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NOTE: Both prologues, The epilogue and everything in blue-written by Jet Gardner between 2005 & 2011, leaving within it Annie's work and the screenplay intact and lovingly incorporated in this story (see credits @ bottom of page). Please leave a few remarks for me by clicking the word "comment(s)" as to how I did...
Thanks,
Jet
~ Prologue for a Pair of Deuces: Ennis del Mar's childhood
The waste of a perfectly good 1955 Chevy
The murder of Earl and Rich
Kyle del Mar and Francine Bowers were both born in Sage Wyoming at the same hospital on June 1st 1922. They grew up on ranches across Dead Horse Road from each other, were practically raised as brother and sister, and went to school together… in fact they did everything together. Kyle was a thin gangly boy with curly blond hair, born with a defect in his cleft pallet that left him with a life-long lisp that got him picked on a lot by his numerous brothers and sisters, and especially by the other kids in his classroom. Heartless school tormentors had toughened him up by labeling him “queer boy” or "Sissy" early on and by the time he’d reached the 6th grade he’d been thrown out of school four times for bullying and fighting.
In 1937 when Kyle was fifteen and a half, his daddy couldn’t find a job in the midst of the Great Depression and joined the army to try to support his family. He was accidentally killed when his rifle barrel exploded on a boot camp firing range two months later. Mama was devastated and moved her brood of fourteen kids west to northern Utah to live with her married brother. It was only after the long bus journey there that she realized that one of her kids was missing. Following days of searching, finally her eldest daughter broke down and confessed that one of her middle sons told her that he was gonna do his patriotic chore by running away, joining the army and taking his father’s place.
She never saw her son Kyle again...
He lied about joining the army.
Lovesick Kyle couldn’t bear the thought of leaving his blond girlfriend Francine behind, hid out in her parent’s barn across the road for two weeks, and then moved back to his folk’s abandoned ranch. He was a careful and smart kid for his age and convinced the neighbors that he was left behind to try to save the family spread on his own while his mama took the kids to look for work. He was allowed to continue going to school every day, signing his mother’s name to report cards and worked part time here and there. He’d also do odd jobs on the neighboring ranches for only food and shoplifted clothes and supplies he needed when he had to. Slowly but surely he learned to work the farmland on his own and sold off the cattle a few at a time for money to buy equipment, pay the electric, and make home repairs.
He’d have been all right if it hadn’t been for the present he and Francine gave to each other on their mutual 16th birthday in 1938.
On the last day of school an angry father named Marcus Bowers showed up in class with a loaded shotgun hunting for the boy that got his little Francine pregnant. A week later they were married by a justice of the peace. What with the rumors of war coming and all, and everyone out of work from the depression, the banks had their hands full and decided that since the del Mars had only one payment left on the books for their ranch loan, they’d let them have it; not knowing that the current holders of the deed were now a sixteen-year-old couple.
Cornelia and Kyle Jr.
After a difficult pregnancy their first child Cornelia was born March 26th of 1939 and Kyle was furious because not only wasn’t it a boy, but the baby was a brunette and they were both blondes. In ignorance he believed he'd been tricked into marrying her with some other guy’s child. In revenge he savagely sexually attacked and beat his young bride over the next week, and nine months later the day after Christmas his namesake Kyle Ennis del Mar Jr. was born, also dark haired. Kyle and Francine went through a rocky time in their marriage and separated for nearly two years because the new baby reminded her of that marital rape. During that period she took the toddlers and lived across the road with her parents.
Del Mar was never registered with the draft after his mother assumed he was either dead or already in the army, so when World War II broke out in 1941, he avoided being called up by laying low and not drawing attention to himself. Though he was 18 and drove his father’s truck, he never got a driver’s license, nor voted, so he was on no one’s books but the bank’s.
Rather than fight with Francine all the time, he left his failing ranch to join the rodeo circuit for two years as a roper and did well enough to send money back to Francine to support his two kids, but not enough to make a living at it. At the age of twenty the rodeo was suspended as all the young men left for the army after Pearl Harbor. He returned home to try his hand at breeding and selling roping horses, and raising livestock on the ranch... and to make up with Francine.
Ennis J. del Mar
With men dying in wars across both oceans, Francine realized that she was lucky to have a man at all and moved back across the road with her volatile husband. This time the reconciliation stuck and in late spring of 1943 she presented Kyle with a second son that was blond this time that they named Ennis Jordan del Mar. To her relief he was the proverbial "spittin’ image” of his father. As the baby grew and became a toddler rather than crying, he developed an infectious giggle that his parents adored. Later as a cute kid starting up in school, that contagious laugh could earn Ennis anything he wanted, and his doting parents began spoiling him rotten, while making little Kyle Junior feel like a “factory reject” instead of the first-born son.
For the next five years through war and then victory in Europe and Japan, Kyle got the hang of ranching, depending on raising livestock more than farming, though he eventually did both well. He gutted and then remodeled the ranch house with help from his neighbors and in-laws. What once was a big four-room place, housing fourteen kids and two adults was expanded and converted to a three-bedroom home. He also tore down and then put up several outbuildings after taking out his first mortgage on the spread. With all of the improvements, the bank thought it was a safe bet.
With Russia and the U.S. entering the Cold War, President Truman felt the need to have a good standing army just in case and instituted a peace time draft. All hell broke loose when that same month he signed an order desegregating the armed forces. In 1948 on Kyle’s 26th birthday, the government finally caught up with him and he was inducted into the army for a four-year hitch, serving with a bunch of now outraged and bigoted racists. Francine was left to raise two grade school children and a toddler on her own... again.
After Kyle left for San Diego, Francine took a job as a clerk at the library full time and barely made the mortgage payments. Meanwhile her parents took over running both the Bowers and the del Mar spreads, hiring on extra help to farm a combined 2000 acres. To save money on expenses Frannie moved her family to her parent’s house between Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Francine was put to the test in January and February of 1949 after just moving her family back home across the road. The great 30-day blizzard brought record low temperatures and winds sometimes over 70 miles per hour. Snow drifted so high that Dead Horse Road was impossible to find, meaning she couldn’t get to work, so she lost her job at the library. She resorted to heating the house with a wood-burning stove and all of them lived in the living room to conserve warmth. At one point it snowed for a week and a half straight, downing power lines and severing mail service. She and her parents lost nearly three quarters of their livestock to subzero conditions. The family was snowbound, loan payments weren’t made and Frannie had to home school her children until the roads were cleared finally in early March.
Unable to get word from them, Kyle was frantic trying to get home to see his family and assure their safety, but there was no way to travel there because of the storms. One night Francine and the kids were roused by pounding on the door. One of her father’s ranch hands nearly froze after being sent to check on her mother, who hadn’t arrived after announcing the previous afternoon that she was going over to check on Frannie and the kids.
They found her partway down the Bowers’ driveway two days later frozen to death. Kyle never made it to the funeral to comfort his grieving wife and family. He tried for a hardship release from the military, but was denied.
Frannie was heartbroken for a while because she and Kyle would have to spend their tenth anniversary apart… that was until Kyle surprised her at their doorstep on a 4-day pass. Unfortunately because of travel time back then, he could spend only one day at home; but it was enough.
In September at the age of six, Ennis entered first grade. Kyle Junior by then considered himself the “man of the house,” and a few days after entering the fourth grade he’d tired of being called “little” Kyle and/or “Junior” and stomped up defiantly to the breakfast table one morning and demanded that Francine give him a more “growed up” nickname. His mother instantly got revenge for his brash attitude and turned to her youngest to decide on a suitable substitute. Out of the blue, the first grader dubbed him “K.E.” and laughed every time he said it. Mom loved it and from then on that was his name-like it or not… which didn’t set too well with Kyle Junior.
A week letter Kyle Senior sent his oldest a letter from California addressed to Mr. “K.E.” del Mar, which made it official. In pure resentment K.E. began slapping his little brother across the face hard every time he’d laugh or giggle out loud. Ennis would go crying to Francine and she’d reprimand his big brother with a good spanking. Within a few more months her youngest was cured of his famous smiles and laughter from constant beatings and bullying at the hands of his stronger elder brother, along with threats of more if he tattled to their overworked mom.
In May of 1950 Kyle came home on leave to tell his wife that it was very likely he would soon be sent to Korea where the war was heating up. Soon after his boots hit the ground there, he was seriously wounded in the Battle of Inchon and a buddy carried him half a mile to a medical unit where he almost died from loss of blood. His injuries were serious enough for him to be sent home. While he was convalescing overseas, Francine’s father Mark died at 62 of a sudden heart attack in his wheat field just across the road from their driveway. She was the one who found him while checking their rural mailbox and was so inconsolable that Kyle was shipped to a stateside V. A. hospital in Casper early under medical care.
It was only after she talked to the doctors long-distance that she was told that her husband had been shot in the abdomen and had lost a kidney. He’d be alright as long as he was careful with his diet, but he’d be sore walking around and farming for quite some time.
Francine inherited her parent’s spread and the huge mortgage that went with it. If she didn’t do something fast the bank was prepared to foreclose on both ranches. Before Kyle could get released from the sickbay, a savvy assistant manager fast-talked Fran into signing ownership of her parents’ ranch over to their bank for the total remaining payments owed on her father’s loan and the del Mar mortgage. When Kyle arrived home a week later, he was furious at what she’d done because he thought they should’ve gotten much more, despite the fact that her actions meant that the del Mar ranch’s deed was now free and clear.
Earl buys a ranch
While at the bank trying to get satisfaction, to his ignorant shock he became infuriated when he found out that a wealthy negro farmer from New York had put a generous bid in for the land. A recently divorced local gas station owner named Earl Lamb had also expressed interest in buying the property, so in desperation Kyle talked him into making a sizeable down payment. The problem was Earl, who was in his fifties, didn’t have family to fall back on anymore to help run it, and didn’t have enough cash for the offer Kyle had promised, so del Mar talked his ranch neighbors into selling tractors, plows and other equipment to loan Earl enough of a down payment on it and Kyle even put his own ranch up as collateral rather than have some damned Yankee nigger for a neighbor, especially one living in the very house his wife grew up in.
Francine was beside herself at his stupidity and backward thinking but could do nothing to stop him.
Within a week the deal was done, the papers were signed and Earl sold his gas station in town, using the proceeds to start an auto parts and repair shop across the road in what used to be Francine’s parent’s barn and out buildings. In gratitude he leased 500 acres to Kyle for a dollar a year to cultivate, and allowed him to harvest her father’s existing crops for half the proceeds.
Since Earl no longer had a wife and kids to help farm or ranch it, within months the land collected hundreds of wrecked automobiles and trucks bought for parts, scattered over the eastern half of the spread on what used to be productive wheat and cornfields. Along with the sounds of air wrenches and hammers came the strong smell of discarded oil, radiator dumpings and transmission fluid on the wind.
Earl still kept her parents' many horses there and allowed Frannie’s family to ride them whenever they wanted to in return for caring for them. He announced that he planned to do a little farming the next year, and sent out word for help from the local kids looking to earn extra money in the spring. Despite his many kindnesses, it still saddened Francine to see her former home turned into a junkyard, but racist Kyle and his ignorant neighbors didn’t care, considering the alternative.
With harvest season still going, Dead Horse Road started getting a steady stream of traffic in and out, and all the local ranchers promised to take their tractors, combines and other equipment in need of repair to Earl so he could pay them back faster and the bank wouldn’t foreclose on del Mar for putting his spread up as security on the risky note. Sometimes Earl would work on people’s farm equipment for free as a goodwill gesture to the community.
The town of Sage showed its appreciation by awarding him a contract to work on its utility vehicles and police cars.
Despite their father’s return, K.E. continued to pick on Ennis. The youngster would bawl to his daddy and get hit by him too, saying that real cowboys don’t cry. After a while Kyle finally gave up in frustration and taught Ennis how to fight off K.E. with his fists. The net effect was that Ennis became reluctant to laugh or cry for fear of retribution and began to turn inward on himself emotionally. Sometimes when he’d pout quietly to himself at night, Francine would come to his bed and sing him cowboy songs. Eventually Kyle put a stop to that; not wanting his son to become a “mama’s boy.”
Feeling like he was in a no-win situation, he’d ask his mama what she thought he should do about his big brother. Her only advice was the same as how she dealt with Kyle, “If you can’t fix it Ennis, you gotta stand it.”
Earl meets Rich
Late November brought heavy snow, so Earl bought an old snowplow for his tow truck and kept Dead Horse Road clear, along with Kyle’s long driveway. In December of 1951 a twice-wounded Korean War buddy that Kyle owed his life to, wrote of his trouble finding a job in Utah because of his disability. Francine thought it’d be a wonderful idea for him to move across the road with Earl. He’d gain a business partner, and besides she was concerned about her neighbor being all alone over there by himself.
Just before Christmas, Lieutenant Richard Saphos bought up half of the repair shop and moved into Earl’s spare room to help run the business end of things and to revive part of the ranching operation managing raising cattle, breeding horses and doing light farming. He was welcomed with open arms by the community as a respected and twice-decorated war hero.
With the fresh influx of cash, Lamb hired Ennis' older sister Cornelia to do light house chores and occasional cooking for them. He also hired the local older teenaged boys as journeyman mechanics and the business grew to be well known across the state. They were taught a trade for free and he had a near endless and cheap labor source. To everyone’s relief, the loan was well on its way to being paid back too with Rich’s investment. Earl was 52 and Rich was 29 and they resembled father and son more than business partners.
That Christmas marked the first visit of Rich’s married sister Amy Salisbury from Utah, along with her husband Sam, who was a school teacher near Bear Lake, and their 7-year-old son Michael. Ennis was the same age and became instant friends with Mike. Amy announced that they’d be spending the whole of next summer so that Sam could earn money working for Earl over the school break helping with the ranch operation.
All through 1951, the del Mars became even better friends with the two pleasant bachelors after they kindly offered to let Kyle and his wife use their telephone when they found out that the couple didn’t have one of their own. Eventually a cable was strung across the road giving the del Mars party-line service, piggybacked off of Earl's business phone. It was done in return for Franny taking daytime business calls to the shop when the mechanics were too busy to answer after five rings, or were away from the office working on a car.
All Kyle had to do now was keep his wife from tying up the line gabbing with her friends. It was eventually agreed to that the del Mars would have full use of the line after the repair garage closed in the evening, since Earl already had a separate phone number into his house for the two men's own use.
In gratitude, Rich and Earl were often invited over to the house together for dinner to share stories of the war and to play cards. Amy and her family visited again during school’s spring break and Kyle, Rich, Sam, Ennis and Mike went hunting. That was both young boys’ first experience firing a rifle. Ennis loved it, but poor Michael got knocked on his ass from the kick of his dad’s gun when it fired and was reluctant from then on.
Earl announced that with all the junked cars they were getting in daily, they’d probably need some help over the summer inventorying them by make, model and year, and then disassembling their smaller components for screws, brackets, bolts and part numbers. The two boys jumped up and down begging for a chance to earn extra money. Kyle was skeptical as to whether his youngest was old enough for the responsibility of the job, and concerned the boy might get hurt crawling into wrecked automobiles, but promised he’d think about the offer.
K.E. was more interested in learning the ranching business from his father.
Until the end of the spring break when the Salisburys had to go home, Michael and Ennis were inseparable buddies, either sleeping-over at his grandparents’ former house or at the del Mars. Mike wasn’t like the kids at school and Ennis instantly considered him a second brother.
For the rest of April and May Ennis enthusiastically did extra chores, helped with spring-planting, and waited on his injured father hand and foot, to the point where an exasperated Kyle caved to all the pleading and promised him he could work over at Earl’s with Michael that summer; but only if he got good grades.
When June finally arrived, young Michael came east with his mother from Utah and again often enjoyed sleepovers and fishing/camping trips with the del Mar boys. On one such trip, Ennis got to fire his daddy’s gun again and discovered a real talent for shooting a rifle and former expert Army sharpshooter Rich gave him lessons to improve his budding skills.
After the constant grief he took from his brother, Ennis was happy that Mike was back, because K.E. was better behaved when the kid was around. The two boys usually both worked side-by-side at the repair garage disassembling and labeling parts, or harvesting small items for whatever was needed off of junked cars as the older mechanics required them.
In an effort to toughen him up a bit, Kyle would drop over after a long day at his ranch, and set up armwrestling contests between his youngest and Mike to see who was the strongest. Earl would drill a few cheap flimsy bolts into one of his old wooden workbenches and the boys would race with wrenches to tighten them enough to snap the heads off.
On Ennis’ 8th birthday, Rich surprised both boys with identical brand-new bicycles as a bonus for doing good jobs. They were both custom painted metal-flake blue deluxe models that sparkled in the sunlight. They featured sturdy baskets on either side of the rear tire and in front of the handlebars for toting parts, and had horns, headlights, multiple gears and the fancy fender paint was done by Earl himself. Michael came up with the idea of attaching cardboard strips to the frame that’d make them sound like motorbikes as they fluttered against the wheel spokes. For the rest of the summer they'd have races up and down Dead Horse Road when they weren’t riding into town to pick up small parts at the auto supply store.
As a joke, the teenaged mechanics got Rich to have boy-sized dark blue mechanic’s work shirts made up for them with the kids’ names embroidered on the chests on little white ovals just like they had. They also featured Earl's business name and phone number in big letters emblazoned across the back so they could advertise his company when they went out running errands for him.
After closing up his classroom for the summer, Sam Salisbury arrived a week later.
Rich ran a newspaper ad a month before announcing that he’d set aside three acres of unused farmland bordering the road so that the folks in town could come up and use little sectioned off portions of it to grow small private vegetable gardens for free. He even partially tore the fence down and marked it off with little signs attached to posts with twine, giving them easy access. In gratitude most gave him assorted tomatoes, potatoes, corn and beans as they ripened, and incidentally their car repair business. As a result the tool bays became as much a place for the local men to gather to play cards, drink cold pop and bullshit, as it was to fix automobiles.
The boys made even more money after being hired to haul water out to the little individual crop squares every day.
K.E. had decided to stay on the ranch to work with his father and was beside himself with jealousy of how much fun his brother was having.
When the summer of 1951 started drawing to a close, Sam had to leave to prepare lesson plans for the coming semester; which meant Michael and his mother would be gone too. They had a big barbeque that last night, and the next day young Ennis went off by himself out of sight of his strict father, heartbroken and bitter because Mike was the first kid in a long time he’d actually allowed himself to openly laugh and be friends with.
That fall with the extra land Earl and Rich allowed him to use, Kyle took out a 2nd mortgage to buy a new tractor, some cattle and extra seed for next season. After school started Ennis was allowed to work over at Earl’s only on the weekends and only if he’d done his homework. With Mike gone as a buffer, K.E. took up again where he left off bullying his little brother. Cornelia entered eighth grade that year, with K.E. a year behind her and Ennis entered 3rd grade.
After a great harvest, and with winter closing in soon, Kyle signed on part-time over at Earl’s changing tires and doing odd jobs. After snow set in, he’d help out plowing driveways and supply store parking lots with Rich’s crew. K.E. and Ennis made extra money shoveling sidewalks when their dad was assigned to clear someone’s driveway out. Wyoming was in for another bad winter that’d eventually last all through the following March.
Sam, Amy and Michael invited Ennis to spend Christmas at their house that year and he come home with the greatest gift of all... his smile was back. Earl and Rich had Christmas dinner with the del Mars. A week later Rich talked an old Army buddy into selling Kyle his ’48 GMC pickup for almost nothing and he spent most of January fixing it up and painting it blue over at Earl’s.
With the city contract and good word spreading like wildfire, Earl and Rich’s business became known in Utah and Colorado, as well as across Wyoming. Rich estimated that the loan would be paid off five years early,
which would free Kyle from his co-signature on their loan. To celebrate, Earl bought a brand-new bright red 1952 Pontiac Chieftain convertible and he’d sometimes haul the del Mars to the local Methodist Church in it, or take local girls he and Rich had picked up on picnics at a park in town. The two men were soon known as the most eligible and sought-after bachelors in Sage.With the cold war heating up, all the newspapers were filled with word of a paranoid Senator Joe McCarthy who began his communist and homosexual witch-hunts in Washington D.C. in the spring of ‘52. As a result, that Easter was spent without Kyle. He’d gotten into a bar fight with a man in town who’d gone too far making fun of his lisp and called him a commie queer. The assault brought a six-month prison sentence but Earl used his business connection with the mayor to get it reduced to two. Francine and young Cornelia made and served a holiday Easter ham in her old kitchen at Earl and Rich’s house. When Kyle came home in late May he had to make up for lost time and Ennis had to stay home and help on the ranch during planting season.
As June approached and Ennis turned nine, he couldn't wait for school to let out because he knew Mike would be coming to stay at Rich and Earl's for the summer with his family. He’d made another deal with his dad that if he got good grades he could work at the garage instead of in the fields and though it was a struggle, he succeeded in keeping a B average all through the rest of third grade. K.E., who was twelve then, felt more like a grownup because he worked closely with his father while he was in jail planning this season’s crops, and as a reward was taught how to drive the tractor. With the expected extra income from the 500 acres Rich let Kyle use for a dollar a year, extra ranch hands were hired onto the del Mar spread for the first time.
Farm equipment from all over the area was hauled into the repair shop as the weather got warmer and Rich was strapped to hire new men to fill the overflow of business since he had his hands full steadily making their ranch/cattle/horse operation a success too. Earl and Rich were swiftly becoming a major employer in Sage. Between constant livestock trucks and auto repair business, there was even talk in city hall of paving and widening Dead Horse Road... not exactly a good street address for a growing quarterhorse breeder.
Amy, Sam and Mike arrived just in time to lend a hand, and Amy was even drafted to drive a supply truck into town on a regular basis for parts too big or heavy for the boys to handle on their bikes.
Ennis got a big kick out of telling everyone that he was the parts department manager when he answered their business phone and though he was only nine, he had an inventory of available parts kept his head that even Earl would consult once in a while. As good as he became taking calls, he started getting frustrated because his voice hadn’t changed yet and people kept calling him “Ma’am.”
In July when things started quieting down, the boys began taking off time to go on camping trips with Kyle and Rich. Ennis always came home with a sore shoulder from the recoil his father’s rifle gave when he fired it. His daddy was really proud that his young son actually managed to hit everything he aimed at and promised that in a few years if he kept his grades up he’d get a proper hunting rifle of his own for his birthday.
In the hot summer months Rich bought some big fans that were placed on either side of the barn/garage for cross-flow ventilation, but they only helped a little. Sweat-covered young muscular grease monkeys and mechanics often wandered around in the heat without shirts in cut-off denim shorts despite the presence of female customers, and no one gave it a second thought. In fact some young women seemed to bring their cars more often than necessary just to see the brawny show or an unusual number of damsels in distress would crop up with flat tires.
A big water tank and pump were set up next to the garage to accommodate the extra water needed after Earl set up a big communal shower room with 5 spigots in the back of the barn just so his men could wash the oil, sweat and dirt off before they went home, or merely to cool off during a lunch or cigarette break. Over the summer he bought a huge aboveground pool that they could cool off in that was 30 feet in diameter and five feet deep. Ennis and Michael weren’t allowed near it for fear of an accidental drowning. With Amy always there, Sam quickly insisted on a no skinny-dipping rule too.
Deadly gossip
In the midst of all that joy and fun, 1952 was also the year that rumors started flying around town and Kyle’s life-long lisp came back to haunt him again. A local woman had walked into the garage’s business office to ask about a repair estimate and found a shirtless Earl in Rich’s arms in an intimate embrace, possibly after just kissing each other. To the guys that worked there it wasn’t unusual to see Earl with his arm over Rich’s shoulders or vice versa.
The rumors got more intense and exaggerated and a few days later, young Ennis came home from work and his father confronted him with pointed questions about what usually went on over there. Even after talking to Amy and Sam the pressure from ignorant men in town eventually forced del Mar to angrily tell Ennis without further explanation that he, Cornelia and K.E. were to never go over there again... not even to see Michael.
Within days, local men folk started coming around the del Mar ranch. While gesturing across the road they began asking Kyle pointed questions about Earl and Rich and why he’d put up his ranch to allow them perverts to move into their community, especially after it was learned that the men had shared many suppers, holidays and camping trips with his family. Several subsequent visits were heated after it was discovered that Kyle was farming half their land for a profit, and none of the kids understood why they’d be sent out of earshot to their rooms or out to work in the fields during those confrontations.
Kyle did his best to convince the unruly fools that everything was perfectly innocent and that the ignorant woman probably was exaggeratin' and saw something completely above suspicion like Earl helping the crippled Rich up after falling. Besides, if they did anything stupid or drastic before Earl and Rich's loan was paid off, Kyle would lose his ranch to the bank as collateral for what was still owed on Earl's Repair Service, so for the time being things stayed quiet... he hoped.
Sam and Amy became reluctant to visit Kyle and Fran because of the often-unfriendly reception they’d get and poor Michael was miserable. Francine put her foot down and allowed Ennis’ best friend to come over and visit. Youthfully oblivious to the seriousness of the situation the boys still rode bikes together and went on occasional camping trips, but Ennis wasn’t allowed to earn summer money at Earl’s any more on the excuse that he was needed to work in the fields or tend the cattle and horses.
Ennis was hit especially hard because at the time Earl had begun secretly teaching him how to drive in his brand-new Pontiac convertible on the back roads of the ranch behind the repair shop. The nine-year-old kid was too small to reach the pedals yet, but never once was Ennis uncomfortable sitting on the man's lap while he steered or was taught how to work a manual column shift while Earl did the clutch. Both of them spent the whole time laughing their heads off.
Within a month, every male teenager who worked for Earl was questioned repeatedly as to what went on there and every one of them said they worked on cars, were taught how to maintain them like and by an expert, they were paid daily and then they went home. The young men were loyal because instead of pocketing the extra when the bill was paid, Rich would call them into his office and let his workers keep the tips customers gave for good work.
Despite the unanimous denials from virtually everyone involved, the rumors and wild speculation around town persisted. Within two weeks the shop lost every local young man that worked there on the word of some loud-mouthed dim-witted woman who may or may not have seen what she said she saw. Perplexed, Rich began hiring more expensive mechanics from outlying towns. Business didn’t really suffer too much, but still an underlying feeling of uneasiness grew around the repair shop.
Soon after the lisping Kyle del Mar lost all of his ranch hands when they just stopped reporting for work. Anger and frustrations set in now that he had to single-handedly try to tend and harvest 1,500 acres by himself in the coming months with only the help of his two young boys.
Sam wanted badly to stay, sensing something wrong with the local attitude, but he couldn’t put his thumb on it, and like it or not he had to head west to prepare for the next school year taking his family with him. Before he left, he came across the road to try to get an explanation from Kyle, but left empty handed and worried from hearing Ennis softly crying behind the closed door of his bedroom.
Within days of leaving, Ennis' friend Mike began writing from Utah every so often to ask what the local trouble about his uncles was about; for which he got no answer. Young Michael knew his uncle Rich's secret relationship with Earl, and loved them both anyway, as did his unconcerned and progressive parents. Not once did either man lay an improper hand on the child, and Mike loved to ride on them piggyback, rough house, toss baseballs, dive off of their shoulders into the pool, ride horses and laugh with them like all uncles and nephews do. Back before the trouble started, Ennis and K.E. would be invited to join in and they never had such a good time as when they were over there… until now.
Over the previous two years not a single payment had been missed, and in August Kyle del Mar got his collateral back from the bank now that it was no longer needed by Earl. To celebrate, he bought a four-year-old Ford station wagon on credit to go to town and church socials in, instead of hauling the kids around in the back of the pickup truck. He began taking the car to a dealer in downtown Sage for servicing despite it being more expensive there, instead of just going across the road. Many of the townsfolk did the same. Fortunately Earl had a statewide reputation by then of doing good work at a fair price, so his business stayed afloat, despite local customers suddenly abandoning him.
With Ennis unable to tend them single-handedly, the little garden patches at the road withered from neglect, not that it mattered since the people that used them stopped coming around too.
When the del Mar’s rode into town in the station wagon, the kids would often stick their hands out the windows to wave or shout at Earl or Rich on the sidewalk or coming out of a store, and Francine reluctantly would make them quiet down. After a few months it was just assumed that the youngsters weren’t allowed to say “hi” to them in public. The resentment grew to the point where even Kyle would mumble something rude under his breath if he saw them when the kids were with him, and always if one of the local troublemakers were within earshot.
None of the kids understood why the men they’d once considered favorite uncles weren’t to be spoken to any more and they were very sad about it, pestering their parents for an explanation to the point where Kyle would lose his temper and sternly tell them to just shut up.
The summer turned into an unusually warm fall and Cornelia started high school, K.E. entered 7th grade and Ennis started 4th. After hearing of Kyle’s troubles through Ennis, Sam contracted twenty men from Utah for him, and sent them out to help with his harvest. Kyle fought long and hard with his pride, but with Frannie’s help, accepted the assistance with grace and made a tidy profit after paying them off.
A few days after Thanksgiving spent without the two friendly neighbors across the road, Kyle under more and more pressure from the local rednecks, posted NO TRESPASSING signs at his driveway. A few days later a frustrated Earl came across the road on foot to invite the family over for Christmas in advance, and to ask why his best friends had all turned on him.
Kyle chased him off the property with a couple of shotgun blasts, terrifying his kids in the process.
In retaliation, a few days later an angered Rich sent Kyle a registered letter. As of January 1, 1953 he was canceling the dollar-a-year lease on Earl's farm land that del Mar was using to financially get ahead, along with a "no trespassing" notice of his own. Soon afterward, some workmen came out and the split-rail fence was put back up along the roadside too shutting off the free garden parcels.
The del Mars would have to make due with a smaller planned income next year, leaving Kyle holding the bag for the brand-new farm equipment he'd just bought on time payments. Earl sadly made another futile attempt to reconcile with his friends by phone, but gave up quickly when Kyle hung up on him.
Soon afterward, the mystified del Mar kids found their mother crying on the front porch after noticing out the window that their friend Earl was climbing a ladder steadied by Rich to the top of the telephone pole at the end of his driveway holding a big set of long-handled cutters. After pausing to wipe his eyes of tears, he severed the cable to the del Mar ranch between the pole and his repair barn. As the line fell onto the wheat field on the shop's side of the road, the warm relationship the del Mars had with the two likable men died with the family's free phone service.
Kyle wasn't angry when he found out, he just went off by himself into town. They were his friends and he'd turned his back on their caring generosity instead of standing by them. He owed Rich his life, and Earl his young family's current financial stability, but when he weighed that against the townfolk thinking he was queer too, he was lost as to what to do about the situation. Doing something, as opposed to doing nothing to stand up for his friends had netted the same result.
In the middle of the night a week later, some of the men in town came over to the del Mar ranch and while the kids listened in fear at their bedroom door to the angry voices, the words “queer” and “pervert” were used loudly. Kyle seemed to be defending himself against them, and the kids cowered in fright when their mother suddenly said their names in defense of her husband not being “one of those.” She bravely stood her ground and became even angrier that all the trouble was because of one gossiping woman who by now was claiming that she saw Earl and Rich necking half-naked, and that they were probably forcing teenaged schoolboys to have homosexual orgies in the shower after work or they wouldn’t get paid. Then Fran pointed out that not one of the angry men present had seen it with their own eyes.
The children cringed in fright when their father suddenly yelled at their mother to shut the hell up before she made things worse. All of the sudden things got real quiet and stayed that way. Everyone had left the house and from the sound of it Kyle went unwillingly.
Francine was left behind and seemed to be quietly sobbing in the kitchen after pleading with Kyle not to go with them. Later on, the youngsters could hear a pickup truck driving up and down the road with a bunch of drunken men whooping it up and shouting with laughter. Blubbering tears, their mother made them go back to bed and sternly warned them to stay there. In the following silence they could hear her crying bitterly while standing at the door watching the road.
Some time later that night the kids heard what sounded like an injured calf crying far off in the distance, but their mother made them go back to sleep and ignore it, saying some wolf or a coyote probably got hold of someone's livestock.
Kyle finally came home the next morning half drunk and hungover. A heated argument broke out that woke the kids as he began yelling loudly in anger, "I had no choice Frannie; they come here fer me, fer ME; if I didn't go, I woulda been next. DAMN IT ALL TO HELL I didn't have a fuckin' choice."
They were startled in terror when without warning an almost empty lighter fluid can went flying across the room and loudly hit the boy's closed bedroom door as they listened at it from the other side. After a tense moment of silence, K.E. and Ennis were shocked to hear their father softly proclaim in a helpless voice, "I couldn't stop 'em, honey. He was my friend and he helped save my goddam worthless life in Korea 'n carried me to a M*A*S*H unit on his back fer half a mile... Baby, I had no choice… I didn’t want to die too."
To the boy's further dismay they heard their father begin weeping against their mother's chest out in the kitchen. No one had ever heard Kyle del Mar cry before. His muffled voice repeated over and over in a choking sob, "He was my friend, Frannie… he was my friend… my friend!"
The next day the city tarred the dirt length of Dead Horse Road to keep the dust down… or was it to hide a long streak of smeared blood down the middle of it?
After a week Ennis noticed that no one seemed to stop at Earl’s garage anymore and it appeared deserted with a heavy chain sagging across the entrance. Soon after that, groups of men began coming around the del Mar ranch again and after lots of beer, they’d laugh vaguely with Kyle about dragging something down the road and listening to something cry.
The next day some scary men in a big pickup with angry faces came by the house. K.E. and Ennis were called outside in their coats and then taken with their daddy along with some other schoolboys gathered in the bed of the truck. They set off down a long gully road. On the way there other trucks joined them as if in a convoy. Up until now the weather had stayed unusually warm for late November, but as they turned down an access road lined with an irrigation pipeline on stilts on the left, a chill breeze began to blow.
When the lead pickup came to a dusty stop, the gruff leader narrowed his eyes at Kyle and muttered, “You’re first,” his gaze including young K. E. and Ennis, gesturing down the road with his head.
Ennis’ father silently gathered his two boys and reluctantly led them downhill along the dirt lane alone, guiding them forward with his comforting arms around their shoulders while the others watched. K.E. noticed his daddy’s breath catch and looked up to see a tear welling in his fearless father’s eye. After about 100 paces they came up on a man hung by his neck with a thin cord on a fence to their right, his hair tightly kinked as if burnt, his skin scorched in places nearly black and his clouded open eyes staring in agony at the ground. His seared face was bloated beyond recognition.
Across the road and down twenty paces, lay old Earl Lamb naked with shreds of bloody clothing on the ground beside him. He lay there face up in an irrigation ditch, his crotch all bloody and vacant. There were small round dark red marks all over his body from where they’d beaten him senseless with the ends of tire irons before they dragged him unconscious up and down the road. Both men had flies all over them and they smelled so bad that Ennis puked when he finally realized who they were and both sons began bawling in grief for their friends while their father comforted them closely to his waist, his eyes tightly closed, his head shaking back and forth in agony and tilted upward as if questioning God for an answer to his grief.
Kyle kept his eyes focused on the ground in anguish as he led them back up the hill to the truck. When they got there another group of teenaged former employees in turn were sent down there with their fathers. One of the threatening men sternly warned the del Mar boys that that’s what happens to queers when they come around Sage.
For some reason the man was pointedly looking at Kyle Sr. when he said it.
Ennis wrote to his friend Michael in detail about what he'd seen and heard. Within days activity was noticed across the street as unrepaired police cars were towed away. Sam and Amy’s car was seen entering the garage’s driveway after pausing to cut the chain, but Ennis was forbidden to rush over to see if Michael had come too. While his folks spent the better part of a week closing up the shop and had it put it up for sale, Mike could be seen standing for long minutes at a time staring at the NO TRESPASSING signs with a sad look on his face. Unable to stand it after a day or two, Francine walked down, took his hand and led him to the house. He stayed only long enough to say hello to everyone because Kyle’s stares made him feel unwelcome, but he was determined to see his buddy Ennis once more and started carrying spare auto parts across the road with him in the days that followed and tuned up their Ford wagon with new points and plugs, and then put new rear brake shoes on it for free from stuff that’d just have gone to an auction anyways.
A few nights later Sam and his frightened family cowered in their pajamas on the del Mar’s front porch after something across the road exploded. The fire department was called out to the repair shop to put out a dangerous grass fire that fortunately didn’t spread to the house. Someone had snuck onto the property and set Earl's prized Pontiac convertible on fire while they slept. The next morning Francine went across the road to offer her condolences and help to Amy, but couldn’t get Kyle to go with her. After sketchy details of what happened to her brother and Earl from folks in town finally reached their ears, they decided against a memorial service and had the bodies shipped by rail to Utah for burial. Amy told Frannie that Sam swore they'd never return to Sage.
After their mother broke that news to Kyle, he forbade the kids from going across the road to say one last goodbye to Mike, and brutally punished Ennis when he began an angry protest. Expressing himself, even in front of his family seemed to now be forbidden. Later in life this learned bottling up of emotion would lead to a quick and dangerous temper that'd get Ennis in trouble over and over again.
When Michael’s family left for the last time, never to return that early December of 1952, Ennis spied his daddy at a distance standing by their mailbox at the end of the driveway. As the Salisbury’s station wagon turned onto the road and slowed to a stop beside him, Kyle leaned in and seemed to shake Sam’s hand; probably thanking him for the help with this year’s harvest and to offer his delayed condolences. After the car disappeared down the road, del Mar angrily yanked the NO TRESPASSING signs down, shredded them with his fists, and then collapsed to a sitting position alone at the end of his driveway with his head bowed for a long time. Frannie, watching from the porch, kept the kids from going down there to see what was wrong and ushered them back into the house.
Convinced he’d never see Michael again, Ennis ran out the back door and later fell into sobbing fits all alone in the woods without completely understanding why he was so sad, but telling himself it was because he missed Earl and Rich and couldn’t get the sight of their corpses out of his mind. In his innermost thoughts he knew it was because he'd never see his buddy Mike again and he swore he’d on no account ever make friends with anyone again if this was what happened as a result.
After all, his father was friends with the great old guys and look how that turned out. In his bewildered young mind a friend might kill you without warning, even though you trusted and laughed with them only the day before. As confusion clouded his thinking he began punching a tree, hoping the pain would take the longing he had for Michael’s friendship away. After a minute or so, he realized it wasn’t working and came away afterward with only a bloody top of his hand and sore knuckles with bits of bark in them that later became infected.
For years afterward, Ennis couldn't see a Pontiac on the street without laughing to himself about how much fun he had learning how to drive, and then deep hurt and sorrow would set in at the loss of old Earl’s friendship. He was a good man and a treasured friend who treated Ennis like an equal instead of a little kid.
The next day Ennis' cherished fancy auto parts bike disappeared without explanation.
A few weeks later Francine presented him with a bigger new green bike on Christmas morning that she’d bought out of her “mad” money, but Ennis just looked at it parked in front of the tree emotionlessly. After making a point of thanking her twice, he ignored it the rest of the day.
That night as if to kill any joy that was left in the holiday, Kyle led Ennis out back and made him squirt his custom uniform shirt from the repair garage with lighter fluid and then ordered him to strike the match that set it ablaze. All the while Kyle watched and then threatened his son to be sure the boy never shed a tear. It was one more brick laid in an emotional wall that Ennis wouldn't be able to crawl over for nearly the rest of his life.
The next day was K.E.’s eleventh birthday and his father presented him with a used red bike that smelled freshly painted. It had new tires, handlebar tassels, hand grips and pedals, and the new leather seat was rebolted unusually high for such a small frame… except for the color, it was identical to the one Ennis had just lost minus the lights, horn and basket.
In March of 1953 the man who owned the Chevrolet dealership in town bought Earl’s Auto Repair and Parts business, and moved his entire service department there in order to expand his showroom downtown. Francine cried bitterly as she watched from the porch as her childhood home and all of the out buildings were bulldozed down except for the water tower to be replaced with ugly gray corrugated steel structures. Then the fields were paved over to be replaced with parking for his new car inventory. Dead Horse Road was paved too and widened to two lanes as the kids watched in wonder at the multi-car tractor-trailers that began arriving on a regular schedule day and night with new Chevys, Buicks and Oldsmobiles on their backs.
Ennis kept up his writing to Michael once or twice a month through the winter and spring. Mike was especially sad at the demise of Earl’s Auto Repair. He was even more upset when he’d learned of Ennis’ missing bike and how his father had forced him to burn his uniform shirt.
Life went on with Cornelia entering high school and Ennis starting middle school in the fifth grade.
In early October K.E. toppled over the handlebars of his too little bike. Ennis noticed that a scratch on the frame revealed sparkled blue paint. The next day Kyle Junior’s bicycle was stolen from the rack at school and he had to ride on the back of his little brother’s to get home.
That weekend Ennis rode out to a secluded wooded lake near town with some turpentine and old rags and wiped off all of the red spray paint from his treasured first two-wheeler. After staring sadly at it for half an hour, he doused it with the rest of the paint thinner and wept bitterly as he set it on fire, running away as the burning tires exploded. After it cooled, he angrily hurled the charred hulk of it as hard as he could into the dark green water and rode home.
The next day he made a gift of his own unwanted bike to K.E. The bigger bicycle fit his older brother’s longer legs better anyway. Their father had also noticed the old paint beneath the scratch and wisely decided not to question his youngest about the gift. Instead of being grateful, K.E. somehow must’ve figured out what had happened to his own bike and began verbally picking on Ennis. Their youngest startled everyone by simply turning away and silently going to his room. It was the first time Frannie had ever cussed at any of her children after calling Kyle Junior a heartless little bastard and said she was ashamed of him.
That year’s smaller harvest brought harder financial times to the del Mars after he had to hire extra men from out of town to help out with it. With only one kidney, Kyle, who was now 31, was having a harder time with the physical stress involved with ranching, and seemed to be getting noticeably weaker as time went on. He tried getting a part-time job over the winter across the road, but because of talk in town, the service manager refused to hire him.
Out of necessity some of his best horses and cattle were sold at auction at unfair rock-bottom prices to neighboring ranchers.
The next four years were mostly uneventful. K.E. started high school and became captain of the baseball team. Cornelia began dating older boys much to Kyle’s chagrin. Unable to find work locally during the unproductive months on the ranch began putting a strain on the family’s finances and mortgage payments began being missed. The strain was also affecting Kyle and Frannie’s marriage. A detective would stop by from time to time still investigating Earl and Rich’s murder, but the case seemed to be at a stand still and eventually was forgotten. In 1956 the pickup truck started breaking down all of the time and more often than not Kyle began hauling things around in the battered ‘48 Ford station wagon instead.
In late spring of 1957 Sam Salisbury wrote to Kyle offering to come for the summer and help out with the ranch. Michael and Ennis had grown into young manhood and had kept up their letters back and forth. Mike had just turned 14 and Ennis would too in June. After some reluctance, Frannie finally talked Kyle into accepting Sam’s offer and on Ennis’ birthday they arrived.
The house had only three bedrooms. Cornelia had graduated high school that spring and had moved out to take a job as a live-in housekeeper/babysitter in town. That freed up her bedroom for Sam and Amy. K.E. was looking forward to becoming a senior in high school that fall, and had gone away to summer baseball camp with the rest of his buddies and would return in a couple of weeks to help run the ranch. Until he did, Mike slept in his bed.
The next two weeks were spent planning out a schedule for taking care of the livestock, and tending the fields. Francine and Amy became the best of friends. Kyle, Sam, Ennis and Mike went on a camping trip up in the mountains for a week, fishing and hunting. Mike had lost his shyness around guns and often the boys would have shooting contests of which Ennis usually won. Ennis showed an unexpected talent for wilderness cooking from helping his mother in the kitchen, and would clean and roast the game they shot on a spit over their campfires usually with baked potatoes in foil or stew from a can. When they came back K.E. had returned, so Mike shared Ennis’ bed.
In mid July Sam and Michael returned from gassing up their car and buying supplies, and seemed visibly shaken. Sam spent some time on the porch speaking to his wife in low voices, but afterward nothing was said.
The delayed payment finally arrived from the sale of Kyle’s winter wheat crop, and he and Sam went across the road and made a deal on a shiny blue and white used two-year-old 1955 Chevy Bel Air 4-door coupe on time payments. The dealership took the old Ford wagon in trade for next to nothing, saying it was only good for parts. Over the previous couple of years young Michael had landed a part-time job in Utah gassing up cars and eventually had graduated to lube jobs and tune-ups.
Enthusiastic to learn, Ennis was often found with him either under the car or beneath the hood tinkering with this or that. At first Kyle and Sam would be out there with them, while Mike proudly gave his maintenance lectures but after a while they were satisfied that the kid actually knew what he was doing. Michael made a point of reminding Ennis to check regularly that some suspension bolts weren’t too tight, because a jolt could snap them off, reminding him of the strength contests they used to have as little kids on Earl’s workbench.
Within a couple of days the two boys had the car purring like the proverbial kitten and the ride was noticeably smoother.
One night as July turned into August, K.E. went to spend the night at a friend’s. The boys decided to sleep together anyway and in the wee hours of the morning, unable to sleep, Ennis admitted what really happened to his cherished bike. Michael rolled over and faced him and in the silent darkness slowly got the details out of his friend about seeing his Uncle Rich dead on that fence and Uncle Earl in the irrigation ditch. They fell asleep sobbing bitterly in each other’s arms.
All through the first days of August, everyone noticed that Amy seemed to be growing more and more distant and upset about something. By the end of the week she and Sam went into town alone and soon returned, after calling her mother from a payphone. She’d found out that her sister had fallen very ill and might die. It would be too much for her to lose a brother and a sister, and the Salisburys apologized but announced that they’d have to leave for home early. Ennis seemed to take the news of his friend’s leaving in stride, which puzzled his parents. On his last night there Michael kept waking Ennis to try to tell him something important, but then couldn’t find the words.
The next morning after they’d packed up the car, everyone gave each other a big hug and just like that they were gone. For a long time afterward Ennis stood on the porch watching the curve that their car disappeared around until his mother eventually called him to lunch… Again he vowed never to befriend anyone again because of the pain he felt inside but didn’t understand.
That afternoon he went off by himself to do some fishing for supper down by the secluded lake where he’d burned his bike. Ennis may have grown reluctant to befriend anyone after that, but he did fall in love… with a beautiful horse. He spotted the easily startled striking blond palomino by chance, nearly invisible in a field near the water at the edge of a forest. He’d occasionally seen it over the last couple of months and tried coaxing it to him but never got near enough to pat its neck or feed it an apple. Gradually after about a week or so, del Mar somehow gained its trust enough to lead it home, probably because no one was caring for him. He named the horse Saint Michael and rode him all the time, using his allowance and all the money he’d secretly stashed away working for Earl to buy a proper saddle.
Orphaned
Three months later in November of 1957, Kyle and Francine del Mar were discovered dead after their car ran off the road in the middle of the night.
It had careened out of control down a steep hill and slammed into a tree at the lone curve on Dead Horse Road. Unbeknownst to them the owner of the Chevy dealership had coveted the del Mar spread for some time, wanting it to expand his parking and repair facility so he could supply cars to all the surrounding states, buying them in bulk cheaper so his competition would be forced to buy from him wholesale instead of from Detroit. Whether that had anything to do with the crash or not was being investigated, but doubtful. The Sage police also considered that since Dead Horse Road had been paved and widened with its dirt-road bumps and potholes smoothed out, people began driving significantly faster on it and many were unprepared for the near-elbow curve just east of the del Mar ranch.
It was ultimately ruled by the sheriff as just another drunken accident after a dozen or so open beer bottles were found shattered in the demolished wreck. The Sage cops still had their doubts though and left it open for the time being, especially since all of the rumors about Kyle being involved in the Lamb/Saphos murders had begun to surface.
K.E. and Ennis tore the house apart but only found four five-dollar bills and four singles to survive on in an old coffee tin that Francine had hoarded away for “mad” money. Cornelia quit her job to move back to the ranch to raise her brothers, taking a job in town as a waitress in order to make ends meet. The proceeds from that year’s harvest and the sale of most of their livestock probably would only take them through February or March of the next year. The Chevy was uninsured so the del Mar children were saddled with two mortgage payments and a car loan as well.
Michael had schooled his best buddy carefully and Ennis was proud of how well he’d learned to maintain that car, earning extra allowance from Kyle for changing the oil, patching a cheap tire’s inner tube, or fiddling with something in the engine compartment. Without knowing any better, some of the bolts that the fourteen-year-old was taught to carefully check regularly in case they tightened up too much involved the steering linkage. It was only after he'd returned home that young Michael realized in a panic that his too-quickly thought up revenge plot could've killed Ennis too, but could do nothing since the del Mars still were without a phone.
For almost six months after their parents died, Kyle and Ennis faithfully continued going to and from school in the only vehicle left to them; the old pickup truck. Most of Ennis’ ninth grade freshman schoolmates considered him standoffish because he avoided friendly conversation or invitations to go out with this or that group, but those who knew him said he was just plain shy. He sported his father's sandy blond self-trimmed hair and a developing rugged horseman’s build. Ennis had always liked the sound of becoming a sophomore in the coming year, but became skeptical of ever getting the chance. A drama class teacher once spotted him in a hallway and told him that he thought that with a lot of cleaning up and some training the handsome young man could’ve been a movie star like James Dean. It never came about though because no one could coax him onto a stage.
Many a girl was turned on by his silent brooding, then after a while they were turned off by it too. Not many knew what color his blue eyes were, because they were always hidden beneath the brim of his ever-present cowboy hat.
Since Cornelia was nineteen, she was made their legal guardian and they all worked together to try to keep the ranch going with little success. The men in town began making Kyle del Mar a folk hero for killing them two queers back in 1952. With his father dead and unable to defend himself, it just gradually became an assumed fact around Sage Wyoming. Ennis knew his dad didn't do it, but still in the back of his mind there was a nagging doubt as the memory of what he'd heard through his bedroom door as a young boy that night and the next morning blurred with time.
The details of how the two homosexuals were murdered became embellished and exaggerated and Ennis did his best to ignore them. What he remembered fondly of Earl and Rich didn’t match the perverted picture that the locals had painted of them.
Every so often, he'd get general-delivery letters from Michael, but never answered them, though he longed to, and after a year or so his friend apparently gave up trying to reach him.
As 1958 arrived it became clear that Cornelia’s income barely paid the utilities and by March Kyle was forced to quit halfway through his senior year to run the ranch full time. Ennis did too after there was no money left to fix the transmission on the ancient pickup truck that he used to get back and forth. From then on he mostly did house chores and cooking. Years later he lamented not getting to graduate with the class of ‘61. The tragedy finally brought the two brothers together as friends. With them so far behind on the mortgage, the Chevy dealer finally talked the bank into taking the del Mar spread and the young men were kicked out on the street with only the belongings they could carry or pack on Saint Michael’s back.
Cornelia met and married a roughneck from the oil fields of Casper, finally freeing herself of her troublesome brothers.
K.E. was 19 and Ennis 15. For a month they roamed between assorted aunts and uncles in northern Utah and southern Wyoming unable to find a home, so they began the life of a couple of hobos over the next couple of years, roaming from ranch to ranch living by luck and the skin of their teeth. By 1959 they'd wandered north to Worland Wyoming where reckless and restless K.E. got a pretty cowgirl pregnant and after they married, Ennis was left to fend for himself at 17 and stayed on in town doing odd jobs until he was 18.
Every so often, he’d try to make ends meet by entering a rodeo riding St. Michael his Palomino, but his beloved horse was getting old and wasn’t trained for roping, so he soon gave up trying. He had trouble dealing with the cocky attitudes of the typical rodeo cowboy anyways and decided that the circuit just wasn’t the life for him. Years ago Kyle del Mar used to tell his sons stories of his time as a calf roper and said that you had to have really fucked up your life if you needed to resort to the rodeo for a living.
In 1961 with little local prospects for a future, he wandered south again and settled on a ranch near his hometown of Sage where the friendly foreman took him under his wing and taught him everything he knew about the horse and livestock business. The job lasted for almost two years until the owner went belly up financially. After six months without work he had to sell the palomino, which broke his heart. He started hanging out in taverns playing cards and drinking, and developed a talent for bar brawling and winning at poker.
During one such night he got an old man drunk who'd actually been at the mob lynching of Earl and Rich, and the unembellished and ugly details of what really happened to them came out. Ennis was left in turmoil not knowing whether his father was as innocent as he'd believed; especially when a detail about lighter fluid came out. That can hitting his bedroom door would stick in his mind for years to come.
The letter
In January of 1963 he finally took a short trip across town to see the old place where he'd grown up; he found a vast parking lot instead. Back in town he stopped at the post office and amongst the collected mail in the dead-letter office was a two-year-old correspondence from Mike's mother Amy marked URGENT. She had found a note and a diary from her son. When they’d come to town in 1957 to help out Kyle, Sam and Michael went over to downtown Sage for supplies and while there were told at the gas station and then at the grocery store that Kyle del Mar was the one that led the gang that’d tortured and murdered them pervert homosexuals.
When they came back from the supply run, Sam told Amy and he was so angry and she so sad, that they together made up the story about her sister being ill in order to get out of there before Sam lost his temper or Michael said something to Ennis.
The Salisburys didn’t find out until too late that Mike became so fixated on revenge that he developed an idea to sabotage Kyle’s car so he’d be hurt or killed in his cherished blue Chevrolet to pay for his deeds since the locals didn’t seem interested in justice. He’d removed the lock washers from the steering column of the ’55 Chevy, but Ennis almost caught him in the act while supposedly lubing the front chassis so he had to turn it into a series of teaching lessons about cars so no one would suspect. With Ennis regularly loosening the bolts and with the lock washers gone, a wreck was inevitable.
Mike read a vague local newspaper article about the fatal wreck, but not of who was in the car and began urgently writing several letters to Ennis but got no replies. She went on to write that in his diary, young Michael told of how he’d suffered terribly after admitting to himself that he was gay and had fallen so deeply in love with Ennis back when they were fourteen. For the next four years bullies at school must’ve picked up on his being “different” and made his life a living hell all through high school.
Her son became convinced he’d not only killed Kyle, but also the whole family.
After pleading for anyone to answer her letter so she’d know if they were alright, she relayed the sad news that Michael had just committed suicide at the age of 18. The letter had been postmarked a couple of years ago in 1961.
Tragically, Ennis had grown cold and emotionless over those previous few years from too much pain, heartbreak and hardship. With the realization that he might’ve played a part in his parent’s deaths, he buried his feelings deep inside of himself and burned the letter that implicated him without answering it, closing forever that chapter of his life. He’d also had a boyhood crush on Michael though he never admitted it to himself or even realized it until just recently. In the awful blink of an eye he hid the memory of those forbidden feelings where hopefully he’d never find them again.
It was the stoic way of all men of the West and the way he was brought up.
Three days later he met a waitress named Alma from Riverton at a local bar in Sage and began dating her casually. To impress her he tried his hand again in the local rodeo as a bronco rider this time, but couldn’t stay astride one for more than three seconds and gave up soon afterward.
He had better luck at target shooting contests but couldn’t afford a proper rifle for it, having sold his father’s years ago for food. No winnings meant no spare cash for entrance fees. At nineteen after an awkward courtship and a drunken party to celebrate their 6-month anniversary, he proposed to her. She refused until he could come up with enough money to marry her properly in a church wedding. Hungry for a job - any job, he began checking newspaper want ads, and signed up with Farm and Ranch Employment Services. His plan was that he most likely would get hitched in November or December and he’d need money to start a family… like normal people do.
Alma was his first woman both sexually and emotionally. He struggled with himself when trying to call it love. Getting married wasn’t something he was especially enthusiastic about but he’d been taught all his life that that’s what all men were expected to do...
~ Prologue for a Pair of Deuces: Jack Twist's childhood
The waste of a perfectly good match
Jack's first summer on Brokeback Mountain
Martha Caine's parents were poor Montana business owners. When the depression came they knew they couldn’t hold onto their failing little restaurant just north of the state's southern border, so they sold it for what they could get and moved 150 miles south. Her father had purchased a house in Wyoming that had been taken by the city of Lightning Flat for back taxes. Martha was fifteen and her brother Harold was fourteen then.
Three years later she married her high school sweetheart John Twist right after graduation without knowing what she was getting herself into. It was an arranged marriage of convenience between her by then dirt-broke parents and his; who were ranchers that were less interested in romance for their son and more interested in producing grandchildren to help run their spread.
At the time they seemed like a good match. She was very pretty and popular in school. Her friends dubbed her “The cherry blossom queen,” because she’d draw cherry trees on her notebooks and did paintings of them in art class. Her blouses and skirts all featured embroidered cherry flowers and her favorite color was cherry red. When her clothes started getting too small as her teenaged bust began developing, she’d wear them anyway, which earned her a lot of popularity with the boys.
Young Johnny Twist had the same problem affording new clothes and would wander around town shamelessly without a shirt in old worn tight jeans that were getting too small, showing off his muscled brawn and weather-beaten ranch hand good looks.
For Martha, it was love and lust at first sight. The first few years of marriage were spent living with her overbearing in-laws on their home ranch while John fled from his strict upbringing and went off to successfully become a famous rodeo hero, earning enough prize money to support his father's spread through the rough times. In his absence, she adopted religion to try to gain favor with his Pentecostal parents.
Many times he’d return from the bull riding circuits of Wyoming, Utah and Colorado to find his once-shapely wife dressed down in modest clothes that his parents made her wear. He sadly discovered too, that the playful side of her that he’d fallen in love with had been shamed out by his stern father and mother who openly considered her an unworthy and unacceptable daughter in law.
She didn’t know until years later that her pretended newfound faith and unwanted wardrobe was what kept her freshly minted groom out on the rodeo circuit as often as possible. He preferred to keep company with shapely, sexy and easy rodeo girls rather than to face his parents and his new wife’s apparent judgmental glares when he cussed or drank… or her disapproval when he was too tired, hungover or sore to go to church with them on the rare Sunday when he was home.
Then the war came.
After a serious back injury in World War II that’d eventually take years to heal, he came home to stay. He kept his shaved head from the military, forsaking the wavy brown hair that made him so attractive to his pretty wife. He lost his warm smile too.
When his parents died within a month of each other the ranch was handed down to John who barely kept it running and a year later their marriage produced a single child that they christened Jack Edward Twist in 1944. They could barely afford to support themselves much less a baby. After that, the loss of his fame and good looks made John lose interest in his wife and son, and he became indifferent and bitter.
Martha wanted more kids, but John became distant and angry at the world, and eventually she gave up. Jack spent his boyhood and teenage years being treated more like an unpaid and unloved ranch hand than a son.
The Mother's Day gift
Years later, Jack would remember his youth as the same dull thankless routine day in-and day out either going to school, or riding horses tending 40 head of cattle, dozens of chickens, planting and then harvesting crops, and doing endless chores with almost no help from his father. As long as he worked hard he got little criticism from his parents nor praise either.
At ten he got into an old trunk in the attic and found some of his mother's clothes from when she was young. Inspiration hit him and he began saving up his Christmas money and allowance to buy her a Mother’s Day gift. The next spring he led her down their long narrow driveway to show her that he’d planted two tall cherry tree saplings on opposite sides of the narrow lane midway to the house from the road. She burst into tears and showered him with love and gratitude from then on and she took great joy when a few years later they began flowering every spring.
John’s reaction was just the opposite. As they gradually grew into large trees and began to branch out, it was clear that little Jack had planted them too close to the edge of the drive, which eventually forced him to detour around them into the field if anything wider than a tractor tried to pass between. When Jack was 16, his father threatened to chop them down but Martha would hear nothing of it, so eventually the long straight lane curved to the left before and then back to the right after to rejoin the original driveway. That birthday she won a first prize at the county fair with a cherry pie she’d made from their fruit and gave the blue ribbon to Jack, who proudly tacked it up on his bedroom wall.
Martha Twist became locally famous for being able to bake amazing things with cherries and for a time had a side business making cakes and pies for the area markets under the brand name “Aunt Martha’s” until people starting moving away from Lightning Flat due to a postal hub closure and her business failed.
Having finally won his mom’s affection, Jack turned to his dad, remembering the rodeo trophies that he’d also discovered in that old trunk. He took up trying to learn bull riding, dreaming of becoming a big rodeo star like his father was, but John did nothing to encourage his enthusiastic son because with his boy out competing; no one was tending the animals and fields. Jack was ignored every time he asked his father for advice, and whenever he managed to get entered in a local event somewhere his father refused to travel there to cheer him on… which made Jack only more determined to surpass his old man in the event.
Some guys connected to the area rodeo show he hoped to get involved with gave him a ride down south to Texas and back with them when he was 17 and after his first taste of whiskey, he got lucky with a young girl in the barrel riding event on the last night they were there and actually got as far as "second base" with her. To impress her he went all out and won a silver buckle in the junior bull riding event he'd entered with her watching from the stands and cheering him on. Her name was Laura or Lana or something like that and she reminded him of his mother with her cherry red riding outfit and hat.
She starred in all of his jack-off fantasies after that for years to come.
All through high school, the handsome athletic teenager kept his dark hair short and trimmed neat, always wore denim, and favored a “bad guy’s” black cowboy hat. He wore the silver rodeo belt buckle like a crown of glory that he’d barely managed to win. Like his father before him, he’d developed a lean muscular build and wore close-fitting clothes to show it off. He wasn’t exactly conceited, just careful to look his best, hoping that the right girl would come along and think him a good catch or the right guys would come along and accept him into their group and he’d acquire their popularity as his own. He spent many hours memorizing funny stories and one-line jokes and tried never to be without his smile.
Up on Brokeback
When he turned eighteen, he started looking for any kind of work that’d help him escape his parent’s worthless ranch in the middle of a useless and nearly deserted town. He took a job in 1962 grazing and herding sheep on some god-forsaken mountain down south. The foreman hired him out of an office trailer parked between two stores in a gravel lot. He told him not to worry that he’d never done this kind of job before because he had a kid that could teach him the ropes and Twist would be fine as long as he followed the instructions he was given.
Kid?
To his chagrin, Jack found himself assigned to a 16-year-old named Johnny who knew the trails and forest service procedures. Twist was taken aback at taking orders from someone younger at first, but the young man seemed to have the skills for the job and they soon got along fine… for a while, but then the kid started getting cocky, apparently enjoying being able to boss someone older around.
For the next couple weeks they herded the woolies up the mountain and the bull rider had to admit the kid knew what he was doing, teaching him how to set up camp and assemble equipment. They slept together in a tent on concrete pads that were designed by the forest service for the big camp tents, and Twist soon got the hang of ordering the dogs with whistles and yells, and learned tactics to keep the sheep under control. They shared cooking and cleaning chores and as they warmed to each other’s company, Jack even shared a few sips from one of a couple of bottles of whiskey he’d secretly brought with him.
The kid wanted to be called “Jack” like President Kennedy’s nickname, but Twist thought it’d be too much like talking to himself and wouldn’t play along.
42 dead sheep
One night in July a driving thunderstorm swept up suddenly and the frightened herd began drifting away. It took them hours to get them back on their allotment and the two young men spent the rest of the night together shivering in soaking wet clothes huddled in their big camp tent.
The next morning they set up a tripod out of slender logs, peeled off their shirts, jeans and boots, and then dried their clothes above the campfire while they huddled naked around it for warmth. That evening another even more violent storm popped up, this time with almost constant lightning and even more intense wind. In the chaos the woolies ran free this time and in the dark, thirty tumbled to their deaths over a steep cliff and into the deep canyon below. John and Jack fought to keep the tent from being swept away and spent hours cowering under it as near constant blinding flashes followed by ear-shattering booms struck seemingly only feet from them.
A tall lodgepole pine crashed down loudly just outside the tent and as violent electrical charges cracked like bullwhips above them, they clung together in the dark between bright flashes, fearful that at any moment one of the metal support polls would be struck. Within seconds, another tree fell close by and the terrified kid began sobbing in terror, clinging to Jack like he’d never let go. Around three in the morning the storm subsided to a light drizzle and the two young men decided to wait until daylight to assess the damage.
After Jack got Johnny calmed down, they stripped off their soaking clothes and crawled naked into their dry bedrolls. Forty-five minutes later the kid was shivering cold and unable to sleep, so Jack told him to crawl in with him. They barely fit in the sack but at least they were now warm from their shared body heat and Johnny seemed less scared. At sunup they both woke facing each other in an intimate embrace with the typical teenage boy’s morning hard-ons. Jack got out of that bedroll like he’d just discovered a snake in it and in moments they exited the tent, sopping wet clothes in hand to be greeted with a scene of devastation.
A tall pine had toppled only four feet from the tent and another lay only ten feet beyond it. Johnny gasped loudly startling Jack, who followed his gaze straight up to find directly above their heads that another of the towering trees leaned right over the tent as if about to fall. As they set out to dry their clothes again, a smell overcame them that had them vomiting in reaction. Hidden just beyond the fallen lodgepoles lay at least a dozen sheep that’d been struck by lightning only yards from where the two boys hid from the storm. They were scorched black and bloated, and already covered with flies. Within hours they’d broken camp and began moving uphill towards another allotment that the kid knew of.
They’d only gotten a quarter of a mile when, by Jack’s tally, they were missing thirty sheep, not counting the dozen dead they’d just left behind. A rough second count by both of them confirmed it, and after getting the dogs to keep the herd still, they spent an hour looking for the missing ones but never found them. Their foreman Joe Aguirre would have a fit, though John didn’t seem too concerned about it. After giving up hope of finding them, they camped late that night further up into the hills.
A crystal clear and starry sky brought a drastic drop in temperature. They built a larger than usual campfire but its warmth didn’t spread to the tent. An hour after they bedded down, Johnny woke Jack asking if he could sleep with Twist again and Jack consented since they were both dressed in dry clothing this time. In the middle of the night Jack woke with a start to find the kid trying to kiss him. The young teen had undone Jack’s jeans too and his trembling hand had fondled Twist to a drooling erection.
A few violent but wordlessly silent moments later, the kid lay in his bedroll out by the campfire alone in the dark cold early hours of the morning. After half an hour or so of listening to the boy sobbing, Jack got up, pulled an unused little rolled up pup tent for some extra warmth from their camp supplies, dropped it next to him without a word, and went back to bed. For a week and a half afterward that’s how it went between them; Jack slept in the camp tent and John in the pup tent. They went about tending the herd barely speaking to each other, John passing a miserable glance at Jack when we wasn’t staring doe-eyed at him.
Towards the end of July, Johnny made one of his regular morning trips down the mountain for supplies with the mules… and didn’t come back to camp. At dusk Jack discovered a folded note in his bedroll, “I can't live with this terrible sick love for you inside of me any more. I’m sorry, please forgive me and don’t hate me, love Johnny-Jack.”
Jack quickly mounted his horse and set out at a gallop down the trail. In the near dark it’d be impossible to find the stupid kid, but he had to try. All the while he kept worrying that the young love-struck teen might just be dumb enough try to kill himself over a silly adolescent crush gone wrong. Part way down the mountain he heard and then followed the panicked screams of a mule and in moments found both of the pack animals being confronted by a snarling wolf. Jack quickly grabbed his rifle and shot at the alpha predator, missing it but scaring it away. If the mules hadn’t been tied to a tree near the edge of a cliff they’d have bolted too…
…Three quarters of a mile down the trail, Joe Aguirre and two of his men were making their way uphill. When the kid didn’t report to the corral bridge for supplies, he assumed the worst and that the two he’d sent up there were in trouble after that big double storm. He’d had reservations about sending that brat up there, but Johnny had studied every trail in detail and had convinced him he could handle the job. He'd only consented to him taking on the summer task because the company was short-handed and he felt sorry for him-the damned kid was saving up for his first car.
From somewhere up above through the trees a rifle blast rang out and Aguirre spurred his horse to a gallop followed close behind by the two South American herders he’d brought with him…
The confession
…After calming the mules and locating Johnny’s horse, Jack began calling out for the kid at the top of his lungs with no answer. Before long, he was cussing loudly in frustration as he kept yelling for his young companion for the next half an hour until he was nearly hoarse and sat down angrily on the edge of a cliff overlooking a deep valley. Glancing around, he noticed the mules weren’t packed, so the boy hadn’t reported to the jump-off point bridge below for supplies.
As he sat pondering his next move, a low groan barely came from the empty space in front of him somewhere below. He dashed to his horse for a flashlight and after scanning the area beneath the ledge spotted Johnny on an outcropping of rock some thirty feet down. He was laying flat on his back; his face contorted in pain with his right hand reaching blindly towards Twist’s light.
Ten minutes later a terrified Jack dangled in midair in the dark from a rope secured to the same tree that the mules were tied to. To his dismay the lower ledge only jutted out about five feet and then dropped straight down at least a mile into the empty black night.
The kid apparently hit a cushioned muddy patch covered with grass and rolled onto his back only inches from falling further. The fact that his injured spine left him unable to move probably saved his life. Jack lowered himself the final few feet and stood on the crumbling rocky edge that felt like it'd give way at the slightest misstep. After tying himself off for safety, he struggled to keep the kid from moving as Johnny began gasping out shuddering choking tears and started pleading for Jack to let him die.
While coughing painfully for air, the kid confessed falling in love with Jack and his miserable heartache that Twist couldn’t love him back. Johnny kept begging Jack to roll him over the edge because he didn’t want to live any more. Twist was totally lost. Having lived almost all of his life feeling unloved he was confronted with the raw emotion in its purest form and he was unable to react, or return it. Here was someone who was willing to kill himself because Jack didn’t love him. To distract himself, he began trying to figure out a way of getting the boy up the cliff face without getting them both killed.
He knew one thing, he’d never succeed without the boy’s willing help, so he grasped his hand and softly comforted him. He didn’t seem to be cut or bleeding which was a good sign, but the only way to get him up there was to tie the rope to Johnny's shoulders or waist and hoist him up, which might do more harm than good.
Again the boy gasped out his love and Jack rested his palm on his chest to calm him. He looked up and realized he’d have a hard time climbing back up the rope in the dark. He’d just started to lean forward to comfort his friend again when an ear-splitting blast from a shotgun rang out just above them. Jack was so startled he toppled over the edge and only the rope tied around his chest saved his life.
“JOHNNY!!!” was screamed in near panic. It took Twist a moment to realize it was Aguirre’s voice.
“Here!” yelled Jack in reply; fighting to regain his footing as the teen began pleading with him not to tell the boss what really happened.
Half an hour later the foreman and his men hauled Johnny and then Jack up. After making sure the kid was laying comfortably while the others made a makeshift rig to take the kid down the mountain on, Aguirre turned to Jack and hauled off and hit him in the face hard with his right fist. The sucker punch laid Twist out at the kid’s feet.
Grabbing Jack by the collar on the ground, Joe snarled, “Why’d you let this happen, huh? You fucking ranch stiffs ain’t never no good.”
John called out in agony, “It’s not his fault!”
Aguirre let go and Jack fell back onto his shoulders in pain.
Joe turned to the kid, lit only by a newly laid campfire. The teenager lied, “I was c-comin’ down for supplies and thought I heard somethin’… we lost a bunch of sheep in the storms and I thought one of 'em had fallen over the side. I… I slipped in the mud and fell over the edge; J-Jack was still at camp waitin’… he only found me an hour ago.”
Aguirre looked over at Jack laid out on the wet ground for confirmation, but the rodeo cowboy only looked away into the darkness as if he hadn’t heard. Shortly after, they left Joe’s men to tend to the woolies and see about supplies.
Following a long careful ride down in the dark that night, Jack was put up in a cheap room in town over the local bar a few doors down from the portable office. Meanwhile Aguirre rushed the kid to the hospital in his old ’58 Dodge station wagon. At first light Twist went over to see Aguirre about when he’d be heading back up onto the mountain again and to find out how the kid was doing.
When he entered the trailer, Foreman Aguirre was sitting at his cluttered desk cussing someone out on the phone and didn’t look up at Twist as he stood patiently in front of him. After a minute or two, Joe reached for a clipboard and pushed it at Jack as he continued talking, pointing at a pair of envelopes clipped to it. On one was written J. E. Twist and the other was marked John Aguirre.
It suddenly dawned on him that he’d never once asked the kid his last name in all that time up there! Was this bastard heartless enough to not once call his own boy “son?” Maybe he was a nephew. Whatever the case, if Twist ever took a job here again he’d make damn certain he found out his next partner’s last name.
The envelope held far less cash than he expected. He opened his mouth to object, but the foreman was still heatedly bitching out whomever he was talking to on the phone. Figuring this was just partial pay for what he worked so far, he went back to waiting patiently, staring down at the name on that other envelope again.
The phone was slammed down on its cradle-startling Jack, who immediately asked how the kid was.
Momentarily distracted, Joe told him the boy was temporarily paralyzed from the hips down, but the docs expected him to be up and walking around in about nine months. Suddenly without warning, the foreman came around the desk and angrily tore into Jack, blaming him for not securing the sheep before the storm hit. He asserted that despite the dangerous lightning, one of them should’ve been up there with the herd at all times to keep them from shifting. Unable to get a word in edgewise to defend himself, the young rodeo cowboy remained silent for another fifteen minutes while Aguirre unfairly blamed him for their loss and for not watching out for the kid’s safety.
When he finished, the foreman pointed to a canvas sack in the corner next to the door with his belongings in it that must’ve been brought down the mountain this morning by one of the herders… then he threw Jack out of his trailer.
Twist spent the next six hours hitching a series of rides up north to Lightning Flat. He’d have to move back in with his parents until he could figure out what to do next, which left him angry and sour.
When he unpacked the knapsack he discovered a fancy harmonica that belonged to Johnny. It must’ve been packed by mistake by one of Aguirre’s men. When he went down for supper that evening, his father implied that he should give half the meager amount of money he earned over to his parents for raising him. In an act of defiance Jack used most of it instead to buy an old broken down 1950 GMC truck with a busted clutch and bad carborator from a ranch neighbor. It'd been sitting out in the fields for a couple of years and had seen better days. He used what little he had left towards parts to barely get it running before he ran out of cash.
In the following months Jack traveled with the rodeo circuit. He learned better techniques of how to ride, and he learned how to use his body to attract women, and took advantage of how many wanted just to run their hands over his muscled chest and firm ass. He quickly learned which way to comb his hair, how far to unbutton his shirt or whether to wear one at all, how far up to hitch his jeans to show off his butt or his crotch, how to pose while standing and what smile to use. It was as if he were an expert fisherman learning which bait was best and most effective.
He studied men too. When he’d spot a pretty girl staring at a hunk, Jack would study him to figure out what about the stud caught her attention and try to develop that in himself.
Sex came easy to the brawny young rodeo cowboy with pretty young “groupies” following him nearly everywhere he went, but love was completely absent, as it was in every aspect of his young life. Women were just a way to “get his rocks off” that left him emotionally lonely afterward. He had no doubts that one day he’d find the right girl when he could finally figure out what was missing from the ones he’d seen so far.
The rodeo might have landed him a lot of sex, but it didn’t earn him much money.
In May of 1963 after a hard winter, and with nowhere else to go locally, he accepted a last-minute offer that came in the mail to work up on Brokeback Mountain again that coming June. Johnny was pretty badly hurt, so he was reasonably sure he’d have a new partner and he’d be the teacher/leader this time… unless it turned out to be another of Aguirre’s kin.
If he could manage to stay up there long enough to earn full salary this go around, he’d never set foot on his home ranch again. His new goal was to marry a woman prettier than his mother and to raise a larger family than his father’s, then move back to Lightning Flat on a ranch bigger than the one he grew up on and rub it in the old man’s face.
That was his dream, anyway. That fantasy would eventually leave his parents to run their ranch on their own with what little help they could get from Martha’s brother Harold Caine and his son Silas, and no money to hire anyone else. Like his grandparents before him, his parents were now reaping what they’d sewn… a son whose only wish in life was to escape out from under his folks’ uncaring thumb.
By then both Martha and John had come to realize that the flame of their marriage had gone out. Neither had a choice but to stay together with nowhere else to go. Martha used to sadly tell her close friends that lighting their flame turned out to be the waste of a perfectly good match.
~ Chapter 1: Forty-three miles of Dead Horse Road
It was the middle of 1963 when both young men found true love for the first time. They thought they’d encountered it before and really didn’t know they hadn’t until they met each other. When he thought back on it, Jack would describe it as being given his first taste of whiskey. It was something he never knew about as a boy, but something he would later as a man not be able to live without. Ennis on the other hand would see it as walking out in front of a speeding pickup truck he hadn’t seen coming until it was too late to jump out of the way.
Both, though neither of them could find it on a world globe if their lives depended on it, were more than a little worried about being drafted into the escalating Vietnam War and vague rumors of atomic bombs and missiles in Cuba.
Jack Twist was definitely not looking forward to working for foreman Joe Aguirre (Uh-geer-E) again. By sheer fate, Twist and del Mar had come together on paper long before actually meeting. Twist had a summer’s worth of experience on the mountain as a herder but his previous partner wasn’t returning this time. Del Mar was assigned at random as his new camp tender for this year’s sheep operation north of Signal. The summer grazing range lay above the tree line on U.S. Forest Service campsite land in the National Park encompassing Brokeback Mountain and its surrounding peaks and lakes.
As a child he’d once rode the entire 43 miles of Dead Horse Road on his bicycle with Michael, and his legs ached for days afterward. After half an hour or so of walking along a two-lane highway in the dark with his thumb out hitchhiking the sensation in his ankles and shins came back to him. A brand new tractor-trailer hauling cattle picked him up and he was greeted with a friendly smile from a man that Ennis estimated to be about thirty as he climbed up into the cab half asleep. The driver was hungry for company and conversation to keep himself awake on his lonely journey northwest to Idaho, which is what he considered a fair price for giving this guy a ride. Except to tell the driver where he was going, Ennis only answered the driver’s friendly questions in grunts and one-word answers while absently staring out the windshield.
He was left off soon after at a dusty intersection just outside of Signal as the first pale blue light began to halo the distant mountaintops. The lonely gear-jammer probably would’ve taken him all the way into town but decided to dump the wayward cowboy half a mile from his destination. As the truck pulled away loudly in a cloud of diesel smoke, del Mar set off again, still half asleep and on foot towards the address that he’d scrawled on the back of an old envelope...
…Meanwhile a few hours earlier and from another direction, Jack Twist had been pleading half the night with his old and battered GMC pickup to just give him one more half a mile and then another and another. He didn’t want to be late and have to suffer the wrath of the foreman he’d worked for last year and considered a jerk. Thankfully he’d had the presence of mind to head south from home at midnight, thinking he’d most likely have to hitchhike the rest of the way into Signal after the damned thing broke down.
The drive consisted of mostly begging and praising his dashboard, singing cowboy songs to his broken radio and debating whether to kiss or kick the damned thing when or if he arrived on time. When he finally made it to Signal, the first light was coming up over the mountain. With a cough and a backfire his truck died and he spent half an hour under it tightening old electrical tape around a leaky fuel line suspended from a bent clothes hanger.
Ennis arrived first and found the office trailer locked and unoccupied. The parking lot was empty except for a couple of broken down ancient pickup trucks and tumbleweeds scurrying around with the windblown dust.
A wooden sign on the office trailer door held a friendly greeting that read, “TRESPASSERS WILL BE SHOT - SOLICITORS WILL BE SHOT AGAIN." Above the dirty window set in the door was another sign that read J. AGUIRRE. He leaned his back against the trailer wall to the left of the wooden stairs that led up to the door, while lowering his hat’s brim against the bright morning sun as it cleared the crest of the mountain and tried not to dose off.
His thoughts strayed to his fiancée Alma and the family he hoped to raise as he lit a cigarette and absently watched a train rumble by, clattering past an old broken down pickup truck in the field across the road. As he pondered how his life was a lot like that truck, rusting, useless and going nowhere, the sound of something backfiring in loud irregular bangs came from somewhere in the distance to his right.
A moment later an old dark colored 1950 GMC pickup came rumbling in a cloud of dust and oil smoke around the corner and into the parking lot. Gears gnashing and clutch protesting, it came to an abrupt halt after first spitting gravel as if the driver had resorted to throwing it into reverse to get it stopped.
His new boss?
A young cowboy decked out in careworn fancy denim scrambled angrily out of it and high kicked the back quarter panel, rattling it and cussing under his breath.
They were like different sides of the same coin. Jack enjoyed the attention he seemed to get from wearing his jeans and shirts tight to show off his athletic build. Ennis on the other hand wore his clothes loose because he was used to getting his older brother’s hand-me-downs. One hated his truck; the other would’ve given anything to have one to get around in no matter what its ailments. Ennis loved his daddy’s old truck as a young teenager and used to drive it back and forth to high school after his parents died. It had no heater, one windshield wiper and bad tires; when the transmission went there was no money to fix it, so he had to give up dreams of being a sophomore. Like both of their lives up to that point, its paint was dull and uncared for, everything was rusted and not a single corner of it wasn’t dented or scratched. They’d soon find out that in many ways and for a lot of other reasons, they had a lot in common though they themselves didn’t know it… yet.
Jack glanced over at the door of the trailer, spotted Ennis watching him from beneath the brim of his tan cowboy hat and quickly looked away relieved that the foreman’s car wasn’t there. They were both brought up to avoid other men’s eyes, so when their gazes met for brief seconds they’d quickly dart away. For the next five minutes they played an undeclared game of “eye tag.” Naturally they were curious about the stranger they were about to spend the whole summer alone with.
Twist appeared to be a year or so younger than del Mar. Ennis sized him up as a “show” cowboy who’d never rode or done a day’s decent work in his life, with his matching jeans and shirt, plus a kerchief tied loosely around his neck. He changed his mind at the sight of well-worn cowboy boots, shined to hide their age. Averting his gaze as much as possible, Ennis became aware of the muscular thighs and hardened calves beneath the close-fitting Levis, and correctly guessed a rodeo cowboy after noticing the developed biceps too.
His dark hair was closely trimmed beneath a new black cowboy hat as if he’d left the barbershop only an hour ago. His broad shoulders formed a well cut “V” down to a trim waist. As he turned sideways, Ennis noticed a pair of worn black leather work gloves sticking out of his back pocket. This kid worked hard with ropes and horses, and del Mar was glad to see he was here to do his fair share of chores.
At first the young ranch hand told himself that he was only sizing up a co-worker, but strangely Ennis was having a hard time keeping his gaze off the guy; the swaggering way his hips moved, the gleam in his eyes and his ready smile. To his dismay, he found himself fantasizing about running his hand up this young man's inner thigh, as if sizing up a muscular new horse he wanted to buy. He could almost feel beneath his palm the flexing sinew writhing under that taut blue fabric as his fingers explored higher to... Shocked that the thought would even occur to him, he quickly distracted himself again by thinking of Alma, the girl he loved and planned to marry.
Turning his back to him, Jack took a different tack and used his driver’s side mirror to check the lanky ranch hand out while shaving the same spot on his cheek repeatedly. As Twist’s razor dipped back into the tin cup of cold water, the quiet stranger behind him had moved and was now sitting on the edge of the steps to the left of the office door. From what he could tell under the loose, worn jeans and old tan coat, the young man looked to be about his age, strong and solid with the stance of someone raised on a horse. He nodded to himself because that was good. His partner from last summer was a lazy-assed young kid with company connections who barely lasted till September.
There was a look of shy confidence on Ennis’ face and now that Jack had his back to him, he noticed in the mirror that the ranch cowboy seemed to be openly staring at him too. Something else about Ennis kept drawing Jack’s eyes back to his mirror but he couldn’t name it and kept shaving to distract himself. Neither knew why they’d gone their whole young lives checking out other men. Both chocked it up to defensively sizing up a possible opponent in a rough fistfight and left it at that.
A brand-new shiny ’63 Rambler roared smoothly into the parking lot, startling Ennis into scrambling in panic off the steps at the last moment as it sped straight at him. Considering the fifty or so yards the driver had after turning into the lot, this near miss could only have been intentional. The young ranch hand had a quick temper but held it not wanting to get off on the wrong foot with his new boss. The car’s front passenger-side bumper was now where del Mar’s knee was seconds earlier.
The look of smirky satisfaction and disdain on the foreman’s face didn’t help matters. Through the glare of the windshield, the man’s eyes held a sour expression. He grabbed his hat, a stainless-steel thermos, kicked the door to hold it open and then slammed it after putting on his hat. He’d pulled in too close to the trailer to walk around the front of his new car so he detoured around the back, ignoring them both as he headed between them and up the stairs. In the brief moment he had to size them up the foreman declared them about as useless as a pair of deuces in a high-stakes poker game and probably just as dependable.
Ennis carefully stubbed out his smoke and saved what was left in his pocket, then turned to follow directly behind his new boss up the steps. The foreman slipped his key in the lock and entered. Jack was prepared for it, but Ennis wasn’t, so when the old man abruptly pulled the door closed in del Mar’s face it startled Ennis into abruptly retreating backwards down two steps. He then cautiously looked over at the other young man, lost as to what to do next.
Twist only snickered in explanation and posed against his truck trying to project exaggerated unconcerned confidence. Jack suddenly realized that somehow he’d unconsciously begun using the tricks he employed to attract girls on this handsome stranger, and the man seemed to be responding! Ennis frowned at him and their eyes met and locked. An electrical magnetism struck them and the world suddenly disappeared but for the sight of each other’s gaze. Neither young man understood what they were feeling and neither were left time to name or ponder it.
“If you two deuces are lookin’ for work, I suggest you get your scrawny asses in here pronto!” the foreman’s brusque voice said from the suddenly opened door.
Foreman Joe Aguirre was a man with little use for, nor any respect for ranch hands. They were just tools of the trade, a dime-a-dozen, deserving little or no notice and only slightly better than the bastard sheep wranglers from Chile or somewhere in South America that he’d just hired. He scooped off his hat and hung it on a nail on the wall as he moved around the left side of a big desk at the rear of the trailer. He looked bored as he landed in a squeaky reclining office chair. If he recognized Jack from last summer he didn’t show it and probably didn’t care. The little wooden sign outside on the front door with his name on it was all the introducing he figured they deserved.
Barely acknowledging each other’s presence, del Mar and Twist scurried inside while quickly removing their hats. Jack stood defiantly in the middle of the floor, feet confidently planted, thumbs in his belt loops. Ennis settled to his left, leaning his shoulder nervously against the wall next to a grimy window.
The old wooden desk was littered with scribbled-on scratch paper, clipboards, an ashtray brimming with cigar stubs and a phone. Joe Aguirre, short hair and mustache the color of cigarette ash, began reciting instructions with no preliminaries.
“Now up on Brokeback, the Forest Service’s got designated campsites on the allotments. Them camps can be three or four miles from where we pasture the woollies. Bad predator loss if there’s nobody looking after ‘em at night.”
“Now what I want... is," he paused to point at Ennis, "...the camp tender stays in the main camp where the Forest Service says, but the herder,” pointing at Jack with a chop of his hand, “he’s gonna pitch a pup tent on the Q.T. with the sheep and he’s gonna sleep there. You eat your supper’n breakfast in camp, but you sleep with the sheep a hundred percent. No fire, don’t leave no sign. You roll up that tent every morning in case the Forest Service snoops around."
He'd opened his mouth to continue when the phone rang and a pissed off Aguirre answered, “Yeah?” cussed out whoever it was on the other end of the line and then slammed the phone down on its receiver. Frowning up at Jack again he continued, “You got your dogs’n your .30-.30s, you sleep there. Last summer had goddamn near twenty-five-per-cent loss. I don’t want that again.”
“You,” he continued turning his attention back to Ennis, smirking as the young man jumped upright nervously. Aguirre took in his blond ragged hair, the big nicked hands, the baggy jeans torn and button-gaping shirt, “Fridays noon be down at the bridge with your grocery list and mules. Somebody with supplies’ll… be there at the pick-up.”
He didn’t ask or care for that matter if Ennis had a watch. He reached up and took a cheap dime-store wrist watch from a box on a high shelf, wound and set it and then tossed it at him as if he weren’t worth the reach. Ennis confidently caught it with a precision that surprised the foreman, checked his own watch and reset Aguirre’s to it in a youthful act of defiance dumping Aguirre's in his pants pocket.
The foreman’s eyes narrowed at him. “Tomorrow morning we’ll truck you up to the jump-off,”
Their eyes met his, his met theirs only briefly, then he picked up the phone in silent dismissal, pausing to look pissed that they weren't already gone.
They shrugged, put their hats back on and swiftly walked out the door and down the steps. Lost as to what to do next, they paused in front of the Rambler. The more friendly of the two, the young rodeo cowboy carefully lit a smoke then suddenly extended his hand to the ranch hand’s back and declared, “Jack Twist.”
“Ennis,” he mumbled in reply, turning to briefly shake the offered hand with a quick strong grip, then his eyes hid under the hat as he turned half away.
Jack’s friendly smile turned to an expression of laughing question. After last summer, this better not be another of Aguirre’s kin, so he asked, “Your folks just stopped at Ennis?”
Ennis met his gaze this time and replied flatly, “del Mar.”
Jack raised his eyebrows with another friendly smile and responded, “Nice to know you Ennis del Mar,” Aguirre gave them no idea of where they’d be staying over night. Lost for a plan until then Twist decided to get a beer while he thought about it… then added, “Well, if we’re gonna be workin’ together, we might as well start drinkin’ together.”
To Ennis’ lack of response, Jack headed off past him out of the parking lot on foot muttering, “Come on.”
A pair of deuces going nowhere.
Walking with Ennis trailing two paces behind, as if pretending not to be with him, Twist was satisfied this guy would work hard and do his share. Maybe a couple of brews would loosen him up a bit. Since they actually wouldn’t be working together it didn’t matter much but he was hoping they’d at least be on speaking terms.
Ennis on the other hand was glad they’d be separated. This rodeo cowboy seemed to be way too talkative and conversation was never one of del Mar’s strong suits.
He trailed along behind him to a bar that Jack knew of just down the street and they drank beer through the afternoon. Making conversation, Jack told Ennis that it was his second year on the mountain… silence. He shrugged and talked about a lightning storm on the high pasture the year before that wiped out forty-two sheep, the peculiar stink of them after they died and the way they bloated, “Thought I’d asphyxiate from the smell. ‘Ageery’ got all over my ass like I was supposed to control the weather.”
He told Ennis of the need for plenty of whiskey to alleviate the boredom, then told the young ranch hand that it wasn’t all bad up there though, and that it sure’s hell was better than working for his old man. There was no pleasing his old man… no reaction. Twist said he’d taken up bull riding in order to avoid living at home with his loveless parents. He was proud to be connected with the rodeo circuit and fastened his belt with a minor bull-riding buckle. Jack was crazy to be somewhere, anywhere else than Lightning Flat up north.
Nothing, just silence. Twist was starting to get frustrated with the grunts and single-word answers he was getting and was beginning to conclude his new companion had taken an instant dislike to him. As Jack had already deduced on closer inspection, Ennis was scruffy but had a sturdy build that balanced a developed torso on long bowed legs and possessed a muscular and supple body made for the horse and for bar fighting.
Feeling like he was getting nowhere with this guy, Jack tried to draw him out again as they sat alone at the bar. He decided to try asking him a direct question, "You ever rodeo?”
Ennis shook his head silently, “You know uh, I mean once in a while… when I got the entry fee in my pocket.”
Jack smiled knowingly and nodded. Determined to learn something, anything about the man he was about to spend the next few months alone with, Jack thought a moment and then asked, “Are you from ranch people?”
Ennis only shrugged without looking up. As he fondled the neck of his beer bottle he replied softly, “Yeah, I was.”
Twist was getting the impression that del Mar lived alone, “Your folks run you off?”
Ennis shook his head, “They run themselves off. There was uh… one curve in forty-three miles of Dead Horse Road and they missed it one night,” gesturing his hand straight ahead and then down as if it were a car jumping a cliff. “Killed ‘em both.” He thoughtfully took another drink and then added, “So uh, the bank took the ranch and my brother ‘n sister-they raised me mostly.”
Jack blinked and replied softly, “Shit,” drinking the last of his beer. “That’s hard.”
As they began warming to each other, the two young men seemed to be physically drawn as if by magnets and shifted ever closer till they were nearly shoulder-to-shoulder.
Jack rattled on about the pretty girls on the Rodeo Circuit he’d seen after Ennis told him of his fiancée Alma Beers. Jack leaned over him for a pretzel at the bar and their shoulders touched. A shudder ran through Ennis’ body like the first time he’d touched Alma’s breast and he quickly inched away.
Jack began rocking forward and back to the music on the jukebox and without knowing why, Ennis ever-so-slightly moved his thigh a little sideways until the rodeo cowboy’s calf rubbed against his.
Without breaking the intimate contact, Ennis pulled out the stub of his cigarette, nodded at Jack’s lighter in his hand and asked, “Can I?”
Jack’s eyebrows went up and he handed it to him. Their hands touched and Ennis drew in a breath, quickly lit up and handed it back muttering “Thanks,” withdrawing his leg.
Both began considering where they were going to spend the night until someone came to truck them up to the drop off point tomorrow morning when a middle-aged man with a South American accent suddenly entered the bar and called out their names impatiently. He told them there was a change in plans and drove them out to where the sheep were being prepared to leave in a few hours instead of tomorrow.
~ Chapter 2: No more beans!
Note: Text in red is from the original short-story that was not included in the movie.
Ennis eyed a long narrow wooden bridge above them spanning the shallow stream. It was suspended by ropes and looked sturdy enough for horses, but it’d take forever to get a thousand sheep across it single file.
Jack knew that sheep avoided moving water and he had a hell of a time last summer getting them across, but this year he knew how and it’d go a lot faster.
Del Mar lovingly held a care-worn rifle in his hands that felt like it'd always been there. The old Winchester model 1894 was nearly a twin of the one he'd learned to shoot with as a boy with Michael. Later he reluctantly had to sell it for food and provisions for he and his brother to live on a few years back. Maybe he'd use some of his earnings and buy this one from Aguire.
He watched Twist carry the Winchester's brother towards the horse he'd just rejected. He nearly shouted out a warning when a sound distracted him and he turned around to see the Chilean herders babbling in Spanish or something at each other as they painted green “brands” on each animal’s chest counting them off of the trailer ramps. The sheep trucks continuously unloaded at the trailhead and a bandy-legged Basque showed Ennis how to pack the mules; two packs and a riding load on each animal, ring-lashed with double diamonds and secured with half hitches-telling him, “...don’t let them stray. Joe will have your ass if you do. Only thing; don’t never order soup. Them boxes of soup are hard to pack.”
Ennis muttered, “Well I don’t eat soup,” and went back to tying knots.
Twist eyed the horses and chose a bay mare that looked like the calmest of the bunch, leading it on foot behind himself to a pack of dogs. Three puppies went in a basket attached to Jack’s saddle. Their mother began persistently yapping at him as he climbed up into his saddle and his horse reared up kicking at the air.
He thought Ennis had just yelled something at him, but couldn’t hear over the bitch barking. Ennis had already picked out a big chestnut horse called Cigar Butt to ride. Being a better judge of stock, he’d passed up the mare and when he saw Jack try to mount it while a dog was barking at him he interrupted the Basque’s instructions to yell out, “You wanna watch it there; that horse has a low startle point!”
After finally getting his steed under semi-control and riding up to a skittish stop barely astride the mildly bronking horse, Jack smirked down at him and bragged, “Doubt there’s a filly that can throw me!” anxious to leave he added, “Let’s git, unless you want to sit around tying knots all day?”
Ennis shrugged, mounted his horse and followed.
Half an hour later, Ennis and Jack, the dogs, the horses and mules, a thousand ewes and their lambs flowed up the trail like dirty water running uphill through the timber and out along the tree line into the flowered meadows and the coursing, endless wind. Jack picked a trail he knew along a gurgling steam, eventually picking up a lamb that’d fallen and hurt its hoof, straddling it across his saddle.
His bay mare became skittish at a stream half a mile later, so he dismounted, slung the injured lamb over his shoulders and led his horse on foot behind him through the water, muttering to himself while kicking a reluctant sheep’s ass in front of him as he went. He glanced back to find Ennis with an “I told you so” look on his face. It was the first time he’d seen him smile.
Jack parked his horse on the other side to then cross back and forth to forcefully coax or carry the cowardly ones through or over the water while Ennis stayed mounted, instructing the dogs with high pitched and piercing whistles through his teeth. Jack surveyed their progress ahead and behind watching the dogs nip at the sheep to keep them moving uphill, while still carrying yet another sheep across the water.
Last year Jack discovered a strange talent he had for simply raising his arms straight out like a scarecrow and the sheep would automatically run the opposite direction. Trouble was, he had to keep re-crossing the damned stream repeatedly to get behind another group. He looked back to find that del Mar had a little one hanging from a bag at his right thigh.
Jack hated sheep because he was raised in the cowboy way and real cowboys hated sheep. Ennis on the other hand considered any farm animal “stock” and was indifferent to labels or breeds. Any job was a good thing, be it herding cattle, horses or sheep; they were simply things you sold and made money on, nothing more.
After another hour’s travel they settled the herd far up on a hillside allotment. Ennis scanned his surroundings in satisfaction, while Jack tended to a sheep's hoof. Though it was distant, they could see from the herd down to the campsite. When they were satisfied the flock would stay put, the dogs were left to baby-sit and the two cowboys rode together back down about half a mile and got the big camp tent up on the Forest Service’s platform, secured the kitchen and the grub boxes.
Then they worked together cutting down small trees for firewood and equipment tripods that they didn’t want to carry around from campsite to campsite, barely speaking a word between them, always glancing back up the mountain to make sure the flock was grazing and still. Jack got busy splitting logs with a mighty swing of a new axe while Ennis set up the iron fire grate for cooking. Later as they finished up, Twist hoped the young rancher was a better cook than he was a talker as he hauled two canvas buckets of water up from the stream.
That evening Jack wanted to stay in camp, but reluctantly rode off up the mountain to join the flock for the night. Whenever he came to a clearing he looked down the dark valley to see Ennis’ cook fire and wondered why the young ranch hand’s rare smiles seemed to warm him. Alone now with the mountain for company, he fell deep in thought about the stirring in his loins when Ennis’ thigh touched his.
Jack wasn’t no faggot; that he was sure of because of an incident that happened with the kid from last year. He distracted himself by thinking about a female barrel rider he’d had his eyes on in Texas last spring.
...In the dark the young man nervously tried to find the right key as he stood outside the office trailer. After two more tries he got it. Entering quickly he pulled the door closed behind him and switched on the lights. The clock over the clipboards read 2:20 AM.
At the desk he shuffled through the papers and found only inventory sheets, weather reports, updates from the U.S. Forest Service and an empty pack of smokes. On the wall behind him, he scanned the clipboards and found it. He switched on the desk lamp and read the top application with a W2 attached and shook his head. He already knew everything he needed to know about Jack Twist.
Flipping the page he found what he was looking for and pulled a notepad out. As he wrote he said out loud slowly "Ennis del Mar" and frowned. His mind wandered back about three years ago to being introduced to an Ennis in high school but the guy disappeared for some reason. He wondered if anything would happen between this Ennis and Jack.
As he switched the light back off again and locked up, he mumbled again, "Ennis del Mar?" Maybe his photo'd be in an old yearbook. Deep in thought he climbed back into the car and drove off...
...Ennis got a fire going against the night’s cold and bunked down in his camp tent. Neither young man got much sleep, both wondering separately what had happened back in the bar, trying to figure out the compulsion to flirt with each other.
The next morning Jack headed down for breakfast. His grin at seeing the ranch hand faded when he noticed two open cans of beans bubbling over the campfire’s grate, but the smell of coffee brightened his mood. Ennis lifted the lid of another pan by the fire that had been left there to keep warm and revealed eggs and fried potatoes.
Looking directly at Ennis, it came out of his mouth before he realized what he was saying. “I’m in love!” he gushed and took a filled plate from the handsome young blond ranch hand. Jack sat down on a log facing him and gave out a huge eye-watering yawn declaring that he couldn’t wait to get a spread of his own so he wouldn’t have to “put up with Aguirre’s crap no more.”
Ennis claimed to be saving money for a small spread of his own; which meant a tobacco can with two five-dollar bills inside. He told him how he’d planned to marry Alma when he came back down from the mountain.
After only a few days, they fell into a pattern, each feeling he could trust the other’s abilities. Ennis had never done this before but he was used to hunting, fishing, camping out and fending for himself. Ennis’ sister had taught him basic cooking, so he could fry up eggs and simple things out of cans, sticking mostly to what he knew. Not knowing Jack’s distain for them, he heated beans over the fire with whatever else he cooked and had a stream cooled bottle of whiskey or a couple of beers waiting for Jack at breakfast and supper. He eventually experimented with some redi-mix dough and fried some biscuits to go with eggs and some potatoes he’d peeled. They’d usually turn out as hard as rock but he kept trying and eventually he got it right, warmed by the fact that Jack seemed to appreciate the effort.
By the end of the week, Jack was already bitching about Joe Aguirre’s sleep-with-the-sheep-and-no-fire bullshit. He'd already shown how stubborn he could be by refusing to pick out one of the other horses before they started up the mountain, which would be admitting he made a mistake selecting the bay mare. “Ain’t no mare that can throw me!” In the morning he’d saddle her and she’d always buck, nearly throwing him as she wheeled around and around and it was the first time Jack saw Ennis laugh, “I warned you!” he declared, as the rodeo cowboy just barely stayed in the saddle. It eventually became an amusing daily morning ritual to watch Jack's steed abruptly gallop off as if it were determined to leave him behind.
Throughout the day Ennis kept feeling that odd yearning he couldn’t name. He was always alone with his thoughts, because he’d always been taught not to share them. He’d roll up his jeans to his calves, wade into the stream, and while cleaning the breakfast pans, would look up across a great plateau to the distant hillside and sometimes spot Jack, a small dot moving across the high meadow like an insect moving across a tablecloth.
Later, Jack too would pause often in his dark camp to see Ennis’ night fire, a red spark on the huge black mass of mountain and wonder why he yearned for his new friend’s company. He’d shrug if off as making sure he knew what direction camp was in.
They settled deeper into the routine reluctantly but surely.
Several times over the next few days, Jack would spot a coyote stalking the herd and shoot at it, missing every time, cussing under his breath and glad Ennis wasn’t there to witness it. More often than not he’d lay on his back using a log for a pillow and doze, guarded by one of the now almost grown puppies. The false alarms were becoming more frequent as the sheep seemed to bleat at anything and he began relying on the dogs to alert him when a wolf or coyote showed up, which had become increasingly more often as they learned where the herd was bedded down. About all he could do was shoot at the predators and hope the sound scared them off, which luckily it did. Unfortunately it also sometimes scared the skittish sheep into running too. Jack blamed the rifle’s bent sites for all his misses though he knew better.
Down below it’d rain often and Ennis usually passed the time waiting out a storm in the camp tent whittling this or that and after a while settled on a little wooden horse for his future son that’d be later joined by a toy cowboy astride it that looked a lot like Jack. Sometimes he’d hear Jack’s gun blasts and wonder what he’d gotten, but quickly deduced he’d mostly missed because the rodeo cowboy would’ve been braggin’ his head off when he came down for supper, but never did.
Friday morning, Jack squatted at the fire to eat breakfast. Another can of beans; some eggs and more of Ennis’ strange campfire biscuits. His hungry eyes strayed to Ennis without knowing why, watching his muscular body prepare the pack mules to go down for supplies.
He spotted Ennis scrawling on a piece of paper and said, “Don't forget whiskey and beer. We need more ammo for the rifles too; lots of coyotes up there."
Ennis nodded and jotted down something, then ambled up to the campfire grate.
Jack walked over, mounted his skittish horse, and farted loudly, glancing back red-faced to see if Ennis had heard. The young ranch hand looked away just before their eyes met.
As he spurred the mare on, Twist yelled out in frustration, “No more beans!”
Del Mar nodded while collecting the breakfast pans to wash at the river, but Twist was gone in the time it took for him to look up…
~ Chapter 3: Sick 'n tired of your dumb ass missin'!
The weekly trips down the mountain were something Ennis would come to enjoy and savor. He liked being alone on a good horse with the fresh pine air, birds singing and a tune to hum, punctuated by the calls of an elk or a bear off in the distance or an eagle high above. As he neared the bottom of the trail and spotted the bridge, he checked his watch and smiled; he’d made good time.
He considered buying the horse from Aguirre because he’d come to like the mare a lot, though he didn’t have much cash to offer. What little he had would have to go towards supporting Alma and probably a son soon, but he figured that with the pay he’d earn up here, maybe he could manage it.
Half an hour later he stood frowning while checking off his list with the Chilean herder after packing the mules. “Something wrong?” the man asked with a heavy South American accent.
Ennis responded, “Yeah, uh, what, uh, why didn’t we get the powdered milk and the spuds?”
“Dat’s all we got.”
Del Mar shrugged, grunted his disapproval and handed the man the list from his pocket muttering, “Well uh… well there’s next week’s.”
Looking it over the Chilean frowned, “I thought you didn’t eat soup?”
“Well I’m sick of beans.”
He smiled back knowingly, “Too early in the summer to be sick of beans.”
Ignoring him, Ennis gathered the reins and began pulling the loaded down mules behind him over to his horse. After making sure everything was secured, he headed back up the mountain.
Jack’d be pissed.
Ennis’ mind seemed to be filled lately with how much he’d taken to Jack and reminded himself not to let his feelings go too far because they’d have to part company in only a couple of months and go their separate ways, probably never to see each other again. That happened a lot in his young life so he’d guarded himself against letting anyone get too close to him.
Del Mar had let his guard slip only once… with Alma and that’s what puzzled him, because he seemed to be having the same feelings about Jack.
He remembered waking up yesterday with a hard-on, as all young men his age did and began pulling and rubbing thinking about her. He didn’t want to get her pregnant, so had always fucked her from behind. Without realizing it, Jack had somehow entered his fantasy. In his mind, Ennis' hand once again caressed up the taunt inner thigh of Twist's leg feeling the muscles flex beneath the tight blue denim. His palm caressed the taut ass muscles of an athlete and… Just as he orgasmed in his fist in loud gasps, he realized he was thinking of Jack bucking wildly under him and sat bolt upright in a cold sweat.
His daddy taught him well what happened to men who had “queer” thoughts.
Bringing himself back to reality on the upward trail through the forest, Ennis realized he’d been so deep in thought that he’d made it about halfway up the mountain. Distracted when one of the mules in tow began resisting as they came up on a narrow mountain stream, he turned around in his saddle to bitch at it.
Ahead of them a bear that’d stopped to drink roared a territorial warning and stood up on its hind legs.
Cigar Butt reared up in fear and kicked at the air in panic. Ennis got only the barest glimpse of the huge black beast before finding himself in mid-air falling first on his shoulder, then his face slammed painfully into the scattered muddy pebbles at the edge of the stream.
Scared as hell, dizzy and near panic, he had only seconds to determine if he were about to be mauled and was relieved to see the bear running away, spooked by the horse probably. In the moment’s distraction the mules ran off hawing into the woods scattering the packs of supplies everywhere followed close behind by his horse. Cussing his head off, Ennis took off after them, concentrating on Cigar Butt because he needed the rifle in case the damned bear had company…
...Near dusk, Jack had come down from the herd for supper only to find an empty camp and Ennis nowhere to be found. Then he remembered it was Friday so he must be late coming back up from getting supplies. He cussed under his breath. As hungry as he was, even if Ennis showed up at that moment it’d take half an hour or more just to make something to eat and he was in no mood to settle for cold beans straight out of the can.
After an hour and almost half a bottle of whiskey, he didn’t know if he was more worried or pissed at his stomach growling. By the light of the campfire he’d just lit, he scavenged together a couple of potatoes to boil and one can of beans from what little they had left. He’d come to know Ennis well enough to figure he could take care of himself and knew better than to go looking for him. Best to stay put in case Ennis come back, not find him, and then set off searching for Twist. Two people won’t find each other unless one waited where he could be found so he sat and waited… reluctantly.
A little after darkness settled he finished the can of damned beans. At least his stomach had stopped growling.
Now more worried about Ennis than pissed, he decided not to go back up to the herd and after making a third circuit of the immediate area and checking the tent for a note, he settled back in front of the fire. A twig cracked somewhere behind him and he reached for his rifle and peered into the darkness.
Just barely in the moonlight, he spotted Ennis’ silhouette on horseback leading the mules. Letting the whiskey speak for him, he got up angrily as del Mar slowly got painfully down from his steed.
“Where the hell you been?” he spat out impatiently like a husband bitching at his wife. As Ennis approached he continued, “I been up with the sheep all day, I get down here hungry as hell and all I find is beans…”
As Jack threw the empty beans can at a rock, his friend came into the glow of the fire and that’s when Twist saw that the left side of his face was scabbed over with dried blood. Jack's anger swiftly changed to concern, “What in the hell happened Ennis?”
Del Mar angrily kicked the can into the woods and groaned to a seated position on a log, Jack pulled his neckerchief off, dipped it in a kettle of warming coffee water and approached his friend.
“I come up on a bear is what happened. God damned horse spooked, and the mules took off, scattered food everywhere…” As Twist offered him the canteen Ennis added, “Beans is about all we got left.”
Jack moved intimately close, “Let me see,” and began dabbing gently at Ennis’ head with the rag.
Del Mar took it from him and rubbed away most of the dirt, wincing from the pain. He waved away the canteen still being offered and asked, “You got whiskey or somethin’?”
Jack quickly reached over for it and Ennis took a swig from the bottle and muttered, “Dumb ass mule.” wrung out the rag and then poured whiskey on it dabbing at his sideburn some more, using it as an antiseptic, wincing as the alcohol stung.
Jack looked pissed. “Well we gotta do something about this food situation,” he said and then after a moment of thought added, “Maybe I’ll shoot one of the sheep.”
Ennis stopped dabbing at his cuts long enough to huff, “Yeah, what if Aguirre finds out, huh? We’re supposed to guard the sheep, not eat ‘em.”
Jack shook his head beside him. “What’s the matter with you?” he asked with a smirk, “There’s a thousand of em up there, Aguirre would never know.”
Ennis looked away, “I’ll stick with beans.”
As if to close the argument before it damaged their friendship, Jack declared, “Well I won’t.”
That night Jack rode out of camp without a word...
...The next morning, Ennis had nothing to offer for breakfast but beans, so he waited for Jack to come down from the sheep. When he did, they set off together. Within an hour they’d spotted a couple of deer and a wild turkey, but Jack kept missing and scaring them off with his gun blasts and everything else within earshot too. Then they’d have to move somewhere else and wait again and again and again through the morning into the afternoon.
Twist was getting more and more pissed off and embarrassed in front of del Mar and turned to leave for camp to get some fishing rods.
In frustration, Ennis grabbed the rifle away from him and within another hour had spotted himself a praiseworthy elk. Beside him, Jack hadn’t seen it yet through the thick undergrowth of the forest and was still bitching about the sites on the rifle.
“Shhhhhhhut up!” warned Ennis in a harsh whisper.
Closing one eye del Mar took careful aim as Jack’s eyes widened at the intended prize. Choosing his moment carefully, Ennis waited. The elk moved into his sites and the young accomplished hunter gently squeezed the trigger with a deafening blast followed by a high-pitched squeak from the woods.
…Nothing happened.
The great beast seemed to just stand there unphased by the loud sound and just as Jack was about to say “See, I told…” the elk seemed to suddenly go drunk, stumbled and fell straight down.
Jack’s jaw dropped, as Ennis sprouted a rare proud smile.
“Whooooooweeeeeee!” exclaimed Jack in glee, grinning from ear to ear. “Yeah!”
Ennis shoved Jack sideways and said impatiently, “I was gettin’ tired of your dumbass missin’!”
Jack leapt on Ennis with a congratulatory hug, cheering, "We're gonna have steak tonight!"
The intimate contact sent chills through both of them. Ennis experienced an uncontrolled shudder through his whole body as Twist’s fingers ran up the valley of his spine. Jack pulled del Mar closer as they both whooped and grinned like kids.
Neither wanted to let go, but separated quickly with embarrassed glances away.
Jack turned red and grinned, “Let’s get a move on, we don’t want the Game and Fish catching us with no elk out of season!”
They spent the rest of the afternoon separately.
Ennis backtracked his path down the mountain and spotted a case of fresh eggs that miraculously hadn’t broken and eventually found enough undamaged canned food to last them a while. He shook his head at a cardboard box of shattered glass whiskey bottles by the stream. Alone, he allowed himself to smile, thinking if anyone downstream had caught some mountain browns it’d probably be because they were too drunk to know better than to avoid his hook.
When he got back to camp he found a note saying Twist had gone off to finish butchering the elk.
He rode out and joined him in the bloody chore. Fortunately the carcass was far enough away from camp to insure against unwanted visitors.
After a late good meal of fresh steaks at the campfire, Jack rode back up to bed the sheep down leaving Ennis to dry out the meat in strips, curing it with some salt.
That night Ennis’ thoughts were filled with Alma and their future together. If he was careful, the money he’d make over the next few months would just barely cover a wedding and the start of a new life for them, but cash would be very tight.
He fell asleep thinking of her.
~ Chapter 4: I think my dad was right!
Note: Text in red is from the original short-story that was not included in the movie.
Ennis woke naked in his bedroll. He’d done more than just think about Alma last night and the next morning woke up hard, as usual.
His thoughts turned to Jack and the strange thrill he’d gotten from that hug that he’d given him yesterday. He closed his eyes and remembered the pleasure of Twist’s fingertips traveling his spine, lingering here and there. Somehow the memory of it reversed and it was Jack’s fingers that were now traveling downward instead to between his hips.
Within minutes he was breathing harder and harder and when his breathless gasps came in an orgasm he felt guilty and puzzled afterward.
Laying there exhausted and spent he sat up to spot the object of his fantasy riding through the brush halfway down the mountain trail and quickly dressed.
He had about half an hour or so, so he started peeling what was left of the potatoes.
…Jack came lagging in 45 minutes later groaning and tired.
He dismounted complaining, “Yeah, I’m commutin’ four hours a day,” as he took a skillet of fresh cooked eggs, elk meat, fried potatoes and a cup of coffee from Ennis. He added, “I come in for breakfast… I go back to the sheep… evening’ get em bedded down… come in for supper… go back to the sheep… spend half the night checkin’ for damned coyotes. Aguirre’s got no right makin' me do this against the rules.”
Ennis was now hesitant about being alone in camp with Jack. He was afraid of what “this thing” that’d taken hold of his thoughts and fantasies might make him do before he got it under control. If Jack wanted to be down here so bad, he’d have to be up there with the sheep.
“You wanna switch, I wouldn’t mind sleepin’ out there,” he offered.
“That ain’t the point. Point is we both should be in this camp. Besides, that goddamn pup tent smells like cat piss or worse.”
Damn! Try again.
“Wouldn’t mind bein' out there,” he repeated the offer.
Jack met his friend’s eyes, “Well, I’m happy to switch with you but I’ll warn you I can’t cook worth a damn. I am pretty good with a can opener though.”
Ennis responded, “Well you can’t be no worse than me then, huh?”
They spent the afternoon and evening planning where to set up the camp next week and then they decided to move the herd to another grazing spot after Ennis’ next supply trip on Friday morning. Around ten, after checking his rifle, Ennis mounted Cigar Butt, who he’d judged to be a good night horse.
Jack joined him and warned, “Won’t get much sleep, I’ll tell you that.”
Ennis only grunted a response, clicked his cheek at the horse and silently rode off up to the sheep carrying leftover biscuits, a jar of jam and a thermos of coffee with him for the next day, saying he’d save a trip and stay out until supper.
He needed time to think this through.
That night an odd sadness came over Jack as he tried to sleep. He couldn’t name it, but suspected it had to do with how good it felt to be around Ennis’ shy friendship. Them holding each other after Ennis bagged the elk was more thrilling than he’d expected and it seemed as if they didn’t want to let go of each other.
His mind wandered back to last summer when he woke to find fingers trying to undo his jeans buttons. His whole body shuddered as he wondered what would’ve happened if he’d pretended sleep and had let the kid go through with what he wanted instead of kicking his ass and throwing him naked out of the tent. This whole thing with Ennis started as a game with Jack, like a child that wasn’t allowed to have something; he was so determined to get it by hook or by crook. In this case it was coaxing a grin out of del Mar. All through the weeks they’d been up here, Jack would tell funny stories or just laugh hoping for del Mar’s smile but never got one.
Then they killed that elk.
Jack found himself craving just being around the handsome young ranch hand and was disappointed when instead of staying in camp, Ennis offered that switch derailing his hoped plan to keep them together more often. If he closed his eyes he could feel Ennis’ strong hard-as-a-tree-trunk chest and his lithe back again enclosed in his arms, their chins on each other’s shoulders, thrilling as his sinewy muscles writhed beneath Jack’s touch.
That night Twist did some gasping of his own and it wasn’t from thinking about that pretty barrel rider in Childress. Just as he reached climax a gun blast sounded far in the distance in the direction of the sheep…
...That Friday Ennis came down from the herd early as planned, stopped just long enough for coffee and then headed down for supplies. A few hours later he returned with everything they’d asked for plus some fresh celery, onions, carrots and a few cooking spices that neither knew what to do with. Chomping on a celery stalk after handing him a new burlap bag of potatoes, del Mar asked Twist to save him the sack to put his stuff in, because his old paper bag was worn out.
Ennis stripped off his shirt in the warm afternoon sun and began shaving. “Shot a coyote up there at first light,” he told Jack casually with a hint of pride, sloshing his face with hot water, lathering up soap and scraping his beard off while Jack peeled potatoes. “Big son of a bitch; he had balls on him the size of apples. Looked like he could eat hisself a camel. I’ll betcha he took a couple of the sheep ‘fore I got ‘im. You want some of this hot water, there’s plenty?”
It irked young Jack that Ennis bagged the damned coyote that he’d missed so many times. He gingerly picked up a can of beans that’d been heating on the grate and took the opener to it. The red sauce spat out of it under pressure as the opener pierced the tin and sprayed all over him. “It’s all yours,” said Jack disgusted, indicating the water kettle, clumsily dropping the hot can back down on the grate. He found himself fighting the sudden urge to explore the ranch hand’s nearly naked torso with his eyes. He picked up another potato and began peeling it to distract himself.
“Well, I’m gonna warsh everything I can reach,” he said, pulling off his boots, jeans and everything else until he was completely naked but for his cowboy hat. Jack noticed he too didn’t wear underwear under his Levis. The brawny ranch hand was crouched down at the fire slopping the green washcloth lathered with soap.
Jack began to panic, not understanding the strange desire he felt to watch Ennis as he rubbed and probed every part of his lean and muscular horseman’s body. It was a fight but his eyes dared not move, though he could see him out of the corner of his eye. He nicked his thumb with the knife not paying attention to what he was doing, cussed under his breath and turned away to suck at it, drying it with his shirtsleeve.
While his back was turned, Ennis moved away and Jack finally spotted him a few moments later on a log bridge still naked and about to dive into the stream to rinse off. What he didn’t know was that Ennis had felt Jack’s attention and began to harden. While the young rodeo rider’s concentration was diverted by the cut, the ranch hand fled to the stream.
For a brief terrifying moment his mind wandered to a scene he’d witnessed as a boy of an old man who’d been beaten to death in a dried out irrigation ditch.
The sound of the stream beneath him brought him back to reality and he dove off the bridge into the cold mountain water.
Later that afternoon they got another campfire going to fight off the coming evening chill. Ennis would have to leave soon to go tend the sheep overnight but Jack didn’t want him to go. Ennis had just settled down to warm his hands around a galvanized coffee cup in front the flickering flames. He picked up his supper plate and began eating when a sound distracted him and he looked up to find Jack returning from taking a piss.
Twist jutted his crotch forward, proudly clinking the silver prize bull-riding belt buckle with his fingernail.
Ennis shook his head no. “Don’t rodeo much myself; I mean what’s the point in riding some piece of stock for eight seconds.”
As Jack settled down in front of the fire, his eyebrows rose considering, “The money’s a good point,” he responded, pushing his worn boots closer to the flames to warm his feet.
Ennis paused eating long enough to reply casually, “True enough; if you don’t get stomped winnin’ it, huh?”
Jack shrugged unable to argue because if he’d really been any good at it, he wouldn’t be here babysitting sheep. He leaned forward and poured some whiskey into Ennis’ coffee cup and then commented, “Now my old man, he was a bull rider… pretty well known in his day…” Then he added sadly, “…but he always kept his secrets to himself, never taught me a thing, never once come to see me ride.” He paused a moment remembering far back and said, “When I was little he used to put me on a sheep's back and I had to stay on as long as I could, hanging on to its wool. He’d laugh like hell when I’d fall off and hurt myself. Maybe that’s why I hate sheep so much.” Not wanting to see their conversation end, he took a long drink of whiskey from the bottle, thought a moment and then asked, “Your brother and sister do right by you?"
Raising the metal cup of coffee to his lips to take a sip, Ennis paused in thought and then replied, “They done the best they could after my folks was gone… considering they didn’t leave us nothin’ but a double mortgage and twenty-four dollars in a coffee can... I got me a year of high school usin’ one of them hardship licenses so I could drive back and forth before the transmission went on the pickup, so there went any hope of graduating. After that, we sorta moved around for a couple of years and then my sis left, she married a roughneck and they picked up stakes and moved to Casper. Me and my brother K.E., we went and got ourselves some work on a ranch up near Worland ‘til I was seventeen or eighteen. Then he got married and uh… and no more room for me,” he paused to take another sip of coffee and added, “…and that’s how come, uh… I ended up here.”
Ennis looked up and found Jack giving him an odd sideways smile like the kind of expression you give to a little boy who’s just said something cute. He reached over, picked up an open can of peach slices and drained the heavy syrup off of them.He looked up and asked, “Gimme some of that horse piss for this?”
Jack reached out and poured some of his whiskey into the can and Ennis sloshed it around muttering, “Thanks.” He began spooning them into his mouth and realized that Twist hadn’t said anything for a while and that was unusual. They locked eyes for a couple of moments. Ennis couldn’t figure out the look Jack was still giving him and asked, “What?”
Jack’s face broke out in a grin. “Friend; that’s more words than you’ve spoke in the past two weeks.”
Del Mar only shrugged, met his eyes and said, “Hell that’s the most I’ve spoke in a year,” and then added, “Now my dad, he was a fine roper… He didn’t rodeo much though; he thought rodeo cowboys was all fuck-ups.”
Jack raised the whiskey bottle nearly to his lips, paused, frowned, straightened and then considered whether he’d just been intentionally insulted. He decided he hadn’t, so he responded smoothly with a sideways glance, “The hell we are.”
An uncomfortable silence ensued that Jack felt needed broken so he suddenly jumped to his feet, stuck his face down close to Ennis’ and abruptly yelled, “Yeeeeee Hawwwwww!” nearly startling the coffee out of del Mar’s cup.
Ennis looked back over his right shoulder grinning at Jack and shook his head disapprovingly, “There he goes!”
He became momentarily distracted as he recalled laughing like this with his childhood best friend Michael and the memory briefly warmed his smile even broader.
Regaining his attention by moving around behind him, Twist started bucking his legs, jolting up and down like there was a bull under him and began screaming, “I’m spurring his guts out! Waving to the girls in the stands… He’s kickin’ me to high heaven but he don’t jackboard me! No…” Suddenly he fell backwards tripping over some camp supplies landing flat on his ass with the clattering of pots and pans followed by his loud and embarrassed laugh. Twist craned his head up to find his reward; Ennis’ laughing smile broad and happy and the sight of it shot pure joy through Jack’s body like good whiskey.
Ennis shook his head in mock disapproval and called out with a laugh, “I think my dad was right!”
After another half an hour, Ennis got up and headed toward his horse, mounted it, and rode off up the mountain.
Jack sat pondering the fire wondering once again why he was so sad to see the young ranch hand leave and trying not to admit to himself that he knew. The craving friendship that Jack felt for Ennis was love; it was the only word he knew that would fit. Jack had spent so much time wanting to please him, craving his approval and desiring his touch. Jack wasn’t queer; he knew that, but maybe he was a little, but only for Ennis.
They were respectful of each other’s opinions, each glad to have a companion where none had been expected.
Ennis’ found himself humming a happy tune while riding against the wind back up to the herd in the hazy bright moonlight. He thought he’d never had such a good time and felt he could paw the white right out of the moon.
~ Chapter 5: Damned tent don’t look right
The next week grew warmer and they moved the herd farther up the mountain to new pasture. Their camp was now closer to the sheep. While getting settled in Jack argued that they were far enough up the mountain that if Aguirre wanted to check up on them the distance would discourage him and that they could safely stay in camp together instead of one here and one there.
Ennis disagreed.
Afterward, del Mar busied himself setting up the camp tent, while Jack lay on his back against a log, lazily playing a harmonica that he’d brought with him intending to give it to Aguirre to return to Johnny. Between Jack’s sour notes, Ennis stood back, studied his work and complained, “Damned tent don’t look right.”
Jack paused playing. Without looking over his shoulder he replied as if he were bored with listening to him bitch, “Well it ain’t goin’ nowhere… let it be." and went back to playing some barely recognizable tune.
As he adjusted a pole further out, del Mar glanced over at the back of Twist’s hat and added, “That harmonica don’t sound quite right either.”
Jack stopped long enough to reply, “Well that’s ‘cause it got kinda flattened when that mare threw me.”
Still adjusting the tent, Ennis chuckled and sarcastically objected, “Oh yeah? I thought you said that mare couldn’t throw you, huh.”
Jack cocked his head back and declared, “Welllllll... she got lucky.”
Ennis shook his head and countered, “Well if I’d got lucky, that harmonica woulda broke in two.”
Jack thought a second and laughed, then went back to playing. Their friendship had gotten to the point where they could joke around and fling half-hearted insults at each other and it felt good, damned good.
They worked together through the afternoon putting away the new load of supplies and then settled down in a meadow that looked up into the mountains, sharing a bottle of whiskey.
Jack half succeeded in pulling a squalling tune out of the harmonica, but finally gave up and put it away when some distant wolves began joining in. Ennis remarked that they were carrying the tune better than he was.
After a good meal, Jack suddenly remembered it was Sunday and almost startled Ennis sitting next to him off of his log by abruptly yelling out an old hymn with dirge slowness. Ennis reached over, grabbed a twig and with a grin began half-heartedly keeping time banging it against the coffee pot. After another encouraged minute Jack ended it with, “…I know I shall meet you on that final day, water-walking Jesus, take me awaaaaaaaaaaay,” hoping it was loud enough to echo off a nearby cliff.
Ennis rapidly pounded the pot enthusiastically out of rhythm almost as if he were applauding and remarked dryly, “Very good.” and then rewarded Jack with another warm smile.
Twist took a swig from the second whiskey bottle they’d been sharing and nodded, “My mama taught me that… She believes in the Pentecost.”
“Oh yeah?” Ennis shrugged, took a swig from the bottle Jack just offered and asked in a puzzled tone, “Well what exactly is the Pentecost? I mean… my folks' they was Methodists.”
Jack seemed to be lost for an answer and frowned, saying in an embarrassed tone, “The Pentecost? I don’t know. I don’t know what the Pentecost is; mama never explained it to me. I, I… guess it’s when the world ends and fellas like you’n me-we march off to Hell.”
Ennis scoffed and declared self-assured, “Speak for yourself. You may be a sinner, but I ain’t yet had the opportunity.”
Jack raised his eyebrows skeptically, "Oh yeah?" and tossed the empty bottle towards the tent. He’d clean them up later.
As the shadows grew longer, their friendship grew stronger. As the alcohol flowed, Jack wanted more and more to tell Ennis about the feelings that he’d started having for him, but didn’t dare for fear of rejection or possibly the same over-reaction he gave the Johnny-Jack last year.
Night fell some time later and after a few hours more of laughing and drinking Jack began yawning loudly.
Del Mar felt lightheaded and was shocked when a giggle escaped his mouth. He gestured wildly toward the distant mountaintop as if he were trying to pull it down to within walking distance. He called out enthusiastically, “Well uh, I’m gonna go up to the sheep now.”
Jack cheerfully replied, “Give ‘em hell!
Del Mar clumsily tried to get up, but finally settled for crawling off balance toward his horse on hands and knees. Shaking his head in resignation, he paused worried he was about to fall over. “Too… it’s uh… Oh uh, I don’t give a damn… too late to go up to them sheep,” declared Ennis in a slurred voice, pointing vaguely towards the trail, dizzy drunk on all fours. In a low moan he struggled to stay upright and abruptly fell over on his side.
Laying there, Ennis was nearly helpless to get up but he managed to struggle to one elbow and asked, “Got, I, You, Um you got a extra blanket? I’ll just er-er-roll up out here and grab four, uh forty winks and I can uh I’ll ride out at first light.”
The mountain cold had set in and they could see their own breath now. By then the full moon had notched past two in the morning. The meadow stones glowed blue-white and a sharp stiff wind worked over the wild grasses, scraped the fire low and then ruffled it into yellow silk streamers.
Somewhere in the distance a wolf howled out as if calling to its pack and after a moment several more joined in.
Jack shrugged and staggered toward the tent commenting, “You’ll freeze your ass off when that fire dies down.”
“Oh that’s good.”
“You’re better off sleepin' in the tent.”
“Oh, uh, I doubt I’ll feel nothin'.”
Jack shrugged and went in, grabbed a blanket and tossed it to a crawling Ennis as he groaned, lost his balance again and toppled over on his side next to the fire. As a rack of wispy clouds threatened to obscure the full moon, an owl hooted. The campfire soon became only dull red embers...
An hour later, Jack got up and went out to lay gently beside Ennis by the campfire, pulling the blanket around them trying to warm his friend. Ennis rolled over in the cold, facing him and kissed Twist tenderly. As they both shivered together Jack felt Ennis’ hand travel down his chest and begin to unbuckle the belt of his jeans. Transfixed, Jack began to harden. Suddenly Ennis begin gasping for air, moaning in pain and shivering in passion…
Jack sat bolt upright in the tent, covered in a cold sweat and realized he was dreaming… another one of “those” dreams. He cocked his head listening for what woke him up but heard nothing but the wind. Just as he was about to lay back down and try to recapture the dream where he’d left off, Ennis groaned again outside and gave out a loud shivering breath through clattering teeth.
Jack’d never get any sleep like this.
Parting the tent flaps, he yelled out sharply in an annoyed tone, “Ennis!!!”
The ranch hand jerked awake and in a weak shivering voice replied, “What?”
“Just quit hammering and get your ass in here. Bedroll’s big enough,” he yelled in an irritable sleep-clogged voice.
In no position to argue, Ennis got up dizzily, grabbed his blanket and wove to the tent, knocking over and spilling the coffee pot in the process, killing what was left of the fire.
Inside the tent, Jack unzipped the bedroll and after pulling off his boots, Ennis wriggled in. It was just big enough and warm enough for two grown men to tightly fit in it but they’d have to sleep intimately close.
In a little while they fell back asleep as the full moon crawled farther across the sky outside.
With their combined body heat, in no time it got progressively warmer in there. First the extra blankets came out and were rolled up to make better pillows and then their coats and eventually their shirts came off too.
With the front of Ennis’ chest now pasted to Jack’s back by warm sweat, it was only natural in the name of comfort that sooner or later del mar’s arm came up and over Twist’s side and his palm rested across Jack’s chest.
Ennis felt his breath quickening as the friction of his hand began to harden Jack’s right nipple. Alma’s did that too and for some reason he never knew that men got nipple erections, so he left his hand there. In the silence they both pretended sleep, but that wasn’t all that was hardening.
Ennis’ gentle breath felt good on the back of Jack’s neck and he snuggled back to be closer in their embrace. His movement had the wrong effect and in his sleep, Ennis rolled away onto his back… or so Twist thought. Actually Ennis was scared of the thoughts roaring through his mind and needed a break to think things over.
After a minute that seemed like eternity, Jack could no longer take it. He couldn’t understand the want welling deep inside of himself but he wasn’t going to fight it either. He groaned and reached behind to find Ennis’ right hand, pulling it up and over, bringing the young ranch hand's body along with it so that del Mar was once again surrounding him in an intimate hug. Twist guided Ennis’ wrist so that his palm absently strayed down his bare stomach and planted it firmly on Jack’s denim covered crotch.
Ennis’ was still a little drunk and mentally stopped paying attention to what was happening in the here-and-now, and began remembering the goodbye fuck he’s given Alma, replacing the feel of Jack’s lithe body with the memory of hers. In his semi-consciousness, Ennis’ hand absently rubbed the mound it was on for a moment and then traveled ticklishly up Jack’s quilted abs to grip his developed pecs one at a time, marveling again at how hard the nipples were. In his drunken slumber they were Alma’s tits.
This time it wasn’t a dream for Jack as he was tenderly caressed from behind. The handsome ranch hand’s palm strayed up his abdomen to grip his left pec and seemed to squeeze it. Ennis’ breath seemed to quicken on the back of Twist’s neck. Something hard was pressing through denim against Jack’s ass sending chills of passion through his body that he couldn’t explain. As Ennis began humping his erection against Jack, his arms tightened.
From out of nowhere Jack felt the need to be fucked… to actually crave Ennis inside him. He was almost in panic not understanding the urge that was overwhelming his mind, but as it grew, he couldn’t fight it.
Both stayed that way for what seemed like an hour.
As Jack’s breathing became labored, Ennis’ palm slowly roved back down and his fingertips probed inside Twist’s jeans just beneath the crotch buttons. Ennis’ arms tightened even more around the desirable body he was blindly embracing and as they did his hand slipped deeper until it rested over the pulsing, oozing head of Jack’s raging hard-on. Ennis’ own erection grew even more urgent as he continued gyrating his Levis against Jack from behind.
Twist breathed a soft pleasured sigh and reached back to pull Ennis’ head forward and felt the young ranch hand’s lips brush the nape of his neck. Half consciously, Ennis nuzzled him, moving his hand deeper and began jacking Jack’s rock-hard cock as if it were his own until he gradually realized what he was doing. The ranch hand jerked his massaging fingers away as though he’d touched fire.
Within moments, unspoken, unplanned, and unhesitating, the zipper of the sleeping bag was torn open along with the rest of Jack’s jeans buttons. The hell with all this denying what they’d been fantasizing about for weeks now with no release. Ennis got to his knees, unbuckled his belt and shoved his Levis down. Then he hauled Jack onto all fours in front of him, shucked down the young rodeo rider’s jeans with trembling hands, and with the help of the clear slick of pre-cum and a little spit pushed the head of his ramrod against Twist’s pucker and entered him with a pleasured groan from behind.
A heavenly sensation gripped every fiber of his being as the tight warm ring of Jack’s ass slid slowly down his quivering cock from its head gradually to his pubic hair. It was something he’d done with Alma before so she wouldn’t get pregnant before their getting married, so no instruction manual was needed. Ennis closed his eyes, still half asleep and it was Alma he was fucking not Jack.
They went at it at first in silence, except for a few sharp intakes of breath. Both were naked but for their pants and boots at their ankles. Ennis withdrew completely and then reentered, both of them thrilling at the passionate sensation. As the alcohol haze began lifting, Ennis realized it was Jack he was fucking but it was too late to stop now, he was getting closer and closer; too close to stop as that roaring tingling sensation began building behind his pubic hair. The base of his cock felt white hot and as it felt better and better, he became bolder and bolder, thrusting ever harder and faster determined to keep his manhood by completely dominating the man beneath him. The tip of his penis felt as if it were filling to near burst, desperate for release, about to explode gushes into the brawny man before him.
No; this wasn’t love, nor was it passion, just animal lust drowned in mutual youthful loneliness and pure male horniness. Jack began matching Ennis’ rhythm as if he had a desperate need for what the ranch hand was doing to him. Without knowing why, when Ennis felt close to shooting his load, he reached around under Twist’s bucking hips to begin working Jack’s swelling cock because he needed and craved the thrill of holding it again. He couldn’t be sure over his loud breathing, but Twist seemed to be whispering, “Harder! Harder!”
Ennis wasn’t clear if he wanted to be masturbated harder or fucked harder, so he did both as they became more and more overcome with intense lust powered by surges of adrenaline.
Their breathing got more urgent and then their gasps came in unison as if they’d joined somehow and became one. Each time Ennis withdrew for another stroke, Jack desperately pushed his hips backward to keep him in there to not allow the contact to break, to make it last forever if he could.
Twist thrilled that it didn’t hurt; not one bit. Ennis was rubbing Jack’s prostate from within with the head of his iron cock, driving them both into a frenzy of ecstasy. Ennis’ hips rhythmically slapped against Jack’s ass cheeks loudly and got faster and faster as did his fist around Jack’s throbbing erection. He worked on holding back shooting his load until Jack was ready. It became important to him that they come together, to experience each other’s joy as one.
Jack finally choked out “Gun’s goin’ off,” and Ennis screamed at the top of his lungs as he lunged forward in a final thrust and choked out more babbled gasps as his loins emptied, feeling as if he’d never stop cumming, fighting desperately to get his breath back. Both men felt as if they were about to pass out from exhaustion and joy.
Jack collapsed forward in a pool of his own sperm and at first faked sleep. Ennis had fallen forward with him, his cock still buried deep within Twist’s quivering ass. Del Mar marveled at how the muscled shoulders, back and firm pillowed butt beneath him seemed to have been molded by god or fate to fit his chest and hips perfectly as if destiny had meant them to come together.
Jack silently loved the weight of the young horseman’s body glued to his back, and waited for an impassioned kiss good night from his new lover, but dozed off waiting for something he wouldn’t get. As sleep came he felt completely spent, happier than he could ever remember being. It was as if Ennis were trying to crush him under his weight and it felt thrilling, as if he would always belong beneath this man.
Guilt invaded his thoughts as he remembered the kid he’d herded sheep with from last summer here on the mountain. Jack wondered now what would’ve happened if he hadn’t rejected his advances.
Eventually, Ennis was so exhausted; he reluctantly fell on his side away from Jack and silently suffered the feelings he couldn’t name that most young men have after an orgasm. Confusion rocked his conscience until he eventually fell asleep himself. Some time later in his sleep, he rolled over to spoon his body behind Jack's in an unconscious embrace like he did with Alma.
~ Chapter 6: I ain't queer
Ennis woke on his side with the deep blue dawn. With a groan he found that his pants were down around his thighs but yet mysteriously his shirt and coat were back on, and he had a massive and painful hangover that kept his eyes tightly shut. It was then that he realized that he was cradling a warm and naked body in his arms from behind. His morning erection was nestled in a tight warm place and he moaned in sleepy pleasure remembering how he’d wake up like this with Alma while deep inside her from the night before, still hard, then would give her a few strokes till he came. His arm tightened around her waist as he began to stroke in and out, in and out, as he felt the pleasure build…
With a start, he realized who he was inside of and carefully moved backward withdrawing, hoping not to wake him. Before him was the brawny rodeo cowboy, completely naked but for his coat hung haphazardly across his shoulders for warmth.
Then he remembered what he’d done last night.
Parting the tent flaps to look out, he squinted at the bright light, realized it was the next morning and silently pulled his pants back up, fumbled with the loud belt buckle, then slipped out of the tent feeling like an escaping rapist who’d fallen asleep with his victim and was fleeing before he was discovered.
Jack crawled out a few minutes later, dressed to his hat and without even exchanging glances; he stood silently at the tent flaps tucking his shirt in.
The loud clack of the rifle as Ennis checked his ammo brought Jack out of his thoughts. Twist started striding towards del Mar’s back as he shoved the rifle into its saddle sheathe and mounted.
As much of a question as a comment, Jack said softly, “See ya for supper.”
Ennis spurred his horse and took off toward the herd at a gallop without a word and barely a glance back.
They both suffered through the morning, each in his own way.
In Ennis’ case, he rode quietly, deep in tormented thought. Jack would never-could never forgive being raped last night. How would Ennis ever be able to face him again? Del Mar fought a stinging, welling up in his eyes because he’d done something horrific to a man he’d considered his friend and now he’d have an enemy for the next couple of months.
What if Jack rode down the mountain and reported him to the sheriff while he was up here tending the sheep? He’d be arrested, ruined, maybe even lynched. His marriage plans to Alma would be destroyed.
What had he done?
Why had he done it?
Had he started it, dreaming of Alma and in his slumber blindly used Jack to replace her; then when he woke up he’d gone too far to stop?
It was something he never even considered before… something he’d been thoroughly taught was evil and that he’d surely go to hell for. If anyone found out they’d kill him, just like his father killed them two queers that were ranched up together when he was a boy. His father taught him that kind of “thing” was like a cancer that had to be cut out before it spread.
Ennis suffered an uncontrollable shudder just thinking about it.
No, he couldn’t be one of those, he just couldn’t be! His mind became confused between the lisping, swishing, limp-wristed cross-dressing fags that sometimes appeared on hate-filled religious pamphlets, and his loving boyhood memories of the manly Earl and Rich.
For the whole ride up the rocky trail, he could think of nothing else and tried to figure out a way to apologize to Jack but the words wouldn’t come. His mind kept wandering back to how good it felt; so natural, so… right to hold Jack in his arms. Something wasn’t right about the whole thing though; it was almost as if Twist had enjoyed being fucked.
As he cleared the crest of a hill overlooking the herd, he heard a dog crying…
...Jack watched him ride away.
Did he really get Ennis drunk on purpose and then seduce him?
Why?
All Jack knew was that it felt right-but it wasn’t, was not anything he’d ever even considered doing? Clearly Ennis blamed him for it. Jack had worked so hard to get Ennis’ friendship, and now it was all in ashes. Del Mar wouldn’t even speak to him when he rode off.
Jack tried to distract himself by setting out some ingredients for that night’s meal, which he’d long before planned special. He opened a can of mixed vegetables and another of stewed tomatoes, added some water and spices, and then lowered the lid over the cast iron kettle, moving it slightly off the fire to cook slowly through the afternoon like he’d seen his mother do many times.
One thing was for sure, this would have to be resolved or the next couple of months would be unbearable.
This couldn’t wait until supper.
His ass was burning and itching something awful, and he lowered his jeans to the acrid smell of shit. He undressed completely and took a couple bars of Ivory soap to the stream, dragging the bedroll with him. Naked, he first washed himself, then used a stick to rub and beat the shit out of the seat of his pants, rubbed the soap all over them and the sleeping bag.
Later he hung them over a makeshift tripod above the cook fire to dry.
His mind kept straying back to how good it felt to have Ennis’ arms around him and how little the fucking had hurt; amazed that after a few seconds it actually began to feel damned good, as if his life centered around a spot just behind his pubic hair. Despite the number of girls he’d fucked, and there were many, he’d never felt that sensation before and like a potent drug, he wanted, no-needed, no-craved it again.
He smiled when he realized that for hours now he’d had his own private little nudist camp up here in the woods and his nipples hardened like they had last night. He decided to prolong the experience and discarded getting dressed until he finished his chores.
Suddenly his mother seemed to inhabit his body. He began peeling potatoes and then chopped them up along with carrots, onions and celery into big chunks and added them to the kettle. As a boy he’d helped her do this and a thoughtful remembering smile came to his face. Then he took the rest of the dried elk meat and added it too, suddenly feeling like a restaurant chef. He searched through the supplies for spices to add to his wilderness soup and when he was satisfied with it he grinned to himself about the smile he’d be rewarded with from Ennis when he tasted it…
Ennis…
Standing there still naked, his eyes wandered to the flock up above and to the right scattered on the mountainside, but he couldn’t see Ennis there. He didn’t know how he felt, much less how Ennis felt, because he’d never been taught words that described what he was going through, but making peace with his friend was a bull that had to be ridden now or never.
Lifting the kettle lid, he stirred his concoction again and was amazed at how good it smelled. The starch from the potatoes had begun turning it from soup to stew and he felt a wave of proud satisfaction.
As the afternoon set in, the warmth of the sun covered his bare skin. He admitted to himself that he’d actually set out to seduce Ennis into having sex with him last night. The question remained as to whether it was intentional or had been fueled by all the whiskey they’d drank. He spread out face down on a blanket to relax and remembered how warm Ennis felt on top of him while the sexy horseman was fucking him. As he hardened, he raised his ass up off the ground towards the sky recalling the sensation of being entered and reached beneath himself to jack off. When he’d finished, he pulled on his clothes, now smelling fresh of soap and came up with an excuse to ride up to see him. Jack packed up a couple of bacon and egg sandwiches and a thermos of hot coffee in his saddle bag to replace Ennis’ missed breakfast, mounted the mare and took off toward the high pasture.
He’d figure out what to say on the way up there…
…Glancing around quickly, Ennis spotted the young dog in the distance whining next to a nearly hollowed out and bloody corpse of one of the lambs. Spurring Cigar Butt, he rode as fast as he could down to the herd in case the wolf, bear or wild dog was still there. When he reached it, the scene was gruesome with a cloud of flies buzzing around and on it. He took little comfort in this being the only apparent victim of last night’s neglect.
He spent most of the afternoon tracking down the son of a bitch coyote by the blood trail, killed it and strung it up by it’s feet on a tall pole to warn off anything else that came near.
For the next hour he sat with the herd, not understanding why the death of that poor lamb hit him so hard until he realized it wasn’t that; it was how he felt about Jack that was tearing him apart.
One of the dogs came over and appeared to try to comfort him, whining and licking his face. Ennis stroked its head and fell into a deep dark brooding...
…On his way up the trail Jack heard Ennis' gunshot at the coyote and spurred his mare into a gallop in case Ennis was in trouble. When he arrived half an hour later, he yanked his rifle from the saddle and stood guard on the top of a knoll surveying the herd and looking for predators. After a minute of searching, he spotted his friend down below seated next to one of the blue heel herd dogs as if resting. About ten yards away hung the corpse of a coyote. Twist spent the next ten minutes scanning for additional threats and debated with himself about going down to Ennis to apologize...
…Meanwhile Ennis was still deep in thought when the dog suddenly jerked his head beside him. Ennis glanced up on the hillside to see what had caught its attention. In the cloudy sky stood the silhouette of Jack Twist looking directly down at him. Del Mar’s chest tightened and his breath caught when he realized that the young rodeo rider was carrying his rifle in a way that said he’d come to use it.
It was a very rare occasion when Ennis felt scared and this was one of them. At this range, considering what he’d seen of Jack’s rifle skills, he knew that even if he tried, Twist would never hit him. If the roles were reversed and Jack had raped him, would he go gunning for him? He nodded to himself that he probably would’ve, and then walked over to his horse and pulled his own rifle out checking it over.
He decided instead of riding up the hill, he’d climb up to his friend on foot and maybe take what was coming to him like a man, what he thought he deserved.
Better by Jack’s hand than to end up in some drainage ditch after torture and a lynching. In the space of fifteen minutes, del Mar strode straight up the steep grassy hill, never letting Twist out of his sight. Only then did it occur to Ennis to wonder why we was carrying his own rifle, but his mind was too cluttered with worry to deal with it. He continued pacing uphill, being careful not to look threatening, as if he were approaching an only partially broken horse that he didn’t want to spook.
Halfway there Jack put his rifle down, making sure del Mar saw him do it and lay on his side propped up on his right elbow facing away from Ennis’ advancing figure, surrounded by sheep on all sides, bleating, grazing and sleeping.
Jack heard the grass rustle under foot and looked up at him as Ennis came up close. The ranch hand passed his feet by a couple of paces to stand in front of him facing away, presenting his back as a sacrificially offered target.
Fear smothered the hilltop like a cloud of unbreatheable ammonia. Just for one anxious moment Jack thought that Ennis had brought the rifle to shoot him. Mysteriously, the young horseman only stood there holding the gun, but not in a way that he was about to fire it.
From behind, Ennis thought he heard Jack let out an anxious breath as if he’d been holding it for a long time and wondered what that meant.
Without knowing it, both thought the other was out for revenge, neither knowing how wrong they were.
Just for one brutal moment Ennis closed his eyes, waiting for Jack to reach for the rifle just out of his reach and put the bullet that del Mar thought he deserved into his back. He never looked back or down at Jack, but seemed to exhale a sigh of relief for some reason when all he heard was silence between them and the bleating of the surrounding sheep.
Somewhere in the distance a hawk cried out.
They remained there in limbo, quiet for a long time, not knowing what to say to each other, both watching the brown ocean of wool flow down below and around them.
Without taking his eyes off the sheep, finally Ennis crouched down on his haunches. He meant to promise that it’d never happen again and to beg his friend’s forgiveness and silence. He’d rehearsed it all the way up the mountain, but the correct words wouldn’t come out right so he settled for saying, “This is a one-shot thing we got going on here,” meaning it as a promise that he'd never do it again, but somehow it didn't come out that way. He struggled without looking back to see Jack’s reaction.
Jack looked up at Ennis’ back from where he lay and sadly answered, “It’s nobody’s business but ours.”
Both were still tense but relieved that the other seemed to have forgiven the one to blame.
“You know I ain't queer,” mumbled Ennis carefully, knowing it needed to be said lest Jack think differently.
“Me neither,” Twist answered somberly as his friend settled down in the grass with his rifle cradled in front of his knees at the ready. Minutes felt like hours creeping by because Ennis never turned to make eye contact with his friend. Jack began nervously pulling up blades of grass one by one sneaking glances at his companion's back. They sat like that seemingly frozen in time, not speaking for about half an hour... Ennis watching the herd… Jack watching Ennis.
Finally unable to stand it any more, Twist got up, began striding toward his horse and asked over his shoulder, “You hungry?”
Del Mar only nodded.
Twist reached for the sandwiches he’d transferred to his pocket, and then changed his mind. “Come on, then,” he said as he swung his leg up over the bay mare, turned her around and met Ennis’ eyes.
Del Mar nodded again and walked carefully down the slope in the dark to his horse while Twist waited above deep in thought… sipping some coffee from the thermos and absently eating a sandwich he'd brought for del Mar while he waited.
~ Chapter 7: The forever joining of souls
The ride down to camp was made in complete silence. They rode side by side, each adjusting their speed to keep exact pace with the other, only pausing to detour around a tree or a boulder. At the campsite, he added wood to the fire and moved the kettle over it to bring it back to a boil.
Though Ennis wordlessly made sure Jack knew that he enjoyed the meal and appreciated the effort by eating a couple servings and mmmmmming a lot, he uttered not one single word, which worried Twist.
Needlessly though, for the ranch hand was still convinced that Jack hated him for being ass raped last night but was too embarrassed to report it to the sheriff or Aguirre; probably for fear of what people would say. On the other hand Twist had gone to a lot of trouble to make this special meal for him so the young rancher was still confused… maybe Jack had enjoyed what they'd done as much as Ennis thought he had.
On the other hand, poor Jack still thought Ennis hated him for trying to turn him into a faggot or something.
Unable to find the right words, neither spoke, and as wolves and owls called out into the surprisingly warm night, Twist finally gave up and crawled into the camp tent muttering, “G’night,” sort of hoping Ennis would follow.
When nothing happened, he peeked outside as Ennis walked slowly over to his horse, mounted it and rode away into the darkness. Jack bowed his head alone. He shrugged out of his shirt, opened the soap-scented bedroll and pushed the blanket into the foot of it while kicking off his boots. He was just preparing to bed down for the night when from outside twigs snapped in the darkness beyond the campfire.
A bear or a wolf attracted by the smell of food? His eyes glanced at his rifle ever within reach next to his bedroll and he stretched his hand out for it.
Ennis had returned for his forgotten coat… or at least that’s the reason he gave himself for coming back to camp. He tended his horse and then walked towards the tent. The young good-looking ranch hand suddenly stopped in his tracks at the fire as though changing his mind and his whole body shuddered once from nervousness as he stood there looking down sadly.
Jack lay back down, shivering from pent-up anticipation and waited to see what would happen next. When nothing did, he sat up and peered out through the flaps.
Ennis had sat back down on the log staring like a lost puppy into the flickering embers for what seemed like forever, sometimes looking over at the tent flap causing Jack to duck out of sight, sometimes just shaking his head as if he were really miserable. He looked off toward the hillsides where he had a responsibility to be with the sheep and then at the tent, then back toward the herd.
Something compelled Jack to quickly slip out of his jeans, boots and socks, as if wanting Ennis to have no doubt that he was welcome to take up where they left off last night. Still keeping an eye on his friend, Twist pulled the blanket up to cover his nakedness in case he was wrong.
Out next to the crackling fire, suddenly the loneliness got the better of Ennis and he felt himself drawn to Jack and the feelings within himself that he couldn’t understand. He closed his eyes and bowed his head in surrender, cursing under his breath.
Jack almost jumped up to comfort him when Ennis suddenly stood, as if making a decision and then slowly advanced on the tent. With his hat meekly in his hand in respect, he parted the flaps and was startled to meet Jack’s eyes right in front of him.
Both felt it, but either young man knew yet that in that precise moment their souls had been joined together by fate for the rest of their lives. Jack drew closer, but hesitated with a bewildered look, and without a word their eyes locked.
Ennis didn’t know what to do as Jack reached out and took his hat, tossing it aside. Jack only knew that he wanted to do it again only this time with feeling. Ennis’ pent-up emotions began to spill out and his fear caused him to draw away and try to back out of the tent. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have… I’m sorry that I… I’m so sorry, Jack.”
Jack grabbed his forearm and held it, keeping him from chickening out and tenderly whispered, “It’s alright, come lay down here with me, it’s alright,” as Ennis’ eyes seemed to glaze over with want. The comforting palm of Jack's hand found Ennis' cheek as they became lost in each other's eyes.
With each softly repeated “It’s alright,” that followed, something inside both of them began to heal and without voicing it they gave each other permission to explore forbidden thoughts. Jack brushed the blanket aside. Ennis' eyes hungrily explored the muscular naked body of his friend and frowned, mystified that Jack wasn’t hard, then realized too that it was love more than sex that had taken such a strong hold of both of them.
With shuddering hands they embraced, knowing that the unfeeling animal sex they’d had last night was the only thing that was “a one shot deal.” As their lips met for the first time, hesitant at first, they became locked in breathless passion.
Ennis couldn’t stop whispering that he was sorry and suddenly drew back again, scared of the feeling he couldn’t understand and feared. As it came welling up inside of himself, Jack pulled away unsure that he’d mistaken this man’s intentions, but Ennis drew him back and Jack’s trembling hands pulled his new lover’s clothes off as their lips relocked in a fiery kiss.
Jack pushed him onto his back beside him and Ennis’ head fell onto Twist’s left shoulder. Letting his fears go completely, del Mar began caressing Jack’s bare chest, then his fingers strayed to his neck and then his chin.
Jack rolled over on top of Ennis, who was still shaking from pent up emotions and as their lips met again, Jack kissed him as no one had ever been kissed before.
Ennis began exploring Jack’s body again with the palms of his hands. Gradually... slowly... they sought out every inch of each other with kissing lips and lapping tongues, but not in lust, but in the freedom and release of hidden wants that they’d secretly carried all of their young lives but until now hadn’t been free to express.
It was like falling for your first crush all over again.
In the warm evening tent, Jack rolled onto his stomach, turned his naked back to Ennis’ steel erection and raised only his brawny hips up in desperate wanting. His voice came in a hoarse anxious whisper, “I want you so bad Ennis, do it… fuck me, give it to me, I need it… I need you bad.”
Ennis lovingly eased his full weight onto Jack’s back straddling his spread legs. With shaking breath, he passionately kissed up the warm skin between Jack’s shoulders to the back of his neck and carefully entered the desirable body beneath him lubricated with sweat and dribbling precum. He groaned as Jack’s tight ass ring slid up his steel cock and as they became one Ennis gathered his forearms beneath Jack’s armpits as he softly kissed the side of his new love’s face from behind.
A sigh of contentment came from both young men at the same time as if their minds had become one too. Soon they were making love, not just sex, it was love, as undeclared as it was deep, leaving them convinced that they’d never before felt this way about anyone else. Ennis took his time easing himself in and out in slow motion savoring every moment and sensation of their joining. Every sigh and groan from Jack thrilled him completely beyond their understanding. Through the night their bodies joined as their souls did. It was an emotion filled and tender love that neither had experienced before. Ennis never left Jack's back and at times forgot he was still inside him. They cuddled, kissed, and became like Siamese twins joined at the back to chest. They made love all night only cumming hours upon hours later when manly lust took over from emotion…
…Theirs was a deep love that their upbringing wouldn’t allow them to express to each other in words. Without saying anything about it, both knew how it would go for the rest of the summer, sheep be damned.
~ Chapter 8: Invisible
Note: Text in red is from the original short-story that was not included in the movie.
Within the next few love-hazed days after they’d joined their souls and bodies together even further they admitted to themselves that they’d fallen in love… but not to each other.
There were many tender moments, like the morning Ennis found Jack asleep on his feet by the fire. He came up tenderly behind him, wrapped him in his arms and sweetly sang a lullaby that his mother had taught him as a boy, then pointed him toward their tent with a small push and jumped on Cigar Butt, riding off to tend the sheep.
As Jack watched him go, he thought about their new relationship and wondered if he had the courage to make it last past October when they’d have to part.
They never talked about the sex either but just sort of let it happen, at first only in the tent at night, then in the full daylight with the hot noon sun striking down and in the evening within the fire's glow, masculine, quick, rough, laughing and snorting, no lack of noises. Through the passion and the comfort they never said the one word they felt, but that neither could say out loud. Not that it really needed to be said.
Oddly the one forbidden thing that seemed to thrill them the most was kissing, which they did often.
Ennis never did admit that most of the time he was thinking of Alma while they made love.
Twist suspected it anyway and came up with a plan. Jack tried new and progressively more daring things like making Ennis lay completely still on his back while he squatted over him, raising and lowering himself as if jacking Ennis off with his tight throbbing ass. Another night Jack tried oral sex but didn’t like it, but Ennis expressed how much he enjoyed it, saying it was like giving Jack his life to swallow, so Jack kept using it as foreplay and eventually got really good at it, even acquiring a taste for it (excuse the pun).
Ennis had never volunteered to allow Jack to fuck him, so Jack never asked, though one night he tried to urge him over on his stomach to enter him but Ennis resisted, so he gave up quickly.
Del Mar even tried giving head to Twist once and they wound up in an aggressive “69” that lasted half an hour, each competing with the other to bring his partner to orgasm first but hold off on their own climax. Both stopping just before the other came, making it last, but after that night Ennis never offered again.
As men, all men straight or otherwise, they had one overriding fear of not pleasing their sexual partner, so though they’d begin something they didn’t particularly like to do, once started they gave it their all for fear of failure.
They’d blissfully created their own Eden and they were both happier than they could ever remember being their whole lives. It was as if there were only the two of them on the mountain, indeed in the whole world, their souls soaring joyously high in the brisk mountain air, looking down on the hawk’s back spreading it’s wings far beneath and the crawling lights of cars and trucks on the plain far below, suspended above ordinary affairs and distant from tame ranch dogs barking in the dark hours.
They believed themselves invisible...
...but they were wrong.
They moved the camp again, even closer to the sheep this time, fire and all, not caring about the Forest Service rules or what Aguirre would think. The little pup tent stayed permanently rolled up behind Ennis’ saddle. They hadn’t seen a single soul since coming up here anyway, and for some reason even the wolves stayed away.
It had gotten to the point where they couldn’t stand to be apart for more than a few hours and one or the other would come up behind and give an affectionate hug or a peck on the back of the neck. Usually both began tending the sheep together, always keeping the flock within sight of camp. They spent hours sitting next to each other talking about their hopes and dreams. Ennis wanted to buy back his parents’ ranch and raise championship horses and cattle, and a huge family in a home full of love. Jack wanted to be king of the rodeo and then retire famous and own some huge successful business chain selling hunting supplies. Eventually the story about Michael came out and how sad it made Ennis to think about it.
Both knew their dreams were impossible.
Del Mar fell into a brooding and never told Jack about how he might have had a hand in his parents’ death.
Jack never mentioned Johnny-Jack, and Ennis never thought to ask about Twist’s first summer up here.
When they got hungry, whoever was in the mood would leave early and go down to prepare something to eat for the both of them. Jack loved to make his wilderness stew and Ennis came up with a way to make a covered iron pot into an improvised campfire oven and made breakfast biscuits and even cookies. Their friendship grew closer and closer to love, which worried Ennis because they’d have to separate a month or so from now… but he had time to prepare for it.
One morning while Jack was shaving at a chest high tree stump, he became aware of Ennis’ eyes on his back. Twist was dressed in his tight jeans and denim shirt and as his companion approached, he froze where he was; his shaver dipped in the galvanized cup of cold water.
Ennis’ whispered in his right ear, “Don’t move.”
The ranch hand’s fingers came around from behind and fastened the handsome young rodeo rider’s shirt up, tucked it into his jeans, then his fingers moved lower to tug his jeans up even tighter. Twist smiled in anticipation of what his friend had in mind.
Into Jack’s left ear Ennis instructed, “Start shavin’ again and don’t stop no matter what happens. There’s somethin’ I wanted to do on the day I met you and I can’t get it out of my mind."
Twist smiled and slowly began scraping again at his smooth face.
Ennis stood back and nodded; except for the absence of Jack’s pickup it was perfect-just the way he remembered. He approached his brawny friend, and thought back to those first moments outside of the office trailer watching Twist shave in the side mirror of his truck, nodded to himself in approval, and then moved onward to stand just behind Jack. He slowly knelt on one knee and his vertical right palm extended carefully forward to hover just above and between Jack’s knees. Fighting the urge to rush, del Mar moved his right hand slowly to the left to make contact with the tight denim skin of Twist’s inner left thigh. His palm joyously explored the muscled firmness of it, as his eyes closed to savor a fantasy that he thought would never come true.
The whole surface of his hand slowly explored upward and ever-so gradually met Jack’s warm crotch just beneath his balls. His palm remained there a moment longer caressing and then lovingly drifted back down just as slowly, eventually losing contact at his knee. Ennis rose and whispered an impassioned, “Thanks,” gave him a light kiss on the back of his left ear lobe and then silently rode off to tend the herd.
Neither spoke of it again.
Late the next morning, Ennis came up from the stream naked from a swim to find Jack making breakfast.
It’d bothered Ennis that maybe Jack resented their unequal sexual partnership and long had tried to think of a way he could give of himself to show his appreciation. He’d been pondering the gift a long time and though hesitant, decided today was the day to find out what Jack found so enjoyable. As Twist eyed del Mar’s still wet naked horseman's body hungrily, Ennis spread out a blanket on the ground near the fire and then gave him a seductive backward look as he lay spread eagle face down and waited. Then to Twist’s shock, Ennis imitated Jack that first night and kept his shoulders flat on the ground, arched his back and then raised his muscular sexy cowboy ass up in the air in invitation.
Jack began breathing so hard he nearly fainted.
Before he knew it, he too was naked.
He knelt behind del Mar and was about to spit on his hand and then had a better idea-he’d apply it directly, after all Ennis had just come from washing in the stream. As the sexy young horseman began to rise up on all fours, Jack gently laid his hand on his warm firm ass and pushed him back down to lay flat again.
Ennis gasped as Jack’s face made contact with his ass cheeks as if he were using them as a pillow, gently kissing one then the other, back and forth. Ennis inhaled suddenly as Jack's finger touched his sensitive pucker and began running it up and down his ass crack briefly touching the hole.
Then he realized it wasn’t Jack’s finger, it was his tongue!
Twist thrilled as Ennis squirmed and moaned in forbidden pleasure raising his head to gasp loudly every time that tongue caressed his opening. Several times he screamed out in agonized ecstasy. He didn’t want the sensation to end, and Jack prolonged his foreplay as long as he could, enjoying the pleasure it gave the blond ranch hand.
Then impatiently Jack straddled him before both could change their minds, and pushed forward entering him, taking his time, whispering and moaning tenderly in his ear. It was like a warm tight halo of pleasure was rolling from his cock head eventually, gradually meeting his pubic hair, as Jack's hips met his lover's soft warm ass cheeks. Instinctively Ennis tightened muscles and forcefully gripped Jack's throbbing shaft, causing him to throw his head back and scream out “OH!” at the top of his lungs.
Ennis only exhaled once in the beginning through a tightly clenched throat as Jack moved forward to lower his full weight onto his back. Del Mar was determined to hide the pain of entry as Jack’s rock-hard cock slid in to the hilt again, but he seemed to relax as Twist slowed his strokes and they both found joy as he rubbed del Mar’s prostate from within with his impossibly long penis.
Ennis’ grunts and pleasure-filled moans thrilled Jack into an immediate early gasping ejaculation.
Ennis grew proud with accomplishment at the sensation of every warm squirt of cum, nearly orgasming himself as Jack's throbbing cock gushed and pulsed inside him.
As Jack was about to withdraw, Ennis pleaded him to keep going and was temporarily mystified as his lover withdrew anyway.
Suddenly Twist grabbed del Mar’s legs and playfully flipped him roughly onto his back. Ennis’ ankles went up onto Twist’s shoulders and he was quickly but painlessly entered again. Pushing forward, Jack began slow thrusts in and out nearly crying from ecstasy in and out and folded Ennis in half, pinning his knees back against his own shoulders, in and out craning his neck to hold their lips together in a fiery kiss.
Jack continued his slow strokes for a long time and then tried something he’d only imagined yesterday, but never dared think he’d ever get the chance to try. If there’s one thing a rodeo bull rider has to be it’s limber, so without withdrawing he arched his back and strained down to kiss Ennis’ right nipple, then began working his way down further and tongued del Mar’s glorious abs and with a groan of determination, kissed the head of Ennis’ cock.
“Ohhhhhhhhhh” Ennis moaned in disbelief as his rugged body writhed and shuddered in reaction.
As Jack’s back relaxed even more, he only partially withdrew his cock from where it was buried up that warm tight ass and his single-minded encircling lips swallowed Ennis’ pulsating seven-inch rod down to its root, then held it until he began gagging, and as he pulled back, his still imbedded cock penetrated his lover again to the hilt.
He quickly picked up a seesawing rhythm swallowing then fucking, swallowing then fucking, never letting Ennis' warm hard shaft leave his lips as he kept stroking in and out of del Mar's glorious quivering ass.
Ennis began thrashing around with his arms, moaning and screaming for all he was worth, and somehow after holding back as long as he could, Jack filled his ass yet again, as Ennis flooded his mouth with repeated gushes of cum from being fucked and sucked at the same time.
Jack fell atop his new love for a long time, gasping for air, tenderly kissing and stroking, Ennis tasting his own sperm on Jack’s lips as his forearms encircled Twist's muscular back and squeezed in rapture.
Around them the pines hissed as the wind fragrantly swept through them and somewhere a crow cawed out.
About fifty yards away within the edge of the forest, Joe Aguirre sat astride his horse watching them through disgusted eyes glued to his 10x42 binoculars...
…To the smell of burning eggs and sausage, Jack jumped up and tended to the skillet as Ennis took another bath at the stream, and then ran up to Jack and they frolicked naked, playfully fighting over Ennis’ white plaid shirt. Aguirre watched for another ten minutes, waiting until they’d buttoned up their jeans and shirts and parted with a passionate kiss.
Only after Ennis went back to tend the sheep, did the supervisor come riding up slowly to the camp while Jack with his back to his approach was busy splitting firewood. He’d decided on the spot to fire the both of them.
Twist had just put another piece up to split and heard the foreman’s mount sputter behind him. The sight of Aguirre on horseback instantly washed the warm smile he flashed intended for Ennis away. He swung around startled and knocked the wood that he was about to swing at off of the stump with his axe handle as the foreman just sat and stared judgmentally from above. After what he’d just seen, looking at the young man below him was like trying to stare at vomit on the ground.
In revulsion, Aguirre looked everywhere but into Jack’s eyes. Two things changed his decision immediately; the freshly sharpened and lethal looking axe in Twist’s hand and the thought of losing a thousand sheep because these two queers ran them off in revenge before he could get someone else up here to look after them.
The old man was wise enough to know that quick decisions were never good ones. He’d have to bide his time and wait for another reason to bring them down early. It took Aguirre a moment to clear his mind of the overwhelming hate he felt and remember why he’d come up here in the first place.
“Twist,” he said finally, still averting his gaze. “Your uncle Harold’s in the hospital with pneumonia; the docs don’t expect he’ll make it. Your ma sent me to tell ya, so… here I am.”
“Bad news,” answered Jack, nervously looking up at him as Aguirre pulled out a potent pair of binoculars and scanned the hillsides. Twist, trying to recapture the foreman’s attention added, "There ain’t nothing I can do about it up here, I guess."
“There’s not much you can do about it down there neither…” replied Aguirre while watching Ennis tending the herd only a few hundred yards away from camp instead of a couple of miles like he told them to. He added, “…not unless you can cure pneumonia.”
Jack turned to follow Aguirre's gaze up the hillside, knew they’d been caught switching places against his orders and nervously nodded. This was trouble. He turned back to find Aguirre’s expression was as much anger as it was of loathing as he lowered his glasses and downwardly gave Jack a sickened look that nearly froze his blood.
Leaving Twist with no hint of what he was thinking, the foreman turned tail to ride slowly away without another word.
Had he seen them?
How long had he been there?
Maybe he hadn’t, after all they hadn’t been fired on the spot. He didn’t even mention them switching jobs against orders or breaking Forest Service rules by having a fire going this far up...
…Late that evening, the twelfth of August, they were getting ready to ride up to the herd together when an intense lightning and hail storm hit without warning. Jack had to forcefully hold Ennis back from rushing out to the sheep. Within moments they were cowering under the camp tent being pelted with golf ball sized ice stones and feeling thunder strikes seemingly only yards from them, mindful that the steel tent supports would act as lightning rods.
Later, when it was over, they rode up in the dark to find not a single sign of a thousand sheep, or where they’d gone. Ennis wanted to go look some more but Jack finally convinced him that it was useless until first light, so they bedded down together, both barely sleeping after Jack told him about Aguirre’s visit and the binoculars.
Their relationship changed after that. Jack gave of himself because that was what he came to enjoy not because he was the more passive. Ennis was still struggling with the sexual side of their relationship and eased off till he only fucked, but never allowed himself to be entered, nor did he ever blow Jack again.
Ennis craved Jack stronger in an emotional way, but Jack was more attached physically. As long as they stayed on the mountain they fit together perfectly.
The only thing that saved Jack from deep resentment at the lopsidedness of it was the craving that Ennis always held in his eyes for him. Nothing else was really needed but the unexpressed and obvious want that they both felt deep in their souls.
After an hour of tracking the next morning, they finally found the herd… sort of. The sheep had taken off west and gotten mixed in amongst a herd on another allotment.
As Ennis and Jack sat astride their horses looking down at over two thousand sheep, del Mar confessed he was lost. “Well, what are we supposed to do now, huh?”
“Git on in there and untangle them Chilean sheep out of ours I guess.”
What followed was a damn miserable time over five days, involving Ennis and a Chilean herder with no English, trying to sort them out, the task almost impossible as the paint brands were worn and faint after so long.
With Jack’s continued bitching about not being able to tell them apart, Ennis turned to see him dragging a protesting ewe by her hind legs toward a makeshift pen they’d set up.
“This is impossible!” Twist loudly declared in frustration.
Over the bleating del Mar yelled from astride his horse, “We gotta try. The least we can do is get the count right for Aguirre.”
Jack went off running after another one screaming, “FUCK Aguirre!”
In the midst of lassoing one, Ennis answered out of breath, “Oh yeah fuck Aguirre. And what if we need to work for him again, huh, you think of that? …We gotta stick this out Jack.”
In a disquieting way everything seemed as mixed as those two herds.
The next afternoon they guided 991 sheep back to their own allotment. Midway there after being awake all night, Jack began playing his harmonica on horseback to keep from falling asleep in the saddle.
Beside him, Ennis warned sternly with a good-natured smile, “You’re gonna run them sheep off again, if you don’t quiet down!” to which Jack only chuckled and kept on playing, sour notes and all. After a while even the dogs began objecting in loud howls and fearful of attracting attention from wolves, Jack finally put it away in his pocket.
When they got back, Ennis decided to sleep with the sheep from then on despite Jack’s objections. Secretly he’d begun to sneak away from Jack to ponder his fate alone. He’d been taught all of his life that what he was doing with Twist was wrong and evil, and was truly terrified that he’d pay for it by being damned by God forever in hell for it. Try as he might, he couldn’t let go of his wanting for the sexy young rodeo rider as much for the sex as for the... love. Never in his life up until now had he felt as if someone was devoted to him - not even with Alma.
~ Chapter 9: The stairway from heaven ~
Two days later Ennis woke in his little pup tent with a start to find his feet freezing cold. He stumbled out shivering in confusion to discover everything was covered in white after the first snow came months early, piling up a foot in places, but was followed by a quick melt.
He rode down the mountain at a gallop back to camp in case Jack needed help only to find him undoing the straps on the tent frame. As he spotted the food and their supplies all packed in boxes ready to be piled onto the mules, he called out mystified, “What the hell? What are you doin'? Why are we movin’ camp?”
Jack looked over and said, “Aguirre came by again. Said my uncle didn’t die after all. He says bring ‘em down.”
“Bring ‘em down; why-it’s the middle of August?”
“He said there’s a storm comin’ in, movin’’ in off the Pacific worse than this one.”
“What, but that snow barely stuck an hour, huh!” he objected. “Besides, that son of a bitch, he’s cutting us out of a whole month’s pay, it ain’t, it ain’t right.”
Still busy shaking snow off of and folding the big tent, Jack considered a moment and said, “Well, I can spare you a loan Bud if you’re short on cash, give it to ya when we to get to Signal, be glad to do it. You can take your time payin’ it back.”
Ennis’ pride took hold and he answered angrily, “I don’t need your money, huh; I ain’t in the poor house.”
Jack watched him angrily kick at some unmelted snow in a spray of white muttering “Shit.” to himself and then stride to a nearby tree stump. Sitting down upset, he grabbed an unused fire log, dug around in the dirt with it a moment and then absently tossed it aside.
Ennis looked around and saw that everything had already been packed and except for loading it all, they were ready to leave.
But he wasn’t. His chest tightened and his eyes began to burn painfully as he realized why he was so upset; in the space of a day, he’d probably never see Jack again. He couldn't cry in front of Twist.
He thought he’d prepared himself for their coming separation in a month or so, but not in a few days-hours!
Jack watched his lover turn and walk slowly out about a hundred yards into the meadow, and then sit down in a crouch within the wet high grass on the top of a knoll.
Ennis tucked his forehead to his knees as his arms surrounded them, his tan cowboy hat hiding his face. He badly needed the release that tears would give, but they wouldn’t come, leaving him alone in his deep sadness. He was always alone, and now he realized that his private hidden fantasy of never leaving this mountain, to spend the rest of his days with Jack was just that... a dream. A vision of Michael killing himself came over him filling Ennis with even more anguish. Anger crept into his thoughts too. It seemed to him (mistakenly) that Jack had given up without a fight or a single word of objection to Aguirre. Ennis tried to substitute his sorrow with resentment towards Twist for accepting the situation so emotionlessly.
Ennis had always pretended this was all a dream, because he knew that in real life it would have to end sooner instead of later. But like a really good dream, he woke up from it before he wanted to and longed to go back to sleep to be back in it. He knew that when he “woke” he’d have to be normal again, marry Alma and forget all about Jack.
As long as he was up here, he was free... of himself and all of the hatred he’d been taught as a child. He hadn’t prepared yet to face the fact he’d given his heart away on Brokeback Mountain... and so he ached there alone for Jack’s arms to comfort him.
Half an hour later, having finished packing the camp up by himself, Jack felt it too. He’d argued long and hard with his boss that they could stick it out through the storm, but Aguirre stubbornly would hear nothing of it, warning that if they stayed he wouldn’t pay them for the time they’d spent so far.
With one last tug on the ropes and a look to see that the pack animals weren’t going anywhere, he scanned the clearing to find Ennis still sitting there. He'd steal glances of him and fight to keep from running to comfort his companion. He had to give his friend time to let it all out. Jack would cry later ...possibly for the rest of his life.
When he couldn't stand it any longer, he reached up to his saddle and grabbed his lasso, heading toward his friend. The wind was picking up and smelled of snow, pine and wet wild grasses, and the sun warmed his shoulders. About ten yards from him, Jack began twirling the lariat over his head neatly landing it around Ennis’ back and knees where he sat.
With a gentle tug on the rope, he softly said reluctantly the words he'd dreaded since falling in love so deeply with this man, “Time to get going, Cowboy.”
Del Mar stood up, pulled the lasso off over his head, brushed himself off and gave Jack a silent nod, walking ahead of him down the hill.
Jack smiled and playfully swung the rope again, this time catching Ennis’ feet, causing him to fall. Twist giggled and playfully pounced on him, meaning to give him a kiss goodbye, but Ennis struggled away and laughingly protested, “This ain’t no rodeo, you,” and began mock fighting him like a calf that didn’t want to be roped and tied.
With joyous peals of laughter, giggles and grunts, they both rolled down the hill, side-by-side in each other’s arms struggling mischievously.
Then something happened and Ennis flipped a switch in his head, maybe because he was thinking of Alma, and he started fighting for real, circling Jack’s neck with his strong hands. Something inside of him thought that if he killed Jack, he’d kill the hurt of the coming separation and painlessly destroy the feelings he had for him.
Surprised and near panic with his wind nearly cut off, Jack fought back and accidentally butted Ennis’ face with his knee.
Del Mar stopped abruptly and stood up, wiping gushing blood from his nose onto his white plaid shirtsleeve and cuff. The blow had cleared his head, and he stood dazed wondering what he was thinking.
Aghast at what he’d done, Jack jumped up, pulled him close and started wiping Ennis' nose with the sleeve of his denim shirt.
Suddenly rage and confusion welled up in Ennis at Jack not standing up to Aguirre, for his own acting queer for the last few weeks, and the terror of being damned to hell for what he’d done on this god-forsaken mountain. Without warning he flattened Jack with a right hook to the left side of his friend's face leaving a deep red mark on his cheek.
Jack collapsed hard into a sitting position all curled up and moaning on the ground painfully clutching his head, fearful of another blow. When he finally looked up, he watched Ennis staggering to their horses, peeling off his shirt and wiping his nose with it. When he reached Cigar Butt, he searched for the spare gold plaid one he kept in an old burlap potato sack and jammed the bloody shirt into his saddlebag.
Jack painfully stood up on unsure legs, strode cautiously over from the meadow and just as he reached out for his friend, Ennis backed away from him and muttered, “Gotta piss,” and took off toward the woods while Twist waited by the horses.
When he returned he found Jack still standing next to the bay mare, putting something in his saddlebag. Ennis stood transfixed looking for a long time at the morning sun glaring off of his bright red nose blood soaked into the sleeve cuffs of Twist's favorite denim shirt and wondered why he hadn't taken it off. The bruise on his cheek just below his eye looked very painful.
Del Mar moved forward to apologize, but Jack fixed him with a look that Ennis had never seen before... anger and resentment. Ennis bowed his head and mounted Cigar Butt.
A moment later, they rode off silently. They didn’t utter a word the whole ride down. When Jack rode a little ahead of him, Ennis would become transfixed with the sight of Twist’s bloody sleeve. All around them, the mountain boiled with demonic energy from the sudden snowmelt, glazed with flickering broken gray cloud light; the wind combed the grass and swayed the tall pines, moaning through slit rock in a bestial drone.
As they descended the slope Ennis felt that he was in a slow motion, but headlong, irreversible fall, like an angel who’d been banished from heaven, or a child who’d been punished for a crime he didn’t commit. Beside him in silence, Jack kept rubbing the deep bruise on his left cheek next to his eye that hurt like hell. Ennis withdrew further into himself, becoming the stoic and nearly wordless man he was before. Jack watched it happen close to tears and helpless to do anything about it. Both men hid the heartbreak they felt.
At the trailhead they shrugged into their coats as a misty rain began to fall and waited at a split-rail fence for their boss. Jack bowed his head and openly began sobbing, knowing the rain disguised the burning tears he could no longer hold back. Ennis saw it happen, haunted and worried by the ghost of Michael’s suicide, and turned away feeling like his heart would break if he watched, unable to comfort his young friend… his lover without showing weakness himself.
Del Mar finally broke away and strode over to sadly give a few affectionate pats on the neck and say goodbye to Cigar Butt. He felt miserable that he probably wouldn’t have enough to buy the horse from Aguirre. Too many things in his young life were going wrong at once and in his emotional frustration, he wondered how much longer he could hold out before breaking down himself.
Ennis turned to go over to his boss to ask how much he wanted for the mare and stopped in his tracks at the sight of Aguirre’s near-threatening eyes on him. The distant foreman kept openly shooting them both pissed-off looks as he supervised the herders loading the sheep, mules and horses into trucks. Joe Aguirre gestured to one of the Chileans and moments later Cigar Butt was abruptly led away to a staging area filled with stock vans and semi trailers.
The young rancher turned and went back meekly to stand beside the still crying Jack as the rain became a downpour. Twist’s eyes were bloodshot red and the swollen bruise where he’d been punched was turning purple and yellow. In his heart, Ennis ached to hold Twist in his arms and comfort him but didn’t dare.
Spotting his eventual approach, Jack quickly composed himself as Aguirre walked over with a clear plastic-covered sheaf of paper on a clipboard in his hand and a sour expression. “Some of these never went up there with you. The count ain’t what I’d hoped for neither. You damned quee... damned ranch stiffs ain’t never no good.”
Both young men bowed their heads and looked away.
Joe Aguirre handed them both envelopes with cash in them and walked off toward his Rambler muttering something under his breath that sounded like “fuckin’ queers.” Twist and del Mar turned to follow after him, expecting a ride back to the office trailer where Jack’s truck was still parked, but he started his car up and drove away before they reached it leaving them stranded.
The rain eventually stopped and a drying stiff wind took over. An hour or so later they hitched a ride with the Chilean herder back into Signal. Once there, Ennis silently turned to head toward the highway to thumb a ride south. He’d thought of asking Jack for one, but needed to cut the ties fast. Ennis was fighting the urgent want to kiss him goodbye and apologize, but remained stoically silent below his lowered hat brim instead.
A sharp knife cuts the cleanest and hurts the least.
They parted without a word or even a handshake. Ennis got only fifteen feet away on foot, when he heard the grinding of Jack’s starter. What if Twist pulled up and offered him a ride home? Ennis ached to hold his lover in his arms one last time.
From behind, the starter stopped and started twice more, then Jack cussed loudly.
Reversing course, Ennis silently strode back to the truck, reached into the old grill above the bumper and pulled on the latch, raised the hood and began fiddling with something for a moment. After employing a couple of tricks he’d learned from Earl and Rich on how to get a reluctant engine running, he yelled, “Pump the pedal,” still crouched over the engine. After nodding to himself, he shouted, “Okay, try again and give it some gas!”
The starter grinded and then caught immediately, the truck roaring to life in a cloud of smoke that was quickly carried away by a gust of unusually cold wind.
Ennis slammed the hood closed and when Jack jumped out to thank him, he found del Mar searching absently through his canvas bag. “I can’t believe I left my damned shirt up there. Oh well, I’d never have gotten the blood out of it anyways.”
Ennis looked up to find Jack nodding, “Yeah,” and then looked away. “You gonna do this again next summer?” he asked with a hopeful tone, interrupting Ennis’ continued search. Jack was prepared for a fast exit and already had one foot up on the running board of his old pickup, his arm propped over the top of the open door between them.
For only a moment, Ennis' eyes sought out the bloodstained sleeve again, but it was now covered by Jack's heavy coat. He fixed his eyes on the ground in front of his feet to avoid Twist's expectant gaze.
The breeze was picking up and blowing hard and cold. He glimpsed Jack’s bruised cheek, unable to settle his eyes on it for more than a second. He returned to looking down, absently rummaging through his burlap bag some more.
Jack had asked him something about coming back next summer; hadn't he?
“Oh, maybe not,” he answered finally. A dust plume rose and hazed the air with fine grit and Ennis squinted against it. “Like I said, me ‘n Alma’s gettin’ married in November, so uh, I’ll try to get somethin’ on a ranch I guess... You?”
“I might go north up to my daddy’s place and give him a hand through the winter… I might be back… if the army don’t git me.”
Ennis nodded nervously a lot and after an uncomfortable silence between them finally said, “Well, I guess I’ll see you around, huh?”
“Right,” replied Jack looking down. The wind tumbled an empty feedbag down the street towards them until it swept up under the truck.
Ennis felt his gut welling up in his throat as if he were sick and decided to cut and run. Quickly there was forty feet of distance between them. Nothing for Jack to do but drive away and as his truck came up along side and then passed del Mar on foot, he looked back through the side mirror hoping against hope that Ennis would gesture after him to stop, or at least look up in a final glance goodbye.
Ennis' broken heart begged him to call out after the rodeo cowboy, and after no more than fifty paces he felt like someone was pulling his guts out hand over hand a yard at a time. His overwhelming sorrow at their parting before he had time to emotionally cope with it destroyed his ability to summon the strength to run after his friend... his... his...love?
As he began feeling dizzy, his eyes stayed focused on the uneven ground he was now stumbling over. He finally looked up in time to see the old GMC pickup turn the corner...
...and Jack was gone
He choked back a confused and anguished sob and crashed zig-zagged to his knees between two utility shacks and tried to puke but nothing came up... no; it wasn't his stomach. In his deep state of confusion, he didn’t want it to end with Jack, but couldn’t admit it to himself or face it either, so he did what any man brought up in the West would do; he began punching the wall of the building until the pain took away his unwanted thoughts, his mind drifting back to the day he punched that tree trying to kill the pain of Michael leaving him.
He felt about as bad as he ever had. The throbbing in his knuckles was so intense he began sobbing. Deep inside himself he knew why he cried, but the man in him blamed it on his sore fist.
A cowboy on foot came up on him and silently paused to see if he could help.
“What the fuck are you looking at?” Ennis roared ferociously and the man retreated, figuring he was drunk.
As he ached for the comfort of Jack's strong arms and the tender caress of his lips, Ennis collapsed against the wall and bawled in despair for almost half an hour. His eyes felt like someone threw acid in them as his nose clogged and tears ran down his face. A gust of wind hit him and froze the wet skin on his cheeks as tiny snowflakes invaded the dark space between the buildings that surrounded him. In frustration he balled up his fists and yelled at the wall, “It’s goddam August for chrissakes!” and then curled up in a ball on the ground and cried in emotional agony for another half hour… alone... as he suspected he'd always be... as he feared god had damned him to be.
He told himself he should've learned his lesson with Michael.
~ Chapter 10: Junior and Jenny
September was miserable for Ennis. He'd squandered the money he made up on the mountain on a cheap apartment that he never came out of except to buy basic groceries and go to local bars. In his depressed condition he didn’t care how soon his cash reserve would run out, so he never sought a job. Alma Beers was lost to figure out what had happened to change him; it was almost like he was in mourning for someone.
She had no idea how right she’d guessed. To compound his problems, Alma had quit her job waitressing thinking Ennis was going to marry and support her. Now they were both broke and getting broker fast.
He had a terrible argument with Alma one night when he came home from a fight at a local bar. She was furious at how battered and bloody he was and he couldn’t understand her problem, mainly because he was so proud of himself for winning an old 55 GMC truck in a poker game. The brawl was because its owner said del Mar had cheated and he threatened to kill him. Del Mar had bluffed his way through a high-stakes hand and won out with three deuces!
The owner folded with three jacks. Secretly Ennis resented Alma’s attitude; Jack would’ve been proud and laughed about it with him the rest of the night.
October came and she pulled him out of his shell by visiting every day. Bitching at him for not getting a job would be counterproductive, so she started living with him full time, cooking his meals and sleeping with him.
She finally figured out a way to get at the problem and in mid-October she took a part-time job at a local Monroe’s Grocery Store to keep food in the apartment.
It worked.
Ennis wasn’t about to let no woman support him and made her quit after he found a job on a ranch. He also suspected she was flirting with the store owner to make him jealous and true or not that worked too, and he began paying more attention to her and also allowed her to take up where she left off last summer making wedding plans.
He'd changed sexually too.
He began to prefer fucking her from behind doggie style instead of the traditional missionary position and more often than not it was anally. He’d flip her over and lay her flat on her stomach too and seemed to have a "thing" for kissing her shoulder blades tenderly. His dreams often involved the day Jack fucked and sucked him at the same time and one night he loudly called out Jack’s name in his sleep, startling Alma out of bed.
As he’d pretended with Jack to be fucking Alma, now he was pretending with her to be fucking Jack, imagining her shoulder blades were his pecs. At one point he'd even talked her into cutting her hair short for no apparent reason.
As planned, in November of 1963 they were married and with the ceremony brought a new change in Ennis. Suddenly he became fun to be around and most of their days were spent together laughing, seeing movies and dancing in the local bars.
In the middle of their improvised honeymoon in Casper the whole world came to a halt. President John F. Kennedy had been assassinated down in Texas somewhere and everyone held their breath waiting for Russia to react. As rumors swirled about the new President getting deeper involved in Vietnam, Ennis took his bride home and started planning for a family, wondering if at any moment he’d be drafted into the army to fight World War III.
In January of the next year Alma was pregnant.
Ennis kept busy on ranches and farms during spring planting and roundups. As things got rough financially and some ranchers couldn’t afford to pay him, Ennis began taking horses in trade, which infuriated Alma even though he was making a fair resale profit on them. Later he barely made ends meet with occasional part-time summer jobs like working on road crews in the miserable heat. All through July they moved from place to cheaper place and finally Alma had her fill of it and demanded Ennis take an apartment in town so they could have their own permanent home base.
Twice, he tried to locate Jack with no luck. He even drove up to a nearly deserted Lightning Flat to try to find the Twist ranch on the confusing and zigzagged D Road, but failed. Slowly the thought of being a father pushed everything else out of his mind. Alma had become selfish and impatient in her pregnancy and never seemed satisfied with anything he did for her.
He surprised her on a hot August day by announcing they were moving. Ennis had gotten an important job on the Hi-Top Ranch up in Washakie County working with the horses and agreed to take lower pay in exchange for a house on the southern tip of the spread. Alma was overjoyed until she saw the place.
In September she had a baby girl. Alma’s mother’s name was Alma and she seemed determined to name the baby Alma too, so Ennis dubbed her Alma Junior on the baby's birth certificate.
After that, Jack eventually faded from his mind reluctantly replaced with midnight feedings, the responsibilities of being a husband and a father, the impossible task of trying to do anything that pleased his constantly demanding wife, and the pride of feeling like a real man.
He had Alma pregnant again in less than a month, hoping for a boy this time so he’d have a namesake.
By the end of October the Hi-Top folded without warning. The del Mars began worrying about where to move. Alma’s mother lived near Riverton and she was sure she could get her old job back at the market. Ennis knew of a ranch near Signal that’d take him.
The problem was money now, with no paycheck coming in.
Circumstances made up their minds for them.
In late November, Ennis came home after working all day on a snowplow crew to discover their electric had been turned off. Alma was burning fence posts in an old stove with the baby next to it to keep warm. After going to town hall the next day, he had it turned back on under his name and while there discovered that no offers had been made on the ranch. They chanced it and stayed put where they were, figuring that sooner or later the new owners would come along and either evict them for squatting rent-free, or offer Ennis a job.
More and more Ennis began seeing himself as a ship lost in the middle of an enormous uncharted sea with nothing but endless miles of water everywhere he looked. He began resenting Alma for wanting to steer the damned boat even though she had no idea which direction to go either.
The following January Ennis got himself hired on at the Rafter-B and like their present arrangement it came with low pay, but an old rundown house and a place to keep his horses. Ennis had taken on another three horses in exchange for back pay that he wouldn’t get, infuriating Alma... again.
The new house was even more rundown than the old one and through the rest of the winter Alma became more and more miserable fighting drafty rooms and a leaky roof.
In May came the birth of a baby girl three weeks premature, which they named Jenny Francine . Ennis wanted Francine Jennifer after his mother, but Alma wouldn’t even let him have that little decision without screwing with it somehow and reversed it. A resentment began building in Ennis after that, as though constantly-criticizing Alma was determined to “wear the pants” in the family, never pleased with his decisions, never happy with how hard he was working to support his family or what income he brought home, and always using her sex as a way of getting her way-whether he liked it or not… and usually he didn’t.
The house became smaller and smaller with constantly crying babies, dirty diapers, and feedings at all hours of the day and night. Infant Jenny developed a cough that wouldn’t go away and as the doctor bills mounted Ennis took on more part-time jobs and became increasingly miserable. Whenever he came home the babies were always screaming in piercing high-pitched shrieks and never seemed to quiet down.
Finally in 1967 Alma seemed on the verge of a nervous breakdown. The kids, especially little Jenny were getting more and more sickly and a trip to the hospital or doctor could take 45 minutes not counting how long it took to find Ennis to drive them there.
On top of that, Ennis seemed to have grown an impatient and mean streak, getting into fistfights in bars and coming home drunk or arriving the next morning after spending the night in jail. He’d become more distant to his wife too, mostly rolling over and facing the wall away from her, claiming to be too tired for sex.
Finally it came to a head on July 4th when Ennis was arrested for assault and battery involving two biker hippies he’d beaten up in front of his family at the fireworks display that night.
After three weeks in jail, Alma threatened to leave him unless they moved back to Riverton where her mother and sister could help her take care of the kids and he relented.
What he didn’t know was that Grandma Alma had gotten a phone call from Monroe saying he’d opened a chain of dry cleaners, hoping Alma del Mar would come work for him.
What Alma didn’t know was that Jack had been invading her husband’s dreams. One in particular had him naked and lost on Brokeback Mountain calling out Jack’s name trying to find a way out of the forest. When they finally found each other Twist, who was also naked, held Ennis with his strong arms in a sexless romantic hug and kissed him until he woke up heartbroken and aching to feel Jack’s embrace around him for real. Trying hard to push them “faggot” feelings away, he became more aggressive and masculine to suppress it, but it was hopeless. He felt more and more lost and lonely in Alma's arms. In fact everywhere he turned he found himself lost in the arms that had found him. The only reason he agreed to move back downstate was to try to get a new start.
Once in Riverton he got another job on the road crew, worked at a couple of ranches - one without pay just so he could board and feed his horses. He finally settled with himself that even if he wanted to, he’d never find Jack again and so he allowed life to go on and once again became a good husband and father.
As 1967 came to a close, husband and wife became even more distant. Despite his objections that the rent was too high in town, they moved out of her sister's place and into an apartment over Monroe’s Laundromat. He came home more and more reluctantly and he suspected she was having an affair with Monroe again; this time for real. If he hadn't fallen madly in love with his daughters he would've left her...
~ Chapter 11: Send in the clowns
After he came down from the mountain, Jack spent the rest of ’63 at his parent's ranch, mending fences, harvesting crops, plowing fields and tending to the stock. After his father demanded half of what he'd made tending sheep, Jack spent a lot of time up in his tiny room thinking obsessively of getting out of town, maybe joining a rodeo or of finding Ennis and making a new start. At one point he began making rough pencil sketches of Ennis’ face or of him on a horse, sometimes standing shirtless. Eventually the torso became more muscular and the crotch bulge was exaggerated. These were tacked up on his bedroom wall, safe from his parents who never came up to his room anyway.
Lightning Flat was becoming a ghost town and though there were miles and miles of empty land around him, Jack felt more and more crowded in with only his mother’s constant questions and his father’s judgmental stares day in - and day out.
Northern Wyoming had a rough winter that year. Over the holidays his father became a born-again fundamentalist at some Baptist revival meeting and Jack knew the next few months would be hell unless he could find a way out. At one point his father had even proposed that since his son was an adult, Jack should have to get a job and pay rent on his room in order to tithe more to their church. He already considered himself an unloved and unpaid ranch slave to his father and this was the last straw.
1964 rolled around, Ennis was still never far from his mind, and after spring planting, summer couldn’t come fast enough. He was sure that Ennis missed him as much as he missed del Mar. He’d even sent in an application to work up on Brokeback again, but heard nothing back so he figured it’d gotten lost in the mail.
By June he still hadn't heard back on his application and in desperation, Jack was drawn to the office trailer in Signal. He made the long drive hoping that maybe del Mar’s plans to get married had fallen through and Ennis had already signed up for more shepherding. Either way he’d damned sure rather spend a third summer up on Brokeback than with his parents; even if it meant four months with Aguirre’s teenaged kid again.
By then he’d come to accept the jack-off fantasies he kept experiencing in the nearly year since he parted ways with del Mar. They’d start out with him fucking some really sexy girl and end up with him being the one being fucked under Ennis, resulting with Twist having an exploding orgasm just as they both shot their loads together. More often than not though, it was the one where Jack fucked and sucked Ennis at the same time up on the mountain.
What broke his heart even more were the tender times when they just held each other silently feeling the love between them even if it wasn’t expressed out loud. Jack would sometimes lull himself to sleep remembering the many times that Ennis kissed him tenderly…
...The cold morning in June brought clouds racing across the sky. Signal hadn't changed-it never changed. As Jack pulled into the wind blown dirt-and-gravel parking lot, he spotted Aguirre’s car. Someone had done a sloppy job of painting the office door blue, the mailbox white and the applications box red. Twist smirked at them and muttered, “How patriotic,” under his breath.
Pounding loudly on the door, he still hoped Ennis had been there.
The foreman’s voice held an aggravated tone as it yelled out, “Yeah?”
Jack entered, respectfully removed his hat and Aguirre looked up to blink at him, almost not believing his eyes. He shook his head and then pointedly returned his gaze to his paperwork, contemptuously remarking, “Well, look what the wind blew in.”
Twist nodded and replied, “Hi, Mr. Aguirre. Uh... I was wonderin’ if you’d be needin’ any help this summer?”
Chewing on a toothpick, the foreman just looked off in the distance, still not bothering to meet Jack’s eye. A remembrance of when he watched Twist having sex with del Mar in the clearing that day filled his mind with disgust. With a tone of pure contempt, he replied, “You’re wastin’ your time here.”
Jack frowned, almost turned to leave but wasn’t ready to give up yet. “What, you ain’t got nothin’?” then after a pause he added, “Nothing up on Brokeback?”
Aguirre turned to face him in his squeaky desk chair and as his narrowed hateful eyes were lit by the desk lamp he said, “I ain’t got no work for you.”
Jack felt the man’s hatred but stood his ground till he saw the foreman’s eyes and finally got the message. The son of a bitch had seen them last summer with those binoculars. He turned to leave but figured he had nothing to lose, so he turned back and asked, “Ennis del Mar ain’t been around has he?”
In a flash the foreman recalled recently finding a magazine with naked men hidden in his son's room last spring and wondered if Twist had corrupted his own boy too. His son’s name was John, but everyone called him Jack… everyone but Aguirre that is. In a building rage, he seriously considered murdering this faggot standing before him with his bare hands, but decided it wasn't worth a long stretch in jail.
Aguirre’s expression looked just barely controlled, “You boys sure found a way to make the time pass up there… Twist, you guys wasn’t getting paid to let the dogs baby-sit the sheep while you stemmed the rose.” Aguirre looked away and then spat out a warning by glancing toward a tire iron sitting on the counter by a pair of work gloves, “Now get the hell out of my trailer.”
Jack swallowed hard, nodded and put his hat back on. He wasted no time and slammed the door behind himself, wondering if Aguirre knew about his son. It'd serve him right to turn tail and go back in and tell him to his face that his damned kid had made the first move and that Jack had rejected it.
As he backed his truck out of the side lot, he wasn’t paying attention and came up tailgate to bumper against Aguirre’s Rambler. The contact was gentle enough not to be heard in the trailer and his surprise turned to bravado. With a touch of the gas, both of the Rambler's taillights crunched and with a grin he shifted into first and intentionally popped the clutch, spraying driveway gravel at the car and the office trailer. As the shrapnel hit the wooden walls and windows, he roared off.
A few blocks away, he pulled over, rested his forehead on the steering wheel, and felt like sobbing, though the tears wouldn’t come. He wasn’t sure if he was more afraid of the threat Aguirre had made, or disappointed at not finding Ennis. As del Mar had done a year before, he punched the metal dashboard as an excuse for the pain he felt.
Putting it in gear, he drove off again and eventually came to an intersection and stopped. Should he try to find Ennis somewhere near here or head south? North was out of the question; he’d had his fill of his father all winter and spring.
At the corner to his left was a payphone booth. He pulled into the dark lot of a closed gas station and slid a dime into the slot dialing the operator.
No listing was found in Signal for Ennis del Mar or in any of the surrounding counties. A police car drove by and it suddenly occurred to Jack that Aguirre was just capable of calling the sheriff on Jack for vandalizing his car, so it was definitely time to leave town. He got back into his truck, slammed the door and closed his eyes, feeling them start to burn beneath their lids.
He’d heard some things about finding male prostitutes in Mexico, shrugged that he had nothing better to do and figured maybe he’d become one after he ran out of money, servicing women and/or the occasional man.
Gunning the motor, he turned left...
...Six months later he wondered what would’ve happened if he’d actually made it there, but as fate would have it, the truck broke down near Childress Texas. He’d had second thoughts all the way south anyway and instead decided to look up the barrel riding cowgirl he’d gotten lucky with last spring, and in the process entered himself in the bull riding competition in a rodeo at a local stadium. Of all the girls he’d had, she stood out the most with those cherry red outfits and those unforgettable breasts.
He did fairly well, but only managed to come in second or worse in most places on the circuit, which wasn’t enough to make much of a living.
The constant strenuous exercise turned his once-boyish body into a defined man’s well toned but bruised build. Bull riding was taking its toll on his back and legs too. His nighttime thoughts became divided between Ennis and the female groupies that tagged along with him from rodeo to rodeo. He may not have been winning much, but like his father before him, he only needed to pull his shirt off in the parking lot to bed any girl he liked-sometimes two at a time.
Still it didn’t satisfy him and one day after a particularly grueling couple of hours of bull riding, a rodeo clown caught his eye in the corral. The man under all that comic makeup made him feel like a 90-pound weakling that’d just had sand kicked in his face. Later that afternoon, Jack nearly got stomped to death, paying attention to him instead of the bull that’d just thrown him.
It took him a while, but he finally figured out why; the protective clown reminded him of Ennis.
Later on that evening, he sat in a dark bar eyeing the girls, listening to the music and incidentally watching the young guys playing pool within a haze of cigarette smoke. A tall good-looking shorthaired blond man in his late twenties, with a stark white cowboy hat entered. The overhead light at the door bounced off his white Stetson and the shoulders of his shirt, causing a flash that made heads turn in the dim room.
Jack frowned to himself a moment and then realized it was the brawny clown he’d been eyeing earlier. He wore a pair of “tight enough to be painted on” Levis, black boots and a fancy white cowboy shirt that highlighted his V-shaped muscular torso and arms. The man was spectacular and knew it, possessing the pecs, the swagger, the biceps, the slim waist and the impossible crotch bulge of a Greek god in western disguise.
He also possessed a heart-melting grin, which never left his face. One of the barmaids yelled out "Hey, Jim!" and he tipped his hat towards her.
A few days earlier, Jack had found some badly printed flyers in the trash for some homosexual prostitution house down in Mexico. The jack-off fantasy that resulted later that night looked just like this guy, making Twist wonder.
All eyes couldn’t help but follow him cross the room, both male and female. The cowgirls wanted his body-the cowboys wanted his leftovers. His face didn’t look as much like Ennis’ as he’d thought, but that body kept drawing his gaze and quickened his breath. Scenarios of Twist getting him drunk and using the prize money to spend the night with this Adonis in some cheap motel began filling his head.
The popular rodeo clown went straight over to a group of his friends shooting pool. He dropped a couple of coins on the table and then glanced over towards the bartender. Moving forward again, with a friendly smile and a few nods, he met many eyes in the crowd with a grin... including Jack's.
For a moment their gaze locked across the noisy bar, then just as quickly flicked away. Jack began breathing hard, as the hunk seemed to be coming directly toward him, but at the last moment detoured to the rail twenty feet away to sit down and order a beer from the friendly bartender.Was it an invitation or a casual glance?
Before he could wonder why or chicken out, Jack grabbed his beer from the bar and found himself walking the length of the rail to sit next to him.
To the barkeep, Jack said, “I’d like to buy Jimbo here a beer,” giving the clown a bright smile.
The bartender nodded and the good-looking stud next to him gave him a quizzical glance and shook his head no as Jack laid a dollar on the bar. Just then a pretty bar girl went by, the clown's eyes following her hips. Jack’d made a bad mistake and knew it with everyone watching. Now all he had to do was get out of the situation. Thinking fast, he added quickly, “The best damned rodeo clown I ever worked with!” was a good excuse to buy another man a beer.
Without realizing it until after he'd done it, Jack had blinked both eyes at him in a sort of flirtatious double wink.
The powerfully built object of his hopes only straightened to his full six-foot-five and answered with a look that said he definitely wasn't interested, “No thanks Cowboy,” looking away. Speaking to the bartender instead he said, “If I’s to let every rodeo hand I ever pulled a bull off of buy me liquor I’d a been an alcoholic long ago.”
The bartender chuckled as the clown shoved his own dollar forward, pushing Jack’s away in the process and said to Twist, “Pullin' bulls off of you buckaroos is just my job.” As he moved to turn away he added, “So save it for your next entry fee Cowboy.” He grabbed his bottle, gave a look that left no doubt that his flirtation (if that was it was) wasn't to be repeated without dire consequences and headed back through the crowd.
Jack twisted around and watched the hunk stroll over to the guys at the pool table as they all gathered around him... then looked his way suspiciously. Depending on what he'd just told them, it just might be a good time to make a hasty exit.
“You ever try calf ropin’?” the barkeep asked Jack’s back.
Jack turned around and tersely replied, “Do I look like I can afford a fuckin' ropin' horse?” slapped his dollar across to pay for his own drink and made his way quickly out of the bar.
Outside, a good-looking cowgirl with an ample chest sidled up to him and asked if he had any plans. He took that as a sign, escorted her back up to his cheap room over the bar and fucked her silly repeatedly over the next few weeks, deciding to give up on men unless it was Ennis...
...Near the end of the Rodeo season, Jack finally found the girl Lureen that he’d been looking for in Childress. During a small town rodeo, he made a point of watching her ride and had even caught her eye a time or two. One afternoon after a successful day, he stayed to watch her go through her paces, retrieving her hat afterward when it’d blown off as she passed him on horseback. She returned his flirting grin. Five minutes later one of the bull riders gave him the very same seductive look and for a moment his breath left his lungs.
He spotted her again in the local tavern that evening while celebrating a shiny new first-prize belt buckle in his event. After catching her looking at him a couple of times, he turned to the barkeep to ask about her and was told that she had an expensive horse, an expensive car and cheap tastes in men, fortunately for him. He also learned that her daddy was rich and sold expensive farm equipment. Just then the bull rider that had caught Jack’s eye earlier sauntered up to shake his hand and offered to buy him a drink.
In the midst of trying to decide which held the most promise of getting into his bed that night, she startled Twist and half the people in the tavern by loudly yelling over the jukebox, "Hey cowboy, what are you waitin' for-a matin' call'r somethin'?"
The muscular rodeo stranger shrugged, let go of Jack’s hand reluctantly and headed towards the billiards table.
He married her the following month after finding out he’d gotten her pregnant in the back of her father’s new Thunderbird that night. Lureen Newsome’s daddy did indeed own a company that sold very pricey farm equipment.
After the baby was born and it turned out to be a boy, the old man fell madly in love, bragging that the infant looked just like his grandpa. Weeks later, his son would've been quickly christened Robert Lucas Deke Newsome II while Jack was away on a rodeo trip, if Twist hadn't been injured and come home early. Jack angrily informed the preacher that his son was to be baptized Robert Newsome Twist, after compromising with Lureen in outraged hushed tones...
...L.D. defiantly added a “Sr.” to the end of his name anyway.
Everyone called the old man "Deke" or L.D... he never let Jack feel comfortable calling him anything but Mr. Newsome.
Senior also wasn’t too happy that Jack stayed out on the rodeo circuit for a couple of years after the marriage. After some prompting from his daughter, L.D. offered Twist a position selling expensive combines and tractors to rich farmers and ranch owners if he’d agree to quit bullriding. The job kept him on the road as much as riding bulls did.
He bought a new car that Lureen picked out, then he bought a big modern new house that his father-in-law proclaimed was the only place in all of Texas worthy of his little girl, and then reluctantly got used to her mother Fayette being around all the time-butting in and “making suggestions.” Within a week she'd chosen a gaudy dining room set with lavender chair backs and he had to put his foot down and assert his authority by refusing delivery when Lureen ordered a dark pink couch and chair for the living room.
Lureen’s nickname for Jack was “Rodeo” and he became comfortable with it until Deke started using it in an insulting tone as if it was the ultimate put-down. Twist came home one day after a long trip to find his mother-in-law Fay and Lureen painting their bedroom bright pink. L.D. came up behind him in the doorway just as he was about to raise hell about it. Lureen grinned at her daddy and gushed, “Ain’t this the prettiest shade of pink you ever did see?”
He nodded approval before Jack could voice his objection. It was then that Twist knew he’d never be happy here and started longing for what he’d shared with Ennis.
In January of 1965 Jack Twist got notice that he’d been drafted just after his 21st birthday. Newsome said he had political contacts that’d help his son-in-law avoid winding up in Vietnam. He promised his daughter he’d try.
Senior never lifted a finger; the best thing that could happen would be for his little girl to be widowed overseas by that loser. L.D. was secretly real pleased to potentially have a dead war hero in the family and immediately bought a large life insurance policy on his son-in-law... with himself as the beneficiary.
Jack reported to the draft board for his physical and failed because of the rodeo injuries to his back. Of course, Deke took credit for keeping him out of the war, but a more resentful tone crept into his voice whenever he called him “Rodeo” from then on.
Another twelve long months went by and after three years of marriage Jack was miserable living under his wife and father-in-law’s thumbs, despite the recently remodeled and modernized home, a newer red company truck, a bigger new Cadillac for her, and the even larger salary. With the increase in income came a way to “tune them out” when he was home; he became an audiophile, buying the latest stereo equipment and collecting record albums. By constantly having his headphones hooked up to his reel-to-reel tape deck in his den when he was home, he didn’t have to listen to his wife and mother-in-law plan out his life for him. With the advent of the miniature audiocassette, he began making homemade music tapes to listen to on the road and had a brand new player mounted in the dashboard of his truck, and carried another portable in his sales office.
Four years passed and Jack’s parents never visited once; not for their grandson's birth, nor his first four birthdays because his father didn’t approve of his marrying out of their faith. Jack still reluctantly drove north every year to help out around his parent’s ranch after his mother would call and plead with him to. Lureen and Martha would talk on the phone and exchange photos in the mail, but never met eye to eye. He heard once that somehow L.D. knew Twist's father when he was a rodeo champion years and years ago, but could never confirm the rumor.
One night he overheard a discussion between Lureen and her father about her not having any more kids by him if they were going to come out retarded. Behind Jack’s back they’d taken Bobby to be tested and the news wasn’t good. Without bothering to explain why, he stopped making love to his wife and moved into the spare bedroom. Hearing this news from his daughter L.D. offered to help Jack start a new life for himself if they separated, hinting he might foot the bill for the divorce if it came to that.
It was then that Jack started making regular business trips to a little town in Mexico just south of the border where he found men that reminded him of del Mar and were willing to fuck him all night… for a price. The return trips to Texas were emotionally painful and he usually sulked the whole way over how much his life sucked without his true love and the lack of hope that he’d ever find him again.
Deke Newsome stopped doting on his grandson and started calling him Rodeo Jr. instead of Bobby Junior, and didn’t seem to visit as frequently as he used to after that.
Lureen began keeping the books for her father and became good at running the day-to-day operations of Newsome Farm Equipment Company. Jack contented himself to drive around the surrounding states in his new red and white pickup away from her. It was then that he came up with a long-shot idea of how to find Ennis…
~ Chapter 12: The kiss
August of 1967 Ennis settled happily into fatherhood and ranching, and seemed to get along with Alma because he was spending more and more time away from home and from her constant whining about wanting a better life. He’d even considered applying to work up on Brokeback again that summer to escape her, but decided against it because the pay was better ranching and he didn’t think he could stand to be separated from Junior and Jenny for three months. He’d even cut down on his drinking and brawling since moving to Riverton and had a full time job tending livestock and two steady part time jobs caring for horses.
The old GMC truck had become a real challenge to keep running and he had to use the emergency brake to stop it, but it got him back and forth to his jobs. Things settled deeper into a pattern of church picnics, drive-in movies, eating cheap food and barely making the bills.
As things got more strained between them, Ennis asked Alma to start working for that guy Monroe again at his food market down the street, figuring that it’d give him an excuse to be out working while she watched the girls and vise versa. She also got a healthy discount on food and home supplies… especially cigarettes. He loved teaching the girls to talk and had even discussed sending Junior to kindergarten next year.
Alma was always checking the want ads trying to get him a better job here or there, her latest with the local gas company, but Ennis only remarked, “Hell, honey, as clumsy as I am, I’d probably blow up the whole damned town.”
Alma had done her best to fix up their new place, though it was obvious that Ennis hated it. The sound of the washers and dryers going at all hours in the dry cleaners below was tough to handle for a man who was used to living out in the peaceful prairie. Mostly he’d come home for meals, catch up with “his girls” and then head out to a bar unless he had to watch his daughters that night. Though he'd cut down on his drinking considerably, she didn’t have to know that and mostly he played pool, poker and shot the breeze.
He had few friends because of his standoffish attitude and sparseness of words.
At a church social, Ennis ran into Joe Aguirre, who seemed to genuinely warm up to him after being surprised to meet Alma and the girls. He in turn introduced an attractive young man standing with him as his youngest son John, who immediately corrected his father saying, “Every one calls me Jack.” He frowned after a moment and asked, “del Mar you said?”
Ennis nodded and offered to shake his hand, but the guy flashed a warm smile instead, raised two fingers in a V and said, “Peace Brother.”
The elder Aguirre appeared to be uncomfortable with his son. Ennis wrote it off as embarrassment because like all the younger kids those days, Jack wore tight white denim bellbottom jeans and an open psychedelic shirt that showed off a toned athletic physique. He sported love beads, stylish long sideburns and collar-length straight brunette hair that covered his ears, with bangs parted in the middle that reached his eyebrows. By the day’s standards he was conservative in appearance, but his father still considered him a “hippy.” Ennis and Alma had seen them on TV before, but this was their first encounter with one of the “love generation.”
Ennis began finding it a struggle to keep his eyes above this guy’s waist.
After Joe mentioned that Ennis had worked for him before up on Brokeback Mountain, Jack seemed to suddenly shy away from conversation and excused himself to get a drink from a nearby concession stand.
After that incident, Jack Twist began playing on Ennis’ mind again and sometimes the erotic dreams came back. In the middle of the night he’d wake up from thinking he’d heard Jack’s voice calling from the forest as if del Mar were lost and Twist was looking for him.
He hadn’t given the bull rider much thought in years, being too busy keeping his family fed and settling on the excuse he’d never find him again anyway even if he did want to look him up-which he didn’t. He had too many problems in his life now without trying to sort out feelings he still didn’t understand.
The war in Vietnam was escalating and Ennis became ever more worried about being called up to join the military. The anti-war movement hadn’t invaded del Mar’s corner of the world yet but the TV and bar conversations made the possibility of being drafted impossible to ignore.
Near the end of a hot August afternoon, he climbed the stairs to their apartment to find Alma cooking as usual and the kids playing loudly. He crossed the kitchen to wash his hands for supper muttering a hello to his wife who didn’t answer.
After a few mumbled sentences at each other she asked, “Hey Ennis, you know someone name of Jack from Texas?”
He froze a moment as his face grew a puzzled frown. How the hell did she know about Jack? In Texas? Noncommittally he replied, “Maybe… Uh why?”
“You got a postcard come general delivery,“ she replied, nodding to the counter beside him.
He picked it up and his heart sang, though he wouldn’t admit it to anyone, much less himself.
He read; Friend this letter is a long time over due. Hope you get it. Heard you was in Riverton. I’m coming thru on the 31st. thought I’d stop and buy you a beer. Drop me a line if you can, say if you're there, Jack.
The return address was Childress, Texas.
“He someone you cowboyed with… or what?”
Ennis blinked and brought himself out of a fond memory. In reply he mumbled, “No Jack; he rodeos mostly.” As he turned to walk toward the front door he added over his shoulder, “We was fishin’ buddies.”
He grabbed his hat and nearly ran down the stairs to his truck, leaving Alma wondering where he was going. His mind wandered back to the day he'd let Jack fuck him. His head swam in the love they'd once shared... and the kiss Jack'd given him afterward as if the cowboy was sacrificing his very soul at the alter of Ennis' reluctant love.
He was so distracted by the memory of that kiss that Alma had never been able to match, and his deep longing for another one that he drove right past the post office.
After turning around and going two blocks south, Ennis bought a plain pre-stamped postcard at the post office, jotted a quick “You Bet!” then scrawled his own address on it, copying Twist’s address over from Jack's card and dropped it in the outgoing mail slot.
Within a week, cards were exchanged along with directions and a date was set, though Jack didn’t know what time he’d get there.
...That Friday Ennis, wearing his best shirt and clean jeans, had taken the day off to anxiously wait for the man he still wouldn’t admit to himself that he loved… and craved. He spent the morning pacing with a beer back and forth, often looking down into the dusty rear parking lot from his second floor window.
Alma was done up in one of her best dresses as if she had intended to go out with Ennis and his old friend Jack, and was saying something as he paced back and forth but he wasn’t really paying attention. He’d have to find a way to ditch his wife and if his mind weren’t so preoccupied with anticipation he’d be pissed that she was so determined to tag along with them.
On his second trip to the kitchen for another beer after forgetting the first time, Alma repeated, “I said; you know Ennis, it’s so hot today maybe we could get a babysitter for the girls and take your friend to the Knife and Fork for dinner?”
Coming back out of the kitchen on his way to the chair he’d been sitting on at the window sill, he replied, “Nah, Jack ain’t the restaurant type; we’ll more’n likely just go out and get drunk… that is if he shows.”
There… that ought to discourage her. Nervous with anticipation, Ennis sat at the window playing with his lighter and chain smoking, knowing but not knowing why he wished Jack would hurry and arrive. He scanned the sky watching clouds roll by and worried that the heat and humidity could bring a storm with them later in the day.
Alma busied herself feeding the kids, trying to figure out what Ennis was so anxious about. She’d never seen her normally stoic husband act like this about anybody.
Sometime around five o’clock, after Ennis gave up watching and moved to his easy chair, he heard the sound of a car pulling up out back. Thunder rumbled from the east as he jumped up anxiously to watch a new red and white Ford pickup come to a stop just below his 2nd floor window. He could feel his heart pounding beneath his shirt and he inhaled sharply as he saw Jack get out of it. A hot jolt scalded Ennis and he was instantly on the second floor porch landing pulling the door closed behind him.
Jack looked up at his friend, grinning from ear to ear afraid his face would split.
Ennis just glowed with joy and began gasping for breath. From the top of the landing he happily slapped both palms on the railing and gushed out in a shaky voice, “Jack Fucking Twist!” and bounded down the steps two at a time as Jack met him halfway across the lot in front of the girl’s new swing set.
They seized each other by the shoulders, hugged mightily, squeezing the breath out of each other saying, "son of a bitch."
Afraid of attempting a first move on this now-married man enclosed in his wanting arms; Jack ached to do more than just hug him. As their embrace seemed to end and their eyes bored into each other’s soul, to Twist’s astonishment Ennis nervously looked around, weary of who might see and then roughly grabbed him by his vest, “Come here,” he growled, pushing Twist backwards twenty feet like fancy dancers in a ballroom. He threw him against the back wall of the laundromat at the bottom of the neighbor’s little hidden staircase, across from the foot of their own leading up in the opposite direction.
As easily as the right key turns the lock tumblers, their mouths came together and hard, Jack’s teeth bringing blood, his hat falling to the ground, stubble rasping, wet saliva welling between them. So urgent was their need for each other, it seemed like more of a bar fight than a greeting, both competing to see who could hold the other tighter.
Jack’s trembling fingers gathered up in Ennis’ shirt’s shoulders and grabbed them, pushing him roughly away only to pin Ennis forcefully against the opposite privacy wall, crushing him against it as he returned the fevered kiss. Their ears roared with thunderous passion as they fought for each gasp.
Like a frenzied thief, every breath Jack took was Ennis’; answering the silent questions on both men’s minds, “Do you still love me… do you still need me?”
In the flash of a moment, the years vanished and their pent-up emotions spilled out as their lips locked and relocked repeatedly, each running their fingers through the other’s hair, while both tried to climb into the other’s clothes craving any bare skin they could reach. Neither man could see, hear or think of anything but the one he held in his arms, as the world seemed to disappear for both of them.
It was the goodbye kiss they’d wished they’d shared back then, but couldn’t. The kiss that filled both of their private fantasies, dreams, and hopes for the last string of very long, long years. Like two stallions in rut, their bodies and breath trembled as they clutched one another more and more tightly. It was as if they each feared that if either let go the other would disappear and they’d wake up from the dream.
Upstairs, Alma came back out to the living room to see if she could find their usual sitter’s phone number and wondered what was taking Ennis so long outside. Checking the window, she saw nothing but a strange truck so she went to the front door, opened it and looked out. From above, she peered down at the foot of the neighbor’s stairs for a few seconds in disbelief. Her husband was in a clinch with another man and for a moment of panic, she thought they were fighting, possibly trying to strangle each other.
When her mind finally processed what she was actually seeing, her jaw dropped. She watched Ennis’ straining shoulders feverishly pulling the other man closer. She couldn’t help but see the passion in Jack’s urgently searching arms as they explored her husband’s body holding him so close. As their hips began grinding at each other's, she went into a sort of shock at the sight of them holding such a fiery kiss, not believing what she was seeing. It was something she never even had imagined or heard of.
Hurt, jealousy and confusion shattered her as she watched Ennis show such an intense adoring want for someone that he’d never even come close to showing for her. As both of the stranger's hands invaded down the back of her husband’s jeans to cup his buns, Ennis began caressing Jack's crotch to an obvious erection through his jeans, their lips still locked together as if glued.
Shutting the door, she began crying, choking down blurred questions, unable to answer any of them as she stumbled back to sit down at the kitchen table.
Without knowing what had just happened above them, the two men clung desperately to each other, pressing chest and groin and thigh and leg together, treading on each other’s toes until they pulled apart to breathe in huge gasps and Ennis, not big on endearments, said what he said to his horses and daughters, “Little darlin’,” with a satisfied smile.
He peered carefully around the little privacy wall hiding the stairwell where they hoped they were safe from view and breathed a sigh of relief that no one had seen or heard. They exchanged a look that ended the passion and they immediately began arranging their clothes and combing their hair with their fingers to straighten it. Ennis bent over, picked up Jack’s hat, and as he handed it to him, gestured with his head to follow up his own set of stairs to their apartment.
A few anxious moments later they both appeared in the inside upper front hallway. Alma gave Ennis a knowing look but said nothing, but he knew that she knew or maybe had seen.
What could he say? “Alma, this is uh Jack Twist… and Jack, my wife, Alma.” His chest was still heaving. He could smell Jack’s intensely familiar odor of musky testosterone-filled male sweat and a faint sweetness like new mown grass.
Jack nodded politely and said, “Howdy.”
“Hello,” she said meekly, lost for a reaction and a little frightened of the man she’d just seen kissing her husband.
Ennis seeing her discomfort said, “We ain’t seen each other in four years.” As if it were a reason that they were so glad to greet each other the way they had. He was thankful the light was dim in the alcove because he’d grown rock hard between his legs from holding Jack and it refused to subside, but he didn’t turn away from her.
“Sure enough,” said Alma in a low voice for want of a better response. She had seen what she had seen and noticed his erection. Behind her the wind pushed a curtain and suddenly a bright white flash lit the room, followed a moment later by thunder. In the other room one of the girls suddenly cried out in fear.
“Oh you got a kid?” asked Jack grinning. His shaking hand grazed Ennis’ and electrical current snapped between them.
“Yeah, I got two little girls,” Ennis said proudly. “Alma Junior and Jenny. Love them to pieces.”
Alma’s mouth twitched nervously.
“I got a boy,” said Jack. “Eight months old; he smiles a lot. I married the prettiest little gal in Childress Texas - Lureen.” From the vibration of the floorboard on which they both stood Ennis could feel how hard Jack was shaking.
Ennis turned to Alma and said. “Me and Jack-we’re gonna head out and get ourselves a drink.”
“Sure enough,” she replied, trying to quickly come up with a reason to delay him and came up empty.
“Pleased to meet you ma’am,” said Jack, trembling like a run-out horse as he tipped his hat and they both made it to the landing.
“We might not get back tonight, when we get to drinkin' and talking and all...”
After what she’d just seen, she didn’t want her husband and the father of her children running off with this man until she could figure out a way to compete with him. Alma took a dollar bill from her purse. Ennis grabbed at his hat in haste and pushed Jack towards the door. He’d guessed she was going to ask him to get her a pack of cigarettes to bring him back sooner than the next day.
“Ennis,” said Alma in her misery voice, “Would you get me a pack of smo…” but that didn’t slow them scurrying down the stairs.
He called back from below at a run, “Alma, you want smokes there’s some in the top pocket a my blue shirt in the bedroom.”
They went off in Jack’s truck, bought a bottle of whiskey and within twenty minutes were in the Motel Siesta...
~ Chapter 13: Not just yet, cowboy
Note: Text in red is from the original short-story that was not included in the movie.
Outside of the cheap motel window a light misty rain fell. Just inside the newly closed door the two men stood transfixed in each other’s eyes.
Jack was trembling with passion so hard his teeth were chattering. Ennis was having trouble breathing as he reached over and shut the lights back off. Dim light filtered through the curtains giving them just barely enough glow to make out the other’s silhouette. Yet they still stood there not touching only inches apart as though afraid of the other vanishing in a dream come true.
Finally Jack raised a severely shivering hand to tenderly touch Ennis’ face, feeling his stubble rasp as the horseman pressed his cheek against it. Ennis swallowed hard, rested his palms on Jack’s hips, and slowly pulled their bodies together. Both closed tear filled eyes as slowly their heads found the other’s shoulder and their arms tightened.
Jack began quietly sobbing in joy as they pressed the sides of their heads together tightly; breathing slower now, taking their time, their arms exploring each other’s muscled back while their cowboy hats joined each other on the floor. In the dark Ennis moaned, running his fingers through Jack’s hair, comforting him.
Tears were flowing uncontrollably down both men's cheeks now.
Jack backed up, pulled him to the side of the bed and fell backwards onto it, bringing Ennis down on top of himself. He then rolled them over and straddled Ennis' lap as the ranch hand laid back and sighed, his eyes still closed tightly.
Twist leaned down to kiss his lips tenderly and then moved to his neck as del Mar’s hands fondled the short bristled hair on the back of his lover’s head. Jack ran his tongue down to Ennis' muscled chest and quickly undid the man's shirt buttons. As anxiously as a child on Christmas morning, he began pulling it apart as he yanked del Mar’s t-shirt up and kissed his abs.
Ennis sat up and pulled both his shirts off over his head, then laid back down as Jack undid his lover's belt buckle greedily, opened the fly buttons and kissed his pubic hair while del Mar kicked off his boots. Twist moved to the foot of the bed, grabbed the jeans and urged Ennis to raise his hips while he shucked the denim down and off taking his socks with it.
Jack smiled-Ennis still didn’t wear underwear; just like old times.
Still dressed, Twist climbed on top to lay slowly… luxuriously down to cover the now-naked and rock-hard body of his long-lost love… and then kissed him silently full on the mouth… He took his time to enjoy what he was doing… making it last until every breath Ennis took was his.
Ennis’ fingertips dug into Jack’s pant waist and pulled his shirttails out, running his palms up the warm skin of his longed-for love's back. His hands came out and reached for Jack’s shirt buttons, but Twist backed away out of his reach.
Sliding down while kissing trembling skin as he went, Jack ducked his head below Ennis’ pubic hair and swallowed him whole to the root. The huge, hot and quivering shaft completely filled Twist's mouth and touched his tonsils, causing del Mar to make the first sound they’d uttered since entering the room together. “Ohhhhhh my God… Ohhhh, oh my godddddddd.”
Ennis’ cock head swelled within the back of Jack's mouth trying to gag him, but he fought it for a moment and then eased back to breath without releasing the eight-inch steel hard shaft. Jack began swirling his tongue around the mushroom head ridge working his lips up and down - up and down - up and down, causing Ennis to moan and buck his hips. As his lips kept working, Jack’s palms greedily explored Ennis’ abs reaching higher to gather his mounded pecs and thumb both of his hard nipples.
Not wanting to cum yet, Ennis suddenly grasped Jack’s shoulders and shoved hard, knocking him to the floor. Instantly the naked man was atop Twist, yanking at buttons tearing at boots and within impatient moments had him naked. With a rough shove Jack was flung back onto the bed and Ennis was instantly on top of him, lovingly pressing all of his weight onto the brawny rodeo rider.
They repeated their earlier kiss of this afternoon over and over again with just as much impatient urgency and passion, teeth brushing lips, greedily inhaling each other’s gasped breaths. Both became like blind men trying to memorize each other by touch until they’d found their heads at each other’s feet. Lying on their sides and without a word they began kissing and lapping at each other’s ankles, working their way up until both reached the other’s balls. After a pause to savor the moment they urgently began sucking each other’s pulsing cocks, clutching the other’s body tightly, while working passionately to bring the other to orgasm but desperately trying to hold back his own. Their bodies became so contorted in passion that it was sometimes impossible to tell who was on top and neither cared.
Twist had learned something in Mexico and maneuvered Ennis on top of him. As del Mar planted his knees on either side of his friend's head, Jack urged him to fuck his mouth with his impossibly long cock. Suppressing his gag reflex Jack allowed Ennis to penetrate past his esophagus, began jacking him off both orally with his throat and tightened lips at the same time while still working his tongue! The ranch hand moaned loudly and leaned forward and down to swallow his lover’s warm shaft whole, sucking on it for all he was worth like a starving calf milking its mother’s tit. After about a minute, Twist spat him out to breathe, then wrapping his arms around del Mar’s hips tightly, he pulled himself up, craned his neck and began licking at Ennis’ pucker.
Unable to hold back, Ennis spat out Jack and screamed. Twist quickly wrapped his wanting lips around it again as del Mar’s huge cock began flooding Jack’s mouth to overflow. With each spurt Ennis gasped harder and harder barely able to breath or speak until finally he collapsed exhausted.
Taking advantage of his helpless condition, Twist quickly got out from under Ennis’ dead weight, leaving him on his stomach still panting. Jack had dreamed of this for years, but never dared think it'd ever really happen again except in countless masturbation fantasies. With his victim still face down and gasping for air in exhaustion, Twist gently grabbed his ankles and spread Ennis’ legs. In an instant Jack was hungrily rimming the powerfully built horseman alternately kissing each pillowed ass cheek in turn back and forth. As his tongue greedily returned to slurp around and around Ennis’ puckered and sensitive opening, both of Jack’s palms explored the muscled sides and spine crease of his lover gradually moving up to his man’s strong shoulders while Twist’s face stubble was causing sensations too incredible to bear for long.
Del Mar helpless to resist, kept raising his craving hips up ever higher to meet Jack’s tongue.
Ennis began bawling in ecstasy, totally helpless to whatever Jack wanted to do to him, craving every touch and sensation as he became overwhelmed and dominated by Twist’s passion. Sensing it, Jack took advantage and moved himself upward guiding his anxious cock to enter Ennis' sphincter slowly and tenderly, releasing a sigh of pleasure as he sank deep within until he was satisfied he could go no further. The strong glove of Ennis’ butt was now gripping Twist’s penis tightly as if it wouldn’t ever let go. Beneath Jack, his lover moaned softly in paradise, folded his forearms under his pillow and groaned while Jack’s throbbing member found and massaged his prostate.
Jack began slow strokes in and out – in and out wanting to savor the chance he might not get again, and was surprised when Ennis began bucking his hips to meet each thrust. Twist began pulling out completely and re-entering giving them both pleasure as the smell of passionate sweat and testosterone filled the room.
Jack moaned in lust and love as he molded his chest and hips to Ennis’ back and muscled horseman's ass, resting his head against the tussled blond hair of his man. Then he dug his arms within and beneath Ennis’ armpits and squeezed as he continued to fuck him slowly, his mind in a stoned high he’d never experienced before.
As he felt his orgasm build he couldn’t hold back for much longer and from under him, Ennis gathered Jack's forearms with his own beneath them tightly and continued pushing his hips upward till they were a couple of inches above the bed as Jack pounded harder and faster, sobbing tears of joy. Del Mar began chanting rhythmically, “Yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah,” with each thrust's impact and suddenly Jack groaned and collapsed dead weight onto Ennis’ back as his buried cock unloaded into his lover in mighty gushes that drained his strength.
Ennis lay there in a cloud of joy, unable to remember when he’d been this happy and at peace. Jack went to withdraw, but Ennis reached behind and held his hips down. Twist kissed the back of his neck and began stroking in and out again, only slower and less urgently.
Something began happening within Ennis’ cock. With each of Jack’s thrusts, it was as if his penis were invading inside of Ennis’ own internally like fingers into a glove and it became thrilling. To his shock del Mar instantly orgasmed in violent body-jolting spurts flooding the bedspread beneath them with warm slick fluid. Unable to hold back Jack unloaded too and collapsed again.
Their breathing came slower and together as they silently lay there savoring the sensation of Jack's hips joined to Ennis' warm ass cheeks. Both sobbing in unison while Twist buried his face in Ennis’ hair.
Jack withdrew and fled to the shower, and moments later Ennis joined him in the tiny tiled cubicle. After a few minutes of playfully soaping each other and exploring each other's yearned-for bodies again, Ennis stepped out and grabbed a towel...
...Alma was in tears, barely able to read the phone book as she began calling Ennis’ favorite bars in town… then every tavern in town. She’d made up some emergency about little Jenny’s asthma to get her husband away from that man. Next she tried the diners and with no luck there began sobbing as she turned to the yellow pages to look up the one and only motel in town…
...Jack entered the room a moment later to find Ennis sitting naked on the far corner of the foot of the bed, bent over with his face on his palms and his elbows on his knees facing away. The discarded soiled bedspread was now on the floor in front of him.
Del Mar didn’t even look up, as though he were ashamed. His head was filled with thoughts of Alma and the girls and how much he loved them… and how much more he loved Jack.
Twist lay down face up on the right side of the bed and after a moment, Ennis scooted diagonally up on his back across the sheets to rest the back of his head on Jack’s chest with his big feet hanging off the opposite corner.
Jack lovingly wrapped his right arm around Ennis’ head as the nape of his neck rested against Twist's shoulder and chin.
As with all men it was sex first, conversation and cigarettes later. With Alma it was doing his husbandly duties and getting it over with; with Jack it was as if he couldn’t get enough, like once they started he couldn’t reach the reins to slow the horse down, out of control, passion and lust.
It was something only men understood.
“Four years, Damn!,” exclaimed Jack in a whisper distracting Ennis from his thoughts.
Ennis nodded, “Yep, four years.” He took a puff from his cigarette and then added, “I didn’t think I’d hear from you again.”
Jack grunted in disagreement.
Ennis chuckled as he flicked his cigarette against the ashtray perched on his chest. “I figured you were sore at me about that punch.”
To Jack’s sniggered response, Ennis explained, “I come up under my brother K.E., three years older'n me, slugged me silly every day. Dad got tired a me comin’ bawlin’ into the house and when I was about six he set me down and says, Ennis, you got a problem and you gotta fix it or it's gonna be with you until you're ninety and K.E.'s ninety-three. Well, I says, he's bigger'n me. Dad says, you got a take him unawares, don't say nothin’ to him, make him feel some pain, get out fast and keep doin’ it until he takes the message. Nothin’ like hurtin’ somebody to make him hear good. So I did. I got him in the outhouse, jumped him on the stairs, come over to his pillow in the night while he was sleepin’ and pasted him damn good. Took about two days. Never had trouble with K.E. since. The lesson was, don't say nothin’ and get it over with quick."
Jack realized now why Ennis was so heartless with people. His father had taught him to hurt before he was hurt and then get out fast. Sadly it’s one of the hardest habits to unlearn once you’ve mastered it; especially at a young age.
A telephone rang in the next room, rang on and on, and stopped abruptly in mid-peal. Ennis wondered if Alma might try to track him down tonight and began pondering what being here was doing to him.
Twist didn't realize it but del Mar was sinking back to his emotionless mode by way of indifference. Ennis' ego was trying to recover his masculinity by attempting to pretend that what had happened and what was happening hadn't really.
Unaware, Jack exhaled forceful cigarette clouds and said, “Christ, it’s got to be all that time of yours on horseback that makes sex so goddamn good.”
Ennis closed his eyes, enjoying Jack’s affectionate embracing arm around his neck.
Still rubbing his head against Ennis’, Jack said, “That next summer, I drove back up to Brokeback. Talked to Aguirre about a job, and he told me you hadn’t been back, so I left. Went down to Texas for rodeoin’. That’s how I met Lureen. Made $2,000 that year bull ridin’. Goddamned starved. Had to borrow everything but a toothbrush from other guys. Drove grooves across Texas. Spent half the time under that cunt truck fixin’ it. Look over on that chair.”
On the back of a soiled orange chair Ennis saw the shine of a buckle. “Bull ridin?”
Jack nodded and said, “Lureen’s old man makes serious money, farm machine business. Of course he hates my guts. I know enough about the game to know he’d do just about anything to get rid of me, ‘cause now that he’s got his grandson, I’m useless to him.”
Still in a mental haze, Ennis asked, “and the army didn’t get you?” A bright flash of light lit the window and after a few moments thunder sounded far to the east.
“Nah, I was too busted up. Got some crushed vertebrates and a stress fracture, the arm bone here, you know how bull riding you’re always levering it off your thigh, she gives a little ever time you do it. Even if you tape it good you break it a little bit at a time. Tell you what, hurts like a bitch afterward. Had a busted leg in three places. I got out of rodeo just in time while I could still walk; it ain’t like it was in my old man’s day.
Not really listening, Ennis just nodded and said. “You sure as hell seem in one piece to me. You know, I was sitting up here all that time trying to figure out if I was… if I was, I mean I know I ain’t. I mean, here we both got wives and kids, right? I like doing it with women, yeah, but Jesus H., ain’t nothin’ like this was tonight, even better than back on Brokeback. I never had no thoughts of doing it with another guy except I sure wrang it out a hunderd times thinking about you.”
Ennis closed his eyes tightly; he’d damn near used the word “love”… something men weren’t supposed to say to each other.
Jack groaned and said, “We’ve got to talk about this. Swear to God I didn’t know we were going to get into this again.” He paused to stroke Ennis’ hair and admitted, “Oh yes I did, I red-lined the tach all the way, couldn’t get here fast enough; doubt if I did less than 90 the whole way up. What about you?”
“Me? I don’t know.”
Jack smiled, pulled the back of Ennis’ head to his lips and whispered, “Old Brokeback got us good.” Love weighed heavily on his mind too. He’d all but come right out and said he’d leave his wife and son for Ennis, now it was all up to him. Twist thought a moment and then asked with a prayer for the answer he was silently hoping for, “Well, what do we do now?”
Ennis silently flicked another ash as if distracted. His responsibility to his family weighed heavily on his mind and he barely heard Jack through his thoughts. He was busy weighing Alma and the girls on one side of the scales and what really made him happy on the other. He inhaled a slow thoughtful breath and exhaled smoke. “I doubt there’s nothin’ we can do. So I’m stuck with what I got here. Makin’ a livin’ is about all I got time for now. I got my hands full just trying to feed my kids. We’re both committed to our families Jack, there’s not much more we can do. I hate that you're gonna drive away from here tomorrow and I’ll be headin’ back to work, but it’s what we gotta do.”
A resentment started to build in Jack. Twist would’ve happily settled for just seeing del Mar again, talking over old times and having a beer together, but Ennis was the one who made the first move, forcefully throwing him against that wall, pinning him against it and then kissing him with such passion. Ennis was the one who injected hope into the situation with his kiss. Ennis was the one who didn’t resist one little bit when Jack returned that kiss neither. Damn him. Del Mar’s move sealed their fate for the rest of their lives.
Through the paper-thin walls, the phone in the room next door started ringing again seven times and then stopped. The wind picked up and rain pelted the front window.
Jack’s heart sank along with his hopes. He changed the subject and they spent the next hour or so talking about their separate lives, how Aguirre threatened Jack the summer of ’64, and how Jack peppered his car with gravel.
Ennis laughed and told Jack about meeting the foreman and his son at a church social, and Aguirre not remembering him, even offering him a job up on Brokeback last year. Jack seemed to tense at the mention of Johnny/Jack Aguirre's name.
The phone in the room next door started ringing again; ten times.
Ennis inhaled a long thoughtful breath, “I gotta get home, Alma’ll be worried. I gotta be at work early tomorrow too.”
As he tried to get up, Jack pulled Ennis back to him and kissed him full on the mouth as the ashtray fell to the floor.
“Not just yet, cowboy,” said Jack as his eyes spotted the unopened whiskey bottle. For once he was proud of himself for not needing it.
They turned off the lights and cuddled in each other’s arms. Ennis kissed his way down Jack's stomach and swallowed him. Sexually Ennis had loosened up a little, servicing Jack orally, which he almost never did when they were on the mountain and they passionately went at it again until they fell sound asleep contented…
…Now the old lady room clerk was getting annoyed and impatient after answering another outside call on her switchboard. “I told you already before ma’am we only got two guests; a woman from Casper and a business man from up north. We ain’t got no one from Texas here.” She wasn’t about to risk her job to disturb her guests at this hour of the night and hung up on the persistent bitch on the other end of the line. She’d already rung an empty room three times to humor her when she called to talk to the man, but since that didn’t work-maybe rudeness would… she huffed and went back to playing solitaire while watching Johnny Carson on the little portable TV.
~ Chapter 14: You seen that?
The next morning after waking up in each other’s arms, it was obvious that Ennis was having second thoughts about the whole situation. His male cowboy ego began suffering something terrible as he realized that he was the one that was so completely dominated sexually last night. But more than that, he had to accept the fact that he not only craved it from Jack, but that he needed it from him too, and had thought about it for the long years they’d been apart.
It was beginning to hit them both hard that unless they did something about it together, they’d never see each other for another long stretch, maybe never and both were saddened by it.
Jack wanted to head for their mountain, but Ennis had responsibilities. Twist argued, “What harm can a weekend do?”
It took some fast-talking on the trip back to his apartment, but Jack finally talked Ennis into seeing things his way, at least for the time being. They agreed to head for Brokeback right away.
Unfortunately Jack read more into it than was there, because while Ennis was finally facing just how much he craved Jack, that secret fear; the one that his childhood had bred into him, had reared its ugly head. Ennis still loved Alma, but he only agreed to go because he needed time away from her...
...Alma had been sitting at the dinette table for what seemed like all morning; sobbing and convinced her husband had left her and the girls. When she heard them pull up out back, she wiped her tears and rushed to the window, relieved that she’d been wrong. Had he come back or was he just here for his things and to say goodbye? Her heart sank as she saw them both jump out of Jack’s pickup and Twist waited down there while Ennis ran up their stairs… not a good sign.
Rushing through the door he gave Alma a quick, “Hey,” in passing and quickly gathered his coat and fishing equipment. Alma opened her mouth to ask something, but he interrupted with, “Jack and me is going up to the mountains for a couple of days to get in some fishing before he has to go back home.”
The concept of Jack as the “other woman” was something she still couldn’t understand or figure out. Her head was spinning trying to conceive a way to keep him here, to make him realize he had a family to support. “Can’t your friend even come up for a cup of coffee?”
“Well, he’s from Texas,” replied Ennis without even thinking as he went to the bathroom and grabbed a toothbrush and a shaving kit.
“What; Texans don’t drink coffee?” she objected, moving to the window to look down on Twist still leaning against his truck.
Little Alma Junior came rushing in and wrapped her arms around her father’s knees, “Bring me home a fish Daddy! A big, big one!”
Ennis smiled down at her, picked her up, kissed her and then silently handed her to her mother. He looked out the window and his breath quickened.
Alma’s world was shattering for reasons she still couldn’t understand, nor could she hide the confusion in her face. All she could think to say was, “You sure that foreman won’t fire you for just taking off?”
Ennis looked back at her and replied, “He owes me... Huh? Didn’t I work all Christmas Eve through a blizzard for him last year? ‘sides I can always find another job.”
Ennis saw her face crestfallen and muttered a quick, “Come here,” to her, kissed her over Junior’s shoulder and was gone out the door calling out, “Be back Sunday latest.”
Moving to the window, she watched her husband hit the bottom of their stairs running. Across his face was the biggest brightest smile and it was a total shock because she’d never seen him wearing that expression before. She broke down and began sobbing. Junior hugged her closer and she sniffed as she heard them down below.
“You hungry?” asked Twist.
“Starved!” exclaimed Ennis enthusiastically in a happy voice. The truck doors slammed, the motor started up and they were quickly gone.
She stood transfixed in that window for a long time until Alma Junior began squirming…
...That first trip back up to “their” mountain was glorious. Ennis couldn’t remember being so at peace and realized that Jack was the reason why he was so damned happy. On the way they stopped off to eat and buy whiskey and supplies for their hastily planned trip.
After Ennis stowed the provisions in the bed of the truck, Jack decided to try coaxing a laugh out of Ennis like the old days. As del Mar climbed into the cab of the pickup with a sack of food, Twist suddenly cut the engine, asking his love, “You sure we got everything?”
With a puzzled frown del Mar shuffled through his grocery bag as Jack leaned over to look in it. Suddenly his door was open and Twist yelled, “Be right back!” over his shoulder as he ran towards the store. A few moments later he emerged with another little sack, got in, handed it across to Ennis, and then started the truck. Ennis peered into the bag as Jack shifted into gear and began laughing until tears streamed down his face, making Jack Twist the happiest man on the face of the earth.
The bag contained a can opener and two cans of Better Most pork and beans…
They spent the trip talking endlessly about what the last four years had held for each other. The rodeo, ranching, the learning impaired son, the sickly daughter and the hateful father-in-law. Ennis talked about how much he loved his girls and how he and Alma might not be getting along as well as they could be, but they were working as a team to build a future for themselves.
Before they knew it they were at a twenty-foot cliff overlooking the stream where they camped the night they made love the first time. Laughing as they scurried out of the truck, Ennis challenged, “The last one in…” as they joyfully raced to the edge, shedding all of their clothes as they ran and leapt off into the surprisingly frigid mountain water below.
Their heads surfaced, both screaming about how cold it was.
They felt they were in their own private heaven, laughing their heads off and splashing each other. Here they didn't have to hide. Here they could be themselves. The laughter ended suddenly when they both realized at the same time that their clothes were at the top of that cliff; a good 20-minute walk naked around the rocky prominence back up to the truck at what was now a public campground.
After a day of setting up camp and regretting in their haste at not bringing a couple of Ennis’ horses from the ranch, they settled down that night at the rushing stream’s edge, bundled in coats. Surrounded in peace and without a care for the first time in a long while, Jack got a roaring fire going against the cold.
Ennis fell silent while looking into the flickering smoking flames and eventually eased back to lay with his feet near the fire, one knee up with his hat propped on it. He seemed to be in a state of contented rapture, just staring up at the stars in wonder with a half smile.
Jack had never seen Ennis smile so much and so continuously and it gave him hope. He sat on the log beside him, listening to the roaring water deep in thought and eventually looked over at him. Twist had come a long way north hoping their reunion would be permanent, but every time he brought it up, Ennis would sidestep the subject, wanting to just enjoy being up here together again.
For a long time they sat, gradually becoming uncomfortable with their silence. Jack settled to just watch the man he was now convinced that he loved looking dreamily up at nothing. To break the silence he asked, “See anything interesting up there in heaven?”
Ennis' relaxed smile grew a rare mischievous grin in response and he commented lazily, “Ohhhhhh, I was just sendin’ up a prayer of thanks.”
Jack’s heart suddenly swelled with hope. “For what?”
Ennis snorted a laugh, “I’m thankful that you forgot that damned harmonica… Huh. I was just enjoyin’ the peace and quiet.”
Hiding his disappointment, Jack chuckled and shook his head.
The cowboy closed his eyes and moaned enjoyment. There was no fighting here, no arguing over bills or worry one of the girls was sick. Not a damned thing to care about until…
Jack straightened and looked out at the mountain, topped with glowing light blue snow in the dark lit only by the full moon. At that moment he’d give up his life, his wife, his child and everything sacred and unsacred he cherished if only he could keep Ennis for himself forever. If only. He was so in love it hurt deep down in his soul to the point where he couldn’t keep it in any more. Gathering his courage he hesitated and then said softly, “You know it could be like this, just like this, for always,” knowing that it was as close to a declaration of love and commitment as he dared make.
Ennis opened his eyes and looked at him quizzically. “How do you figure that?”
In one fleeting and horrible moment Jack knew his hopes had been dashed, but bravely collected his thoughts.
They both stared into the campfire, realizing the consequences of what had just been said, but more importantly of what hadn’t been answered.
Fighting acid tears from his eyes and a tight chest, Jack continued softly and hesitantly trying to renew his fleeting hopes, “You know, if we had a little cow and calf operation together; you know along with your horses, it could be a sweet life... Lureen’s old man; you bet he’d give me enough for a down payment if I’d get lost. Already more or less said it…”
Halfway through the sentence he knew it was doomed when Ennis began shaking his head no and Jack felt frustration welling up in his throat.
Ennis sat up still shaking his head, put on his hat to hide his eyes and corrected as he settled over beside Jack, “Now I… I told you it ain’t gonna be like that.” Resting his back against the log, he continued, “You’ve got your wife and baby in Texas and I’ve got my life here in Riverton.”
Unable to hold his resentment in any more, Jack asked skeptically, “You and Alma, that’s a life?”
Ennis’ heterosexual sense of self set in suddenly and answered for him, “You shut up about Alma, this ain’t her fault… The bottom line is Jack; if we’re around each other, and this… ‘this thing’ catches a hold of us at the wrong time, or the wrong place and someone sees us, we’re dead Jack. Dead… both of us.”
Thinking of Alma and the girls he added, “Can’t get out of it. Jack, I don’t wanna be like them guys you see around sometimes. And I don’t wanna be dead neither.”
Jack frowned an unphrased question at his love’s hidden eyes and watched Ennis consider an answer, dredging up a blurred-by-time childhood memory from twelve years ago. His heart aching at the remembrance of how much he loved two special uncles, and haunted by Michael’s love and the hidden pain it still caused.
After a moment deep in thought, Ennis explained, “There was these two guys ranched up together down home; Earl and Rich - Dad would pass a remark when he seen them together in town and mom’d make us turn our eyes away from them. They was a fag joke for everybody, even though they was pretty tough old birds. I was what, no more than nine years old I guess when the sheriff found ‘em both dead one day down near an irrigation ditch.
Ennis’ entire body shuddered. “The story’s been passed around for years that a couple of local ranchers and their boys jumped them both one night. They took a tire iron to Earl and beat him up bad. They took his clothes from him, wrapped a clothesline real tight around his balls and made him run behind their pickup until he fell and split his head open and didn’t stop ‘til his dick-it pulled off. Then they tied him dead by his ankles to the back of their truck and drug his body up and down Dead Horse Road ‘till all that was left was just a bloody pulp.”
Awestruck, Jack asked, “What about Rich?”
Another full-body nervous shiver wracked him while fear and sadness clouded his eyes. “While they was doin’ all that, the bastards tied ol’ Rich up in the truck bed sittin’ up and facin’ backwards and they forced him to watch Earl’s body dragging around and getting tore up… and they had their fun watchin’ him cry for his… his boyfriend. After that they strung Rich up by his neck with the same bloody clothesline to the top of a tall deer fence with only just enough cord for him to stand without it chokin’ off his air. Then they tied his hands behind his back and took turns taking hard punches at him, lighting all his body hair and clothes on fire, bein’ careful not to kill him or knock him out ‘cause they wanted him to suffer bad. When they was done having their fun, they just left him standin’ out there naked and bleedin’… all alone… and finally he was so weak from the pain that he slumped down and hung himself ‘cause he was too tired to stand up no more… hear tell that they still laugh that you could hear Rich crying for help a mile away. I wish that was a joke, but me'n my brother heard him that night 'n had nightmares for weeks after looking at Rich all burned and hung.
Jack looked appalled that a child would be exposed to such a sight and asked, “You seen that?”
Ennis nodded, “Like I said we was just little kids who needed to be taught a lesson. My daddy-he drove my brother and me out to see the bodies like they was some sideshow at a circus. Him and some men took me and my brother K.E. and we walked over to the fence where Rich was rotting with flies all over him. Rich’s head was all bald and blistered from where they burned off his hair and his skin was all black and shriveled because one of them kept dousing him up with lighter fluid, then puttin’ the flame out before he could pass out from the pain. Then he walked us over to see Earl layin’ in that irrigation ditch... What the tire iron done to Earl looked like pieces of burned tomatoes all over him, nose and face tore down from skiddin’ on gravel.
My dad made sure I seen it and that we knew why it happened.” Another violent shudder ran through del Mar as the memory came back to him of the sharp bang of a lighter fluid can hitting his bedroom door from the other side. “Hell, for all I know he done the job. I tell you what; if he was alive and saw us last night or together right now like this, you bet he’d go get his tire iron.” He shook his head no, “Two guys livin together, Jack… No way… Now, we can get together once in a while way the hell out in the middle a nowhere…”
Jack’s jaw dropped, “Every so often? Every four-fuckin’-years?”
“Jack, if you can’t fix it, you gotta stand it,” Ennis replied.
“For how long?” he asked hesitantly. Ennis bowed his head lower as his face became a mask of sadness. Twist felt tears welling up again, as he realized that this man couldn’t love him like he needed to be loved.
Unable to meet his eyes, Ennis gazed down into the fire with a heartbroken look and mumbled, “This horse don’t got reins on it Jack, we just got to ride it as long as we can.”
They fell into an uncomfortable silence. Leaning over to him, Jack brushed the top of the fingers of his left hand against Ennis’ right sideburn and gently rubbed.
As the fire crackled, Ennis’ hand quietly found Jack’s.
That night in the tent there was no sex between them, they just lay naked together in the sleeping bag; Ennis pressed against Jack’s back cradling him in his strong and loving arms.
Ennis decided that being there was just too hard for him and asked Jack to drive him home the next morning. The long trip down the mountain was done in almost complete silence.
That night, about a block from the parking lot, Jack pulled over and gave Ennis a big bear hug and a peck on the cheek. They promised they’d keep in touch. Ennis walked home alone, not looking up as Jack passed, tapping his horn and waving out the window.
Down in the parking lot, Ennis got in his truck, started it, but didn’t want to go anywhere, so he just sat there eventually resting his head against the steering wheel. Emotionally exhausted, he started to doze off and a nightmare began of his father beating him.
Alma Jr. rushed down the stairs to come up on his door. “Daddy, did you bring me a big fish?”
~ Chapter 15: The year dreams died
1970 saw the death of Martha Twist’s brother Harold Caine after a seven-year on-and-off fight with ill health. She and her husband John made the long drive to Signal and after the funeral were ready to drive north when Mr. Twist decided to look at some farm equipment at a local dealer. Mrs. Twist asked to be left off at some friends she hadn’t seen in years and then she told him that she’d walk over to the local bank to cash a check for gas for the trip home. As soon as he pulled away from the curb and drove off around the corner, she set off on foot a block north towards Signal Savings and Trust instead.
She didn't know how long he'd be gone or how much time she had. She paused to look in her purse, making sure she had the mysterious letter she’d gotten in the mail two weeks ago.
The young man on the other side of the teller’s window frowned at the key the older woman had handed him, along with some paperwork in an envelope with the company’s letterhead. On the widened end of the key was stamped K598. It was one of the larger boxes that the bank kept in its safe deposit section. According to the paperwork the box was rented in the sole name of someone called Ennis del Mar.
Strict instructions were included in the letter that del Mar was to be given the key only in the event of Jack’s death. Jack had included a note with it that said he would send her regular letters when this mysterious Ennis person changed his address, and that under no conditions were her husband John or del Mar to even know of the existence of the bank box.
“Excuse me a moment ma’am,” he said politely distracting her thoughts as he went over to his supervisor.
They shuffled through a small index file and discovered that while it was only in del Mar's name, the card mentioned two other people, One had opened the account for him, and the other was Mrs. Twist, who was listed as having temporarily custody of Mr. del Mar’s key, so both clerks shrugged at each other. The head teller initialed something and put the card back in its place.
About ten minutes after being shown into a private booth in back, Martha came out visibly shaken and asked for a piece of paper and a pen, then disappeared back into the vault area.
A few minutes later, she asked a teller to cash two one-hundred-dollar bills into twenties and left the bank just as John pulled up to the curb in their old Chevy truck.
Twist looked at his wife in concern. “You alright?” he asked.
She nodded silently and handed her husband sixty dollars, remaining silent the whole trip back up north. Over the years they’d return to Signal to put flowers on Harold’s grave, but she never set foot in that bank again, nor did she ever tell John what had upset her…
…Ennis began feeling trapped in his increasingly loveless marriage. He and Alma fought almost constantly and over the next five years, Jack and Ennis did keep in touch, exchanging post cards and meeting twice a year or so when they could both get time off from family and work. Their fishing/camping/hunting trips usually lasted between a week to ten days and both spent most of the year looking forward to them. They worked their way through the Big Horns, Medicine Bows, south end of the Granites, Owl Creeks, the Bridger-Teton Range, Salt River Range, the Sierra Madres, the Washakies, Laramies, but never back to Brokeback Mountain. The omission was Ennis’ doing, though Jack suggested going there several times and finally gave up asking after a few years.
Alma was left to imagine what horrid things happened on those trips but was relieved when her man returned to her... but the resentment grew more and more as each year passed. The look of glee on Ennis' face whenever he'd get a card from Jack haunted her for weeks afterward.
L.D. Newsome semi-retired in 1974 after failing to get selected to a seat in the Texas State Republican primary races. He turned the day-to-day operations of his farm equipment business over to Lureen, but kept a close eye on things, never letting Jack advance higher than head salesman.
As little Bobby grew, his learning disability became more of a problem, but Grandpa doted over him anyway. He considered the “Sr.” at the end of his name a badge of honor.
Jack had regular bouts of depression and began developing a drinking problem though he kept pulling himself back from the brink before it became serious. He’d always come home from one of his fishing trips tenser than when he left. He knew he loved Ennis but was never brave enough to utter the word. Jack was the one who worked to keep the relationship going and sometimes resented Ennis for seemingly not wanting it as much as he did.
Ennis was the more secretly loving emotionally but couldn’t show it. Jack was the more passionate sexually. Both rationalized it by calling it a very close friendship that just happened to include sex.
Del Mar’s length was apparently a perfect fit to internally rub and stimulate Twist’s prostate in such a way that crashing shattering orgasms came without Jack so much as touching himself and his craving to be fucked became more intense. He felt terrible that to satisfy his ever-increasing need, he’d make periodic trips just across the border to Mexico, always telling Lureen he was on a “business trip.”
But it was only sex. What he needed was the love that only Ennis could give but he only got enough from him to barely keep him hoping. Jack wanted them to be lovers but thought Ennis only wanted them to be best friends.
But he was wrong.
Del Mar was the one who desired the sexual and emotional sensation of being joined as one body and soul with Twist. Truth be told Ennis was the one that needed badly to be saved from his loneliness and the feeling that no one really cared about him but Jack. Ennis was the one who initiated the trips to the mountains even though he could stop the cycle at any time by simply breaking all contact. Unknowingly he was the cruel one too, because by holding back until he could no longer stand not seeing Twist, he was timing his contact with him to every time Jack was on the verge of giving up hope.
The torture was that if Jack out-and-out said he was in love with Ennis he feared del Mar would reject him like he’d done so many times before. Ennis grew up convinced that if he loved someone and told them so; he’d lose them or be left behind by them… his parents, his sister and then his brother and of course Michael. As a result he hid his heart from Alma and most heartbreaking of all his little girls.
He tragically convinced himself that if he didn’t love Twist, he wouldn’t lose him too. Because of his strict upbringing, Ennis also still believed that he was safe from eternal damnation as long as he didn’t say the word love to another man while God was listening. Every time he picked up a newspaper or turned on a TV there was another news report about a mysterious “gay cancer” and on Sundays there were the televangelists declaring God’s judgment on homosexuals.
Men grew their hair increasingly longer and wore clothes that made Ennis blush. Flower-power and the "sexual revolution" had arrived without him. Women wore less and less. The hippies came and went to all become disco groupies. Everything was "groovy" and peace symbols appeared on everything from billboards to jewelry. As the Beatles turned into K.C. and the Sunshine band and then ZZ Top, del Mar stayed with his short hair and country/western music and started to feel left behind by the rest of the world.
On the home fronts, Ennis loved his daughters, but slowly began to resent Alma. Monroe became a business chain opening up more grocery stores and laundromats, and recently had even started a catering business that he’d put Alma in charge of. Fights in front of the kids became more frequent as she took extra shifts to manage the business for Monroe and fill in for undependable workers.
But that didn’t keep them ahead of the bills by a long shot, what with school clothes and supplies, doctor bills for Jenny’s asthma and then pneumonia, and Alma Junior having to have her appendix out. Huge fights broke out between them over anything no matter how trivial. Ennis’ old ’55 GMC finally gave out and he used what savings they had left and bought a light blue Ford pick-up that was nearly falling apart and needed parts they didn’t have the money for.
She was becoming more and more resentful of having to work at all instead of staying home full-time with the girls like an ordinary housewife. It angered her because Ennis refused to get a job for himself that paid enough on its own, though she was convinced that many were available.
He also continued to buy and sell horses on speculation instead of putting money away for the girl’s further education.
Alma started going to the Methodist Church with the girls, always leaving him behind when he mumbled something about Sunday being his only day off, not liking that “fire and brimstone” crowd; that and he wanted to sleep in one day a week. She began making the girls say prayers at bedtime and recite grace before even a simple snack. Several bibles appeared in the living room and the nightstand of the bedroom. He came home one day to find a crucifix nailed above the inside of their front door. Monroe began regularly driving Alma and the kids to church every week and for socials and picnics. In her ignorant mind her husband had been “infected” by that nasty Jack Twist and this was her way of protecting her children from Ennis infecting them.
After a particularly spiteful and loud fight over his refusal to take a second job with the electric company, Ennis went out to the bar to cool off. He’d never laid a hand in anger on Alma in their years of marriage, but that night he’d come close. When he came back home that evening, the sounds of the kids laughing up there, the TV playing loudly, and Alma singing, "Jesus loves me-yes I know..." was too much for him and he sat out in the night air on the tailgate of his truck for about half an hour smoking and wondering if his life would ever turn around for the better.
He layed on his back in the bed of the truck and looked up at the stars through a clear night sky, remembering that night with Jack looking for something up in heaven. Things would be so much different if they’d followed through on Jack’s idea to ranch up together.
Above and behind him, he heard their storm door open and didn’t bother to sit up and look because he figured it was just Alma. He didn’t want to hear her bitch at him for staying out so late. The girls started calling out “Goodbye!” so he frowned and peered out from the pickup's bed to see Monroe come out on the landing under the porch light and down the stairs.
He must’ve not seen Ennis in the dark until he was right beside him, because he practically jumped out of his skin before rushing to his car and driving away.
When del Mar finally went up to the apartment he didn’t have the energy or desire to act jealous and let it drop.
Alma happened to be standing behind him one day when he opened his tackle box and she noticed that his two-year-old rod and reel looked brand new and so did the unscuffed price tag that was still on it. She nodded to herself that he wasn’t going up there to fish and had the theory confirmed for her the next time he was ready to leave on one of his “trips” when he nearly forgot to take the creel case with him and would have if she hadn’t said something.
Her resentment opened out a little every year: the embrace she had glimpsed of her husband and that nasty Twist guy, Ennis’ fishing trips once or twice a year with him, but never a vacation with her and the girls, his not wanting to step out and have any fun unless it was alone, his yearning for low-paid, long-houred ranch work, his propensity to roll to the wall and sleep as soon as he hit the bed, his failure again to look for a decent permanent job with the county or the power company put her in a long, slow dive.
Finally in the summer of ’77 it all came to a head when Ennis was feeling particularly horny one night and just as he was about to enter her, Alma asked him to use a rubber. “As far behind in the bills as we are; I don’t think it’d be a good idea not to use precautions.”
That killed the mood immediately.
Before rolling off of her panting with passion, he said in frustration, “If you don’t want any more of my kids, I’ll be happy to leave you alone.”
She replied a little too quickly, “I’d have them, if you’d support them.”
She remained silent as he climbed off her and took his usual position facing the wall. The way Ennis liked to have sex with her most of the time didn’t make babies anyway. She’d long ago deduced that that’s how he had sex with that Jack and resented being used as a substitute for him.
She turned off the light.
Three months later when Alma Jr., was nine and Jenny seven, Alma filed for divorce and custody of the girls. If Ennis wouldn’t support her and the girls the way she wanted, she had her own man waiting in the shadows that would.
When the court day came, Ennis felt like the world had crashed down on his shoulders. His self-image as a man who was a good husband and loving father was now shattered and he felt like a complete failure. He loved and cherished his little girls more than his own life and standing there his face held a mixture of equal parts resentment, hate and shame. He was now convinced beyond doubt that to love someone-anyone was to be condemned to be hurt by them. As he stood in the courtroom he could feel himself shutting down and was powerless to stop it.
As the Judge ruled in Alma’s favor and ordered Ennis to pay child support, his chest tightened to the point of hardly being able to breathe and tears fell from his crestfallen eyes. He looked to be in such agony that both Alma Jr. and Jenny broke free of their mother and cried open tears as they gathered around him hugging him and looking frightened of the judge.
Ennis moved out that night leaving no word where he was going. Alma figured it was to avoid the child support, but he just needed time to heal and would never do anything to hurt his girls.
He wrote a heartbroken letter to Jack giving him the news, hoping he’d write back but heard nothing for a month. He had to leave on a roundup and missed his 2nd month in a row with the girls so he was out of town for a long stretch. Ennis wanted to be in love, but convinced himself that he was just lonely.
He was shocked when after another month Junior called to tell him that Alma had married Monroe and was a month or so pregnant...
…Twist started making slow deliberate preparations to leave Lureen the moment he got Ennis’ letter with news of the divorce. He didn’t care about Newsome’s money or the son that his wife and father-in-law had taught to hate him. He went as far as he could with his plans to just up and disappear on his family, carefully leaving a way back “just in case.”
Ennis’ old phone number over the laundromat had been disconnected and none of his postcards were answered, so Jack just assumed that Ennis would be waiting for him and leave hints in town where to find him. Jack was so sure of himself that he called his parents to hint that his marriage was breaking up and he might be moving up north there with a friend named Ennis to help with the Twist homestead.
When finally he could wait no longer, Twist nearly flew north in his truck; in fact at some railroad crossings, he actually left the ground. He was rushing to his man-his lover and had been rehearsing how he was going to make “Deke” real happy by leaving Lureen, but it’d cost the millionaire dearly. Jack’d would've left her for free, but Newsome didn’t have to know that. Ennis finally had come to his senses and left his wife; they’d finally after long last be together like it should be, like it was meant to be.
He was smiling so much his cheeks ached and he couldn’t help singing all the way north to Riverton.
After the divorce, Ennis had moved into an old run-down house at his boss’ ranch’s far western edge. It wasn’t much, but as he was fond of saying, “If you don’t have nothing, you don’t need nothing.” It took a lot of hard work on the place before the court would let the girls stay there over weekends, and he was overjoyed at their being there with him at last. That afternoon he’d fixed up some trout he’d caught and had frozen on his last “fishing trip” with Jack, and the girls as usual loved it. He only got to see them one weekend a month and the time was precious to him.
After a nice day together teaching them how to ride horseback, he bundled them up in the truck with the promise of a drive-in movie. He was walking around to his door of the pickup when he heard a truck horn blaring away around the front of the house coming toward him and was astonished to see Jack pull up and jump out with his arms outspread.
Knowing the girls were watching, Ennis approached cautiously, darting his eyes at Jack towards the girls, but Twist didn’t get the hint and rushed up to gave him an affectionate hug.
Ennis pulled away cautiously and asked, “What the hell are you doing here?”
“Hell, I drove for hours up from Texas, asked a dozen people in Riverton where you’d moved to and that’s all you got to say?”
“Jack, I uh, you don’t understand, I…”
Jack pulled away and replied with a frown, “I got your note about the divorce and all, and I figured that meant we…”
The look Ennis gave him, froze Twist’s throat and del Mar’s eyes darted toward the truck again.
Shifting his arms so only one was around his shoulder, he guided Jack to the driver side of his old truck and gestured inward, saying, “Girls this is my old friend Jack; he’s a good fishing and camping buddy of mine.”
Taken aback at his first sight of Ennis’ daughters, Jack simply said, “Hi.”
They both stared, sort of stunned. As they’d grown up they’d heard fights through the bedroom wall between their parents about someone named Jack.
When the silence went a little too long, their father tersely said, “Say ‘hi’ girls,”
“Hi” they replied in unison as Ennis led him out of earshot.
Looking back at the girls, Jack continued, “I just figured that your note meant that you wanted to, that you wanted me to… you know.”
Ennis bowed his head, “Jack; I’m sorry… you know I am.”
To Jack’s puzzled frown, he added, “I only get the girls once a month and I missed last month because of the roundup, so I…”
Something caught Ennis' eye out beyond the golden fields. A white pickup drove slowly by with two men in it pointedly looking their way. One was his boss Carl Stoutamire, the owner of the ranch and the house he was staying in here. Ennis took a step backward and Jack followed his eyes and saw the men watching them too.
Twist nodded disappointment and said reluctantly, “Yeah, okay.”
“Jack, if there was any way I could… You know I would,”
Jack realized that he wasn’t as important in Ennis’ life as he’d hoped he’d be, so he nodded again and turned to pace back to his truck. As he opened the door, Ennis’ voice came from behind him at a distance, “I’ll see ya next month, right?”
Jack nodded and slammed his door, started the engine and gunned it backward, spitting gravel and dust, and was gone in moments. The ache in Ennis’ heart was almost unbearable, because he missed Jack as much as Jack missed him. He put on a happy smile and got in his truck, “So what do my girls wanna see tonight?”
Jack sobbed heartbroken almost all the way back south. He was thankful he hadn’t gone too far with his plans and was so deep in thought that he missed the turn off home. So full was his heart with resentment and disillusionment, he couldn’t stand to see his wife and the life he didn’t want, but would be stuck with probably the rest of his life, so he made a decision and headed toward Mexico.
It took him an hour or so to find a hustler who looked a lot like Ennis, and since Lureen thought he’d be gone a few days, he spent the whole week with him.
Ennis was so sorry about the misunderstanding that he risked calling Jack’s home in Childress to apologize, but hung up when Lureen answered…
...That winter Ennis and Jack hooked up with a gay friend (one of the few they could be themselves with) who owned a cabin near the timberline on Brokeback. Don Rhoe occasionally would offer to let them use it for free, so they finally accepted and spent Christmas together for the first time, bagging an elk whose head they had mounted on the wall. It was a good memory that they shared, but it wouldn’t last.
Ennis got poorer, Jack got richer, and it strained their relationship when Jack’d offer to help financially.
The years piled onto years for both of them, Ennis stuck to ranch work with Stoutamire, but hired on here and there part time, not getting much ahead but glad enough to be around stock again, free to drop things, quit if he had to, and go into the mountains with Jack on short notice.
With each passing year, Jack lost a tiny bit more hope. His trips to Mexico and most recently San Francisco became more frequent, but he needed love-Ennis' love-not just sex. With each passing year, Twist's mind began seeking out someone to give him what del Mar wouldn't. He lost a little bit more optimism every time he drove through Signal on his way to his parents.
One Christmas he took Lureen and Bobby with him as a surprise to meet John and Martha only to find them not home and the place shut up tight. After giving his wife and son a brief tour of the ranch he grew up on, they left the gifts at the kitchen door and drove back south. Jack intentionally took a more easterly route after his wife asked if Ennis lived near Signal or Riverton and suggested they stop in and say hello.
That was one scene he definitely didn’t need to happen.
The years saw Ennis watching his girls gradually grow through their teens and he realized that the passage of time was moving too swiftly for him to keep up. He’d date a woman now and again, but it never seemed to work out. As much as he hated to admit it, he’d always be comparing how he felt about Jack to how he felt about her, and not many measured up... but he was tortured as to how to tell Jack he loved him.
He just assumed Jack would always be there. Twist started to sense that and resentment began to build within him that del Mar took him for granted.
Paying the child support was rough on Ennis but he never missed one damned payment. He was offered a permanent full-time job on Carl Stoutamire’s ranch on the condition he quit all the other side work, and he began taking charge of the horses and managing roundups. It meant more money and was work he enjoyed, but it meant cutting down seeing Jack to only once in maybe seven or eight months. The times were catching up to him too as Alma Junior and Jenny went through the "unisex" trend, women’s rights movement and even the gay rights push. The girls grew their hair long and feathered like Farrah. Junior recently introduced a new boyfriend to him named Troy, who was on the high school baseball team. He had longer hair than she did.
One year Jack offered to take Ennis to San Francisco on vacation to experience men holding hands and kissing in public without shame but Ennis turned him down not feeling ready for that much “progress” just yet.
As modern culture began invading Wyoming, more and more young new-hire ranch hands wore their hair long too, snug bell-bottoms and sported multi-colored clothing, giving Ennis the feeling that the world was speeding by, with him wondering how he’d missed out on it. If he expressed shock or wonder at it all, his daughters were quick to chastise him with an exasperated, “Oh Dad!”
Jack began to change with the times too, always talking about the stock market or investments, or the crazy economy. His sideburns grew longer and his hair was about an inch shaggier than it used to be. Every other year he’d show up with a brand new and bigger pickup truck offering to sell Ennis his old one dirt-cheap… which made Ennis feel dirt-cheap so he stuck to his ancient blue Ford. The only times he and Ennis were happy together were on their silent rides in the forests of the Tetons or the Big Horns on horseback. The single Christmas trip two years ago to Brokeback Mountain had spoiled Jack, but Ennis resisted going back to their mountain, so Jack stopped asking.
Ennis started wondering if people could tell he was "different" just by looking at him, but Jack told him he was just being paranoid and once even offered to help him move to Texas, but Ennis didn't want to leave his girls.
His ego was too much part of his personality to admit he needed help from anyone-another gift from his father.
As his paranoia about being "found out" grew, he began seeing a young waitress named Cassie Cartwright out of loneliness. He'd met her in a bar one night and they became a regular couple in town. As they became good friends it even grew to a kind of love on his part to the point of him wanting to introduce her to his daughters...
…On a business trip into Wyoming, L.D. Newsome ran into Joe Aguirre at a Farm & Ranch Equipment convention in Casper. L.D. mentioned how his son-in-law Jack Twist said he’d herded sheep up on Brokeback Mountain a couple of times, thinking he could drum some business out of the foreman since they had a mutual contact.
L.D. left the building half an hour later shaken. Up in his hotel room he began making phone calls to an ex-police detective down in Houston he used to know…
~ Chapter 16: Almost knocked into next week!
Toward the end of September Ennis ran into Monroe at one of his stores while picking up supplies. Monroe (whose full name was Monroe William Monroe) told him that he’d been fighting with Alma lately because he thought that Ennis deserved more time with the girls and she didn't agree but wouldn't say why.
Always the good-natured one, Monroe put it down to the resentment and scorn of an ex-wife. They became instant friends and because of Ennis' irregular schedule Monroe agreed to allow him to take his “weekends” with the girls any time he wanted and even extend them when time and school permitted. Something must’ve happened between him and Alma. Ennis didn’t know what, but he was glad of it. He smiled remembering what a bitch she was when she was pregnant both times and figured that’s probably what it was.
The beginning of November 1980, Ennis sent word to Jack that he’d be able to get the week of Thanksgiving off and they immediately made plans to spend it in the Teton Mountains.
Jack joyfully started researching ways of surprising Ennis by roasting a turkey outdoors or if it was even safe (what with salmonella) or possible to cook it all the way through and started calling department stores and camping supply houses. The project started looking too complicated, so he settled for pre-cooking one at home, surprisingly enough with Lureen’s help and in separate containers went bread stuffing and mashed potatoes he’d made himself packed in dry-ice. His plan was to just suddenly have the whole meal appear out of nowhere roasting on a spit and warming over the campfire for him.
He smiled in anticipation for a whole week just thinking about the look on Ennis' face when he saw it. Lately Lureen seemed to understand about his occasional need to do “manly” things like hunting and fishing. She knew he loved to do it, but she wouldn’t allow Bobby to tag along because of both of their fears that he’d either wander off and get lost, or get hurt somehow. Jack suspected she actually seemed to want him to be with Ennis this holiday, but couldn’t figure out why. When he’d puzzled back over it, it seemed as if this trip were actually her idea.
Jack and Ennis were back on good terms again after their fight about Twist not being able to see del Mar as much as he wanted to, so they went into it with their hopes high. Speaking of "highs," it was the first time Jack brought a little something to smoke with him that he discovered on one of his little trips to Mexico that summer. Even when they were arguing it was fun while buzzed on marijuana, though a thoroughly stoned Ennis did almost lose all their campsite cookware after it took off floating downstream.
L.D. Newsome had other ideas about the holiday festivities.
Just as Jack had packed up his new truck, his father in law called and announced that he and his wife were inviting themselves to his house for Thanksgiving. Lureen wasn’t all that concerned about her husband missing the holiday, but seizing the opportunity to meet the “mystery man” in Jack’s life, she suggested Ennis come down to Texas to have the holiday meal with them instead.
Maybe she was beginning to suspect that this "Ennis" was actually another woman?
Jack said Ennis' pickup truck probably couldn’t make the trip and that was that. He’d just shorten the trip and be back in time for his in-laws.
As soon as he left, she got busy on the phone to a secretary neighbor of hers who probably knew someone…
...On the way up to the mountains Jack stopped off at a department store and bought a set of new carving knives and a fancy bone china serving set with a big and expensive sterling silver serving tray that he figured Lureen would like. His wife loved expensive things that she could show off to her friends. Lately Jack had been getting along well with her after all the years of indifference. Twist began wondering if maybe the business disagreement she’d had with her father may have caused a little animosity between them. Jack backed her up on her decision not to carry a line of expensive farm equipment that only a handful of ranchers would buy and they’d make very little profit on.
When Deke went ahead and ordered 5 units costing nearly a million dollars, Lureen called the manufacturer behind his back and canceled the order. She and her father eventually made up, but Jack could tell that they were still pissed at each other.
Lureen’s mother Fayette, concerned about Bobby’s slow behavior and how he’d stare into space for long periods of time, backed Jack up about getting him a special tutor over last summer. Deke must’ve noticed his wife and daughter had seemed to side with Jack and the resentment was building up over the previous two weeks. Jack figured he was itching for a showdown with his son-in-law and Twist was in no mood to go back under his thumb, especially in front of his wife and son.
Ennis was disappointed that their holiday had to be cut short, but there was nothing to be done about it, so they made the best of it and had a good time despite themselves. They had Jack's special meal Tuesday and spent practically all of Wednesday sleeping. To show his appreciation Ennis was especially good in their sleeping bag on their last night on the mountain... or maybe it was just the week's supply of Mexican weed that they tried to smoke all in those last two days?
Jack arrived back home around one o’clock Thanksgiving afternoon; having driven all night and then was delayed by snow and heavy traffic near Childress. He noticed his wife had changed hair color to light blond, but rather than get into it with her, he barely mentioned it except to compliment how she looked, wanting to keep her on his side against her father.
Her face lit up when she saw the serving set and while Fayette gushed over it, Lureen quickly reset the table with the new dinnerware.
Newsome took the attitude he always had; anything Jack gave his daughter came out of the old man’s pocket first whether he earned it himself through hard work or not. Jack was initially taken back by the look of hostile contempt that his father-in-law shot him at first sight, but wrote it off to the old man’s usual mind-set.
While Senior watched football with Bobby, Jack retreated to his den and slipped his headphones on to listen to music for a few hours.
Around four, the inescapably wonderful aroma of roasted turkey reached his den as Lureen came in and got him, and while Jack pulled the bird out of the oven and got things ready she called everyone in to the festively set table.
Twist almost said something as he saw from the kitchen that Newsome had parked himself at the head of the table, but Lureen whispered in her father's ear while filling bowls with cream of turkey soup. Even then, he only grudgingly moved when his usually stone-faced wife quietly prompted him too.
Par for the course.
Jack settled for listening to the football game on the TV out in the living room, paying attention just long enough to get the score before Lureen came in from serving and kissed him, thanking him again for the new table setting.
Twist smiled, at least he had her for an ally for a while, especially today.
Jack ladled some more drip juice from the bottom of the pan over the bird and then picked up the fancy turkey, and with a prompt from his wife screwed a half-hearted smile on his face and as he entered the dining room called out “Heeeeeeeere we are!” trying to sound like Ed McMahon announcing Johnny Carson.
As Lureen took her place at the table, Newsome swiftly stood up and grabbed the carving knives before Jack had even finished setting it down.
In a correcting tone and a smirk, Senior’s first words to Jack all afternoon were disrespectful. “Hold on Rodeo, the stud duck’ll do the carving around here.”
Jack had expected him to pull something like that and rather than cause more friction than there was in the house already, had planned in advance to allow him the privilege. Lureen at the other side of the table pursed her lips but said nothing as if she’d expected it too after her father tried to take over the head of the table.
While her husband muttered something about saving his father in law the trouble, Lureen calmed down and redirected the attitude she was about to give her father to her son instead, whose eyes and attention were focused out of the dining room watching the TV in the living room with a blank stare on his face.
“Bobby,” she correctively warned, “if you don’t eat your dinner, I’m gonna have to turn that TV off.”
As his son began protesting in a spoiled voice, Jack feeling the need to reassert control in his own house stood up saying as he passed by the kid’s chair, “Ah now you heard your mama.” Walking across the living room, he turned off the set and added, “You finish your meal and then you can watch the game.”
Newsome watched resentfully as Jack returned to the table. Twist made a point of resting a reassuring hand on his wife’s shoulder and she gave him an impish smile for standing his own ground. When L.D. Newsome was in a room, he was in charge-damn it! Before Jack even reseated himself, the old man put down the carving set and headed for the TV, flashing narrowed and determined eyes at his daughter as he passed.
Wanting to avert a holiday showdown, she asked “Daddy?”
Newsome ignored her.
This time in a warning tone, clearly indicating she’d side with her husband if he didn’t stop now, she repeated louder, “Daddy.”
As the set came back on, Newsome smirked directly at Jack and announced, “Hell, you don’t eat with your eyes do ya?” then with a dig directly at Jack he added, “You want your son to grow up to be a man don’t ya daughter?” and having gone that far cleared his throat at his son-in-law and added, “Boys should watch football.”
The insult was clear and Jack avoided his wife’s eyes while fiddling with his suddenly tight wedding ring and quickly stood up. He’d be damned if he’d let that bastard insult him in his own house, in front of his own wife and son. Getting up from the table, Jack quickly advanced back to the TV announcing in a barely controlled voice, “That boy is gonna finish eatin’ a meal that his mama spent over three hours cooking first!” then hit the button shutting it off, slamming the little door closed hiding the controls and then stalked back toward his seat.
It was now obviously a face-off and Newsome was determined to assert his authority. Before Jack even took his seat, Deke had put the knives back down again and took a couple of steps with a smug look on his face back towards the living room.
Suddenly from behind him Jack’s enraged voice yelled, “Now you sit down, you old son of a BITCH!”
Lureen’s mother’s eyes widened and her jaw dropped, not knowing whether to cheer or cower in fear at her husband's coming reaction.
Newsome froze in his tracks, his back to Jack hiding his reaction as Lureen held her breath in shock.
To his surprisingly stunned father-in-law, trying desperately to calm down, Jack announced, “This is my house, that is my child, and you are my guest. Now you sit your ignorant ass down before I knock you into next week!”
Jack held his breath and surveyed the room for allies.
Fayette swallowed hard.
Lureen had a “WHOA!!!!!!!!” look of alliance with her husband and had to bow her head to keep from cracking up at the expense of her father's pride.
Encouraged, Jack looked over and found that Bobby was still staring at the dark TV in a trance as if he hadn’t noticed any of it.
Daring to glance up at his father-in-law, Jack was as stunned at the look on L.D’s face. Almost meekly, Newsome smoothly turned tail and sat back down beside his stone-faced wife.
Fighting to calm himself, Jack stood and grabbed the carving knives as Lureen gave Bobby a proud “See?” expression to her son indicating his father. Obediently, Bobby picked up his spoon and started eating his soup.
The rest of the meal went in near silence, though half an hour into it the phone rang. Lureen answered it out in the kitchen and after coming back to the table was noticeably friendlier with her husband. The private detective reported that he indeed did go camping, and with a man who owned a truck registered to Ennis del Mar. Well, at least it wasn't another woman; now if she could only figure out what was keeping him so preoccupied on those trips of his.
Jack knew he hadn’t heard the end of it from Deke Newsome…
~ Chapter 17: Tied to the line
Ennis held no serious hard feelings towards Monroe after Alma married him, just a vague sense of getting short-changed and showed it was all right by accepting the grocer’s last-minute invitation to Thanksgiving dinner with them, sitting between his girls and talking horses to them, telling jokes and trying not to be a sad daddy.
It was obvious that Alma didn’t like the idea at all, but went along with it for the sake of the girls, who missed their doting father. She never smiled once through the whole meal.
Ennis saw she really was pregnant by about four or five months.
Over the loud clatter of the electric carving knife that Junior had bought her stepfather for his birthday last week, they had a nice dinner and though Monroe was polite, he mostly stayed quiet. After the pie, while the girls and Monroe watched a skating competition on TV, Alma got Ennis off in the kitchen and while she scraped plates into a bowl, said she worried about him living all alone and that he ought to get married again.
“Once burned,” he said, leaning against the counter, feeling too big for the room.
He dug at her, so she decided to return the favor.
“You still go fishin' with that Jack Twist?”
“Not often… some,” he replied reluctantly.
He thought she’d take the pattern off the plate she was scraping.
“You know,” she said, and from her tone he knew something was coming, “I used to wonder how come you never brought any trouts home. You always said you caught plenty and you know how me and the girls like fish. So one time I got your creel case open the night before you went on one of your little trips… price tag still on it after five years and I tied a note on the end of the line. It said, ‘Hello Ennis, bring some fish home-love Alma.’ And then you come back looking all perky and said you’d caught a bunch a browns and ate them up. Do you remember? I looked in that case when I got a chance and there was my note still tied there and that line hadn’t touched water in its life.”
“That don’t mean nothing Alma,” he warned in a low tone.
Alma realized suddenly she’d gotten in over her head and began breathing heavily in fear, tears dropping from her eyes, “Don’t lie, don’t try to fool me no more Ennis. I know what it means. Jack Twist? Jack Nasty-Jack NASTY. You didn’t go up there to fish you went up…”
“Shut up,” he warned through gritted teeth, “You don’t know nothin about it.” She’d overstepped his line. He seized her wrist and twisted; tears sprang and rolled, a dish clattered.
“I’m gonna yell for Monroe!”
“You fuckin go right ahead. Go on and fuckin yell. I’ll make him eat the fuckin floor and you too!” He gave another wrench that left her with a burning bracelet.
Working his way loose of her, he fled the kitchen as she screamed repeatedly, “Get out, get out of this house!”
On his way through the living room he shoved his hat on backward, gave Monroe a stern warning look that kept him seated and slammed out the front door to the sound of Jenny and Alma Junior calling out from the porch after him, “Daddy? Bye Daddy! Daddy?”
In a rage, he drove through the snow towards town and found a bar, but was too pissed to pay attention and crossed the street on foot right in front of a pick up truck that slid to a stop to avoid him. Past caring, he tried to punch out the cussing driver and got flattened on the street in a fight he couldn’t win.
Rubbing his wounds, he picked himself up and went into the Black and Blue Eagle bar that night, got drunk, had a another short dirty fight and left.
He didn’t try to see his girls for a couple of months, figuring they would look him up when they got the sense and years to move out from Alma…
…Twist and del Mar were no longer young men with all of it before them. Jack grew a "salt & pepper" mustache and had filled out through the shoulders and hams; Ennis stayed as lean as a clothes pole, stepped around in worn boots, jeans and shirts summer and winter, only adding a canvas coat in cold weather. A benign growth appeared on his eyelid and gave it a drooping appearance; a broken nose healed crooked.
Years on years passed and they faithfully continued their trips into the surrounding mountains together. They always made love, but never spoke the word and always there was never enough time.
Jack always willing to drop everything at a moment’s notice…
Ennis never willing to take a chance.
Down in Texas Lureen showed a skill for management and hard deals and eventually took over the business completely, making Jack the General Manager. Twist moved into L.D’s office and her father never set foot in the place again… which suited both of them fine. While she wheeled and dealed Jack went to stock and agricultural-machinery shows. He had some money now and found ways to spend it on his buying trips.
A little Texas accent flavored his sentences, “cow” twisted into “kyow” and “wife” coming out as “waf...”
...L.D. pulled his dirtiest trick yet, but it backfired in his face. He talked political friends in the D.A.’s office into bringing Twist up on criminal charges that he was an unfit parent because he was abusing his son. In court young Bobby testified against his father, saying he’d been sexually molested and beaten on several occasions. On gentle cross-examination of the boy, it came out that Newsome had carefully coached his grandson in detail on what to say and how to say it on the stand. Lureen became livid and had to be restrained at one point. An independent medical examiner determined that the boy hadn’t been abused at all.
Newsome’s surprise witness was to be Joe Aguirre, who was called to testify in court by the bailiff but didn’t appear. The foreman’s gay son threatened to not only counter-testify against him and come out of the closet in open court to embarrass his father. Rather than risk the scandal, Aguirre later explained that he’d been called away on an emergency up on Brokeback. L.D was so sure of himself that he foolishly didn’t subpoena the foreman, so the court took no action for his absence.
Jack immediately sued his father-in-law for defamation of character and won a $250,000 cash settlement that included forcing him to turn over full ownership of his company to Lureen. He was also banned from ever setting foot anywhere near the Twist’s home again. In anger Lureen got revenge on her father by changing the company name to Twist Farm Equipment and Supply.
Fortunately news of the event stayed a local affair and Jack never mentioned it to Ennis.
Newsome eventually lost his appeal of the financial judgment, and a month after that his wife Fayette filed separation papers and left him to move into the Twist’s spare room. Jack moved back into Lureen’s bedroom and for the first time in years they resumed sleeping as man and wife.
Almost immediately following that, L.D. emptied the nearly half million he had left in the bank after Jack walked out of the Childress Savings and Loan with a briefcase containing a quarter million in cash.
Newsome mysteriously disappeared without a clue left behind as to what had happened to him. In fact, no one even discovered he was gone until a month later…
…rumors began spreading that he’d been killed by his ruthless son-in-law or by his timid wife after a fight over a divorce settlement... neither of which made any sense, but didn't stop the speculation.
Meanwhile up north, as predicted Alma Junior grew more and more miserable living with her mother and stepfather and on several occasions asked her father if she could move in with him. It broke del Mar’s heart to say no to her. It felt like him telling her he didn’t love her, but he explained that he just wasn’t set up at home for a teenaged girl to live with him full time, being out on cattle drives all the time.
~ Chapter 18: A new lover by chance
In June of 1982, Jack and Lureen were on their way to a charity dinner one evening and came across a broken down truck. A bearded good-looking man in fine Texas duds was peering into the engine compartment of a five year old Dodge pick-up with a camper on the back. A buxom woman in her early thirties with hair bleached blonder than Lureen’s (if that was possible), was on the road’s edge trying to look sexy enough to stop someone to help.
After about five minutes, Jack declared it too far gone for him to fix and discovered the couple were on their way to the same dinner as they, so he gave them a lift in his brand new club-cab Chevy Silverado.
Randal and Lashawn Tanny had just arrived here from Idaho and were in the process of moving onto a ranch down the road where Randall had gotten a job as foreman.
At the dinner they invited themselves to sit with Jack and Lureen and from that moment on Lashawn never stopped talking. While the wives exchanged long boring sorority house stories, Jack became aware of Randall’s eyes on him. In fact, every time he looked up the bearded cowboy was staring and whenever their eyes met, Twist got uncomfortable with the realization that it was possible that this married man was actually flirting with him! While he’d become distracted, Lureen began needling him about how husbands never seem to want to dance with their wives.
Jack decided to kill two birds with one stone, got away from the table by asking Lashawn to dance, and in the process got back at his wife for bitching at him for not wanting to. While watching her husband escort her to the floor with the other swaying couples, Lureen tried to strike up a conversation with Randall. From across the room Jack observed Tanny was ignoring her... and watching him hungrily instead.
Outside afterwards, while they waited for their wives to exit from “powdering their noses,” Jack sat down on a bench at the foot of the stairs by the front door. Randall sat next to him and moved intimately close as if to share a secret, but instead asked to bum a cigarette.
The hungry look returned to Randall’s eyes while he lit up, so Jack commented to distract him, “You’ll like workin’ for Roy Taylor; he’s solid.”
Tanny nodded, “Yeah, he’s a good ole boy,” and as he leaned forward and down to flick an ash, he rested his hand on the bench lightly touching Jack’s thigh and stared pointedly at Twist's crotch.
Jack looked up and behind them to check on the girls and moved just enough away to break contact with him.
Tanny turned to see where he was looking and in the process pressed his hip against Twist’s and leaned into him to say suggestively, “Taylor's got a little cabin out on Lake Kemp. It’s got a croppy house… a boat… he says I can use it any time I want.” Tanny’s hip pressed a little harder and his knee made contact with Jack’s. Twist looked at him to find Tanny’s eyes still fastened firmly to his crotch as Randy added, “We ought to go down there some weekend… drink a little whiskey… do some fishin’… get away… you know?”
Jack no longer had any doubts in his mind. He had to admit it was tempting… he also had to admit that he was as interested in this man's wife as he was in him. Before he could respond, the door swung open above them and Lureen emerged with Lashawn right behind still chattering a blue streak about college, shopping and the jobs she could’ve had if she hadn’t run into Randy…
A couple of months later during a camping trip with Ennis where they almost came to blows after Twist offered to help him out financially again, Jack came home to find a note with Randall’s invitation to go on a road trip with him to New Mexico. Lureen said it sounded like a good idea, so he accepted. Jack had been camping with Randall a few times by then, but nothing happened.
Twist was still debating with himself as to whether that was good or bad, especially since Lashawn kept showing up at the office supposedly to chatter away at Lureen, but her visits always included tempting looks towards him too.
On the second night of Jack and Randall's road trip, they found a place with compact two-bedroom bungalows along the shore of a lake. Jack had just finished putting pizza boxes in the trash and looked out the back window, grinning at what he saw. Randall came up from the water after skinny-dipping and sat naked on a secluded dock with his feet in the water.
Jack had spent enough frustrated time camping with him at Lake Kemp that he thought it was about time to make a move on him. After all, if him sitting there like that wasn't a sexual invitation; what was? Stripping off his clothes quickly, Jack strode down the path to the water and came up behind him, leaned over and brushed his lips against Randall's back and then dove into the lake.
When he surfaced and looked back, he saw that Randall had left and went back up to the cabin alone. They’d taken to each other as close friends, but like everything good in his life, Jack was prone to finding a way to destroy any happiness he had, especially if it didn’t involve Ennis.
Randall didn't seem to take Jack's kiss on his shoulder too well. They didn’t speak to each other the whole rest of the night and slept separately, but strangely Randall didn’t leave. Then the very next night after a bottle of fine whiskey, Randall shed his clothes and followed Jack into his bedroom instead of his own.
Afterward Jack kept telling himself it was just sex, because he loved to be fucked, but only by Ennis, so it wasn’t the same.
Suddenly Randall Tanny was in love with Twist and wanted to leave his jaw-flapping wife, maybe move up to Jack’s parent’s ranch where no one could find him and start a new life together.
A few months later though, just to complicate things; Jack began screwing Randy’s pretty wife on the side too.
…A month after L.D. disappeared, a nice couple showed up on Jack’s doorstep with all the necessary papers to prove that Newsome had sold the home that he and his wife shared over the last 26 years to them. They’d started moving in and found Fayette's belongings still there and had come to give her an opportunity to move them out. With Lureen’s abandoned and financially destitute mother now living full-time at the house, Jack became more and more miserable. In a way it worked out well since Fay was an ex-school teacher and was happy to look after and tutor her grandson while Jack was out selling and Lureen ran the business.
The police were eventually called and a missing persons report was filed, along with a divorce action from Mrs. Newsome on the grounds of emotional and financial abandonment. L.D. had done his homework ahead of time because he seemingly vanished off of the face of the earth.
In May of 1983, Randall Tanny showed up at Jack’s house and announced he’d left his wife and asked for shelter. Slowly but surely in Ennis’ long absences Randall had begun getting to Jack emotionally to the point of a bond developing between them. Twist rented a cheap apartment for him in town and stayed there when home life got to be too much for him. Randall now had more time alone with Jack to convince him that they were meant for each other. He offered the sex and the commitment that Jack wanted so badly in his life, but Ennis was the one he loved. As months went by and del Mar couldn’t get away from his work, Tanny began filling more and more of Twist’s days.
With the fear of someone in town so close to home reporting to Lureen that her husband was shacking up with another man, Jack called his father and asked if it were possible for Tanny to rent his old bedroom and work at the ranch temporarily until some decision could be made about permanently moving north. He also told his father that he was close to leaving his wife Lureen too. He made tentative plans with his parents to bring yet another man up to Lightning Flat to help them run the ranch. That meant he’d have to drive Randall up there to introduce him to them soon, and they’d be skeptical since the last man he promised on and off to bring over the last several years never showed.
John had begun referring to Ennis as Jack’s “imaginary friend.”
As usual, just when things started getting serious with someone else, Jack’d hear from Ennis about getting some free time to spend up on the mountain and everything would fall back into its old pattern. He almost turned him down until Ennis suggested they camp up on Brokeback Mountain this time.
He told Tanny he had to take care of some farm business up in Wyoming that would last about ten days, for which he had to tend to first, and after packing up Randall they headed north.
Twist traveled as far as Riverton with Tanny, where the ranch foreman waited in the motel where he and Ennis had reunited. Randy played heavily on his mind during the rest of the trip to Brokeback Mountain National Forest as Jack actually contemplated a showdown with Ennis.
It was the right dream-but with the wrong man.
On the way north from Texas, Jack called ahead and told his father he’d definitely be up to talk to him about setting up a place to live, possibly building a small cabin on the ranch on an unused outlying acre away from his parents, and how he planned to separate from his wife again. He said Randall was willing to manage the farm full time in exchange for room and board. Old man Twist said he and Martha were going to a religious retreat up in Montana soon, so Jack told him he’d be up around noon on Wednesday for sure. His father made a point of repeating Jack’d be there at noon.
~ Chapter 19: You got a better idea?
Two killers are hired
Note: Text in red is from the original short-story that was not included in the movie.
As planned, Jack and Ennis spent three cold days at a series of little icebound, no-name high lakes, then worked across into the Hail Strew River drainage, looking for someplace warmer to spend their last vacation days.Both knew where they were headed, and they arrived the next morning. The same log bridge across the river and the vista of Brokeback rising high above majestically covered with snow. After setting up the tent, they rode up to where the sheep had been pastured and stood on the knoll where it all began. After a night of making love like they had the first night twenty years ago, they headed for lower ground Monday morning.
Jack led the way to a place he’d discovered up here on a lonely trip by himself last year because Ennis never seemed to want to come to Brokeback until now. The tea-colored river was much wider and ran fast with snowmelt, a swirl of white rushing bubbles at every high rock, pool and setback. The tall lodgepole pines swayed stiffly as hawks argued overhead somewhere. The horses drank and Jack dismounted, scooped icy water up in his hand, crystalline drops falling from his fingers, his mouth and chin glistening wet.
"Get beaver fever doin’ that,” warned Ennis with a smile, then, “Good enough place,” looking at a level piece of ground by the water, with two or three stone fire rings from old hunting camps. A sloping paddock rose behind the bench, protected by a stand of timber. There was plenty of dry wood. The incredible panorama of Brokeback’s peaks was beyond compare from the flat meadow they’d chosen.
They set up camp without saying much, settling the horses in the meadow. Jack broke the seal on a bottle of whiskey, took a long, hot swallow, exhaled forcefully and declared, “That’s one of the two things I need right now.”
He eyed his friend lovingly as he capped and tossed it to Ennis. Their tent was a more modern blue one with a kerosene heater and they made love through the night and into the morning. Jack made Ennis promise that they’d come up to this very spot again next August. Ennis seemed to bristle at the mention of August, but despite his apparent reluctance, he smiled and agreed to. From now on it’d be “their” place.
As they prepared to settle in for the night, each noticed the other seemed to have something weighing on their minds…
…The sun was setting as a very alive L.D. Newsome sat in a rented silver Lincoln Continental town car smoking a cigar. By the fancy dash clock he’d been waiting here half an hour. All around him vehicles swarmed in and out of the Casper Wyoming grocery chain’s parking lot. Five minutes passed and a brand new brown Camaro Z28 pulled into the slot to his left with a hearty growl from its engine. Leaving it idling, Kurt "Kirk" Kirkwood, an athletically handsome tall and lean 22-year-old shaggy blond man with a green John Deere baseball cap got out of the driver-side and came around to lean on the fender opposite Newsome’s door.
Newsome had got a very good deal on that sporty Chevy for Kurt, the down payment and credit reference for which was considered a retainer for the two young men to be at his beckon call.
Men had been maimed and a couple killed just for the crime of pissing L.D. off.
A younger male brunette stranger, a little stockier than Kirk sat staring straight ahead in the suped-up Camaro’s passenger seat. As L.D. hummed his window down, the stranger did too. The good-looking blond did the talking for them both. With a nod of his hat he said, “Hey there L.D., nice to see ya again.”
Newsome looked out his window and up at the cocky grin on his friendly face, and handed a bulging envelope out of the window. Kurt took it and from the stack counted out 40 hundred-dollar bills. With a smirk he handed the $4,000 to his friend and partner-in-crime Cory Baint around behind him in the car. “When do we start?”
Newsome sneered, "I here tell queers are attracted to you like a bear to honey."
A flash of anger crossed Kirkwood's sexy face, then vanished considering the cash he was holding. The masculine stud often bragged of keeping no less than two girlfriends at a time, and he had the muscled brawn and natural good looks that other guys envied to do it. In high school a gang of jocks used to use him as "fag bait," to rob queers just for fun. Kirkwood spent 6-months in juvenile detention for it.
Gradually, his well-practiced grin answered, "Just one of my specialties; though they don't seem to enjoy the experience for too long after my buddies got hold of 'em."
The rich man's stone face only nodded. "That's what I'm countin' on."
They'd been promised $8,000 and as Kirkwood counted his, he discovered there was $2,000 extra. He casually shoved it in the pocket of his tight Levis without a word; Cory didn't have to know about the bonus.
Before he asked, Newsome told Kirk, “The extra’s because I want to see that faggot suffer bad first… a lot.”
Kirk nodded and looked at L.D. expectantly. A pair of bib overalls were handed out next, stacked on top of a pair of dark blue one-piece mechanic's coveralls. Atop those were two fake Wyoming driver's licenses.
Newsome started his car and replied, “Come on; we’ve got some driving to do.”
The Continental swiftly moved to the parking lot exit with its left turn signal on. In the rearview mirror the shiny new Camaro Z28 pulled up behind and when the light changed they headed north. Thanks to old man Twist’s heartbroken call last night, L.D. knew exactly when and where his prey would be in a couple of days…
...Tuesday morning the clouds came that Ennis had expected, a gray racer out of the West, a bar of darkness driving wind before it and small flakes. It faded after an hour into tender spring snow that heaped wet and heavy. By nightfall it had turned colder.
Jack and Ennis set up lawn chairs facing the water and passed a joint back and forth, the fire burning late, Jack restless and bitching about the cold, poking the flames with a stick, and twisting the dial of the transistor radio until the batteries died.
Scanning the darkening sky, Jack's breath appeared before him like a fog as he commented, “Gonna snow for sure tonight.” Ennis silently nodded, handing their third joint back to him.
Twist took a good deep toke handing it back, and let the smoke out slowly to then ask, “All this time and you ain’t never found no one to marry?”
Ennis said he’d been “putting the blocks” to a woman who worked part-time at the Wolf Ears bar in Signal where he was still working for Carl Stoutamire’s cow-and-calf outfit, but it wasn’t going anywhere and she had some problems he didn’t want. “She’s studying to be a nurse too, or something… I don’t know.”
Jack admitted he’d had a thing going with the wife of a rancher down the road in Childress and for the last few months he’d sneak around expecting to get shot by Lureen or her husband Randy, catching his breath at the mention of the name, wishing he could inhale it back.
Not noticing, Ennis laughed a little and said he probably deserved it if one of them bagged him.
Jack bowed his head.
They’d have to leave early tomorrow for him to get to his parent’s by noon. If his father agreed, Randy was waiting in Riverton for his call to head north separately to Lightning flat in a rental car where they’d meet up. With his parents away on their retreat in Montana afterward, they’d have the place to themselves.
His ache that Ennis would come with him instead, got more intense, making him sad. Unless he could talk Ennis into finally committing to their mutual and long-standing love, this would be the last time he’d ever see del Mar again. Jack had told himself that so many times before, but this time he knew he’d do it. It hurt too much to think he’d wasted his whole life hoping for this man he loved. The heartache of the situation was just too much to bear any more.
After a long, long thoughtful pause, Jack admitted in pain, “I tell you what…” Ennis looked over into his eyes. “…Sometimes I miss you so much, I can hardly stand it.”
The horses nickered in the darkness beyond the fire’s circle of light. If Ennis had said anything to that, which was doubtful, it wasn’t heard, he just looked into the glow at the end of the joint and then silently across to the mountains. Without getting up Jack threw deadwood on the fire, the sparks flying up with their truths and lies.
That night, Ennis was especially tender with Jack as they made love in the tent, both satisfied afterward to just hold each other in their arms till they fell asleep.
The next morning they talked about nothing and made love again, knowing it’d have to last a while before they could come back up here. Jack pondered if it’d be their last time and at that moment would’ve sold his soul if Ennis would admit he loved him. Twist suspected that a loveless life with Randall would be more misery than what he was feeling now.
Afterward, Ennis put his arm around Jack, pulled him close, fretting over how much he missed his daughters and how he only saw his girls about once a month, Alma, Jr. had grown to be a shy nineteen-year-old with his beanpole length, Jenny a little live wire tomboy. “I used to want a boy for a kid,” said Ennis, “but just got little girls.”
“I didn’t want none of either kind,” said Jack. “But fuck-all nothin’ has worked the way I wanted. Nothin' never come to my hand the right way.”
Ennis pulled Jack into his strong arms. One thing never changed: the brilliant charge of their infrequent couplings was darkened by the sense of time flying, never enough time, never enough. Jack was weighing whether it was worth it to keep the relationship with Ennis going; after all he’d cheated on his wife with him, so why not cheat on Randall with him too?
An hour later at the trailhead parking lot, horses loaded into the back of del Mar's truck, Ennis was ready to head back to Signal, Jack up to Lightning Flat to see his folks for a few days. As Jack loaded the camping equipment into his truck bed something fell out of his coat pocket. Ennis bent down to pick it up, but Twist's hand reached it first. Jack took a few more steps and tossed it in the back seat with his saddle before shoving the rear door shut.
It looked like a blank department store music cassette and del Mar could swear it had ENNIS written on the label in black magic marker, but he wasn't sure.
Jack opened the front door of his new truck and was about to get in. Ennis knew it was now or never and finished walking over to him and said what he’d been putting off the whole week. "There's somethin' I've been meaning to tell you Bud," he said as casually as he could, digging his thumb nervously into one of Jack's new chrome door handles. "It's more'n likely that I won't be able to get away again until November, after they've shipped stock and before winter-feeding starts."
“November? What in hell happened to August? Tell you what, we said August, nine, ten days. Christ, Ennis! Whyn’t you tell me this before? You had a fuckin' week to say some little word about it. And why’s it we’re always in the friggin cold weather? We ought a do somethin’. We ought a go south. We ought a go to Mexico one day.”
Jack slammed the door of his truck and began walking away from him toward the edge of the lake 10 yards away.
To his back Ennis replied, “Mexico? Jack, you know me. All the travellin’ I ever done is goin' around the coffeepot lookin' for the handle. The trade off for this week was August, that’s what’s the matter with August. Lighten up on me, Jack. We can hunt in November, kill us a nice elk. Try if I can get Don Wroe’s cabin again. We had a good time that year; remember?”
Jack turned around to face away from the sight of his beloved Mountain peak and said with barely controlled anger, “You know friend, this is a goddam bitch of a unsatisfactory situation. You used a come away easy; now it’s like seein’ the damned Pope.”
“Jack, I gotta work... Huh? Them earlier days I used to just quit the jobs. You got a wife with money, a good job. You forget how it is bein’ broke all the time. You ever hear of child support? I been payin' out for years and got more to go. Let me tell you, I can’t quit this one... and I can’t get the time off. It was tough gettin this time... some of them late heifers is still calving. You don’t leave them. You don’t. Stoutamire raised hell about me takin' the week. I don’t blame him. He probably ain’t got a night’s sleep since I left. I told you the trade-off was August... You got a better idea?”
“I did once.” The tone was bitter and accusatory. He meant them getting their own ranch together. Ennis thought he was still talking about heading south.
del Mar said nothing, straightened up slowly and rubbed at his forehead as a horse stamped in his metal truck bed. He walked with slow deliberation toward Jack and his eyes narrowed suspiciously. “You been a cheatin’ on me in Mexico, Jack Fuckin’ Twist? Huh?” Mexico was the place. He’d heard. He was cutting fence now, trespassing on verbal forbidden ground when he added between gritted teeth, “I heard what they got down there for boys like you, Jack.”
Jack felt the resentment coming, the wasted years of loving a man incapable of showing love back. His thoughts flashed to Randy waiting for the call that’d start their life together. What Jack didn't know was that Randall had already foolishly called the elder Mr. and Mrs. Twist to thank them for opening their home up to Jack and himself, and praised them for their generous tolerance of their son’s homosexuality.
Twist gathered his courage; it was either split up forever or stay together. “Hell yes, I been to Mexico. Where’s the fuckin problem?” Braced for it all these years and here it came, late and unexpected.
A jealous rage began building in Ennis, a rage that he didn’t know was there because he wouldn’t let himself feel it all of these years, but now it was surfacing and almost out of control. He paced up to Jack and stood, his face only inches from the man he just admitted to himself that he could lose.
“I’m gonna say this to you one time, Jack Twist,” said Ennis between gritted teeth. “What I don’t know, all them THINGS," he spat out shoving Jack sharply, "I don’t know 'bout what you do in Mexico could get you killed if I should come to know them… and I ain’t foolin’.”
Ennis turned away and began pacing down the bank toward his truck intending to leave before Jack could answer.
“Try this one,” yelled Jack at the top of his lungs, letting the years of resentment out, “and I’ll say it just one time.
Ennis suddenly turned around and angrily spat back, “Go ahead!”
Jack spun back around to take in the sky, the lake and the vista of Brokeback Mountain and suddenly couldn’t stand the sight of it. Turning his back to it again, he replied in a frustrated scream, throwing both arms out and gesturing wildly, “Tell you what, we could a had a good life together, a fuckin real good life. But you wouldn’t do it, Ennis, so what we got now is Brokeback Mountain.” His voice raised almost an octave as he wheeled around to gesture at the beautiful mountaintop. His eyes began burning and his chest tightened to the point that he almost couldn't gather the breath to say, “Everything built on that. It’s all we got, boy, FUCKIN' all, so I hope you know that, if you don’t never know the rest.”
Ennis turned his back to Jack.
In anger, Twist began stomping toward del Mar. A rush of adrenaline filled him as he felt the freedom to finally let out his unsaid feelings. In a frustrated rage he shouted, “You count the damn few times we been together in twenty years. Measure the fuckin short leash you keep me on, then ask me about Mexico and then tell me you’ll kill me for needin' what we have together and not hardly never gettin' it. You got NO fuckin idea how bad it gets! God damn it all to Hell, Ennis, I’m not you. I can’t make it on a couple of high-altitude fucks once or twice a year!”
He turned and walked back up the bank to stand at the edge of the water. He felt the words coming, afraid they’d end it between them, but he knew what had to be said. He gave up fighting back his tears as he said it to the mountain, “You’re too much for me, Ennis, you son of a whore-son bitch. I wish I knew how to quit you.”
Like vast clouds of steam from thermal springs in winter the years of things unsaid and now unsayable admissions, declarations, shames, guilts, fears all rose around them. Ennis stood as if heart-shot, his face gray and deep-lined, grimacing, eyes screwed shut, fists clenched. He was always the one in control, he was always the one who was strong and through the hell he’d lived all these years there was always Jack, always Jack. In his mind he hated that he needed anybody and the crashing blow that hit him was that he’d lied to himself, he didn’t think he could live without his… his lover.
Abruptly Ennis cried out like a bear that had been shot. His voice was so deep in sorrow that it shocked Jack into looking back at him. Ennis stood glaring at Jack, pawing at a tear falling from his eye, trying to hide it with the brow of his hat.
Sniffing to clear his sinuses, he barely blubbered out, “Then why don’t you Jack? Why don’t you just leave me be? You’re the reason I’m like this; got nothin’ and no one, all alone. I, I can’t stand this no more Jack, I just can’t.”
Then their eyes met and Ennis' knees began to cave as he sank towards the ground. His strength and manhood seemed to have left him and he burst into uncontrolled sobs at the thought of Jack leaving him too.
“Jesus,” said Jack. “Ennis?” bounding toward him, trying to guess if it was a heart attack or the overflow of an incendiary rage, Ennis was struggling back onto his feet and as Jack tried to extend his loving arms around him, Ennis shoved him away sharply. “Get the fuck off of me,” he shouted, “Just leave me be!”
Ignoring him, Twist fought him up to his feet, both of them clutching each other tightly. Jack had rarely seen Ennis cry before and was nearly in shock as the man he thought was made of stone and steel sobbed in his arms as they both sank to their knees.“I can’t hardly stand this no more, Jack” he blubbered again.
Then, just as fast as it started, it was over.
In an instant they were facing each other, though only a foot apart, it seemed like a hundred yards, as Ennis fell silent. Twist could see that the emotions Ennis had held in for twenty years had torn him completely apart in trying to get them out, so he just stood there silently as del Mar turned his back to him, waited silently for a moment collecting himself and then headed to his truck without a look back. While he silently watched Ennis finish packing the saddles, Jack remembered and craved in a way he could neither help nor understand, the time that distant summer on Brokeback when Ennis had come up behind him and pulled him close, the silent embrace satisfying some shared and sexless hunger.
They had stood that way for a long time in front of the fire, its burning, tossing ruddy chunks of popping sparks, as the morning sun cast shadows of their bodies a single column against the rock.
Gently the young Ennis put his arms around young Jack’s shoulders tenderly.
The minutes ticked by from the watch on Ennis’ wrist, and from the sticks in the fire settling into coals. Ennis’ breath came slow and quiet, he hummed, rocked a little in the morning silence, punctuated by a horse snorting. Jack leaned back against his man’s steady heartbeat, wanting to drown in his arms, as the vibrations of the humming like faint electricity and, while standing he fell into sleep that was not sleep but something else drowsy and tranced until Ennis, dredging up a rusty but still usable phrase from his childhood time before his mother died said, “Time to hit the hay, my cowboy… I got a go. Come on, you’re sleepin on your feet like a horse,” and gave Jack a shake, a push and went off without another word.
Jack heard his spurs tremble as he mounted and the words “See you tomorrow,” and the horse’s shuddering snort and the grinding of hooves on stone.
Later, that dozy embrace solidified in his memory as the single moment of artless, charmed happiness in their separate and difficult lives. Nothing marred it, even the knowledge that Ennis would not then embrace him face to face because he did not want to see or feel that it was Jack he held. And maybe, he thought, they’d never got much farther than that.
Let be, let be.
Coming out of that wonder filled memory, Jack realized that Ennis had wordlessly driven away and as his eyes focused, he watched the battered Ford with their horses aboard round a curve and disappear between the tall pines in a cloud of blowing dust.
No goodbyes, no nothing.
Was it over between them?
~ Chapter 20: Cherry trees and the Lord's Prayer
Two deaths in Lightning Flat-WARNING graphic violence ahead!
If you've skipped directly to this point in the story, I strongly recommend that you read the previous chapter first...
It took Jack two hours, sometimes with tear-blurred eyes to drive the long miles to his boyhood home. Randall’s offer to leave his wife, take up with Jack up in Lightning Flat and start a new life together would be impossible unless he could free himself of a lifetime of loving Ennis.
Trying to balance the scales between the hopelessness of ever having something permanent with the man he loved, and with never being able to love Randall as much weighed heavy on his mind.
Tanny was left behind to wait at the hotel until he could talk to his parents. By the time he crossed the town limits of Lightning Flat and spotted his family’s battered, faded and rusted mailbox, he decided he’d discuss building that cabin, but had also decided to give Ennis just one more hopeless chance to give in and show him the love he’d been hiding all these years.
After traveling about a hundred yards down the long private dirt and gravel lane that led to his boyhood home, through the blowing dust he saw old lumber or a post from the barbed wire fence that’d somehow fallen over and he smiled that his new truck could run over it without even noticing.
Fifty feet directly ahead of him loomed two large cherry trees. He smiled as his mind traveled back in time to his boyhood when he planted them as a Mother’s Day gift because she liked them when they flowered in the spring. Twist reveled in that fond memory as he bumped over the lumber. The front driver-side tire blew out and he cussed his head off as he struggled to stay in control.
Jumping out to inspect it, he exclaimed, “SHIT!”
He pulled off his jacket, slapped it over-handed across the hood and reached in to shut off the Silverado pickup. After scanning the surrounding weathered out-buildings of his youth and hearing only cows, he rolled up his sleeves, got under the back of his truck and pulled down the spare, jack and tire iron, then set to work getting the front wheel off.
After raising up the stretched "dually"'s front end on the jack, he pulled the tire iron out of its socket and set to work on the wheel. A sound distracted him as an old familiar battered Chevy pickup pulled up from behind that he recognized as his father’s. His smile to his old man changed to surprise as an unfamiliar husky young dark-haired farmhand wearing worn bib overalls leaped athletically out of the ancient cargo bed. The back of the truck bounced on creaking old springs.
John Twist climbed out of his truck's cab and stood at the open door studying his son. He was about to speak when something behind distracted him and he turned to look towards his rear.
A powerfully-built man in his early twenties, dressed in tight dark blue mechanic’s overalls casually joined the farmhand at the tailgate of old man Twist's pickup. The newcomer wore a green ball cap with shaggy straight blond hair protruding from all around it.
At first the two strangers stood around, then paced more or less aimlessly together as if looking for something beside the old dirt lane. Jack frowned as he sensed that the handsome blond seemed to be sneaking glances in his direction. Every time their eyes met for fractions of a second, a strange sexual tension seemed to flash between them.
Twist's father noticed his son's eyes stray toward the straw-haired man and he seemed to nod his head sadly to himself in confirmation of a dreaded suspicion. Still standing at the door of his pickup, the old man watched the good-looking mechanic turn to face forward towards them.
As if he and Jack were the only two there, Kirkwood slowly undid the straining top buttons of his coveralls almost to his waist revealing a brawny chest. His right palm casually moved beneath the open blue fabric to cup his left pec.
A stunned Jack thought he heard the passenger door of his father's truck open, but by the time he pulled his fascinated eyes away no one was there.
The lean and muscular hunk was practiced at sexual innuendo and the encouraging looks he intentionally began giving Jack were very distracting. The flirting that the brawny stud was doing was part of the plan to keep the younger Twist off his guard and it was working, especially when the good-looking athlete reached through a side pocket and adjusted his mounded crotch.
Kurt as a teen often used his exceptional good looks and killer smile to lure unsuspecting fags into secluded alleys and bar bathrooms so that he and his buddies could ambush, rob and then beat the shit out of them for fun, profit and beer money. The dark-haired Cory Baint beside him was "Kirk's" best friend.
Jack's old man turned back to gaze at his son, who had now busied himself with the lug nuts, noting that his boy's face had blushed crimson.
With a barely hidden and disgusted shudder, John composed himself and even managed a smile as he paced towards the Silverado. At a loss at what else to say, he resorted to, “Trouble son?”
“That post was layin’ across the road,” replied Jack gazing up into his father's eyes from his crouched position at the front wheel. His mind still was trying to comprehend why the golden-haired stranger was doing a brazen striptease right in front of everyone without a care of anyone noticing or judging his nearly obscene actions.
Jack reluctantly turned back to look for the aforementioned post and found that the stocky dark-haired farmhand was now carrying it toward them as if to helpfully wedge it behind the rear dual wheels to steady the fancy stretched Silverado from shifting on the jack. The shaggy blond service station attendant was now nowhere to be seen.
The wind picked up, swaying the cherry trees’ branches. In the cloudless sky, a crow loudly flew over protesting the new intruders in his territory.
Distracted, Jack finished loosening the last nut, set the tire iron down to his left at the ready, and then his fingers reached forward to twist each lug off the rest of the way by hand.
From the other side of his truck came the sound from right to left of grass and gravel rustling along the passenger side of his new Chevy. The mechanic was coming to help him with the tire. As a shadow crossed his left shoulder at the front bumper, Jack reached out for the long iron tool to hand it up to the shaggy blond tempter, careful to keep his eyes locked on the task at hand.
Twist was still on one knee as L.D. Newsome swiftly reached down for the tire iron before Jack’s hand grasped it and said, “Here ‘Rodeo,’ let me help you with that.”
Jack stood slowly in shock to come face-to-face with his hated and presumed dead father-in-law. The forgotten dark-haired farmhand joined them from his right with a threatening grin. Twist noticed that the big wooden post that he still held had a bunch of new shiny and very long nails driven through it so that the sharp ends were all pointing outward by a couple of inches or so.
His addled brain struggled with the realization that the blowout might not have been an accident... but why?
The long grass rustled again on the other side of the truck as the well-built blond came around the hood to stand wordlessly to the right of Newsome. Kirkwood was now naked from the waist up, the coverall's sleeves now tied snuggly around his slender hips. Jack's jaw nearly dropped at the sight of the lean hunk's well-defined torso and broad sturdy shoulders. Dense fur perfectly accented each and every deep crease between bulged pecs and incredible abs as Kurt's palm roamed up them to fondle his own hardening right nipple with his thumb.
His sexually smoldering eyes met Jack's like a mesmerizing snake transfixing its prey.
John Twist was forewarned this was going to happen and that it was necessary in order to keep his son off balance. Still, he fought a losing battle with his revulsion and need to escape the sight of one man sexually teasing another and the thought that his married son-the father of his grandchild really was one of "those."
Jack's mind was spinning in too many directions at once. The weather was too damned cool for what under warmer circumstances would be a perfectly normal display of masculine bare skin, so what the hell was goin' on here? Those nails sticking out of the post. The shock of Newsome's appearance. Them just "happening" on him right after the tire blew out; and conveniently with a mechanic.
Was this cock-tease of a smiling golden-haired fantasy stud actually openly seducing him right in front of everybody?
Mystified and now completely distracted, Jack turned back to ask his father for an explanation, but his old man wasn’t there. After a moment of glancing around, he spotted him out in the wheat field beyond the front of the Silverado dually about twenty yards away. His back was to them and his dad's head was bowed, hands clasped in front of himself as if praying.
All that the elder Twist knew for his whole life, was that the Bible clearly taught that homosexuality was like cancer and it had to be cut out of society before it spread wherever it was found. According to the good book of Leviticus the only single Christian solution was death. He comforted himself knowing that his god would forgive him for saving his lost son from a horrid life of sin, debauchery and a later damnation to hell. He hoped it wasn't too late for his boy's salvation, closed his eyes tighter and began reciting the Lord’s Prayer, hoping he wouldn’t hear what came next.
Too late out of the corner of Jack's eye, he saw L.D. take a double-handed roundhouse swing with the tire iron. Instantly the left side of his head exploded in crippling pain, stunning him in agony. Just before his vision blacked out the last things Jack Edward Twist saw were those shiny nails rushing towards him only inches from his face.
On the trip north, Newsome had decided to take his revenge further than just a violent beating.
Still facing away towards the set of railroad tracks that bordered his property, old man Twist closed his eyes and choked out a very rare sob, remembering Randall’s voice thanking him for his generous tolerance of the deviant love he spoke for his only son-his boy-his pride and joy that he’d worked so hard to make a man out of and now had somehow perverted into a queer… a faggot… something disgusting that the devil himself had created.
Jack was now nothing more to his ignorant father than a beloved pet dog that had gone rabid, or a diseased steer that needed to be put down before it infected any more of the herd.
The elder Twist was briefly startled as the uncharacteristically gentle hand of L.D. Newsome found his left shoulder from behind. Rather than acknowledge his presence, John switched to the 23rd Psalm.
Jack turned out to be tougher than they anticipated and regained his wits through the pain long enough to put up an agonized fight. Though he was now blind and weak from blood loss, his fists flailed aimlessly as he bravely broke away from them desperately seeking his Judas of a father's protection.
From where John Twist stood facing away, loud thumps and pain-filled grunts abruptly stopped, followed by the sounds of someone stumbling through wheat toward him, and ending with a soft painful groan and a sharp blow...
Something heavy was then dragged the rest of the way to them from behind through the tall field crop and dropped without pity at John Twist and Newsome's feet. L.D. turned and looked down at the bloody pulp that was his son-in-law’s head and smiled in satisfaction, then glanced to his right to check on his victim's father standing with his head still bowed, mumbling Bible verses to himself.The air was now filled with the almost gagging putrid smell of fresh-spilled blood. Jack's dad closed his eyes tightly and dwelled on the Christian sacrificing of his own son in order to preserve morality… it was God’s way… it was the only way he knew. He didn’t look up as Newsome to his left laid an uncaring "comforting" hand back on his shoulder and then joined him reciting softly. Newsome gestured with his head behind himself, and Jack’s lifeless body was dragged back towards the Silverado, its limp arms trailing behind it.
“Amen,” they said together.
Afterward Newsome ordered his men to get kerosene to burn only the patch of blood-soaked wheat, and reminded them he wanted no traces left.
In the distance, just barely over the sound of that crow still cawing, a woman's voice wailing in agony and grief was heard. Newsome and old man Twist quickly looked back across the fields towards the farmhouse to spot Martha Twist standing wide-eyed in the open kitchen doorway in shock clutching her hands over her mouth in horror. They hadn't included her in their plans and now she had witnessed her son's murder by accident.
Newsome wondered how much trouble she'd make later, and what he would have to do to keep her fool mouth shut. He warned John about being blamed too if this ever came to light, then strode off to give more instructions to Kurt and Cory.
Originally, his men were to drive Jack down to Childress, but were now unwilling to risk getting pulled over in the man's truck with his corpse in the back all the way to Texas. Instead they were now to set up some kind of phony farm or road accident nearby, but not here. If Jack just simply disappeared it'd take much longer to settle his estate and would involve the Wyoming state police and maybe the Texas Rangers declaring him dead after a long dual investigation.
The elder Twists would attend that prayer meeting up in Montana to establish an alibi... not that they'd probably need one.
He then grinned and nodded to himself in approval. Lureen would live very comfortably on the large life insurance policy he'd bought on Jack back when he tried to get him drafted to Vietnam, and she and Bobby would split Jack’s quarter million stock investments assuring them of a comfortable life for years to come.
L.D.’s satisfied smirk broadened as he paced back to his car, which was parked out of sight by the Twist's house next to Kirkwood's new brown Z28 that Newsome had made the down payment on. Over the long drive south, he made plans to use the money he'd scrounged to have himself committed to a nursing facility in Houston on the ruse of having suffered a nervous breakdown after the court settlement was paid to his bastard of a son-in-law. In a few months, he’d simply return to his wife and daughter, announce he’d been “cured,” and beg their forgiveness, which he was sure he’d get...
...After Newsome had left, Kurt and Cory spent most of that afternoon carefully burning a rectangle of wheat, watching not to set the whole field ablaze. Cory suggested tilling the charred grass under but Kirkwood lazily replied, "Fuck it; let the old man do it."
Next Kurt walked the lane up to the farmhouse with the fuel can and tools. Unwilling to put a corpse in his new car, he demanded, rather than asked for the old man's truck to go back down the driveway to the murder scene and haul his son's body away.
Meanwhile, Baint should have been busy putting the spare on Jack's truck, but had to wait for his partner to return because Twist's own tire iron mysteriously turned up missing. Luckily the old truck's tool fit, and Baint set to work lowering the big pickup until he was startled by a low moan coming from the body laying in the long driveway behind him. Cory gaped in amazement as Jack's arm moved.
The son-of-a-bitch was still alive!
Kirk walked over and stood above the bloody man at his feet, shaking his head and sneering in near admiration of the fight this tough queer was putting up. He was glad Newsome wasn't here to witness how much trouble they were having killing only one stupid fairy. He reached down, grabbed his victim's feet and repositioned him laying on his back so that his head now was closest to the big fancy tan and dark-brown pickup.
Through his blind and woozy darkness in agonized pain, Jack heard his beloved Silverado's big engine start up, and helplessly realized what was coming next. He sadly swore with all he held holy that if there really was an afterlife he'd watch over Ennis; his one true and only love.
Moments later, now in Jack's truck, a determined Kirkwood backed the shiny "dually" out into the dirt lane, then shifted into gear.
In fascinated horror, Cory couldn't look away as Jack struggled to weakly cry out or blindly move out of the way while Kirkwood vary slowly steered the Silverado's front wheel towards Twist's still-bleeding head. Jack's damaged eyes seemed to lock with Cory's as the tire finally made contact. For only a fleeting moment the bloody skull supported the weight of his own cherished truck, then instantly Twist's head flattened, explosively spurting blood and brains onto the fender.
The Chevy's front end dropped down, recovered with half a bounce on its springs, and then was backed up a foot to reveal a gut-wrenching sight.
Kirk climbed from the Silverado's cab and declared with a laugh, "That fuckin' faggot's dead now goddam it!" as he looked sideways to see his pal puking in choking heaves.
Kirk took on the gruesome task of gathering up Jack's mangled and bloody remains and dumping him without respect into the Silverado's bed because Cory couldn't stomach the sight of it. In a sick act of cockiness, Kirkwood laughed as he walked over to offer his partner a souvenir of their kill, causing Baint to vomit some more and almost pass out... He'd held forward in a bloody hand one of the eyeballs that had popped out of Twist's skull.
An hour later, after first staging a false accident scene a mile from the Twist ranch, the two young men men showed up with both pickups at the distant sheriff's office with the body in the bed of the Silverado. After presenting fake I.D.s provided by Newsome, they claimed to have found the dead man on the roadside pinned under his truck after the tire exploded causing the pickup to fall off its jack with Twist under it. They explained having John's old pickup by lying about being hired to run supply errands for him, which was later confirmed over the phone.
They turned over his untouched wallet and then spent an hour or so filling out paperwork and signing statements. Around nightfall they returned old man Twist's truck to him.
All plans of the Twists going north died when Martha witnessed the murder and refused to leave the house. Just beyond the kitchen door she was heard softly crying bitterly after being forced to lie to the police over the phone. She hung up and made another tear-filled call to Texas, and while she haphazardly garbled the theory of how her son died to Lureen, John canceled the two young men's plans to spend the night in the ranch house as guests. The tough old bird told them to make other arrangements, reluctantly giving them what money he had, a couple of heavy quilted moving blankets to sleep in, and some camping equipment.
Just before they left in Kirk's brown Camaro, he warned them to never darken his door again.
Kirkwood was already thinking about returning on his own sometime soon to teach John a lesson in hospitality...
...That night, Kirkwood and Baint sat in the late darkness of an abandoned overgrown field dotted with an occasional tree about six miles south of the Twist Ranch. Flickering bright yellow light came from a roaring bonfire they'd built and he glanced over to his right to see the taillight reflectors of his new car just outside of the wavering glow. He'd thought of them sleeping in the Z28, but worried of his buddy throwing up in it.
The huge searing-hot blaze consisted of a pile the size of the average high school homecoming celebration. The inferno popped and crackled throwing red-orange sparks into the air as it hungrily consumed a rotted tree stump that they'd built the fire over using assorted large dead branches, wooden planks torn off the side of the abandoned farm house, and at its heart, a fencepost bristling with nails and covered with dried blood.
Cory went a little overboard constructing it with him, thinking if it was hot enough it might even melt the nails, and the memory of the killing. Out here in the middle of nowhere, Kirk was sure the conflagration wouldn't be seen, so he allowed his buddy to be preoccupied in his excess in the name of getting the shock out of his system.
By Kurt "Kirk" Kirkwood's wristwatch it’d just passed midnight. He'd gone too far with the eyeball and knew it, almost feeling bad he'd done it... almost.
On the opposite side of the blaze about 30 feet away, Cory lounged alone against the base of an old oak tree nursing a half-empty bottle of scotch.
Not far away, a train rumbled by with an occasional blast of its horn. They each looked up to watch its headlight brightly pierce the surrounding gloom ahead of it on its way north.
Most of the evening, Kurt had resorted to alcohol to calm his partner, almost force-feeding it to Cory while sitting intimately close with his brawny arm around him. He offered low-spoken guilty comfort to his pal trying to coax his best friend into sleeping. Baint would nod off with his head on the blonde's shoulder, but he kept waking up in fits and screaming in terror.
This wasn't the first man they'd killed together, but it was by far the most gruesome. Baint was in no condition yet to go along on L.D's next assignment for them until "Kirk" could calm him down and settle his nerves. This delay was costing him time and money.
Each time Cory woke up, he'd seek solace by hugging the golden-haired athlete in an intimate sideways embrace, usually resting his head on Kirk's chest, with his arm stretched tightly around him, clutching him closer.
It was Baint's second bottle since ten PM. He lifted the pint to the smoky pyre and silently they toasted it with cocky grins. At least he wasn't bawlin' over seeing those accusing eyes staring at him from every direction in the dark anymore.
After studying his companion for half an hour Kirkwood came to a decision on how to soothe his best friend. He freed himself of his buddy's uncomfortable embrace and moved out of the circle of light and intense heat. A few minutes later, he returned with another armload of dry twigs and branches, tossing them onto the bonfire, causing another shower of embers to fly upward towards the dark cloudless sky.
Moving to the opposite side if the blaze, but still within sight of Cory, he unbuttoned his one-piece service station uniform down to his waist like he'd done for Jack. A friend might spill his guts to someone, but a lover wouldn't... so he'd have to make the emotionally vulnerable Cory love him. They were safe in this ghost of a town and the nearest people were probably at the distant ranch where they’d beaten the queer to death.
Flexing his brawny chest and arms in a show of machismo, Kirkwood went over to the car and brought back some fresh clothes and the thick green quilted moving blankets to spread them out next to the fire, layering one atop the other. He still wore the blood-stained mechanic's overalls like a cocky badge of honor, and made a show of shedding the top half of them from his torso. Bending forward, he then pulled them from his slender muscled legs to reveal a pair of very brief black cotton underwear.
Instead of using each blanket as improvised individual sleeping bags, he combined them to make a double bed they'd sleep in together next to the fire.
The soiled coveralls caused another spray of sparks as they landed atop the blaze.
A moment of panic ended quickly when he remembered that the only thing in the pockets was his phony I.D., and that his wallet was safely stashed in the glove compartment of his car.
Flexing his torso and arms again, Kurt sat down on the blanket next to the fire running his hands slowly over his body and looked over at Cory who averted his captivated eyes. The hunk lounged as the flickering fire accented his developed and defined chest and biceps, and felt Cory’s gaze on him, nodding to himself that he was right about his friend.
“We’re headin’ south in about four hours Bud,” he said, gazing at his friend through the bright flames. “I gotta lot of drivin’ to do Buddy, so set your fancy watch alarm for 4 okay?” Observing that Cory still wore his bloody denim bibs, he added, "When you're done drinkin' you can crawl in here with me... Burn them clothes before we leave."
Baint looked like he was having trouble breathing, and only nodded nervously to his nearly naked friend.
The fire was now hot enough to be uncomfortable near it for very long, though just outside its perimeter the air was cold. Kirk slowly lowered his bare back and shoulders onto the warm top blanket instead of beneath it and closed his eyes.
Five silent minutes later Cory swallowed the last of the scotch, and the bottle clattered onto the burning branches. The blond feigned sleep as his best buddy staggered to the car on unsteady legs, retrieved his own change of clothes, and then returned to stand over Kirk. Next came sounds of him shedding his bib overalls down to his boxers, throwing them on the intense fire, and then moving to sit beside Kirk on the blankets in the heat of the flickering pyre while transferring his wallet and comb to his unoccupied jeans.
“Kirk?” and after a minute or two, “Kurt you up?”
Another minute passed and then a warm hand lightly traveled from Kirkwood's knee, passed over his hip and landed trembling on the handsome hunk's defined abs, fingers exploring the valley between them. After a pause he began gently rubbing his mounded pecs bringing Kurt to semi hardness. The hand moved lower carefully, slipped beneath the waistband and began fondling.
In order to gain power over his friend, the brawny stud would first have to frighten him. Kirk jumped to his feet pushing Cory away while straightening his underwear. Cory was so startled, he sprang up and nearly fell backwards off balance onto the fire.
“We just got done killin’ some faggot and you’re pullin’ this on me?” Kirkwood growled menacingly shaking his fist at the young man before him. Cory dropped back to his knees, head down, bowed in shamed submission.
Baint’s jaw moved up and down as if trying to speak but nothing came out. He was so drunk he was swaying back and forth and dizzy. He looked up and his eyes held equal parts fear and sexual hunger as he gazed at his brawny friend. Eventually he couldn’t stop staring at the just-barely covered bulging crotch before him.
Kirk moved so that Cory was now between him and the hot roaring campfire. Baint moved around on his knees to face Kurt again and looked up into his eyes. “I don’t know what come over me Kirk; I always wished I had a body like yours and I guess the scotch made me want to... to touch it. I… I couldn’t help myself.”
A surprisingly understanding and sympathetic smile crossed the young hunk’s face as he urged his companion to stand unsteadily in front of him. Kirk pushed down on the waistband of his buddy's boxers and they slipped to his ankles, then were kicked off next to his folded jeans. Now that his partner in crime was naked, Kirk's hand drifted teasingly down the stocky stomach of his dizzy-drunk pal.
In a husky practiced growl he demanded seductively, “If you’re gonna do me, do it right Cory,” and then pushed down on his shoulders. In an instant Baint was on his knees again, his nose only an inch from Kirk’s hard cock straining against the black briefs.
Cory sobbed out in reluctant protest, “I ain’t never done n-nothin’ like this before,” as confused tears rolled down his cheeks. "I ain't no fag."
Kirk said softly, “Close your eyes,” and guided Baint’s hands up to his chest.
Warm palms shivering in passion began exploring a perfect V-shaped torso from Kirkwood's shoulders to his pubic hair, stopping to explore each individual mound of taut muscle covered in blond fur, then the hard nipples and every defined ab crease. The hands urged Kirk to turn around and warm fingers explored the valley of his spine from his neck to the top of his ass crack. Fevered hands tugged without asking and the tight black briefs found the ground around Kirk’s ankles and were stepped out of.
Kissing lips and a lapping tongue hungrily explored every inch of the golden-haired hunk’s firm ass. Kirk gasped in pleasure and then smiled. He struggled with his macho ego as he bent forward. The frenzied tongue swirled around his pucker, probing but not entering. The sensation was thrilling the sexy blond more than he'd expected.
An ex-girlfriend refused to let him fuck her in the ass unless she did him first. He was so horny for her that he reluctantly let her fuck him with a dildo, and his mind strayed to untouched urges and erotic memories of how it felt when the thing internally rubbed his prostate causing an instant and intense orgasm-the best he'd ever felt.
Anxious palms urged at taut hips to turn and face Baint again, and warm lips repeatedly kissed Kurtwood’s rock hard and drooling cockhead. Kirk pulled back before Cory had more than an inch in his mouth. His shaggy head looked down at his friend staring up at him and smiled. Baint’s shoulders rhythmically shook as he rapidly began jacking himself off.
Kirk was having second thoughts, but this had gone too far to stop. His deep-seated contempt for homosexuals was urgently trying to get him to realize what he was doing.
Cory was now in the throws of forbidden passion, breathing heaving gasps as Kirk moved forward again, grabbed a fistful of his friend's hair, and then his throbbing cock met a swallowing mouth. Within minutes of enthusiastic tongue-swirling sucking Kurt began to shoot his hot load against Baint's tonsils. The beautiful blond stud hadn't had sex in almost two weeks and thought he'd never stop cumming. He nearly passed out and threw back his head in a powerful lion's roar, amazed at the load he was still shooting, which was greedily swallowed.
Kirkwood withdrew in momentary confusion, then realized what he was doing, but knew that something more was needed to solidify and justify the experience in his mind. Something that assured that Cory would never tell anyone.
He looked down to find Cory urgently sobbing like a newly hooked drug addict, “Put it back in my mouth till I get off?” he begged.
Kurt grinned and turned around instead, bending forward to touch his feet, and Baint’s tongue again probed his ass, slobbering as he kissed each cheek in turn. This time his friend's urgent lapping tongue penetrated and a surge coursed up the hunk's spine.
Both knew simultaneously that Cory wanted to fuck that incredible ass.
Coming to a decision, Kirkwood straightened up and turned around brushing his semi-hard cock teasingly back and forth against Baint’s nose avoiding his seeking lips. "Are we still gonna s-sleep to-together," he asked looking up with hopeful eyes.
Grinning seductively, Kurt asked his husky partner, "Love me?"
At that moment Baint was in no condition to think clearly and nodded as tears streamed down his face.
“Close your eyes and open your mouth real wide baby,” he growled and then warned, "Watch your teeth this time."
Cory started jacking faster and screamed frantically as his lips kissed that craved-for cock. Throwing back his head in ecstasy, he yelled out, “Ohhhhh, I’m gonna cum!” and began breathing in huge gasps. His hungry gaping mouth waiting, begging for another taste of his friend’s cock... as his lips sought forward again, he felt the rapture of his first cum spurts of orgasm. His hungry mouth realized too late that it'd enclosed something hard, cold… and metal.
He could never kill a friend, so Kurt gradually had succeeded in his mind's eye of transforming what used to be his best buddy into nothing more than a dirty fucking faggot... The loud pistol blast blew the back of Baint’s head off and instantly he limply slumped forward as parts of his brain sizzled on the fire.
Kirkwood wiped the gun clean of fingerprints that he’d had at the ready hidden under the blankets. He’d retrieved it when he bent over that second time. He put the revolver in Baint’s right hand, put the muzzle back in his mouth and then pushed his dead friend backwards so that the corpse was now laying with its back against the big camp fire. The air was instantly filled with the smell of burning hair and bubbling blistering skin.
The blood-soaked moving blankets went over the body and were immediately consumed while Kirk dumped more wood and kindling around the untouched legs and averted his eyes from the gruesome scene while quickly dressing.
It was doubtful that anyone would find the body for months; or for that matter ever, but it’d look like some drunk came out here and committed suicide by sticking his gun in his mouth and pulling the trigger.
From Cory’s jeans came his wallet with his I.D. and the four thousand dollars and change he'd earned for his help killing Twist. His best friend and partner in crime of six years' clothes, empty wallet and shoes went on the fire.
As Kurt Kirkwood drove away he’d gotten fifty yards when a loud blast signaled the rest of the bullets being set off by the fire.
As he reached for the radio knob, a switch clicked over in his mind and he muttered, “Faggots,” under his breath in disgust and shook his head. His next stop was a few hours of driving away in some hick-town called Riverton where L.D. wanted him to seduce and then date some girl to get information about his next target… her dad.
Ennis didn't know it, but a killer without a conscience was headed his way...
...Not all went as planned down in Texas. Lureen eventually became suspicious after Jack’s will was read and the quarter of a million settlement that her father paid her husband couldn't be found. An interstate search for bank accounts or safe deposit boxes was made, but it was delaying the payout of Jack's estate, so she gave up looking after three months. She figured he'd lost it in the volatile stock market because her husband only thought he was a good investor... besides she was wealthy beyond all expectations with the life insurance payout.
As expected, L.D. eventually reconciled with his wife and daughter. They and thankfully everyone else involved seemed to have believed the reports from the doctors he’d paid off about his breakdown…
~ Chapter 21: Ashes to ashes
For the couple of months afterward Ennis figured he’d messed things up with Jack and when he hadn’t heard from him for a while, made a serious effort to date Cassie, but there were too many things that were against it. For one, there was the difference in their ages. Also Jenny hated her and Junior just barely tolerated her. To compound things, Ennis lost interest in having sex with her or anyone for that matter and eventually stopped returning her calls.
In the end, she’d visited the ranch so many times trying to see him, that she actually started dating his boss Carl Stoutamire. Of course Ennis was so wrapped up in his own problems that he didn’t even find out until he encountered her in the bus station on her way to visit her parents up north… accompanied by Carl.
He felt the need to get away and talked Stoutamire into letting him have some extra time off in November above what they'd already agreed on. Ennis was figuring he could patch things up with Jack, and maybe even summon the courage to tell him he loved him. He didn’t know about Jack's death until his postcard to Twist saying that November still looked like the first chance came back stamped “DECEASED" in red ink.
For a moment he stood dazed in the middle of the street. He looked at it again, rereading the word DECEASED rubber-stamped diagonally across his handwritten card. Repeatedly he kept asking himself if there were another meaning for the word, not able to face what it was telling him. He went to a payphone by the post office and dialed Twist’s number in Childress, something he had done only once before when he tried to apologize to Jack, who had misunderstood about the divorce and had driven twelve hundred miles north, only to be sent back home because he had the girls that weekend and couldn’t get out of it.
His legs barely supported him as he trembled, not wanting to face the loss, and he leaned against the glass of the phone booth.
This would be all right; Jack would answer, had to answer. But he didn’t. It was Lureen and she said, “Who? Who is this?” and when he told her again she told him in a level voice that Jack was pumping up a flat on the truck out on a nearby back road when the tire blew up. The bead was damaged somehow and the force of the explosion slammed the rim into his face, broke his nose and jaw and knocked him unconscious on his back. By the time someone came along he had drowned in his own blood.
“Jack used to mention you,” she said. “You’re the fishing buddy or the hunting buddy, I know that. Would have let you know,” she said, “but I wasn’t sure about your name and address. Jack kept most of his friends’ addresses in his head. It was a terrible thing. He was only thirty-nine years old.”
Years of conditioning in the ways of men took hold and not a tear fell from his eyes, though he wanted desperately to be able to feel that release. His chest tightened just the same.
Tire rims don't just explode off of cars, that much he knew. Jack must've let his secret slip to the wrong person.
They'd used the tire irons on him for sure' just like Earl and Rich.
If they knew about Jack, did they know about him?
“He's buried down there?” He asked and wanted to curse her for believing that lie.
The little Texas voice came slip sliding down the wire, “We put a stone up. He used to say he wanted to be cremated and have his ashes scattered on Brokeback Mountain. I didn’t know where that was. So he was cremated, like he wanted and half his ashes was interred here and the rest I sent up with his folks. I thought Brokeback Mountain was around where he grew up. But knowing Jack, it might be some pretend place where the bluebirds sing and there’s a whiskey spring.”
“No ma’am. We herded sheep up on Brokeback the summer of ‘63,” said Ennis. He could hardly speak as his chest tightened and his eyes burned.
“Well, he said it was his special favorite place. I thought he meant to get drunk. He drank a lot.”
“His folks still up in Lightnin' Flat?”
“They’ll be there until they die. You get in touch with them. I suppose they’d appreciate it if his wishes was carried out, about his ashes and all.”
No doubt about it, she was polite but the little voice was as cold as the snow-melted water from the mountains Jack loved.
“Well I thank you for your time ma’am, and I sure am sorry.”
The only reply was a click as she hung up.
Ennis hung up and slumped against the glass enclosed booth, unable to move, unable to feel and unable to grieve. Then as he reached to push the glass door open, scalding tears finally fell down his cheeks. He’d cried like that only once before-the day he lost his girls in the divorce hearing.
It was only after his grief overcame him and then subsided, that he remembered that he'd threatened to kill Jack the last time he saw him if he came to know that Twist had been cheating on him with some hustler down in Mexico.
What if Jack had said something to anyone about that?
Paranoia began to grow within his thoughts. Lureen showed no signs of knowing it; what if Twist said something to his parents-after all he headed straight there from their campsite
The horror-filled childhood memory of seeing two dead bodies slammed into him, along with the reason the local menfolk had killed them.
He headed for a pawnshop in a town a few miles away to buy a pistol. He needed one that couldn't be traced back to the ones he already owned. If they’d come for Jack, maybe he was next and he wasn’t about to become another Earl and Rich if he could help it...
...Hundreds of miles south, Lureen reached over to the end table, picked up a little address book, and looked up Old Man Twist’s phone number. Sighing resignment, she picked up the phone, paused and then changed her mind and replaced the receiver. After lighting a cigarette, she picked up the remote and clicked on the TV.
~ Chapter 22; Bound by blood
Note: Text in red is from the original short-story that was not included in the movie.
Ennis drove the road to Lightning Flat through desolate country past a dozen abandoned ranches distributed over the flat plains at eight and ten-mile intervals, houses sitting blank-eyed in the weeds, one noticeably with part of its siding partially torn off, corral fences down. In thirty-five some years it’d become a ghost town with very few buildings left occupied or even standing after the postal service hub it depended on closed back in the early 1950s. Ennis discovered the reason that he couldn’t find it before was because Ridge Road turned into D road, which turned into Rocky Point Rd up on the Montana line. He’d been looking for an address on Rocky Point Ridge Road. The rusted old mailbox read John C. Twist and beneath it an unreadable number on D Rd. Though the spread was over a thousand acres, the ranch itself was a meager little place, leafy spurge taking over. The stock was too far distant for him to see their condition, only that they were black baldies.
He turned right onto the narrow bumpy dirt lane and began following a picket line of ancient utility poles holding three drooping wires heading east. A hundred yards on, it elbow-curved to the left and headed north.
After a minute or so of travel in the mud and gravel, he brought his truck to a stop to avoid hitting a jackrabbit where the driveway gently curved to the left. His eyes followed the scampering animal to the right into brown wheat that had been burned about twenty feet out from a couple of cherry trees directly ahead. It was a narrow strip maybe only five feet wide, but about ten yards long. It couldn’t have happened too long ago because it was still scorched though little weeds had taken root in its perimeter. Leaving the motor idle, he got out to look at it. His first thought was that someone poured gasoline on it to burn out an underground hornet’s nest, but it didn’t look right.
A lightning strike?
No, as far away from the house as it was, the whole field would’ve burned before someone could come along and put it out... that and the two fruit trees next to the lane weren’t scorched.
Around him crows cawed and horses whinnied. He scanned his surroundings and then got back behind the wheel. Sitting there, he pondered what else might’ve caused it, and a scene flashed before his eyes of men chasing Jack into the field, beating him as he tried to get away, then later dragging him back to his truck. Later they’d burn only that part of their valuable crop to destroy the bloodstains.
It was the tire iron, it had to be and Jack’s father probably did it, later having his own son cremated to hide the evidence.
An angry rumble began in his ears.
He leaned over to push a chromed button in the dash and the glove box door popped down revealing a loaded revolver that he’d bought last week. He’d never in his life before thought of murdering someone, but to avenge Jack’s death he considered it.
He’d called ahead, so they knew he was coming out here, but not when, so he doubted an ambush was waiting, but he was ready for it.
He shifted back into gear and pressed on.
At the end of the lane, he came up on an old farmhouse to the left and a couple of out buildings. The years of rain and wind had nearly scoured the white paint off the old wood, except up near the eaves. A roofless platform porch stretched across the side of the dreary place, a broom leaning next to the door.
He hadn’t made it out of his truck, when an older thin woman in a blue sweater over a plain housedress opened the kitchen door and gestured a welcome to him.
They wouldn’t do it in front of a woman.
The gun stayed where it was.
Moments later, Ennis sat at the old and worn kitchen table with Jack’s father opposite him. Ennis fought his emotions at being so close to a man capable of murdering his own son, probably with no more regret than it'd take to kill a favorite horse that’d gone lame. Martha Twist avoided his eyes. She was stout and careful in her movements as though recovering from an operation. Ennis wondered if her worried look was because she suspected he was here to kill her husband for murdering Jack.
She stumped him into confusion by asking unexpectedly, “Want some coffee, don’t you? Piece a cherry cake?”
In shock Ennis replied sadly, “Thank you, Ma’am, I’ll take a cup a coffee but I can’t eat no cake just now.”
The old man sat silent, his hands folded before him, staring at Ennis with an angry, knowing expression. Ennis couldn’t see much of Jack in either one of them and took a breath.
Feeling tears well up behind his eyes, Ennis said softly, “I feel awful bad about Jack. Can’t begin to say how bad I feel. I knew him a long time. I come by to tell you that if you want me to take his ashes up there on Brokeback like his wife says he wanted, I’d be proud to.”
Jack’s mother came out from the kitchen and placed a cup in front of him and he muttered and nodded his thanks to her. A smothering silence filled the room like smoke. Twist seemed to be eyeing a sideboard where maybe a gun was hidden. Fighting down fear of the pure hatred in Jack’s father’s eyes, Ennis cleared his throat. Mrs. Twist had gone back to the kitchen unnoticed and returned with a separate cup of coffee for her husband. Ennis frowned at that but was too preoccupied to think anything of it.
The old man's eyes narrowed as he took a sip of his coffee and said from a clenched jaw, “Tell you what, I know where Brokeback Mountain is. He thought he was too goddamn special to be buried in the family plot.” He gave the cup a distracted frown. His wife had been using a cheaper brand lately.
Mrs. Twist showed tender concern for her guest, despite her husband and regardless of the presence of the very man who may have perverted her boy sitting in her very kitchen. She may have believed in the Pentecost, but she knew too that her Jack had loved this man. Since witnessing her son’s death at a distance, secretly her husband had become her enemy and the enemy of your enemy is your friend. For a moment she was lost as to what she’d do if this man killed her husband as much to avenge Jack as to calm her grief.
She had a key she needed to give this man, but how to get him alone away from her husband was turning out to be a daunting predicament.
Ennis seemed transfixed by the righteous disgust in Twist’s eyes, wishing now he’d brought that pistol in with him. (Click on the image of John Twist to your right ~> and look into his eyes at your own peril!)
Jack's father was a man who fearlessly said what was on his mind without holding back, yet no mention was made of del Mar's threat to kill his son. Still, meeting the man's eyes was like trying to stare down a rattler about to strike.
Looking across the room from where she stood near the kitchen sink, Martha recognized the hatred in her husband’s eyes. Jack’s mother ignored this and almost to defy him, she moved to tenderly lay a comforting hand on Ennis’ shoulder and said gently, "He used a come home every year, even after he was married and help his daddy on the ranch for a week, fix the gates and mow and all. I kept his room like it was when he was a boy and I think he appreciated that. You are welcome to go up to his room if you want.”
Ennis was almost dizzy in lost thoughts. Grabbing comfort where he could, he looked up at Martha and nodded, “Thank you ma’am, I’d like that.”
The old man’s eyes flickered toward his wife with pure resentment and then returned to glare at Ennis, eyeing him with a lethal mixture of bitterness and hatred. Twist spoke, “Jack used ta say, ‘Ennis del Mar,’ he used ta say, ‘I’m gonna bring him up here one a these days and we’ll lick this damn ranch into shape.’ He had some half-baked idea the two a you was goin' a move up here, build a cabin and help me run this ranch and bring it up. Then this spring he’s got another one’s goin' a come up here with him and build a place and help run the ranch, some ranch neighbor of his from down in Texas name of Randall. They were both goin' a split up with their wives and come back here. So he says. But like most a Jack’s half-baked ideas, it never come to pass.”
Ennis’ heart froze and his throat tightened: Jack had found someone else. He wanted to cry because he knew he was the one who drove the man that only now he could admit to himself that he’d loved away, and this was his punishment.
Avoiding his eyes, Ennis glanced at her, glanced up the stairs, then back at her for permission.
She sadly nodded and he stood, walking across the creaking floor, forcing himself not to look back, again hoping he hadn’t made a bad decision leaving the gun in the truck. Wondering again if he could summon the guts to kill the man he was now convinced killed Jack... his own son.
Martha moved to follow him upstairs, but John suddenly clutched her forearm, spinning her around to face him in the process. He mumbled something to her in a warning tone as Ennis’ hand found the step rail leading upward. He continued on without looking back.
The bedroom, at the top of a steep stair that had its own climbing rhythm, was tiny and hot, afternoon sun pounding through the west window, hitting the narrow boy’s bed against the left wall and reflecting onto a wooden chair, a B.B. gun in a hand-whittled rack over the bed.
Ennis caught his breath and fondled the little wooden horse and cowboy that he’d whittled so many years ago while waiting out a rainstorm on the mountain. Jack had lovingly stained the wood to match the bay mare he rode back then, and kept it as a souvenir on an ink-stained desk.
He sat wearily on a boy sized wooden bench by a steam radiator next to the window, which looked down on the gravel and dirt lane stretching south and it occurred to him that for Jack’s growing-up years that was the only road he knew.
It was too stuffy in there, so he slid the window up, using an old wooden paint stir to prop it open. Outside was only the sound of livestock and chickens. No other cars were in sight, so he relaxed a little.
An ancient magazine photograph of some dark-haired movie star was taped to the wall beside the bed, the skin tone gone magenta. Next to it was an old faded blue ribbon from some fair or another thumb tacked to the wall. Ennis squinted at it and was baffled that it was for first prize in a pie-baking contest. He could hear Jack’s mother downstairs running water, filling the coffee kettle and setting it back on the stove, asking the old man a muffled question. They seemed to be arguing about her offering Ennis cake and something about the coffee.
The closet was opposite of him and he got up to distract himself to look inside. He found two pairs of jeans crease-ironed and folded neatly over wire hangers and on the floor a pair of worn packer boots he thought he remembered.
Amongst the shirts hanging neatly there, was the brand new jacket that Jack had worn the last time Ennis had seen him on the mountain. It was true, he’d been here but never left, otherwise the coat would have gone with him. A roar filled his ears, as he knew now that it was true… they’d killed him.
Ennis’ throat tightened again against a sob that was fighting to escape.
He knelt to look at the boots again and noticed a tiny recess in the apple green back wall of the closet. Just barely in sight was a denim long-sleeve shirt with a dark reddish-brown stain on the cuff, stiff from hanging there for so long. He couldn't breath and a roaring began in his head. With burning eyes and a quivering chin, he stood to lift it off the nail as his jaw tightened painfully and his eyes blurred. Suddenly his throat was so dry he couldn’t swallow.It was Jack’s old denim shirt from their Brokeback days. Ennis’ breath began to shudder as he knew that the dried blood on the sleeve was his own; a gushing nosebleed on the last afternoon on the mountain when Jack, in their horseplay, grappling and wrestling, had slammed Ennis’ nose hard with his knee. Jack had tried to stop the blood with his sleeve, which was everywhere, all over both of them, but Ennis had hit him with a roundhouse right, laying him out in the wild columbine and mountain clover.
The shirt seemed oddly heavy until he saw there was another shirt inside it, the sleeves carefully worked down inside Jack’s sleeves. Ennis moaned a tear-filled “Ohhhhhh Jack.” It was his own white plaid shirt, lost, he’d thought, long ago up on that mountain, his dirty shirt, nose blood still all over it where he’d wiped it, the pocket ripped, buttons missing, stolen by Jack and hidden here inside Jack’s own shirt, the pair like two skins, one inside the other, two in one.
As tears fell from his eyes and his nose clogged, he pressed his face into the fabric and breathed in slowly through his mouth, hoping for the faintest smoke and mountain sage, or salty sweet stink of Jack, but there was no real scent, only the remembrance of it and the imagined power of Brokeback Mountain of which nothing was left but what he held in his hands. He tried to remember and then imagine Jack’s loving body within it and choked on the memory, clutching it tightly to his chest as he finally sobbed out his sorrow and grief.
After a minute or so of release, he wiped his acid tears on the soft denim, and swore not to leave this house without it.
A moment later and barely containing his grief and anger, he found himself at the bottom of the stairs, trying to find the words to ask permission to take the item he had in his trembling hands. Martha had been standing at the sink quietly coring apples and at the sound of Ennis descending the stairs she came to wait next to the front door and noticed the bundle he was so carefully holding. To his relief, Jack’s mother seemed to read his mind, nodded silently and went to the kitchen to fetch an empty paper grocery bag. He was reluctant to let it leave his hands, as she gently took it from him with a reassuring smile.
Her gaze fell on the blood stained white plaid shirt and she realized Jack’s denim shirt was hidden within it. Something else was in there-Jack’s toy horse and rider?
Martha couldn’t know Ennis would be here today or she’d have hidden the damned key and bank letter in her sweater. Under the suspicious and watchful eye of her husband there was no time now to get it in order to hide it in the bag with these treasures. As she desperately tried to think of a way to get Ennis back here away from John, her eyes showed brief pain, then swiftly flickered toward her husband, satisfied he wasn’t watching and then locked again on Ennis.
A bond in Jack's blood was silently exchanged between them, with a promise of a secret kept.
She silently handed the bag to him after carefully folding everything inside of it.
Jack’s damned father refused to let his ashes go. “Tell you what… we got a family plot and he’s goin' in it.”
Jack’s mother stood beside del Mar, caressed his shoulder gently and said, “You come again,” as she opened the door. She was facing away from her husband and seemed to have a pleading look in her eyes. There was an urgency in her expression as if there was something she needed to tell him that wasn't for her husband's ears.
Unfortunately the hate-filled glare that the elder Twist was still giving Ennis distracted his attention, so he meekly nodded to them both, silently thanked her for the precious package he held and made it to the truck before he burst out in tears again, beating the steering wheel with balled up fists.
Bumping down the washboard hills and elbow corners of D Road heading south, Ennis passed the country cemetery fenced with sagging sheep wire, a tiny enclosed square on the welling prairie, a few graves bright with plastic flowers and didn’t want to know Jack was going in there.
Low on gas, he stopped to refuel. After paying, Ennis sat there deep in thought. Something beside him beeped twice and he gave a distracted frown towards where it apparently came from. He reached for the paper sack with the shirts and the toy horse, and just then he heard it again... one of the gas pumps. Coming out of his pondering, he turned the key and drove home.
A few weeks later, on a Saturday, he threw all his dirty horse blankets into the back of his pickup and took them down to the Quik Stop Car Wash to turn the high-pressure spray on them. When the wet clean blankets were stowed in the truck bed he stepped into Higgins’ gift shop and busied himself with the postcard rack.
“Ennis, what are you lookin’ for, rootin’ through them postcards?” asked Linda Higgins, throwing a sopping brown coffee filter into the garbage can.
“Scene of Brokeback Mountain.”
“Over in Fremont County?”
“No, north a here.”
“I didn’t order none a them. Let me get the order list. They got it I can get you a hunderd. I gotta order some more cards anyway.”
“One’s enough,” said Ennis.
~ Chapter 23: MURDERER!!!
Three weeks after Ennis’ visit to Jack’s parents, Twist began coming to him in his dreams. It was always the handsome Jack, the lithe muscular Jack and the young happy Jack. Sometimes the dreams were of them making love on the mountain. Other times they were often of cans of beans resting on the log next to a camp fire and suddenly the spoons would turn into tire irons flying through the air at them. Then there was the dream that seemed to taunt him where he was lost in the forest calling out Jack’s name. He’d wake up not knowing if it was Jack that was lost or him.
Other times it was the dream where he’d be walking down a country dirt road and Jack would be tied to a fence dead, and further down he’d find himself beaten to death in a drainage ditch. He’d always wake up from them in a cold sweat; sometimes his sheets would be soaked. More often than not his pillow would be wet with tears too. After three nights in a row Ennis couldn’t stand it any more and set out for Lightning Flat to dig up and steal Jack’s ashes from that plot and take them back to the mountain where they belonged.
Only then would he have peace…
He’d been going over the whole visit to Jack’s parents in his mind and the pleading look on Martha’s face and the tone in her voice when she asked him to come back haunted his thoughts too…
...Jack Aguirre hadn’t been back to the office trailer in years and hung around the front steps smiling at the old cracked wooden sign held onto the front door with four rusting wood screws. He remembered as a kid taking a week with his brand new wood burning set to make it for the door as a Father’s Day present. It read, “TRESPASSERS WILL BE SHOT-SOLICITORS WILL BE SHOT AGAIN!” He smiled at that, remembering the first attempt at it he’d spelled trespassers wrong.
Over the years the portable office trailer had become rundown and moved a couple of times, and now sat empty in the back parking lot of a new hardware store. He grinned at the ugly blue door with its peeling paint in three or four different shades. He used to sneak here at night and spray paint graffiti on it, just so his old man would pay him to paint it over the next day. His friend Laura stuck a “Carter for President” bumper sticker on it just before the paint dried too and he got paid twice in one day for touching it back up.
His watch said 10:00AM and he hoped Laura would hurry up. He had to be up on the mountain in a couple of hours. John-Jack Aguirre grew up to be the one thing his father hated most-a Brokeback Mountain fire service/forest ranger enforcing the laws his daddy spent most of his life trying to get around. At a young age, he started asking people to call him “Jack” after he found out that that’s what President John F. Kennedy was nicknamed. He never quite put it together why his father refused to call him that, and never would.
He looked up at the sound of a police car pulling around the back of the store and stood up as it stopped beside him.
“Hey gorgeous!” she grinned jumping out of the squad car with her walkie-talkie squawking. Her blond hair was tied up in a neat bun, out of force of habit she reached back in for her nightstick, rolled her eyes, and tossed it back on the seat. Laura looked about 28 even though she’d just turned 35 and while she knew it was hopeless, she always flirted with Jack, touching hips or giving him a sexy come-on look.
Jack smiled at her pouting lips as she blew him a kiss and he asked, “Did’ya bring it?”
She showed lots of teeth and sarcastically remarked, “No, dumb ass, I just come to flirt with you!”
Jack mouthed a silent “Oh” and shook his head as she headed to the trunk and pulled out a big pair of bolt cutters. Reaching them to him, she squeezed the trigger on her shoulder mic and called the desk to say she’d be busy for about 10 minutes.
Looking expectantly at him, she watched Jack turn and pull the long wide handles together piercing the master lock holding the door closed in its hasp.
Handing them back, he said, “Thanks.”
She nodded, tossed them in the trunk, closed the lid and then joined him on the stairs as a loud overhead siren on a tall pole began blaring a few blocks west of them. Someone needed the volunteer fire department. She glanced at her friend and said, “That’s probably going to need me, so hurry up!”
Jack picked up an old cardboard box and pulled on the office door. It creaked on long unoiled hinges and they climbed the three steps to enter. The old office was musty and dark, the windows papered over some time ago, and so they set out pulling yellowed newsprint down. Looking around she noticed the wood paneling had been warped from a roof leak and it smelled moldy in here. “Anything we’re looking for in particular?” she asked her long time friend.
Jack just shook his head; “We haven’t used this thing in years. We’re selling it for scrap, so I figured I’d check for old family photos and stuff.”
All but one of the drawers of the desk had been pulled out and were empty except for useless pieces of scribbled-on scrap paper. The old black dial phone still sat on the desk with its cord wrapped around it, as did the ancient desk lamp and a half-full old bakelite ashtray of cigar butts.
Outside the siren wound down as the sound of a fire truck went screaming from left to right down the road heading south.
The walls were bare of photos and the file cabinets stood empty. Jack walked around the old desk and pulled out the middle drawer. With a grin, he grabbed a handful of old bic pens, “Hey Laura, you’re always complaining about losing pens right?”
She chuckled and took them from him, leaving the trailer to put them in her glove compartment. Outside she listened to see how far away the sirens had gone; they seemed like they were headed a few miles out of town at quite a distance. Climbing back into the trailer, she noted that Jack now had some Business Association plaques and awards in the box, and seemed to be staring at a tiny newspaper clipping that had been raggedly torn out.
“What’s that?” she asked.
Jack looked incredibly sad, and with a frown said, “It’s an obituary.”
“Your dad’s?”
“What; he brought it here from the grave? No… it’s for a guy I spent a summer with up on Brokeback when I was a kid… uh the summer of 1962…”
Laura’s car radio squawked. She turned and glanced out the door, “Gotta go… You okay?”
Jack nodded and said, “Sure. Get out of here.”
She grinned and jumped in her squad car.
He rushed to the door and yelled, “Thanks for the cutters!”
She beeped her horn and waved as she turned the corner.
Jack noticed a copy of the Crook County News, the newspaper the clipping probably came from. He remembered that Twist said that he grew up up there. He looked down on the little piece of newsprint and as he pulled the door closed with the box under his arm, he looked again at the obituary, all of three lines long. Aguirre’s father had only died last week, and according to the death notice Jack held in his hand, Jack Twist had died last month. He didn’t think his father still came here, but how else could this clipping be in his desk… and why?
A far way look crossed his face as he locked up and said softly to himself, “Jack Twist,” shaking his head. Though he’d known it was impossible, through the years he held a hope that there was a chance they’d get together and talk about old times, and a part of him was sad.
Hardly a week went by when he didn’t remember that summer, or his first love…
...Laura was within a mile of her radio call at an outlying ranch when a brand new Ford sedan literally flew past her in the opposite direction doing at least 100 MPH or more going airborne at an upraised 4-way stop without even pausing. Like an expert, she pumped the brakes twisted the wheel in a perfect “bootlegger’s turn” and went after it in hot pursuit siren blazing…
…Ennis drove home through the night empty-handed, suffering from a bad decision. He’d driven north determined but he’d changed his mind at the Twist mailbox. As the sun cleared Brokeback Mountain on the horizon, he crossed Signal’s city limits. He paused at Higgin’s gas station for a cup of coffee and another tank of gas and was on his way by 10:30 AM after using the payphone to call Carl Stoutamire to tell him he couldn’t make it in to work today but got no answer up at the main ranch house.
About half a mile from home he began smelling smoke and rolled the window down to sniff. He floored the gas, as up ahead through the building haze, a couple of fire trucks were in the wheat field surrounding his house putting out what was left of a very large grass fire.
He bounced down his dirt road and slammed on the brakes. His home of five years was a pile of smoking embers, flames still flickering from the charred mound. Behind it the barn was in the same condition. Up ahead a police car blocked the lane so he pulled over into the grass and got out to stride the distance. From what he could see, there was nothing left to hurry about.
A handsome cop in his late twenties in a county uniform came hiking up to him as he surveyed the damage. It looked like a total loss.
“Mr. Del Mar?” the officer asked carrying a clipboard with a sheaf of papers on it.
Ennis absently nodded, still staring at his destroyed home. Behind him in the field fire fighters sprayed down the grass yelling instructions to each other. About 50 yards in all directions was flat, black, scorched and smoking.
Suddenly his eyes widened in panic and he yelled, “The horses!”
The officer grabbed Ennis’ arm as he turned to run, “Whoa! They’re okay, they’re okay; they’re safe Mr. Del Mar!”
Ennis let a relieved sigh escape him and seemed to deflate.
As the fire squad got control of the last of the grass fires, the trucks moved over and started working on what was left of his house. The cop got del Mar’s attention again. “Where have you been Mr. Del Mar?”
Ennis blinked a puzzled look at him, “Uh, up in Lightning Flat; I had some business up there; why?”
The officer jotted down something on his clipboard, as his boss Carl Stoutamire came driving up in his new white Chevy pickup.
Slamming the door closed he surveyed the damage at a run towards them. They’d made up as friends again after Stoutamire had split up with Cassie. It was impossible to tell if he was being sarcastic, pissed, or concerned as he asked midway to them, “You been smoking in bed, Ennis?” scratching his handlebar mustache.
Ennis turned to the cop, “When did this happen?” he asked, as Carl joined him.
Stoutamire looked over at the house and nearby barn in ruins. “Looks like you lost everything.”
The cop looked up from his writing, “About 45 minutes ago,” and returned to scrawling something on the page.
Ennis squinted suspiciously at the officer, “What’s with all the questions?”
The young cop looked up, set eyes on Ennis and said, “Arson.”
Both men backed up half a step in surprise.
Before either could respond, the cop added, “According to the lieutenant over there, someone doused the house, the barn and the surrounding grass with kerosene and lit it.” As that sank in, he added, “Whoever it was let the horses out before torching the place, so he was gunning for just you; Mr. Del Mar.”
Carl looked over at Ennis, “Who’d want to burn you out, or kill you?”
Before he could reply the cop reminded, “You own the house Carl; can you think of anyone that might be gunning for you?”
Stoutamire opened his mouth to reply as the cop’s walkie-talkie squawked and he turned his back to speak into it.
Mystified Ennis only shook his head at his friend in answer.
Carl looked over to watch the firemen rolling up their hoses and storing them on the trucks. “What’d you lose?”
Thinking back to the two shirts and a toy wooden horse and rider in a grocery bag that never left his truck, he replied, “Wasn’t anything worth stealing; just changes of clothes, a spare saddle, and a cheap stereo and even cheaper TV, and some old record albums.” After a pause, a sad look crossed his face and his jaw dropped as he added, “…and Casper.”
…and Jack’s old post cards.
Carl shot Ennis a heartbroken look and said,“ Aw shit, I loved that...” As the sound of a car approaching caught everyone’s attention and they turned to see a Signal city squad car approach. Coming to a stop at their knees, a pretty blond in uniform got out, leaving a dark figure sitting quietly in the caged back seat.
The county cop replied, “I think we’re about to find out,” nodding his head toward her prisoner.
She ushered the men out of earshot of her car, “Hey Bob,” she smiled at the officer.
Glancing over she asked, “Either of you Ennis del Mar?”
Ennis nodded, “I am.”
She handed the cop a sheet of paper. He read it quickly and his eyebrows jumped. With a questioning look he nodded to her squad car and the man sitting in the back.
She nodded, “In his pocket. I brought him up here because I stopped him in a rental car for speeding about five minutes ago and he had 6 five-gallon gas cans in the back seat, all of them empty.”
The cop handed the paper to Ennis as she showed the officer the prisoner’s driver’s license.
Ennis’ couldn’t believe his eyes and his jaw dropped; it was a photocopy of county court records showing the encircled address from where he was mailing child support payments.
In a rage, Ennis yelled, “Monroe you son of a bitch!” and they all grabbed him before he could stalk over to the squad car.
Breathing hard, he shook loose and stood still, red faced, shaking with rage and muttering, “Son of a bitch-Son of a bitch” over and over.
Laura frowned, “Monroe?”
The two officers looked at each other.
Both grabbed one of Ennis’ elbows, looking back at Carl to join them in case they needed help. As they paced back to the patrol car, del Mar was instructed to look only down and away from the car, which he did.
Reaching it, she said softly, “Okay, Mr. Del Mar, I want you to turn slowly and tell me if you recognize this man.”
Ennis looked up and laid eyes on a complete stranger, about his age with a dark well-trimmed beard and shook his head no.
The man frowned out the closed back window. Through the cage between the seats, he asked in an unsure tone, “You’re Ennis?”
Perplexed, del Mar frowned and nodded.
Flashing into a rage, the man in the car began struggling in his cuffs trying to kick out the window with the heels of his cowboy boots. “Son of a bitch-you killed Jack! He killed Jack that son of a bitch! ”
As the car rocked back and forth on its springs they all jumped back. Laura swiftly and smoothly pulled a little bottle from her belt and jumped into action, squirting pepper spray through the open front window and into the back. As he continued screaming and coughing out his accusations, everyone turned to Ennis.
“Murderer!” the man whimpered.
The county cop asked Ennis, “Want to tell me who he is now?”
Carl looked over at Ennis quizzically because the implication from the cop’s tone was that Ennis was lying about knowing him.
Totally aghast Ennis only shook his head unable to take his eyes off the stranger still struggling in the back of the rocking car, “Ain’t never seen him a day in my life.”
“MURDERER!”
They turned to Carl, “You?”
“KILLER!”
Stoutamire only shook his head not taking his eyes off of del Mar.
Laura handed Ennis a Texas driver’s license. The name on it was Randall K. Tanny… Ennis caught his breath-hadn’t Old Man Twist called Jack’s new lover Randall?
“YOU KILLED JACK YOU SON OF A BITCH!”
...That evening Ennis sat pondering his future while staring at the ruins of his home. In the silence that strange double beep sound he'd heard on and off chimed again. He hadn't touched the paper sack Jack's mother gave him for the shirts since bringing it home.
He rummaged through it and discovered a small paper sandwich lunchbag at the very bottom of it containing Jack Twist's expensive gold Rolex watch and his wedding ring...
...he was right, Jack had been murderd on his parent's ranch and not out on the road in Texas.
All sorts of paranoid thoughts raced through del Mar's mind. Had the jewelry been planted on him by Mrs. Twist to suggest he'd killed Jack in a botched robbery?
~ Chapter 24: If you can’t fix it, you’ve gotta stand it
For the next few months as the arson case waited to be heard, the story was hushed up in the papers, but people still whispered about del Mar being a secret homosexual and about the circumstances of his house being torched.
Ennis remembered back to a camping trip with Jack where he asked, “You ever get the feeling when you’re in a bar or someplace in public… that people know your secret? And when you get out on the pavement, they’re all looking at you like they all know too?” With all the rumors and everyone in town just assuming that Ennis might be "one of those" anyway, del Mar refused to confirm or deny it when he was asked. Let 'em figure it out for themselves.
Jack Twist had offered to help Ennis move to Texas, but del Mar turned him down.
As with all people who lose a loved one, he started asking “what if.” What if he’d taken Jack up on the offer, what if he’d shown Jack how much he loved him, what if he hadn’t walked away from him without a word the last time they spoke?
What if…
Tanny’s yelling fit was to try to distract the cops from looking too closely into his past but it didn’t work. Officer Laura Olsen discovered that Randal Tanny’s name was actually Malloy. He and his wife were con artists who hustled rich couples into having affairs and then blackmailed them out of anything they could get. Tanny-aka-Malloy had been on the run for five years after being convicted of murder in Idaho and escaping en route to prison with the help of his “wife” who it turned out was actually his sister.
Randall’s plan was to get Jack to leave Lureen, then empty his savings and open a joint account with him. Then he’d get John and Martha Twist to turn management of their ranch’s finances over to him, and then kill Jack and his parents for their money. Their bodies would probably never be found out there in the boondocks. After finding out that Lightning Flat had become a ghost town without a police department, he figured it was a perfect crime… until he was told by Lureen about some fishing buddy that he was really close to that might come poking around looking for him.
He tried to salvage part of the plan by attempting to frame Ennis for Jack’s unexpected death and then killing him before del Mar could come to trial. When he found out Ennis wasn’t at work that day he went poking around his house, and heard him inside doing something. He went and bought kerosene, snuck back, still heard him in there and then barricaded all the doors and torched the house with Ennis inside it.
The noise he heard was a white ten-week old hunting dog puppy named Casper that Carl had just made a gift of to del Mar. Ennis loved the little Labrador retriever to pieces and kept him in the house until he was sure he wouldn’t run away.
Randall pled guilty to the charges of arson in the burning down of Ennis’ house, and to attempted murder, and was sentenced to 25 years, but only to follow his life sentence for the Idaho murder.
His babbling sister Lashawn was never heard from again and is still wanted to this day.
The police investigated Malloy's murder accusations and found them groundless. Del Mar had dozens of witnesses willing to testify that he’d been on Stoutamire’s ranch non-stop helping to birth calves for five solid days without leaving once, covering the time of Jack’s death.
Lightning Flat no longer had a police department, so Crook County re-opened the coroner’s investigation into Jack’s death, which had originally been ruled an accident. A week later it was mysteriously closed again. Rumor had it that some rich relative of theirs in Texas had used his political influence to see that it ended quickly, “For the sake of the still-grieving Twist family.”
Without a body to exhume, there wasn’t much point.
Now that the case was settled, Ennis began wearing Jack's watch, and if anyone asked, he told them it was a birthday gift from his sister.
Six months after Jack’s death, his wife made up with her father and in a bit of poetic justice, Lureen Twist and L.D. Newsome died the following week when his private jet crashed into Brokeback Mountain just below its peak during an early heavy snowstorm on the way back from a Republican Party fundraiser in Montana.
Bobby moved in with his grandmother and lived a very comfortable life. A few weeks later he received a small package in the mail with no return address... it contained his father's distinctive diamond-chip encrusted wedding ring. Ennis felt that the boy deserved to have it...
Attitudes about gays had progressed a little bit in Wyoming and Stoutamire offered Ennis a room at the ranch now that he was homeless. Del Mar accepted the offer. Soon after the fear of something called “Gay Cancer” later dubbed AIDS gripped the country. Even though Ennis hadn’t formally “come out” of the closet, everyone around him had just assumed he was. The neutral smiles from everyone in town gradually turned to either concern or fear that he might get it... or that he was somehow contagious. As hate-filled and ignorant preachers like Jerry Falwell and publicity hounds like Anita Bryant began filling the airwaves with misinformation about homosexuals kidnapping and sodomizing little boys to “propagate their species,” Ennis started feeling like an outcast again.
Despite Stoutamire insisting he was welcome to stay, a month later Ennis rented an old trailer way out in the middle of nowhere. It was basically one long room with a tiny bathroom at one end, a cubby hole for a bookshelf and some knickknacks over the back window, a kitchenette in the middle and a little living room up front. The couch was the kind that folded out into a little bed.
Those who knew Ennis well treated him fair and Carl even gave him a raise and promoted him to ranch general manager. Del Mar’s advantage was that everyone already knew and respected him.
Ennis had struck up a close friendship with Laura to the point of becoming hunting buddies and they’d often be seen out dancing at the bar or just sitting and talking in town somewhere. When it came time to move into the trailer, she offered to help him but he didn’t have anything so it wasn’t necessary. In the week that followed, he didn’t spend much time at home, though he wanted to. Except for some mismatched glasses, plates and coffee mugs the 30-year-old trailer had everything he thought he needed.
Ennis carefully enclosed Jack’s shirt down inside of his, reversing them so that now symbolically Jack was within his skin. They were the only things hanging on his living room wall. When Laura visited, she asked him about them, eyeing the bloodstains suspiciously and he said they were souvenirs from a hunting accident a long time ago.
Daughter Jenny, now seventeen, came by and took him shopping for some clothes and stuff that he’d lost in the fire. Monroe sent along an old portable TV and a clock radio with her and she spent the evening puttering around, threatening to make new curtains to replace the drab miss-matched ones he had and the ugly Venetian blinds.
Ennis laughed at her when she seemed a little intimidated by the large assortment of butcher knives on his counter for carving up the prime beef he’d infrequently bring home with him.
She too pointedly eyed the shirts, so he moved them to the inside of a wooden wardrobe cabinet in a far corner of the trailer. The shirts and the spirits encased within them kept the dreams away when he was home. When he was out on a roundup or on the ranch, they came back, so it was hard for Ennis when he was away.
When the postcards of Brokeback Mountain finally came in, he bought one for 30 cents and neatly tacked it up next to the shirts on the inside of the door, wishing he had one of Jack’s old ones that he’d carefully saved, but that’d been lost in the fire.
Word came that Alma had lost Monroe’s second baby at birth and had nearly died herself. Ennis sent her an 8-week-old kitten from one of the barn cats on the ranch and Monroe half-heartedly bitched him out because she spent the rest of that day bawling over it.
Ennis lived his whole life by a phrase his mother once taught him, “If you can’t fix it, you’ve got to stand it.”
Life went on.
Early one morning Ennis had just come from the ranch after spending a rough night with some newly bought horses. After making a detour to pick up some supplies and finally getting around to buying some numbers for his mailbox, he came home tired and hungry. He parked a couple of bottles of whiskey in the fridge with some eggs, sausage and bread. He sat down on his couch and instantly dozed off. As usual the dream was of holding Jack in his arms while they peacefully slept in the tent by the stream the last day they spent together on Brokeback Mountain at the place Twist had declared "his" spot.
Sometime around noon, he woke with a start.
He yawned and stretched, and was about to get up when a car door closed outside. Frowning he got up and looked out the window, stretching his mouth wide with a tear filled yawn. He studied an unfamiliar middle-aged man in a black suit and tie who was walking toward his front door but at the last moment he detoured around to the other side of the truck.
Ominously, he checked something in his inside breast pocket.
Someone was sitting on the passenger side, but he couldn’t make out whom.
He’d seen that truck before. Suddenly his breath caught.
It was Jack’s truck!
As quietly as he could he stooped low and grabbed the revolver out of the kitchen counter drawer, making sure it was loaded.
Crawling back to the window he peered out and his jaw dropped at what he saw...
~ Chapter 25: Come hell or high water!
…Alma Junior rushed around the apartment in her bra and panties looking for Kurt’s shoes.
When she’d turned 18, she rented the apartment she grew up in above Monroe’s Laundromat. She’d fought long and hard with her stepfather about moving out on her own and he finally compromised with her by offering the place almost rent-free in exchange for managing the laundromat. Having long-since become friends, Ennis backed Monroe up on the decision.
Kurt Kirkwood, a handsome tall and lean 23-year-old shaggy blond oil field roughneck came out of the bathroom smelling of shampoo and soap. He wore only a pink towel barely clutching his trim waist, a worn green John Deere baseball cap and had a toothbrush sticking out of his mouth. Alma had been dating "Kirk" for about a year now and had secretly lived with him since April.
With Newsome dead, Kirk had gone straight, and actually worked on the oilrigs for a living. He’d also truly fallen in love with Junior.
He mangled a question around the toothbrush, “You seen my blue plaid shirt?”
She sauntered up to him with a grin and ran her hand over his dense furry chest and down ticklishly over his washboard stomach. “You don’t need one with all this.”
“Ha, ha.”
His towel dropped to the floor as he reached into his jeans hanging over the back of a dinette chair. Pulling out his wallet, he handed her a ten, then turned around and dug his keys out handing them to her. For some reason her eyes weren’t meeting his at that moment and he laughed while pulling her chin up with his index finger and kissing her full on the mouth.
As his hand caressed up her side and fondled a Playtex covered breast, he said with a growl, “I love how you make me feel like a man.”
Intentionally not answering him, she frowned at the objects he’d handed her and asked, “What’re these for?” already knowing the answer.
“Bob’s coming to ride me out to the rig,” he responded picking the towel back up and slinging it over his shoulder. “Get gas while you’re over there; you got the car all day today.”
This had been an ongoing fight between them over her repeatedly putting off telling her father they were engaged. As he went back into the bedroom naked carrying his jeans he called over his shoulder, “And wear that ugly blue ‘Little House on the Prairie’ blouse I hate so much; the thing with all the little girl ruffles and no neckline.”
Alma rolled her eyes at the ceiling.
There was no use arguing with him…
…Jack’s mother Martha Twist stepped down from the truck, the stranger reaching back to carefully close her door. At the front bumper, she said something softly to him and after a glance at the window that Ennis was peering from; the stranger nodded and got back into the truck.
She wore an old but well kept cloth coat over a black dress and black flat-heeled shoes. Stunned, Ennis put the gun quickly back in the drawer, opened his trailer door and offered a hand down to her.
Before moving, she looked up at him and asked politely in a meek voice, “May I come in?”
Ennis nodded and carefully escorted her up. Nervously watching her seat herself on his unmade bed, he asked, “Uh, can I get you something; some coffee maybe?”
Martha answered, “No, my nephew and I ate on the way down here.”
Ennis glanced out the window at the truck and sat down opposite her. At a loss they both waited for the other to speak as her nervous eyes darted around the trailer. Silently del Mar thanked God he’d put the shirts in the wardrobe out of sight, but noticed her eyes studying Jack's Rolex on his wrist.
“I come to tell you that my husband John; Jack’s father’s dead. We came directly down here from the burial.”
Stunned Ennis paused and muttered, “I’m awful sorry ma’am to hear that. Jack always said he was a good man and a good father.”
She shook her head no, “No… no he wasn’t Mr. Del Mar.”
“Ennis, please Mrs. Twist.”
The soft sadness with which she expressed them didn’t near match the words, “He was a cold self-serving son of a bitch, who lived and died without a heart,” she declared with a nod. She looked very uncomfortable and seemed to be trying to say something else even more painful and fought to keep her calm. Ennis waited patiently. Eventually she asked, “You still have them shirts?”
Ennis’ eyes widened and he responded softly “Yes ma’am.” Getting up silently, he crossed the trailer and brought them to her without being asked. She gently took them and silently wept, while Ennis told her how he’d found them where she’d hidden them from her husband, and after asking him, he explained that the blood was his and how exactly it got there.
He thought he owed her complete honesty.
Composing herself, she told him that when Jack came home that late summer of ’63, he had turned his room into a shrine to Ennis. She’d even found several pieces of notebook paper in his wastebasket on which he’d repeatedly signed Jack Twist-del Mar over and over on both sides of the pages. He’d tried to draw sketches of Ennis’ face and thumb tacked them to his wall, and wrote a journal of his memories of Brokeback Mountain. She’d convinced herself that it was only a “school boy” crush that he’d eventually get over and not that much to worry about.
He obviously thought those things were safe there away from his wife Lureen’s eyes. John never went in Jack’s room so she left them where they were over the years. A few days before Jack’s murder, John got a strange phone call and then rushed up to Jack’s room. He burned all of it in the field where they’d killed her son, leaving Jack’s room stark and empty, except for his clothes.
Ennis told her that the last day he saw her son was apparently the day he died and how heartbroken he was. He also told her he knew they’d murdered him, because he'd found the coat Jack had worn that day up in his closet. She nodded and confirmed that the only reason it was spared from the fire was because he’d taken it off to change the tire and there was no blood on it. When John wanted to destroy his clothes, she forbade it, threatening to go to the county sheriff unless he left her something to remember her only baby with. She’d turned against her husband completely when he read in the paper how Ennis had been accused of Jack’s murder. The old man told her he hoped del Mar would hang-it’d serve him right for pervertin’ his boy.
It was now clear to Ennis that she had lost her steadfast faith in God at the same time that her self-righteous husband had found his.
She told him of the awful day when she’d come to the kitchen door after hearing something strange outside and of witnessing her son being brutally beaten to death by Newsome and some boys she’d never seen before or since while her husband stood idly by, not participating, but not lifting a finger to stop them either. She concluded her story by saying that it was by God’s providence that that evil man and Jack’s horrible wife died on the mountain that Jack seemed to love so much.
A long uncomfortable silence followed. Outside her nephew started up Jack’s truck to get the heater going against the chill.
She fixed him with a lost look and said, “My upbringing won’t let me understand… but I have to know Mr… uh Ennis.”
Ennis’ lower lip tightened.
“I read everything he wrote in that diary about you over the years, I know he made the first move on you and all the details that came after, but he never knew something for sure, so I’m gonna ask you straight out for him… Did you love him?”
Ennis bowed his head, swallowed hard and half whispered, “Yes ma’am, I did.”
It was the first time he admitted that to anyone, even Jack.
“Then don’t be ashamed of it.”
Del Mar looked up in surprise to be captured in a mother’s eyes as she nodded telling him she’d burned the journal Jack kept to protect it from John. In a tone of disgust she continued, “His awful wife Lureen, she waited till the day of the memorial service to tell me that she was keeping his ashes. I begged her to allow me to divide them up and the mortician gave me a nice can to put them in. I went out back behind the funeral home and scooped up some sand and put it in her half.” Before Ennis could digest that, she added, “My husband buried sand in the family plot too.”
Ennis' jaw dropped in shock as it hit him and it took another moment for what she’d said to fully sink in. “You mean you have all, uh all of, you’ve got?”
She nodded, “I’m his mother. I didn’t want him cremated but John and that awful L.D. didn’t want no evidence.”
Ennis got up and put the shirts back where they belonged, nearly knocking the postcard off its tack in the process.
As he passed back through the kitchen, he almost paused at the fridge for a swig of whiskey to calm his nerves but thought better of it. Out of consideration for her he didn’t reach for a smoke either, but wanted one badly. Martha stood, sniffed and stared directly into his eyes with a determination that surprised him.
“Jack wanted to be scattered on Brokeback Mountain; didn’t he?”
Ennis nodded, “Yes ma’am; that's what his wife said and I'm pretty sure it's true.” He’d just found out she’d read his journal, so he didn’t add that that’s where they fell in love.
She nodded with a determined look, “Write me down your complete mailing address and the address where you work.” She glanced around and didn’t see a phone. “Give me your work number and your social security number so I can send you them registered mail.”
Ennis nodded and wondered why she wanted his social security number, and then frowned, “Them?”
“I’m sending you Jack’s ashes.”
The room began spinning and Ennis was fighting back tears, so far successfully, but barely. Scribbling everything down that she’d asked for, he handed her the paper. She reached out slowly to take it from him and suddenly seemed at peace. Meeting his eyes again she stunned him with a look of sheer determination. “Swear to me you’ll take him up there like he wanted, come Hell or high water Ennis del Mar, come Hell or high water!” she spat out as though the anger she felt toward her husband was releasing itself at him.
With a clenched jaw he nodded in a reassuring soft and polite voice, “I swear Martha, with all my heart and soul.”
Startling the hell out of him, she repeated loudly in his face, “Promise it like you mean it damn it, this is my son, my only baby we’re talkin’ about!”
Ennis straightened, met her searching eyes and repeated, “I swear, Martha, with all my heart and soul.”
She lurched forward and clutched him with surprising strength, sobbing into his chest. After about five minutes, she nodded and let go. Ennis opened the door and escorted her to the truck. Just before she closed her door she said, “Get some numbers on that mailbox; I don’t want him in no dead-letter office for eternity.”
Ennis nodded and they drove away without another word. As he watched Jack's truck disappear, the sun came out and brightly warmed the wind.
Ennis took that as a sign.
Back inside, he put some coffee on to heat and searched around in the junk drawer.
~ Chapter 26: “If you don’t got nothing, you don’t need nothing
Back outside another bank of clouds seemed to be trying to organize into a western racer without much success. It’d gotten cold again as he stuck the self-adhesive metal lot numbers for the trailer on the mailbox he’d bought earlier.
Deep in thought, he wasn’t actually smoking the burning cigarette he had in his mouth. Unsure if the numbers were now big enough, because they’d suddenly become very important, he backed away around ten feet and looked at them again, ignoring an unfamiliar car on the dusty road that ran through the trailer park. As he squinted at the silver stick-on numbers and decided to get bigger ones; he heard the car pulling up behind him.
Turning he spied a year-old brown Camaro Z28. He ducked down and squinted into the open front window as he recognized the driver. “Well hey there Junior!” he said, giving his daughter a surprised if not distracted smile. She got out of the car giving her beloved dad a big hug. Though she was a young woman now, she had her mother’s height and the top of her head barely reached his chin.
Releasing him she gestured at the chariot she’d arrived in and asked, “Like the car?”
He gave her a half-hearted “Yeah,” indicating it was okay for her but he’d never own one; preferring trucks. “Is it yours?”
This was a good enough time as any to introduce the name, so she replied instantly, “It's Kurt’s.”
Playing the typical father who never knows what’s going on, he protested in an unsure puzzled voice, “Well I thought you were seeing uh, uh Troy?”
“Troy?” she replied in a miffed tone and then protested, “Daddy that was two years ago!”
Having fun with her was a familiar pastime between them, so he made a point of half-heartedly ignoring her face, pretending to be fascinated with the car instead. Pointedly not paying attention to her, he nodded absently. As he fought to keep from cracking up and began seriously sizing up the suped up little Chevy, he wondered if it might have too much power for his little girl to handle.
Absentmindedly he asked, “Troy still playin’ baseball?” as he continued to enjoy the sarcastic ignoring game he was playing with his first-born.
A little annoyed that he seemed to still be paying more attention to the car than her, she replied tersely, “I don’t know what he’s doing, I’m seeing Kirk now.”
He gave a hint of a sly smile and asked, “Well what does Kurt do?”
“He works out in the oil fields.”
That got his attention. Putting a gentle hand on her shoulders, he remarked skeptically, “He’s a ‘roughneck huh?”
Seeing straight through his attitude, she chuckled, “Yeah,” and began heading to the trailer’s door with him accompanying her.
Voicing a respect for her he asked “Well I guess you’re nineteen, you can do whatever you like; is that right?”
Taken back a second at the fatherly deference, she replied, “Sure!”
At the door he asked with a frown “Kurt or Kirk?”
“His name is Kurt Kirkwood, Daddy,” she replied, “his friends call him Kirk.
As she sat down on his couch/bed he remarked jokingly, “Alma Kirkwood… Nah, don’t sound right, huh?”
That made her squirm uncomfortably where she sat next to an unused box fan on a portable stand. She pulled off her sweater, placing it on the bed next to her, revealing Kurt’s hated blouse. For this she needed to be as prim and proper as possible. While Ennis busied himself pouring a couple of cups of coffee for them, she anxiously scanned the room.
In an attempt to distract herself from the nervous announcement she’d come to make, she remarked, “Daddy; you need more furniture.”
Carrying a pair of mismatched coffee mugs, he handed one to her. A scant hour ago Mrs. Twist sat in that same place and as much as changed his world as he knew it. He was unprepared for his daughter to do the same thing, but that was what she was here for.
As she handled her steaming mug nervously, he tried to remember what she'd just said; Oh yeah; furniture. To distract himself he replied, “Yeah well… if you don’t got nothing, you don’t need nothing,” in a resigned tone and sat down opposite her.
Alma Junior always brought out the young man in him, for a brief glimpse the worries and heartaches of the past few months left his face, and he looked the part.
Junior briefly got distracted by a full rack of butcher knives behind him and nervously played with her cup.
Her father could read her like a book, instantly knew she had something important to tell him and maybe difficult on her mind so he inquired, “So what’s the occasion?” with a half-hearted stern look.
No turning back now.
She looked into her mug then at her father. Fearful of dropping it out of anxiousness, she clutched the cup with both hands and tried to be casual, “Me and Kirk… we’re getting married.”
She felt lost as her father’s face turned to stone.
For him, all the years flashed by in the blink of an eye. Her birth and his dreading this moment from that day forward and as if written in his eyes, the objections painted his face. He remembered using her mother to cover his affair with Jack, of John and Martha Twist’s loveless marriage and of Jack using Lureen for her money in an unfeeling partnership.
This was his little girl; the one he cherished above all else in his life and now another man threatened to tear her away from him. Before he’d let that happen he had to know she was safe from the fate he now lived.
Struggling for the words, he leaned forward, still looking like he was no younger than Kirk and probably knew all of her fiancé’s secrets too. “Well, how long have you known this guy for?”
“About a year,” she answered. In his pain-filled eyes studied her as she spoke, she watched him suffer and knew why, having witnessed her parent’s turbulent marriage. She bravely continued, “The wedding will be June 5th at the Methodist Church. Jenny’ll be singin’ and Monroe will be catering the reception.”
She’d hurt him and knew it in his hesitation. She’d unintentionally just let it slip that he was the last to know, the last to be invited-not the first, as it should be.
He showed her how much he loved her by voicing his only true concern, “This Kurt fella, he loves you?’ he asked meeting her eyes.
Her face lit with hope and she knew she still had her father’s love as she replied with a half smile, “Yeah daddy,” she assured nodding, “He loves me.”
He knew he’d never make it through that wedding. He studied out the window as if seeing all of his pain on a billboard outside. His whole life he’d never let anyone see inside him, not even Jack.
His silence was cutting into her heart like the knives she kept staring at behind him.
Deciding to face him head on, she looked at him again. He was still staring out the window. “I was hoping you’d be there,” she said nervously.
A lame excuse came to him off the top of his head and he mumbled and stammered out softly, “Uh, I uh, think I’m supposed to be in a roundup down near the Tetons.”
They looked everywhere but at each other. He’d given his blessing… sort of, but wouldn’t participate. Suddenly their eyes met. She looked away and then bowed her head in disappointment.
Ennis wouldn’t let her suffer with her love as he had his. Painful as it was, he came to a decision and silently put his cup down. After all, the fact was his daughter was a woman now, a full-grown woman. Silently and without explanation, he stood up and turned his back to her.
Her eyes silently began to flood at his apparent rejection.
Midway to the kitchen Ennis looked back at her and as casually as he could, he gestured with his hand and asked, “You know what?” then reaching the ancient refrigerator he pulled out a bottle of whiskey and gestured it at her with a neutral expression. “I reckon they can find themselves a new cowboy.”
He’d so carefully phrased what he’d just said, she found herself not knowing how to react.
Then it hit her.
He was pouring a toast and it meant he not only approved, but he’d attend despite how difficult it’d be. Suddenly her heart filled with relief as she reaffirmed the treasured love of her father.
He continued, “My little girl getting married… Huh?” as he poured out the liquor into a couple of mismatched glasses.
Carrying them over he handed her the bigger, more full of the two and sat down, still trying to hide his approval, unable to defy her loving smile.
He raised his glass to her and toasted, “To Alma… and Kurt.”
They clinked glasses and her eyes widened comically after she swallowed hard and gasped as the drink burned down her throat.
For the next half hour she told him everything she knew and loved about her boyfriend, even spilling that she’d been living with him. Ennis took it in stride, admitting he’d lived with her mother months before they wed too.
Watching her drive away in a throaty roar of the powerful engine and a cloud of dust, he turned to walk past the mailbox, making a point not to notice it. Everything that had happened this morning weighed heavily on his mind as he headed back to the trailer, closing the door securely behind himself. Images of his unexpressed love for Jack filled his mind as he shuffled through his home and hung up his hat on a nail.
On the couch was Junior’s forgotten sweater.
He needlessly rushed to the door to call after her, but she was gone. Gone just like Jack was, he thought as he pulled the door closed again.
He neatly folded it under his chin, sniffing at the smell of her face powder and perfume and then walked over to the wardrobe, opening it to push his daughter’s sweater onto the top shelf.
He came face to face with his love’s shrine and he remembered his promise to Martha Twist. As if to make sure his lost love’s spirit remained locked in that denim, he fastened the buttons up on its chest.
Reaching to straighten the postcard his eyes filled with tears.
Just as he had earlier promised his mother, he would now repeat it to Jack. With an aching and broken heart he declared in a whisper, “Jack… I swear,” as his sinuses completely clogged.
Closing the door revealed a vista of flat expressionless land, completely opposing the mountains he saw in his mind’s eye.
He spent the rest of the day thinking of Jack and listening to the record player, selecting country guitar instrumentals, later switching to a Willie Nelson album.
…he was feeling old.
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From this point forward, I take Ennis and the story; beyond the end of the movie/short story, with all due respect to Annie's great work... what follows is completely of my own invention… I hope you like it-please drop me a line in the comments below...
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Part II written by Jet Gardner 2005-2011 based on characters created by Annie Proulx, Diana Ossana and Larry McMurtry
~ Chapter 27: The key to an unfinished task
Two weeks passed by filled with wedding plans and Jenny fussing with him over getting off his ass and buying a suit for the ceremony. Monroe and Alma finally motivated him by threatening to bar him from the church if he showed up wearing jeans.
Jack’s ashes never arrived; though Ennis rushed home twice a day in case UPS or FED EX had left a note while he was away, but nothing came. At work he even made it a point to call the post office daily with no results.
Laura Olsen accepted an invitation to be Ennis’ partner at the upcoming wedding and pledged to give their limo a police escort, siren and all, from the church to the reception hall. Ennis and Monroe each took an arm and walked Junior down the aisle.
Life went on... reluctantly.
A week later on a hot afternoon, Ennis stood trying to reach an itch in the small of his shirtless back and wasn’t succeeding. Standing at the corral
fence on the Stoutamire ranch, an unseen hand with precisely aimed fingernails suddenly eased his agony and he groaned in pleasure. He turned to find a young shorthaired brunette ranch hand smiling at him under a black cowboy hat. The 20-year-old was a shirtless stunner in painted-on jeans, his thin tanned skin vacuum-sealed over deeply creased and well-developed muscles.“Thanks,” declared del Mar gratefully as he flexed his shoulders.
Despite Billy being completely straight, he took evil but good-natured pleasure in cock-teasing Ennis after observing del Mar's gaze following him around for a week after he'd been hired. He made a habit of wandering the corrals in tight and extremely short cut-off jeans and no shirt, and poor Ennis could barely stand it. Carl laughingly compared it to Rachel Welch parading around the ranch in hot pants and an only partially buttoned halter-top. It was something everyone on the spread good-naturedly grinned and made fun of Ennis about in a friendly way. The fact that del Mar had become used to their teasing was testament to how much he felt at home here, and acknowledgement of how much his friends liked him.
“Carl wants you up at the house, Mr. del Mar,” the kid said flashing a sexy grin.
Reluctantly tearing his eyes away from the lithe young man, Ennis muttered, “Thanks.”
Indicating a couple of mares being exercised in the middle of the fenced off area, he added with a nod toward them, “Keep an eye on them for me, huh.”
Billy nodded and climbed to sit on the top rail. Ennis headed away from the barn toward the house shaking his head. Since recently turning forty, it still irked him to be called “Mister” del Mar because it made him feel old.
Rounding the corner on foot, he spotted a big GMC flatbed tow truck parked in front of the main house. On its back was Jack Twist’s Chevy Silverado “dually.” Entering through the screen door, Carl on the couch looked up at him from his newspaper and silently indicated the den with a nod of his head.
Inside the wood paneled room, he found Martha Twist’s nephew behind the desk. The man stood and offered his fist as del Mar entered. “Mr. Del Mar,” he said politely shaking Ennis’ hand. “I don’t believe I introduced myself the last time we met. I’m Silas Caine; Mrs. Twist’s nephew. My father was Harold Caine, Aunt Martha’s brother.”
He indicated the chair and Ennis sat down facing the desk, a little self-conscious at still being shirtless for what seemed to be an unexpected business meeting.
“I’m also Martha Twist’s lawyer and executor.”
He nodded and suddenly frowned. “Executor?”
Silas glanced up in surprise; del Mar didn’t know.
A cat unexpectedly rubbed up against Ennis’ left ankle and he absently reached down and stroked the purring animal. Recovering from the distraction, Ennis met the man’s eyes expectantly.
He swallowed hard. “My Aunt Martha put a gun in her mouth last week Mr. del Mar and pulled the trigger.”
Ennis’ jaw dropped in astonishment.
“She left two envelopes on her kitchen table,” he continued, “One addressed to me and one to you.”
He reached into the breast pocket of his brown suit and pulled a white envelope out; Ennis’ name hand-scrawled across the front in a woman’s scrip. He fondled it absently and set it down on the desk unopened.
“She had no living relatives except for me and so the week before she took her life she set out reassigning ownership of all the properties she inherited from my Uncle John.” He paused as a sad expression crossed his face. Shaking his head, he met Ennis’ eyes, “I had no idea she was going to do that, none at all… May I call you Ennis?”
Ennis nodded absently.
Caine continued, while opening an envelope containing a sheaf of paper stapled together with a shiny red seal affixed to the top page. Indicating it, he said, “She didn’t want to leave a will that’d take forever to clear the legal system, so she transferred ownership and power of attorney over to me in advance of her death.
Del Mar’s head was swimming trying to understand.
The attorney continued, “Also in my envelope was a confession that she’d poisoned her husband over a long period of time since Jack’s death with tiny amounts of cyanide in his food and coffee, letting it build up in his system gradually until he died of it. As far as the coroner knows, he died of natural causes after a long illness. The reason she gave for doing it was that my Uncle John had participated in cousin Jack’s death with the help of L.D. Newsome.”
Indicating himself, he said, “I’ve been assigned the task of gutting her house of all of her possessions and distributing them to her close friends from church and a couple of neighbors. Afterward, I’m to assign someone to oversee the burning down of that house, being sure it’s completely destroyed.”
Ennis’ eyes widened in surprise as he struggled to digest the news. Still lost, he framed the nagging question in his mind, “Well uh, why are you telling me all this?”
Silas smiled understanding and as he handed him the documents he corrected, “I’ll get to that in a minute.”
To del Mar’s questioning look, he nodded and then as if reciting from memory, “She has assigned you a task, of which she indicated to me that you swore to complete.”
Ennis interrupted, “Uh I can’t Mr. Caine; I never got the uh… a package she was supposed to send.”
Her nephew bowed his head and a puzzled frown crossed his face. Daylight dawned on him and he understood, “If you’re referring to a burial urn, it’s out in his truck, Ennis,” he shrugged and then added, “Uh excuse me, your truck,” he said handing Ennis a set of keys and ownership documents.
She’d left Ennis a thoughtful and practical gift-Jack’s fancy Silverado pickup!
“I, uh I don’t know what to say Mr. Caine,” he replied in a stammer. “I’ll cherish it forever, I promise you that.”
Silas stood up, “You didn’t let me finish, Ennis.”
Del Mar looked up in puzzlement.
Caine reached across the desk and laid his index finger on del Mar’s envelope.
Ennis opened it and tried to read it, but it was all in “legal-speak” and he couldn’t make heads or tails of it. As he tried to put the bulky document back into the envelope an unusually shaped key fell out. Del Mar gave Silas a puzzled frown.
Understanding, and being the one that had drawn it up, Silas told him, “On the completion of the task that you swore to do for her, and on the condition that it forever remains under the name 'The Twist Ranch'…”
Ennis squinted at him, “The same name?”
From just outside the office door, Carl yelled out in frustration, “Will you shut up and let the man finish a sentence! DAMN! Ennis!”
Appropriately chastised, Ennis looked expectantly back at Silas.
Caine smiled, “Mr. Stoutamire, would you come in here please; I need a witness?”
Carl appeared at the door smiling from ear to ear. Caine moved a document with a gold seal on it across the desk and indicating a line with his finger instructing, “Sign there please.”
Still grinning Carl picked up a pen and scrawled his name where indicated.
Silas looked at a completely lost Ennis and asked, “Do you have a dollar on you Mr. del Mar?”
Mystified, Ennis dug into his jeans and pulled out four quarters he kept for vending machine Cokes and handed it over, struggling not to ask why.
Caine declared flatly, “From here you’re directed to drive Jack’s truck to Brokeback Mountain National Forest to scatter my cousin’s ashes. The moment they touch ground up there… I will notarize this bill of sale, stating that you have become the sole owner outright free of back taxes and liens of the Twist Ranch at 16905 D Road Lightning Flat, Wyoming, after you handed me the agreed upon purchase price of one U.S. dollar. Additionally I personally am assigning you the conditional task of completely destroying the house and all of the outbuildings on the property by fire; which was the dying wish of my client, with two exceptions; the pair of cherry trees on the lane leading to the house must not be touched and will be well cared for, and the livestock is to be sold so that you’ll have starting out money."
Ennis thought back to an old county fair ribbon for a cherry pie on Jack's boyhood wall and wondered. Caine had no further explanation.
The attorney continued, "When you return from completing your task on the mountain, you’re to go directly to the Signal City Savings and Trust on Morrison Rd., present this key to the bank manager and he’ll open a safe deposit box that was rented solely in your name by Jack Twist and later maintained by Martha Twist. If she knew what was in it, she carried that secret to her grave…
~ Chapter 28: Fulfillment, release and redemption
…It was a good truck It was a damned mother big truck and one that Ennis could only dream of owning until now. Since Jack’s death someone had carefully maintained it in top condition.
Ennis was impressed.
As he entered Brokeback Mountain National Forest, he couldn't stop looking over at the carefully packed container made of blue porcelain with Jack in it. Someone had taken some gold paint and in fancy scrip had lettered Jack Edward Twist 1944-1983 across it. Ennis spent the whole trip feeling its presence in the cab of the truck. It’d become such a distraction that he had to get out and place it carefully in the foot well of the back seat, encased in foam peanuts in a little cardboard box.
He hadn’t been up this road in a year and upon nearing the end of it, he was surprised to find a Park Service fire watchtower astride tall stilts on the horizon with an enclosed lookout nest on the very top of it rising high over the pines. It looked to be located in the very place where he and Jack pitched their tent at the edge of the water. The dirt road leading to it had been paved in asphalt and the stretch to the water’s edge overlooking their beloved mountain was now a public parking lot, with a few coin-activated binoculars on elevated stands for people to look out over the vista to Brokeback's peak.
Within minutes he was standing at the base of the tall wooden structure of the ranger’s tower. There was a patch of ground about 40-feet square of grass where the support logs had been driven securely into the ground.
Ennis considered climbing the narrow zigzagged stairs to the top and scattering the ashes to the wind from its encircled balcony, but was too weary to attempt it.
He settled down on a perimeter bench facing away from the plot of grass and decided that this was indeed exactly where their tent was last year, recalling how Jack said he’d picked it out special and considered it “his” place.
It had to be done here.
Maybe he’d save some back and scatter it up at the campsite where they made love that first time. The forest service no longer allowed grazing since the area had become a state game preserve and wolves had been recently reintroduced onto the mountain, so it’d probably stay relatively undisturbed. The wind picked up, sifting through the pines spreading their scent and memories of Jack.
Up near the timberline where the snow began to touch the impossibly tall lodge poll firs, a bare treeless patch was evident even from this far away. Though the previous spring had brought new growth, it was obvious, even at this distance that it must’ve been where Newsome’s plane hit and burned before snowmelt snuffed out the flames.
Grudgingly he had to admit that this was an ideal place to put the lookout tower if they wanted a good vantage point to spot fires on the mountain. Surveying the surroundings, he knew he had to hurry before someone came along. He didn’t know the legalities of spreading human ashes on public land but he didn’t want to risk it. Walking slowly and thoughtfully to Jack’s beloved truck, he opened the rear door and picked up the box placing it carefully on the back seat.
Just as he was about to open the cardboard flaps to pull the container out his eye caught something.
On the floor, just under the front seat was an audiocassette. He frowned and picked it up, then flipped it over to reveal in large black hand-printed letters ENNIS. He closed his eyes and his mind flashed back to the last day he saw Twist. This cassette had fallen out of his pocket onto the ground just as Jack had turned to leave. In a daze he walked around the truck, got in on the driver’s side, slipped the key in the ignition, and pushed the cassette into its slot in the radio.
The final strains of a song called "King of the Road" were just dying and then silence. A moment later the next song came on with a folk guitar and then strings as a male duet began singing. A horrible vision of Jack's bleeding body laying face up in a field of wheat, arms outstretched like a scarecrow that had fallen over filled his mind. Within minutes the lyrics of the second verse destroyed him and he felt Jack’s tortured ghost singing them to him from the dead. As his nose clogged, Ennis began sobbing in acid tears with his head against the steering wheel. It was clear to Ennis that these were songs that reminded Jack of him probably played while driving on long trips.
Click the player and then follow the lyrics below...
Oh I dreamed last night I was hearing, hearing your voice
And the things that you said well they left me, left me no choice
And you told me we had the power
And you told me this was the hour
But you don't know how - if I could show you now.
Well I dreamed last night you were calling, calling my name
You were locked inside of your secrets, calling my name
And you told me lost was the key
And you told me how you longed to be free
But you don't know how - Oh let me show you now
Like a bird on a far distant mountain
Like a ship on an uncharted sea
You are lost in the arms that have found you
Don't be afraid - Love's plans are made
Oh don't be afraid
If there's a time and a place to begin love
It must be now
Let it go - set it free
Oh I dreamed last night I was hearing, hearing your voice
Why did you say those things that have left me, left me no choice
When you told me we had the power, why did you tell me now was the hour
But you don't know how - oh let me show you now
Like a bird over Brokeback mountain
Like a ship on an uncharted sea
You are lost in the arms that have found you
Oh don't be afraid
Love's plans are made
Don't be afraid
If there's a time
And a place to begin love
It must be now
Let it go
Set it free
Oh I dreamed last night I was hearing – hearing your voice.
At the death of the final violin chord Ennis felt completely destroyed and turned off the key before the next song could torment him further. Wiping away tears he got out, walked around the truck, and then opened the box's flaps with shaking hands. He carefully pulled the urn out and paced back to the spot in the exact middle of the grass directly beneath the lofty platform.
He closed his eyes and said the Lord’s Prayer.
It took him a second to figure out how to open it, but once he did, he stared fascinated at the sight of Jack’s remains. This amount of grit was all that remained of a full-grown man and his life.
Something was stealing his breath away as if Jack had come back from the dead and was sitting on his chest. “You were locked inside of your secrets calling my name…”
Nodding after deciding to save half for the spot where they made love the first time in the high pasture, he hesitated and pushed his hand into the ashes. A roar filled his ears as his fingers touched something solid inside and he jerked his hand out, fascinated by the tan dusty grit that came out with it.
A tooth, a piece of bone, or his wedding ring?
Again he pushed his hand in and pulled out an inch-square flat piece of lead with a number stamped on it; A crematory serial number to keep track of the remains insuring against a mix up.
Carefully he began scattering, crying burning tears and sniffing to clear his sinuses. In his mind’s eye Jack appeared as he last saw him at the water’s edge. He kept scattering until he figured about half of its contents were on the ground and then he carefully screwed the top back on, cautiously putting it down on the first step of the stairs leading upward to the lookout platform high above. He’d save some back to take home with him. He thought of tasting the residue on his hand, to have Jack within him, but didn’t know if it’d be poisonous and he had something to live for now, his own ranch.
It was coming…
He could feel it, like vomit rising from his very soul instead of his stomach.
Oh I dreamed last night you were calling… calling my name
He couldn’t stop it.
He couldn’t stop it!
Running in panic, he got to the water’s edge and thrust his hand in to rinse it away but that didn’t help. Weakly he collapsed to his knees and bowed his head as incredibly intense sorrow washed over him.
It’s coming
It’s coming!
Suddenly and uncontrolled, a horrendous and primal full-out scream escaped his throat as he yelled, “JAAAAAAAAACK,” with burning tears streaming down his face. Without warning another came as he bellowed out loudly a 2nd uncontrolled cry for his lost love as if he’d finally found a release of all the pent up grief and sorrow flowing from him like acid verbal vomit.
His sorrow in not finding the courage to tell Jack he loved him out loud, though he knew Jack needed to hear it. His shame at believing that he loved Alma. The hurt, the regrets and the things unsaid flowed out of him in those two screams, cleansing his soul.
As he collapsed back against one of the binocular platforms, unseen feet behind him pounded down the stairs from above and across the parking lot toward him.
Ennis kept his wet eyes tightly closed not caring who it was and even as strong arms silently pulled him to his feet, cradling him to keep him from falling, he didn’t open them. Blindly he was carefully helped to walk/stumble to the foot of the tower’s stairs by a gentle male voice who softly guided him, made him sit down and then rocked him to and fro in his arms carefully as more scalding tears gushed from Ennis’ eyes as if the hot lava flow would never stop.
Bowing his head, he looked and saw a neatly pressed forest ranger’s uniform. As he focused with his liquid encased eyes, a man maybe only a year or two younger than he, appeared in a tear-soaked blur.
With incredibly comforting arms, the stranger continued rocking him back and forth, till del Mar quieted down.
Somewhere in the distance a horse sputtered. Ennis thought that he was alone because no other vehicles were in the parking lot, he forgot about horses.
He tried to speak, to thank the comforting ranger but his throat was too sore and hoarse to utter a sound. The park fire warden was his height, maybe ten pounds lighter and solidly built. His hair was a shade longer than usual, but that was the style nowadays. The brief glimpse of his badge said John or maybe Jack something but he still couldn’t focus enough to read it.The man wore a concerned and comforting expression and held Ennis’ head tenderly to his solid chest. They sat there quietly for a minute or two and Ennis began feeling uncomfortable in a stranger’s arms. In puzzlement the stranger asked, “How did you know my name sir?”
Completely lost, Ennis looked at the mountain peak in front of them and replied, “You... your name?”
Still sitting beside him, the man answered, “You were calling to me just now, you screamed it out so loud I fell out of my chair up there.”
Suddenly the ranger stood up with a shocked gasp from where they were sitting at the foot of the stairs. Ennis looked up to find him clutching the fallen urn, gawking in near fascinated horror at the name printed on it. He must’ve knocked it over rushing down the steps and now held it as if terrified of dropping it. Getting his first good look at him, Ennis suddenly realized what the fire warden was holding and grabbed it viscously away, backing up a few steps.
Incredibly the stranger was now the one hyperventilating. Both at once realized they’d met the other but couldn’t figure out where. Ennis dimly remembered a church social picnic nine or ten years ago with Alma. They hadn’t seen each other in long years so it was natural that they didn’t recognize each other right away. As Jack gasped for breath, he asked in awe, “You can’t be… You just can’t be Ennis del Mar?”
Surprised out of reaction, Ennis only managed a nod. The park ranger reached in his back pocket for his wallet and pulled out a tiny piece of carefully folded newsprint. Ennis frowned as he read the ranger’s name badge again. John-Jack Aguirre.
Del Mar’s addled brain finally put the pieces together. Twist said it was his second time on Brokeback. Jack Aguirre was that first kid that Twist had spent the summer with up here tending sheep in 1962!
They sat down on the bench and for the next hour the story came out of Aguirre as a 16 year old, who'd fastened his first adolescent crush on Jack Twist, but the rodeo hero wouldn’t respond. One night the teen tried to pull Twist’s clothes off and make love to him, but Jack woke with a start and nearly beat the hell out of Johnny-Jack Aguirre.
From then on they slept separately, one in the camp tent and one in the pup tent with the sheep. His father Joe found out about the arrangement but if he knew why, he never let on and through the years kept it up to cut down on predator loss.
The resulting daily sorrow and depression of seeing his first love every day, and suffering from unrequited love was too much for him. Day after day, week after week of not be able to touch him and to know he didn't feel the same way towards him was more than he could bear. The young and foolish teen almost succeeded at committing suicide that late July by jumping off of a cliff, but only hurt himself badly. After all that time, Jack still felt the resentment at being blamed by his father for the incident.
Ennis told him about his long-term love affair with Twist and its aftermath and as the afternoon wore on, without warning the two men’s souls gradually molded together.
That night they traveled up the mountain together and spread the rest of Jack’s ashes, saving back a small amount for themselves to take home. Ennis fell apart and began weeping uncontrollably, and while Jack comforted him tenderly they made love their first time on Brokeback Mountain. Both believed that Twist was nodding approval from somewhere above.
From that moment forward Ennis stopped living by that phrase his mama taught him. Instead when he faced a problem with his "new" Jack, they worked on solving it together with love.
When they drove back down the mountain, he played the tape to Jack. Aguirre later found it in a record store, and when he gave it to him, Ennis gasped at the title. It was a “solo/duet” album by the two Moody Blues lead singers Justin Hayward and John Lodge. The title of the album was “Blue Jays.” Lureen’s voice came back to haunt Ennis when she told him on the day he found out that Twist was dead that she thought that Brokeback Mountain was some pretend place where whiskey springs flowed and bluebirds sang. Obviously he’d played the song for her and she remembered it, but didn’t know why he liked the album so much.
Ennis left John Acquire to close up his affairs in preparation to moving to the Twist Ranch with him to assist with Martha’s final wishes and to help him rebuild his life.
So deep in thought was he, that he drove straight through Signal and headed north, then had to turn around and head back over to the bank.
The safe deposit box had been rented in such a way that both Jack and Ennis had access to it, even though it was solely in del Mar’s name. Apparently Twist had requested that the bank mail del Mar’s key to his mother up in Lightning Flat in 1970 for safekeeping. The contents were constantly being added to, and eventually it became so large that the assistant manager had to get help to bring the heavy metal strong box to a private booth set up in back next to the vault. The bulky old brass container measured 12” wide, was 24” front to back, and was 8” deep. The associate inserted her key into the top of it, then showed Ennis how to put his key in too so that it could be opened. Without another word, she and her assistant left him alone quietly closing the door behind themselves.
Ennis took a deep breath and prepared himself for Jack’s collected treasures that had been harvested for them to share.
Raising the hinged lid on the big metal box revealed some carefully folded writing paper, a torn and yellowed label from a can of Better Most pork and beans, and an unopened bottle of whiskey with a faded store receipt from 1967 taped to it with a note-“Do not open until we buy our new ranch.” Ennis smiled to himself, remembering he’d bought that bottle for Jack the night they reunited in Riverton so long ago, but they’d never opened it. Del mar choked back a sob as his eyes landed on an old beat up harmonica that brought tears running down his cheeks. Next to it in unopened clear plastic envelopes were five shiny belt buckles from his bull riding days. Another one lay out loose beside them and was careworn and beaten up, and Ennis recognized it as the one Jack wore on the mountain back all those years in 1963.
A crumpled piece of bank stationary held an unredeemed I.O.U. from Martha Twist to Jack for $200 in cash.
The bottom two thirds of the box contained something bulky enclosed in an oblong heavy dark green burlap bag.
After fondling the nicked and tarnished buckle, with shaking hands he picked up the 3-year-old letter that Jack appeared to rewrite every so often.
May 2nd, 1980
To my dear and only true love Ennis,
If you’re reading this, something must’ve happened to me, and my mama kept her promise to give you your key to this box. I guess I can tell you now that I’ve loved you with all my heart since the day I set eyes on you. Over the years you’ve made it hard on me my friend-my love, but I never lost hope that someday we’d buy that ranch together and settle down like it was meant to be. Since I’m no longer there, I’m leaving you a few things to remember me by. My fucking father-in-law dragged me into court on a lie that nearly destroyed my reputation and I made him pay big time. I’ve also been saving up for our ranch someday, but if you are reading this, then sadly I guess that someday will never come.
I’ve been salting money away a long time on hope, risking everything to take what was rightfully mine from that bastard, even if it meant embezzling it away from him. Rather than it getting all eat up with taxes I’ve put it all away for us here a little at a time, and now it’s all yours.
It sounds crazy to say this while I’m still breathing, but if you’re laying eyes on these words I must be dead, so I’ll watch over you from paradise until you stop walking on this earth and join me in heaven or hell whichever the case may be.
Embrace who and what you are my love. If you find a good man don’t make the same mistake you made with me. You made me fear that I'd lose you if I ever told you that I loved you. It caused more heartache than you could ever know. Tell him-Tell him out loud that you love him and that he means the whole world to you. That’s how I felt about you.
All my love for eternity... I'll always wait here for you.
Jack
Through clogged sinuses and burning tears Ennis shook his head and declared, "Jack... oh Jack... I... I'm so sorry... sorry I couldn't tell you... Oh Jack... I... I... loved you so much..."
After a moment more of profound grief, he pulled the heavy sack out of the box and gasped in awe.
The large canvas bag contained the entire $250,000 settlement from L.D. Newsome in cash, plus an additional $105,900, all in hundred dollar bills, that he’d stolen from the company over the last twenty years salting hundreds of dollars at a time from his monthly travel and expense accounts, first from his father-in-law and then from his wife.
Lureen Twist wasn't as good at the books as she thought she was.
As Ennis pulled the last bundle of cash out of the sack, he discovered another note on bank stationary in the very bottom of the big canvas bag, placed there as if it were hidden so that even Jack wouldn’t notice it was there.
Ennis and Jack,
On our ranch are two cherry trees that Jack planted for me for Mother’s day when he was a boy. It would surely give me great pleasure if you would harvest seed from them and plant a grove of them somewhere on your new ranch for me. I wanted to do it many years ago, but my husband wouldn’t let me.
Gratefully,
Martha Twist
Ennis closed his burning eyes and nodded his head in a silent promise, remembering her embrace that last time he saw her in his trailer. Some time after Jack started this nest egg, Martha had been here, and though the Twist Ranch was in bad shape, she never touched a penny of the money though she could have.
In a whisper Ennis said, “You were a great woman Martha Twist… A great mother.
~ Chapter 29: Jack Edward Twist IIThrough the rest of the 1980s, they rebuilt the Twist Ranch together. Johnny Jack Aguirre gave up his career as a forest ranger after a joining ceremony in San Francisco. While there, Ennis attended his very first Gay Pride parade. A month later, both went before a Wyoming judge and legally had a hyphen and Twist added to their last names, and in the process Aguirre switched his middle name with his first and became Jack Johnny Aguirre-Twist. Their marriage might not be valid, but they took the extra step of legally adopting each other for inheritance purposes, using Martha’s nephew Silas Caine to complete the procedures.
After two years of the estate being tangled up in court, Jack inherited one third of his late father’s business and sold his share, the proceeds going into a joint account marrying their finances together too. They built a fine home together where Jack Twist’s boyhood house had once stood. In 1984 Officer Laura Olsen moved north to live with them and the two men mixed their semen and then had her artificially impregnated at a clinic. She became an official live-in part of their family when Jack Edward Twist II was born in April of 1985.
Ennis and Jack started a horse breading business that became famous around the world when one of their mares produced a Triple Crown winner and others began winning international horse show blue ribbons.
Kurt and Alma Kirkwood briefly moved to Oklahoma after Kirk was promoted to field supervisor at the oil company, but after a couple of months of him being away for long stretches in the southwest and the Gulf of Mexico, they moved back to Lightning Flat so that Jack, Ennis and family could help her with their kids.
Jenny del Mar came out of the closet as a lesbian that year. She moved to Casper and began attending a community college there studying law enforcement. Jack and Ennis offered to pay for her tuition but she wanted to do it on her own. She met her lover Sarah there.
As years piled on years, a dual column of 37 well-spaced and well-tended seedlings grew and grew on both sides of the length of the long asphalt driveway to become a magnificent double row of trees displaying cherry blossoms every spring. There were also two much older ones that seemed out of place and not lined up with the others. They stood proudly side-by-side between the lane and a new horse barn. Including the trees lining the driveway, their number totaled 39; Jack’s age when he died. Twenty feet to the right of them stood a large black granite monument in a rectangle of tall-unmowed wild wheat. Ennis spared no expense and the memorial to Jack Twist stood three feet tall, five feet wide and was a foot thick front to back. It stood with its edge towards the lane, and while the side facing the street was blank, the side facing the house was inscribed JACK EDWARD TWIST.
Martha would’ve been pleased.
Every year the abundant fruit was harvested to be turned into jams, jellies, pies and cakes, and then sold, the money going to charity.
In 1990 Laura met and married University of Texas political science Prof. David Nails and moved to Austin, safely leaving young Jack to be raised by his two loving and doting fathers. With too many Jacks and Twists running around, his two fathers nicknamed their son “J.T.” Jack came up with the idea of giving 5-year-old JT a rescued baby Zebra as a gift for his birthday that year. Ennis swore his lover/husband would float away if he didn’t hold him to the ground with some of his crazy head-in-the-clouds ideas.
As it turned out, the gift had its advantages, teaching their son responsibility at a young age, and people who later became customers came from miles around to see little JT's pet, and before they knew it they had a very profitable breeding program going. JT got constant invitations to ride his “horse” in parades and to attend friend’s birthday parties.
The Nails down in Texas eventually had four children of their own and they, Monroe & Alma and their two children, Jack & Ennis and JT, Kirk & Junior and their six kids, and Jenny & her lover Sarah, all became a huge extended and close family traveling to, and celebrating every holiday and anniversary on the Twist Family Ranch together.
Eventually around the main house/office, a cluster of nice homes was built and ultimately the families all lived on the ranch. Ennis liked to call it his own private little Southfork after the “Dallas” TV show.
Young Jack grew up with more mothers, fathers and cousins than he could count. Over the years he learned gentleness, but also pride… and a good bit of stubbornness. He entered his teens with the sexy build of a slender but muscular horseman tempered with athletic genes from his mother's side that earned him interstate championships on his high school swim team two years in a row, votes of most popular student and Junior Prom King. He would go on to letter on the swim, tennis, baseball and wrestling teams and was the captain of the swim team his sophomore and junior year. Instead of the usual “fag” jokes around the locker room, his teammates were jealous of his two successful dads and were regular visitors to the ranch for parties and to ride the horses.
Needless to say he had two very proud fathers.
With the help of one visionary man, Lightning Flat began coming back from the dead, with semi-annual horse shows and traffic coming through from a new expressway. Monroe proved his business savvy by buying out abandoned adjoining ranches for back taxes owed, and then sold the combined land to an International Parcel Service for its new jet refueling hub's huge runway complex. Country roads were paved, businesses, apartment buildings and houses sprang up out of nowhere in (appropriately enough) lightning speed.
Monroe Monroe was appointed the first mayor of their newly invigorated town in 40 years, and Alma relished her new role as his first lady. His first act in office was to set tight city boundaries and to dub the outlying ranches around Lightning Flat as Twist Township.
The Twist Ranch began running classes in equestrian etiquette, riding and grooming, and the University of Wyoming even opened a branch school of veterinary medicine on a piece of donated land from Ennis and was dubbed the WSU-Twist Campus.
October 12, 1998 Ennis was shattered at the news of the hate crime murder of Matthew Shepard. An innocent young college student from Casper, Wyoming whose only crime was being gay. For that he was kidnapped, brutally tortured and then left to die all alone tied to a deer fence, just like Rich was so many years ago.
Ennis cried all night over the news and when he heard some religious asshole named Phelps planned a "God Hates Fags" rally at the funeral in front of the grieving parents, he and Jenny got a bunch of friends together and drove down to stage a counter protest. When Ennis and Jack arrived, they heard that a group was going to dress up like giant angels to hide the hate-filled picket signs and they contributed money to pay for the materials the huge wings were made of.
After the funeral, Ennis drove Jack down to his hometown of Sage to visit the site where Earl and Rich were killed and laid memorial wreaths there.
That same year, Monroe bought 60 acres of an unused part of the Twist spread on the main road and opened a commercial office complex from which he ran his chain of businesses. The group of office buildings would eventually become “downtown” Lightning Flat. Unlike Jack and Lureen’s marriage, Monroe and Alma were equal partners and Ennis loved watching her live the life she deserved that he could never have given her. Eventually she warmed up to Ennis and Jack as a couple and more often than not was mothering JT as much as his fathers.
When the professor retired in 2000 Laura, Dave and their four teenagers moved to the Twist Ranch’s main house, and while she helped run the day-to-day operations, Nails opened a successful Lightning Flat Dodge dealership from 25 acres of ranch land adjoining Monroe's, given to the couple as a Christmas present from the Twists.
Their kids that didn't work on the ranch all worked for one of the family businesses, and Ennis and Jack achieved their dream of being completely surrounded by love, family, kids and happiness.
Alma shocked the living hell out of Ennis one day in August by inviting him to a new bar in town she'd invested in with Monroe. Above the door was a big sign with JACK NASTY'S plastered across it. Lightning Flat had its first gay cowboy bar with Jenny and her lover Sarah in charge of it!!! Of course she laughingly had to explain what the name meant to a mystified Jack Aguirre-Twist.
~ Chapter 30: 12 months of celebration, death and destruction
On September 25th of 2000, Kurt Kirkwood, who’d just turned 40, lay in a drug-induced coma at the brand new Lightning Flat General Hospital after suffering multiple concussions. If he could survive anywhere, this state-of-the-art facility was it. The staff had set aside a comfortable conference room for his wife and six teenaged children as the rest of the large extended Twist family gathered to console Alma Junior.
It began a month before when Kirk started having nightly violent nightmares after discovering the first Jack Twist's old Chevy Silverado stored in a distant storage shed under a tarp. He gasped in shock when he saw dried blood and brain matter on the front fender, but inspecting it closer only revealed dried mud. That night he thrashed around in his sleep and then woke up screaming. He mentioned finding it to Ennis the next afternoon, who confirmed that it was indeed "the" Silverado.
A few days later Junior confided to her father that she was convinced that based on what he was mumbling in his sleep, Kirk thought that Jack was out to kill him in revenge for something. Of course Ennis’ husband was flabbergasted when he was told this. While they weren’t the best of friends, Jack and Kirk always seemed to get along.
A few nights later Jenny’s lover Officer Sarah Spencer discovered him sitting in front of a huge bonfire in a wooded area just outside of town. He seemed to be in a daze, and the fire department had to be called out before it spread to the surrounding fields. The situation escalated a day later when his son Josh found him out by the granite memorial pounding his head against the black stone, mumbling and crying. Though his head was swollen and bleeding from the self-inflicted beating, Kirk refused to go to the hospital.
Junior was beside herself with worry.
Three days later in the middle of the night Kirk climbed to the highest branch of the left memorial tree and began screaming, “I’m sorry!” at the night sky. It took a ladder and three ranch hands to get him down, but that wasn’t the worst of it. The following night a violent lightning storm hit and Junior came to the main house frantic. Half an hour later in a heavy downpour JT found Kirk by chance standing on the horse barn’s slippery wet roof repeatedly screaming at the sky, “FIND ME, KILL ME! I’m sorry Jack!”
While they waited for the fire department to come with a ladder truck, JT climbed out of a skylight in the roof, tied himself to a tall spike at the peak and carefully edged his way behind Kirk. As rain pounded and almost continuous lightning cracked loudly overhead, the Twist men watched in astonishment as their son leapt forward and caught Junior’s husband just as he was about to topple over the edge.
As the violent thunderstorm raged and the ambulance rushed Kirkwood to the hospital, a shaking and cussing Jack grabbed JT and slapped him hard across the face. It was the first time the young man had ever been physically hit by either of his fathers. An angry Ennis had to be pulled off his husband. Only then did a horrified Jack explain his absolute terror that their unthinking son had carelessly tied himself with a soaking wet rope to one of the lightning rods atop the barn...
...As Ennis sat in the conference room waiting with his daughter on word of Kirk’s condition, the pieces of the puzzle fell into place with ghastly results.
Years ago when the black granite monument to the first Jack Twist arrived, Kurt offered to go down to supervise the placement by the memorial trees and had gotten into an argument with the workers. Ennis had instructed that it be placed way out in the spot where he’d seen the scorched field, but Kirk insisted that it go where the old driveway used to be thirty feet closer to the trees, approximately where Jack supposedly would’ve died next to his truck. All this time later it never occurred to Ennis to wonder how Kirkwood knew where Jack died, unless he either witnessed it, or had done the job himself.
It wasn't Jack Aguirre-Twist that Kurt was terrified of; it was the ghost of the man who grew up on the very ranch that Kirk now lived, seeking revenge.
Another piece of the puzzle fell into place when Ennis recalled that Jenny had reported that the police wanted to question Kirk about a badly decomposed skeleton and an unregistered handgun that had been discovered not far from where Sarah had happened upon Kirk's huge bonfire while she was out on patrol.
Kirk suddenly died of a brain hemorrhage two days later. Ennis suffered with his suspicions for days after the funeral, but never told anyone about them; eventually taking it to his grave that Kurt had probably killed Jack Twist Sr.
In the months that followed grieving Junior recovered with the help of her kids and their huge extended family.
Life went on with horse shows and increased business at the ranch. Lightning Flat thrived too.
In 2001 at the age of 16 after getting his driver’s license on his first try, JT was presented with an old truck they’d been storing in a barn and had quietly kept in good running condition… Jack Twist’s 1982 brown and tan Silverado club cab bearing brand new vanity plates... his initials J-E-T.
Though biologically unconnected, he somehow wound up looking amazingly like his namesake. A few girls broke his heart in high school - par for the course - but then again he broke a few of his own... dating both boys and girls until he settled on girls. He'd also somehow inherited the "hustler/sex tease" instinct of the original Jack Twist down to his black cowboy hat, and used his practiced smile and athletic good looks to influence people, which meant almost never wearing a shirt and only buying low-rise jeans.
For obvious reasons the high school yearbook was clogged with photos of him in only a skimpy white Speedo during swim meets, white tights during wrestling team matches, or very brief blue jean shorts while cheering this school team or that from the stands. When he joined the tennis team, girls bought out the ticket allotment for every home game just to see him in those tight white shorts of his... and he knew it.
He decided at sixteen that he wanted to go to college to learn the proper way to keep his fathers’ business going and make them proud of him. Eventually by his senior year several universities were courting him for their swim teams, and even talk of the Olympics came up.
September of 2001, they all knew they'd hit the big time one Monday when an extra panel was added to the local expressway exit that read, "TWIST RANCH - WSU COMPLEX-NEXT EXIT." The only one not at the ceremony was Monroe, who’d flown to New York City on Chamber of Commerce business to talk to LandSpeed Parcel Service about leasing part of Lightning Flat’s refueling hub’s runways.
Early the next morning Alma came pounding on the front door of the main house screaming at the top of her lungs in hysterics and it took Ennis and Jack ten minutes to calm her enough to find out what was wrong. She ran to their living room and turned on the TV. It was the awful Tuesday September 11, 2001 that two hijacked airliners slammed into the World Trade Center. In shock the whole extended family gathered at Ennis & Jack’s to watch the tragedy unfold. No one could reach Monroe on his cell because service was down. Just after the first tower fell, Monroe called from a payphone to say he was all right, but terrified for his life. After all vehicle traffic was halted, he was one of the people who got out of the city by walking across the Brooklyn Bridge, but was stranded there until the FAA reopened the airports days later.
JT refused to leave the television for days afterward skipping school. He’d sit switching from station to station for more details, or pace the room like a caged tiger with balled up fists and gritted teeth. A tense week was spent talking a livid JT out of quitting high school to join the army to get revenge on “those fucking sandniggers.”
His fathers were shocked enough at the use of the term to have more than one talk with their teenaged son about it... though they could understand his anger. He was only 16 and for months afterward there was a tension between he and his fathers after they refused to sign the papers needed to allow him to enlist in the military as a minor.
In the months that followed, Alma Junior opened up a daycare center in one of Monroe’s unused offices downtown. Jack taught Ennis and JT how to ski, and life settled back into a routine.
In 2003 a college recruiter presented JT with a new Pontiac Trans-Am with California vanity plates that said “SWIM-JET” for his 18th birthday. He would star on their NCAA swim team and major in business with a minor in animal husbandry and veterinary medicine. He competed the next year in the 2004 Olympics at the age of 19 with his proud family in the stands but didn't medal. Afterward, he reduced his study load his junior year to a bare minimum in order to go into intensive training for the 2008 Olympics.
After selling the bar, Jenny joined the police force.
In 2004 JT suffered a serious shoulder injury in Los Angeles during an outing with friends when the car they were in was broadsided by a city bus, ending his swimming career. He decided to return to UCLA full time for his masters in Business Administration.
…Alma died after a long fight with lung cancer in 2005 because of her chain smoking. Monroe renamed the main street through town after her. He later retired from his duties as mayor and threw himself into his grocery chain, expanding into Utah, Montana and Idaho.
As they grew into their sixties, it was decided that Ennis became “Dad” to everyone who knew him and Jack became “Pop.” Ennis J. del Mar-Twist and Jack J. Aguirre-Twist were now respected members of the community.
Life went on…
~ Chapter 31: Together
January of 2006. With JT away in college, Ennis and Jack began throwing themselves full force into their ranch business to keep from suffering “empty nest syndrome.” They had gotten into a verbal fight over something so trivial that neither could remember what it was really about. Ennis had started it, not wanting to buy a horse that Jack thought would make a good investment sire. That graduated to an argument over post-Christmas bills and some project Ennis was working on with the Lightning Flat Chamber of Commerce that Jack thought was a waste of time.
They’d always leaned on each other, one’s interests always dovetailed the other’s and over the years they fought a lot. Not out of spite, but out of passion. They both stubbornly cared deeply enough to refuse to back down on things they were committed to. As with any relationship, if their love weren’t as deep as it was they’d never argue about anything because they didn't care enough to.
Jack was the money man, always fretting over finances, where Ennis was more interested in the heart of an animal than its worth. That was the secret of their success as businessmen, because one was tailored to whatever interest best suited a particular customer.
To a stranger these verbal battles might have seemed like hatred, but the family knew it was passion-pure and simple. Most envied them their marital bond. Inevitably when things got too strained between them, they’d take off by themselves for Brokeback Mountain National Forest for a week or so and leave the business to Laura…
…They’d bought Don Rhoe’s log hunting cabin a few years back, expanded it to include a small horse shed on the side, and fixed it up nice and comfortable. It was one big room-thirty feet square with a primitive propane kitchen on one side and a huge fireplace on the other that they’d laid together fieldstone by fieldstone. It was a far cry from the camp tents of an earlier day, but as they got up in years it was better to sleep inside and dry, especially now that winter was here.
In the middle of the bare log and very masculine interior was a cheap foldout couch with two end tables, battery operated lamps and an old braided rug that Laura had handmade years ago. The walls were decorated with pictures of little JT growing up, a custom oil painting that Don had done just for them, and their favorite horses, peppered here and there with stuffed trophy heads of an elk or a deer that they’d bagged on hunting trips.
A few days after they’d arrived, Ennis suddenly jolted awake in the dark interior of the cabin. He looked curiously around the room lit only by the flickering fireplace bouncing off the dark walls.
What had woke him?
Through the windows a midnight blue hue shown barely past the curtains. He yawned and stretched his old bones, then rolled over to face Jack still sound asleep and snoring softly. As he reached to caress his lover’s hair tenderly a distant gun blast jolted him upright. That startled Jack awake too. A huge antique hunter’s grandfather clock chimed 6AM in deep bass gongs.
Jack reached for his cell phone and hit speed dial. “Gary?” he asked, after a couple of rings. “We just heard your poachers. They’re,” he paused and looked curiously at Ennis, who pointed toward the front door. “They’re about half a mile or so north of us.”
After a few brief exchanges, Jack clicked the phone closed and pulled his naked lover to him. In a loving embrace Ennis frowned and whispered in his ear, “You know, I can’t remember the last time I told you I loved you, huh?”
Jack smiled in the flickering dark and planted a tender kiss on Ennis’ lips and replied, “We say it every day to each other.”
Ennis nodded against his shoulder.
Jack began kissing down Ennis’ chest and just as he reached his abdomen they were startled upright by an even louder twin blast of gunfire.
Ennis bared his teeth and spat out between them, “Fuck!”
Jack shot a concerned look towards the door and shook his head. “Those idiots’ll bring the whole damn mountain down on us if we don’t do something!”
They both jumped out of bed and quickly dressed. Jack grabbed a shotgun and tossed its twin to Ennis, then grabbed a pair of binoculars as they shrugged into their coats and headed outside.
They paused on foot a hundred feet north of the cabin. All was blanketed with two feet of new snow and an ear-ringing silence. As Jack scanned completely around them, the only movement was gray steamy smoke wafting gently into the morning air from their chimney.
Ennis beside him spotted their buried truck and wondered if it’d start.
A brisk wind whipped up and swayed the tall pines, spraying the two men with falling clumps of accumulated snow from the branches.
“There!” exclaimed Jack softly, pointing northwest along the flanks of a cliff. He handed the binoculars to Ennis who took a look and nodded.
Three teenaged boys were laughing and having a snowball fight in a clearing. One tried to play baseball and began batting at pitches with his rifle.
Ennis shook his head in disapproval, looked back towards the shed and thought of mounting the horses, but Jack grabbed his shoulder and said, “Come on old man; we could use the exercise.”
After about half an hour of trudging through the snow, they found them, gave them a stern lecture about risking an avalanche with their gun blasts and sent them on their way.
When they got back to the cabin, Jack went inside to start breakfast. Ennis detoured to check the horses and made sure they had enough to eat. As the smell of bacon, sausage and eggs wafted from the cabin, Ennis headed toward their old truck. They weren’t planning to leave for a few more days, but it was a good idea to get the thing running for a while every few days to keep the battery charged.
As the snow began turning light blue to match the brightening sky, he found the pickup. It took him a couple of minutes to dig around the door so he could get it open, and once he was in, fluffy and cold snow invaded the interior with him. The dome light was bright, which was a good sign.
He fished out his key and turned it expectantly. The starter grinded reluctantly and the motor coughed and almost caught, but not quite.
He tried it again, and this time it turned over. He had to play his foot on the pedal to keep it running, but after a minute or two it purred like a kitten.
Ennis reached over and hit the windshield wiper switch, and laughed as the blades uselessly slogged back and forth once and then stopped beneath two feet of snow. He’d wait till they left before he cleaned it off; right now he just wanted to make sure the battery was charged. While he waited and watched for the temperature gauge to rise, he fiddled with the radio and got a good station, stomping his feet to get the snow off of them to the beat.
About five minutes later when the temp gauge was still unenthusiastic, he gunned the motor to encourage the thermostat to open. As it backfired loudly, he grinned as the needle finally woke up. He hit the heater and warm air wafted from the vents as he pulled his gloves off to warm his hands. Soon he’d have to crack the door open or start breathing carbon monoxide.
Over the radio and the heater fan he thought he barely heard, “Ennis!”
Jack was probably calling him to breakfast.
He opened the door to see Jack urgently pointed upward and back behind the cabin. He frowned and turned off the truck.
“Be right there babe!” he called out in a hungry tone.
As he struggled out of the truck, he heard Jack scream frantically for him in a panic he'd never heard his husband use before, “EEEENNIS!”
Above them came a low rumble like a jet flying over; only it was constant and getting louder.
He didn’t have to look; he knew. The whole mountain was coming down.
There was no time to decide if they were safer outside than in. Jack was in the cabin so that’s where Ennis needed to be. He took off running, crying in terror, as the rumbling got louder. Ennis could feel the ground begin to throb beneath his hurried feet.
He had seconds.
It hit just as the door slammed behind them. It was so loud they actually couldn’t hear it. The pines took the brunt of it, but the huge tall trees collapsed against the cabin. Everything went dark, as the beams began loudly creaking above them, Jack grabbed at his phone on the end table and dialed.
Instantly the roof pancaked in on them. Ennis lost consciousness to the sound of a 911 operator asking what the emergency was. All around them became a smothering silence…
…Ennis woke up sometime later in a coughing fit. Something was pressing hard against his chest and it ached to try to breathe. He was still in the dark and found himself in a space that stretched beyond his reach in all directions but seemed to be only about eight inches tall. Smoke was burning his lungs; probably the fireplace collapsed but the embers were still producing smoke.
He tried to pull himself along the floor but something had his left ankle trapped and he couldn’t move. Above him wood was creaking loudly in the dark and ice cold water was dripping in.
He stretched as much as he could and suddenly panicked, “Jack?” he called out weakly and had a coughing fit from the soot he’d inhaled.
Everything remained silent.
He wondered how long he’d been out and tried to rub at his aching head.
From somewhere behind him a horse was continuously crying out in pain. In his tiny space he began stretching his hand out, painfully at first from bruised muscles. He encountered one of the legs from the couch and a cold cast iron frying pan. For it to be that cold, he had to have been out for a while; maybe more than an hour. In the choking smoke darkness he kept exploring and saw the hint of pale blue.
At first he thought it was the morning light leaking in, but realized it was the screen of Jack’s cell phone. He painfully reached in its direction and froze as he encountered a hand with a wedding ring on it.
His sinuses clogged and he moaned, "Nooooo, no Jack, please no," painfully in anguish as burning tears ran down his face.
Jack’s hand was stone cold... His lover was dead,
As the smoke got thicker, Ennis called out, repeatedly croaking out his husband's name, and choked out his grief, bawling and begging God to show him he was wrong, until he passed out himself…
…JT was in his frat house's shower trying to wake up. It was his birthday and he was trying to prepare for what pranks the brothers inevitably would be pulling on him all day.
Through the steam, his roommate Bob Lohert called out “Jack!”
Turning off the water he frowned and saw Bob was thrusting JT's cell phone at him.
Preparing himself, he rolled his eyes and asked, “Yes?”
A weak voice barely grunted out, “Jack?”
He laughed, "Nice try asshole," and tossed the phone back at his roommate, then turned the water on again…
…In the smothering dark, Ennis gritted his teeth in pain and redialed, barely able to read the blood-smeared display.
It rang several times.
JT finally answered, probably only after he saw who was calling on the I.D.
“Son?”
“Where are you?”
………….”We’re, we’re on the mountain… ah… a… aval…lance... cabin crush...crushed... trapped.”
JT's chest tightened as he begged, “Pop? ...nooooo.” Acid tears stung his eyes and rolled down his face.
“Never forget how mu…. much we love you son.” The line went dead as Jack's cell batteries gave out.
Panicked frat brothers rushed in from all over the house as loud and anguished primal screams, seemingly coming from a slaughtered wild animal came from down in their shower room. The strong, naked and wet madman they found on the floor was almost impossible to subdue as fists and feet flailed aimlessly and wild, blindly connecting randomly in bruising pain with chests and heads.
Within moments, six determined college men piled onto him holding, hugging, calming and comforting him with their weight and their tears before he could hurt himself.
Jack and Ennis were no strangers to them.
A week later the Forest Service found JT's parents in the rubble, still clutching hands. The coroner said that Jack had died instantly when a beam crushed his head. Ennis died sometime later of smoke inhalation.
They died as they’d lived for over 22 years, happy, in love and together. They were buried together beside two old cherry trees in a plot out by the horse barn just off the lane leading to the main house. Jack Twist's memorial headstone was now also the loving couple's headstone. Above their names on the side that faced the street in curved scrip read their family’s proud motto: “If you can’t stand it-You gotta fix it.”
In the wreckage of the cabin was an old 36” x 24” oil painting crumpled and torn roughly in half; fire-damaged when the roof collapsed where it hung over the fireplace. From behind shattered glass and a mangled wooden hunter’s frame peered a young Ennis, Jack Twist, and John-Jack Aguirre, all in their twenties. Ennis stood in the middle with his arms stretched across both his men’s shoulders and all sported big grins. Behind them majestic snow-covered Brokeback Mountain rose above lodgepole pines. Rhoe had painted it from memory as a gift for the husbands when the couple bought the cabin from him.
It went thoughtlessly into a big dumpster with the rest of the debris from where they dug the bodies out of the rubble never to be seen again. John, Ennis and Don were the only ones who knew it even existed.
Tucked within Ennis del Mar-Twist's coffin was Jack Twist's denim shirt; in its breast pocket a tiny bit of gritty ash. Tucked within Jack Aguirre-Twist's coffin was Ennis del Mar's bloody white plaid shirt also with a tiny bit of gritty ash within its breast pocket...
~ Epilogue: He was a friend of mine...
E-mail June 12, 2006,
Friend, I know it’s an imposition but I could really use a big favor from you. JT’ll be home from UCLA on break and he’s going to be really torn up on the six-month anniversary of both his father’s deaths. I see you’re on tour through the northwest and I was hoping you could stop by and help us cheer him up—I’d owe you big time buddy. Steve----
Steve Essex had moved into the main house of the Twist Ranch to assume full time control over the operations after the owners had died. In 2002 Jack and Ennis had recruited the highly qualified veterinarian after he’d fled his job up in Montana because the local county child welfare threatened to take his young daughter because he lived with another man who was rumored to be gay. Aguirre and del Mar moved Essex’s family to Lightning Flat to take over the day-to-day operation of their horse-breeding program a month later.
It was the best decision they’d ever made, because within months Steve had brought in all kinds of celebrities as customers, and Ennis and Jack specified in their updated will, that until the JT graduated college, Essex would assume control of the ranch in the event of their deaths.
As the warm June sun rose across the pasture, Laura’s shadow traced her steps to the main office. JT had been home for two days and she figured she’d take him out to see a movie or something to take his mind off his fathers’ deaths six months ago today.
As she entered the book-lined air-conditioned room through the back door, Steve looked up from his desk computer and smiled, a phone cradled on his shoulder while he jotted down notes on a pad. She used to tell him he reminded her of a 40-year-old Steve McQueen, especially the blue eyes. He was busy ordering something from a supply house in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, so she plopped herself down in Ennis’ old office chair and snapped on the computer.
While she waited, her eyes wandered to a photo of Dad, JT, Pop and herself. Young Jack had Ennis’ eyes and mouth, but he had the Aguirre nose, dark hair and chin. She’d often thought of having DNA testing done on her son to see who the real father turned out to be, but the three of them wouldn’t hear of it, preferring not to know and by coincidence Ennis and Jack were both the same blood type.
Steve got off the phone and looked over at Laura.
She looked up towards the ceiling and asked him, “Is he?”
Essex nodded.
Laura moved to get up and Steve stopped her with a look. “Let him grieve,” he said gently. “He’s got to work it out for himself.”
Since coming home day-before-yesterday, JT had spent both nights sleeping upstairs in his fathers’ room, barely making a sound, only coming out for a snack or two, but keeping mostly to himself. Laura tried to coax him once, but he wouldn’t’ go out to their grave…
...Bobby Twist had turned 42 a week ago. He’d inherited his mother’s farm equipment business, but others ran it for him. He used to be a damned good salesman and represented his company well, but he didn’t have it inside for hard business deals like his mom did.
He’d inherited his late father’s good looks and was a spitting image of him minus the mustache.
He had one quirk though that none of his friends could figure out, the result of a cruel joke that no one knew about that’d follow him the rest of his life. On his twenty-first birthday, his late grandfather's lawyers presented him with a trust fund of almost two million dollars and a package containing a single item that he would treasure that’d been kept in a bank safety deposit box for him away from any snooping detectives.
When the old tire iron wasn’t mounted up on his office wall, he carried it with him whenever he traveled as a memento and a sick "good luck charm"; a souvenir of his barely remembered father. It’d give people pause when they’d find it going though airport baggage checks or some hotel maid would see it sitting on a dresser and call security on him.
L.D. enclosed a note in the box telling him it was the last thing that his father Jack was holding when he was killed by that exploding tire and that the coroner had to pry it out of his hands.
Little did Bobby know that it actually was one of three murder weapons, along with a post bristling with nails and a wooden baseball bat, both of which had been burned when the wheat was torched to hide his father's blood. That old son-of-a-bitch was the only one that knew that this very tire iron was what L.D. used to deliver the first blow when they killed his father.
The two "good 'ol boys" that'd helped with the killing disappeared a few days later... no one knew or cared what had become of them.
One day a few months into 2004, a bunch of Crook County and Wyoming State Police detectives showed up at the Twist ranch with a search warrant regarding the 21-year-old murder, and left with some of Jack Senior's clothes and possessions, saved by Ennis before the house was burned.
By then Ennis had worn the old gold Rolex for so long, it never occurred to him to hide it anywhere but on his wrist, and fortunately the cops overlooked it. As the years had gone by, DNA technology improved. Two months before investigators had shown up at the Twist ranch, an airport security guard noticed blood and a hair on the carefully and unfortunately lovingly preserved tire iron, which turned out after testing to be the elder Jack's after comparing it with old hospital records.
The only fingerprints on it were Bobby's.
It also came out in court that Jack's boy had pawned and later redeemed his father's diamond-encrusted wedding ring at a Las Vegas shop a short time ago in order to pay gambling debts. The prosecutor would cast damning suspicion on the jury as to how he'd gotten that ring, and he was circumstantially convicted of killing his father and sentenced to 50 years to life.
After the trial the two shirts that Ennis treasured were returned. It was proven that the blood was over forty years old and was Ennis' – not Jack’s. Del Mar-Twist never found out how the return of that wedding band had condemned Bobby.
Documents were presented that L. D. Newsome had contacted Child Protective Services and told them that his son-in-law had repeatedly, savagely and sexually abused and tortured his young grandson. The results of that trial were judged inadmissible by the court, falsely leaving the jury with a strong motive for young Bobby to kill his father years later.
The absence of a body has been the basis of several appeals, but to this day Jack's son sits in a prison under a life sentence for a murder he didn't commit hoping for another appeal that'll never come... Newsome's method of getting rid of a bastard son of that faggot son-in-law of his and a way of cutting all ties so his daughter could start over again. Then they died in that plane crash.
L.D. Newsome has looked up from Hell every day since, and laughed his head off…
...The clock radio said 9:14 AM when JT woke up.
He’d fallen asleep in his clothes again in his fathers’ giant bed that barely fit in the 18x20 room. By the morning light streaming through the windows, he found himself surrounded by his own images on every wall. It was a testament to the strong love of both his doting dads that their room would be decorated like this.
Everywhere were baby pictures, school photos, images of him in uniform on all of his high school teams, photos of he and his girlfriend just before they left for the senior prom and of course his trophies. Between the two dresser mirrors were the framed letter from UCLA accepting his application and a Joining Certificate from the Metropolitan Community Church of San Francisco from Johnny-Jack and Ennis’ marriage.
His dads never got to see him transfer to WSU-Twist for his animal husbandry classes.
He bowed his head sadly, stripped, took a shower and shaved.
Returning to their bedroom, he put on fresh jeans from his still unpacked suitcase and a clean gray sweatshirt. On the twin side-by-side dressers were photos of his fathers kissing, holding hands, posing in front of this or that prize-winning horse with all kinds of celebrities and politicians. There was also a faded black and white snapshot of the elder Jack Twist from when he was a bull rider. In a vertical column on the wall were attached six shiny silver and gold rodeo belt buckles all naming various championship events between 1962 and 1966 and JACK TWIST in big letters engraved on them. The bottommost one was beaten and battered but Ennis had lovingly polished the tarnish off of it to a mirror finish.
Young Jack pondered how sad it was that neither Jack Twist Sr. nor Ennis ever posed together for photos way back when, mostly because neither could think of a safe place to store them where their families wouldn’t find them.
Family
Uncle Kyle and Aunt Cornelia had both disowned Ennis years ago after getting invitations to his queer wedding. After the ranch became famous and financially successful, both tried to reestablish a relationship with their brother, but Ennis would hear nothing of it. K.E. even went so far as to try to have Ennis’ will discarded on the grounds that he was incompetent because of his homosexuality. The judge instantly laughed in his face and threw the lawsuit out after reviewing how well the ranch had been run.
He sat down sadly on the edge of the mattress and remembered crawling often into this bed in the middle of the night between his two loving fathers during a scary lightning storm, or because he was lonely. On the left dresser was a light cream-colored cowboy hat, old and battered. Dad had worn it since he could remember.
He smiled at the portable CD player next to the window. He’d fought long and hard to drag both of his fathers into the 21st century and when they finally bought the thing Dad would only play Patsy Cline or Willie Nelson, and Pop favored Bob Dylan and the Doors.
He bent forward double and wept bitterly again at their loss. Unlike his fathers before him, he grew up allowed to express his emotions freely and without shame.
Outside, the sound of a clattering diesel truck motor pulled up under the window. JT got up and peered down to find an oversized white horse trailer pulled by a big crew cab truck. A grizzled old man in a cowboy hat got out along with three other men. Steve came out to greet them and shook hands.
JT leafed through the CDs and popped in one at random and Patsy Cline began singing “Crazy.”
A minute later there was a knock at the door and JT opened it to discover Willie Nelson himself standing there, his hat in his hand.
Jack’s jaw dropped as Willie said in his famous Texas drawl, “I come up to pick up some horses I have here for a check-up. We bought 'em from your daddies and I figured I’d come up while I was here and pay my respects, if I'm not intrudin'. ...May I come in?”
Young Twist just stood there surprised. In his childhood he’d met a lot of celebrities who bought and sold to his fathers, so he wasn’t all that awed... but still, this was Willie Nelson!
JT went over to switch the CD player off and Nelson protested, “No leave it on, just turn it down a little bit,” tossing his hat down onto the bed.
Young Twist nodded and as he walked over to it, Willie added, “I wrote that song for her.”
Jack looked back puzzled as Patsy sang the final “And I’m crazy for lovvvvvvvvin’… Youuuuuuuuuuuuu.”
As the final chords sounded, Willie smiled and said; “Now you can turn it off.”
They both chuckled together.
In the silence the singer looked around the room and spied an old beaten and battered folk guitar on the wall. He walked over to the right side of the bed next to the window and asked, “May I?”
JT nodded and Willie pulled it down from its nail hanging by the shoulder strap.
It was one of Nelson’s favorites. In hushed reverence he sighed, “My god the memories this thing brings back.”
Ennis had bid $10,000 for it at a charity auction to benefit Farm Aid in 1995, and then gave it to Pop for his birthday. The elder Jack would play it on special family occasions. In black marker, Willie had written across the honey colored wood, “Ennis, please let your babies grow up to be cowboys!” and scrawled his signature.
He sat on the bed and strummed it a couple of times and his eyebrows jumped. “It’s still in tune!”
JT sat next to him and smiled, “Pop Jack taught me how to tune his guitar before I knew more than a couple of sentences.”
Burning tears welled up in his eyes. Willie’s comforting arm went around his shoulders as Jack choked and sniffed to clear his sinuses. When it subsided the singer stood up and frowned at something up on a little shelf next to where the guitar hung. Pulling it down, he asked, “What happened to this poor thing?”
JT looked up and grinned. “That was my father Jack Twist Sr.’s harmonica,” he replied. “According to Dad it got stomped on by a horse a long time ago. Dad gave it to me for my 10th birthday.”
Nelson looked at him skeptically and remarked, “You know, I think I'll need a scorecard to keep track of how many daddies you got! ...In a way, I'm kinda jealous.”
A truck horn blew outside and Willie grabbed his hat, slung the familiar guitar backward over his shoulder and onto his back and nodded his head out the door, “Come on son; I wanna show you somethin’."
As JT tossed the harmonica back on the bed, he corrected, “No, bring that with you.”
Outside next to the trailer two completely different horses stood side-by-side waiting to be loaded.
Willie led Jack up to a sleek black mare, her healthy coat shining in the sun like a polished jewel. Willie pulled an apple out of his jacket pocket and fed it to her. To JT he said, “This here’s Chantal.”
The mare nodded her head up and down recognizing her name and Willie have her an affectionate pat on the neck. “I was on business in Columbus Ohio one day and this stunningly beautiful woman walked up to a bank teller, so I sent my assistant over to see if he could find out her name. She’ll never know I saw her, and I’m damned sure ain't gonna forget her name. The moment I saw this horse, I had a name for her.”
Dwarfing her to the left was a massive Clydesdale right out of a Budweiser commercial. Pointing up to him, Willie smiled, “This ol’ boy is named “Stoned,” because every time I look at him, I think I’ve been smokin’ too much.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a photo of a powerful white horse running race sprints in a blur past the camera. Willie and a couple of men are looking at a stopwatch with impressed looks on their faces. “I bought him from your daddies last year and we’re hopin’ he takes the Triple Crown next year.”
JT studied it and asked, “What’s his name?”
Willie grinned and replied, “Well I bought him on a whim, and my accountant got really pissed and asked me why, so we named him "Just Because.”
From behind a curtain in the living room Steve and Laura watched her son wearing his father’s cowboy hat and laughing, and knew things would be better now.
An hour of leisurely walking and casual conversation down the tree-lined lane brought Nelson and young Twist up to the big granite head stone of JT's fathers’ graves about twenty feet out from two big cherry trees. It stood three feet tall was a foot thick front to back and was five feet wide.
Pulling the guitar off his back, Willie set it gently down on the monument and asked, “Kinda an odd place to put a grave ain’t it?”
When he didn’t get an answer, Nelson turned to find JT’s face in pain.
Twist sniffed a few times and led him to the back of it. In the middle read “JACK EDWARD TWIST 1944-1983.
Resting his hand on the warm stone he explained, “According to dad, this was the exact spot where my “father” was murdered and they put this stone up originally as a memorial.”
Willie swallowed hard, “Wow.”
JT sat down with his back to the left edge of the head stone facing the lane. He crossed his legs and began pulling out little strands of grass amongst the tall wheat that surrounded it, playing with them, occasionally smelling one and then pulling out others. With a groan Willie sat down beside him cross-legged and waited.
JT explained, “Jack Twist was Dad’s first lover, and Pop’s first teenaged crush. It was their last wish to be buried on this very spot.”
Nelson Frowned, “Where’s papa Twist buried?”
JT wiped a tear and replied, “He was cremated before I was born and they both scattered his ashes up on Brokeback Mountain south of here.”
Willie frowned and then understood. "You know... I know a lady writer that don't live too far from here and I bet if you told her all this, it'd make a good story."
Jack probably hadn't heard him, as he seemed to be lost deep in a fond memory. “My fathers and I used to go camping up on the mountain a lot and we’d sit around singing songs and laughing.
Dad liked all your stuff, but Pop was partial to Bob Dylan.”
The singer smiled as JT pulled out his “father’s” harmonica and began playing a Dylan tune that Willie had once performed in a movie not too long ago.
Willie reached up for his guitar and silently started strumming the tune along with him.
When the chorus ended, they began singing the first verse together.
“Heeeeeeee was a friend of mine,
Heeeee was a friend of mine,
Ever’ time I think of him,
I just can’t keep from crying,
'cause heeeeeeee was a friend of mine…
The end
Thanks Annie!
(Please do me the honor and drop a comment about what you thought of my version of the story.
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After seeing this great movie, we all have our own strong ideas as to what became of Ennis del Mar after he sadly closed that wardrobe door at the end of the movie. This is my own interpretation of Annie Proulx’s love story from the point when Jack and Ennis first met and then all the way to Ennis’ death in 2006. It includes the combined short story by Annie Proulx and the screenplay by Diana Ossana and Larry McMurtry. I have to add story elements to the original in order to set up my "version" of what happened to Ennis next. This is NOT meant as any disrespect to the original author and screenwriters’ great work. My purpose in creating this was to help a blind friend understand this incredible movie. I discovered that he’d tape recorded my narration to him while the movie was playing. He asked me to type it all out and he converted it to Braille. As with any un-narrated movie it’s difficult to tell what’s going through each character’s mind, so this is only my own personal interpretation. Certain scenes have been drastically shortened in the name of saving space; others have been lengthened to understand them better...
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