Chapter Text
He misses Wyoming sometimes, it felt honest in a way nowhere else he’s been ever has.
Honest in the ways that it tried to kill you- with the stiff dry heat, with the old coal mines that sucked you in and only sometimes spat you back out, with the pony tracks and backdoor poker rooms. Honest in the way that if you spun in a circle and started walking the way you landed, you’d be tracking across flat brush plains with a mountain on the horizon for miles and miles and miles until you dropped from exhaustion or finally hit the state lines. Out along the border where Cowboy territory broke free into Yellowstone or the Rocky Mountains, where you could finally get a full breath of cool air in your lungs and feel like you’ve got a chance of wiping dirt off your skin without it immediately sticking right back on.
Wyoming isn’t very religious, which always felt fitting somehow, drive through five towns and you’ll only see about one church, white wood weathered, the same as every old building no one’s much inclined to keep up with.
His Father was born and raised in Casper but his Mother was from South Dakota; her small town had 3 churches spread across 5.7 square miles, just a 6 hour drive from the main city that boasted over 15. She put a St Benedict Medal on the wall above his bed, whispered grace before she ate, went to the single church in Casper on Sundays. He always found it kind of funny, how touching states could differ so heavily, like as soon as you cross over the border the fear of God gets instilled in you- Wyoming is honest about the need to rely on yourself, it teaches you how to survive. South Dakota is trying to save your soul.
Gale’s never been much of a religious man, despite St Benedict and his Mother’s prayers for him, she died when he was 8 and he spent most of his life after that trailing after a Father who passed time worshipping at the altar of a card game, a pony race, a liquor store. God took his shape in a neon 24 hour sign or a bet come good; he didn’t find his place through joined hands at the dinner table, or shined shoes on Sundays.
Religion, for Gale, became another kind of superstition; something intangible to catch your scared edges on, nothing to waste time with. He worked hard to not fall for any kind of crutch, the kind Wyoming tried to shape you into needing, the kind that had his Father teaching him how to throw a punch at 10 just in case. It wasn’t a childhood to hold warm and fond under wool blankets on cold nights but it was honest, taught him early all the parts of life he couldn’t stand, all of the things he didn’t want to be, footsteps not to follow. It forged him into something different enough to look up at crop-duster planes instead of down at oil rigs; the only guy from his high school that graduated and didn’t go straight down the mines.
Flying meant freedom, it meant control, a skill that takes you outside the state border and maybe even anywhere in the world if you were good enough. Gale made sure to be good enough.
Texas was a different heat, still dry, but not the kind that gets caught in your throat, miles and miles and miles of flat grassland but broken on the horizon with city skyscrapers. Texas also taught him how to survive, Air Force trained and War ready, not fully honest; more toeing the line between preparing them for what they’ll have to do and trying to inflate it with enough patriotism to dampen any sting.
With Texas came John though, and with him, a forceful push to the axis Gale’s world always sat straight on. He was used to being challenged, grew up on a small ranch doing hard work, kept up with his Father and his changing moods, all his bad habits. Went through flight school, got into the Air Force, took shit his whole life about not smoking or drinking or gambling, but John did it differently. Seemingly took one look at Gale and decided he’d get him to crack, in what way Gale was never really sure, but it only took him a month to decide he’d succeeded, even if Gale couldn’t quite work out under what parameters.
It was a fair enough call though, with how thoroughly he shook Gale’s worldview, brash and loud but rarely obnoxious, drank whiskey like water but never got mean with it, bet like breathing and went through enough smokes he would have to steal them off the other guys daily. Two chains hung around his neck at all times, his dog tags and his silver cross, the same song hummed before every flight, a truly hideous lucky jacket. John collected vices and superstitions like every deadbeat Gale had ever known, and he was easily the best man he’d ever met. It was maybe that under the bravado and the bluffs, he was horrifically honest, like Wyoming, wore his heart on his sleeve and shining in his eyes. He could ride through life on his charm, the effortless way he was able to extend himself to any situation, not uncomfortable in any room or with any person. But instead he used it to get a drink or a dance or out of trouble, and put in effort to everything else, never one to do it easy. It was probably the first thing that got Gale to really pay attention to him, the first thing he thought they might actually have in common.
He never cared for vices or superstitions, and it only took him a few years after his Mother passed to start counting prayer among them. But every now and then he’d trace the sharp cut of John’s silhouette, hear the deep timbre of his laugh, and he’d understand the urge to get to your knees.
In the face of something holy, something to desire, who are you not to devote yourself completely to its possibilities. And if John had ever been anything, it was full of possibilities.