A gentle upslope breeze funnels the sun-warmed scents of pungent Ponderosa and ripe lupine into my lungs. The sparsely forested mounds of eastern Washington’s Kettle Range spread out before me, entire hillsides shimmering light purple with the lupine and spotted with the flaming paintbrush and blazing balsamroot that thrive in these thin soils.
I’ve just spent my first night backpacking the Kettle Crest Trail. Already I’m having the kind of magical late-Spring day that we hikers dream of.
As often happens on warm days in this end of the state, a brief thunderstorm brews up in the afternoon, this one in spectacular fashion. I take shelter as best I can, cowering next to a rocky cliffside. The lightning repeatedly zaps rocks and trees frighteningly close to me, each shock of thunder cracking in my ears and reverberating in my chest within a split-second of the firebolt that caused it. It’s terrifying, but exhilarating. I can’t think of when I’ve felt more alive.
The storm briefly dumps a parting gift of hailstones on the ground. The thin coating of white quickly melts in the reemergent sun, forming a skim of mud atop the clay that’s just thin enough to avoid gumming up my boots. Soon after that, the soil dries and my steps again raise little puffs of dust.
< = = = = = = = = >
My second morning is almost more magical, if that’s possible. The thin 6000-foot-high air is remarkably warm for this time of year, once again delighting my sinuses with the floral fruits of Spring.
I stop for lunch at an overlook. In addition to the usual granola bars, trail mix and jerky, I feast on a particularly spectacular view that extends beyond the wilderness to my east, across the Columbia River and out to the Selkirks beyond. The screech of a redtailed hawk, that ubiquitous voice actor for bald eagles in Hollywood movies, pierces my eardrums as it circles upward on a thermal draft, then plummets towards some hapless chipmunk and rides the air back up to a lodgepole perch to join me for lunch.
Not long after I resume hiking, the trail crosses over the ridgeline into a surprisingly strong, warm wind, providing a heart-stopping view to the west. What’s particularly heart-stopping is that there is smoke in it, rising from the bottom of a steep valley to the northwest. A fire undoubtedly sparked by yesterday’s storm.
The wind still smells fresh, which means I’m not currently downwind of the fire, but I can see that I am uphill of it. I feel an urgency to pick up the pace and get out of range in case the wind shifts out of the north. Although I’ve planned to spend a third night on this ridgeline, maybe I should just get the fuck out if I can. If I really hoof it, by dusk I can make it to my parked car at Sherman Pass, the only road that crosses the entire length of this trail.
An hour later, I round the next mountain for my first view to the south in a while. And … this one is heart-stopping, too. For the same reason as before. A second fire is burning a few miles ahead, this one much closer to the trail.
I’m trapped. On a high, spectacular, remote – and suddenly, very perilous – ridgeline.
As I ponder my situation, I hear … footsteps? Running footsteps. Could I be lucky enough to encounter a ranger who can radio for rescue?
Nope, it’s a fellow hiker. Young guy, maybe mid-twenties. Possibly a bit green, since he looks even more panicked than I feel.
“Dude, don’t you see the fire back there? We should get further away from it.”
“I’m afraid there’s another fire to the north. We’re cut off.”
Gasping for breath as if dropped into a vacuum, he yells, “Holy shit! What are we gonna do?”
I calm him down and discuss our options. “I think we should stay up here on the ridge. If we go off-trail, miles into nowhere, Search and Rescue will never find us, but a fire still might.”
“Good point. I guess our best hope is for the fires to pass by on both sides of us? As long as the wind doesn’t shift?” He offers his hand. “I’m Linus, by the way.”
“Joe. Nice to meet you, despite the circumstances.”
“At least there aren’t many trees up here on the crest. It’s mostly grass and brush. Do you think we could survive if a fire does hit us?”
“As luck would have it, a few months ago I saw a video about exactly that. Brushfires can be survivable, because they aren’t as hot as forest fires and tend to burn out quickly. Stupid me, though, I didn’t have the sense to pack a particle mask after watching that.”
“It just so happens that I have two with me,” Linus says with a grin. “I live in Wenatchee, and after all the wildfire smoke the last couple of summers, I just keep N95s with me all the time.”
“That could make the difference. If it came to it, we would need to shelter behind some boulders or outcroppings, and scrape off the top few inches of dry soil to where it’s cooler and damp. Then they say to lie face down and breathe through the dirt, or a mask if you have one.”
“It’s a damn good thing for both of us that we ran into each other.”
< = = = = = = = = >
We chat for a few minutes, and then the wind shifts abruptly, now from the north and with the scent of smoke.
The fire is going to take an upslope run at us.
Linus starts running south along the trail. “Let’s go!”
“Hey, don’t run!” I yell back. “Take it easy on your lungs.”
We speedwalk southward, covering a mile or more before rounding a bend and finding a nice, low-vegetation hiding spot on the lee side of some large boulders. The trees thicken fifty yards beyond this spot into forest that appears to keep going. This is the best place to make our stand.
And it looks like we’ll have to. Smoke is now passing directly over us: thick, black and speckled with floating orange embers.
“I just remembered something else we can do,” I share. “I think there’s time to light a backfire.”
“Fucking seriously? You want to set a fire … in a fire?“
“Absolutely! You got a campstove with you?”
“Yes, a canister one.”
“Perfect blowtorch! Mine’s white gas, so I’ll dump an arc of my liquid fuel through the brush in front of our shelter rocks, and then you light it up.” We gape with a mixture of pride, horror and guilt as our burn spreads, comet-shaped, through the grasses around our shelter rocks, to the shrubbery behind them … and with disturbing speed into the woods beyond. Holy crap, we have just started a fucking forest fire. We might get in deep shit with the Forest Service later, but we are in deeper shit right fucking now.
Like all good backpackers, we carry metal mini-shovels for disposing of human waste, making a quick job of scraping our site down to cool, dark-brown dirt. “One more thing!” I yell, “Looks like you have a wool base layer on top, like I do,” as I start stripping off most of my clothes. “But otherwise, you don’t want to be wearing anything synthetic. The heat will melt the fabric right into your skin. We’ve gotta take off everything that isn’t wool, and then spray water on each other’s backs and legs.”
By the time Linus and I have gotten naked except for our long-sleeved wool shirts, put our leather boots back on, and doused each other with water from our bottles, the roar of the wind has been joined by the ominous rumble of actual combustion, taking place maybe a hundred yards away. The rocks already shielding us from the heat of the approaching flames, we hit the dirt and pray.
The fire spreads around both sides of us, skirting the elliptical area that we’ve already burned, though the radiant heat is still intense. It feels like the hottest sauna you’ve ever been in, but with wind swirling wildly in every direction, forcing us to shield the outward sides of our faces with our hands. Thankfully, it’s not smoky enough at ground level to overwhelm our masks, so our lungs should make it. If we aren’t broiled alive. Or set aflame by the burning brands that periodically land on both of us.
Linus shouts above the din. “Joe, in case we don’t make it, I need to tell you something!”
“What is it?”
“I don’t want to die with this secret!”
“Then you’d better tell me right now!”
“I think I might be gay!”
I grab his hand. “It’s okay, Linus! If you are, God made you that way! And God loves you that way!”
After a few minutes of slow-broiling like chickens in a smoker set on Low, the heat and the noise start to fade. Some of the smaller scattered trees crackle, still burning, but the bigger ones are merely scorched of their lower branches and needles. They will easily survive the fire, as they are adapted to do.
< = = = = = = = = >
The heat and the flickers of flame are abruptly displaced by a cold wind and the flickers of … oh, lightning! I’d forgotten about the storm schedule, but nature remembered. Unlike yesterday’s, this one brings rain. Barrels and barrels of blessed rain.
That profound sense of being alive that I felt during yesterday’s electrical storm was nothing compared to this. Linus and I start laughing hysterically through the deluge and occasional flashes of lightning, rolling on the suddenly sodden ground, screaming with joy at the knowledge that we have survived. We embrace tightly.
The storm quickly moving on, the reemergent sun warms us. “Thank you for saving our lives, Joe,” says Linus, looking me in the eye, both of us still hugging in the mud and still naked from the waist down.
“We saved each other, Linus.” I touch his cheek. “I think that bonds us forever.”
I am aware of his penis flexing slightly against my leg. “I guess so. About what I said. It felt amazing to tell you that, but I still don’t know. I mean, I might be … you know … Okay, I probably am, but I’m not really sure.”
“The only way to know for sure, Linus, is to try,” I say, pulling my waist closer to his, our muddy pricks brushing together.
“Oh!” Linus exclaims, startled. “So you’re also … ?”
“Single? Yes.” I kiss him lightly.
He smiles broadly. “You mean … you want to … ?”
“Yes, just yes,” I assure him, gripping his muddy penis with my muddy hand. “The answer to your questions right now is simply yes.”
Our lips meet, our tongues quickly following. Linus reaches down to massage my cock, breathing, “Oh, yes, Joe! Yes!”
“Yes, Linus,” I giggle. “Like, I told you, the word of the day is ‘yes.'”
We kiss and fondle and hold each other, the greasy pottery-grade clay lubricating our shafts and glanses for intense, full-length stimulation. I soon feel him breathing harder, his body stiffening. “That’s it, Linus, you’re almost there! It’s time you came for a man!”
I feel a slight warmth in my hand as his bursts of semen mix with the slop. Linus is still breathing hard as I approach my own climax, which he intuitively senses, adjusting his squeeze and cadence to maximize my explosion. This guy’s a natural.
Calming down, we gaze at the gooey messes we have become, laughing hysterically again with pure joy. We get up and peel off our wool shirts, laying them on the rocks to dry in the sun. This leaves us fully naked, mostly covered with mud yet hilariously clean on our midsections.
We wash our hands with drinking water and tissues, and dig out some snacks to replenish our energy, casually chatting and learning a little about each other.
The discussion inevitably turns to his deathbed revelation. I see in his eyes – and his cock – that he is growing aroused again. “Joe, would it be okay …”
“Yes, Linus. Yes.”
We kiss again, and I feel his now-clean hands squeezing my nipples. His mouth skips my filthy neck and maneuvers directly to my clean chest, chewing on my little points. “Joe, can I try sucking you?”
“You already know the word, Linus.”
“Yes?”
“Yes, Linus. I know you want to taste me.”
Linus ever-so-gently cleanses my penis with more water and tissue, then touching his tongue to my spermhole. He looks up at me as he brushes his tongue around my sensitive cockrim, but then my eyes roll up involuntarily and break the visual contact. “Oh, yes, Linus. Yes.” He swallows my entire length on the first try, dragging his slick lips up and down my tender shaft.
“You still taste a little like mud, Joe.”
“Well, a little dirt never hurt, right?”
He sucks for a few minutes, and I soon fill his mouth with his first taste of another man’s cum. He must like it, based on his glowing expression, but I ask him if he’s okay anyway.
“It’s funny, Joe, I’ve hardly been dirtier …”
“Yeah, I don’t know how we’re going to clean up.”
“… But I’ve hardly felt cleaner after sex. When I’ve been with girls, I always felt a little guilty afterward, like I was taking something from them that I could never repay. Truth be told, it made me feel dirty. And now I know why, because I don’t have that feeling with you.”
“That’s a pretty strong sign, Linus.”
“That’s right! You said I wouldn’t know until I tried, didn’t you? And now I have. And now I know. Hey world, I’m gay!” he shouts into the thin mountain air, “I love men! I love kissing men, and touching men, and sucking men, and I think I’m going to love fucking men too! I’m going to be an Out and proud homosexual!”
Linus looks pleased, having come Out to the lupine and meadowlarks of half the Kettle Range. Although I’ve been planning to return his lovely blowjob, Bentonite mud’s lubricating properties give me a better idea. “You said you think you’ll love fucking men.”
“Well, yeah, I think so. Probably.”
“But you won’t know until you try,” I provoke, turning to face away and grinding my butt against his muddy erection.
“Are you serious, Joe?”
“C’mon, you know the answer by now! It’s just yes, Linus.”
I brace my hands against a big rock as Linus stands behind me, sliding a muddy finger between my cheeks and smoothly easing it in. “Oh God, yes!” I exclaim. After he glides it in and out a few times, I gasp, “That’s it! I need you inside me now.”
My rectum suddenly fills with muddy cock, and it feels fucking wonderful. For a newbie, Linus really is a natural at this. Also, for such an otherwise gentle man, he pumps me hard and fast. I realize that on a wild day like today, that’s just how I want it.
“Oh, fuck, Joe! Yes, this is what my body was meant for!” he says as his cock dispenses warm jizz to mix with the mud he’s already squeezed into my colon. “I could die a happy man if God took me now,” he suggests as he catches his breath, still inside me.
“Yeah, well, God already declined to take us and looks to have a different plan. Listen!”
< = = = = = = = = >
The atmosphere starts to throb, and before we know it, a big-bellied prop plane flies low over the ridgeline, probably near enough for the pilot to see us fuck. It drops down the slope, close above the trees, heading towards one of the fires. It’s an air tanker, clearly piloted by someone who knows how to fucking fly.
After that sound fades, the air vibrates again, this time more rhythmically. Thump-thump-thump.
I grunt with pleasure as Linus pulls his cock out of me, and just then, a chopper appears around the bend. We grab our flashlights and put them in beacon mode, jumping and waving our arms wildly. We’re being rescued!
“Damn, I guess our hike’s over,” shouts Linus over the din as we quickly stuff our clothes into our packs, the synthetics slightly singed and melted. “Kinda sorry to see it end so soon.”
“I’ve got a few more days free if you do. How about we go backpacking in the Cascades tomorrow? Maybe somewhere in the Alpine Lakes, where we can skinny-dip in nice, clean water?”
“I’d love that. I can’t think of anyone I’d rather do it with.”
The copilot waves us over as soon as the machine’s skids squirm into the glop.
“I bet they’re cringeing at the mess we’re about to make of their nice clean chopper,” I observe as we duck under the spinning blades.
Linus nods. “Yeah, and wondering why we’re so muddy, but your dick is so clean.”
