In the end, it was Jamie Hopewell’s disgrace that saved him. The Hopewells were a leading family in Philadelphia in 1880. For this especial reason, they couldn’t afford one of their sons constantly getting in trouble because of his preferences for men. Fourteen was too young getting involved with anyone sexually, much less a boy with men. Jamie Hopewell was a hard boy to hide in Philadelphia society. He was astonishingly good-looking and well formed as he passed his fourteenth birthday. But he precocious, devil may care, and promiscuous in quite the wrong way. Scandals that were averted became scandals that almost weren’t averted and the family took a march on the issue.

The Hopewells’ problem circulated among their close friends who helped them try to keep it out of the news in Philadelphia but who twittered a “better them than us” behind their fans. One friend stepped forward to give them real help, though. In faraway New Mexico Territory, an army major, Sylus Stanford, heard of their plight and volunteered to take Jamie away from the scene and steer his life in the West.

Stanford had distinguished himself in the military and was now, as 1881 dawned, commander of the Camp at Camp Cummings in Apache reservation territory in the southwest corner of the New Mexico Territory. He had expressed willingness to take Jamie, under his wing at the camp and the Hopewells couldn’t put Jamie on a train to Arkansas for the troublesome boy to embark on a trip west quick enough. They never questioned why the major was so willing to take over the problem and it’s doubtful they would have changed the plan if they had known that Sylus had gone west for the same reason they were propelling Jamie in that direction—he had a fetish for fourteen-year-old boys. He had watched Jamie grow up, and he ached to cover him.

Knowing Stanford’s motives wasn’t their problem, and Jamie didn’t take it as a problem either as he contemplated a military camp full of fit soldiers who had little or no access to women. The boy had watched Stanford and gauged his interest as well. He was more than willing to ride the hunky military officer’s cock.

Jamie was so good-looking that he could almost be called beautiful rather than handsome. There were many women at the time who couldn’t claim to be as desirable to men than Jamie was. There was unrest among the Apaches in the reservations around Fort Cumming and there had been trouble and a few deaths in skirmishes along the Overland Trail going toward California through the region.

The problem, however, was that this was not a good time for a white man to be in the New Mexico territory. It was late July, 1881, and when Jamie arrived at Fort Smith, in Arkansas, at the start of the Overland Trail that would take him to Fort Cumming on a guarded Concord stagecoach, the warning was out to refuse transport service to civilians for their own good until the trouble with the Apaches had been resolved. The commander of Fort Cumming had clout, though and a burning ache to master Jamie. Since the stagecoach Jamie had planned to catch was taking the trail anyway because the mail must go through, it was agreed that, if the journey was augmented by a few more soldiers in escort, Jamie could continue. A warning was added, though.

“There are renegade bands of Apaches out there that are doing most of the attacking and killing,” the Fort Smith agent said. “It is questionable whether the Apache chiefs even can control them. One band is made of Apaches who prey on men. They do unthinkable things to white men before killing them or, more rarely letting them go. You are such a good-looking boy, Mr. Hopewell, that I would despair of your fate if you fell into your hands.”

That did not dissuade Jamie Hopewell, however. Muttering, “Ooo, savages,” under his breath, he bravely declared he would continue his journey to his new benefactor’s side.

The journey from Arkansas across the top of Texas and into and down to the southwest corner of New Mexico was dusty and monotonous, but it had been fairly uneventful. Jamie made friends among men—especially men who preferred men, which was fairly common those days, and he did so with the soldiers in their escort on this journey. So, he was able to keep warm as the sole occupant of the coach during the night by not sleeping alone. All four soldiers were smitten by the boy and they took their turns of one of them going into the coach with Jamie in the night and rocking the stagecoach on its suspension springs. Jamie was sex on a stick, both willing and yielding. Nothing like a fit man in uniform who had not been able to dip his wick for some time.

It appeared the coach and its escort were going to achieve the Camp at Fort Cumming without trouble, but they perhaps were just being lulled in complacency. They were only a short distance from their destination at Fort Cumming when a small tribe of renegade Apaches attacked them.

There was little hope the coach could outrun the swift horses of the attackers, and there were only four soldiers and the coach driver against at least eight Apache braves. The driver passed a rifle through the window to Jamie and told him to hold on tight and not to waste his ammunition as the coach lurched down the rutted trail at speeds it was never built to endure.

The young looked out of the window in the coach door through the sights of the rifle. He’d never seen near-naked Indian savages before, and what he saw made his heart leap into his throat and other parts of him rise in arousal. The Apaches rode their ponies in just loincloths, moccasins, beaded necklaces, and war paint.

Out in front of the riders paralleling the coach and shooting at the escorts was the one who surely must be the leader. He was barebacking a huge golden palomino stallion with a flowing white mane. Jamie had never seen such a magnificent savage beast—and he thought the horse looked quite nice too. The man was bronzed, nearly naked, and formed well enough to start any person’s juices aflow—not just women, but men of Jamie’s persuasion, as well.

Long, straight, jet-black hair flowed behind the bronzed warrior’s head as he and the horse galloped along in an undulating motion of rolling, syncopated muscled perfection. A breastplate of feathers and turquoise beads pounded back and forth on a strong, deep chest, which tapered down to a tight waist and strong thighs, pressing closely against his horse, giving it expert directions.

As he watched, mesmerized, unwilling to take a shot at such a magnificent savage, Jamie fantasized about those strong thighs, about those thighs pressing between his. But then he shook his head and stealing himself, he forced himself to raise the rifle and take a bead on the beautiful bronzed hunk.

But he couldn’t do it. He wasn’t the greatest shot. That was little need to shoot native savages on the streets of Philadelphia. He reasoned that he’d hate himself if he hit the horse. And, being honest with himself, he’d be absolutely mortified if he hit that luscious hunk of manflesh. He fell back into the cushioned seat of the coach and breathed hard, trying to get himself under control.

The coach made for a formation of red rocks in the foothills of the Chiricahua Mountain and managed to separate from the pursuing Indians long enough to pull between two partially concealing boulders. The two surviving escorts, the other two not having made it this far, madly pulled at the traces holding the horses to the coach, freeing the steeds from the cumbersome vehicle. The door of the stagecoach jerked open, and the driver stuck his head in.