Going Down, Chapter Twenty: The Mountain
Pairing: Ennis/Jack
Rating: R/NC-17
Credit: Annie Proulx and Diana Ossana & Larry McMurtry. Thanks also to all the many incredibly talented writers out there who inspired me to finally write something myself-Madlori, Jenna, Maggie, montana-crows, Cathalin, midwest-girl, debutante9, maidenofthesea, marakeshsparrow, louisev, amtamburo, midget-size, testa-dura, and many others. Finally, thank you very very much to Christine, my friend and beta and fellow ennisjack aficionado.
Feedback: Any and all appreciated, at my lj or at shieldmaid@gmail.com.
Thank you, Christine, for all your support and hard work. I couldn't have done it without you. :)
Chapter Twenty: The Mountain
“The hell’re you doin’ here, Randall?” Jack demanded, dropping his bag on the floor. “Thought the police locked your ass up for startin’ that fire.”
Randall smirked, folding his arms across his chest and leaning against the edge of Julia’s desk. He opened his mouth to speak, allowing the cigarette to hang lazily off his lip, but Julia beat him to the punch.
“Jack!” she exclaimed. “What are you doing here? Is it possible-Randall said that you-”
Randall slammed his fist down on her desk, grunting inarticulately. Papers, jolted out of their tidy stacks, flew up and cascaded onto the floor. “Shut up,” he growled. “No one’s askin’ for your input here.”
“Hey, asshole,” Ennis said, taking a step forward. Jack tugged at his arm, trying to keep him out of the shitstorm he was sure was coming, but Ennis was implacable. Few things riled him more than a man taking his anger out on a woman. He’d gotten into more than a few bar fights with men who yelled at their girlfriends or jerked their wives’ arms on the dance floor. Now he clenched his fists and narrowed his eyes, ready to lay Randall out flat.
But this challenge seemed, strangely, to calm Randall down. He gave the group a quick, feline smile, then bent to scoop up the papers that lay at his feet. “Sorry ‘bout that, honey,” he said to the silent, tight-lipped Julia. “Jus got a little hot under the collar when I saw my friend back here again.” He nodded at Ennis, then settled back against the desk again. “Think he’s the reason we lost Jacky-boy here last time. Now I like you, Dennis, but we can’t be givin’ up our best workers alla time jus cause they feel like catchin’ up with their bull-ridin’ buddies.”
“Name’s Ennis,” Ennis gritted out. “Now I think you got some explainin’ to do.”
“How’s that?” Randall seemed genuinely puzzled. He cocked his head to one side and raised his eyebrows, his eyes wide with concern.
Jack snorted, unable to help himself. “Whaddya think, Randall? Last time I seen you, you was in handcuffs. Two detectives come all the way up on the mountain to find you ‘n ask you questions ‘bout the forest fire.” He shook his head. “What I don’t understand is how you got your job back without-”
Julia stood up suddenly, drawing all three men’s eyes to her. “Think we could all deal with this situation a little more easily if we had some coffee.” She looked at Jack. “Jack, would you help me bring in the big pot from out back?”
“Sure, uh . . . you gonna be all right, Ennis?”
“Gonna be fine,” Ennis replied, his eyes never leaving Randall’s. “We’ll jus sit tight here until you all get back.”
“Bring me in some a them peanut butter cookies,” Randall said. “Had a hard mornin’ already.”
Jack followed Julia out the front door, across the porch, and around to the side yard, where the locked supply shed stood. Once they had rounded the side of the building, however, Julia stopped and grabbed Jack’s arm. “Thank God you’re here,” she whispered. “I didn’t know what I was going to do. I’ve been alone here with him for the past two days.”
“What? But . . . where’re all the other guys?” Jack put his hand on Julia’s shoulder and squeezed. “Ain’t you got Mark lookin’ out for you? ‘N what ‘bout the guy was made station manager after Randall got hauled off?”
“We’re on light patrol duty, Jack. Most of the men have these two days off for the holiday. There are only three people on, and they’re all out in the far ranges, making sure we don’t have a repeat fire. The new station manager is coming in from Albuquerque, and he isn’t supposed to arrive until Friday.” She swallowed audibly, looking down at the ground, and when she looked up again, Jack could see her eyes glistening in the noon sunlight. “You know how I have the shortwave radio on all the time, for station alerts and dispatches?”
Jack nodded, finding her hand so he could hold it gently.
“Well, day before yesterday I had the police scanner on too, just for company. Hadn’t seen anyone else for hours. Well, at about ten-thirty in the morning the police department down in Taos issued an APB, saying that one of their-how’d they put it? One of their high-risk prisoners, I think, had escaped. They’d put out roadblocks on all the major highways but he’d somehow slipped through. They didn’t think he was armed but they were warning all motorists not to pick up any hitchhikers. I didn’t think too much of it, was catching up on some paperwork while I listened, but when they described him I knew it had to be Randall. Six foot three, dark brown hair, 190 pounds, heavy beard-and burn scars across both forearms. He got those three years ago, when he was working with a fire crew on one of the near peaks.” She stopped for a moment, glancing nervously toward the building, then took a deep breath and continued. “He pulled a couple of mountain lion cubs out of a den right at one of the hottest points of the fire. Got some citations from PETA and the World Wildlife Fund, I think. It was after that that he got promoted to station manager, though in my opinion there were some much better-qualified people in the running.” She sighed and ran a tired hand across her forehead. “Guess the bosses just liked the publicity that he brought the organization.”
Jack’s heart was pounding. “So you been stuck here with him for two days? Ain’t no one come around lookin’ for him? Seems like this would be the first place they’d check.”
“No, not yet.” Julia sighed. “But they will, I’m sure of it. I just don’t want to make him angry in the meantime.”
Jack gave her hand a squeeze and let it go, looking around at the building and surrounding forest as though they might offer a way out of this situation.
“Come on,” Julia said, drawing the key ring out of her pocket. “We’d better get back or Randall’s going to wonder what’s going on. I don’t want to put Ennis in any danger either.” She sighed. “I don’t know what we can possibly do, Jack. Randall’s got a twelve-gauge shotgun and a lot of ammunition stashed behind his desk in the back office. But I feel better knowing that you and Ennis are here now.” She fit her key into the padlock and pushed the heavy plank doors aside.
Peering into the dim interior, Jack said, “You want that big silver pot, right? Think Bruce put it here in the back the last time we was havin’ a meetin’ after shift.”
“Yeah,” Julia said, her voice distant, as though she were thinking about something else. “I’m just going to . . . . Hold on a second, I’ve gotta get something else too. Hmm. OK, here it is. You got the pot and spigot and everything?”
“Yep.” Jack stepped into the front of the shed again, holding the heavy coffee urn against his chest. “Guess we oughta be gettin’ back, ‘fore Ennis lays Randall out cold or somethin’.”
“True,” Julia said, coming up to Jack with her hands full of napkins and wax-paper tubes of cookies. “Let me just lock this up and we can go deal with our little problem again.” She turned her back, pulling the doors into place, and bent to fasten the padlock again. As she straightened, however, Jack saw a strange, bulky outline and the gleam of dull metal from the waistband of her uniform pants.
“Julia, what the fuck! Is that a gun?” Jack tightened his grip on the coffee pot and took a step toward her.
Julia turned to face him. Her face was calm, betraying no emotion. “I’ve been thinking on what to do about this since Randall first showed up here, Jack. Bob Garibaldi, the old station manager, used to keep a gun oiled and loaded in the supply shed-to protect against predators, he said, but I’ve always thought he was referring more to humans than animals. It gets real lonely up here in the mountains, and sometimes people do things you wouldn’t expect. Anyway, I’ve been keeping up the tradition since Bob left. There was something about Randall-I didn’t trust him from the start. And he never comes in here himself-he believes in maintaining the chain of command, and of course that means he would never stoop to getting the supplies.” Shifting her supplies to one hand, she drew the gun out from behind her back and clicked off the safety. “It’s a Colt .45, standard issue, nothing fancy. I learned to shoot from my daddy, years ago. Now that you guys are here, we can end this.” She slid the gun back into her waistband and nodded at Jack, ready to leave.
Jack heaved out a huge breath. His lungs seemed to have shrunk all of a sudden at the sight of Julia’s gun. He and Ennis had both been raised on ranches, places where guns were used every day. Hell, he credited Ennis’s rifle with helping to bring them together in the first place. That elk sure had made good eatin’. But bringing out a gun to help them fight a man-that was something entirely different. Julia was determined, though, and she had already suffered through two days of hell trapped in this man’s company. Jack wasn’t going to stand in her way now.
When they got inside, Ennis was sitting in Julia’s chair, head cocked toward the police scanner. He had the radio headset in one hand and was taking notes on a scrap of paper with the other. Randall was nowhere in sight. When he heard the door open, he looked up and tipped Jack a quick wink.
“What the hell, Ennis?” Jack felt his hands shaking. He hadn’t realized how nervous he had been about leaving Ennis alone with a man who was clearly out of his mind and who had a good twenty-five pounds on Ennis to boot. “Where’s Randall?”
“Oh, he’s in the office.” Ennis set the headset on the desk and leaned back in the chair, grinning up at him. “What took you so long? I was thinkin’ maybe the two a you took it in your heads to run away together or somethin’.” He stood up and moved to take the urn from Jack. “Let’s get some coffee on. We missed lunch, ‘n I think Randall said somethin’ ‘bout some cookies?”
Jack stared at him. “You ‘n Randall best friends now or what? What’s he doin’ in there anyway?”
Ennis carried the urn to the sink on the back wall and turned on the tap to fill it with water. He turned back to Jack, seemed about to speak, then set about clearing a space on the long metal table that stretched along one of the side walls. Finally he looked at Jack. “We was jus talkin’, passin’ the time while you two was gone, but then he got a little smart with me ‘n-well, whyn’t you go see for yourself.” He gestured toward the back office, then leaned against the table, his arms crossed, watching Jack move across the room.
Randall was sitting on the floor of the office, his back against the small bookcase that stood off to one side. His head drooped forward as though he were asleep; Jack could see that his hands and feet were tied together with two lengths of rope.
When Jack’s boot knocked against a box sitting under the desk, Randall’s head jerked upward. His eyes were red and bleary, but his clenched jaw and harsh breaths radiated hostility. “Jack!” he snapped. “Best get me outta here, or you’re gonna be lookin’ for a new job a lot sooner’n you think.”
Jack rolled his eyes. “Thought I saw the last a you up on that mountain, Randall. Tell you what, if I had to deal with your ugly ass again, this is the only way to do it. ‘Sides, you said you didn’t hold with hirin’ no guys like me-even though you was achin’ to get your hands on me yourself.” He shrugged. “Seems a little phony, you thinkin’ I was queer ‘n all, ‘n should be losin’ my job, then grabbin’ my ass the first chance you got.”
Randall growled. “Don’t know what the fuck you’re talkin’ ‘bout. I ain’t no faggot. Only ass I’m gonna be grabbin’ belongs to that juicy set a boobs out in the front office. Knew there was a good reason we kept her on all these years.”
Jack sighed. “Have it your way, then. ‘N don’t come cryin’ to me when Julia kicks your ass.” He backed out of the office and slammed the door behind him.
Ennis and Julia were looking at him expectantly. The radio headset was in Ennis’s hand again, and Julia’s gun lay on top of the desk, five bullets standing in a shining row beside it.
“What?” Jack asked. “I miss somethin’?”
“Everythin’ OK? We could hear Randall shoutin’ all the way out here.” Ennis’s brow was creased, but he looked calmer than Jack would have believed he could.
“Yeah, he was jus . . . smartin’ off. I ain’t gonna take it, ‘n that don’t set so well with him.” He came up to the desk and peered over Ennis’s shoulder. “What’re you writin’ down?”
“Well, while you two was out at the shed, after I took care a our friend there, I radioed down to the Taos PD. Seems that findin’ this guy’s at the top a their list a priorities, so they’re comin’ right away. Said they’d have a guy here in ‘bout half an hour. So Julia ain’t gotta worry ‘bout takin’ on no hardened criminals by herself.” Ennis reached over to pat Julia’s hand. “Not that she needed our help or nothin’.”
“Well, I’m just glad this whole mess is getting straightened out,” Julia said, smiling down at Ennis. “You wouldn’t believe the amount of paperwork I’m going to need to fill out to explain this week to our regional officers. Once Randall is gone, I guess I can get started.”
“Not right away, though, honey,” Jack said. “Me ‘n Ennis’re gonna take you out to dinner first to say thanks for savin’ the station. If you weren’t here Randall probably woulda burned the whole place down. I’m gonna call Amber ‘n get her to take the dispatch for tonight.” When Julia snorted and rolled her eyes, he grinned and shrugged. “I know, she’s probably the worst dispatcher the Forest Service ever hired. Most likely she’ll burn it down too, but at least she don’t smoke or carry a rifle.”
“Good idea, rodeo.”
Jack looked up to find Ennis’s eyes on him, warm with the kind of sugar heat he only showed when the two of them were alone. To let it slip now showed both the tension he had suffered in this situation and his growing comfort with the life they had decided to pursue together. “Thanks. Uh . . . I think I seen a steak place not too far down the main road. Between here ‘n Taos, anyway.”
“Some steak’d sit real good right ‘bout now.” Ennis looked down for a moment, as though realizing he had allowed Julia to see too much of his private self, then gripped the edge of the desk and stood up. “I think for now it’d be best if-”
A loud scuffling and a crash from the back office arrested their attention. Jack started across floor, hearing the blood pounding loudly in his ears, but he was too late. The door swung open, and Randall stood there, tags of rope still hanging from his wrists, aiming a shotgun straight at Julia.
Jack stopped dead in his tracks and held up his hand. Adrenaline surged through his veins, tightening every muscle in his body and making him feel as though his hair were standing on end. “Jus hold it right there, Randall. We all know you don’t wanna do nothin’ you’re gonna regret later.”
Randall’s lips stretched away from his teeth, exposing his canines in a wolflike grin. “Ain’t got nothin’ to regret, Jack. Jus takin’ care a what’s mine.” He sniffed, throwing his head back for a moment. “You all think you’re so smart, tyin’ up the boss, but you don’t know what I got back there in that office. Whole box fulla metal tent stakes under the desk for starters-didn’t take me but a couple a minutes to saw through this rope.”
Ennis shouldered past Jack, coming to a stop so close to Randall that the gun’s muzzle flirted with the middle button of his shirt. “You dumb fuck,” he spat. “You think wavin’ a gun in the air’s some kinda answer to your problems? Think pullin’ the trigger with a pretty lady like Julia nearby’s gonna show her what a tough guy you are? Well, I guess your daddy must be an even dumber fuck than you, if he never told you shootin’ first ‘n talkin’ later never solved nothin’.” He wrapped his hand slowly around the barrel of the gun, never breaking his eye contact with Randall. “Now whyn’t you jus lay this down ‘n we can have ourselves a nice little chat? Real reasonable-like?”
Randall coughed suddenly, a harsh hacking sound that grated through the tension-filled air. It took a few seconds before his three observers realized he was laughing. “Chat, that’s what you wanna do? I don’t think so. We talked too much already, ‘n it got me tied up in the back room. Time for action.” He lifted the gun, shaking off Ennis’s grip, and pressed the muzzle against Ennis’s chest.
Fury suddenly filled Ennis’s brain. A calm quiet seemed to descend around him, as though he were deaf or else standing in the eye of a hurricane. “That’s what you want, asshole? Action? OK, you got it. Go ahead ‘n shoot me. Jus stop flappin’ your jaw ‘n do somethin’ already.” He clamped his mouth shut and stared straight into Randall’s eyes.
With these words, Jack, who had been frozen in place by the two men’s exchange, found his feet again. He leapt forward and seized Ennis’s shoulders with both arms, tackling him to the floor. Ennis grunted and struggled within Jack’s grasp, but Jack’s hands cleaved to Ennis like their body’s second self. He would not let go.
At the same moment, the gun went off. Julia shrieked, and Jack heard the impossibly heavy thud of her body hitting the floor. Nausea filled his gut. He tightened his grip on Ennis, ignoring the other man’s muttered curses and attempts to kick his way free, and reached blindly out for something he could grab onto and behind which the two of them could find shelter. Randall was still looking in Julia’s direction, the gun now hanging unheeded by his side, and Jack had a small hope of finding some kind of weapon they could use against him-even Julia’s gun-if he stayed distracted a little while longer.
Jack held onto Ennis and grabbed for Julia’s desk, scraping his side hard against the headquarters’ rough wooden planks. His biceps screamed with tension, his back ached, and his jaw throbbed as though he’d been gritting his teeth for hours. He could hear Julia sobbing somewhere in front of him, beyond the desk, and that gave him the strength to keep pushing forward. Just as his fingers closed over the smooth cone of the first bullet lying in the center of the desk, he heard a thunderous banging at the main door. “Police!” a man’s voice barked. “Open up!”
“Aw, shit.” Through slitted eyes, Jack saw Randall turn his head, then take a couple steps toward the door. Randall raised the gun again and drew a bead on the door. “Ain’t no one comin’ out!” he shouted. “Open that door ‘n you’ll get a mouth fulla hot lead!” The gun bobbed up and down as he stood glaring down the door, and Jack realized his hands must be shaking.
Ennis butted his head against Jack’s. “Lemme go,” he said into Jack’s ear, his voice low and tight. “Dammit, Jack, I don’t wanna shove my knee into your balls, but you ain’t leavin’ me many options here.”
“Hold on cowboy, I’m jus figurin’ our next move. Can’t have you gettin’ your head blown off now, ‘n I need to see what we can do ‘bout gettin’ Julia outta here too.” Jack shifted a little, firming his grip on Ennis’s upper arm and around his ribcage. He began to edge around to the far side of the desk, but a sudden blur from the back of the room stopped him in his tracks.
Julia jumped out of her crouch against the wall, yelled out what sounded like a nonsense collection of syllables, and hurled something directly at Randall’s head. He had turned to look at her when he heard movement, and he got whatever it was right in the eyes. A moment later, he began to scream.
Craning his neck around to see what had happened, Jack dropped his hold on Ennis, and Ennis shot upward, grabbing the gun off the desk in one fluid motion. He stood and pointed it at Randall, who was on his knees by this time, scrabbling at his eyes with both hands and whining with pain. His shotgun lay on the floor, forgotten.
Jack lay on his back, looking up at Ennis. “You do realize that thing’s unloaded, don’t you?” he whispered.
“I ain’t a dumbass, Jack,” Ennis hissed. “Now jus stay there a minute . . .” He paused for a moment, the muscles bunching in his shoulders, then took three running steps across the floor and coldcocked Randall with the butt of the pistol. Randall hesitated for a moment, his keening temporarily silenced, then he fell over on his side. His head smacked hard against the floor. Ennis dropped the gun and turned toward the main door. “C’mon in!” he hollered. “We got him down on the ground!”
The door burst open and three men came running in, guns held ready in front of them. The man in the lead stopped, holding up his hand to signal the others to do the same. He dug in his pocket and produced a wallet, which he flipped open to reveal a badge. “Oscar Perez,” he said. “Taos PD.” His eyes fell on Jack then, now up on his hands and knees, and he tipped him an ironic little wink. “Mr. Twist. So we meet again.”
“Seems that way.” Jack tried to keep his tone light, but seeing Perez again had rattled him more than all of Randall’s crazy stunts had. What if Perez decided that Jack might have had something to do with the fire after all? Here he was, still hanging around Randall even after the man had been arrested and then had escaped from custody. He stood up and tried to look nonchalant.
But Perez didn’t seem too interested in rehashing Jack’s relationship with his former boss. “OK, boys,” he said to his two companions. “Get Mr. Malone off the floor and into some cuffs. I need to have a few words with these gentlemen here before we can leave, though.” He turned, scanning the room, and started when he noticed Julia sitting against the far wall, staring at him. “Ms. Ringfeder! I’m sorry I didn’t know you were in here. We might have been able to make this a smoother operation if I had. It sounded like there was only one man here when we got the radio transmission.”
“It’s OK,” Julia replied, smoothing her hair back from her face and leaning one arm against the wall as she stood up. “I was out back with Jack getting some supplies when Ennis made the call. It took us a little while to . . . uh, calm Randall down. But it looks like Ennis was able to-”
“Shit! Is that blood on your arm?” Perez was suddenly crouched at Julia’s side, holding her left arm gingerly and peering at her shoulder. “What the hell happened to you?”
“Oh, it’s all right.” Julia was looking down at him, her forehead wrinkled. “Randall got off a wild shot, and it nicked me but only hit the wall. Stung a little but scared me more than anything else.”
Jack came up behind Perez. “Sure you’re OK? I was real worried when I heard you scream.”
Julia scrunched up her nose. “Sorry about sounding so girly. That scream was about half real fear and half a hope that Randall would think he’d finally hurt someone bad enough that he should hightail it out of here now.”
“Well, I think we all owe our lives to you now, Julia.” Ennis had joined their little huddle under the window, and now he was looking at Julia with a warm light in his eyes that made Jack feel a brief but sharp twinge in his chest.
Julia frowned at him and looked away. “I have no idea what you mean.”
“Hell yeah,” Jack chortled. “You shoulda seen her, Perez, she clocked that sonovabitch real good!”
Ennis raised an eyebrow at him and then winked. Jack was glad to see that the extra gloss on those warm brown eyes and the subtle smile were directed his way this time. “True enough,” Ennis said. “Don’t know what she threw at him, but it hurt him bad. She’s got damn good aim, too.”
They all looked at Julia, who shrugged and gave them a slow smile. “Hey, I was the pitcher on my softball team for all four years of high school. It was an easy shot.”
“What’d you throw at him, anyway?” Jack asked.
“Bag of chlorine. We keep a jug of the powdered stuff in the shed to use in disinfecting equipment, purifying water, and other things. I just poured some into a cookie bag and added a little water when we got back inside. I punched a couple holes in the side of the bag with my earring so he’d be sure to get a mouthful.” She laughed. “Guess it isn’t really funny, since I don’t know what kind of damage it’ll do to him, but he certainly had it coming.”
“Good to know,” said Perez. “I’ll make sure the EMTs know what they’re dealing with when they get here.” He nodded at his two men, and they hauled Randall up between them. Randall’s boots thudded against the doorsill as he was dragged unceremoniously out the door. When they had disappeared, Perez looked back and forth between Ennis and Jack, his mouth compressed into a thin, straight line. After a moment, he reached into his hip pocket and removed a small notebook. “Tell me what you two were doing here.”
Ennis introduced himself first, explained about coming up with Jack to find out about a job and finding Randall holding Julia hostage, then described how he had first tied Randall up and then hit him with the gun after he’d fired at Julia. Perez asked some questions but seemed satisfied after only a few reiterations. Jack explained where he had been and why he had returned on this particular day, emphasizing the facts that he and Ennis were old friends and that Ennis had met Randall before, when he’d come up to see Jack on the night of the big fire.
This piece of information got Perez going for a while, but 45 minutes of questioning and a radio exchange with his station house provided enough information to satisfy him. “Just write down both your addresses and phone numbers so I can get in touch with you if I need to. This is going to be an ongoing investigation.”
Jack and Ennis looked at each other. Jack said, “Well, we’re plannin’ on bein’ here, actually. That’s the whole point a this mess.”
Perez snorted and rolled his eyes. “No, you aren’t, actually. I have a feeling that they aren’t going to be taking on any new hires here for a while, and if things go the way I think they will, this station will be run under direct PD supervision with a skeleton crew. At least until we’ve got everything figured out.” He quirked an eyebrow at Jack. “So you’d better both go back down to your wives and your old jobs.”
“Can’t,” Ennis said, sending a jolt of electricity rocketing up Jack’s spine. “We’re both gettin’ divorces ‘n plan on gettin’ jobs together one way or another. If it ain’t here, it’ll be somewheres else.” When he saw Jack’s wide-eyed, open-mouthed stare, Ennis gave a tiny shrug, as if to say, OK, I surprised the shit outta me too. He cleared his throat and went on. “Me ‘n Jack’s, uh, good friends.”
“Yeah?” Perez’s raised eyebrow was now aimed in Ennis’s direction. “Well, all I can say is you boys better be careful. I had me a good friend once too, a real good friend, ‘n I hope things turn out better for you than they did for him.” He hesitated for a moment, seemed about to say something else, then shook his head. “Well, let’s get outta here then. Ms. Ringfeder, can I ask you to ride down to Taos with me? I’ll need you to give me a more formal statement down there, and afterward I can have one of the uniforms give you a ride either back up here or to regional headquarters. We’ll have someone look at that shoulder for you too.”
“Sounds good.” Julia found her purse in the top desk drawer, and they all trooped out the front door.
After Julia was settled in the front seat of Perez’s car and Perez himself was giving instructions to the driver of the other car, Ennis grabbed Jack’s arm and tugged him back toward the side of the building. Jack followed him until they were standing in the shadow of the eaves, visible to everyone in front but out of earshot. “I’m sorry I said that, Jack. ‘Bout kneein’ you in the balls, I mean.” Ennis’s eyes were wet, slightly bloodshot, his hangdog expression making Jack want to smile.
“S’okay. I knew there was no chance you’d ever do that anyway.” Jack smiled at Ennis, and after a moment or two he saw his man’s lips curl slowly up in the sweet, private smile he saw only rarely-and usually when Ennis was lying naked in his arms.
“I, uh, I can’t wait to,” Ennis mumbled something and turned away, back toward the cars, his ears turning red.
“What’s that, cowboy? Think I missed somethin’.” Jack was delighted, pulling on Ennis’s shirt sleeve like a little kid. Nothing made him happier than those moments when Ennis wanted to say something tender so badly that he managed to overcome the self-consciousness that threatened to stop up his tongue.
Ennis turned around again, looking into Jack’s eyes. “I can’t wait to-”
“Jack! Ennis! We’re leaving now. Why don’t you two go get in your truck, and you can follow us down to Taos? I assume you’ll be spending the night there tonight?” Perez was looking at them, his head cocked to one side, and there was nothing for them to do but head down to the far parking lot.
Once they reached the lot, however, Ennis stopped so suddenly that Jack almost ran into him. At this altitude, sound was a funny thing. Sometimes it seemed as though you could hear someone brushing his teeth on the next peak, but today Jack couldn’t hear a thing except the crunch of his own boots on the gravel and the breath pushing in and out of Ennis’s lungs. “Ennis,” he said, turning him around and putting a hand on each of his shoulders. “What is it?”
“Jack,” Ennis said, leaning his forehead against Jack’s and closing his eyes. “I just wanna hold you for a minute. That OK with you?”
“Aw, Ennis,” Jack said, his eyes stinging all at once painfully with tears. “You never gotta ask me that.” He put his arms around Ennis and felt the almost unbearable rightness of Ennis’s arms sliding around him. One of Ennis’s hands rubbed slowly up and down the tight muscles between his shoulder blades, soothing out the tension that had built up over the past hour; the other pressed gently against his lower back. They stood wrapped together for several long, warm moments, rocking slightly. Jack touched his lips to the side of Ennis’s neck and felt him breathe out slowly in response. Finally he heard a distant car horn and pulled away reluctantly. “Better go, cowboy.” They walked slowly to the truck and got in. Ennis shifted the clutch carefully, as he always did on steep hills. Jack smiled at the sight of him, performing an action that Jack himself knew so well. “But you better believe-soon’s I get you in a hotel room down in Taos, there’s no way you’re gettin’ away from me again.”
Ennis drove silently for a moment or two before turning his head toward Jack. He brought the car to a smooth halt at the edge of the parking lot. “I got somethin’ to say to you, Jack.”
“Well, go ahead, then. We ain’t got no secrets from each other, do we?” Jack looked at Ennis, his hand resting just next to Ennis’s on the seat.
Ennis sighed, then moved his hand over to take Jack’s. “It’s jus that-I been thinkin’ on this day a long time. You know what I mean? We met on a mountain, now we’re leavin’ from a mountain again. But this time together.”
Jack swallowed with difficulty. “I know what you mean, Ennis. Never thought this day would come, but here we are after all.”
Ennis’s smile blossomed slowly, as sweet and pure as the first true sun rays on a Brokeback summer morning. “We come up the mountain at different times, but I guess I always knew someday we’d be going down it together.”
Rating: R/NC-17
Credit: Annie Proulx and Diana Ossana & Larry McMurtry. Thanks also to all the many incredibly talented writers out there who inspired me to finally write something myself-Madlori, Jenna, Maggie, montana-crows, Cathalin, midwest-girl, debutante9, maidenofthesea, marakeshsparrow, louisev, amtamburo, midget-size, testa-dura, and many others. Finally, thank you very very much to Christine, my friend and beta and fellow ennisjack aficionado.
Feedback: Any and all appreciated, at my lj or at shieldmaid@gmail.com.
Thank you, Christine, for all your support and hard work. I couldn't have done it without you. :)
Chapter Twenty: The Mountain
“The hell’re you doin’ here, Randall?” Jack demanded, dropping his bag on the floor. “Thought the police locked your ass up for startin’ that fire.”
Randall smirked, folding his arms across his chest and leaning against the edge of Julia’s desk. He opened his mouth to speak, allowing the cigarette to hang lazily off his lip, but Julia beat him to the punch.
“Jack!” she exclaimed. “What are you doing here? Is it possible-Randall said that you-”
Randall slammed his fist down on her desk, grunting inarticulately. Papers, jolted out of their tidy stacks, flew up and cascaded onto the floor. “Shut up,” he growled. “No one’s askin’ for your input here.”
“Hey, asshole,” Ennis said, taking a step forward. Jack tugged at his arm, trying to keep him out of the shitstorm he was sure was coming, but Ennis was implacable. Few things riled him more than a man taking his anger out on a woman. He’d gotten into more than a few bar fights with men who yelled at their girlfriends or jerked their wives’ arms on the dance floor. Now he clenched his fists and narrowed his eyes, ready to lay Randall out flat.
But this challenge seemed, strangely, to calm Randall down. He gave the group a quick, feline smile, then bent to scoop up the papers that lay at his feet. “Sorry ‘bout that, honey,” he said to the silent, tight-lipped Julia. “Jus got a little hot under the collar when I saw my friend back here again.” He nodded at Ennis, then settled back against the desk again. “Think he’s the reason we lost Jacky-boy here last time. Now I like you, Dennis, but we can’t be givin’ up our best workers alla time jus cause they feel like catchin’ up with their bull-ridin’ buddies.”
“Name’s Ennis,” Ennis gritted out. “Now I think you got some explainin’ to do.”
“How’s that?” Randall seemed genuinely puzzled. He cocked his head to one side and raised his eyebrows, his eyes wide with concern.
Jack snorted, unable to help himself. “Whaddya think, Randall? Last time I seen you, you was in handcuffs. Two detectives come all the way up on the mountain to find you ‘n ask you questions ‘bout the forest fire.” He shook his head. “What I don’t understand is how you got your job back without-”
Julia stood up suddenly, drawing all three men’s eyes to her. “Think we could all deal with this situation a little more easily if we had some coffee.” She looked at Jack. “Jack, would you help me bring in the big pot from out back?”
“Sure, uh . . . you gonna be all right, Ennis?”
“Gonna be fine,” Ennis replied, his eyes never leaving Randall’s. “We’ll jus sit tight here until you all get back.”
“Bring me in some a them peanut butter cookies,” Randall said. “Had a hard mornin’ already.”
Jack followed Julia out the front door, across the porch, and around to the side yard, where the locked supply shed stood. Once they had rounded the side of the building, however, Julia stopped and grabbed Jack’s arm. “Thank God you’re here,” she whispered. “I didn’t know what I was going to do. I’ve been alone here with him for the past two days.”
“What? But . . . where’re all the other guys?” Jack put his hand on Julia’s shoulder and squeezed. “Ain’t you got Mark lookin’ out for you? ‘N what ‘bout the guy was made station manager after Randall got hauled off?”
“We’re on light patrol duty, Jack. Most of the men have these two days off for the holiday. There are only three people on, and they’re all out in the far ranges, making sure we don’t have a repeat fire. The new station manager is coming in from Albuquerque, and he isn’t supposed to arrive until Friday.” She swallowed audibly, looking down at the ground, and when she looked up again, Jack could see her eyes glistening in the noon sunlight. “You know how I have the shortwave radio on all the time, for station alerts and dispatches?”
Jack nodded, finding her hand so he could hold it gently.
“Well, day before yesterday I had the police scanner on too, just for company. Hadn’t seen anyone else for hours. Well, at about ten-thirty in the morning the police department down in Taos issued an APB, saying that one of their-how’d they put it? One of their high-risk prisoners, I think, had escaped. They’d put out roadblocks on all the major highways but he’d somehow slipped through. They didn’t think he was armed but they were warning all motorists not to pick up any hitchhikers. I didn’t think too much of it, was catching up on some paperwork while I listened, but when they described him I knew it had to be Randall. Six foot three, dark brown hair, 190 pounds, heavy beard-and burn scars across both forearms. He got those three years ago, when he was working with a fire crew on one of the near peaks.” She stopped for a moment, glancing nervously toward the building, then took a deep breath and continued. “He pulled a couple of mountain lion cubs out of a den right at one of the hottest points of the fire. Got some citations from PETA and the World Wildlife Fund, I think. It was after that that he got promoted to station manager, though in my opinion there were some much better-qualified people in the running.” She sighed and ran a tired hand across her forehead. “Guess the bosses just liked the publicity that he brought the organization.”
Jack’s heart was pounding. “So you been stuck here with him for two days? Ain’t no one come around lookin’ for him? Seems like this would be the first place they’d check.”
“No, not yet.” Julia sighed. “But they will, I’m sure of it. I just don’t want to make him angry in the meantime.”
Jack gave her hand a squeeze and let it go, looking around at the building and surrounding forest as though they might offer a way out of this situation.
“Come on,” Julia said, drawing the key ring out of her pocket. “We’d better get back or Randall’s going to wonder what’s going on. I don’t want to put Ennis in any danger either.” She sighed. “I don’t know what we can possibly do, Jack. Randall’s got a twelve-gauge shotgun and a lot of ammunition stashed behind his desk in the back office. But I feel better knowing that you and Ennis are here now.” She fit her key into the padlock and pushed the heavy plank doors aside.
Peering into the dim interior, Jack said, “You want that big silver pot, right? Think Bruce put it here in the back the last time we was havin’ a meetin’ after shift.”
“Yeah,” Julia said, her voice distant, as though she were thinking about something else. “I’m just going to . . . . Hold on a second, I’ve gotta get something else too. Hmm. OK, here it is. You got the pot and spigot and everything?”
“Yep.” Jack stepped into the front of the shed again, holding the heavy coffee urn against his chest. “Guess we oughta be gettin’ back, ‘fore Ennis lays Randall out cold or somethin’.”
“True,” Julia said, coming up to Jack with her hands full of napkins and wax-paper tubes of cookies. “Let me just lock this up and we can go deal with our little problem again.” She turned her back, pulling the doors into place, and bent to fasten the padlock again. As she straightened, however, Jack saw a strange, bulky outline and the gleam of dull metal from the waistband of her uniform pants.
“Julia, what the fuck! Is that a gun?” Jack tightened his grip on the coffee pot and took a step toward her.
Julia turned to face him. Her face was calm, betraying no emotion. “I’ve been thinking on what to do about this since Randall first showed up here, Jack. Bob Garibaldi, the old station manager, used to keep a gun oiled and loaded in the supply shed-to protect against predators, he said, but I’ve always thought he was referring more to humans than animals. It gets real lonely up here in the mountains, and sometimes people do things you wouldn’t expect. Anyway, I’ve been keeping up the tradition since Bob left. There was something about Randall-I didn’t trust him from the start. And he never comes in here himself-he believes in maintaining the chain of command, and of course that means he would never stoop to getting the supplies.” Shifting her supplies to one hand, she drew the gun out from behind her back and clicked off the safety. “It’s a Colt .45, standard issue, nothing fancy. I learned to shoot from my daddy, years ago. Now that you guys are here, we can end this.” She slid the gun back into her waistband and nodded at Jack, ready to leave.
Jack heaved out a huge breath. His lungs seemed to have shrunk all of a sudden at the sight of Julia’s gun. He and Ennis had both been raised on ranches, places where guns were used every day. Hell, he credited Ennis’s rifle with helping to bring them together in the first place. That elk sure had made good eatin’. But bringing out a gun to help them fight a man-that was something entirely different. Julia was determined, though, and she had already suffered through two days of hell trapped in this man’s company. Jack wasn’t going to stand in her way now.
When they got inside, Ennis was sitting in Julia’s chair, head cocked toward the police scanner. He had the radio headset in one hand and was taking notes on a scrap of paper with the other. Randall was nowhere in sight. When he heard the door open, he looked up and tipped Jack a quick wink.
“What the hell, Ennis?” Jack felt his hands shaking. He hadn’t realized how nervous he had been about leaving Ennis alone with a man who was clearly out of his mind and who had a good twenty-five pounds on Ennis to boot. “Where’s Randall?”
“Oh, he’s in the office.” Ennis set the headset on the desk and leaned back in the chair, grinning up at him. “What took you so long? I was thinkin’ maybe the two a you took it in your heads to run away together or somethin’.” He stood up and moved to take the urn from Jack. “Let’s get some coffee on. We missed lunch, ‘n I think Randall said somethin’ ‘bout some cookies?”
Jack stared at him. “You ‘n Randall best friends now or what? What’s he doin’ in there anyway?”
Ennis carried the urn to the sink on the back wall and turned on the tap to fill it with water. He turned back to Jack, seemed about to speak, then set about clearing a space on the long metal table that stretched along one of the side walls. Finally he looked at Jack. “We was jus talkin’, passin’ the time while you two was gone, but then he got a little smart with me ‘n-well, whyn’t you go see for yourself.” He gestured toward the back office, then leaned against the table, his arms crossed, watching Jack move across the room.
Randall was sitting on the floor of the office, his back against the small bookcase that stood off to one side. His head drooped forward as though he were asleep; Jack could see that his hands and feet were tied together with two lengths of rope.
When Jack’s boot knocked against a box sitting under the desk, Randall’s head jerked upward. His eyes were red and bleary, but his clenched jaw and harsh breaths radiated hostility. “Jack!” he snapped. “Best get me outta here, or you’re gonna be lookin’ for a new job a lot sooner’n you think.”
Jack rolled his eyes. “Thought I saw the last a you up on that mountain, Randall. Tell you what, if I had to deal with your ugly ass again, this is the only way to do it. ‘Sides, you said you didn’t hold with hirin’ no guys like me-even though you was achin’ to get your hands on me yourself.” He shrugged. “Seems a little phony, you thinkin’ I was queer ‘n all, ‘n should be losin’ my job, then grabbin’ my ass the first chance you got.”
Randall growled. “Don’t know what the fuck you’re talkin’ ‘bout. I ain’t no faggot. Only ass I’m gonna be grabbin’ belongs to that juicy set a boobs out in the front office. Knew there was a good reason we kept her on all these years.”
Jack sighed. “Have it your way, then. ‘N don’t come cryin’ to me when Julia kicks your ass.” He backed out of the office and slammed the door behind him.
Ennis and Julia were looking at him expectantly. The radio headset was in Ennis’s hand again, and Julia’s gun lay on top of the desk, five bullets standing in a shining row beside it.
“What?” Jack asked. “I miss somethin’?”
“Everythin’ OK? We could hear Randall shoutin’ all the way out here.” Ennis’s brow was creased, but he looked calmer than Jack would have believed he could.
“Yeah, he was jus . . . smartin’ off. I ain’t gonna take it, ‘n that don’t set so well with him.” He came up to the desk and peered over Ennis’s shoulder. “What’re you writin’ down?”
“Well, while you two was out at the shed, after I took care a our friend there, I radioed down to the Taos PD. Seems that findin’ this guy’s at the top a their list a priorities, so they’re comin’ right away. Said they’d have a guy here in ‘bout half an hour. So Julia ain’t gotta worry ‘bout takin’ on no hardened criminals by herself.” Ennis reached over to pat Julia’s hand. “Not that she needed our help or nothin’.”
“Well, I’m just glad this whole mess is getting straightened out,” Julia said, smiling down at Ennis. “You wouldn’t believe the amount of paperwork I’m going to need to fill out to explain this week to our regional officers. Once Randall is gone, I guess I can get started.”
“Not right away, though, honey,” Jack said. “Me ‘n Ennis’re gonna take you out to dinner first to say thanks for savin’ the station. If you weren’t here Randall probably woulda burned the whole place down. I’m gonna call Amber ‘n get her to take the dispatch for tonight.” When Julia snorted and rolled her eyes, he grinned and shrugged. “I know, she’s probably the worst dispatcher the Forest Service ever hired. Most likely she’ll burn it down too, but at least she don’t smoke or carry a rifle.”
“Good idea, rodeo.”
Jack looked up to find Ennis’s eyes on him, warm with the kind of sugar heat he only showed when the two of them were alone. To let it slip now showed both the tension he had suffered in this situation and his growing comfort with the life they had decided to pursue together. “Thanks. Uh . . . I think I seen a steak place not too far down the main road. Between here ‘n Taos, anyway.”
“Some steak’d sit real good right ‘bout now.” Ennis looked down for a moment, as though realizing he had allowed Julia to see too much of his private self, then gripped the edge of the desk and stood up. “I think for now it’d be best if-”
A loud scuffling and a crash from the back office arrested their attention. Jack started across floor, hearing the blood pounding loudly in his ears, but he was too late. The door swung open, and Randall stood there, tags of rope still hanging from his wrists, aiming a shotgun straight at Julia.
Jack stopped dead in his tracks and held up his hand. Adrenaline surged through his veins, tightening every muscle in his body and making him feel as though his hair were standing on end. “Jus hold it right there, Randall. We all know you don’t wanna do nothin’ you’re gonna regret later.”
Randall’s lips stretched away from his teeth, exposing his canines in a wolflike grin. “Ain’t got nothin’ to regret, Jack. Jus takin’ care a what’s mine.” He sniffed, throwing his head back for a moment. “You all think you’re so smart, tyin’ up the boss, but you don’t know what I got back there in that office. Whole box fulla metal tent stakes under the desk for starters-didn’t take me but a couple a minutes to saw through this rope.”
Ennis shouldered past Jack, coming to a stop so close to Randall that the gun’s muzzle flirted with the middle button of his shirt. “You dumb fuck,” he spat. “You think wavin’ a gun in the air’s some kinda answer to your problems? Think pullin’ the trigger with a pretty lady like Julia nearby’s gonna show her what a tough guy you are? Well, I guess your daddy must be an even dumber fuck than you, if he never told you shootin’ first ‘n talkin’ later never solved nothin’.” He wrapped his hand slowly around the barrel of the gun, never breaking his eye contact with Randall. “Now whyn’t you jus lay this down ‘n we can have ourselves a nice little chat? Real reasonable-like?”
Randall coughed suddenly, a harsh hacking sound that grated through the tension-filled air. It took a few seconds before his three observers realized he was laughing. “Chat, that’s what you wanna do? I don’t think so. We talked too much already, ‘n it got me tied up in the back room. Time for action.” He lifted the gun, shaking off Ennis’s grip, and pressed the muzzle against Ennis’s chest.
Fury suddenly filled Ennis’s brain. A calm quiet seemed to descend around him, as though he were deaf or else standing in the eye of a hurricane. “That’s what you want, asshole? Action? OK, you got it. Go ahead ‘n shoot me. Jus stop flappin’ your jaw ‘n do somethin’ already.” He clamped his mouth shut and stared straight into Randall’s eyes.
With these words, Jack, who had been frozen in place by the two men’s exchange, found his feet again. He leapt forward and seized Ennis’s shoulders with both arms, tackling him to the floor. Ennis grunted and struggled within Jack’s grasp, but Jack’s hands cleaved to Ennis like their body’s second self. He would not let go.
At the same moment, the gun went off. Julia shrieked, and Jack heard the impossibly heavy thud of her body hitting the floor. Nausea filled his gut. He tightened his grip on Ennis, ignoring the other man’s muttered curses and attempts to kick his way free, and reached blindly out for something he could grab onto and behind which the two of them could find shelter. Randall was still looking in Julia’s direction, the gun now hanging unheeded by his side, and Jack had a small hope of finding some kind of weapon they could use against him-even Julia’s gun-if he stayed distracted a little while longer.
Jack held onto Ennis and grabbed for Julia’s desk, scraping his side hard against the headquarters’ rough wooden planks. His biceps screamed with tension, his back ached, and his jaw throbbed as though he’d been gritting his teeth for hours. He could hear Julia sobbing somewhere in front of him, beyond the desk, and that gave him the strength to keep pushing forward. Just as his fingers closed over the smooth cone of the first bullet lying in the center of the desk, he heard a thunderous banging at the main door. “Police!” a man’s voice barked. “Open up!”
“Aw, shit.” Through slitted eyes, Jack saw Randall turn his head, then take a couple steps toward the door. Randall raised the gun again and drew a bead on the door. “Ain’t no one comin’ out!” he shouted. “Open that door ‘n you’ll get a mouth fulla hot lead!” The gun bobbed up and down as he stood glaring down the door, and Jack realized his hands must be shaking.
Ennis butted his head against Jack’s. “Lemme go,” he said into Jack’s ear, his voice low and tight. “Dammit, Jack, I don’t wanna shove my knee into your balls, but you ain’t leavin’ me many options here.”
“Hold on cowboy, I’m jus figurin’ our next move. Can’t have you gettin’ your head blown off now, ‘n I need to see what we can do ‘bout gettin’ Julia outta here too.” Jack shifted a little, firming his grip on Ennis’s upper arm and around his ribcage. He began to edge around to the far side of the desk, but a sudden blur from the back of the room stopped him in his tracks.
Julia jumped out of her crouch against the wall, yelled out what sounded like a nonsense collection of syllables, and hurled something directly at Randall’s head. He had turned to look at her when he heard movement, and he got whatever it was right in the eyes. A moment later, he began to scream.
Craning his neck around to see what had happened, Jack dropped his hold on Ennis, and Ennis shot upward, grabbing the gun off the desk in one fluid motion. He stood and pointed it at Randall, who was on his knees by this time, scrabbling at his eyes with both hands and whining with pain. His shotgun lay on the floor, forgotten.
Jack lay on his back, looking up at Ennis. “You do realize that thing’s unloaded, don’t you?” he whispered.
“I ain’t a dumbass, Jack,” Ennis hissed. “Now jus stay there a minute . . .” He paused for a moment, the muscles bunching in his shoulders, then took three running steps across the floor and coldcocked Randall with the butt of the pistol. Randall hesitated for a moment, his keening temporarily silenced, then he fell over on his side. His head smacked hard against the floor. Ennis dropped the gun and turned toward the main door. “C’mon in!” he hollered. “We got him down on the ground!”
The door burst open and three men came running in, guns held ready in front of them. The man in the lead stopped, holding up his hand to signal the others to do the same. He dug in his pocket and produced a wallet, which he flipped open to reveal a badge. “Oscar Perez,” he said. “Taos PD.” His eyes fell on Jack then, now up on his hands and knees, and he tipped him an ironic little wink. “Mr. Twist. So we meet again.”
“Seems that way.” Jack tried to keep his tone light, but seeing Perez again had rattled him more than all of Randall’s crazy stunts had. What if Perez decided that Jack might have had something to do with the fire after all? Here he was, still hanging around Randall even after the man had been arrested and then had escaped from custody. He stood up and tried to look nonchalant.
But Perez didn’t seem too interested in rehashing Jack’s relationship with his former boss. “OK, boys,” he said to his two companions. “Get Mr. Malone off the floor and into some cuffs. I need to have a few words with these gentlemen here before we can leave, though.” He turned, scanning the room, and started when he noticed Julia sitting against the far wall, staring at him. “Ms. Ringfeder! I’m sorry I didn’t know you were in here. We might have been able to make this a smoother operation if I had. It sounded like there was only one man here when we got the radio transmission.”
“It’s OK,” Julia replied, smoothing her hair back from her face and leaning one arm against the wall as she stood up. “I was out back with Jack getting some supplies when Ennis made the call. It took us a little while to . . . uh, calm Randall down. But it looks like Ennis was able to-”
“Shit! Is that blood on your arm?” Perez was suddenly crouched at Julia’s side, holding her left arm gingerly and peering at her shoulder. “What the hell happened to you?”
“Oh, it’s all right.” Julia was looking down at him, her forehead wrinkled. “Randall got off a wild shot, and it nicked me but only hit the wall. Stung a little but scared me more than anything else.”
Jack came up behind Perez. “Sure you’re OK? I was real worried when I heard you scream.”
Julia scrunched up her nose. “Sorry about sounding so girly. That scream was about half real fear and half a hope that Randall would think he’d finally hurt someone bad enough that he should hightail it out of here now.”
“Well, I think we all owe our lives to you now, Julia.” Ennis had joined their little huddle under the window, and now he was looking at Julia with a warm light in his eyes that made Jack feel a brief but sharp twinge in his chest.
Julia frowned at him and looked away. “I have no idea what you mean.”
“Hell yeah,” Jack chortled. “You shoulda seen her, Perez, she clocked that sonovabitch real good!”
Ennis raised an eyebrow at him and then winked. Jack was glad to see that the extra gloss on those warm brown eyes and the subtle smile were directed his way this time. “True enough,” Ennis said. “Don’t know what she threw at him, but it hurt him bad. She’s got damn good aim, too.”
They all looked at Julia, who shrugged and gave them a slow smile. “Hey, I was the pitcher on my softball team for all four years of high school. It was an easy shot.”
“What’d you throw at him, anyway?” Jack asked.
“Bag of chlorine. We keep a jug of the powdered stuff in the shed to use in disinfecting equipment, purifying water, and other things. I just poured some into a cookie bag and added a little water when we got back inside. I punched a couple holes in the side of the bag with my earring so he’d be sure to get a mouthful.” She laughed. “Guess it isn’t really funny, since I don’t know what kind of damage it’ll do to him, but he certainly had it coming.”
“Good to know,” said Perez. “I’ll make sure the EMTs know what they’re dealing with when they get here.” He nodded at his two men, and they hauled Randall up between them. Randall’s boots thudded against the doorsill as he was dragged unceremoniously out the door. When they had disappeared, Perez looked back and forth between Ennis and Jack, his mouth compressed into a thin, straight line. After a moment, he reached into his hip pocket and removed a small notebook. “Tell me what you two were doing here.”
Ennis introduced himself first, explained about coming up with Jack to find out about a job and finding Randall holding Julia hostage, then described how he had first tied Randall up and then hit him with the gun after he’d fired at Julia. Perez asked some questions but seemed satisfied after only a few reiterations. Jack explained where he had been and why he had returned on this particular day, emphasizing the facts that he and Ennis were old friends and that Ennis had met Randall before, when he’d come up to see Jack on the night of the big fire.
This piece of information got Perez going for a while, but 45 minutes of questioning and a radio exchange with his station house provided enough information to satisfy him. “Just write down both your addresses and phone numbers so I can get in touch with you if I need to. This is going to be an ongoing investigation.”
Jack and Ennis looked at each other. Jack said, “Well, we’re plannin’ on bein’ here, actually. That’s the whole point a this mess.”
Perez snorted and rolled his eyes. “No, you aren’t, actually. I have a feeling that they aren’t going to be taking on any new hires here for a while, and if things go the way I think they will, this station will be run under direct PD supervision with a skeleton crew. At least until we’ve got everything figured out.” He quirked an eyebrow at Jack. “So you’d better both go back down to your wives and your old jobs.”
“Can’t,” Ennis said, sending a jolt of electricity rocketing up Jack’s spine. “We’re both gettin’ divorces ‘n plan on gettin’ jobs together one way or another. If it ain’t here, it’ll be somewheres else.” When he saw Jack’s wide-eyed, open-mouthed stare, Ennis gave a tiny shrug, as if to say, OK, I surprised the shit outta me too. He cleared his throat and went on. “Me ‘n Jack’s, uh, good friends.”
“Yeah?” Perez’s raised eyebrow was now aimed in Ennis’s direction. “Well, all I can say is you boys better be careful. I had me a good friend once too, a real good friend, ‘n I hope things turn out better for you than they did for him.” He hesitated for a moment, seemed about to say something else, then shook his head. “Well, let’s get outta here then. Ms. Ringfeder, can I ask you to ride down to Taos with me? I’ll need you to give me a more formal statement down there, and afterward I can have one of the uniforms give you a ride either back up here or to regional headquarters. We’ll have someone look at that shoulder for you too.”
“Sounds good.” Julia found her purse in the top desk drawer, and they all trooped out the front door.
After Julia was settled in the front seat of Perez’s car and Perez himself was giving instructions to the driver of the other car, Ennis grabbed Jack’s arm and tugged him back toward the side of the building. Jack followed him until they were standing in the shadow of the eaves, visible to everyone in front but out of earshot. “I’m sorry I said that, Jack. ‘Bout kneein’ you in the balls, I mean.” Ennis’s eyes were wet, slightly bloodshot, his hangdog expression making Jack want to smile.
“S’okay. I knew there was no chance you’d ever do that anyway.” Jack smiled at Ennis, and after a moment or two he saw his man’s lips curl slowly up in the sweet, private smile he saw only rarely-and usually when Ennis was lying naked in his arms.
“I, uh, I can’t wait to,” Ennis mumbled something and turned away, back toward the cars, his ears turning red.
“What’s that, cowboy? Think I missed somethin’.” Jack was delighted, pulling on Ennis’s shirt sleeve like a little kid. Nothing made him happier than those moments when Ennis wanted to say something tender so badly that he managed to overcome the self-consciousness that threatened to stop up his tongue.
Ennis turned around again, looking into Jack’s eyes. “I can’t wait to-”
“Jack! Ennis! We’re leaving now. Why don’t you two go get in your truck, and you can follow us down to Taos? I assume you’ll be spending the night there tonight?” Perez was looking at them, his head cocked to one side, and there was nothing for them to do but head down to the far parking lot.
Once they reached the lot, however, Ennis stopped so suddenly that Jack almost ran into him. At this altitude, sound was a funny thing. Sometimes it seemed as though you could hear someone brushing his teeth on the next peak, but today Jack couldn’t hear a thing except the crunch of his own boots on the gravel and the breath pushing in and out of Ennis’s lungs. “Ennis,” he said, turning him around and putting a hand on each of his shoulders. “What is it?”
“Jack,” Ennis said, leaning his forehead against Jack’s and closing his eyes. “I just wanna hold you for a minute. That OK with you?”
“Aw, Ennis,” Jack said, his eyes stinging all at once painfully with tears. “You never gotta ask me that.” He put his arms around Ennis and felt the almost unbearable rightness of Ennis’s arms sliding around him. One of Ennis’s hands rubbed slowly up and down the tight muscles between his shoulder blades, soothing out the tension that had built up over the past hour; the other pressed gently against his lower back. They stood wrapped together for several long, warm moments, rocking slightly. Jack touched his lips to the side of Ennis’s neck and felt him breathe out slowly in response. Finally he heard a distant car horn and pulled away reluctantly. “Better go, cowboy.” They walked slowly to the truck and got in. Ennis shifted the clutch carefully, as he always did on steep hills. Jack smiled at the sight of him, performing an action that Jack himself knew so well. “But you better believe-soon’s I get you in a hotel room down in Taos, there’s no way you’re gettin’ away from me again.”
Ennis drove silently for a moment or two before turning his head toward Jack. He brought the car to a smooth halt at the edge of the parking lot. “I got somethin’ to say to you, Jack.”
“Well, go ahead, then. We ain’t got no secrets from each other, do we?” Jack looked at Ennis, his hand resting just next to Ennis’s on the seat.
Ennis sighed, then moved his hand over to take Jack’s. “It’s jus that-I been thinkin’ on this day a long time. You know what I mean? We met on a mountain, now we’re leavin’ from a mountain again. But this time together.”
Jack swallowed with difficulty. “I know what you mean, Ennis. Never thought this day would come, but here we are after all.”
Ennis’s smile blossomed slowly, as sweet and pure as the first true sun rays on a Brokeback summer morning. “We come up the mountain at different times, but I guess I always knew someday we’d be going down it together.”