I had passed up Lone Star Geyser. The sign indicated it probably wouldn’t be erupting for another couple of hours, so I decided to head down the trail to the Shoshone Geyser Basin. The day was hot, for Yellowstone. Close to 90, I thought. I only had a day pack and a couple of liters of water to carry, so it was an easy hike, but stopping every once in a while helped keep me cool.
I was just off the trail under a large tree, remarking to myself how quiet it was, when I heard a large animal thundering down the trail, obviously going fast. I thought, shit, a bear---galloping right for me! Or…at least…a moose. I moved farther back off the trail into the woods a bit, hoping to let whatever it was get by quickly.
Then I saw: First one, then two, then three young guys running down the trail toward me. Not quite racing, but certainly trying to out-pace each other. They were wearing shorts and sneakers, but shirtless. Relieved that it wasn’t a bear, I stepped out on the trail as they approached. Surprised, they stopped abruptly, colliding with each other.
The lead runner was about 18, lean, with short dark hair, about 6 feet tall. He wore wrap-around blue-mirrored sunglasses. “Hey,” he said, slightly out of breath. “Is the geyser basin up here?”
“I think so,” I said. “I’m headed that way.”
He flashed a smile. “We’re running there.”
Duh, I thought.
They were still breathing hard, and sweat glistened on their chests. Mr. Sunglasses had a water bottle---the kind with a straw sticking out of the top---but I could see that it was empty. The other two weren’t carrying anything, other than their shirts.
“You want some water?” I asked. I passed him the bottle.
“Sure.” He flashed the smile again. Sheeew, I thought. Cute.
They drank from my bottle.
“Tangerine?” I said, holding out some fruit.
“Sure.” He split it with his friends. He looked around for a place to toss the peels, but he saw me watching. He handed them to me. “Uh, thanks,” he said.
They told me they were running because they wanted to see “everything” and didn’t have that long to be in the park. I said I didn’t think it was that much farther to the geyser basin, and if they wanted to walk with me they could.
“Sure,” said Flash, again with the big broad grin. He was all teeth and lips and sunglasses.
So we walked. They told me that they were from Virginia, and had driven out for a few weeks of exploring the west---their first time. They brought their mountain bikes, and hoped to ride all over the backcountry of Yellowstone, only to learn that bikes aren’t allowed in most areas. So they ran everywhere instead.
Flash said his name was Stefan, and he introduced his cousin James and their friend Cory. James was a sophomore at Harvard, and Stefan and Cory were starting college in the fall. “I’m Matthew,” I said, “but some people call me Will.”
“Will?”
It’s my middle name, I explained. “Matthew Will.”
“Or Matthew Won’t,” Flash smiled, with one eyebrow raised. I didn’t tell him I’d heard that one before.
We walked along the trail single file for a while, but gradually Stefan caught up and walked alongside me. He was kind of a smarty pants---very chatty, talking about bikes and windsurfing, and all the places they’d been or were going to. I thought to myself, Nice smile Flash, but you’re talking too much.
The trail crossed a stream, and Stefan stopped and filled up his water bottle. As he walked and chatted me up he tilted his head back and shot a few squirts down his throat. Hmmm, I thought.
“You know,” I said casually, “there’s a lot of moose and other animals around here that shit in the water. That’s why I filter mine.”
He cocked his head. Even behind his blue sunglasses, Flash had a quizzical look. He didn’t say anything and kept walking, but as he walked he nonchalantly held his bottle upside down and let all the water stream out through the straw. I didn’t comment, but just handed him my water bottle after a while and let him drink. He smiled again.
We got to the geyser basin. It was a moonscape of steaming pools and sulfurous yellow and white rock. We hopped around on the rocks between the pools for a while, trying not to fall in the hot water. We all agreed it was a weird but awesome place. The sulfur made it reek like rotten eggs, so we didn’t linger.
They wanted to catch the eruption of Lone Star Geyser back near the trailhead, so we began to head back. This time Cory and James took the lead, and Stefan and I walked along behind together. He was very talkative. He needed no prompting. He told me about his family. His mother was German, his father Chinese. His dad practiced medicine, and Stefan planned to follow in his footsteps. “But I really would rather play concert piano,” he said.
His abrupt confession surprised me. He seemed pretty full of himself up to that point. Nice, but a bit of a braggart and a jock. This admission of a little uncertainty seemed to be an opening.
“Well then why don’t you?” I asked.
He responded that it would be hard to make a living playing piano, and that he really did want to be a doctor---maybe an eye surgeon, he thought. “Duke has a program where I can study medicine in England for a year. That’s why I’m going there.”
He had put his t-shirt back on, and as we walked and talked he rolled his fists around inside his shirt, starting at the bottom and working up to his chest and then rolling them in the opposite direction back to waist level. It was like there was a struggle going on in there. I don’t think he even realized he was doing it. It seemed like an unconscious, nervous habit. It was very charming.
James and Cory decided to run to the geyser, but Stefan held back and kept walking with me. This is nice I thought. He likes talking to me. We lapsed into an easy conversation about schools and careers and skiing and windsurfing, and he loped casually along beside me like we had been walking together for years.
He asked if I had seen any grizzlies. I said, not here, yet, but I’ve seen them in Alaska. I told him about my encounter with a moose and her calf near Shoshone Lake the day before, and of the time I watched an Alaskan brown bear cautiously circling a moose in an unsuccessful attempt to attack it. A moose can kick a grizzly to death, I said, and I’d be just as cautious around them as the bears.
“Even so, I’d like to see bears while we’re here,” he said.
“You might, but you’ll probably scare them off with all the noise you make running down the trail.”
“I didn’t think of that.”
He said they planned to go down to Moab with their bikes, and I told him about my experiences backpacking in the great slickrock country that they would be seeing for the first time.
“Sounds like you’ve been a lot of rugged places,” he said.
“A few. There’s so much more to see, though. I want to go everywhere.”
“Me too.”
After twenty minutes or so he said, “I think I better catch up with them. I don’t want to miss the geyser.”
I tried to hide my disappointment. “Ok,” I said. “It was nice talking to you Stefan.”
He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. His hands rolled around inside his shirt. “You too.”
He paused. “Look, we’re going swimming in the Firehole River later. You could meet us there.”
Wow, I thought. “Um, yeah, maybe I will,” I said.
“Ok, then, see ya.” He flashed his smile, and turned and started trotting up the trail.
Damn, I thought, there goes a beejable boy.
Well, that’s that, I thought. A nice, brief encounter, then lost. It’s not so often I bump into strangers and fall so easily into a conversation with them, and now he’s gone. And I never got to see behind those sunglasses.
Unconsciously I quickened my pace. I didn’t run, but I can walk very fast and not be too uncool. Within ten minutes I was back to Lonestar, which still hadn’t erupted. There were a handful of people there waiting, but not my three runner boys. Damn, I thought. They must have kept going.
“Hey Rugged Man,” someone shouted. “Over here.” It was Stefan, standing off to the side with his friends. Rugged man? He was yelling at me. He waved me over. “You haven’t missed it. It’s supposed to blow any minute now.”
Sure enough, with a bit of a rumble it did. The geyser shot a good forty feet in the air for a minute or so, and the assembled gawkers oohed and ahhed. Even Flash and his Cool Boys. “Awesome!” said Cory. “That is so wicked.”
It was. I was hoping it would erupt again, just so that I could linger with these guys. But they weren’t staying.
“Firehole, guys, Firehole! Let’s go swimming.”
Slight panic. Don’t lose them again.
“Come on, Rugged Man. Come swimming in the Firehole with us. It’ll be cool.”
I looked at Stefan. He took off the shades and flashed a grin. “Come on.”
Damn, I thought. “Sure,” I said. “I’ll meet you there.”
He looked at me. His eyes were slightly oval, and a deep liquid brown. He held my gaze for a long time. “Great! See ya later.”
He turned away, and the three of them trotted toward their car, shouting, “Man in the Firehole! Man in the Firehole!”
Well this is dumb, I thought. He has completely charmed me. Should I go? Of course. Of course NOT. Why not? Yeah, why not?
Twenty minutes later I pulled my car off on the shoulder, high above the Firehole River coursing through a small gorge. I could hear shouts and laughing from below, and lots of splashing.
As I made my way down the rocky slope toward the water, I saw a lean figure in white shorts standing on a cliff about ten feet above the water. He was dripping wet, and his dark skin glistened in the sun. His shorts clung to him as he leaned backwards over the water, and with one graceful motion he did a back flip into the river. When he surfaced, he saw me and waved. “Hey, he’s here! Rugged Man! You see that?”
“Pretty good for a Duke boy,” I shot back.
“Did you see the Five-Oh?” Cory asked.
The fife oh? I thought. “What?”
“The Five-Oh. Hawaii Five-Oh. The Cops. The ranger dude. They kicked us out of here yesterday.”
“Oh, uh, no I didn’t see anyone. There was just your car up there. So we’re not supposed to swim here?”
“Well, not technically,” James said. “But we’re allowed. At least until we get caught.”
“I won’t tell them,” I said, and did a cannonball into the water below.
I popped to the surface.
“Oh, and watch out for the submerged rocks,” Cory said. “That’s why the rangers kicked us out. For diving.”
Thanks for telling me now, I thought. But then, you should have thought of it yourself, you dope.
The pool we were jumping into was surrounded by rocks, but it was large enough that all four of us could jump in at once and not hit anything. The water was oddly warm in places, because it’s fed by a hot spring just upstream. This was the Firehole.
We spent the next hour leaping off the cliff into the river and showing off for each other. James and I limited ourselves to feet-first plunges and cannonballs, but Cory and Stefan were doing forward and backward flips, sometimes holding hands. They were good. Cory was no more than five feet-seven, and about 140. He looked like he could be Stefan’s little brother, even though they were the same age. James had blond curly hair, an average build, and none of the athleticism or grace of his cousin or Cory. He was also a bit of a bully.
“Watch this guys.” Stefan ran down the ledge and leapt off above us as we swam in the water. While in the air he twisted, dropped his shorts to his ankles and mooned us before he hit the water. His shorts floated to the surface behind him, and Cory grabbed them.
“Dude. Give me my shorts.”
“I don’t think so,” Cory replied. He dove underwater.
Stefan followed, mooning James and me as he went under.
He quickly caught Cory from behind and wrapped his arms around him. A brief, vicious struggle ensued, with much splashing. Stefan pulled Cory’s head under water and held him there, and Cory quickly let go of the white shorts. The struggle continued, though, and soon Cory’s red shorts were floating on the surface too. Stefan let him go, grabbed both pairs of shorts, and swam away.
“Better not let the Five-Oh see you when you get out of the water,” Stefan said.
“Ok Stefan, give me my shorts.”
“I don’t think so.”
“C’mon. Please.”
Stefan grinned. “Nope.” He heaved the wet bundle far up on the rocks on the other side of the river. “There ya go, Cory.”
“You shit,” Cory said.
“Sorry dude. You started it though.”
Cory hauled himself out of the water and clambered up the rocks on his hands and feet, his bare white ass pointing in our direction.
Stefan looked at James and grinned. “He’s so much cuter that way, don’t ya think?”
Hmmm, I thought.
Later, we were all up on the bank near the cars, drying off. I realized that once again I was about to leave these guys, but I didn’t want to.
“So what are you guys doing now?” I asked.
“I’d like to get some dinner somewhere,” said James, “but where?”
“We could go back to the campsite,” said Cory.
“Let’s do something else,” said Stefan. “You know of anywhere?” he said to me.
“Well, there’s the Old Faithful Inn,” I said. “I’ve never been there though. They must have a restaurant.”
“Let’s do it,” said James. “Stefan will pay.”
“Well I really should be going,” I said, halfheartedly.
Stefan looked at me, concerned. “Why? Where do you have to go? Come with us.”
“Well, I . . .”
He looked right at me. “I want you to come.”
I melted. “Sure. Specially if you’re paying.”
The Old Faithful Inn is a big log building, and its central room has several huge stone fireplaces big enough to stand in. Since it was summer, there weren’t any fires going, so we found a table near one of the fireplaces and pulled it halfway in and sat down. “This is cool,” said Cory.
We ordered some drinks. Cory and Stefan had sodas and James and I had beers.
“You can have some of my beer if you want,” I said to Cory and Stefan.
“I never really acquired a taste for beer,” Stefan said. “I guess I’ll have to learn.”
“Well you can’t learn on mine,” said James.
“I don’t want yours,” Stefan replied. “I might take Willy’s though.” He smiled.
Willy. Rugged man. This dude is coming on to me I think.
I slid the beer glass over to him. He took a sip, leaving a foam mustache on his lip. He wrinkled his nose and winced. “Mmmm. Good,” he said, unconvincingly. He slid the glass back.
The place was quite crowded, and over the din of conversation there was a piano playing cowboy tunes.
“Where is that piano coming from?” Stefan asked. “And who’s playing it? And why?”
“I think it’s up in the balcony,” said Cory. He pointed to the second-floor walkway that encircled the huge room.
“That music sucks,” said Stefan.
“Why don’t you go ask him to play something different,” I suggested.
“Why don’t you ask him to let you play?” said James. “Stefan plays great,” he said to me. “He can play anything, and a lot better than that.”
“Really, Stefan?” I asked. He raised one eyebrow.
“What do you play?”
“He just gave a recital for a hundred people,” Cory said, proudly. “The Bach Fugues, or something.”
“Really, Stefan?”
He smiled and nodded. He held out his hands and wiggled all of his fingers. “I like to play.” I noticed that his fingers were exceptionally long, and his hands were almost delicate, but strong.
“C’mon, do it Stefan,” James goaded him. “That guy sucks. The people here will like it if you play.”
“Naw.”
“Just ask. Come on, let’s all go up there, and you can ask him to let you play when he’s done. Some nice classical music or jazz or something.”
“All right,” he said.
We went upstairs. In the corner of the balcony, a guy in jeans and a western shirt with white snaps was at the piano, playing Home on the Range. Stefan waited until he finished, and then walked up to him. After talking briefly, he came back.
“He said no.”
“Why not?” James asked.
“He said he’d get in trouble if he let anyone else play.”
“Well, wait til he takes a break, and then just go over there and start playing.”
Stefan raised one eyebrow, slyly. He was thinking about it. “I could you know.”
“Let’s have dinner first,” he said.
We stayed upstairs at a table near the piano and ordered dinner. As we ate I asked them why they decided to come out west.
“Cause we’ve never been here before,” said Stefan. “We wanted to go mountain biking in Utah, and decided to come to Yellowstone first. Originally it was just me and James, but Cory came at the last minute.”
“We weren’t going to let him come,” said James, “cuz he farts.”
Cory blushed. “I do not! You guys fart and blame me!”
“That’s why we make him sit in the backseat,” said Stefan.
“It still stinks,” said James. “We only let him come because he promised to keep us sexually satisfied.”
Cory looked stricken.
“We take turns with him,” James added. “One night in my tent, the next one in Stefan’s.”
“That true, Cory?” I asked.
“Fuck you, Harvard,” Cory said to James.
“Only if you blow me first,” James shot back.
Cory glared at James.
“You wish, James,” Cory said. “You just wish you were Stefan.”
Stefan raised an eyebrow and looked away. He was hiding a smile
“Sounds like a fun trip,” I said. “Whose night is it tonight?”
“Well it’s supposed to be mine,” said James, “but I’m kicking him out if he farts.”
Stefan looked at me and raised both eyebrows with a sly smile. His hands were inside his shirt, rolling around. “You want to camp with us tonight, Willy? There’s room in my tent.”
(....to be continued?)
I was just off the trail under a large tree, remarking to myself how quiet it was, when I heard a large animal thundering down the trail, obviously going fast. I thought, shit, a bear---galloping right for me! Or…at least…a moose. I moved farther back off the trail into the woods a bit, hoping to let whatever it was get by quickly.
Then I saw: First one, then two, then three young guys running down the trail toward me. Not quite racing, but certainly trying to out-pace each other. They were wearing shorts and sneakers, but shirtless. Relieved that it wasn’t a bear, I stepped out on the trail as they approached. Surprised, they stopped abruptly, colliding with each other.
The lead runner was about 18, lean, with short dark hair, about 6 feet tall. He wore wrap-around blue-mirrored sunglasses. “Hey,” he said, slightly out of breath. “Is the geyser basin up here?”
“I think so,” I said. “I’m headed that way.”
He flashed a smile. “We’re running there.”
Duh, I thought.
They were still breathing hard, and sweat glistened on their chests. Mr. Sunglasses had a water bottle---the kind with a straw sticking out of the top---but I could see that it was empty. The other two weren’t carrying anything, other than their shirts.
“You want some water?” I asked. I passed him the bottle.
“Sure.” He flashed the smile again. Sheeew, I thought. Cute.
They drank from my bottle.
“Tangerine?” I said, holding out some fruit.
“Sure.” He split it with his friends. He looked around for a place to toss the peels, but he saw me watching. He handed them to me. “Uh, thanks,” he said.
They told me they were running because they wanted to see “everything” and didn’t have that long to be in the park. I said I didn’t think it was that much farther to the geyser basin, and if they wanted to walk with me they could.
“Sure,” said Flash, again with the big broad grin. He was all teeth and lips and sunglasses.
So we walked. They told me that they were from Virginia, and had driven out for a few weeks of exploring the west---their first time. They brought their mountain bikes, and hoped to ride all over the backcountry of Yellowstone, only to learn that bikes aren’t allowed in most areas. So they ran everywhere instead.
Flash said his name was Stefan, and he introduced his cousin James and their friend Cory. James was a sophomore at Harvard, and Stefan and Cory were starting college in the fall. “I’m Matthew,” I said, “but some people call me Will.”
“Will?”
It’s my middle name, I explained. “Matthew Will.”
“Or Matthew Won’t,” Flash smiled, with one eyebrow raised. I didn’t tell him I’d heard that one before.
We walked along the trail single file for a while, but gradually Stefan caught up and walked alongside me. He was kind of a smarty pants---very chatty, talking about bikes and windsurfing, and all the places they’d been or were going to. I thought to myself, Nice smile Flash, but you’re talking too much.
The trail crossed a stream, and Stefan stopped and filled up his water bottle. As he walked and chatted me up he tilted his head back and shot a few squirts down his throat. Hmmm, I thought.
“You know,” I said casually, “there’s a lot of moose and other animals around here that shit in the water. That’s why I filter mine.”
He cocked his head. Even behind his blue sunglasses, Flash had a quizzical look. He didn’t say anything and kept walking, but as he walked he nonchalantly held his bottle upside down and let all the water stream out through the straw. I didn’t comment, but just handed him my water bottle after a while and let him drink. He smiled again.
We got to the geyser basin. It was a moonscape of steaming pools and sulfurous yellow and white rock. We hopped around on the rocks between the pools for a while, trying not to fall in the hot water. We all agreed it was a weird but awesome place. The sulfur made it reek like rotten eggs, so we didn’t linger.
They wanted to catch the eruption of Lone Star Geyser back near the trailhead, so we began to head back. This time Cory and James took the lead, and Stefan and I walked along behind together. He was very talkative. He needed no prompting. He told me about his family. His mother was German, his father Chinese. His dad practiced medicine, and Stefan planned to follow in his footsteps. “But I really would rather play concert piano,” he said.
His abrupt confession surprised me. He seemed pretty full of himself up to that point. Nice, but a bit of a braggart and a jock. This admission of a little uncertainty seemed to be an opening.
“Well then why don’t you?” I asked.
He responded that it would be hard to make a living playing piano, and that he really did want to be a doctor---maybe an eye surgeon, he thought. “Duke has a program where I can study medicine in England for a year. That’s why I’m going there.”
He had put his t-shirt back on, and as we walked and talked he rolled his fists around inside his shirt, starting at the bottom and working up to his chest and then rolling them in the opposite direction back to waist level. It was like there was a struggle going on in there. I don’t think he even realized he was doing it. It seemed like an unconscious, nervous habit. It was very charming.
James and Cory decided to run to the geyser, but Stefan held back and kept walking with me. This is nice I thought. He likes talking to me. We lapsed into an easy conversation about schools and careers and skiing and windsurfing, and he loped casually along beside me like we had been walking together for years.
He asked if I had seen any grizzlies. I said, not here, yet, but I’ve seen them in Alaska. I told him about my encounter with a moose and her calf near Shoshone Lake the day before, and of the time I watched an Alaskan brown bear cautiously circling a moose in an unsuccessful attempt to attack it. A moose can kick a grizzly to death, I said, and I’d be just as cautious around them as the bears.
“Even so, I’d like to see bears while we’re here,” he said.
“You might, but you’ll probably scare them off with all the noise you make running down the trail.”
“I didn’t think of that.”
He said they planned to go down to Moab with their bikes, and I told him about my experiences backpacking in the great slickrock country that they would be seeing for the first time.
“Sounds like you’ve been a lot of rugged places,” he said.
“A few. There’s so much more to see, though. I want to go everywhere.”
“Me too.”
After twenty minutes or so he said, “I think I better catch up with them. I don’t want to miss the geyser.”
I tried to hide my disappointment. “Ok,” I said. “It was nice talking to you Stefan.”
He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. His hands rolled around inside his shirt. “You too.”
He paused. “Look, we’re going swimming in the Firehole River later. You could meet us there.”
Wow, I thought. “Um, yeah, maybe I will,” I said.
“Ok, then, see ya.” He flashed his smile, and turned and started trotting up the trail.
Damn, I thought, there goes a beejable boy.
Well, that’s that, I thought. A nice, brief encounter, then lost. It’s not so often I bump into strangers and fall so easily into a conversation with them, and now he’s gone. And I never got to see behind those sunglasses.
Unconsciously I quickened my pace. I didn’t run, but I can walk very fast and not be too uncool. Within ten minutes I was back to Lonestar, which still hadn’t erupted. There were a handful of people there waiting, but not my three runner boys. Damn, I thought. They must have kept going.
“Hey Rugged Man,” someone shouted. “Over here.” It was Stefan, standing off to the side with his friends. Rugged man? He was yelling at me. He waved me over. “You haven’t missed it. It’s supposed to blow any minute now.”
Sure enough, with a bit of a rumble it did. The geyser shot a good forty feet in the air for a minute or so, and the assembled gawkers oohed and ahhed. Even Flash and his Cool Boys. “Awesome!” said Cory. “That is so wicked.”
It was. I was hoping it would erupt again, just so that I could linger with these guys. But they weren’t staying.
“Firehole, guys, Firehole! Let’s go swimming.”
Slight panic. Don’t lose them again.
“Come on, Rugged Man. Come swimming in the Firehole with us. It’ll be cool.”
I looked at Stefan. He took off the shades and flashed a grin. “Come on.”
Damn, I thought. “Sure,” I said. “I’ll meet you there.”
He looked at me. His eyes were slightly oval, and a deep liquid brown. He held my gaze for a long time. “Great! See ya later.”
He turned away, and the three of them trotted toward their car, shouting, “Man in the Firehole! Man in the Firehole!”
Well this is dumb, I thought. He has completely charmed me. Should I go? Of course. Of course NOT. Why not? Yeah, why not?
Twenty minutes later I pulled my car off on the shoulder, high above the Firehole River coursing through a small gorge. I could hear shouts and laughing from below, and lots of splashing.
As I made my way down the rocky slope toward the water, I saw a lean figure in white shorts standing on a cliff about ten feet above the water. He was dripping wet, and his dark skin glistened in the sun. His shorts clung to him as he leaned backwards over the water, and with one graceful motion he did a back flip into the river. When he surfaced, he saw me and waved. “Hey, he’s here! Rugged Man! You see that?”
“Pretty good for a Duke boy,” I shot back.
“Did you see the Five-Oh?” Cory asked.
The fife oh? I thought. “What?”
“The Five-Oh. Hawaii Five-Oh. The Cops. The ranger dude. They kicked us out of here yesterday.”
“Oh, uh, no I didn’t see anyone. There was just your car up there. So we’re not supposed to swim here?”
“Well, not technically,” James said. “But we’re allowed. At least until we get caught.”
“I won’t tell them,” I said, and did a cannonball into the water below.
I popped to the surface.
“Oh, and watch out for the submerged rocks,” Cory said. “That’s why the rangers kicked us out. For diving.”
Thanks for telling me now, I thought. But then, you should have thought of it yourself, you dope.
The pool we were jumping into was surrounded by rocks, but it was large enough that all four of us could jump in at once and not hit anything. The water was oddly warm in places, because it’s fed by a hot spring just upstream. This was the Firehole.
We spent the next hour leaping off the cliff into the river and showing off for each other. James and I limited ourselves to feet-first plunges and cannonballs, but Cory and Stefan were doing forward and backward flips, sometimes holding hands. They were good. Cory was no more than five feet-seven, and about 140. He looked like he could be Stefan’s little brother, even though they were the same age. James had blond curly hair, an average build, and none of the athleticism or grace of his cousin or Cory. He was also a bit of a bully.
“Watch this guys.” Stefan ran down the ledge and leapt off above us as we swam in the water. While in the air he twisted, dropped his shorts to his ankles and mooned us before he hit the water. His shorts floated to the surface behind him, and Cory grabbed them.
“Dude. Give me my shorts.”
“I don’t think so,” Cory replied. He dove underwater.
Stefan followed, mooning James and me as he went under.
He quickly caught Cory from behind and wrapped his arms around him. A brief, vicious struggle ensued, with much splashing. Stefan pulled Cory’s head under water and held him there, and Cory quickly let go of the white shorts. The struggle continued, though, and soon Cory’s red shorts were floating on the surface too. Stefan let him go, grabbed both pairs of shorts, and swam away.
“Better not let the Five-Oh see you when you get out of the water,” Stefan said.
“Ok Stefan, give me my shorts.”
“I don’t think so.”
“C’mon. Please.”
Stefan grinned. “Nope.” He heaved the wet bundle far up on the rocks on the other side of the river. “There ya go, Cory.”
“You shit,” Cory said.
“Sorry dude. You started it though.”
Cory hauled himself out of the water and clambered up the rocks on his hands and feet, his bare white ass pointing in our direction.
Stefan looked at James and grinned. “He’s so much cuter that way, don’t ya think?”
Hmmm, I thought.
Later, we were all up on the bank near the cars, drying off. I realized that once again I was about to leave these guys, but I didn’t want to.
“So what are you guys doing now?” I asked.
“I’d like to get some dinner somewhere,” said James, “but where?”
“We could go back to the campsite,” said Cory.
“Let’s do something else,” said Stefan. “You know of anywhere?” he said to me.
“Well, there’s the Old Faithful Inn,” I said. “I’ve never been there though. They must have a restaurant.”
“Let’s do it,” said James. “Stefan will pay.”
“Well I really should be going,” I said, halfheartedly.
Stefan looked at me, concerned. “Why? Where do you have to go? Come with us.”
“Well, I . . .”
He looked right at me. “I want you to come.”
I melted. “Sure. Specially if you’re paying.”
The Old Faithful Inn is a big log building, and its central room has several huge stone fireplaces big enough to stand in. Since it was summer, there weren’t any fires going, so we found a table near one of the fireplaces and pulled it halfway in and sat down. “This is cool,” said Cory.
We ordered some drinks. Cory and Stefan had sodas and James and I had beers.
“You can have some of my beer if you want,” I said to Cory and Stefan.
“I never really acquired a taste for beer,” Stefan said. “I guess I’ll have to learn.”
“Well you can’t learn on mine,” said James.
“I don’t want yours,” Stefan replied. “I might take Willy’s though.” He smiled.
Willy. Rugged man. This dude is coming on to me I think.
I slid the beer glass over to him. He took a sip, leaving a foam mustache on his lip. He wrinkled his nose and winced. “Mmmm. Good,” he said, unconvincingly. He slid the glass back.
The place was quite crowded, and over the din of conversation there was a piano playing cowboy tunes.
“Where is that piano coming from?” Stefan asked. “And who’s playing it? And why?”
“I think it’s up in the balcony,” said Cory. He pointed to the second-floor walkway that encircled the huge room.
“That music sucks,” said Stefan.
“Why don’t you go ask him to play something different,” I suggested.
“Why don’t you ask him to let you play?” said James. “Stefan plays great,” he said to me. “He can play anything, and a lot better than that.”
“Really, Stefan?” I asked. He raised one eyebrow.
“What do you play?”
“He just gave a recital for a hundred people,” Cory said, proudly. “The Bach Fugues, or something.”
“Really, Stefan?”
He smiled and nodded. He held out his hands and wiggled all of his fingers. “I like to play.” I noticed that his fingers were exceptionally long, and his hands were almost delicate, but strong.
“C’mon, do it Stefan,” James goaded him. “That guy sucks. The people here will like it if you play.”
“Naw.”
“Just ask. Come on, let’s all go up there, and you can ask him to let you play when he’s done. Some nice classical music or jazz or something.”
“All right,” he said.
We went upstairs. In the corner of the balcony, a guy in jeans and a western shirt with white snaps was at the piano, playing Home on the Range. Stefan waited until he finished, and then walked up to him. After talking briefly, he came back.
“He said no.”
“Why not?” James asked.
“He said he’d get in trouble if he let anyone else play.”
“Well, wait til he takes a break, and then just go over there and start playing.”
Stefan raised one eyebrow, slyly. He was thinking about it. “I could you know.”
“Let’s have dinner first,” he said.
We stayed upstairs at a table near the piano and ordered dinner. As we ate I asked them why they decided to come out west.
“Cause we’ve never been here before,” said Stefan. “We wanted to go mountain biking in Utah, and decided to come to Yellowstone first. Originally it was just me and James, but Cory came at the last minute.”
“We weren’t going to let him come,” said James, “cuz he farts.”
Cory blushed. “I do not! You guys fart and blame me!”
“That’s why we make him sit in the backseat,” said Stefan.
“It still stinks,” said James. “We only let him come because he promised to keep us sexually satisfied.”
Cory looked stricken.
“We take turns with him,” James added. “One night in my tent, the next one in Stefan’s.”
“That true, Cory?” I asked.
“Fuck you, Harvard,” Cory said to James.
“Only if you blow me first,” James shot back.
Cory glared at James.
“You wish, James,” Cory said. “You just wish you were Stefan.”
Stefan raised an eyebrow and looked away. He was hiding a smile
“Sounds like a fun trip,” I said. “Whose night is it tonight?”
“Well it’s supposed to be mine,” said James, “but I’m kicking him out if he farts.”
Stefan looked at me and raised both eyebrows with a sly smile. His hands were inside his shirt, rolling around. “You want to camp with us tonight, Willy? There’s room in my tent.”
(....to be continued?)
