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  High Lonesome

  Copyright © 2017 by Tanya Chris (http://www.tanyachris.com/)

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author.

  ISBN: 978-1985606272

  Cover by Emmy Ellis at Studioenp

  Back cover photo courtesy of Chris Biron on Unsplash

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1 Joe

  Chapter 2 Tanner

  Chapter 3 Joe

  Chapter 4 Pyotr

  Chapter 5 Tanner

  Chapter 6 Joe

  Chapter 7 Pyotr

  Chapter 8 Joe

  Chapter 9 Tanner

  Chapter 10 Pyotr

  Chapter 11 Joe

  Chapter 12 Tanner

  Chapter 13 Pyotr

  Chapter 14 Joe

  Chapter 15 Tanner

  Chapter 16 Pyotr

  Chapter 17 Joe

  Chapter 18 Pyotr

  Chapter 19 Tanner

  Chapter 20 Pyotr

  Chapter 21 Joe

  Chapter 22 Tanner

  Chapter 23 Pyotr

  Chapter 24 Joe

  Epilogue Joe

  Thank You!

  Chapter 1

  Joe

  Joe closed the door behind the last of the backpack-laden bodies as they disappeared into the swirl of falling snowflakes. Snow wasn’t unheard-of in late August in the Rockies, but the American Mountaineering Club group that had just cleared out of the hut where he lived year-round as caretaker had come to climb rock, not cross-country ski or bag winter peaks.

  They’d be fine, he told himself as he headed back into the now-deserted hut, his eyes flickering over the rough-hewn planks that lined the stone walls. The brunt of the storm wasn’t expected until nightfall, and the AMC group ought to make it down to Ganymede well before dangerous conditions set in. Ganymede would weather the storm well, sitting several thousand feet lower the way it did. Might not see much worse than a heavy rain at lower elevations.

  Joe considered clearing out himself—making the trek down to the lower hut to wait out the storm so he could have a real shower and a good meal. As the caretaker for Hugh Longline, it was his call. The hut was empty now with the departure of the climbing group and Ganymede would prevent any new trekkers from heading his way until the storm had passed and the slopes were cleared of avalanche threat. High Lonesome, as Ganymede’s caretaker, Susan, called Hugh Longline, would be truly lonely until then.

  Normally the hut was host to a constant flow of climbers and trekkers in the summer, mountaineers and skiers in the winter, people stopping in for lunch on their way from hut to hut or setting up base camp for a few days in the dorm upstairs while they did day climbs or hikes in the area. Days like today, when he had the hut to himself, were the exception, but Susan wasn’t wrong when she called the hut lonesome. No Wi-Fi, no cell service, his closest co-worker a half day’s hike away, a constantly-changing clientele—Joe interacted with his fellow man, but he didn’t get intimate with them.

  This was what he liked. This was why he was here. No, he wouldn’t go down to Ganymede. Even if the cable lift that delivered supplies got knocked out, as it often did in heavy weather, he had enough supplies to wait it out a week. Longer if he had to. And the quiet would be nice. Maybe one of the AMC gang had left behind a book. Something new to read, a mug full of coffee in front of the propane stove, and no one at him—paradise.

  Lonesome sounded pretty good to Joe. Tomorrow morning, he’d get out his snowshoes and make tracks in the freshly-fallen snow, but today he’d see to his chores—set the hut right, give the dormitory a good airing, make sure the outer buildings were sealed up and battened down, fire up the stove to combat the rapidly-falling temperature.

  His mind made up, he went over to the shortwave radio and called down to Ganymede.

  “Let me guess,” Susan said. “You’re staying up there.”

  He grunted. Susan knew him. “Sent a group of eight or so your way about five minutes ago,” he said.

  “I’ll keep an eye out.”

  “Heard from Flume or Muir yet?”

  Flume lay to the east, Muir to the west. If a trekker was making their way from hut to hut, he might find himself hosting someone tonight after all.

  “You’re clear,” Susan said. “Everyone either headed down or they’re sheltering in place. You’re getting the worst of it there at High Lonesome. Any sane person would be heading down.”

  “Sane people don’t take this job to begin with,” he reminded her. “I like the quiet.”

  “Yeah, well, enjoy it. Check in once in a while, OK?”

  “Long as I can.” Right at that moment he had power, a radio, and a working supply chain—but experience told him not to count on keeping any of that. By morning he’d be truly isolated.

  He glanced out the window closest to him, his eye caught by the snowfall, heavier than the forecast had called for already. Those departing climbers had better move fast.

  “Snow already started?” Susan asked.

  “I don’t think the forecast’s wrong about this one.”

  Sometimes there was much ado about what turned out to be nothing, but those small, light flakes tossed by the wind spoke of sustained snowfall. Maybe he should’ve kept the climbers in the hut, not sent them out to meet the storm.

  “You’ll watch out for that AMC group, right?”

  “I’ve seen the gal who’s running that trip before. Strong leader. She’ll get them down. All they have to do is keep moving.”

  Yeah. Keep moving. He rolled his shoulders back and rose to his feet. He’d better get to that dormitory upstairs before he got a bad case of snow drowsiness himself. The flakes were hypnotic, asking to be watched from a place of stillness and contemplation. The sooner he got through what he needed to do, the sooner he could settle down with that coffee and a book he’d probably ended up napping over.

  He signed off, accepting Susan’s admonitions to stay inside even though he didn’t intend to follow them, and headed over to the narrow staircase that led up to the dormitory. Probably be a disaster up there. Nothing like packing up quickly to make people forget half of what they brought. Sometimes he picked up some good swag that way—a half-full bag of cookies, a new paperback, maybe a fleece that fit him—but usually it was crap the guests hadn’t bothered to dispose of their own selves.

  Longline didn’t exactly have trash service. Pack it in, pack it out, that was the rule. But he’d been a hut caretaker too long—four years in October—to expect anything other than the chaotic mess that greeted him when he pushed back the door to the bunk-filled room.

  What he didn’t expect was for one of those bunks to be occupied. The lump in the top bunk on the end wasn’t moving, but it was obviously a person-shaped lump.

  “You miss your train?” Joe asked.

  It took a moment before a face peeped out from the sleeping bag that topped the bunk, nose first. It was the skinny kid, the one with the fragile features that made him want to lick them up like ice cream. He would’ve recognized him by his nose alone, but the nose was followed by the rest of his face, including eyes that were all iris. He’d noticed those eyes that seemed to be green all the way through. He’d also noticed that the kid needed another twenty pounds before he even made it up to skinny.

  The kid had been nodding, no doubt. How else had he missed a roomful of people packing up and heading out?

  “Didn’t know I had to go somewhere,” he said, blinking sleep out of his eyes.

  “There’s a storm coming. The rest of your crew headed down already. You’re going to have to move fast to catch up to them.”

  Even as he said it, he knew it wasn’t happen
ing. Snow already covered the skylight in the dormitory, blocking what should have been a strong early morning light. And the rest of this kid’s group would be more than an hour ahead of him by the time Joe got him dressed and packed and shoved him out the door. Fuck. He was stuck with him now.

  “I knew they were going.” The kid scrunched up his face, then had the audacity to roll over and present his back. He slid deeper into his sleeping bag, re-burying himself in it.

  Joe strode across the floor to the far bunk and grabbed the kid roughly by his shoulder to force his attention back where it belonged.

  “What?” The pinprick pupils made his eyes seem huge, a languid, light green, like the purest glacier ice. His pink lips were pursed into a pout, a glimpse of buck teeth peeping out between them. His curly, reddish hair was damp, like the fever was already on him.

  Joe resisted the urge to push his hand through that damp shock of auburn bangs and took a step back.

  “Why didn’t you go with them?” he asked. “You shouldn’t be here.”

  “My reservation goes to Thursday.”

  “It’s not about having a reservation. There’s a storm coming, a bad one.”

  The kid shrugged. “This is my vacation. I wanted to stay.”

  “Idiot,” Joe muttered, even though he’d made the choice to stay himself. “Fuck.”

  “Fuck, what?”

  “Fuck, now I’m stuck with an ignorant kid to look after.” And one who was going to be a problem as soon as his supply ran out, unless Joe was misreading some signs he could never misread.

  “Not exactly a kid,” the kid said. “Twenty-three, graduated college, have a job. All that grown-up shit. Unlike you, playing at being mountain man.”

  “Fine, I’m impressed with your adulthood. Not going to do any good up here in a storm, but whatever.”

  The kid—ooh, sorry, the twenty-three-year-old—sat up. His head barely cleared the ceiling above him and he wasn’t wearing a shirt, which became evident when the sleeping bag sagged down around his waist. His body was as bony as Joe had feared it would be, his height making it appear even leaner. His ribs stood out against the pale white of his skin, his nipples two small smears of brown in the midst of an otherwise uninterrupted sea of skin so translucent it was almost blue.

  It took a moment, but he raised his eyes from the chest that both worried him and aroused him to meet the kid’s eyes again.

  “Maybe we could have fun,” the kid suggested. “Just the two of us here.”

  Joe’s hand rose of its own accord, coming to rest on the kid’s hip, pushing the sleeping bag down farther until he could see boxers—red and black plaid flannel, like a little hunter boy. Too precious in this hot way that made Joe want to mess him up.

  It wasn’t like he never fooled around with the clientele. He might not mind being lonesome, but he wasn’t crazy about being horny, and the hut provided him with an endless stream of fit young people of all genders he could fuck and forget. But he and the kid were now the only two occupants of this hut for the next who-knew-how-many days. It would be a mistake to start anything, especially considering—

  He shook his head, telling himself no. Hot was one thing. Hot mess was another. He’d come to Longline to put himself out of temptation’s way. Trust temptation to walk into his. He’d watch over the kid, because that was what he got paid to do, but he wasn’t going to fuck him. Keep him fed, keep him warm, send him back down to Ganymede when the storm lifted.

  He lifted his hand deliberately from the kid’s waist and took a step backwards. He’d come into this room for a reason, and it wasn’t to grope at a half-naked surprise in the top bunk.

  Sure enough, a glance around the room showed that the departing AMC group had left it a mess of tossed blankets and pillows. He started stripping linens, piling them into a heap by the door and folding the blankets into tidy squares topped by the flat rectangles that passed for pillows. If he worked fast, he might be able to get a load of laundry down to Ganymede before the dumb waiter went out.

  “Your name’s Joe, right?” The kid hadn’t moved, was watching him from his spot on the top bunk, still half-wrapped in his sleeping bag.

  He grunted his agreement, not stopping his work.

  “I’m Tanner.”

  “Didn’t ask.”

  “I saw you looking at me. Don’t pretend you weren’t.”

  “So what if I was?”

  “So maybe you want to know my name. Anyway, we’re going to be stuck here together, you gotta call me something.”

  The kid—Tanner—jumped down from his bunk with a light thud and Joe spun at the sound against his better judgement to see that, yep, there were bare legs extending from beneath those precious plaid boxers. Tanner’s legs were as lean as his chest, as delicate as his arms. Joe didn’t see how Tanner was climbing any rocks with matchstick arms like that, but sometimes in climbing it paid to be light.

  “Put some clothes on,” he ordered.

  “’Cause why?”

  “’Cause it’s fucking cold in here.” He wore two layers of fleece over a polypro t-shirt and a pair of heavy trekker pants. The temperature in the hut hadn’t dropped to long underwear levels yet, but it was far from boxers weather.

  “I’m not cold,” Tanner said. “I feel hot.”

  “Yeah, I wonder why.” He met Tanner’s eyes and let him wonder what he knew about him. Tanner looked genuinely confused, but Joe knew he’d figure it out.

  Tanner’s eyes shifted. He rooted through the pile of fabric at the end of his bunk and came up with a pair of pants. Jeans. “I guess I’m a little cold,” he said as he tugged them on. “Just didn’t think there was a point to putting clothes on if we’re going to—”

  “We’re not.”

  He let the rough wool blanket he’d been folding drop back to the floor he’d picked it off of. He didn’t need to be in a room full of beds with Tanner still half-naked. What he needed to do was make sure the propane was running and get the stove started before the temperature in the hut dropped precipitously. Now that the hut wasn’t filled with bodies, it’d cool off quick.

  He headed out the door, Tanner trailing behind him.

  “Put a shirt on, too,” he ordered, knowing Tanner’s rising temperature was creating an illusion of warmth.

  “You’re acting more like my dad than I expected you to,” Tanner said, but his voice trailed back towards the dormitory as he said it. He might be an unexpected nuisance, but he was pretty good at following directions.

  The thought of Tanner following all of his directions raised his own temperature. He was about as equal opportunity as it came in the bedroom. Men, women, top, bottom. He was willing to go any way it could be gone. Some people might say sex was his new vice, his replacement addiction, but he didn’t see any harm in it. On his trips back to civilization—his mandatory one week off for every seven weeks he lived at the hut—he made sure to stock up on everything necessary to keep this addiction safe for all concerned.

  He could fuck Tanner—fold his fragile body in half and plow him deep, stuff his cock between those pink, pursed lips and feel the light drag of Tanner’s buck teeth over his shaft—but then he’d have to deal with him. He usually waited until the last night of a guest’s stay before diving in, the better to be sure they’d fuck and go, and Tanner’s last night was currently an unknown quantity. If sex was Joe’s addiction, intimacy was its antidote. No thank you.

  Downstairs again, he checked the thermometer near the front door, which told him it was freezing outside, though only barely, and in the low fifties inside. Before firing up the stove, he’d need to check the line to the tank, make sure everything was in order. While he was out there, he’d seal up the shed and close two of the three outhouses, run a rope to use as a handrail out to the third. Making the morning outhouse visit in sub-freezing temps wasn’t the best part of living in a hut, but getting lost on the way back in a white-out escalated inconvenient up to deadly.

  On his way to hi
s bedroom, he passed through the great room where the long bench table was still littered with coffee cups and half-finished plates of the bacon and eggs he’d scrambled up for his non-vegan guests that morning to supplement the ubiquitous muesli. His bedroom was the only one on the ground floor, nicely snugged up against the side of the giant stove.

  Tanner was out in the great room by the time he got back from donning a moisture-resistant layer and finding his hat and gloves. Tanner poked at the remains of his friends’ breakfast like the food was poison.

  “When I’m done outside, I can fry you up some eggs.” He wasn’t surprised when Tanner shrugged. At least he had a shirt on. Really, Tanner was right. He wasn’t anyone’s dad. Tanner’s poor choices were his own problem.

  The bracing cold took his mind off his dick and the kid who had it restless. He hadn’t been laid in a few days, the group of climbers too interested in each other to bother with him, and if he were honest about it, he’d sort of had Tanner tagged as his best prospect, not just because he was adorable but because he’d kept himself on the fringe of the larger group, silent and dreamy. It would’ve been easy to separate him from the herd. Easy and enjoyable.

  The propane tank was two-thirds full and was one thing he could count on even if the power and lift went out. The hut would be warm and he’d be able to cook. They were well-stocked with lanterns, and the line he ran to the outhouse would keep them from stumbling over a precipice in whiteout conditions.

  For now, the snow swirled more beautifully than menacingly, dusting the ground lightly, filling in the cracks and dips of the narrow plateau the hut perched on. The rock formations looming over the hut were shrouded and silent and his footsteps made shallow indentations in the accumulated inch or two. There wasn’t a sound in the world except the ones he made. Might not be another person in it either except he knew who waited for him back in the hut.

  With a last sigh and a glance backward at the path that led to Ganymede, not a path he could push Tanner down, he returned to the hut, not as resolved to avoid his unwanted guest as he should’ve been.