This was was almost entirely, conceptually, the co-creation of myself and my dear friend, Virginia ( .com). The only part, basically, that she had nothing to do with are the pumpkins and the neighbors. This is a gift for her!
July 31st, 2:01 AM EST
Vir: "jack is anti-dogs on the bed and ennis is pro"
"this is the real reason they couldn't be together"
July 31st, 2:08 AM EST
me: "'I don't want any damn dogs on the bed, Ennis'
'Jack you named her Country Prayer you are damn fucking well gonna let her sleep in the bed if for no other reason as an apology'"
"They call Country Prayer 'CP' for short"
July 31st, 2:09 AM EST
Vir: "COUNTRY PRAYER"
Anyway:
I usually don't indicate accents in text, but I feel like changing 'darling' to 'darlin'' and 'them' to ''em' actually changes the meaning of those words, so I changed them. Country Prayer is a Cowboy Corgi, by the way; if you don't know what those are, look them up. They're adorable.
"We could have had a life together, Ennis! And a dog named Country Prayer!"
"Country Prayer?"
—
Ennis likes pumpkin pie. Jack knows this. Jack also knows that Ennis likes pumpkin seeds, pumpkin bread, and various other pumpkin foods.
Jack also knows that Ennis thinks that, more than jack-o'-lanterns themselves being wasteful and frivolous, the act of going out to buy pumpkins when you could grow your own is ridiculous and, "a good way to siphon [you] out of all [your] money,", whether for jack-o'-lanterns or pumpkin food.
(Jack never said that Ennis wasn't overdramatic.)
Ennis, however, will not consent to adding pumpkins to their crops. It's because they aren't profitable enough year round, so he says. (It's because he hates doing anything for himself and having fun, so Jack says).
But Jack wants pumpkins. And he knows that, after Ennis has gotten through with griping some about it, he'll be glad that Jack got pumpkins too.
So, Jack is on his way to their neighbor's farm, which has pumpkins for sale; he whistles on his way, slipping into bouts of loud, off-key singing whenever a song comes on the radio that's particularly apt for it. His truck rolls over gravel, making a pleasant, repetitive rumbling and sending light clouds of dust up into the air around him. It reminds Jack, no matter how familiar it is, of when he was small and would ride at too young an age in the front seat beside his mother, practically bouncing on their way to the store.
Their neighbors, who, in all actuality, live a few miles out from them, are the Abbotts. It's not hard for everyone to guess what exactly is going on between Jack and Ennis, but while everyone else had avoided them to the point of inconveniencing themselves initially and only now seem to be sort of getting used to them, the Abbotts have taken to inviting them over for dinner regularly and being the epitome of neighborly in all regards. Lisie Abbott had commented upon their second visit to the Abbott household, with a careful glance toward Jack and Ennis, that her favorite uncle had been unconventional, with a deliberate pause before the word. That had been enough to make a big, bright smile break out on Jack's face and Ennis's go pale, but then, George Abbott had said, sending a pointed look Ennis and Jack's way, "I think we're all a bit unconventional in some way, right Lis? I know I am." Jack's grin had grown so big that it hurt the corners of his mouth, and Ennis had choked on nothing.
So, of course, the driveway that Jack turns off onto is familiar: the same flock of animals go running when the truck approaches, the same shoes are left abandoned and water worn near a large patch of dirt, the same formation of hay bails are stacked against the same old, wide tree, and the same curve is there that had nearly made Ennis crash into that same tree late one night. There is only one other car that does not belong to the Abbotts in the driveway when Jack rolls up: it belongs to Henry Lowell, who quickly snatches his six-year-old daughter, Bella, up along with their pumpkins before hastily throwing some money into the bucket and leaving once he sees Jack's truck.
(Dick.)
Near the front of their house, the Abbotts have set out a bunch of pumpkins, arranged by size. Taped onto spikes of wood in the ground are the prices, which look like they were drawn in crayon by the youngest Abbott children, Hannah and Darrell. In the middle of the pumpkins is a large bucket with a sign on it that reads 'Pay here—we trust the honor system' with some bills already inside it. Jack really fucking loves the Abbotts.
Jack goes about his pumpkin picking thoughtfully (after, of course, he snatches a probably inordinate amount of miniature ones), picking some with the intention of jack-o'-lantern carving and some with the intention of cooking. He appreciates how they're all slightly sunken in on one side; they feel more authentic that way, more organic, unlike the pumpkins that grocery stores have to offer in their thoughtless cardboard boxes. Jack loses track of how much he should be paying, so he just throws more than enough money into the bucket; the Abbotts deserve it, anyway.
Looking at how much space the pumpkins take up in the bed of his truck, Jack allows himself a little smile at Ennis's inevitable reaction. He gives one of them a small pat, and then walks around to go and see how the Abbotts are doing. Before he gets to the door, however, he's met by a small, sweet looking puppy, who wags her stump of a tail and places her small, muddy paws onto one of Jack's calves. "Well, hey there, cutie bee," he says, crouching down so that he can rub her head. There's another sign, too, that Jack's only seeing now; '$2 for a puppy', it reads. Jack looks back down at the puppy. He can't place why, but he has to have her.
After a few minutes of Jack playing with the puppy, George Abbott comes outside and immediately brightens when he sees the two of them. "Jack!" he calls, and Jack immediately stands to accept the one-armed hug and clap on the back. The puppy bites at Jack's shoe, disappointed not to find shoelaces there; Jack lets her play, thinks that he'll let her do a lot of what she wishes in the near and distant future. "Didn't know that you'd come by for pumpkins," George says, "wasn't Ennis chastising me just a few weeks ago about how unprofitable pumpkins are, or whatever the hell it was he said?"
"Yep." George laughs.
"Good. He needs to learn how to have a little fun." He looks down at the puppy at Jack's feet. "Are you gonna get her?"
"Well," Jack says, even though he is certain that he's going to be taking this puppy home one way or another, "I'd like to, but Ennis…."
"She does seem to really like you," George says, noticing how she vies and strives for Jack's attention. "She's the last puppy left; all of her siblings are gone." George pauses. "You heard about how Sammy and Hickory slipped our grasp before we got a chance to get them fixed?"
"Yes, sir, I did. I still can't believe you let Gracie talk you into letting her get a Corgi." George shrugs.
"Corgis, pumpkins, all things I do for the kids." George leans down and picks up the puppy, her muddy paws smudging his shirt. "Listen, Jack, how about I give you this little gal for free?"
"Well, George, I couldn't ask you to—"
"Am I right in thinking that you probably slipped a few extra coins into the bucket over there?" George cocks his head in the direction of the bucket. Jack knows that he's being overly genteel to protest. George holds the puppy out to him, and she wriggles and squirms in his grasp, trying to get over to Jack. He takes her.
"Alright, I'll take her. Thanks a bunch, George." He pauses, takes his eyes away from the puppy. "For everything. I mean it." George claps him on the back again.
"Don't mention it," he says. He means a lot more. "Make sure you give her a good name for me. And about our next little dinner party…."
The puppy's paws are still wet and muddy when Jack stops talking to George Abbott, but he lets her sit in the front seat beside him all the same: the truck's seen worse than mud. Jack rolls the window down for her, but she's so little that she can't see out of it, even on her hind legs. Jack supposes that he shouldn't be surprised when she crawls across the armrest into his lap and looks out of his window. "You're a little mess, aren't you?" Jack says, looking down for just a second at the small sideways mud-prints on his jeans. "Now, what am I gonna name you, you little hellion?" The puppy seems not to mind at all.
Lots of names slip through Jack's head as he drives. He tries typical names, but none of them seem to fit the little speckled puppy in his lap. He thinks of the manner in which some people name their horses, and so, he tries that method; the first phrase that comes to his mind is 'country prayer', and he decides that it's a perfect fit. "Country Prayer!" Jack announces as he and the puppy in question turn into their driveway. "How do you like that one, sweet pea?" She seems happy enough with it.
Jack leaves the pumpkins in the truck while he takes Country Prayer inside, first looking for a towel to wipe her paws off. They'll have to get food and a collar for her later, but for now, he'll just take care of this. "Country Prayer is too long to use all the time, don't you think, girl? I think I'll call you CP for short."
The first towel that Jack happens to pick up is a white one, but looking back at Country Prayer's very brown paws, he thinks better of it and throws it back. The next one he finds is an orange one with an ornate embroidered 'J' on it, and Jack thinks that it could use a little mud; he had picked it up from a thrift store one day, and while it's been a part of their collection of towels for months, it always seems to jar with its slight refinement. He wipes CP's paws clean and then takes her outside with him to help unload the pumpkins. She stays faithfully by his side the entire time, even though she has acres to explore.
Just as Jack and CP are unloading the last of the pumpkins, Ennis, who had been out buying feed for the animals, comes back. He rolls down his window and sticks his head out once he's close enough, calling, "Jack, what the hell?" and bringing his truck to a stop. He is immediately greeted by Country Prayer once he opens his door, and he looks down at the little dog conflicted, caught between wanting to give her the attention that she wants and proving his point of being pissed that Jack brought home a fucking dog without asking him. CP presses a dusty paw against his boot, the other hanging in the air, her legs too short to make another dusty paw-print against his truck.
"Were you really gonna deny me my jack-o'-lanterns?"
"I'm gonna whip your ass." Ennis gets out of the truck and takes a closer look at CP. He doesn't really know what to make of her; she looks like a Corgi, but, even as a puppy, she seems slightly larger and leaner than what would normally be expected of one, and she has this strange, speckled coloring that Ennis would never place with a Corgi. "Are you gonna tell me who this is and what she's doing on our ranch?"
"That's Country Prayer, CP for short, and she's—"
"What?" Ennis asks, direct.
"What?" Jack mimes, defensive.
"Jack, tell me you didn't name this dog Country Prayer."
"I sure as hell did." At this, Ennis does concede to crouching down and petting CP because, with a name like that, she deserves it. "Anyway," Jack says, "when I went to get all these pumpkins, I went to the Abbotts', and she was the last puppy they had left from when Sammy and Hickory accidentally knocked boots—do you remember hearing about that from them? She came up to me when I was about to go pop in to say hi, and well…I couldn't turn her down."
"She's a dog, Jack," Ennis says, "she didn't ask you anything."
Jack shrugs. "Yeah, well, you don't seem to object too much to her." CP has flipped over in the dirt, letting Ennis rub her belly. Ennis's first instinct is to jerk his hand away, but he figures that that would be proving Jack's point.
"I never object to dogs. That doesn't mean that you can just go out and pick 'em up whenever you want, though."
Jack sets down the last pumpkin and huffs. "I don't. And don't talk to me like you didn't bring Myrtle home without asking me first."
"Myrtle's a good horse," Ennis defends, "she didn't deserve to die just because she had a bad leg. All she needed was a good cast. You love Myrtle, anyway. Probably more than me." Myrtle is Jack's favorite horse to ride for leisurely strolls. Ennis stands up despite CP's whine and goes to assess the damages in terms of pumpkins. "Christ, Jack; do you think we need any more goddamn pumpkins?"
"You like pumpkins," Jack says, crossing his arms and rolling his eyes, "and dogs. Which is why I know you're not more upset about this. There are more pumpkins inside, by the way." Ennis runs a hand down his face. "Come on, Ennis," Jack says, softly now, "it's fun to have pumpkins around. We deserve to have more fun. We get to have more fun." Ennis freezes in the doorway, his hand on the doorknob. He sighs.
After a pause, Ennis says, "Bring that damn dog inside. Someone's gotta stay with her while we get her a collar." Jack brightens up immediately and follows Ennis inside, whistling for Country Prayer to follow.
Jack has pumpkins littered all over the kitchen counter, and Ennis breathes out a little, "Good god, Jack," when he sees all of them. Jack has even arranged them by size, with the larger ones in the back and the smaller ones in the front: different from the way they were arranged at the Abbotts' but inspired by it all the same. Their sole cookbook that Jack's mother had given them when they first moved in is spread out on the counter as well, flipped to a pumpkin pie recipe. Ennis suppresses a laugh; he's never known Jack Twist to be subtle.
"I might—and I mean there is the smallest, most miniscule chance that this could have happened—have gotten a bit too many for the two of us," Jack admits.
"A bit?" Ennis walks up to the counter and runs a hand along a pumpkin for no particular reason. "Guess we'll have to start cooking these soon," Ennis says. Jack smiles and slides up beside him to kiss his cheek. Ennis turns his head and kisses him on the lips. "Go out and get the dog you bought what she needs," Ennis says against his lips; Jack laughs and walks out the door.
"Be good to Country Prayer while I'm gone!" he calls. Ennis shakes his head.
Country Prayer adjusts well to the ranch, even on her first day there. She snoops around in the kitchen for scraps while Jack and Ennis have dinner and she takes some time to run around and explore. She manages, too, to tear up a sock in her first few hours on Brokeback Ranch, and neither Jack nor Ennis have it in them to scold her for it, especially considering the fact that the sock has seen better days. CP follows Jack and Ennis around with hardly an instance of straying, which is reason enough for pause when nighttime rolls around.
Ennis is unbuttoning his shirt while Jack brushes his teeth in the loudest manner possible, which is typical for Jack, despite its strangeness. CP had followed them upstairs with a considerable amount of effort, ascending each step as if it was a challenge for her to conquer; Jack and Ennis had, of course, stood at the top of the stairs and laughed to themselves at her determined performance. She is lying, now, in the doorway of their bedroom, paws tucked under her chin, watchful of everything Jack and Ennis are doing. Stripping himself down to his boxers, Ennis sits down on the bed. CP comes toddling over. "Do you wanna come up, CP?" Ennis asks her. Jack makes a sudden choked, gargled noise in the bathroom, followed by spitting.
"Now I know, Ennis, that you're not about to let her up on the bed." Ennis, who is in the motion of bending down to pick Country Prayer up, stops and turns his head toward the bathroom. Jack sticks his head out from it, toothbrush brandished in his hand like a weapon.
"Why the hell not?" Ennis asks, pointedly staring at the toothbrush with more than a little bit of judgement.
"I don't want dogs on the bed, Ennis," Jack says, waving the toothbrush around a bit as he talks, "they get fur everywhere and they don't care about anyone but themselves. My dog, Dusty, gave me a black eye when I was a kid because he kicked me in the face when I had him in bed with me." Ennis snorts, and Jack glowers at him.
"You think ole CP's gonna give you a black eye?" Ennis asks.
"No," Jack says sharply, "but she will get hair on the sheets."
"So, we'll wash 'em," Ennis says, "and it's not like we haven't got worse things on the sheets than dog hair. And put that goddamn toothbrush away." Jack rolls his eyes and disappears momentarily to put his toothbrush back on the sink; he comes back afterward, standing a few feet away from the bed to get undressed as well. Country Prayer comes by to sniff at his feet.
"I don't want dogs on the bed," Jack says.
"You named the poor thing Country Prayer. You damn well better let her on the bed as an apology if nothing else."
"I said no, Ennis." Ennis shrugs.
"Alright then, Jack."
Country Prayer, as precious as she is, starts whining within five minutes of being left alone on the floor. Ennis presses a comfortably smug smile against Jack's shoulder, and Jack nearly elbows him in the neck. Jack intends to let CP tire herself out, but she whines for hours, and, eventually, Jack says, "Ennis, get this damn dog on the bed before I go out and get the chickens to peck my fucking eyes out." Ennis snickers and picks CP up, who immediately snuggles in directly between Jack and Ennis. Jack restrains himself from screaming into his pillow.
CP becomes a permanent fixture in the bed.
—
Junior has never seen the bloodied shirts hanging in her father's closet. She doesn't need to.
She has her own bloodied shirts, in a way, and so, she can see the outlines of cotton drenched in hydrogen peroxide with a trained eye.
(Ennis would never take any chemical to his bloodied shirts—never—, but the not quite vanished outlines manifest in other ways: an old dead fishing buddy but no fish, a mother's scowling lips upon the words 'Jack Twist', a postcard that Junior had found once as a child and hadn't understood but now understands too well.)
Junior holds her coffee with her fingers deliberately spread across it, feeling its heat. It's black, just as she's always liked it, which was something that her father had been surprised to hear but had clapped her on the back and told her, "That's my girl," for all the same. Junior has been drinking coffee since she was sixteen; she's nineteen now. It makes her sad.
Ennis is sitting across from her, smiling; it isn't often that he gets to see his daughters, even less so with Junior now that she's grown. They've been talking about school, which is an unoriginal, bland subject, but they've made it work so far. Now, there's a natural lull in the conversation. Junior figures that she'll approach what she wants to say next delicately.
"Daddy," Junior says, "did you happen to see my car when I rolled in?"
"I didn't, darlin', but I'll happily go out and see it with you if you want."
Ennis and Junior go outside, each still holding their mugs. Junior's dog sticks her head out the window when she sees her owner, and Junior scratches behind her ears. "Sorry, baby," she says, "I won't leave you in here for long, I promise." Ennis frowns a little at that, but he hides it behind his mug, and he does understand.
"It's a good car, Junior," Ennis says. Junior sighs.
She knows—she damn nearly got confirmation from her mother about this, but it doesn't quell the slight fear she has inside of her. "Thank you, Daddy," she says, "but I meant…." She gestures vaguely at her windshield, and Ennis looks inside. On her dashboard is the tiniest rainbow flag, unobtrusive but still proudly there. Ennis freezes. Junior feels her stomach flip.
"Junior," Ennis says slowly, "does this—"
"I have a girlfriend, Daddy," Junior says too quickly, "Momma doesn't know and Francine doesn't know and…we've been together a year, and she…she says that she'd marry me, if she could." There's a pause that Junior just can't stand, and she adds, "I want to marry her, Daddy." She can feel the tears starting to well in her eyes and slide down her cheeks, and she can't stop them. Ennis sets his coffee down on the hood of her car and goes over to hug her, letting her cry against his shoulder. Junior is mindful of her own coffee, squished between them.
"What's her name, darlin'?" and if Ennis's voice isn't steady and Junior can feel wetness against the top of her head, no one has to know about it.
"Kate," Junior says, sniffling. They stand there for a while before Ennis finally lets his daughter go.
"I suppose you knew about me and Jack, then, or did you just have that much faith in me?"
"A bit of both," Junior says, "maybe a bit more of the first, though." She smiles, and Ennis smiles back. Junior has gotten her tears under control, but Ennis is still crying. He thinks that he'll be crying for a long time after this. "Daddy, I'm sorry, I should have put in more time for this, but I really have to go. I'll come back soon, okay? I'll come back a lot more often than I have been."
"Of course, Junior. Of course."
Ennis takes her mug, and Junior walks over to her car, opening the door. "Come on, CP," she says, and then, "bye, Daddy." Ennis momentarily freezes.
"What does CP stand for?" he asks.
"Cleo Paige."
Ennis catches eyes with the dog in question, and she offers him a distracted sort of doggy smile.
She's Junior's dog now.
Usually, I don't like it when large amounts of text are in italics, but I made an exception for this fic because I thought that doing it any other way wouldn't work as well. I hope you all can make an exception, too, if this also bothers you!
I'm also personally of the headcanon that Junior is bisexual (and, honestly, I can't /believe/ that Annie Proulx and Ang Lee passed up on having Junior date a woman at the end of Brokeback Mountain), but the bisexual flag was only invented in 1998, which is after when Junior comes to visit Ennis. Before a lot of the more specific flags were made, the rainbow flag was used to represent all LGBTQIAP+ people (and I guess it still is to some degree today), so that's why Junior has the rainbow flag.
Also, fun fact: the Abbotts' farm was based on a real place. There used to be a farm nearby me a lot like it; it had pumpkins for sale every year, and there was indeed a bucket in the middle of the pumpkins that you put money into. Jack's encounter with CP was loosely based on one year when we went to get pumpkins and a kitten started following me around. Unfortunately, the owners of this farm sold it last year, so we'll have to get pumpkins somewhere else this year (no need to worry: we usually get our pumpkins from two places, anyway).
Aug 1st, 2:28 AM EST
me: "I can't believe we made an accidentally symbolic dog"