(no subject)
AUTHOR: Wild Columbine
PAIRING: Jack & Ennis
FEEDBACK: Yes please - good, bad or indifferent
TITLE: A Sweeter Life, Pt 2
RATING: NC-17, language, m/m sex
DISCLAIMER: These characters are the wonderful Annie Proulx's, as is virtually all of the background story. I'm just using them so I can feel a little bit better about the tragedy of the original brilliant story. Physically, they look like Jack and Ennis in the film because you can't get too much of a good thing.
SUMMARY: Part 2 of a two-part AU which sticks very closely to the original in spirit and in set-up. Jack and Ennis live their "real" lives but with one slight difference.
A SWEETER LIFE, Pt 2
If Jack had realised the battles which raged in Ennis's soul, between desire and fear, between love and loathing, he might have fully understood what a precious gift he had been granted. On some nights the decision was simple enough for Ennis - either intense longing, lust and loneliness swept his fears aside and he came to Jack's bed easily, or else childhood horrors kept him curled up and trembling in his own, swearing he would never do it again. But most evenings he had to make the journey of a dozen paces as though his feet dragged through the sulphurous pits of hell and his path was lined by hate-filled men, each wielding a tire iron and each having the face of his own father.
That first time, painful and traumatic for both men, had brought pleasure to neither. And yet...and yet... He'd wanted to run, to slug Jack and then get the hell out of there - I ain't queer! - the words that tormented him again and again, try as he might to push the thoughts away. But when Jack had touched him, so tender and gentle, with no anger for the pain he'd caused, Ennis had known deep down inside that he was on his way home at last.
There were nights when he'd ease up onto his elbows and watch Jack sleep, chase the fleeting traces of dreams across his moonlit face, kiss the corners of his cherub smiles, pray that those wondrous eyes would drift open and draw him down into temptation one more time. When he looked into Jack's eyes the years of confusion began to make sense, the lonely turmoil of his tortured desires eased, his sad soul found its haven. Each dawn brought the doubts back afresh but every night spent in this man's arms was sweetness undreamed of.
He was greatly surprised to find how much he missed Jack when they weren't together. Even in the silly, early days with Alma there hadn't been a deep desire to be with her every day, but this was different - it was heady, it was dizzying, it left him bewildered and breathless. He had no word for it. Jack was the sun around whom his world spun, the place his thoughts turned to in every spare moment; it was almost like --- but no, how could it be? Jack was a man and this friendship they shared could surely only be that. In the end it seemed easier just to let things be and not think about them too closely, to enjoy the time together and endure the time apart.
During school vacations Jack drove south for a week or two, and once a month Ennis borrowed the orange truck, took an envelope full of money for his ex-wife and spent a long weekend three hundred miles away in Riverton with his girls. Neither asked the other about their trips. Ennis had no idea what a man with some money might do with his nine-year-old son out of a motel in no-man's-land, but Jack amused himself by picturing a glowering Ennis hunkered down in a tent out the back of Alma's house. One thing they both knew; when they were apart the days dragged.
As Jack wiped the last bit of shaving cream from his chin Ennis came up behind and slipped his arms around him. They rocked together gently and admired their twin-headed reflection in the small mirror.
"Good-lookin pair."
"Mmmm." Ennis nuzzled into Jack's neck. "Why'd you shave off that mustache?"
Jack frowned. "Don't rightly know. Why? Did you like it? Fancied it ticklin your---"
"Shut up, Jack." Ennis held his two index fingers across Jack's top lip and contemplated the result. "No, didn't like it. Made me feel...I dunno...creepy, like it reminded me a someone...somethin." A shudder ran through his body. Like someone walked over my grave. He shook himself back to normal, quickly kissed Jack's cheek and turned to pick up a bundle of laundry.
"Why'd you do that each week? Put your bottom sheet out to be washed? You ain't slept in that bed in a month."
Ennis studied his feet and flushed pink. "Don't seem right, your mama knowin..."
"You think she can't tell from the state a my sheets? She ain't simple."
Jack shook his head and went off to get his shirt, but soon came to regret his words. Ennis refused to come in for lunch that day, left the dinner table early, and stubbornly slept in his own room for a week. The cabin felt like the Arctic Circle.
One morning in April Mr Twist woke up dead. The doctor wrote cerebral hemmorhage on the death certificate but Ennis was of the opinion that John C. Twist had simply decided he'd had enough of this half-life and settled the issue with an act of pure will. With a grim ferocity, Jack helped his mother make the funeral arrangements while Ennis tried to keep out of the way of the few family members who came up to the house to pay their respects; no-one from Texas, he noted, although a sympathy card did arrive sometime later. He would have avoided the funeral too, and the solemn wake that followed, if Mrs Twist hadn't especially asked him to attend. Dressed in one of Jack's good shirts, he kept his head down through the proceedings and just mumbled that he was the hired help whenever anyone asked, but he was sure there had been a couple of mourners who had checked him up and down at the church and then whispered together. Late in the day, when the last people had gone and it finally felt safe enough to share a smoke with Jack out on the porch, Ennis cleared his throat and timidly crept up on his anxiety.
"Them two, the big pair that came in the green Ford, they know."
"Know what? Bout us? Ennis, they my cousins, Harold's boys. You think they goin a report you to the police? So what if they know? I don't give a flyin fuck. You worry too much." And that was that. Cigarette butt ground into the dirt, Jack was away inside, just a little unsteady on his feet, picking at the remains of sandwiches and cakes, refilling his glass from the bottle secreted at the back of a kitchen cupboard.
In the days that followed Ennis spent longer and longer hours away from the cabin and house. There were heifers calving, plenty of excuses to be out and he used them all, barely staying long enough to eat and clean up. Jack, however, hardly noticed; he’d become lost in combat with some ancient demons of his own and knew only that on the occasions when he needed comforting, his man never seemed to be around. Nights especially. Too often now, Jack lay alone, wondering why Ennis was so blind to his needs.
But Jack's new moods were a mystery to Ennis; Jack was taking the old man's death surprisingly hard. Ennis did the best he could to help his friend but the deaths of his own parents, lost to him forever in a single moment of bad judgement so many years ago, had been a time of confused misery, and he had no idea how to get someone else through. Worse still, far far worse, old terrors kept welling up, try as he might to force them down.
Jack’s right. His cousins ain’t goin a say nothin. They wouldn’t do that to Jack. But they might say somethin, crack a joke, wrong person hear…Jesus, small town, nosy neighbours. What if…?
On a day when the black cloud was proving too much to handle by himself, he went looking for Jack and eventually found him up in the bathroom of the old house, crying, shaking, punching the walls until his knuckles bled, sobbing fuckin bastard, fuckin bastard over and over until Ennis got a good hold on him and silenced the sobs against his chest. They slid to the floor, both in desperate need of comfort but neither knowing how to give it. Ennis held Jack tight, stroked and petted him in the same awkward fashion he touched his little daughters, cast around for the right words to say, came up with nothing but questions.
"I don't get it, Jack. Thought you wanted him dead, you said it so often. Guess it's different when they's gone."
"What the fuck would you know?" Jack didn't raise his head so couldn't see the look on Ennis's face, like a puzzled, scolded child. He cuddled closer, took a few ragged breaths and quietly continued. "I hated the old bastard. Was never good enough for him. Couldn't wait to get out and then seemed I was always comin back. Didn't matter that I had a job, rich wife, comfortable life - I was still scum in his eyes. It was him started me bull-ridin but he never once come to see me ride. Got the message quick enough - never be as good as your old man. Always the same round here - John Twist's son? - good as your old man? No way." His voice trailed away into bitter silence.
"So why you so sad?"
"Christ, I ain't sad. He won, the bastard beat me! Just once I wanted to hear him say well done, and he never did. Fuckin died still clutchin those words to his chest! Wouldn't never say them, not to me. Jesus! Is it too much to expect from your old man?”
Ennis waited patiently, knowing somehow that there must be more buried away in there somewhere. But the layers of silence went deep, and Jack's littlest voice had been choked down for too many years; a knotted tangle of betrayal and shame stilled the rest of his words, even as he clung to the one person who might help him. When it became clear that Jack was not going to continue, Ennis tried an encouraging, clumsy shake.
"Well, he's gone now. Ain't nothin you can do to change that. You gotta get over it. Can't fix it, you gotta stand it, Jack. Maybe he thought he was doin right by you. All I know is, he was your dad, you should respect him."
It was the wrong thing to say. Jack sat up, eyes narrowed and crimson, mouth pinched down hard.
"Fuck respect! Like he respected me? Like my son respects me? Happy enough to spend time with me, gets him away from his mama. Happy to have me spend money---ah, forget it."
And Jack pulled himself away, started to get up again, leaving Ennis no option but to blurt out the thing that had been filling his every moment since the funeral, tearing away his courage with steel pincers. "Jack, your cousins...we gotta talk...."
"Oh for fuck's sake, you still shittin yourself over nothin? Grow up, Ennis, ain't nothin goin a happen."
The heifers had all been safely delivered of their calves and Ennis was out taking down one of the front gates on the day a green Ford barrelled past in a cloud of dust heading north to nowhere. He'd just about got the gate fixed and rehung when the Ford returned but by the time the lost and confused traveller had made it all the way back to Moorcroft and found the right road, Ennis, his truck and a few belongings had left Lightning Flat behind.
Whiskey hangovers didn't make the work any easier but Jack soon found that a steady intake from breakfast to sleep helped blunt all the edges that dug in much too deep. At first he'd expected Ennis to return, shamefaced, after a few days of sleeping rough and missing Jack, but the days had shifted into weeks and all the whiskey in Wyoming couldn't dull the gnawing ache in Jack's guts. And worse than the enforced solitude was the knowledge that he'd let Ennis down, been too wrapped up in his own misery to see his mate's distress.
He was shit-scared, you prick, and you wouldn't see it. Too busy cursin your old man for what he done to you in the past, and how the hell was Ennis supposed to know that? Did you bother tellin him? Did you tell him how your old man whipped you, pissed on you? How he --- No, can't never tell no-one that, not even Mama, ‘specially not Mama. But it wasn't like Ennis didn't try to help, not like you, self-centred bastard. What was it he said? "You gotta get over it. Can't fix it, you gotta stand it." And there's one thing you can fix so go find him, you piss-ant. Show him he'll be safe here, that no-one will ever know.
The words would spin through his head again and again, but his whiskey resolve would get him only as far as his vast, desolate bed where new doubts lay within the sheets. But what if he don't want me no more? What if he's come to hate me for bein...what I am? for leadin him where he didn't want to go? leadin him into danger? Besides, there's too much work and no-one to do it and I won't go chasin him like some stupid lovesick girl. And what would Mama say?
And so the weeks shifted into months until his mama said she'd been doing some watching and pondering and organising, and Jack had better get after Ennis before it was too late.
As soon as he pulled up outside the neat little house Jack knew he'd found the right place; the skinny girl on the porch was a dead ringer for Ennis and just as chatty. When Jack asked if her mama was home she shot off like a startled mouse and hid behind Alma through the short, uncomfortable conversation which ensued. No, she hadn't seen Ennis in weeks. He'd stopped coming regularly and just dropped in every so often, usually after dark and usually when Alma and her fellow were least pleased to see him. But the girls did love their daddy so what could she do? No, she didn't know or care where he was living these days but his brother in Thermopolis might. Jack tipped his hat, said thank you for your time, and gave Ennis's daughter a small farewell smile. She gazed back solemnly and Jack felt his eyes prickle with tears, he wanted Ennis so bad.
K.E. del Mar, on the other hand, looked nothing like his brother. Big, heavy, with a cocky confidence, he invited Jack in for a beer and a talk, regarding Jack with frank curiosity. Why did he want to find Ennis? Was he a friend? Jack thought it best to stick to the literal truth, that he had been Ennis's boss, that Ennis had been a good worker, that he'd like to have him back.
"He's crazy, you know?" Jack stopped breathing but tried to appear merely interested, so K.E. continued with unsettling gusto. "Since we was kids. Ain't never been right in the head long as I can remember."
"Seemed okay to me. Worked for me close on a year. Never saw nothin strange."
"Oh, don't get me wrong, he ain't certifiable, just --- what's it called when you think they're out to get ya?"
"You mean paranoid?" offered Jack.
K.E. nodded. "Yeah, paranoid." It looked as though he was going to leave it at that but then his face sagged into something that almost resembled concern. "Tell you what, Jack, he was always a jumpy little kid but he got a lot worse after our dad took us to see a...a neighbour's body."
"You mean, laid out? A funeral or somethin?"
"No, I mean in a ditch, bashed to death." And to Jack's growing horror, K.E. proceeded to tell the whole awful tale of Earl and Rich, how that obscene day had turned a nine-year-old boy into a frightened rabbit, scared of his own shadow. "Frightened the crap outta me, but Ennis, he was never the same after that. S'pose Dad was tryin to get his message across. Maybe he done the wrong thing, I dunno." He shrugged, took a drag on his cigarette, was lost to Jack for a few seconds. "You'll find him up towards Meeteetse. Little cabin off the highway, draw you a map. Works at the Cottoneye Ranch but, Sunday, should be home. Don't go out much, case they get him. When he does, he drinks and fights, what I hear." K.E. dropped his head and Jack realised he was trying to hide his tightening mouth. "He's gettin worse. I'm scared he'll get in one fight too many, get himself killed. I don't know what the hell to do..."
As Jack stood and made to leave, K.E. pulled a handful of notes from his wallet and thrust them at him. "Here. Get some supplies if you can. He won't take nothin from me."
K.E. had called it a cabin but a shack would have been a better description. It was hard to distinguish the cabin from the cluster of outbuildings, shed, stables, outhouse, chicken-coop. Ennis's old pickup was there, in the middle of the bare-dirt yard, but no-one answered Jack's knocking and calling. Outside the cabin door two piles were forming, one of discarded mouldering food cans and the other, larger one of empty beer bottles. Inside was just one big room, bare and forlorn. It wasn't untidy - there was little there to be out of place, besides tins full of cigarette butts, some dirty dishes, and rumpled blankets piled on a brass bed which looked like a Victorian hospital relic. To pass the time Jack lit the big slow-combustion stove and pumped up some water which he put on to heat.
A garbage bag held evidence of Ennis's last trip to a laundry but it was clear from the state of the bed that he hadn't changed the sheets in weeks or worse. Never-the-less, Jack couldn't help but lie down and breathe in the fusty smell, let K.E.’s words fill his mind. So this was what it had come to; a hapless kid, pushed beyond breaking point, ending up as some sort of outcast, fearful and running, away from the one man who wanted to hold him safe. He reached for the greying, greasy pillow, hugged it to himself and began to cry.
"What're you doin here?" Jack came to with a jolt, shot through by the familiar voice. The last flush of sunset was tingeing the steamy room with a mirthless glow, making a mockery of Ennis's gaunt, unshaven face. He gave off a miserable stink of fresh beer and cold neglect. "Jesus Christ" was all Jack could get out before his throat choked off the words, and he could only offer his arms, his warmth, his unspoken love. Beneath his embrace Ennis felt like a sackfull of twigs. When he spoke his voice was thick and slurred.
"Shouldn't a come, Jack. Don't need you." But he returned the hug, swaying a little as he did.
Jack sucked in air, found his voice again. "Don't tell me you don't need me. Fuck, Ennis, you tryin a kill yourself? Doin a damn fine job if you are."
Ennis looked too big for the tin hip bath, all bony limbs and pointy knees sticking up out of the foamy water. After initial protests, he'd submitted meekly to Jack's ministrations, allowing himself to be gently scrubbed down. His skin was speckled with old bruises, left-side ribs showed blue-black, his cheekbone swollen and angry-looking, whether from drunken falls or brawls Jack didn't want to know. As Jack's fingers lovingly worked soap through his greasy, dirty curls, Ennis leaned his head back and sighed.
"Jesus, you gotta toothbrush? Smells like seven sorts a shit died in that mouth!" Jack kept his voice light but inside the tears were scything through his guts like acid. Kneeling, he slid his mouth over Ennis's shoulder, feeling the bones too close to the pallid skin.
Ennis's wet head rested against Jack's, and he whispered, "Lost my job, Jack. Said I was unreliable. Ain't never been fired before."
Their bodies shook; Jack couldn't tell if it was Ennis who shivered or himself.
"Let's get you rinsed and outta here. Water's gettin cold."
A small-town Sunday hadn't produced much in the way of nutritious food but Jack knew what they'd just finished was a damn sight better than anything Ennis had eaten lately. As they drank coffee Jack began to say the things that must be said.
"You carry on like this, you goin a end up down at the funny farm, in a straightjacket, with wires burnin out your brain, or you be dead a liver failure."
"Worse could happen."
"Dead in a ditch?" Jack caught the quick flicker of fear in Ennis's eyes. "I know why you ran. Know why you left Ten Sleep, too."
Silence.
"K.E. told me bout...bout the old man in the irrigation ditch."
"Wasn't his place to tell you nothin."
"He was worried. God dammit, Ennis, there are people who care about you, who...who... Hell, Mama misses you. I miss you. I come to take you home."
"Take me to bed first. Please, Jack."
Ennis might have looked as though he wouldn't withstand a gentle zephyr but looks deceived. Jack had been half-afraid to make love with him; instead it was he who was caught unawares by the ferocity of Ennis's needs. A feverish heat burned in that thin frame as he tried to slake four months of longing. Like a man pulled from a desert he drowned in Jack's love, soaked up Jack's strength and juices through every pore, feasted greedily on Jack's own carnal desires. There was no negotiation; Jack willingly submitted, allowed his body to be breached again and again, taken in fierce, wordless passion until Ennis, eyes afire, groaned "Oh jesus god fuckin christ almighty!", spilled once more into Jack and fell at last between his lover's quivering thighs, then slid the last slippery inches to Jack's mouth.
Sated and quiescent, they lay pressed together, glint of moonlight on angular bodies, hands stroking faces, nuzzling, licking, savouring their mingled tastes and scents. Complete beyond words, no world but this one within the safe walls of a wretched shack, no time except that which they found in each other’s arms. As Ennis’s breathing deepened, Jack sighed, relinquished the peace, and whispered.
"No more runnin--"
"Don't talk, Jack, don't, not now." Ennis ran his hand down Jack's flank, pulled his leg up, slipped his own thigh between Jack's and pressed, feeling Jack harden again, "--not now--", but Jack pushed his leg away, peered into his shadowed eyes and hugged him closer.
"You can't live your life like this, scared a your own reflection, lookin over your shoulder all a the time. How'm I goin a feel if you take off again, huh? Some asshole look at you the wrong way and you're gone?"
"You don't know what it's like, Jack."
"I know I don't want a die in a ditch like that old guy you seen. I know I keep my eyes sharp, try to act right in public. I know…I know I'm queer and that's a dangerous thing to be hereabouts, but I ain't goin a let em win. Not no more. What you seen was twenty-three years ago. Times’ve changed. Maybe it ain't never goin a be safe but don't mean you gotta kiss their asses. Lightnin Flat's a long way from anywhere. You and me, we can be safe there together. Ain't that what you want?"
"I ain't queer..."
"No, you just like to fuck my brains out, and you like me to fuck you till your teeth rattle and you can't stand up right. Call it what you like, friend, you ain't foolin me...or you."
He felt Ennis try to pull away but Jack hung on all the more tightly. He wasn't finished yet.
"Come on, didn't you think it was weird I had a jar a grease handy that first time? Huh? I been through all that stuff same as you, tellin myself I can't be one a them, don't want a be one, but comes a time when you just have to give in. You knowed what you was a long time. Maybe you couldn't say the word or think about it too close but it's been there. If it weren't you wouldn't a run, hey?" He gave Ennis an encouraging squeeze, brushed his lips against the sweet-smelling hair and hoped to god he hadn't said too much.
"I never wanted another man." Ennis's voice was teary, muffled against Jack's shoulder.
Say it, Jack, say it! You deserve this, you’re worthy of it. And he needs to know.
"You don't need another man, darlin. I'm your man. Always was, always will be. You don't need no-one else but me." A breath, a prayer. "I love you, Ennis."
He waited for Ennis to tense again but instead felt him melting further into Jack, snuffling and murmuring something into Jack's throat. It could have been I love you, but it didn't matter either way because the words were already out there and Ennis was still lying within the circle of his love. Jack rode with the moment, closed his eyes and breathed in every last trace to store and treasure, for the lonely times when they would have to be apart, for the twists and turns in the long road ahead, and for the gentle days of contented old age when dreams would fade but memories prevail.
Then he sat up and with quiet command hauled Ennis up on all fours, kissed him slowly and deliberately all down the length of his arched and quivering back, set to work with tongue and fingers and little nipping bites until Ennis growled and pawed the bed and tried to grab at him and cursed him for playing his damn-fool games, and Jack laughed his soft, wicked laugh and took Ennis with practised ease. Ennis clung to the bars, the bed walked, Jack pressed home his point.
"Won't...never...get this...from no...woman...darlin...there ain't...nothin...they can...give you...that you...need."
They left Ennis's rattletrap truck at K.E.'s place. Jack said it was because he trusted neither truck nor driver to arrive safely back at Lightning Flat. In reality, he wanted Ennis within easy reach. Neither spoke much but both were mulling over everything that had passed between them. Once in a while they'd reach out and touch each other, running hands around thighs until the truck swayed too much and they were forced to desist. Back at the ranch, Mrs Twist clasped Ennis's hands and said she was so glad to see him again and the kettle was already on. Sep, the stringy, craggy ranch-hand who now occupied Jack's old room nodded a quick greeting and got back to work. Ennis frowned nervously at Jack and Jack shrugged his shoulders; let the future take care of itself.
Rise and fall, rise and fall; like a gull floating on gentle ocean swells, Jack rode the steady rhythm of Ennis's breathing, lulled by the slow strong heartbeat thumping against his ear. Ennis del Mar. Jack had seen the ocean once after a business trip to Houston, and knew enough Spanish to recognise the absurdity of the name fate had bestowed on this earthbound landlocked man. He trickled his fingers through Ennis’s belly hair and exhaled.
"Four months, damn.”
"Yeah, four months. Didn't know if I'd see you again."
"Wasn't sure if you wanted me to find you."
Ennis's heart notched up a level, he drew in a long choppy breath then let the waves pass and roll away to break on a distant shore, his voice soft as sea foam.
"Yeah, I wanted it, bud. Every day, every single goddamn day."
Jack squeezed away sudden hot tears, rubbed his head against Ennis’s bony chest and gently stroked his bruised ribs.
“So why’d you…?”
“I dunno. Just couldn’t stand….it all just got…”
“M'sorry, Ennis. Didn't know how bad you felt, how bad it got."
"Didn't tell you. Wasn’t your fault. But Jack, that Sep---"
"Church friend a Mama's. He's okay."
"He won't...?"
"No, he’s okay. Mama’s got him sorted. Reckon maybe he sweet on her. Don't you worry bout him, now, darlin."
“Darlin!” Ennis’s body shook with quiet laughter. “Guess I could get used to it, say it often enough. An’ you? You okay now?”
"Yeah, good enough. Got you. All that matters. One day, maybe I tell you about Daddy. Not tonight though."
“In your own good time……darlin.”
Rise and fall, rise and fall.
"And one day, Ennis del Mar, goin a take you to the seaside."
“Huh?”
One benign late-autumn afternoon, when the land seemed ready to settle into its winter hibernation, the two of them sat out in a distant field, drinking beer and chewing on sandwiches, the newly repaired fence at their backs trailing away across sleeping pastures.
"Stand up, Ennis."
"Why?"
"Just do it. Now, turn around and tell me what you can see."
"Uh, the yearlin herd way over yonder. Nothin else movin."
"And what's up in the sky?"
Ennis put on his faux-grouchy face but looked up. "There's a buzzard, maybe. Clouds buildin up to the west. Look like a jet trail overhead. What you playin at?"
"Nothin and no-one," said Jack softly. He stood up and grabbed Ennis tight, kissed him long and wet and deep, thrust against Ennis's protesting body until he stopped squirming and kissed back, until he got the message.
Later on, they lay gazing up at the sky, weather-eyed Ennis watching the clouds drifting over.
"Best be gettin on, bud."
"Ease up, will you. No hurry, just enjoy it here a while, out in daylight," Jack laughed and nudged Ennis.
"Yeah well, you and your fancy ideas a makin out in a meadow."
Jack rolled over and picked grass out of Ennis's hair. "Things are quiet here. We ought a take a vacation. Sep can handle the ranch for a few days. What say you?"
"Ain't never taken a vacation before," said Ennis, "always work to be done. Besides, never had the money."
"Well, we ain't exactly flush, neither. Tell you what, maybe next week when you see your girls I could tag along. Settle down, won't hang around you in public or nothin. But afterwards, we could head up to the mountains, camp a while, maybe do some fishin. Before the cold really sets in."
Ennis sat up, his perpetual frown in place. "Could take the horses, I guess."
"Yeah, get far enough out for you to stop freakin. I remember a place north a Signal, worked there summer '62, herdin fuckin sheep. Brokeback Mountain."
"Brokeback Mountain." Too quick to be an echo; the name had been in Ennis's mind even before Jack had spoken it. "You work for a bastard name Aguirre? Did the same summer '63."
Jack nodded, wide-eyed. "No shit? That's gotta be a omen. Summer '63, huh? Shit! Shit..."
An exquisite cold sliver slipped its way through Jack's chest; he shivered. Someone walk across your grave, Jack? He took Ennis's face in his hands, gently rubbed his thumbs over the worry lines indelibly etched there, looked deep into those sad, beautiful, dark eyes, searching for the young man buried long ago, before the years of fear and shame and loneliness left their marks.
"'63, you know, I nearly went back...Shit, we could a met way back then, could a had all them extra years together. How good would that a been? Could a been some sweet life."
But Ennis drew him close, kissed his smoky-sweet mouth, felt no regrets. No, Jack, this is it, what we got right here and now. Here you are, my friend, my lover, my saviour. You gave me my life, you gave me myself. I love you, Jack Twist. We'll keep each other safe and I won’t never let you out a my sights. Don’t fret about what might have been. Whatever we might have had, Jack, I swear this life will be so much sweeter.
PAIRING: Jack & Ennis
FEEDBACK: Yes please - good, bad or indifferent
TITLE: A Sweeter Life, Pt 2
RATING: NC-17, language, m/m sex
DISCLAIMER: These characters are the wonderful Annie Proulx's, as is virtually all of the background story. I'm just using them so I can feel a little bit better about the tragedy of the original brilliant story. Physically, they look like Jack and Ennis in the film because you can't get too much of a good thing.
SUMMARY: Part 2 of a two-part AU which sticks very closely to the original in spirit and in set-up. Jack and Ennis live their "real" lives but with one slight difference.
A SWEETER LIFE, Pt 2
If Jack had realised the battles which raged in Ennis's soul, between desire and fear, between love and loathing, he might have fully understood what a precious gift he had been granted. On some nights the decision was simple enough for Ennis - either intense longing, lust and loneliness swept his fears aside and he came to Jack's bed easily, or else childhood horrors kept him curled up and trembling in his own, swearing he would never do it again. But most evenings he had to make the journey of a dozen paces as though his feet dragged through the sulphurous pits of hell and his path was lined by hate-filled men, each wielding a tire iron and each having the face of his own father.
That first time, painful and traumatic for both men, had brought pleasure to neither. And yet...and yet... He'd wanted to run, to slug Jack and then get the hell out of there - I ain't queer! - the words that tormented him again and again, try as he might to push the thoughts away. But when Jack had touched him, so tender and gentle, with no anger for the pain he'd caused, Ennis had known deep down inside that he was on his way home at last.
There were nights when he'd ease up onto his elbows and watch Jack sleep, chase the fleeting traces of dreams across his moonlit face, kiss the corners of his cherub smiles, pray that those wondrous eyes would drift open and draw him down into temptation one more time. When he looked into Jack's eyes the years of confusion began to make sense, the lonely turmoil of his tortured desires eased, his sad soul found its haven. Each dawn brought the doubts back afresh but every night spent in this man's arms was sweetness undreamed of.
He was greatly surprised to find how much he missed Jack when they weren't together. Even in the silly, early days with Alma there hadn't been a deep desire to be with her every day, but this was different - it was heady, it was dizzying, it left him bewildered and breathless. He had no word for it. Jack was the sun around whom his world spun, the place his thoughts turned to in every spare moment; it was almost like --- but no, how could it be? Jack was a man and this friendship they shared could surely only be that. In the end it seemed easier just to let things be and not think about them too closely, to enjoy the time together and endure the time apart.
During school vacations Jack drove south for a week or two, and once a month Ennis borrowed the orange truck, took an envelope full of money for his ex-wife and spent a long weekend three hundred miles away in Riverton with his girls. Neither asked the other about their trips. Ennis had no idea what a man with some money might do with his nine-year-old son out of a motel in no-man's-land, but Jack amused himself by picturing a glowering Ennis hunkered down in a tent out the back of Alma's house. One thing they both knew; when they were apart the days dragged.
As Jack wiped the last bit of shaving cream from his chin Ennis came up behind and slipped his arms around him. They rocked together gently and admired their twin-headed reflection in the small mirror.
"Good-lookin pair."
"Mmmm." Ennis nuzzled into Jack's neck. "Why'd you shave off that mustache?"
Jack frowned. "Don't rightly know. Why? Did you like it? Fancied it ticklin your---"
"Shut up, Jack." Ennis held his two index fingers across Jack's top lip and contemplated the result. "No, didn't like it. Made me feel...I dunno...creepy, like it reminded me a someone...somethin." A shudder ran through his body. Like someone walked over my grave. He shook himself back to normal, quickly kissed Jack's cheek and turned to pick up a bundle of laundry.
"Why'd you do that each week? Put your bottom sheet out to be washed? You ain't slept in that bed in a month."
Ennis studied his feet and flushed pink. "Don't seem right, your mama knowin..."
"You think she can't tell from the state a my sheets? She ain't simple."
Jack shook his head and went off to get his shirt, but soon came to regret his words. Ennis refused to come in for lunch that day, left the dinner table early, and stubbornly slept in his own room for a week. The cabin felt like the Arctic Circle.
One morning in April Mr Twist woke up dead. The doctor wrote cerebral hemmorhage on the death certificate but Ennis was of the opinion that John C. Twist had simply decided he'd had enough of this half-life and settled the issue with an act of pure will. With a grim ferocity, Jack helped his mother make the funeral arrangements while Ennis tried to keep out of the way of the few family members who came up to the house to pay their respects; no-one from Texas, he noted, although a sympathy card did arrive sometime later. He would have avoided the funeral too, and the solemn wake that followed, if Mrs Twist hadn't especially asked him to attend. Dressed in one of Jack's good shirts, he kept his head down through the proceedings and just mumbled that he was the hired help whenever anyone asked, but he was sure there had been a couple of mourners who had checked him up and down at the church and then whispered together. Late in the day, when the last people had gone and it finally felt safe enough to share a smoke with Jack out on the porch, Ennis cleared his throat and timidly crept up on his anxiety.
"Them two, the big pair that came in the green Ford, they know."
"Know what? Bout us? Ennis, they my cousins, Harold's boys. You think they goin a report you to the police? So what if they know? I don't give a flyin fuck. You worry too much." And that was that. Cigarette butt ground into the dirt, Jack was away inside, just a little unsteady on his feet, picking at the remains of sandwiches and cakes, refilling his glass from the bottle secreted at the back of a kitchen cupboard.
In the days that followed Ennis spent longer and longer hours away from the cabin and house. There were heifers calving, plenty of excuses to be out and he used them all, barely staying long enough to eat and clean up. Jack, however, hardly noticed; he’d become lost in combat with some ancient demons of his own and knew only that on the occasions when he needed comforting, his man never seemed to be around. Nights especially. Too often now, Jack lay alone, wondering why Ennis was so blind to his needs.
But Jack's new moods were a mystery to Ennis; Jack was taking the old man's death surprisingly hard. Ennis did the best he could to help his friend but the deaths of his own parents, lost to him forever in a single moment of bad judgement so many years ago, had been a time of confused misery, and he had no idea how to get someone else through. Worse still, far far worse, old terrors kept welling up, try as he might to force them down.
Jack’s right. His cousins ain’t goin a say nothin. They wouldn’t do that to Jack. But they might say somethin, crack a joke, wrong person hear…Jesus, small town, nosy neighbours. What if…?
On a day when the black cloud was proving too much to handle by himself, he went looking for Jack and eventually found him up in the bathroom of the old house, crying, shaking, punching the walls until his knuckles bled, sobbing fuckin bastard, fuckin bastard over and over until Ennis got a good hold on him and silenced the sobs against his chest. They slid to the floor, both in desperate need of comfort but neither knowing how to give it. Ennis held Jack tight, stroked and petted him in the same awkward fashion he touched his little daughters, cast around for the right words to say, came up with nothing but questions.
"I don't get it, Jack. Thought you wanted him dead, you said it so often. Guess it's different when they's gone."
"What the fuck would you know?" Jack didn't raise his head so couldn't see the look on Ennis's face, like a puzzled, scolded child. He cuddled closer, took a few ragged breaths and quietly continued. "I hated the old bastard. Was never good enough for him. Couldn't wait to get out and then seemed I was always comin back. Didn't matter that I had a job, rich wife, comfortable life - I was still scum in his eyes. It was him started me bull-ridin but he never once come to see me ride. Got the message quick enough - never be as good as your old man. Always the same round here - John Twist's son? - good as your old man? No way." His voice trailed away into bitter silence.
"So why you so sad?"
"Christ, I ain't sad. He won, the bastard beat me! Just once I wanted to hear him say well done, and he never did. Fuckin died still clutchin those words to his chest! Wouldn't never say them, not to me. Jesus! Is it too much to expect from your old man?”
Ennis waited patiently, knowing somehow that there must be more buried away in there somewhere. But the layers of silence went deep, and Jack's littlest voice had been choked down for too many years; a knotted tangle of betrayal and shame stilled the rest of his words, even as he clung to the one person who might help him. When it became clear that Jack was not going to continue, Ennis tried an encouraging, clumsy shake.
"Well, he's gone now. Ain't nothin you can do to change that. You gotta get over it. Can't fix it, you gotta stand it, Jack. Maybe he thought he was doin right by you. All I know is, he was your dad, you should respect him."
It was the wrong thing to say. Jack sat up, eyes narrowed and crimson, mouth pinched down hard.
"Fuck respect! Like he respected me? Like my son respects me? Happy enough to spend time with me, gets him away from his mama. Happy to have me spend money---ah, forget it."
And Jack pulled himself away, started to get up again, leaving Ennis no option but to blurt out the thing that had been filling his every moment since the funeral, tearing away his courage with steel pincers. "Jack, your cousins...we gotta talk...."
"Oh for fuck's sake, you still shittin yourself over nothin? Grow up, Ennis, ain't nothin goin a happen."
The heifers had all been safely delivered of their calves and Ennis was out taking down one of the front gates on the day a green Ford barrelled past in a cloud of dust heading north to nowhere. He'd just about got the gate fixed and rehung when the Ford returned but by the time the lost and confused traveller had made it all the way back to Moorcroft and found the right road, Ennis, his truck and a few belongings had left Lightning Flat behind.
Whiskey hangovers didn't make the work any easier but Jack soon found that a steady intake from breakfast to sleep helped blunt all the edges that dug in much too deep. At first he'd expected Ennis to return, shamefaced, after a few days of sleeping rough and missing Jack, but the days had shifted into weeks and all the whiskey in Wyoming couldn't dull the gnawing ache in Jack's guts. And worse than the enforced solitude was the knowledge that he'd let Ennis down, been too wrapped up in his own misery to see his mate's distress.
He was shit-scared, you prick, and you wouldn't see it. Too busy cursin your old man for what he done to you in the past, and how the hell was Ennis supposed to know that? Did you bother tellin him? Did you tell him how your old man whipped you, pissed on you? How he --- No, can't never tell no-one that, not even Mama, ‘specially not Mama. But it wasn't like Ennis didn't try to help, not like you, self-centred bastard. What was it he said? "You gotta get over it. Can't fix it, you gotta stand it." And there's one thing you can fix so go find him, you piss-ant. Show him he'll be safe here, that no-one will ever know.
The words would spin through his head again and again, but his whiskey resolve would get him only as far as his vast, desolate bed where new doubts lay within the sheets. But what if he don't want me no more? What if he's come to hate me for bein...what I am? for leadin him where he didn't want to go? leadin him into danger? Besides, there's too much work and no-one to do it and I won't go chasin him like some stupid lovesick girl. And what would Mama say?
And so the weeks shifted into months until his mama said she'd been doing some watching and pondering and organising, and Jack had better get after Ennis before it was too late.
As soon as he pulled up outside the neat little house Jack knew he'd found the right place; the skinny girl on the porch was a dead ringer for Ennis and just as chatty. When Jack asked if her mama was home she shot off like a startled mouse and hid behind Alma through the short, uncomfortable conversation which ensued. No, she hadn't seen Ennis in weeks. He'd stopped coming regularly and just dropped in every so often, usually after dark and usually when Alma and her fellow were least pleased to see him. But the girls did love their daddy so what could she do? No, she didn't know or care where he was living these days but his brother in Thermopolis might. Jack tipped his hat, said thank you for your time, and gave Ennis's daughter a small farewell smile. She gazed back solemnly and Jack felt his eyes prickle with tears, he wanted Ennis so bad.
K.E. del Mar, on the other hand, looked nothing like his brother. Big, heavy, with a cocky confidence, he invited Jack in for a beer and a talk, regarding Jack with frank curiosity. Why did he want to find Ennis? Was he a friend? Jack thought it best to stick to the literal truth, that he had been Ennis's boss, that Ennis had been a good worker, that he'd like to have him back.
"He's crazy, you know?" Jack stopped breathing but tried to appear merely interested, so K.E. continued with unsettling gusto. "Since we was kids. Ain't never been right in the head long as I can remember."
"Seemed okay to me. Worked for me close on a year. Never saw nothin strange."
"Oh, don't get me wrong, he ain't certifiable, just --- what's it called when you think they're out to get ya?"
"You mean paranoid?" offered Jack.
K.E. nodded. "Yeah, paranoid." It looked as though he was going to leave it at that but then his face sagged into something that almost resembled concern. "Tell you what, Jack, he was always a jumpy little kid but he got a lot worse after our dad took us to see a...a neighbour's body."
"You mean, laid out? A funeral or somethin?"
"No, I mean in a ditch, bashed to death." And to Jack's growing horror, K.E. proceeded to tell the whole awful tale of Earl and Rich, how that obscene day had turned a nine-year-old boy into a frightened rabbit, scared of his own shadow. "Frightened the crap outta me, but Ennis, he was never the same after that. S'pose Dad was tryin to get his message across. Maybe he done the wrong thing, I dunno." He shrugged, took a drag on his cigarette, was lost to Jack for a few seconds. "You'll find him up towards Meeteetse. Little cabin off the highway, draw you a map. Works at the Cottoneye Ranch but, Sunday, should be home. Don't go out much, case they get him. When he does, he drinks and fights, what I hear." K.E. dropped his head and Jack realised he was trying to hide his tightening mouth. "He's gettin worse. I'm scared he'll get in one fight too many, get himself killed. I don't know what the hell to do..."
As Jack stood and made to leave, K.E. pulled a handful of notes from his wallet and thrust them at him. "Here. Get some supplies if you can. He won't take nothin from me."
K.E. had called it a cabin but a shack would have been a better description. It was hard to distinguish the cabin from the cluster of outbuildings, shed, stables, outhouse, chicken-coop. Ennis's old pickup was there, in the middle of the bare-dirt yard, but no-one answered Jack's knocking and calling. Outside the cabin door two piles were forming, one of discarded mouldering food cans and the other, larger one of empty beer bottles. Inside was just one big room, bare and forlorn. It wasn't untidy - there was little there to be out of place, besides tins full of cigarette butts, some dirty dishes, and rumpled blankets piled on a brass bed which looked like a Victorian hospital relic. To pass the time Jack lit the big slow-combustion stove and pumped up some water which he put on to heat.
A garbage bag held evidence of Ennis's last trip to a laundry but it was clear from the state of the bed that he hadn't changed the sheets in weeks or worse. Never-the-less, Jack couldn't help but lie down and breathe in the fusty smell, let K.E.’s words fill his mind. So this was what it had come to; a hapless kid, pushed beyond breaking point, ending up as some sort of outcast, fearful and running, away from the one man who wanted to hold him safe. He reached for the greying, greasy pillow, hugged it to himself and began to cry.
"What're you doin here?" Jack came to with a jolt, shot through by the familiar voice. The last flush of sunset was tingeing the steamy room with a mirthless glow, making a mockery of Ennis's gaunt, unshaven face. He gave off a miserable stink of fresh beer and cold neglect. "Jesus Christ" was all Jack could get out before his throat choked off the words, and he could only offer his arms, his warmth, his unspoken love. Beneath his embrace Ennis felt like a sackfull of twigs. When he spoke his voice was thick and slurred.
"Shouldn't a come, Jack. Don't need you." But he returned the hug, swaying a little as he did.
Jack sucked in air, found his voice again. "Don't tell me you don't need me. Fuck, Ennis, you tryin a kill yourself? Doin a damn fine job if you are."
Ennis looked too big for the tin hip bath, all bony limbs and pointy knees sticking up out of the foamy water. After initial protests, he'd submitted meekly to Jack's ministrations, allowing himself to be gently scrubbed down. His skin was speckled with old bruises, left-side ribs showed blue-black, his cheekbone swollen and angry-looking, whether from drunken falls or brawls Jack didn't want to know. As Jack's fingers lovingly worked soap through his greasy, dirty curls, Ennis leaned his head back and sighed.
"Jesus, you gotta toothbrush? Smells like seven sorts a shit died in that mouth!" Jack kept his voice light but inside the tears were scything through his guts like acid. Kneeling, he slid his mouth over Ennis's shoulder, feeling the bones too close to the pallid skin.
Ennis's wet head rested against Jack's, and he whispered, "Lost my job, Jack. Said I was unreliable. Ain't never been fired before."
Their bodies shook; Jack couldn't tell if it was Ennis who shivered or himself.
"Let's get you rinsed and outta here. Water's gettin cold."
A small-town Sunday hadn't produced much in the way of nutritious food but Jack knew what they'd just finished was a damn sight better than anything Ennis had eaten lately. As they drank coffee Jack began to say the things that must be said.
"You carry on like this, you goin a end up down at the funny farm, in a straightjacket, with wires burnin out your brain, or you be dead a liver failure."
"Worse could happen."
"Dead in a ditch?" Jack caught the quick flicker of fear in Ennis's eyes. "I know why you ran. Know why you left Ten Sleep, too."
Silence.
"K.E. told me bout...bout the old man in the irrigation ditch."
"Wasn't his place to tell you nothin."
"He was worried. God dammit, Ennis, there are people who care about you, who...who... Hell, Mama misses you. I miss you. I come to take you home."
"Take me to bed first. Please, Jack."
Ennis might have looked as though he wouldn't withstand a gentle zephyr but looks deceived. Jack had been half-afraid to make love with him; instead it was he who was caught unawares by the ferocity of Ennis's needs. A feverish heat burned in that thin frame as he tried to slake four months of longing. Like a man pulled from a desert he drowned in Jack's love, soaked up Jack's strength and juices through every pore, feasted greedily on Jack's own carnal desires. There was no negotiation; Jack willingly submitted, allowed his body to be breached again and again, taken in fierce, wordless passion until Ennis, eyes afire, groaned "Oh jesus god fuckin christ almighty!", spilled once more into Jack and fell at last between his lover's quivering thighs, then slid the last slippery inches to Jack's mouth.
Sated and quiescent, they lay pressed together, glint of moonlight on angular bodies, hands stroking faces, nuzzling, licking, savouring their mingled tastes and scents. Complete beyond words, no world but this one within the safe walls of a wretched shack, no time except that which they found in each other’s arms. As Ennis’s breathing deepened, Jack sighed, relinquished the peace, and whispered.
"No more runnin--"
"Don't talk, Jack, don't, not now." Ennis ran his hand down Jack's flank, pulled his leg up, slipped his own thigh between Jack's and pressed, feeling Jack harden again, "--not now--", but Jack pushed his leg away, peered into his shadowed eyes and hugged him closer.
"You can't live your life like this, scared a your own reflection, lookin over your shoulder all a the time. How'm I goin a feel if you take off again, huh? Some asshole look at you the wrong way and you're gone?"
"You don't know what it's like, Jack."
"I know I don't want a die in a ditch like that old guy you seen. I know I keep my eyes sharp, try to act right in public. I know…I know I'm queer and that's a dangerous thing to be hereabouts, but I ain't goin a let em win. Not no more. What you seen was twenty-three years ago. Times’ve changed. Maybe it ain't never goin a be safe but don't mean you gotta kiss their asses. Lightnin Flat's a long way from anywhere. You and me, we can be safe there together. Ain't that what you want?"
"I ain't queer..."
"No, you just like to fuck my brains out, and you like me to fuck you till your teeth rattle and you can't stand up right. Call it what you like, friend, you ain't foolin me...or you."
He felt Ennis try to pull away but Jack hung on all the more tightly. He wasn't finished yet.
"Come on, didn't you think it was weird I had a jar a grease handy that first time? Huh? I been through all that stuff same as you, tellin myself I can't be one a them, don't want a be one, but comes a time when you just have to give in. You knowed what you was a long time. Maybe you couldn't say the word or think about it too close but it's been there. If it weren't you wouldn't a run, hey?" He gave Ennis an encouraging squeeze, brushed his lips against the sweet-smelling hair and hoped to god he hadn't said too much.
"I never wanted another man." Ennis's voice was teary, muffled against Jack's shoulder.
Say it, Jack, say it! You deserve this, you’re worthy of it. And he needs to know.
"You don't need another man, darlin. I'm your man. Always was, always will be. You don't need no-one else but me." A breath, a prayer. "I love you, Ennis."
He waited for Ennis to tense again but instead felt him melting further into Jack, snuffling and murmuring something into Jack's throat. It could have been I love you, but it didn't matter either way because the words were already out there and Ennis was still lying within the circle of his love. Jack rode with the moment, closed his eyes and breathed in every last trace to store and treasure, for the lonely times when they would have to be apart, for the twists and turns in the long road ahead, and for the gentle days of contented old age when dreams would fade but memories prevail.
Then he sat up and with quiet command hauled Ennis up on all fours, kissed him slowly and deliberately all down the length of his arched and quivering back, set to work with tongue and fingers and little nipping bites until Ennis growled and pawed the bed and tried to grab at him and cursed him for playing his damn-fool games, and Jack laughed his soft, wicked laugh and took Ennis with practised ease. Ennis clung to the bars, the bed walked, Jack pressed home his point.
"Won't...never...get this...from no...woman...darlin...there ain't...nothin...they can...give you...that you...need."
They left Ennis's rattletrap truck at K.E.'s place. Jack said it was because he trusted neither truck nor driver to arrive safely back at Lightning Flat. In reality, he wanted Ennis within easy reach. Neither spoke much but both were mulling over everything that had passed between them. Once in a while they'd reach out and touch each other, running hands around thighs until the truck swayed too much and they were forced to desist. Back at the ranch, Mrs Twist clasped Ennis's hands and said she was so glad to see him again and the kettle was already on. Sep, the stringy, craggy ranch-hand who now occupied Jack's old room nodded a quick greeting and got back to work. Ennis frowned nervously at Jack and Jack shrugged his shoulders; let the future take care of itself.
Rise and fall, rise and fall; like a gull floating on gentle ocean swells, Jack rode the steady rhythm of Ennis's breathing, lulled by the slow strong heartbeat thumping against his ear. Ennis del Mar. Jack had seen the ocean once after a business trip to Houston, and knew enough Spanish to recognise the absurdity of the name fate had bestowed on this earthbound landlocked man. He trickled his fingers through Ennis’s belly hair and exhaled.
"Four months, damn.”
"Yeah, four months. Didn't know if I'd see you again."
"Wasn't sure if you wanted me to find you."
Ennis's heart notched up a level, he drew in a long choppy breath then let the waves pass and roll away to break on a distant shore, his voice soft as sea foam.
"Yeah, I wanted it, bud. Every day, every single goddamn day."
Jack squeezed away sudden hot tears, rubbed his head against Ennis’s bony chest and gently stroked his bruised ribs.
“So why’d you…?”
“I dunno. Just couldn’t stand….it all just got…”
“M'sorry, Ennis. Didn't know how bad you felt, how bad it got."
"Didn't tell you. Wasn’t your fault. But Jack, that Sep---"
"Church friend a Mama's. He's okay."
"He won't...?"
"No, he’s okay. Mama’s got him sorted. Reckon maybe he sweet on her. Don't you worry bout him, now, darlin."
“Darlin!” Ennis’s body shook with quiet laughter. “Guess I could get used to it, say it often enough. An’ you? You okay now?”
"Yeah, good enough. Got you. All that matters. One day, maybe I tell you about Daddy. Not tonight though."
“In your own good time……darlin.”
Rise and fall, rise and fall.
"And one day, Ennis del Mar, goin a take you to the seaside."
“Huh?”
One benign late-autumn afternoon, when the land seemed ready to settle into its winter hibernation, the two of them sat out in a distant field, drinking beer and chewing on sandwiches, the newly repaired fence at their backs trailing away across sleeping pastures.
"Stand up, Ennis."
"Why?"
"Just do it. Now, turn around and tell me what you can see."
"Uh, the yearlin herd way over yonder. Nothin else movin."
"And what's up in the sky?"
Ennis put on his faux-grouchy face but looked up. "There's a buzzard, maybe. Clouds buildin up to the west. Look like a jet trail overhead. What you playin at?"
"Nothin and no-one," said Jack softly. He stood up and grabbed Ennis tight, kissed him long and wet and deep, thrust against Ennis's protesting body until he stopped squirming and kissed back, until he got the message.
Later on, they lay gazing up at the sky, weather-eyed Ennis watching the clouds drifting over.
"Best be gettin on, bud."
"Ease up, will you. No hurry, just enjoy it here a while, out in daylight," Jack laughed and nudged Ennis.
"Yeah well, you and your fancy ideas a makin out in a meadow."
Jack rolled over and picked grass out of Ennis's hair. "Things are quiet here. We ought a take a vacation. Sep can handle the ranch for a few days. What say you?"
"Ain't never taken a vacation before," said Ennis, "always work to be done. Besides, never had the money."
"Well, we ain't exactly flush, neither. Tell you what, maybe next week when you see your girls I could tag along. Settle down, won't hang around you in public or nothin. But afterwards, we could head up to the mountains, camp a while, maybe do some fishin. Before the cold really sets in."
Ennis sat up, his perpetual frown in place. "Could take the horses, I guess."
"Yeah, get far enough out for you to stop freakin. I remember a place north a Signal, worked there summer '62, herdin fuckin sheep. Brokeback Mountain."
"Brokeback Mountain." Too quick to be an echo; the name had been in Ennis's mind even before Jack had spoken it. "You work for a bastard name Aguirre? Did the same summer '63."
Jack nodded, wide-eyed. "No shit? That's gotta be a omen. Summer '63, huh? Shit! Shit..."
An exquisite cold sliver slipped its way through Jack's chest; he shivered. Someone walk across your grave, Jack? He took Ennis's face in his hands, gently rubbed his thumbs over the worry lines indelibly etched there, looked deep into those sad, beautiful, dark eyes, searching for the young man buried long ago, before the years of fear and shame and loneliness left their marks.
"'63, you know, I nearly went back...Shit, we could a met way back then, could a had all them extra years together. How good would that a been? Could a been some sweet life."
But Ennis drew him close, kissed his smoky-sweet mouth, felt no regrets. No, Jack, this is it, what we got right here and now. Here you are, my friend, my lover, my saviour. You gave me my life, you gave me myself. I love you, Jack Twist. We'll keep each other safe and I won’t never let you out a my sights. Don’t fret about what might have been. Whatever we might have had, Jack, I swear this life will be so much sweeter.