The Redemption of Ennis Del Mar
The snow came down from the iron-grey sky in great waves, driven by a hard north-westerly wind. He had hoped to get to the cabin before it set in, but with most things in life Ennis Del Mar was a day late and a dollar short. Up he climbed as Highway 26 rose beside the Wind River, the mountains standing watch on his left, waiting. He longed to get up into those mountains, up there where, once upon a time, he and Jack had been free. A pilgrimage, of sorts, that had become a Thanksgiving weekend tradition. What with the newlyweds having their own and his not wanting to feel like a fifth wheel, much less repeat the experience of sitting at Alma's table, her brown eyes watching, always watching.
His mind raced, unfettered as it was by the increasing altitude. Jack was near and getting closer by the minute. Soon he could lock out the world, close the door on prying eyes full of questioning glances and self-righteous judgment. Then he could breathe the free air again. And be alone, but not all alone.
He pulled off into a lookout to write his name in the snow. Zipping up he caught the brown and white form of a deer, dead and half-buried. Yet another casualty in the endless war between machine and beast. Engine revving ready for the last effort up to the cabin. Stopped dead in his tracks. The white of the deer was like lamb's wool, textured in tight curls. This deer wore jeans and boots.
Something took over. Ennis felt outside himself, trapped in a nightmare he had long tried to avoid. He turned the body over, the ground beneath stained crimson. "Goddamn!" The enfolding grey was torn apart by a flash of blinding light. A tire iron swung again and again, coming down upon silent screams. His heart raced, grasping for a sign of life, blinded by snow or tears, he didn't know which. The boy moaned, tried to raise his arm to cover his face.
"It's alright, it's alright!" Adrenaline raced through his body sending him into a state of uncharacteristic decisiveness and action. He scooped the boy up and carried him to the truck. The weather was closing in, night falling. No way down tonight and chances were the highway would be blocked till the plows came through once the storm had passed. No point in freezing to death.
Holding on to dear life with one hand and driving with the other, the truck navigated as road became track. "Thank God for them new snow tires," he thought. Eventually a wide place on the left, two boulders either side. Don Wroe's. The cabin a quarter mile uphill. Wrapped the boy in a blanket, threw him over his shoulder, and carried him inside. The woodstove came to life, slowly driving back the cold. Down to the truck for the supplies and back again.
By the light of the stove and a kerosene lamp, he took another look at his find. Dark brown hair, matted with half-dried blood, a two inch gash across the back of his head. Late teens or early twenties. An anemic moustache across cupid's bow. Face spoilt only by its injuries. No stripes of the tire iron, more the work of fists and boots. Thank God for small miracles. Bruised and bloody. See about that.
The kettle whistled. Warm water. Dabbing. Washing away the desecration. The nightmare made all the more poignant by the familiar surroundings. Half-expecting his eyes to open and hear Jack's voice. Wishing. A twinge, an old injury reminding, making its presence felt. The boy didn't stir, not even as Ennis forced himself to undress him, looking for further damage; broken bones or worse. Recoiling at the stampede marked up and down the bare skin, purple footprints embedded in the pale flesh. He wondered what the boy had done to have caught hell like this. He wasn't big enough to swagger, might be that had been the problem. Big mouth with nothing to back it up.
The smell of stale piss and shit rose and filled the room. "Jesus H.! They beat the fuckin' shit out a the poor thing." Hesitated. "Can't leave him like this." Fumbled through a bag and then the cupboard. Did what Alma swears he only did once or twice for the girls when they were little. Then two towels diaper fashion. Wondered what he would say to Don, if need be, then wrapped him in every blanket he could find as he was shivering.
Radio dead, the batteries oozing acid. No weather report. The wind rose as night descended, buffeted the cabin with ice and snow screeching over glass and log. The fire danced and shimmered in the draft as icy fingers rattled down the flue. Uneasy. Cabin shaking. Wondering if the wind would send it sliding down the mountainside. A wild animal caught in a box trap. Waiting for the trapper's gloved hand to come throttle the life out, beating into dark oblivion. The urge to flee and leave the boy came over him, to run and get help. Do anything, just get out of here. He couldn't. He knew that was nothing less than death, for the boy, and maybe something else.
The smell of coffee and food replaced the stink. As he ate he was aware of a voice, turned to the bed where the boy lay motionless and silent. As silent as the gra… No, not that.
But there was a voice, just on the edge of consciousness, as if this was a motel and he was about to drift off to sleep, only the TV next door filtered through and filled his head. The scenes rose before him, call it a hallucination, but it was no different than what filled his dreams at night. Every moment he could recall, and many others he had fashioned for himself, of his time with Jack, played out before him in the near darkness.
The room was warm now. Pulled up a chair and sat by the bed sipping coffee. It was going to be a long night, watching and waiting. He'd go down in the morning and check the roads, try an take the boy down to a doctor or maybe even the hospital. It was beginning to look like that, right serious. His eyes wandered over the blanketed form, trying to imagine just who he was. Local? Maybe, but might just as well be a tourist. Wyoming was full of playtime cowboys, having a laugh and, then, going home to desk jobs and suburban captivity.
Yet he thought to himself that surely someone must be missing this boy. He ought a be at home in front a the TV with a piece of his Mama's pumpkin pie, instead a bleeding in the snow half way up the Winds. Yes, he was somebody's baby, no doubt about it, sleeping all sweet and peaceful. Mind leaped back to Alma, Jr. and Jenny, his babies, curled up in a crib long ago. And yet this was different, this one was a man, newly-fledged; yet a man nonetheless. Beneath the whelp across the left side and the black eye, he was handsome in a homespun way. His small frame covered by the full, fresh flower of youth. Youth on the verge of life, all laid out before him at his feet. Mystery unfolding. But tonight all stood on a knife's edge.
Later in the stillness while the fire slumbered gently, Ennis woke. A voice again, though different this time. The boy was mumbling, talking to someone unseen. Bits of conversation replayed, of plans for a party, old secrets, a fumble in the locker room after practice, of Troy. Longing and rejection. Sudden fear. His voice grew louder and louder, laden with emotion. Tossing and turning, and then the shivering began anew.
Ennis sat fixed to the spot on the edge of the chair. What was he to do? He had heard what he had heard, but did he understand aright? A trick maybe, looking into the dark corners, half-expecting roughnecks with tire irons to step out a the shadows and finish the pair of 'em.
He stoked the fire again, threw two logs on. The boy was cold to the touch. Hypothermia. There was nothing for it. Windows rattling as he undressed. Climbing in beside him, he wrapped himself around the boy's body. He'd done this before in this very bed, years ago now. Then he'd been all damp with sweat and spent, intertwined with Jack in the afterglow of sex. Now, so painful and awkward, the very touch of another bittersweet. He held fire and ice as all the pain of the past washed over him, incarnate now in the tears that flowed across both cheeks. And so they passed the rest of the night, Ennis unable to sleep for the memories made vivid by the body lying heavy upon him. He longing to hold Jack, if only for a while, and the boy instinctively reaching out to the warmth that meant life.
In that death-hour just before dawn, before the bitter cold relinquishes at the coming of the sun, the boy lay like a rag doll, limp and soft in those sinewy arms held tight by careworn and calloused hands. He was safe now, the boy, lying in his arms. His lips half-smiling in the dark? Dreaming, what? Or was he too far gone for that, nothing but emptiness and pain? He wondered if Jack had ever felt safe in his arms, if he had ever been to him a haven, a refuge from the world. He'd not felt so, not since the girls had come to him with their tears, their bumps and bruises, leaping up into his arms as Daddy made it all right again. Missed that. Now he felt it again.
"I'm goin a go check the roads, see if I can't get you out a here. Get you to the doctor's." Perched on the side of the bed. Smoothed back the hair across the boy's forehead. "You stay put and I'll be quick as I can. Alright?" He didn't expect an answer. Fetched his coat, locked the door from outside, and went. The snow was knee deep in places, drifts worse still. Miles down to the lookout, the highway far below a white ribbon stretching into the distance. Nothing moved as far as the eye could see, except high above an eagle rode the wind that came now from the west.
The boy lay naked sprawled across the floor by the bed. He knelt and rolled him over, tried to lift him up. Bolt upright, stiff as a board, the boy flailed. "Whoa, whoa, cowboy! Ain't no call for that, I'm tryin' to help you for fuck's sake!" He had some strength, pint-pot though he was, had to give him that. "I ain't goin a hurt you." Bewildered brown eyes stared up at him. Caught in the headlights. Fight or flight. Up on to the bed. "How you feelin' this morning'?" He sank back into the pillows. "Expect you're mighty thirsty." Fetched a glass of water, cradled him in one arm. "Here." The boy drank. The desert after the first spring rain, color returning to the drawn face.
"Where…?" the effort too much for the boy, he sank back and closed his eyes.
"Up above Dubois. Do you remember?" The boy nodded to Dubois, but didn't seem to remember how he got here. Ennis wondered if he remembered anything of last night, the things he had said, …and the sleeping arrangements. Uneasiness returned. Torn between relief that the boy was conscious again and the feeling of being exposed. "What's your name, son?" An attempt at formality, pulling rank. Marking distance.
"Tom," he grimaced.
He'd forgotten the marks, the damage done. "Here, let me help you." Propped up on pillows. "You hungry?" Retreat. Lunch, spoon-feeding his charge. Happy, now, to have the company. Lost in caring for someone again. He felt useful, purposeful for the first time since that fateful spring. Doing for Tom what he wished to God he could have done for Jack. Found him, brought him back from the edge. Wished he'd never let him go, never gone to Texas in the first place. Tom wasn't Jack, no real resemblance there, in look or manner. But this boy did something, made something tangible. They were three, here in this one-room cabin, no mistaking that.
"Who are you?", Tom asked.
"Ennis", he paused considering the implications that come with knowledge, "Ennis Del Mar, from down Riverton. You know it?"
"Yeah, my Daddy's down in Lander", swallowed hard, "but I grew up in Riverton, went to school there."
"That a fact?" Ennis sat up, leaned back. The boy might as well have been radioactive. "Who's your daddy?" Mind choked with the possibilities of who this boy knew. Thought of Junior first off.
"Everett Monroe." Ennis knew the name, but that was about it. Thought he might be ranch folk, but couldn't say for certain.
"You Alma's daddy?" Tom interrupted his stream of thought.
"Yeah, she's my oldest."
"We graduated together. Pretty girl. Could run rings around the rest of us in Algebra." Tom smiled. So did Ennis. "She went out with a friend of mine for a while. Troy, Troy McFarlane. We used to play baseball together on the varsity."
He seemed a bit wistful to Ennis, made him wonder what had happened between the two of them. If what he had heard the night before was true. He remembered Troy, of course. Had watched him play. Probably seen Tom, too, come to think of it. What might have happened to his little girl? Did she know? Lightning striking twice in the same place. Suddenly protective and possessive, "She's married herself a roughneck, Kurt Jameson, from down near Cheyenne."
Ennis found a clean washcloth and washed Tom's face and tended his wounds. "You been beat up pretty bad. Found you by the roadside. You don't remember nothin'?"
"All I remember is something about a bunch of us going up to Jackson. I think I was in Jackson, all those antlers and all." Ennis knew. "A bar somewhere, not all of us went. I saw somebody……somebody," he groped about in the darkness trying to discover who it was. "I was pretty far gone by then, I just wanted a word, say "Hello" or something. I don't remember anything about a fight or anything. Wish I knew." Tom casting about, looking to take responsibility for something he may or may not have done. Worried someone was worse off than he was. Trouble yet to come.
"Well, no need to worry yourself tryin' to figure it all out now. You need to rest, get your strength back. Tomorrow I hope we can get down from here and get you home. Your mama must be worried sick."
"My Mama's dead." Without thinking Ennis lay his hand on top of Tom's resting on the blanket. "Been dead about four years now. Cancer."
"I'm sorry, I just thought it being' Thanksgiving and all." Tom caught something in Ennis he'd not noticed before. Not that he was up to noticing much of anything given the circumstances. But there was something, a thread that went between them and bound them together. Something fundamental that they shared in common. He searched the once handsome face, aged beyond its rightful years, tired and worn. The eyes spoke of some sadness harbored deep and cherished. Love and loss they seemed to say. There was something here, but he might never come to know what. It was obvious, even to him, that here was a man used to hiding his real self, to dissemble the truth. Perhaps even from himself. Tom's hand came down and rested on Ennis'. A message in a bottle cast into the vastness that is the sea, no guarantee it would ever be found, was sent and received in that simple gesture. Eyes glistened looking at one another. It would be alright now.
After that Tom drifted off to sleep, tired out by the conversation and the effort to recover the recent past. Something was stuck, something sharp and painful, and he kept coming back again and again to it, trying to size it up, to discover what it was. Ennis, for his part, quietly tidied up and made a trip down to the truck. He wanted to be ready for an early start, make the most of the sunshine, what little warmth the height of the day might bring. The challenge, as he well knew, was getting off this damn mountain. The Highway was the easy part. Tomorrow. We'll see.
Tom never did wake. He slept hour after hour well into the night. He mumbled and jerked. Cried out once or twice for Troy, then fell silent and said no more. Shaking didn't rouse him, no amount of calling his name, nothing. Worse now for both of them, he thought. Detachment had fallen by the wayside with the few words exchanged between them. He knew this boy now and he wasn't prepared to let him go to death and darkness. A name? The power of hearing another's voice? What? Another earthquake a million miles away on the TV news, but put them babies on fretting and crying and it tugs at your heartstrings. Makes it all real somehow.
And Tom was real. A stranger still, but flesh and blood real. A voice that spoke with strength and character, yet fragile and vulnerable at the same time. Deeper than the wounds that marked his body. Tom had loved, and lost. Common ground, Ennis thought. He liked this boy. And if what came that looked as if it might, another loss. Another injustice.
As Ennis lay down beside him once more, he puzzled over what was happening inside his head or his body that had caused this sharp downturn. Had he been quietly bleeding all the while, talking and smiling, and dying? Would he wake to find Tom cold and rigid, his passing unnoticed and unmarked? Should they make the attempt tonight? Should he stay awake and keep watch? At least they were warm here. Out there they risked getting stuck in the dark with no help in sight. Trapped in a snowdrift, no gas, no heat, no chance. He'd doze instead, keeping watch with one eye and rising at first light.
He pulled Tom to him and held him as tenderly as possible. He hoped that in doing so he would do no harm, not make matters worse. But he couldn't bear the thought that this beautiful boy might pass in the night without feeling the warmth and love of another fellow human being. Yes, love. The word rose in his mind amidst the doom and despair that had rolled in with the darkness. It shone there like a beacon of hope to those about to be shipwrecked, about to be thrust upon the jagged rocks. It spoke of survival, of victory even, victory over death and meaninglessness. Of something greater and higher still that would endure forever.
He loved this boy who lay in his arms, this stranger, this friend. Tom was a man, a handsome man. He had certainly seen that. If things had been different, another time, another place. Had Ennis been a different person. Maybe. Who knows? But Tom could just as well have been his son. He was old enough after all, and he had always wanted a son. Tom would have been someone to make him proud, or so he thought based on the rather slim evidence he had seen so far. More than that though, there was something deep down inside this young man that was good, and beautiful, and true. Clear as day. He had seen it, felt it in his very bones.
Jack would have agreed. Come to think of it, he could have just as easily been Jack's boy, little Bobby made good in spite of his mama. Sweet-natured, loving, true to himself. For a moment he pretended that Tom was Jack's son. It made it all the more easier to love him. No guilt, no trespass. Loving Tom became the next best thing to loving his father. A physical link with the one he had loved before, the one he still loved, the body that filled his thoughts and dreams. "I'll take care of him, protect him, save him for Jack."
But something gnawed at him. The fantasy melted away. Ennis saw clearly for the first time. Tom was who Ennis could have been, might have been, had he had the courage to say yes to Jack. Had he had the courage to love him without fear or self-doubt. Tom stood at the crossroads just as he had long ago, either live and be free or go down to death and nothingness. It was too late for him, but there just might be time for Tom. If they could get off this mountain. If they did, he'd do what he could to see that he made the right choice. He could do no less. "For you, Jack, for you." Stroked the cheek and kissed the top of the head nestled against his chest. The room full of blurred firelight running up and down. Then sleep. And peace.
The wind came down from the mountain, a steady imperceptible tide of warmth. Icicles dripped from the eaves. Temperature rising. Chinook had come, the snow-eater was feeding. The day dawned bright and clear. Tom warm and soft beside him. His spirits rose. It was now or never.
The journey down was long and arduous. Skidding over ice and pushing through wet snow. Curve after curve, holding fast to the rock and avoiding the drop. Better part of an hour spent in a ditch, hidden beneath a drift. Saved only by the ingenious use of the spare tire and the jack. Snow still blanketed the valley, but water trickled everywhere as it slowly melted. He stopped at Dubois, though he knew there was no doctor there. Midwife was up at a ranch Dunoir way. No good to the boy no how.
"Aw, he looks mighty bad." Fat girl came out from her perch behind the register in the warm. "What happened?"
"Don't know for sure, found him by the roadside." Ennis filled the tank as a small crowd of gawpers gathered. "Will you call Riverton Memorial and tell'em we're on our way? Tell'em he's been beat up pretty bad, knocked over the head. It's bad." Ennis choked.
"Sure thing!"
The river was brown and frothing as it ran beside them. Mountains receded and gave way to snow-capped red cliffs. White as far as the eye could see. Down and down again as the valley fell. Tom on one side across his lap, held steady. Sweat pouring from his face and dampening Ennis' lap. A fire within consuming him. He opened the window and put the gas to the floor as hard as he dared. Two and a half hours. Then Riverton on the horizon.
All hell broke loose in the ER. They'd been expected. Toing and froing, a veritable beehive of activity. Giving a nurse the details. Tom whisked away from him, out of sight behind closed doors. Standing there bereft of purpose, his mission accomplished. What now? He joined the others in the waiting room, looked askance at the piles of well-thumbed magazines. The clock's hands crept slowly round and round. Hour after hour. Waiting for news. Suddenly thought of the boy's father and that he should call and let him know.
A doctor came out and explained that Tom had been taken into surgery. Bleed in the brain on top of an infection. Touch and go. Said he would call Mr. Monroe, and the police, as there was a search on for him. Daddy reported him missing when he failed to turn up for Thanksgiving. The friends assuming he was riding with someone else, so had taken no notice that he was missing.
The night nurse in the Intensive Care mistook him for the father and let him in to see Tom. As soon as she left, he took his hand and whispered, "Tom, it's me, it's Ennis. We made it, buddy." Tubes in and out, machines beeping all around. Stood there watching the zig-zaggy lines go up and down. "You're goin a be okay now. The doctors and nurses are goin a set you right."
Uneasiness returned as the adrenaline rush faded. It was down here on the flat where everything had always gone wrong. The head-long fall from the enclosed security of the mountains. The freedom, the space. Never mind that Tom had been beaten half to death somewhere up there. It's just that things were more desperate down here, too many things, too many folks getting in the way and clouding things all up. Tom had been his, his responsibility, his companion, these three days. But that would change now. Things would come between them and go back to the way they were before. Ennis wasn't ready to let go. He sat by the bedside and began the watch. There would be no sleeping tonight.
Everett Monroe didn't arrive until mid-morning the next day. He'd made his way up to Jackson as soon as word came that Togwotee was passable. Shot straight off to Riverton the minute he heard. Reunion was painful. The only grown man he'd ever seen cry was Jack. And it was hard to watch this time. Standing on the side, feeling like an intruder. The father giving vent to something he felt too, but couldn't show now. Bottled it up, pushed it down.
"I understand you found him." Lit Ennis' cigarette as they stood outside the ER entrance.
"Yes, sir. Up off a 26 in a lookout above Dubois. I don't know how long he'd been there."
"Do you know what happened? Did he say anythin'?"
"No idea. Tom was in and out of it, off and on. He didn't seem to remember what happened or how he got out there on the mountain. Just that he'd gone up to Jackson with some friends. It's a shame really," his voice turned hard, "some piece a shit done this and got away with it."
"We'll see 'bout that." Ennis saw the florid face harden, the full moustache quiver. "My thanks to you, Mr. Del Mar, for what you done. I know my boy wouldn't a made it if you hadn't come along." Blood pressure busting out knowing that somebody had left his son on a deserted mountain trail, not caring one iota that he would freeze to death. "I'm mighty grateful to you." His voice broke under the weight of the emotion it carried. "He's all I got left, now his Mama is gone. I ain't always been good to him, ain't always understood him, truth be told; but he is my boy and I love him. No matter what he's done.", looked at Ennis, "Maybe you don't understand."
"Sure I do," feeling exposed, uncomfortable. Needing to explain why he was still there. "I got two girls of my own and if anything was ever to happen a either one of 'em, I don't know what I'd do." Credentials established, but still feeling the fraud. Thought Monroe could read him inside out.
Monroe was a rancher in Lander, owned the Double Dutch. Successful by all accounts. The pieces fell into place. Tom was at the University in Laramie studying to be an engineer. His daddy was right proud, but there was something there that wasn't right. A misunderstanding or falling out he'd alluded to before. Ennis wondered how much his daddy knew about what he had gotten up to after baseball practice. Or whether it all stemmed from his mother's illness and her passing. Could be they had discovered they were little more than strangers, not knowing how to talk to one another when the one who had made it all possible, eased things along, was gone. Mother's do that and hold the men to account. Make the world go round.
Ennis waited longer than was decent, but the boy wouldn't wake that day. He rode straight out to Junior's. She and Kurt starting out in a single wide off of 789 towards Shoshoni. As always happy to see her Daddy, Alma, Jr. whisked him in and parked him on the sofa. Coffee and a piece of pie, his eldest had taken to married life in the "Family Circle" kind of way. Young woman trying to make it all storybook perfect. Ennis cut straight to the point. The time for discretion now past.
"Junior, I need you a tell me the truth, whole truth. You take my meanin'?"
"Sure, Daddy, what is it?"
"I know it ain't none a my business, you being a grown woman and all, but this is important."
"Okay, what is it? You goin a keep me in the dark or what?"
"Did Troy ever mistreat you, do you wrong?"
"Why are you asking that, Daddy? Have you heard something?"
"Just answer my question."
"No, Daddy, he never hurt me or nothin'. He never did anythin'."
"So why did you all break up?"
"Well," she hesitated, remembering the disappointment Troy McFarlane had been, "We were only seventeen, Daddy. Things just didn't work out."
"Things didn't work out?"
"No, he just never seemed to be all that interested in me, in who I was, or what I wanted. Going through the motions but his mind always caught up with somethin' else." The memory of silent rejection was painful. She resented her daddy bringing the past all up to the surface again. "He was nice and all, but he just wasn't the one for me?"
"Do you remember a boy by the name a Tom Monroe?"
"Yeah, he and Troy were on the baseball team together. They were friends, I think."
"You think?"
"They had some kind a falling out. About the time we got together. Tom seemed to resent me an Troy spending all our time together."
A white elephant was doing a dance in the middle of that living room, but no one was in any hurry to point it out.
Ennis was sorry he'd pushed her this far, but he'd come too far to back off now. "I found Tom up the side of the Winds three days ago. He'd been beaten half to death and left in a ditch." He looked her straight in the eye, "I just wondered, seein' as how you was at school together, maybe you know why it might a happened."
"Is he alright?"
"He's still unconscious, had a bleed in the brain. Surgery and all. They don't know if he's goin a make it or not." Ennis looked at his hands.
"Are you saying Troy had somethin' to do with this?"
"I don't know, that's why I'm askin' you."
"Daddy, if you're asking what I think you're asking, I'll tell you the truth as far as I can tell. I ain't got any proof, but I always thought Tom was sweet on Troy. It was pretty obvious to me." That word "obvious" made him nervous. What made her think so and had she seen it somewhere before? "Used to make Troy uncomfortable, seein' as they were friends, because folks used to talk about Tom behind his back. Call him queer and things. I think Troy got with me because he had somethin' to prove."
"Um, I reckon that could be somethin' to do with it. Not Troy necessarily, but someone might a got at him cause of what they thought about him." His eyes moved from her gentle, open face to look out the window. "It's happened before."
"Is that what happened to Jack, Daddy?" The white elephant sat down and put his feet up. He was done with dancing.
A seismic shift moved beneath his feet. He felt the shifting sands he had always trod melt away to bedrock. He stood on firm ground now. "Yeah, baby, I think so. His wife never told the truth as to what happened, but I reckon that's how it come down." Water table rose, poised on the brink of overflow.
Alma, Jr. came to sit beside him and put her arms round him, held him tight in the silence that filled the earth. Time standing still as all those years fell away into nothingness. The pretence, the shame, the wellspring of guilt. Empty. Gone. Replaced by the acceptance of a daughter's love.
The miles flew before him, buoyed by this new-found sense of freedom. Weightless. Age-old fences swept away. Junior had tried to get him to stay, get some rest in the spare room. He just wanted to be alone a while. Sort it all out, these three days. Clear his mind and sleep.
Banging on the metal door, a deputy woke him half past five in the evening. Wanted a report of what happened. "Not much use," so said the man, "'less the boy could put a name to whoever done this." Whipped out a clipboard and a sheet of paper. "Regulations." A warehouse full of useless files with that kind of attitude. "Can't put away everybody throws a punch in Wyomin'." Ennis smoldered quietly, St. Helen's reined in only by thinking of Tom.
Next day, Sunday morning, a navy Cutlass Supreme pulls into the yard. He sees Monroe coming his way. Bad news. Hand kneading his hat in hand. "Mr. Del Mar." Rankin and Ellis cut him a look.
"Ennis," embarrassed by the honorific.
"Ennis, Tom came out of it this morning. He's awake. Doctor thinks he'll be alright." Drew breath, "he's been askin' for you." Flashed a dismissive look back. Message received, Rankin and Ellis turned and went inside. "I know you're busy, but if you get the chance."
"That's mighty kind of you, Mr., …..Everett. I'll come."
That afternoon he drove up to Riverton, dreading it all the way. He was glad for Tom, but he didn't know what to say. He never said very much as it was, but the occasion called for it, after all they had shared up there. Maybe, he thought, he was afraid he'd say too much. Part of him thinking it that could be him next, lying on the side of the road.
Nurse was expecting him, Monroe had left word. Tom was fast asleep. He didn't want to disturb him. Stood quietly watching the easy rhythm of his breathing, the face, still marked, but pink and peaceful. Mixed emotions, not knowing exactly what he felt. New experience this knowing business, but he thought that there was still something unsaid between him and Tom, something that had to be said if ever he was to get past it. He longed for honesty, to tell his story. One he had hidden, buried deep all these years. The story he had touched on with the only person who actually loved him without condition. But she wouldn't really understand, she couldn't, try as she might. The answer was here. Tom would understand, he knew what it was like to hold another man. To want, to need. The touch, the smell, the pleasure of one man's body next to another's. He knew.
But doubt lay in the back of his mind. For if Tom was like Jack, he knew that he had been too much like Troy. Tom had loved and been rejected by someone who couldn't handle the implications that come once the urge is satisfied. Head over heart again after the heat of passion has passed. Cool, calculating, rational. The smell of fear heavy in the air; suffocating the affection, the yearning for love.
"Why can't you just leave me be!" Those words of his echoed in his ears. Pushing Jack into another's arms. Jack taking him at his word. Had the boy been bludgeoned in this way, emotional pain the forerunner of the physical? He wondered which had hurt him more. Thought he knew. He felt as if he was falling, head first into the chasm that was the past. Nothing but the boy to grab hold of. The boy who could help him climb up and out, from darkness into the bright, new day.
Something tugged at his heart as he admired the face, the form beside him. He regretted that he had never made it down to Childress. To see Jack's grave and, maybe, take some flowers. And he didn't have the courage to face old man Twist again, spouting his venom, nor the absolute heartache of Mrs. Twist pining away in Jack's old room. He just couldn't. Not even to visit Jack's grave.
He wished he had gone to Texas, if only to see little Bobby. A glimpse of his daddy? Those same blue eyes? He knew it was too late for that. Lureen would never understand. He didn't want to face her either. To hear her trot out the same old story, try to make him believe her nonsense. Become a bit player in her carefully crafted make-believe, and give credibility, as the long-lost friend, to her "grieving widow". There'd be none a that.
"I'm sorry, Jack, I just can't do it", he sighed. "You know how I feel." The remark was addressed to the ether, but heard elsewhere. He pulled the blanket up and covered the bare arms and shoulder, then turned to go.
"Ennis, is that you?" Coming out of the fog and smiling in the sunshine. Ennis smiled back.
"It's me. I'm here. Your Daddy came an told me you was goin a be alright. I wanted to see for myself."
"Thank you. I wouldn't have made it if it weren't for you. I know that." Tears welled up and ran down his cheek. Ennis took his hand.
"Now there's no need for no "Thank yous". I ain't done nothin' special. Just done what anybody would a done." He didn't want any fuss. It was enough to see him awake and alive. That's all.
"Daddy always said that a man's got to stand on his own two feet, but that's not always true. Sometimes we need help." He wasn't ready to let Ennis go. His greatest fear was that he would never see him again. This diffident, shy man who had found him, held him, and brought him back to life. He never told Ennis that he was the only man he had ever woken up with, the only man who had ever held him. Not Troy. That was all business. Taking advantage of love, using the longing, the need, for his own purposes. Screwed without a kiss. Used and cast aside, time and again. Expecting Tom to be grateful for the privilege. "Don't go, please don't go. I need you." Constant thought, never voiced. Not then, not now.
He told Ennis what had happened, that he remembered seeing Troy McFarlane, quite by chance, that afternoon in Jackson. Half the kids from Fremont County were up there, making the most of the break before Thanksgiving. He was pretty wasted, and down. Saw Troy sitting in the back of the bar. Courage, courtesy of Budweiser, urged him forward. It was now or never. Just to hear his voice. For old time's sake.
Troy was having none of it. A giggle went up behind them. Tom wasn't going to be ignored, no goddamn leper here. Followed Troy outside. Reinforcements. Pushing and shoving. Punch out of nowhere. Down. Hailstorm of boots. Troy standing there, stock-still, face as blank as the enclosing darkness. Tom reaching out to him. Nothing left but the fear between them. Out. Bungled into the back of a car. Thrown out on the side of the road like so much trash. Panic. "I'm not dead, I'm not dead." Cold. Only company the howling wind. And the snow.
Ennis knew. Old story, new chapter. An iron spike driven through him in the telling. A shudder and a wave of cold sweat. He could hardly bear each word as it fell from Tom's mouth. He wanted to stop his ears. Run away and hide.
"They may ask you. The police. It may get nasty, before the end. The McFarlanes and the others, they're movers and shakers round here. You do as you see fit. I'll understand." He looked into Ennis' eyes, "Okay?"
"Deputy Sheriff's already been, came by yesterday evening. I told him what little I knew. Didn't say anythin' about what I heard." Tom looked puzzled. "You was talkin' all in your sleep, callin' out, and stuff. I didn't say anythin' about none a that."
"What kind of stuff?"
"Just stuff, things about you and Troy."
"Oh, I see. I wondered how you seemed to know more than you let on."
"It's alright, don't worry about it. Most important thing is that you get better. The rest can wait. Ain't nobody gettin' away with this."
Ennis stopped by Alma's on Monday after school. Hoping to see Jenny. Wondered what her sister may or may not have said to her. Steeled himself. Alma answered the door.
He sat there, on edge. Alma was tired, it showed. Went to put the baby down. Something had softened. In her, or maybe it was just him. It didn't seem to matter anymore. He might not have done right by her, but he had tried. He always tried and look at the price he had paid. Leave it alone. Water under the bridge.
"She's at drama rehearsals, they got that show they're a doing' week after next. Are you comin' a see it?"
"Oh, I forgot. Yeah, I'll come, I wouldn't miss it." Looked around sizing up the getaway. "Would you tell her I come by?" he rose to leave.
"Ennis, I may be speaking out a turn, but me an the girls are mighty proud a what you did up there."
"What, Alma?" He was confused and surprised, never expected to hear anything like that out of Alma Beers' mouth.
"That boy you saved, all a Fremont County is talkin' about it. You don't go an save somebody's life and not have folks a knowing about it."
"I just did what anybody would a done. I mean, you don't leave somebody to freeze to death in a ditch."
"Somebody did. And you might ought a be careful til they find who done it. They might think you know somethin'."
What was she worried about? That they would or wouldn't come after him? "Alma, I can take care a myself."
"I'm just sayin', some of these folk run around here like they own the place." She pulled a loose thread from her sweater. "Who'd ever thought that Troy McFarlane would be mixed up in somethin' like this. Always such a nice boy. Had high hopes for him and Alma, Jr."
What did she know? "Well, it just goes a show how little you know folks sometimes." Unintentional irony not lost on his ex-wife. Mouth twitched. The feeling passed. Long time ago now. Though she had often wondered about Jack Twist. If he was still around, or was Junior right with her idea that she had dropped so casual-like months ago, that Jack was dead? She wanted to know, but couldn't ask. Might sound too much like gloating. She was sorry if it was true, if only for what it meant to Ennis. He looked so haggard and worn nowadays. Given up on living almost. Dried up and done with. A tug, deep down. He would always be an incomprehensible mystery to her. Beyond understanding, but not past sympathy. Whatever it was she wouldn't wish it on her worst enemy. And Ennis certainly wasn't that, not now.
They parted, each self-contained, all locked up inside themselves. That night Ennis dreamed of Jack, the two of them in the tent just as they were in the beginning. Alma coming in with fresh-baked cookies, tucking them in for the night. Made a mental note to have a word with Junior.
The weeks went by. His unwanted fifteen minutes of fame evaporated, the accolade withering on the vine to veiled hostility. Rumor mill filling in the blanks. Names of the boys involved banded about. No arrests made. Queer-bashing a misdemeanor in Wyoming. Ought to get a license next time. Ennis retreated into work, ignoring the freeze-out. Snow came again and again. Busy with the winter feeding. Christmas came and went.
First week of January and Tom came out to Paradise Valley to see him. Found him in the barn. Delighted and more than a little ashamed that he'd not been to see Tom again. His eyes tracing the pattern on the toes of his boots.
"I just came to say good-bye." Tom standing hesitantly in the doorway. Wondering which way the wind was blowing.
"How you feelin'?"
"I'm alright. Doctors say I'll be right as rain soon." he paused, "I'm off to Laramie in the morning. Just wanted to see you before I go."
Ennis stepped forward, met him. "That's mighty kind, Tom." Standing on the brink, trying to find the courage to take that last step. "You're lookin' alright. How was Christmas?"
"It was alright, just me and Daddy. We've been doing a lot of talking since…," looking around, "since this happened. Daddy's been good to me, trying to be there. If nothing else, it's all different now. What with people not speaking in the street, passing by the other side."
Ennis saw these twenty odd years collapse before him. He and the boy were one. They walked the same road.
"You called me "Jack" in the hospital." Brought Ennis back to terra firma. "Who's he?"
Silent for a minute, the feelings he had hidden away all these years came bubbling up into daylight. The moment had come. "Jack was someone I worked with one summer, back in '63. We was herding sheep up on Brokeback Mountain, just the two of us. We was both your age, nineteen, never been away from home. We fell in love, though we never said so at the time." His mind walked again the high alpine meadows, the cold wind in his face. "Twenty years we hid away, catching what little time together we could. Then, one day, my card comes back "Deceased" wrote across it in big red letters. They'd done to him what they done to you." Tears streamed down his face. Unashamed, liberated from a lifetime of self-doubt and reproach. Newborn breathing the free air for the first time.
Tom fell into him, buried his face in the worn flannel shirt. Held him tight. Ennis' hands hovering in midair, vacillating between life and death. Heaven and hell. Then landed, embraced the warmth. Three of them here. He and Tom and Jack. Holding on to this moment of love and forgiveness mediated by this beautiful, loving boy. Whose heart and soul had passed through the shadows and remained unsullied, undefeated.
They stood there looking at each other for some time. Unable to let the moment pass. To break the spell. Ennis spoke first, "You go back a Laramie and do your studyin'. When you get your degree you go somewhere you can be. Denver, California, I don't know. Find yourself someone who can love you like you deserve. No questions asked. An if you love him, you tell him. Keep on tellin' him. You understand?" Tom nodded. He loved this man, though he wasn't in love with him. This awkward, rough-hewn ranch hand who'd come to him in the night like the bright morning sun. His warmth, his vulnerability. The feeling he felt in his arms. The pattern of completeness that, in those moments, had been woven through his own soul. That completeness he would search for, for many long years, before he found it again. It was out there. Beyond the barn door. He must go, as much as it hurt him to do so.
He stopped in the door, turned and said, "Daddy says he spoke to you about coming to the Double Dutch as foreman. Said you would think about it." Headed him off at the pass, "It wasn't anything I said. Daddy doesn't listen to me when it comes to business. He makes up his own mind."
"Well, you know, I'm at home here." Registered the disappointment in Tom's face, "I might. We'll see." It had been an attractive offer. A bit of security and more money. But it was all just a little too close for comfort. He needed room to maneuver. After Paradise Valley folded, he went up again to Washakie County for a time. Ranch hand on the Otter Creek, though like Monroe had said, "The door was always open".
By early summer, Troy McFarlane, who had never had any charge laid against him, innocent by all accounts, broke ranks and turned in his friends. The authorities had no choice but to prosecute. Four out of the eight got suspended sentences. One did six months. Blind justice. McFarlane was never seen in Riverton again. Gone. Some said California, others Vegas.
Years later Ennis still thought of Tom. Hoped he was out there, somewhere, living and loving. What else was there?