Cole moved away and returned to his raisins, eyes trained on the sky above. Was he contemplating what just happened? Or maybe he did not? Maybe violence like this was so entrenched in his life that he couldn’t feel guilt or fright anymore?
And yet for Ned, something had shifted. The man next to him seemed bigger now, more dangerous. Ned had judged him wrong. He wasn’t a tornado but a flash flood, and could take a life before the victim found out they were in danger.
Ned got up because his joints ached from tension. From now on, violence would become familiar like the crackling of a campfire, a constant hum in the background. Ned stole a glance at Cole’s black hair, burning in the glow of the flames, and realized Cole was like sparks—beautiful and pleasant yet also a threat, if mishandled. Ned would have to make sure his clothes didn’t catch fire.
When he wanted to walk off, eager to relieve his bladder after the unexpected confrontation, the warm hand was back, cuffing Ned’s wrist to Cole, who looked over his shoulder without moving the rest of his body. “You still have a way back. No need to run off on me in secret.”
The hold on his wrist didn’t make him feel like there was such an option.
“Just have to piss. Or do I need permission for that as well?” Ned hadn’t wanted to come off as brash, but at this point he worried that if he didn’t put up a strong front, the whole plan would topple like a badly-constructed shelter in the wind.
Cole stayed bristled like a startled cat, but he let go of Ned with a low hum and faced the fire again.
Their new friendship had taken a bad turn, but Ned wasn’t sure what Cole expected of him. At this rate, he might end up bled out in some forgotten ravine before he even laid his eyes on Butcher Tom’s face again.
He walked off between the trees, where the light of the fire still reached him, and pondered his options as he relieved his bladder. An owl hooted above, and he called back to it, but all he could think about was whether his companion watched him water the bushes.
That moment when Cole had held his knife to Ned’s belly and had his eyes trained on Ned’s came back like a whirr that was about to suck him to the bottom of the river, and caused an array of unexplained anxiety. Anxiety that had nothing to do with the sharpness of the blade. There had been a queer tension between them in the silence. As if Cole had expected something of him but had asked for it in a foreign tongue.
He got sweaty just thinking back to that moment, and memories brought back Cole's pleasant scent. A harsh man ready to shoot people for the fun of it should not have smelled of flowers, even if the fragrance was nothing like the sweetness of women’s perfume. It could’ve been hair oil, much more refined than the rosemary infusion Ned used.
In Ned’s imagination, Cole leaned forward, inching closer as if he wanted to whisper straight into Ned’s lips. Would he communicate what he needed in a language Ned understood this time?
Warm shivers danced along his shoulders and climbed up his neck as he watched the stream of urine make a pool in the grass. His mind produced the imaginary footsteps Cole might make if he approached. He’d sneak up to Ned like a mountain lion and sink his sharp teeth into the neck of his prey. Ned wouldn’t even have the time to save his soul before he bled out, consumed by a beast whose world he’d foolishly invaded.
In the dark, he could almost sense the warmth of another body, though the whisper of air sliding out of Cole’s dusky lips came from below. From the tall grass. He blinked, about to tuck his cock in when his folding knife slipped out of Ned’s pocket, and he dipped forward to catch it.
Fear stabbed his neck when something flashed below, “Damn it!” he screamed out when the snake’s head darted from the shadows and only a quick step back saved his dick from losing an uneven fight. The reptile missed its mark and squashed its jaws on the flesh of his thigh instead.
Ned’s foot slipped in the piss-smelling mud, and he landed on his ass, which the snake took as its cue to flee. Eyes with round pupils looked up at Ned before he shook off the gray-and-yellow body, hot with fright. It wasn't a rattlesnake, but the natural instinct to fear serpents still brought his blood to a boil.
Cole called out his name and, by the sound of it, had already got to his feet, ready to fight whatever beast his companion could have encountered.