Hot Valley (19 page)

I first learned of Young's real plans when he was out of town one night, visiting an investor—or at least that's what he told me. For all I know he could have been fucking someone's son, wife, or daughter. I did not care, and I certainly did not ask questions. I was the biddable servant, so drowsy with pleasure that I did not look beyond the charmed circle of my own satisfaction. I smiled and wriggled when he kissed me good-bye, I lisped some platitude about hurrying back, and bent my head to my dishonest task as Young stomped out of the office in his brand-new, not-yet-paid-for alligator shoes. He looked so pleased with himself, so sure of his plans, as he strutted down Main Street. He had forgotten, I suppose, that he had left his diary in the hotel. Perhaps he thought it was no longer worth hiding from me. Perhaps he thought my curiosity was dulled, or that there was no need to conceal his plans, so close were they to fruition. I waited for an hour before I slipped out of the office, turned the sign to “closed,” and hotfooted it back to the Station Hotel.

Sam was at the desk, as usual. It was his habit to treat me with cold disdain if I was not with Young; when we were together, he simply ignored me. It irked and amused me in
equal measure that Sam could be such a chilly fish, considering that we had shared a bed (and Young's cock) on many occasions, and had even “performed” together for Young's amusement when he was “in the mood for a show.” I had fucked Sam in the mouth and the ass, in every position, over every piece of furniture that the Station Hotel provided, for Young's delectation, as he sat back with his legs hanging over the arms of a plush upholstered easy chair, toying with his cock, goading us with obscene suggestions. Sam gave a good impression of loving every minute of it when we were “onstage”—but behind the scenes he let his true feelings show.

“What do you want?” he snapped, as I approached the desk for the key.

“I need some papers from upstairs.”

“I can get them for you.”

It occurred to me for the first time that, perhaps, Young had warned Sam to frustrate any attempts I might make at independent action. How deeply was he in the plot?

“There's no need for that.”

“I insist, Mr. Edgerton.”

“Please just give me the key.”

He sat behind the desk, coolly eyeing me. I could have punched him. My face was reddening in anger, and I might have given myself away with a careless word, had it not been for the arrival of a splendid matron and her mouselike daughter who sailed up to the desk and demanded Sam's attention. Thus distracted, he could not prevent me from lifting the key from its hook and bounding up the stairs.

I jammed a chair under the doorknob, dropped to my knees beside the bed, and rooted around for the small valise that contained Young's personal effects, including the diary. I knew it would be locked, and I knew the diary itself would be secured in the usual way, but I had taken the precaution of copying the keys from the office. It was the work of an instant to unlock the valise, to burrow through the wads of cash and forged identity papers—I did not stop to read them, and barely had time to wonder how many identities “Bennett Young” had—before I found the object of my quest, the leather-bound notebook, complete with brass padlock, in which Young was accustomed to write every day.

I heard footsteps in the corridor outside, and a knock at the door.

“Mr. Edgerton.”

Sam had dispatched the new guests.

“Just a minute.”

The doorknob turned, but he could not get in. I had to think fast.

“Could you let me in, sir?” He could not raise his voice, nor use the language I'm sure he would have preferred, for fear of other guests hearing.

I unlocked the padlock and flicked through the pages of closely written script. Spelling mistakes leaped to my eyes; Young was a prolific writer, but not well schooled. I saw my name several times in the later pages, but did not stop to read what he had said about me.

“I won't be long, Sam. I'm just…making myself comfortable.” Thank God for our New England squeamishness about matters digestive; even Sam would think twice before interrupting a man at his stool.

“Why didn't you go at the office?”

“I was caught short,” I said, words dancing before my eyes. “I think it was the fish we had in the restaurant last night. It's given me—”

“Please, sir,” Sam said, in a hushed and frightened voice. “The guests!”

I made a revolting noise with my tongue and lips, the best approximation I could muster of a vile and liquescent torrent of shit hitting a chamber pot. Sam groaned audibly outside the door. Prissy fool, I thought, to be so easily disconcerted.

I flicked to the most recent entry and read this:

I could not puzzle out the meaning of these words, but some of them—weapons, ammunition, regiment, raid—were clear enough. Sam's hand was on the doorknob again, rattling it more insistently. I buried the diary at the bottom of the valise, thrust it quickly under the bed, and pulled my pants down.

“Couldn't you wait? Jesus, there's no privacy in this goddam hotel,” I said as I let Sam into the room. “Sorry about the smell.” He held a handkerchief over his nose. “What do you want, then?” It was easy to sound cross.

Sam said nothing, but darted around the room, looking for something. His eyes glanced down at the bed, then up at me, down at the bed again.

“If you think I've got Bennett Young hidden away in here for a quick fuck, you're very much mistaken.” I put on my most pompous voice. “He's out visiting investors.”

“I know that.”

“Are you in the habit of coming uninvited into guests' rooms, Sam?”

“No.”

“No what?”

“No, sir.” He was squirming. I still had my pants around my ankles, and it occurred to me that I might try one of Young's tactics, and fuck the boy into silence. My dick was as big as Young's, it could go all the places his could go, and I knew how much Sam loved it, however much he disliked the person to whom it was attached.

“Shall I empty your pot for you, sir?” He looked around the room, trying to find the evidence of my malaise.

“Oh for Christ's sake, Sam, leave a fellow in peace.”

“It's no trouble.” He darted over to the bed, and looked underneath it. I raced around to the other side, grabbed the pot, and flung a cloth over it.

“I wouldn't dream of it.”

Sam got to his feet and brushed down his trousers; he had obviously satisfied himself that the valise was still there, apparently undisturbed.

“It's no trouble.”

“No, really, I—Oh, Christ.” I managed, through sheer willpower, to squeeze out a fart; not much of a fart, certainly not compared to the competitive pant-rippers that I'd heard around the campfire at Harmony, but enough to convince Sam that I was about to increase the yield in the pot. He backed out of the room with his handkerchief over his face. It had not been necessary to fuck him after all. One fart and he'd flown.

I could not push my luck, though, and I knew that if I stayed any longer in the room, Sam's suspicions would be aroused. I dared not look at the diary again—but I had seen enough to know that my stay in St. Albans was about to come to an abrupt, and perhaps bloody, end. I dressed, grabbed a file of letters that happened, luckily, to be lying on the table, and locked the door behind me.

Sam was back at the desk, glowering at me.

“All done,” I said, brandishing the file at him.

“The key.”

“Here you go.” I tossed it in a high arc; he missed it and was obliged to grovel on the floor as I walked out, whistling “John Brown's Body.”

 

Weapons…ammunition…regiment…raid…meeting with the gang at Jenkins Point…Jack “safe” with Sam…I puzzled
over these fragments as I scratched aimlessly at a sheet of paper in the Northern Rock office, expecting the still air around me to explode with gunshot at any moment. Who was Bennett Young? What was Camp Harmony, and why was he raising a regiment? To whom did he answer? Who gave the commands? Was he simply a pirate, a thief, or was he something worse, a traitor and a mercenary? And what was I? What had I become?

I walked on broken glass for 24 hours, waiting for disaster to strike. But St. Albans went about its business, undisturbed. A few callers came to the office, some even deposited money that they had promised Young in return for share certificates, forged by my pen. I took the notes, I made entries in the ledger, I signed and issued certificates in my own name. What a fool I had been! A forger, an embezzler, a stooge, a sacrificial lamb, my name on everything while Young himself was invisible, a ghost…

He returned at 11 the next morning, his usual charming self, although there was something in his eyes, a strange sparkle, a slight fatigue, as if he was running a fever.

“Good morning, Jack.” He ruffled my hair, kissed my head. “Did you miss me?”

“You know I did,” I said.

“You been a good boy while I was away?”

For the first time, I resented him calling me a “boy”; I was nearly the same age as he. But it suited him to remind me who was boss.

“Yes. I've been good.” I wondered what Sam had told him. Had Young been back to the hotel already? Had he checked on his diary? Had he noticed that it had been disturbed? I put it back as carefully as I could, but for all I knew it may have been protected by a dozen invisible security devices, hairs gummed over the pages, or something of the sort. I waited for an accusation.

“Heard you been sick.”

“I had a delicate stomach.”

“I heard you gassed out the whole of the Station Hotel.”

My act had been convincing, then. “Please, Bennett. That's not nice.”

“You're such a delicate flower.” He put his expensively shod foot up on my desk. “You better now? I don't want shit on my prick when I fuck you.”

“I'm better.”

“Good. Then pull down the blinds and bolt the door, baby, because Bennett's balls are full of cream for you.”

I did as I was bidden, and was soon sucking on his cock with a show of my usual enthusiasm. He was as hard as I had ever known him, maybe harder; perhaps the imminence of a different kind of action was inspiring him. Maybe I was just sucking better than normal. His dick tasted sweet and salty. I pulled my mouth away and a long silver string of sticky juice hung between my lips and his pisshole. I smeared it around my face, wondering if this would be my last taste of Bennett Young's love juice.

“You done those letters like I told you?” he said, caressing my ears.

“Mmmf.”

“You take much money while I was gone?”

“Mmm-hmmf.”

“Okay, baby. Time for you to take this up your sweet ass.”

He pulled down my pants, pushed me over the leather-topped desk, and slicked my ass up with his spit. Soon the Northern Rock office reverberated with the grunting and banging of a good, vigorous fuck. I shot my load over a pile of freshly forged share certificates; Young didn't seem to care. He pulled out, darted around the other side of the desk, held my head by the hair, and squirted a huge volume of spunk into my upturned face. I held my tongue out and caught as much as I could. Even knowing what I knew about Young, and fearing much worse, I was
still unwilling to relinquish a drop of him.

“Gotta go.”

Normally he was gentleman enough to ensure that I came as well; now he couldn't care less. I was hard, my ass was on fire, and I needed release—but Young was putting his coat on.

“Bennett…” I tried to look seductive. “Aren't you gonna…”

“You better take care of yourself.”

“You can watch.” He liked watching, I knew. I lay back on the desk and starting playing with myself. There was a moment's silence, broken only by the juicy noises emanating from my cock. I sighed and closed my eyes and felt my orgasm approaching.

And then I heard Young laugh—a soft, mocking laugh.

“Hey, Jack.”

I stopped stroking.

“Huh?”

I heard the jangle of a bunch of keys. I opened my eyes. Young stood there, the keys in his hand, waving them to and fro. He must have seen the fear that flitted across my expression. What did he know?

“I've got to run now, Jack. It's been fun.”

He winked, turned, and closed the door behind him. And then he locked it—once, twice, the full security that we employed each night when we closed the office. I heard his boots banging down the hallway, and he was gone.

I ran to the door and tried it—knowing, of course, that I could not get out that way. The windows were locked as well, bolted shut, unopenable. I hastily dressed—my cock has shriveled pretty quickly—and thought about calling out for help. There must have been someone else in the building, someone who could find the locksmith to set me free.

I rattled the door, banged it. The rest of the building was silent.

And then, from the street, I heard gunshot.

I ran to the window just in time to see Young, mounted on horseback and leading a gang that comprised, among others, Wallace, Scott, Brown, Collins, Teavis, Doty, and Gregg. They were riding toward the bank, and shooting as they went.

WHAT STARTED OUT AS A LETTER TO JACK EDGERTON, wherever he may be, has become a diary, or at least a habit of writing. We live in strange times, none stranger than the times I'm having at the Alhambra Theater in Richmond, Virginia, under the paternal eye of “Captain” Harold Chester. It seems only right that I should keep some kind of record of this turbulent year of 1863, if only to read back to myself if I ever reach old age. The chances of that look, at present, fairly slender, and we have all adjusted our attitudes to suit the daily imminence of death. The cautious, pious, righteous Aaron Johnson, the ambitious clerk who counseled abstinence and respectability, seems a stranger to me now.