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gwyllionTitle: Rocky Mountain Search and Rescue
Author: gwylliondream
Genre: AU
Pairing: Alma/Ennis, Ennis/Jack
Rating: NC-17
Words: 60K in 16 chapters
Warnings: Major character death (not Ennis or Jack), child abuse, religious persecution, homophobia, under-aged non-consensual kissing and groping, indecent exposure, attempted rape, unreliable narrator.
Summary: Ennis and Jack thought they had seen the last of each other when they parted ways on a windy day in Signal. They were wrong. Some people thought Alma would have remarried after her divorce. They were wrong, too.
A/N: Rocky Mountain Search and Rescue was written for NaNoWriMo 2012.
“Calling Me Back to the Hills” was written by Earl Shaffer, poet and friend.
Thanks: My deepest thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
morrobay1990 for answering my veiled pleas for a beta over on DCF. She provided incomparable support during the 30 days of NaNoWriMo, from brainstorming, to cheerleading, to prodding, and to writing a passion-filled scene in her own inimitable style, which I happily included. Thanks to my wonderful DCF co-mod lawgoddess for audiencing this fic and giving it a thorough beta job. Thanks to soulan both for traveling to Salida to research the terrain at the foothills of the Rockies and for vehemently disagreeing with me years ago when I insisted that Alma Beers-Del Mar would never have remarried after her divorce from Ennis. If not for that spirited argument, this fic never could have been.
Dedication: Rocky Mountain Search and Rescue is dedicated to Andy, for whom the hills called.
Disclaimer: I did not create these characters. No disrespect intended. No profit desired, only muses.
Comments: Comments are welcome anytime, thanks so much for reading.
Through the mist of the morning that creepingly swirls like wraiths through each little ravine
Jack felt like he was drowning. He struggled as if he were underwater, trying to catch his breath. If only he could make it to the surface, he would be able to breathe again. His eyes opened, lashes fluttering against a wall of ice.
He fought to free his arms from the snow that filled the crushed cockpit of the chopper. They wouldn’t move. He couldn’t open his mouth to scream. He could barely inhale, except for a few huffed intakes with his nose. He managed to loosen his right hand slightly, his elbow making space in the snowy tomb. He walked his freezing cold fingers over the snow, bringing them to his face. He tapped against the ice mask that had formed where his breath had condensed and frozen.
Using his thumbnail against the edge of the mask, he picked at the ice, chipping off pieces, bit by bit. His nail tore and the droplets of blood stained the snow. Chunk by chunk, the ice was shifted, first to an air pocket near his hand. Then, it was jostled further along his arm. He kept digging and flicking the ice with his bloody nail, eventually accumulating the crystalline debris in the space vacated by his arm.
Finally, a piece of ice near the corner of Jack’s mouth was pried away by his bloody fingers. Jack heaved a cold breath into his lungs, gasping so hard it made his ribs hurt. Working his fingers, the ice surrounding the mask was fully excavated, leaving just the mold of ice between Jack’s face and the air of the cockpit. With a grunt, he forced it out of the way, exposing his face to the air, reveling in the ability to breathe in the fuel-scented oxygen again.
Jack took advantage of the space that became available when the snow and ice compacted with his movements. He slowly tried to dig himself free. There seemed to be a lot of empty space below him. He could turn his head enough to see Brian in the dim cockpit, lying outstretched next to Davis’s well-insulated corpse. Brian’s left arm was twisted in an unnatural angle and blood ran down his face from a gash across his forehead.
“Brian!” Jack called.
There was no response.
“Brian!” Jack’s voice became an exhaled whine.
Jack raised his arms above his head, trying to reach for Brian. The action didn’t involve any real exertion at all. He felt as if his arms had been tugged toward the paramedic.
“Fuck,” he muttered.
Remembering something he learned while reading about search and rescue in avalanche country, he mustered up as much saliva as he could. He opened his mouth and let the spit dribble out of his mouth. Only, it didn’t slide back into his mouth at all. Instead, it dripped from his lips, lingering in a straight line down to the snow he had excavated. He coughed up a wad of spit and forced it outward with a lungful of air. It flew into the snow below his face. He was not only trapped in the helicopter’s wreckage, he was upside down.
“Ugh, Jack?” Brian groaned.
“Brian, hang in there. I’m stuck,” Jack gasped. He reached around in the wreckage overhead. His fingers closed on an ice cold piece of metal, some damaged chopper part that had come loose in the avalanche. He pulled the foot-long piece free.
“Jack?” Brian called.
“I’m gonna try to dig my way out.” Jack plunged the metal into the snow near his legs, carving away at the compacted snow that had sealed him into place. His chest ached with every movement. He wondered if he might have cracked his ribs.
“Fuck! I think my arm is broken,” Brian said, as he ducked away from the chunks of snow that Jack sent his way.
“I can move my legs a little, it won’t be long now before I’m able to help you. Watch out for falling shit,” he cautioned Brian.
With a tremendous heave, Jack pulled his legs from their snowy trap, scattering the packed snow into the cockpit where Brian lay.
Jack lowered himself the rest of the way down, taking care to land on Davis’s corpse, instead of Brian’s battered body.
“Shit, man, my arm is broken for sure.” Blood ran into Brian’s eyes, but he was helpless to wipe it out of the way with his injured arm.
“Yeah, yer head’s bleedin’ too.” Jack flexed his fingers into his palms, gripping and releasing repeatedly, trying to restore some warmth to his frozen digits. He knelt in discomfort, and untied the knots on the tarp that insulated Davis inside the litter. He pulled the plastic sheet from the body and reached around Davis’s neck for a woolen sweater that had been tucked there to prevent further loss of heat when he was still alive. Wrenching the sweater free, Jack struggled to knee-walk toward Brian.
“Fuck, my arm is killin’ me, Jack. Can you help me?”
“Yeah Brian, here.” Jack used the sweater to blot the blood from Brian’s forehead and apply pressure to the bleeding gash.
“Oh, fuck,” Brian said.
“Hey, Brian, I think you know what I need to do about your arm,” Jack said, licking the blood that trickled from his lip.
“Just grab it and pull,” Brian insisted, nonchalantly.
Jack didn’t hesitate. He reached for Brian, locked their hands together in a handshake, braced his left palm on Brian’s shoulder and pulled with all his might. Brian screamed as the bone slid into place, tendons realigning they way the belonged, the muscles relieved from the pierce of the jagged broken bones.
Jack’s chest heaved up and down with the effort.
“Not bad for a rookie,” said Brian, his voice strained.
“Do not attempt this at home,” Jack chuckled. “Ow… my ribs hurt.”
“Damn, that feels better, though,” Brian said.
“Still gotta wrap it up with something so it’s stable,” Jack said, looking to Davis, in hopes of using more of the dry clothing that had been wrapped around him in the rescue.
Brian admired his straightened arm.
Outside, the last rays of sunlight were heading toward the horizon and the cockpit grew darker with every minute.
“We gotta get outta here,” Brian said.
“We ain’t goin’ nowhere right now,” Jack said.
“Getting dark, Jack,” Brian said, biting his bottom lip. “They’re never gonna find us up here.”
“Not tonight, maybe. But they’ll find us,” Jack said. “I know Ennis will be lookin’ for me.”
“Ennis Del Mar?” Brian asked.
“Yep,” Jack breathed, careful not to give too much away to Brian. “Friend of mine from way back when.”
“I’ve known Ennis for a while now,” Brian said. “Works the range in summer, caretaker at the Mt. Elbert Trailhead cabin in winter. Quiet guy. Sorta like a hermit. He don’t say nuthin’ to anyone.”
“Yeah,” Jack said, closing his eyes. That’s my Ennis, Jack thought. Stubborn man. He remembered that it had taken Ennis weeks to start talking to him up on Brokeback, when they were the only two guys around. He came around, in time, though.
“Guess divorce’ll do that to a guy,” Brian said.
“Mmm,” Jack nodded, gathering up the tarp and dragging it over to Brian. So, Ennis was divorced? Yet Ennis had never bothered to look him up. What could he have been thinking?
“Here, Brian, try to get this behind you,” Jack said, pushing the tarp toward Brian’s good arm. “It’s freezing in here and these uniforms ain’t exactly meant for these conditions. If we gotta spend the night, we need to try to stay warm.”
Jack worked to cover Brian in the plastic tarp, taking care to tuck it tightly behind Brian’s back.
“What about you, Jack?” Brian asked, his voice sleepy.
“Not enough room for both of us, Brian. You try and get some rest. Mornin’ can’t come soon enough.” Jack said, tugging his hat down to cover more of his ears.
Jack lay next to Brian, separated by the tarp. He crossed his arms and tucked his hands under his armpits to try to warm them. Darkness fell, the only sound the occasional thump of snow as it fell off the trees and hit the remains of the chopper.
Jack tried to sleep, but his mind was occupied with thoughts of their rescue and what they might have to do to help themselves to get out of their situation. He doubted whether they could walk far, even if they were to get out of the wreckage. But Ennis and his team could be on their way to find them. Ennis… divorced and alone in the mountains. Jack needed to find out why. He needed to know whether Ennis had simply forgotten all about Jack Twist, or if he was just as happy to see Jack as Jack was to see him.
“Ennis,” Jack whispered to the encroaching night. “You’ll come find me. I know you will. I can just feel it.”
~~~
Alma had stored away most of her things while the girls were at the park with their parents. Upstairs, she’d put aside the Sunday paper in hopes of having time later to look for a new job. She was lucky to have gotten work at the Riverton Laundromat just before she and Ennis got divorced. She doubted she’d ever have the convenience of living at her workplace again, unless she went to work on a ranch. The small apartment above the Laundromat only had one bedroom, an eat-in kitchen, and a tiny bathroom with a claw-foot tub, but Alma thought of it as home. At least she was able to do her laundry downstairs after she locked up for the night.
“I can help with that,” Alma said, taking the sack of green beans from Laurie.
She vowed that she would do as much as she could to lighten K.E. and Laurie’s load, even if it meant simply helping prepare the food for dinner. The Del Mars were kind enough to let her stay, and K.E. certainly didn’t act like he was the slightest bit uncomfortable with Alma being there.
Alma tossed the beans into the colander and ran water over them.
She supposed K.E. might have objected to providing a roof over the head of his former sister-in-law, after what happened between Alma and his brother, but K.E. was a good-natured soul and didn’t mind helping a friend of Laurie’s.
Alma busied herself with trimming the green beans and tossing their discarded ends into the paper sack. She collected the beans in an enamel bowl, stained white the color of an old man’s dentures. The aroma from the roast that Laurie had started in the oven an hour or so earlier wafted through the kitchen.
“Okay, girls,” Laurie said. “I’m going to have to ask you to take your coloring books off the kitchen table and go finish with them in the living room."
“Look, Mama! Flowers!” Linda said, holding her coloring project up for Laurie to inspect.
“Oh, that’s beautiful, honey,” Laurie said.
“Can we watch television, Mama?” Lisa asked.
“Not right now. We’re going to eat dinner soon,” Laurie said.
“I stayed in the lines, Mama,” Lisa said.
“Yes, you did,” Laurie said, holding the coloring book up to the light. Just finish with your pictures that you are working on and then get washed up.”
The girls obediently took their coloring books and crayons into the living room and Laurie began to set the table.
Alma put the beans into the pot, which was already sending a gust of steam into the air. She lidded the pot and rinsed her hands in the sink.
Laurie went to the garage door and called, “Cookieman, dinner will be ready in just a few minutes.”
Alma dried her hands and stood in the doorway to the living room, watching the girls finish their coloring. Linda held a crayon in her chubby hand, her tongue trapped between her lips as she concentrated. Lisa was more meticulous, tracing the black outline of her drawing with even pressure.
In the kitchen, Laurie took her turn, washing her hands at the sink. Alma couldn’t help but notice when the door from the garage burst open and K.E. entered the kitchen. After closing the door behind him, K.E. wrapped his arms around Laurie, pressed his chest to her back, and kissed the nape of her neck.
“Ewww, you smell like gasoline,” Laurie said, squirming out of K.E.’s embrace.
“The lawnmower was on empty,” K.E. said. “Just filled it with gas so it’s ready for next time I have to mow.”
“Well, get your grubby hands off me and wash up for dinner,” Laurie said as she flicked a dollop of soapsuds onto K.E.’s nose.
Alma turned her attention to the living room again. Her cheeks blushed with embarrassment. She had never been in the presence of a couple who were as affectionate to each other as K.E. and Laurie. It made her uncomfortable, as if she were seeing behavior that was meant to be reined in, especially in the presence of children. She wondered where on earth K.E. had gotten this trait. He certainly didn’t learn it from his own family—not if Ennis’s behavior was any indicator. Ennis never displayed such overt affection in his life, so it couldn’t be hereditary.
In fact, Alma was sure that no Christian couple should behave like this. It seemed like K.E. was a lot like Bradley McBurney, and Laurie was his willing Margaret Quinn.
Alma shivered as she recalled another time in high school with her friend Janet, who always seemed to know too much about sex for a teenage girl.
“If you had to show one part of your body to a boy,” Janet mused, as they waited on the blacktop for the fire drill to end, “which part would you show him?”
“What do you mean?” Alma asked, nervous about where Janet’s question might be leading.
“Well, would you rather let a boy see your boobs or your privates that your underpants cover?” Janet asked matter-of-factly.
Alma felt her ears burn red, just thinking of the question.
“I don’t know,” Alma whispered. “I wouldn’t want him to see either.” She wanted to remind Janet that such a thing was a sin, but she felt that the news would fall on deaf ears.
“But if you had to pick one… if you just had to, or you’d die… which would it be?” Janet pressed forward.
Alma thought about the question long and hard as they dallied among the hopscotch courts beside the school.
“I couldn’t decide,” Alma said, frustrated. “I wouldn’t want a boy to see anything, ever.”
“Oh, come on,” pleaded Janet. “Pick one! I know which dirty part I would hide from a boy’s eyes.”
Alma stared at her shoes. “Well, which one would you pick then?”
“I’d hide my boobs from him, of course,” Janet said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
Alma nodded, trying to understand. Janet seemed to have put a lot of thought into this and Alma wondered about Janet’s rationale for the decision.
“Why would you hide your boobs, and let him see the other… dirty part?” Alma asked, cringing as she spat out the words, as if the mere mention of her body would get her stabbed by Archangel Michael’s spear.
It was quite simple when Janet explained it. “All boys are going to get married,” Janet said. “And when they do, they’ll get to see a girl’s privates in their underpants anyway when they make a baby. So there’s no need to fuss about hiding that part from a boy.”
“Oh, I didn’t think of that,” Alma said, embarrassed.
Janet certainly knew a lot more about sex than Alma. What she said made sense though, for Alma, too, to keep her boobs hidden for modesty’s sake.
And Alma carried that wisdom with her when Dan Donovan asked her to go to the high school dance—
“Dinner’s ready!” Laurie’s voice interrupted Alma’s reminiscence.
As the girls set the table for dinner, K.E. sliced the roast on a carving tray. Alma helped the girls get into their places before taking a seat herself. Her shoulders went stiff when she watched K.E. pull Laurie’s chair out for her, before sliding it in again when she was seated. He kissed Laurie’s cheek.
Men were an utter mystery to Alma.
She couldn’t understand why they behaved the way that they did. In some ways, she thought it would be nice to have a take-charge man like K.E. in her life. One who would protect and provide at all costs, making sure his family was taken care of. She wondered why K.E. was so different from Ennis.
Laurie and the girls bowed their heads for grace, which K.E. pretended to read from the family Bible that he kept on a shelf close to the table.
“We thank you, Lord, for the food we are about to eat, and I thank you for the ability to put it on the table,” he said with a chuckle.
“Amen,” the girls said in chorus.
As the food was passed around, the children took their share, politely saying please and thank you when they were helped by one of the adults.
Alma wondered about the act it took to bring the girls into existence. She knew the physical aspects of sex as it had been taught at the Future Homemakers of America meeting, but how did K.E. and Laurie overcome what they had been taught?
It was a mystery to her that two God-fearing people could see or touch each other naked. How could they copulate, when it was something that, from the first moment they set foot in Sunday School, she and every other Christian had been taught was sinful? How did a proclamation of marriage suddenly change the couple’s attitude from one of believing sex was a sin to believing it was not only acceptable, but a duty in order to create children?
Laurie and K.E. had done this unthinkable act, but they got their beautiful daughters out of the deal.
Maybe it was a fate worth suffering—casting off the memory of the threatened fiery pit of Hell, in order to have these little angels at their dinner table.
~~~
In some places, such as the 1950s on the plains of Wyoming, sex education as we know it was not taught in public schools. It was not taught by the church. It was not taught by parents. In fact, sex education as we know it was not taught at all. Children learned about reproduction if they lived on a farm where animals bred, or if they had pets that went into heat, mated, and gave birth. Witnessing these incidents of animal reproduction was no guarantee that a child would equivalate their biology with that of human reproduction, but if they were unfortunate enough to be stripped of these experiential farm opportunities, they were on their own when it came to discovering their sexuality.
In some schools, at one point in time, there were no classes for women’s health, birth control choices, gender expression, or teen parenting. Everything from nudity to masturbation was considered dirty. Students were punished for drawing a dirty picture, for saying the name of a dirty body part, and for touching themselves in a dirty place. The punishment was upheld by every one of the students’ role models, from revered church leaders to beloved relatives. The student was deemed to have a dirty mind… even if they did not. Those students who were not disciplined enough to ignore their genitals gathered whatever information was available from his or her peers. The information wasn’t always accurate. The misinformation could lead to unwanted pregnancies, sexually transmitted diseases, and worse—an overwhelming shame about sexuality that the student would carry for the rest of her life.
The church preached abstinence, when they said anything at all about sex. Every woman was to remain a virgin until she was married. A girl’s mother might have a stilted talk with her daughter in the moments before her wedding night, but no mention of the biological process in which a human life is formed was ever made in church. The Immaculate Conception was held in the utmost esteem—a model of motherhood to which every girl should compare herself if she wished to uphold the highest standard. There was no such thing as birth control; a large family was the most telling sign of success.
The conventional wisdom of the time did not require parents to teach their children about sex and reproduction. There was too much ignorance, guilt, embarrassment, and anxiety that surrounded the subject. They couldn’t be expected to discuss such a thing with their children, especially not their daughters who they raised to worship an immaculate virgin and who they demanded remain pure for their husbands. The subject was not only avoided at all costs, but stories that contradicted the biology of human reproduction were invented instead to explain the sudden presence of an infant.
Where did babies come from?
Babies were brought by the stork, or the new parents found a baby in the cabbage patch, or they simply chose a new child from the vast selection at the local hospital. These stories were presented as fact in a time where a child’s only power came from their ability to believe in the guidance they were offered by the adults who raised them. If a child were trusting enough to believe in the wisdom of adults, if they didn’t come to their senses and call bullshit, they only had one choice—to believe the stories they were told by the adults into whose care they were entrusted.
If girls did not menstruate, this ruse could have gone on indefinitely. But with their daughter’s thirteenth birthday looming and the inevitable onset of the accompanying blood, a mother had no choice. It was time to come clean. For mothers who had demanded modesty and chaste behavior from their daughters, it was impossible to turn on a dime and expect to discuss the long avoided bodily functions that females experienced. They had burned their bridges. The subject was closed because of their insistence that Immaculate Conception was real, babies are brought by a stork, and Santa Claus comes down the chimney with toys for all the good boys and girls on Christmas morning.
Most girls figured it out.
They got pregnant. Or they had an older sibling who explained that the teachings of the parents were only myths. Or they had such a sex drive that they couldn’t help but touch themselves which led to their figuring it out on their own. But if they had none of those, they simply believed. They trusted the words of their parents. They didn’t touch. They didn’t ask. They didn’t experiment. Because they believed what they were told and what they were taught. They believed sex was a sin.
Nothing and no one gave them a reason to believe any differently.
~~~
Author: gwylliondream
Genre: AU
Pairing: Alma/Ennis, Ennis/Jack
Rating: NC-17
Words: 60K in 16 chapters
Warnings: Major character death (not Ennis or Jack), child abuse, religious persecution, homophobia, under-aged non-consensual kissing and groping, indecent exposure, attempted rape, unreliable narrator.
Summary: Ennis and Jack thought they had seen the last of each other when they parted ways on a windy day in Signal. They were wrong. Some people thought Alma would have remarried after her divorce. They were wrong, too.
A/N: Rocky Mountain Search and Rescue was written for NaNoWriMo 2012.
“Calling Me Back to the Hills” was written by Earl Shaffer, poet and friend.
Thanks: My deepest thanks to
morrobay1990 for answering my veiled pleas for a beta over on DCF. She provided incomparable support during the 30 days of NaNoWriMo, from brainstorming, to cheerleading, to prodding, and to writing a passion-filled scene in her own inimitable style, which I happily included. Thanks to my wonderful DCF co-mod lawgoddess for audiencing this fic and giving it a thorough beta job. Thanks to soulan both for traveling to Salida to research the terrain at the foothills of the Rockies and for vehemently disagreeing with me years ago when I insisted that Alma Beers-Del Mar would never have remarried after her divorce from Ennis. If not for that spirited argument, this fic never could have been.Dedication: Rocky Mountain Search and Rescue is dedicated to Andy, for whom the hills called.
Disclaimer: I did not create these characters. No disrespect intended. No profit desired, only muses.
Comments: Comments are welcome anytime, thanks so much for reading.
Through the mist of the morning that creepingly swirls like wraiths through each little ravine
Jack felt like he was drowning. He struggled as if he were underwater, trying to catch his breath. If only he could make it to the surface, he would be able to breathe again. His eyes opened, lashes fluttering against a wall of ice.
He fought to free his arms from the snow that filled the crushed cockpit of the chopper. They wouldn’t move. He couldn’t open his mouth to scream. He could barely inhale, except for a few huffed intakes with his nose. He managed to loosen his right hand slightly, his elbow making space in the snowy tomb. He walked his freezing cold fingers over the snow, bringing them to his face. He tapped against the ice mask that had formed where his breath had condensed and frozen.
Using his thumbnail against the edge of the mask, he picked at the ice, chipping off pieces, bit by bit. His nail tore and the droplets of blood stained the snow. Chunk by chunk, the ice was shifted, first to an air pocket near his hand. Then, it was jostled further along his arm. He kept digging and flicking the ice with his bloody nail, eventually accumulating the crystalline debris in the space vacated by his arm.
Finally, a piece of ice near the corner of Jack’s mouth was pried away by his bloody fingers. Jack heaved a cold breath into his lungs, gasping so hard it made his ribs hurt. Working his fingers, the ice surrounding the mask was fully excavated, leaving just the mold of ice between Jack’s face and the air of the cockpit. With a grunt, he forced it out of the way, exposing his face to the air, reveling in the ability to breathe in the fuel-scented oxygen again.
Jack took advantage of the space that became available when the snow and ice compacted with his movements. He slowly tried to dig himself free. There seemed to be a lot of empty space below him. He could turn his head enough to see Brian in the dim cockpit, lying outstretched next to Davis’s well-insulated corpse. Brian’s left arm was twisted in an unnatural angle and blood ran down his face from a gash across his forehead.
“Brian!” Jack called.
There was no response.
“Brian!” Jack’s voice became an exhaled whine.
Jack raised his arms above his head, trying to reach for Brian. The action didn’t involve any real exertion at all. He felt as if his arms had been tugged toward the paramedic.
“Fuck,” he muttered.
Remembering something he learned while reading about search and rescue in avalanche country, he mustered up as much saliva as he could. He opened his mouth and let the spit dribble out of his mouth. Only, it didn’t slide back into his mouth at all. Instead, it dripped from his lips, lingering in a straight line down to the snow he had excavated. He coughed up a wad of spit and forced it outward with a lungful of air. It flew into the snow below his face. He was not only trapped in the helicopter’s wreckage, he was upside down.
“Ugh, Jack?” Brian groaned.
“Brian, hang in there. I’m stuck,” Jack gasped. He reached around in the wreckage overhead. His fingers closed on an ice cold piece of metal, some damaged chopper part that had come loose in the avalanche. He pulled the foot-long piece free.
“Jack?” Brian called.
“I’m gonna try to dig my way out.” Jack plunged the metal into the snow near his legs, carving away at the compacted snow that had sealed him into place. His chest ached with every movement. He wondered if he might have cracked his ribs.
“Fuck! I think my arm is broken,” Brian said, as he ducked away from the chunks of snow that Jack sent his way.
“I can move my legs a little, it won’t be long now before I’m able to help you. Watch out for falling shit,” he cautioned Brian.
With a tremendous heave, Jack pulled his legs from their snowy trap, scattering the packed snow into the cockpit where Brian lay.
Jack lowered himself the rest of the way down, taking care to land on Davis’s corpse, instead of Brian’s battered body.
“Shit, man, my arm is broken for sure.” Blood ran into Brian’s eyes, but he was helpless to wipe it out of the way with his injured arm.
“Yeah, yer head’s bleedin’ too.” Jack flexed his fingers into his palms, gripping and releasing repeatedly, trying to restore some warmth to his frozen digits. He knelt in discomfort, and untied the knots on the tarp that insulated Davis inside the litter. He pulled the plastic sheet from the body and reached around Davis’s neck for a woolen sweater that had been tucked there to prevent further loss of heat when he was still alive. Wrenching the sweater free, Jack struggled to knee-walk toward Brian.
“Fuck, my arm is killin’ me, Jack. Can you help me?”
“Yeah Brian, here.” Jack used the sweater to blot the blood from Brian’s forehead and apply pressure to the bleeding gash.
“Oh, fuck,” Brian said.
“Hey, Brian, I think you know what I need to do about your arm,” Jack said, licking the blood that trickled from his lip.
“Just grab it and pull,” Brian insisted, nonchalantly.
Jack didn’t hesitate. He reached for Brian, locked their hands together in a handshake, braced his left palm on Brian’s shoulder and pulled with all his might. Brian screamed as the bone slid into place, tendons realigning they way the belonged, the muscles relieved from the pierce of the jagged broken bones.
Jack’s chest heaved up and down with the effort.
“Not bad for a rookie,” said Brian, his voice strained.
“Do not attempt this at home,” Jack chuckled. “Ow… my ribs hurt.”
“Damn, that feels better, though,” Brian said.
“Still gotta wrap it up with something so it’s stable,” Jack said, looking to Davis, in hopes of using more of the dry clothing that had been wrapped around him in the rescue.
Brian admired his straightened arm.
Outside, the last rays of sunlight were heading toward the horizon and the cockpit grew darker with every minute.
“We gotta get outta here,” Brian said.
“We ain’t goin’ nowhere right now,” Jack said.
“Getting dark, Jack,” Brian said, biting his bottom lip. “They’re never gonna find us up here.”
“Not tonight, maybe. But they’ll find us,” Jack said. “I know Ennis will be lookin’ for me.”
“Ennis Del Mar?” Brian asked.
“Yep,” Jack breathed, careful not to give too much away to Brian. “Friend of mine from way back when.”
“I’ve known Ennis for a while now,” Brian said. “Works the range in summer, caretaker at the Mt. Elbert Trailhead cabin in winter. Quiet guy. Sorta like a hermit. He don’t say nuthin’ to anyone.”
“Yeah,” Jack said, closing his eyes. That’s my Ennis, Jack thought. Stubborn man. He remembered that it had taken Ennis weeks to start talking to him up on Brokeback, when they were the only two guys around. He came around, in time, though.
“Guess divorce’ll do that to a guy,” Brian said.
“Mmm,” Jack nodded, gathering up the tarp and dragging it over to Brian. So, Ennis was divorced? Yet Ennis had never bothered to look him up. What could he have been thinking?
“Here, Brian, try to get this behind you,” Jack said, pushing the tarp toward Brian’s good arm. “It’s freezing in here and these uniforms ain’t exactly meant for these conditions. If we gotta spend the night, we need to try to stay warm.”
Jack worked to cover Brian in the plastic tarp, taking care to tuck it tightly behind Brian’s back.
“What about you, Jack?” Brian asked, his voice sleepy.
“Not enough room for both of us, Brian. You try and get some rest. Mornin’ can’t come soon enough.” Jack said, tugging his hat down to cover more of his ears.
Jack lay next to Brian, separated by the tarp. He crossed his arms and tucked his hands under his armpits to try to warm them. Darkness fell, the only sound the occasional thump of snow as it fell off the trees and hit the remains of the chopper.
Jack tried to sleep, but his mind was occupied with thoughts of their rescue and what they might have to do to help themselves to get out of their situation. He doubted whether they could walk far, even if they were to get out of the wreckage. But Ennis and his team could be on their way to find them. Ennis… divorced and alone in the mountains. Jack needed to find out why. He needed to know whether Ennis had simply forgotten all about Jack Twist, or if he was just as happy to see Jack as Jack was to see him.
“Ennis,” Jack whispered to the encroaching night. “You’ll come find me. I know you will. I can just feel it.”
Alma had stored away most of her things while the girls were at the park with their parents. Upstairs, she’d put aside the Sunday paper in hopes of having time later to look for a new job. She was lucky to have gotten work at the Riverton Laundromat just before she and Ennis got divorced. She doubted she’d ever have the convenience of living at her workplace again, unless she went to work on a ranch. The small apartment above the Laundromat only had one bedroom, an eat-in kitchen, and a tiny bathroom with a claw-foot tub, but Alma thought of it as home. At least she was able to do her laundry downstairs after she locked up for the night.
“I can help with that,” Alma said, taking the sack of green beans from Laurie.
She vowed that she would do as much as she could to lighten K.E. and Laurie’s load, even if it meant simply helping prepare the food for dinner. The Del Mars were kind enough to let her stay, and K.E. certainly didn’t act like he was the slightest bit uncomfortable with Alma being there.
Alma tossed the beans into the colander and ran water over them.
She supposed K.E. might have objected to providing a roof over the head of his former sister-in-law, after what happened between Alma and his brother, but K.E. was a good-natured soul and didn’t mind helping a friend of Laurie’s.
Alma busied herself with trimming the green beans and tossing their discarded ends into the paper sack. She collected the beans in an enamel bowl, stained white the color of an old man’s dentures. The aroma from the roast that Laurie had started in the oven an hour or so earlier wafted through the kitchen.
“Okay, girls,” Laurie said. “I’m going to have to ask you to take your coloring books off the kitchen table and go finish with them in the living room."
“Look, Mama! Flowers!” Linda said, holding her coloring project up for Laurie to inspect.
“Oh, that’s beautiful, honey,” Laurie said.
“Can we watch television, Mama?” Lisa asked.
“Not right now. We’re going to eat dinner soon,” Laurie said.
“I stayed in the lines, Mama,” Lisa said.
“Yes, you did,” Laurie said, holding the coloring book up to the light. Just finish with your pictures that you are working on and then get washed up.”
The girls obediently took their coloring books and crayons into the living room and Laurie began to set the table.
Alma put the beans into the pot, which was already sending a gust of steam into the air. She lidded the pot and rinsed her hands in the sink.
Laurie went to the garage door and called, “Cookieman, dinner will be ready in just a few minutes.”
Alma dried her hands and stood in the doorway to the living room, watching the girls finish their coloring. Linda held a crayon in her chubby hand, her tongue trapped between her lips as she concentrated. Lisa was more meticulous, tracing the black outline of her drawing with even pressure.
In the kitchen, Laurie took her turn, washing her hands at the sink. Alma couldn’t help but notice when the door from the garage burst open and K.E. entered the kitchen. After closing the door behind him, K.E. wrapped his arms around Laurie, pressed his chest to her back, and kissed the nape of her neck.
“Ewww, you smell like gasoline,” Laurie said, squirming out of K.E.’s embrace.
“The lawnmower was on empty,” K.E. said. “Just filled it with gas so it’s ready for next time I have to mow.”
“Well, get your grubby hands off me and wash up for dinner,” Laurie said as she flicked a dollop of soapsuds onto K.E.’s nose.
Alma turned her attention to the living room again. Her cheeks blushed with embarrassment. She had never been in the presence of a couple who were as affectionate to each other as K.E. and Laurie. It made her uncomfortable, as if she were seeing behavior that was meant to be reined in, especially in the presence of children. She wondered where on earth K.E. had gotten this trait. He certainly didn’t learn it from his own family—not if Ennis’s behavior was any indicator. Ennis never displayed such overt affection in his life, so it couldn’t be hereditary.
In fact, Alma was sure that no Christian couple should behave like this. It seemed like K.E. was a lot like Bradley McBurney, and Laurie was his willing Margaret Quinn.
Alma shivered as she recalled another time in high school with her friend Janet, who always seemed to know too much about sex for a teenage girl.
“If you had to show one part of your body to a boy,” Janet mused, as they waited on the blacktop for the fire drill to end, “which part would you show him?”
“What do you mean?” Alma asked, nervous about where Janet’s question might be leading.
“Well, would you rather let a boy see your boobs or your privates that your underpants cover?” Janet asked matter-of-factly.
Alma felt her ears burn red, just thinking of the question.
“I don’t know,” Alma whispered. “I wouldn’t want him to see either.” She wanted to remind Janet that such a thing was a sin, but she felt that the news would fall on deaf ears.
“But if you had to pick one… if you just had to, or you’d die… which would it be?” Janet pressed forward.
Alma thought about the question long and hard as they dallied among the hopscotch courts beside the school.
“I couldn’t decide,” Alma said, frustrated. “I wouldn’t want a boy to see anything, ever.”
“Oh, come on,” pleaded Janet. “Pick one! I know which dirty part I would hide from a boy’s eyes.”
Alma stared at her shoes. “Well, which one would you pick then?”
“I’d hide my boobs from him, of course,” Janet said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
Alma nodded, trying to understand. Janet seemed to have put a lot of thought into this and Alma wondered about Janet’s rationale for the decision.
“Why would you hide your boobs, and let him see the other… dirty part?” Alma asked, cringing as she spat out the words, as if the mere mention of her body would get her stabbed by Archangel Michael’s spear.
It was quite simple when Janet explained it. “All boys are going to get married,” Janet said. “And when they do, they’ll get to see a girl’s privates in their underpants anyway when they make a baby. So there’s no need to fuss about hiding that part from a boy.”
“Oh, I didn’t think of that,” Alma said, embarrassed.
Janet certainly knew a lot more about sex than Alma. What she said made sense though, for Alma, too, to keep her boobs hidden for modesty’s sake.
And Alma carried that wisdom with her when Dan Donovan asked her to go to the high school dance—
“Dinner’s ready!” Laurie’s voice interrupted Alma’s reminiscence.
As the girls set the table for dinner, K.E. sliced the roast on a carving tray. Alma helped the girls get into their places before taking a seat herself. Her shoulders went stiff when she watched K.E. pull Laurie’s chair out for her, before sliding it in again when she was seated. He kissed Laurie’s cheek.
Men were an utter mystery to Alma.
She couldn’t understand why they behaved the way that they did. In some ways, she thought it would be nice to have a take-charge man like K.E. in her life. One who would protect and provide at all costs, making sure his family was taken care of. She wondered why K.E. was so different from Ennis.
Laurie and the girls bowed their heads for grace, which K.E. pretended to read from the family Bible that he kept on a shelf close to the table.
“We thank you, Lord, for the food we are about to eat, and I thank you for the ability to put it on the table,” he said with a chuckle.
“Amen,” the girls said in chorus.
As the food was passed around, the children took their share, politely saying please and thank you when they were helped by one of the adults.
Alma wondered about the act it took to bring the girls into existence. She knew the physical aspects of sex as it had been taught at the Future Homemakers of America meeting, but how did K.E. and Laurie overcome what they had been taught?
It was a mystery to her that two God-fearing people could see or touch each other naked. How could they copulate, when it was something that, from the first moment they set foot in Sunday School, she and every other Christian had been taught was sinful? How did a proclamation of marriage suddenly change the couple’s attitude from one of believing sex was a sin to believing it was not only acceptable, but a duty in order to create children?
Laurie and K.E. had done this unthinkable act, but they got their beautiful daughters out of the deal.
Maybe it was a fate worth suffering—casting off the memory of the threatened fiery pit of Hell, in order to have these little angels at their dinner table.
In some places, such as the 1950s on the plains of Wyoming, sex education as we know it was not taught in public schools. It was not taught by the church. It was not taught by parents. In fact, sex education as we know it was not taught at all. Children learned about reproduction if they lived on a farm where animals bred, or if they had pets that went into heat, mated, and gave birth. Witnessing these incidents of animal reproduction was no guarantee that a child would equivalate their biology with that of human reproduction, but if they were unfortunate enough to be stripped of these experiential farm opportunities, they were on their own when it came to discovering their sexuality.
In some schools, at one point in time, there were no classes for women’s health, birth control choices, gender expression, or teen parenting. Everything from nudity to masturbation was considered dirty. Students were punished for drawing a dirty picture, for saying the name of a dirty body part, and for touching themselves in a dirty place. The punishment was upheld by every one of the students’ role models, from revered church leaders to beloved relatives. The student was deemed to have a dirty mind… even if they did not. Those students who were not disciplined enough to ignore their genitals gathered whatever information was available from his or her peers. The information wasn’t always accurate. The misinformation could lead to unwanted pregnancies, sexually transmitted diseases, and worse—an overwhelming shame about sexuality that the student would carry for the rest of her life.
The church preached abstinence, when they said anything at all about sex. Every woman was to remain a virgin until she was married. A girl’s mother might have a stilted talk with her daughter in the moments before her wedding night, but no mention of the biological process in which a human life is formed was ever made in church. The Immaculate Conception was held in the utmost esteem—a model of motherhood to which every girl should compare herself if she wished to uphold the highest standard. There was no such thing as birth control; a large family was the most telling sign of success.
The conventional wisdom of the time did not require parents to teach their children about sex and reproduction. There was too much ignorance, guilt, embarrassment, and anxiety that surrounded the subject. They couldn’t be expected to discuss such a thing with their children, especially not their daughters who they raised to worship an immaculate virgin and who they demanded remain pure for their husbands. The subject was not only avoided at all costs, but stories that contradicted the biology of human reproduction were invented instead to explain the sudden presence of an infant.
Where did babies come from?
Babies were brought by the stork, or the new parents found a baby in the cabbage patch, or they simply chose a new child from the vast selection at the local hospital. These stories were presented as fact in a time where a child’s only power came from their ability to believe in the guidance they were offered by the adults who raised them. If a child were trusting enough to believe in the wisdom of adults, if they didn’t come to their senses and call bullshit, they only had one choice—to believe the stories they were told by the adults into whose care they were entrusted.
If girls did not menstruate, this ruse could have gone on indefinitely. But with their daughter’s thirteenth birthday looming and the inevitable onset of the accompanying blood, a mother had no choice. It was time to come clean. For mothers who had demanded modesty and chaste behavior from their daughters, it was impossible to turn on a dime and expect to discuss the long avoided bodily functions that females experienced. They had burned their bridges. The subject was closed because of their insistence that Immaculate Conception was real, babies are brought by a stork, and Santa Claus comes down the chimney with toys for all the good boys and girls on Christmas morning.
Most girls figured it out.
They got pregnant. Or they had an older sibling who explained that the teachings of the parents were only myths. Or they had such a sex drive that they couldn’t help but touch themselves which led to their figuring it out on their own. But if they had none of those, they simply believed. They trusted the words of their parents. They didn’t touch. They didn’t ask. They didn’t experiment. Because they believed what they were told and what they were taught. They believed sex was a sin.
Nothing and no one gave them a reason to believe any differently.
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no subject
Date: 2013-02-17 11:52 pm (UTC)kj
no subject
Date: 2013-02-18 02:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-17 11:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-18 02:38 pm (UTC)Have a great week!
no subject
Date: 2013-02-18 01:23 am (UTC)"beans in an enamel bowl, stained white the color of an old man’s dentures..." yum! :D:D:D
I'm worried for Brian; I hope he pulls through the night, but those two are going to be pretty damn cold waiting for help. How long will it take, I wonder, before the rescue team realizes that the helicopter never showed up at the hospital?
*nail biting time*
no subject
Date: 2013-02-18 02:42 pm (UTC)I totally ripped off the "beans in an enamel bowl, stained white the color of an old man’s dentures" from Andy! It's so funny that you pulled it out. I had remarked that it was one of my favorite metaphors he used in one of his fics. I don't even remember which fic it was from, since they are all deleted, and I'm sure I phrased it wrong, but it made me happy to use one of his phrases in my fic.
Thanks for reading!
Beauty
Date: 2013-02-18 02:37 am (UTC)Re: Beauty
Date: 2013-02-18 02:48 pm (UTC)Have a great week, Joe!
Re: Beauty
Date: 2013-02-18 03:38 pm (UTC)Re: Beauty
Date: 2013-02-18 09:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-18 08:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-18 02:50 pm (UTC)Have a great week!
no subject
Date: 2013-02-18 12:54 pm (UTC)And the second part? I totally get why you converted!
no subject
Date: 2013-02-18 02:58 pm (UTC)If a slope lets go above you, remember you'll hear a thunderous boom first! It's the craziest thing, you'll ever hear! If you get caught in it, swim, swim, swim upward and keep your hands in front of your face!
LOL on the conversion. You've got that right!
Thanks so much for reading!
no subject
Date: 2013-02-18 05:17 pm (UTC)Alma really has nothing to fall back on, no stores of knowledge imparted by Ma Beers on which to draw, no realistic role model...just her own kind of twisted imaginings of the way she thinks things should be, taken from her interpretations and observations as a child. Hard to get through life like that.
eta: hey, just like Ennis!!
Excellent, as always!
no subject
Date: 2013-02-18 09:51 pm (UTC)And, yes! Alma is a lot like canon Ennis! I hadn't realized that.
Thanks so much for all your help in bringing this fic to fruition.
no subject
Date: 2013-02-18 06:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-18 09:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-19 05:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-19 06:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-20 02:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-20 02:00 pm (UTC)Thanks for all your help with my writing and with keeping Brokeback fanfic alive!
no subject
Date: 2013-02-20 02:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-20 02:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-21 08:11 pm (UTC)Christina
no subject
Date: 2013-02-21 09:21 pm (UTC)