Ennis Del Mar: The Final Chapter
The phone rang, piercing the evening calm. Asleep on the sofa in front of the TV news.
"Hello."
"Tom? Tom Monroe, is that you?" The voice urgent, tired, yet vaguely familiar. A voice from the distant past. The fog of sleep rolled away, sharpened by a picture that rose in his mind of an auburn-haired schoolgirl. A classroom half-forgotten. And then, Troy.
"Yes."
Suddenly the flood gates were opened. Her voice poured down the line.
"You probably won't remember me. It's been a long time. It's Alma, Alma Jameson," caught herself, "I mean Alma Del Mar." The call had come. Unexpected. Sharp.
Almost as if out of nowhere, he could smell the hay that January morning, so long ago now. Twenty years? Maybe more. Worn flannel and pearl buttons rubbed against his face. Holding the man who had saved him. Brought Lazarus back from the dead and given him life. Real life. The only man, apart from his own father, who had ever loved him. Then. The one man whose love had seen him through the hurt and pain of rejection. In that moment of embrace, discovering what it felt like to be held by a man for the first time. To love, and be loved. To hunger for it and never lose faith that one day it would be his. Forever. But it hadn't worked out that way. Not in the end. A dusty photograph stared down at him from the bookcase. A reminder of a past now lost.
"Tom?" called back into the present.
"I'm here."
"I'm sorry to drop this on you like this. We've been tryin to find you to tell you. Mama found your Daddy and got your number from him. I hope you don't mind."
"Is it Ennis?" The image of Ennis dead tore through him, much as he had imagined the call that would come, one day, from his father's ranch.
"Daddy's been insistin we find you. He won't take no for an answer. He's sick with cancer, been sick some time, though he wouldn't let on. He says he wants to see you. He thinks you'll come, but I tried to tell him you got your own life back East to worry about, and…"
"I'll come. Where is he?"
Caught by surprise. Unsure. A rising tide of resentment washed over her. More than just going through the motions. Satisfying a dying man's wish. There was something here she couldn't quite fathom. A depth of affection or attachment that she wasn't party to. Always her Daddy's girl, she felt pushed aside, what with Ennis' request, pleading with the one who would do anything for him. Tom was coming, but why?
In the twenty-two years since he had last seen Ennis, Tom had only been home to Lander four times. Steered clear of Riverton, not because of Ennis. More the fear of seeing Troy, however unlikely the prospect. Home was now south-eastern Pennsylvania, near York. A successful architect, he had made a career churning out colonial saltboxes from Philadelphia to Washington. The rolling hills above the Susquehanna, domesticated and tame compared to the Wyoming of his childhood. The almost two thousand miles a welcome distance.
He hated flying, but there was no choice now. Time was running out. Alma Junior had said as much. Ennis having left it too late, made little of the aches and pains until he was too far gone to do anything. Had it been more than a fear of doctors and hospitals? He wondered.
Time rolled back as the crowded, haphazard East gave way to the vast expanse of the Great Plains. A comic children's cartoon, the hands of a clock spinning backwards. He always felt uneasy in a plane, the whole impossibility of it all, becoming less and less agnostic with the increasing altitude. It was even worse this time. This sense of foreboding, uncertain of what was to come. Of what awaited him. A past he had never made peace with, running away and reinventing himself far from home. Heart heavy. Would he make it in time?
Natrona County International Airport, Alma met him at the gate. Her weary smile belied by the tentative hug she gave him. Made him feel contagious. Perhaps she'd done the arithmetic. Or Ennis had told her everything of those three days snowbound in the Winds. "Who cares?" he thought. He hadn't come all this way for her.
Straight to the hospital. A private room off in a quiet corner, DNR in bright, red letters across his chart by the door. He took a deep breath. Steeled himself and forced a smile he hoped would hold. The mask of the sickroom when all hope was gone. This would be hard enough, for him and for Ennis. No need to make it worse.
But nothing had prepared him for this. The motionless figure wrapped tightly in a white cotton, thermal blanket. Looking like Ramses in his bandages, the sunken cheeks, skin drawn taut across the bony ridges. A barren landscape that spoke of long-suffering and of death near at hand.
A rustle, the clatter of footsteps across polished linoleum. Ennis' eyes open with a flicker. He's been sleeping or dozing. Smile flashes across his face, the best he can manage. Brown eyes, undimmed, shine.
"Look at you!" his voice so weak it can barely convey the joy in his heart. "I'm so glad you've come. I told….., I told Junior you would." The endless cough and face say it all. Lung cancer, fed by a pack a day, that has eaten its way to his very bones. "Sit down, let me look at you!"
"Daddy? I'm goin a go make a couple a phone calls. Be back in a little while. Okay?" On cue, she bows out gracefully, closes the door behind her. Leaving them alone to talk.
"She's goin a go give them doctors hell for not doin nothin. Like I don't know what she's doin. But I said I didn't want none a that chemo business just to live a few more months." He looked Tom straight in the eye. "Dying don't worry me. Who knows, there might even be somethin else. And there's only one way to find out." His lips curled in a half-smile, no hint of fear, only what might have been anxiety. The expectation of disappointment.
Tom holds him up to drink. Twenty years later, returning the favor. The pain a small price to pay for the warmth of Tom next to him, his arms holding him. Longing for Jack, who Tom made tangible. The last embrace.
"Did you do as I said?"
Tom is puzzled. Has his mind gone as well?
"Did you go out and find yourself somebody, somebody who treats you right?"
"I did, but he's gone now. It didn't last." Registers the disappointment in Ennis' face. Can't help himself. "After six years he went off and found himself an Olympic runner. I couldn't compete with that."
"Course you could. More fool him." They both laughed at Tom's little joke. It doesn't hide the fact that time is running out. That he's not long for this world. Tom on the verge, reigning in the emotion that wells up inside him.
"Tom, there's somethin I need doin. Thought about askin Junior, but it somehow don't seem right. I should a done it myself, but I never did and now it's too late. I know it sounds awful silly, might even get you in trouble. It's like this…"
And then Tom heard for the first time the whole story of Ennis and Jack, from the first day in Aguirre's office to finding the shirts in Jack's old room. In the end, worn out by the effort, Ennis sank into the bed.
"Will you think about it? You can say no, I'll understand if you don't want to."
"I'll do it, seeing as that's what you want."
Ennis nodded and smiled once more. "Junior's got everythin you need. You will be careful?"
Tom spent the night sitting up with Ennis. Sent an exhausted Alma Junior, after a great deal of protest, to claim his room up the street at the Holiday Inn and get some sleep. He'd call should anything happen. Nothing did.
They passed the night together. Tom keeping watch, his mind a kaleidoscope of the past and present all jumbled together. While, from time to time, Ennis would wake from his fitful sleep, see him and drift off again. Tom had come. It would be alright now. The two of them caught up in this nocturnal toing and froing, searching and finding. Peace, but no rest.
The next day, back on the morphine, he drifted in and out. Kidneys failing, the old embattled body closing down. A stream of people coming and going. Jenny and the grandchildren. Alma, too. In the end it was just Junior and Tom, holding his hands as life ebbed away. The erratic heartbeat giving way little by little. Then nothing. No alarm, no bells. Just a moment of silence. Broken by the sobs of his eldest daughter who flung herself across her father's chest. Tom pressed his lips hard against Ennis hand, still warm, feeling so very alone now. Impoverished beyond measure at his going.
They clung to one another in the doorway, unable to let go. Somehow things were different now. Whatever it was no longer mattered, to her or him, in light of what they had just been through. What still awaited them in the days ahead. The loss they shared swept the rest away. Torn apart by one man and brought together by another, both loved and both lost.
After the others had gone, Tom stayed with Ennis until they came for him. He couldn't bear the idea of leaving him alone, even now. Sitting there as the sun went down, as the shadows lengthened. Overwhelmed by regret, the running away, leaving Ennis when he needed him most. Wondering what could have been. Friends? Lovers? No, not that. Not a lifetime of being second best to a dead man. Trying to fill shoes he knew he couldn't.
Unanswered questions filled the darkness. Alone, as he had never been before. Not since that day when he had discovered that he wasn't the only one who felt this way. When Troy had smiled at him across the classroom and Tom had mistaken desire for love. Ennis had been different. True. The stranger who became a friend. The friend he always thought in the back of his mind that one day he would see again. The one day was gone. It was too late now. All he had left was the task appointed to him. One last labor of love to repay the great debt he owed to this man he would always love. The friend and fellow traveler he had walked with for a time. He could do no less.
Tom went home to Lander until the funeral. A modest affair held in the Methodist Church. Friends and neighbours of Alma and the girls. A few ranch hands. Minister doing his best considering he'd never crossed paths with Ennis Del Mar. Enlivened by remembrances and anecdotes provided by his daughters and grandchildren. There was no mention of Jack.
Tom, without realizing it, had become part of the family. Sitting at the head of the front pew, at Junior's insistence, holding her hand. Alma sat between her and Jenny, all of them trying to keep it together without success. He thought that Craig, the only grandson, may have resembled a young Ennis, but he'd have to see his father to deduct him from the equation to be sure. Divorce had put paid to that.
Following the casket out to the hearse, a bolt shot through him. Alma Junior squeezed his hand hard.
"Did you see that! Did you see him, there at the back?
"Keep moving, let's get out of here."
Up and out to the church hall. One by one the assembled company negotiating the hurdle of saying a few words of condolence about a man most of them didn't know, while looking to the sandwiches beyond. Tom abandoned his place by Alma Junior's side, took refuge by the drinks table. Not a drop of alcohol in sight.
"Tom", the voice hesitant, almost pleading, though clear after all these years. He spun round and the dam burst, twenty years of anger came flooding forth.
"You've got some nerve showing your face in here! Who the fuck do you think you are?" His voice low, but hard. Barely contained. People were turning round to see what the fuss was about.
McFarlane's face fell. "I'm sorry, I just thought…," his blue eyes pleading.
"Well you thought wrong. Just go!"
"I'm sorry, I just wanted to tell you… to see you. I was visiting and I heard Mr. Del Mar had died. Word was you would be here. I, … I don't know what came over me, I just got in the car and next thing I knew..." Tom stood fast, face red with rage. "I'm really sorry, I didn't mean any harm." Defeated and humiliated, Troy turned and went. Tom was shaking, but doubt gnawed at him. Were his words all lies, like before? The emotion in his voice was real, he knew that and felt suddenly ashamed. "Don't go, please don't go", echoed deep within, but it was too late. Troy was gone. Junior took his arm and brought him back into the present. It was all too much. He had to go, get out of here and get some air.
Next day, trading his rental car for his Father's 4x4, he headed north. Had he waited a day or two he could have done it all at once. Instead he felt drawn to the road, to lose himself in the landscape. The ever-beckoning mountains, the rolling plains. The office could wait.
Junior gave him an envelope. In it was a letter from Ennis written months before thanking him for what he was about to do, with a word of warning. There was also a set of directions. Passing up 789, the thirsty red rock fed by irrigation works. The patchwork of green fields the hallmark of civilization. Down to the arid dust bowl of Shoshoni and on to Thermop. Old haunts of his youth. Stopped in Worland to make the necessary arrangements, trying hard not to look like a tourist. The romanticism of the Old West drawing them right, left, and center to a make-believe land where anyone could be a cowboy. Their money a welcome addition to otherwise lean bank balances. Above him, in the near distance, rose the Big Horns like cresting waves about to crash on the plains to the east. Perhaps it was the season, late June, but they were not as forbidding as the Winds were. As they had become in his imagination. He could still feel the cold snow on that deserted road and it made him shudder.
Beyond the mountains, uncharted territory. The highway a thread through the endless plain, the wide open sky oppressive and heavy, filling the horizon ahead. A restless night in Gillette, waking to a half-remembered dream of David. Watching him pack his things. Then he had stood aside, silently watching his world crashing down around him. But now he is helping him, joyful even. Laughing and smiling. And as he closes the door on David, he turns to find that old turquoise and gold Wrangler shirt his father had given him for his sixteenth birthday, laying across the back of a chair. Long-lost and forgotten, but as sharp and clear as on that very day.
He rushes up 59, looking for the turnoff for Rocky Point Road. Missing it could send him hurtling off into an endless void. The only sign of life in this alien landscape the grass, an ocean of green, the color of life. The few, scattered farm houses, abandoned monuments to the tenacity of the human spirit in the face of adversity. A distant age.
He crept along as thunder rumbled in the distance, counting the yawning tracks that opened onto the dusty road. A lopsided mailbox, hanging by a thread. John C. Twist fading in the relentless sun. He came to a stop further down, got out and lifted the hood. Checking the engine, eyeing the house. Nothing. Only the spurge dancing in the wind of the coming storm.
Bold now with the adrenaline of what he had come to do, he walked towards the house. Invented an excuse, just in case, about his cell phone getting no signal. Could he use the phone? He had been warned. He passed the tiny cemetery, the road washed out and heavily gullied. The house looked to be abandoned. The front door flung to one side, hinges broken. Thankful his old boots still fit, tramping through the high grass. Inside, the kitchen was littered with empty beer cans and broken bottles. Chairs and table broken amid the trash, a place now the haunt of wild animals. Worse still what lurked beneath the floorboards.
In the next room, face up on the hearth, lay a large, broken mirror. Tom carefully picked it up and went to prop it against the wall. Tucked behind, as if in hiding, was a yellowed photograph of a young man holding a rodeo belt. Handsome, proud, beaming for the camera, his blue eyes bright. Jack. Upstairs empty but for cobwebs and scattered paper, a wooden horse half-buried in the corner of one room. The house heavy and mournful, the pain of loss embedded in its walls. Unnerving silence broken only by nature's warm up outside, preparing for the big show. Out again in the brisk breeze, prairie heaving in great green waves.
Among the handful of stones in the tiny enclosure stand two more recent additions. John and Jack. Between them an unmarked mound. No stone, no marker. Tom carefully removes the long-faded and weather-beaten plastic flowers. Takes the clipped wire hanger and pushes it into the ground. Once, twice, three times. Finds what he is looking for. Cuts the turf back and digs. Red soil clinging to the bronze urn, wipes the name plate. Jack Twist. Hurriedly fills the hole with small stones and replaces the flowers. Looks apologetically towards the unmarked grave. Jack's mother? Alone now with the stud duck.
He wrestles with his conscience, second guessing what he has done. The crime he has committed. The rain comes as he speeds south, fleeing this god-forsaken place. The bitter loneliness under the falling sky. Jack, at least, is free.
He enjoys the liberation of the open road, the long sight lines, and the familiar country west of the Bighorns. Chasing the sun as it slowly sinks towards the horizon. Finally pulls into the long drive of the Double Dutch. Home. Coming round the corner, his father's voice raised. Two hired hands coming up the path to see what all the fuss is about.
"Daddy?"
"Tom! I was just seeing off this good-for-nothin…". Everett Monroe rooted to the spot, .45 in hand. Aimed and ready.
"Whoa, whoa! What do you think you're doing? There's no need for this. It's more trouble than it's worth."
Troy McFarlane stands there, hands in midair. He's forgotten the tenacity of memory, of nursed hurts and injuries. The vulnerability of a father unable to protect his only son. Making up for lost time. Face off with no easy way out.
Tom steps up between them. "Daddy, it's alright. He just wants to have his say and then he'll go." Turns to Troy, "Right?"
Troy nods, not taking his eyes off the old man.
"Come on. Let's go for a walk." Leads him beyond the house towards the pond. Troy glancing again and again behind him. Everett Monroe standing tall, an eagle on the cliff face watching everything below.
"I'm glad you came along when you did. What would he have done?"
"Don't know. Your guess is as good as mine. Can you blame him?" Being provocative, pushing the boundaries. First and last chance to get some answers. He's waited a long time for this, imagined this moment a million times. Lost the script, the carefully chosen words won't come. He can hardly think straight. It's been an emotional rollercoaster, these past few days. Hardest yet to come.
"That's why I'm here. Why I came. I'm sorry. I never meant any of this to happen."
"What, letting your friends beat the shit out of me and dump me in a ditch? I would have died if Ennis hadn't found me. It's too late for sorry. It won't work."
"I didn't know…, I was afraid. You came up to me all drunk. I was afraid what you would say. The others came out and started pushing and shoving. It got out of hand. I never wanted you to get hurt. You've got to believe me. Bobby was your friend, said he was going to take you home. It was his car. And when I got home and heard you were missing, I called your Dad. Ask him if you don't believe me."
A tremor and the ground beneath his feet is no longer the solid earth it once was. Well-rehearsed and repeated through the years, the old truth in tune with the Troy he had known. Had he been wrong?
There was no holding Troy McFarlane, collapsing under the weight of what he had carried all these years. "You've got no idea what it's like. What it's like living with what you've done. The things you didn't do that you should have. I've made something of myself. I went to Seattle, where nobody knew me. Started over and made a life for myself. A career. But it's nothing. Nothing! Every time I look in another's face all I see is yours, staring up at me, scared to death. Everything I do is poisoned by that afternoon, standing by, afraid that I was next. I screwed up! I was a stupid kid. It wasn't me, you know that. I never touched you, but I'm the one with blood on my hands. If I could do anything, I would go back and fix it, but I can't." He was crying now, this forty-two year old man he had once been in love with. In outward form not unlike the boy he had known, yet a stranger meeting for the first time. This wasn't how it was supposed to be. Impervious to the longed for remorse, in the driver's seat for once, calling the shots. He was falling. Hard.
They sat in the grass as the sun slid behind the mountains. Tom holding Troy for the very first time in the near darkness. Intoxicated by the smell of his hair, the weight of his body. The power of memory running deep within him. Lost in a moment he could not make sense of. Losing control in a headlong spin of mixed emotions. Troy clinging to him, drowning in a sea of pain and self-recrimination. He had finally come to the end. Felt as if he was dying here in the parched grass, but he was no longer alone.
At Worland there was a delay. Change came at a price, but Tom felt it was worth it. Back in the saddle again, following the creek up into the alpine meadows. The very air alive, the scent of pine and spruce heavy in the warmth of the sun. Summer was short and the mountain was making the most of it.
His invitation had been gratefully accepted, a flash-quick decision made in a reckless moment he felt he might yet regret. He was glad not to be alone and it was somehow appropriate, though he couldn't quite think how. He wondered what Ennis would make of it all. Pieces of the puzzle fell into place. Troy was now a geologist who taught at the University of Washington. He came out rather late after a long struggle. A string of short-lived relationships that came to nothing. Torn between the past and a growing homesickness, especially with his father's illness and his recent visits to Riverton. Dissatisfied and restless, he had never felt free or at peace with himself. He had looked for Tom, but hadn't found him. Until Ennis' funeral. A chance to lay the past to rest once and for all.
They pitched the tent and made camp by the stream near the trail to the summit. There would be time enough tomorrow to do what he had come for. Then home to Pennsylvania the day after, the pressure of work making itself felt again. Troy stripped off and bathed in the icy water, Tom watching from the bank. He knew the way things would go tonight, though they had not spoken about it. The tentative back and forth between them, the body language, and the gentle touch becoming bolder with every turn. Since David there had only been the occasional one-night stand, nothing much. He tried to tell himself that it was foolish trying to relive the past. Better to move on to fresh pastures and put it all behind him. Perhaps it was his loneliness at Ennis' passing, or simply being home again surrounded by the familiar landscape and the memories it evoked. Whatever it was, he knew he couldn't help himself. He was drawn to this and there was no way round it.
Later, in the tent, Troy smiled and reached out to him. Pulled him close, though Tom would not kiss him. Awkwardness melted away as Troy woke a long dormant fire within him. Played every string he had. To the edge again and again. Something jarred deep down, sharp against the passion. Suddenly the tables were turned, Troy digging in a pocket. Handing a condom to him. Grabbed his ankles and entered him in one. Troy winced and stifled a cry. Fury unleashed as Tom pummelled him into the hard ground. Violence without warning. Shouting at him, "How do you like that? Now you know how it feels. Know what it's like to be used. Like it? Huh? Look at me!"
Tom's eyes filled with tears as Troy lay there and took it. Lay there and absorbed his anger and rage. He reached up for Tom, but he was arched above just out of reach. The whole world trembled beneath them. As if the groaning wind was pulling down the mountain on top of them. Burying them under an avalanche of boulders and earth. Then the point of no return, Tom on the brink. Helpless and vulnerable as Troy lunges upwards, grabs him and pulls him down on top of him. Tom convulsed with great sobs, the bitter tears of the past. Their past. And it's legacy of pain and heartache.
"It's okay. It's okay." Troy kisses him, his hand soothing the throbbing temple, holding on to this precious moment. This moment of love and victory, the victory of the love Tom had always held for him, the love he had taken advantage of and scorned. Now it rose triumphant over the hate, the pain and fear. The love that once frightened him, frees him at last. Opens the door onto a world he never imagined possible before. Hearts buoyant in the warmth of one another's arms, making love into the early light. Gentle sleep.
"You sure you don't want me to come with you?"
"That's okay. It's something I've got to do on my own. Do you understand?"
Troy nods, "I'll pack up and wait for you." A kiss and he's gone, Troy's eyes following him as he disappears into the trees. Looking up to the summit, again and again, hoping to catch a glimpse. To know that this is real and not a dream about to fade in the bright morning light.
Tom makes for the meadow, the angle of verdant grass dotted with thousands of wildflowers that rushes up to meet the sheer rise of the granite summit. Here high above the stream below, looking down on the world, he can see a hundred miles. Houses and towns like toys, distant sheep wisps of cotton scattered by the wind. Takes the bag and gently lays it aside. Digs a hole and smoothes it round. Pours Ennis' ashes in first, as instructed. Makes a hollow in the middle and fills it with Jack's ashes. Swirls them together and covers them up. Together forever now. Says a half-remembered prayer his mother taught him long ago. Done. The end of the road. He has done all that Ennis asked. There is nothing left to do. Uneasy, not wanting to go. To say the last good-bye. A heavy sigh.
They were free up here long ago, so Ennis told him. Free from the expectations and demands of the world with its small-minded bigots and self-righteousness. In the end Ennis was never free, scarred by his childhood and self-doubt. Trying to be something he wasn't, pushing Jack away little by little. Stunted, unrequited love that longed to be together. To be honest and true, whatever the cost. Ennis had lost, realizing too late what he had taken for granted. Living with the knowledge that Jack had found refuge in another's arms, and paid for it with his life. A brutal death on a god-forsaken back road, hidden beneath a veneer of respectability. Bitterness and betrayal. Fear and love. Now all that was left was the mountain. Nothing else.
He remembered the photograph, the handsome man full of life, full of optimism at what could be. Remembered, too, Ennis' tears as he revealed his love for Jack and the grief he had carried alone, hidden away, never shared until that January morning twenty odd years ago. The weight of the mountain pressed down upon him, his knees buckled. He sank into the grass, the wind blowing hard against him. The world blurred through stinging tears when he noticed the pale blue of the mountain harebells enfolding him. Their clarion call ringing out the beauty and exuberance of life, there for the living. His eyes ran down the mountain to the tiny blue and green tent below, a wisp of gray smoke rising to meet the sky.
The road did not end here. It went on. He no longer walked it alone. There were no guarantees, no way of knowing where it would lead. Pennsylvania? Seattle? Maybe even home to Wyoming. He'd have to wait and see. Life was for living and loving, Ennis and Jack had taught him that. The time for regret was past, the future waited. It called to him, all that was left to do was find the courage to answer. A distant figure moved below and his heart welled up inside him. It would be alright now.
"Good-bye, I've got to go. You know I'll always love you." Wiped his eyes on his sleeve and made his way down the mountain. Troy was waiting.