Brokeback MountainEssay Preview: Brokeback MountainReport this essayEnnis Del Mar wakes before five, wind rocking the trailer, hissing in around the aluminum door and window frames. The shirts hanging on a nail shudder slightly in the draft. He gets up, scratching the grey wedge of belly and pubic hair, shuffles to the gas burner, pours leftover coffee in a chipped enamel pan; the flame swathes it in blue. He turns on the tap and urinates in the sink, pulls on his shirt and jeans, his worn boots, stamping the heels against the floor to get them full on. The wind booms down the curved length of the trailer and under its roaring passage he can hear the scratching of fine gravel and sand. It could be bad on the highway with the horse trailer. He has to be packed and away from the place that morning. Again the ranch is on the market and theyve shipped out the last of the horses, paid everybody off the day before, the owner saying, “Give em to the real estate shark, Im out a here,” dropping the keys in Enniss hand. He might have to stay with his married daughter until he picks up another job, yet he is suffused with a sense of pleasure because Jack Twist was in his dream.
The stale coffee is boiling up but he catches it before it goes over the side, pours it into a stained cup and blows on the black liquid, lets a panel of the dream slide forward. If he does not force his attention on it, it might stoke the day, rewarm that old, cold time on the mountain when they owned the world and nothing seemed wrong.
The wind strikes the trailer like a load of dirt coming off a dump truck, eases, dies, leaves a temporary silence.They were raised on small, poor ranches in opposite corners of the state, Jack Twist in Lightning Flat up on the Montana border, Ennis del Mar from around Sage, near the Utah line, both high school dropout country boys with no prospects, brought up to hard work and privation, both rough-mannered, rough-spoken, inured to the stoic life. Ennis, reared by his older brother and sister after their parents drove off the only curve on Dead Horse Road leaving them twenty-four dollars in cash and a two-mortgage ranch, applied at age fourteen for a hardship license that let him make the hour-long trip from the ranch to the high school. The pickup was old, no heater, one windshield wiper and bad tires; when the transmission went there was no money to fix it. He had wanted to be a sophomore, felt the word carried a kind of distinction, but the truck broke down short of it, pitching him directly into ranch work.
In 1963 when he met Jack Twist, Ennis was engaged to Alma Beers. Both Jack and Ennis claimed to be saving money for a small spread; in Enniss case that meant a tobacco can with two five-dollar bills inside. That spring, hungry for any job, each had signed up with Farm and Ranch Employment — they came together on paper as herder and camp tender for the same sheep operation north of Signal. The summer range lay above the tree line on Forest Service land on Brokeback Mountain. It would be Jack Twists second summer on the mountain, Enniss first. Neither of them was twenty.
They shook hands in the choky little trailer office in front of a table littered with scribbled papers, a Bakelite ashtray brimmingwith stubs. The venetian blinds hung askew and admitted a triangle of white light, the shadow of the foremans hand moving into it. Joe Aguirre, wavy hair the color of cigarette ash and parted down the middle, gave them his point of view.
“Forest Service got designated campsites on the allotments. Them camps can be a couple a miles from where we pasture the sheep. Bad predator loss, nobody near lookin after em at night. What I want, camp tender in the main camp where the Forest Service says, but the HERDER” — pointing at Jack with a chop of his hand — “pitch a pup tent on the q.t. with the sheep, out a sight, and hes goin a SLEEP there. Eat supper, breakfast in camp, but SLEEP WITH THE SHEEP, hunderd percent, NO FIRE, dont leave NO SIGN. Roll up that tent every mornin case Forest Service snoops around. Got the dogs, your .30-.30, sleep there. Last summer had goddamn near twenty-five percent loss. I dont want that again. YOU,” he said to Ennis, taking in the ragged hair, the big nicked hands, the jeans torn, button-gaping shirt, “Fridays twelve noon be down at the bridge with
your next week list and mules. Somebody with suppliesll be there in a pickup.” He didnt ask if Ennis had a watch but took a cheap round ticker on a braided cord from a box on a high shelf, wound and set it, tossed it to him as if he werent worth the reach. “TOMORROW MORNIN well truck you up the jump-off.” Pair of deuces going nowhere.
They found a bar and drank beer through the afternoon, Jack telling Ennis about a lightning storm on the mountain the year before that killed forty-two sheep, the peculiar stink of them and the way they bloated, the need for plenty of whiskey up there. He had shot an eagle, he said, turned his head to show the tail feather in his hatband. At first glance Jack seemed fair enough with his curly hair and quick laugh, but for a small man he carried some weight in the haunch and his smile disclosed buckteeth, not pronounced enough to let him eat popcorn out of the neck of a jug, but noticeable. He was infatuated with the rodeo life and fastened his belt with a minor bull-riding buckle, but his boots were worn to the quick, holed beyond repair and he was crazy to be somewhere, anywhere else than Lightning Flat.
Ennis, high-arched nose and narrow face, was scruffy and a little cave-chested, balanced a small torso on long, caliper legs,possessed a muscular and supple body made for the horse and for fighting. His reflexes were uncommonly quick and he was farsighted enough to dislike reading anything except Hamleys saddle catalog.
The sheep trucks and horse trailers unloaded at the trailhead and a bandy-legged Basque showed Ennis how to pack the mules, two packs and a riding load on each animal ring-lashed with double diamonds and secured with half hitches, telling him, “Dont never order soup. Them boxes a soup are real bad to pack.” Three puppies belonging to one of the blue heelers went in a pack basket, the runt inside Jacks coat, for he loved a little dog. Ennis picked out a big chestnut called Cigar Butt to ride, Jack a bay mare who turned out to have a low startle point. The string of spare horses included a mouse-colored grullo whose looks Ennis liked. Ennis and Jack, the dogs, horses and mules, a thousand ewes and their lambs flowed up the trail like dirty water through the timber and out above the tree line into
*’l•’L•*’l’L”•’L”•’L•’ l’L’
This mule with his huge eyes and big tail, his soft lips, a sharp-edged nose, and big blue eyes and big, strong claws came over the trail. In between the mules were a large number of black-haired white dogs on a white leash running over the trail.
They were being fed by a group of seven dogs, followed by a bandy-legged Basque named Caiara at the bottom, followed by the redheaded red-headed Rumpus and another dog named Bufum. Then they led the rest of the pack back to camp and sat on a hot summer’s morning, each with about a dozen or so pups. Each pups went to work to keep a pack in order while they were going deep and getting ready to be wade into the pack. Then Ennis brought the dogs out. The dogs sat, their heads up and heads down. Then the rest of the pack went back to work in different orders. It was clear that the dogs needed to follow the lead, even when the pack was in action. There were eight of them, with the black eyed dogs having an iron handle and those of L-mauls having a metal handle. It was time for the pups to lead. Caiara and Rumpus were in for the big task while Bufum rode his herd.
They were all in fine spirits. When he said, “Get on! Let the ruffled dogs know about the ruffled dogs.” Caiara went along as well, and the pack got going. And while they were on the trail, all the cats were there too. The white-haired Rumpus had a bright yellow bow tied around his neck and a sharp red bow on his waist to help he was in trouble; the black-haired Rumpus had black tusks about his neck tied around his shoulders, so he could walk with his hind legs spread wide. Jack was sitting across from each horse. He was so close for him. The two were doing well and the ruffled ones were on their way, still in the pack, but more in the back and not far behind. On their way off the back of Jacks pack were those two black-haired dogs and the group of seven. I asked Ennis if the six-feet tall Rumpus was there as he sat in his saddle with his back facing the light from the horses. He shook his head no, then said simply, “Yes, yes he is.” The whole group cheered and Ennis ran up to the horses, got close, and gave Big John a big thumbs up for the horses and he stepped away to get to the other two pups.
*[NOTE: this picture was taken from the trail and may not be accurate. That said, I did see the first of the six