The official line is: Brokeback Mountain is a fictional place. The Wyoming Tourtist people will even tell you that.
My new buddy Wayne had arrive a day before us and took off into the Big Horns in his rented car and reported to us seeing "Broken Back Creek" in his travels. He showed it to us on his map, just a little north east of Ten Sleep, on the far side of the mountains from Buffalo.
We learned as the weekend progressed how blessed we were to have a "local boy" in our midst, from way far to the south near the Colorado border. He'd driven probably 6 hours to join us, and had spend much time in the area on his own Brokeback quest. Some were already familar with "wyo_men" and his posts, some already knew what he told us that night at the camp fire, that there was indeed a Broken Back Mountain, about 40 miles to the west, where he had planted a small shrine, a weather proof box of memorabelia and messages from fans, concealed in a hiding place at the summit. And best of all, he was willing to take us there.
Joe had said to me when we went to Lightning Flat we would be hard pressed to top the experence. That was about to be put to the test. The plans were made, Sunday we would gather and head out west. A carvan of three off road vehicles and one car, all twelve deciples on a pilgrimage. We couldn't all ride horses, but all of us wanting to climb that mountain.
I had asked wyo_men that morning if my shorts and sandels would be okay or would I need boots, no I was fine he told me. So with that I did one last prepartion: I went to my lap top and searched thru my extensive collection of BBM related images until I came to one of the first I ever saved. Ennis and Jack, high on Brokeback with their backs to the camera. "You know I ain't queer".
When we reached the Powder River Pass, (Elevation 9666 feet) we stopped so he could show us the mountain in the distance. Such tourists we were, take a picture of it, take a picture of me with it in the back ground, take one with my camera. It was so chilly I thought to myself that I might freeze up there. O-well, I could blame it on wyo_men if I did.
He, was like a kid in a candy shop. I could see him grin ocassionally, clearly enjoying answering our questions about local flora and fauna, Forest Service regulations, land ownership, weather, geography, gas prices. We parked Mouk's rented car near a motel beside Ten Sleep Creek. The road going up there was rough though and we would need to go up in trucks or jeeps. Cars were too low to the ground and might get their oil pans punctured by rocks. The four of us passengers finding seats in the three off road vehicles. I climbed in wyo_men's big white GMC King Cab pickup with Judy, Wayne and a feller from Portland. We took off up a gravel road, camping trailers pulling off to let us pass, winding around and out of the trees. The road rose to a point where we turned off onto a road the forest service originally put in to haul cattle in and out, but no longer maintains to discourage people from going up there. Back east we call such a road a "Pig Path". It was rough, and rutted, and sometimes a driver would have to make a decision which was to get around an obsticle. We were able to drive to within a tenth of a mile of the summit I would hazard a guess. Here we parked, and with our staffs, our offerings and our cameras, began the trek up the gentle grade.
wyo_men showed us the two sets of spiny rock formations, seperated by the little valley we parked it, the broken part, the saddle, and we headed for the pummel. It was a beautiful day, the sun shown, it was warm there, the ground was covered with sage and a multitude of wildflowers in bloom. some hurried, some took their time and savored. Many of us viewed the sight thru tears.
Now think, here we were, miles, oceans even, from our homes. Most of us having never met before. Many of us having never even met on line. Strangers for the most part a few days ago. Fellow pilgrims now, going to the mountain to pray at the grotto, to seek a miricle, to seek a healing, to have a vision, a vision of what it could be like, always.
wyo_men produced his air tight and water tight shrine from its hiding place in the rocks. We gathered around as he opened it and shared its contents, the book Close Ra ge: Wyoming Stories, a horse shoe, bandana, fan fiction, a sign in book. We passed around a beautiful piece of fan fiction someone had left, their interpretation of the death of Ennis Del Mar, with Alma Jr. at his side. Joe produced two small cowboy hats, one black and one white from the showing of BBM at the Castro Theater in San Francisco recently. I wanted to contrribute something myself but had brought nothing much with me. I did have a pen and paper (don't leave home with out it.).
I took as sheet from my note pad and on it I scrawled a pray for the life and the soul of the unknown cowboy who was spotted one night in a bar watching the young guys play pool. The core mystery of this mysterious thing "we got going on here". I wrote: "'You have no idea' what you have done". I slipped it inside the pages of Brokeback Mountain and added my name to the guest register.
Climbing the rocks that lead to reach the 9,600 ft. summit, I looked out of the world spead out before me, the great distances to where you could just make out the Absorakas. The distant mountains covered with snow, and the quiet, the immesurable quiet you find when you are suspended high above the cares of the world below, among friends that you don't have to explain yourself to. I talked with Judy about people we had known and loved and lost. Lives we once lived and could not be paid to go back to. I grabbed two of the guys and got them to pose as Jack and Ennis, gazing out over the landscape in the "You know I ain't queer" sceen. I gathered some sage, got me a rock to place in me own shrine at home, and just breathed in the clean mountain air. This time last year I had never heard of this story, never heard of this place and had no reason to come into contact with these people. I thought of those who had climbed mountains, Moses, Jesus, The Von Trapp family, Dr. King, and I looked out into the far valleys, as far as I could see, to try and discern the future. It is a hazy meadow it the distance, with many flowers. I said to my friends, and I don know why I said it: "Some of us will never be here again".
This story started with a mysterous unknown man in a bar whose identity will probably never be known. It has grown to fill in the empty spaces of our lives, the ones we create and the ones we cannot fill ourselves. It is multilayered like an onion, you peal and peal and it makes you cry, and you find more onion. It is a microcosism of the mystery of life itself, of love that cannot be appreciated until it is too late, of hind sight and plans we make for ourselves.
wyo-men said he had prayed on this mountain top, prayed that love would come to him. He said he felt our presence there that day was an answer to his prayer. He, a single guy in a sparcely populated land has a lonely path to walk. I pray his prayers will continue to be answered.
What answer did I get to my question? What does all this mean? For that I have to go back to two things, the idea of having to stand something you cannot fix, and the writers original intent as she wrote. Saint Francis of Assissi is famously cited as praying for the courage to change the things he could, peace to accept what he could not, and wisdom to know the difference. I see so many respond to the story by writing an alternative ending, taking a path less travelled it a pivotal moment in the story and finding a sweet life, or seeing redemption for a lonely cowboy growing older. I have no problem with that, I will never discourage anyone from writing. I myself have wondered if Earl and Rich had a story, what would it have been.
For me, I follow another path. Proulx writes that this was not a gay cowboy story, but the results of of rural homophobia on her characters. That is something I think we inadvertantly confronted just by gathering there. Without even trying, our presence in public defyed the what Ennis Del Mar feared. People looked at us and knew who we were and I never felt anything but at peace. That is what I will continue to confront in my life, weather I want to or not. No more tire irons for my people. Never again.
