Original: Wyoming (PG)

[darkseaglass.livejournal.com]

Title: Wyoming
Author:darkseaglass
Fandom: Original
Warnings: None
Rating: PG
A/N: Special thanks to slodwick for doing a wonderful job of hosting this challenge. (More notes at end.)





Wyoming winters weren't the things of brochures. They weren't no vacation destination, as Annie in town was wont to say. But most days, between when school let out and pop headed back from the far west pastures, Jake could eke out a spot of time to sit himself down on a crate and listen to Gabriel Dell read. That was if he was quick about slopping the pigs and muckin' out the stalls, and iffin' the snow weren't deep enough that the half acre slope between his father's place and the Dell's place just north became impassible.

Gabriel—Gabe—was partial to reading wild stories, and Jake was partial to listening. He'd save out half his sandwich or a small packet of grapes from the lunch his mama packed to share with Gabe whilst Gabe read.

Gabe had been new in school that fall. No one took to him much at first. It were more than just his big city words or candy way of dressing. Gabe didn’t fit Carbon. He was slight and pale, like he'd never seen fit to ride a horse across green pastures in summer, and there was no sureness in his step. Excepting when he read to Jake from one of his books. Then it were as if he’d stepped out of the pages. A body might believe his empty hand held a sword or the snowy crate where he stood were some Mogul's mountaintop reclaimed.

So Gabe would come across after school, always leaving before Jake's pop came back. If pop ever noticed an extra set of boots trodding down the snow, then he never said, and Jake sure as well had enough sense not to let on about it. Something deep told him his father wouldn’t approve of Gabriel Dell.

It worked fine between them, Jake and Gabe, such as it was. Until one day Jake’s mama invited Gabe to stay for supper. "Gabriel," she said. "What a beautiful name. Just like an angel." Gabe had to blush at that but Jake laughed, and Jake's father glared at him like a basilisk come to life from out the pages of one of Gabe's books. Gabe’s books were always filled with basilisks or strange creatures like that.

It snowed that night while they ate and kept straight on after supper. Jake's mama put extra marshmallows in their hot chocolate on account of Gabe being company and all. Jake had been thirteen that past summer, but he'd never had a friend stay over, not for supper and surely not for the whole night, which is what happened that night, seeing as the snow kept falling and there weren't no moon to make Gabe's passage easier. Mama listened to Gabe's stories with delight and Jake felt somehow proud of bringing home a friend who made her beam like that, until he saw his father's face, peering at the three of them from above the newspaper he read in the far corner of the drafty room, ringed by dim table lamp's light, beyond the safe glow of the fire.

In bed that night, head to foot, Jake asked Gabe about Chicago and what life had been like there. Gabe's voice went soft and solemn, just like it always did when he spoke of home.

"Do you still miss it bad?" Jake asked.

Jake couldn't see none in the dark, but somehow he knew when Gabe nodded.

The snow kept falling and the room was cold, clever drafts squeaking in around the window pane. Jake’s bones felt chill, the whole of him shivering excepting a little slice of bare ankle that rested against Gabe's warm shoulder.

Come spring, Jake taught Gabe to sit a horse and how to swing from the rope over the creek without breaking his legs in the shallows. The days grew longer with daylight left after chores, so sometimes they’d ride clear out to Mason’s hill. Gabe loved it there. He was fascinated by the flagstone grave markers, especially the Spires family, all seven in one tragic row. They’d died in a fire, and Gabe said it was the worst way to go, your skin charred through and breathing flame.

One night, late on in August, the two of them fell clean asleep lying out there by the cool stones, stretched on top of Flora and Jenny Lynn Spires. Jake was certain he’d be tarred alive come morning when he slunk home, but pop just fixed him with a look and said the cows were late to be milked and didn’t say a word more about it ever.

Jake was never sure what happened the next week in the barn. He’d come back from fetching old Rex after the latch on the corral gate done broke again. He tied Rex on the end of the chain, then headed toward the barn with the bucket to fetch him back some water . But Rex turned toward the barn and started barking like when that wolf had come in close last spring. The barn door burst open and then Gabe come tearin’ out and kept running straight on past him. Jake called after him, but Gabe wouldn’t stop. His sneakers left silver footprints in the grass behind him.

Jake stood there dumbstruck until his mama yelled for him from out the kitchen window. “Jake, can’t you hurry with that damn dog and go fetch your father? Dinner’s spoiling on the table.”

Jake didn’t know what he’d find in the barn, or why he was so scared to step inside and find it. What he saw was Gabe’s thumbed copy of 1000 Nights lying open on a half-forked bale of hay. Dust motes in the air. The goats stepping and bleating.

The feed door was open on the other side of the barn, a frame of light facing west made of purple and orange and pink shimmer. The shadow of his father was black against all that light, a rope coiled in his hand, slowly walking away.

--
Thank you to msktrnanny and joyfulseeker for helping me brainstorm. A wiser person would've used one of their ideas. Special thanks, also, to shinycuba who never blocked me for repeatedly and randomly wailing at her, in all caps, about dead goats.