The River Widow(79)
Daisy was crankier than she’d ever been before. It was as if she knew her life was about to change drastically. Adah had a hard time getting her to sleep, but finally the girl succumbed to Adah’s comforting touch.
With Daisy sleeping soundly, the night came alive with sounds. Adah could hear the walls settling and insects outside, the howl of a dog far away, the wail of wind that had started to pick up. At the window, she saw that an anvil-shaped thundercloud had blossomed to life in the distance, illuminated by moonlight.
Sleep would be near impossible, and she planned to watch the clock until the relief of morning. It seemed as if time had slowed, and her heart broke with each passing hour. She believed in the power of love. It was the only faith Adah could profess with certainty. However, as each moment drew out, she could feel the girl slipping through her fingers like fine sand sifting to the ground. How long would it be before Adah saw her again?
Her body nearly gave way as she pulled the needlepoint bag out from under the bed and packed it with the things she had been mentally planning to take with her: all the money from Lester’s cash box that she’d hidden beneath the mattress, the clothes she’d been given, the gun Jack had given her, and lastly the deck of tarot cards he’d also given her.
Holding the deck in her right hand, she paused and drew a breath. An urge came over her, and she looked down at the cards. Never had she done a reading on herself. Adah passed the deck into her other hand and then back again. Struck with certainty and curiosity, she removed the rubber band that held the cards together and then shuffled once, twice, three times. Then cut twice with her left hand, gathered the cards back together, and turned three cards over, faceup.
She stared with wide-open eyes, then studied the cards again to be certain she was seeing straight.
It was not what she’d expected.
Thunder roared out of the sky and shook the house. Adah looked at Daisy and found her still asleep. Once Daisy fell into slumber, only a bad dream could usually awaken her before morning, and Adah was grateful for that as she heard another huge rumble of thunder, even closer and louder.
She went to the window and pulled the curtain aside. Lightning was brightening the sky in bursts and sprinting across the black expanse, touching the ground like some spidery creature dancing a jig with its white-hot legs. It was beautiful, a display of the power of nature, more dramatic than a fireworks show.
She left the window, lay down next to Daisy, and tried to close her eyes.
There was a moment of pure silence, in which she heard the thumping of her heart.
Then a monumental cracking noise came from outside, as though the sky had broken in two. Adah jumped up, returned to the window, and saw in the distance, perhaps a farm or two over, that a structure was burning. It must have been struck by lightning.
With those cracks of electricity still illuminating the landscape in eerie silver-blue light, she could see the top of that faraway structure releasing a burst of fizzles. And then even farther away, a plume of smoke. This was an electrical storm like no other; it was striking nearby buildings, and it raised all the tiny hairs on Adah’s arms.
Then a boom and a crack that actually did move the house, as though it had come from the earth and not the sky. Now the dogs were wildly barking. Several minutes passed with only the sounds of the storm and the dogs before she heard footsteps on the wood-plank flooring in the house, and then Buck’s voice. A band of light stretched beneath the door; the hallway fixture had been turned on.
She thought she heard him say, “The barn’s hit.”
As if by miracle, Daisy was yet still sleeping through it all. Wearing only her nightgown, Adah went to the bedroom door, flung it open, and took a step out. Jesse was already flying down the steps like a man running for his life, and Buck was hitching up his pants.
He took quick note of Adah and commanded, “The barn’s afire. Throw something on and come help.” Adah nodded and watched Buck lumber down the steps. He darted a panicked glance back at her as he reached the bottom of the stairwell. “What you standing there for? Go on and git yourself decent. We need your help.”
Buck disappeared out the front door, and then something new reached in and grabbed hold of Adah’s heart with a trembling fist. Instead of following Buck’s orders, she ran to the window in the hallway that looked out over the farm’s outbuildings and saw what Buck had seen. The roof of the livestock barn was afire. Licks of molten light glowed brighter as the wind blew in bursts to spread the flames.
As the calamitous scene played out before her, a spark went off in her head. It was a distraction, not unlike what Adah had planned for her escape. Here Mother Nature herself had taken matters into her own hands and had chosen the livestock barn instead, causing the diversion she’d desperately sought. Buck and Jesse would be frantic to save the livestock, especially the horses. They also kept hogs and chickens and a couple of goats. Not to mention that the fire could spread to the house or other outbuildings. They would be completely caught up, as would everyone around, including the police.
An act of God’s, not hers. Was this the easy solution she’d once envisioned? Was this the gift she’d imagined coming toward her? Did life really answer our prayers, only not in the ways we expected?
Thunder boomed again, and fiery light once more exploded in the sky, this time like a flower with narrow electrical petals. For a moment, everything in the landscape was distorted. Now there were several fires in the distance, and the barn roof was burning right in front of her. Everything amiss, chaos would reign as everyone tried to douse the flames on their stricken and burning structures. All in disarray. Swayed by a wave of vertigo, she reached for the wall to hold herself up.