Ennis Del Mar1 wakes before five, wind rocking the trailer, hissing2 in around the aluminum3 door and window frames. The shirts hanging on a nail shudder4 slightly in the draft. He gets up, scratching the grey wedge of belly5 and pubic hair, shuffles6 to the gas burner, pours leftover7 coffee in a chipped enamel8 pan; the flame swathes it in blue. He turns on the tap and urinates in the sink, pulls on his shirt and jeans, his worn boots, stamping the heels against the floor to get them full on. The wind booms down the curved length of the trailer and under its roaring passage he can hear the scratching of fine gravel10 and sand. It could be bad on the highway with the horse trailer. He has to be packed and away from the place that morning. Again the ranch11 is on the market and they’ve shipped out the last of the horses, paid everybody off the day before, the owner saying, “Give em to the real estate shark, I’m out a here,” dropping the keys in Ennis’s hand. He might have to stay with his married daughter until he picks up another job, yet he is suffused12 with a sense of pleasure because Jack13 Twist was in his dream. The stale coffee is boiling up but he catches it before it goes over the side, pours it into a stained cup and blows on the black liquid, lets a panel of the dream slide forward. If he does not force his attention on it, it might stoke the day, rewarm that old, cold time on the mountain when they owned the world and nothing seemed wrong. The wind strikes the trailer like a load of dirt coming off a dump truck, eases, dies, leaves a temporary silence. They were raised on small, poor ranches14 in opposite corners of the state, Jack Twist in Lightning Flat up on the Montana border, Ennis del Mar from around Sage9, near the Utah line, both high school dropout15 country boys with no prospects16, brought up to hard work and privation, both rough-mannered, rough-spoken, inured17 to the stoic18 life. Ennis, reared by his older brother and sister after their parents drove off the only curve on Dead Horse Road leaving them twenty-four dollars in cash and a two-mortgage ranch, applied19 at age fourteen for a hardship license20 that let him make the hour-long trip from the ranch to the high school. The pickup21 was old, no heater, one windshield wiper and bad tires; when the transmission went there was no money to fix it. He had wanted to be a sophomore22, felt the word carried a kind of distinction, but the truck broke down short of it, pitching him directly into ranch work. In 1963 when he met Jack Twist, Ennis was engaged to Alma Beers. Both Jack and Ennis claimed to be saving money for a small spread; in Ennis’s case that meant a tobacco can with two five-dollar bills inside. That spring, hungry for any job, each had signed up with Farm and Ranch Employment—they came together on paper as herder and camp tender for the same sheep operation north of Signal. The summer range lay above the tree line on Forest Service land on Brokeback Mountain. It would be Jack Twist’s second summer on the mountain, Ennis’s first. Neither of them was twenty. They shook hands in the choky little trailer office in front of a table littered with scribbled23 papers, a Bakelite ashtray24 brimming with stubs. The venetian blinds hung askew25 and admitted a triangle of white light, the shadow of the foreman’s hand moving into it. Joe Aguirre, wavy26 hair the color of cigarette ash and parted down the middle, gave them his point of view.
“Forest Service got designated campsites on the allotments. Them camps can be a couple a miles from where we pasture the sheep. Bad predator27 loss, nobody near lookin after em at night. What I want, camp tender in the main camp where the Forest Service says, but the HERDER”—pointing at Jack with a chop of his hand—“pitch a pup tent on the q.t. with the sheep, out a sight, and he’s goin a SLEEP there. Eat supper, breakfast in camp, but SLEEP WITH THE SHEEP, hundred percent, NO FIRE, don’t leave NO SIGN. Roll up that tent every mornin case Forest Service snoops around. Got the dogs, your .30-.30, sleep there. Last summer had goddamn near twenty-five percent loss. I don’t want that again. YOU,” he said to Ennis, taking in the ragged28 hair, the big nicked hands, the jeans torn, button-gaping shirt, “Fridays twelve noon be down at the bridge with your next week list and mules29. Somebody with supplies’ll be there in a pickup.” He didn’t ask if Ennis had a watch but took a cheap round ticker on a braided cord from a box on a high shelf, wound and set it, tossed it to him as if he weren’t worth the reach.
1 mar | |
vt.破坏,毁坏,弄糟 | |
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2 hissing | |
n. 发嘶嘶声, 蔑视 动词hiss的现在分词形式 | |
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3 aluminum | |
n.(aluminium)铝 | |
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4 shudder | |
v.战粟,震动,剧烈地摇晃;n.战粟,抖动 | |
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5 belly | |
n.肚子,腹部;(像肚子一样)鼓起的部分,膛 | |
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6 shuffles | |
n.洗(纸牌)( shuffle的名词复数 );拖着脚步走;粗心地做;摆脱尘世的烦恼v.洗(纸牌)( shuffle的第三人称单数 );拖着脚步走;粗心地做;摆脱尘世的烦恼 | |
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7 leftover | |
n.剩货,残留物,剩饭;adj.残余的 | |
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8 enamel | |
n.珐琅,搪瓷,瓷釉;(牙齿的)珐琅质 | |
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9 sage | |
n.圣人,哲人;adj.贤明的,明智的 | |
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10 gravel | |
n.砂跞;砂砾层;结石 | |
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11 ranch | |
n.大牧场,大农场 | |
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12 suffused | |
v.(指颜色、水气等)弥漫于,布满( suffuse的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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13 jack | |
n.插座,千斤顶,男人;v.抬起,提醒,扛举;n.(Jake)杰克 | |
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14 ranches | |
大农场, (兼种果树,养鸡等的)大牧场( ranch的名词复数 ) | |
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15 dropout | |
n.退学的学生;退学;退出者 | |
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16 prospects | |
n.希望,前途(恒为复数) | |
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17 inured | |
adj.坚强的,习惯的 | |
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18 stoic | |
n.坚忍克己之人,禁欲主义者 | |
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19 applied | |
adj.应用的;v.应用,适用 | |
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20 license | |
n.执照,许可证,特许;v.许可,特许 | |
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21 pickup | |
n.拾起,获得 | |
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22 sophomore | |
n.大学二年级生;adj.第二年的 | |
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23 scribbled | |
v.潦草的书写( scribble的过去式和过去分词 );乱画;草草地写;匆匆记下 | |
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24 ashtray | |
n.烟灰缸 | |
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25 askew | |
adv.斜地;adj.歪斜的 | |
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26 wavy | |
adj.有波浪的,多浪的,波浪状的,波动的,不稳定的 | |
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27 predator | |
n.捕食其它动物的动物;捕食者 | |
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28 ragged | |
adj.衣衫褴褛的,粗糙的,刺耳的 | |
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29 mules | |
骡( mule的名词复数 ); 拖鞋; 顽固的人; 越境运毒者 | |
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