Present:
His belly satisfied with the over-cooked burger he'd grabbed from Half-Moon Cafe Walt pulled into the Motel 6 parking lot. Entering Henry's bar for food wasn't worth poking the rattler curled up inside him, just waiting to sink venom in his veins. He couldn't deal with that shit right now, not with leads to follow. If he fell down that rabbit hole he'd be useless to anyone. He'd take that over-cooked steak and salty fries, thanks. He was a damn sight relieved that there was only one Motel 6 in Absaroka, too. He hadn't even thought to ask before leaving Holland alone with his guilt for company. It was mean-spirited of him but he hoped it kept Holland up at night.
Ferg must have called ahead, smoothing the way. The manager was waiting for Walt at the door. He was a tall and lanky man in his late forties, salt and pepper hair thinning into a widows peak. Walt didn't know his name but he'd seen the man hitting on waitresses at the Red Pony once or twice. He'd mentally dubbed him Lucky Joe because he always struck out, the name had stuck when he let Henry in on the joke. He had a suspicious look about him but that could be due to the cannabis Walt could smell on his breath. Nothing like a sheriff rolling up to make a man with a habit start fidgeting.
Walt approached in a lazy stroll, examining the lot and the transients peeking from behind cheap polyester window curtains. "Relax, sir," Walt said stopping at a respectable distance but close enough that he could keep an eye on his twitchy hands. "I'm only here following a suspect. You might remember him, Mitch Holden. Handsome fella, by all accounts -"
The tall man snorted and spat on the pavement, looking down his thin, narrow nose with those three inches of height he had on Walt. "How would I know, sheriff? I'm no queer."
"Okay, so you do remember him then. Did he have any friends, male or female, that would hang around, loiter in the parking lot?" Walt asked completely ignoring the man's blatant attempt at intimidation. Walt had been looked down at by much bigger and far meaner customers in his time. A tall, skinny motel manager he could break over his knee like a rotted twig wasn't going to make him sweat.
"Only one I ever saw around was that Indian he was fooling with," the manager said his lip curling sourly, making his already unpleasant features more unfortunate. "Would have never known he was that sort to look at him. Either of them, really."
"Just to be clear, you mean Holland Fayne right?" Walt asked, watching as the managers head bobbed in agreement. "He looks a fair bit like the Indian who owns that bar, what's it called...The Pony? Good food there."
"Uh-huh, the Red Pony," Walt automatically corrected. He didn't bother pointing out that Holland and Henry didn't look all that similar, other than dark skin and even darker eyes, black as the sky on a starless night.
Walt knew a lost cause when he saw it. "Okay, I'll need to have a look at your security footage from November, and when Holden was in residence."
The tall man rocked back on his heels, scratching his ear reluctantly. "I can get a warrant, if that's how you want to play this. But I don't think it is, is it?" Walt asked leveling the man with a hard stare.
"It's not that, sheriff. See, the security cameras have been busted for a while. I was going to fix it, really, just never got around to it. People don't stay at Motel 6's 'ause they want to be, um, recorded, watched, you know?" the manager shuffled on his feet, chewing on his bottom lip.
"Who paid you to not fix the cameras?" Walt asked, reclaiming the space he had given the man until they were standing uncomfortably close. Walt could smell it when the managers deodorant wiped, leaving him stinking of fear.
"I don't know, honest! Hell, it's not like he walked up and introduced himself or anything. I was going to do it anyway after a few weeks but...there was just something about the man, like he was on a hair trigger or something? I had intended to fix 'em anyhow. But…" the manager shrugged, "guess I really should have."
Walt didn't say anything about intentions and the road to hell, just curled his lip in disgust. Here was another roadblock in his missing person case and there was no way of knowing if it was related to his or was some other bastard trying to sneak one by the local law enforcement.
"That wasn't for you to decide, Tom" Walt said, his eyes flicking to the name badge pinned to his wrinkled, white button down shirt. "Get it fixed," Walt said, brushing past the man to speak with the teenager who'd been casting furtive looks at him from the attendance desk in the lobby, her blue eyes widening a fraction when they lightened on the shiny, gold star pinned to his chest.
He read the plaque displayed in front of the counter and snorted. 'We'll leave the light on for you' it read in plain Times New Roman font. "Or turn it off, maybe," he thought uncharitably but that wasn't fair, one manager's crooked side-dealings shouldn't impact a whole franchise. He introduced himself, needless though it was, and openly studied the teenager.
He doubted Amanda Belle was more than nineteen, she had her blond hair pulled back in a respectable bun and a crisp blue button down tucked into a pencil skirt, but the scattered streaks of blue highlighting it spoke of a little wildness. She also had a few novels tucked off to the side, pages dogeared and worn from use. The Girl On The Train and The Heart of Hyacinth. A smart girl then, with diverse taste.
Her first words startled Walt, a little, but he didn't let it show. Just waited to see where she was going with that kind of opening statement. "I'm not homoaphobic, unlike some people around here," she said slanting a quiet, but pointed look at Tom loitering in the doorway.
"But I noticed Mitch and his friend. It wasn't anything special at first, just two handsome guys passing through. They were nice. Mitch seemed nice. Gave a girl some eye-candy to look at from time to time." She grinned at Walt through her lashes, trying to look wicked no doubt.
She just looked very young and innocent.
"Seemed." Walt said, arching an eyebrow. "So you don't think he's nice anymore, then?" Walt asked leaning against the counter visibly blocking out Tom who was loitering and shooting narrowed eyes glares at the girl. He wasn't looking to get her fired but the manager was useless and edging on construction of justice.
She shrugged, looking away in embarrassment at having so quickly judged a customer. "It's just a feeling I got, sheriff."
In the background Tom sputtered but Walt spoke right over his indignant noises. "In my profession it's called 'instinct' and it's saved me some close shaves in the past. You should always trust those, kid. You have them for a reason."
More confident Amanda squared her shoulders and continued her story. "They started arguing a lot, I'm usually stuck behind the desk so I didn't see much, but the way Mitch would grab his friend, and how the other guy would shake him off only to follow him to his room anyhow? I could tell their relationship, or whatever, was on its way to being over."
"One day, the last time I saw Mitch's Native American friend he had a red mark on the left side of his face. He never came back and shortly after Mitch checked out. I was relieved - that he'd left Mitch I mean," she admitted. "It didn't seem like a good situation."
Tom scoffed, clearly intending to bully the girl as he looked down at her, his face set in a stamp of unpleasantness. "A red mark on his face? And how exactly could you tell that missy? Hell, he's an Indian, they're all…"
Tom stopped, gulping back whatever he'd planned to say when he remembered he was fanning racist talk in the presence of the the local sheriff. "I mean…I mean..."
"No. I know what you meant," Walt said in a low and lazy drawl that turned Tom's pale face even paler.
"My best friend is an Indian, you didn't know that did you?" Walt asked, but he didn't wait for the manager to cook up a half-assed backtrack.
Walt turned back to Amanda, smiling a little. "We've been friends since we were boys. Being typical, occasionally hot headed kids, we got into a few scuffles. So I know from personal experience it's more than possible to tell when Henry's caught one in the face."
"So, you saw tension between Mitch and his friend? Anything else set you off, or seem odd about him?" Walt asked.
"I didn't like his friend, tall, rangy, always looked like he was mad as wet hen. But there is something else, something I should have started with," she said digging into her purse for her cell-phone. She fiddled with it for a second before turning it around, offering it to Walt.
"When he checked out he had all these photos pinned to the wall, I thought it was weird. Like, really weird. I wanted to call the police but Mr. Dunn said he would do it. I guess he changed his mind."
Mr. Dunn, Tom, sighed. "There's nothing wrong with taking photos. Fact is, even stalking isn't something law enforcement can do much about, what would be the point in calling them in, wasting their time, and ruining our reputation as a safe stop off between trips?"
Walt counted to ten and then to twenty before he spoke. "Thank you Amanda, if you're in need of a new job or a reference let me know. This is helpful, believe me."
"You want to know why you should have called, Mr. Dunn?" he asked, drawing out the honorific like a dirty word. "Because, I'm working on a missing person case, and Holden is the prime suspect. Maybe I wouldn't have to be here, taking up your precious time if I'd known this person had a stalker."
Walt kept his grip purposefully loose, if he wasn't careful he was going to crush the small blue-cased iphone in his hands. Here was that incontrovertible proof he'd been looking for. Amanda had snapped a picture of Holden closet wall, photo after photo of Henry, at the bar, walking outside, he'd even caught Walt leaving the bar with his Stetson tipped low blacking out his face in one shot.
He squinted at the photo, clumsily enlarging it. There were a handful of scenic snapshots, picnic benches, and one with Holden standing in front of a battered old RV. "Oh, oh fuck. Could it be that easy?" he wondered. Hope, hot and frantic building in his chest Walt looked at Amanda, sweet, clever Amanda and smiled wildly.
"I need you to send this to my deputies," he said rattling off their numbers still staring down at the evidence in his hand. Amanda had pulled a small writers pencil from her purse and taken them down before holding out her hand for her iphone.
"Right, sorry," Walt said handing it back. She pecked at the numbers before smiling, bright and wide. "There, all done, sheriff."
"I hope you find your guy," she called after him, her eyes dilated with second hand excitement. That was the second time he'd heard it today, only difference was she did mean Henry. Maybe in a few years she'd become a deputy, she was smart and she noticed things. The rest would come with experience. Walt half turned, tipping his Stetson to the kid and burst out of the Motel 6 lobby riding a whirlwind born of hope renewed.
Deserted Highway 12:00 PM, Wyoming
Week One
His head hurt like a son of a bitch. That was the first thing that Henry thought when consciousness returned, his temples throbbing in tune with the war drums in his head. He struggled to get his bearing and right himself, he felt like he was going to be sick. Tacky wetness trickled down to his ear, bleeding from the blow to the head he'd suffered. He had little doubt that he had a concussion. This was when he felt the rope digging into his wrists tight enough that the bones ground together uncomfortably when he tested the strength of his bonds. Waking with his vision blurred from a head wound and his hands bound? This was not good. Not good at all. On a scale of 1 to 10 this was fucking bad. He could feel the deep bass of a powerful truck engine and hear the sound of tires burning up a highway but his vision was frustratingly blurred.
A man's voice broke the silence, oddly lighthearted given the situation but entirely foreign to Henry. "I wasn't sure if you were going to make it for a few minutes there. Thought I might have clobbered you too hard. Sorry about that."
Henry closed his eyes and remembered, the last few hours playing out in a reel. A man grabbing him in a chokehold outside the Red Pony, forcing him to write and leave a note with the cold barrel of a .45 ACP pressed to the back of his head. He'd gotten blood stains on the first yellow sticky-note. After that a sudden, blinding pain and his world had gone black.
Fuck, he did know who this was. It was the man he had thrown out of the bar for hassling Amy White-Feather. He was mildly racist at the very least and had a reason to be angry with him. But that did not explain what was going on here. Did it?
Henry's eyes quickly flicked to the door but the lock was down, even if he somehow grabbed the door handle he could not open it. His hands were tied behind his back, the thick grey straps of a seatbelt across his chest keeping him upright as blood sluggishly dripped from his head wound. The truck slowed, bumping over gravel and dirt as it pulled over to the side of the road. This was not good. He waited, shaking his head in an effort to clear his vision as the stranger walked around the hood pulling open the cab door and leaning across him to unsnap the seatbelt.
He was a well built man, strong forearms, and he smelled clean like he was wearing freshly laundered clothes. Taking a proprietary grip on Henry's upper arm, the stranger hauled him out of the cab propelling him forward.
Henry, confused and shaken by the strangeness of the situation lashed out, wrenching his arm from the strangers grasp he lunged for the roadway.
"Goddamnit!" The stranger cursed loudly. Gravel crunched underfoot as he closed the distance between them, tackling Henry face-down in the dirt and kept him in place with a knee at the small of his back.
"Why did you have to go and do that?" the stranger demanded, panting from having to exert himself. The stranger readjusted his weight grumbling wordlessly as though this was all somehow Henry's fault.
As if escape wasn't a natural human reaction to being tied up and carted to an unknown location for an unknown reason.
"This isn't how I wanted this to go, but...you don't say no to him, you know?" the stranger said. Henry knew he was in trouble, that is what he knew. It was not natural to speak like this with a man you did not know. Not without involving a lot of alcohol. "I had a different plan, something else in mind but he said he'd tell the sheriff I was sick and needed locking up for being like I am if I didn't go along."
Henry remained silent. If he opened his mouth he would be eating dirt. Also, he did not want to set off the 140 pound man pressing a Henry-shaped hole into the ground. The man sat back on his haunches, resting on the balls of his feet and the weight at Henry's back lifted, this allowed him to turn over so he could look at the stranger who stood motionless backlit by the headlights which were so bright as to obscure vision.
He could actually see now, which was good. Henry swallowed, choosing his words carefully. "I do not know this person you speak of, but I am certain if I spoke to Sheriff Longmire on your behalf it would not matter what this other man claims. Take this rope off, and we can still do that."
The stranger looked down at him, a black mass haloed in the dark. "No, too late. Kidnapping is a federal crime in all states that means Wyoming, too. No, too late. But Trig, he has a plan."
Henry felt his muscles coil, bound hands digging into the dirt as he tried to reason with his kidnapper. "You are right - kidnapping is a felony but if I say nothing, then no one has to know. This can end here."
"Liar," the stranger said his voice was dangerous for all that it was soft and quiet, "you'd never do that."
The stranger sounded almost gentle which only heightened Henry's disquiet with the entire situation, the way he was leaning into his personal spare was equally unsettling. By all accounts the stranger was what would be considered an attractive Caucasian male in his early thirties but the dilation of his pupils and look of restrained hunger in his eye made Henry's skin crawl. Shoulders blacking out the light the man hunched toward him close enough that Henry caught a whiff of cheap cologne and stale beer on his breath.
The stranger reached out, leaning in even more and Henry grit his teeth. Fuck. He was all out of reason and calm, every inch of him straining in a demand too act, too fight.
Seeing that hand inches from his face Henry reacted. He slammed his head into the stranger causing him to topple back on his ass. Scrambling to his knees he forced himself up to his feet but that was the beginning and the end of Henry's escape attempt.
The stranger was quick, more so than he'd expected and grabbed him from behind, forearm pressed against Henry's windpipe. "This wasn't how I planned it," he whispered in Henrys ear, dragging him to the back of the Toyota and popped down the tailgate. His earlier nausea returned vengefully and his vision blackens at the edges, it makes focusing damn hard. He's distantly aware of the damp wetness of the trailgate pressing into his shirt and the warm press of a body at his back, blocking out the chill.
The stranger is speaking but Henry only hears some of the words past the stabbing pain in his head making it feel like someone jammed an ice-pick in his ear. "You're mine first."
Henry is not allowed time to react, barely able to see the truck bed in front of him or hear the stranger at his back. But he feels it, the line of hardness pressing into his lower back and a hand on his skin, rucking up his shirt. He tries to buck the stranger off, break his hold but discovers he cannot. Next the button on his jeans is snapped as they are ripped down to his knees. Hands grab, squeezing his ass the stranger sucking in a lungful of air, his nose brushing Henry's ear.
"Fuck, you are pretty."
Henry does not respond. The world is muddled, blurred at the edges so he thrashes in the strangers iron hold desperately trying to break loose before he loses consciousness, and with it any hope of salvaging the situation. It's useless, his shoulders protest were blunt fingers dig in bruising-deep.
"Stop that," the man says, shaking him hard. His head knocks into the tailgate and he goes limp, clutching at consciousness by a bare and frayed thread. Confused and dazed Henry thrashes thrown into a panic frenzy when he feels flesh, hot and foreign pressing against his ass.
"I can get you money, if that is what you want. Enough money to buy three hookers if you stop this right now." His words came out strained, and unnaturally wooden as he struggled for calm.
"I don't want hookers," the man said, his voice no longer rough with anger, "I want you." The strangers weight pins him face down over the tailgate, hands uselessly twisting in their bonds, and Henry's calm mask begins to crack.
His breath hitches, heart pounding in his chest the panicked flutter of a caged bird shot from the sky as he realizes there is only one path down which this can lead. The stranger glides his fingertips up Henry's side beneath the fabric of his shirt, over his chest and back down to his navel, featherlight brushes against sensitive skin. Touches that under different circumstances from a different pair of hands would be welcomed but now make Henry's skin crawl, wanting to slide right off his bones and somewhere far, far away.
His thoughts scatter like an autumn leaf tossed about, swept up in a strong gale. "Wait." He says, shaking his head in a mute 'no' as every muscle in his body tenses, struggling to break free.
The stranger pauses for a single moment before he speaks. "Can't."
That was all he said, one word, one simple refusal as he kicks Henry's ankles apart and started working the solid length of his cock inside, too dry and too quick to not be painful.
Henry cries out once, a brief burst of sound that he couldn't contain that tapers off to a keening whine. The burning stretch of a rough fuck, leaves him open mouthed and panting. He wants to crawl out of his own skin, it's too much, too fast. Henry makes a grating noise of pain and the stranger shushes him as though they were lovers and this was not rape. He bites his tongue, refusing to beg the man to stop. Blood dribbles down the corner of his mouth as his hands clenched into fists at his back; they have gone completely numb.
The stranger shifts his hands, resting one on Henry's throat, ever so gently but for the feather light press that threatens to cut off his air. Instead, he presses on the underside of Henry's chin to tilt his head to the side, then leans down and kisses him. Henry gasps, pressing his lips together firmly as the stranger tries to slip his tongue in. The stranger applies the pressure that had been threatened, thumb digging in and forcing Henry to open his mouth. He kisses him again sucks on his bottom lip tasting the bitter tang of copper before slipping his tongue inside Henry's mouth.
The stranger moans against his lips and deepens the kiss - its awkward and sloppy with Henry stuck belly down with his head canted to the side. It seems to last forever and by the time the man pulls back, the pressure at his throat relenting Henry is desperate for a breath of air.
He inhales sharply, a shuttered sigh escaping as he exhales.
"Stop this - please." The words cut like shards of glass in his throat. "You do not have to do this," he said, struggling to catch his breath, to stay calm.
The man sighs, breathing hotly into the shell of his ear. Henry shudders violently as lips press a chaste kiss to the nape of his neck; he has never felt more vulnerable, more helpless than he has at this moment.
"Yes, I do."
The stranger starts moving, drawing back and then shoving roughly inside him again, for all his pretense of gentleness enjoying the way Henry tries to twist out of his grip, the way his body tenses and his wrists tear at the coarse ropes, makes angry wordless refusals as he struggles with consciousness.
The slick, wet sound of fucking cuts through the near silence of the deserted highway broken by obscene groans.
The man's pace increases, becoming something deep and bruising Henry will feel for weeks, before he works himself inside and grinds tight, fingers pressing livid bruises into dark skin. Henry hears the man groan, deep and filthy, as he comes inside him.
Finally the stranger releases his grip on Henry and pulls out, without the man holding him up Henry's knees give out and he stumbles his way to the ground, caught in a tangle of jeans.
Henry hears the stranger zipping up, and part of him is wondering if this is when the man kills him with that .45 ACP he's stashed in the glove department. He is not terribly sure he would fight if he tried.
Henry just stares sightlessly into the distance feeling numb, sore, and sick inside all at once. He is too empty and hollowed out for tears. He shuts out the world and just breathes.