Ennis saw Jack walking across the field. He turned to put the tack away, and when he looked back,
Jack had disappeared, impossibly so in the waist-high hay. Only one place he could have gone.
He didn't know why he did it. He had a lot of work to do. But he was drawn into the field, swimming
across the sea of golden seed in search of his sunken treasure.
He found Jack near where he'd saw him last, floating on his back in the dirt, hands clasped behind his
head.
"What're you doin' out here, huh?" Ennis asked.
"Jus'... watchin' the sky."
Ennis saw his entrance. "Anything interesting up there in heaven?"
Jack's eyes flicked to his, a small smile winking up at Ennis from under his mustache. Jack's answer
was heard almost before it was spoken. "Just sending up a prayer of thanks."
Their gazes caught for a moment before Jack thumped the dirt with his hand, the crushed hay next to
him cracking. Ennis thought briefly of the work he had to do. He glanced around to see the emptiness
of the Western plains, land that offered no prying eyes, land that didn't judge because it was as good as
his own. It was all the excuse he needed to sit in the tall grass with Jack. Jack pulled on Ennis's torso,
guiding him, until Ennis's head rested on Jack's stomach. The rise and fall of Jack's chest seemed to
match a cadence in the wind itself, and Ennis imagined maybe this was what the ocean felt like. He
hadn't hid in the tall grass since he was a child, and even then it'd been to escape KE's beatings, not this
careless, happy thing.
"You still got that harmonica?," Ennis asked.
"Guess so. Couldn't tell you where, though." Jack chuckled.
"Christ, we was so young... barely children."
"Yeah..." Some breaths passed, Ennis rising and falling with Jack, before Jack continued. "But you
know... some days I feel younger'n I ever did. That make any sense?"
Ennis made a noise in his throat. It was all he trusted himself with. But what Jack said sure made sense
to him. He woke up every day, wanting to labor, wanting to toil for his and Jack's affairs. His steps
were lighter. His smiles were more prolific. In Ennis's mind had hadn't ever been this happy, not even
when he was a little kid.
And now here he was, swimming in a wheat field beneath the heaven-sky, his own wild child under his
head. The world was theirs and they were the world's. There weren't no reins on this one.
