Wedding Woes (scion)
Oct. 9th, 2010 09:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
measured_wordsA story written for one of my games - kind of a story filler/character exploration bit. No idea how much sense it will make to others!
Wedding Woes
Everyone seemed to be getting along, but Simon felt awkward. Despite appearances, there was a nasty undercurrent to some of the conversations, and while he didn’t think it was directed at him, the lack of certainty was troubling. The Mitchells far outnumbered the Holmes faction, and even if he were better at breaking into insular clusters of total strangers, they didn’t really seem like his crowd anyway. Sam had married true to type, he supposed. She’d be a great ranch wife, and to the best of his knowledge that’s what she’d always wanted. He knew the Holmes’s had a ranch of their own up north a bit, and while he hoped that might relieve some of the family tensions, he didn’t dare ask about it. Feeling like almost any conversation he struck up could turn into a catalyst for disaster, he sat quietly alone, nursing the ice melt at the bottom of another rye and ginger. Watching the throng of party goers whirl around him, happy for the most part, he felt very set apart, and the uninvited reflections on his experiences of the past term - even the past few days – did nothing to abate the feeling.
The sad thing, he realized, was that this whole…. son of a god thing didn’t really change things much in that respect. It just gave him an excuse. He almost felt less bad, until it made him feel guilty, and he blessed and cursed the open bar. The empty glass taunted him – he’d lost count, but he thought it was maybe his fourth or fifth, and he still felt more or less alright. There was none of the heavy-headedness he might have expected six months ago… or was it more?
The urge to hide in his phone was strong - to hide behind the lcd screen like it was a shield and pry his way into another, safer world. But it seemed too much like flaunting the fact that he didn’t belong – if he were going to be that kind of rude, then he may as well leave. And he would, he decided, as soon as he reasonably could without it seeming too insulting. If only he had some idea of when that might be… One more drink? Wait until the next slow dance? Wait the next 18 minutes until 10 PM rolled around? Whichever came first?
His mother was making nice with Uncle Gordon and Aunt Mel, which was easier for her since she and Mel got along quite well despite the fact that their husbands had barely spoken in some fifteen years. Simon had been surprised to see them at all, but Sam had given them both hugs after the ceremony, and made her father and uncles sit in the same family portraits and smile. Or something like it. Maybe she didn’t care anymore, or was hoping for some reconciliation greater than ‘grin and bear it’. His own father (only not…. He couldn’t dislodge the thought) was off in the corner, laughing it up with Uncle Jackson and some of their cousins. He’d sat with them at the church, and of course he was staying at home, and had seen plenty of them over the past day, and would again tomorrow. It wasn’t that he expected, or even wanted, them to keep him company, but it was hard not to feel a little like he’d been set adrift.
As though she was reading his mind – or as though she realized he’d been watching her – his mother glanced over and shot him an inquiring look. He smiled back, rattled the ice in his empty glass, and stood, as though to head to the bar. Maybe it was time to leave.
“Hey there, mama’s boy, you got your truck?”
Jordan just laughed at the look he gave her, and punched him lightly on the arm. “I need to get out of this damned dress, and you look set for escaping so – drive me back to the ranch?”
He sighed. “Sure.” It was a pretty enough dress, as far as bridesmaid dresses went – strapless, cornflower blue with a white lace shawl – but he hadn’t seen Jordan wear anything but jeans since her mother had given up on dressing her nice for church. That was probably close to fifteen years ago, too.
Simon’s truck was old and had a lot of miles on it, but he was sorry to be trading it in on his return trip even for a newer model. He patted it on the hood after unlocking the passenger side door for his cousin, and then slipped in behind the wheel. It still started smoothly, despite having developed a few quirky rattles over the past few years, and he and Jordan rode in relative silence until they left the city limits behind. Eventually she glanced over.
“Good to be back?”
“Yeah…”
Jordan snorted. “Real convincing there, cuz. You’re not fooling anyone.”
Simon eyed her. She was giving him that patented unimpressed look that she’d perfect by about age thirteen. The quiet rattling of the engine grew louder as the truck accelerated.
“Geez – I just mean – it’s clear you’re outta sorts. So, what is it?”
“Oh, just…” He knew he wasn’t going to be able to put her off, not with a half hour drive still ahead of them. But there were so many things, and most he couldn’t talk about. “Worried about some school friends.”
Jordan smirked. “How much trouble can they get into in what… a week? Are you even gonna be here that long?”
He sighed, thinking about the message he’d forwarded from Ambrose, the previous night’s conversation, and the party they were meant to be attending that night. But what could he do from Wyoming, anyway? “Guess we’ll see.”
“Your mom told me about your girlfriend who got killed…”
“Wow, Jo.” He shook his head. “First – she wasn’t my girlfriend. Secondly, just…no. Didn’t we just come from a wedding? Are we supposed to be thinking about happy cheery things?”
“Well, I was pretty cheery ‘til I wrangled a ride home with the moodiest Mitchell of all…”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be, Si.” She gave him a light shove. “Just noone knows what’s going on with you. There’s all kinds of crazy stories, and the first time you make it home this year – and I’m guessin’ only because you had to – it’s like you’ve got your own little storm cloud that follows you everywhere.”
“Am I really that bad?” The last thing that he’d wanted to do was spread negative energy. He’d been happy enough to be coming home for most of the drive up. But he was worried now, and the things that worried him just reinforced his feelings of alienation. “I wasn’t that bad this afternoon was I?”
“Please – no one was paying you any attention this afternoon.”
“Good.”
“You happy for Sam?”
“She seemed happy… So, yes. I just want everything to work out, for everyone.”
“Yeah, well.” Thankfully, she didn’t see inclined to push on that subject for now, even though she was one of the most adamant insisters that none of the family ranch lands be given over for mining or natural gas, despite the rich resources suspected to lie beneath the surface. The issue had been the heart of internal disputes in the Mitchell family ever since the death of patriarch Samuel Mitchell. Samantha, Jordan’s sister, was the eldest of her generation, and named after her grandfather. “Things are working out for her, anyway.”
“Good.”
“You know what? We should go camping.”
The suggestion seemed to come from nowhere, and Simon eyed his cousin again as he brought the truck down to a more reasonable speed to pass through a well known speed-trap. “What? When?”
“Tonight. I always have stuff ready – just to take off for a while, get away from everything.”
“Jordan, it’s barely even *May*. It’s not supposed to be much above freezing…”
But she just grinned. “That’s what the fire is for, dumbass. Look, maybe it would do you good. And if not, it’s just a night, right?”
And it was just a night. And it would give Nàm a chance to stretch her wings properly. And maybe it would be good to get away and just do some thinking. Or maybe even talk with his cousin… And if the thought of being out in the wild was so unsettling, maybe he should have a shot at figuring why.
“Oh sure,” he answered finally. “Why not?”
________________________________________
Jordan drove out to what she called ‘the back property’ – an hour or so out into the Mitchell ranchland, up along the river near some of the higher buttes. Simon’d dragged out an old sleeping bag and some extra blankets and tossed them in the back with the rest of Jo’s supplies, and borrowed one of his dad’s (but not his father’s) warmer coats. He nodded as she recited a litany of landmarks he half-remembered and could barely see, feeling guilty about being so out of touch. He hadn’t been even this far out in years – not since he’d left home for college. The waning gibbous moon spilled light over the ground, but Jo seemed to have a pretty good idea of where she was headed even in the dark.
“…And there’s the shelter, just up there.” It was visible in silhouette – a three-sided roofed structure in the shadow of the rock outcrop, a stone’s throw away from the river. “If we hadn’t left so late I’d have taken you to a better place, but this’ll do for a drink. If you can still take it straight. I think university life’s made you go all soft.”
“It’s been awhile.” Since high school, she was right on that. He’d never really fit in with the crowd in his first program, and by the time he’d met up with Connie and the others, the habit had lost its appeal. But he couldn’t come back home and not have a rye and ginger, even if it turned out his grandfather was no relation at all. And it seemed his tolerance had improved as of late. He almost felt like another person as he helped her carry their gear while she checked the shelter for snakes. There was a little pile of firewood and he kicked it idly, displacing a couple of little lizards that scurried off into the night. He knew Nàm was nearby somewhere too, though he wasn’t sure where. His phone had lost signal a little while ago, and he felt even more lost without some connection to the outside world on hand.
“Well, I lifted a bottle of Jack off daddy, and since that’s all I could turn up, you’ll just have to suck it up, city boy. We’re good in here though – you still know how to start a fire?”
“Does it still require two and a half bottles of lighter fluid?”
She snorted. “That was Sam.”
“Not how I remember it.” He picked up some of the smaller branches, snapping them into sticks of kindling and setting them out in the rock circle.
“We were what – twelve?”
“*I* was twelve… And as you were all too fond of reminding me at the time, I’m a boy, so that counts for less.”
She shook her head as she set out some blankets close to the fire pit, switching off her flashlight after Simon managed to get the kindling lit – and with no lighter fluid at all. “Ahh, those were the days. Sometimes I wonder what happened….”
“You know what happened.” He sat back on one of the blankets. “Is it always like that, I wonder? Someone dies, and then just everything changes…”
“Glad I didn’t bank on making it back to cheery…” Jordan shook her head, cracking open the seal on the bottle. “Thinking about your friend?” She took a swig and passed it to Simon, holding it out until he finally gave in and took it from her.
“A bit.” He swished the bottle, watching the amber liquor glow in the firelight. It was cold, and he didn’t particularly feel like drinking. It just made him think of Nils – that and it apparently had very little effect. “Some girl from out of town was murdered last night, back h-…. In College Station. One of my friends found the body.” It was hard not to feel a little morbid. He as though the world was rushing on all around him, and there was nothing he could do about any of it, good or bad. It was a strange, wrong, feeling, but not something he felt comfortable examining.
“Shitty deal.” She took the bottle for a swig, passing it back despite his lingering resistance. “Just one more trouble on the pile?”
“I guess so.” Was he really that transparent? Of course, there were a slew of reasons this new murder bothered him, even if he’d never met the victim. Beyond vague musings about what it would mean for her friends and family, it meant that people he cared about were in danger and there was very little he could do for them. “I just feel really cut off from everything.”
“Ha. Si, your problem is you think that’s a bad thing. Have a drink.”
“Isn’t it though?” Of course she wouldn’t understand. Jordan had always been independent – she had everything she needed to disappear into the wild at a moment’s notice, and from what he’d seen of her gear, he wouldn’t be surprised if she could go for weeks with no company but her own. But she’d still worn a cornflower blue dress for her sister’s wedding, so, who knows. “ I just…. I don’t know.” He always found it hard to express himself coherently aloud. Everything seemed clearer when he could put it in writing, but he’d been avoiding doing that as well. “Like I don’t know who people are, really, or what they want from me, or even what I’m supposed to be doing…” He stared at the bottle. There was so much more to it than that, of course.
She eyed him sidelong. “You’d better know what you’re supposed to be doing, running off to be a computer doctor or whatever it is.”
“Thanks.” And then he did take a drink. It tasted horrible. Jordan sighed.
“You are touchy, ain’t you? I just meant – what, how long you been in school now?” She took the bottle back and set it down at her feet, looking a little guilty.
Simon just shook his head, not answering right away. Would he even really have a chance to finish? He’d thought he was on track – he was getting ahead of himself in terms of the research, even. But that was just holding fast to the familiar. If it was important, now, it was only to him. Was he being selfish then? Or cowardly? He’d had to get an extension on one of his papers to be able to come to the wedding at all, despite the weeks of all-nighters he’d been pulling to keep up with everything. Multiple weeks without sleep couldn’t be sustainable in the long run, could it? And was it worth it?
“Simon?”
“Just thinking.”
“Well, tell me about it then. I mean… folks here, we just don’t know what you’re doing, really. Your parents are plenty proud of you, people are always asking how you are. Everyone knows you’ve gone off to school, that’s you’re gonna be a doctor of… computer technology, or computer science, or some internet thing. And it sounds right impressive and all, but then they ask, ‘and what’s he going do with that?’ and no one knows what to say.”
He sighed again, reaching for the bottle – it was going to be a long night, and this was proving a worse and worse idea. “It isn’t like I haven’t explained it. It’s communication, not computers. And I’m looking at issues of privacy and identity online. There’s lot of things I can do with it – I actually just opened a business where I can show people what kinds of information is available about them online, and how to protect that information.”
“See, you say, ‘online’, I hear ‘computers’. Hell though, you know I’m not the one to explain this stuff to. I don’t even use my phone much. Drives mom nuts.” She shook her head. “But what do you *want* people to know? Is that it? What your studying? I mean... you ain’t happy.”
“No.” He didn’t know what he wanted people to think of him, but he certainly wasn’t happy. “Its not school, though. School is fine.”
“Then, look. First off, if you’re not gonna hit that Jack again, then pass it back.” She nodded and held her hand out while he took a swallow, then took one herself before continuing, setting the bottle between them. “Second then - I know we haven’t been close in a while, so maybe you don’t wanna talk with me. But someone? What about your dad?”
His panic at her unexpected suggestion must have shown in his face, and he stood up quickly, taking the liquor with him. “I can’t. I really can’t.” The cold night seemed to press in all around him, the near desert landscape casting ominous shadows in the moonlight. He looked around, but there was nothing in the sky but the moon and stars. If his raven was perched in any of the few trees that grew near the riverbank, he couldn’t pick her out among their gnarled branches. It was too easy then, as he choked down another mouthful of burning whiskey, to understand his friend’s battle with the bottle. But he knew it was false refuge, and he wasn’t sure if the same was true for Nils.
“Simon! What’s wrong between you and uncle Arthur?” He could hear surprise and real concern in her voice, but he couldn’t turn around.
“Nothing! Nothing. He’s just not...” There was nothing just about it. Dinner after he’d gotten in yesterday, listening to talk about the wedding, planning how they wanted him to help out with last minute errands for the ceremony and reception, the later conversation with just the two of them about the truck, asking how school was, they were all such normal things, but he’d felt estranged. He couldn’t put the knowledge out of his head, couldn’t forget that it really did mean something, and that his life really had changed. He felt so angry, at himself for betraying the man who’d raised him, at Odin, even a little at his mother.
“Not what?”
“My father.” He said it quietly, but the night carried the admission. It hurt to say it, but he couldn’t keep it in.
“Simon, you’re drunk. Come sit back down.”
“I’m not drunk! I’m not..... he’s not my father, and I don’t belong, in this family, or here...” The power of his anger left him quickly, lacking any viable target. It wasn’t Jordan’s fault, but nor was there anything she could do.
“If you’re not drunk, you’re crazy. Get your ass back over here with my booze and talk some damned sense.”
He could hear the crackle of the fire behind him, shifting as she added wood. She’d still sounded worried, and serious, and he couldn’t face her. Instead he sat where he was, setting the bottle an arms length away, and hanging his head, feeling petulant and helpless. She let him sit, though he could feel her eyes on him. The cold seeped up into him from the ground, settled into his bones from the air. He wanted to get up and run - to be as lost as he felt - but the wildness of the landscape hemmed him in.
He didn’t hear her get up, lost in the downward spiral of his thoughts, until she wrapped a blanket around his shoulders, and plonked herself down beside him. “Okay, Si, you’ve gotta explain this to me, ‘cause I can’t think anything wrong of your mother.”
“She didn’t do anything wrong. It was a clinic thing.” It wasn’t her fault. He didn’t know the whole story, but he was sure of that. “I think ...the doctor just lied to her.”
“She told you this?”
“No, but I asked her about it.”
“Why?”
He shook his head. That wasn’t something he could answer.
“Alright, I’ll leave that one. So.... Somehow you think your mother got, I don’t know what, the wrong sperm, and somehow that means you’re not one of us?”
“I’m not.”
She snorted. “Do you want to be?”
It cut - straight to the heart of his guilt. It would be easier, it would relieve him of responsibilities and burdens he’d been running from for years, and he knew it. But it would also relieve him of years of something far more precious, and even considering the trade off made him feel wretched. “I don’t want to lose my family.”
“Why would you?” She shook her head, then gave him an uneasy look. “This.... isn’t about the ranch is it? No one is going to take your inheritance on account of someone else’s screw up.”
He rubbed his temples, sighing in frustration. “No. Yes. Sort of. I just don’t feel qualified? To deal with any of it.”
Jordan gave him a friendly pat on the back. “Well, Si, that’s fair - because you’re not. But that has nothing to do with who your daddy is or isn’t.”
How to answer that? She wasn’t wrong, maybe, but it didn’t really help. Risking a glance her way caught him a sympathetic grin as she took a long pull from the whiskey.
“Okay. Let me be serious, cuz. Our family right now is a big mess, with a lot of trash brushed under the rug for Sam’s do - I’m pretty sure she threatened to shoot people if they didn’t behave. They’re brothers, and they’re adults, and if they can’t sort it out why should it fall to you?”
“Who else?”
She chuckled, passing him back the bottle. “Well, you know how I see things. Even more than daddy, I don’t think there is any kind of compromise to be had. If you let developers on the land, they’ll poison it. And maybe it’ll be an accident, and maybe it won’t, but it’ll hurt the fish, the wildlife... I don’t wanna get into a spiel, because that’s not what you asked. But I don’t see it as a choice, as for what to do. And there’s already damage,” she continued despite her disclaimer. We’re not so far away from the big mines. And Daddy, and your daddy too, have had to run people off here, who’ve come out to do prospecting or whatever without permission. Or with uncle Gordon’s ‘permission’... Well, that’s what they say, though I guess he won’t cop to it.”
“He’s not a bad guy...” And Simon wanted to believe that, despite some of the emails he received now and then that made him feel like he was being courted - trying to build a connection based on some sense that he was more modern, more forward thinking than the rest of his family. It always seemed kind of sleazy, though he knew in some sense he was trying to look out for his family as much as himself.
“No, maybe not, even if he is an asshole. But my point is he’s still family - and I guess that’s what makes it all harder? For all of us. I’m sure we seem like right stubborn, selfish bastards to him, too.”
Simon nodded, drinking and wondering if she’d meant to include him in that ‘we’ or not. “I just... I’ve been trying to stay out of it. And now.. I feel too out of it. Does that make sense?”
“Dear God, I hope there’s more to being a Mitchell than family in-fighting.” She shook her head. “I get you, though. But look - you wanna be a Mitchell? We can do that.” She held out her right hand, taking her knife in the left, and drawing a thin line of red across her palm, then gestured carefully to him. “Your turn.”
He hesitated, considering the implications. But he couldn’t tell her no, and he couldn’t tell her why. He wanted to belong, and he wanted her on his side. It was a pivotal moment, and he let himself see through other eyes. Nàm’s perspective was strange, much closer to ground level than he’d expected. It was good to know she was close. The night had much less impact on her vision, and he could see himself and Jordan quite clearly as he offered his hand to her knife. Blue ties of Fate were strong around them, binding them together, binding both to the land as she took his bleeding hand in hers.
“There, Si. Now its blood - you’re one of us, dramas and all. Now - if can we go back to the fire, I can tie that off for you so you don’t bleed all over your daddy’s coat.”
“That makes you part of...the other, too, Jo.” The cut on his hand was throbbing, and there was a corresponding pressure in his head - portent rather than pain. It was strange to watch himself from so far away as he stood, set in relief against the sky with the butte behind them. He was still learning to interpret what he saw, but he didn’t see that he’d put her in any immediate danger - if anything, he felt more like she was someone he could trust, and that he owed her the same. She was tied to the land as well, much more strongly (and less strangely) than he. He followed her back over to the fire, a little unsteady on his feet, looking back down at his hand with his own eyes and making a fist as the blood dripped down to the hungry earth. “Be careful about that.”
She snorted again, fetching the first aid kit from her truck, seemingly unconcerned with her own wound. “Well if I start acting any weirder, I’ll know what the cause is.” She wrapped her hand quickly, taking more time with his. “Do you feel any better now?”
“A little.” His father was not his father, his friends were getting into some danger a thousand miles away, and he was still struggling on a daily basis with a world of strangeness he only barely understood. But some of the feeling of disconnection had abated. “You’ll take care of this place, won’t you?” He didn’t say ‘for me’, though she probably knew to interject it.
“That’s what I do,” she retorted dryly. “Now grab the JD, come sit down, and let’s, I don’t know. Talk about something nice for a bit. It’s been ages, you know. Tell me something... about your city. Or your friends. Not trouble things - just, who they are.”
He nodded, thinking to glance over to where Nàm had been watching. There was no raven, but he saw some other dark shape slinking off into the night, familiar yellow eyes reflecting in the firelight as it turned to look back. It was less worrying than it should have been - something he could look into later. For now, he huddled in his blanket, tossing another log on the fire and taking another drink before passing the bottle back to his cousin and daring to open up to her, just a little bit.
Wedding Woes
Everyone seemed to be getting along, but Simon felt awkward. Despite appearances, there was a nasty undercurrent to some of the conversations, and while he didn’t think it was directed at him, the lack of certainty was troubling. The Mitchells far outnumbered the Holmes faction, and even if he were better at breaking into insular clusters of total strangers, they didn’t really seem like his crowd anyway. Sam had married true to type, he supposed. She’d be a great ranch wife, and to the best of his knowledge that’s what she’d always wanted. He knew the Holmes’s had a ranch of their own up north a bit, and while he hoped that might relieve some of the family tensions, he didn’t dare ask about it. Feeling like almost any conversation he struck up could turn into a catalyst for disaster, he sat quietly alone, nursing the ice melt at the bottom of another rye and ginger. Watching the throng of party goers whirl around him, happy for the most part, he felt very set apart, and the uninvited reflections on his experiences of the past term - even the past few days – did nothing to abate the feeling.
The sad thing, he realized, was that this whole…. son of a god thing didn’t really change things much in that respect. It just gave him an excuse. He almost felt less bad, until it made him feel guilty, and he blessed and cursed the open bar. The empty glass taunted him – he’d lost count, but he thought it was maybe his fourth or fifth, and he still felt more or less alright. There was none of the heavy-headedness he might have expected six months ago… or was it more?
The urge to hide in his phone was strong - to hide behind the lcd screen like it was a shield and pry his way into another, safer world. But it seemed too much like flaunting the fact that he didn’t belong – if he were going to be that kind of rude, then he may as well leave. And he would, he decided, as soon as he reasonably could without it seeming too insulting. If only he had some idea of when that might be… One more drink? Wait until the next slow dance? Wait the next 18 minutes until 10 PM rolled around? Whichever came first?
His mother was making nice with Uncle Gordon and Aunt Mel, which was easier for her since she and Mel got along quite well despite the fact that their husbands had barely spoken in some fifteen years. Simon had been surprised to see them at all, but Sam had given them both hugs after the ceremony, and made her father and uncles sit in the same family portraits and smile. Or something like it. Maybe she didn’t care anymore, or was hoping for some reconciliation greater than ‘grin and bear it’. His own father (only not…. He couldn’t dislodge the thought) was off in the corner, laughing it up with Uncle Jackson and some of their cousins. He’d sat with them at the church, and of course he was staying at home, and had seen plenty of them over the past day, and would again tomorrow. It wasn’t that he expected, or even wanted, them to keep him company, but it was hard not to feel a little like he’d been set adrift.
As though she was reading his mind – or as though she realized he’d been watching her – his mother glanced over and shot him an inquiring look. He smiled back, rattled the ice in his empty glass, and stood, as though to head to the bar. Maybe it was time to leave.
“Hey there, mama’s boy, you got your truck?”
Jordan just laughed at the look he gave her, and punched him lightly on the arm. “I need to get out of this damned dress, and you look set for escaping so – drive me back to the ranch?”
He sighed. “Sure.” It was a pretty enough dress, as far as bridesmaid dresses went – strapless, cornflower blue with a white lace shawl – but he hadn’t seen Jordan wear anything but jeans since her mother had given up on dressing her nice for church. That was probably close to fifteen years ago, too.
Simon’s truck was old and had a lot of miles on it, but he was sorry to be trading it in on his return trip even for a newer model. He patted it on the hood after unlocking the passenger side door for his cousin, and then slipped in behind the wheel. It still started smoothly, despite having developed a few quirky rattles over the past few years, and he and Jordan rode in relative silence until they left the city limits behind. Eventually she glanced over.
“Good to be back?”
“Yeah…”
Jordan snorted. “Real convincing there, cuz. You’re not fooling anyone.”
Simon eyed her. She was giving him that patented unimpressed look that she’d perfect by about age thirteen. The quiet rattling of the engine grew louder as the truck accelerated.
“Geez – I just mean – it’s clear you’re outta sorts. So, what is it?”
“Oh, just…” He knew he wasn’t going to be able to put her off, not with a half hour drive still ahead of them. But there were so many things, and most he couldn’t talk about. “Worried about some school friends.”
Jordan smirked. “How much trouble can they get into in what… a week? Are you even gonna be here that long?”
He sighed, thinking about the message he’d forwarded from Ambrose, the previous night’s conversation, and the party they were meant to be attending that night. But what could he do from Wyoming, anyway? “Guess we’ll see.”
“Your mom told me about your girlfriend who got killed…”
“Wow, Jo.” He shook his head. “First – she wasn’t my girlfriend. Secondly, just…no. Didn’t we just come from a wedding? Are we supposed to be thinking about happy cheery things?”
“Well, I was pretty cheery ‘til I wrangled a ride home with the moodiest Mitchell of all…”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be, Si.” She gave him a light shove. “Just noone knows what’s going on with you. There’s all kinds of crazy stories, and the first time you make it home this year – and I’m guessin’ only because you had to – it’s like you’ve got your own little storm cloud that follows you everywhere.”
“Am I really that bad?” The last thing that he’d wanted to do was spread negative energy. He’d been happy enough to be coming home for most of the drive up. But he was worried now, and the things that worried him just reinforced his feelings of alienation. “I wasn’t that bad this afternoon was I?”
“Please – no one was paying you any attention this afternoon.”
“Good.”
“You happy for Sam?”
“She seemed happy… So, yes. I just want everything to work out, for everyone.”
“Yeah, well.” Thankfully, she didn’t see inclined to push on that subject for now, even though she was one of the most adamant insisters that none of the family ranch lands be given over for mining or natural gas, despite the rich resources suspected to lie beneath the surface. The issue had been the heart of internal disputes in the Mitchell family ever since the death of patriarch Samuel Mitchell. Samantha, Jordan’s sister, was the eldest of her generation, and named after her grandfather. “Things are working out for her, anyway.”
“Good.”
“You know what? We should go camping.”
The suggestion seemed to come from nowhere, and Simon eyed his cousin again as he brought the truck down to a more reasonable speed to pass through a well known speed-trap. “What? When?”
“Tonight. I always have stuff ready – just to take off for a while, get away from everything.”
“Jordan, it’s barely even *May*. It’s not supposed to be much above freezing…”
But she just grinned. “That’s what the fire is for, dumbass. Look, maybe it would do you good. And if not, it’s just a night, right?”
And it was just a night. And it would give Nàm a chance to stretch her wings properly. And maybe it would be good to get away and just do some thinking. Or maybe even talk with his cousin… And if the thought of being out in the wild was so unsettling, maybe he should have a shot at figuring why.
“Oh sure,” he answered finally. “Why not?”
________________________________________
Jordan drove out to what she called ‘the back property’ – an hour or so out into the Mitchell ranchland, up along the river near some of the higher buttes. Simon’d dragged out an old sleeping bag and some extra blankets and tossed them in the back with the rest of Jo’s supplies, and borrowed one of his dad’s (but not his father’s) warmer coats. He nodded as she recited a litany of landmarks he half-remembered and could barely see, feeling guilty about being so out of touch. He hadn’t been even this far out in years – not since he’d left home for college. The waning gibbous moon spilled light over the ground, but Jo seemed to have a pretty good idea of where she was headed even in the dark.
“…And there’s the shelter, just up there.” It was visible in silhouette – a three-sided roofed structure in the shadow of the rock outcrop, a stone’s throw away from the river. “If we hadn’t left so late I’d have taken you to a better place, but this’ll do for a drink. If you can still take it straight. I think university life’s made you go all soft.”
“It’s been awhile.” Since high school, she was right on that. He’d never really fit in with the crowd in his first program, and by the time he’d met up with Connie and the others, the habit had lost its appeal. But he couldn’t come back home and not have a rye and ginger, even if it turned out his grandfather was no relation at all. And it seemed his tolerance had improved as of late. He almost felt like another person as he helped her carry their gear while she checked the shelter for snakes. There was a little pile of firewood and he kicked it idly, displacing a couple of little lizards that scurried off into the night. He knew Nàm was nearby somewhere too, though he wasn’t sure where. His phone had lost signal a little while ago, and he felt even more lost without some connection to the outside world on hand.
“Well, I lifted a bottle of Jack off daddy, and since that’s all I could turn up, you’ll just have to suck it up, city boy. We’re good in here though – you still know how to start a fire?”
“Does it still require two and a half bottles of lighter fluid?”
She snorted. “That was Sam.”
“Not how I remember it.” He picked up some of the smaller branches, snapping them into sticks of kindling and setting them out in the rock circle.
“We were what – twelve?”
“*I* was twelve… And as you were all too fond of reminding me at the time, I’m a boy, so that counts for less.”
She shook her head as she set out some blankets close to the fire pit, switching off her flashlight after Simon managed to get the kindling lit – and with no lighter fluid at all. “Ahh, those were the days. Sometimes I wonder what happened….”
“You know what happened.” He sat back on one of the blankets. “Is it always like that, I wonder? Someone dies, and then just everything changes…”
“Glad I didn’t bank on making it back to cheery…” Jordan shook her head, cracking open the seal on the bottle. “Thinking about your friend?” She took a swig and passed it to Simon, holding it out until he finally gave in and took it from her.
“A bit.” He swished the bottle, watching the amber liquor glow in the firelight. It was cold, and he didn’t particularly feel like drinking. It just made him think of Nils – that and it apparently had very little effect. “Some girl from out of town was murdered last night, back h-…. In College Station. One of my friends found the body.” It was hard not to feel a little morbid. He as though the world was rushing on all around him, and there was nothing he could do about any of it, good or bad. It was a strange, wrong, feeling, but not something he felt comfortable examining.
“Shitty deal.” She took the bottle for a swig, passing it back despite his lingering resistance. “Just one more trouble on the pile?”
“I guess so.” Was he really that transparent? Of course, there were a slew of reasons this new murder bothered him, even if he’d never met the victim. Beyond vague musings about what it would mean for her friends and family, it meant that people he cared about were in danger and there was very little he could do for them. “I just feel really cut off from everything.”
“Ha. Si, your problem is you think that’s a bad thing. Have a drink.”
“Isn’t it though?” Of course she wouldn’t understand. Jordan had always been independent – she had everything she needed to disappear into the wild at a moment’s notice, and from what he’d seen of her gear, he wouldn’t be surprised if she could go for weeks with no company but her own. But she’d still worn a cornflower blue dress for her sister’s wedding, so, who knows. “ I just…. I don’t know.” He always found it hard to express himself coherently aloud. Everything seemed clearer when he could put it in writing, but he’d been avoiding doing that as well. “Like I don’t know who people are, really, or what they want from me, or even what I’m supposed to be doing…” He stared at the bottle. There was so much more to it than that, of course.
She eyed him sidelong. “You’d better know what you’re supposed to be doing, running off to be a computer doctor or whatever it is.”
“Thanks.” And then he did take a drink. It tasted horrible. Jordan sighed.
“You are touchy, ain’t you? I just meant – what, how long you been in school now?” She took the bottle back and set it down at her feet, looking a little guilty.
Simon just shook his head, not answering right away. Would he even really have a chance to finish? He’d thought he was on track – he was getting ahead of himself in terms of the research, even. But that was just holding fast to the familiar. If it was important, now, it was only to him. Was he being selfish then? Or cowardly? He’d had to get an extension on one of his papers to be able to come to the wedding at all, despite the weeks of all-nighters he’d been pulling to keep up with everything. Multiple weeks without sleep couldn’t be sustainable in the long run, could it? And was it worth it?
“Simon?”
“Just thinking.”
“Well, tell me about it then. I mean… folks here, we just don’t know what you’re doing, really. Your parents are plenty proud of you, people are always asking how you are. Everyone knows you’ve gone off to school, that’s you’re gonna be a doctor of… computer technology, or computer science, or some internet thing. And it sounds right impressive and all, but then they ask, ‘and what’s he going do with that?’ and no one knows what to say.”
He sighed again, reaching for the bottle – it was going to be a long night, and this was proving a worse and worse idea. “It isn’t like I haven’t explained it. It’s communication, not computers. And I’m looking at issues of privacy and identity online. There’s lot of things I can do with it – I actually just opened a business where I can show people what kinds of information is available about them online, and how to protect that information.”
“See, you say, ‘online’, I hear ‘computers’. Hell though, you know I’m not the one to explain this stuff to. I don’t even use my phone much. Drives mom nuts.” She shook her head. “But what do you *want* people to know? Is that it? What your studying? I mean... you ain’t happy.”
“No.” He didn’t know what he wanted people to think of him, but he certainly wasn’t happy. “Its not school, though. School is fine.”
“Then, look. First off, if you’re not gonna hit that Jack again, then pass it back.” She nodded and held her hand out while he took a swallow, then took one herself before continuing, setting the bottle between them. “Second then - I know we haven’t been close in a while, so maybe you don’t wanna talk with me. But someone? What about your dad?”
His panic at her unexpected suggestion must have shown in his face, and he stood up quickly, taking the liquor with him. “I can’t. I really can’t.” The cold night seemed to press in all around him, the near desert landscape casting ominous shadows in the moonlight. He looked around, but there was nothing in the sky but the moon and stars. If his raven was perched in any of the few trees that grew near the riverbank, he couldn’t pick her out among their gnarled branches. It was too easy then, as he choked down another mouthful of burning whiskey, to understand his friend’s battle with the bottle. But he knew it was false refuge, and he wasn’t sure if the same was true for Nils.
“Simon! What’s wrong between you and uncle Arthur?” He could hear surprise and real concern in her voice, but he couldn’t turn around.
“Nothing! Nothing. He’s just not...” There was nothing just about it. Dinner after he’d gotten in yesterday, listening to talk about the wedding, planning how they wanted him to help out with last minute errands for the ceremony and reception, the later conversation with just the two of them about the truck, asking how school was, they were all such normal things, but he’d felt estranged. He couldn’t put the knowledge out of his head, couldn’t forget that it really did mean something, and that his life really had changed. He felt so angry, at himself for betraying the man who’d raised him, at Odin, even a little at his mother.
“Not what?”
“My father.” He said it quietly, but the night carried the admission. It hurt to say it, but he couldn’t keep it in.
“Simon, you’re drunk. Come sit back down.”
“I’m not drunk! I’m not..... he’s not my father, and I don’t belong, in this family, or here...” The power of his anger left him quickly, lacking any viable target. It wasn’t Jordan’s fault, but nor was there anything she could do.
“If you’re not drunk, you’re crazy. Get your ass back over here with my booze and talk some damned sense.”
He could hear the crackle of the fire behind him, shifting as she added wood. She’d still sounded worried, and serious, and he couldn’t face her. Instead he sat where he was, setting the bottle an arms length away, and hanging his head, feeling petulant and helpless. She let him sit, though he could feel her eyes on him. The cold seeped up into him from the ground, settled into his bones from the air. He wanted to get up and run - to be as lost as he felt - but the wildness of the landscape hemmed him in.
He didn’t hear her get up, lost in the downward spiral of his thoughts, until she wrapped a blanket around his shoulders, and plonked herself down beside him. “Okay, Si, you’ve gotta explain this to me, ‘cause I can’t think anything wrong of your mother.”
“She didn’t do anything wrong. It was a clinic thing.” It wasn’t her fault. He didn’t know the whole story, but he was sure of that. “I think ...the doctor just lied to her.”
“She told you this?”
“No, but I asked her about it.”
“Why?”
He shook his head. That wasn’t something he could answer.
“Alright, I’ll leave that one. So.... Somehow you think your mother got, I don’t know what, the wrong sperm, and somehow that means you’re not one of us?”
“I’m not.”
She snorted. “Do you want to be?”
It cut - straight to the heart of his guilt. It would be easier, it would relieve him of responsibilities and burdens he’d been running from for years, and he knew it. But it would also relieve him of years of something far more precious, and even considering the trade off made him feel wretched. “I don’t want to lose my family.”
“Why would you?” She shook her head, then gave him an uneasy look. “This.... isn’t about the ranch is it? No one is going to take your inheritance on account of someone else’s screw up.”
He rubbed his temples, sighing in frustration. “No. Yes. Sort of. I just don’t feel qualified? To deal with any of it.”
Jordan gave him a friendly pat on the back. “Well, Si, that’s fair - because you’re not. But that has nothing to do with who your daddy is or isn’t.”
How to answer that? She wasn’t wrong, maybe, but it didn’t really help. Risking a glance her way caught him a sympathetic grin as she took a long pull from the whiskey.
“Okay. Let me be serious, cuz. Our family right now is a big mess, with a lot of trash brushed under the rug for Sam’s do - I’m pretty sure she threatened to shoot people if they didn’t behave. They’re brothers, and they’re adults, and if they can’t sort it out why should it fall to you?”
“Who else?”
She chuckled, passing him back the bottle. “Well, you know how I see things. Even more than daddy, I don’t think there is any kind of compromise to be had. If you let developers on the land, they’ll poison it. And maybe it’ll be an accident, and maybe it won’t, but it’ll hurt the fish, the wildlife... I don’t wanna get into a spiel, because that’s not what you asked. But I don’t see it as a choice, as for what to do. And there’s already damage,” she continued despite her disclaimer. We’re not so far away from the big mines. And Daddy, and your daddy too, have had to run people off here, who’ve come out to do prospecting or whatever without permission. Or with uncle Gordon’s ‘permission’... Well, that’s what they say, though I guess he won’t cop to it.”
“He’s not a bad guy...” And Simon wanted to believe that, despite some of the emails he received now and then that made him feel like he was being courted - trying to build a connection based on some sense that he was more modern, more forward thinking than the rest of his family. It always seemed kind of sleazy, though he knew in some sense he was trying to look out for his family as much as himself.
“No, maybe not, even if he is an asshole. But my point is he’s still family - and I guess that’s what makes it all harder? For all of us. I’m sure we seem like right stubborn, selfish bastards to him, too.”
Simon nodded, drinking and wondering if she’d meant to include him in that ‘we’ or not. “I just... I’ve been trying to stay out of it. And now.. I feel too out of it. Does that make sense?”
“Dear God, I hope there’s more to being a Mitchell than family in-fighting.” She shook her head. “I get you, though. But look - you wanna be a Mitchell? We can do that.” She held out her right hand, taking her knife in the left, and drawing a thin line of red across her palm, then gestured carefully to him. “Your turn.”
He hesitated, considering the implications. But he couldn’t tell her no, and he couldn’t tell her why. He wanted to belong, and he wanted her on his side. It was a pivotal moment, and he let himself see through other eyes. Nàm’s perspective was strange, much closer to ground level than he’d expected. It was good to know she was close. The night had much less impact on her vision, and he could see himself and Jordan quite clearly as he offered his hand to her knife. Blue ties of Fate were strong around them, binding them together, binding both to the land as she took his bleeding hand in hers.
“There, Si. Now its blood - you’re one of us, dramas and all. Now - if can we go back to the fire, I can tie that off for you so you don’t bleed all over your daddy’s coat.”
“That makes you part of...the other, too, Jo.” The cut on his hand was throbbing, and there was a corresponding pressure in his head - portent rather than pain. It was strange to watch himself from so far away as he stood, set in relief against the sky with the butte behind them. He was still learning to interpret what he saw, but he didn’t see that he’d put her in any immediate danger - if anything, he felt more like she was someone he could trust, and that he owed her the same. She was tied to the land as well, much more strongly (and less strangely) than he. He followed her back over to the fire, a little unsteady on his feet, looking back down at his hand with his own eyes and making a fist as the blood dripped down to the hungry earth. “Be careful about that.”
She snorted again, fetching the first aid kit from her truck, seemingly unconcerned with her own wound. “Well if I start acting any weirder, I’ll know what the cause is.” She wrapped her hand quickly, taking more time with his. “Do you feel any better now?”
“A little.” His father was not his father, his friends were getting into some danger a thousand miles away, and he was still struggling on a daily basis with a world of strangeness he only barely understood. But some of the feeling of disconnection had abated. “You’ll take care of this place, won’t you?” He didn’t say ‘for me’, though she probably knew to interject it.
“That’s what I do,” she retorted dryly. “Now grab the JD, come sit down, and let’s, I don’t know. Talk about something nice for a bit. It’s been ages, you know. Tell me something... about your city. Or your friends. Not trouble things - just, who they are.”
He nodded, thinking to glance over to where Nàm had been watching. There was no raven, but he saw some other dark shape slinking off into the night, familiar yellow eyes reflecting in the firelight as it turned to look back. It was less worrying than it should have been - something he could look into later. For now, he huddled in his blanket, tossing another log on the fire and taking another drink before passing the bottle back to his cousin and daring to open up to her, just a little bit.
