The white cylinder of a cigarette passed between their fingers for the third time that morning.
"Cain't believe I didn't ask fer 'im to bring me more cigs," Ennis mumbled. "I've been out since Tuesday."
"Yer tellin' me. You must owe me damn near fifty by now," Jack grumbled in agreement, but then he smiled. A moment later, "Ennis, why're you always doin' that?"
"Doin' what?"
Jack gave a glance down to Ennis' belt with a swift head gesture. Having frozen in the process of tucking his shirt in, right in his lower back, Ennis looked down and said, "Oh," and finished tucking, then sat down. "Uh. Alma gets on teasing me for that sometimes."
"You do it like every fuckin' twenty minutes," Jack said, shaking his head. "Some nervous habit o' yours?"
Ennis looked slightly uncomfortable about the inquiry, but staggered out mutters of an explanation. "Well, m' father used to strap me real fierce for the strangest things, you wouldn't believe. Sometimes was like if he even noticed you he'd get sore about somethin', so you had to try to do everythin' allright by 'im n' stay outta his way. When I was a kid I really hated dressing up for church and things, an'...didn't really fancy tuckin' my shirts, so..."
Jack's smile had faded a little, and his eyes fell to the whiskey bottle he was absently clutching in his hand as he rested on his side.
"I got the belt right square on my back couple times for not tuckin' in ma shirts," Ennis went on, suspending any emotional recollection for a more quiet, matter-of-fact tone. "So I started tuckin' all my shirts, even when I weren't dressed up. S'pose it became kind of obsessive. And it was always the back, cause ah had this big growth spurt, and we couldn't buy any new clothes...any time I would lean over, er si' down...but I still tucked em' back in."
"An you're still stuck to that habit till this day?" Jack asked, slightly incredulous.
"Yeah, you'd think eh woulda got over it, after m' folks died. Like I said, Alma likes to joke about it. Never told her the reason behind it. Guess she never asked." Ennis shrugged, alotting just one twitch of one of his eyebrows. "These days I realize it wasn't really about the shirt, ever. Ma daddy just wanted a reason to make skin split."
Jack seemed deep in thought for a few moments, and then managed a weak smile as he said, "Right on the damn back, huh? That would hurt like sons of bitches, I tell ya. Prob'ly half the reason I quit school was cause a the sting on ma back when I sat in the desk."
Ennis didn't ask why Jack's father had put him under the belt. With the help of good whiskey, the tone eventually brimmed back over into the usual laughter between them when Jack smiled again with that funny sparkle in his eyes that pulled the grins straight out of Ennis' gut; any usual attempt to coax out Ennis Del Mar's young mirth was like trying to find a needle in a haystack, but somehow Jack always knew exactly where to look.
The gloaming found Ennis grabbing for the usual can of whichever monotonous nourishment would serve as a reason for conversation with his calming, however perplexing new friend. Even though he had been hesitant to go out for this job when he considered that he would have to work with a partner, he couldn't imagine surviving out here without someone to talk to, maybe even without someone like Jack who got him pouring his thoughts out more than his brother or sister ever could, more than Alma ever dared to try.
The thought of Alma made Ennis suddenly yearn for good, home-cooked food, in a warm and dry kitchen, like her mama would make for them when he came over for dinner all the time. But that thought was erased when he recalled, smiling, how he and Jack would jointly come up with new and better ways to creatively insult his cooking every time they ate together, and on other occasions, Jack's harmonica droning. Alma had always had those inside jokes with the girls she used to chat with in high school, and he hadn't understood what that was like until now. They had a little language of their own. Just silly little things that were always funny to them that would seem stupid to anyone else.
A rustle in the trees. "Jack, that you?" Ennis called automatically behind him, then dismissed the noise when he realized it was too early for Jack to leave his post.
Ennis perched his foot up on one of the large rocks surrounding the fire, staring dully at the sky as he worked the can opener over the metal container. He was aware, automatically, subconsciously, as he leaned down to rest his elbow on his leg, of his shirt coming loose out of the back of his pants. After he opened the can, he naturally reached back to swiftly tuck the bottom of his shirt back under his belt.
Then a hand reached down just barely under the waistline of his jeans, grabbed a bundle of Ennis's good button-up that Alma had bought him for his birthday, and playfully tugged it back up in a fist pressed against his lower back, leaving it flapping gawkishly above his hips. Ennis stood alarmed by the sparked feeling going all up his back for a couple seconds hearing the throaty, bemused giggles, then said, "Twist" through an uncomfortable smirk and turned swiftly, intending to give him a lightly annoyed glare, or a playful shove, but he found a clumsy and vague inclination to do something else and could only give an aggressively awed look as he met the childishly amused, sparkling eyes of his work partner. Ennis straightened himself up, stiffening his back and putting on a spitefully serious exression; he leisurely reached back and smoothed out his shirt again, tucking it neatly back under his pants. All the while Jack seemed to be supressing a warmer laugh, possibly because he didn't want to be asked what he privately found so amusing.
A cigarette hung casually between Jack's dimpling grin. "Pretty late in tha day, thought you'd want a smoke," Jack said, briefly explaining his presence. Without waiting for a reply, he tossed his own spent cigarette to the ground and put it out, got in his pocket for another one, which he held in his mouth as he lit it for Ennis. After stealing a drag he started to place it in Ennis' mouth, but Ennis took it with his hands, not taking much notice because he was used to those kinds of funny things that Jack did. Flighty, ambiguous things: whether Jack had really meant to say he wanted them to pull their monster father pains out of eachother in close clutches, he didn't know, but he almost shuddered. "Thanks," he mumbled, inhaling and exhaling a puff of smoke as his hand went to scratch the preoccupying tingle in his lower back.
"See you at dinner," Jack said, and walked back into the darkening shadows between the trees. A moment later Ennis heard him mounting his horse to ride some more, not looking but having that instinctive feeling that Jack's eyes were still cast on him just before the horse's hooves rustled the leaves into loud motion.
"Jack." Ennis shook his head. "You son of a bitch."