It's the wind on your face, the sun on the back of your neck. The way the birds call in the morning, and the animals that howl in the night. It's all of those and none of them, and most of the time, even Ennis doesn't know what he is.
What he knows is this: Jack is happy, and Sallie is happy. Well, happy enough, at the very least.
An ounce of peace is all I want for you
He don't deserve that -- he don't deserve this. He don't deserve much've anything, to be honest.
There's a knife-bright gleam of tawny gold that dances on the edge of it all -- but is it what he wants?
Sallie 'n Jack, though -- they deserve more'n what they got. But they got each other, and that is, as Ennis' ma woulda said, a blessing.
It isn't easy, leaving it all behind -- not really. There's that old saying of it having better to have loved and lost...
But Desire thinks that's a load of bull, quite frankly.
That gleam starts to take a shape, a shadow vaguely shaped like a black Stetson slanted down over that flash of gold.
There's a knife's edge of a smirk beneath the growing shapes.
Ennis ignores the image; there's so much you learn to ignore here, in this place.
There's so much more that's important; feeling, knowing, being. Sallie's laughter, beating those nosy you-know-whats at their own game. The way Jack squints against the afternoon sun when he's out with the horses.
Ennis squints now against the gleam, and tries to see what it might be.
That gleam?
Shiny.
Fancy that.
But trying to see is wanting to see, and wanting is this particular Endless' specialty... So Ennis sees. And there's Desire, near nose-to-nose with the former cowpoke, a black hat settled on his head with the brim pointing skyward, cigarette hanging loose from his smirk while he lights it from that shiny gold lighter in hand.
"Evening, Ennis," Desire says with a wink, and suddenly it is -- dark as nights on Brokeback but nowhere near as cold.
"Evenin'," is the response, 'cause it don't do Ennis no good to not respond, not here, not now. His own hat, it was gone, now it's not, leans down over his forehead like it's got an idea or two of its own, and before Ennis can even think about it, there's a cigarette, and the smoke filling his lungs. He coughs once, twice.
He leans back -- against a tree, if there were one -- and shrugs into his position, like it's automatic.
"Wouldn't expect to see you here," he laughs, like it's a joke.
Desire laughs as well, since it is a joke, some ways: Those gold eyes sparkle merrily in the dark, lit by a long draw on his cigarette. "Nope. I imagine you figured I was done with you, right?"
the truth is it's the other way around -- we're just dolls
He breathes a long plume of smoke that dissipates in the night, the world becoming real as the stars appearing like pinpricks in the night, or the crunch of long grass shifting minutely under those sitting on it, crunching beneath the weight of hands and clothed bodies. "Don't think you're really as ready as you think, Ennis."
Breathe.
The night feels cool, the air promising the faint damp of fields and no cities.
"I think there are still some things you want."
The response is nothing but another shrug, a quiet exhalation.
"Ain't nothing much I need 'round these parts."
"Imagine not." Ennis is spared a glance with those gold eyes, and then Desire looks down the slope, ash falling away from the end of his cigarette with a deep amber glow -- before the still-hot ember can touch the grasses, the scenery's already clearing before them.
They're standing almost shoulder to shoulder on the wrong side of a high fence, Desire leaning against it and one boot hooked over the low rail: It's still night, the stars overhead worlds away from the familiar skies of Wyoming, a familiar farmhouse slouching across the dirt ahead.
The light from the stars above is cold as the cigarette Desire crushes on the ground, leaving only the farmhouse's warm glow to guide their sight.
"Ain't much they need, neither," Ennis says, though that's a lie, and that lie is more like something floating in the air between them. "No reason for you to be here."
Nor any reason for Ennis, but that's not something he feels the need to mention.
"Tch. It's not just about need, Ennis." Desire flashes Ennis one of his sneaky, sharp grins, lighting up a fresh cigarette. "Sometimes, it's just about want."
A silhouette appears in the window, back-lit and impossible to truly see -- but the person casting the shadow is taller, more spry, more masculine than Sallie Reynolds, and there's little doubt who it could be -- Not with Desire standing at Ennis's side. The shadow stands at the window a long moment, just looking out -- and even amongst all that warmth and light, the gent in the window looks out into the cold night.
It could just be the Endless' doing, but the feeling of longing, of loss is as tangible as the taste of ozone in a coming storm.
Over all, there is the scent of summer peaches.
The silhouette raises his hand to touch the glass as the scene shifts again, the farmhouse on Shadow drifting away like sand on the wind.
When the Hi-Top folded they moved to a small apartment in Riverton up over a laundry. Ennis got on the highway crew, tolerating it but working weekends at the Rafter B in exchange for keeping his horses out there. The second girl was born and Alma wanted to stay in town near the clinic because the child had an asthmatic wheeze.
"Ennis, please, no more damn lonesome ranches for us," she said, sitting on his lap, wrapping her thin, freckled arms around him. "Let's get a place here in town?"*
But Ennis just shook his head, and shook Alma off his lap, muttering something 'bout wide open spaces and animals, and next he knew he was looking for a room at a nearby farm where he could work weekends to pay the rent. It weren't that he didn't love Alma and the girls, but he just couldn't stand being cooped up in that apartment, with the smell of laundry in the air and people all around.
The smell of horse shit was Ennis' idea of home, but sometimes in the mid-afternoon sun, sweat beading on his forehead, he'd get the idea that somewhere off in the distance, he could smell the sickly-sweet scent of peaches.
*above text directly lifted from Brokeback Mountain by Annie Proulx, whose writing I'll never be able to live up to.
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