We Begin at the End(108)

Walk closed his eyes and thought of Duchess and Robin, their blood, that unknown.

“He asked me not to tell. I said I wouldn’t volunteer it, but also that I wouldn’t lie if someone came asking. I’m a man of my word.”

“Right.”

Cuddy laughed softly. “Not many of us left.”

“I think maybe Star told Darke.”

“Why?”

“Just something he said at the end. The things people do for their own, right? They saw that in each other. Vincent and Star, they couldn’t keep it going.”

“And then it was changed, they pulled the apartment down to make way for the new Cat-5. Vincent wouldn’t have her in the common room again, not after the last time. I mean, these are men that’d make promises, that they’d go look her up when they got out. Empty, but still. Vincent didn’t want that, not for her, not for his children.”

“So he cut her off,” Walk said sadly.

“Just about the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Turning her away like that. He told her move on, find someone else. She still came, a year she waited, in case he changed his mind. And then nothing. I figured she’d found a way to move past.”

“She did. Not past, just a way to feel nothing.”

Cuddy said nothing but he knew. There wasn’t a tragedy of any kind he had not witnessed or seen the fallout from.

“So you didn’t know any of it?” Cuddy said.

“No. Star knew what I would’ve said. That she needed to look out for herself. That it wasn’t helping, dwelling on the past. Like I know. Like I’m one to talk. Maybe they needed something just for them. Their small family, broken, but theirs.”

When they reached the gate Walk shook his hand. “Thank you, Cuddy. You did a good thing.”

“Can I ask, why now? What brought you back?”

“Chance. Vincent wanted me to scatter his ashes in the Elkton-Trinity. I’m not even sure why.”

Cuddy smiled, then took hold of Walk’s shoulder and pointed. “That’s Vincent’s cell up there. Eleven-three. Thirty years looking out. You see what it faces.”

Walk turned.

And there, above the ranging hills, he saw the two million acres of freedom.





47


IT WAS A FINE FALL morning, bright sunlight crossed the mountain behind.

Duchess rode the gray, the two heading out together each day, before Montana woke. She knew the trails well enough now, breath billowed, the gray content to go slow, she would not run well again. Duchess stroked her as they stood atop the butte and looked out over the ranch.

The house was sawn timber and beautiful, fire burned, the chimney smoked. There were barns, a river she had followed three miles through aspens before seeing wolf tracks and quickly retreating. She had a knife, her grandfather’s, and on weekends she would explore alone, cut paths into the shrubland, stepping through shallow water tables crafted by the fall.

The months that had followed were long and difficult, but she found the new surroundings helped. She took it back to breathing, like Hal had once told her, and though it did hurt, all of it, she knew time was all powerful.

When she reached the stable she led the gray in, made sure she had water and straw and patted her nose.

She found Dolly in the kitchen, reading a newspaper, the smell of coffee rich in the air. Duchess had gone to her, turned up at midnight and made good on her promise. At first she had agreed to stay one night, the next morning Dolly had led her to the stable and showed her the gray, which she’d taken for free after they settled Hal’s estate.

One day had led to a week, which turned to a month and more. Dolly acted on the pretence of needing help with the land, though she was wealthy enough to have several men stop by each week. Duchess worked hard, stayed out from dawn till the sun fell away. They did not speak much at first, the girl so beaten Dolly knew it was only in time she could help her.

Dolly broached the subject of formal adoption one morning, as they swept chokecherry leaves from the driveway. Duchess said nothing for three days, then told Dolly if she was stupid enough to want her as a daughter then she should see a doctor. But if he gave her a clean bill then yes, she would like to stay.

Duchess kicked her boots off. “I need to earn some money.”

Dolly looked up from her newspaper.

“I owe someone. I need to pay it back.”

“I can give you—”

“I have to earn it myself. Outlaws settle their debts.” She hadn’t yet figured out how to track down Hank and Busy. She’d start at the motel, make calls. She would make things right.

Duchess went to pass her, stopped when Dolly held up a letter.

“This came for you.”

Duchess took it from her. She saw the Cape Haven stamp and retreated to her bedroom, which she had painted a shade of green that matched the hills.

She closed the door behind her and settled into the big chair by the window.

She knew the writing, small enough that she imagined Walk spent a week composing it.

She read it slowly. He apologized for lying in court, for shaking her faith in him. He told her sometimes people did the wrong thing for the right reason.

For twenty pages he spoke of his life and her mother’s, a young Vincent King and Martha May. He told her how he was sick, and how he used to be ashamed of it, and scared of losing his place. And of place he rambled for a page before he got to it, and told her the kind of truth that saw her drop the papers, stand and pace her room.