“You touch my brother again and I’ll behead you, expletive,” Principal Duke said, fingers steepled over his stomach, his face tight with concern.
Duchess straightened. “I never said ‘expletive.’”
Hal smiled. “Well, that’s something. What did you say?”
“Motherfucker.”
Principal Duke flinched like the word cut him deep. “Now this does give us a problem.”
Duchess could smell the coffee on his breath, the cologne splashed onto his polyester tie just about masking the body odour beneath.
“I don’t see why.” Hal, hands red, skin cracked. He smelled of the acres, outside and forest. Radley land.
“It’s the nature of the threat. I mean, beheading like that.”
“The girl’s an outlaw.”
Duchess almost smiled.
“I don’t think you’re taking this as seriously as you should.”
Hal stood. “I’ll take her out now, the rest of the day out of school. I’ll talk to her, it won’t happen again. Right?”
She might’ve fought it then, made trouble because the bedrock was laid. She thought of Robin, already making a couple of friends here.
“If he touches Robin then I can’t promise—”
Hal cleared his throat loud.
“I won’t use those words again.”
Principal Duke looked like he had more to say as she stood and followed Hal from the office.
They drove out in silence. Duchess rode up front. Instead of making a left Hal headed east, the road opening up beneath a sky that flashed silver as the sun hid. A dairy farm, steel barns the color of mint, then a town nothing more than Main and the small streets that fed it. Down backwater roads before they met pines like skyscrapers. A river beside them shone like mica as it fed the gorge, the mountain that loomed frosted white at the peaks, lazy tracks winding their way up. They climbed, Duchess craning to see back as they cleared the trees and the waterway snaked its own path. They slowed for another truck, passing opposite, a cowboy who dipped his hat.
They parked by a bluff, rock sand and dust, the pines picking up again, growing out and wide on the side of the mountain.
Hal got out and she followed.
He threaded the trees and she kept pace, the faintest of gaps but Hal navigated like he knew the trail and where each of its branches would carry.
Montana unfolded in front, a thousand miles of natural shades, water and land. She caught pine scent, watched men in waders fishing the clearest water a mile up. Beside her Hal lit a cigar.
“Trout streams.” He pointed toward breaks, the fishermen like dots on a mighty canvas. “There’s a canyon fifty miles in, so deep people say it doesn’t bottom out till red rock. Take any trail, the backcountry, you won’t see another person again. A million acres free.”
“Is that why you ran here? Hide from the world?” She kicked a rock and watched it fall.
“You want to call a truce?”
“Not even a little.”
He smiled at that.
“Your brother tells me you like to sing.”
“There’s nothing I like.”
Ash fell to the dirt.
“The natives called this the backbone of the world. There’s water a shade of teal you’ve never seen. It’s so cold … the glacial melt and silt, nothing can grow beneath. It just stays clear for all time, no clouding, nothing hiding. There’s something special about that, don’t you think?”
She stayed silent.
“And that reflection, so true it’s like the world is nothing but sky, flipped on its head. I’ll take Robin out when he’s a little older, on the Jammer, maybe a boat trip if he wants to fish. I’d like you to come along too.”
“Don’t do that.”
“What?”
“Talk about tomorrow like it’s real, like you’ll be here and we’ll be here.” She did not want to scream again, to shake up the still.
On the side were flat leaves, berries the darkest purple.
He picked one and ate it.
“Huckleberries.” He held one out. She did not take it, instead pulling her own free. It was good, sweeter than she thought. She ate a handful, then filled her pockets for Robin.
“Bears like them too.” Hal bent to pick them and she saw he carried the gun, the same one she’d shot with.
She took a breath. “You didn’t come back.”
He stopped then, straightened up and turned to her.
“You didn’t come back. You knew my mother. You knew what she was like and what life might’ve been like for us. You knew she could barely look out for herself. You’re bigger than me. You’re tall and tough and we needed—”
She broke off, fiddled with her bow, kept her voice even because she would not show him how deep the pain ran.
“So when you point it out, all this beauty, all this that you see and you think I see too. You should know it pales beside what I saw before. This purple—” She waved a hand at the huckleberries beside. “This makes me think of her ribs, beat dark like that. The blue water, that’s her eyes, clear enough to see there’s no soul behind them anymore. You breathe the air and you think it’s fresh, but I can’t even take a breath without feeling that stab.” She beat her chest hard. “I am alone. I will look after my brother and you will leave us because you don’t really care. And you can say what you like, what you think will make me feel better. But fuck you, Hal. Fuck Montana, and the acres and the animals and the …” Her voice shook so she stopped it there.
The moment stretched between them and out over the pines. It swept the sky and the clouds, buried the promise of new so totally. It reduced them to the nothing they were, so small against a backdrop endless in its beauty. He held his cigar but did not smoke, held the berries but did not eat them. She hoped to God she had shattered all the certainty he saw for them.
She turned and closed her eyes tight to the tears, forcing them back. She would not cry.
20
WALK FELT THE GRACE SLIP from
