We Begin at the End

by Chris Whitaker

  “I think about all of you up there.”

  “I watch out for him. This Darke. When she saw the car I thought he might’ve come, like she always said.”

  “And now?”

  “I’m still waiting. Shoot first ask questions later.”

  Walk smiled a tired smile. Sleepless nights had taken their toll, wrestling his thoughts to the ground and pounding them clean out of his head. Some days he found himself on a stretch of highway and clean forgot where he was supposed to be heading.

  “Goodnight, Hal. You take care.”

  He replaced the receiver and yawned. Normally he was so beat he’d head right home, drink a sole beer and watched ESPN till sleep found him. But right then he got the overwhelming urge to see Martha, not even to talk, just not sit the night alone.

  He picked up the phone, started to dial then killed it. He was fully aware of what he was doing, gradually sliding into a life he had no right to interfere with. It was cold, no matter how he felt, it was a cold and cruel thing to do. When she saw him she remembered the darkest part of her life, and she always would.

  He walked down the hallway slowly, the station in darkness.

  “Leah, I didn’t know you were still here.”

  She looked up, tired, not even a smile. “Overtime, right. Someone’s got to sort the filing system out. It’ll take me the next month, even working through the night.”

  “You need a hand?”

  “No, you get on. Doesn’t matter if I’m here all night, Ed wouldn’t even notice.”

  He went to say something, wasn’t sure what, but then she turned away and went back to work.

  He headed out, thinking of Duchess Day Radley at a school dance, and smiling his way into the warm evening.

  * * *

  The snow, like the talk, worsened as they drove. Mrs. Noble asked Thomas about the dance. He told her it was the best night of his life.

  Duchess watched snow build on the farmland beside, usually lost to the dark she could see a mile out to mountains.

  When they reached Radley land Mrs. Noble went to turn but the driveway was deep now. Hal couldn’t keep on top of it, it was too long and the snow fell too fast.

  “I can walk it from here.”

  “You sure, honey? I’d take a run at it but I think we might get stuck the night.”

  “Hal will be on the porch. He’ll see your lights and start walking down. You get on.”

  She climbed out quick and set off up the driveway, before Mrs. Noble or Thomas could get out and try to follow.

  Halfway, she turned and waved and watched them trail light into the distance.

  She trudged the snow, lifting her new shoes high at each step. Gum trees stood, branches weighed under snow, arc of white like she was walking through a wedding arch. Free, she faced the sky, the turning snowflakes, the beauty almost too much to take. She thought of Robin and how they would spend their weekend, fanned-out angels and snowmen as tall as their grandfather.

  When she cleared the reaching trees moonlight graced the old farmhouse and she smiled without knowing why. In the distance light burned in the kitchen.

  She took another step and then stopped dead.

  Prints in the snow, almost covered but still they remained.

  Footprints.

  Big prints.

  The first time that night she felt the cold, the real, true bite of Montana cold.

  “Hal,” she said, quiet.

  She picked up her pace a little, her heart beginning to race. Something was wrong. She could feel it.

  And then she saw him.

  And she calmed.

  He was sat on the bench, the gun by his feet.

  When she reached the porch she waved, smiled wide, then climbed the steps. She’d tell him about her night, just how bad it was.

  But then she saw his face, pale, tight, sweat by his head.

  Labored breaths, but still, he tried to smile for her.

  She approached slow, and then, with great care, she pulled the blanket from him.

  And that’s when she saw the blood.

  “Oh fuck, Hal,” she whispered.

  He kept a hand pressed to his stomach, but the blood drained fast and steady.

  “I got him,” Hal said.

  He offered one hand to her as his life emptied. She took it, his blood to her like some fatal disease.

  She let go and ran for the phone in the kitchen. Iver County PD on speed dial, she told all she could.

  She left prints of Hal’s blood on the receiver. She fetched whisky from the cabinet and ran back out.

  “Fuck.” She put the bottle to his lips.

  He coughed, the blood there now.

  “I got him, Duchess. He ran but I got him.”

  “Don’t talk. People are coming, people who know what to do.”

  He watched her. “You’re an outlaw.”

  “I am,” she said, her voice breaking.

  “You make me proud.”

  She clutched his hand tight, pressed her head to his, closed her eyes and held her tears back. “Fuck,” she yelled it. She hit his arm, his chest, slapped his cheek hard. “Grandpa. Wake up.”

  She looked down at the blood on her new yellow dress, and then down at the snow, where footprints led her eyes to white fields.

  She knelt once more. “We begin at the end.” She took the shotgun from beside him.

  She no longer felt the biting cold, no longer noticed the fullest moon. She did not see stars or the red barns or the frozen water.

  At the stable she saddled the gray and led her from her place.

  She pulled herself up with one hand, the shotgun in the other, and she snapped the reins as they ran after the prints.

  She cursed herself, complacent, the way she had fallen into the promise of a new life. She remembered the anger, the hot twisting anger.

  She told herself who she was.

  Duchess Day Radley.

  Outlaw.

  Part Three

  Restitution

  28

  HE MADE THE DRIVE FROM day to night, high beams, blinking wildflower, Mojave nothing but morphing shapes.

  Route Fifteen, the lights of Las Vegas, dazzling like some grand alien craft had fallen from the sky.

  Rising billboards, styled magicians with eyebrows arched and aging starlets taking their back catalog all the way to the bank.

  He watched it fade in the rearview and before long it was like it had never been. He skirted the Valley of Fire, Beaver Dam and the eternal shadow of the Canyon behind. Motel lights and gas stations and a highway that emptied as the hours drifted.

  Cedar City, he stopped at an all-night diner, historic downtown in Iron County, mostly sleeping. He sat at a booth and listened to a couple guys talk about “Clarke’s sendoff.” He couldn’t figure out if Clarke was dead or getting married.

  He rubbed his eyes to signs, POCATELLO and BLACKFOOT, IDAHO FALLS.

  As Caribou-Targhee came to view he saw the first blue in a thousand miles of black. He slowed on 87 and watched the sun rise by Henrys Lake, the water so many refracted colors he rubbed his eyes once more.

  The first snow at Three Forks, white fields ran to white sky. He closed the window and blew the heater but did not feel the cold nor the heat.

  When Iver County PD called, Walk had been home, laid up, some kind of palsy gripped him so tight he almost could not reach the phone. But then after, when the cop hung up he slammed the receiver down again and again until it broke apart. Then he’d heaved the contents of his desk onto the carpet, kicked his computer screen until it cracked. And then, slowly, he’d cleared it all up again.

  Any illusion, the postcards, Friday night calls with Hal, any illusion the girl and the boy might yet get their deserved life had died such a cold and final death that Walk did not speak to anyone for three days. He had taken leave, vacation time backdated a decade, got them so worried Louanne had stopped by and hammered on his door. He did not answer. Nor did he answer Martha’s
calls.

  He spent the first day in his apartment, Darke’s life mapped out on the wall behind his television set so he could never get the man from his mind. He chased leads so old the numbers did not connect or if they did he reached confused people that had not heard Darke’s name in twenty years. He tried drinking, a bottle of Jim Beam, made it a quarter way through before he gave up. His meds, with the alcohol, just made him drowsy. He longed for a mistake, a reason he could carry the blame on his shoulders and sink down deep, but again he found nothing. It was a cruel hand of fate, a nothing anomaly. Darke made a choice and saw it through. And they could still not pin a thing on him. No witness. Snow buried blood. They’d put out all points, blocked the only roads, sent a team in as deep as they could. Iver County worked the theory the killer was dead, buried in a tomb of ice somewhere amongst the woodland, likely torn apart by the animals once he thawed.

  Walk returned to the station and got on. He wrote up routine violations, stopped by routine elementary schools and worked routine shifts, four days and one night.

  Martha stopped by, uninvited, and when he told her she pressed a hand to her mouth like she wanted to scream. If Walk was broken before, what happened in Montana scattered the pieces so far and wide he gave up all hope of being whole again.

  He visited Vincent, sat in the hot waiting room for three hours in case Vincent changed his mind and came out. He stood with Cuddy and watched basketball and did not flinch when men took hard falls or lost a tooth to an elbow.

  The beard was long now, past his neck down to his skeletal chest. He had aged a decade in months, his skin pursed tight over hollow cheeks.

  The snow thickened at Lewis and Clark, he washed up in a gas station on 89. It smelled of piss and he tried shallow breaths as he pulled off his uniform. He stood naked beneath flickering light. No bulging stomach, sagging chest, instead he saw ribs and hip bones. He dressed, shirt on, slacks, tie. His hair was cropped close now so he did not need to comb it. His hands shook. He did not fight them. They no longer cooperated, if he held the phone with one, he could not grasp a pen with the other. It was exhausting, maddening.

  Canyon View Baptist.

  Someone had cleared the lot, walled it off with snow piled high. He was early by an hour so rolled his seat back and closed his eyes. A night on the road should’ve seen him grab thirty minutes but his mind would not leave him. He thought of Duchess when she was small and the way she had looked at him, like he was a man who could solve her problems.

  First cars rolled into the lot. He watched them, old people that wore the cold on their faces, cheeks red as they ambled into the small church.

  He found a corner at the back. An organ played something serene.

  At the front was the coffin.

  He stood when others did.

  And then he turned and saw the boy, Robin, holding the hand of a lady he did not recognize. The boy looked older, suddenly, like the child had once again been robbed by the pull of a trigger.

  Behind them, she appeared, her dress dark and simple. She kept her eyes up and hard, challenging. She gazed around the church, people tried their best to smile sad smiles. She did not return any. She was not a child now.

  When she saw him she stuttered, just one step, a reluctant memory, and then she was past.

  As she sat at the front he saw the bow in her hair, tucked out of sight but it was there.

  Behind her was a slight boy with glasses, and when the priest spoke and Robin began to cry the boy placed a hand on Duchess’s shoulder. She did not turn, just shook his hand from her.

  After, Walk followed them back to the Radley farm.

  Inside were sandwiches and cake. A lady who introduced herself as Dolly handed Walk a coffee.

  Robin stood with the lady and looked as lost as a child ever had. He said no thank you when Dolly offered him a donut. He said no thank you when the lady asked him if he wanted to head up and take a last look at his bedroom.

  Walk slipped out and crunched the snow, following small prints.

  He found her at the stable, her back to him as she patted a handsome gray, her small hand on the horse’s nose. The horse bowed, nuzzled against her and she kissed it gently.

  “You can leave now.” She did not turn. “You don’t need to stay longer. I see everyone in there, watching the clock. Like Hal would’ve wanted them in his house anyhow.”

  He stepped beneath the arched roof. “I’m sorry.”

  She raised a hand, it’s alright, fuck off, he didn’t know which and it did not matter much.

  “There’s a kid in there, he keeps looking out for you.”

  “Thomas Noble. He doesn’t know me, not really.”

  “It’s important to have friends, right?”

  “He’s a normal kid. Two parents. Makes good grades. Six weeks at their vacation home in Myrtle Beach each summer. We breathe different air.”

  “Are you eating alright?”

  “Are you? You look different, Walk. Where’s that soft gone?”

  She wore only her dress but did not shiver.

  “That lady at the church with Robin—” he started.

  “Mrs. Price. That’s what she likes us to call her. In case we forget how temporary our place is. She came to show face.”

  Walk met her eye for a moment, then she looked away.

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “Fuck, Walk. Stop saying that. Hand we get dealt, right. Fate, resignation. There’s no difference.”

  “They don’t teach that at church.”

  “Free will is an illusion, sooner you accept the sooner you get on.”

  “The farm?”

  “I heard them talking. Hal had debts, it’ll go at auction and they’ll be cleared. Radley land. We’re all just caretakers.”

  “And Robin?”

  Sadness then, that only he could see, buried deep behind her eyes.

  “He’s … he doesn’t speak now. He hasn’t said much but yes or no. They’ll try and place us, foster care till then. Mrs. Price, Mr. Price, they get paid to take us in. Feed us. Send us to bed at eight because they like their own time.”

  “Christmas.” He regretted the word, like it had a place.

  “Our case worker brought gifts. Mrs. Price, she didn’t leave nothing out for Robin.”

  He swallowed.

  She turned and patted the gray again. “She’ll get sold, unless someone wants her with the farm. I hope they don’t run her hard. She limps a little now, after that night.”

  “She fell.”

  “I fell,” she said, bitter. “It wasn’t on her. She’s a decent horse. She stayed with me, after, just there, beside me.”

  The snow began to drift once again. He looked back at the farmhouse, the boy with glasses being led out by his mother, craning his neck to get a look at Duchess. He thought of Vincent and Star.

  “Will you get to stay here, same school?”

  “We have a woman, she works our case. That’s what we are now, Walk. A case. We are numbers and a file. A list of traits and mistakes.”

  “You’re not a number. You’re an outlaw.”

  “Maybe my father’s blood is so fucking weak it steals away the Radley. I’m not Star or Hal, Robin or Billy Blue. I am one night, one mistake, one reaction. I’m nothing more.”

  “You can’t think that.”

  She turned from him, like she was talking to the gray. “I’ll never know who I am.”

  He looked across frozen land, the elk in numbers at the base of the mountain. “If you need me.”

  “I know.”

  “But still.”

  “That old priest. He asked us the meaning of life one time, after service. The young kids, he asked us all in turn. Most talked about family and love.”

  “And you?”

  “I said nothing, because Robin was there.” She coughed. “But you know what Robin said?”

  He shook his head.

  “He said life means having somebody care enough to protect you.”
<
br />   “He’s got you.”

  “And look where we are.”

  “But you know that’s not—”

  She held up another fuck you hand.

  “They think the man Hal shot is dead.”

  “I know.”

  “They won’t search for him anymore. It was Darke. They don’t believe me.”

  Together they walked through snow toward the cruiser.

  “I think of Vincent King.”

  He wanted to make a link, Star to Darke. He could not.

  “You know this isn’t on you.” He read her well.

  “It is, Walk. This time it is on me.”

  He turned and wanted to hug her but she stuck out a hand and he shook it.

  “I don’t think I’ll see you again.”

  “I’ll keep in touch.”

  “Can you not?” The first shake in her voice, just slight but he saw her turn her head. “Just go and tell me to be good or something, like you used to. And then you get on and I’ll get on. Ours is a small story, Chief Walker. Sad enough, but small. Let’s not pretend different.”

  They stood in a silence that rode over the trees and the Radley land.

  “Alright,” he said.

  “And?”

  “Be good, Duchess.”

  29

  THEIR CASE WORKER WORE PURPLE lipstick, as close to somber as she ever got.

  Shelly. Her hair was three kinds of color, none of which Duchess decided were natural. She was loving, soulful, she held their future with the kind of care warranted, and cried openly for the man she had never met.

  They sat in the back of her rusting Volvo 740. Coke cans on the floor, ashtray spilling though she never smoked when they were in the car.

  Duchess turned by the water and watched the farmhouse for the last time as they dipped beneath the praying trees.

  “You kids alright back there?” Shelly crunched second and the car shuddered.

  Duchess reached over and took her brother’s small hand. He did not fight her and did not squeeze back, just let it lie there, limp and dead to her.

  Shelly smiled in the mirror. “It was a lovely service.”

  They drove mile on mile of white, winter reaching so long they could not recall fall, air so chill Duchess was grateful. Let the world freeze over, let all the colors drain till the canvas was blank once more.