Jane Arnes thought she saw him in a crowd during a protest in DC. She handed her eighteen month old son to her husband and worked across the current of the sweltering march to a line of metal barricades wrapped with bright pink tape. The row of armored police officers on the other side almost didn't notice her as she stopped and spun a circle. You have to stop doing that, he told her when she returned and took the boy from his arms. What? Don’t what me; you thought you saw him again. It may have been, she said, wiping the sweat from her face with her T-shirt, I couldn’t find whoever I thought I saw. Jane. What? Can we get back in with everyone? He urged her alongside him with a push to her lower back and they were in step once more, the chanting mass consuming them as they caught their first glimpse of the monument glinting in the white-blue sky above the heat blurred city. He’s gone, Jane. What? are you still talking about it? It’s been two years, babe. She smirked her best attempt at a denial. He just stared her. This isn’t the time or the place, she said. Yes, Jane, yes, it is; it’s the perfect time and place; he’s gone and you need to let him go. You don’t tell me what I need to do. For several blocks, they were not the picture of engaged activists. Kyle had lost Hatchet’s photograph in the move. At least Jane was convinced he was responsible for the disappearance. It had made so many other moves over the last couple of years. Guests in most of her homes had asked about it but she could never bring herself to tell them. She told them she had no clue. She could never explain it to anyone until Kyle came into her life. He reminded her of him in so many ways and in so many ways they were exact opposites. She realized she had fallen in love with him during an argument, the kind of argument she might have had with Hatchet. She discovered her pregnancy during one of their separations and she forced him to fly-in to break the news. They had been in DC a year and since the photograph’s disappearance, she saw Marcus in malls and movie theaters and grocery stores. Kyle had been understanding until now. I’m sorry, Kyle, she finally said. She kissed the boy on the head and smoothed his hair then she kissed her husband. I will let go of him but I might still miss him for a while. That’s fine; there are people I know I’ll miss forever, babe.
Two weeks following the incident that killed Clancey and ruined the posthumous lives of Brody Lassiter and Timothy Allen Teague, Marcus Hatchet sat in his truck listening to a radio report on many of Teague's treasures inventoried by the authorities. Sculptures returned to the Louvre. Ancient carvings shipped back to their native Cairo. Paintings reclaimed by the Estate of Van Gogh. As the cool voice of the reporter recounted the story of Teague's bizarre life and crimes, Hatchet handled the Faberge Egg and admired the Chisos Mountains in the golden wash of the Chihuahua afternoon, his belly full of rice and beans and coffee. He wondered if he would ever find a way to liquidate this object that had changed so many lives then he wondered if it mattered anymore.
He returned the ovoid to the bubble wrap and tucked it into the pouch beneath the truck seat near the cash then he removed his boots and jeans and donned his shorts and stretched his legs, preparing them for the long run he had mapped earlier in the morning. Unseasonal storms boiled in the southern skies over Mexico and threatened the border with ube and white flames burning the peaks of distant Mexican mountains. He set out across the vicious and succulent plane of earth sagging between Chilicotal and the defiant Elephant Tusk stabbing the crystal sky with its barren blade. Moist gloom furled along the great worm shapes deeper in the valley. As he ran, he tracked the pinpoints of light that were actually RVs sailing down the park highway to the camp grounds at Rio Grande Village, their shapes no bigger than stars in the night sky. Hatchet ran the mogul troughs in the uneasy blanket of blades and boulders below Nugent Peak then turned back south in hopes of climbing the less than 4,000 feet between him and Chilicotal's pinnacle before dusk forced him into camp where he would read Robert Stone by flashlight in the bed of his truck, attempting to ignore the dazzling flexing spiral arm of the galaxy on full display above him. As he reached the scarred cliffs falling away to the blond lands below, he broke into a sprint for the peak and reached it in time to witness two humpbacked thunderstorms in electric battle over the Rio Grande, their weapons blasting across each other with serrated fingers and knuckles of pure energy.
He heaved in exhaustion as his heart pounded his trunk with joyful expenditure. He smiled at the tender cycle of pain in the balls of his feet. The scent of rain found him as he turned on the spine and readied himself for the descent, his eyes wandering across the silhouette of El Capitan in the heart of the Chisos and he pumped his legs and noodled his arms from shoulder to wrist and then the left side of his gut spilled across the black dusty stones, dark and foul, and he fell to his knees. He failed to find breath and slumped sideways into the flotsam-splattered grass and he heard the report of the rifle shot that had struck him careening across the valley through the dry wavelengths of desert air, sounding not unlike the cougar who had once sought to feed on him in this very spot. A failed attempt to breathe again made him wonder if he might die of asphyxiation before he could bleed out but his one lung finally opened and several units of air passed through the bubbling clotting mess in his chest to fill it. As he rolled to his back and strained to feel the wound and found only fluid and the craggy tips of shattered ribs, he braced for a pain that never materialized, his only sensation a frigid buzzing rippling through his anatomy.
The bitter euphoria engulfed him as if falling from the sky, as if dipped into a coursing river, a reversal of gravity. He fought for more air but none came. He fought his eyes open against the tonnage of their weakness. Random memories perforated his thoughts, breaking his vision, Jane's eyes, Dexter's smile, his father's hand, the orange street lamp behind the house. He hacked away at these recollections for a glimpse of Olivia, just a glimpse, please just one last glimpse... He saw the vultures weaving their hopeful helix through the natural grace of the graying distance above him and he begged them in a whisper, Please don't let anyone find my body.
Two weeks following the incident that killed Clancey and ruined the posthumous lives of Brody Lassiter and Timothy Allen Teague, Marcus Hatchet sat in his truck listening to a radio report on many of Teague's treasures inventoried by the authorities. Sculptures returned to the Louvre. Ancient carvings shipped back to their native Cairo. Paintings reclaimed by the Estate of Van Gogh. As the cool voice of the reporter recounted the story of Teague's bizarre life and crimes, Hatchet handled the Faberge Egg and admired the Chisos Mountains in the golden wash of the Chihuahua afternoon, his belly full of rice and beans and coffee. He wondered if he would ever find a way to liquidate this object that had changed so many lives then he wondered if it mattered anymore.
He returned the ovoid to the bubble wrap and tucked it into the pouch beneath the truck seat near the cash then he removed his boots and jeans and donned his shorts and stretched his legs, preparing them for the long run he had mapped earlier in the morning. Unseasonal storms boiled in the southern skies over Mexico and threatened the border with ube and white flames burning the peaks of distant Mexican mountains. He set out across the vicious and succulent plane of earth sagging between Chilicotal and the defiant Elephant Tusk stabbing the crystal sky with its barren blade. Moist gloom furled along the great worm shapes deeper in the valley. As he ran, he tracked the pinpoints of light that were actually RVs sailing down the park highway to the camp grounds at Rio Grande Village, their shapes no bigger than stars in the night sky. Hatchet ran the mogul troughs in the uneasy blanket of blades and boulders below Nugent Peak then turned back south in hopes of climbing the less than 4,000 feet between him and Chilicotal's pinnacle before dusk forced him into camp where he would read Robert Stone by flashlight in the bed of his truck, attempting to ignore the dazzling flexing spiral arm of the galaxy on full display above him. As he reached the scarred cliffs falling away to the blond lands below, he broke into a sprint for the peak and reached it in time to witness two humpbacked thunderstorms in electric battle over the Rio Grande, their weapons blasting across each other with serrated fingers and knuckles of pure energy.
He heaved in exhaustion as his heart pounded his trunk with joyful expenditure. He smiled at the tender cycle of pain in the balls of his feet. The scent of rain found him as he turned on the spine and readied himself for the descent, his eyes wandering across the silhouette of El Capitan in the heart of the Chisos and he pumped his legs and noodled his arms from shoulder to wrist and then the left side of his gut spilled across the black dusty stones, dark and foul, and he fell to his knees. He failed to find breath and slumped sideways into the flotsam-splattered grass and he heard the report of the rifle shot that had struck him careening across the valley through the dry wavelengths of desert air, sounding not unlike the cougar who had once sought to feed on him in this very spot. A failed attempt to breathe again made him wonder if he might die of asphyxiation before he could bleed out but his one lung finally opened and several units of air passed through the bubbling clotting mess in his chest to fill it. As he rolled to his back and strained to feel the wound and found only fluid and the craggy tips of shattered ribs, he braced for a pain that never materialized, his only sensation a frigid buzzing rippling through his anatomy.
The bitter euphoria engulfed him as if falling from the sky, as if dipped into a coursing river, a reversal of gravity. He fought for more air but none came. He fought his eyes open against the tonnage of their weakness. Random memories perforated his thoughts, breaking his vision, Jane's eyes, Dexter's smile, his father's hand, the orange street lamp behind the house. He hacked away at these recollections for a glimpse of Olivia, just a glimpse, please just one last glimpse... He saw the vultures weaving their hopeful helix through the natural grace of the graying distance above him and he begged them in a whisper, Please don't let anyone find my body.
Edit 1.8.2019