The River Widow(39)

Adah gulped and looked at the sun-washed land before her, so at odds with the blackness permeating her from within. “Now what am I supposed to do with this information?”

“That’s up to you, but about that letter . . . I wouldn’t send me to town with it.” He leaned closer. “Hear me out, I really want to help you. I don’t know what lawyers to trust; even the one I have in mind is a stranger—just a hunch as to who to approach—and if word got back to Jesse and Buck what you’re up to, no telling what they’d do.”

“Kill me, too?”

“I wouldn’t put it past them. And besides, I know a little bit about the law. If your husband died without a will, then the case goes to probate court. You’ll probably get a percentage of the farm, about 25 percent is what I heard widows usually get, and the court won’t give you custody of Daisy unless you had adopted her or the blood family doesn’t want her. The way I see it, that letter isn’t going to do you a bit of good and might cause you more trouble. You go ahead, and you might be throwing a rope over the barn rafter and preparing your own noose.”

Adah stared blankly ahead. “I never adopted Daisy.”

“That’s what I figured. And so you’d have to prove the Branches aren’t fit to take care of her and you’re better for her. One of the first things they’d ask is if you have a home for her, if you have a job to support her, if you have something to show that the Branches aren’t good to her—all things I’m willing to bet you don’t have.”

“How do you know all of this?”

“I spent more than two decades on the river and on the docks. You learn all sorts of things. Everyone has a story to tell. I just listened and soaked it all in.”

She took a hard look at Jack Darby then. Yes, she could see he was the kind of man who desired knowledge the way that others yearned for success and money. And he was clearly on her side now. She gulped. “So . . . you tell me this horrible information and then expect me to do nothing with it.”

“I didn’t say do nothing.”

“What do you think I should do?”

“Get the hell away from there.”

“Right.”

“I mean it. Walk away and never look back.”

Of course that’s what he would say. It was what anyone would say. But no one else loved Daisy the way Adah did. It was an impossible situation, and now she had Jack Darby to deal with on top of everything else. She had somehow sought out the help of the one man who had seen Lester that fateful day his wife died and could tell her this story. How strange and fragile were the connections that bound people together. The tendons in her neck tightened, and she hauled in a ragged breath. “Funny you tell me about Betsy’s death only after you’d read my letter and knew what I wanted.”

At first, Jack didn’t respond. Finally he said, “I didn’t know you. Now I think I do.”

“I see.”

“I’m worried about you.” He paused, then said, “But it’s still up to you to make this decision. Your call. I just wanted you to have all the information at hand. So . . . what do you want me to do?”

Blood drained from her cheeks as she realized she still had a decision to make. One that was hers and hers alone. Something that could have huge ramifications. “I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

“I’m sure this has come as a shock.” Jack looked at her as if he wished he could take it all away. He was like a geode, hard and scrabbly on the outside, but now she was beginning to see some lovely particles inside. “Did you have any idea?”

She sat statue still as a slow dawning settled over her. “No,” she answered, realizing how ignorant she had been. “People sometimes get thrown from horses. Sometimes people die that way. I had no reason to doubt the story, which was relayed to me briefly and only once, soon after I met Lester. I never mentioned it again, not wanting to bring back sad old memories.”

Jack looked up at her cautiously, and Adah could see the question on his lips. He wanted to ask if Lester had ever hurt her, too. A shiver coursed through her, one so powerful she feared it would show, the way sometimes a horse’s shiver rippled down its flank.

She said, “I have to think about this. Then I’ll come back. Tomorrow,” and she stood up and bounded down the steps.

As she walked away she had to mentally pull herself back into the present day despite carrying a knot of new and terrifying knowledge that had formed in her head and a fiercer and even more terrifying fear in her gut. Over her shoulder she said a quiet “Thank you,” but she was almost sure Jack Darby didn’t hear.

She took one look back just before she turned from the driveway onto the road, and Jack was standing there, as still as the air around him, watching her with wide-open concern as she left his place and went back to hell, alone.

After returning to the farm, she sat on the back stoop with Daisy, staring into the night as if it could give her some answers. A late-afternoon thunderstorm had passed over quickly, during which Adah had had to quickly rescue sheets and clothing on the wash line, but now it was gone, leaving the air so still she could hear Mabel clanking dishes in the kitchen and running water in the sink, snippets of Buck and Jesse’s conversation floating out of open windows—they were discussing tobacco prices and the farm’s ledger—and the building song of grasshoppers. Sounds of ordinary domestic life seemed so far from the story she’d heard today, and Adah doubted herself for a moment. Could Jack Darby’s theory be true?