[February 8] [Brokeback Mountain] Once Upon a Time - 8

[rhye.livejournal.com]

Title: Once Upon a Time - 8
Day/Theme: February 8th/Fool's Reward
Series: Brokeback Mountain
Character/Pairing: Jack Twist/Ennis del Mar
Rating: R

Chapter 8

"Hello?" Francine sounded small to her own ears.

"Hello? Is Ms. del Mar there?," asked was a matronly voice.

"Speaking." Fran made a face, though they was no one here to see it. She doubted the woman meant her, but she was the only Ms. del Mar left, what with Junior married. In fact, she guessed she would be the last del Mar at all if she outlived her Dad. Not likely he was going to have any more kids. Specially not him and Mr. Twist...

The voice hesitated. "Do you know an Ennis del Mar?"

"That's my father, ma'am."

"Oh, your father! Oh." The hesitation drew out this time.

"He doesn't live here, ma'am. He doesn't have a phone, but I can give him a message."

"Oh. What a sweet girl. Can I ask you... you don't happen to know a Jack Twist do you?"

Fran eyed her bare feet on the carpeted floor, considering. She was either going to have to tell the woman a lie, or someone else's secret. There was no reason someone should be looking for Mr. Twist by the name del Mar unless they knew too much. "Excuse me, can I ask who this is?" Her voice shook a little, being demanding with an old lady.

"Now that's a good girl." The woman seemed to have more confidence now. "That's alright. I'm Jack's Mama."

Oh. Oh! "Oh! Uh. Mrs... Mrs. Twist. Nice to meet you."

"Well you too. You're a smart one. So then, is Jack around there? I called down to his wife. I know he was planning on a divorce, and it seemed it came through."

"Yeah... Uh, yeah." Fran's finger wound its way around a strand of stray hair. "I guess he an' my dad were lookin' for a place-- some property. They been gone a couple days. They're supposed to come back today, I think." That's what her dad had said at the wedding when he'd introduced Jack and Fran. Fran'd blushed in embarrassment, remembering the names she'd called this man with the kind eyes. She had been surprised to realize Mr. Twist felt like someone she'd always known. "I can take a message if you like."

"That'd be nice." Mrs. Twist sighed heavily. "Jack's daddy died this week, I'm afraid."

"'m sorry to hear that," Francine muttered with practiced obligation.

"Well, I don't think Jack will be. Neitherways, I am an old lady, and I can't run a ranch on my own. It belongs to Jack now anyhow. Hope he didn't put no money down someplace."

"Yup."

"Well, I better go. This call is long distance."

"Yup."

"Nice meeting you, Ms. del Mar."

"It's Francine."

"Francine." There was a smile in Mrs. Twist's voice. "You have a good day now."

"Thank you. You too ma'am."

*****

"I'm tellin' you, there wasn't enough cleared land."

"Think I know more'n you 'bout ranch land, an' there was."

"Don't matter. That old house gave me the creeps."

"Shit. Jack, that was the last place for sale in this part of the state!"

"Well, then, we'll just go to a different part a the state." Jack had reached the driver's side and was pulling open the door with a shrug. He had an innocent look, like this was all just exactly how things were supposed to go down.

"What 'bout that place down in Summit Hill?"

"I told you, with that stream runnin' so close to the house there'll be drainage problems, and besides, that barn needs to be rebuilt."

"Well, we could rebuild a barn, Jack." Warning was heaped on Ennis's words.

"We could, but I got hundreds a thousands a dollars that say we don't have to."

"No one said we had ta spend all the money. Don't you wanna buy no stock or nothin'?"

"Yeah, an' without a barn where you plan on housin' 'em?" Jack climbed in, and Ennis followed suit.

They bumped in silence back down the country dirt road until they finally met the interstate. Ennis felt like his insides were all bounced to pieces, and he sure hoped it was the road and not Jack's sheer idiocy. "You a fool, you know that? You this picky we'll never get a place. I'm tellin' you, the place on Summit Hill was it."

"Like hell it was."

"Well. I think you're a damn fool to let that place go, but it's your money." Ennis shut his mouth and stared out the window at the pavement pointing straight towards Riverton. They'd been gone a couple days, sleeping in the truck. It hurt even Ennis's old bones, and he imagined Jack's rodeo breaks might be screaming, but Jack didn't complain. Now Jack was eying Ennis from the driver's seat, looking too thoughtful. Still, neither sad anything until they were pulling back into the gravel drive of Ennis's trailer, evening full fallen. They pulled in beside a car Ennis recognized.

Francine was sitting on the step again, a mirror image of that day... Ennis steeled himself for the worst, and hopped out before Jack put the truck in park, hoping to head off the firestorm.

But there wasn't any firestorm. Francine stood, but there was something fallen about her.

"You alright?," Ennis asked.

She nodded at her feet. "I got a message. For Mr. Twist."

Jack was pulling himself out of the truck. "Francine? That you?"

It was a silly question. Ennis had introduced them not a couple days ago.

"Mr. Twist." She squinted Jack's direction. Ennis turned to see the setting sun like a halo behind Jack and his truck.

"Call me Jack?"

She ignored him, barreling ahead, still the same Francine Ennis had known before the gulf of time and age and cheer-leading practice had parted them. "Your mother called."

Jack froze in the act of gathering his things from the truck bed, and turned towards her. "What was that now?"

"Your mother called," she said again, sounding smaller. "She asked me to give you a message."

"Well now, let's all go in, set around the table and talk," Ennis interrupted, uncomfortable with the knowledge that Jack's mother must have gone through a lot of trouble and swallowed a lot of pride and good sense to contact Francine.

Jack nodded, Francine nodded, and in five minute's time, that's exactly where they were. Francine was moving her hands in her lap, windbreaker pants pulled tightly across her thin hips. The silence was awkward, no one knowing when to start. Ennis saw himself then as Francine's father, the one who had to make this okay for her somehow. He reached and tapped her shoulder. "You had a message for Jack?" He tried to smile to ease the way.

"Uh, yeah, um." She cleared her throat, but didn't look up. "Mr. Twist, you mother called. Wanted me to tell you your father died this week." She spared a glance across the table.

Jack leaned back, exhaled, looked down at the table. "She seem alright?"

"Um. Yeah. Yeah she seemed alright."

"That's good. Thank you." Jack met Francine's eyes across the Goodwill table, and even Ennis could tell something was shared in that instant that he wasn't privy to.

"She say anything else?"

"Yeah, uh. She said the ranch was yours now. Hoped you hadn't found another situation or nothing." Francine looked up at her father now, questions in her eyes.

"No, we didn't find no place," Ennis answered, thinking about Jack's pickiness. He looked down, working his own hands in his lap.

Jack's laugh rang stiffly. "Yeah. Yeah we did."

Ennis's head shot up.

"We are moving to Lightning Flat." Jack's smile was genuine now, and he winked at Francine, who answered with a firecracker smile of her own.

"You're a fool," Ennis muttered.

"Yeah. But I'm a fool with a ranch."