August 1953

"You know I'm gonna be a bull rider one day?"

It took everything within Ennis to keep walking up that damned foothill, and even with the heat creating rivers down their backs, Jack still found it in himself to talk circles around Ennis. If it had been K.E, he'd have smacked him upside the head by now.

But this wasn't K.E. "Ain't your daddy a rider?" Ennis didn't know why he remembered that. Jack hummed. "Thought you didn't like him much."

Jack squinted from beneath the Resistol, though from the sunlight or from the question Ennis couldn't tell. "I don't."

"Then why the hell do you wanna be like him?"

"I don't." Jack swung his hips up onto a nearby tree stump, his feet swinging and tossing the animal he'd been trying to carve from the woodblock in his pocket from left to right. Ennis thought the poor creation was better off as scrap. "I want to ride bulls. He just so happens to do that, too. Ain't got nothing to do with being like him."

"Reckon so." He didn't, but who else was to know.

Behind him, Jack stretched out on the grass, long lines and dark colors jumping out from the grass. He looked like the most natural thing that didn't belong. Later.

Ennis had taken to doing that recently, cataloging his thoughts like magazines in the general store. He felt better with Jack if he didn't live half of the interaction through his own head, and the day was too beautiful to spend it there, anyhow. Even if the sun was trying to singe the hair off of their heads. Ennis felt himself slipping down to his back, resting his hat over his face as he laid himself down a few feet from Jack. Jack stayed propped on his elbows, looking past Ennis towards the big blue sky. Ennis hadn't taken Fancy with him, and something about being on level ground with Jack felt strange, and he hadn't the faintest of what to do with it. He supposed it wasn't stressful, though for all Ennis accounts, it should have been. It was nice, he decided, to have somebody else to spend the quiet with.

Of course, the quiet never did last too long where Jack was concerned.

It started with the squeal of the grass as it was run through restless fingers, a shrill voice joining the occasional raven's caw. Then, it was dirt, grainy and awful and swept up into Ennis' nose. He shifted his shoulder away from Jack. The thumping of a boot heel joined Jack's jarring symphony, followed soon by the grit of Ennis' teeth within his skull. Damn boy couldn't sit still if his life depended on it. The whistling was the final proverbial straw, he supposed.

With a sigh, Ennis tore his hat from his face, lip curled and shoulders pushed up to his ears. "Are you a bird?"

"No." And there was that crooked lilt again, looking so sore on features so straight. "And I hope I ain't, what with you lookin' at me like a starving cur."

"That's not what I look like."

Jack was really smiling now. "Really?"

"Really."

"Then why are you snarling at me?"

"'M not."

Jack inched closer, looking every bit like the cat that caught the canary, or whatever it was his mama would say about the cat. Up this close, Jack's eyes shone, and suddenly bluebird skies didn't seem all that remarkable. "I can count your teeth from here, friend."

"Liar." Ennis shoved Jack, laughing though he desperately needed the distance. His heart beat in a frenzy. He'd have thought there was a beehive nearby if he didn't know the buzzing of his own head well enough by now. Was hearing a friend's laugh supposed to make his insides vibrate? He wasn't sure, but Jack's laugh had him laughing in earnest too, falling next to the brunette's shoulder on the grass and staring skywards. They laid there, side by side, watching the clouds roll and darken over the sun, though Wyoming wasn't quite due for snow yet. He'd have known Jack a year come next snowfall, he mused, and what a thought that was. A friend, and a yearlong one at that; he shook his head, a small smile on his face that he knew Jack wouldn't see. This one was just for him.

"You're home late, Spud."

Ennis was hardly through the door before Jenny had spoken, head poked from the kitchen and hanging sideways. "Quit it, Jen."

"Oh, I ain't even done nothing yet. Just observing the time."

Like hell you was. He rolled his eyes, ignoring her slinking as he ran a towel through wet hands. He could only imagine the state his shirt was in if his hands alone could create a small dust storm. "Well, it's observed. Thank you kindly."

She smiled, but said nothing else. Ennis thanked whoever watched over them for that.

He wasn't ready to give up Jack to Jenny just yet.

"Where's everyone else?"

The clatter of dishes seemed to hammer the air around him. "Well, while you was out adventuring, we decided we might as well go to the Wane brothers' potluck." Jenny sighed at Ennis' deadpan. "You know, the boys K.E sits with sometimes at church?"

"The tall ones?"

She tossed a towel at him. "Yeah. You think you'd know their names after five years. And if you're just gonna stand there, help me dry."

Truth was, he didn't know their names, and he didn't care to. They whooped and hollered loud and boisterous, calling attention they seemed to feed off of–far more suited for K.E. Ennis just thought they were big fools.

"You know, Ennis, I don't know what you've been getting up to lately, but whatever it is, I'm glad you are."

"How do you reckon?"

She paused her washing, looking at him with a softness that he hardly recognized on her features. "I don't know. You just seem happier, is all."

"I am." He said simply. It was all he could. He found that the plain and easy truth often needed the least amount of words, anyhow. Jenny just smiled.

"Good."

It was a sticky summer Sunday when K.E's cursing from the bathroom startled Ennis clean off his pillow. His world was tilting–it wasn't like him to oversleep. Looking to the window thermometer, though, he supposed that the 90 reading would sap the energy out of anything with a sensible pulse. Even the damn birds are hiding.

"Daddy says we're leaving for church in fifteen." K.E brushed past, handing Ennis a button up before disappearing around the corner. It was sable, fraying at the sleeves and hanging onto its buttons with a thin thread and no small amount of faith. It didn't hang much better on his thin arms either once he'd put it on, bunching at the pits and hanging at the elbows. He stared at his reflection. Ennis ran water through his hair, smoothing the sides down like his mama had taught him. The shirt still fit him something awful. Ennis hated this shirt.

"You'll look fine, Ennis." It was Jenny.

"I look like manure in a corduroy sack."

She gave him a once over, looking from golden hair to khaki boots. At least his mama had washed his denim for the week. "You're being silly. But you're gonna be left if you don't get a move on."

Didn't he know it. He could hear his daddy's keys jangling from upstairs, ticking louder than any clock ever could, except clocks usually kept correct time.

On the car ride over, the keys jangled too. They bobbed with the road from inside the ignition, though chiming or taunting, Ennis wasn't sure. The day felt heavy–with the heat, sure–but more so with a thickness that bogged down Ennis' shoulders on the walk into church, sticky like molasses and backed by the clank of metal against metal. He knew he wouldn't find Jack, but he looked for the brunette anyway. Ennis hadn't often wondered about Jack's churchgoing habits, didn't often wonder about anybody's for that matter, but he did sometimes let himself sit on how odd it was that Jack's family was nearly as invisible as the wind itself. The house was there, and of course Jack was there, but there wasn't much else rustling when the breeze came through.

Just a husk, he reckoned.

It was after church when Ennis found himself standing in the parking lot, his scalp burning as he waited for Mama and Jenny to quit their chattering. He could only toe a picture into the gravel so many times before even he tired of it. He'd been about to call for her again when his daddy came walking up beside him, keys announcing him before his footsteps did.

"Don't look so jittery, boy. The ladies have important things to talk about." He heard the words Daddy was saying, but his face was scrunched like he didn't mean a word of it. Ennis supposed the ladies would have important things to talk about. "Besides, I have something I want to show you. Go find K.E for me, would ya?"

And Ennis did. That was how, in their Sunday best, the two ended up trailing behind their daddy, sweating and dusty and more lost than ever as they wound further away from church, following the highway east towards Bullpen. Ennis had looked to K.E, who seemed just as confused as he was–he'd simply shrugged and continued on walking. Ennis hadn't even realized they'd stopped until he rammed into his daddy's back, warm and uncomfortably damp on his cheek. Daddy just shook his head. "Where do you go, I wonder."

Ennis didn't want to feel small. If it was Jack who'd said it, he'd be fascinated, like Ennis had some grand secret nobody else was smart on. His daddy just felt disappointed.

"Daddy, what are we doing all the way out here?"

"I suppose building upon today's sermon, K.E."

K.E's brow wrinkled. "You suppose?"

His daddy didn't answer. Instead, he fanned his hands out, clapping and unclasping his fingers while his keys bounced against his leg. "You boys remember Earl and Rich, don't you?" He turned then to Ennis. He tried his hardest not to shrink under the weight of those eyes; it was nothing like Jack's daddy's stare, but the air still felt shallow anyhow. Ennis nodded. "And you remember what the pastor went on about today? About Judgement Day?"

"Recapping church on the highway," K.E scoffed.

Daddy shot K.E a look. "And sinners. Ennis, dear boy, what happens to people who do bad things?"

Ennis' heart hammered. "I reckon they get bad things in kind."

"Would you look at that. You do listen." The smile his daddy smiled was a most unkind thing. "And you're right. Sinners get what's coming to them. Sinners don't get buried in graves by mamas who love them. Come, give me your hand."

Fingers shaking, Ennis did. "Daddy?"

"Look, boys," his daddy was practically vibrating now, "I love you. Your mama loves you." He tugged harshly at Ennis' hand, leading them to a ditch just off the side of the road. "And I want you to live and die as real men. And that's what Earl and Rich weren't, you see. Faggots get buried by the vultures."

With that, Ennis felt a clap on his shoulder, pushing him to peek over the embankment. At first, it was only the birds. But then, the birds moved.

And Ennis' world shattered.

He'd never seen so much blood, not even when K.E had nicked his forehead on the chicken wire one summer and bled so much he passed out. It was everywhere–Earl's shirt, his ankles–and the dirt had been stained too, tinged copper and somehow glaring despite the dark coloring. Ennis could handle blood. He wasn't a girl. He'd even seen the deep cuts that scattered Earl's body on the cows before, his daddy showing the muscle and bone and the tendons that kept it all connected. But, the maggots. His own skin writhed with the feeling of it, hatching and wriggling and everywhere. They disappeared beneath Earl's skin, weaving in and out like a quilt he'd seen Mama make before. Ennis couldn't breathe–not in, not out, not anything. Not against the bugs on his skin. Not against the dust that clogged his windpipe. He turned his face to Daddy's leg, wishing it away though the nymphs kept crawling against his closed eyelids. He wanted it to be over. Oh God, he clutched his daddy's denim tighter, why would he show me that? Why were the bugs in Earl's eye? Why would anybody kill a man like that? Why was his dick not with his body? Ennis hadn't missed that, though he wished he had. It hurt almost as much as his burning ribs, imagining how badly a limb being torn off might feel. His daddy's hand in his hair was soothing, coaxing Ennis away from his leg; and all at once, those fingers dug into his skull, wrenching his head back to Earl and holding him there.

Ennis wouldn't cry. He simply wouldn't.

"That's a sinner's death." Daddy was right over his shoulder now, whispering into sticky skin like the words would somehow embed themselves if he was close enough. "So you go on and find a nice, pretty woman to have kids with, and this won't ever be you. You'll live a nice life, just as I do. To touch a man is to touch death, Ennis. It's unnatural. Do you understand?"

"Yes." Ennis heard his daddy ask K.E something, but it had faded out, blood rushing through his head and taking the sound with it. Earl was dead. He couldn't tear his eyes away, his own wide ones staring at Earl's unseeing ones. He was dead and bloodied and falling apart right before Ennis, surrendering to nature and simply disappearing. Vaguely, the jangling of keys pulled Ennis from the sight. He wondered if God would carry keys like that with him on Judgement Day, clinking each time he strode away on sure legs. Would that be the sound Ennis heard when his time came? He didn't want to know. Earl was dead.

His daddy and K.E carried some sort of conversation about lugnuts on the walk back. Ennis followed, clicking the toe and heel of his boot together, one after the other. Earl was dead.

That night, he laid in bed, covers tossed far away. He'd told Jenny he was simply too warm, but the truth was that the maggots had gotten him from within the blankets, too. They'd crawled and he'd scratched until he bled, and then wept. They were under his skin now, wriggling through bloodied half-moons and lifted layers of flesh. They were under Jack's, too, when Ennis closed his eyes.

Earl was dead.

God, he didn't wanna die a sinner