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Chapter Ten - Sea of Tranquility

That tall grass grows high and brown.

Well, I dragged you straight in the muddy ground.

And you sent me back to where I roam,

Well I cursed and I cried, but now I know.

Oh, now I know.

~ Gregory Alan Isakov - The Stable Song

August 17, 1863

Herculaneum, Missouri

It was still dark when the front door of the farmhouse opened, still several hours before the sun would rise over the Mississippi River visible from the farmer's front porch to the east. But the cows needed milking, the eggs needed to be collected from the hen house and the pigs needed their breakfast before the farmer, Henry Nix, ate his own.

Henry completed his chores without complaint, just as he did every morning. He fed the pigs, milked the cows and collected the eggs. The sun was just beginning to rise when he walked back into his farmhouse, bringing the eggs and milk into the kitchen.

"Good morning dear," Henry's wife Abigail said cheerfully as she turned from the hearth where she was cooking biscuits and bacon.

Henry smiled at his wife as he set down the eggs and milk. She had a light dusting of flour on her face from the biscuits, clearly visible against the black streaks of fur that ran down the front of her face. She and Henry were both badgers. They'd lived together in this house on their farm for nearly thirty years now, and in all that time their morning routine had barely changed at all. Mornings were busier while they were raising their children, that was true, but they'd all grown and moved out years ago. Now it was just the two of them again, just like in the beginning.

"Good morning, my love," Henry replied to his wife as he walked towards the hearth. "Breakfast smells good."

Henry sat down in his favorite chair next to the hearth. He wasn't old - he kept telling himself that - but some mornings he certainly felt that way. When he was a younger man he could work all day without getting tired. Now, some days just the morning chores left him feeling exhausted, his joints aching and his muscles in pain. It wasn't like it was when he was in his twenties, or thirties, or even his forties; Henry was 56 years old now. His mind was sharp and his spirit strong, but he couldn't deny that he worked slower nowadays and got tired more quickly than he used to, that time was catching up to him.

"You going into town today?" Abigail asked.

Henry knew what she was really asking. For months she'd been telling him he needed to hire help with work around the farm. At first he'd shrugged it off, annoyed even at the suggestion, but as the summer wore on he began to realize his wife was right. Even last summer his middle son, now in his early twenties, had pitched in to help when he could. But Henry's middle son was a married man with a newborn baby, Henry's youngest grandchild. He still helped out when he could, but Henry knew he had his own life now and his own family.

Before the war Henry's other two sons helped him out a lot as well, but they'd both enlisted at the start of the war. Missouri was a deeply divided state, and the Nix family reflected that division.

Henry's youngest son enlisted with the Confederacy. Henry had never used slaves on his farm, not even before the war and before the Emancipation Proclamation when it was legal. It was an injustice he could feel in his heart, a great evil that he would not be part of, even if he couldn't help to stop it. But his youngest son did not share his conviction; he believed with the amount of land the family owned, they could be the richest family in the county if they would only buy a few slaves. There were certainly farms nearby that were much smaller but were so much more profitable for this reason alone. After an especially vitriolic argument with his father when the war started, he'd enlisted with the Southern army.

It had been more than a year since Henry and Abigail received any letters from the young badger, not even twenty years old. They'd received nothing official, but deep down they knew he was dead. There was no other explanation.

Their eldest son, almost thirty years old and with three children of his own, had enlisted with the American army. He'd always agreed with his father about the issue of slavery. He was proud that there had never been a slave owner in the Nix family, and he was prouder to fight to end the institution in America once and for all.

He wrote his parents religiously every week, regaling them with tales from the war while leaving out the worst portions. But last month at the beginning of July they missed his weekly letter. Then the next one. On the third week they'd received a letter from the Department of War thanking them for their son's sacrifice at a small town in Pennsylvania called Gettysburg.

That was a month ago now. Both Henry and Abigail were grieving for their dead sons in their own way. Abigail spent as much time with her grandchildren and her eldest son's widow as she could; they visited the Nix's farmhouse almost every day. She cried for her sons most nights.

Henry just tried to stay busy with his work. Every morning he awoke before the sun rose, and every day he worked his land until long after the sun had set. But he was tired, worn down. He could feel it in his bones and in his heart every day. Abigail was right; he couldn't keep up like this forever, especially not with the corn harvest in a few weeks. He needed help.

"Yes, I'll head into town today. After breakfast, of course. Can't skip that," Henry replied to his wife.

She stopped cooking and turned again from the hearth, giving a look to Henry that he knew from decades of living with her meant "thank you, darling." She didn't need to say a word.

Henry saddled his horse and got on the road just as the sun was rising. His farm was near the tiny village of Herculaneum, but St. Louis was where Abigail meant when she asked her husband to head into town. It was a good thirty mile ride each way from his farm to St. Louis, so riding there and back would take him all day, but if he wanted to find workers he'd need to make the trip. St. Louis was the largest city for hundreds of miles in any direction, and the great gateway to the American frontier to boot. If he couldn't find young men looking for honest work there, they couldn't be found.

The badger had just gotten on the road that ran parallel to the river when, less than a quarter of a mile from his home, he saw something curious. In his cornfield next to the road he saw that several stalks had been torn and knocked over. As he approached, he could tell clearly that there was a path of broken cornstalks leading into his field.

"What in the world..." Henry said to himself as he stopped his horse.

- -

Calvin was on the bluff again. He was sitting on the rock ledge looking out over the valley, the secret place near his home that he discovered as a young pup and thought only he knew about. Puffy white clouds floated by lazily as he felt the warm breeze blow against the fur on his face.

He wasn't alone. In his arms was the blue deer he hadn't known the last time he was here but who had become the only thing in his life that mattered. He always wanted to show Flynn this magical place in the woods that was his secret. He wanted to share it with the one he loved, make it _their_place instead of his. He wanted to erase the memory of what he did here to the badger.

Calvin winced suddenly as he felt a sharp jab to his ribs. He saw Flynn look at him, puzzled and concerned.

"Hey... wake up..." a voice called out.

He winced again as he felt another sharp poke on his side.

"Wake up!"

Calvin opened his eyes. As they adjusted to the light he saw Flynn was laying next to him, still asleep on the bent and broken cornstalks. It was just a dream, Calvin thought as he looked at the beautiful face next to him and the memory of the past days returned to him. But I'm still tired, I think I'll get some more sleep...

Something jabbed Calvin's ribs once more, causing him to yelp sharply and flinch, curling his body as he lay on the ground. He looked up. Framed by the tall cornstalks was the face that haunted his dreams. The badger.

"No!" Calvin screamed, covering his face defensively with his arms. Was this a dream too? It surely didn't feel like one. Was this the ghost of the man he murdered come back to exact revenge? How could this be?

"Hey! Calm down!" The badger yelled at him.

The commotion was enough to wake Flynn as well.

"Stop!" Flynn yelled as he tried to figure out what was happening, flopping onto Calvin to shield him from the badger. "Don't hurt him! What are you doing?!"

"What am I doing? What are_you_ doing? This is my land! And you've ruined a good bushel of my corn, at least!"

"Oh!" Flynn exclaimed, leaning up and off of Calvin. "Sorry!"

He'd been so tired last night after swimming halfway across the river, towing Calvin the whole way, that he hadn't even thought about the corn in the field belonging to anyone.

Neither had Calvin. He'd just wanted to get away from the river and away from that cursed steamboat and away from that evil captain who tried to kill him. In the darkness of the night it seemed like the cornfield would keep them hidden. He hadn't considered that the path of crushed cornstalks could be seen from the road the next morning, and that their path could easily be followed.

"Sorry? That's all you have to say?" The badger yelled down at Flynn. "Someone's got to pay for this!"

Calvin had uncurled from the fetal position now and looked up at the badger. He'd thought it was the badger at first, but now his mind was awake and alert. Of course it's not a ghost, it's just an angry farmer - rightfully angry at the destruction of his crops. But this could still be trouble. They had no money, and if this farmer went to the sheriff, they'd be done for.

I've got to think of something quick, Calvin thought. How did we get ourselves into trouble again so quickly? We hadn't even woken up and we were in hot water again! Quick, think of something!

"We'll pay!" Calvin pleaded.

The farmer looked down on the two trespassers. Calm down, Henry, he thought. Calm down. They're just kids. I shouldn't be so angry with them. I'm better than that. I don't what what circumstances brought them to sleep in a cornfield, so I shouldn't be so hard on them. If they can pay for the corn it's really not a big deal.

"All right, all right," the farmer replied more calmly. "It's fine. I'd say it's about..."

He turned around, looking at the trail of crushed cornstalks leading to the small clearing the trespassers had made, then down again to the area they cleared around them to sleep in.

"...three dollars worth of corn you ruined. So just reimburse me for that and get out of here."

"We... we don't have any money," Calvin replied, flattening his ears. God damn James Cass Mason to hell, Calvin thought. On top of everything else he stole all our money.

"Of course you don't..." the farmer replied with a heavy sigh.

"It's not our fault!" Flynn interjected. "He fell off the steamboat, and I jumped in to save him, and all our stuff is still on the boat, and..."

"We'll work it off! We'll work on your farm to pay you back, we'll do anything!" Calvin interrupted. Flynn was trying to help, but they absolutely couldn't go with that story. That led them back to the steamboat.

The farmer paused for a moment, considering his next course of action. He_was_ heading for town to hire some help anyway. The wolf looked stout and strong, he could certainly put in a hard day's work on the farm. The deer was a bit scrawny though.

"All right, okay, get up..." the farmer said with another sigh, "let's get back to the road and we'll talk about it."

He extended his hand down to Calvin to help him up. Calvin hesitated for a moment before grabbing hold of the farmer's hand and lifting himself up off the ground.

Calvin could see now that, aside from being the same species, this farmer didn't look much like the badger he'd killed back in April. He wasn't as big as Calvin but he was large for a badger, nearly six feet tall and with a broad chest. The pads on his palm were callused, Calvin could feel as he gripped his hand, hardened from a lifetime of manual labor. A long lifetime, by the looks of it; the black and white fur was flecked with gray, betraying his age.

The farmer began walking through the path of crushed cornstalks back to the road. Calvin turned back to Flynn and helped him up off the ground. As they followed the farmer back to the road Calvin could see that Flynn was limping again, quite noticeably. His thigh, still recovering from the bullet that had passed through it less than two months ago, was now heavily bruised under his fur from the blow he'd suffered from Sultana's paddlewheel. His entire leg was in pain as he made his way to the road.

"So you fell off a steamboat?" The farmer asked as Calvin emerged from the cornfield and back onto the road. "How'd you manage to do that?"

They had to go with this now, Calvin thought. Can't think up something new now that we've said it.

"Just bad luck. The deck was wet in the storm last night and I slipped and I lost my balance. I was over the railing and in the water before I knew what happened." Calvin answered.

Flynn limped out of the cornfield and onto the road.

"And your friend here, _he_saved you?" The farmer questioned, seeming to think it unlikely that this able-bodied wolf would need the help of this diminutive deer.

"I did," Flynn answered indignantly. "He can't swim very well and I can. I jumped in after him. I didn't jump far enough though. My leg got hit by the wheel," Flynn decided to head off the question about his limp before the farmer asked. He couldn't see the bullet wound on his leg now with the clothes Flynn was wearing.

"Yeah I was going to ask about that," the farmer replied. "Well, that's a rough way to make it off a boat, no doubt about it. It sounds like you guys have been through the ringer. I'm Henry by the way. Henry Nix. And this is my farm, the Nix farm, as you might have guessed."

The badger extended his hand again to Calvin.

"Nice to meet you Henry," Calvin said as he shook the badger's hand. "I'm..."

Wait_,Calvin thought. _Wait! Don't make the same mistake you made on the steamboat, don't give him your real name!

"Alvin..."

Dumb! Why did I say that, it's too close to my real name! I need a totally fake last name... think Calvin! What can I use? Wolf? No that's ridiculous! Deer-lover... No! Stupid! Think! Pennsylvania... that's where I am from. Penn... Pencil? That's not a name! Penis?

"Pen..."

_ No not penis! _ What the hell Calvin, think!

"Key."

The farmer blinked several times.

"Alvin... Pinkie?" He asked incredulously.

"Yes."

"... Your name is 'Alvin Pinkie?'"

"Yes."

"Well... okay. Nice to meet you too, Alvin Pinkie," Henry said. As he did, Calvin could see from the corner of his eye that Flynn had dropped his forehead into his hand and was shaking his head.

"Nice to meet you too, mister..." Henry said as he extended his hand to Flynn.

"Edward," Flynn answered as he stopped shaking his head and reached for Henry's hand to shake it. "Edward Finch."

• -

The work was grueling.

Henry had intentionally given Calvin one of the most exhausting jobs on the farm to get a sense of what he was capable of. Sure, the wolf Henry found trespassing on his property would work for a few days to pay off the damage he and his skinny friend had done to his crop, but if this young man proved to be a hard worker he might be just the right fit for a more long-term job on the farm.

For the first few hours of the day Calvin busted rocks in the field adjacent to the cornfield, fallow for the season to replenish itself after last year's corn crop. Plowing always dug up rocks and boulders, and the large ones needed to be split to be carried away. Henry had his own work to tend to, but he could observe Calvin from almost anywhere on the property. He never saw Calvin take a break or even slow down.

"How do you know they aren't fugitives?" Abigail asked her husband as they watched Calvin work from their kitchen window. Henry was tired and was taking a break. This is exactly why we needed to hire help, he reminded himself.

"I don't," Henry answered. "But I got a good feeling about them."

"That's because they saved you a trip into town," Abigail said skeptically as she watched Calvin powerfully swing down a pickaxe and split a large boulder cleanly in half, "but I think it's dangerous. You don't know who they are."

"Would I know who anyone I hired was if I just went into town looking?"

"Better than a strange character you found sleeping in a cornfield," Abigail answered. "I don't want them sleeping in the house. I don't want them in the house at all."

"Fair enough. They can stay in the hay loft in the stable and eat their meals by themselves," Henry said.

The Nix's had several extra bedrooms in their home after their children grew and moved away, but if Abigail wasn't comfortable with hired hands sleeping under their roof that was fine, Henry thought.

"How do you know they aren't deserters?" Abigail said, trying to think of new reasons to convince her husband that strangers found on the side of the road should not be candidates for live-in employment.

"I don't. They probably are, and I don't care - I'd probably do the same if I was a younger man fighting in that war. Half the young men in St. Louis looking for work are probably deserters. Can you blame them?" Henry replied. The war had taken two of his three sons from him. As far as he was concerned the more young men who could escape it, the better. "That's better than them being fugitives anyway. Besides, if I don't ask and they don't tell me, the law can't touch me. Sheriff Williamson wouldn't do anything anyway, you know we go way back."

Abigail sighed. She didn't like it but knew Henry was right.

"How much are you paying them?" She asked.

"Thirty cents a day, plus meals and boarding. Maybe I should raise it if they're going to be sleeping in the stable."

"You should raise it anyway. That's awfully little for two men. Too little," Abigail protested sternly. Both she and Henry were involved in the finances of the farm, but to Abigail being fair was more important than saving a little money. They weren't wealthy by any means, but they were comfortable enough to pay their workers a fair wage if they were going to do hard, honest work.

"It's not for two men, it's just for one. That deer Edward has a hurt leg and I don't think he's good for much. I offered the wolf, Alvin, fifty cents a day by himself but he said he wouldn't work if Edward didn't stay. Flat refused. I told him his friend's food and lodging would come out of his pay. He said fine, I said fine. Thirty cents a day."

Abigail looked out from the kitchen window at the field where Calvin was working as he finished filling another wheelbarrow with rocks. How many wheelbarrows full of rocks had he already filled and taken down to dump in the river? Seven? Eight? And it wasn't even lunchtime.

"That still seems like awfully little, Henry. I don't want people saying we're miserly," Abigail chided.

"See if you sing the same tune when he starts eating. If he does the work of two men he'll probably eat like two men," Henry countered. "If that deer Edward can do some work I'll pay them more anyway."

Abigail tilted her head to one side pensively.

"I'm sure we can find something for him to do."

• -

Flynn felt rotten. Calvin was working himself to the bone in that field while he sat on a rocking chair on the Nix's porch watching him. He wanted so badly to help him or do some other work or do something, but he could barely walk. Calvin told him it was okay, but it didn't stop him from feeling useless, lazy, almost guilty.

He saw the surprise on Henry's face when Calvin said he didn't mind working for so little and with Flynn's food and board coming out of his pay. But Henry didn't know what they were. It would have been surprising for Calvin to do that for a friend maybe, but they weren't just friends. Henry would have done it for Abigail, he wouldn't have thought twice. This was no different.

When Henry had gone to fetch the wheelbarrow and the pickaxe, Calvin had pleaded with Flynn not to be upset that he couldn't work. It didn't matter, he'd said. Staying on this farm was their lucky break. With Henry's job offer they had food, they had a place to sleep, but more importantly than anything else they had seclusion and they had time. On the farm, far from any city, they wouldn't have to worry about being spotted by bounty hunters or army officers. They might be able to stay here for months, _years_maybe, time that they wouldn't have to worry about Calvin being caught as a deserter. They might be able to wait out the entire war here. Flynn could work when his leg was better, Calvin said. The money didn't even matter. For now, Calvin would make any sacrifice for them to stay on this farm.

Flynn could see that Calvin was right, but it didn't make him feel any less useless, like dead weight. He stood up on one hoof like he had ten minutes before, hoping his leg had magically gotten better. But as soon as he put weight on it the sharp, piercing pain he'd come accustomed to jolted once again through his thigh. Frustrated, he sat down again in the rocking chair while Calvin split rocks in the field. He felt like crying.

"Good morning Mr. Finch! Lemonade?"

Flynn heard the screen door to the farmhouse creak open. He looked over and saw Henry's wife Abigail walking out with a tray of glasses and a pitcher. She had a jovial smile on her black and white furred face. It was hard not to smile back at her.

"Sure, thanks Mrs. Nix. Please, call me Edward," Flynn said as he stood up, again on one hoof, to meet her.

"You're welcome, and please, call me Abigail! Sit back down Edward, I'll pour you a glass."

Abigail set the tray down on a wicker table next to Flynn and handed him a glass before filling it with lemonade. Flynn had never had lemonade before - another new experience on this journey so far away from that old life back in Tennessee. He wasn't sure if he'd like it, so he took a tiny sip first to see what it tasted like. It was delicious.

"Wow, this is really good," Flynn said honestly as he finished the sip that turned to a gulp.

"The secret's the water," Abigail said. "We have a well behind the house that taps into a pure freshwater spring. That's why it's so cold."

Flynn took another gulp before setting down the glass on the table. He'd finished half of it without even realizing. Abigail took the pitcher and refilled his glass.

"So Edward, if I may ask... how is it that you and your friend Alvin ended up sleeping in a cornfield in Herculaneum? Must be quite the story," Abigail asked as she set the pitcher down again.

Flynn knew this was dangerous. It _was_quite the story, but he couldn't let her know the whole truth. That said, he knew from their previous experiences that it was best to include as much of the truth as possible when lying about who they were, what they were, where they were going and why. It's easy to get caught in a big lie, but it's even easier when your big lie is constructed out of dozens of smaller lies. Always better for those supporting columns to be the truth whenever possible, sturdy and strong to hold up your flimsy house of cards.

"Well, we were heading to St. Louis on a steamboat from Cairo. We were heading for the frontier," Flynn answered. "Me and Alvin, we were out on the deck late last night just chatting when he slipped and fell. He slid right under the railing and into the water. He can't swim so I jumped right in, but I got hit by the steamboat paddle in the water."

"That was very brave of you Edward. I guess Alvin feels like he should pay your way until you get better since you saved him from drowning, that makes sense," Abigail said. She was rocking in her chair looking out to the field at Calvin, who was returning from the river with an empty wheelbarrow.

"What made you decide to head for the frontier?" she continued.

"I... neither one of us had anywhere else to go, not really. I don't know, it seemed like the best idea. A chance to start over new."

Flynn's mind was scattered. What excuse could he give? There was no reasonable excuse other than them being deserters. He could lie to Abigail, but nothing he could say would make any sense. He knew the next question she was going to ask was why they had nowhere to go, why they needed a chance to start over. And he knew he had no answer.

Abigail took a sip from her own glass of lemonade. It was clear to her that Alvin and Edward were deserters, but she remembered what Henry had told her. If she didn't ask and Edward didn't tell her, they couldn't be held responsible for anything in the eyes of the law. And besides, was running away from this war such a bad thing? Could she judge them for it, not knowing what horrible things they'd been through? Would her two sons still be alive if they'd made the same choice?

She could ask a few more questions of Edward, questions he couldn't answer. She could catch him in this lie. She knew that. But in this case, on this issue, it was better to pretend.

"Well, I believe that everyone deserves a second chance. And the West is the place for second chances, to be sure. I have a nephew who swears by that," Abigail said. She took another sip of lemonade before changing the subject. "You must have taken quite a hit on your leg from that paddlewheel to not be able to walk. I'm sure there's something you can do to help out on the farm until it gets better though. Do you know any trades?"

Flynn felt like an enormous weight had been lifted from his shoulders. It was obvious to him that Abigail could have cornered him in his lie and was on the verge of doing so, but she intentionally backed off and changed the subject. She didn't want to know.

"Well..." Flynn replied, thinking hard about work he could do that didn't involve walking, "I'm a good swimmer, but I don't suppose that helps much on a farm. Where I grew up... I don't think you could call it a farm, it was more of a homestead. I helped grow some vegetables in our garden but it wasn't much. My father was a hunter, that's how he made his money, but I was never very good at that either."

Abigail pursed her lips. Swimming, hunting, gardening... these weren't skills that were of much use on their farm.

"Did you ever do any smithing, or tend to animals? We could use someone who can shoe our horses and tend their hooves," Abigail suggested.

Flynn frowned. He didn't know the first thing about that.

"No, Ca... my friend Alvin is good with horses. He's an expert really. He can ride like you wouldn't believe. I'm not any good with horses though."

Flynn was feeling even more useless now. He couldn't think of anything he could do or any skill he had that would be of any use at all, and he hated it. He could feel himself on the verge of tears again, but he had to hold them back. If Abigail saw him cry she'd _really_know he was useless.

"Can you cook? Prepare food? We have our grandchildren over for dinner almost every night, it's a lot of work to get everything ready and I could use some help in the kitchen."

"I don't know, I've never really cooked much. But I could learn! I could help!" Flynn said, holding back tears, desperately wanting to find something he could do to pull his weight on the farm.

"No... not to be rude Edward, but if you don't have experience in the kitchen you'd probably just get in the way. I appreciate the enthusiasm but I don't think that would work, I'm sorry."

Abigail was acutely aware of how disappointed in himself Flynn was feeling. It was written on his face. She tilted her head again, trying to think of something for him to do. As she did she straightened the apron she was wearing, feeling the hole in the fabric underneath one of the straps.

"What about mending clothes? Lord knows Henry has enough holes in all his clothes to keep someone busy for..."

"Yeah!" Flynn exclaimed, cutting off Abigail, "I can do that! I've been mending clothes since I was little! I even got a lesson from a real tailor once!"

"Well then, I'll fetch some of Henry's overalls and my sewing kit and we'll get you started then! You can work right out here on the porch," Abigail said, happy to have found something for Flynn to do. She was beginning to worry that he really didn't have any skills at all, though the quality of his work remained to be seen.

Flynn saw Calvin still working in the field as Abigail stood to gather supplies for him to get started. Calvin paused as he heard the door creak open as Abigail went back inside. He wiped his brow, ruffling the fur on the top of his head, and waved happily at Flynn. Flynn smiled as he waved back, holding back laughter now instead of tears at Calvin's silliness and his cute ruffled fur. This might all work out after all.

After Abigail came back with the supplies Flynn worked diligently with the needle and thimble for several hours without rest. He had muscle memory from the countless patches he had sewn into his father's clothing. The pieces of advice Arty had given him and the techniques he used in the short time Flynn had watched him work came back to him. There was something about this work that let Flynn get into a rhythm.

He didn't even realize several hours had passed when the screen door creaked open. Fastened to the wall next to the door was a bell suspended in a wrought iron frame. Abigail began ringing the bell as loudly as she could with a big metal spoon.

"Henry! Alvin! Lunchtime!" She called out from the porch. In the field Calvin set down his pickaxe and began walking towards the farmhouse.

"How's the sewing coming along, Edward?" Abigail asked after she stopped ringing the bell. She walked over to the makeshift workshop Flynn had set up on her porch.

"Great! I already patched four of Henry's overalls and I just started on a fifth!"

Abigail picked up one of the garments Flynn had repaired, taking a closer look at the patches Flynn had sewn in. The needlework was absolutely flawless. She picked up the next pair of overalls, which had needed even more work, and again saw that Flynn's work was faultless. Abigail was skilled at needlework but she doubted she could have done it any better herself, and she knew that it would have taken her half the day to patch just one of these garments. For Flynn to have done this much and with such skill was truly astounding to her.

"Edward... this is incredible work," she said holding one of her husband's repaired overalls. She looked past it down at the blue deer. He was smiling broadly, but he wasn't looking at her. His eyes were on the tall, strong wolf making his way towards the farmhouse. He'd taken his shirt off at some point during the day, his powerful muscles visible clearly under his fur.

"Smells good Mrs. Nix!" Calvin complimented as he walked up the front porch stairs, the aroma of the food wafting out of the open screen door. He stole a glance at Flynn, whose happiness was apparent and infectious.

"Thank you Alvin! You've been working up an appetite and we've got plenty so help yourself. Don't wait on Henry, he's so slow..."

"Normally I'd object but I am absolutely starving, so I'll take you up on that!" Calvin beamed as he walked into the kitchen.

Abigail remembered as Calvin walked into the kitchen that she had told Henry that these two workers wouldn't be allowed in the house. That didn't last long, she thought. But she'd never seen anyone work the field as diligently as Alvin, and Edward had surprised her with a hidden talent. Plus he'd be able to work in the field as soon as his leg healed, and they were both just so friendly and polite. Maybe she was wrong about them after all.

Calvin couldn't believe his eyes when he went through the door into the kitchen. His mouth watered and his jaw dropped as he saw all the food Abigail had cooked. Flynn's did too as he hobbled into the kitchen behind Calvin.

A tray of sliced baked country ham was at the center of the table. Surrounding it were several other dishes - sweet corn, fresh cut green beans with minced carrots, mashed potatoes with gravy and deviled eggs. Rounding out the meal was crackling cornbread still in the cast-iron skillet and a beautiful fresh-baked apple pie.

Calvin closed his mouth so he wouldn't drool. For more than two years he'd been living on the most awful food imaginable, hardtack and near rotten salted meats and dry goods from a general store. It had been at least two years since he'd had a meal like this. But for Flynn it was even longer - he grew up so poor that feasts like this were the stuff of dreams.

"Well you boys can gawk, but I'm going to fix me a plate!" Henry boomed, laughing as he squeezed past the deer and the wolf standing in the doorway. Calvin and Flynn watched, still awestruck, as he began loading his plate.

---

September 26, 1863

Nix Farm, Herculaneum, Missouri

Calvin was asleep on a chaise in the living room of the Nix's farmhouse. It was too small for him; his feet hung over the armrest, but he had been too tired to care or notice when he'd laid down.

Flynn didn't even make it to a chair or any other piece of furniture. He was laying on a rug directly on the hardwood floor beside the chaise Calvin was on, fast asleep.

Abigail shook her head and smiled as she tiptoed past them. She thought about getting blankets or pillows for them to make them more comfortable but decided it would be best to just let them rest. They'd earned it.

Today had been the last day of the corn harvest. It was the big job that Abigail had been trying to convince Henry to hire help for since he'd nearly worked himself to death doing it last year.

The corn harvest was always difficult and strenuous since it was a job that, despite all the advances in machinery of the past few decades, still had to be done by hand. Every stalk had to be pulled out at the root - that was tough work in itself. Once the stalk was pulled, each ear of corn had to be individually cut off of it with a knife. The ears of corn would go in one horse-drawn wagon while the cornstalks would go into another to be used as feed for the horses, cows and pigs for months.

The difficulty in the job was the shear amount of corn Henry had growing on his land - acres upon acres spread out from his farmhouse. Pulling stalks out of the ground was tough, but doing it hundreds, thousands of times put such a strain on a worker's back that it became painful. Cutting ears off stalks was easy, but over thousands of repetitions a worker was bound to cut his fingers and hands at least a few times.

They worked all hours. The field absolutely had to be clear that week to get the entire crop to market at the same time. Monday morning they began preparing before the sun rose and worked through the day. After the sun set they worked by torchlight and moonlight until nearly eleven o'clock at night. On Tuesday they did it again. On Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, again. They woke early again today, Saturday, and finally cleared the field in the early afternoon before collapsing in exhaustion.

Abigail crept into her bedroom to check on Henry. He, too, was fast asleep, buried under a blanket with the afternoon sunlight streaming into the room.

She decided to get blankets for Edward and Alvin after all. She pulled them down from one of the high shelves in her bedroom linen closet and tucked one underneath each arm. These weren't just blankets, these were quilts that her mother had made when Abigail was a child.

She unfolded the first, its red and blue and green patchwork still bright even after all these decades. Carefully, slowly, she laid it on top of Edward. He stretched his legs and sighed, but he remained asleep. Abigail was glad that whatever injury he'd sustained to his leg seemed to have healed quickly. He still walked with a slight limp - he would for the rest of his life because of the bullet wound Abigail didn't know about - but it didn't seem to impede him much.

He wasn't nearly as strong as Alvin and wasn't as good at field work, but he worked hard all the same, and she'd made good use of his tailoring skills. In the past month he'd repaired every garment in the house, then every item of clothing her son had brought over from his house. Now he was working on alterations for all their grandchildren's clothing, loosening and expanding fabric where possible to get more usage out of every shirt and pair of pants before the children outgrew them. And in every task his work impeccable. She thought it certain that he must have worked as a tailor before the war, but like so much about the two hired workers she'd grown fond of she thought it best not to pry into his past.

Abigail unfolded her second quilt. Carefully she stepped over Edward and gently laid it on top of Alvin. But despite her best efforts, the disturbance woke the sleeping wolf.

He blinked twice before he saw her face. The badger's face. Abigail saw, unexpectedly, that when his eyes fell on her a wave of fear and panic swept over him.

"No!" he yelped. Abigail flinched and let go of the quilt.

"Alvin! It's me!" Abigail said after she regained her composure, startled at his reaction.

"Mrs. Nix!" Calvin said as he remembered where he was. "I'm sorry! I thought it was the... no, I'm sorry. What time is it? Is it time to work?" He began removing the quilt Abigail had just put on him thinking he'd been asleep longer than he had.

"No, child! You've worked hard enough! You fell asleep on the chaise and I just got you a blanket. See?" Abigail said, lifting the blanket again and putting it back on the wolf. "Go back to sleep."

"Ah, okay. Thank you Mrs. Nix. Sorry about that, I just... never mind. Thanks."

Abigail just smiled and patted Calvin on his head as he closed his eyes again. She knew he'd be asleep again in minutes. There was something about these two that had grown on her since they first started working on the farm. They were genuine, friendly, caring in a way that none of the other hired hands they'd ever had on the farm had been. They had their secrets, too, but she was content to let them hold onto those. It was safer that way. It kept them all safe.

She wouldn't admit it, but in some ways they reminded her of her two sons who would never be coming home again. She felt almost motherly towards them in a way she couldn't explain.

Abigail tiptoed back out of the room towards the kitchen, then to the screen door that opened out to their porch. She pushed on it slowly and carefully so that it wouldn't creak like it normally did, but despite her efforts it still made a bit of noise, loud enough to turn the heads of all her family members outside on the porch.

"Hi Grandma!" Abigail's oldest grandson, a seven-year-old badger, waved at her excitedly with a beaming smile on his black and white furred face.

"Hi little one!" Abigail replied, waving back just as enthusiastically.

"We're almost finished, look!" the child said with delight.

Abigail looked at the piles, baskets and bins strewn about the porch, then out to the wagons loaded next to the farmhouse. During the past few days while the men had worked in the field, Abigail had worked alongside the widow of her dead son and her grandchildren, shucking the ears of corn the men brought in. The corn would be sold by weight once it was delivered to town, but buyers would only pay for it if all the husks had been removed. It wasn't nearly as physically demanding as harvesting the corn from the field, but shucking every single ear of corn was a job that had to be done.

"Thank the Lord for that," a deep voice said from behind Abigail. She turned around and saw Cody Nix, her twenty-three year old nephew, sitting in a rocking chair beside the door. He'd worked in the field with Henry, Calvin and Flynn all week and was just as tired as the rest of them. He'd nodded off in the rocking chair a few times but the children kept waking him up. He didn't mind.

"Six days. Too long, could have used more hired hands. And you're lucky I was back from out West."

Abigail frowned, knowing exactly what Cody meant. He'd arrived back in Missouri from California just a week before the corn harvest. This was the third year in a row he'd joined up with a wagon train in St. Louis in the Spring, hired to protect the settlers, hunt food, fix broken equipment, cook, scout, fight - anything that needed to be done to make sure the wagons and their occupants made it to San Francisco. Unlike his aunt and uncle, Cody didn't have any land of his own, and these trips paid well. They also let him stay far away from the war and the draft, which was his real reason for going the first time. But after that first trip across the plains and the desert, the trail was a part of him. Frontier life was what he was cut out for, he knew that. He'd be leaving again next Spring.

"You're right, we are lucky, Cody. I don't think we could have finished the harvest this year without your help. And you're right, we probably should have hired more help this year. We will next year, for certain."

Now it was Cody who frowned. He hadn't meant to sound rude to his aunt, but sometimes when he spoke things came out in a different way than he had it in his head. A sunset over the prairie, the sounds of birds chirping in a meadow or water rushing in a mountain stream - those he understood. That plain and direct and unambiguous language spoke to him. He tended to speak in the same way: raw and without nuance.

"I'm sorry Aunt Abigail. I didn't mean to sound crass. I just worry about you and Uncle Henry is all."

"Nothing to apologize for, Cody. I know you do," Abigail said genuinely, smiling. "Let me make you some lemonade. You always liked that when you were little."

Cody couldn't help but smile back. The young badger certainly looked the part of a rough frontiersman, tall and lean and wiry, black and white fur on his face constantly covered in dust from hard work. But Abigail had known him since he was a baby. Under it all she knew that he was the sweetheart kid who loved animals and spent countless summer days on their land as a boy exploring, fishing, playing with her sons.

"Thank you Aunt Abigail, I'd love a lemonade," Cody said earnestly.

Cody leaned back in the rocking chair as his aunt went back into the house. He'd nearly fallen asleep when she came back out, tray of lemonade in hand.

"Here you go," she said, handing the cool glass to Cody as he opened his eyes.

"Thank you," he said before taking a sip. It was just a delicious as he remembered from when he was a kid.

Abigail sat in the rocking chair next to his. They both stared out into the newly-cleared cornfield for a moment before she spoke.

"You're right, we will have to hire more help next year for the harvest. I don't think there's any disputing that. But you know, I was lucky to be able to convince Henry just to hire those two? Can you imagine you and Henry trying to do all that by yourselves?"

"Couldn't be done, just us two. In a week? Couldn't be done," Cody answered. "Those boys you hired work hard. Real hard. Alvin's strong as anything."

Cody took another drink from the glass, this time a deep gulp. He'd forgotten how good everything that came out of his aunt's kitchen tasted.

"They're wanting to go to California," Cody said bluntly.

"I know. They've mentioned it to us too," Abigail answered. Since they arrived on their farm she'd heard both the deer and the wolf mention heading west almost every day. They were saving every cent they earned - a dollar and fifty cents a day between them, since Abigail had convinced Henry to pay them better - to pay for passage on a wagon train and for supplies for the journey. They'd have more than enough money by the Spring of next year, she knew.

"Have they asked to join in with your company when you leave in the Spring?" she asked her nephew.

"They have," Cody answered tersely.

"What did you tell them?" Abigail asked. She wished Cody wouldn't leave again for the West, but she knew that's where his heart was and would always be. She felt the same way about her new house guests, whose labor her husband had grown to rely on and whose company she had grown to adore over the past month.

It's the way a mother can feel about any of her children. It's the struggle between wishing a child could stay forever while knowing that they are meant to leave and live their own lives. It's the struggle between wanting to keep a child safe and knowing you can't. It's the struggle of realizing when your parenting days are over, accepting that your children have become grown men who must make their own way in the world. Two of her three sons were dead now, taken by the war. She'd had more sleepless nights of tears than she could remember, wishing she could have kept them on the farm and away from the war. But that wasn't her place and she'd come to accept that. She'd stopped blaming herself. Her sons were never meant to stay here on the farm. Neither were Cody or Alvin or Edward.

Cody took another deep gulp of lemonade before answering.

"I told them sure."

---

November 26, 1863

Nix Farm, Herculaneum, Missouri

"Peak... a-boo!"

The baby badger - Abigail and Henry's granddaughter not even a year old - laughed gleefully and wiggled happily just as she had the previous dozen times.

"Peak..." Calvin said, covering his face again while the cub waited eagerly. "A-boo!"

The badger cub laughed just as hard as she had the first time, waving her chubby little arms up and down enthusiastically as she sat on one of the long wooden tables in the yard next to the Nix's farmhouse.

"They never get tired of it when they're that young. You'll be on peak-a-boo duty for the next hour," Henry said with a chuckle as he sat on the bench next to Calvin.

"I think she just isn't used to a wolf's face. She probably just thinks I look funny," Calvin answered with a wide smile. "Peak... a-boo!"

The baby badger squealed with delight yet again. Henry couldn't help himself from laughing too - it was impossible not to smile when he saw one of his grandchildren so happy.

"You might be right. I think you and Edward are some of the only people she's ever seen who aren't badgers. Look around," Henry said.

Calvin did. There must have been close to a hundred badgers on the Nix farm that night - friends, family, extended family, extended family of their extended family, and at least a few who Henry and Abigail hadn't even seen before. There were many more long wooden tables and benches set out in the yard like the one they were sitting at. Most of them were stacked with food of every imaginable description, each bowl and platter brought by one of the guests for this special night.

It was Thanksgiving, the first in the nation's history. Later generations would be told that the first Thanksgiving took place hundreds of years beforehand, a story about Pilgrims and Natives joining together for a feast, but this was a fiction. This year, 1863, President Lincoln called for a day of national thanks in recognition of the great military successes the Union Army had achieved. It seemed almost miraculous to so many that the Union Army, so close to total defeat at the beginning of the year, had managed to turn the tide in the war, stringing together victory after victory and sending the Confederates into retreat. The war was far from over, everyone knew, but there was a great sense of optimism now that the end was in sight and the Union would win. And that called for a celebration.

Calvin caught sight of Flynn as he took a look around. He stood out even more than Calvin did - a blue-furred deer in a sea of black and white badger fur. But it didn't seem to matter. He was standing next to Abigail, chatting, laughing with a few of the Nix's extended family members, having a great time. They all had glasses in their hands, filled with corn whiskey that one of Henry's brothers had brought in a large cask from his farm down the road. This was going to be a night to remember.

"Thank you so much for letting us join..." Calvin started before Henry cut him off.

"Naah, I don't want to hear that," Henry said as he waved his hand dismissively. "You work the farm, you tend the animals, you live here. It's Thanksgiving. Today you're part of our family."

Calvin looked over at the aging badger, his warmth and kindness etched on his face. It had been strange the first few weeks on the farm. Every time he saw Henry or Abigail or one of their many badger family members, he couldn't help but think back to that April morning. To the badger he'd killed. But as the weeks turned to months he thought about that less and less. These faces meant something else now.

"Go get yourself a drink before we eat, Alvin. Have some fun. I'll watch the little one," Henry said, lifting his baby granddaughter off the table.

"Thanks. That does sound like a good idea," Calvin said with a smile as he stood up and started walking towards Flynn.

It turned out to be the best party either of them had ever been to. Half the badgers were half-drunk on corn whiskey before it was time to eat. When the dinner bell rang they were presented with a feast unlike any they'd ever seen. The quality and largess of the meal they'd had the first day on the farm had taken both of them by surprise, but as they soon found out the Nix's ate like that for every meal, every day. Working on the farm took a huge amount of energy, after all.

But while the meals that Abigail prepared for them every day were fantastic, they were nothing compared to the shear variety and quantity of food on all the tables before them. Flynn counted seven different meat courses before he stopped trying - turkey, ham, beef, chicken, fish, a few he'd never seen before. There were casseroles and breads and cakes, yams and potatoes and peas, corn cooked every conceivable way, souffles and puddings, custards and fruit tarts, pies of every description and any drink they could imagine. It was absolutely overwhelming.

They sat next to each other to eat alongside Henry and Abigail and Cody and a half dozen other new friends they'd met that night, family members and spouses and friends and strangers celebrating together on this cool Fall evening. They passed dishes around the table and told stories and filled their bellies as the sun set.

The air began to chill after the sun disappeared behind the horizon, but several of the badgers at the table were wearing coats that Flynn had tailored himself. Word of Flynn's skill had spread quickly around the Nix family, and most days Flynn found himself happily working on a cousin's jacket or a niece's dress or making a new pair of trousers. Even Flynn was surprised by how quickly he had taken to this new line of work and how natural it felt. He only wished he had discovered this talent sooner.

When dinner was over and the skies were dark, a handful of the badgers scrambled to and fro to light lanterns and torches. As if to upstage those light sources, one of Henry's brothers had worked during the day to make a huge bonfire. Some of the strong corn whiskey was poured on it, and when Henry's brother threw the match to light it there was a tremendous fwoosh that made all the children laugh and clap.

Calvin and Flynn stood next to each other around the bonfire along with a few dozen of the badgers, soaking up the heat in the chilly November nighttime air. The atmosphere felt absolutely magical to Flynn; for the first time in his life he felt like he had found his place, like he was part of a real family. Like he belonged.

They'd only been watching it for a few minutes when they heard the unmistakable, discordant sound of a fiddle player tuning his instrument. When they turned around they saw that several younger badgers were setting up to play in front of the farmhouse.

"They're getting ready to play! It wouldn't be a party without music, would it?" Flynn and Calvin overheard one of the younger badgers say.

"No it wouldn't! It's time to dance!" one of his friends replied.

And indeed it was.

The rest of the night went by in a blur for Flynn and Calvin. When the band started playing they joined in with the younger badgers dancing in the light of the bonfire.

No one thought anything peculiar about two men, the wolf and the deer, dancing together - dancing to lively music was simply viewed as a fun social activity at the time. So they danced and they sang into the night, badgers of all ages around them doing the same. Between songs they might take a few more sips of the corn whiskey or help themselves to a snack - none of the badgers seemed bashful about eating some of the leftovers from their Thanksgiving feast.

They were having so much fun that they lost track of time. The hours slipped away so quickly while they danced that before they knew it some of the badgers were leaving the field that had become their dance floor to retire for the night. Some had retreated back into the farmhouse to pass out on any piece of furniture they could find, some were asleep on the benches or even on the ground. There had been more liquor available than they could hope to drink in a month, and clearly many of the badgers had overindulged.

Not just the badgers, either. Calvin was definitely feeling the effects of the alcohol, but he'd been careful not to get too drunk. Tried to be careful, anyway. Between almost every song he and Flynn would return to their drinks and take a few more sips of the strong corn whiskey, but he was only drinking enough to maintain his buzz.

It wasn't until several hours in that Calvin realized that Flynn was drinking the same amount as him. Flynn had only had alcohol a few times in his life and he was more or less taking his cues from Calvin on what was the "right" amount to drink. It wasn't until Flynn was visibly drunk that Calvin realized his mistake - Flynn was so much smaller than him that the amount of alcohol that let Calvin maintain a buzz had gotten Flynn drunk.

"Let's not get another, I think we've had enough for tonight," Calvin said after another song came to an end.

"Aww, you're no fun..." Flynn slurred with a broad grin as he slapped Calvin playfully on his shoulder. "Jus' one more drinky-winky-dink? I'm still lil' thirsty... lil' bit."

Calvin smiled back, trying not to laugh. He'd never seen Flynn drunk before, but Flynn was proving to be a very _social_drunk. Very friendly, very outgoing - very cute, Calvin thought - and increasingly frisky.

"Well... if you're still thirsty you can get one, don't let me stop you. I'm at a good point though, I think I'll ride it out," Calvin said as he put one hand behind his head, ruffling the fur behind his ear. The stars shining brightly above him in the black November sky were only spinning a little, so he knew he was just at the right level of inebriation.

"I_am_ still lil' thirsty so I think I _will_get mw'one, thank you ver' much..." Flynn said coyly. Calvin felt Flynn's hand slide from his shoulder down the side of his body as he spoke. He knew exactly what was on Flynn's mind - that particular look in his eye, that undeniably devious smile, that specific turn of phrase he always used when he was feeling flirty.

"But you know... maybe it's time for a different flavor."

If Calvin had any lingering doubts about what was on Flynn's mind, they disappeared when the deer's hand continued trailing downward.

"Maybe I c'get one straight from the tap, help you ride it out," Flynn whispered as his hand slid to the front of Calvin's pants, over and past his brass US belt buckle. He unapologetically felt the form within, grasping Calvin's sheath. "Or maybe I c'do the riding for you..."

Calvin wanted to kiss Flynn right then and there. He wanted to do more, start feeling Flynn's body - he knew every inch of the deer intimately now, but Flynn was just as alluring as he was that first clumsy time in the deep Pennsylvania woods. Calvin wanted to let their lusts progress to sex as they had done a hundred times before. He was unabashedly mesmerized and deeply in love as he looked into the deer's icy blue eyes, the red tip of his canine cock beginning to slide out of his sheath as Flynn felt it through his pants.

Familiar thoughts began to dance through his head. _How did I get so lucky, for someone like this to love me? He's so beautiful, so sexy, so perfect. How did I end up with someone so perfect?_He felt himself starting to lean in as his own hand slipped lower down Flynn's back, down towards his butt. The band once again started playing.

The music snapped Calvin back to the present moment.

Flynn felt him pull away sharply. Calvin saw the brief confusion appear in Flynn's eyes, then fade immediately to disappointment as he realized why Calvin had to pull back.

"I'm sorry, it's..." Calvin started.

"No, I know," Flynn sighed in return as he let his hands drop to his sides, the thoughts now in his head seeming to sober him up somewhat.

Nothing more needed to be said. All around them were happy badger couples dancing, kissing, doing exactly what they had been doing seconds prior. But those couples could feel comfortable doing that in public. They didn't have to worry about people seeing them, about their relationship being dangerous. They didn't have to pretend.

"I wish we could be normal," Flynn said as he looked at one of the couples kissing, care free, on a wooden bench.

"I don't."

Flynn looked back up at Calvin with quizzical eyes.

"Yeah you do. You told me that once, remember? On the flatboat. You said it would be so much easier if we were like Jonathan and Emily. And it would be. We could just be open, honest about _us,_who we are. To Henry, to Abigail, to everybody. I wish we didn't have to pretend."

Calvin looked past Flynn to the groups of badgers near the band, couples holding hands and snuggling up to each other in the cool Autumn air.

"Yeah, I guess I did say that," Calvin said, remembering that night on the flatboat. "I wish we didn't have to pretend is what I mean. I hate lying to Henry and Abigail, pretending that we're just friends. But that's not the same as being normal, you know? That's just other people's opinions. Maybe not even their opinions, maybe just what they've always been told and never had to think about too hard. Jonathan and Emily... they were like that before they really knew us, right? But they changed. People can change."

Calvin reached for Flynn's hand and held it tenderly. He looked down into Flynn's blue eyes, cool and clear as the brisk night air.

"What folks think is 'normal,' what's not... whatever. I don't care any more. What we are is right, I know that. Right for us. I've never felt as right about anything in my life as when I'm with you. That's all that matters. I wouldn't change that for anything, no matter what anyone else thinks. They can keep their opinions and their judgments and their ideas of normalcy. I'll keep you."

Flynn felt his cheeks warm under his fur and the pressure of his emotions on the backs of his eyes, and he knew it wasn't from the alcohol. He gazed up at the big gray wolf looking lovingly down at him, a million stars shimmering in the chilly night sky behind him.

"How about you start by keeping me warm tonight..."

"I think I can manage that."

Flynn smiled up at Calvin and squeezed his hand. He glanced over his shoulder as he led Calvin away from the field they'd worked in for weeks and danced in for hours, heading towards the horse stable that had been their home for the past three months.

None of the badgers still singing, dancing and drinking seemed to notice their departure, a blue deer leading a gray wolf by the hand away from the party. The grins on their faces told their entire story, their intentions would be clear to anyone paying attention.

But no one was. The badgers were all having too much fun to care.

• -

Flynn slowly opened the creaky stable door with one hand, leading Calvin through the darkness with the other. As he did a few of the horses in their stalls turned to look. Normally they'd all be asleep by now, but the light and the noise from the party had kept a few of them awake.

They paid little attention to Flynn and Calvin as they entered the stable and made their way past the stalls to the hay loft on the far side of the building. The horses knew their roommates well enough by now. They'd been living in the stable with them since August, sleeping up in the loft. The horses closed their eyes and tried to get some sleep as the wolf and the deer tiptoed past.

Flynn paused at the base of the ladder that led up to the hay loft. His cervine hooves were good for many things, but climbing ladders was certainly not one of them. Even in the light, even when he was sober climbing ladders could be a struggle. His narrow pronged hooves struggled to find purchase on the narrower wooden slats. He'd missed rungs and slipped more times than he could count, and once he almost fell off the ladder entirely.

"Hop on my back," Calvin whispered to Flynn in the darkness, well familiar with the problem Flynn faced with ladders.

Flynn moved behind Calvin, wrapping his arms around the wolf's neck and his legs around Calvin's muscular body. Calvin put his hindpaw on the first rung and began climbing the wooden ladder easily, the hundred and thirty pound deer on his back not slowing him down at all. In a few seconds he'd climbed to the top.

Their eyes had adjusted to the darkness now. Thin beams of moonlight filtered in from the gaps between the wooden boards of the stable's walls and ceiling. Calvin leaned forward as he crested the top of the ladder so that Flynn could crawl off. There was no safety railing on the loft, a wooden platform suspended twelve feet above the dirt floor of the stable. It was large enough for this not to be a concern except when they were navigating the ladder, however, and the other three edges of the loft abutted the walls of the building.

Calvin looked up at Flynn as the deer crawled off his back. He could see the slight, enticing bulge in Flynn's pants, right below his enticing ass and short, flagging cervine tail. The pointed tip of Calvin's canine member had begun to slide out of his sheath while they were still outside, but as he watched Flynn slink forward, crawling on his knees to their bed, he felt his erection start to press firmly against his own pants.

Almost subconsciously Calvin reached out as Flynn crawled over him and away. His hand found Flynn's lower leg, and he let his fingers slide over the blue fur of the deer's digitigrade foot as he crawled forward. Flynn paused as Calvin's fingers traced over his dewclaws and onto his cloven hoof. He looked back and smiled mischievously as he wiggled his two prongs in Calvin's hand.

"God, Flynn... you know what that does to me..." Calvin whispered.

"Sure I do..." Flynn seductively whispered as he stretched his leg back, pushing his hoof to Calvin's muzzle and wiggling his prongs. Calvin began licking the hoof as Flynn knew he would, pressing his tongue between the prongs; he could never understand what Calvin got out of playing with his hooves, but he knew it was a guaranteed turn on for the wolf and the easiest way to tease him.

Almost as soon as Calvin began licking Flynn pulled away again. He tried not to giggle as he saw the look of both desire and disappointment on Calvin's face.

"Nuh-uh, not on the ladder, silly... come and get it..." Flynn teased as he started crawling towards their bed, trying not to laugh as he heard Calvin quickly scramble up the last few rungs of the ladder behind him. As he turned his head Calvin was already on top of him, all but tackling him onto their mattress.

This little niche in the hay loft of the Nix's stable was theirs, their own tiny world and the closest thing they'd ever had to a home together. It had been theirs now for more than three months, ever since they crawled out of the river - the majority of the time they had known each other. When they first started working for the Nix's they knew Abigail didn't want them to live in the farmhouse, so Henry had taken some of the mattresses on the beds in their spare bedroom and hauled them to the horse stable and up to the hay loft. He'd also taken a few of their old pillows, quilts, and some older animal furs from decades ago. He'd even brought a dresser and several chests up so that that Flynn and Calvin had a place for their clothes and any other personal possessions, though they had none.

On the first night they'd pushed the two small mattresses together. They wedged them into the mounds of hay in the loft and piled on the pillows, quilts and furs. The result was very rough, very rudimentary, but also very cozy. More than anything it was secluded. It was perfect.

In just a few weeks Abigail had changed her mind about them. She wanted them to move back down from the hay loft and into the farmhouse's extra bedroom, thinking it was no good that the hired helpers she'd grown fond of had to sleep out in the barn like animals. She didn't know about her workers' real relation, though. Abigail only wanted them to have a nicer place to sleep, but she didn't understand the real reason they wanted to stay in the stable. They needed their privacy at night, and if they moved into a spare bedroom in the farmhouse they certainly wouldn't have it.

Flynn and Calvin had spent months now deflecting Abigail's calls for them to move into the house. By now they were running thin on excuses every time she brought it up, and they both knew that in a few weeks they really would have to move back down into the farmhouse. It was almost December and the nights were getting chilly - soon it would be too cold for them to have any semblance of an excuse to stay in the stable, the snow would bury Herculaneum like Vesuvian ash. They had to savor the time they still had together in their private bungalow.

They fully intended to.

Flynn laughed as Calvin playfully tackled him from behind, down onto the soft quilts and mattresses. He'd giggled as he crawled as fast as he could, trying to make it to their hay loft grotto before Calvin could finish climbing the ladder and catch him, but Calvin could move terrifyingly fast when he wanted to - a lesson he learned when they first met in that Pennsylvania field so many months ago.

Flynn wiggled underneath Calvin, feigning a struggle as the wolf lay on top of him, a game they both loved playing. Flynn pressed his rump up and back as Calvin slid his hands down the deer's shoulders and arms, down to his wrists. He grabbed Flynn's wrists firmly but carefully, gently pinning him to the quilt they were laying on top of.

"You caught me..." Flynn whispered over his shoulder. Again he lifted his rump, pressing it up against Calvin's hips. Even through both their pants he could feel Calvin's full erection between his cheeks as he teased him, wagging his ass side to side.

"I caught you..." Calvin whispered back heavily, his lips pressed to Flynn's long cervine ear.

"Ahhh..." Flynn cooed as he heard Calvin grunt hungrily and felt him nibble on his ear. "Mmmm. The big, bad wolf caught me, what's he gonna do to me..."

Calvin was rolling his hips now, slowly and sensually. Flynn was pressing back in time with his gentle rhythm.

Calvin licked the length of Flynn's ear with his long, flat canine tongue.

"What do you think he's gonna do, hmm?" he whispered. "What do you think this mean old wolf is gonna do to you..."

"I think he's gonna fuck me..."

"Yeah?" Calvin said as he rolled his hips harder, grinding into Flynn now. "You think he'd do that to a cute little blue deer?"

"Yes..." Flynn exhaled, his breath full of desire.

Calvin tightened his grip on Flynn's wrists. He took his weight off his knees, allowing his body to press Flynn down into the mattress.

"You want that? You want the bad wolf to fuck you?"

"Yes..."

"Yeah? You..." Calvin paused, composing himself, trying not to laugh before delivering his punchline. "You want this Alvin Pinkie penis?"

Flynn snorted as he often did when he began laughing unexpectedly. Calvin let go of Flynn's wrists and beamed a wide smile - he got him good that time.

"Calvin! Really?!" Flynn squealed as he twisted his body, flipping himself so that he was on his back underneath the laughing wolf. He laughed back and playfully slapped Calvin's chest. "Ruining the mood for a joke... honestly..."

Flynn had teased him about his phony name since their first day on the farm when Calvin had told it to Henry in a panic - especially after Calvin told him he'd almost said "Penis" instead of "Pinkie." Calvin couldn't take it back once he'd said it to Henry, though, so Flynn got a kick out of calling him "Mr. Pinkie" every chance he got. For his part, Calvin never missed an opportunity to turn the tables on Flynn whenever he could to make him laugh at inopportune or inappropriate times.

"I just like making you laugh, seeing you smile. You're gonna fault me for that?" Calvin said in mock protest.

"Mm-hmm. You know, it is possible to make me happy without making me laugh or smile, big oaf..."

"It is? How do I do that?"

Flynn was still giggling from Calvin's line about his "Pinkie penis," and the look of feigned, silly incredulity he had now was adorable. He bit his lip as he slid his hand down Calvin's chest and stomach.

"Take a guess..." he whispered up to Calvin from underneath his strong, straddling thighs.

Flynn looked up to Calvin's face. He knew all Calvin's moods now, all his quirks and little tells and expressions. The grin he has now, Flynn thought - that smirk where his left lip snarls almost imperceptibly and exposes the slightest white from his canine teeth, where his eyes narrow ever so slightly to make that cute little wrinkle on his snout - I know that one well. He's finished with jokes. He's ready now. He wants me.

Calvin grabbed the fabric at the bottom of his own shirt and began to pull it up to take it off. He was only lit by the dim strands of moonlight filtering into the stable, but Flynn could still see the flexing of his chest and abdominal muscles, well-defined even under his fur. Flynn reached out one hand to feel Calvin's stomach just as the wolf finished taking off his shirt. His other hand found the bulge in Calvin's pants.

Calvin leaned back down, placing his hands on Flynn's slim chest. He slid his hands up the deer's body, up his neck and to his long cervine ears. Flynn's eyelids were half closed, the traces of a contented smile tugging at the edges of his lips - as familiar as Flynn was with Calvin's _I want it_face, Calvin knew Flynn's _give it to me_face just as well.

They both closed their eyes as their lips met.

"Mmmm..." Flynn moaned into Calvin's mouth as their tongues danced and roiled, each tasting the corn whiskey still on their breaths. Flynn knew that he could use his hooves to press Calvin's buttons any time he wanted, but Calvin knew just as well that nothing turned Flynn on like a kiss. He'd explored the deer's body thoroughly by now, tried everything he could think of, but eventually he realized that simply kissing Flynn excited the deer like nothing else. He thought back to the first time they'd kissed, months and months ago in that tent in Chambersburg, the catalyst for their life together. How lucky I am, Calvin thought. How powerful that must have been for Flynn. How lucky I am in every way.

Flynn slid one hand down through the gray fur on Calvin's bare chest while the other stayed on Calvin's bulge, massaging it gently. Calvin had begun rocking his hips slowly as he let his hands drift from Flynn's ears to his waist without breaking their kiss.

Flynn felt Calvin start to pull his shirt up his body. He let go of the wolf's bulge, raising his arms over his head so that Calvin could remove his shirt. Flynn giggled when it got stuck on his lone antler as it almost always did when Calvin tried taking off his shirt himself. Calvin accidentally tore the fabric slightly while unhooking it before then tossing it aside.

"Big mean wolf, always so careless with my clothes..." Flynn protested coyly.

"They just get in the way," Calvin whispered back. He wrapped his strong hands around Flynn's waist and lifted Flynn's butt off the mattress as he shuffled forward on his knees, closer and tighter between Flynn's legs.

"See? right in the way," Calvin continued, pushing the bulge from his erection between the one in Flynn's pants and the deer's tail. Flynn felt the heat from Calvin's cock against his tailhole even through the several layers of clothing that separated them. It came and went as Calvin gently rolled his hips.

"Let's fix that," Calvin whispered.

He met no resistance as he grasped Flynn's pants with both his hands still wrapped around his waist. He hooked his thumbs underneath the fabric. Flynn extended his legs, allowing Calvin to easily peel his pants off, his underwear coming along for the ride. In a matter of seconds Calvin pulled Flynn's pants past his hooves. He threw them to the side even more carelessly than he had the shirt, an exaggerated motion that he knew Flynn would respond to.

"My poor clothes, what did they ever do to you..."

"They were hiding all this from me," Calvin answered in a low growl, looking down now hungrily at the naked blue deer. His hands found Flynn's bare thighs, tracing over them. He brushed over the bare patch on Flynn's leg - the scar from the bullet that nearly killed him - as his eyes focused on his cock, all nine inches of its thin, tapered length unsheathed and glistening in the moonlight, drop of precum already visible.

"Didn't have to toss them away though," Flynn teased. "How are you gonna make it up to me?"

Calvin didn't answer with words. Flynn saw that same half-snarl of desire on Calvin's face as he again wrapped those hands around his hips. He effortlessly lifted Flynn's butt off the bed of quilts and furs and, in a fluid motion, up to his muzzle. Almost before Flynn knew it his cock was in Calvin's mouth.

"Ahhnnn..." Flynn gasped as Calvin began bobbing his head. He tried hard to keep his lips wrapped around Flynn's cock instead of smiling - he loved the cute noises Flynn made when they were in bed. He'd grown to love everything about Flynn by now, truth be told, and not least of all the deer's cock he was sucking eagerly. He knew Flynn was self-conscious about it in a way; compared to Calvin's girthy knotted canine shaft, Flynn felt his slender, tapered cervine member was inadequate. But Calvin loved it. As he quickened his pace and swirled his broad tongue around it, as he felt the impossible slickness against his lips, as he tasted the faintly salty taste of Flynn's copious precum and felt the deer's hefty balls against his chin, he loved it.

"Fuck... Calvin, slow down... you're gonna make me cum..."

Calvin opened his mouth and turned his head slightly to one side. He licked the length of Flynn's shaft, starting at the base of his sheath where it emerged and upwards, past the medial ring to the tapered tip.

"Okay," Calvin said as he lowered Flynn's hips back down to the bed. "My turn then."

He lifted his legs over Flynn's, spreading them wide over the deer's naked body as he edged forward.

"_My_turn you mean. Gotta get rid of these first though. Always getting in the way..." Flynn whispered. He wedged a finger behind Calvin's familiar brass _US_belt buckle, unclasping it and pulling Calvin's belt through the pant loops in a quick, easy motion. He had a lot of experience at this, by now.

He looped his fingers back underneath the waistband of Calvin's pants. He pulled towards his face and downwards, revealing the red, dripping tip of Calvin's fully erect canine penis.

"Mmmm... hey there..." Flynn exhaled, pulling Calvin's pants further down as he wrapped his other hand around the wolf's cock.

"Hold on," Calvin whispered back. Flynn casually stroked him as he lifted one knee as he pulled down his pants, freeing first one leg and then the other before tossing his trousers aside as casually as he had his shirt.

Flynn kept one hand on the canine cock in front of his face while the other found its way to Calvin's butt, now as naked as he was in the moonlight. The slight pressure he put on Calvin's backside urged the gray wolf forward, and Flynn eagerly leaned up and wrapped his lips around Calvin's cock.

Flynn closed his eyes, savoring the warmth and the taste of the veiny canine member as he bobbed his head. He heard Calvin exhale heavily as he slid his tongue over and around Calvin's maleness.

"So good..." Calvin sighed heavily as he wrapped one of his hands around Flynn's lone antler.

Flynn quickened his pace, and soon the quiet stable was filled with the wet, sloppy sounds of the deer sucking on wolf cock. He put the experience he'd gained over the past few months to use, taking the entirety of Calvin's thick shaft into his mouth, even the slight bulge at the base near his sheath that would swell to the size of his fist when he reached orgasm. The tapered tip slid down into his throat. It was a feat he wasn't capable of months ago but that now came easily to him. His fingers no longer had a shaft to stroke so they found their way to Calvin's furry balls. Flynn massaged them gently as they pressed against his blue-furred chin.

Flynn slowly pulled his head back, letting the length of the canine member in his mouth slide past his lips and producing a loud _schlorp_when the tip emerged and rebounded upwards, slapping Calvin's stomach. He looked up at Calvin as, wordlessly, he reached away from the wolf's balls and back towards the hay pile that surrounded their private alcove. He searched for a few seconds, feeling around in the hay with his fingers until he found what he was looking for: the small glass bottle.

To say that they had stolen the bottle of oil wouldn't exactly be fair. True, they had taken it from the Nix's kitchen without asking for it, but they couldn't exactly tell them what they needed it for. So when they'd taken it Calvin had tucked three dollars behind a breadbox in the kitchen - easily ten times what the bottle was worth and several days wages for both of them. Either Abigail or Henry would find the money eventually.

As Flynn reached for the bottle, Calvin shuffled back on his knees, sliding his balls and red cock first across the bare fur on Flynn's chest and stomach, then across the deer's own slick, smooth erection. He lifted himself up slightly from their shared bed and eased back further, shuffling back almost to Flynn's hooves.

Flynn needed no coercion or instruction to bend his knees up in front of Calvin and spread his legs, but Calvin grabbed onto the deer's hooves anyway. His hands stayed with them as Flynn raised his spread legs up into the air.

Calvin shuffled forward again on his knees, his full erection swaying heavily from side to side. Flynn's legs fell on his shoulders and he trailed his hands down them, feeling the fur between his fingers. One hand he kept on Flynn's left thigh, brushing again over the scar from the wounds he received the day they met. His other hand went to his own canine cock, stilling its motion.

His tongue lolled out of his mouth as he looked down, the pointed tip of his red canine cock brushing against the soft fur of the underside of the deer's short tail. It was just inches away from Flynn's tight pink tailhole.

"Here..." was all Flynn said as he handed the bottle in his hand to Calvin. Calvin reached for it, intentionally letting the base of his cock slide across Flynn's hole. Flynn watched with a contented smile as the big wolf between his legs poured some of the liquid into his hand, liberally coating the length of his manhood. He closed his eyes and sighed as he felt Calvin do the same to his tailhole and slide a finger inside.

"Ready?" Calvin asked, already knowing the answer.

"Fuck yes..."

Calvin slowly withdrew his finger, wrapping had hand around his thick canine shaft. He guided the tip to Flynn's waiting entrance.

"Mmmm..." Flynn moaned as he felt Calvin enter him.

"Nnnh..." Calvin exhaled at the same time, feeling the warmth and the tightness of the deer he loved around his canine shaft.

Calvin began rolling his hips into Flynn. They both knew he'd quicken his pace soon, but he always started slow. The hand that he'd used to guide his tip into Flynn moved to the deer's hoof, which he gently brought to his face and began licking.

"Nasty wolf, you don't know where that's been..." Flynn teased.

Calvin stopped licking Flynn's hoof and gave him a wry, mischievous smile, hesitating only a second before he dove down to kiss him.

"Ugh, hoof breath!" Flynn laughed in pretend outrage, turning his head to thwart the clumsy wolf's attempt. But he had no real intention of stopping Calvin, and in a moment they were kissing passionately as Calvin rocked into him harder and faster.

Through their months of practice everything was so much easier and so much more enjoyable than it had been when they first started having sex. Flynn felt like he knew Calvin in every way now, that they were so in tune with each other that they each knew exactly what the other wanted and how to satisfy those wants. But there was still one thing they hadn't done, one last step they hadn't taken.

Calvin never pressed the issue, and Flynn knew why. Calvin would never hurt him and would never force him to do something he didn't want to do or that he wasn't ready for. Flynn knew that Calvin was even a little afraid that doing it wouldn't even be possible without hurting him. That was why he never asked. That says so much about him, Flynn thought. His physiology is primed for it, his instinct begs him to do it, but he loves me so much that he's willing to restrain that urge every time we make love.

No more. It's so much easier now than it was when we started, Flynn thought. Maybe it's just the corn whiskey I have flowing through me now, but I think I can take it. I think I'm ready. And I know he is.

"Calvin," Flynn whispered seductively, breaking their kiss.

The wolf looked down into Flynn's eyes and stopped thrusting into him, knowing him well enough to recognize the difference between him calling his name in ecstasy and saying it to get his attention.

"I'm ready..." Flynn finished with eyes half closed. "I want you... to knot me..."

Calvin's eyes widened. No, they hadn't spoken about it for a while, and when they had Calvin had just told Flynn that he wanted to but it was Flynn's decision. He was fine leaving it there if that's what Flynn wanted, he truly was. But he still wanted it; deep down he couldn't deny that he had wanted it since the first time they'd fucked. His instincts as a canine compelled him to knot his mate, but every time they'd had sex he'd made sure that when he came the thick base of his shaft was well outside of Flynn as it swelled with his orgasm. But that took self-control at the very moment his body screamed for release. He knew that as good as it felt to cum in Flynn, it wasn't as good as it would feel if he could knot him.

More than that, they were both well aware of the symbolism and meaning knotting had for canines. Sex outside marriage was frowned on in society at large - never mind homosexuality - but of course it was still common, as it always had been and always would be. But even amongst the most liberally-minded and free-spirited canines, it was always understood that having sex with someone and _knotting_them were not the same thing. Knotting was a deeper, almost spiritual connection for canines. It wasn't just sex, it was seen as a sort of conjoining of two souls, a binding of love and affection and togetherness that should only be reserved for the one you spend your life with. It meant something, and in canine culture it was very real. Sex outside marriage was frowned upon, sure, but _knotting_someone you didn't love and intend to spend your life with - that would be the ultimate betrayal for many. Marriages had been called off and lovers shunned for much less. Knotting meant forever.

Calvin knew that Flynn was that person for him. And he knew Flynn was aware of the importance and meaning knotting had for canines - everyone did, it was common knowledge. But it was Flynn's choice. If he_never_ wanted to let Calvin knot him, Calvin could live with that.

But he'd just said he did.

"Are you... are you sure?"

"I'm sure. I want you..."

"Flynn, I don't want to hurt you. I can't stop it once it starts, if it hurts you I won't be able to--"

Flynn quickly wrapped his arms around the back of Calvin's head and pulled him down forcefully. Like he had so many times before, Flynn stopped Calvin's swirling mind from retreating into self-doubt with a kiss. This wasn't a time for discussion. He'd made his choice.

Calvin began gently rolling his hips again into Flynn once more as their tongues twisted and explored. But this time it was different. They'd had sex so many times before, but this time they'd be locked together when he came, joined as they never had been.

He felt Flynn's hands work their way under his arms, kneading along his side and through the thick fur on his back. He wrapped his own arms around Flynn, working them underneath his body. He began thrusting faster as Flynn locked his legs around him and they continued kissing. It was frenetic, animalistic, so much like the first time they'd made love all those months ago in the deep Pennsylvania woods. It was an intense need they both felt to know everything and feel everything that the other was.

Their lips parted, a tendril of saliva connecting them for a moment. Calvin was humping even faster now, deeply rutting Flynn, the slapping noise of his hips connecting with the deer's ass echoing loudly in the stable. Wordlessly they stared into each other's lust-filled eyes.

Flynn felt Calvin begin to raise his body up as he thrust into him faster and faster. Flynn's gaze stayed locked on Calvin's hazel eyes until the wolf broke their stare. Calvin looked down to his own canine shaft, working quickly in and out of the deer's tailhole. His tongue once more rolled out of his mouth as he wrapped his big hands around Flynn's slight waist, gripping the deer's hips firmly.

His gaze drifted just above his own plunging cock to Flynn's furry balls. Calvin licked his lips at the sight of them; they were slightly larger than his own despite the massive difference in the sizes of their bodies. He supposed it made sense, given the enormous amount of cum Flynn always shot when he came. They were bouncing heavily now, heaving and swaying in time with Calvin's hip thrusts.

Calvin slid his hand from its tight grip on Flynn's hip to those balls. He rubbed and squeezed them gently before his fingers moved up Flynn's cervine sheath, up to the deer's fully erect pink cock, which he began stroking.

"Oh fuck, Calvin... fuck me... just like that..." Calvin heard Flynn whisper.

Flynn felt Calvin's thrusts into him becoming shallower and less erratic. He knew from experience that this meant Calvin was close, but it also meant that he was being careful to keep his knot outside Flynn when he climaxed.

Oh no you don't Calvin Riley, not this time, Flynn thought. You're always trying to do what's best for me, trying not to hurt me. I love you for that, I do. But sometimes I know better than you what's good for me. Like after you kissed me the first time in that tent in Chambersburg - and you almost left me. I know why you were going to do it, but you were wrong. You weren't going to hurt me then. You aren't going to hurt me now. And I won't let you get away from me this time, either. You're not fighting this.

Calvin felt Flynn begin to lift himself up off their bed.

"Lean back..." Flynn whispered.

Calvin smirked, his eyes narrowed and his snout wrinkled ever so slightly as he realized what Flynn had in mind. He stopped fighting it.

He placed his hands again firmly on the deer's hips, his hard cock entering Flynn to his sheath as he leaned back and pulled Flynn up onto his lap. Calvin had been close to finishing before the change of position, but now he was ready to go again.

"I like this view," Calvin whispered as he lay down fully on his back with Flynn on top of him, sitting on his lap.

Flynn didn't answer, instead just smiling down playfully at the big wolf and biting his lip. He began slowly rolling his hips, riding Calvin's thick canine shaft. In this position, straddling Calvin and sitting on his cock, Flynn could control exactly how deep he wanted it. Tonight he wanted it all.

Calvin reached up from Flynn's hips to explore the body he knew so well, running it through the blue and white fur on his stomach and up to the deer's chest. After month's of field work Flynn was more toned than he was when they first met; Calvin could feel the subtle lines of Flynn's abs and ribcage under his fur. He ran his hands further up Flynn's body, letting his thumbs pause on Flynn's soft pink nipples.

Flynn put his on hands over Calvin's, guiding them slowly back down his lean body. He loved the way Calvin groped him all over like this. It made him feel wanted. He knew without doubt that he was, but hearing it didn't compare to feeling Calvin's hands running possessively all over his body.

Those hands found their way back down to Flynn's thighs, then wrapped again around his hips. Flynn started rolling his hips faster, urged on by Calvin's tight grip. After a few heavy, sighing breaths, he wasn't just rolling his hips, he was bouncing up and down on Calvin's lap. The wolf's cock was deep inside him, pumping in and out, but he was in control.

"Nnnnhhh...." Calvin heard Flynn's pleasured sigh as he arched his back and bounced even faster. Calvin watched mesmerized as the deer's long, tapered cock bounded and gyrated in time with Flynn's forceful bucking, his heavy balls hitting Calvin's stomach each time.

"Haaahhnn..." Flynn moaned louder. Calvin gripped the blue deer's hips tighter, pulling him down onto his cock and thrusting upwards with each bounce. His eyes darted up Flynn's gorgeous body; he was rubbing his own chest with one hand and holding onto his ear with the other, euphoria written on his face as he rode Calvin like a wild bronco. The look on his face, his undulating body illuminated in the dim silver streaks of moonlight, his long cervine cock slapping against the wolf's stomach with each bounce - it was all too much for Calvin.

"Fuck, Flynn... gonna cum..."

That was the cue Flynn had been waiting for. He sat heavily on Calvin's cock, taking the full length of the wolf inside himself. The rim of Calvin's sheath wedged between his cheeks.

"In me... fill me up... knot me..."

"Ahhh!" Calvin cried as he reached his climax, slamming up into Flynn while holding the deer tightly by his hips. The first powerful jet of cum shot from the tip of his canine shaft deep into Flynn. He thought he'd have to resist his instinct to pull out enough to prevent his knot from swelling inside Flynn, but it was clear to him now that his instinct had always been to breed Flynn as deeply as his length would permit, to claim him as his mate.

Flynn felt a fullness like he'd never experienced before as his mate's canine knot swelled inside him. It felt like a ball of pure warmth inside Flynn, Calvin's love for him expanding to fill him completely. It pressed firmly against that sweet, pleasurable spot deep inside himself that Flynn knew could trigger his own orgasm.

In seconds its girth expanded well past the point of no return. As Flynn bounced up again he felt the resistance on his entrance from Calvin's swollen knot. It's done, he knew then. We're locked together. We're tied.

There was no time to linger on the thought - the thick, fist-sized ball at the base of Calvin's cock locked inside him was pushing on that spot inside Flynn, so warm and so hard against his prostate, that just a few more bounces sent Flynn over the edge without him even touching himself.

"Nnnnhhh!!" Flynn howled in ecstasy as a thick rope of deer cum erupted from his bouncing cervine cock, spraying wildly everywhere, all over Calvin, over him and around him.

Calvin wrapped his hand around Flynn's pulsing cock in time for the second pulse. He directed it at his own face as he continued to buck up into Flynn, the deer's tight tailhole gripping the very base of his cock firmly, holding the enormity of his knot inside. Calvin opened his mouth, tasting Flynn's hot seed as it coated his face and fur, teeth and tongue.

"Haaahhnnn..." Flynn sighed as the last of his ejaculatory pulses covered Calvin's chest and stomach in cum, streaks of the ivory white liquid pooling on his fur in the ridges between his muscles.

Flynn breathed heavily as his orgasm faded, basking in the afterglow and the incredible fulfillment afforded by the gray wolf's knot deep inside him. Calvin gently stroked Flynn's spent penis with one hand as it retracted back into its sheath. He ran his fingers idly through the fur on Flynn's thigh with his other.

"I can feel it..." Flynn finally said, not needing to explain what he meant. Calvin's cock was twitching inside him every few seconds, each one signifying a strand of Calvin's seed filling him. "It feels so good..."

"I can feel yours too," Calvin said with the grin that Flynn knew meant he was going to say something he thought was funny, something that would ruin the mood in the playful way Calvin was so good at. "All over me. It's starting to get cold..."

Flynn rolled his eyes and shook his his head, smiling broadly. Not even a funny joke, he thought, but he's just so adorable that I can't help but love him even when he ruins the mood.

"Mm-hmm, whine some more..." Flynn teased back.

He started to get up off of Calvin, absentmindedly reaching for his shirt to clean up the mess. But as soon as he tried to move he felt the tugging on his tailhole that told him he wasn't going anywhere.

It hit him then. Not the physical sensation - arguably the best he'd ever had - but what tying the knot with him had to mean for Calvin as a canine. What it had to mean for them.

Flynn looked down at the wolf he loved, the wolf who loved him. He was messy and disheveled, strong but gentle, loving and caring and selfless all at the same time. He would sacrifice everything for me, Flynn thought. He practically has. He's mine and I'm his. I'm his.

"I love you, Calvin Riley," he whispered in the cool, still air.

Calvin's eyes looked up to Flynn's, the deer still straddling him in the moonlight. No one could ever be as perfect as he is, Calvin thought, still feeling the warmth around his knot as he pulsed inside him. No one as beautiful, no one as loving, no one so forgiving of my mistakes. You're the only one I've ever felt I could tell everything to, be my true self around. I was at the lowest point of my life when I met you, but that day turned out to be the best day of my life. The turning point. You saved me. You saved me, Flynn Harrison. I'm yours forever.

He was silent for a moment. The band from the party could still be faintly heard playing far outside the stable. The events that had transpired since that day last summer flashed through Calvin's mind. There were so many things that could have gone wrong, so many lucky breaks that had to all their way for this present moment, this fleeting instant of perfection.

"How did I get so lucky, Flynn? What did I ever do to deserve the love of someone as perfect as you?"

Flynn smiled. He'd heard Calvin ask him this question before, but he'd never had an answer for him until now.

"You stopped fighting, Calvin. You just... stopped fighting," he whispered. "That's all you ever had to do."

- - - - - - -

I wake with you.

I feel your coat,

sleep late afternoon.

And I hitched along,

and I turned wrong.

How you moved me along with your shepherd songs

every time you opened up to sing.

Now the moon sees

everything

in this sanitarium.

Can I get through

like the moon gets through -

Across the sea,

Treacherous.

~ Gregory Alan Isakov - San Francisco

March 24, 1864

Independence, Missouri

Flynn and Calvin both thought the worst part would be the steamboat ride, but it wasn't. The worst part was saying goodbye to Henry and Abigail.

The badgers they'd lived with for more than half a year traveled with them and Cody to St. Louis. There was no practical reason for it - all the supplies for the journey west were waiting for them on the other side of the state. Henry and Abigail just wanted to say goodbye and wish them a safe journey. Flynn had dreaded walking up the gangway onto the steamboat, but as he handed his ticket to the porter he wasn't thinking about the last time, about Captain Mason or Sultana. He was looking back at the badgers that, in a real sense, felt like the mother he'd never had and the father he wished he did. He knew he'd miss them terribly. He saw Abigail wiping her eyes with the apron she always wore as she and Henry waved goodbye. He tried not to cry as he waved to them a final time before boarding the ship. It was the second time they'd had to leave new friends behind and it was just as painful as when they'd watched Jonathan and Emily drifting away from them. But they had to press on.

In the winter there just hadn't been much work to do on the farm. After Thanksgiving, when the snow began to fall and they'd moved from their loft down into the farmhouse, Flynn and Calvin decided to offer to forego their pay since it was clear there was so little for them to do. Abigail wouldn't hear of it, but in the end they'd decided that they'd continue to pay Flynn for his tailoring work while foregoing Calvin's pay, since there wasn't any manual labor to be done any more. Calvin thought it was a funny, serendipitous turnaround. He'd worked so hard in the first few months to convince the Nix's to let them both stay there while Flynn was unable to do field work. He gave everything he had to protect Flynn. Now it was Flynn who was protecting him, doing the skilled work he was incapable of to earn a place for both of them.

Calvin and Flynn had thought about staying in Missouri on the Nix farm until the war ended. They'd had endless discussions about it. But the truth that they all knew was that even with Flynn's tailoring work, for the past several months they had relied almost entirely on the kindness and charity of Henry and Abigail. If their fortunes changed, if the Nix's for whatever reason decided to throw them out, what would they do? Where would they go? It seemed unlikely given how close they had become with the Nix's, but it was still undeniable that as long as they stayed on the farm, they weren't in control of their own fate. There was no real choice. They had to press on. They had to head west for the frontier.

The steamboat ride itself was mercifully uneventful. This time they hadn't booked a stateroom or donned disguises or pretended to be a married couple. They were just three travelers, a wolf, a deer and a badger, wearing simple laborer's clothes and with few possessions. They passed time and slept in the open since they'd bought deck-passenger tickets, the cheapest available. There was no pretense in who they were or why they were on a steamboat bound for Independence, Missouri, the starting point of all the great wagon and stagecoach trains that headed west into the frontier.

It took them five days on the Missouri River to cross the state. No one gave them a second glance.

They'd arrived in Independence a few days ago and met up with the rest of the company Cody worked with. It was a far larger operation than either Flynn or Calvin were expecting - there were no fewer than seventy wagons making ready for the journey west. Most of the wagons were occupied by families who'd brought all their worldly possessions along. A few were filled with groups of young men who had pooled their resources to seek their fortunes in the new America, and they filled their wagons with pickaxes and guns and tools of every description. Many were deserters, undoubtedly, but no one cared.

For their part, Flynn and Calvin had far fewer supplies than anyone else. They had so few, in fact, that they didn't need their own wagon at all - they'd share one with Cody and another of the wagon masters. All they brought with them was several burlap sacks filled with a few spare sets of clothes and enough non-perishable food to last them several months. In one sack was a cigar case full of the money they'd earned on the Nix farm, and in the other was a sewing kit.

They'd spent enough time traveling light to know how little they really needed. The man working at the mercantile when they'd bought their food tried to sell them this and that, stoves and clothes, shovels and nails. They needed none of it. He pushed very hard trying to sell them a rifle, one of the new high-tech lever-action repeating rifles that he said you could load on Sunday and shoot all week. Calvin told him that in his life guns had only ever caused problems and never once solved one, and the salesman let it go.

The trail wasn't as wild as it had been in decades past, either. It was still a dangerous journey, but the route was more populated now, dotted with forts and trading posts. They may have needed that rifle to hunt for food if they'd been on the trail in 1844, but by 1864 there were stops every few weeks at the maximum where they could resupply the same as they did when they'd drifted down the Ohio River last summer.

That river. It seems like so long ago now, Flynn thought as he found his mind drifting like the current back to those still, quiet nights on the river with Calvin. But it really wasn't that long ago, not really, and now they were traveling along a different kind of river, a long trail of wagons and people heading west for the ocean.

The ride wasn't smooth like it was on the flatboat; they felt every rut, divot and rock that the wooden wheels encountered. Flynn's head was on Calvin's chest now, Calvin's strong arm around him as they rested in the back of the covered wagon. It was warm underneath one of Abigail's quilts that Cody brought with him as they leaned against a supply crate, the chill of nighttime winter air still holding on at the beginning of the spring of 1864.

They were both looking out the open back of the wagon at the broad landscape slowly revealing itself in the purple twilight of morning. Theirs was the last wagon in the train, a sort of supply wagon for the pioneer crew leading the group. Cody was in the driver's seat guiding the oxen, separated from them by stacks of supplies and the thin canvas of the wagon cover.

Flynn rubbed his cheek on Calvin's shoulder affectionately as the sun began to rise over the town of Independence they were leaving behind, now several miles of open prairie between them. As he did he felt the hat Henry had given Calvin brush against his lone antler - wide-brimmed and tall, the kind real cowboys wore out West, Cody told them. Flynn thought it looked a bit silly on Calvin, but he supposed that was just because he knew him so well. It seemed to suit him, somehow, like that big US belt buckle he loved to wear. With fresh eyes he really did look like a true frontiersman.

Flynn and Calvin watched from the back of the covered wagon as the sun peaked over the horizon, casting long streaks of light and dark across the prairie, the short spring grass swaying in the morning breeze likes waves on the sea. Calvin leaned down and kissed the top of Flynn's head. Their hands found each other underneath the quilt and their fingers interlocked.

The road ahead was difficult and dangerous, their future was uncertain. But their future had always been uncertain, from the moment they first met. The only certainty they had was each other. That was all they needed. Together they would find their way home - the deer and the wolf, the blue and the gray, chasing the moon west across the plains.