Beautiful story, JP. I really like how you used the present tense to put us right there with the men. So much else...how you rework lines from the story into this happy context, Jack's barely contained glee, the horse trailer stocked with everything (I started tearing up at that), and maybe my favorite line out of many - "each holding on so hard so the other wouldn’t feel them shake."
Added note about the trailer: It reminds me of something Annie Proulx said in "Getting Movied" - that "People may doubt that young men fall in love in love up on the snowy heights, but no one disbelieves the speckled coffeepot, and if the coffeepot is true, so is the other." To paraphrase...People may doubt that Ennis could change, but no one could doubt the authenticity of the tack, the trailer, and the truck, that are so lovingly given, and if those are true, so perhaps is the possibility of Ennis saying yes.
Thank you. Hope you'll be writing many more!
Fern
