by Annie Proulx
She looks past him towards the truck.
ALMA JR. smiles at her father, a weak smile.
INT: RIVERTON, WYOMING: WOLF EARS BAR: LATER IN DAY: 1979:
ENNIS at the jukebox, stuffing quarters.
CASSIE and ALMA JR. at the table, watch him from across the room.
ALMA JR. doesn’t want to respond.
CASSIE can’t help but laugh.
ENNIS rejoins them. CASSIE leaps up.
ENNIS looks at ALMA JR.
ALMA JR. nurses a coke at the table. Pensive, watches CASSIE and ENNIS dance.
INT./EXT. RIVERTON, WYOMING: ENNIS’S TRUCK: DUSK: 1979:
ENNIS drives ALMA JR. home.
Pulls up to the house.
She pushes her door open; he watches her jog up to the house, then starts the truck, pulls out.
EXT: WYOMING MOUNTAINS: LAKE: CAMP: NIGHT (LATER): 1981:
ENNIS and JACK are sitting around the campfire, close.
JACK rolls a joint.
JACK is restless. Pokes at the fire with a stick. Looks up at the night sky, clouds churning past the moon.
JACK lights the joint, takes a drag.
JACK passes it to ENNIS.
Now ENNIS gives JACK a look—there is still much uncharted territory between them.
Takes a hit. Passes it back to JACK.
They both laugh…then the laughter trails off.
A beat.
They both look into the fire.
INT. WYOMING MOUNTAINS: TENT: EARLY MORNING: 1981:
The two men, asleep in the tent, ENNIS curled around JACK.
EXT: WYOMING MOUNTAINS: TRAILHEAD: MORNING: 1981:
JACK and ENNIS have loaded the horses into a trailer hitched to ENNIS’S pickup truck.
Mood between them is tense, as always, when their time together is about to end.
When the gate is shut on the horses, JACK pops his glove against his leg a time or two…looks at ENNIS, who is lighting a cigarette.
JACK Guess I’ll head on up to Lightnin’ Flat. See the folks for a day or two.
ENNIS is silent.
An uncomfortable silence.
A beat.
JACK starts popping his glove on his leg again.
ENNIS
Jack, I got to work. Them earlier days I used to quit the jobs. You forget how it is, bein’ broke all the time. You ever hear of child support? Let me tell you, I can’t quit this one. And I can’t get the time off.
(pause)
Was tough enough gettin’ this time. The trade-off was August.
(pause)
You got a better idea?
JACK
(bitter, accusatory)
I did, once.
ENNIS says nothing. Straightens up slowly, rubs at his forehead. Walks to the horse trailer, says something that only the horses can hear. Turns and walks back to JACK at a deliberate pace.
Mexico was THE place—ENNIS has heard.
ENNIS
You been to Mexico, Jack? I heard about what they got in Mexico for boys like you.
JACK,
braced for it all these years, and here it comes, late and unexpected.
JACK
Hell yes, I been to Mexico. Is that a fuckin’ problem?
ENNIS
I got a say this to you one time, Jack fuckin’ Twist. And I ain’t foolin’. What I don’t know, all them things I don’t know…could get you killed if I should come to know them.
JACK
Try this one…
(pause)
…and I’ll say it just one time.
ENNIS
Go ahead!
JACK
Tell you what, we could of had a good life together, a fuckin’ real good life, had us a place of our own. You wouldn’t do it, Ennis, so what we got now is Brokeback Mountain. Everything built on that. It’s all we got, boy, fuckin’ all, so I hope you know that if you don’t never know the rest. Count the damn few times we been together in nearly twenty years. Measure the fuckin’ short leash you keep me on, then ask me about Mexico and then tell me you’11 kill me for needin’ somethin’ I don’t hardly never get. You got no idea how bad it gets.
(MORE)
I’m not you. I can’t make it on a couple of high-altitude fucks once or twice a year.
(pause)
You’re too much for me, Ennis, you son of a whoreson bitch.
(pause)
I wish I knew how to quit you.
WE PULL BACK NOW.
Like vast clouds of steam from thermal springs in winter, the years of things unsaid and now unsayable—admissions, declarations, shames, guilts, fears—rise around them.
ENNIS stands as if heartshot, face gray and deep-lined. Fights a silent battle, grimaces.
ENNIS
Then why don’t you?! Why don’t you let me be? It’s because of you, Jack, that I’m like this. I’m nothin’. I’m nowhere.
JACK starts towards him, but ENNIS jerks away.
ENNIS (CONT’D)
Get the fuck off me!
JACK moves towards him again, and this time, ENNIS doesn’t resist.
JACK
Come here…it’s all right. It’s all right…damn you, Ennis.
And then…they hug one another, a fierce, desperate embrace… managing to torque things almost to where they had been, for what they’ve just said is no news: as always, nothing ended, nothing begun, nothing resolved.
CUT TO FLASHBACK: EXT: BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN, WYOMING: CAMPFIRE: NIGHT: CONTINUOUS: 1963:
JACK and ENNIS, much younger.
JACK and ENNIS have finished the last meal of the day. JACK stands by the campfire, warming himself. He stands that way for a few moments, alone.
Then WE SEE two arms encircle him from behind: it is ENNIS.
They stand that way for a moment, JACK leaning back into ENNIS.
ENNIS’S breath comes slow and quiet, then he starts to gently rock back and forth a little, lit by the warm fire tossing ruddy chunks of light, the shadow of their bodies a single column against a rock. ENNIS hums quietly.
Nothing mars this moment for JACK, even though he knows that ENNIS does not embrace him face to face because he does not want to see or feel that it is JACK he holds—because for now, they are wrapped in a closeness that satisfies some shared and sexless hunger, that is not really sleep but something else drowsy and tranced—until ENNIS, dredging up a rusty phrase from the childhood time before his mother died, says:
ENNIS
Come on now, you’re sleepin’ on your feet like a horse.
(pause)
My mama used to say that to me when I was little.…
They stand like that for another moment.
ENNIS (CONT’D)
…and sing to me.…
ENNIS sings low, a childhood song, from some long-ago memory.
ENNIS (CONT’D)
I got to go.
Gives JACK a little shake, a gentle push, and JACK stumbles ever so slightly in the direction of his tent. Stops.
Hears ENNIS’S spurs jingle as he mounts his horse.
ENNIS (CONT’D)
…See you in the mornin’.…
A shuddering snort from ENNIS’S horse, the grind of hoof on stone, and ENNIS rides away, a very young JACK watching him go.
CUT TO EXT: WYOMING MOUNTAINS: TRAILHEAD: MORNING: PRESENT: CONTINUOUS: 1981:
WE ARE BACK TO THE PRESENT as JACK, much older now, watches the pickup truck, and his other half, fade away into the distance, that dozy embrace solidified in his memory as the single moment of artless, charmed happiness in their separate and difficult lives.
INT: RIVERTON, WYOMING: DENNY’S RESTAURANT: NIGHT: 1981:
ENNIS sits in a booth, eating a slice of apple pie and drinking coffee.
Enter CASSIE accompanied by a good-looking, decent guy. They’re smiling at some shared joke. CASSIE catches ENNIS out of the corner of her eye. She says something to the man, comes over to Ennis, slips into the booth across the table from him.<
br />
CASSIE
(fake cheerful)
Hey Ennis del Mar. Where you been?
ENNIS
Here and there.
CASSIE
(quieter)
I left word for you with Steve at the ranch. And you must of got those notes I left at your place.
ENNIS
(glances at the man)
Looks like I got the message, in any case.
CASSIE
(looking back)
Carl? Yeah, Carl’s nice. He even talks.
A pause.
ENNIS
Well then, good for you.
She gets up.
CASSIE
Yeah, well, good for me.
Drops herself back down, anger rising.
CASSIE (CONT’D)
I don’t get you, Ennis del Mar.
Knows he’s hurt her, but he doesn’t know what to do about it. The look on his face changes then, to a look of stark loneliness. She knows she’s not the answer.
ENNIS
I’m sorry.
(pause)
Was probably no fun anyway, was I?
She gets up.
CASSIE
(anguished whisper, on verge of tears)
Oh, Ennis…girls don’t fall in love with fun!
Starts crying as she rushes off to CARL, who waits by the door. CARL looks back at ENNIS; ENNIS shoots CARL a murderous look. CARL hurries CASSIE outside.
ENNIS stares out the window as they get in CARL’S car, speed off.
Miserable.
EXT: RIVERTON, WYOMING: POST OFFICE: DAY: 1982:
ENNIS comes out of the little post office, casually shuffling through a handful of mail. Stock magazines, a flyer advertising a big sale at the grocery store.
Stops: there is a postcard with his own handwriting on it, addressed to Jack Twist, RFD 2, Childress, Texas.
Across the address, stamped in red: DECEASED.
EXT: RIVERTON, WYOMING: PAY TELEPHONE: DAY: 1982:
A windy day, dust swirls.
ENNIS is dialing the telephone.
SPLIT SCREEN: ENNIS STANDING OUTSIDE, RIVERTON, WYOMING, COVERS ONE EAR/LUREEN TWIST’S SPOTLESS, TACKY NOUVEAU RICHE LIVING ROOM IN CHILDRESS, TEXAS: 1982:
LUREEN, almost forty now, hair stiffly styled and even bigger, bleached-blond hair, makeup even thicker, business-like, cold, direct, answers the telephone.
LUREEN
Hello?
ENNIS
Uh, hello, this is Ennis del Mar, I, uh.…
LUREEN
Who? Who is this?
ENNIS
Ennis del Mar. I’m an old buddy of Jack’s, I.’
LUREEN
(interrupts, speaks quickly, allows no interruptions)
Jack used to mention you. You’re the fishing buddy or the hunting buddy, I know that. Would have let you know, but wasn’t sure about your name or address. Jack kept his friends’ addresses in his head.
ENNIS
Why I was callin’, to see what happened.…
LUREEN
(level voice)
Oh yeah, Jack was pumping up a flat on the truck out on a back road when the tire blew up. The rim of the tire slammed into his face and broke his nose and jaw, knocked him unconscious on his back. By the time somebody came along, he had drowned in his own blood. Terrible thing. He was only thirty-nine years old.
EXT: RIVERTON, WYOMING: PAY TELEPHONE: DAY: CONTINUOUS: 1982:
WE’VE left LUREEN, and the screen holds only ENNIS.
ENNIS can’t answer right away. He wonders, suddenly, if it was the tire iron:
SHARP CUT TO
ENNIS’S POV: MIDDLE OF NOWHERE: DUSK: CONTINUOUS: 1982:
A FLASH—JUST A SECOND OR TWO—ENNIS and WE SEE, in the evening shadows, a MAN being beaten unmercifully by THREE ASSAILANTS, one of whom uses a tire iron.
SHARP CUT BACK TO
EXT: RIVERTON, WYOMING: PAY TELEPHONE: DAY: CONTINUOUS: 1982:
The huge sadness of the northern plains rolls down upon ENNIS. He doesn’t know which way it was, the tire iron—or a real accident, blood choking down JACK’S throat and nobody to turn him over.
The wind drones.
LUREEN
(not sure he’s still there) …Hello?
ENNIS
He buried down there?
LUREEN
We put a stone up. He was cremated, like he wanted, and half his ashes was interred here. The rest I sent up with his folks. He use to say he wanted his ashes scattered on Brokeback Mountain, but I wasn’t sure where that was. I thought Brokeback Mountain might be around where he grew up. But knowing Jack, it might be some pretend place where the bluebirds sing and there’s a whiskey spring.
ENNIS can hardly speak.
ENNIS
…No, ma’am, we herded sheep up on Brokeback one summer.…
LUREEN
Well, he said it was his favorite place. I thought he meant to get drunk. He drank a lot.
ENNIS
His folks still up in Lightnin’ Flat?
LUREEN
They’ll be there till the day they die.
ENNIS
Thanks for your time, then…I sure am sorry…we was good friends.…
LUREEN
Get in touch with his folks. I suppose they’d appreciate it if his wishes was carried out. About the ashes, I mean.
Although she is polite, her little voice is as cold as ice.
ENNIS hangs up.
Looks like death.
EXT: OUTSIDE OF LIGHTNING FLAT, WYOMING: TWIST HOMESTEAD: HOUSE: FRONT PORCH: DAY: 1982:
ENNIS pulls his pickup truck up in front of the TWIST house.
Stops.
A rather thin woman—probably sixty to sixty-five—comes out the door and on to the front porch that stretches across the front of a tiny windbeaten house, four rooms, two down, two up: this is JACK’S childhood home, and this is JACK’S MOTHER. Shades her eyes as she squints, looking at the pickup truck.
EXT: OUTSIDE OF LIGHTNING FLAT, WYOMING: TWIST HOMESTEAD: HOUSE: DAY: CONTINUOUS: 1982:
Gets out. Tips his hat to JACK’S MOTHER.
INT: OUTSIDE OF LIGHTNING FLAT, WYOMING: TWIST HOMESTEAD: HOUSE: KITCHEN: DAY: 1982:
ENNIS sits at the little kitchen table with JACK’S parents.
Across from him sits JACK’S father, his hands folded on the plastic tablecloth. The father is tough, weatherbeaten, testy, critical—makes it clear by his manner that he expects to be stud duck in the pond.
JACK’S MOTHER—silent, defeated—stands.
ENNIS can’t see JACK in either of them.
JACK’S MOTHER
(a polite shell of a woman)
Want a cup a coffee, don’t you? Piece of cherry cake?
ENNIS
(stiff but polite) Thank you, ma’am. I’ll take a cup a coffee, but I can’t eat no cake just now.
JOHN TWIST stares at ENNIS with an angry, knowing expression.
ENNIS (CONT’D)
I feel awful bad about Jack…can’t begin to tell you how bad I feel. I knew him a long time.
(pause)
I come by to say that if you want me to take his ashes up there on Brokeback like his wife said he wanted, I’d be proud to.
There is an uncomfortable silence.
ENNIS clears his throat, but then says nothing.
JOHN TWIST
Tell you what. I know where Brokeback Mountain is. He thought he was too goddamn special to be buried in the family plot.
JACK’S MOTHER’never a part of her husband’s life’endures this.
JOHN TWIST (CONT’D)
(angrily)
Jack used a say, ‘Ennis del Mar,’ he used a say, ‘I’m goin’ a bring him up here one a these days and we’ll lick this damn ranch into shape.’ He had some half-baked notion the two a you was goin’ a move up here, build a cabin, help run the place.
(pause)
Then this spring he’s got another fella’s goin’ a come up her
e with him and build a place and help run the ranch, some ranch neighbor a his from down in Texas. He’s goin’ a split up with his wife and come back here.
(sarcastic)
So he says. But like most a Jack’s ideas it never come to pass.
WE SEE the color drain from ENNIS’S face.
A beat.
JACK’S MOTHER
I kept his room like it was when he was a boy. I think he appreciated that.
(pause)
(MORE)
JACK’S MOTHER (CONT’D)
You are welcome to go up in his room, if you want.
ENNIS stands, wanting to be anywhere but here, in this kitchen, with JOHN TWIST.
ENNIS
I’d like that, ma’am, thank you.
INT: OUTSIDE LIGHTNING FLAT, WYOMING: TWIST HOMESTEAD: HOUSE: TOP OF STAIRS: JACK’S ROOM: DAY: CONTINUOUS: 1982:
WE SEE ENNIS climb a narrow set of stairs. Enters JACK’S room, tiny and hot, afternoon sun pouring through the west window, hitting the narrow boy’s bed against the wall.
A well-used desk and a wooden chair stand against the other wall. A small .22 hangs in a wooden rack over the bed.
A window looks down on the dirt road stretching south…the only road out of this godforsaken place. ENNIS goes to the window. Opens it.
Sits for a moment, looking out at the bleak plain.
Turns, looks around the room.
ENNIS sees the closet. Gets up, walks over to it.
A shallow cavity with a wooden rod braced across it, a faded cretonne curtain on a string half-open, closing the closet off from the rest of the room. In the closet hangs two pairs of jeans crease-ironed and folded neatly over wire hangers. On the floor a pair of worn packer boots.
ENNIS looks inside to the left, and WE SEE that the closet makes a tiny jog into the wall—a little hiding place—and there, stiff with long suspension from a nail, hangs a shirt.
ENNIS lifts its sleeve: it’s JACK’S old shirt from Brokeback days, dried blood on the sleeve, ENNIS’S own blood, from their last day together on Brokeback, when they were wrestling and ENNIS slipped and JACK accidentally kneed him in the nose.
The shirt seems heavy. Then ENNIS sees that there is another shirt inside it, the sleeves carefully worked down inside JACK’S shirt sleeves: it is ENNIS’S own shirt, lost, he’d thought, long ago up on Brokeback Mountain, his dirty shirt, the pocket ripped, buttons missing, stolen by JACK and hidden here inside JACK’S own shirt, the pair like two skins, one inside the other, two in one.