Rocky Mountain Search and Rescue - Chapter 10
Title: Rocky Mountain Search and Rescue
Author: gwylliondream
Genre: AU
Pairing: Alma/Ennis, Ennis/Jack
Rating: NC-17
Words: 60K in 16 chapters
Warnings: Major character death (not Ennis or Jack), child abuse, religious persecution, homophobia, under-aged non-consensual kissing and groping, indecent exposure, attempted rape, unreliable narrator.
Summary: Ennis and Jack thought they had seen the last of each other when they parted ways on a windy day in Signal. They were wrong. Some people thought Alma would have remarried after her divorce. They were wrong, too.
A/N: Rocky Mountain Search and Rescue was written for NaNoWriMo 2012.
“Calling Me Back to the Hills” was written by Earl Shaffer, poet and friend.
Thanks: My deepest thanks to morrobay1990 for answering my veiled pleas for a beta over on DCF. She provided incomparable support during the 30 days of NaNoWriMo, from brainstorming, to cheerleading, to prodding, and to writing a passion-filled scene in her own inimitable style, which I happily included. Thanks to my wonderful DCF co-mod lawgoddess for audiencing this fic and giving it a thorough beta job. Thanks to soulan both for traveling to Salida to research the terrain at the foothills of the Rockies and for vehemently disagreeing with me years ago when I insisted that Alma Beers-Del Mar would never have remarried after her divorce from Ennis. If not for that spirited argument, this fic never could have been.
Dedication: Rocky Mountain Search and Rescue is dedicated to Andy, for whom the hills called.
Disclaimer: I did not create these characters. No disrespect intended. No profit desired, only muses.
Comments: Comments are welcome anytime, thanks so much for reading.
And the bond will be strong when he’s singing for me that paean for which ever I yearn
When morning broke, Alma lay in the daybed that Laurie had made up for her in the rumpus room. The old mattress creaked when she shifted to make herself more comfortable. With pride, Laurie had told Alma that she had purchased the bed at a tag sale for only ten dollars, thinking it would come in handy if a friend or relative visited, or if the girls wanted to have a sleepover when they got older.
Ava had many sleepovers when she was a child, Alma remembered. Alma, not so much. It wasn’t fun to have to share a room with her younger sister who was always meddling in the conversations that should have been reserved for older girls.
Ava had been an intrusion into most aspects of Alma’s life.
Alma had the misfortune of being born early in the month, the fifth of September. Year after year, by the time Labor Day weekend had ended, it finally dawned on her relatives that they had missed Alma’s birthday while they were celebrating one last weekend of summer. Ava was born in the same month, six years later, but on the twenty-third. If Alma had dared to think about it, she would have realized that the winter of 1950 must have been a cold one.
But Alma’s mind didn’t work like that.
Still, she had to share her birthday parties with Ava. Because her birthday fell later in the month, Alma’s birthday was always recognized late, sometimes weeks after the actual date had passed. She’d wonder every birthday morning if this would be the year that she got to be admired and applauded alone, on her own merits. But that day never came. She shared in the festivities of the day with Ava, although she was six years her senior.
The birthday parties were a nightmare for Alma. Ann Beers never understood that a teenager might not want to celebrate her birthday at a party that had been planned to accommodate Ava and her friends as well. Alma seldom invited her peers to her party, sparing them the mandatory interactions with her much younger sister.
Alma cursed the day when her parents returned home from the hospital with baby Ava.
It was a day she would never forget. She had been the apple of her parent’s eye, or so she thought, until that one day a couple weeks after her sixth birthday when she was greeted by her grandma sitting on her bed as she awoke.
Little Alma had been snug beneath her covers, dreaming of the fun she was having in her first weeks of school. She had just started first grade at Riverton Elementary School and she so wanted to please her parents by being a good student.
What had begun as a normal Friday night, turned into a nightmare on Saturday morning. When Alma awoke to her grandma in her room, her parents were gone. It was quite unlike the Beers parents to venture off into the night without explanation.
“Why are you here, Grandma?” Alma said with a pout. She blinked her eyes open to the morning light, surprised that he grandma was at her house and sitting at the side of her bed.
“Everything is fine, Alma,” Grandma reassured her.
“I want to go tell Mama good morning,” Alma said, kicking off her covers.
“No,” Grandma said. “It’s Saturday morning. There’s no need to get out of bed so early.”
“Saturday, we have no school,” Alma said. “I want to make cookies with Mama.”
“No, Alma, Mama isn’t here,” Grandma said.
Alma wanted to cry. She had always helped her mother to bake cookies on Saturday mornings. Her mother would bring them to the Ladies Auxiliary meeting on Saturday night. Her mother even told her that someday she could go along to the meetings. Until then, Alma would settle for a taste of the raw cookie dough as he mother scraped the bowl, or a sweet cookie that cooled on the rack, its edges brown and crispy.
“Where’s Mama?” Alma asked, with tears in her eyes.
“Don’t worry,” Grandma said. “She and Daddy went to the hospital to pick out a new baby. They will be back in a few days.”
Alma couldn’t believe her ears.
“A new baby?” she asked.
“Yes, they are going to bring home a new baby sister for you. She’ll be just beautiful. Wait until you see her,” Grandma said.
But Alma didn’t want to see her. What horrible thing had Alma done that she was now no longer good enough to be the only little girl in the Beers’ house? Alma thought her chest would explode. She lay back down in bed. She had obviously done something terribly bad, bad enough to make her parents want to replace her with this beautiful new baby. Even if Alma protested, they’d still go right ahead with their plans. Alma had no say. There was nothing she could do to stop them.
She wondered if her mother had shown any signs that she wanted another baby to replace Alma. She knew that she had been a sinful girl in the past, but she had hoped that by trying to do well in school and by obeying her mother’s every order, she had redeemed herself at least a little bit. Apparently it wasn’t true. Her mother had obviously convinced her father that Alma needed to be replaced. He had agreed. And off they went to the hospital to select a new baby. Probably one that would be better than Alma, she was sure of it.
And then, Ava proved her right.
Ava was better than Alma ever could have been. Ann reminded Alma about it nearly every day from then on.
Ann fawned over baby Ava like she was the most precious thing ever, while Alma was informed of her new responsibility to set a good example for her baby sister. It was a task at which Alma would certainly fail. She wanted nothing to do with the little baby who stole her mother’s affections.
When Alma was in second grade, her teacher read a story to the class. The storybook was old, one of these ancient volumes that had been passed down from decade to decade on the public school library’s shelf. The story Alma remembered was about a woman who was barren. No children would grow in her womb.
The woman prayed and prayed that she would be granted the ability to have babes of her own and in the end, her wishes were granted. She was rewarded with children as plentiful as the seeds of the pomegranate, with its sweet red arils that tasted like candy at Christmastime.
Alma tugged the psychedelic-patterned bedspread up to her chin. She was thankful that she would never be that woman. She never wanted children, let alone more than one. She doubted that she could ever bring herself to break her promise of being a chaste and obedient girl, by committing the act that would enable her to have even a single baby of her own. She shuddered. Surely she couldn’t bring herself to do it one time, let alone the many times that the pomegranate seeds foretold in the story.
“Auntie Alma?” a tiny voice called from the door at the top of the stairs.
Alma flinched. “Yes, sweetie?” she replied. It was Lisa, of course. Alma recognized her voice.
“Are you awake yet?” Lisa asked.
“I am,” Alma said. “Do you want to come down here to see me?”
Alma was greeted good morning by Lisa’s bright smile. She smiled back at her, hoping that Lisa would never feel the same way about Linda as Alma felt about Ava.
~~~
Across the hills and through the valleys, old mountain paths weave their way through the Colorado Rockies. Ancient Indian hunting grounds, where the buffalo once roamed, provide a starting point for the trails that lead the way up the ledgy outcrops and to the summits beyond.
In the lower elevations, the woodland paths meander over valleys and hills, searching out their tame destinations, oblivious to the plans that caused them to exist. When the warmth of the spring air melts the snow, turning the near-glacial ice into a trickle that becomes a stream, the water crowds the trail. The rush of snowmelt erodes the treadways, removing the dirt and stones that make up the footpath. On its meandering route through the woods, the trail jumps the stream on a firmly planted boulder or a well-placed plank for a bridge. Still, the pathway leads on, to the same place that the trail builders traveled before modern hikers sought out the winding paths.
In the early days, the path was but a worn string of footprints, which tamped down grasses as each new hunter sought his way. Over time, the way became more defined. The footprints sunk into the muddy treadway, which was dampened by the rains and the flow of the ever-eroding stream that swept away the fragile stones. Animal tracks could be readily seen, but the mud and muck slowed man’s progress and he had to find new ways to make the trails navigable.
He built drainage to divert the water from the trail. He moved the trail to higher ground, using the power of his own two hands to redirect nature. When his work was completed, a dry route stretched to the horizon. He could follow where it led, or he could make new paths. The choice was his alone.
The mountain spirits smiled down on him as he sought to reach their lofty heights. He climbed higher, until he needed to mar the peaks with metal plates and screws to hold him to the stony spires. When winter came, he donned snowshoes and crampons, an ice axe in his hand. He followed the routes to the summits that his predecessors could not attain. Up to the sky, up to the heavens that would send lightning and ice storms to undermine his progress. When at the end of his journey, he stood atop the distant peak that he once beheld from the ground, he could look onto the vast earth below him and feel a little closer to God.
~~~
Ennis trudged through the deep snow. His headlamp illuminated the hillside. A thousand sparkling lights flashed back at him with every step, frozen crystals as numerous as grains of sand. The spotlight revealed new terrain with every step forward. Better yet, each step he took brought Ennis closer to finding Jack… at least he hoped so.
The winter woods always comforted Ennis. He liked feeling as if he was the only person in the world, awake in the pre-dawn hours and tramping about in the quiet. It made him feel calm and in control. He never understood folks who feared being alone in the wilderness. As long as you knew what you were doing and were comfortable doing it, the solitude was a pleasant alternative to the daily grind. It sure beat dealing with tourists.
Ennis stopped to remove his parka. His exertions were warming him from the inside out, and he was too hot. He rolled the USFS issued garment into a ball to compress the down before stuffing into his pack.
Even before he started the trek up the first ridge, his legs were exhausted from the rescue earlier in the day. He stopped to breathe between each step, resting his aching quadriceps. He let himself imagine that he would see Jack and Brian making their way downhill with the litter carrying Davis. It put his mind in a hopeful state.
The terrain lay wide open in the moonlight when he reached the top of the ridge. He decided that shouting would not cause a snowslide or trigger an avalanche in this, the shallowest of the three ravines.
“Jaaaack!” he called at the top of his lungs, although it was probably pointless to try to call him when he had no idea where he was stranded. The name almost sounded foreign, spoken aloud after all these years.
He paused to listen after he yelled, straining to hear Jack’s return call. Only the wind swirling down the mountainside answered him.
Ennis plodded along the ridgetop. He stopped every hundred steps to call into the night air, just in case there was a reply from Jack. He didn’t dare turn on the walkie-talkie, in case Jeff wanted to give him hell for taking off in the night when he specifically told him to stay put.
After more than an hour of hard work, Ennis reached the head of the first ravine, leaving a tamped track of snowshoe prints behind him. At least the return trip would be easier. He stopped to gulp down some coffee from his Thermos. The caffeine would re-energize him while he figured out what he wanted to do next, now that he had reached a decision point.
If he continued along the ridge and dropped into the second valley, there was a chance that he would find Jack there. The other alternative was to go back to his cabin and wait until he could either join the SAR team in the morning, or monitor their progress. He didn’t want to turn back. The pull he felt was strong, an inexplicable force. He wanted to be the first one to find Jack and help him off the mountain, to be able to speak to him, to let him know what had happened with Alma, to let him know that Jack was never far from his mind.
He finished his coffee, saving half for the return trip. His steps sunk into the snow as he trudged downhill, the worst of the climb behind him for now. The snow was deeper on this side of the ridge. It was going to be a bitch to climb back up the hill, whether he had broken in a single track with his snowshoes or not.
He plunged through the snow, thick like mashed potatoes. Good for building a snowman, he mused. We could make one outside the cabin. Use one of Jack’s old hats to top it off. His imagination soared with thoughts of sneaking up behind Jack and pulling him down into the deep snow. Hands tangling in his hair and hot mouth running down his neck. Grabbing his ass and grinding into him, while he pretended to struggle and get away.
Sweat ran down the back of Ennis’s neck. He gathered his scraggly ponytail with his thumbs and freed the trapped hair from between his neck and the collar of his wool jacket.
Each step he took brought him closer to Jack, but further away from the security of his cabin.
~~~
Author: gwylliondream
Genre: AU
Pairing: Alma/Ennis, Ennis/Jack
Rating: NC-17
Words: 60K in 16 chapters
Warnings: Major character death (not Ennis or Jack), child abuse, religious persecution, homophobia, under-aged non-consensual kissing and groping, indecent exposure, attempted rape, unreliable narrator.
Summary: Ennis and Jack thought they had seen the last of each other when they parted ways on a windy day in Signal. They were wrong. Some people thought Alma would have remarried after her divorce. They were wrong, too.
A/N: Rocky Mountain Search and Rescue was written for NaNoWriMo 2012.
“Calling Me Back to the Hills” was written by Earl Shaffer, poet and friend.
Thanks: My deepest thanks to morrobay1990 for answering my veiled pleas for a beta over on DCF. She provided incomparable support during the 30 days of NaNoWriMo, from brainstorming, to cheerleading, to prodding, and to writing a passion-filled scene in her own inimitable style, which I happily included. Thanks to my wonderful DCF co-mod lawgoddess for audiencing this fic and giving it a thorough beta job. Thanks to soulan both for traveling to Salida to research the terrain at the foothills of the Rockies and for vehemently disagreeing with me years ago when I insisted that Alma Beers-Del Mar would never have remarried after her divorce from Ennis. If not for that spirited argument, this fic never could have been.
Dedication: Rocky Mountain Search and Rescue is dedicated to Andy, for whom the hills called.
Disclaimer: I did not create these characters. No disrespect intended. No profit desired, only muses.
Comments: Comments are welcome anytime, thanks so much for reading.
And the bond will be strong when he’s singing for me that paean for which ever I yearn
When morning broke, Alma lay in the daybed that Laurie had made up for her in the rumpus room. The old mattress creaked when she shifted to make herself more comfortable. With pride, Laurie had told Alma that she had purchased the bed at a tag sale for only ten dollars, thinking it would come in handy if a friend or relative visited, or if the girls wanted to have a sleepover when they got older.
Ava had many sleepovers when she was a child, Alma remembered. Alma, not so much. It wasn’t fun to have to share a room with her younger sister who was always meddling in the conversations that should have been reserved for older girls.
Ava had been an intrusion into most aspects of Alma’s life.
Alma had the misfortune of being born early in the month, the fifth of September. Year after year, by the time Labor Day weekend had ended, it finally dawned on her relatives that they had missed Alma’s birthday while they were celebrating one last weekend of summer. Ava was born in the same month, six years later, but on the twenty-third. If Alma had dared to think about it, she would have realized that the winter of 1950 must have been a cold one.
But Alma’s mind didn’t work like that.
Still, she had to share her birthday parties with Ava. Because her birthday fell later in the month, Alma’s birthday was always recognized late, sometimes weeks after the actual date had passed. She’d wonder every birthday morning if this would be the year that she got to be admired and applauded alone, on her own merits. But that day never came. She shared in the festivities of the day with Ava, although she was six years her senior.
The birthday parties were a nightmare for Alma. Ann Beers never understood that a teenager might not want to celebrate her birthday at a party that had been planned to accommodate Ava and her friends as well. Alma seldom invited her peers to her party, sparing them the mandatory interactions with her much younger sister.
Alma cursed the day when her parents returned home from the hospital with baby Ava.
It was a day she would never forget. She had been the apple of her parent’s eye, or so she thought, until that one day a couple weeks after her sixth birthday when she was greeted by her grandma sitting on her bed as she awoke.
Little Alma had been snug beneath her covers, dreaming of the fun she was having in her first weeks of school. She had just started first grade at Riverton Elementary School and she so wanted to please her parents by being a good student.
What had begun as a normal Friday night, turned into a nightmare on Saturday morning. When Alma awoke to her grandma in her room, her parents were gone. It was quite unlike the Beers parents to venture off into the night without explanation.
“Why are you here, Grandma?” Alma said with a pout. She blinked her eyes open to the morning light, surprised that he grandma was at her house and sitting at the side of her bed.
“Everything is fine, Alma,” Grandma reassured her.
“I want to go tell Mama good morning,” Alma said, kicking off her covers.
“No,” Grandma said. “It’s Saturday morning. There’s no need to get out of bed so early.”
“Saturday, we have no school,” Alma said. “I want to make cookies with Mama.”
“No, Alma, Mama isn’t here,” Grandma said.
Alma wanted to cry. She had always helped her mother to bake cookies on Saturday mornings. Her mother would bring them to the Ladies Auxiliary meeting on Saturday night. Her mother even told her that someday she could go along to the meetings. Until then, Alma would settle for a taste of the raw cookie dough as he mother scraped the bowl, or a sweet cookie that cooled on the rack, its edges brown and crispy.
“Where’s Mama?” Alma asked, with tears in her eyes.
“Don’t worry,” Grandma said. “She and Daddy went to the hospital to pick out a new baby. They will be back in a few days.”
Alma couldn’t believe her ears.
“A new baby?” she asked.
“Yes, they are going to bring home a new baby sister for you. She’ll be just beautiful. Wait until you see her,” Grandma said.
But Alma didn’t want to see her. What horrible thing had Alma done that she was now no longer good enough to be the only little girl in the Beers’ house? Alma thought her chest would explode. She lay back down in bed. She had obviously done something terribly bad, bad enough to make her parents want to replace her with this beautiful new baby. Even if Alma protested, they’d still go right ahead with their plans. Alma had no say. There was nothing she could do to stop them.
She wondered if her mother had shown any signs that she wanted another baby to replace Alma. She knew that she had been a sinful girl in the past, but she had hoped that by trying to do well in school and by obeying her mother’s every order, she had redeemed herself at least a little bit. Apparently it wasn’t true. Her mother had obviously convinced her father that Alma needed to be replaced. He had agreed. And off they went to the hospital to select a new baby. Probably one that would be better than Alma, she was sure of it.
And then, Ava proved her right.
Ava was better than Alma ever could have been. Ann reminded Alma about it nearly every day from then on.
Ann fawned over baby Ava like she was the most precious thing ever, while Alma was informed of her new responsibility to set a good example for her baby sister. It was a task at which Alma would certainly fail. She wanted nothing to do with the little baby who stole her mother’s affections.
When Alma was in second grade, her teacher read a story to the class. The storybook was old, one of these ancient volumes that had been passed down from decade to decade on the public school library’s shelf. The story Alma remembered was about a woman who was barren. No children would grow in her womb.
The woman prayed and prayed that she would be granted the ability to have babes of her own and in the end, her wishes were granted. She was rewarded with children as plentiful as the seeds of the pomegranate, with its sweet red arils that tasted like candy at Christmastime.
Alma tugged the psychedelic-patterned bedspread up to her chin. She was thankful that she would never be that woman. She never wanted children, let alone more than one. She doubted that she could ever bring herself to break her promise of being a chaste and obedient girl, by committing the act that would enable her to have even a single baby of her own. She shuddered. Surely she couldn’t bring herself to do it one time, let alone the many times that the pomegranate seeds foretold in the story.
“Auntie Alma?” a tiny voice called from the door at the top of the stairs.
Alma flinched. “Yes, sweetie?” she replied. It was Lisa, of course. Alma recognized her voice.
“Are you awake yet?” Lisa asked.
“I am,” Alma said. “Do you want to come down here to see me?”
Alma was greeted good morning by Lisa’s bright smile. She smiled back at her, hoping that Lisa would never feel the same way about Linda as Alma felt about Ava.
~~~
Across the hills and through the valleys, old mountain paths weave their way through the Colorado Rockies. Ancient Indian hunting grounds, where the buffalo once roamed, provide a starting point for the trails that lead the way up the ledgy outcrops and to the summits beyond.
In the lower elevations, the woodland paths meander over valleys and hills, searching out their tame destinations, oblivious to the plans that caused them to exist. When the warmth of the spring air melts the snow, turning the near-glacial ice into a trickle that becomes a stream, the water crowds the trail. The rush of snowmelt erodes the treadways, removing the dirt and stones that make up the footpath. On its meandering route through the woods, the trail jumps the stream on a firmly planted boulder or a well-placed plank for a bridge. Still, the pathway leads on, to the same place that the trail builders traveled before modern hikers sought out the winding paths.
In the early days, the path was but a worn string of footprints, which tamped down grasses as each new hunter sought his way. Over time, the way became more defined. The footprints sunk into the muddy treadway, which was dampened by the rains and the flow of the ever-eroding stream that swept away the fragile stones. Animal tracks could be readily seen, but the mud and muck slowed man’s progress and he had to find new ways to make the trails navigable.
He built drainage to divert the water from the trail. He moved the trail to higher ground, using the power of his own two hands to redirect nature. When his work was completed, a dry route stretched to the horizon. He could follow where it led, or he could make new paths. The choice was his alone.
The mountain spirits smiled down on him as he sought to reach their lofty heights. He climbed higher, until he needed to mar the peaks with metal plates and screws to hold him to the stony spires. When winter came, he donned snowshoes and crampons, an ice axe in his hand. He followed the routes to the summits that his predecessors could not attain. Up to the sky, up to the heavens that would send lightning and ice storms to undermine his progress. When at the end of his journey, he stood atop the distant peak that he once beheld from the ground, he could look onto the vast earth below him and feel a little closer to God.
~~~
Ennis trudged through the deep snow. His headlamp illuminated the hillside. A thousand sparkling lights flashed back at him with every step, frozen crystals as numerous as grains of sand. The spotlight revealed new terrain with every step forward. Better yet, each step he took brought Ennis closer to finding Jack… at least he hoped so.
The winter woods always comforted Ennis. He liked feeling as if he was the only person in the world, awake in the pre-dawn hours and tramping about in the quiet. It made him feel calm and in control. He never understood folks who feared being alone in the wilderness. As long as you knew what you were doing and were comfortable doing it, the solitude was a pleasant alternative to the daily grind. It sure beat dealing with tourists.
Ennis stopped to remove his parka. His exertions were warming him from the inside out, and he was too hot. He rolled the USFS issued garment into a ball to compress the down before stuffing into his pack.
Even before he started the trek up the first ridge, his legs were exhausted from the rescue earlier in the day. He stopped to breathe between each step, resting his aching quadriceps. He let himself imagine that he would see Jack and Brian making their way downhill with the litter carrying Davis. It put his mind in a hopeful state.
The terrain lay wide open in the moonlight when he reached the top of the ridge. He decided that shouting would not cause a snowslide or trigger an avalanche in this, the shallowest of the three ravines.
“Jaaaack!” he called at the top of his lungs, although it was probably pointless to try to call him when he had no idea where he was stranded. The name almost sounded foreign, spoken aloud after all these years.
He paused to listen after he yelled, straining to hear Jack’s return call. Only the wind swirling down the mountainside answered him.
Ennis plodded along the ridgetop. He stopped every hundred steps to call into the night air, just in case there was a reply from Jack. He didn’t dare turn on the walkie-talkie, in case Jeff wanted to give him hell for taking off in the night when he specifically told him to stay put.
After more than an hour of hard work, Ennis reached the head of the first ravine, leaving a tamped track of snowshoe prints behind him. At least the return trip would be easier. He stopped to gulp down some coffee from his Thermos. The caffeine would re-energize him while he figured out what he wanted to do next, now that he had reached a decision point.
If he continued along the ridge and dropped into the second valley, there was a chance that he would find Jack there. The other alternative was to go back to his cabin and wait until he could either join the SAR team in the morning, or monitor their progress. He didn’t want to turn back. The pull he felt was strong, an inexplicable force. He wanted to be the first one to find Jack and help him off the mountain, to be able to speak to him, to let him know what had happened with Alma, to let him know that Jack was never far from his mind.
He finished his coffee, saving half for the return trip. His steps sunk into the snow as he trudged downhill, the worst of the climb behind him for now. The snow was deeper on this side of the ridge. It was going to be a bitch to climb back up the hill, whether he had broken in a single track with his snowshoes or not.
He plunged through the snow, thick like mashed potatoes. Good for building a snowman, he mused. We could make one outside the cabin. Use one of Jack’s old hats to top it off. His imagination soared with thoughts of sneaking up behind Jack and pulling him down into the deep snow. Hands tangling in his hair and hot mouth running down his neck. Grabbing his ass and grinding into him, while he pretended to struggle and get away.
Sweat ran down the back of Ennis’s neck. He gathered his scraggly ponytail with his thumbs and freed the trapped hair from between his neck and the collar of his wool jacket.
Each step he took brought him closer to Jack, but further away from the security of his cabin.
~~~