Here's another one! Just in case it seems like I'm purposely torturing these characters and the readers, a little reminder . . . I'm following the series with this story and trying to insert some of the satisfaction we all would have liked as well as a few explanations here and there for some of the events and behaviors we all found baffling.
So if it's resolution you're looking for, this chapter ain't it.
I doubt I'll be able to finish this story before Season 6, but as always happens at this time of year, I'll try!
Again, there are probably errors since it was a little bit of a rush job this time.
Thank you for reading and commenting and PMing! It means a lot, really. : )
Chapter 11
She's been asleep maybe four hours when her phone vibrates on the nightstand. Deep as she is, she's aware enough. A sinkhole opens up inside her.
The second buzz jolts her awake to blinding white sunlight spraying like a firehose through the cracks in the blinds.
He's dead, she thinks. Or he's on his way to the tri-county lock-up, which is as good as dead.
She grabs the phone and rolls onto her back, holding it, surprisingly cold, against her chest and staring up at the ceiling. It buzzes again.
"No," she says. "Stop."
It does.
She makes herself look at it: Missed call ASD. The sinkhole expands.
The phone vibrates again, startling her, the screen lighting up with the picture she took more than a year ago now of Walt out front, arms crossed and the sheriff's star on the door behind his left shoulder, like one of those life-sized wood carvings of an Indian, or a bear, welcoming and intimidating all at once.
She touches the green button, but she doesn't put the phone to her ear, and she doesn't speak.
From far away she hears a tinny voice saying her name. It isn't him, but she wouldn't expect it to be, what with him being dead and all. The voice says her name again. It's Ferg she's pretty sure, and he might sound stressed, though tone is difficult to evaluate from this distance. When he says her name a third time, it's with a question mark at the end, and maybe some irritation.
Her hand is shaking, so she hits speaker and drops the phone next to her. She doesn't want to look at it.
"What?" she says.
"Vic?"
"Yes, Ferg, it's Vic. You called me."
"The Sheriff asked me to give you a call," he says. In under ten words she's put him on the defensive.
"When?" she says.
"When what?"
"When did he ask you to give me a call?"
"Uh . . .," he says, wavering as though he's unsure how much snark to add, "about two minutes ago."
Or as though he's under observation. She imagines him standing outside the cell, taking orders from the inmate.
"Hold on," he says.
"Whatever," she says, but it's too late; he doesn't hear her.
Before she has time to realize what's happening, Walt's on the phone.
"Vic," he says at a volume and with an attitude he generally reserves for calling out to her from across the office.
So he's not dead after all, but the sound of his voice doesn't have the usual warming, melting effect on her. It sounds cold and hollow and foreign. It sickens her.
"What's up?" she says.
"I need you down here now."
"Excuse me?" she says. She lets that hang there for a few seconds. "It's my day off. I have plans."
"I'm not asking."
A flair of anger scorches through her. She sits up and glares at the phone.
"Oh really?" she says. "Then in that case, fuck you."
There's a scratching sound, probably him massaging his stubble.
It's possible she just made a huge blunder career-wise, but this, right here, is her limit. More than anything, and she hates it all, she resents the hell out of him getting all bossy after neglecting to lead for months. Besides, she's been holding on by a thread for too long now; she'd just as soon have it break.
She pictures him standing behind his desk, shifting his weight, leaning down on the surface, supporting himself with a fist.
There's some rustling, and a muffled, "Give me a minute would you, Ferg."
After a delay and the sound of the door closing, he says, "Vic," much quieter, with a tenderness she isn't expecting. "Vic, I'm sorry."
"Fine," she says. "That's fine. But I need a day to process everything." Like the fact that you're a killer, and a hypocrite, and alive.
"I want to give you that day, Vic. I really do. But we have a situation."
"What situation?"
He exhales slowly and deliberately, like he's buying time. Far beyond the point where there could be any remaining air, he says, "It's Branch."
/
They're down at the river all day. For hours they're together physically, she and Ferg and Walt, wading and kneeling in the icy run-off, collecting evidence then waiting for the coroner. Somehow she manages to erect a temporary wall around her heart. To get through this she has to.
Early on she suggests they call in another agency. Walt seems to hear her, seems to be mulling it over, but nothing comes of it, and she's too drained to insist.
Around midday, away from Walt under blinding spring sun, Ferg says, "Branch wasn't the type of guy to do this." His eyes are almost pleading. "Was he?"
He'd become that guy, she thinks. He was screaming for help, trying to tell anyone who'd listen that he'd become that guy, and she heard him and did nothing about it, except maybe make it worse.
"I guess he was," she says, her eyes on Walt kneeling in the stream next to the body.
Ferg shakes his head and looks around him then leans in. "Someone could've done this to him."
She squints at him. "Who?" she says. "Who would want to kill Branch? Ridges is dead."
The rest of the day the three of them exchange words here and there, all civil and professional and cooperative, but mentally, emotionally, they're isolated from each other.
At no point does she think again about last night. Not until the coroner leaves, and Ferg goes back to the station to begin the mountains of paperwork, and Walt heads home to change his wet clothes before visiting Barlow, does it even cross her mind.
When dusk comes, though, so do the thoughts and feelings she's been keeping at bay.
She picks up a six pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon, fully intending to take it home and drink it in a dangerously hot bath. Instead, she finds herself on the river road, thinking about Branch all alone out there in the cold, cold ever-moving water, and about Walt's thwarted attempt on Nighthorse's life.
The two nightmares intermingle in her mind: how Branch tried to tell her, in his own Branch way, that he felt so alone, and desperate, and unloved, and how she wasn't enough to make Walt not want to throw his life away.
She couldn't hear Branch because all she cared about was finding the right balance of doing and saying to get Walt to reconnect with her, and all that was for a man whose loyalty and commitment would forever lie elsewhere. She knew Branch was right, and she understood by that last time they were together, him in the cell and her on the outside treating him with disdain, that he needed help and understanding. He deserved that from her, yet she put all her time and energy into someone who would never have room in his cold heart for her.
It was all about playing it cool, passing it off like she was okay with him being the decider and telling her point-blank it was over, like she was one of those cool women who doesn't expect too much, lets the guy be a guy.
Fuck that shit.
Now Branch is lying on metal slab in a drawer in the county morgue, and the idea of Walt is tainted permanently by what he would have done. What did being the cool chick get her? She's not cool with any of it, and if she'd been more honest with everyone, Branch would still be the living, breathing arrogant dickhead that he was.
She's up in her head, once again not paying attention to what's right in front of her, when she sees too late the black form of what looks like a giant rat crossing the road. She slams on the brakes. Thump-thump.
Her heart hiccups.
"No!" she yells.
She jumps out and runs to the back of the truck, and there it is: a young possum, his whole life ahead of him, struck down by her selfishness and lack of foresight. She squats beside it. There's no blood. It could be sleeping peacefully, a world away from how Branch looked with half his beautiful face gone and a massive hole in the back of his head.
When the tears come this time, she has no control.
For a long time, she's doubled over in the middle of the dark road sobbing, not concerned about who might come down the highway next or about where she's headed. She just cries and cries and cries, mostly for the tragedy that was Branch Connally, but also for the tragedy that is Walt Longmire, and a little too for the tragedy that is Victoria Moretti.
More than anything now, she wants to get the hell out of this remote and lonely world, forget about all the backwoods drama, and start over somewhere else.
She pulls the snow shovel from the winter bin and scoops the possum up and into the bed of the truck. When she gets back in the cab, she reaches over and grabs one of the cans, puts it between her legs and pops the top. Before she starts driving again, she takes a long drink. She knows exactly what she's doing.
On the river bank she builds a fire, a skill she didn't have or need five years ago.
Time crawls, forcing her to experience every second. By the third beer, she's run out of tears.
Just as she's popping open the fifth, headlights illuminate the trees on the other side of the river. She doesn't turn to see who it is. She knows the sound of the engine.
The minutes drag again between the time the engine stops and his boots crunch across the riverbank gravel to her. She doesn't stand up or look at him.
"What're you doing?" he says, very matter-of-fact, like finding her on a riverbank at midnight drinking a beer and sitting next to a dead possum and four empties is totally normal.
"Nothing," she says.
"Got another one of those?" he says.
She nods her head sideways towards the last one, lying right next to the possum's belly.
He bends to pick it up, and only then notices her companion.
"What's this?" he says.
She's tired of his questions already.
"My friend," she says. "I murdered him."
Out of the corner of her eye she sees him scratch the back of his head and smooth down his hair. She wonders where the stupid hat is.
"Did you kill him?" she says.
"Who?" He's playing dumb. "Branch?"
"No." She looks directly at him for the first time. "What the fuck? Why would you say that? Did you?"
"No," he says, with a hint of growl in his voice. "What's this about?"
"You know what this is about," she says.
He rubs his forehead then the back of his neck, shifts his weight.
"I was there, Walt."
"Nothing happened."
"Because Henry stopped you," she says.
He stares down at her.
"You would have killed him."
She wants him to deny it so she can really lose her shit, but he doesn't.
"I would have . . . ," she starts, but stops before the words loved you escape.
My love could have healed you, she thinks, but she knows it isn't true. All evidence indicates she's not ready for that kind of love, though she has to believe someday she will be. But what difference does it make now?
"Would have what?" he says as though he's truly interested, as though there's actually something she could say that would make him see it all differently.
"Nothing. Never mind."
"She was my wife, Vic."
"I understand," she says, but she doesn't. She never will.
She begins to get up, and it's harder than she anticipates. He reaches out, takes her arm gently. She pulls it away, loses her balance, almost falls. It only makes her angrier.
Surging forward and pushing him, she yells, "Don't touch me!"
It has no discernable effect on him, except maybe to make him look even more confused.
"I never should have," he says. "I made a big mistake, with you and with Branch. Ferg, too. I should have been a better leader."
"Oh, please," she says.
"I should have led by the book," he says. "If I'd just done that—"
"—Branch would still be here."
He shrugs.
"You're making his death about you," she says.
"Isn't that what you're doing?"
She wraps her arms tight around herself, aware suddenly that the warmth from the beer buzz is wearing off.
"Maybe it is," she says.
"Maybe that's just how we are."
