The River Widow(81)

Mabel stood petrified, and Adah feared for one moment that the standoff would last too long. She couldn’t really shoot Mabel, but Mabel had to believe Adah’s threats—all of them.

After what seemed like interminable seconds, Mabel licked her lips like a madwoman but then moved aside, just as Adah had told her to. Mabel truly cared more about appearances than reality and much more about those things than her granddaughter. She would make sure the men did what she wanted.

“Thank you, Mabel,” Adah managed to say. She replaced the safeties, put the gun back into her bag, lifted Daisy, and headed for the door. Flung it open and took one look toward the barn, where in a flash of lightning and the glow from the fire, she could see Buck and Jesse pulling animals out of the barn in a frenzy. They would never notice a fleeting shadow on a night like this one. The darkness between bolts in the sky was as impenetrable as the depths of the river.

Her back turned, she started walking, then moving as fast as she could while carrying Daisy. She half-ran down the front-porch steps, then sprinted across the drive and onto the grass. She left behind the light cast by the house and the burning barn, then headed out and away and onto the road, keeping up the pace while kicking up gravel behind her. The storm snatched away all of their sounds. And then she realized that instead of running away in the midst of a deluge, and despite lightning still spidering across the sky and tiptoeing across the land, not one drop of rain had fallen.

Adah eventually had to stop running and settled into a brisk walk, still breathing raggedly, heavily. For the first hour or so, she worried that the Branches would come after her despite the barn fire and her threats to Mabel. What if Mabel had changed her mind after she let Adah leave?

There was commotion all around. Many people were out on the roads, either driving away from danger or going to help others. A car stopped and Adah saw Florence Wainwright and a young man who must’ve been her son inside. They told her they hadn’t been hit and were driving to check on friends nearby. They had appeared before Adah as if by another gift from God.

Florence made no comment about Adah’s and Daisy’s attire—pajamas and nightgown hanging out from under their clothes—or the bag Adah carried, and when Adah asked for a ride to the docks, neither Florence nor her son asked one question. As Adah and Daisy hopped into the car and they drove away, Adah couldn’t help turning around in the seat to look for Buck’s car or the pickup truck, but the road behind them was empty.

It was clear to anyone who saw her what Adah was doing. How fortunate that she and Florence had met at the funeral and had understood each other perfectly.

Then a squad car was coming at them from the opposite direction, lights flashing, sirens howling, and Adah stopped breathing. It was all over now. When the headlights of Florence’s car lit the figure inside the oncoming vehicle, it was just a black silhouette, but as the car passed by, Adah recognized Manfred Drucker through the driver’s side window. His hands were clenching the steering wheel, his body leaning forward as if he could power the automobile with the strength of his determination.

A huge swell of nausea made her eyes water as she waited for Drucker to turn around. If she’d seen him, he could’ve seen her. She would be caught and trapped. But Drucker simply kept driving. He was probably headed out to check on his old friend Buck Branch, who was fighting a fire and whose inattention had allowed Adah and Daisy to escape.

The rest of the way, Adah could scarcely believe it. They were going to get away.

Florence spoke only once more, when Adah and Daisy stepped out at the docks, saying simply, “Good luck.”

Flooded with elation, Adah searched the dockside. Even if the Branches decided to come after her, they would look at the train station or the bus station in the morning. They’d never know that Jack had given her this escape plan instead. After she had bribed her way on board a loaded barge heading out at dawn, exhilaration poured through her. She had outfoxed them. In the end, aided by a big dose of Lady Luck, she had bested the Branches.

On board and safe, her only regret: Jack. The man who had appeared before her, cracked her shields, and stepped inside . . .

Oh God. She did not mean to think of him.





Epilogue

At the train station the next day and on the other side of the river, the man in the ticket booth asked Adah where she and her daughter were heading.

“West,” Adah answered. “Any train heading west.”

On board a fast train an hour later, Adah held still. She had never been this far west; each new step was into uncharted territory, one step farther from the past. More clapboard houses, more farms—some dirt poor—more small towns, each with its own flavor. One sign read, “Josephine’s Chicken, Best in Country.” Work lines, food lines, and power lines. Copses of trees. Deserted factories. Dogs, mules, and cats. A man cranking the engine of a very old truck to life. Another man on a bicycle. A church steeple. Stained glass. Then stretches of seemingly empty land.

The clacking rhythm of the train broke thoughts free from her brain, and Adah relived the moment when she’d turned the third tarot card the previous night. The first two cards had not been very revealing, but the third and most important one had been the six of swords, which showed a woman and a young child being rowed across a body of water toward land. The woman’s head was covered, implying her sadness, but she was moving away, toward a place of peace and tranquility. The woman was leaving, going somewhere distant and new, into a different life, a child with her.