Circle JE Ranch, April 1995
“’Partner’ … always like it when ya call me that, Enn, makes me real proud, to be yer partner.” Jack’s eyes reflected the joy his words conveyed.
That remark hit home for Ennis. Until Jack came along, no one except his mama had ever said he was proud of him. He showed up outside of Aguirre’s trailer that June an orphan deuce ranch hand, with $10 in a tobacco can, hardly no education, two shirts, no drawers, no socks, a hard worker but just a nobody with nothing going nowhere. Then Jack fucking Twist roared into his life on screeching tires, smiled at him, reached out and took his hand, looked square into his eyes and saw him. And made him look back, too, and see himself reflected in those wonderful deep blue eyes. That smile of Jack’s lit up the farthest recesses of his heart, unlocking the door shut so firmly after his mama had died, allowing his feelings to float free again. And look at him now! Like a Midway magician at the County Fair, Jack had turned a deuce nobody into a somebody, a pair a deuces into a pair a kings.
Ennis looked deep and steady into those loving blue eyes across the table, put his right hand tenderly over Jack’s, squeezed the hand that held him firm and steady always, and spoke slowly and quietly. “I love ya, John Edward Twist, Jr., and I will have ya and hold ya no matter what comes along, through all the time I have left on this here earth, and forever after, too.”
Jack blinked back the moisture in his eyes, and had to swallow twice to clear the lump in his throat. He looked deep and steady into the amber eyes of the man he had loved for almost 32 years, put his left hand over Ennis’, held firm those calloused hands that held him gently and lovingly always, and spoke slowly and quietly. “I love ya, too, Ennis James Del Mar, and I will have ya and hold ya no matter what comes along, for the rest of my life, and forever after, too.”
And they sat there gazing at each other through quiet tears of joy, a pledge renewed, holding hands in the morning stillness of their kitchen, in their home, on their ranch, where they lived their sweet life that they had built together.