[for Younger's Ryan Adams Heartbreaker challenge]
Will you say to me a little rain's gonna come
When the sky can't offer none to me
Always, there is the wind. Long, keening, torn-out, worn-out air that moves in sheets and spirals across the plains. A woman down in Greely went crazy from it one summer, left a half-chopped tree out front and took the axe to her husband and three kids.
Worse than the wind some days is the dust. Grit settles between the old floorboards, coats the butter like skim and chafes his eyelids like the bristle of a horse brush. His children don't know any different, don't remember the wet years or the swish of cottontail or their mother's sad smile. Lance barely remembers himself.
He could take either the wind or the dust, but most days, both seems like too much to ask. Laura used to cover her ears against the wailing gusts, fists bookending her square jaw, and if it hadn't been childbirth that killed her it would have been the wind.
Lance thinks maybe the land's too hard for women. He knows it's too hard for men.
The Saturday train brings a letter from his sister in Texas, fifty-pound bags of flour and a new teacher for the town school. Lance fills the wagon with all the food he can't grow in barren soil and covers everything with a horse blanket to keep out the dust. Martin, the shopkeeper, tells him about the skinny man with the French name who left Colorado years ago for school in Chicago. Now he's back and thinks boys and girls should all come to classes five days a week, even during branding season and harvest.
"If the cows even live long enough to bear new stock," Lance says, and Martin slides the ledger across the counter for him to sign.
"Bound to come someday soon," Martin says. An old Sioux woman told everyone that saying the word rain aloud offended the clouds. People let her starve to death when her husband died and the tribe put her out, but they still won't say it.
Katie's run the house and raised little Jimmy since Laura died. She's fourteen now but she'll be gone soon enough, too. Jimmy will be six in the fall and can rope a small calf by himself.
"So they don't need much schoolin'," Lance explains when the teacher, Chasez, rides out to the ranch to convince him his kids belong in the whitewashed steeplehouse, sharing desks with the banker's sons.
"All children deserve to know there's a world greater than the one they see every day, Mr. Bass." Chasez stands on the threadbare rug with his hat in his hands, and through the open door Lance can see the sun setting over the Rockies.
All his life Lance has lived far from the mountains, from the fast-running rivers and thick green trees the fur trappers tell stories about. All his life on the flat, dry prairie with the mountains in the distance. "No use putting ideas in their heads," Lance says. "And anyway there's too much work to be done during the day."
"All the more reason," Chasez says. "If all they ever know is what they see or what they read or hear about, shouldn't it be more than --" He stops and brushes silken dust where it has gathered on the sleeve of his gray jacket. "More than this?"
"They've got chores. And they're not -- Katie can read and write, and now that Jimmy's old enough she'll teach him herself."
"I could do that," Chasez says, arms open, hands face-up. Silver cufflinks peek out from under his coat. It's twilight and if he doesn't leave soon he'll have to rely on his horse to make it back to town safely. There is a purple sky over his shoulder and Lance thinks it must be the angle of light that paints Chasez's cheek in such delicate shadow.
"I need them days," Lance says. "And there's no money."
Chasez smiles then. "I'll come nights," he says, "and I don't need it."
Lance swallows. This man is like mountains moved to fit in his scuffed, unvarnished parlor. Katie's been sitting by the door with her ankles crossed, silent but watching carefully. "I couldn't pay you nothing," he says. "It's not right."
Katie bounds up and across the long room to stir the pot on the stove. "How about supper, then," Chasez says.
There's no food to spare and Lance can tell Katie knows it from the way she serves herself half. Lance takes the plate out of her hand and claims it as his own with two pieces of hard bread. She's always been small for her age.
"There are books in my saddlebag," Chasez says when the food is gone. He ate neatly and quickly, wiping his mouth after every third bite, and Lance watched Jimmy watching him. Jimmy chewed carefully and thoughtfully, just like his mother would. Chasez says, "We could start right away," and Lance nods.
Jimmy traces letters on a slate while Chasez reads from a thick book with shiny edges. Katie trails along with a finger below each word. There's some kind of shipwreck, and two people in love. Lance swipes his forehead. Laura was a good, strong woman and his father said you can't run a ranch without a wife. There are still many more mountain men than frontier women and Lance was lucky her family let her come so far out to live with someone who had so little to show for it. He was lucky she stayed.
Katie giggles, young and pretty, and Lance lets this strange man with mountains in his eyes teach his daughter about love. But he hasn't ever known love except how he loves the land. When he doesn't hate it. When he doesn't imagine that under a weeping sky everything could be different.
The kerosene sputters and Chasez catches his eye across the table. Katie stumbles with the text and Chasez corrects her, says "caterwauling" without looking away. Lance nods and Chasez stops her at the end of the scene.
"Do you know how to get back?" Lance asks, holding the reins as Chasez toes into the stirrups.Chasez squints down the road, then up at the stars. "I'll find it," he says. His hand comes down in the blackness to fall gently on top of Lance's shoulder, and Lance shivers.
"Let her," Lance says, and his fingers catch in the horse's mane as he tries to back away. "It's darker than you think."
"I know," he says. "You just get used to how things are." He takes the reins from Lance, and Lance tips his hat.
Lance takes on a foreman once a year, when it's time to gather the herd and sell what's ready. Joe used to drive cattle from Mexico to Montana and back. Work is spare for rustlers these days so sometimes he stays on, even when all Lance has left to pay is a bunk in the barn.
Sometimes, nights when it's colder than usual, Lance brings Joe an extra blanket from the chest at the foot of his bed. The first time Joe put his hand around Lance's waist like they were dancing at a county fair, Lance had some idea what would come next. Like how in the heat of mating season a steer will scale another steer out of pure frustration.
Joe shoots his own game and usually eats alone. The barn door squeaks like a rusty wheel when Lance pushes it open. Joe rises to his feet and hay flutters around him. "Been a while since someone rode all the way out here," he says. Joe is tall and thick through the middle, and he's never asked to come inside.
Lance pulls the door shut after him. The hinge hiccups and the stallion whinnies, then quiets. "It's cold tonight," he says, laying the blanket down on the dirt.
Five lessons, once a week, through the tail end of a dry winter and the start of a drier spring. His third visit, Chasez brings a bag of sugar. Lance bites his lip and says, "Thank you." The fourth it's fresh beets from his landlady's garden, Chasez says, as Katie slices them into the soup. Then it's bluebell seeds pressed into the folds of Katie's apron when she isn't looking. "Learning shouldn't make things harder," he says, and tells Lance to call him by his Christian name.
A long week between visits and then JC stands with the sunset at his back and unfurls a frayed tapestry. Knights on white horses line up along paisley-patterned battle lines, and Lance grabs at a corner as it's lifted by a dirty gust. "Careful of the wind," he says. "It'll blow right away."
JC nods, shaking long hair from his eyes. He moves to fold the fabric, like a woman with her laundry. Lance takes a step forward to meet him. JC's knuckles are soft against Lance's weather-beaten hands and his blue eyes darken like a storm's coming. He rings Lance's wrist with slim fingers. "Your girl is smart," he says. "I thought today I'd have her write her own stories."
Lance breathes fire through fallow lungs and says, "What does she know to write about?"
"What does anyone," JC says. He presses a fingernail to the yoke of Lance's palm.
Lance's spine flares, arches beneath his jacket. His mouth waters and he swallows hard. "I know," he says, soft enough that JC leans in. Lance says it again, close by his ear. "I know," he says.
JC slides his thumb under Lance's stiff sleeve. "I know you do," he says, lips feathered across Lance's cheek. The tapestry pulls easily out of Lance's slick hands, and JC tucks it one-handed against his chest.
Katie draws careful words one after another, forehead crinkled in concentration. JC and Lance and Jimmy sit on the wooden bench, backs to the table, and she tells them about princesses and tropical forests and whole cities that flourish under the sea. Lance laughs and Jimmy's head cocks around like a hungry bird. Lance hasn't laughed in a long time.
"For next week," JC says, "I want to know what happens after that." She shuffles the thick paper again and again and nods seriously. Jimmy yawns loudly.
"Go on," Lance says. "Y'all go on ahead to bed." He stands and leans down to kiss Katie on the cheek. She leads Jimmy down the hall to their little room. Lance watches them go and when he turns JC is standing in front of the window, looking out into the dark. "I don't --" Lance starts. "Do you want some whisky? I don't have much to offer you."
JC smiles with half his mouth. "That's plenty," he says.
Lance fetches the whisky from above the stove. It's the last of the bottle and there's barely enough to coat the bottom of the cups. JC takes his silently, holds the handle with three fingers.
Lance tosses his back in one move and says, "What kind of a name is JC?"
"One I gave myself."
"Why?"
JC sips at the edge. "There was nothing else worth taking with me when I left."
The house is dead quiet and the three paces Lance takes to cross the room sound like a reckoning. Like thunder. JC sets his cup on the windowsill and his breath hitches when Lance spreads a hand around his neck, pushing down his shirt. JC's bared throat is hot, smooth and a little damp. Lance shuffles forward the last half-step and presses his nose in the hollow under JC's chin. JC's head tilts back like his neck broke and the hitch becomes a gasp.
Lance heard once that there are people who live in deep pockets of the Rockies, up near Canada. People who turn their backs on God to worship the power of the mountains, even after an avalanche kills their own kin. Lance slides down JC's body to kneel on the uneven planks. He moves fabric aside and buries his mouth against dry heat that radiates like a mirage.
JC's fingers flutter through Lance's hair, rub his temples, knock blindly against his nose and eyes. JC's thighs jerk twice, hard, and when Lance sits back on his heels, head down, JC lowers himself to the floor with a hand on Lance's shoulders for balance.
JC kisses the crease of Lance's mouth, licks at it, wet and hungry. Lance opens his lips, falls backwards, pulling JC along until he is lying outstretched on top of Lance on the cold floor. A coarse tassel on the rug gnaws at Lance's arm and he stands suddenly, dragging JC up under his arms. JC stumbles like a foal but follows closely.
The other bedroom door is shut and silent as they pass, and Lance twists his lock sharply. Cotton sheets ripple against JC's ribs, and he throws his head back again and again until Lance holds on like he's riding bareback. JC moans, bites his lip and snorts impatiently, trying to stay quiet. Lance shudders and grunts, low. The wind shrieks and it almost masks JC's cry.
In the morning, JC's face is still turned into the pillow. Lance's fingers are tangled in JC's hair, and sun shines unrelentingly through the bare window. JC's back is milky, untanned. Protected from the elements, Lance thinks, looking down at his own roughened skin.
JC wakes slowly, for increasing stretches of time, like a fitful thaw. Lance can hear Katie in the front room, cooking. Jimmy's probably out with Joe, throwing bales of hay off the back of a wagon to the herd. The ridges and river beds of JC's spine stand in sharp relief, casting miniature shadows on the low side of his back.
Lance has never known love, has never known beauty or anything but a long, hard day punctuated by meals that were too small and summers that were too unforgiving. Lance has never had a man in his bed, had never thought that a man's eyes, bluer than lakes, could make him want more than he has.
JC's lids flutter and finally stay open. Lance runs his thumb along JC's jaw. "Tell me about Chicago," he says.
JC clears his throat. "There are no mountains," he says, hiding a yawn behind long fingers. He sighs. "Everywhere you look it's flat, and the fields bleed into each other, and the edge of the earth could be beyond the next one and you'd never know it. There's no perspective."
"Is that why you came back?"
"For perspective?"
Lance nods.
"My mother was dying of consumption," JC says. "But I came too late."
Lance's father died at thirty-six, slumped over on a barbed-wire fence and he might have bled all day if the foreman hadn't ridden by and pulled him off. It was too late then, too. His mother lived another ten years before choking on a chicken bone. "I'm sorry," Lance says, and JC shakes his head.
"I left here for perspective," he says. "But I'd forgotten."
Lance closes his eyes as JC dances fingers across his cheekbones. It feels like rain. "Forgotten what?" he whispers.
JC pushes his thumb into Lance's cheek. "Men like you," he says. "People don't -- in the city, people don't know. They don't realize that it takes a life like this to make theirs possible."
Lance blinks and JC's propped up on one elbow, staring down at him. Shears of wind skate around the corner of the house, screaming like coyotes. "I don't do anything like that," Lance says. "This ranch, this land. My father made it come alive. I can barely feed my family."
"It's not you," JC says. "If hard work were enough --"
"It should be," Lance says.
"It can't be. Not here. Not when it never --"
Lance reaches up to kiss JC.
"It's just too dry," JC says.
There's dust in a fine sheen across the kitchen and table, and Katie's left two cups of lukewarm coffee on the stove. Lance adjusts JC's collar. JC sweeps a crumb off of Lance's sleeve from the stale bread they dipped into their cups. They don't speak, but now and again Lance smiles to himself. Once he looks up and JC's caught him. JC grins back, then drops his chin, face pink.
Lance walks with him to the door and Jimmy's standing in the dirt, showing Joe the new knot he learned. Joe's hand rests on the bridle of JC's horse where Jimmy's retied it to the post.
"I can come Saturday," JC says. Lance nods, and JC looks at Joe. "Tell Katie to be ready with her story by then."
JC slings one leg across the saddle. Not awkwardly, but not like a man who has ever ridden for a living, and Lance catches the hint of a sneer on Joe's face.
"I'll come Saturday," JC says again. Lance nods, and Joe slaps the mare on her hindquarters.
Lance lets the dirt kicked up by the horse wash over him. When the hooves have faded, Joe says, "Can't be much that girl hasn't learned already." Lance doesn't answer. "Maybe some things he wants to teach her himself."
Lance looks at Joe sharply. "It's not like that," he says.
Joe draws a circle in the ground with the sharp toe of his boot. "I didn't think so," he says.
Joe's gone Friday morning, tells Jimmy there's a cattle drive outside Cheyenne if he can make it in time. Tells Jimmy maybe he'll be back when he's done. Jimmy asks Lance if he can sleep in the bunk in the barn until then, and Katie loads his arms full of blankets and her spare pillow.
JC rides out Saturday just before sunset, a half-dozen brown eggs cradled in his saddlebag in a nest of hay. "They're for breakfast," he tells Katie, looking at Lance through a flurry of lashes.
"If you get all your schoolwork done tonight," Lance says, and Katie and Jimmy scamper for their primers. JC smiles softly across the table at Lance.
The sky darkens quickly, before the oil lamp has even begun to dim. Lance peers out the window once, twice. He steps through the front door to smell the air.
"Tornado comin'?" Jimmy asks. Lance shakes his head, frowns.
"What's worse than a tornado?" Katie asks.
JC stands and a pencil falls from his fingertips. Lance turns back from the porch, and JC's eyes widen. He pushes back the wooden bench and walks to Lance.
Across the plains, the Rockies are sheathed in a muslin mist. Deep indigo melts down in streaks from the sky to the fields, and when Lance breathes deeply he tastes aspen blooming from miles away.
"What is it?" Katie asks again, pushing between JC and Lance. Jimmy runs out after her and they stand in the heavy dust, squinting.
"It's going to rain," JC says, his voice full of awe like when he reads to the kids. Jimmy whoops and Katie hollers and they spin around in front of the house, arms outstretched. JC looks sideways at Lance.
Lance holds his hands open in front of him, disbelief as thick as the gathering clouds. "A little rain's gonna come," he says, and JC laughs, short and sure. Lance shakes his head and tugs at a button on JC's vest.
"You get used to how things are," JC says, an echo damp with regret and new promise.
The sky cracks open with a sudden shout that rumbles the ground and makes Lance's skin quiver. They stand shoulder-to-shoulder, wristbones bumping, and watch water soak into the earth, sharp flashes of purple lightning illuminating land as far as the eye can see. "This is better," Lance says.
END.
Credits: I kind of feel like I just stole all of Ryan Adams' best lines here and accidentally wound up with a story. Thanks to Younger, for making this a real challenge (happy ending!), and to STO(k), Willa and JaeW for beta, and to Kel, who only slept through part of Butch and Sundance. Given that six months ago I could barely stand to read AUs, let alone consider writing one, I have to give credit to Amber for changing my mind on the subject. The list of genre influences here is long, but chief among them are the miniseries version of James Michener's Centennial and Annie Proulx's Close Range: Wyoming Stories, especially "Brokeback Mountain."