Chris Whitaker - We Begin at the End

The whole place was dressed, every item carefully chosen to project an ideal. He saw plastic fruit in a bowl, plastic flowers on a side table, and photo frames filled with a model family sporting plastic smiles.

He imagined Darke living there alone, big and awkward and trying not to make a mess.

Walk climbed the stairs, wood, carpet runner, cream and thick. He passed a mirror and saw himself reflected, hand still on his gun, a kid playing cowboys, hunting down Vincent and his plastic tomahawk.

He tried guest rooms, three before he found the master. Everything immaculate.

“What are you doing here?”

He spun, his heart hammered away.

Darke stood at the top of the stairs, shorts and vest and earphones in. The stare was cold and hard.

“I came to check on you.”

Just the stare, nothing more.

“There were people asking about you. Didn’t look like the kind of guys you want to pay a visit.”

Walk followed him down the stairs and into a plush den.

“You want to get this over with?”

Walk took a seat on the soft leather couch. Darke stayed standing, the gulf between them grew.

“Julieta Fuentes,” Walk said, and then watched.

Sweat coated Darke, down muscled arms and legs.

“You remember Julieta?”

“I remember everyone that works for me.”

“You remember her boyfriend, Max Cortinez?”

Nothing.

Walk stood and moved over to the window. The yard was small but landscaped, trees and borders, some kind of sculpture carved out of a log. “I don’t blame you. What you did to Max. It was one-sided, him and Julieta, you evened things up.”

Darke just stared, but for a moment something else crept in. Sadness, maybe regret.

“It’s noble. You did her a favor. You showed heart.”

“Julieta earned more than the others.”

And then the fit. He was protecting his asset. Dickie Darke, his sole purpose the pursuit of money.

Walk’s throat dried as he strayed deeper. “You lost it, though. Beat him too badly. He could’ve died. Is that what happened with Star?”

Darke’s face, the disappointment plain enough. “You’re asking the wrong questions to the wrong person.”

Walk moved closer, adrenaline firing again. “I don’t think so.”

“Vincent King, you don’t want to see the man he is, only the boy he was.”

Walk took another step.

Darke straightened up. “You’re out of your depth. You’re losing yourself. I know how that feels.”

“How does it feel?”

“Sometimes we just want to get on. People get in the way of that.”

“How did Star get in the way?”

“How’s her girl doing? You told her I was thinking about her.”

Walk tensed at that, grit his teeth. Another day and he might have squared off with the bigger man, another day or maybe another life. His breathing grew so labored the room started to dim. “I better get on.”

He walked out and into the kitchen. Darke followed.

Walk slowed a little as he felt the blood rush from his head. He held out a hand to steady himself. The medication, the fucking disease making him weak.

By the street door he noticed it, the small case in the corner. “You taking a trip, Darke?”

“Business.”

“Anywhere nice?” Walk turned to face him.

“Somewhere I was hoping I wouldn’t have to visit.”

The moment passed between them, and then Walk turned and left, climbed into the cruiser and headed back to the Cape.

It wasn’t till he crossed the town line that he pulled over, and dialed Montana.

23

IT RAINED SO LONG DUCHESS took to sitting by the window, on the box seat, sky watching, just like the old man. She noticed him watching her close, and watching the drive, like he was waiting on a visitor.

Robin got sick, a flu that saw him take to his bed for a week. Duchess brought him hot drinks and fussed, though it sat there between them, like a weight on her chest, a kind of divide she would break down absolutely.

On the third night his fever spiked, he cried out for their mother, up in bed, slick hair and wild eyes. He screamed and wrenched sounds from deep, a kind of pain she knew well herself. Hal was panicked, asking Duchess if he should call a doctor or an ambulance. She ignored him, wet a cloth and stripped Robin naked.

She sat with him all night, Hal by the door. Not speaking, just there.

The next morning it broke and he ate a little soup. Hal carried him down and settled him on the porch swing so he could watch the rain and breathe the mist.

“I like how it drums the lake,” Robin said.

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry. What I said before.”

She turned and knelt on the rough wood, her pants already torn at the knee from working her jobs. “You don’t ever need to say that to me.”

Hal had a VCR. They watched Rita Hayworth one lazy Sunday. Duchess did not know a woman could be so exquisite. And then, in the attic, she discovered a bag full of Westerns, sat beside the old man and watched them through the night till Robin was all better. For a day she lost her name and chased a band of Mexicans through sapping wheat, Hal watching on from the porch, shaking his head like he’d taken in a loon. She called him Tuco and told him he was the ugly and she was the bad. The good clapped his hands, his curls rain plastered, his yellow mac dripping wet.

On days she practiced, she marched a hundred yards back, hit the tree bang center and called herself Sundance.

The first time she rode the gray she felt as close to Butch as she ever had. Close to her blood, a little less foreign, a root taking hold in Montana earth. She lay a hand on the gray and felt the heat from her, patted gently and told the horse she wouldn’t ever kick her and, in return, maybe she could agree not to throw a cowgirl to the dirt. She gripped the horn tight and shook rain from her hair as Hal led her around the paddock, just a gentle trot that left her fighting the widest smile when she was done.

Another week and she watched the endless carbon sky begin to crack and the rain ease, the blue edge its way in and sunlight bless the ground for the first time in a month.

As she looked out across the land she saw Hal by the harrow and Robin by the coop, both of them turning skyward and smiling.

Hal raised a hand, Robin too. And then, slowly, with great effort, Duchess raised her own to them both. In math she learned the triangle was the strongest shape.

There was a gradualism to Montana days, fall sweeping them along with leaves a thousand kinds of brown.

One Saturday Hal drove them to Glacier. They hiked to Running Eagle Falls, the aspens catching the light and stopping her breath. They walked on a carpet of leaves, some so big they came to Robin’s shoulder when he drew them up. He tried to collect them, got so many he could barely see over. Hal brought them to a clearing and they watched the stark yellow cottonwoods wave like fool’s gold.

“Beautiful,” Hal said.

“Beautiful,” Robin echoed.

Duchess just stared. Some days, mean and tough was hard to locate.

They stopped at rocks, water cascading loud. They stood beside a family of four, so symmetrical Duchess looked away from the mother and father like they’d committed a modern-day sin. She reasoned they’d divorce soon enough, harden their little angels till all that was left was slammed doors and angry tears. She did smile at that.

Duchess still wore her dress each Sunday to Canyon View Baptist. Each time Hal still frowned and the other kids still stared, but the old people, the couples that stopped and bowed, widowed ladies that carried themselves with earned decency, they all took to her. None more so than Dolly, who sought her out most weekends and sat beside her.

Fall shadows, the candles and lanterns needed. Robin sat across with three other kids, brothers all older but they let him trail them. Their mother hushed them now and then. Robin watched them in quiet awe, bigger boys, there was nothing that compared.