Fire Down the Valley (Gay Historical Romance)

By Dirk Hessian

Warning: Adults Only - contains graphic sex scenes.

As civilization begins to reach the Colorado of the late 1870s in the form of roads and telegraph lines snaking west, young Cal, thrust into the world of the white man without even knowing his birth name, faces wars between worlds he can’t fully place himself in.

When the cavalry arrived to move the Arapaho into reservations, Cal, the sole survivor of a wagon train massacre and raised by the Arapaho, is “rescued.” Pulled out of the only life he remembers. He subsequently is fostered by a sheep herding family in a Rocky Mountain valley on the verge of a range war between the cattlemen, the sheep men, and the farmers as the latter began to fence the land, and is thus caught between worlds, none of which he can completely identify with.

Cal also finds himself torn in finding his sexual identity, tossed between an Arapaho brave, a half-breed cowboy, and a cruel ranch owner.

Calamitous events in the unsettling birthing of Colorado and the effects of encroaching eastern civilization claw at Cal to take sides and make momentous decisions of his own—if the men who matter in his life will give him choices.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BarbarianSpy
• Release date: Aug 23, 2013
• ISBN: 9781922187550

Dirk Hessian

An artist and writer, Dirk has always been interested in history and legends, particularly those of the Mediterranean and Asia. His fantasy works are full of ordinary men, and men who are in touch with forces beyond those of mortal men, fighting for their homelands in unusual ways.

Book preview

Chapter One: Down to the Schoolhouse

Don’t worry about that shed, Pa, Caleb said. I’ve already talked to them up at Milo Mather’s mill, and they should deliver lumber for a new shed sometime while I’m gone.

Lumber? While you’re gone? Old Henry answered. He was sitting on the front porch of the house, rocking, and pulling on his pipe. He’d already put in eight hours on the garden behind the collapsed shed and the sun wasn’t far beyond its zenith yet.

Remember, Pa? I told you about it yesterday. They got word to me from down in Hayden that a couple of more buildings were being put up. They need my help. It will mean cash enough to pay for the lumber from the mill.

Regular boom town they got for themselves down in Hayden, I reckon, Henry said.

Yes, Pa. A regular boom town. They, in fact, were always putting up more buildings in Hayden. It wouldn’t be long before they’d talk about making a town of it. It had started to take off as soon as they decided to put that road to the West, going over the mountains from Denver, right through the center of the settlement. They were talking of trying to get the town incorporated for the centennial of American independence, but that was only two years off, and Cal couldn’t see any Colorado politician down in Denver moving that fast for anyone on the west side of the Rockies divide.

It wasn’t really construction Cal was going down the valley, across the Yampa River, and into Hayden to do, but he’d be getting the money they needed to pay for the lumber, and his foster father never needed to know how he’d gotten it. He knew he wouldn’t be more than a couple of miles away from the spread before Henry forgot he’d even gone.

John and Harv will take care of the sheep while I’m gone. I’ve already talked with them—and they’ll help us raise that shed when I get back. I should be gone two weeks, maybe a couple of days more if they need me longer in Hayden. And you stay near the house, you hear? Don’t be going to that section you’ve fenced and are trying to farm while no one else is here to go with you.

Hayden. Quite a boom town they got going for them down in Hayden, Henry said, stopping to take a couple of puffs on his pipe. It was like he hadn’t even heard Cal’s admonishment. Used to be that up at Slater was where we’d go for excitement, but now it looks like it’s Hayden—since they put that road through.

Excitement, Cal thought. Yes, it was excitement of a sort that was taking him down to Hayden. He was afraid it wouldn’t be that long before they’d have all of the excitement around here that they could handle, though. He could smell it in the air. The danger. Ever since they’d passed that law back East in Washington that settlers could fence their land, you could feel the tension in the air. Something just waiting to happen. Having the sheep people move in—people like Cal’s foster parents—had raised the tension, what with the cattlemen claiming the sheep ruined the pastures by close cropping and slowly being pushed out of valleys like this in search of better grasslands. Now folks could fence their land and farm it too. Even Old Henry was starting to make the transition. Cal didn’t think the cattlemen would give into that without a fight. And he was afraid that fight would come before the farmers arrived, while the cattlemen could take out their ire on the sheep men.

Cal had already decided he’d leave the valley to do something else once his foster father had passed, but it looked like Old Henry’s brain was going to give out before his body did. It had come to a head over that shed. When it caved in, Cal had told Henry that it was a sign, a sign for them to sell out to a farmer, to sell the sheep, and to move down to Denver.

Old Henry had taken Cal’s hand and walked him out to that little stand of trees up on the hillside in back of the house. They’d stood there beside the graves of Cal’s foster mother and of Henry’s and her two little daughters, and Henry had said that he was going to be buried there too in the not-too-distant future, and that he wouldn’t be leaving his family as long as he had breath.

Cal had lost the question of whether the shed would be rebuilt, but it had been a bad winter. They’d lost sheep. There wasn’t any money for lumber for a new shed. That was until the tinker had passed through, coming up the valley from Hayden, headed for Slater, selling wares off his wagon. He’d been given a message from Levi Yost down in Hayden to deliver to Cal. Samuel Forster at Levi’s place in Hayden had business down in Denver for a couple of weeks and Cal was needed to temporarily take his place. He’d done this once before. The pay was something Cal couldn’t turn down, not at a time like this. So he would be going down the valley and across the Yampa to Hayden for a week or more.

Guess I better be going, he said to his foster father. I’ll take the mule. John and Harv will need the horses to check on the sheep.

Be home for supper, will you?

I’ll be gone for a couple of weeks, Pa. I’m going to Hayden for a couple of weeks. John will be fixing your suppers. You’ve always said his cooking was better than mine, so that should make you happy.

Be sure to say good-bye to Lizbeth and the girls.

Cal’s eyes teared up. After two years, Henry still couldn’t talk like his wife and daughters were gone for good. He still talked to Lizbeth and included her in the day-to-day activities on the sheep farm. Cal turned and walked around the house and started up the hill to the graveyard under the trees. He would have stopped to say good-bye to her anyway, he supposed. But he sure as hell hoped she wasn’t in a position to know what he’d be doing down in Hayden.

When he came back around the side of the house with the mule, the old man was standing at the top of the porch steps. He was holding a couple of wooden dolls in tiny colorful dresses and carved horses in his hands. Cal almost teared up again. Of all the things for his foster father to remember it was to remember to carve those things. It was one of the last things Lizbeth had asked Henry to do. It was before she died but it was while she was caring for Mary and Sally in their last lying-in.

Henry, she’d said, I don’t suppose the girls will need the new dresses I made for their dolls now. We’ll keep the dresses on the dolls they have; the girls will probably prefer having the familiar clothes on their dolls to take across with them. Perhaps when winter sets in you could carve another set of dolls for these dresses, and we’ll send them down to the girls at Mrs. Thornton’s. You might make something for the boys down there too.

Mrs. Thornton was the widow woman down the valley at the schoolhouse, where she was the teacher. She’d taken in several orphan children. She’d been married to a sheep man who had run afoul of some big-time rancher at the southern mouth of the valley and been killed for trying to show spunk. Warren Savage, Cal thought the powerful cattleman’s name was.

And Cal’s foster father had remembered to carve those dolls and a few horses too. Cal wondered when he’d done that. He’d spent most of the winter just sitting at the window and looking up at