We Begin at the End by Chris Whitaker & Chris Whitaker

Author:Chris Whitaker & Chris Whitaker [Whitaker, Chris]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Bonnier Publishing Fiction
Published: 2020-03-26T00:00:00+00:00

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.

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