Chris Whitaker - We Begin at the End

He smiled at that.

“Your brother tells me you like to sing.”

“There’s nothing I like.”

Ash fell to the dirt.

“The natives called this the backbone of the world. There’s water a shade of teal you’ve never seen. It’s so cold … the glacial melt and silt, nothing can grow beneath. It just stays clear for all time, no clouding, nothing hiding. There’s something special about that, don’t you think?”

She stayed silent.

“And that reflection, so true it’s like the world is nothing but sky, flipped on its head. I’ll take Robin out when he’s a little older, on the Jammer, maybe a boat trip if he wants to fish. I’d like you to come along too.”

“Don’t do that.”

“What?”

“Talk about tomorrow like it’s real, like you’ll be here and we’ll be here.” She did not want to scream again, to shake up the still.

On the side were flat leaves, berries the darkest purple.

He picked one and ate it.

“Huckleberries.” He held one out. She did not take it, instead pulling her own free. It was good, sweeter than she thought. She ate a handful, then filled her pockets for Robin.

“Bears like them too.” Hal bent to pick them and she saw he carried the gun, the same one she’d shot with.

She took a breath. “You didn’t come back.”

He stopped then, straightened up and turned to her.

“You didn’t come back. You knew my mother. You knew what she was like and what life might’ve been like for us. You knew she could barely look out for herself. You’re bigger than me. You’re tall and tough and we needed—”

She broke off, fiddled with her bow, kept her voice even because she would not show him how deep the pain ran.

“So when you point it out, all this beauty, all this that you see and you think I see too. You should know it pales beside what I saw before. This purple—” She waved a hand at the huckleberries beside. “This makes me think of her ribs, beat dark like that. The blue water, that’s her eyes, clear enough to see there’s no soul behind them anymore. You breathe the air and you think it’s fresh, but I can’t even take a breath without feeling that stab.” She beat her chest hard. “I am alone. I will look after my brother and you will leave us because you don’t really care. And you can say what you like, what you think will make me feel better. But fuck you, Hal. Fuck Montana, and the acres and the animals and the …” Her voice shook so she stopped it there.

The moment stretched between them and out over the pines. It swept the sky and the clouds, buried the promise of new so totally. It reduced them to the nothing they were, so small against a backdrop endless in its beauty. He held his cigar but did not smoke, held the berries but did not eat them. She hoped to God she had shattered all the certainty he saw for them.

She turned and closed her eyes tight to the tears, forcing them back. She would not cry.

20

WALK FELT THE GRACE SLIP from Cape Haven as the summer finally began to dim.

It began the morning after Star, when reporters blocked Ivy Ranch Road and police tape streaked alien across the Radley home. He felt it then, the streets a degree cooler, the vista a shade off bright. Mothers ushering their kids, shutting big gates and smothering warmth from within. He shouldered it as best he could, offers rescinded, the cop that was friends with the killer. He spent lazy summer evenings walking every street in the Cape, from the pillared mansions on Calen Place to the small clapboard homes on the highest roads. He knocked doors, hat in hand, beard there but trimmed a little neater, and he offered a tight smile as the desperation seeped from him. He asked, implored, leaned and probed and led memories places they never had been. No one saw anything that night. No cars or trucks or anything out of the pristine normality of their summer.

He watched security tapes from every store on Main. The quality was shitty so he could not skip forward. Instead he viewed in real time, ten hours, sun down to up, his eyes propped open only by the torment that fell when he closed them.

He looked at Darke, tentative, no interview could be called without raising the interest of Darke’s lawyer, and, in turn, Boyd and the state cops. He made a couple of calls, spoke with a Sutler cop and ran FasTrak tolls, hoping to catch an easy lie. He got nothing.

Martha had still not agreed to formally represent Vincent, though Walk picked up the phone most evenings and filled her in on what he’d got, which was mostly nothing. One Sunday morning he drove her to Fairmont, and the two sat with Vincent and reminisced about old times. When talk turned to mounting a defense Vincent signaled the guard.

The two drove the hundred miles back in heavy silence. She invited him in and again they sat on her porch and sipped beer. She cooked, some kind of stew so spicy his cheeks burned while she laughed and he stuck his tongue into his beer.

They talked a little about the past years, how she’d set up where she was needed most. Bitterwater had a low median income and a high crime rate. She spoke of her work with the kind of pride that made him smile. She showed photos of families she had brought back together, and letters from kids she had saved from abusive parents.

It was left unsaid, the exact time from their past when they’d been torn from each other. They skirted religion, he did not know her feelings anymore, after what had transpired between them, her parents, their faith. That was alright, they had a job to do and Walk didn’t ever let that slip from his mind. Not when he leaned in to kiss her cheek, or when she brushed his leg with hers. Sometimes she noticed the way his hands tremored, or the way he shook his head lightly when trying to recall something, and then she watched him like she knew. And when she did that he told her goodnight and drove back to the Cape, his place, his town.

At dusk he strolled to Ivy Ranch Road, the fundamentals of his job very much in the way of the bigger picture.

Brandon met him at the door, no top, just sweatpants. Behind was his old football jersey, framed on the wall. Beside that a pool table, an arcade machine, the staples of a bachelor finding his feet after a decade of perceived servitude.

“Is this about that freak across the street again?” Brandon looked past Walk and stared at Milton’s place. “You know what I found in my yard, Walk? A fucking head.”

“A head?”

“A fucking sheep or something. Deer, whatever. Hollowed out like a warning.”

“I’ll talk to him. But you know, Brandon, I hear that car fire up from my place.” Walk noticed the guy was standing on his toes, looking for an extra inch.

“Tell you what,” Brandon said. “It is quieter without Star rolling in late. I mean, it’s tragic and all, but maybe Milton will sleep easier now he’s not waiting up for her.”

“How’s that?”

Brandon leaned on the door frame. Tattoo on his chest, some kind of trite Japanese symbol. “Sometimes I got in late and I saw him at the window.”

“He watches the stars.”

Laughter. “Yeah, one in particular. You ask him about that, Walk.”

“He said you pissed in his yard.”

“Bullshit.”

“Whatever. I really don’t give a damn. I just don’t want either of you on me.”

“You look tired, Walk. Are you hydrating?”

“Listen, Brandon. I’ll go over and have the same talk with Milton but do you think you could just calm things down? I’ve got a lot on, and I could do without having to come over and see you over some bullshit dispute.”

“You need to exercise, man. Stress relief. Stop by one night and we’ll drop some circuits. Rock Hard. You know I tried to patent that, for my fitness—”