Ennis cracked his eyelids and light drove a spike through the middle of his forehead. He raised a hand in an instinctive effort to block it out, but the throbbing agony in his skull increased with each beat of his heart. His eyes were full of grit, red and raw, slitted against the searing sunlight, and his mouth tasted like sheep shit.

Christ, was he dying? A voice as dry as kindling whispered in Ennis's aching head.

Dazed, he wondered just how sick he was before he remembered the drinking the night before. He wasn't dying, just hungover, although he would consider being dead a mercy just at the moment. Ennis wasn't much of a drinker and whatever mare's piss was in that bottle had left him with a head full of wet cement and a bulldozed body.

God damn, but he needed to take a leak in the worst way; probably lucky he hadn't pissed his pants in the night. Glancing down, Ennis saw that his belt was unbuckled and the fly of his jeans gaped open. Had he been so drunk that he'd pissed out the flap of the tent and never buttoned back up? Surely, he would remember pulling out his hogleg in front of Jack.

Jack?

Ennis's narrow-eyed gaze dropped to the man sleeping beside him. With the blankets thrown back it was obvious that though Jack was fully clothed, his pants were undone as well. For a long grainy moment, Ennis couldn't make sense of what he was seeing and then it struck him what his open fly and Jack's bare ass signified.

Pushing the realization resolutely away, Ennis pulled back the flap of the tent and looked out. The trees still stood in green black ranks like badly disciplined soldiers marching up the saw toothed peaks. The mist rose up from the ground as it had with every sunrise. The air had the same quiet, breathless sense of expectation as every other morning. Nothing outside the tent had changed.

How was that possible when so much inside the tent had changed?

Ennis pulled up his pants and buckled his belt, suddenly anxious to be far away from Jack Twist. He glanced at the sleeping man again and quickly away before exiting the tent. Ennis did not want to see the serene look of contentment on Jack's guileless face.

Ennis stumbled past the remains of the fire and picked up his saddle. After slinging it up on Cigar's broad back, his head pounded so hard he almost heaved his guts. He couldn't recall ever feeling this sick in his life, but once. And he'd been a dumb, skinny fourth grader then.

He was a man now, and he'd get through this illness, whatever it was. All he had to do was hunker down like the cows did when a bad storm rolled across the land. Best not to think about it, and hope Jack was too drunk to remember what Ennis refused to. Ignoring the consuming misery of his hangover, Ennis finished saddling the horse. Behind him, he felt more than heard Jack come out of the tent and move toward him.

Ennis's hands reached for the rifle of their own volition. For a split second, he had the notion that one bullet would ensure that no one ever found out what had happened last night. His knuckles whitened on the weapon as he fought the flood of images that wanted to swamp his brain. Try as he might he couldn't stem the tide.

How could he have done such a thing to Jack?

Overcome with shame, laid low by guilt, Ennis hastily swung aboard Cigar before Jack could reach him. He had no wish to hear what Jack would say. Whether Jack chose to revile him, or to seek a continuance, Ennis didn't want to know. He needed to be alone. Not so he could think, but so he could begin the process of forgetting.

"See you at supper," Jack said hesitantly, the only safe thing he could think of to say.

Ennis glanced quickly down, his face crimped into a rictus of bewildered pain and then he put heels to the gelding's flanks. Jack watched him hurry away, an indescribable emotion clouding eyes as blue and wide as the Wyoming sky. Every particle of him was poised on a razor's edge. He wanted to call Ennis back, but knew it wouldn't be healthy.

Jack would just have to let be and wait here until Ennis came back … or didn't.

Ennis's mount surged upslope and an image of himself slamming into Jack flared in his mind. Angrily, Ennis tried to deny the brutish act, but the liquid pulse of heat in his groin belied his disgust. There was just no way around it. Sure, he'd been drunk and freezing his ass off and lonely as an orphaned coyote, but he'd done what he did because he wanted to.

Wanted it more than he could ever remember wanting anything in his life. He'd woken with his hand on Jack's hard on, horrified and about to apologize, when he'd locked eyes with Jack. A spark jumped the gap between them and the next step was internal combustion, followed shortly by an almighty bang.

Did this make him queer?

The thought was immediately rejected. Ennis knew he wasn't, couldn't be, queer. He had only a fuzzy idea of what a queer was, but he knew for sure that he wasn't one. And when he got back to the camp, he was going to ask Jack Twist point blank if he was a queer.

Ennis just didn't know yet when he'd be going back.

As he neared the high altitude meadow where he'd left the sheep yesterday, Ennis decided that it wasn't any use chewing it over anymore. He had to go back to camp, or ride down the mountain and explain to Mr. Aguirre why he was cutting out early. Unless that is he wanted to skulk away from Signal with his tail between his legs.

No, he would go back to camp. He would let Jack know in no uncertain manner that he was not queer. What happened after that depended on Jack's response. Ennis hoped they could agree to never mention it again and go on as they had been. He sure didn't want to lose his new and only friend.

Was that really what he wanted? The dry, creaky voice prodded him.

Ennis topped the rise and saw no woolies. In a sudden panic, he spurred the horse to a gallop, following the countless tracks of cloven hooves. The sharp bark of a dog shocked Ennis's numb heart back to hammering life. He stared in sick shame at the torn body of the lamb, bright red blood as shocking as a scream against the pale fleece.

This was what his night of animal passion had cost.

The young man slid to the ground and knelt beside the anxious dog. Putting a hand between the pointed ears, Ennis began to hum a gospel tune he didn't know the words to. The flies buzzed, the dog whined softly from time to time, and the sun beat down in futile challenge to the frigid wind sweeping down the mountain, as Ennis sang his dirge to innocence lost.

What was he going to do now?

Ennis returned to camp after two nights out, hollow as a lightning blasted stump. He was hungry enough to eat the ass end of a dead mule, but he rode past the fire. Jack didn't look up from the twilight view as Ennis dismounted and walked over holding the rifle. Jack didn't speak, but waited in miserable silence for Ennis to pronounce judgment.

Four words sealed Jack's doom.

"I'm not no queer."

Seeing how it would be, Jack quickly chimed in. "Me neither."

"This is a one-shot deal we got goin' here."

"Ain't nobody's business but ours," Jack completed the litany of clandestine lovers since the beginning of time.

And no more was spoken of the olive branch Ennis held out, or Jack's unconditional consent to the terms. Jack rose and went to the tent to bed down early. Ennis ate his dinner alone and sat by the fire for a while until it was time to go back to the sheep. There was no camaraderie, no off key harmonica playing, no whiskey.

Movement in the periphery of Ennis's vision brought his head around, but when he saw a flash of bare skin through the tent flap, he quickly looked away. Wasn't right for him to look at Jack like that. Gritting his teeth, Ennis stiffened his resolve to leave Jack alone. He wasn't so dumb that he didn't know it could happen again, but he swore not tonight.

Who the hell did he think he was fooling?

Ennis dropped his head and stole a peek from under his hat brim. Jack sat on his bedroll, shirt over his lap, just as pointedly not looking at Ennis. Ennis's gaze stole furtively over the slopes of Jack's shoulders and chest, as handsome as Brokeback itself. His fingers tingled and Ennis scrubbed them against the thighs of his jeans. He didn't want to feel this.

Then why's your pecker hard?

The dusty, crackling little voice in Ennis's head spoke one last time before he silenced it, slapped his knees and rose to his feet. Instead of going to his horse, Ennis shuffled awkwardly to the tent. Removing his hat, Ennis held it over the swell in his jeans as he went to one knee in classic courting posture. Awkward and unsure, he apologized for even daring to approach Jack with his unspeakable needs.

Jack got to his knees and took hold of Ennis's forearm. Ennis tensed to absorb a well-deserved blow, but Jack only took the hat from his hand and laid it aside. Ennis couldn't have felt more vulnerable if he was stark naked. Jack pulled him forward and he went with no more will than a cloud. Soft lips touched his and Ennis experienced something for which he had no words, but psychologists called a sensory overload.

Ennis swayed, nearly swooning and Jack took him in his arms as he lay back. With gentle insistence, he enfolded Ennis in his welcoming embrace. Blindly as a newborn pup, Ennis groped and patted at Jack as though seeking something that would nurture him.

And found it.

Tenderly, Jack rolled Ennis onto his back and gentled him with sweet kisses of gratitude that Ennis was allowing this touching. For a blissful, floating eternity measured in thunderous heartbeats, Jack lavished on Ennis all the loving caresses he'd been storing up for the man that would take them from him. Ennis wallowed in the unreserved outpouring of affection that he'd been denied for so long.

It wasn't until Jack grabbed hold of Ennis's weeping shaft, that Ennis came to himself and realized he was lying underneath another man, half-undressed with an aching hard on. He looked into Jack's eyes, heavy-lidded and glowing like foxfire, and the feral lust surfaced to drag him back down with it.

There was a flicker of something like fear in Jack's face when Ennis took hold of his shoulders and forced him down onto the bedroll. However, there was no mistaking the eagerness with which Jack shoved his jeans to his knees and presented his backside. With an apprehensive frown, Ennis guided his cock to the crinkled rosette.

He had to pause several times to work up more spit, but before too long, he was snugly sheathed in Jack's tight heat. Though his instincts and his fears urged him to plow ahead and get it over with as quickly as possible, Ennis didn't thrust right away. He was still, head bowed, his fingers flexing on Jack's hips until Jack's breathing evened out.

Smoothly, steadily, with the fine sense of balance and control that made them natural horsemen, the two boys rocked together in perfect harmony. With equal parts greed and generosity, they raced in tandem toward their mutual, much desired goal. Jack sucked in a big breath and let it out in a groan of completion. The wanton noise triggered Ennis's release and he came with a hard grunt, burying his length in Jack.

Instead of rolling apart and falling asleep right away, they lay down together, Ennis cradled in the crook of Jack's arm, sharing a Lucky Strike. They had burned all the urgency out of their systems and were content with nothing more, or less, than the presence of the other.

Ennis shut the door on his fears for the night and felt a great weight lift from his chest. Breathing easy for the first time he could remember since seeing old Earl's body, Ennis relaxed completely. Jack pulled him closer and Ennis turned his face to the curve of Jack's neck and shoulder as he drifted free until morning.

The End