The River Widow(76)

Adah knew nothing any longer, even who she was. She had traveled from one road to another in only an hour’s time. During all the years she had lived on her own, wandering around and setting up camp, then leaving and starting again, she had never felt lost. As long as a road led out of town or a river ran close by, she’d always had an exit. This feeling was entirely new to her. Running up against a wall she couldn’t climb or a river she couldn’t cross or a place she couldn’t escape was unthinkable. Giving up was something she’d never imagined doing, ever. But it was time. She had come to the edge, to the limit of her abilities.

That night, she had to put on the bravest face possible and not look like the cornered and defeated animal she was. If the Branches knew she’d figured out their scheme and she wasn’t going to act on her plan, they might go ahead and stage another accident and take their chances it would pass muster again. One thing was certain: had she gone through with it, she would have been caught. They had set her up and were onto her. And Adah’s imprisonment would only worsen Daisy’s chances of a happy life. If Adah stayed around and free, then perhaps she could still exert a positive influence on the girl, even from afar.

She donned a confident mask as she got through the evening, suffering through a near-silent supper, the only conversation centering around the details of Jesse and Esther’s wedding, which would be held just after harvest.

Only a few questions remained in Adah’s mind: Was Esther in on the plan, or was she an accidental partner who had worked to their advantage? Adah hadn’t completely confided her kidnapping plan to Esther. But it had been insinuated. Was that one of Esther’s purposes, to get Adah to talk? And had she told the Branches? Had she given them reason to believe their plan was working to perfection?

And yet Esther had also sent Adah to Kate Johnson for letters that Adah was sure the Branches weren’t aware of and wouldn’t want her to have. Was Esther a participant in the Branch plan who decided to give Adah a bit of what she, too, had wanted, or was she simply another innocent pawn the Branches were playing?

Her second big question: How much did Drucker know? Had his threats been empty all along and his taunting of her meant simply to scare her and spur her into enacting a hasty plan of kidnapping and escape? There had to be a reason he’d never arrested her. Maybe he was supposed to be a key player in catching her had she gone through with her kidnapping plan. How many police and sheriff’s officers might have been on the lookout for them had she tried to get away with Daisy?

All along, the odds had been stacked against her; all along, she’d been fighting a losing battle.

That night, she took Daisy to bed with her on the back porch again, and while the little girl slept, Adah stroked her hair and her back and stared into the darkness. She remembered sunny days riding the rails, trees shimmering in the wind, slow-moving waters, and nights made of stars. But tonight everything seemed black.

Ever since the flood, her mind had been functioning in protective mode. Although she had killed, and been trapped at the Branches’, there had been a deeper river of thought underneath that told her things would turn out right. She had secretly believed in a simple solution and had envisioned it as a gift coming to her unexpectedly. How else could she have muddled through all the aching loneliness and uncertainty? She had been bested, and by the worst people. What ending to the story could she see now?

She was still lost in a lightless canyon, so deep she could imagine stars falling in as the night lengthened. She was still down there in the dark, and yet a tiny white light appeared.

The next day, she found Jack in the barn grooming the horses he so loved.

He looked freshly bathed and shaved; he wore clean clothes, and his hair was combed and pomaded, as if he had been expecting her. When he glanced up, an immediate smile broadened his face.

But his expression fell as he took a closer look at her. “What has happened?”

“Could we go for a ride?”

He said, “Sure,” but first came forward and took her in his arms. “I have the dynamite, in case that’s what’s worrying you. And it’s not traceable to either of us.”

Fighting tears, she held him, too, but then gently pushed herself away, for the moment. She was not ready to give it words yet.

And so she and Jack saddled the horses and took the same ride into the woods they had before, on that day that seemed so long ago. Surrounded by dappled sunlight again, they dismounted and stood facing each other, a strange silence there, as if even the insects were stilling their wings and the squirrels were ceasing to breathe.

In that quiet and beautiful place, Adah managed to relay the horrific story of what she had uncovered and come to realize; all the while Jack watched her reveal emotions she’d had to contain until now. Beyond tears, she told him she would be leaving the Branch house as soon as she could.

“Where will you go?” he asked, and she detected only the slightest hint of hope in his eyes.

A quickening throb—a need she’d never known—came from the ground, up through her body, and out of her pores. Once, Adah had protected herself against vulnerability at all costs, but now she was like a newborn entering the world, opening its eyes and breathing for the first time. She faced him squarely. “You once asked me to marry you, Jack,” she whispered, breathing shallowly.

She’d been thinking of nothing else. Over the past night, she had been reminded of how small each human life was. How short their frenzied fight to survive. Over in a single blink of time, their existences as insignificant as particles of dust. And how foolish not to take any chance at happiness, to hold on and believe that everything they needed was right here.