The clouds churn a watercolour grey, the colour of bleach or the sea in the dead of winter. There's no breeze, no wind, no nothing to stir life in the fir trees, and the branches seem more crooked than usual, Jack thinks. Everything seems more crooked than usual.
They had slept in the same tent as per normal but Jack could not dislodge the sick, morbid weight in his gut, like an annoying pebble that had somehow made its way in the bottom of one's shoe – it's there for a while, it's there for worse, and it's there to stay if you don't do a damn thing about it.
While taking a piss, he hears Ennis chopping firewood behind him. He doesn't say anything. He watches Ennis get a fire going. He has nothing to say. He makes breakfast and they eat in silence, but Ennis wolfs down the food so fast, Jack can't find room for himself.
It's only when Ennis lodges a cigarette between his teeth and loads his shotgun that Jack finally identifies the feeling: dread.
He knows what this's about. The jacket, he can brush off as not wanting his partner to get sick and leave all the work to himself. The cuddling, he can blame it on a couple a misplaced beers. But the swaying, languid, leaning heavy-lidded against each other…
I aint no queer, Ennis will say, You know I ain't queer. Jack wants to swell in frustration at the unfairness of it all. Ennis was the one who initiated that dance, but he knows the look in his eyes should Jack confront him about it.
Their first night in that tent, he had genuinely believed Ennis had left him for good, he'd gone for so long. Dinner had came and went with Jack saving the best bits of elk for his friend, but when Ennis didn't even show up for that, he'd been truly scared.
He watches Ennis wedge a foot in the stirrup and haul himself up. The feeling doesn't go away. He stuffs the shotgun into the sheath. Maybe it was long overdue. Ennis seizes the reins. Maybe Jack ignored it for so long, it's now overstaying its welcome.
"What am I to you," he finds himself saying, "Ennis Del Mar? D'you even think a me like a human being? Or am I just another Alma?"
Ennis finally turns to look down at him, and the sun's peeking just behind the clouds and eclipsing his figure and Jack has to squint to be able to see up at him. Almost hiding behind the brim of his hat, Ennis growls, "Now don't you go bringin Alma into this. We been sweethearts since junior high and this ain't her fault."
Jack knows, and he doesn't mean it – he's the boy cornered by a bear and he's grabbing any weapon he can find. "You got no right makin me do this," Jack says, splintering. "We can have it all, Ennis! Jus' you an' me, that's all I want!"
Ennis suddenly swivels, leaping down from his saddle, and suddenly spittle is flying and his squinting eyes are in Jack's face, and all of a sudden a sudden force to his chest tips his world upside down and grinds his teeth into the dirt. "I'm gonna tell you this one time, Jack fuckin' Twist, an' I ain't foolin'. You know what they have on solid ground for boys like you?" Jack gets up fast but Ennis doesn't pause his steamroll. "You wanna be dragged by your dick till it pulls off? Slashed and dumped in an irrigation ditch? Well I seen it with my own two eyes, Earl and Rich, I was nine years old, an' for all I know my pa done the job. This is a one-shot thing, I told ya, and I ain't no queer."
It's dead still. They look each other in the eye. Ennis's hat has fallen off. Jack filters through all the bullshit. "You don't have to pretend with me," Jack says levelly. "I'm real with you, always been."
Ennis turns to look at him, this time truly look at him, and Jack can almost see the memories in a blur in front of him, the tent, the passes, the jacket, the huddling, the dancing, the soup. Ennis is rough and Jack don't like it, but he still was willing to go up to herd the sheep while Jack stayed comfy down here and get the soup at Jack's bitching. I peeled my way through the onion that's Ennis Del Mar's heart, and that gotta count for somethin.
"I think you're afraid. But I'm afraid too. You're just a coward, Ennis Del Mar." Jack spits at his feet. "It's soup or nothin, I won't take no beans."
The foot between them stretches on for miles. Ennis mounts his horse without a word, digs his heels into the bay's sides. Jack watches him disappear, painfully aware of the bruise stinging his cheek.
It takes a while, but Ennis comes back. It's after dinner, after camp's been done and the fire died, but he comes riding back with a cigarette wedged between his teeth and the shotgun in his sheath. Unlike their first morning after, Jack emerges from the tent to meet him halfway. Neither of them says anything but Ennis quietly goes into the tent and comes out with a bandage. Rips off a piece of his own shirt and soaks it in hot water by the fire. Dabs it on Jack's face, wraps it up with the clean white bandage just like Jack did for him the day that bear scared the mules off; and that's how Jack knows they're real.