Another well-deserved honor for Brokeback Mountain!
Jake Gyllenhaal took home two well-deserved MTV Movie awards Saturday, June 3rd, 2006 – one for “Best movie kiss,” which he shared with Heath Ledger, and the other for “Best Performance.”…
"A sinister cabal of superior writers."
Article comments
— go to most recent comments26 - reggie von woic
Jet, i'm speechless (not in a bad way)
27 - Silas Kain
Wow. Gut wrenching. I'm reliving it yet again. Jet, you must tell me about their first meeting after a few years. Tell me about that kiss. About the light that came on in Ennis' eyes when Jack came back into his life. Give me more. My want is insatiable.
28 - Jet in Columbus
Uh Silas??? that's the article itself! the whole story of how they kissed after being apart for years is the kiss that won the award that the article's about....
29 - Silas Kain
Damn you, Jet. I get so farklempt when caught up in Brokeback Mountain.
30 - chantal stone
yeah Jet...you can't leave us hanging like this, damn.
31 - Jet in Columbus
Okay so did everyone figure out that the end of #18 fits into the beginning of #6?
32 - Jet in Columbus
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.
No goodbyes, no nothin’
Was it over between them?
It took Jack two hours, sometimes with tear-blurred eyes to drive the long miles to his boyhood home. Randall Tanny’s offer to leave his wife and take Jack up to Lightning Flat to 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 Ennis, and with never being able to love Randall, as much weighed heavy on his mind.
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 talk to his father about hiding the foreman away for him, 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 another hundred yards down the long private dirt driveway that led to the ranch house… his boyhood home, through the 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.
As he bumped over it, the front right tire blew out, and, and he cussed his head off as he struggled to keep in control.
Jumping out to inspect it, he exclaimed, “Shit!”
He pulled off his jacket, slapped it across the hood over handed, and reached in to shut off the truck.
After scanning the surrounding weathered out-buildings of his youth, and hearing only crows cawing and 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 tire off.
A sound distracted him, as an old battered Chevy pickup pulled up behind him, that he recognized as his father’s. His smile to his old man changed to surprise as the door of the passenger side opened too, and Mr. Newsome, his Father-in-law, climbed out. Two husky young blond farmhands wearing worn overalls that he’d never met before, leaped athletically out of the old bed, bouncing the back of the truck on creaking shocks, and started looking for something beside the old dirt road together.
His dad smiled, as they approached, “Trouble son?”
While Jack pondered that Newsome and his father even knew each other, much less that they were friends, his father-in-law appeared at his side, reached for the tire iron in Jack’s hand and said, “Here ‘Rodeo’, let me help you with that.”
“Well thank you,” responded Jack with a surprised grin. “Rodeo” had become a nickname over the years that Lorene’s old man used to deride his son in law with disrespect. Jacks brows furrowed in puzzlement because it clashed with the warm smile his father-in-law now wore.
“What happened?” his father asked.
“That post was layin’ across the road,” replied Jack gazing over into his dad’s eyes. He turned to look for it, and found that one of the young burly strangers that’d come with them was now carrying it toward him. The other farmhand was nowhere to be found. As the stranger approached, Jack noticed it had a bunch of new shiny long nails driven through it, so that the ends were all pointing outward. As he came closer, the ranch hand gripped it like a slugger about to belt a home run out of the stadium.
The long grass rustled behind the truck.
Mystified, Jack turned to ask his father what was going on, but he wasn’t there. After a moment of glancing around, he spotted him out in the wheat field about twenty yards, facing away, his head bowed and hands clasped in front of himself as if praying.
As old man Twist began reciting the Lord’s Prayer, the sound of someone stumbling toward him, and loud thumps began, ending with a soft painful groan, something heavy falling at his feet in the field behind him, and the putrid smell of blood.
Old man Twist didn’t look up as Newsome eventually came up beside him and laid a comforting hand on his shoulder, and joined him reciting softly, as something was dragged away behind them.
“Amen,” they said together.
In the distance, just barely over the sound of a crow cawing came the sound of a woman wailing in agony and grief.
33 - just because
Guess you decided to punish us for being so pesky with that last post eh? Darn, words fail me...So I'll just wish you well for your surgery, friend.
Thanks so much for sharing these precious words,
jb.
34 - Jet in Columbus
It wasn't meant as punishment my friend, those words were as hard to write as they were for you to read. I decided to combine both theories of Jack's death into one, letting the reader think that what Loreen said was true up until the last moment, and then hitting the reader between the eyes.
I'm glad you liked it.
It makes me feel good.
Thanks for the best wishes. I have to go to my shrink's between noon and 1 at Ohio State, and then at 1:30 the surgery on both eyes occors. I may be gone for a while, but ot permanately I hope...
35 - Jet in Columbus
Silas, Just, and Chantal, Here's my take on how the story began, as a thank you for all your kind words...
PROLOGUE
And so it began one hazy early summer morning near the end of June 1963.
They were raised on small, poor ranches in opposite corners of the state, Jack Twist in Lightning Flat, up north on the Montana border, Ennis del Mar from around Sage, near the Utah line, both high-school drop-out country boys with no prospects, brought up with hard work and hardship, both rough-mannered, rough-spoken, and hardened to the stoic cowboy western type of life.
It would be Jack Twist's second summer up there, Ennis's first.
Ennis del Mar was just plain shy.
Ennis was also just shy of twenty, with sandy blond self-trimmed hair, and a rugged horseman's build. Sometimes he lamented having never graduated with the class of '62. Many in his one and only sophomore year of high school said that with a lot of cleaning up, and some training, he could've been a movie star like James Dean. 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.
Jack Twist was just nineteen. He'd always seen the rodeo as a way of getting in good with his father, who was a famous and award-winning bull rider in his day. Jack hoped for the same level of fame, though he never succeeded, or for that matter even came close. John Twist had used his rodeo winnings to buy a good-sized ranch and raise a son. Jack wanted to follow in his hero-father's footsteps, but never got any help or encouragement, so he'd decided to set out on his own, prove himself, outdo his father, then go home someday and rub it in the old man's face.
That was his dream, anyway.
Jack kept his dark hair short and trimmed neat, always wore denim, and favored a "bad guy's" black cowboy hat. 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 jokes, and tried never to be without his smile.
His goal was to marry a woman prettier than his mother.
His goal was to raise a family bigger than his father's.
Both worried about the draft, going to Vietnam, and vague rumors of atomic bombs and missiles in Cuba.
CHAPTER ONE
A couple of hours before dawn, Ennis set out to thumb a ride north into town, carrying only a battered paper grocery sack containing a razor, extra blades, a spare shirt, socks and a carton of cigarettes. He didn't know about cancer; no one did back then, so he got hooked on smoking early, like most boys who wanted to look cool, and feel grown up.
After half an hour of walking with his thumb out hitchhiking, a big-rig hauling cattle, picked him up. 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 driver, hungry for conversation on his lonely journey to Idaho probably would've taken him all the way into town, but Ennis only answered the man's friendly questions in grunts and one-word answers, so he was dumped half a mile from his destination.
As the truck pulled away in a cloud of diesel, del Mar set off again, half asleep and on foot, for the address that he'd scrawled on 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 in, when 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... or at all for that matter. When he finally came to Signal's town limits, 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 trailer locked and unoccupied, the parking lot empty except for a couple of broken down ancient pickup trucks and tumbleweeds scurrying around with the wind. He leaned his back against the wall to the left of the wooden stairs that led up to the door, lowering his hat's brim against the bright morning sun as it cleared the crest of the mountain. He thought of 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 bangs, came from somewhere in the distance, causing him to look up. A moment later, an old dark 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 worn, but fancy denim scrambled angrily out of it, and kicked the back fender, rattling it, and cussing under his breath.
The two teenagers were like different sides of the same coin. One hated the truck; the other would've given anything to have one to get around in, no matter what its ailments. Like their lives up to that point, the paint was dull and uncared for, everything was rusted and old, 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.
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. He reached into his truck and pulled out his own sack, and a heavy coat with a worn wool collar.
They were both brought up to avoid other men's eyes, and 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 noticed the muscular thighs and hardened calves beneath the close-fitting denims, 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 eyes off the teenager; the swaggering way his hips moved, the gleam in his eyes, and his ready smile. He 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 over and over. The quiet stranger had moved, and was now sitting on the edge of the steps to the left of the 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 a stance of someone raised on a horse. He nodded to himself, because that was good. His partner from last summer was a lazy-assed bastard, who barely lasted till September. There was a look of shy confidence on his face, and now that Jack had his back to him, he noticed in the mirror that Ennis 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 young man 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 '64 Rambler roared smoothly into the parking lot, coming to a dusty stop at the trailer's wooden steps, nearly hitting Ennis, who jumped out of the way at the last moment. 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 look of smirky distain 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 lunch pale and a thermos, kicked the door to hold it open, and slammed it, after putting on his hat.
He'd pulled in too close to the trailer to get 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 game or five card stud, and probably as dependable.
Ennis carefully, but quickly stubbed out his smoke, and saved what was left in his pocket, while 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, Ennis jumped back surprised, shrugged, and then looked questioningly back at Jack, who only snickered in explanation.
Jack posed against his truck, trying to project exaggerated, unconcerned relaxation and confidence.
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 eyes. 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 brusk voice said from the suddenly opened door.
36 - Silas Kain
Those asses. Oh yeah. They weren't that scrawny. Thank you, Jet. You made my night.
37 - Jet in Columbus
Silas, Silas, Silas give me a few minutes and I'll bive you one LAST chapter before I go...
38 - Jet in Columbus
A middle-aged man with a South American accent suddenly entered the bar, called out their names impatiently, and drove them out to the drop off point a few miles away in the shadow of the mountain.
Jack 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. Ennis had been eyeing the river but 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.
He turned around to see the Chilean headers babbling in Spanish or something at each other, as they painted green “brands” on each animal’s back counting them off of the trucks.
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 never order soup. Them boxes of soup are real bad to pack.”
Ennis muttered, “I don’t eat soup anyways,” and went back to tying knots.
Later, 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 belonging to one of the blue heelers went in a basket, the runt inside Jack’s coat, because he instantly fell in love with the little dog. Its mother began persistently yapping at him as he climbed up on 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.
Meanwhile, 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, “Careful, 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 mare, Jack smirked down at him and bragged, “Ain’t no mare that can throw me!” Nodding a the South American, he added, “That’s his job; you want to stand there tying knots, or get the hell up the mountain?”
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 up hill, through the timber and out along the tree line into the great flowery 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 leg, straddling it across his saddle scaring the puppy in his coat. His mare became skittish at a stream half a mile later, so he dismounted, slung the lamb over his shoulders, and pulled his horse behind him through the water, muttering to himself, 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 resorted to parking the mare on the other side and crossing 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.
Twist looked back to find that del Mar had a little one straddled across his saddle now too, and a second 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. 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. Though it was distant, they could see from the herd down to the campsite. When they were satisfied they’d 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, and secured the kitchen and grub boxes. Then they worked together cutting down small trees for firewood, barely speaking a word between them, always glancing back up the mountain to make sure the flock was grazing and still staying put.
Jack got busy splitting logs with a mighty swing of a new axe, while Ennis set up the iron fire grate for cooking.
Twist hoped the rancher was a better cook than he was a talker as he hauled two buckets of water up from the stream..
Jack wanted to stay in camp, but rode off up the mountain to join the flock for the night anyway. Alone with the mountain by himself, he fell deep in thought about the stirring in his loins when Ennis’ thigh touched his. Jack wasn’t no faggot, and distracted himself by thinking about a female barrel rider he’d had his eyes on in Texas last spring. Whenever he came to a clearing though, he looked down the valley to see Ennis’ cook fire… and wondered why the ranch hand’s rare smiles seemed to warm him.
Ennis got a fire going against the night’s cold and bunked down in his camp tent.
Neither 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 cans of beans cooking over the campfire’s grate, but the smell of coffee brightened his mood. Ennis lifted the lid of another pan by the fire, left there to keep warm, and revealed eggs and fried potatoes.
“I’m in love!” he gasped and took a filled plate from Ennis.
Jack said he couldn’t wait to get a spread of his own so he wouldn’t have to put up with Aguirre’s bullshit 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, sticking mostly to what he knew. Not knowing Jack’s distain for them, he heated beans in their cans 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 order. Twist showed how stubborn he could be by refusing to pick out one of the other spare horses, 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 him, nearly throwing him as she wheeled 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, and his steed galloped off as if it were trying to leave him behind.
A few days later, dawn came glassy-orange, against the pale green glow of the mist from the pines below. The sooty bulk of the mountain paled slowly until it was the same color as the smoke from Ennis’s breakfast fire. The cold air sweetened, banded pebbles and crumbs of soil cast sudden pencil-long shadows, and the rearing lodge pole pines below them massed in slabs of somber blue-gray.
Throughout the day Ennis, kept feeling that odd yearning he couldn’t name. He was always alone with his thoughts, basically because he’d always been taught not to share them. He’d rolled up his jeans to his calves, waded into the stream, and while cleaning the breakfast pans, looked up across a great valley to the hillside, and sometimes spotted Jack, a small dot moving across a high meadow, as an insect moves 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 heard and shot 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 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 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. Jack blamed the rifle’s bent sites for all his misses, though he knew better.
Down below, it’d rain often, and Ennis 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, while watching him 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. Don’t forget ammo for the rifle neither; lots of coyotes up there.”
Ennis nodded and jotted down something.
Jack walked over, mounted his skittish horse, and farted, glancing back red-faced to see if Ennis had heard. The ranch hand looked away just before their eyes met.
As he spurred the mare on, Twist yelled out “No more beans!”
Del Mar nodded, but Twist was gone in the time it took for him to look up.
39 - Silas Kain
I love you, Jet.
40 - chantal stone
Jet.....wow, thanks so much for the read.
My internet was down for the past 24 hrs (W.O.W. sucks) and I just got it back working, I wanted to wish you well before your surgery.
My prayers are with you. :)
41 - Jet in Columbus
I love you too Silas, I'm glad you enjoyed it.
42 - Jet in Columbus
Thanks Chantal, pray for my belief in anything positive coming from prayer. I've endured a year and a half of hell, and no prayer has helped.
I've had whole churches pray for me.
I feel you love, I just wish I could feel God's love.
I've been praying for other people instead of myself, for my sister not to lose her home, for my father not to die.
Faith is a hard thing to get back once you've lost it. Hope is too
43 - Jet in Columbus
WARNING!!! You'll never be able to watch the end of this movie again the same way after reading this...
Ennis drove the road to Lightning Flat went through desolate country past a dozen abandoned ranches distributed over the plain at eight and ten-mile intervals, houses sitting blank-eyed in the weeds, corral fences down.
The mailbox read “John C. Twist.” The ranch 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.
Part way up the lane, he brought his truck to a stop as he came to a place where the brown wheat had been burned. It was a narrow strip maybe five feet wide, but about twenty yards long.
Leaving the motor idle, he got out to look at it.
His first though 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.
Around him crows cawed and horses whinnied. He looked around 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 popped down, revealing an always-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 house 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 house, a broom leaning next to the door.
He hadn’t made it out of his truck, when the door opened and an older thin woman in a plain housedress opened the 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. Jack’s mother, stout and careful in her movements as though recovering from an operation. She said, “Want some coffee, don’t you? Piece a cherry cake?”
“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 recognized in him a not uncommon type with the hard need to be the stud duck in the pond. Jack had referred to his father-in-law as one once. He 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.”
His mother placed a cup and saucer in front of him, and he muttered and nodded a thanks to her.
There was a silence. 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 but said nothing more.
The old man 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.”
Mrs. Twist showed tender concern for her guest, despite her husband, despite the man who may have perverted her boy was sitting in her very kitchen. She may have believed in the Pentecost, but she knew too that her son 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 was your friend.
For a moment she was lost as to what she’d do if this man killed her husband as much to avenge himself as to calm her grief.
Ennis seemed transfixed in Twist’s eyes, wishing now he’d brought that pistol with him.
Looking across the room from where she stood near the kitchen, she 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.”
Jack’s father’s eyes flickered toward his wife with pure resentment, then returned to Ennis, eyeing him with a lethal mixture of bitterness and hatred.
The old man spoke. “Jack used a say, ‘Ennis del Mar,’ he used a say, ‘I’m goin a 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 log 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 a 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, for 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 the 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 and forced himself not to look back, again hoping he hadn’t made a bad decision leaving the gun in the truck. Wondering if he could summon the guts to kill the man he was now convinced killed Jack... his own son.
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 wall, and reflecting onto a wooden chair, a B.B. gun in a hand-whittled rack over the bed. Ennis caught his breath as he spotted 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 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 road stretching south and it occurred to him that for Jack’s growing-up years that was the only road he knew.
Outside was only the sound of livestock and crows. No other cars were in sight, and 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. He could hear Jack’s mother downstairs running water, filling the kettle and setting it back on the stove, asking the old man a muffled question.
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 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 left 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.
At the north end of the closet a tiny jog in the wall made a slight hiding place and here, stiff with long suspension from a nail, hung a shirt. He lifted it off the nail; Jack’s old denim shirt from their Brokeback days. Ennis’ eyes began burning as he knew that the dried blood on the sleeve was his own blood, a gushing nosebleed on the last afternoon on the mountain when Jack, in their horseplay, grappling and wrestling, had slammed Ennis’s nose hard with his knee. He had stanched the blood, which was everywhere, all over both of them, with his shirtsleeve, but the stanching hadn’t held, because Ennis had suddenly swung from the deck and laid Jack out in the wild columbine.
The shirt seemed oddly heavy until he saw there was another shirt inside it, the sleeves carefully worked down inside Jack’s sleeves. It was his own white plaid shirt, lost, he’d thought, long ago up on that mountain, his dirty shirt, nose blood still on the cuff 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 burned 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 and salty sweet stink of Jack, but there was no real scent, only the memory of it, 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.
He wiped his acid tears on the soft denim, and swore not to leave this house without it.
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.
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, gave him a reassuring smile.
Her gaze fell on the blood stained white plaid shirt, and she realized Jack’s denim shirt was hidden within it.
Her eyes showed brief pain, then swiftly flickered toward her husband, satisfied he wasn’t watching, and then locked again on Ennis.
A bond was silently exchanged between them, with a promise of a secret kept.
If she noticed the shirt inside the shirt, she didn’t show him she had, and 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.
Ennis 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, beating the steering wheel with balled up fists.
Bumping down the washboard road Ennis passed the country cemetery fenced with sagging sheep wire, a tiny fenced square on the welling prairie, a few graves bright with plastic flowers, and didn’t want to know Jack was going in there, to be buried on the grieving plain.
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?” said 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 got a order some more cards anyway.”
“One’s enough,” said Ennis.
44 - Silas Kain
Jet, my darling, you're in my thoughts and prayers. Never, ever discount the power of positive thinking. It's gotten millions through the scourge of religious intolerance. In the end, God does care.
45 - chantal stone
I'm typing this with tears in my eyes. I think this was the saddest movie ending ever, and you capture it, filling in the blanks, so beautifully here, Jet.
46 - just because
Jet,
Thank you again for sharing. You have a wonderful way with words, so readable - despite the subject matter being hard to read at times. I think you're working on a book so glad that talent's not going to waste. Sorry to hear you have been/are going through tough times - sending you a vibe of support via this ineffective cyber medium for what it's worth :) Here's hoping hope will come back to you soon & remember the message you took away from Brokeback - whatever it was, it must have been positive because it inspired you enough to write these beautiful words.
jb
47 - Jet in Columbus
Thank Annie, I just expanded on her work, and on the work of the movie's writers. Glad you enjoyed it.
48 - Silas Kain
Jet, in another lifetime I would ask you to marry me.
49 - Jet in Columbus
Jet Kain, hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm or Mmmmmmmmmm? I could always ask ArchBoingBat to be best man, if only to ascertain his secret superhero identity!
50 - Jet in Columbus
Speaking of Gay Superheroes-whatever happened to SteveS, I keep writing all these things and not a peep out of him?
51 - Jet in Columbus
Well I was going to put another scene up, but since you're all bored with it...
52 - Jet in Columbus
SteveS, wheh you get time, tell me what you think of my novelizations here!
53 - SteveS
Very well written, I look forward to reading your book!
54 - Jet in Columbus
Thank you Steve. I've been thinking of trying to make some money some how by posting System 10 a chapter at a time and asking for donations. Steven King did that, but I don't know if he made any money.
I'm glad you enjoyed it...
55 - SteveS
let me know if it's successful, ironically I blogged tonight about doing something very similiar.
56 - chantal stone
Jet...we're not bored...if you have more....do share!
57 - Jet in Columbus
Okay SteveS and Chantal, just for you...
...Jack spent the rest of ’63 at his father’s ranch, mending fences, harvesting crops, plowing fields and tending to the stock.
Northern Wyoming had a rough winter that year.
1964 rolled around, and Ennis was still never far from his mind, and after spring planting, summer couldn’t come fast enough. He’d put in an application to work up on Brokeback again, but had heard nothing back, so he figured it’d gotten lost in the mail.
In June Jack was drawn back to the office trailer in Signal, so 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.
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, Twist exploding just as they both shot their loads together.
As he pulled into the wind blown dirt and gravel parking lot, he spotted Aguirre’s car.
Pounding loudly on the door, he still hoped Ennis had been there.
The foreman’s voice held an aggravated tone, “Yeah?”
Jack entered, removed his hat and Aguirre looked up to blink at him, almost not believing his eyes. He shook his head, and then returned his gaze to his paper work, contemptuously remarking, “Well, look what the wind blew in.”
Twist nodded and replied, “Howdy, Mr. Aguirre. Will you be needin’ any help this year?”
Chewing on a toothpick, the foreman just looked off in the distance, not bothering to meet Jack’s eye. “You’re waistin’ your time here Twist.”
Jack frowned, almost turned to leave, but wasn’t ready to give up yet. “You ain’t got nothin’?” then after a pause, added, “Nothing up on Brokeback?”
Aguirre turned to face him in his squeaky desk chair, and as his hateful eyes were lit by the desk lamp, he said, “I ain’t got nothing for you, Twist.”
Jack felt the man’s disgust, 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, “Has Ennis del Mar, been by here?”
Aguirre’s expression turned to pure contempt, “Twist, I wasn’t payin’ to let the dogs baby-sit the sheep while you two stemmed the rose.” Aguirre looked away and then spat out a warning, glancing toward a tire iron sitting on the counter by a pair of work gloves, “Now get out of my trailer.”
Jack swallowed hard, nodded, and put his hat back on. He wasted no time, and slammed the door behind himself.
As he backed his truck out, he wasn’t paying attention, and came up tailgate against bumper at Aguirre’s Rambler. The contact was gentle enough not to be heard, and his surprise turned to bravado. With a touch of the gas, both taillights crunched, and with a smile, he shifted into first and intentionally popped the clutch spraying driveway gravel at the car and the office trailer.
A few blocks away, he pulled over and rested his forehead on the steering wheel, and felt like sobbing, though tears wouldn’t come. He wasn’t sure if he were afraid of the threat Aguirre had made, or disappointed at not finding Ennis. As Ennis 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, 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.
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 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 had the truck not broken down. He’d had second thoughts all the way there anyway, and instead decided to look up the barrel riding cowgirl he’d eyed last spring, and in the process entered himself in the bull riding competition in a rodeo in Childress Texas.
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 strenuous exercise turned his once-boyish body into a defined man’s well defined 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 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 night after a particularly grueling night of bull riding, a rodeo clown caught his eye in the corral. The man under all that comic makeup made him look 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; he reminded him of Ennis.
Later on that evening, he sat in a dark bar eyeing the girls, and incidentally the young guys playing pool within a haze of cigarette smoke.
A tall good-looking shorthaired blond man with a woven 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 clown he’d been eyeing earlier.
He looked to be in his early twenties, in 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 young 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.
He also possessed a heart-melting grin, which never left his face.
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 getting him drunk and using his prize money to spend the night with this Adonis in some cheap motel, began filling his head, as the hunk came up to the rail and ordered a beer.
Before he could wonder why, or chicken out, Jack found himself walking the length of the bar rail to stand next to him.
To the bartender, Jack said, “I’d like to buy ol’ Jimbo here a beer,” giving the hunk a bright smile.
The bartender nodded, and the lanky man 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 clowns 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.
The brawny object of his hopes, only straightened to his full six-foot-five, and answered, “No thanks.” Speaking to the bartender he said, “If I took liquor from every cowboy I ever pulled a bull off of, I’d be an alcoholic by now.”
The bartender chuckled as the clown shoved his own dollar forward, pushing Jack’s away in the process and said to Twist, “You keep your money,” as he turned away with his bottle. Over his shoulder he added, “Save it for your next entry fee.”
Jack watched the man and his hips stroll over to the guys at the pool table, as they all gathered around him, then looked his way.
“You ever think of changing to ropin’?” the bartender asked his back.
Jack turned around and tersely replied, “Do I look like I can afford a roping horse?” slapped his dollar across to pay for his own drink, and made his way quickly out of the bar.
Outside, a good-looking girl 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…
58 - Jet in Columbus
If you're trying to read it in order here's an index so far...
#35 Prologue-And so it begins
#38-Up the Mountain
#18-Aftermath
# 6-Making Love
Main Article-Little Darlin'
#25-Exiles from Heaven
#57-Clownin' Around
#32-The Lord's Prayer
#43-A Mother's Pact
there's still unposted
-It could be like this always
-My dad was right!
-To Alma and Kurt
-I wish I could quit you
and a few more
For obvious reasons Idon't think I can post the sex scenes
59 - chantal stone
keep posting what you can Jet.....we're all really enjoying it here.
60 - Jet in Columbus
Click on my URL to see three Big pictures of their great kisses!
61 - Jet in Columbus
This scene takes up after the kissing scene fromt he main article...
As always this is based on Annie's work, I just fleshed it out...
They exchanged a look that ended the passion and they immediately began straightening their clothes, 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 up his own set of stairs to their apartment.
A few anxious moments later, they both appeared in the 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 Jack Twist. Jack, my wife, Alma.”
His chest was heaving. He could smell Jack"the intensely familiar odor of cigarettes, musky male sweat, and a faint sweetness like grass, and with it the rushing cold of the mountain. “Alma,” he said, “Jack and me ain’t seen each other in four years.” As if it were a reason. He was glad the light was dim on the landing but did not turn away from her.
“Sure enough,” said Alma in a low voice. She had seen what she had seen. Behind her in the room, lightning lit the window like a white sheet waving and Jenny cried.
“You got a kid?” said Jack. His shaking hand grazed Ennis’s hand, electrical current snapped between them.
“Two little girls,” Ennis said. “Alma, Jr., and Jenny. Love them to pieces.”
Alma’s mouth twitched.
“I got a boy,” said Jack. “Eight months old; he smiles a lot. I married the cutest girl in Texas down in Childress"Lorene.”
From the vibration of the floorboard on which they both stood Ennis could feel how hard Jack was shaking.
“Alma,” he said. “Jack and me is goin out and get a drink. Might not get back tonight, when we get drinkin and talking and all.”
“Sure enough,” Alma said, taking a dollar bill from her purse. 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.
Ennis guessed she was going to ask him to get her a pack of cigarettes, to bring him back sooner.
“Pleased to meet you,” said Jack, trembling like a run-out horse.
“Ennis,” said Alma in her misery voice, but that didn’t slow him down on the stairs and he called back, “Alma, you want smokes there’s some in the 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 jouncing a bed. A few handfuls of hail rattled against the window, followed by rain and a slippery wind banging the unsecured door of the next room then and through the night.
All evening sex scenes edited by author
Jack fled to the shower, and moments later Ennis joined him in the tiny tiled cubicle.
Sex in shower scene edited out by author
Ennis finished first and after toweling himself off, left for the bedroom.
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 cheeks on his palms and his elbows on his knees facing away.
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 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.
After a moment, Jack wrapped his arm around Ennis’ head as the nape of his neck rested against his shoulder and chin.
As with all men, it was sex first, conversation and cigarettes later. With Alma it was doing his husbandly duties and get 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 fuckin’ years,” exclaimed, Jack in a whisper distracting Ennis from his thoughts.
Ennis nodded, “Yep, four years.”
Jack whispered, “I thought I’d never see you again.”
Ennis chuckled as he flicked an ash into the ashtray perched on his chest. “I just figured you were sore about that punch.”
Jack blew forceful cigarette clouds like whale spouts, and said, “Christ, it’s got to be all that time of yours on horseback that makes it so goddamn good. 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, “Yeah, I did. It’s why I’m here. I fuckin’ knew it. Red-lined the tach all the way, couldn’t get here fast enough; doubt if I did less than 90 the whole way up.”
Ennis silently flicked another ash into the tray on his chest. 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.
“I was in Texas rodeoin’. How I met Lorene. Look over on that chair.”
On the back of a soiled orange chair he saw the shine of a buckle. “Bull ridin?”
“Yeah. I made three fuckin thousand dollars that year. Fuckin 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. Now Lorene: there’s some serious money there. Her old man’s got it. Got this farm-machinery business. Course he don’t let her have none of ti, and naturally he hates my fuckin guts…”
“Army didn’t get you?” A bright flash of light lit the window, and after a few moments, thunder sounded far to the east..
“No, I was too busted up. I’m got out while I still could walk. 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 every 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; it ain’t like it was in my old man’s day. Now, Lorene’s old man… 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.”
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 or 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 almost used the word “love”… something men weren’t supposed to say to each other.
Jack smiled and replied, “Old Brokeback got us good.” Love weighed heavily on his mind too. He’d all but 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’ inhaled a slow thoughtful breath. “There ain’t much we can do. I got my hands full here just trying to feed my family and make a living. We’re both committed to our families, Jack, there’s not much more we can do.”
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 greeted Jack the summer of ’64, and how Jack peppered his car with gravel.
Ennis laughed and told Jack about meeting the foreman at a church social, and him not remembering him, even offering him a job up on Brokeback last year.
Ennis inhaled a long thoughtful breath, and then exhaled, “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 to him and kissed him full on the mouth as the ashtray fell to the floor.
“Not just yet, cowboy.”
They turned off the lights and cuddled in each other’s arms. Ennis kissed his way down to Jack's
Edited by author
which he almost never did when they were on the mountain and they passionately went at it again until they fell sound asleep.
The next morning after waking up in each other’s arms,----Edited by author---- cleaned up and headed back to Ennis’ place. On the way there, it hit them both that unless they did something about it, they’d never see each other for another long stretch, and were saddened by it.
It took some fast-talking, but Jack finally talked Ennis into seeing things his way, at least for the time being. They agreed to head for the mountain 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 father 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. When she heard them pull up out back, she wiped her tears and rushed to the window. Had he come back or was he here for his things and to say goodbye?
They both jumped out of Jack’s pickup, and Twist waited down there, while Ennis rushed up the stairs… not a good sign.
At the door, he gave Alma a quick, “Hey,” and rushed around gathering his coat and fishing equipment.
Alma opened her mouth to ask something, and 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 figure a way to keep him here, 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 asked, 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 and picked her up, kissed her, and 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 of was, “You sure that foreman won’t fire you for just taking off?”
Ennis looked back at her and replied, “He owes me. Didn’t I work all last 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.
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.
“You hungry?” asked Twist
“Starved!” exclaimed Ennis in a happy voice.
The 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…
62 - just because
These segments you're posting are like pieces of a jigsaw!! Any more you'd like to post will help complete the picture :)
jb
63 - chantal stone
damn editing
64 - Jet in Columbus
Sorry gang, I'd get more explicit, but I don't want to test the editor's patience to see how far I can go. I believe in good taste myself and this is a public forum.
I'm glad you enjoyed...
Jet
why do I get the feeling that only about three people are reading these anyway? Dont forget to check out the screen shots I posted on my own blog's URL!
I thought it was cool that they picked me as blogcritic of the day, thanks guys!
65 - chantal stone
yeah it is cool...congrats, Jet
66 - Jet in Columbus
Chantal, Should I write a speech, do I have to give back the dozen roses now that it's after midnight?
67 - chantal stone
No, sweetie, you can keep the tiara on for a little while longer ;)
68 - Jet in Columbus
Thank god do you know how hard it is getting a hair appointment on Saturdays?
69 - Jet in Columbus
Chantal, Silas etc, here's another piece of your favorite jigsaw puzzle...
"If you two deuces are lookin' for work, I suggest you get your scrawny asses in here pronto!" the foreman's brusk voice said from the suddenly opened door.
Barely acknowledging each other's presence, they scurried inside while removing their hats. Jack stood defiantly in the middle of the floor, feet confidently spread apart, thumbs in his belt, while Ennis settled to his left, leaning his shoulder nervously against the wall next to a dingy window.
Joe Aguirre was a man with little use for ranch hands, nor any respect. They were just tools of the trade, a dime-a-dozen, deserving little or no notice, and only slightly better then the bastard sheep wranglers from Chile, or somewhere in South America, that he'd just hired.
As he rounded the desk toward the back of the trailer facing them, he scooped off his hat and plopped it down, as he landed in a squeaky reclining office chair. If he recognized Jack from last summer he didn't show it. A sign on his desk with his name on it was all the introducing he figured they deserved. The old wooden desk was littered with scribbled papers, clipboards, a Bakelite ashtray brimming with cigar stubs and a phone.
The Venetian blinds hung askew and admitted a triangle of white light, the shadow of the foreman's hand moving into it. Joe Aguirre, wavy hair the color of cigarette ash and parted down the middle, gave them his point of view with no preliminaries.
"Forest Service's got designated camp-sites on the allotments. Them camps can be a couple a miles from where we pasture the woolies. Got bad predator loss, 'cause nobody's up there looking after 'em at night."
Pointing at Ennis, he continued, "What I want is you, the camp tender, in the main camp where the Forest Service says, but the herder" pointing at Jack with a chop of his hand "is to pitch a pup tent on the Q.T. with the sheep, stay outta sight, and you're gonna sleep there. Eat supper'n, breakfast in camp, but sleep with the sheep hundred percent, no fire, don't leave no sign. Roll up that tent every morning in case the Forest Service snoops around. You got your dogs'n, your .30-.30, so sleep there. Last summer had goddamn near twenty-five-per-cent loss. I don't want that again. You," he said 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 jeans torn, button-gaping shirt, "Fridays twelve noon be down at the bridge with your next-week list of groceries and pack mules. Somebody with supplies'll be there in a pickup."
He didn't ask, or care for that matter, if Ennis had a watch. He reached up into a shelf and took a cheap ticker with a cheaper wristband from a box on a high shelf, wound and set it, and 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 his own, in a youthful act of defiance.
The foreman's eyes narrowed at him, as he prepared to say something. The phone rang, and Aguirre answered, "Yeah?" impatiently, cussed out whoever it was on the other end of the line and then hung up.
"In a couple a hours, we'll truck you up to the jump-off." Startling them as they suddenly realized he was talking to them again.
Their eyes met his, his met theirs only briefly, then picked up the phone in silent dismissal.
They shrugged and 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, 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. "That's it, your folks 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 meet you Ennis del Mar." Then added, "Well, if we're gonna be workin' together, we might as well start drinkin' together."
To Ennis' lack of response, Jack headed past him out of the parking lot on foot, muttering "Come on."
A pair of deuces going nowhere.
Jack 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 to talkative, and conversation was never one of del Mar's strong suits.
He trailed along behind him to a bar that Jack knew of, a couple blocks away, and drank beer through the afternoon, Jack telling Ennis about a lightning storm on the mountain the year before that killed forty-two sheep, the peculiar stink of them and the way they bloated, "The smell damned near asphyxiated me, and 'Ageery' yelled me out good about it, like I could control the fuckin' weather or something"
He told Ennis of the need for plenty of whiskey up there to alleviate the boredom. He was infatuated with the rodeo life and fastened his belt with a minor bull-riding buckle, and he was crazy to be somewhere, anywhere, else than Lightning Flat up north.
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, caliper legs, and possessed a muscular and supple body made for the horse and for bar fighting. His reflexes were uncommonly quick, and he was farsighted enough to dislike reading anything except Hamley's saddle catalogue.
Feeling like he was getting nowhere with this guy, Jack tried to draw him out again.
"You rodeo much?"
Ennis shook his head silently, "Only once in a while... when I've got the entry fee in my pocket."
Jack smiled 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, "You from ranch people?"
Ennis only shrugged without looking up. As he fondled the neck of his beer bottle, he replied softly, "I was."
He was getting the impression that del Mar lived alone, "Your folks run you off?"
Ennis shook his head, "They run themselves off. There was only one curve in thirty-four 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.
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 was having the same trouble and rattled on about the 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 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.
A middle-aged man with a South American accent suddenly entered the bar, called out their names impatiently, and drove them out to the drop off point a few miles away in the shadow of the mountain.
How about some feed back, am I only entertaining three people here or should I keep posting these?
70 - chantal stone
keep posting Jet! I'm gonna send the link to one of my friends here in Columbus
71 - Jet in Columbus
Okay Chantal. Anybody else out there?
72 - Jet in Columbus
Here's another Chapter for you Chantal. I don't know how I'm going to be able to post the first tent scene, or what BlogCritics will do to me if I do. I'm still trying to work it out.
Let's see how this goes and if it makes it through intact...
THE BEAR
The 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.
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 kid 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 little man asked with a heavy South American accent.
Ennis responded, “Yeah, uh, what happened to the powdered milk, and we only got one bag of spuds, where’re the other two?”
“Sorry, dat’s all we got.”
Del Mar shrugged and handed him the list from his pocket, muttering, “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, and with a chuckle replied, “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 reminding 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 life; his parents, his school friends after the pickup died, his brother and sister, 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 jacking off thinking about her. He didn’t want to get her pregnant, so had always fucked her up the ass. Without realizing it, Jack had somehow entered his fantasy. Just as he came in loud gasps, he realized he was thinking of Jack under him and sat bolt upright in a cold sweat.
His daddy taught him well what happened to men who had “faggot” thoughts.
Bringing himself back to reality, 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.
Still moving forward, he turned around in his saddle to bitch it out, when from ahead of them a bear that’d stopped to drink, roared and stood up on its hind legs.
As his horse spooked, rearing up in fear, he 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 pebbles at the edge of the stream.
He had only seconds to determine if he were about to be mauled, and was relieved to see the bear running away, scared by the horse probably. In the moment’s distraction, the mules ran off hawwing 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 the horse because he needed the rifle incase 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. 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.
After an hour, and 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, lest Ennis come back, 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 looked. 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 got painfully down from his steed.
“Where the hell have you been,” he spat out, as Ennis approached. “I come down hungry as hell, and find nothing here but beans…”
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. His anger swiftly changed to concern, “Jesus, Ennis; what happened?”
As del Mar 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 with the canteen.
“I come up on a bear, is what happened.” Waving away the canteen, he asked, “You got any whiskey?”
Jack reached it over as he added, “God damned horse spooked, threw me, and the fuckin’ mules took off running, spilling supplies all over the place.”
Jack moved intimately close 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, and added, “About all we got left is beans.”
Ennis wrung out the rag and poured whiskey on it and then dabbed at his sideburn some more, 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, “And what if Aguirre finds out? We’re supposed to guard the sheep Jack, not eat ‘em.”
Jack shook his head and sat down beside him. “What’s the matter with you?” he asked, “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, and 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 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.
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 grinning from ear to ear.
Ennis shoved Jack sideways and said impatiently, “I got tired of your dumbass missin’!”
Jack gave him a congratulatory hug that sent chills through both of them. They held on to each other longer than they'd expected to, seemingly frozen in time, then broke the hold with embarrased glances and ran up to claim their prize.
They spent the rest of the afternoon separately.
Ennis backtracked his path down the mountain, and spotted the single bag of potatoes, and a case of fresh eggs that miraculously hadn’t broken, and eventually found enough 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 Jack 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, he found a note saying Twist had gone off to finish butchering the elk, so he rode out and joined him. After a good meal of fresh steaks in camp, 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. 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, but he woke up the next morning thinking of him and the strange thrill he’d gotten from that hug Jack gave him yesterday.
Within minutes he was breathing harder and harder, and when his breathless gasps came, 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...
73 - chantal stone
Thanks Jet.....I'll read it this afternoon...I'm on my way to church right now (stop rolling your eyes! lol)....
maybe you could just post the rest on your blog? that way you wouldn't have to edit the good parts! just a suggestion.
anyway, bbl.
74 - Jet in Columbus
A good idea Chantal, but their editorial policy might be even more restrictive that BlogCritics.
I'll have to check it out...
More chapters to come...
75 - Jet in Columbus
You really have no choice but to feel sorry for him don't you folks?