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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.
Then I’ll seek out that most perfect valley of all that I’ve pictured so long in my mind
Jack’s eyes fluttered open in the early morning light. Brian was already awake, chipping away at the snow that made up one wall of their accommodations. It was easier to see inside the cockpit, since the sun was starting to rise, outlining the horizon with a pinkish glow.
Jack groaned and asked Brian, “What’re ya doin’?”
Brian didn’t answer right away. He just kept chipping at the snow with his thumbnail. When he had scattered enough of the crystals on the floor of the cockpit, he scooped them into his good hand, red from the cold and the exertion. He cupped his hand around the ice chips and slapped it to his mouth, tongue poking out to lick at the frozen water.
“Thirsty?” Jack asked.
Brian only nodded.
“Shit,” Jack said.
Jack tried to move his legs to get the circulation flowing, but it was slow going. His ribs ached. He folded his arms across his midsection to try to keep himself from falling apart because of the pain.
And Jack was no slouch.
His stint in the Army kept him in top-notch physical condition, despite the travails of serving overseas in wartime. He was already in pretty good shape when he came off the mountain after his second year of sheep-herding. He didn’t have the beer belly that some guys his age started to acquire, despite the amount of beer he liked to drink. No, he had a nice set of abs from all the time he spent on horseback, and brawny arms from hauling water to camp, wrangling sheep, and chopping wood all summer. Not to mention the fact that his calves and quads were ripped from riding and being ridden by Ennis Del Mar.
When Jack joined the Army, he knew going in that he wasn’t educated enough to get a position he really wanted. Serving in the infantry not only sucked, but it was the best way to get himself killed. He eventually got a chance at something better, but not until ’65, when Uncle Sam started heavy-duty troop deployment.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, he remembered a dream he had in his childhood. Ever since he’d been a boy in Lightning Flat, staring at the contrails that crisscrossed the sky above his daddy’s spread, he wanted to be a pilot. He’d take a kite out into the fields and let her soar in the prairie wind. He’d imagine that he was on the nose of that kite, riding into the sky. The kite’s flimsy waxed paper would riffle in the breeze, the tail stretched out below it, like a snake waiting to strike. Jack would dream of what it would be like to be in control of a real flying machine, just like his paper kite in the sky, only bigger and better.
Eventually Jack’s daddy would call him to the barn and bitch him out for not feeding the chickens, or not filling the pig’s trough with water, or not putting the pitchfork away where it belonged. Didn’t matter that his daddy snapped the balsa wood of that kite. He left it in splintered pieces, just like he did every last one of Jack’s hopes and dreams. Today, it was his dream of being a pilot. Tomorrow, it would be his dream of being a bull rider. And the next day, it would be something else. No matter what Jack wished for, his daddy tried his best to quash that dream before it got too close to reality. Jack didn’t have to wonder what his daddy was so afraid of—what made him too scared just to let Jack be. Jack always knew the reason. It was that something that made him act differently from the other boys… well most other boys, but not all.
Jack liked being in the Army. It was sort of like the rodeo, where he got to hang out with guys, many of whom were just like him. Of course they didn’t show it out in the open. But when the threat of being sent to the jungle made them quake in their boots, they sought each other out, instead of crying for their Mamas. Their situation got even more intense after Jack had been in a couple years and the troop deployments escalated, the danger thick in the air like the smell of gunpowder on the Fourth of July.
The tormented ones would find each other sobbing in the barracks, the only relief coming from having their pants around their ankles and a hot mouth on their cock. Jack was no exception. He liked to suck cock and he liked the feel of a smooth tongue on his balls, the brush of a whiskered cheek chaffing his thighs.
Serving in the Army was all good for Jack.
Being trained as a helicopter pilot was even better.
But that was an accident.
Jack always knew that he was book-smart, at least that’s what his Mama told him. When the sergeant saw him reading the Engineer Field Data Manual for the fun of it, he knew he had caught his attention.
He took a few tests and passed them with flying colors after all the reading he had done. He worried that he’d flunk out because of the vision tests, but much to his surprise, his eyesight was a hell of a lot better than his old sheepherding buddy, Ennis Del Mar.
Up until then, Jack never realized that he could become a helicopter pilot. He had no fancy college degree like some of the other guys who were in training for it.
He spent six months studying for his Alternate Flight Aptitude Selection Test, poring over the manuals that taught him what kind of shit to do and not to do when flying a chopper over enemy territory.
In the end, his commander gave him the bad news. He had passed the test, but he was out of luck if he wanted to become a pilot. It was weeks before Jack knew what had gone wrong. He wrote back home to his Ma about it.
Turned out, Jack wasn’t qualified to take any of those tests in the first place. The tests were meant for college guys, and the Army didn’t want a pissant ranch kid flying their expensive machinery. He thought his dream of becoming a pilot was over. But his old Uncle Harold apparently had some Army connections and a soft spot for the boy. He made it his business to get involved.
When all was said and done, Jack had logged in more than 1,000 hours of combat flying in Vietnam. Got a shit-ton of fancy medals for it too. Sent them home for his Ma to hang on the wall in a specially-made display case.
Jack hoped that it galled his daddy every time he had to walk by that fancy display, medals gleaming in the afternoon sun. He probably closed his eyes just to avoid seeing what his queer son had accomplished.
In the shattered cockpit, Jack sure wished some of those medals had been for winter survival skills instead. He took Brian’s cue and downed some ice chips that he had melted in his hand. It wasn’t near enough like the coffee and cigarette that he craved.
The sky was fully blue now, and it worried Jack that there was no sign of an aircraft flying overhead to look for them. With no sign of a rescue party trying to reach them on foot in the night, he knew that he and Brian would have to start to make their own plans to get off the mountain.
“I doubt we’re going to find anything more useful in this chopper than our own two feet,” Jack said.
“Do you mean what I think you mean?” Brian grunted, lifting his head from his cupped palm.
“It’s time for us to move out,” Jack said.
~~~
Alma played with Lisa for a while in her basement cocoon. She had managed to save some photo albums from the fire that ravaged her apartment. She showed them to the young girl who still thought of Alma as an aunt. Lisa pointed at the pictures and identified the younger versions of the people she knew. Uncle Ennis, her daddy K.E., Alma’s sister Ava, and friends that the Del Mars shared with Alma, even though she wasn’t truly a Del Mar anymore.
Before long, Laurie was calling from the top of the stairs, “Lisa, it’s time to go to school.”
“Did you know that I’m in kindergarten, Auntie Alma?” Lisa asked.
“Yes, I did know that. You’re such a big girl now,” Alma said, “and smart too.”
Lisa beamed with pride.
“I’ll see you when I get home from school, Auntie,” Lisa said as she hurried up the stairs.
Laurie called down, “Alma, I’m walking Lisa to school, and I have Linda with me. There’s coffee on the stove if you want some.”
“Okay,” Alma called back, straightening her nightgown. “I’ll see you when you get back.”
A minute later, Alma heard the door shut.
She sank down into the springy mattress, pulling the covers up to her chin.
She couldn’t imagine what it would be like to have two girls to care for, or even one girl relying on her as a mother. Alma was certain she would have been a failure at raising children herself. Even if she ever had gotten the opportunity, she knew she wouldn’t want to make the same mistakes Ann had made with her and Ava. But she wasn’t sure whether she could even begin to identify right from wrong for her children. She knew that she wouldn’t want them to date boys. Not until they were at least as old as Alma was now. Maybe never.
Boys.
That was always where the trouble began.
Alma was in seventh grade the first time a boy expressed interest in her.
He whistled at her from across the schoolyard.
She was waiting for the bell to ring that would signal the start of the school day. There was a crowd of students in the courtyard waiting for the big double-wide doors to open. The morning air was filled with noisy chatter as girls talked to each other. She listened to the hoots and hollers of the onlookers as a pair of boys duked it out on the cement walkway. There was no teacher in sight to break up the fight, so the boys were left to settle their squabble on their own. And then it happened—
A wolf whistle pierced the air, and it was directed right at Alma.
Alma turned and caught Jerry Brightman with his fingers still in his mouth and a sly look on his face.
Alma was stunned and humiliated.
Why would this boy, who she didn’t even know, insult her in such a lewd way?
She knew that the sound of a wolf whistle meant something dirty.
Alma was angry.
What gave him the right to fantasize about her in his sick little mind, when she had done nothing to invite his interest?
She hugged her notebook to her chest, not wanting to give the boy, an eight-grader no less, a better look at her burgeoning breasts.
Another boy smacked Jerry on the back, and with a big grin on his face, Jerry turned and followed him into a different part of the schoolyard.
Alma felt like she had been assaulted.
She didn’t dare tell her parents about the incident when she got home from school.
While she hoped her father would get his shotgun out to meet the boy on his front doorstep, she worried that her mother would accuse her of attracting the unwanted attention by behaving in a manner that was unladylike and more like a common tramp. Ann was fond of that expression. Although Alma wasn’t quite sure what a tramp was, unless she thought of the dog from that Disney movie, she knew it couldn’t be a good thing if her mother was accusing her of being one with such venom in her voice.
Since she couldn’t go to her parents, Alma did what she thought was the next best thing. She went to the principal’s office and reported what Jerry Brightman had done to her.
Mr. Hughes just laughed at her a bit and told her not to worry about it.
“It means he likes you,” the principal said, tapping his ruler on the side of his desk.
“But I don’t want him to like me,” Alma said, nervous about being in the principal’s office, although she was the one who initiated the meeting.
“Well, someday, you’ll want boys to like you,” Mr. Hughes assured Alma.
Alma doubted that very much. Only a sinful girl would welcome a boy’s attention like that, especially out in public in front of all the school kids. What would they think of Alma?
Probably the same thing they thought about Alma now. A divorced woman. Incapable of keeping her husband. A sinner who broke her marriage vows was an affront to her community, her family, and most importantly—to God, who she stood in front of and swore that she would stay married until death do her and Ennis Del Mar part. She was no longer married, yet she wasn’t dead. She had a hard time wrapping her head around it.
Alma lamented the loss of the children she never wanted and the children she would never have. But in their absence, she felt more joy than sadness. She felt relieved that she would never have to fear for her daughters and the unwanted attention they might receive from boys. If she had children, she would have had to teach them things that she herself knew so little about. She wasn’t equipped to do it. The only womanly wisdom she had came from her mother’s lectures about sin and from a story about a fumble in Bradley McBurney’s pants. And she had learned a few such lessons from Janet Lynch and Dan Donovan and Ennis Del Mar.
No, she could do without passing those life lessons on to anyone else. No one else should have to suffer so much humiliation for a marriage she wanted so badly.
~~~
Jeff’s Jeep sputtered and coughed as it bounced over the rutted dirt road. The headlights illuminated patches of snow that lingered in the lower elevations, but as FR 125 climbed, the dirt track turned to ice as the temperature dropped with the rise in the topography. The ice gave way to deepening snow. Frozen wheel tracks, dimpled with the studs from snow tires, indicated where the SAR vehicles had performed tight three-point turns to make their way back to the base after yesterday’s mission. He pulled into a parking spot and killed the headlights as the sun crested the horizon. The remaining mile to the trailhead and cabin was marred only by their single track of snowshoes as the rescuers tramped the way from the rescue site back to their vehicles.
Jeff tried the walkie-talkie one more time.
“Ennis? Come in, Ennis,” Jeff said into the handset.
He only got static in return.
“Sonofabitch,” Jeff said.
It wasn’t like Ennis to disobey orders, but he did seem inordinately concerned about Wayne’s new chopper pilot. Ennis had animatedly described how he knew Jack Twist from back when he was a teenager, well before Ennis started working for the Forest Service. Nevertheless, Jeff had a job to do.
Back at Twin Lakes, Wayne was ready to deploy the search party as soon as they had an idea of where the chopper went down. Jim Nueve was set to fly at dawn, along with a spotter who could help scan the terrain between Buena Vista and yesterday’s rescue site. Jeff’s main concern should have been on the accident victim that they intended to rescue the day before, but he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t worried to death about his medic and the pilot that had flown in from Salida for the rescue.
Jeff tested the groove in the snow with a stomp of his foot. It punched through the surface layer of crust and into the soft mush beneath it. The temperature had warmed overnight. That could be a good sign for anyone trying to survive the mountain conditions. Jeff strapped on his snowshoes so he could trek the mile to Ennis’s cabin without postholing through yesterday’s track. He tightened the belt on his backpack and made sure he left the walkie-talkie turned on, so he could be kept up to date on the search operation.
Jim and the spotter should have been in the air by now. If he listened carefully, Jeff thought he could hear the approach of the single engine Cessna as it flew from Twin Lakes into the backcountry.
The sound traveled well in the wintery woods. The trees hadn’t yet sprouted their spring leaves to dampen the sound of an engine, a birdsong, or a voice shouting for rescue in the thin mountain air.
Unfortunately the reception wasn’t always as clear with the walkie-talkies.
“Jeff? Come in, Jeff,” Wayne’s voice cackled through the radio.
Jeff stopped and unclipped the walkie-talkie from its holder and pressed the talk button with mitted fingers.
“Go ahead, this is Jeff,” he said.
“This is Wayne. Just wanted to let you know they flew over the southernmost ridge and didn’t see anything. They’re going to circle back and go in lower to get a better look. Did you get to Ennis yet?” Wayne asked.
“Almost there,” Jeff said. “Keep me posted. Over and out.”
He clipped the walkie-talkie back into its holder and continued his trek. The mile-long trail passed quickly under his snowshoes. He figured it took him only twenty minutes or so to make it to the cabin. He wasn’t surprised by what he found there. Ennis was missing and there were hot coals in the woodstove that suggested he had left it stoked the previous night.
He got back on the radio to Wayne and let him know what he found. He made special mention of the track he found, fresh snowshoe prints leading from Ennis’s cabin toward the southern ridges.
He followed them into the brightening woods.
~~~
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.
Then I’ll seek out that most perfect valley of all that I’ve pictured so long in my mind
Jack’s eyes fluttered open in the early morning light. Brian was already awake, chipping away at the snow that made up one wall of their accommodations. It was easier to see inside the cockpit, since the sun was starting to rise, outlining the horizon with a pinkish glow.
Jack groaned and asked Brian, “What’re ya doin’?”
Brian didn’t answer right away. He just kept chipping at the snow with his thumbnail. When he had scattered enough of the crystals on the floor of the cockpit, he scooped them into his good hand, red from the cold and the exertion. He cupped his hand around the ice chips and slapped it to his mouth, tongue poking out to lick at the frozen water.
“Thirsty?” Jack asked.
Brian only nodded.
“Shit,” Jack said.
Jack tried to move his legs to get the circulation flowing, but it was slow going. His ribs ached. He folded his arms across his midsection to try to keep himself from falling apart because of the pain.
And Jack was no slouch.
His stint in the Army kept him in top-notch physical condition, despite the travails of serving overseas in wartime. He was already in pretty good shape when he came off the mountain after his second year of sheep-herding. He didn’t have the beer belly that some guys his age started to acquire, despite the amount of beer he liked to drink. No, he had a nice set of abs from all the time he spent on horseback, and brawny arms from hauling water to camp, wrangling sheep, and chopping wood all summer. Not to mention the fact that his calves and quads were ripped from riding and being ridden by Ennis Del Mar.
When Jack joined the Army, he knew going in that he wasn’t educated enough to get a position he really wanted. Serving in the infantry not only sucked, but it was the best way to get himself killed. He eventually got a chance at something better, but not until ’65, when Uncle Sam started heavy-duty troop deployment.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, he remembered a dream he had in his childhood. Ever since he’d been a boy in Lightning Flat, staring at the contrails that crisscrossed the sky above his daddy’s spread, he wanted to be a pilot. He’d take a kite out into the fields and let her soar in the prairie wind. He’d imagine that he was on the nose of that kite, riding into the sky. The kite’s flimsy waxed paper would riffle in the breeze, the tail stretched out below it, like a snake waiting to strike. Jack would dream of what it would be like to be in control of a real flying machine, just like his paper kite in the sky, only bigger and better.
Eventually Jack’s daddy would call him to the barn and bitch him out for not feeding the chickens, or not filling the pig’s trough with water, or not putting the pitchfork away where it belonged. Didn’t matter that his daddy snapped the balsa wood of that kite. He left it in splintered pieces, just like he did every last one of Jack’s hopes and dreams. Today, it was his dream of being a pilot. Tomorrow, it would be his dream of being a bull rider. And the next day, it would be something else. No matter what Jack wished for, his daddy tried his best to quash that dream before it got too close to reality. Jack didn’t have to wonder what his daddy was so afraid of—what made him too scared just to let Jack be. Jack always knew the reason. It was that something that made him act differently from the other boys… well most other boys, but not all.
Jack liked being in the Army. It was sort of like the rodeo, where he got to hang out with guys, many of whom were just like him. Of course they didn’t show it out in the open. But when the threat of being sent to the jungle made them quake in their boots, they sought each other out, instead of crying for their Mamas. Their situation got even more intense after Jack had been in a couple years and the troop deployments escalated, the danger thick in the air like the smell of gunpowder on the Fourth of July.
The tormented ones would find each other sobbing in the barracks, the only relief coming from having their pants around their ankles and a hot mouth on their cock. Jack was no exception. He liked to suck cock and he liked the feel of a smooth tongue on his balls, the brush of a whiskered cheek chaffing his thighs.
Serving in the Army was all good for Jack.
Being trained as a helicopter pilot was even better.
But that was an accident.
Jack always knew that he was book-smart, at least that’s what his Mama told him. When the sergeant saw him reading the Engineer Field Data Manual for the fun of it, he knew he had caught his attention.
He took a few tests and passed them with flying colors after all the reading he had done. He worried that he’d flunk out because of the vision tests, but much to his surprise, his eyesight was a hell of a lot better than his old sheepherding buddy, Ennis Del Mar.
Up until then, Jack never realized that he could become a helicopter pilot. He had no fancy college degree like some of the other guys who were in training for it.
He spent six months studying for his Alternate Flight Aptitude Selection Test, poring over the manuals that taught him what kind of shit to do and not to do when flying a chopper over enemy territory.
In the end, his commander gave him the bad news. He had passed the test, but he was out of luck if he wanted to become a pilot. It was weeks before Jack knew what had gone wrong. He wrote back home to his Ma about it.
Turned out, Jack wasn’t qualified to take any of those tests in the first place. The tests were meant for college guys, and the Army didn’t want a pissant ranch kid flying their expensive machinery. He thought his dream of becoming a pilot was over. But his old Uncle Harold apparently had some Army connections and a soft spot for the boy. He made it his business to get involved.
When all was said and done, Jack had logged in more than 1,000 hours of combat flying in Vietnam. Got a shit-ton of fancy medals for it too. Sent them home for his Ma to hang on the wall in a specially-made display case.
Jack hoped that it galled his daddy every time he had to walk by that fancy display, medals gleaming in the afternoon sun. He probably closed his eyes just to avoid seeing what his queer son had accomplished.
In the shattered cockpit, Jack sure wished some of those medals had been for winter survival skills instead. He took Brian’s cue and downed some ice chips that he had melted in his hand. It wasn’t near enough like the coffee and cigarette that he craved.
The sky was fully blue now, and it worried Jack that there was no sign of an aircraft flying overhead to look for them. With no sign of a rescue party trying to reach them on foot in the night, he knew that he and Brian would have to start to make their own plans to get off the mountain.
“I doubt we’re going to find anything more useful in this chopper than our own two feet,” Jack said.
“Do you mean what I think you mean?” Brian grunted, lifting his head from his cupped palm.
“It’s time for us to move out,” Jack said.
Alma played with Lisa for a while in her basement cocoon. She had managed to save some photo albums from the fire that ravaged her apartment. She showed them to the young girl who still thought of Alma as an aunt. Lisa pointed at the pictures and identified the younger versions of the people she knew. Uncle Ennis, her daddy K.E., Alma’s sister Ava, and friends that the Del Mars shared with Alma, even though she wasn’t truly a Del Mar anymore.
Before long, Laurie was calling from the top of the stairs, “Lisa, it’s time to go to school.”
“Did you know that I’m in kindergarten, Auntie Alma?” Lisa asked.
“Yes, I did know that. You’re such a big girl now,” Alma said, “and smart too.”
Lisa beamed with pride.
“I’ll see you when I get home from school, Auntie,” Lisa said as she hurried up the stairs.
Laurie called down, “Alma, I’m walking Lisa to school, and I have Linda with me. There’s coffee on the stove if you want some.”
“Okay,” Alma called back, straightening her nightgown. “I’ll see you when you get back.”
A minute later, Alma heard the door shut.
She sank down into the springy mattress, pulling the covers up to her chin.
She couldn’t imagine what it would be like to have two girls to care for, or even one girl relying on her as a mother. Alma was certain she would have been a failure at raising children herself. Even if she ever had gotten the opportunity, she knew she wouldn’t want to make the same mistakes Ann had made with her and Ava. But she wasn’t sure whether she could even begin to identify right from wrong for her children. She knew that she wouldn’t want them to date boys. Not until they were at least as old as Alma was now. Maybe never.
Boys.
That was always where the trouble began.
Alma was in seventh grade the first time a boy expressed interest in her.
He whistled at her from across the schoolyard.
She was waiting for the bell to ring that would signal the start of the school day. There was a crowd of students in the courtyard waiting for the big double-wide doors to open. The morning air was filled with noisy chatter as girls talked to each other. She listened to the hoots and hollers of the onlookers as a pair of boys duked it out on the cement walkway. There was no teacher in sight to break up the fight, so the boys were left to settle their squabble on their own. And then it happened—
A wolf whistle pierced the air, and it was directed right at Alma.
Alma turned and caught Jerry Brightman with his fingers still in his mouth and a sly look on his face.
Alma was stunned and humiliated.
Why would this boy, who she didn’t even know, insult her in such a lewd way?
She knew that the sound of a wolf whistle meant something dirty.
Alma was angry.
What gave him the right to fantasize about her in his sick little mind, when she had done nothing to invite his interest?
She hugged her notebook to her chest, not wanting to give the boy, an eight-grader no less, a better look at her burgeoning breasts.
Another boy smacked Jerry on the back, and with a big grin on his face, Jerry turned and followed him into a different part of the schoolyard.
Alma felt like she had been assaulted.
She didn’t dare tell her parents about the incident when she got home from school.
While she hoped her father would get his shotgun out to meet the boy on his front doorstep, she worried that her mother would accuse her of attracting the unwanted attention by behaving in a manner that was unladylike and more like a common tramp. Ann was fond of that expression. Although Alma wasn’t quite sure what a tramp was, unless she thought of the dog from that Disney movie, she knew it couldn’t be a good thing if her mother was accusing her of being one with such venom in her voice.
Since she couldn’t go to her parents, Alma did what she thought was the next best thing. She went to the principal’s office and reported what Jerry Brightman had done to her.
Mr. Hughes just laughed at her a bit and told her not to worry about it.
“It means he likes you,” the principal said, tapping his ruler on the side of his desk.
“But I don’t want him to like me,” Alma said, nervous about being in the principal’s office, although she was the one who initiated the meeting.
“Well, someday, you’ll want boys to like you,” Mr. Hughes assured Alma.
Alma doubted that very much. Only a sinful girl would welcome a boy’s attention like that, especially out in public in front of all the school kids. What would they think of Alma?
Probably the same thing they thought about Alma now. A divorced woman. Incapable of keeping her husband. A sinner who broke her marriage vows was an affront to her community, her family, and most importantly—to God, who she stood in front of and swore that she would stay married until death do her and Ennis Del Mar part. She was no longer married, yet she wasn’t dead. She had a hard time wrapping her head around it.
Alma lamented the loss of the children she never wanted and the children she would never have. But in their absence, she felt more joy than sadness. She felt relieved that she would never have to fear for her daughters and the unwanted attention they might receive from boys. If she had children, she would have had to teach them things that she herself knew so little about. She wasn’t equipped to do it. The only womanly wisdom she had came from her mother’s lectures about sin and from a story about a fumble in Bradley McBurney’s pants. And she had learned a few such lessons from Janet Lynch and Dan Donovan and Ennis Del Mar.
No, she could do without passing those life lessons on to anyone else. No one else should have to suffer so much humiliation for a marriage she wanted so badly.
Jeff’s Jeep sputtered and coughed as it bounced over the rutted dirt road. The headlights illuminated patches of snow that lingered in the lower elevations, but as FR 125 climbed, the dirt track turned to ice as the temperature dropped with the rise in the topography. The ice gave way to deepening snow. Frozen wheel tracks, dimpled with the studs from snow tires, indicated where the SAR vehicles had performed tight three-point turns to make their way back to the base after yesterday’s mission. He pulled into a parking spot and killed the headlights as the sun crested the horizon. The remaining mile to the trailhead and cabin was marred only by their single track of snowshoes as the rescuers tramped the way from the rescue site back to their vehicles.
Jeff tried the walkie-talkie one more time.
“Ennis? Come in, Ennis,” Jeff said into the handset.
He only got static in return.
“Sonofabitch,” Jeff said.
It wasn’t like Ennis to disobey orders, but he did seem inordinately concerned about Wayne’s new chopper pilot. Ennis had animatedly described how he knew Jack Twist from back when he was a teenager, well before Ennis started working for the Forest Service. Nevertheless, Jeff had a job to do.
Back at Twin Lakes, Wayne was ready to deploy the search party as soon as they had an idea of where the chopper went down. Jim Nueve was set to fly at dawn, along with a spotter who could help scan the terrain between Buena Vista and yesterday’s rescue site. Jeff’s main concern should have been on the accident victim that they intended to rescue the day before, but he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t worried to death about his medic and the pilot that had flown in from Salida for the rescue.
Jeff tested the groove in the snow with a stomp of his foot. It punched through the surface layer of crust and into the soft mush beneath it. The temperature had warmed overnight. That could be a good sign for anyone trying to survive the mountain conditions. Jeff strapped on his snowshoes so he could trek the mile to Ennis’s cabin without postholing through yesterday’s track. He tightened the belt on his backpack and made sure he left the walkie-talkie turned on, so he could be kept up to date on the search operation.
Jim and the spotter should have been in the air by now. If he listened carefully, Jeff thought he could hear the approach of the single engine Cessna as it flew from Twin Lakes into the backcountry.
The sound traveled well in the wintery woods. The trees hadn’t yet sprouted their spring leaves to dampen the sound of an engine, a birdsong, or a voice shouting for rescue in the thin mountain air.
Unfortunately the reception wasn’t always as clear with the walkie-talkies.
“Jeff? Come in, Jeff,” Wayne’s voice cackled through the radio.
Jeff stopped and unclipped the walkie-talkie from its holder and pressed the talk button with mitted fingers.
“Go ahead, this is Jeff,” he said.
“This is Wayne. Just wanted to let you know they flew over the southernmost ridge and didn’t see anything. They’re going to circle back and go in lower to get a better look. Did you get to Ennis yet?” Wayne asked.
“Almost there,” Jeff said. “Keep me posted. Over and out.”
He clipped the walkie-talkie back into its holder and continued his trek. The mile-long trail passed quickly under his snowshoes. He figured it took him only twenty minutes or so to make it to the cabin. He wasn’t surprised by what he found there. Ennis was missing and there were hot coals in the woodstove that suggested he had left it stoked the previous night.
He got back on the radio to Wayne and let him know what he found. He made special mention of the track he found, fresh snowshoe prints leading from Ennis’s cabin toward the southern ridges.
He followed them into the brightening woods.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2013-03-17 03:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-03-18 12:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-03-18 06:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-03-18 06:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-03-18 06:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-03-18 07:01 pm (UTC)survival
Date: 2013-03-17 03:56 pm (UTC)Re: survival
Date: 2013-03-17 08:17 pm (UTC)Re: survival
Date: 2013-03-18 06:38 pm (UTC)Re: survival
Date: 2013-03-18 06:47 pm (UTC)Re: survival
Date: 2013-03-18 06:59 pm (UTC)Re: survival
Date: 2013-03-18 06:28 pm (UTC)Now, let's think about why Alma needs a lesson in 'life and all its beauty and to break away from her horrible upbringing.' Why would we think there is anything strange about Alma or her upbringing, when Alma's church, her parents, her role models, all her mentors teach her that sex outside of marriage is wrong? This is no different than what our churches, our parents, our role models had sought to impress upon us when we were Alma's age, depending on where you grew up. She is simply obeying the rules that she has been taught. She is a prize among daughters for her obedience, chastity, and purity. Isn't that what the adults in her world expect from her? Unless they are not being honest. Do you suppose parents, teachers, and clergy are not honest when it somes to sexuality? I suspect so. Unfortunately, Alma is wired a bit differently than most.
Thanks so much for reading and for making me think so much! I hope you'll continue, but do heed the warnings in the story header.
Re: survival
Date: 2013-03-18 08:59 pm (UTC)Re: survival
Date: 2013-03-19 01:25 am (UTC)Maybe Alma is too whiny? I hadn't thought of that before. I wrote this story in only 30 days, you know! LOL!
That's really fascinating that you think of Alma as the strong one. I always thought Lureen had more going for her, but maybe that's the point- Alma didn't have a lot going for her, so she made do with what hand she was dealt.
It's always a pleasure to hear your POV, Joe!
no subject
Date: 2013-03-17 08:28 pm (UTC)BTW, I remember reading that eating snow or ice was bad for hypothermia. Don't eat too much of that, guys...
no subject
Date: 2013-03-18 06:41 pm (UTC)I think it will chill them from the inside out, making a hypothermic state more easily achieved.
To hell with Alma, my next fic is going to be about a talking manatee, goddammit!! :D
no subject
Date: 2013-03-17 08:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-03-18 12:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-03-18 06:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-03-18 12:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-03-18 06:46 pm (UTC)ETA: Your icon is so pretty!
no subject
Date: 2013-03-18 07:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-03-18 02:46 am (UTC)Meanwhile, everybody and their cousin seems to be wandering back and forth in the wilderness, looking for each other. Hope SOMEBODY finds SOMEBODY fairly soon.
no subject
Date: 2013-03-18 06:48 pm (UTC)Glad you're not tired of Alma yet. Give it time!
Thanks so much for reading!
no subject
Date: 2013-03-18 06:45 am (UTC)and like sid said- I think some peace and stability is really everything she can hope for. I hope she finds it.
Paula
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Date: 2013-03-18 06:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-03-18 08:14 am (UTC)thanks for the update!
no subject
Date: 2013-03-18 06:57 pm (UTC)feel sorry for alma
Date: 2013-03-18 04:47 pm (UTC)it's amazing how long it is til sunday/monday at this end, and how quickly it comes after the weekend arrives. time is warping.
kj
Re: feel sorry for alma
Date: 2013-03-18 06:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-03-18 09:35 pm (UTC)Thank you.
Christina
no subject
Date: 2013-03-19 01:26 am (UTC)Have a wonderful week!
no subject
Date: 2013-03-19 04:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-03-20 01:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-03-20 12:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-03-20 01:49 am (UTC)Thanks for reading!
no subject
Date: 2013-03-24 12:33 pm (UTC)Funny how much this Alma actually has in common with portrayals of Ennis... and true to form of BBM, it seems like their lack of ability to communicate meant they missed an opportunity to really help each other deal with some major inner demons (at least one of which they might have in common?)
no subject
Date: 2013-03-24 11:19 pm (UTC)Thanks so much for reading!
My computer crashed this morning, so I'm operating on my son's laptop. I didn't lose any data because I operate off a flash drive, but I don't dare stick my drive into the kid's computer-just in case it is contaminated. I'll screen it at work tomorrow morning and post my next chapter if everything is okay then.