3:10 to Yuma: After the Train
Their trip spanned the predicted five days and no more, thankfully, for William was quickly burning his way through their food supply. The town came into view late on the fourth day, though they spent one more night far from civilization. Wade grumbled about Dan not wearing his new shirts while Will kept to himself, silently thinking.
“What are we going to say to her?” Will blurted out suddenly as they were all lying out their bedrolls for the night. Ben had managed to claim a spot right next to the rancher, claiming that it was the only rock-free land left. Dan gave up arguing with him.
“I don’t know,” Dan replied quietly, his uncertainty clear. “I don’t know if she will want to speak to me at all, Will.”
“Why wouldn’t she? You’re married.”
“She thought I was dead, Will. And God knows I didn’t keep her fully satisfied all these years.” Ben looked over at the other man in pity, silently reaching over to grab hold of his hand in the darkness, safe from Will’s view. Dan closed his eyes and gave him a grateful squeeze.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Will asked, completely oblivious to the implications. Ben decided to save Dan the pain of answering.
“It means, Will,” he said slowly, trying to break the news down for the boy easy. “It means, Will, that there may have been other men in your mother’s life. Besides your father.” Ben could feel Dan wince and pulled him closer, ignoring personal space as he brought his blanket right next to Dan’s, wrapping an arm about his shoulders. Will remained silent but for a shifting in his bedroll, soon followed by a stony silence.
“I’m horrible,” Dan muttered. “I couldn’t even make Alice happy.”
“Dan,” Wade said gruffly, shaking his shoulders slightly. “This is no time to go on a pity parade. Your son is right there.” They both listened to Will’s even breathing.
“Apparently he can sleep easier with that information than I can,” Dan replied quietly, his voice near cracking.
“Shit, Dan,” Wade muttered, leaning his head against the back of Dan’s. “You don’t need to worry about the past. Not anymore. It can’t haunt you unless you let it.”
“Right.”
Ben moved his arm to run the back of his hand against Dan’s cheek. “Dan,” he said in surprise, feeling warm drops running down the younger man’s face. Ben pulled Dan over onto his back, pinning him to the ground forcing the man to lay still and look at him. “Dan,” he murmured hoarsely, roughly grabbing the younger man’s hands and keeping them firmly at his sides. He nuzzled the side of Dan’s neck with his nose, savoring the salty smell of the runaway tears before he licked them away. Dan lay still, tensed beneath him, as Wade completely straddled the younger man, sitting on his pelvis. Wade chased each tear with his tongue, hastily and roughly cleaning them away. “Stop crying, Dan,” he whispered into the other man’s ear, licking along its edges and enjoying the shiver it provoked in Dan.
“I’m not,” Dan said, his very voice betraying him.
“Dan,” Wade murmured, redirecting his attention to Dan’s mouth and releasing his arms. Ben locked his lips onto Dan’s, sucking and licking with an attentive fury. Dan moved his hands slowly, skimming them tenativly along Ben’s stomach and shoulders to rest at the back of the other man’s neck, pulling him down harder upon himself.
“Take it all away,” Dan whispered harshly when Wade pulled back and licked away more tears. “Take it all away.”
Ben grunted before returned his attention to Dan’s lips, delving into the rancher’s warm mouth with his tongue and trying to hold Dan’s tongue from his own mouth. “You’re more aggressive tonight, Dan,” Wade murmured breathily, nipping at the younger man’s lip as he pulled away again. “More willing.” Dan ignored the comment, pulling Wade back down to claim his lips, his face, his neck, his body, his entrancing kisses. The memories of Alice were slowly being eclipsed, locked away beneath the attention Wade was giving him right now. Never in all his years with Alice had anything they had done had this much raw passion, raw need, raw hunger.
“Ben,” Dan said softly, his voice quiet to keep from gaining the sleeping Will’s attention.
“Fuck, Dan,” Wade groaned, practically crushing Dan beneath him in an effort to gain more contact between them. “Why the hell are you so addictive?”
“I could ask the same,” Dan replied huskily, his voice clearly revealing his hunger for more, “but I won’t.” He could feel Wade smiling when the man again claimed his lips again, wrestling with his shirt buttons at the same time.
Suddenly Wade froze.
“Get up,” he said gruffly, rolling off Dan and into a crouched position. Dan blinked in shock, his breath coming in short bursts and surely warning anyone within a miles of their presence. How Ben was controlling his own breathing was a complete mystery.
“Should I wake Will?” Dan asked quietly, trying to ignore the feeling of complete awkwardness surely coloring his face a very attractive red. He felt about blindly for his shotgun.
“No.”
“I can’t find it,” Dan said in exasperation. He could see Ben’s shadow turn his way.
“Can’t find what?” he asked impatiently.
“My-”
Bang!
“Shit!” Ben grunted and lunged at Dan, tackling him to the ground as the shot rang out over their heads. William snapped upright, his eyes wide and frozen.
“Hands up, outlaws!”
“Shit,” Dan muttered, blindly feeling about. Ben was standing absolutely still a few feet from where he crouched.
“I said hands up! We will fire again!”
“Looks like we ran into some bad luck,” Wade said quietly, surely smiling his wry grin to match the tone. “We ran right into the sheriff’s night patrol.”
“Last warning!”
“What do we do, Wade?” Dan asked quietly, remaining statue-still.
“Nothing,” Wade replied easily, keeping his voice low enough that the rider wouldn’t hear him. “This guy ain’t the sheriff.”
“I will fire!” They could hear the man cocking his gun and the distant clomping thunder of another horse.
“Plus,” Wade added in a whisper. “He’s blind as a bat. Just watch.”
“I will shoot.”
“Larkin!”
“That’s the sheriff,” Wade murmured quietly, staying still. Dan was again glad for the clouds and another moonless night.
“Larkin! What the hell are you shooting at? Get your blind ass over here!”
“But sheriff-”
“Now Larkin!”
“There we go,” Wade said quietly, sinking back down onto his bedroll and contentedly closing his eyes.
“That was lucky,” William said quietly.
“Damn lucky is right,” Wade replied cheerfully, pulling Dan down next to him by the sleeve. “Now go back to sleep.” They could hear William roll back onto his side and promptly begin to breathe his deep, sleeping gasps for air.
“Ben,” Dan said quietly after a moment, either ignoring or accepting Wade’s hand under his neck and around his shoulders as he lay close to the older man. “Why didn’t you like the idea of coming to Sadie?” He could practically feel the older man deflate as he asked his question. He didn’t, however, retract it.
“I didn’t want to come to Sadie because they have a particularly harsh justice system.”
Dan snorted at the response. “So you didn’t want to come here because they have actual law? Afraid you might get caught, Ben?”
“No. I didn’t want to come to Sadie because I remembered the last time I got caught here.”
Dan and Ben remained silent for a moment. “I’m sorry,” the rancher said after a moment. “I shouldn’t have pried.”
“It’s fine, Dan. You have a right to know what you’re walking into.”
“That’s encouraging.”
“Isn’t meant to be.”
“I am sorry though. About dragging you here,” Dan said quietly.
“Dragging me? Dragging me, Dan?” Wade laughed, the sound deep as it rattled his chest. “I led you here. Don’t give me this bullshit about dragging me here against my will.”
“Then why’d you do it? Why didn’t you want to come here again?”
“You and your boy wanted to come,” Ben replied quietly. “And as for why I didn’t want to come here again, well, I didn’t want you to have the same experience I did.”
“Thank you, Ben,” Dan said quietly, rolling onto his side and curling into Ben’s side, much to the older man’s surprise. He didn’t move, afraid the rancher would shift away again. Once he was sure Dan was settled for sleep and sure not to move, Ben rolled onto his side, pulling Dan closer still to his chest and wrapping his arms about him in a protective cocoon.
He wouldn’t let the man face the same horrors as he had all those years ago. He would stop at nothing to keep his one-legged rancher from that kind of madness.