Chapter Text
Ennis twisted the thick wire into its new place and snipped it short with his cutters. He leaned back in the harness and let his eyes relax across the fields; flat yellow squares stretched for miles until they were interrupted by a smattering of cottonwood trees and roofs. The white water tower of Boise City, Oklahoma was the tallest thing as far as he could see with the sun stretched low on the flattened landscape.
He did miss the open air of the hills, but up here on the telephone pole he found a familiar solitude and emptiness. The poles repeated in a vast, straight line to Guymon for an hour along the 412 Highway - the longest stretch of straight road in the US, as he had been told many times since arriving in Boise City. The landscape did change along the road though, from busy ranches to abandoned homesteads, wild plains and dusty voids.
He did his last checks on the new cable he had installed and pulled out his linesman’s handset. A red rotary phone, with black and red leads that he fixed to the new line. Ennis dialled the number of the county office, spinning the plastic clock face of the phone. When the whine of ringing could be heard, he was satisfied with his work and began the ladder descent down the steps stapled into the wooden post.
Ennis’ co-worker Glen was leaning against the Cimarron County truck parked on the shoulder of the highway. Glen was a fair and sturdy man, slightly shorter than Ennis, and his prominent brow bone gave his face a look of permanent contemplation. They were both 21, but Glen had started his lineworker apprenticeship the year before Ennis and in most ways was an earnest and open person, but enjoyed flexing his minorly earned authority. From passing on the most basic of tasks to Ennis at work to enforcing his arbitrary orders in the house they shared, he seemed to enjoy his own importance. Ennis didn’t mind though, as his own self-recognised stubborn nature didn’t extend much to which way the dishes had to be stacked in the drying tray. Overall though, they got along well and Glen seemed to enjoy Ennis’ company.
“I think that’s our last one,” Glen called up as Ennis got closer, flicking through his notepad. “This good weather’s making our job real easy. This time last year the wind was awful, we had ten poles damaged just on this road.”
“It’s been a real good summer. I hope it stays like that.”
“Just you wait until November hits, when the icy winds pick up. A Panhandle blizzard ain’t much fun.”
“Can’t be much worse than winter out on a ranch. Cold’s cold.”
They slid into the truck, and after checking off their final paperwork Glen drove them back to the county depot to drop off their harnesses, helmets and tool belts before they rumbled into their street. Their small, squat house had blue window trim and yellow walls to match the dried grass surrounding it, and was owned by the Cimarron County for its apprentices and contract workers. It had three bedrooms, with the third occasionally being used by an out-of-town contract worker when there was an urgent repair they weren’t trained to do. Their boss Jim Miller lived a couple of streets over and sometimes came round for a drink in the yard after work on a Friday night like this one. Overall, it was a comfortable place to live for now, but Ennis expected it to get quite cold in the winter judging by the draught of the windows.
Ennis heated up some frozen lasagna for the both of them, and they ate in front of the television, Ennis disappearing into the raggedy armchair he had claimed. In the advertising breaks Glen piped up about this and that, how he wanted to trim the trees that weekend while the weather was good, how his girlfriend Martha would be coming round on Sunday afternoon as she wasn’t on shift this weekend at the hospital. Ennis felt tired and restless simultaneously, as he often felt, and gave short noises in reply.
In the morning Ennis toyed with the idea of going for a drive before Glen came back with Martha from the Methodist church, but it was a hot day and the air-conditioning in his truck had broken about a month ago. Ennis preferred to leave Glen and Martha to themselves, increasingly as Glen had confided in him last month that he had bought a ring for Martha. It was approaching a year since Ennis’ own engagement had fallen into a heap, and he didn’t enjoy being reminded of it so closely.
Unwillingly, his mind often drifted to one particular memory from that clouded time.
How he had pulled into Alma’s family drive, the buzzing that had accompanied him on the trip from Brokeback opening up into a thundering roar. He had cut the engine and sat for a moment in the drive, looking up at the family home. It wasn’t grand by any means, but Alma’s father always kept the lawns trimmed neatly, and he pressure washed the front porch every month. He remembered seeing a figure suddenly appear at the window, breaking him from his meditation. Stepping out of the truck and holding his hat in front of him like a shield, Ennis had watched as Alma opened the door. She was a gentle person, and he’d always thought she could have been a good match for him.
“Ennis! I thought you were coming back next month,” Alma called out as she stepped off the porch.
“Were told to bring the sheep down early,” he replied. “Was a blizzard coming.”
“Well, I’m real glad you’re back.” She smiled, and his eyes fell to the ground. “Did you get caught in that storm a few weeks back? It was bad even here.”
“Yep, sure did.”
He remembered how Alma seemed to falter. Ennis knew she was used to his quiet nature but even he felt his own coldness radiating. He felt like he was going to be sick again.
. . .
Glen and Martha spent the afternoon lying in the yard, playing a couple of card games between them in the shade of a mesquite tree. Ennis joined them on the golden and dried grass for a little while and lit up a cigarette. He didn’t have much interest in card games, and didn’t know the ones Glen and Martha played. He studied the long seed pods that littered the base of the tree, and thought they looked like green beans. The game ended, and Glen lifted himself up into a cross-legged position to reshuffle the deck.
“Ennis, where’d you grow up again?”
“Wyoming,” he replied, looking up hesitantly from the seed pods.
“Yeah, I know that, bud. What town?”
“Tiny place called Sage.”
“I thought that was it. I just found out Martha’s cousin lives near there - little place called Opal.”
Ennis nodded while blowing out smoke.
“Miss it much?” Martha asked. Glen plucked strands of grass to shred. Ennis watched this carefully before replying.
“Nah. Sage ain’t got much to it anymore, town’s drying up. My sister’s still there though.”
“Boise’s dead too,” Martha replied bluntly. “Some day I wanna move out to Amarillo, see what it’s like to live somewhere big.” Glen laughed and pulled his yellow cap over his eyes.
Every time Martha came over Ennis felt himself being studied. He knew it was probably just curiosity as to why he had uprooted his life to do an apprenticeship in a small town where he knew nobody, but it still set him on edge. Most of the time Glen seemed content to leave Ennis be, but this time he joined in.
“If you want to call your family Ennis, just go ahead and use the phone. You know the county pays the bill, you might as well use it.”
Ennis just stubbed his cigarette on the tree trunk and rolled onto his back, lifting an arm to cover his face, despite being in the shade of the house. He laid there for another half hour while Glen and Martha continued their game.
He mulled over calling his sister while he was working the next day, and decided that even though he found phone calls irritating most of the time, it had been quite a while since he’d been in touch. He called after dinner that evening, from the telephone table in their dark hallway. The sound of the cicadas was rolling in from the open screen door as he and Jean spoke about how her ranch was going - the place he had been crashing in between jobs before moving to Oklahoma. He appreciated hearing her talk about the hay baling that was underway, and about their brother K.E’s new farm, because while he appreciated the stability of a lineman’s apprenticeship (and the pay packet he’d get once he was fully qualified), he did miss working on the land.
He mostly listened to his sister talk for the ten minutes they were on the phone. Jean could be just as quiet as him sometimes, but he could tell she appreciated his call and wanted to share the updates with him.
As they were saying goodbye, Jean interrupted him with a start.
“Oh! I just remembered, a postcard came for you last week.”
Ennis frowned and racked his brains. He couldn’t remember ever receiving a postcard from anyone.
“Really? From who?”
“I guess it’s a friend of yours, someone called Jack Twist?” The hallway seemed to go cold and still. Ennis gripped the phone and was silent for a beat, terrified to reply. He felt frozen in place, he had never expected his own sister to be speaking to him about Jack. Ennis knew it had been over a year since they had come down off the mountain, and had privately considered this anniversary over the past weeks in his most solitary moments; up on a telephone pole, or lying awake at night with shadows from the venetian blinds striping his face.
“What’s it say?” He hoped he kept his voice even enough.
“Let me pull it out,” Jean said, and he heard the phone being put down for a second. “It says… Friend, this letter is long overdue. Coming through on the 24th. Drop me a line, say if you’re there.” Ennis stayed silent. “I guess you’ll have to write him to say you’re not in Sage anymore. How do you know him?”
Ennis’ shock gathered and crashed back over him in a wave of anger. How could Jack have been so stupid?
“We was up herding sheep together last summer.”
“Up on Brokeback? It's nice that he wants to stay in touch. Will you reply to him, Ennis, or should I write back to say you’ve moved?”
Ennis’ jaw was set hard. “I’ll do it.” He couldn’t believe Jack had written to his family home. “Thanks Jeanie, but I’ve got to go.” He sat through a minute or so more of her pleasantries before setting the phone back in the receiver a little harder than he’d meant to.
. . .
It had to be a particularly still night, but sometimes the low vibration of the grain elevator could be heard across Boise City. On the southwest edge of town the grain leg scooped and churned through the dark.