“Where’s Vincent?” she asked.
“I was with him before. He might be on the other side.”
Walk and Vincent were close like brothers. At nine they’d cut palms, pressed them together and sworn oaths of classless loyalty.
They said nothing more, just watched the ground, past Sunset Road, past the wishing tree, Chuck Taylors parting leaves. Walk focused so hard but still, he almost missed it.
Ten steps from Cabrillo, State Route One, six hundred miles of California coast. He stopped dead, then looked up and saw the line move on without him.
He crouched.
The shoe was small. Red and white leather. Gold-tone buckle.
A car on the highway slowed as it came, headlights traced the curve till they found him.
And then he saw her.
He took a breath and raised his hand.
Part One
The Outlaw
1
WALK STOOD AT THE EDGE of a feverish crowd, some he’d known since his birth, some since theirs. Vacationers with cameras, sunburn and easy smiles, not knowing the water was stripping more than timber.
Local news set up, a reporter from KCNR. “Can we get a word, Chief Walker?”
He smiled, shoved his hands deep in his pockets and looked to thread his way through when the people gasped.
Fragmented noise as the roof caved and crashed to the water below. Piece by piece, the foundation lay crude and skeletal, like the home was no more than a house. It had been the Fairlawn place since Walk could remember, a half-acre from the ocean when he was a kid. Taped off a year back, the cliff was eroding, now and then the people from California Wild came and measured and estimated.
The stir of cameras and indecent excitement as slates rained and the front porch clung. Milton, the butcher, dropped to one knee and fired off a money shot as the flag pole leaned and the banner hung in the breeze.
The younger Tallow boy got too close. His mother pulled his collar so hard he tumbled back onto his ass.
Behind, the sun fell with the building, dissecting the water with cuts of orange and purple and shades without name. The reporter got her piece, seeing off a patch of history so slight it barely counted.
Walk glanced around and saw Dickie Darke, who looked on, impassive. He stood like a giant, close to seven feet tall. A man into real estate, he owned several houses in Cape Haven and a club on Cabrillo, the kind of den where iniquity cost ten bucks and a small chunk of virtue.
They stood another hour, Walk’s legs tired as the porch finally gave up. Onlookers resisted the urge to applaud, then turned and made their way back, to barbeque and beer and firepits that waved flamelight on Walk’s evening patrol. They drifted across flagstone, a line of gray wall, dry laid but holding strong. Behind was the wishing tree, a major oak so wide splints held its limbs. The old Cape Haven did all it could to remain.
Walk had once climbed that tree with Vincent King, in a time so far from now it too would barely count. He rested a shaking hand on his gun, the other on his belt. He wore a tie, his collar stiff, his shoes shined. His acceptance of place was admired by some, pitied by others. Walker, captain of a ship that did not ever leave port.
He caught sight of the girl, moving against the crowd, her brother’s hand in hers as he struggled to match her pace.
Duchess and Robin, the Radley children.
He met them at half run because he knew all there was to know about them.
The boy was five and cried silent tears, the girl had just turned thirteen and did not ever cry.
“Your mother,” he said, not a question but a statement of such tragic fact the girl did not even nod, just turned and led.
They moved through dusk streets, the lull of picket fences and fairy lights. Above the moon rose, guided and mocked, as it had for thirty years. Past grand houses, glass and steel that fought the nature, a vista of such terrible beauty.
Down Genesee, where Walk still lived in his parents’ old house. Onto Ivy Ranch Road, where the Radley home came to view. Peeling shutters, an upturned bike, the wheel lying beside. In Cape Haven a shade beneath perfect might as well have been black.
Walk broke from the children and ran up the path, no lights from inside but the flutter of television. Behind, he saw Robin still crying and Duchess still looking on, hard and unforgiving.
He found Star on the couch, a bottle beside, no pills this time, one shoe on and the other foot bare, small toes, painted nails.
“Star.” He knelt and patted her cheek. “Star, wake up now.” He spoke calmly because the children were at the door; Duchess, an arm on her brother as he leaned so heavy into her, like he no longer held bones in his small body.
He told the girl to dial 911.
“I already have.”
He thumbed open Star’s eyes and saw nothing but white.
“Will she be alright?” The boy’s voice.
Walk glanced over, hoping for sirens, squinting at fired sky.
“Could you go look out for them?”
Duchess read him and took Robin outside.
Star shook then, puked a little and shook, like God or Death had hold of her soul and was wrenching it free. Walk had given it time, three decades had passed since Sissy Radley and Vincent King but still Star slurred about eternalism, the past and the present colliding, the force spinning the future off, never to be righted.
Duchess rode with her mother. Walk would bring Robin.
She looked on as the medic worked. He did not try a smile and for that she was grateful. He was balding and sweating and maybe tiring of saving those so determined to die.
For a while they stayed in front of the house, the door falling open to Walk, there like always, his hand on Robin’s shoulder. Robin needed that, the comfort of an adult,
