"I wish I knew how to quit you."

Ennis's armored heart froze in his chest, seized up like an engine run too long and hard with never a change of oil. His muscles went next, galvanized to immobility like the Tin Man in that kid's movie they showed on TV every year. Everything in him clenched, squeezed tight in a fist of pain so big there was no room for anything else. Just the pain, the racking, burning, all consuming agony that griped his gut and choked him senseless. He couldn't see, couldn't breathe, couldn't think. All he could do was crumple in on himself like a submarine sinking into the lightless depths, crushed and twisted beyond all recognition.

Jack's veiled threat of abandonment was the last straw, and the weight of all that was between them, as well as what was not, crashed down on Ennis like the avalanche of the century. Buried alive, his fear swelled to an unmanageable magnitude, pushing out reason, and he lashed out like a trapped and wounded animal, instinctively choosing the weapons that would cut the deepest. Striking swiftly and ruthlessly, as he'd been trained, going for the softest, unprotected parts, intent on doing maximum damage, crippling his attacker and setting him up for the killing blow.

"It's 'cause a you I'm like this."

Jack turned and saw Ennis in tears, the dam broken at last, flooded by emotions so intense he was swept away and in danger of drowning. This is what Jack had always wanted from Ennis, a sign that the stoic cowboy felt as strongly as he did, cared as much, needed him the way Jack needed Ennis. Instead of feeling triumph, or relief, or joy, Jack was shocked and horrified at how much he'd hurt his friend. It was just like him to push things too far, want too much, hang on too long. But what else could he do? He loved Ennis Del Mar with all the passion, hopes and dreams he had ever had for the future; he couldn't turn loose of him.

Now he was thirty-nine and what did he have? A sham marriage, a few clandestine trysts, and the one unsullied part of his life, his son. He hoped to God that Bobby's life wouldn't turn into the kind of extended, slow motion train wreck that had derailed him twenty years ago in a summer meadow on the heights. The long gradual fall from Brokeback Mountain still had him tumbling and reeling, never quite able to get his footing, perpetually off-balance, a hair from disaster, but never hitting bottom. Until now. What if he had complained one too many times? What if Ennis decided it just wasn't worth the grief? What if this was the moment they finally dismounted the runaway mustang before it threw them to their deaths?

"Ennis."

The name emerged from Jack's throat as a word of solace, a prayer, and a plea. He rushed to catch his friend as Ennis sagged earthward, bearing him up, and absorbing the automatic rebuff, waiting for the resistance to melt, as it always did when they touched. It was their blessing and their curse to be both wax and flame, burning and being burned, a small hot light in the long, cold night of their lives apart. Now Jack knew that Ennis felt the same aching loneliness, suffered the same fierce cravings, longed for him with the same intensity that he sometimes believed would drive him crazy.

Both men went to their knees, clinging together, each holding tight to the only thing he could not bear to live without. And for a few moments, it was like it was in those early days when all they had to worry about were those dumbass sheep and Aguirre's temper. The sweet, pure feeling of belonging to something larger, something better than this world, swept them up and carried them back to a place that existed now only in memory. A memory that would remain unblemished long after the dog-eared pages of their lives had yellowed in their cracked and threadbare bindings. It was a moment outside of time in which they would always be nineteen, in love for the first time, in a world of their own, free of any constraint, with no thought for the future.

Jack shrugged. What was the future anyway? Just an idea, that's all. It wasn't a real thing that he could fight, or argue with. He couldn't rope the passing minutes and corral them; they eluded him easily, sidling away as soon as he stretched out his hand to them. Even if he could tame time to his measure, there would never be enough of it. It was fish or cut bait; take Randall up on his offer, or see if Jack Twist had what it took to climb on one more time, hoping that Ennis would come around. No matter what else happened, they would never find their way back to the innocent idyll that marked the trailhead of the crooked path they had followed to this crossroads. And if they couldn't return to Eden, Jack sure didn't want to walk the wilderness alone anymore; he wanted a companion at his side, every day and every night.

Hauling Ennis to his feet, Jack straightened the hat on his friend's head. Ennis dragged his sleeve across his face and turned to go to his truck. Jack watched him leave, unable to summon the right words, afraid to ask, hoping it would all hold together for a little while longer. Maybe Ennis would be able to get away in November. It was a long time since he'd tasted elk jerky, and maybe, with his girls almost grown, Ennis was loosening up a little. The brief but furious swirl of emotions had blown open a door that could never be closed again and maybe he could coax Ennis to step through it some day.

Climbing into his truck, Jack headed toward Lightning Flats to visit his folks and remind himself that being together did not guarantee happiness for two people that had once vowed to cherish each other until parted by death. Maybe not being able to have Ennis whenever he wanted had kept him ending this misery once and for all. Jack shook his head. He couldn't know the answer to that question, and it didn't matter.

Maybe Jack Twist was as big a fool as his old man thought he was, but he couldn't quit Ennis Del Mar no way.