Palouse - 25. Chapter 25

Chapter 25

Hot Springs – Early October 1992

A Month Later

“They found it,” Steve said to his wife with a grin on his face. “It’s always gives me a kick when they ‘discover’ the hot springs.” It had been several weeks – several wonderful early-fall weeks – since school had started. The boys’ shyness of the first days had worn off, and the typical teenage boys’ sense of discovery and adventure had taken over. Two of the boys had discovered the hot springs while they were hiking along the river trail early one afternoon. They had noticed the steam coming out of the creek, and when they touched the water it was really hot. The hot water of the spring flowed into the colder water of the river, mixing there into a warm spa-like pool.

They quickly told some of the others. Then, some other boys discovered that there were rocks arranged in a semicircle in the Middle Fork, holding some of the cold water away from where the hot spring water flowed into the river. They didn’t know that summer rafters had already discovered the place and had moved the rocks to create the spa-like pool, the temperature of which could be regulated by rearranging the rocks. Since there were only boys around, it was easy enough to use the pool: just strip naked and jump in.

The boys tried to act as if finding the hot springs was a secret. Steve laughed to himself that each year the boys found that same secret hot springs and river pool. And he realized that he never saw any swimming suits, so he figured what they were doing.

Eventually, a boy would let it slip that there was a secret hot spring in the river, and Steve always managed to look surprised when he was led to it. What the boys didn’t realize in September was that the “spa” was there even through the coldest of winters. The boys, however, would quickly learn to be rearrange the rocks, and the natural spa would be used throughout their school terms there.

Even Casey got curious one day, and he took off one afternoon to follow the trail along the river to the springs. Several boys were in the pool, stark naked.

“Come on, jump in,” a naked Micah shouted from the water, almost civilly, Casey noticed. Had he forgotten to be a jerk for a moment? But Casey was obviously nervous about something; he looked at the boys in the water and then headed back toward the camp.

“I’m going back. I’ve got homework to do,” he announced as he left. Micah shrugged his shoulders, mumbled the word ‘asshole’ and then lay back in the warm water, enjoying the risqué feeling of being naked, of engaging in horseplay with the other boys, of listening to the dissonance of male teen voices, like tones of the brass section warming up before a performance.

* * * * *

It was just a few weeks after school started. The leaves on the alders and cottonwoods had turned to fall colors. Micah was heading to the dining hall. Casey was six or seven yards behind him. Standing astride the pathway was Lance Snyder – known mainly by his last name – a second-year student and, from what Micah could tell from observing what had happened recently, leader of a bully pack. Snyder had slicked-back, black hair and a heavy beard-shadow, making him look older than his seventeen or eighteen. He wore a black t-shirt and Levi’s. The weather was warm enough that he didn’t need a jacket.

Not wanting to give ground, Micah walked up the pathway until Snyder was blocking his way. “Excuse me,” Micah said, pushing forward. Snyder’s hand shot out and rested on Micah’s chest.

“I know about you. You’re some hot-shot, has-been, half-breed fiddler that got caught slumming with some regular guys.”

Micah stared at Snyder with contempt in his eyes. “Yes, I’m half-Navajo and proud of it, and I’m…I was a violinist, not a fiddler.”

“La-di-da. Vi-o-lin-ist. How sophisticated. He admits to being an Injun, though.” Snyder pointed at Micah and turned to the three other boys who stood a step behind him, laughing on cue. Micah’s ire started to rise at the offensive remarks. “And your fuck buddy here?” Casey had caught up with Micah and was standing beside him. Micah hadn’t noticed Casey until Snyder said something.

“Let’s see,” Snyder put his hand to his chin as if in contemplation, “his folks don’t want him at home. Now, why wouldn’t they want him at home – unless he was gay.”

Casey’s face started to redden in embarrassment as he took a half step backward, and tears rose in his eyes. Micah started to move forward, leaving Casey to fend for himself and hoping Snyder was done with him.

“Where the hell do you think you’re going? Abandoning your already-abandoned roommate?” Snyder said. “I’m not done with you – or your teary-eyed, boo-hoo buddy.”

Snyder shoved Micah back against Casey. Casey steadied him as he stumbled. Now Micah was really angry, and Casey, the enemy of his new enemy, became a friend. Snyder couldn’t be allowed to bully them. Micah felt a need to face down a problem that would last the rest of the year unless he did something, and he decided to put Casey under his protection.

He was thinking quickly before the situation could deteriorate even more. Snyder’s cronies were sidling toward Micah and Casey, apparently itching for an escalation. Something Snyder had said to Casey triggered a thought, and Micah realized that he had the telling response.

“So, Snyder, how do you know all this about us – unless, of course, you’ve read our files. Now, let me think,” Micah put his hand to his chin and mimicked Snyder’s contemplative pose while looking at Casey, “how would you get access to our files unless you got into the school office when nobody was there? Hmmm. My guess is that you were not authorized to look at those files. Were you authorized?” Snyder’s confident expression started to waver with a flicker of his eyes. “Which makes what you did a breaking-and-entering crime. I suspect, further, that if somehow Steve learned that Lance Snyder had read those files – and probably some other boys’ private files – that Lance Snyder wouldn’t be a student here any longer. Of course, maybe that wouldn’t faze Lance Snyder; maybe he wants to get kicked out.”

Standoff sought, standoff found. It was obvious from Snyder’s face that the prospect of getting kicked out worried him. Maybe Idanha had been his last chance; maybe he feared his family, if he still had one that talked to him.

“I tell you what, Snyder baby, if you leave Casey and me alone for the rest of the year, I’ll forget about this little bully show and your reading of those files.” Micah held Snyder’s eyes. “If you want five minutes to think about it, go ahead.” Micah could see Snyder going over the possibilities.

“Okay,” Snyder said after a minute. “But now I hate your guts. It’s only a standoff – between you two and us. No, between you two and maybe the rest of the guys on my side.” He turned his back and walked away, his buddies following him.

Micah rolled his eyes. “I guess we’re stuck with each other now. We have to watch each other’s backs, Casey. Which means, I guess, that we need to make peace.” Micah offered his hand, which Casey accepted.

“Does this mean that you’re going to stop being a jerk?”

“If you stop being an asshole, yes.”

They laughed, which broke the ice in what had been an uneasy relationship and headed off to dinner, sitting across from each other for the first time.

The word jerk rankled Micah, though, because he knew Casey was probably right. He had been taking his bitterness at being at Idanha out on Casey.

* * * * *

Micah and Casey were back in their room after dinner. The electricity had been shut off for the night, and they were getting ready for bed by kerosene light. “Thanks, Micah. I’m sorry I called you a jerk earlier.”

“We already made peace.”

“I owe you, though. You could have hung me out to dry and made my miserable life even more miserable than it is.”

“So, was Snyder right? Your parents don’t want you at home?”

There was a silence. “Yes,” Casey responded uncomfortably, followed by a longer silence. “How about you? How did a hot-shot violinist get to Idanha School?” The way Casey used ‘hot shot’ was absent the sneering tone; rather, it was used with a hint of admiration. It was apparent to Micah, though, that the question had been asked mainly to change the topic away from Casey.

Micah could have pursued a fuller answer to his question of Casey, but he didn’t think he needed to, because he suspected he knew why Casey’s parents were rejecting him. He turned to answer Casey’s question instead: “My grades were falling. My folks said I was spending too much time with my girlfriend, and I wasn’t spending enough time practicing my violin, and I needed a time to get my life in order.” Micah looked over to Casey’s bed. “They’re partly right, I guess.”

Micah turned off the lantern, and the boys got into bed. There was silence, and Micah thought that Casey might have fallen asleep until he heard a stifled sob.

“Casey, are you okay?” Micah asked. “We know Snyder’s an asshole.”

More silence. Casey spoke up, his voice soft in the silence of the cabin: “It’s true. My folks wanted me out of the house. They thought maybe I could straighten myself out. I suppose being here is better than just kicking me out.”

Micah thought for a moment whether he should ask the more personal question: “Casey, are you gay? It’s okay if you say yes. My brother is gay.”

Quiet sobs came from Casey’s bed. “I pray and pray not to be gay, and now I’m trying to cure myself. If I study hard and don’t go to the hot springs and see all those boys naked, I can control myself. It’s hard.” Casey snorted a giggle through the tears. “I mean difficult.”

“Look, Casey, since I’ve got your back and we’ve made peace, just talk to me when you need to,” Micah offered, then added with a giggle of his own: “And if you want to go skinny dipping – just you and me – we can slip up to the hot springs.”

“I’d probably get an erection.”

“So? I take care of one every day.”

“You do? When?”

“You take long showers, which gives me just enough time.”

“Oh.”

From that day on, there was a marked easing of the boys’ relationship. There was even affection, though not overtly physical. The boys would study and work together on their homework, with each helping the other in areas they were weak. Their grades began to improve as a result of their new working arrangement.

Evenings, they would go with the other boys after dinner to the lounge in the main cabin for board games, reading and movies – movies that all seemed to be PG rated, few in number and often boring – especially the second and third times they were shown. The games were stacked on shelves at the end of the room. The top of one table held an inlaid chess board in light and dark wood, and a wooden, carved chess set was already arranged on it. There was a foosball table that attracted most of the boys’ attentions. When either Micah or Casey tried to join a game, however, the other boys would glance at Snyder and then decide not to play any longer.

Being bored with trying to get into group games and being shunned, Micah asked Casey one fall evening if he knew how to play chess, and Casey nodded yes. “My dad and I used to play – before he found out I was gay,” Casey told Micah in a cautiously low voice that the other boys could not overhear.

So began a long running chess duel between two boys, who turned out to be well matched at the game. A game would start one evening and end several evenings later; the staff and the other boys, after a few threats and glares at Snyder, learned to be respectful and didn’t disturb the chess pieces. The two boys would sit across from each other, their world circumscribed by the area around the chess board as if some undetectable searchlight was singling them out while the rest of the world played on.

One late-fall afternoon when they found themselves alone, they hiked the trail to the hot springs. A light snowfall over the previous few days had left an ankle-deep coating of snow. The sun was out and the landscape glistened, but the temperature was nearly freezing. Nobody else was there, so the two boys stripped down, hanging their clothes on a tree limb, and jumped into the warm water, adjusting the rocks to allow less cold river water to mix with the hot springs. As promised, Casey sprang an erection, and Micah experienced a little chub in his penis as well. That evening at dinner, Casey thanked Micah for suggesting the hot spring and said he had had one of the best times of his life.

Later that night after the generator had been turned off and lights were out, Micah was lying in bed, quiet but with an anxious erection, waiting for Casey to go to sleep, meantime thinking about his life. The cot on the other side of the room began to shake rhythmically, and Casey’s breathing got heavier and heavier. Micah started to giggle – and to get hard.

“Sorry, I thought you were asleep,” Casey said. “I was thinking about this afternoon.” He didn’t say he was thinking about Micah’s naked body.

“I was waiting for you to go to sleep so I could do the same thing. Let’s make a deal. We’re both horny boys; we have our needs. So, once lights are out, let’s not be embarrassed about beating off. Okay?”

Casey giggled. “Okay. That means I can finish what I started?”

“That means, also, that I can start and then finish.”

The next few minutes were filled with the swish-swish of bedding, the sounds of heavy panting, and, finally, the sweet whimpers of satisfaction.

“Good night, Casey.”

“Good night, Micah. Thanks for the afternoon and thanks for more normal nights.”