Epilogues

Epilogue #2

Without Vic

A one-shot, Warning: Downer, NO HEA. "It's a Wonderful Life" without redemption, what might have happened had Vic not come into Walt's life. I can't make this sort of premise too long, I am an HEA person at heart. (WIC rules!)

He had quietly retired near the end of his term, better that than lose the next election. The folks of Durant had been forgiving just after Martha had died, but he knew that after a while, he had worn on them. Branch Connally was the new sheriff. Not that the new sheriff would call up either he or Lucian to ask questions, he would just brazen it out, sometimes to near-catastrophic consequences. Branch had even dated Cady for a while, and he'd never even suspected.

Lucian of course, could not keep quiet on the subject over a round of Pappy Van Winkles. Whether it was familial fondness or a general hatred for anything to do with his brother Barlow, was another question.

"Young turd should have left your daughter alone, and is going to get himself killed."

Walt pressed his lips together and shook his head. "Might, at that."

"Didn't you teach him anything?"

"Before Martha died, sure. It was just bad timing all around."

Lucian paused, lips thinned. "I get that. You were never the same after, Walt."

He shook his head in agreement. Still wasn't. Guilt over Branch, it joined the guilt for keeping secrets from Cady, for just bowing out and letting them—whoever they were, that Martha had been battling, win. The casino had been built, and the townspeople would tell him that their little town was becoming more like Sodom and Gomorrah every day.

Ruby had quit as soon as Branch was elected. She didn't say much, but she still called Walt every few days, making up excuses in hopes he would follow up with Ferg, and not abandon the younger man to Branch's authority. He was pretty sure she knew it was a feeble hope.

"I left a casserole at the station for you." It was a ploy for him to visit the station. He knew she meant well, and that she was just checking in. He thought she'd probably quietly grieve if he just walked up into the hills and never came back, or turned his Colt 1911 on himself, so she sweetly pestered him in an attempt to prevent anything like that from happening.

Henry would not give up on him, but had pulled back somewhat since he'd tried to punch his lifelong friend one day after a pithy comment, but missed. A first.

"Forty years and suddenly we are not friends." Walt had not tried to correct him.

No, he was not the same. He had lost on all counts. He no longer knew what was going on in his county, because it was no longer 'his' county, and besides, he didn't care.

Dating had been a joke. He'd been on a couple of dates, one with that Ambrose woman who had the large property on the creek. She had pursued him for a while, and it was flattering in a way, but he just wasn't interested. It was particularly difficult, because with women, he no longer had conversation. He could quote from the classics, but he didn't an acquaintance with popular culture, anymore. Even the idea of small talk, much less intimacy or sex, was almost as esoteric as the notion of a relationship with any of them.

He'd almost bought a new TV and cable in retirement, to numb his mind with banality, but he just couldn't. The static would chew him up, and it would just make him sadder, and then he might someday disappoint Ruby, and he didn't want to do that.

He wasn't interested in much, anymore. The infrequent murder cases were not enough to tempt him to offer, and Branch didn't ask. Ruby had leaked the reality of the consequences of his abdication to him.

"I had to empty a drawer of old files to put in the mounting Cold Case ones. We used to just have a couple of dozen, and before I left, we had maybe fifty. Probably more, now." Nevertheless, it was no longer his problem. Let the voters change the sheriff in the next election if Branch wasn't capable of doing the job.

The cabin was crumbling away, just like him. He was getting a belly not unlike the sagging porch, he would go inside during sunsets, and did nothing to the property to keep it up. He had sold the horses, they were too much work. He had considered calling Jamie and trying some of his newer product, but even that seemed like too much work.

Where once he had a full back porch of wood for the winter, there were barely a few cords left. His power bill for the propane had surged the last winter, but it really didn't matter. With the mortgage paid off after the law-school loans, he had enough from his pension to buy beer, Bee and Pony money, the occasional tank of gasoline and for the extra propane.

Cady had moved to Philadelphia. Even she had given up on him.

"Dad, I just can't stand by and watch you disintegrate from the man you were for mom, and the dad you were for me." She was crying. He hated to make her cry.

With the world giving up on him, he figured it was just a matter of time before one day, he would just give up on the world.

So he unscrewed the top from a fresh Rainier, and pondered the meadow in front of the cabin. Soon it would be time to go in and prevent another sunset from filling his memory, and it would be time to finish the six-pack he had in the fridge while reading Rainer Maria Rilke poetry. Anybody with the name Rainer must be awesome, it was almost like his beer, but the man seemed sad, like he was. Rilke said things like:

Who has not sat before his own heart's curtain? It lifts: and the scenery is falling apart.

I want to be with those who know secret things or else alone.

The purpose of life is to be defeated by greater and greater things.

It seemed like Herr Rilke had known of his life before he lived it.

He took another, longer, sip of beer.

He wondered how many beers it would take to give up on the world.