Rocky Mountain Search and Rescue - Chapter 15
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.
I’ll sit by my campfire each nomadic night and muse of the present and past
“Brian!”
Jack thought he was going to heave up the contents of his stomach… what was left of them, anyway. He had scrambled down the slope, snow flying into the air as his boots skidded along the track that Brian had made.
When he reached the edge of the drop, he was furious that Brian had taken it upon himself to glissade down the steep incline. Now there was nothing he could do to save him. He stood at the edge, his hands tugging on his own hair in grief, his hat lost in the process.
Jack dug his heels into the snow, testing each footstep for some modicum of security as he descended. It would have been faster to slide on his ass, but seeing how Brian had lost control and landed in a bloody heap, he wasn’t willing to take the chance. He had to stay strong. He had to get down safely if he was going to have any hope of seeing Ennis again.
Step by step, he made his way downward, digging the branch into the snow to keep his balance. His legs trembled with fear that he would fall backwards and begin to slide out of control. His ribs couldn’t take more punishment. Each step required his absolute concentration. Although his nerves were frayed with the knowledge that Brian might not have survived the fall and he might not make it out of the woods before dark, he still persevered.
When he reached the bottom of the incline, he could nearly run on top of the snow. The adrenaline from seeing Brian’s fall had made him temporarily forget about the ache in his chest and his freezing fingers. Brian’s body had flattened a track some hundred yards long from when he first started to slide. It ended where his body stopped at the end of the runout. His body had acquired new contusions in its awkward descent and the wound on his head had split open again, the seep of blood leaving its mark on the pristine snow.
“Brian?” Jack dropped to his knees beside Brian’s motionless body.
Jack slid his hand beneath Brian’s neck and tilted his head back. The blood had slowed to a trickle through the gash in his forehead. Brian’s lips were parted and his eyes were open to the sky. Only then, did Jack notice the clear fluid leaking from Brian’s head. The back of his skull was split open like a watermelon.
Jack listened for breathing, but there was nothing. He worked a hand beneath Brian’s shirts and placed it to Brian’s chest. The skin was eerily cold.
No pulse.
Jack debated whether to start first aid, but decided it would be ridiculous to try. Even if he could restore Brian’s breathing, they were miles from the nearest road, and Jack was doubtful that their rescue would come soon.
There was nothing to be done.
Even if a helicopter dropped from the sky at that very moment, Brian had no chance of survival.
“Aww… fuck!” Jack said as he searched for a solution he could live with.
It wouldn’t be the first time that a life or death decision was left to him. He hated it when he was in Vietnam, and he hated it now. At least in the jungle, the decision was easier. He had his soldier buddies who would support him. Here on a snow-covered mountain in the middle of nowhere, he had no one to rely on but himself.
Only two years earlier, he was sweeping the countryside for Vietcong, north of Saigon. On the ground, there was gunfire and he saw a battalion getting hit hard by mortar fire. It would have been so easy for him to swoop in and rescue the fallen Americans. He hovered for tense moments in the stagnant air, the tropical humidity sopping his clothing and skin. He wanted to try for a rescue, but in the end, he couldn’t risk himself and the gunners in his chopper. The image of the suffering ground troops still haunted his dreams. No matter how hard he wished he could have saved the wounded men, he had to acknowledge that he was forced into making a split-second decision. Sometimes you didn’t get a second chance. You had to make the right decision the first time, or face the consequences.
Thoughts of Ennis crept into Jack’s mind. They fought for dominance over Jack’s grief for Brian and the shock that he wouldn’t make it off the mountain when he seemed so strong back at the chopper.
Maybe Ennis had learned some of the same things Jack had over the years they spent apart.
Maybe Ennis had changed his mind about their situation. Maybe he could make the right decision if he got the chance to do it over again.
Maybe Jack could laugh someday when he showed Ennis the shirt he stole from him on their last morning together when they had to bring the sheep down from Brokeback.
Maybe they’d laugh about it over a beer…
Jack pushed Brian’s eyelids. They slid easily over the surface of his eyes. Jack sat in the snow. He hugged his knees to his chest, thankful that Brian’s eyes stayed shut, the cold weather making them freeze in place.
Jack wasn’t sure how much time passed before he realized he needed to collect himself and get on with the business of getting down the mountain. Down to where Ennis might be waiting for him.
Ennis.
This whole bullshit thing was all Ennis’s fault anyway. Haunting his dreams, fucking with his mind. If Jack hadn’t been distracted by running into Ennis again, so unexpectedly, maybe he would have concentrated more when the fuel gushed out of the chopper, leaving him and Brian without enough juice to make it to BVH, or to the road for that matter.
Jack got to his feet, wincing at the pain in his ribs. After he took one last look at Brian, he set off downhill.
The sun had crept behind the ravine wall on his right. With some luck, he’d be able to see the snow standing out in contrast to the darkening forest, but for how long? How long would he be able to walk without a headlamp? He searched the sky, hoping there would be a bright moon tonight to guide his way.
He had plowed through the snow for about a quarter of a mile beyond where he had left Brian’s body when he felt a surge of warmth rush through his limbs. He foolishly thought it was because he had been thinking of Ennis. He unzipped his parka.
~~~
When Lisa got home from school, the girls spent the afternoon decorating the cookies with frosting and candy sprinkles. They spent hours glazing the tops of the golden disks. Laurie had assembled chicken divan for dinner and set it in the oven to bake until K.E. arrived home from work.
At the kitchen table, Alma and Laurie shared a pot of coffee. The low hum of the television droned in the living room while the girls worked on their coloring books.
Laurie rested her cup in the saucer.
“So, Alma,” she started, nibbling on one of the broken cookie scraps that she had placed on a small plate between them. “Have you thought about dating again?”
The question caught Alma off-guard.
It seemed inappropriate for her former sister-in-law to suggest such a thing to her. As K.E.’s wife, Laurie would be expected to support Ennis, regardless of her friendship with Alma. Blood was thicker than water in the Del Mar family, just as it was in her own.
Alma stiffened with discomfort at the reminder that she failed to keep her sacred vows of ’til death do us part.
“Never thought much about it,” Alma said, her eyes shifting to the plate of cookie remnants.
“Well, you’re still young,” Laurie said, licking the sugar from her fingers. “Ain’t no reason to give up on finding true love just yet.”
Alma tried to smile, an automatic reaction that she had cultivated from childhood. She put her best face forward, despite the difficult emotions the question aroused in her. Alma had always taken pride in her polite demeanor.
“I don’t think so,” Alma said. “I don’t think I could do that.”
“I don’t see why not,” Laurie said. “Why, you’re just a young woman. You have your whole life ahead of you.”
Alma shook her head. “No, it’s not that.”
“Well, what is it then?” Laurie asked brightly.
Alma had to give Laurie credit for optimism, but she knew better what her own future held for her. She pinched her napkin between her fingers while she thought of what to say.
“I guess I haven’t had much success in attracting a boy. I don’t see it being any different now,” Alma said, knowing she couldn’t share the whole truth about what she felt.
“Alma…” Laurie said, stroking Alma’s hair as it swept down over her face. “Why don’t you make yourself up pretty? Put on some lipstick or try tweezin’ your eyebrows?”
Alma pushed Laurie’s hand away. “Don’t know how to do none of that,” Alma said, hoping it would be excuse enough.
“You would sure be pretty if you fixed yourself up nice,” Laurie said.
Alma shuddered. The last thing she wanted was for something to make her look more attractive.
Tweezed eyebrows? Alma cringed at the thought. She could never do that. She’d look like some kind of whore if she went around trying to draw a boy’s attention to herself. She had already been married and divorced before she was twenty years old. There was no way that she’d go through all of that again. She’d make herself out to be a fool. Worse still, if thinking about private body parts was a sin in high school, it was a hundred times worse now that she was divorced. The Bible had rules against things like that. 'Til death do you part. There was no excuse for doing anything different. The pits of Hell awaited her already for getting divorced. She wasn’t going to make things any worse by offering herself up like she wanted carnal knowledge of anyone else besides Ennis.
Ennis was enough for her. It had taken everything she had to catch Ennis and make her Mama proud of her.
She had loved him because he married her.
She still loved him, because she had no choice. She had gone into her marriage full bore, and there was no way to change that now. It was a done deal. She could never let that happen to her again.
Alma wished she could use Laurie’s suggestions, but they only made her hurt worse. She had her chance at being married… and now it was gone.
The second time Ennis kissed Alma was before the preacher in the Riverton Community Church. Snow had come early in ’63, although it didn’t last. Ennis had returned a whole month sooner than he had expected from his job with Farm and Ranch Employment. Alma didn’t mind. It meant they could push up the date of the wedding. No need to wait another month until she finally would have a husband. She looked forward to the status that it would bring to her, especially in the eyes of her mother.
Alma and Ennis paid the fee for the marriage license and got their blessing in the very same church where the Beers family attended Sunday services every week. Before she knew it, the ceremony had ended and not long afterward so had the potluck in the church basement.
The day had been a long and tiring one for Alma and Ennis both, but that didn’t stop Ennis from carrying Alma over the threshold of their room at the Ol’ Wyoming Motel. Alma put her purse down on the nightstand and began to take off her smooth white gloves. Her mother had given them to her the night before, along with a talk about a bride’s responsibility on her wedding night. Something old, something new.
Alma was so embarrassed to listen to her mother’s words and all they implied. She assured her that she had learned what her duties were, thinking back to her friend Janet from high school and the abundance of knowledge she had shared. Alma figured she would just let Ennis do what he needed to do and she could just close her eyes if she didn’t want to look. She could just go along with whatever it was that newly married folks had been doing for hundreds of years.
In truth, she was afraid to look.
She didn’t know quite what to expect, never having seen a penis in real life before. She was sure it would be covered with hair because that’s what the nurse said in the Grange Hall at the Future Homemakers of America meeting that she went to a few years back when they told her about her monthly visitor and how babies were made. She was prepared for that, although Ennis wasn’t the hairiest fellow she had ever seen, judging from the scarcity of fuzz that crept up from his chest to the collar of his shirt.
A penis wouldn’t be at all like the rubbery thing the man showed her that distant day not long after the meeting at the Grange Hall. Alma had been walking home alone. Janet had stayed out of school that day, sick with a cold. When Alma had to stay late to go over the questions she got wrong on her math test, she was on her own to walk home on the uncrowded streets of Riverton.
She had just turned the corner onto King Street from Cooper Road, nearly a mile and a half from home, when a car pulled alongside her. Alma stopped and clutched her schoolbooks to her chest while the driver leaned across the front seat of the car to roll down the passenger’s side window. Alma thought for sure he was going to ask for directions. Still she knew not to stand too close to the car, lest she be kidnapped and murdered like poor Bobby Greenlease.
“How are you today, Miss?” the man asked.
“I’m fine,” Alma said respectfully to the stranger. The man looked to be in his twenties, older than the boys Alma knew in school, but younger than Alma’s father.
“Do you know where Hancock Street is?” he asked.
Alma thought hard. She had never heard of Hancock Street before. “No, I’m sorry Mister, I don’t know.”
After a pause, the man asked, “Have you ever seen one of these?”
Alma leaned forward to see what the man was talking about. He was gripping some sort of pink tube in his left hand. He held it in his grasp between the front of his pants and the steering wheel.
Alma shook her head no, and the man laughed. Straightening up, Alma gave the man a polite wave goodbye and continued to walk home. The man drove off in search of someone else to ask for directions. He’d have a hard time of it at this hour, most kids were already home from school and it was too early for folks to be leaving work to come home for dinner.
Until Alma saw Ennis naked, some five years later, it had never crossed Alma’s mind that the stranger on Cooper Street had shown her his penis. She had been told that penises were very long, so they could deposit the semen into the vagina. They were also covered completely in hair. She knew this much to be true. The filmstrip that she saw back at the Grange Hall explained that hair grew on boys’ privates when they entered puberty. The nurse had confirmed this fact when she answered the girls’ questions. Surely a penis didn’t look like a fat pink tube.
Yet here was Ennis, with a penis on him as pink and as naked as a bald baby head. No matter how malformed it was without the hair she had envisioned, it didn’t stop Alma from wanting to complete the act that would finalize her marriage and make it official. She let Ennis pull off her wedding dress and toss it onto the matted shag carpeting. She pulled back the bedspread and slid beneath the covers, shimmying her panties down to the bottom of the bed.
Ennis got underneath the blankets and crawled between Alma’s legs, supporting himself with his hands that moved up the mattress until they were beside her head. Alma felt his surprisingly hairless penis brush against the nest of her pubic hair and a tingle of trepidation washed over her. She flushed with embarrassment over her own nakedness that had been hidden for so long.
Ennis bracketed her face with his hands and the white flowered headpiece that matched her wedding dress slipped off her head and onto the pillow. He kissed her deeply, using his tongue.
Alma struggled to breathe. She marveled at what changes had occurred in Ennis since they had been pronounced man and wife. His passion was certainly a far cry from the chaste kiss and tender moments they shared before Ennis had left to wrangle sheep that summer. She felt him draw up onto his knees. His penis drove at the area down below, that forbidden part of Alma’s body that had eluded touch ever since that day in the bathroom back at her folk’s house.
Ennis surged forward as the tip of his penis met with her privates.
Alma braced herself, the soles of her feet planted firmly on the mattress.
There was the prod of naked flesh on flesh.
Then, nothing.
“Ennis?” Alma asked.
“Uh, yeah, just a minute,” Ennis said.
Alma felt the bed vibrate as Ennis gave something a shake.
Alma had never felt so exposed in all her life. She bit down on her bottom lip while she waited for Ennis to insert his penis into her. Every time Ennis lunged forward, no matter that his penis was rigid before it ever touched her, as soon as their two body parts made contact, his penis became as soft as a worm waiting to be put on a hook.
Tears came to Alma’s eyes when she remembered the frustration of that night. It was supposed to be the happiest day of her life, the day she had finally reached her goal of being married, but she could only cry about what she had done. She had relinquished her chastity for nothing. And in the end, she didn’t even have a husband to show for it.
“Alma?” Laurie asked. “Alma?”
Alma took a deep breath.
“You could always ask a boy out yourself. No sense waiting around for some dummy to get the idea that you’re interested in him,” Laurie said.
“No,” Alma said with a blush to her cheeks. She wondered what kind of wild animals had raised Laurie that she would ever have suggested such a thing.
~~~
A war is waged between opposing forces. A battlefield stretches out before the combatants, whether they are willing or not. The lines are drawn on the plains of time. It doesn’t matter which participant is ready and which one might need to gather all his strength to merely take a step forward. They pick at each other, decisions made and ground conceded. Sometimes one side is stronger, much stronger. The weak becomes overpowered, as unfair as it may seem. Everything has its reason.
Like a clump of earth left to bake in the sun, constantly pelted by the winds and weather, anything will break down over time when left to nature’s devices or when pummeled by the whims of mankind.
Sometimes, when one side is beaten down too much, there is no resistance. The combatant sways to whichever side pushes the strongest in that very instant, without regard for right or wrong.
Grains of sand seep into the cracks until the exterior deteriorates. The exterior breaks down and admits the will of the abrasions to its core. When time passes, the soft innards that were once protected by the facade become further decimated by the wind, the sands, the light.
It’s a matter of exposure.
The clump of living organism has no chance to survive when exposed to the thing that will hurt it the most, the thing that will do the most damage over time. In time, anything will break down.
Like a scarecrow tied to a buck-rail fence. Or a desire that flows like a river through a cowboy’s veins. Or a conviction beaten into a sinner’s head. Resistance can’t last forever.
Eventually the resolve breaks down. The flesh deteriorates under the golden sky. The passion ignites and blazes brightly through the forces of society that stand in the path of its conflagration. The flames of Hell beckon stronger than a call to righteousness, or the call to righteousness beckons louder than the flames of Hell.
When the opposing forces are equally matched, there is another battle that takes place. No one can answer which side will win out in the end. Sometimes both, sometimes neither. A compromise, or a veritable Armageddon.
The body may break down, but the spirit breaks last. Long after the body and the flesh deteriorates until nothing remains, the human spirit is the last thing to fade. It withers away, defeated, and becomes a part of the earth.
A war is waged between opposing forces, until finally, something gives.
~~~
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.
I’ll sit by my campfire each nomadic night and muse of the present and past
“Brian!”
Jack thought he was going to heave up the contents of his stomach… what was left of them, anyway. He had scrambled down the slope, snow flying into the air as his boots skidded along the track that Brian had made.
When he reached the edge of the drop, he was furious that Brian had taken it upon himself to glissade down the steep incline. Now there was nothing he could do to save him. He stood at the edge, his hands tugging on his own hair in grief, his hat lost in the process.
Jack dug his heels into the snow, testing each footstep for some modicum of security as he descended. It would have been faster to slide on his ass, but seeing how Brian had lost control and landed in a bloody heap, he wasn’t willing to take the chance. He had to stay strong. He had to get down safely if he was going to have any hope of seeing Ennis again.
Step by step, he made his way downward, digging the branch into the snow to keep his balance. His legs trembled with fear that he would fall backwards and begin to slide out of control. His ribs couldn’t take more punishment. Each step required his absolute concentration. Although his nerves were frayed with the knowledge that Brian might not have survived the fall and he might not make it out of the woods before dark, he still persevered.
When he reached the bottom of the incline, he could nearly run on top of the snow. The adrenaline from seeing Brian’s fall had made him temporarily forget about the ache in his chest and his freezing fingers. Brian’s body had flattened a track some hundred yards long from when he first started to slide. It ended where his body stopped at the end of the runout. His body had acquired new contusions in its awkward descent and the wound on his head had split open again, the seep of blood leaving its mark on the pristine snow.
“Brian?” Jack dropped to his knees beside Brian’s motionless body.
Jack slid his hand beneath Brian’s neck and tilted his head back. The blood had slowed to a trickle through the gash in his forehead. Brian’s lips were parted and his eyes were open to the sky. Only then, did Jack notice the clear fluid leaking from Brian’s head. The back of his skull was split open like a watermelon.
Jack listened for breathing, but there was nothing. He worked a hand beneath Brian’s shirts and placed it to Brian’s chest. The skin was eerily cold.
No pulse.
Jack debated whether to start first aid, but decided it would be ridiculous to try. Even if he could restore Brian’s breathing, they were miles from the nearest road, and Jack was doubtful that their rescue would come soon.
There was nothing to be done.
Even if a helicopter dropped from the sky at that very moment, Brian had no chance of survival.
“Aww… fuck!” Jack said as he searched for a solution he could live with.
It wouldn’t be the first time that a life or death decision was left to him. He hated it when he was in Vietnam, and he hated it now. At least in the jungle, the decision was easier. He had his soldier buddies who would support him. Here on a snow-covered mountain in the middle of nowhere, he had no one to rely on but himself.
Only two years earlier, he was sweeping the countryside for Vietcong, north of Saigon. On the ground, there was gunfire and he saw a battalion getting hit hard by mortar fire. It would have been so easy for him to swoop in and rescue the fallen Americans. He hovered for tense moments in the stagnant air, the tropical humidity sopping his clothing and skin. He wanted to try for a rescue, but in the end, he couldn’t risk himself and the gunners in his chopper. The image of the suffering ground troops still haunted his dreams. No matter how hard he wished he could have saved the wounded men, he had to acknowledge that he was forced into making a split-second decision. Sometimes you didn’t get a second chance. You had to make the right decision the first time, or face the consequences.
Thoughts of Ennis crept into Jack’s mind. They fought for dominance over Jack’s grief for Brian and the shock that he wouldn’t make it off the mountain when he seemed so strong back at the chopper.
Maybe Ennis had learned some of the same things Jack had over the years they spent apart.
Maybe Ennis had changed his mind about their situation. Maybe he could make the right decision if he got the chance to do it over again.
Maybe Jack could laugh someday when he showed Ennis the shirt he stole from him on their last morning together when they had to bring the sheep down from Brokeback.
Maybe they’d laugh about it over a beer…
Jack pushed Brian’s eyelids. They slid easily over the surface of his eyes. Jack sat in the snow. He hugged his knees to his chest, thankful that Brian’s eyes stayed shut, the cold weather making them freeze in place.
Jack wasn’t sure how much time passed before he realized he needed to collect himself and get on with the business of getting down the mountain. Down to where Ennis might be waiting for him.
Ennis.
This whole bullshit thing was all Ennis’s fault anyway. Haunting his dreams, fucking with his mind. If Jack hadn’t been distracted by running into Ennis again, so unexpectedly, maybe he would have concentrated more when the fuel gushed out of the chopper, leaving him and Brian without enough juice to make it to BVH, or to the road for that matter.
Jack got to his feet, wincing at the pain in his ribs. After he took one last look at Brian, he set off downhill.
The sun had crept behind the ravine wall on his right. With some luck, he’d be able to see the snow standing out in contrast to the darkening forest, but for how long? How long would he be able to walk without a headlamp? He searched the sky, hoping there would be a bright moon tonight to guide his way.
He had plowed through the snow for about a quarter of a mile beyond where he had left Brian’s body when he felt a surge of warmth rush through his limbs. He foolishly thought it was because he had been thinking of Ennis. He unzipped his parka.
~~~
When Lisa got home from school, the girls spent the afternoon decorating the cookies with frosting and candy sprinkles. They spent hours glazing the tops of the golden disks. Laurie had assembled chicken divan for dinner and set it in the oven to bake until K.E. arrived home from work.
At the kitchen table, Alma and Laurie shared a pot of coffee. The low hum of the television droned in the living room while the girls worked on their coloring books.
Laurie rested her cup in the saucer.
“So, Alma,” she started, nibbling on one of the broken cookie scraps that she had placed on a small plate between them. “Have you thought about dating again?”
The question caught Alma off-guard.
It seemed inappropriate for her former sister-in-law to suggest such a thing to her. As K.E.’s wife, Laurie would be expected to support Ennis, regardless of her friendship with Alma. Blood was thicker than water in the Del Mar family, just as it was in her own.
Alma stiffened with discomfort at the reminder that she failed to keep her sacred vows of ’til death do us part.
“Never thought much about it,” Alma said, her eyes shifting to the plate of cookie remnants.
“Well, you’re still young,” Laurie said, licking the sugar from her fingers. “Ain’t no reason to give up on finding true love just yet.”
Alma tried to smile, an automatic reaction that she had cultivated from childhood. She put her best face forward, despite the difficult emotions the question aroused in her. Alma had always taken pride in her polite demeanor.
“I don’t think so,” Alma said. “I don’t think I could do that.”
“I don’t see why not,” Laurie said. “Why, you’re just a young woman. You have your whole life ahead of you.”
Alma shook her head. “No, it’s not that.”
“Well, what is it then?” Laurie asked brightly.
Alma had to give Laurie credit for optimism, but she knew better what her own future held for her. She pinched her napkin between her fingers while she thought of what to say.
“I guess I haven’t had much success in attracting a boy. I don’t see it being any different now,” Alma said, knowing she couldn’t share the whole truth about what she felt.
“Alma…” Laurie said, stroking Alma’s hair as it swept down over her face. “Why don’t you make yourself up pretty? Put on some lipstick or try tweezin’ your eyebrows?”
Alma pushed Laurie’s hand away. “Don’t know how to do none of that,” Alma said, hoping it would be excuse enough.
“You would sure be pretty if you fixed yourself up nice,” Laurie said.
Alma shuddered. The last thing she wanted was for something to make her look more attractive.
Tweezed eyebrows? Alma cringed at the thought. She could never do that. She’d look like some kind of whore if she went around trying to draw a boy’s attention to herself. She had already been married and divorced before she was twenty years old. There was no way that she’d go through all of that again. She’d make herself out to be a fool. Worse still, if thinking about private body parts was a sin in high school, it was a hundred times worse now that she was divorced. The Bible had rules against things like that. 'Til death do you part. There was no excuse for doing anything different. The pits of Hell awaited her already for getting divorced. She wasn’t going to make things any worse by offering herself up like she wanted carnal knowledge of anyone else besides Ennis.
Ennis was enough for her. It had taken everything she had to catch Ennis and make her Mama proud of her.
She had loved him because he married her.
She still loved him, because she had no choice. She had gone into her marriage full bore, and there was no way to change that now. It was a done deal. She could never let that happen to her again.
Alma wished she could use Laurie’s suggestions, but they only made her hurt worse. She had her chance at being married… and now it was gone.
The second time Ennis kissed Alma was before the preacher in the Riverton Community Church. Snow had come early in ’63, although it didn’t last. Ennis had returned a whole month sooner than he had expected from his job with Farm and Ranch Employment. Alma didn’t mind. It meant they could push up the date of the wedding. No need to wait another month until she finally would have a husband. She looked forward to the status that it would bring to her, especially in the eyes of her mother.
Alma and Ennis paid the fee for the marriage license and got their blessing in the very same church where the Beers family attended Sunday services every week. Before she knew it, the ceremony had ended and not long afterward so had the potluck in the church basement.
The day had been a long and tiring one for Alma and Ennis both, but that didn’t stop Ennis from carrying Alma over the threshold of their room at the Ol’ Wyoming Motel. Alma put her purse down on the nightstand and began to take off her smooth white gloves. Her mother had given them to her the night before, along with a talk about a bride’s responsibility on her wedding night. Something old, something new.
Alma was so embarrassed to listen to her mother’s words and all they implied. She assured her that she had learned what her duties were, thinking back to her friend Janet from high school and the abundance of knowledge she had shared. Alma figured she would just let Ennis do what he needed to do and she could just close her eyes if she didn’t want to look. She could just go along with whatever it was that newly married folks had been doing for hundreds of years.
In truth, she was afraid to look.
She didn’t know quite what to expect, never having seen a penis in real life before. She was sure it would be covered with hair because that’s what the nurse said in the Grange Hall at the Future Homemakers of America meeting that she went to a few years back when they told her about her monthly visitor and how babies were made. She was prepared for that, although Ennis wasn’t the hairiest fellow she had ever seen, judging from the scarcity of fuzz that crept up from his chest to the collar of his shirt.
A penis wouldn’t be at all like the rubbery thing the man showed her that distant day not long after the meeting at the Grange Hall. Alma had been walking home alone. Janet had stayed out of school that day, sick with a cold. When Alma had to stay late to go over the questions she got wrong on her math test, she was on her own to walk home on the uncrowded streets of Riverton.
She had just turned the corner onto King Street from Cooper Road, nearly a mile and a half from home, when a car pulled alongside her. Alma stopped and clutched her schoolbooks to her chest while the driver leaned across the front seat of the car to roll down the passenger’s side window. Alma thought for sure he was going to ask for directions. Still she knew not to stand too close to the car, lest she be kidnapped and murdered like poor Bobby Greenlease.
“How are you today, Miss?” the man asked.
“I’m fine,” Alma said respectfully to the stranger. The man looked to be in his twenties, older than the boys Alma knew in school, but younger than Alma’s father.
“Do you know where Hancock Street is?” he asked.
Alma thought hard. She had never heard of Hancock Street before. “No, I’m sorry Mister, I don’t know.”
After a pause, the man asked, “Have you ever seen one of these?”
Alma leaned forward to see what the man was talking about. He was gripping some sort of pink tube in his left hand. He held it in his grasp between the front of his pants and the steering wheel.
Alma shook her head no, and the man laughed. Straightening up, Alma gave the man a polite wave goodbye and continued to walk home. The man drove off in search of someone else to ask for directions. He’d have a hard time of it at this hour, most kids were already home from school and it was too early for folks to be leaving work to come home for dinner.
Until Alma saw Ennis naked, some five years later, it had never crossed Alma’s mind that the stranger on Cooper Street had shown her his penis. She had been told that penises were very long, so they could deposit the semen into the vagina. They were also covered completely in hair. She knew this much to be true. The filmstrip that she saw back at the Grange Hall explained that hair grew on boys’ privates when they entered puberty. The nurse had confirmed this fact when she answered the girls’ questions. Surely a penis didn’t look like a fat pink tube.
Yet here was Ennis, with a penis on him as pink and as naked as a bald baby head. No matter how malformed it was without the hair she had envisioned, it didn’t stop Alma from wanting to complete the act that would finalize her marriage and make it official. She let Ennis pull off her wedding dress and toss it onto the matted shag carpeting. She pulled back the bedspread and slid beneath the covers, shimmying her panties down to the bottom of the bed.
Ennis got underneath the blankets and crawled between Alma’s legs, supporting himself with his hands that moved up the mattress until they were beside her head. Alma felt his surprisingly hairless penis brush against the nest of her pubic hair and a tingle of trepidation washed over her. She flushed with embarrassment over her own nakedness that had been hidden for so long.
Ennis bracketed her face with his hands and the white flowered headpiece that matched her wedding dress slipped off her head and onto the pillow. He kissed her deeply, using his tongue.
Alma struggled to breathe. She marveled at what changes had occurred in Ennis since they had been pronounced man and wife. His passion was certainly a far cry from the chaste kiss and tender moments they shared before Ennis had left to wrangle sheep that summer. She felt him draw up onto his knees. His penis drove at the area down below, that forbidden part of Alma’s body that had eluded touch ever since that day in the bathroom back at her folk’s house.
Ennis surged forward as the tip of his penis met with her privates.
Alma braced herself, the soles of her feet planted firmly on the mattress.
There was the prod of naked flesh on flesh.
Then, nothing.
“Ennis?” Alma asked.
“Uh, yeah, just a minute,” Ennis said.
Alma felt the bed vibrate as Ennis gave something a shake.
Alma had never felt so exposed in all her life. She bit down on her bottom lip while she waited for Ennis to insert his penis into her. Every time Ennis lunged forward, no matter that his penis was rigid before it ever touched her, as soon as their two body parts made contact, his penis became as soft as a worm waiting to be put on a hook.
Tears came to Alma’s eyes when she remembered the frustration of that night. It was supposed to be the happiest day of her life, the day she had finally reached her goal of being married, but she could only cry about what she had done. She had relinquished her chastity for nothing. And in the end, she didn’t even have a husband to show for it.
“Alma?” Laurie asked. “Alma?”
Alma took a deep breath.
“You could always ask a boy out yourself. No sense waiting around for some dummy to get the idea that you’re interested in him,” Laurie said.
“No,” Alma said with a blush to her cheeks. She wondered what kind of wild animals had raised Laurie that she would ever have suggested such a thing.
~~~
A war is waged between opposing forces. A battlefield stretches out before the combatants, whether they are willing or not. The lines are drawn on the plains of time. It doesn’t matter which participant is ready and which one might need to gather all his strength to merely take a step forward. They pick at each other, decisions made and ground conceded. Sometimes one side is stronger, much stronger. The weak becomes overpowered, as unfair as it may seem. Everything has its reason.
Like a clump of earth left to bake in the sun, constantly pelted by the winds and weather, anything will break down over time when left to nature’s devices or when pummeled by the whims of mankind.
Sometimes, when one side is beaten down too much, there is no resistance. The combatant sways to whichever side pushes the strongest in that very instant, without regard for right or wrong.
Grains of sand seep into the cracks until the exterior deteriorates. The exterior breaks down and admits the will of the abrasions to its core. When time passes, the soft innards that were once protected by the facade become further decimated by the wind, the sands, the light.
It’s a matter of exposure.
The clump of living organism has no chance to survive when exposed to the thing that will hurt it the most, the thing that will do the most damage over time. In time, anything will break down.
Like a scarecrow tied to a buck-rail fence. Or a desire that flows like a river through a cowboy’s veins. Or a conviction beaten into a sinner’s head. Resistance can’t last forever.
Eventually the resolve breaks down. The flesh deteriorates under the golden sky. The passion ignites and blazes brightly through the forces of society that stand in the path of its conflagration. The flames of Hell beckon stronger than a call to righteousness, or the call to righteousness beckons louder than the flames of Hell.
When the opposing forces are equally matched, there is another battle that takes place. No one can answer which side will win out in the end. Sometimes both, sometimes neither. A compromise, or a veritable Armageddon.
The body may break down, but the spirit breaks last. Long after the body and the flesh deteriorates until nothing remains, the human spirit is the last thing to fade. It withers away, defeated, and becomes a part of the earth.
A war is waged between opposing forces, until finally, something gives.
~~~