Hunter\'s Payne

Part 2

style='mso-ansi-language:EN-US;vertical-align:baseline'>The inside of Duos
black lang=EN-US style='mso-ansi-language:EN-US;vertical-align:baseline'>Volkswagen
felt like an oven set on medium heat. The sun had moved down toward the
mountains in the west, but its heat waves still radiated off the asphalt parking
lot. Gingerly climbing into the car, he held his body away from the vinyl seat
and felt the sweat trickle down his beck as he reached over to unlock the
passenger door. Heero Yuy got in, and he started the car.

style='mso-ansi-language:EN-US;vertical-n:ban:baseline'>“Do you have time for
me to stop at my house to change clothes?” Duo asked. “I feel as I’d been
sitting in a sauna all day. I live only a few blocks from here.”

style='mso-ansi-language:EN-US;vertical-align:baseline'>Heero looked at Duo “If
you make it fast,” he answered, glancing at his watch. “My meeting starts at
seven-thirty.”

style='mso-ansi-language:EN-US;vertical-align:baseline'>Duo parked the care in
front of a modest three level house in a well-kept neighborhood. He glanced at
Heero. There was not way he could justify expecting him to wait in the hot,
car, even for the few minutes it would take him to change. “Do you want to wait
in the house?” he asked. Heero just nodded, and they got out of the car.

style='mso-ansi-language:EN-US;vertical-align:baseline'>It was relatively cool
in the house, with the drapes drawn against the sun. The sound of a discordant
rumbling came from the lower level of the house. “You can sit there,” Duo said,
motioning toward the living room. “I’ll get my mother, and she’ll find you
something cool to drink. She’s doing in here workshop. I can’t imagine what
she’s doing; it sounds like she’s tearing the house down.”

style='mso-ansi-language:EN-US;vertical-align:baseline'>Duo started to go down
the stairs, and, to his annoyance, Heero followed. The downstairs room was
cluttered with craft debris. Helen Maxwell, a retired schoolteacher, occupied
her time doing and teaching crafts – green ware, collage and anything else that
took here fancy. Just now, she was bending over a table covered with oily
newspapers, a screwdriver in her hand, and her body wrapped in a filthy apron.

style='mso-ansi-language:EN-US;vertical-align:baseline'>“Mom,” Duo said,
raising his voice over the rattle, “Shut that thing off for a minute.”

style='mso-ansi-language:EN-US;vertical-align:baseline'>Helen didn’t raise her
head. “I can’t get this hellish rock polisher to work right, Duo-can,” she said
irritably, poking at the small machine on the table with her screwdriver.

style='mso-ansi-language:EN-US;vertical-align:baseline'>Duo glanced at Heero.
He was grinning. “Shut it off,” he shouted. “We’ve got company.”

style='mso-ansi-language:EN-US;vertical-align:baseline'>The ear-torturing
rattle died away, and Helen wiped her hands on an oily rag. Duo tossed out a
hasty introduction. “Mom, this is Heero Yuy. I’ve got to change. Can you find
him something to drink? He turned without waiting for an answer. Oh his way up
the stairs, he heard his mother say, “How nice to meet you, Mr. Yuy. Duo
doesn’t often bring anyone home. He’s much too solitary, that boy.”

style='mso-ansi-languag-US;-US;vertical-align:baseline'>Duo turned his eyes to
the ceiling. “Oh, God,” he muttered, and ran of the way up the second set of
stairs to his room. Hurriedly, he slipped off his jacket, shirt and pants and
rinsed his face and arms with cold water. Then he put a pair of blue jeans and
blue T-shirt. After he’d done dressing up he hesitated, and looked at his
appearance in the mirror. One glance told him he looked much more in his own
element now than when he’d been trying to look sophisticated in his suit.

style='mso-ansi-language:EN-US;vertical-align:baseline'>He ran back downstairs.
Heero looked up from the rock polisher, checked his outfit approvingly and
protested, “So soon? Your mother has been telling me all about you.” He was
holding the screwdriver now.

style='mso-ansi-language:EN-US;vertical-align:baseline'>“I thought you were in
a hurry,” Duo answered stuffily. He wasn’t keen on having Heero know about him.
Adroitly, then, he maneuvered him out of the house. When Heero suggested that
he know the way and should drive, Duo agreed; he welcomed the opportunity to
sit back and watch him. But as it happened, he didn’t relax, and he spent more
time watching speedometer then Heero. He couldn’t deny Heero’s hands were
steady on the wheel of the VW and he seemed in complete control, but anything
above the proscribed speed limit terrified Duo.

style='mso-ansi-language:EN-US;vertical-align:baseline'>Once he caught Heero
glancing at him as if he knew that his speeding bothered him. Duo unclamped his
fingers from around the armrest and folded his hands loosely in his lap, while
he tossed around in his mind for a conversational opener. Before he could think
for one, Heero said, “Duo-can, well well,”

style='mso-ansi-language:EN-US;vertical-align:baseline'>Oh please, spear me
that. No one but my mother calls me Duo-can.”

style='mso-ansi-language:EN-US;vertical-align:baseline'>“Aren’t you a little
old to be living with your mommy?”

style='mso-ansi-language:EN-US;vertical-align:baseline'>“It’s convenient, and I
don’t see that it’s any of your business.” Duo said and look out of his side.

style='mso-ansi-language:EN-US;vertical-align:baseline'>The pressure on the
accelerator increased suddenly, and Duos fingers clawed the armrest. His eyes
darted to the speedometer, then back for a hasty check for the highway patrol,
then anxiously at Heero. Grimly, he turned toward the front and watched the
signs flash by. As the altitude increased, the temperature of the air flowing
in the open window lowered, cooling and drying Duos sweet skin. The evergreen
trees lining the road gave off a pungent scent. Duo sighed deeply.

style='mso-ansi-language:EN-US;vertical-align:baseline'>Several miles beyond
Evergreen, Heero turned off onto a two-lane road, then, shortly after that,
onto a narrow, winding gravel lane that twisted steeply up through a dense,
unpopulated forest, Duo bit his lip nervously. He hadn’t expected this much of
wilderness. He glanced at Heero, and the look on his face led him to believe he
know exactly what Duo was thinking. At least the narrow road had slowed his
speed.

style='mso-ansi-language:EN-US;vertical-align:baseline'>“So you think you’d
like to know all about me, do you?” he asked.

style='mso-ansi-language:EN-US;vertical-align:baseline'>Duo was beginning to
wish he’d never heard of him. He looked at Heero. He had his hat pushed down to
hide his eyes again. All he could see was a solid, set jaw and a small white
scar on the side of his chin. “Ye-e-ss.” He dragged the word out, tentatively.
“Maybe not everything,” he qualified. “Have you decided to let me do a sketch
on you?” That he even considered it surprised Duo, and he held his breath for
his answer.

style='mso-ansi-language:EN-US;vertical-align:baseline'>“Let’s say I’ll agree
to think about it, with the scales balanced toward no. Does that satisfy you?”
He didn’t look pleased about it, and he had slowed the car almost to a crawl.

style='mso-ansi-language:EN-US;vertical-align:baseline'>“It’s certainly better
than a flat-out no,” Duo replayed out.

style='mso-ansi-language:EN-US;vertical-align:baseline'>“Tell me exactly why
you want this so badly.” He gave him a sharp look and no smile. “And no
fabricating.”

style='mso-ansi-language:EN-US;vertical-align:baseline'>Duo winced, and then
took a deep breath. “I’m working for a moribund monthly publication, doing a
dead-end job. I spent six year, off and on, in college working my tail off to
try to get a good, solid background for writing and investigative reporting.
But I can’t break into the media unless I’ve written something and had it
published. Not just written something, but something unique enough to catch the
editors’ imaginations. When you realize there are masses of promising writers
and reporters, you can see that an article that is as different as, say, a
personality sketch on someone as elusive as O. Heero Yuy is a windfall, the
wedge in the door.”

style='mso-ansi-language:EN-US;vertical-align:baseline'>He hesitated, and
decided complete honestly was extremely important. “My father was Solo Maxwell;
perhaps you’ve head of him. He was one of the greats in new coverage. He died
twenty years ago.” He swallowed a lump. “We were close. I know I can’t hope for
the kind of stature and recognition as he had, but I’d like to as least be in
his field. And that is why I’d like to write about you.” He couldn’t look at
Heero. Instead, he looked out the window at the trees drifting by, with their
carpet of rusty, dead pine needles underneath, at the big rough granite on the
hillside. It still hurt to speak of his father, even after all those years.

style='mso-ansi-language:EN-US;vertical-align:baseline'>For a few minutes,
Heero didn’t respond; instead, he speeded the car and slewed around a couple of
switchbacks, winding the car higher and higher up the hill. Finally, he asked,
“Why did it take you so long to get through college? You little slow up about?”

style='mso-ansi-language:EN-US;vertical-align:baseline'>Duo didn’t know if he
should be angry at his flip question after he had bared his soul, or if he felt
relieved that Heero had put the discussion back on an argumentative footing,
which was easier to handle. “Not at all. I’m really very smart. But I spend quite
a bit of time in hospitals as a kid and got way behind in school. Then, when I
went to college, I didn’t have enough money to do it all at once. I had work
for a couple of years to save up the tuition. My father might have been famous,
but he wasn’t very logical, financially speaking.”

style='mso-ansi-language:EN-US;vertical-align:baseline'>Heero turned off the
gravel road and drove up a long driveway. He stopped the car in front of a
fence that shut in a huge, elegantly rustic, A-frame house set against the hillside.
He sat thinking, his hands on the wheel. Then he looked at Duo seriously. “When
you start examining another person’s life, it’s easy to dig up things that are
best forgotten.”

style='mso-ansi-language:EN-US;vertical-align:baseline'>For a moment, Duo
thought he was talking about his life, but it was his own he was thinking of.
“I don’t need to know your whole life history.” he said, “just a few
interesting facts, like how you built your business, what you do for fun, about
your wife and children.” He hesitated; he hadn’t considered that he might be married.
He didn’t reply. “A description of this house would help. Lord, this is
spectacular.”

style='mso-ansi-language:EN-US;vertical-align:baseline'>“And have curiosity
seekers gathering round? No thanks. That’s the problem. If you open the door to
making my life public, then a couple of dozen blood suckers will start poking
around. I don’t want that.” He opened the door and got out. “Wait there,” he
said to Duo, and pulled himself up into a pine tree next to the locked gate,
rusted around in the branches down to open the gate with a key he had taken
from a cache in the tree.

style='mso-ansi-language:EN-US;vertical-align:baseline'>They didn’t continue
the conversation as he drove the rest he whe way up the driveway to the house.
Duo got out and looked around. The house was as tall as the pines that
surrounded it. Both the house and the land it stood on spoke loudly and clearly
of money. He looked up at the front expanse of glass and cedar beams. A double
door in burnt orange with antique gold fittings yielded to key that Heero had
taken from the tree. He looked back at Duo, reading his face, and grinned like
a kid. He pushed his hat back on his head. “What do you think of it? I designed
it myself.”

style='mso-ansi-language:EN-US;vertical-align:baseline'>“I’ve never seen
anything like it. For as big as it is, it looks like it grew on this mountain,
rather than being build here.”

style='mso-ansi-language:EN-US;vertical-align:baseline'>“I meant it to look
that way.” He was obviously pleased with Duos response, and held the door open
for him. “And, Duo,” he said as he passed into the wide, flagstoned foyer, “I’m
not married and I don’t have any children.”

style='mso-ansi-language:EN-US;vertical-align:baseline'>Duo glanced at him,
then away to hide his pleased blush. Hitting the light switches to bring the
house to life, Heero motioned Duo down the four steps that led to an enormous
living room. Fascinated, Duo took a step, and then stopped short. Two huge
German Shepherds seemed to materialize out of nowhere and flanked him, their
bodies stiff, and the hair standing up rigidly on their shoulders. Both sets of
eyes bored into him over muzzles that seemed at least a foot long. Little
rumbling warning growls came, from their throats. “Heero . . . “he said in a
strangled whisper.

style='mso-ansi-language:EN-US;vertical-align:baseline'>“Sorry, I forgot about
them.” He pushed the dogs back and knelt between them, a hand ruffling each
hairy neck. “It’s all right, girls,” he crooned. This is Duo-can, and anyone
with a name like that has got to be harmless.” The dogs relaxed enough to wag
their tails slightly as they pinioned Duo with their brown eyes. “Let them look
you over,” he said. “They won’t hurt you as long as I’m here. They’re my
security system. If anyone took a notion to break into this house, they’d wish
they hadn’t.”

style='mso-ansi-language:EN-US;vertical-align:baseline'>“I believe you.” Duo
stood rooted to the step under his feet as the dogs ran cold noses over his
body. He couldn’t have moved. He could hardly breathe.

style='mso-ansi-language:EN-US;vertical-align:baseline'>“This one is Freak,”
Heero said, grabbing a handful of shin and fur, shaking the dog playfully. “And
the pretty one here is Sally.”

style='mso-ansi-language:EN-US;vertical-align:baseline'>“Sally? He cocked an
eye at the beast.

style='mso-ansi-language:EN-US;vertical-align:baseline'>He laughed. “I’ll put
them out,” said, to Duo enormous relief. When he came back, he bounded up a
flight of stairs to a large exposed bedroom on a balcony above the living room.
“Make yourself at home,” he called down to Duo. “I’ve got to hustle if I‘m
going to make that meeting. Look around if you want to.”

style='mso-ansi-language:EN-US;vertical-align:baseline'>He disappeared, and Duo
heard the sound of a shower from somewhere in the back of the bedroom, and he
turned his attention enthusiastically to the house. While looking around the
living room he walked across the room and look out the window. He could see to
the top of the steep hill, with its boulders and scrubby trees. The backyard
had been left in its natural state and glowed with purple and yellow wildflowers.style='mso-spacerun:yes'> Looking back to living room he could see that
the living room had thick, springy carpeting, tweed shag in rust and cream. The
walls were covered with pale burlap, perfect to display the groupings of
paintings and Indian art. Several painting had traditional Indian motifs,
beautifully done in earth colors, signed by the artist, Charlie Whitehorse. The
name ticked Duos memory, but he couldn’t recapture what he should have known
about him.

style='mso-ansi-language:EN-US;vertical-align:baseline'>The shower had stopped
overhead, and an electric razor hummed. Duo walked around restlessly, trying to
ignore the sound. He studied a bookcase. About half of the books dealt with art
and photography; the rest were a mixture of popular fiction and college
textbooks, heavy on psychology. He wandered how he ever could have imagined O.
Heero Yuy to be a simple ranch hand. He smiled; his hormones must have dimmed
his visions when he first saw him. The razor hummed on.

style='mso-ansi-language:EN-US;vertical-align:baseline'>Then it stopped, and
the sound of Heero’s voice interrupted his thoughts. “I forgot to tell you to
have a drink. The liquor’s in the cabinet in the corner; the ice cubes and mix
are behind the doors under it in the fridge. Help yourself.”

style='mso-ansi-language:EN-US;vertical-align:baseline'>Duo turned to look up
at him, and felt that miserable blush creep up his cheeks again. Heero stood
leaning against the railing of the balcony, naked and damp from the shower,
with a towel wrapped around his middle. Dark hair curled over his che tap tapering into a line that disappeared under the towel. Every muscle knew its
place and hugged his body, and those legs were well shaped and fuzzed with dark
hairs. He glowed with health and sensuality. Duo glowed right back. He turned
away quickly when he realized that Heero had a malicious grin on his handsome
face and his cobalt eyes were inviting anything Duo cared to give.

style='mso-ansi-language:EN-US;vertical-align:baseline'>The liquor cabinet took
on considerably more interest that he usually felt for drinking as he listened
to Heero’s opening closet doors and rattling hangers. He splashed a finger of
vodka in a glass and filled it with orange juice. Painting above the cabinet
caught his attention. It seemed to be a mass of strident, disorganized color in
dots and splotches. He couldn’t see the point of it.

style='mso-ansi-language:EN-US;vertical-align:baseline'>“Back away from it,”
came Heero’s voice from overhead.

style='mso-ansi-language:EN-US;vertical-align:baseline'>Obediently backing
away, Duo watched with fascination as, with distance, forms began to take shape
in the picture. Materializing out of the jumble of color, the harsh blues and
greens over underlying red and ocher, were two children, an odd, pathetic pair,
playing in the shallow water at the edge of a lake. No feature of the painting
was sharp or clear; it gave only impressions.
The children bothered him; the artist hadn’t given them a childlike
quality. They seemed prematurely aged adults masquerading as children.

style='mso-ansi-language:EN-US;vertical-align:baseline'>Duo moved forward
again, watching the clarity of the picture disassemble itself into color, and
then he backed away and watched the children take form. It wasn’t until he had
put quite some distance between his eyes and the painting that they began to
look childlike. He backed slowly way, frowning.

style='mso-ansi-language:EN-US;vertical-align:baseline'>He hadn’t realized
Heero had come downstairs until Duo backed into him. He stiffed convulsively as
he felt strong hands wrap themselves around his form behind. The warmth of
Heero’s hands burned through the material of his blue T-shirt. His entirely
back responded to the feeling of Heero’s body against him. He didn’t want this,
not now. Maybe someday, when he had his life in order . . .style='mso-spacerun:yes'> He had to get way from him.

style='mso-ansi-language:EN-US;vertical-align:baseline'>Heero towered over him;
Duo could feel his head bend and his breath oh his hair. Duo know that if it
turned into a wrestling match, he didn’t have a player of winning, and he
wasn’t sure he wanted to. He stiffened deliberately. “Not interested, Yuy” he
said breathlessly. He knew he could feel the jackhammer beat of his heart under
the hand Heero tucked just under his left nipple. The clean scent of soap and
shaving lotion was distressingly seductive.

style='mso-ansi-language:EN-US;vertical-align:baseline'>Heero bent and nuzzled
Duo’s neck with his lips. Showof tof tiny shocks flew over his shoulders. Then
he laughed, a soft tantalizing sound, and released Duo. “Just checking,
Maxwell.”

style='mso-ansi-language:EN-US;vertical-align:baseline'>Duo put a couple of
quick steps of safety between them, cursing his hot face, and looked at him.
Heero grinned a challenge. Duo declined to accept and shook his head slightly.
He looked him over- his white dinner jacket complete with black tie and
ruffles. Without the hat, his chocolate hair was short unorganized but very
Heero alike. “That must be some meeting,” Duo said.

style='mso-ansi-language:EN-US;vertical-align:baseline'>“Some meeting,” he
agreed, cheerfully. “You head for the door, and I’ll let the dogs in.”

style='mso-ansi-language:EN-US;vertical-align:baseline'>Duo was told just once
and he hastily eat eat to the car and climbed in. The ride back to w:st="on">Lakewood was fast and
silent. Duo knew that he couldn’t say anything that would convince Heero to let
him write about him. He’d have to make that decision himself with no further
distraction. Duo wasn’t certain he felt capable of coping with a man like
Heero. If he wasn’t careful, he’d tumble like a landslide and get hurt again;
he done that once and he hadn’t like it. But, oh, he wanted that interview.

style='mso-ansi-language:EN-US;vertical-align:baseline'>Glancing sidelong
Heero, Duo wondered why had Heero encourage his interest. It was certainly out
of character for him to have anything to do with a journalist.style='mso-spacerun:yes'> And Duo himself certainly wasn’t the
high-powered type of man who would appeal to begin to understand what motivated
him.

style='mso-ansi-language:EN-US;vertical-align:baseline'>When Heero finally
parked the VW in the parking lot behind the Review, beside a blue Blazer that
dwarfed the little yellow care, Duoed, ed, “Have you made up your mind, Yuy?”

style='mso-ansi-language:EN-US;vertical-align:baseline'>He got out and leaned
down to look in the window at Duo. “You’ll be the first to know when I do,
Maxwell. Thanks for the ride.”

style='mso-ansi-language:EN-US;vertical-align:baseline'>Duo watched him get in
his Blazer and leave then he blew a puff of air up over his face, as if he had
just survived an ordeal…..

---------------

style='mso-ansi-language:EN-US;vertical-align:baseline'>At eight forty-five the
next morning, the only positive thing Duo could think about the day was that it
was Friday and the next two days would be his own. He hadn’t been seated five
minutes when Dan Benedict stalked into her office. “Well?” he inquired. It
wasn’t neceily ily for him to elaborate. Duo know perfectly well what he had on
his mind. He smiled. “Don’t worry. The great Yuy isn’t mad at us – me; he came
back, and we’re on speaking terms.”

style='mso-ansi-language:EN-US;vertical-align:baseline'>“Is he going to give
you the interview?” Dan asked. “I suppose you know how much that would mean to
this rag.”

style='mso-ansi-language:EN-US;vertical-align:baseline'>He did; they would be
lucky if they didn’t fold in six months. “I wish I could give you a solid yes.
The best I could do was to get him to promise to think about it, but he’ll
probably say no.”

style='mso-ansi-language:EN-US;vertical-align:baseline'>Dan opened the door and
look back. “Go to bad with him if you have to, but get that interview.”

style='mso-ansi-language:EN-US;vertical-align:baseline'>“Now, wait a minute . .
. “Duo protested, but his boss left.

style='mso-ansi-language:EN-US;vertical-align:baseline'>“Go to bad with who?”
Hank Mitchell poked his head in the open door with a big, dimple smile “Me, I
hope.”

style='mso-ansi-language:EN-US;vertical-align:baseline'>Duo threw a pencil at
him, and he went on his way with a laugh.

style='mso-ansi-language:EN-US;vertical-align:baseline'>By three o’clock, the
heat was oppressive. Duo had finished reading three unsolicited manuscripts
that weren’t right for the magazine, and he was well into one about the art
center in Santa Fe, w:st="on">New Mexico. Many of the w:st="on">Denver ae> artists made their best sales down
there. It might do.

style='mso-ansi-language:EN-US;vertical-align:baseline'>The article told of
Charlie Whitehorse, a well-known Navaho painter, a celebrity in the art world
of Santa Fe, who planned to exhibit at a gallery
in