infrequent couplings was darkened by the sense of time flying, never
enough time, never enough.
A day or two later in the trailhead parking lot, horses loaded into the
trailer, Ennis was ready to head back to Signal, Jack up to Lightning
Flat to see the old man. Ennis leaned into Jack's window, said what
he'd been putting off the whole week, that likely he couldn't get
away again until November after they'd shipped stock and before
winter feeding started.
"November. What in hell happened a August? Tell you what, we
said August, nine, ten days. Christ, Ennis! Whyn't you tell me this
before? You had a f*ckin week to say some little word about it. And
why's it we're always in the friggin cold weather? We ought a do
somethin. We ought a go south. We ought a go to Mexico one day."
"Mexico? Jack, you know me. All the travelin I ever done is goin
around the coffeepot lookin for the handle. And I'll be runnin the
baler all August, that's what's the matter with August. Lighten up,
Jack. We can hunt in November, kill a nice elk. Try if I can get Don
Wroe's cabin again. We had a good time that year."
"You know, friend, this is a goddamn bitch of a unsatisfactory
situation. You used a come away easy. It's like seein the pope now."
"Jack, I got a work. Them earlier days I used a quit the jobs. You got
a wife with money, a good job. You forget how it is bein broke all
the time. You ever hear a child support? I been payin out for years
and got more to go. Let me tell you, I can't quit this one. And I can't
get the time off. It was tough gettin this time -- some a them late
heifers is still calvin. You don't leave then. You don't. Stoutamire is
a hell-raiser and he raised hell about me takin the week. I don't
blame him. He probly ain't got a night's sleep since I left. The trade-
off was August. You got a better idea?"
"I did once." The tone was bitter and accusatory.
Ennis said nothing, straightened up slowly, rubbed at his forehead; a
horse stamped inside the trailer. He walked to his truck, put his hand
on the trailer, said something that only the horses could hear, turned
and walked back at a deliberate pace.
"You been a Mexico, Jack?" Mexico was the place. He'd heard. He
was cutting fence now, trespassing in the shoot-em zone.
"Hell yes, I been. Where's the f*ckin problem?" Braced for it all
these years and here it came, late and unexpected.
"I got a say this to you one time, Jack, and I ain't foolin. What I don't
know," said Ennis, "all them things I don't know could get you killed
if I should come to know them."
"Try this one," said Jack, "and I'll say it just one time. Tell you what,
we could a had a good life together, a f*ckin real good life. You
wouldn't do it, Ennis, so what we got now is Brokeback Mountain.
Everthing built on that. It's all we got, boy, f*ckin all, so I hope you
know that if you don't never know the rest. Count the damn few
times we been together in twenty years. Measure the f*ckin short
leash you keep me on, then ask me about Mexico and then tell me
you'll kill me for needin it and not hardly never gettin it. You got no
f*ckin idea how bad it gets. I'm not you. I can't make it on a couple a
high-altitude f*cks once or twice a year. You're too much for me,
Ennis, you son of a whoreson bitch. I wish I knew how to quit you."
Like vast clouds of steam from thermal springs in winter the years of
things unsaid and now unsayable -- admissions, declarations,
shames, guilts, fears -- rose around them. Ennis stood as if heart-
shot, face grey and deep-lined, grimacing, eyes screwed shut, fists
clenched, legs caving, hit the ground on his knees.
"Jesus," said Jack. "Ennis?" But before he was out of the truck,
trying to guess if it was heart attack or the overflow of an incendiary
rage, Ennis was back on his feet and somehow, as a coat hanger is
straightened to open a locked car and then bent again to its original
shape, they torqued things almost to where they had been, for what
they'd said was no news. Nothing ended, nothing begun, nothing
resolved.
What Jack remembered and craved in a way he could neither help
nor understand was the time that distant summer on Brokeback when
Ennis had come up behind him and pulled him close, the silent
embrace satisfying some shared and sexless hunger.
They had stood that way for a long time in front of the fire, its
burning tossing ruddy chunks of light, the shadow of their bodies a
single column against the rock. The minutes ticked by from the
round watch in Ennis's pocket, from the sticks in the fire settling into
coals. Stars bit through the wavy heat layers above the fire. Ennis's
breath came slow and quiet, he hummed, rocked a little in the
sparklight and Jack leaned against the steady heartbeat, the
vibrations of the humming like faint electricity and, standing, he fell
into sleep that was not sleep but something else drowsy and tranced
until Ennis, dredging up a rusty but still useable phrase from the
childhood time before his mother died, said, "Time to hit the hay,
cowboy. I got a go. Come on, you're sleepin on your feet like a
horse," and gave Jack a shake, a push, and went off in the darkness.
Jack heard his spurs tremble as he mounted, the words "see you
tomorrow," and the horse's shuddering snort, grind of hoof on stone.
Later, that dozy embrace solidified in his memory as the single
moment of artless, charmed happiness in their separate and difficult
lives. Nothing marred it, even the knowledge that Ennis would not
then embrace him face to face because he did not want to see nor
feel that it was Jack he held. And maybe, he thought, they'd never
got much farther than that. Let be, let be.
Ennis didn't know about the accident for months until his postcard to
Jack saying that November still looked like the first chance came
back stamped DECEASED. He called Jack's number in Childress,
something he had done only once before when Alma divorced him
and Jack had misunderstood the reason for the call, had driven
twelve hundred miles north for nothing. This would be all right, Jack
would answer, had to answer. But he did not. It was Lureen and she
said who? who is this? and when he told her again she said in a level
voice yes, Jack was pumping up a flat on the truck out on a back
road when the tire blew up. The bead was damaged somehow and
the force of the explosion slammed the rim into his face, broke his
nose and jaw and knocked him unconscious on his back. By the time
someone came along he had drowned in his own blood.
No, he thought, they got him with the tire iron.
"Jack used to mention you," she said. "You're the fishing buddy or
the hunting buddy, I know that. Would have let you know," she said,
"but I wasn't sure about your name and address. Jack kept most a his