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“Sky bigger up here, you think?” Jack wonders, voice a little slurred from the pot and the liquor and the heat of the campfire warming the soles of his boots.
Ennis considers the length of Jack, spread out lazy beside him. “Ain’t thought about it.” His mind’s on other things.
“Think it is, Ennis. Can’t see this much from Lightnin’ Flat, that’s for damn sure. Can’t see nothin’ from there.”
“That so.”
“Sure as shootin’, friend. Nothin’ but dirt and dead things, or things that’s waitin’ to die. Like my old man—reckon my ma’d get outta there if she could, but my old man, he’s there ‘til Satan calls ‘im home.”
“Can’t be that bad.”
Jack snorts. “You don’t know my old man.” He tilts the bottle back, searching out the last drops of whiskey, and Ennis watches his throat work. “Well, I ain’t goin’ back there, know that much for a fact.”
“Lemme guess. You lightin’ out for the circuit, gonna get yourself busted up ridin’ broncs.”
Jack grins, jack-o-lantern wide and just about as lit up. “Done it before,” he says. “No reason I can’t do it again.”
“You gonna tear yourself up. Won’t be in no condition to get no other kinda work.”
“Spoil my damn fun, why don’t you, Ennis?” Jack says, taking a long swig out of the bottle.
“You gotta think about these things, Jack. How you gonna take care of a family, provide for ‘em?”
“What, like you and whats-her-name?”
Ennis almost flinches at the sudden hiss of venom under Jack’s breath. “Name’s Alma ,” he says stoically.
“Alma,” Jack mutters. “ Alma , fuckin’…s’right, just like you and goddamn Alma.”
“You don’t talk about her like that, hear me?” Ennis says, digging the toe of his boot into the ground, staring at the little groove left in the dirt. “Told you this ain’t her fault.”
“Naw, it sure ain’t Alma ’s fault.”
Ennis feels something hot spread across the back of his hands, along the nape of his neck. “What you mean by that?” His voice comes out dangerous and shopworn.
“Mean what I say: this ain’t Alma ’s fault. Ain’t nothin’ to do with Alma at all, right?” Jack’s eyes are trained on the fire, and Ennis can see the low flames from the campfire reflected in their cold blue gaze, the lone spark of warmth left in Jack now he’s all riled up, sniffing around for a fight.
“Nothin’ to do with Alma ,” Ennis repeats, a little unsteady, blaming it on the liquor and not on the cold front moving in from across the campfire.
“You goddamn right it’s not,” Jack tears out all of a sudden, cougar-fierce. “She don’t got nothin’ to do with this, Ennis. This here’s not about anythin’ but you and me.”
Ennis sits silently, shoulders hunched up to his ears.
“Listen here to me, friend: I don’t give a good goddamn about gettin’ married or providin’ for a family, alright? M’not lookin’ for anyone can’t take care of their own self. I see my ma, stranded up there in fuckin’ nowhere with that old sonofabitch, and—Jesus H., Ennis, you think I wanna end up hatin’ some gal like he hates her? Think I want that? Wanna have a coupla kids and end up fuckin’ them up because I don’t know how to take care of my own self, much less a whole ‘nother person? Naw, that ain’t—I’m not lookin’ for that kinda life, Ennis. Know what I want. And I reckon I’m goin’ to get it. One way or another.”
Ennis feels his spine tighten and pull underneath his skin. “One way or another, Jack Twist?” he says, low, because he might not have had much schooling but he’s not a fool.
“S’what I said.”
“You best not mean what I think you mean, Jack,” Ennis says. “Or I swear to Jesus—”
“Why do you give a good goddamn what I mean by that? You ain’t gonna be around for it, Ennis. You gonna be off somewhere providin’ for a family. Bein’ a man, lookin’ after Alma . Fuckin’ miserable.”
“One way or another. You plannin’ on—you mean to—”
Jack doesn’t move an inch but he still manages to slam a fist straight into Ennis’s gut. “What if I am,” he says, no question but a statement plain as a handshake. “What if I am—won’t be no concern of yours, now, will it?”
Jack stares hard at the fire. “Ennis, you—” he starts, then stops. “Fuck,” he mumbles, scrubbing a dirty hand over his face, and finally looks at Ennis, who for once looks back instead of at the sheep or a tree or some shadow creeping away from them toward the horizon. “Ennis,” he says finally, voice worn-down, “Ennis, in six weeks we gonna be done here. And you, you got a whole life waitin’ for you—got yourself a gal ready to marry you just as soon as you give the word, and you gonna get those kids, too, if you want them, but me? I don’t got that. What I got—what I got ain’t somethin’ to be had for wishin’, but it’s real, Ennis, and—and I’ll be honest with you, friend, I thought it might be with you.” Jack falters then, but picks himself up and keeps going as best he can. “But I’m not goin’ to wait around for the rest of my natural life, Ennis. I know what’d suit me best, friend, and if it ain’t goin’ to be you, sure ain’t gonna be no gal.”
The campfire’s gone cold. Jack goes into the tent and tries to sleep.
Hours later, he wakes up to a callused hand pressing dumb across the small of his back, sliding around to his belly and up across his the flat planes of his chest.
“Tell you what,” Ennis says finally, voice strange and full in the dark, “I sure am gonna miss tits.”
Jack makes it up to him.