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It’s been seven years since Ennis Del Mar last saw Jack Twist alive. Seven years of hauling feedbags, mending fences, and grinding through a joyless existence that always circles back to the same ghostly memory. Jack. That summer on Brokeback Mountain had been the only time Ennis had ever felt truly alive, free in a way that was too wild and dangerous to admit even to himself. Now, everything in his world feels colorless. Empty.
The wind howls through his trailer as he sits at the table, the harsh Wyoming winter battering the walls. There’s a bottle of whiskey in front of him, half-empty, the burn in his throat long since dulled. There’s a worn postcard pinned to the wall, showing Brokeback, untouched for years. The corners are frayed, stained from fingers that lingered too long, too often. Ennis can barely bring himself to look at it these days. It’s too much. It’s never enough.
The thought of Jack’s death still feels like a punch in the gut. Sometimes he imagines the sound it must have made—the crack of bone, the weight of boots kicking flesh. Jack’s face, bruised and bloodied, flashes in his mind at the most unexpected times: while driving, while eating, while lying awake at night in a cold bed that’s never known another’s warmth since Alma left.
Alma… she’d never really understood. How could she? He hardly understood it himself. Even after she found out, she didn’t know the half of it. She didn’t know what it was like to want someone so bad, yet fear it like the goddamn plague. She didn’t know that Jack was the only person who’d ever seen him, the real him, beneath all the tough silence and unspoken rules. No one ever would again.
His daughters visit less often now, both of them too grown-up for their own good, their lives stretching farther and farther away from the ranch and the man who can’t seem to move on from the past. They don’t ask questions about the postcard anymore. They stopped years ago when they realized all they’d ever get from their father was a hard-set jaw and silence.
Ennis rubs his eyes with the back of his hand. The whiskey isn’t enough to drown out the ache in his chest. It never is. He dreams about Jack more often these days, not always in ways he wants to remember. Sometimes, it’s their time on the mountain, Jack’s laughter ringing out as they raced horses across the open fields, the smell of pine and leather mixing in the wind. But other times, it’s the last time they saw each other, that goddamn fight by the truck. Jack, with tears in his eyes, had looked at him like he was broken inside. And maybe Ennis had been. He’d told Jack they couldn’t have it all, and Jack had looked at him like that was the cruellest lie ever spoken.
But what else could he say? It was the truth. You can’t live like that, not in a place like this. You couldn’t go on pretending, and yet, that’s all Ennis had ever done. Pretend. That he didn’t love Jack like his heart was carved out and left bare whenever they were apart. That he didn’t think about him every damn day, wonderin’ what he was doin’, wonderin’ if maybe there was a way. But there never was. Not for men like them.
In his dream, Jack’s voice is always soft, whispering in his ear like he’s still standing there beside him.
“We coulda had somethin’, Ennis. Coulda made it work.”
Ennis wakes up choking on the same sorrow every time. The bed is empty. Jack is dead. And Ennis is trapped, tethered to a life he doesn’t know how to change.
The worst part is, Ennis knows he’ll never stop dreaming of Jack. It’s the only place they can still be together, even if it’s all just a cruel trick of the mind. In his dreams, they’re back on Brokeback, young and reckless, their bodies pressed close against the cold mountain air, and for a moment, nothing else matters. For a moment, he can pretend that the world isn’t waiting to tear them apart again.
But the dreams always end. And when Ennis wakes up, the weight of reality comes crashing down—Jack is gone, buried in the ground, beaten to death for loving the wrong person.
The phone rings. Ennis lets it go. He’s got no interest in talking to anyone tonight. What could they say that would fix anything? What could anyone say to bring Jack back?
He stands up and stares at the postcard on the wall, the faded picture of Brokeback, and for the first time in years, Ennis pulls it down. He runs his fingers over the edges, the corner peeling away like an old scab. Maybe it’s time to go back. Maybe, if he goes back to that mountain, he can feel something again. Something other than this gnawing, hollow ache that’s become his constant companion.
He grabs his coat, the whiskey still burning in his veins, and heads outside. The wind bites at his face as he steps into the cold night, but he hardly notices. The stars are out, just like they were on those nights they spent up on Brokeback, lying beside each other, talking about everything and nothing at all. Those were the only nights Ennis ever felt like he belonged somewhere.
He climbs into the truck and starts the engine, his mind made up. He’s going back. To the only place he ever felt whole. To the only place where Jack still feels close, even after all these years. Maybe it’s foolish. Maybe it won’t change a damn thing. But Ennis doesn’t care anymore. He’s got nothing left to lose. He’s already lost the only thing that ever mattered.
As the truck rumbles down the empty road, Ennis clutches the steering wheel so tight his knuckles turn white. The past is always with him, no matter how fast he drives, no matter how many miles he puts between himself and the life he once thought he could live.
But maybe, just maybe, up on Brokeback, he’ll find a piece of Jack waiting for him. One last memory to hold on to, one last dream that hasn’t turned to dust.
Because even now, all these years later, Ennis knows one thing for sure—he’ll never love anyone the way he loved Jack Twist.
And that’s the saddest truth of all.