January, 1953
The quiet had never been something that bothered Ennis del Mar. It was a good thing, too, for quiet took on a new meaning down in Sage, or at least that was what his Mama had said. He'd never known different.
The thing about quiet, though, was that it was easily disturbed. Ennis couldn't help but look up at the fluttering of a bird, or the distant passing of a truck on dirt roads. Those were oddities, and he didn't much like change. He remembered learning about caterpillars last year, how they went to sleep and came out as something new. The girls were taken with the colors of the butterflies, but Ennis had wrinkled his nose at the idea. Things ought to stay the same, he thought on that walk back home, 'cause if they're different you don't have any idea what to do with 'em. He liked knowing what to do.
Maybe that was why he felt so twisted up inside when Mama said they would be getting neighbors.
"I reckon someone finally bought the Miller's place next door," his daddy said that night over dinner. Ennis looked from his potatoes to his daddy.
"How d'ya reckon?" Jenny, for her part, looked much more interested than Ennis at the prospect of new people. His sister had always liked people.
"I saw the sign bein' taken down."
"I talked to Mrs. Miller, too, 'fore she left," Mama chimed in. "She said a family with a young boy bought the land. Said they wanted to start a ranch." There was a pause, with nothing but the scrape of metal on china to fill the air. "Say, Ennis, I think she said the boy was about your age. Would be nice to have a friend, don't ya think?"
He shoveled a mouthful of potatoes in before he turned to look at Mama. In truth, he didn't know what to think, but his heart lurched in a way it never had before. He liked the way things were now. He liked working with K.E and his daddy, liked how he could look at the fences with nobody but his horse for company. He didn't need anybody new.
"Maybe," he eventually supplied. He didn't want to talk about it anymore.
It was Saturday when Ennis finally caught sight of the people who were moving in. True to Mama's word, there were three people that he could see, though his breath kept fogging up the windowpane. He heard rather than saw Jenny coming up behind him, putting a gentle hand on his shoulder. They watched in silence as the three figures carried furniture and boxes into the house, navigating snow and stairs and shouting that was lost to the howl of the winds.
"I think it's awful strange to be movin' in the dead of winter." Jenny's words frosted the window. Ennis shifted back on his haunches, the bench groaning under his weight as he placed a hand to the glass to wipe away the fog. He could only hum. There was something strange about watching the world change in front of him; it wasn't gradual, like the greening of the grass each springtime, nor was it small, like the grey hairs that cropped up on his horse each year. As he watched the brunette boy brush snow from his boots, he felt himself lean forward. He didn't have to like them, he reasoned, but he could be interested. And interested he was.
Four months passed before the snow finally melted. At school, his teacher commented on the sunlight streaming through the windows, the flowers on the windowsill stretched towards it like an old friend. Ennis thought the sun made too many puddles out of the melted snow.
The new brunette boy wasn't in class, a thought that followed him on the walk home. He wasn't quite sure what he intended to do had the boy been there–likely, he would have ignored him–but his absence still struck Ennis as odd. Perhaps he couldn't go to school, if it was only him and his dad starting up the ranch. At least Ennis had K.E.
Later, Ennis had finally broken away from chores with his daddy and brother, taking Fancy out along the perimeter of the farm. The breeze swept the smell of spring through his hair, and for a moment he simply closed his eyes, sinking into the saddle and melding with the stillness around him. He had missed this over the winter.
"Well howdy, stranger."
Ennis startled, yanking the right side of Fancy's bit something fierce. She shook her head, and after taking a moment to run a soothing hand through her mane, he whipped his head around, lip curled and ready to chew out the offender. Instead, he stared.
The brunette neighbor-boy, as Ennis had taken to calling him, toed the dirt–Ennis assumed he was waiting for a greeting in return. He wasn't going to get it, but Ennis couldn't help but look at him in earnest for the first time since he'd moved in. He didn't know how he had missed the boy standing there. Neighbor-boy had a cigarette between two long fingers and might as well have owned Ennis' fencepost the way he was leaning against it, arms crossed and wide black Resistol casting a shadow over the rest of him. He was certainly bigger up close.
"My Mama says those things'll kill ya." The words tumbled out of Ennis, surprising them both. Neighbor-boy looked up from his arms, squinting. Hat brim now lifted, Ennis caught a glimpse of the bluest eyes he'd ever seen–not like he'd seen many, his family all had brown–and lashes longer than he reckoned any woman might ever have.
"What?"
"Them cigarettes," he nodded to Neighbor-boy's hand.
The brunette eyed the cigarette thoughtfully, lifting the butt to his mouth and inhaling deeply. Ennis had seen his daddy smoke before, but he never did seem to make it look as elegant as Neighbor-boy did, who blew the smoke back at Ennis' face with a smile that could split the clouds. "Guess I gotta get my daddy to smoke more of these, then," he said, exhaling again with a shake of his head. Odd, Ennis thought. He held out his hand. "I'm Jack Twist."
A warmth Ennis blamed on the sun spread through his forearm as he clasped hands with Neighbor-boy turned Jack Twist. "Ennis."
The brunette cracked another smile around the cigarette between his teeth. Ennis noticed how Jack's eyes seemed to smile, too. "Your folks just stop at Ennis?"
No, he reckoned they hadn't. "Del Mar."
Seemingly satisfied, Jack finally dropped Ennis' hand like a dead weight, shifting to look beyond Ennis and towards the foothills past the house. Even in thought, Ennis noticed, Jack was never still, flicking the cigarette with his tongue and bouncing his foot about the ankle. It made him nauseous just watching.
Eventually, Jack turned back to him. It didn't escape Ennis' attention that the silence they'd shared had been awful comfortable. "You ain't much of a talker, are ya."
He might've responded, but he was too busy watching the brunette's dark eyebrows. He seemed to talk with his hands and brows as much as his mouth. To Jack's point, Ennis only shrugged a shoulder.
"You're lucky, friend. My mama says I can talk an ear off a wooden horse if I wanted to." He laughed, more to himself than anything. "Hell if I could stay silent."
Jack pushed himself from the fencepost and snubbed his cigarette in the dirt, running it under the toe of his boot. "I've been meaning to ask, what kinda cattle do y'all raise here? We ain't never been this far down south before, 'fraid I haven't got a good idea for where the hell to start. My daddy neither, though the bastard won't ever admit it."
Ennis looked out to the fading light beyond the foothills before turning his gaze to the back of Fancy's head. "Cows, mostly."
"Huh. And here I thought the grass never got green enough for them down here. I used to handle sheep, 'fore we moved that is." He smiled again, shrugging his shoulders. "Stubbornest little sons of bitches you ever did see. Reckon I'll be glad they don't turn a profit here."
Fancy's impatient shifting below Ennis seemed to draw the other boy back down from whatever conversational heights he'd been occupying. "Right. You'd best be on your way 'fore that horse decides to leave without ya."
And whose fault would that be. Instead, Ennis tipped his hat. "See ya."
With furrowed brows and a lopsided grin, Jack flicked his brim with a thumb. Ennis turned Fancy back towards the direction of the house, but he could've sworn he heard a faint 'so long, stranger' carried upon the breeze.
Odd indeed.