I'll Be Seeing You
Chapter Fifty-One: Bullet Time
A Brokeback a/u diverging from the original story at the time of Ennis’s divorce.
Rated: R for language, adult themes.
Disclaimer: I have borrowed these characters from Annie Proulx and the fine actors that portrayed them on screen.
My warmest thanks to Jean
:I: :I: :I: :I: :I: :I:
Lunatic Fringe
I know you're out there
You're in hiding
And you hold your meetings
We can hear you coming
We know what you're after
We're wise to you this time
We won't let you kill the laughter
Lunatic Fringe
In the twilight's last gleaming
This is open season
But you won't get too far
We know you've got to blame someone
For your own confusion
But we're on guard this time
Against your final solution
Red Ryder, “Lunatic Fringe”
::::::::::::::::::::::::::
“Whut the hell, Malone,” Mack McClennon said, as he got out of his truck.
Randall broke off his conversation with Roon Arleigh and gestured to Mack. Annoyed already at being called up and told to come to this spot, Mack slammed the door and stomped over as Malone took a pry bar out from behind his back seat.
“Who’s car?” Mack asked, casting a critical eye over the late model Chevrolet on the side of the road.
Randall jammed the crowbar under the lip of the trunk hood near the latch and applied some leverage. Mack raised his eyebrows at Roon as another truck slowed down and pulled off the road. Kenny Millet and Dub Heim got out, and walked to the back of the car, joining the speculative conversation.
“L.D. said to drive on out here,” Mack said. “And here I am with no earthly idea why.”
“L.D. called me too,” Kenny said. “Whut’s goin’ on? Why’s Malone breakin’ in t’ that car?”
“Don’t know yet,” Roon said. “We just got here ourselves when Malone asked me did I know how t’ git into a trunk and then he goes t’ work.”
“There’s an injured man in here,” Randall said over his shoulder. “If ya got time, would one a ya mind helpin’?”
“That might depend on who it is,” Mack said.
Randall shook his head and went back to what he was doing. “Hold up,” Dub said. “Lemme have a try.” Randall stood back as Dub took the pry bar and inserted the end into the key slot. A few moments later, the lid popped up revealing an empty cavity.
“Ya better start talkin’, Malone,” Mack said. “I come out here on L.D. Newsome’s say-so, but I sure as hell didn’t expect t’ find you here.”
“I need your help,” Randall said. “L.D.’s son-in-law, ex-son-in-law, is in trouble, and he thought you boys might do him a favor.”
“Ain’t got no ‘cause to help out Jack Twist,” Mack said.
“But you do got ‘cause to lissen when L.D. tells ya somethin’,” Randall said. “Unless you boys wanna call ‘im up and explain why ya cain’t do ‘im this little favor.”
“Keep talkin’,” Mack said sullenly.
“Jack’s mama called me a little bit ago and said a man with a gun come t’ the house and is threatenin’ to kill Jack. I told ‘er t’ git the hell out a there, and she should be settin’ at my place with LaShawn about now.”
“Hell, Malone, why didn’t th’ old lady call the God-damned police? This is their job.”
“’Cause she ain’t forgot about Cal Behrens and all that corruption they found in the police department ‘round here. Far as we know, the cops that come out might be gunnin’ for Jack, too,” Randall said. “Now, ya want a waste more time flappin’ your gums ‘bout whut ought a been done, or are ya gonna help take care a the problem?”
“Whut’s L.D. want us t’ do?” Roon asked.
“Whut the hell ya think?” Dub said. “We need t’ go t’ the house and start shootin’.”
“We don’t want a make anythin’ worse,” Randall cautioned. “Missus Twist said the house was empty ‘cept for her and Jack and the two kidnappers. She heard ‘em say they killed Del Mar and put him in the trunk a their car. Since this here’s the only abandoned vehicle on this road, I’m figured I’d have a look.”
“Prob’ly scared out a her wits,” Roon said. “There’s plenty a blood here, but…”
“Lissen t’ the detective,” Mack sneered. “I still ain’t heard no compellin’ reason t’ start a shoot out. I say call the cops.”
“Why don’t ya do that, Mack?” Randall said. “Me, I’m gonna take my rifle on down the road and see if I cain’t find a use for it.”
Kenny and Dub exchanged a glance, liking sound of Randall’s words. There was a shotgun and a rifle in the gun rack in the back windshield of Kenny’s truck, and any excuse to fire them was welcome. Randall wasn’t really part of their crowd, but he had L.D.’s blessing, and L.D. was one of the mossybacks around Childress, a man like their fathers, whom he was buddies with. Refusing to do him a favor, especially right after he’d been so poorly, was out of the question, and forming a posse sounded like a grand way to pass a slow afternoon.
“This is crazy,” Mack said, as Kenney and Dub expressed their willingness to follow Randall. “But none a ya got nuthin’ on me when it comes t’ crazy. Reckon I’ll come along.”
“Let’s go then,” Randall said. “Don’t imagine they’ll hold up the proceedin’s for us.”
“If ya think I give a good God damn whut happens t’ Twist, ya got another think comin’,” Mack said. “But this here car’s got a Mexican plate on it, and I don’t take kindly t’ beaners comin’ all the way up here.”
“You mean they’s Mexicans?” Dub asked.
“Mexican drug dealers, I expect,” Randall said. “Don’t scare ya, does it?”
“Shee-it,” Mack hawked and spat into the floury roadside dust. “I’ll send ‘em back across the border on the Winchester Express.” He got a round of approving grunts and back pats as he glared belligerently at Randall.
“I’ll be happy t’ help ya punch their ticket,” Randall said, and got in his truck. Like boys on a field trip, the other men loaded up, holding their rifles and shotguns at port arms. Mack banged on the roof of the cab, and Randall headed off across the fields, taking the direct route to the ranch house.
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
“Where are you, pendejo?” Rafael called as he poked the muzzle of his pistol into the hall.
“Shhh,” Mingo said, pulling a small gun from his handbag. “You can hear him moving around.”
“We gonna find you, Jack,” Rafael yelled. “And we gonna fix you up like your friend Rally.”
Mingo giggled. “Nobody ever gonna find that well-dressed hombre. Come on out, mi amor; I just want to play with you a little before we kill you.”
Jack held his breath as he eased along the garage wall toward the side door. He hadn’t seen hide or hair of Mama and hoped she was running for the hills as fast as she could. Thanking Anyone that was listening that the kids weren’t here, Jack put his hand on the doorknob as he scanned the yard through the dusty window. He saw no sign of the Chevy, but assumed it was parked somewhere out of sight. Fuck Rafael and Mingo; they could have everything in the house. Lureen could bill him for each item, but Jack had to find that car. “Shit,” he said under his breath as he heard someone coming down the hall.
“Senor Ja-ack,” Mingo sang out, holding the derringer in front of him as he came through the laundry room. “I know you’re in there. Be a man, cabron. Come on out and face me. You’re not afraid of a puto with no balls, are you?” Mingo stopped, leaning against the door that led to the garage. “Your friend Rally thought I was pretty. Until he saw me naked. Then he thought I was funny. He laughed until Rafael came in and made him stop. I cut Senor Rally a new smile with Rafael’s knife. You don’t think I’m funny, do you? You were always so nice to me, Senor Jack. I almost felt bad about tricking you.”
Jack pulled open the side door, praying the louvered glass of the window didn’t rattle. Mingo’s voice, alternating from a coo to a snarl, was scarier than any gun, and Jack had no reason to hang around listening to it. Slipping through while there was still barely enough space, Jack paused and looked down both sides of the house, before emerging fully. He saw the glint of light just before he heard the sound of a shot and chips of stucco flew off the wall next to him. Jack dropped to the ground and crawled toward the shelter of Ennis’s old truck. He winced as bullets hit the pickup, but kept moving under the frame and out the other side, heading for the barn. Rafael shouted something in Spanish that Jack didn’t catch, and more shots were fired, this time from two different guns. Jack dove into the open barn door, got to his feet and ran toward the far end. If he could get to the trailer, he could lay his hands on a hunting rifle.
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Pain was a shadow that he couldn’t crawl out of. After hauling himself over a tailgate he couldn’t manage to unlatch, and hitting the ground, he lay in a dark cocoon, wrapped in an agony so profound it demanded silent suffering. He couldn’t draw a deep enough breath to scream when the ends of his broken bones ground together, emptying his lungs of air and his mind of thought. Time became a thing like the taffy machine at the carnival, stretching and stretching, shining with strain, but never snapping, just endlessly drawing out each moment. He lost track of where, and even who he was from moment to moment, as the fist of pain tightened around him. What the hell happened? What was he doing lying in the dirt under the back bumper of Jack’s truck?
The tire iron. He whimpered, remembering now. The blonde woman, stranded motorist, a length of metal clutched in soft hands tipped with blood red nails. A groan inched its way up his throat and trickled from his mouth. The tire iron, symbol of all his fears, loomed over him, casting a shadow out of all proportion with its slim silhouette. He reached out with his good hand, riding out the bolt of agony that set off a constellation of miniature suns behind his eyelids. The ground was flat with sparse grass; he wasn’t in a ditch. Ennis looked down at his crotch. A tractor-trailer with a full load of pain hit him in the back of the neck, but he’d seen what he needed to. He was alive and intact.
Jack.
Ennis sat up, hitting his head on the edge of the wheel well and was grateful for the distraction from the pain that lit up his entire left side at even the thought of moving. But he had to move. He had to find Jack. Ennis grabbed at the bumper as he sagged back to the ground, grunting at the nauseating pain when his broken forearm hit the unyielding metal. Black motes swam in his vision, spreading until they became one darkness, eclipsing his sight. His stomach lurched, and he tried to turn his head, as his gorge rose rapidly. He hoped to God he wasn’t going to pass out again while he vomited. C’mon, boy, he told himself. Git movin’. Lord knows where Jack is and whut’s happened to ‘im.
The sun-bleached ravine rose before Ennis’s eyes. He could feel his father’s hand on the back of his neck, making sure he didn’t turn away from the object lesson in front of him. There was so much light, dust as white as baking soda overlay everything, reflecting the sun, revealing every detail in a pitiless glare. Old Earl’s body, hacked at like a piece of wood, lay where it had been tossed in a final, de-humanizing indignity to a man who had been viciously bludgeoned and tortured to death as though he were of less worth than a piece of livestock. But Ennis didn’t see Earl’s face, he saw Jack’s.
His Jack, the guy that couldn’t lay low, that could barely hide what he wanted, that didn’t mind taking risks to get it. His Jack in a red shirt. His Jack cuttin’ the fool, pretendin’ to ride some rip-snortin’ Brahma to glory. His Jack drivin’ all the way from Childress at the news of Ennis’s divorce, so happy he was fairly humming with suppressed emotion when Ennis hugged him. His Jack drivin’ away, the light in his eyes extinguished, not looking in the side mirror once as he stepped on the gas. His Jack, so bright and warm that it was no surprise that others were attracted to him, and that frightened Ennis. Aside from the jealousy that he couldn’t help feeling, there was always the fear that Jack would attract the wrong kind of person, the kind of person that would play on Jack’s willingness to trust others and his need for companionship. And was Ennis really any different from the men that had used Jack after Ennis cut him adrift? And wasn’t what Ennis was really afraid of was that if the bad folks found Jack, Ennis would be next? And if Ennis feared punishment for being queer, didn’t that mean he knew he was queer?
Ennis opened his eyes, his blurred vision focused on the left rear tire. He couldn’t lay here moaning over some busted bones; he had to find Jack. Rolling to his side, and up to his knees, Ennis swayed like a reed in a current. He doubled over and finished the job he’d started, coughing up what was left in his stomach. All them years, he thought; all them years I was scared t’ death a bunch a yay-hoos with tire irons would catch me and pull my pecker off ‘cause they could see whut I was dumb enough t’ deny. All them years I was scared it would happen t’ Jack ‘cause he was careless. All that fear and frettin’ and it come t’ this. Beat black and blue by some hussy and left for dead with privates intact. Whut had all his worryin’ bought him? Not time, nor happiness, nor immunity from harm. It was only when he’d made the effort to be the man Jack loved that he’d been truly happy again, and damned if he was going to lose what ground he’d gained.
Ignoring the white-hot needles of pain that stitched his nerves into an enveloping quilt of agony, Ennis grasped the bumper with his right hand. Sweat popped out on his forehead and upper lip as he strained to lever himself to his feet without blacking out. It was only pain, just a little worse than usual, and pain was something he was used to disregarding. He just needed to turn his back on it, pretend it didn’t exist; he used to be real good at that. Back before Junior shamed him into quittin’ the booze, before earnest, unstable Danny had taught Ennis what Danny had never learned. Before he’d seen Jack Twist again after vowing to cut the man like a cancer from his life. Knowing all along, in some dark dungeon of his fortress mind that in condemning Jack, he condemned himself, and it was no more than he deserved. He had betrayed himself, out of ignorant fear, and pushed away the one person that could have saved his soul as well as his body. If he was to have any chance of regaining it, he was going to have to find Jack and say so many things to him, starting with, I’m sorry I broke your heart.
“C’mon, hoss,” he muttered. “You ain’t dead yet. Jack needs ya, and you sure’s hell need him, so git your ass in gear.” But what about the tire iron? Ennis ruthlessly stamped out the flare of fear. If there were a gang out there with a tire iron, he’d just have to deal with them as best he could. What he couldn’t do was lay here without knowing if Jack was all right or not. Working his belt buckle one-handed, he pulled hard and the leather slid free of the loops with a hissing noise. Ennis froze and looked around, squinting against the splinter light of late afternoon. He realized he was in the back field behind the barn, and that it was almost three hundred feet from where he was to the trailer and each step would be torment. Ennis gritted his teeth, rebuckled the belt and slipped it over his head. Resting his left arm in the makeshift sling, he shuffled along the side of the pickup. He had just reached the cab when he heard gunshots.
:::::::::::::::::::::::::
Randall crept along the fence, his rifle held along his right leg as he approached Jack’s truck. He couldn’t hear the other members of the self-proclaimed posse, but he figured he could trust them to stick around no matter what they thought of him, Jack or Ennis Del Mar. The opportunity to fire a few rounds at live targets insured it. Randall brought his weapon up to his shoulder as he reached the pickup and looked into the bed. The wet red stains on the cloth wadded against the toolbox caught his eye. Randall picked up the bundle and shook out two shirts soaked in blood. “Shit,” he said under his breath, focusing his gaze on the barn, gauging the distance. He dropped his eyes, searching intently until he found traces of blood in the grass. His finger on the trigger, he followed the wet trail.
:::::::::::::::::::::
Jack heard Rafael call to Mingo from the back door of the barn and let loose with a string of smoking curses. Was boxing himself up in here going to the last bad decision he ever made? No time to wonder. Jack spun around toward the stalls and saw that Lureen’s saddle horse was missing. He let himself believe that Mama had taken the mare, as he cast about for a way to avoid being recaptured. A few seconds of rapid thought later, and he trotted back to the door Mingo was guarding. It eased open a crack just as he reached it and the dead black eye of a gun muzzle peered through the gap.
“Senor Jack,” Mingo called. “I’m coming in after you.”
Jack moved to the side as Mingo looked around the door. Grabbing hold of a slender wrist, Jack yanked the hustler all the way in to the barn. It was a good move, but Mingo had been fighting for his life since he was a child. The Mexican took his pistol in his other hand and pointed it at Jack’s face.
“I’m not left-handed,” Mingo said. “But at this range it won’t make no difference.”
“Sure enough,” Jack said.
“Ai-yi, cabron! Let go, or I’ll shoot you in the cojones.” Mingo lowered his aim.
“Why don’t ya then?”
“You know I’ll do it.”
Jack nodded, releasing Mingo’s wrist with a jangle of bangle bracelets. “But not fast,” he said. “You want me to suffer, right?”
Mingo pursed his lips as he stepped back. “It would make me feel better to hurt you, si.”
“Why don’t we talk some first?”
Mingo’s gaze was as dark and impenetrable as obsidian. “Three minutes,” he said. “That’s about how long Rafael will wait if he doesn’t hear me, or my gun.”
“It’s a mighty cute gun,” Jack said. “I always liked you, Mingo. Liked your wildness. Liked the way you made me feel like I was someone else for a while. It hurt me to find out you and Rafael was just usin’ me t’ git his boss’s drugs across the border. Did it make ya feel all big and smart that ya fooled me? Truth is, it ain’t that hard to pull the wool over my eyes. I want a believe people. I don’t want a go ‘round thinkin’ ever’body’s out t’ git me in some way or another. I don’t want a live like that.”
Mingo raised his plucked eyebrows. “You’re not gonna have to worry ‘bout it, hombre. We gonna put you in the ground next to your friend and take a picture for our friends back in Mexico. Then we gonna collect our money.”
“You want me to offer you more money than the drug dealers?”
“That would be a nice start.”
“If you want money, I’ll git it for you, but you got a leave here.”
“Why? Don’t want your old lady to come home and catch you with me?”
“You know me too well,” Jack said.
“Don’t forget that, and don’t think you can trick me. I can get Rafael to listen to an offer, but it would have to be enough that we never have to go back.”
“Well, I wouldn’t have that much on me, but I can git it.”
“Rally said your wife was a rich lady,” Mingo said. “Maybe we should wait for her.”
“No way,” Jack said. “You got a be gone when she gits home.”
“I don’t know,” Mingo said. “I think it’s better we just kill you like we plan, and go home, but I need to talk to Rafael.”
“Wait just a second. This could be your chance to git out a this life. Git rid a your pimp and…”
“And what? We live happy ever after like Neve Blanca and her prince? If you didn’t notice, I’m not no Snow White, and Rafael gives me everything I need.”
“But not everything you want.”
Mingo smiled and leaned closer. “I miss you sometimes, guapo,” he admitted. “You treated me like I was no different from any other whore, and I appreciated that. You were nicer than the other gringos, and you didn’t try to make me into your girlfriend, but you made sure to pay after each time you came to see me. Very professional. I will always remember that you never made me feel like a freak.”
“You ain’t a freak; you’re just crazy ‘cause a whut’s been done t’ ya.”
“We have a lot in common, eh?” Mingo tilted his face up at a flirtatious angle.
“It only seems that way,” Jack answered, as he slammed his forehead into Mingo’s nose. Mingo gasped at the sudden sharp pain, the pistol wavering in his dainty grip. Jack seized the hustler’s arm and brought it down over his knee. Mingo clung to the gun, hitting at Jack with his other hand. Rafael called out, as Mingo and Jack toppled to the sawdust floor. Jack clapped a hand over Mingo’s mouth, smashed the prostitute’s gun hand against the wall. An outraged squeal was muffled against Jack’s palm, but Mingo didn’t let go of the weapon. Rafael called out louder as Mingo bit at Jack’s hand and tried to knee him in the balls. Jack smacked Mingo’s torn, bloody knuckles against the wood again to no avail. “Fuck,” Jack hissed, yanking his head back as the other man raked at his eyes with red-painted talons. Letting go of Mingo’s arm, Jack grabbed him by the head and crashed his skull into the wall as hard as he could. The hustler’s eyes rolled up and he went limp.
“He’s pretty strong for someone that wears a dress, eh, cabron?” Rafael said from behind Jack.
tbc
A Brokeback a/u diverging from the original story at the time of Ennis’s divorce.
Rated: R for language, adult themes.
Disclaimer: I have borrowed these characters from Annie Proulx and the fine actors that portrayed them on screen.
My warmest thanks to Jean
:I: :I: :I: :I: :I: :I:
Lunatic Fringe
I know you're out there
You're in hiding
And you hold your meetings
We can hear you coming
We know what you're after
We're wise to you this time
We won't let you kill the laughter
Lunatic Fringe
In the twilight's last gleaming
This is open season
But you won't get too far
We know you've got to blame someone
For your own confusion
But we're on guard this time
Against your final solution
Red Ryder, “Lunatic Fringe”
::::::::::::::::::::::::::
“Whut the hell, Malone,” Mack McClennon said, as he got out of his truck.
Randall broke off his conversation with Roon Arleigh and gestured to Mack. Annoyed already at being called up and told to come to this spot, Mack slammed the door and stomped over as Malone took a pry bar out from behind his back seat.
“Who’s car?” Mack asked, casting a critical eye over the late model Chevrolet on the side of the road.
Randall jammed the crowbar under the lip of the trunk hood near the latch and applied some leverage. Mack raised his eyebrows at Roon as another truck slowed down and pulled off the road. Kenny Millet and Dub Heim got out, and walked to the back of the car, joining the speculative conversation.
“L.D. said to drive on out here,” Mack said. “And here I am with no earthly idea why.”
“L.D. called me too,” Kenny said. “Whut’s goin’ on? Why’s Malone breakin’ in t’ that car?”
“Don’t know yet,” Roon said. “We just got here ourselves when Malone asked me did I know how t’ git into a trunk and then he goes t’ work.”
“There’s an injured man in here,” Randall said over his shoulder. “If ya got time, would one a ya mind helpin’?”
“That might depend on who it is,” Mack said.
Randall shook his head and went back to what he was doing. “Hold up,” Dub said. “Lemme have a try.” Randall stood back as Dub took the pry bar and inserted the end into the key slot. A few moments later, the lid popped up revealing an empty cavity.
“Ya better start talkin’, Malone,” Mack said. “I come out here on L.D. Newsome’s say-so, but I sure as hell didn’t expect t’ find you here.”
“I need your help,” Randall said. “L.D.’s son-in-law, ex-son-in-law, is in trouble, and he thought you boys might do him a favor.”
“Ain’t got no ‘cause to help out Jack Twist,” Mack said.
“But you do got ‘cause to lissen when L.D. tells ya somethin’,” Randall said. “Unless you boys wanna call ‘im up and explain why ya cain’t do ‘im this little favor.”
“Keep talkin’,” Mack said sullenly.
“Jack’s mama called me a little bit ago and said a man with a gun come t’ the house and is threatenin’ to kill Jack. I told ‘er t’ git the hell out a there, and she should be settin’ at my place with LaShawn about now.”
“Hell, Malone, why didn’t th’ old lady call the God-damned police? This is their job.”
“’Cause she ain’t forgot about Cal Behrens and all that corruption they found in the police department ‘round here. Far as we know, the cops that come out might be gunnin’ for Jack, too,” Randall said. “Now, ya want a waste more time flappin’ your gums ‘bout whut ought a been done, or are ya gonna help take care a the problem?”
“Whut’s L.D. want us t’ do?” Roon asked.
“Whut the hell ya think?” Dub said. “We need t’ go t’ the house and start shootin’.”
“We don’t want a make anythin’ worse,” Randall cautioned. “Missus Twist said the house was empty ‘cept for her and Jack and the two kidnappers. She heard ‘em say they killed Del Mar and put him in the trunk a their car. Since this here’s the only abandoned vehicle on this road, I’m figured I’d have a look.”
“Prob’ly scared out a her wits,” Roon said. “There’s plenty a blood here, but…”
“Lissen t’ the detective,” Mack sneered. “I still ain’t heard no compellin’ reason t’ start a shoot out. I say call the cops.”
“Why don’t ya do that, Mack?” Randall said. “Me, I’m gonna take my rifle on down the road and see if I cain’t find a use for it.”
Kenny and Dub exchanged a glance, liking sound of Randall’s words. There was a shotgun and a rifle in the gun rack in the back windshield of Kenny’s truck, and any excuse to fire them was welcome. Randall wasn’t really part of their crowd, but he had L.D.’s blessing, and L.D. was one of the mossybacks around Childress, a man like their fathers, whom he was buddies with. Refusing to do him a favor, especially right after he’d been so poorly, was out of the question, and forming a posse sounded like a grand way to pass a slow afternoon.
“This is crazy,” Mack said, as Kenney and Dub expressed their willingness to follow Randall. “But none a ya got nuthin’ on me when it comes t’ crazy. Reckon I’ll come along.”
“Let’s go then,” Randall said. “Don’t imagine they’ll hold up the proceedin’s for us.”
“If ya think I give a good God damn whut happens t’ Twist, ya got another think comin’,” Mack said. “But this here car’s got a Mexican plate on it, and I don’t take kindly t’ beaners comin’ all the way up here.”
“You mean they’s Mexicans?” Dub asked.
“Mexican drug dealers, I expect,” Randall said. “Don’t scare ya, does it?”
“Shee-it,” Mack hawked and spat into the floury roadside dust. “I’ll send ‘em back across the border on the Winchester Express.” He got a round of approving grunts and back pats as he glared belligerently at Randall.
“I’ll be happy t’ help ya punch their ticket,” Randall said, and got in his truck. Like boys on a field trip, the other men loaded up, holding their rifles and shotguns at port arms. Mack banged on the roof of the cab, and Randall headed off across the fields, taking the direct route to the ranch house.
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
“Where are you, pendejo?” Rafael called as he poked the muzzle of his pistol into the hall.
“Shhh,” Mingo said, pulling a small gun from his handbag. “You can hear him moving around.”
“We gonna find you, Jack,” Rafael yelled. “And we gonna fix you up like your friend Rally.”
Mingo giggled. “Nobody ever gonna find that well-dressed hombre. Come on out, mi amor; I just want to play with you a little before we kill you.”
Jack held his breath as he eased along the garage wall toward the side door. He hadn’t seen hide or hair of Mama and hoped she was running for the hills as fast as she could. Thanking Anyone that was listening that the kids weren’t here, Jack put his hand on the doorknob as he scanned the yard through the dusty window. He saw no sign of the Chevy, but assumed it was parked somewhere out of sight. Fuck Rafael and Mingo; they could have everything in the house. Lureen could bill him for each item, but Jack had to find that car. “Shit,” he said under his breath as he heard someone coming down the hall.
“Senor Ja-ack,” Mingo sang out, holding the derringer in front of him as he came through the laundry room. “I know you’re in there. Be a man, cabron. Come on out and face me. You’re not afraid of a puto with no balls, are you?” Mingo stopped, leaning against the door that led to the garage. “Your friend Rally thought I was pretty. Until he saw me naked. Then he thought I was funny. He laughed until Rafael came in and made him stop. I cut Senor Rally a new smile with Rafael’s knife. You don’t think I’m funny, do you? You were always so nice to me, Senor Jack. I almost felt bad about tricking you.”
Jack pulled open the side door, praying the louvered glass of the window didn’t rattle. Mingo’s voice, alternating from a coo to a snarl, was scarier than any gun, and Jack had no reason to hang around listening to it. Slipping through while there was still barely enough space, Jack paused and looked down both sides of the house, before emerging fully. He saw the glint of light just before he heard the sound of a shot and chips of stucco flew off the wall next to him. Jack dropped to the ground and crawled toward the shelter of Ennis’s old truck. He winced as bullets hit the pickup, but kept moving under the frame and out the other side, heading for the barn. Rafael shouted something in Spanish that Jack didn’t catch, and more shots were fired, this time from two different guns. Jack dove into the open barn door, got to his feet and ran toward the far end. If he could get to the trailer, he could lay his hands on a hunting rifle.
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Pain was a shadow that he couldn’t crawl out of. After hauling himself over a tailgate he couldn’t manage to unlatch, and hitting the ground, he lay in a dark cocoon, wrapped in an agony so profound it demanded silent suffering. He couldn’t draw a deep enough breath to scream when the ends of his broken bones ground together, emptying his lungs of air and his mind of thought. Time became a thing like the taffy machine at the carnival, stretching and stretching, shining with strain, but never snapping, just endlessly drawing out each moment. He lost track of where, and even who he was from moment to moment, as the fist of pain tightened around him. What the hell happened? What was he doing lying in the dirt under the back bumper of Jack’s truck?
The tire iron. He whimpered, remembering now. The blonde woman, stranded motorist, a length of metal clutched in soft hands tipped with blood red nails. A groan inched its way up his throat and trickled from his mouth. The tire iron, symbol of all his fears, loomed over him, casting a shadow out of all proportion with its slim silhouette. He reached out with his good hand, riding out the bolt of agony that set off a constellation of miniature suns behind his eyelids. The ground was flat with sparse grass; he wasn’t in a ditch. Ennis looked down at his crotch. A tractor-trailer with a full load of pain hit him in the back of the neck, but he’d seen what he needed to. He was alive and intact.
Jack.
Ennis sat up, hitting his head on the edge of the wheel well and was grateful for the distraction from the pain that lit up his entire left side at even the thought of moving. But he had to move. He had to find Jack. Ennis grabbed at the bumper as he sagged back to the ground, grunting at the nauseating pain when his broken forearm hit the unyielding metal. Black motes swam in his vision, spreading until they became one darkness, eclipsing his sight. His stomach lurched, and he tried to turn his head, as his gorge rose rapidly. He hoped to God he wasn’t going to pass out again while he vomited. C’mon, boy, he told himself. Git movin’. Lord knows where Jack is and whut’s happened to ‘im.
The sun-bleached ravine rose before Ennis’s eyes. He could feel his father’s hand on the back of his neck, making sure he didn’t turn away from the object lesson in front of him. There was so much light, dust as white as baking soda overlay everything, reflecting the sun, revealing every detail in a pitiless glare. Old Earl’s body, hacked at like a piece of wood, lay where it had been tossed in a final, de-humanizing indignity to a man who had been viciously bludgeoned and tortured to death as though he were of less worth than a piece of livestock. But Ennis didn’t see Earl’s face, he saw Jack’s.
His Jack, the guy that couldn’t lay low, that could barely hide what he wanted, that didn’t mind taking risks to get it. His Jack in a red shirt. His Jack cuttin’ the fool, pretendin’ to ride some rip-snortin’ Brahma to glory. His Jack drivin’ all the way from Childress at the news of Ennis’s divorce, so happy he was fairly humming with suppressed emotion when Ennis hugged him. His Jack drivin’ away, the light in his eyes extinguished, not looking in the side mirror once as he stepped on the gas. His Jack, so bright and warm that it was no surprise that others were attracted to him, and that frightened Ennis. Aside from the jealousy that he couldn’t help feeling, there was always the fear that Jack would attract the wrong kind of person, the kind of person that would play on Jack’s willingness to trust others and his need for companionship. And was Ennis really any different from the men that had used Jack after Ennis cut him adrift? And wasn’t what Ennis was really afraid of was that if the bad folks found Jack, Ennis would be next? And if Ennis feared punishment for being queer, didn’t that mean he knew he was queer?
Ennis opened his eyes, his blurred vision focused on the left rear tire. He couldn’t lay here moaning over some busted bones; he had to find Jack. Rolling to his side, and up to his knees, Ennis swayed like a reed in a current. He doubled over and finished the job he’d started, coughing up what was left in his stomach. All them years, he thought; all them years I was scared t’ death a bunch a yay-hoos with tire irons would catch me and pull my pecker off ‘cause they could see whut I was dumb enough t’ deny. All them years I was scared it would happen t’ Jack ‘cause he was careless. All that fear and frettin’ and it come t’ this. Beat black and blue by some hussy and left for dead with privates intact. Whut had all his worryin’ bought him? Not time, nor happiness, nor immunity from harm. It was only when he’d made the effort to be the man Jack loved that he’d been truly happy again, and damned if he was going to lose what ground he’d gained.
Ignoring the white-hot needles of pain that stitched his nerves into an enveloping quilt of agony, Ennis grasped the bumper with his right hand. Sweat popped out on his forehead and upper lip as he strained to lever himself to his feet without blacking out. It was only pain, just a little worse than usual, and pain was something he was used to disregarding. He just needed to turn his back on it, pretend it didn’t exist; he used to be real good at that. Back before Junior shamed him into quittin’ the booze, before earnest, unstable Danny had taught Ennis what Danny had never learned. Before he’d seen Jack Twist again after vowing to cut the man like a cancer from his life. Knowing all along, in some dark dungeon of his fortress mind that in condemning Jack, he condemned himself, and it was no more than he deserved. He had betrayed himself, out of ignorant fear, and pushed away the one person that could have saved his soul as well as his body. If he was to have any chance of regaining it, he was going to have to find Jack and say so many things to him, starting with, I’m sorry I broke your heart.
“C’mon, hoss,” he muttered. “You ain’t dead yet. Jack needs ya, and you sure’s hell need him, so git your ass in gear.” But what about the tire iron? Ennis ruthlessly stamped out the flare of fear. If there were a gang out there with a tire iron, he’d just have to deal with them as best he could. What he couldn’t do was lay here without knowing if Jack was all right or not. Working his belt buckle one-handed, he pulled hard and the leather slid free of the loops with a hissing noise. Ennis froze and looked around, squinting against the splinter light of late afternoon. He realized he was in the back field behind the barn, and that it was almost three hundred feet from where he was to the trailer and each step would be torment. Ennis gritted his teeth, rebuckled the belt and slipped it over his head. Resting his left arm in the makeshift sling, he shuffled along the side of the pickup. He had just reached the cab when he heard gunshots.
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Randall crept along the fence, his rifle held along his right leg as he approached Jack’s truck. He couldn’t hear the other members of the self-proclaimed posse, but he figured he could trust them to stick around no matter what they thought of him, Jack or Ennis Del Mar. The opportunity to fire a few rounds at live targets insured it. Randall brought his weapon up to his shoulder as he reached the pickup and looked into the bed. The wet red stains on the cloth wadded against the toolbox caught his eye. Randall picked up the bundle and shook out two shirts soaked in blood. “Shit,” he said under his breath, focusing his gaze on the barn, gauging the distance. He dropped his eyes, searching intently until he found traces of blood in the grass. His finger on the trigger, he followed the wet trail.
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Jack heard Rafael call to Mingo from the back door of the barn and let loose with a string of smoking curses. Was boxing himself up in here going to the last bad decision he ever made? No time to wonder. Jack spun around toward the stalls and saw that Lureen’s saddle horse was missing. He let himself believe that Mama had taken the mare, as he cast about for a way to avoid being recaptured. A few seconds of rapid thought later, and he trotted back to the door Mingo was guarding. It eased open a crack just as he reached it and the dead black eye of a gun muzzle peered through the gap.
“Senor Jack,” Mingo called. “I’m coming in after you.”
Jack moved to the side as Mingo looked around the door. Grabbing hold of a slender wrist, Jack yanked the hustler all the way in to the barn. It was a good move, but Mingo had been fighting for his life since he was a child. The Mexican took his pistol in his other hand and pointed it at Jack’s face.
“I’m not left-handed,” Mingo said. “But at this range it won’t make no difference.”
“Sure enough,” Jack said.
“Ai-yi, cabron! Let go, or I’ll shoot you in the cojones.” Mingo lowered his aim.
“Why don’t ya then?”
“You know I’ll do it.”
Jack nodded, releasing Mingo’s wrist with a jangle of bangle bracelets. “But not fast,” he said. “You want me to suffer, right?”
Mingo pursed his lips as he stepped back. “It would make me feel better to hurt you, si.”
“Why don’t we talk some first?”
Mingo’s gaze was as dark and impenetrable as obsidian. “Three minutes,” he said. “That’s about how long Rafael will wait if he doesn’t hear me, or my gun.”
“It’s a mighty cute gun,” Jack said. “I always liked you, Mingo. Liked your wildness. Liked the way you made me feel like I was someone else for a while. It hurt me to find out you and Rafael was just usin’ me t’ git his boss’s drugs across the border. Did it make ya feel all big and smart that ya fooled me? Truth is, it ain’t that hard to pull the wool over my eyes. I want a believe people. I don’t want a go ‘round thinkin’ ever’body’s out t’ git me in some way or another. I don’t want a live like that.”
Mingo raised his plucked eyebrows. “You’re not gonna have to worry ‘bout it, hombre. We gonna put you in the ground next to your friend and take a picture for our friends back in Mexico. Then we gonna collect our money.”
“You want me to offer you more money than the drug dealers?”
“That would be a nice start.”
“If you want money, I’ll git it for you, but you got a leave here.”
“Why? Don’t want your old lady to come home and catch you with me?”
“You know me too well,” Jack said.
“Don’t forget that, and don’t think you can trick me. I can get Rafael to listen to an offer, but it would have to be enough that we never have to go back.”
“Well, I wouldn’t have that much on me, but I can git it.”
“Rally said your wife was a rich lady,” Mingo said. “Maybe we should wait for her.”
“No way,” Jack said. “You got a be gone when she gits home.”
“I don’t know,” Mingo said. “I think it’s better we just kill you like we plan, and go home, but I need to talk to Rafael.”
“Wait just a second. This could be your chance to git out a this life. Git rid a your pimp and…”
“And what? We live happy ever after like Neve Blanca and her prince? If you didn’t notice, I’m not no Snow White, and Rafael gives me everything I need.”
“But not everything you want.”
Mingo smiled and leaned closer. “I miss you sometimes, guapo,” he admitted. “You treated me like I was no different from any other whore, and I appreciated that. You were nicer than the other gringos, and you didn’t try to make me into your girlfriend, but you made sure to pay after each time you came to see me. Very professional. I will always remember that you never made me feel like a freak.”
“You ain’t a freak; you’re just crazy ‘cause a whut’s been done t’ ya.”
“We have a lot in common, eh?” Mingo tilted his face up at a flirtatious angle.
“It only seems that way,” Jack answered, as he slammed his forehead into Mingo’s nose. Mingo gasped at the sudden sharp pain, the pistol wavering in his dainty grip. Jack seized the hustler’s arm and brought it down over his knee. Mingo clung to the gun, hitting at Jack with his other hand. Rafael called out, as Mingo and Jack toppled to the sawdust floor. Jack clapped a hand over Mingo’s mouth, smashed the prostitute’s gun hand against the wall. An outraged squeal was muffled against Jack’s palm, but Mingo didn’t let go of the weapon. Rafael called out louder as Mingo bit at Jack’s hand and tried to knee him in the balls. Jack smacked Mingo’s torn, bloody knuckles against the wood again to no avail. “Fuck,” Jack hissed, yanking his head back as the other man raked at his eyes with red-painted talons. Letting go of Mingo’s arm, Jack grabbed him by the head and crashed his skull into the wall as hard as he could. The hustler’s eyes rolled up and he went limp.
“He’s pretty strong for someone that wears a dress, eh, cabron?” Rafael said from behind Jack.
tbc