【断背山】08

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Ennis went back to ranch¹ work, hired on here and there, not getting muchahead but glad enough to be around stock again, free to drop things, quit if hehad to, and go into the mountains at short notice. He had no serious hardfeelings, just a vague sense of getting shortchanged, and showed it was allright by taking Thanksgiving dinner with Alma and her grocer and the kids,sitting between his girls and talking horses to them, telling jokes, trying not tobe a sad daddy. After the pie Alma got him off in the kitchen, scraped theplates and said she worried about him and he ought to get married again. Hesaw she was pregnant, about four, five months, he guessed. 

     “Once burned,” he said, leaning against the counter, feeling too big for theroom.            “You still go fishin with that Jack² Twist?” 

     “Some.” He thought she’d take the pattern off the plate with the scraping. 

     “You know,” she said, and from her tone he knew something was coming, 

     “Iused to wonder how come you never brought any trouts home. Always saidyou caught plenty. So one time I got your creel case open the night before youwent on one a your little trips -- price tag still on it after five years -- and I tieda note on the end of the line. It said, hello Ennis, bring some fish home, love,Alma. And then you come back and said you’d caught a bunch a browns andate them up. Remember? I looked in the case when I got a chance and therewas my note still tied there and that line hadn’t touched water in its life.” Asthough the word “water” had called out its domestic cousin she twisted thefaucet, sluiced³ the plates.”(仿佛为了配合“水”这个词的发音似的，她拧开水龙头，冲洗着盘子。) 

     “That don’t mean nothin.” 

     “Don’t lie, don’t try to fool me, Ennis. I know what it means. Jack Twist? JackNasty. You and him -- “She’d overstepped his line. He seized her wrist; tears sprang and rolled, adish clattered⁴. 

     “Shut up,” he said. 

     “Mind your own business. You don’t know nothin aboutit.” 

     “I’m goin a yell for Bill.” 

     “You fuckin go right ahead. Go on and fuckin yell. I’ll make him eat thefuckin floor and you too.” He gave another wrench⁵ that left her with aburning bracelet⁶, shoved his hat on backwards⁷ and slammed out. He went tothe Black and Blue Eagle bar that night, got drunk, had a short dirty fight andleft. He didn’t try to see his girls for a long time, figuring they would look himup when they got the sense and years to move out from Alma. 

     They were no longer young men with all of it before them. Jack had filled outthrough the shoulders and hams, Ennis stayed as lean as a clothes-pole,stepped around in worn boots, jeans and shirts summer and winter, added acanvas coat in cold weather. A benign⁸ growth appeared on his eyelid⁹ andgave it a drooping¹⁰ appearance, a broken nose healed crooked¹¹.Years on years they worked their way through the high meadows andmountain drainages, horse-packing into the Big Horns, Medicine Bows, southend of the Gallatins, Absarokas, Granites¹², Owl¹³ Creeks¹⁴, the Bridger-TetonRange, the Freezeouts and the Shirleys, Ferrises and the Rattlesnakes, SaltRiver Range, into the Wind Rivers over and again, the Sierra Madres, GrosVentres, the Washakies, Laramies, but never returning to Brokeback. （年复一年，他们跨越高原，穿过峡谷，在崇山峻岭之间策马放牧。从大角山到药弓山，从加勒廷山南端到阿布萨罗卡斯山，从花冈山到夜枭湾,还有桥梁般的特顿山脉。他们的足迹直至佛瑞兹奥特山、费雷斯山、响尾蛇山和盐河山脉。他们还曾两度造访风河山。还有马德雷山脉、范特雷山、沃什基山、拉腊米山——但是再也不曾回过断背山。） 

     Down in Texas Jack’s father-in-law died and Lureen, who inherited the farmequipment business, showed a skill for management and hard deals. Jackfound himself with a vague managerial title, traveling to stock andagricultural machinery¹⁵ shows. He had some money now and found ways tospend it on his buying trips. A little Texas accent flavored his sentences,“cow” twisted into “kyow” and “wife” coming out as “waf.” He’d had hisfront teeth filed down and capped, said he’d felt no pain, and to finish the jobgrew a heavy mustache. 

     In May of 1983 they spent a few cold days at a series of little icebound, nonamehigh lakes, then worked across into the Hail Strew¹⁶ River drainage.Going up, the day was fine but the trail deep-drifted and slopping wet at themargins.  They left it to wind through a slashy cut, leading the horses throughbrittle branchwood, Jack, the same eagle feather in his old hat, lifting his headin the heated noon to take the air scented¹⁷ with resinous¹⁸ lodgepole, the dryneedle duff and hot rock, bitter juniper crushed beneath the horses’ hooves.Ennis, weather-eyed, looked west for the heated cumulus that might come upon such a day but the boneless blue was so deep, said Jack, that he mightdrown looking up. （一路前行。天气虽然晴好，水流却湍急幽深，岸边的湿地泥泞难走。他们辟出一条狭窄的道路，赶着马穿过了一片小树林。杰克的旧帽子上还插着那根鹰羽。他在正午的烈日下抬起头，嗅着空气里的树脂芬芳，还有干树叶和热石头的气味儿。马蹄过处，苦刺柏纷纷歪倒零落。埃尼斯用他那饱经风霜的眼睛向西了望，但见一团浓云将至未至。头上的青天依然湛蓝深邃，就像杰克说的，他都要淹死在这一片蔚蓝之中了。）Around three they swung through a narrow pass to a southeast slope wherethe strong spring sun had had a chance to work, dropped down to the trailagain which lay snowless below them. 

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