deluxe on his car phone, and his service provider seemed to do better in rural areas than others. As always, he was impressed by Adrian’s facility with modern technology. He soon announced, “Uh huh, OK. It looks like it was already a trail from earliest days and it was used as a wagon trail later, and then around 1855 the army started escorting travelers. And it was only named the “Military Pass Trail” in, like, the 1940’s. There was a lot of fighting here. There were a LOT of Native Americans here! This place is sacred! Like, shit! Shasta, Okwanuchu, Modoc, Achomawi, Atsugewi, Karuk, Klamath, Wintu, and Yana tribes. These Indians went out kicking, man! They fought and fought over this place! They fought hard! Damn. Now I am sad.”

Nathan agreed. Their mood was somber when they came to the turn-off. Before them, a straight swath of pale dirt road blazed in the sunlight all the way to distant low, green mountains. The road, though unpaved, was smooth. It was possible to drive at a good clip. To their right, Mighty Shasta, whose outermost spurs were only mile or so away, loomed above. His north face was still largely covered in snow above the timberline. Nathan drove far enough from the highway to get a feeling of distance before pulling over in the middle of the vast emptiness to turn off the motor.

Adrian looked at him appraisingly. “You want to get out and just take in the scene and the space, huh Nate?”

“Yep.” Adrian was reading him well. It was phenomenal, really. They had known each other five days, but they had synched like old friends.

The chaparral by the road was covered in road dust, but twenty feet beyond the road, it was green again. The soil was strange and granular – volcanic, Nathan presumed. Only thousands rather than millions of years old, so it had not time to become fine. The hot breeze from the north smelled vaguely of smoke and sage. This was not a hospitable environment.

Adrian said, “This reminds me of the four corners area on the Rez. I’ll bet this place is teeming with life! Yes! Look! Did you see that? Was that a roadrunner? No! It was another kind of bird! And look at these tiny flowers!”

Nathan smiled. Leave it to Adrian to see the hidden magic.

He heard the cry of a hawk. Looking up, however, he saw only small birds flying over. He heard then the hoot of an owl, and then a crow, followed by another strange screech. These sounds were evidently coming from the small birds! Were they some kind of mockingbird?

Adrian was laughing. “Listen to them! They are warning all the other animals! They are saying, ’Monsters! Monsters!’ That is what we are to them.”

Nathan stared at him. He said the first thing that came to mind, unfiltered, “You just blow my shit away, Adrian. I discover now that you can talk to animals? Are you even real?”

Adrian flashed him that quizzical sneer of his that was not a sneer. It looked like a sneer, but it was not. It was an expression that meant he was thinking. Nathan knew that. He waited.

“Dude,” Adrian finally said after staring at him, his tone patronizing, “I have spent almost a year outside. You are still in ’city’ mode. Your senses are not tuned in yet.”

Nathan sighed. Adrian was right. He knew it. He admitted, “Well, maybe you can help me with that, man. I’m trying, you know?”

Adrian moved to him and cutely rubbed him shoulder to shoulder. “You know what I’m talking about. I mean, if you walked the PCT, you must have gotten to that place where you can feel the earth breathe.”

Nathan nodded. He had indeed. And he had been trying to rediscover that connection ever since. He put an arm around him. “Yeah man. You called it. OK. Thanks. I told you Shasta was magic. Already, he bitch slaps me. I begin to wake up. Is that what those birds are saying? Really? We are monsters to them?”

“Yes, Nathan. We are monsters. We are creatures with engines of smoke and fire. Our powers are not less than the volcano. We terrify them.”

Nathan nodded. “I told you Shasta was magic. You feel it now, don’t you?”

“I felt it in Redding, Nathan, before we even saw the mountain.”

Nathan sighed. “I was thinking that this stretch of road would be a great place to let you blow me while driving, but now I feel that it would be like shitting on an alter or pissing in a well. Sacrilegious! But I want to hug you and kiss you so much! I feel like a child, Adrian!”

Adrian smiled and let himself be enwrapped by Nathan. They kissed, but it was not erotic. It was the kiss of friends and family. In many ways, it was much more profound.

Nathan had truly planned on having crazy sex as he took Adrian on a tour around the mountain, but they did none of that. They had a silent accord. There would be a time and place, and it would feel right.

It did not feel right.

What felt right was to enjoy the beauty and feel the magic. His boyfriend clung to him as they drove, and, while pondering every word, kept pointing out wonder after wonder that Nathan would not have seen on his own. Nathan putted along with the windows down. They often stopped to examine some detail of rock, fauna, or flora.

When they reached the terminus of the Military Trail where it met with another dirt road, they turned right and moved south along the east side of The Mountain, Nathan commented, “I can finally see why people want kids.”

Adrian was snuggled up next to him, seat belts be damned. “Yeah?”

“It is because children remind them of the truth. The world is beautiful, and life is a miracle.”

“Am I a child to you, Nathan?”

“You want the truth, or do you want bullshit?”

“You know that answer.”

“No, you are not a child, but to me, you are sweet and innocent. You see that, right? Honestly, Adrian, I feel that you are better than me. You are pure and beautiful. I am polluted, corrupt, guilty, and jaded.”

“Aw, you are being too hard on yourself, Nathan. I am not so innocent, and you are hardly corrupt. You remind me of my best friends in high school. You are gloomy, but that is because you feel so much and you see how fucked up the world is, but I see that too, you know? Anyhow, let’s stop. Let’s get out of the truck.”

“Yes. Agreed. Let’s find water. You wanna?”

“Sure, but you keep saying there is no water over on this side. That’s why no one ever lived here and why it was all left wild.”

“There is water. You have to know how to find it. I know how.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Show me.”

Nathan was not deceiving Adrian. In fact, he had been looking up at Shasta and looking for a valley above which was a glacier. If he recalled correctly, it was the Whitney Glacier. Shasta had generally the same geometry to the angle of his slopes all around – steeper above with shallower inclines below. They had been driving through the flat regions far from the mountain, but on the east side, the road was nearer than the other roads. One felt right in the lee of the mountain. Looking up, the shape of Shasta there appeared entirely different. The upper reaches of the east side were substantially steeper and craggier.

He had long been searching for a place to stop and climb up such a drainage. With his typical restraint, he had managed to withhold this secret from Adrian. He wanted to surprise him and impress him. Nathan was sufficiently self-aware to know that the dynamic of their relationship had shifted. It was he seeking Adrian’s approval, not the other way around. This amused him and delighted him. Again and again, Adrian made him feel young again; he drew out his better nature.

“Let’s take this road here, Adrian. It looks like it climbs higher,” pointing, he added, “and I want to explore that valley up there.”

The road was an unmarked service road. Probably an old logging road made in the ’30s before Shasta became a protected wilderness area. If it was maintained at all, it was merely for fire control.

He threw his truck into the deeply pitted and unmaintained access road. Within a few miles, the brush on either side became so overgrown that he knew he had to stop. For one thing, he did not want to scratch the paint of his truck; for another, he knew that there would be no other humans past that point. They had, in fact, earlier, seen only one car going the opposite way, and that beat up old sedan looked like it was full of Indians, who had cheerily waved at them as they passed.

They stopped before some fallen tamarack pines blocking the road. Getting out, Nathan suggested they grab their packs with their water, food, and sundries. They would climb at an angle up. Nathan wanted to reach the valley ahead.

In silence they trudged up and over until they did achieve the goal, and then, once in the deep “V” of the valley, they headed ever upward through many obstacles until suddenly Adrian announced, “I smell water!”

Nathan grinned. It is fun to be right!

It was only a few hundred feet further, but there it was, a deep and dark pool of water, appearing in an otherwise dry declivity.

“How did you know, Nathan?” His lover asked.

“You follow the drainages up. This is below a glacier. The melt-off goes underground but reappears here and there when it strikes an underground barrier of rock. This water is as pure as the sky. Let us swim and drink!”

The trees around them at that high elevation were mountain hemlocks. They had silver trunks and thick needles. Most were gnarled and twisted. Not large, yet they all looked ancient. Nathan knew that they could live thousands of years. They were usually stunted from being buried in snow for half the year. But near the water, all the trees were larger; they had many low country types, willows and maples, mainly. It was a little oasis. They heard the chirping of frogs. They saw the tracks of deer, raccoons, what were possibly porcupines or badgers, and what was certainly a bear.

Adrian gushed, “A bear’s tracks! Look!”

Nathan said, “The bears around here are pretty shy. When they see humans, they run.”

“So that means they are hunted then, huh? I thought this was a designated Wilderness Area with no hunting allowed.”

“Yep. But in the surrounding lands, certain Indian tribes still hunt them, and I bet they dont much care about the regulations. This has always been their mountain.”

“Yeah. I feel like we are being watched right now! Do you?”

“This whole time, yeah. It is positively eerie. I don’t want to fool around. Do you?”

“No. The hairs on my neck keep raising up. I keep getting chills, Nathan. It’s not like Brian’s Pool with a sexy guardian spirit. I feel like we are in a church right now. It does not feel right to fuck! But let’s swim, huh?”

Nathan had nothing to say. Adrian had articulated identical thoughts to his own.

The pool was forty feet long and fifteen feet wide, yet it was extremely deep. Without a word, they stripped off their clothes and slipped into the cold, cold, mysterious water. Niether felt the slightest trace of arousal. But both felt amazing affection.

They swam in and drank deeply of the cold water. It was inside them and around them. They sunned themselves nude together at the top of the pool. Their kisses and touches were chaste. There was no thought of sex, only love. They were each other’s brother, son, and father. They were each other’s tutor, protector, and champion. There was no alpha, beta, or omega. There was no age, no young, and no old.

“That water,” Adrian commented, “I cannot place the taste!”

“It tastes of fire, I think, Adrian. I’ve never tasted anything like it.”

Adrian took Nathan’s mangled left hand in both of his own. He held it next to his glistening chest, looking down at it for a few bemused moments before holding it up to gently kiss the stumps of Nathan’s missing fingers. He looked at Nathan, his face serene. “Yes. Fire water from the volcano. I love you, Nathan. Will you marry me?”

“Yes.”

They said no more about it. It was done.