Discalimer: I don't own Brokeback Mountain.
So this is a late update, but here's the new chapter that I've been sitting on. See what you think. No sex in this one, but there are sweet moments.
Ennis and Jack arrived in Wyoming late that day. Ennis was the one driving and Jack was sleeping next to him. He pulled up into his driveway and put Jack's truck in park next to his.
"Wake up Jack," said Ennis gently rubbing Jack's shoulder.
"Are we home?" said Jack slowly sitting up.
"Yeah, we're home," said Ennis with a smile. Jack stepped out of the truck and took a long stretch. Then he turned to the bed of the truck and grimaced.
"Let's just cover all that with a tarp and just move it straight up to the ranch. Seems kind of pointless taking it all out and then putting it all back in again." Ennis nodded.
"I've got an old tarp. Give me a minute." Ennis brought the old tarp from inside the house. The two of them secured the tarp onto the bed of the truck. Once done with that they went inside. Both hung their hats and coats on the coat rack. Jack yawned and went into the bed room. He flopped down onto the bed with a heavy sigh. Ennis sat down on the other side of the bed and pulled off his boots.
"God... I don't know how long I slept and I'm still tired," said Jack.
"It's traveling. I swear, traveling will exhaust you even if you are sitting the entire time." Ennis lay down on the bed with a heavy sigh. Jack put an arm over Ennis's chest and rested his head on Ennis's shoulder. Ennis gently threaded his fingers through Jack's hair.
"I'm so glad to be back." Ennis smiled at him and put his arms around Jack's shoulders. That was when Ennis noticed Jack's wedding ring still on his finger. He gently held Jack's hand and rubbed the ring with his thumb.
"You're still wearing your wedding ring." Jack shrugged and reached for Ennis's left hand where he knew Ennis still wore his wedding ring. He held Ennis's hand and nudged his ring.
"You still wear yours. You've been divorced longer than I have." Ennis shrugged as well.
"Just doesn't feel right having no ring on my finger since it's been there so long."
"Yeah, that's about how I feel." Still both of them stared at their rings and thought of the families they had left so that they could be together. Both were simple and almost identical wedding bands. Ennis's was just a little bit thicker than Jack's. Ennis suddenly pulled off his ring. Jack propped himself up on his right elbow.
"What are you doin'?" said Jack with sleepy curiosity. Ennis lifted Jack's left hand from his chest and pulled Jack's wedding ring off as well. Then Ennis put his wedding ring on Jack's finger and Jack's wedding ring on his own finger. He laid Jack's left hand back down on his chest and put his own left hand over Jack's so their wedding rings touched. Jack blinked and stared at their hands in front of him as if trying to believe that what had just happened had happened. It was something he had never expected to happen. He and Ennis stared into each other's eyes in the dark. Jack shifted up Ennis's body and kissed him gently. He felt sleep creeping up on him and he rested his head on Ennis's shoulder and shut his eyes.
"C'mon rodeo.. can't have you sleeping in your boots." Jack grunted and shrugged. "C'mon... if nothing else I don't want to be kicked by your boots in the middle of the night."
"I don't kick in the night." Ennis snorted.
"The hell you don't." Jack propped himself up on his elbow again and gave Ennis an annoyed look.
"Shut up, cowboy," he said as he rolled off of Ennis and got undressed. Ennis did the same and then the two curled their naked bodies together. As they fell asleep, they interlaced the fingers of their left hands.
The next morning Jack woke up alone. He turned and saw a note resting on the pillow next to him. He gently picked it up and read,
Gone to work, be back around five.
I'm glad you're home.
Jack smiled to himself and tucked the note away with the other notes Ennis had left him. He intended on hiding all these notes away in a box some day. He'd probably keep the box on the top shelf of some closet where Ennis would never look. He looked out the window and stared at the field in the sunshine. He was daydreaming. He could see himself and Ennis on horses riding off on a fishing trip. He could see them laughing about some private joke. Maybe about beans or his harmonica or something like that. He could see them smiling and riding off into a land where no one would be able to touch them again. He smiled knowing that soon they would be riding off to a land like that. They would be left alone and no one could touch them. They would have each other.
Jack spent the day planning, shopping, and packing. It didn't hear Ennis's truck pull up until around seven. He knew something was wrong when he heard the truck door slam harder than he had ever heard it slam and Ennis say several curse words. He also heard a difference in the way Ennis was walking. It wasn't different because he was drunk; he had heard that before and knew how to recognize it. It was something else that was causing Ennis to walk different. It was when Ennis walked through the door that he guessed what was causing Ennis to walk differently. Ennis had a black eye and a bloody nose. When he walked in he was limping carefully and holding his side.
"What the hell happened to you?" said Jack as Ennis walked in.
"It's great to see you too," said Ennis wiping the blood away from under his nose and landing in his chair at the table. Jack pulled a paper towel from the roll in the kitchen and held it to Ennis's nose.
"Here, tilt your head back." Ennis complied with a slight grumble. "The bleeding will stop in a minute." Jack gently rubbed Ennis's shoulder but Ennis shrugged him off. Jack didn't press the issue and just sat down at the table. "Are you going to tell me what happened?"
"Guys at work, one of them said they had seen you in town and that he had seen you drive up to my place. I told him that you were just a friend who was down on his luck and I was going to help you with starting the ranch. I said I was going to be the ranch foreman and you one of the ranch hands." Jack nodded along and accepted the lie that he would have told if confronted by the same guy. "I said you'd just been through a messy divorce and that you had to stay with me because you had no where else to go. He didn't believe me. He said that someone saw us sitting in the same truck together. I said that didn't prove anything, guys sit in the same truck all the time. Then he said that we were seen kissing in the truck." Jack's stomach jumped and he remembered the one time they had kissed in the truck after Jack had told Lureen he wanted a divorce. He hadn't thought to look and see if there were any cars around and neither had Ennis. Ennis was the one who had kissed him that time. "I told him that whoever saw it needed to get their eyes checked. It must have been something else. I thought up every bull shit excuse I could think of. Then he punched me. And then we started fighting. The foreman brought a stop to it. The guy I was arguing with told him why we were fighting. The foreman threw five hundred dollars at me and told me to get the hell out and never come back."
Jack's heart ached for Ennis. Ennis cautiously took the paper towel away from his nose and cautiously sniffed. Jack remembered Ennis's black eye as he straightened his head up again. He got a dish towel, put a few ice cubes on it, wrapped it around the ice cubes and gently held the ice pack to Ennis's eye.
"Jesus... Ennis I'm sorry." Ennis didn't respond. He did reach out and grab Jack's left hand. He held Jack's hand to his cheek and felt the warm metal on Jack's finger. Jack wasn't sure what to do next. All he could think to do was hold the ice pack onto Ennis's bruised face and gently stroked Ennis's cheek with his thumb. He was surprised that Ennis was even letting him near him after what had happened.
"Jack..." said Ennis quietly.
"Yeah?" said Jack.
"I... really feel terrible. I want to get a bath."
"Ok." Jack put the ice pack on the table and was moving away from Ennis when Ennis clutched Jack's hand a little tighter.
"Jack, I made it into the house, but just barely." Jack realized what Ennis was saying and gently helped his lover up out of the chair. The two slowly walked into the bathroom where Jack carefully helped Ennis out of his clothes. He winced at the bruises he saw on Ennis's torso and leg. He could tell he had been kicked by boots by the scrapes that accompanied the bruises. Maybe they were even steel-tipped boots from the look of things. He sat Ennis down on the toilet and filled the bath tub with hot water. While he waited for the tub to fill he took his shirt off. Once the tub was filled he turned off the water and gently helped Ennis into the tub. Ennis winced as the water hit the scrapes on his body. But the bruises he had been avoiding were starting to feel better. Jack gently washed Ennis's back with a washcloth and gently helped Ennis clean the scrapes. In the back of Jack's mind he was worried that now Ennis was going to back out on the whole deal. In truth, Jack didn't think he could blame him.
"Jack?" said Ennis softly.
"Yeah," said Jack just as softly. He was bracing for the conversation he feared was about to happen.
"Do we have to leave for Brokeback this weekend? Can we leave tomorrow?" Jack blinked in surprise. "Or the day after? Just one more day of packing and we could probably get everything together. Would that be ok?"
"Yeah, yeah of course it's ok. I thought after tonight you were going to back out on me and go somewhere else."
"I just want to get out of this town. The only place I know to go is Brokeback Mountain and the only person to take me there is you." Jack smiled and nodded to Ennis. He gently kissed Ennis on the forehead before helping him out of the tub. Once Ennis was dried off, he gently helped him into bed and pulled the covers up over his lover. Jack finished getting undressed and then got into bed with him. He gently spooned up behind Ennis and held him from behind like Ennis did with him so many nights. Tonight he knew that Ennis wanted to be held without even being asked. Ennis tightly interlaced his fingers with Jack's and Jack held him even tighter.
"It's ok, Ennis. It's going to be ok." Ennis nodded slowly in agreement.
"Just hold me tonight Jack," said Ennis quietly.
"Of course I will, I'll hold you all night." Ennis fell asleep a while before Jack did. Jack stayed awake and watched Ennis sleep. He gently kissed Ennis on the head and settled down to sleep.
The next morning they started packing everything. The furniture that they couldn't sell off in one day they took to the Salvation Army. The house was rented but Ennis had all ready paid up through the end of the lease, so he just told his landlord that he was leaving early. They managed to get everything packed up in Jack's truck and Ennis sold off his truck to a friend. They figured that really all they needed was one vehicle to get to and from the city. That night they spread their sleeping bags on the floor of the bed room and slept in each other's arms.
The next morning they packed up their sleeping bags and got into Jack's truck. Ennis looked at the house he had been living in one last time and then turned to Jack.
"Get me out of here," he said quietly as he interlaced his fingers with Jack's on the car seat. Jack smiled, turned on the truck, and started driving to the place where they first met.