Childress, Texas

June 13, 2000

Jack Twist slowly closed the book and let it drop to the hard wood floor at his feet. He sat on the edge of the bed he'd shared with his wife Lureen for thirty-four years, sat and stared out the window that looked over the western slope of his lawn. His land stretched out for several hundred yards and was lined with pecan and peach trees. It was a bigger house than they had once lived in, more land, more responsibilities. They had moved out of their first house (certainly not small by any standards) after his father-in-law L.D. had passed on. They'd been living in their lovely little ranch house now for about fourteen years. It seemed like they'd been living there forever.

Jack looked away from the window, cutting off the view that was distracting him, and let his mind try and return to the story he'd just read. He couldn't understand what'd just happened, what he'd just been apart of. It seemed impossible really. Jack leaned forward and rubbed roughly at his face with his hands, feeling the stubble that had been neglected that morning and knowing that he had to get up and get ready for that evening before Lureen came home from the office. They had a dinner meeting they were going to that night, a get together of the two top distributors in northern Texas: Newsome Farm Equipment and McGuire Tractor and Farming Inc. The dinner was supposed to be a friendly get together, but he and Lureen both knew that they were damn close to getting ol' man McGuire to merge his company with theirs.

Over the years, Newsome Farm Equipment had grown even larger and had begun to buy out other, lesser companies. They now had four dealerships throughout the panhandle and had their sites on merging with the oldest tractor sales company outside of Amarillo. McGuire was a stubborn son of a bitch, though, not much unlike L.D. Newsome, and they knew that he would never let himself be bought out. The only hope they had was of merging, and even accomplishing that would take a lot of sweet talking and schmoozing, something that Jack wasn't that bad at.

Jack had come a long way from his old salesman post that L.D. had kept him on. The "Stud Duck" as he liked to call himself, never did like Jack, and he never let him forget that. Over the years, after L.D. had retired and left the business to Lureen, Jack had seen to it that he got his promotion, and some promotion it was. He appointed himself partner (he figured he had the right since he was Lureen's husband after all) and had spent several years successfully running the business with her. Eventually he'd gotten tired of the corporate ladder though, and had started spending more and more time away from the office and more and more time at home or out with his granddaughter, Eliza. Leave the hard business deals to his wife and his son Bobby, who was slowly working his way into his father's shoes as partner.

Jack let his eyes wander back to the window. He gazed out across the yard to the line of trees and noticed that their shadows were slowly elongating. He figured it was about 4:30 and Lureen would be home in about an hour. She'd be mad as hell if he wasn't all ready to go charm that old bastard McGuire, but he just couldn't get his body to move. His legs were weak and he still couldn't get his brain to function properly. What he just read was…

"Impossible. No fuckin' way. No way in hell. How could anyone possible know…" Jack shook his head. He couldn't think on it right now. He couldn't think on it and yet how could he stop himself from thinking on it? He felt like his world had suddenly been flipped violently off its axis and while he was frantically trying to collect everything that had been scattered in the whirl, he'd been sucker punched in the stomach. He leaned down farther and reached again for the book that had caused him so much trouble.

"Hell, if'n I'd known this was gonna happen I never woulda picked it up in the first place."

He'd been at the Wal-Mart on Avenue F in the center of Childress looking for a storybook for Eliza. Granted, Wal-Mart wasn't the best place to go for good reading, but the nearest Borders was several miles outside of town, and since she was only nine he figured that she wouldn't be too choosy. He had never shopped for a book for someone other than himself, but she was beginning to read more on her own and he knew she'd appreciate something thoughtful from her Pop.

He was wandering down the isles, trying to figure out if she would prefer a Goosebumps book where " you choose the fate of the characters!" or a Magic School Bus story. He wasn't sure if she would like learning about the planets outside of school, so he settled on the scary book and began to make his way back to the check out counter. He stopped when he passed the new release section. He figured that since he was there, he might pick up something to keep him interested before he went to bed at night. He had never been much of a reader, but had taken up the habit of reading before he went to sleep because heaven knew he wasn't gonna to get anything from Lureen. They made great business partners, and sure they still shared the same bed, but any passion that had remained between them had burned out long before. Somehow it didn't bother Jack that much because he'd never been too much of a sexual person. Sure he loved a good ol' time in the sack, especially when he was young, but he had never had any sort of unquenchable thirst for the thrills of sex, at least not with Lureen. Sometimes he thought this was because he'd just never met the right person. There were times early in his marriage that he felt like there was some deep passion in him that was just fussing to be released, but eventually it would die back down, and over time those feelings just stopped. So he replaced any sort of sexual excitement that could have been had before bed with the excitement of a good book. He certainly did appreciate a good western and could definitely sink his teeth into a mystery here and there. So he'd stopped to see what was new and if anything struck his attention. He was about to move on, not seeing anything that intrigued him, when he noticed on the bottom shelf a paper back that had the picture of a horse at a stream on its cover. He squatted down, silently cursing his bad knees and hip, to get a better look.

Close Range: Wyoming Stories by Annie Proulx.

Jack picked it up, ran his hand over the smooth spine, and then flipped it over. He scanned the description on the back, skipping the reviews, and stood again with it firmly in hand, the Goosebumps story tucked under his other arm.

So he'd headed back to his house, feeling pretty good about what he'd bought for himself and for his granddaughter. He walked into the house, set his keys on the marble island in the kitchen and made a mental note of the time. 3 o'clock. If he gave himself at least an hour to get ready, he could have nearly two hours to read. He walked to the refrigerator, got a bottle of water from inside and then made his way to his bedroom. It was a pretty rustic room with a private stone fireplace and one wall made to look like a log cabin.

He kicked of his shoes, settled back on the bed, and began to flip through the book. He told himself the reason it had caught his attention was because they were Wyoming stories and he did come from Wyoming. Born and raised, until he fled his home in Lightening Flat to try and make a life for himself on the rodeo circuit. Coincidentally, the first story he started reading was about a young guy that wanted to be a bull rider. It caught his attention well enough and he read it straight through. When he was done, he set the book down, stretched and then padded across the floor to take a piss. He washed his hands, mentally patting himself on the back for remembering, and then came back and sat on the edge of the bed. He figured he had time to read one more. He flipped to the back of the book (since they were separate stories he didn't feel a need to read the whole book straight through) and came to the title, "Brokeback Mountain." It struck him in a funny way, made his stomach feel a little fluttery and made his breath hitch in his throat. He shook it off, took a deep breath, and began to read.

"Ennis 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…"

And here he was. Dumb struck. Sitting on the side of the bed with his mouth hanging open like he was twelve and his mother had just caught him with his dick in his hand. It didn't seem possible, but there it was just as plain as day on printed-paper for the whole world to see. It was his life, his life in hard black type set against rough white paper. His life laid out for him to read like it was all so simple. His life. His life that apparently had been written by some woman he'd never heard of before. How could this be possible? How could real life be written as fiction, and how could she know so much about him? This woman, who ever she was, had his parents down to a "T" and she knew all about his attempts in the rodeo and how he met Lureen. There was only one thing that wasn't right. He had never been anywhere named Brokeback Mountain, and he had never known anyone named Ennis Del Mar.

"What the fuck is this? Some kind of joke? Who the hell is this Annie Proulx and more importantly, what the fuck did she do with my life? Some queer? In love with a man? Killed by gay haters on the side of the road somewhere in Childress?"

He knew that wasn't right. He knew that. But aside from that big gaping "but", he had just read the story of his life in a book of fictional stories! He didn't know what the hell was going on, and he wasn't sure if he wanted to know. Unfortunately, Jack Twist was an extremely curious man and he knew deep in his heart that he would not be able to just let this slip past. He had to find some sort of answer to what was going on. He had to talk to the author, this Annie Proulx, and he had to find out if there was a real Ennis Del Mar. And if there was…what then? What did that mean?

Jack placed the book inside his "private drawer" on the bedside table. He let his hand rest for a minute on the cover and then abruptly slammed the drawer shut. Finally, he gained the strength to stand.

"Nothing I can do about it now, anyhow." He said to no one in particular and made his way into the bathroom to get ready for dinner.