A ranch-hand off the west side of Wyoming builds a fire to keep away the coming dark. His horse snorts beside him, and for the thousandth time he wishes he'd come alone, but later he will be glad of the company, scant though it is, when the steeps of Brokeback Mountain grow cold and as dark as his heart.
He sits on a weathered log by the fire and looks out over the mountain. An all too familiar view greets him, and he returns his gaze quickly to the fire to keep the memories at bay. He isn't ready, he thinks, won't ever be ready to dip his toes into the task he set himself when he chose this place to spend a night.
It was never just going to be a night. No, he knows once he starts remembering
Jack
there would be no damming the flood of his grief. And the tears will come too, he thinks, the tears will come, like they always do. Whenever he thinks of
Jack, and all the things they used to do, and the way he rode a horse, and the soft feel of his hair in the open air and how he used to smile
he gets carried away by the pain. He knows it will burn this time, this time all the more than all the last. The creature that's weighed down his chest ever since – well, ever since he first started stopping up his memories – isn't going to leave without hurting him. He hasn't had the courage to dwell on the past before, but now his senses are under permanent assault from the scents and sounds of Brokeback Mountain; the land which time forgot.
He forgets where he first heard that phrase, but it seems a fitting way to describe the season up on the mountain all those years ago.
Xxx
"This ain't nobody's business but ours,"
was how he'd once described it to the man he loved. Those few words stuck in his head and forever strike at his heart. If only – and yes, that phrase plays a part in this too – if only he hadn't been so careless, if he hadn't let Alma find out, if, if, if! But Ennis knows that no matter what, nothing he wishes for now can bring Jack home.
"He's gone," he moans, whispers it, shouts it to Brokeback Mountain, and the tears come, as they always do. "Jack's gone." With his flooding eyes pressed to his hands he mouthes the words into his palms.
He came here to remember someone he never wanted to forget, but had to, less he went mad. Sitting here listening to the way he speaks when he says his name, it brings back a outburst of memories – of moments sat on the same weathered log beside a fire, only opposite the man he loved.
Xxx
When the fire has died down a little, and the water on his hands begins to dry, he lifts his head and stares into the flames. Their hypnotizing dance holds his gaze for a while, before he turns his face away, blinking his eyes into focus. The reality of it hits him then: Jack, his Jack, is dead and gone. There's no chance for them now, and there never will be.
Ennis kneels on the cold ground and rebuilds the fire. No doubt it will keep away any animal quiet enough not to wake him, and such protection is second nature to him. Without a word, or a thought, he steals into the one-man tent he set up earlier, and falls asleep on his side.
In the night he wakes for one sleep-fogged moment, from a dream where a man named Jack is asleep beside him. Murmuring his name, he takes the rough cotton blanket in his arms and closes his eyes again, as if it beats all the world's troubles away.
Author's note:
Well, there you have it. My first story on here. Short, but I like it :)
I don't know what you think, but hey, that's what that Review button's there for, eh?
