There was cold fog hanging over the mountains as Ennis del Mar stepped out of his pick-up. The air smelled mouldy and like wet mud. Autumn was passing into winter and the wind carried the heavy smell of rain over the heights down to the valleys.
The parking lot was deserted. Some lonely paper scraps swirled over the gravel and they framed the unreal silence with a soft rustle.
Ennis shivered and he drew his shabby coat tighter around his lanky body. With a click he lit his cigarette. He inhaled the smoke deeply, felt it creep down his tiniest bronchial tubes and savored the spicy flavor on his tongue.
Restlessly he squinted up to the sky. He didn't wear a watch – never had except for the few weeks on Brokeback twenty years ago. What for – his life passed monotonously and in a steady circle of sameness, only interrupted by the infrequent meetings with his daughters, and the long-craved days with Jack, the only escape he allowed himself in his life.
The leaden sun slanted down the sky and in Ennis' sense of time he had been here in the parking lot for an eternity. Again and again he took out the card where he had marked their meeting point, and again and again he wondered if he had told Jack the right date on his last postcard.
"Jack.
How
about November 7 for you?
I can meet you at Pine Creek.
Ennis
del Mar."
It took a lot of will power on his part to write that card – not knowing if they would ever manage to meet up again.
But sending cards was also part of a routine from which Ennis del Mar couldn't easily depart after twenty years.
An so he had written it.
And never got an answer.
He had gone there anyway. He had always gone there. Hoping doggedly that Jack would be waiting for him at the meeting point – sitting at the campfire, greeting him with a smile. And he had. For twenty years. Like the clockwork of a watch Ennis wasn't carrying on his wrist but in his heart.
But he wasn't here today. Today Ennis arrived first at the meeting point.
And he waited.
He waited for hours.
Smoked one cigarette after the other.
He paced up and down the parking lot to warm up and to chase the damp cold that had settled in his clothes while he waited.
He sat in his pick-up as a light drizzle set in. Turned on the windshield wipers to have a clear view onto the godforsaken parking area.
Rolled down the window so as not to miss one single sound from outside.
Cursed the rain crackling loudly on the leaves and disturbing his sense of hearing.
The gloomy day changed into an unpleasant evening. Ennis was hungry. He was often hungry, had rarely enough money and even more rarely the energy to fix regular warm meals for himself. No meal is good when you eat alone.
Jack had been responsible for the food. But he was not here. Not yet.
And the hunger persisted in his stomach. Gnawing at his guts – as did the concern which started to rise slowly in him. Concern that Jack might not show.
For the first time in twenty years.
And the evening gave way to a cold night. Ennis took out his sleeping bag, shivering, and he snuggled up in the protecting blanket. Sniffing at it, imagining that he could catch an echo of Jack's scent. All of a sudden fear gripped him. From behind and when he was unprepared for it.
He glanced blindly into the dark night sky. There were no stars, the moon covered by clouds. It was as if life outside the pick-up had turned away from Ennis del Mar.
And during the hours between being half asleep and awake the certainty took shape in him that Jack Twist would not show up at this meeting.
The regular routine had been interrupted. For the first time in twenty years.
When Ennis del Mar came back to his shabby trailer two days later he was changed. The waiting had worn him out.
He hadn't gone back home immediately the next morning. Not even at noon, not in the afternoon.
He endured.
Hoping where there was no hope left.
But he couldn't leave. He couldn't make up his mind to the fact that Jack Twist would not be arriving any more. That there would be no meeting this time, no reunion after long lonely months and an empty feeling of grief that had remained in the life of Ennis del Mar like a bad taste after the last meeting and the final quarrel.
That's why he stayed.
Not standing what he couldn't fix.
As he looked into a foggy morning after another starless night, the hunger having given place to a dumb pressure in his guts and the cold having numbed his feet, his resistance broke.
Full of sorrow and the disturbing feeling of having fallen out of life, he put the key in the lock with hands shivering from cold. The pick-up obeyed, stuttering and bucking, and began to move – as if it was asking the driver if he was really serious about this. About wanting to abandon the listening post on Pine Creek.
Ennis went through the motions of driving over rough tracks. His tired bones ached with every bump but he didn't notice.
As he arrived late in the evening to the bleak driveway in front of his trailer after long hours of monotonous driving, an early winter had crept in.
The first snowflakes fell silently on Ennis del Mar's hot forehead as he schlepped his body into his trailer, gathering his last strength.
Too tired to eat, too exhausted to undress, he fell into a restless sleep that changed seamlessly into a feverish delirium, cutting off Ennis del Mar from life for many, many days.
His body fought where his spirit had long given up.
The futile wait for Jack and the many hours spent between hope and fear in the deep loneliness of Wyoming had broken him. For the first time in twenty years the mountains did not grant him shelter.
No escape to a secret Eden for two.
Without Jack the heights were gloomy and ominous. Without Jack he looked upon a dying land where there used to be colors and smells promising vibrant life.
Without Jack climbing into the treetops was a hazard and diving into cold mountain streams a risk.
Jack's absence had snatched away the foundation of his being, stolen his sense of existence. Without Jack his mind did not know where to go, his feelings had no ground and his heart no direction in which to beat.
His soul was dying while his body fought to survive.
Fierce fever convulsions alternated with unbearable chills where he bit his lips to draw blood. Long periods of unconsciousness followed short waking moments where he saw Jack's face before his eyes and where he called the man, as he turned away from him.
Days and nights passed. Sun and moon appeared for the changing of the guard while the winter arrived, covering the loneliness with a cotton-like white layer.
And as his body gained the victory over his soul after many days, Ennis understood for the first time the words which had floated around him in his fever again and again, but which he never had organized and the content of which he could not grasp.
It was the voice of his daughter whispering softly in his ear:
"Daddy.. Daddy…you have to get better. Jack needs you. He needs you. Please get better.. please, you have to heal."
Softly as a gentle spring wind these words floated through his body and chased away the last hints of the fatal pneumonia he had brought from Pine Creek.
"Jack needs you. He needs you."
It was those two sentences that brought hope to his soul and a direction to his life.
And so one evening at the end of November he opened his eyes and looked into those of his daughter who watched him anxiously.
"Hi, Daddy", she said with her soft voice, and a happy smile covered her little face.
"Junior," Ennis grated with a strained voice. "What .. what happened?"
"You were very sick, Daddy.. very, very sick… I was so worried about you…"
Her voice broke and it cut Ennis to the quick. He took Junior's hand with a feeble grip.
"I'm so sorry, little darlin'…," he whispered.
"No need to be sorry, Daddy. Nobody's fault if ya get sick. You shouldn't have waited for Jack for so long. He…he couldn't come…"
Ennis gaze snapped up. "Whut?…. whutya sayin' there?" he asked with an uneasy voice.
"He had an accident, Dad. He's at the hospital in Childress. Has been for many weeks now. He hasn't regained consciousness…"
"How … how d'ya know?" Ennis asked with eyes wide open from fear, and he clung to his daughter's hand.
"You called him, Daddy. Again and again," she said with a tearful voice. "I.. I had to find out where he was. Thought I might give'em a call and tell'em you were sick. Hoped he might get here and make you better. Talked to his ex-wife. It's her who told me everything."
"Shit…" Ennis mumbled, and Junior saw that it was difficult for him to handle what he had just heard.
She bent over him softly and wiped his sweaty hair off his forehead. "Get well, Daddy, and go see him. Doctors say that.. that it might help havin' people around him who… who.. love .. him…"
"Junior," Ennis whispered, bewildered, and stared with pale face shocked at his daughter "Whut… whut'ya sayin' there?"
Junior looked at her father with a sad smile.
"You called him, Daddy. Broke my heart. I always wondered why ya were so terribly sad when Jack drove away after havin' come ta see ya shortly after yer divorce. I never understood – up until a few days ago. It's ok, Daddy. It's ok…." she whispered, looking into the petrified face of her father.
"It's ok…"And Junior's words were the echo of Jack's voice sounding finally after twenty years from Brokeback to him down on the plain.
Tears ran unnoticed down his cheeks as he looked into Junior's eyes, so similar to his. And he held her hand and she held his until he fell asleep.
Deep and quiet.
It took Ennis another week to be strong enough to start on the long journey to Texas.
And as it turned out, Junior had inherited her father's obstinacy and stubbornness. She insisted on driving with her father, to accompany him to make sure that he took his pills regularly, that he ate and drank.
As Ennis wanted to reject her offer, she forced him to look in the mirror, she showed him his peaked figure and his sunken cheeks, and she made it unmistakably clear that in his condition he would not be able to bear a long trip on his own.
And since Junior carried her point it happened that Curt, her boyfriend, joined the trek down south, too, and offered to be the driver. And Ennis gave in. Not only because he really still felt very weak, the urge to see Jack and to know about his state of health overpowering him, the longer he was up and conscious.
No, also because he had realized in the last few days that his little girl, his beloved daughter, had grown up. Again and again he caught himself thoughtfully following her movements with his still weary eyes. He saw that her body had lost its boy-like innocence, and that under her clothes hid an attractive young woman, so much wiser than himself despite her youth.
Ennis and Junior did not talk about Jack again during the following days, and not after that. It seemed as if all words had been said between them that had had to be said. And what was not explicable with words was bridged over by their hearts.
And for the first time in his life Ennis accepted the immutable facts. He had been sussed. His life and the lie of his life had been laid bare – and nobody was there to judge him. Nobody to accuse him, nobody to slander him.
On the contrary. Both his daughters did all possible to set Ennis up again, and finally, on St. Nicholas Day 1983 he was able to travel to Childress to see Jack.
The drive was monotonous.
Ennis was quiet most of the time and looked out of the window where landscapes passed him by which he only knew from television or Jack's vivid tales.
Mile after mile the wheels clattered over asphalt and ploughed their way through the endless plains of the country.
Rolling plains were followed bare plains. Cities interrupted endless loneliness.
And while they crossed one state after the other and minutes changed to hours of monotony, only one thought accompanied Ennis. It was the admission of guilt that he had expected Jack to put up with this long, tough drive. Again and again. Year in, year out.
And with a stinging pain he remembered the day, many years ago, that Jack had been allowed just a few minutes of rest before getting back on that long road to make the grim journey from Wyoming back to Texas.
Sent away by Ennis who did not want to comprehend and did not want to understand.
Snow changed to rain, and the farther they drove into the unknown South the warmer the weather became, until finally a sapphire blue sky stretched over them.
And then Ennis knew they had arrived.
The hospital in Childress was a tiny, plain building on the outskirts of town. Not the right surroundings for the never-ever-tired and always-lively Jack, so Ennis thought absentmindedly as he entered the hall behind Junior and Curt.
The smell of disinfectant rushed to his nose and caused nausea as he vaguely heard Junior asking for Jack Twist's room and presenting Ennis as his brother and herself and Curt then as Jack's niece and nephew.
He watched, amazed at how self-assured and composed his daughter was moving in this different setting. Where he made step after step stiffly and uncertainly, she had long since staked the terrain for herself – and her father.
Obediently he followed his daughter and her friend, and it seemed more and more to him that he and Junior had changed roles. That he gave up his part of protective father to put himself into the organizing hands of his daughter who helped him get his life in order.
With every step that took him nearer to Jack he became more anxious. Furtively he wiped his damp hands on his trousers, nibbled his thumb as if seeking security, and as they finally stood in front of the white door behind which Jack lay, he felt all color leave his face .
As if he was in a trance he sensed Junior taking off his hat and placing it in his numb hand, not registering the encouraging words she whispered, as he pressed the door handle and pushed open the heavy door.
The room was in twilight. The window blinds were down to block out the low-slanting sun which would blind the patient.
And there he lay.
A pale, narrow figure. Black hair like a dark mourning ring on the bright white pillow. The face gaunt. Dark stubble adorning his cheeks, although they had shaved the moustache. Outwardly Jack's injuries could not be seen, and only the bleeping of the monitoringmachines to which Jack was still attached was a reminder that the quiet figure in bed was not sleeping, but in a deep unconscious state that shut out the world around it.
Junior heard her father breathe in sharply, and from the corner of her eyes she saw him stagger. She gripped him strongly and led him slowly to the bed, to the man whom she had seen only for a split second many years ago, whose endlessly blue eyes and radiating smile she had nonetheless never forgotten.
So that was him. That was Jack Twist. The man whom her father had called so desperately and for whom he had been waiting for two days and two nights in the godforsaken wilderness of Pine Creek. He must be a special man, being able to animate her usually calm and composed father to such deeds and plunge him into such despair.
She didn't know much about him, and she did not know the story that bound her father and Jack Twist.
But she saw in her father's eyes that it had been the right decision to take the journey to Texas.
Softly she took her father's hand and followed his yearning yet scared glance and she looked into the harmonious face of Jack, saw the thick eyebrows and the long lashes casting shadows over his cheeks. She saw the even nose with the little kink in the middle where it probably had been broken once and looked at the quiet, serious mouth which had smiled at her so vividly so many years ago.
"Daddy, say hi to him," Junior whispered to her father, and she felt him twitch at her words.
"He doesn't know you're here. Talk to him. Take his hand…" she whispered, and was afraid to break the spell that all of a sudden descended over her father.
Carefully she dropped her father's hand and took a step back, into the embrace of her boyfriend Curt who watched wonderingly the scene unfolding now in front of his eyes.
Ennis stared at the man before him and could not believe what he saw. He was Jack – and yet he wasn't. He looked like Jack – but that was all.
The immobile stillness with which Jack welcomed him was weird to Ennis. His mind understood that Jack couldn't be different, that his body and soul were prisoners in the spiral of unconsciousness and that he needed help to get out of it.
But his heart screamed for the lively, positive man, wanted to shake the person on the pillow and shout at him to stop that play-acting and give up that game. He, Ennis, had understood.
He had understood.
Slowly Ennis moved towards the bed, unsure what to do next. Vaguely he heard his daughter talk to him, inviting him to say hello to Jack, and absentmindedly he thought that it had always been Jack who welcomed him and who waited for him.
It became all of a sudden clear to Ennis that in all those years only once had he taken the first step to welcome Jack in his life.
And that had been on the grey steps to the apartment above the laundry, as Jack stepped into his life after four years, closing a wound that had been bleeding achingly since their parting at the foot of Brokeback Mountain.
It was high time to do it again.
Carefully, hesitantly, almost fearfully he took the lifeless hand on the pillow and closed his big, warm fingers around it.
And in this very moment he felt the well-known spark flying between them. As a bond formed between him and Jack that had outlasted decades and survived long, bitter months of separation. A bodily contact that carved a channel to his heart and merged together what belonged together.
Deep quiet took hold of Ennis as he leaned slightly forward and whispered oh so softly in Jack's ear.
"Little darlin'… I'm here."