I've been thinking about this for a few days, but a question about where Jack and Ennis spent the night of the first night after they met at Aguirre's on
another thread set me thinking about it again.
I guess my questions are in part because I'm from the UK and not familiar with the ways of the rural US, so please forgive me if the answers to these questions are blindingly obvious to those with knowledge of the era and the area.
At the very start of the film we see Ennis climbing down from a lorry he's presumably hitched a lift on. The SS says "That spring, hungry for any job, each had signed up with Farm and Ranch Employment..." (presumably this is an employment agency?), but what's always puzzled me is where they both would have been living. Neither the film or story give any clues. Jack has his own truck, but Ennis has no transport. All we know of Ennis is that he when his brother married there was no room for him any more. If they'd both been working on ranches would they have been living at the ranches? Would they have been renting somewhere? Jack has his truck - he may not have that much in the way of other possessions, but at least he has transport and therefore presumably some money, whereas we see Ennis arrive with just a paper bag. That, I must admit has always puzzled me a little as I guess it's meant to show he didn't have much in the way of possessions, but we don't see him wearing the same clothes throughout the summer - he must have had more than one shirt, and I seem to recall a couple of different coats in the film, so where had he got them stashed?
Similarly with the end of the summer when they came down from Brokeback - where would they have gone to? Jack mentions before they leave the mountain lending Ennis some money until they get to Signal (was Aguirre's place at Signal?) but apart from saying that he may go to his parents over the winter, Jack says no more about where he's headed to, and Ennis says he's marrying Alma, so presumably he goes back to Riverton, but where would he be living?
And then of course, back to the original question - after they'd met Aguirre and spent the afternoon drinking in a bar, where would they have spent the night?
Anyone got any ideas?