The Widows

by Jess Montgomery

  He’d smiled gently and said, “With my life.”

  So Lily nodded.

  He pulled off his leather belt and took a flask from his hip pocket. Screwing off the top, he held the flask to Lily’s lips. Lily swallowed moonshine, her first taste of the illicit stuff brewed despite local Prohibition. She sputtered instantly and Daniel gave her a soothing smile. Then he held the strap end of his belt to her mouth and told her to bite down.

  A jostle in the road brings Lily back to the moment and she realizes she had been dozing. She opens her eyes, sees that they’re rounding the corner by the courthouse.

  “You were moaning,” Elias says. “Perhaps Vogel’s Tonic would calm you.”

  “I’m fine,” Lily says.

  * * *

  As Elias eases his Model T off to the side of the road in front of the sheriff’s house, Lily catches the sound of guffaws. There’s Luther, on her front porch, yammering as if he’s standing outside a speakeasy and not a house of mourning for his half brother.

  “Rain’s coming,” Lily says. “You can park in the carriage house.”

  Elias pulls down the narrow lane on the side of the house, stopping by the carriage house. Lily gets out of the automobile, not waiting for her uncle-in-law’s assistance. She can feel his worried stare follow her as she enters the back door to the mudroom. She winces at the sound of the back door—still squeaky. Then she hangs up her coat and hat and enters the kitchen.

  For just a moment, unnoticed, she observes Hildy and Mama talking softly with each other. There’s a certain cheerfulness to their work, their chatter, as they wash dishes, preparing for the funeral supper, and fuss over the children—Jolene, Micah, Caleb Jr.—gathered at the small table. Hildy is more comfortable with Mama than Lily ever has been.

  “Lily,” Mama says, noticing her, “you look terrible! You should rest. You should—”

  “I’m fine.”

  Mama lifts an eyebrow. “Callers will come soon to pay their respects, and you should—”

  “What I should have done is insist on no callers,” Lily says.

  “Daniel’s loss isn’t yours alone,” Mama says. “And this house isn’t yours alone, either. Soon enough the commissioners will ask you to move on for the next sheriff and his family, and then of course you can move in with me, but until then—”

  “Enough!” Hildy cries, shocking both Mama and Lily. “This is not the time for unkindness.” Hildy has never defied Mama. She would have made, in many ways, the perfect daughter-in-law, had the Great War not taken Roger.

  But then Lily sees the hard hurt in Hildy’s eyes. The gaze of a widow, though she’d only been engaged to Roger when he died. Daniel’s death has reopened that pain.

  As for Mama, after Daddy died last fall trying to help rescue two miners trapped in the Widowmaker, it seemed there’d been no spare space for softness in Mama’s heart. During one of their squabbles, Lily accused her of hard-heartedness and Mama said she’d given up on softness, lest it consume her, melt her, and then what good would she be to anyone?

  After that, only Hildy could connect with Mama, get her to eat, to move.

  The sisterhood of widows. Such a sorrowful sisterhood Lily has joined.

  Their silence is broken by the sound of the front door opening and shutting—no doubt Elias, Lily thinks, coming in after securing his automobile.

  Lily picks up two of the plates Mama and Hildy have just washed. She starts to leave, to go to the dining room.

  “Where are you going, Lily?” Mama asks.

  “I thought I’d make up plates for Elias and Luther.”

  Mama looks bemused. “Elias no doubt wishes to nap before visitors arrive. And I’ve never known you to spare kindness for Luther.”

  “I’m just trying to do what’s proper.” Lily puts one of the plates back on the stack.

  “You’re supposed to be in mourning for several months, and let others serve you, not—”

  Lily walks out of the kitchen as Mama is still going on. In the parlor, she tiptoes quietly past Elias, who’s already slumped asleep in the big chair by the fireplace, the chair that Daniel always favored. When she enters the dining room, she’s staggered by the sight of the large oak table, heaped with fried chicken and deviled eggs and ham salad and biscuits and pies. A red glass compote dish, large and pedestaled, holds corn relish. Usually, Lily keeps the dish, a wedding gift from Mama and Daddy, on top of the pie safe in the kitchen, filled with her county fair blue ribbons for pies. Apple. Peach.

  And buttermilk pie. Daniel’s favorite.

  Suddenly the bounty and even the red dish seem grotesque. Lily knows that this is ungenerous of her, that she should be grateful for food brought from precious stores of family and friends and neighbors for the funeral supper, for the leftovers that will feed her and the children.

  Lily puts a chicken leg, deviled eggs, and corn relish on the plate. She goes out the front door, to which someone—probably Mama—has affixed a black bow.

  She finds her brother-in-law, Luther, draped on the porch rail, a gaunt figure in his black coat. The Pinkerton with him—a nervous-looking young man—doffs his hat at Lily. Luther takes a drag off his cigarette. “I suppose you’ve come to tell me to go around back for smoking? Elias already chided me—”

  Lily looks at the standing ashtray on the porch. “Not at all. Daniel never forbade it.”

  At the mention of Daniel’s name, sorrow flits over Luther’s face. He’s even thinner than usual, and the sallow remnants of a bruise darken his left eye, suggesting a recent fight.

  Luther says, “Lily, look, I’m sorry.”

  But in the next instant Luther’s expression contorts back into his usual sneer. “Aww, now, you’re bringing me a plate?” Luther stubs out his cigarette and grabs the plate. The Pinkerton—a boy, really—looks at it hungrily. Lily feels a surge of pity for him and wonders what in his young life had driven him to work for the agency, to kowtow to her brother-in-law.

  “I want to know the name of the prisoner Daniel went to pick up in Rossville,” Lily says. “The prisoner who killed him.”

  “Course you’d get down to brass tracks,” Luther says. He picks up the chicken leg and pulls off a huge bite. “I run the mines. My men handle the miners. I don’t know who the prisoner was.” He swallows. “Hell, I didn’t know Daniel was headed to the holding cell that morning.”

  Lily clenches her teeth, disappointed that Elias had been right about Luther not knowing the prisoner’s identity. “The night before Daniel died, one of your men showed up at our house, to tell Daniel about the pickup. Maybe you at least know who that was?”

  Luther shakes his head.

  “He had a harelip. Jagged scar by the eye. Pretty distinctive.”

  A shadow passes over Luther’s face. He drops the half-eaten chicken leg onto the plate, pushes it at Lily.

  She takes the plate, asking, “What is that man’s name?”

  “You’re describing Harvey Grayson. Like I said, I don’t waste my time on details like the comings and goings of miners in and out of the holding cell. That’s why I hired the services of the Pinkertons, which I wouldn’t have had to do if Daniel had done his job in the first place. But maybe he didn’t do it because he himself was half-savage.”

  The plate shakes in Lily’s hands. When Daniel was alive, Luther would not have dared disparage Daniel’s mother—a Leni-Lenape Indian woman who had worked for their father, then married him shortly after Luther’s mother died. The half brothers were fifteen years apart in age, and Luther had always resented Daniel’s mother. She had then died when Daniel was just eleven, and he’d gone to live with his uncle Elias shortly after. Just two years after that, his and Luther’s father died. Though Lily had never met her in-laws, she knew Daniel had adored his mother—and hated his father. And that Luther felt just the opposite.

  Now Luther grins at Lily’s discomfort. “Yeah, half-savage. No wonder Daniel always had a soft spot for inferior humans—”

  �
�Enough! I won’t have you speak ill of my husband at our house.” Lily’s hands now shake so hard she nearly drops the plate. She knows by “inferior” he means those sympathetic to miners—people like her own father. “Nor about other people, in that way.”

  “Not your house.” Luther grins and pulls out his cigarette holder. “You’re young enough that some new man wouldn’t mind having you, after your proper mourning time.”

  The Pinkerton boy starts to laugh, but Lily shuts him up with a hard look. As she turns to go, Luther says her name with such surprising alarm that she looks again at her brother-in-law.

  As he reaches back into his vest for his flask, a genuine look of concern breaks his usual sneer. “Lily, leave the hunt for the prisoner to the men. Let Martin and Harvey sort things out.”

  Lily nods, but as she goes back in the house she thinks, Harvey Grayson. Adds the name to her mental list: Rusty Murphy. Abe Miller.

  Now she has somewhere to start.

  CHAPTER 6

  MARVENA

  Walking up the last rise of Kinship Road, Marvena steels herself against gasping with pleasure at the sudden view that awaits at the crest. Yet her foolish heart pounds and her knees slightly buckle at the sparest flash of memory of a long-ago view of Kinship. Like Frankie, Marvena was six when she first went to Kinship—her only trip before now—walking with her brother, Tom, and their mother on a trip to see their father at the jail. The story is he nearly killed a man who tried to take his moonshining turf, but that makes him sound tougher and more heroic than Marvena imagines her father really was. Time has reshaped her reckoning of him. He’s now just a smudge of fury, her mother a thin wobbly line of sorrow.

  Fragile scraps of recollection sift through Marvena’s mind: a train whistle slicing the frozen night; hot roasted chestnuts bought with a precious penny; the scent and sweet and stickiness of a peppermint someone gave her; a woman in a red wool coat with a dead lynx for a collar, all those eyes peering down at her.

  “Mama?” Frankie stirs on Marvena’s back as she awakens.

  Marvena gently lowers Frankie to the road. For just a moment Marvena savors the relief of being unburdened. She rolls her neck, stretches her arms. “I need you to walk the rest of the way. Can you do that for me?”

  Frankie nods, a solemn bobbled promise, and puts a shoe on her good foot, hobbling on the ball of her injured foot. At the top of the rise, Frankie gasps, awe enough for both of them at the town—the proud county seat of Bronwyn County—spread below, a spectacle of church spires and courthouse and train depot and houses.

  As they near Court Street, Marvena admonishes Frankie, “Keep your head high. Mind you don’t step in puddles.” There’d been a brief rain, over quickly, so at least they’re not soaked through. “Specially with that cut foot.”

  “But, Mama, how can I do both?”

  Marvena sighs at her daughter’s confusion; she reckons that life often demands doing contradictory things in exchange for survival.

  As they approach the courthouse, Marvena sees the automobiles and horse-drawn carriages. Just around the corner, people fill the street by Daniel’s house and Marvena sees black bunting on his door. No. No. God, not Daniel, let it be the wife, let it be …

  When Daniel last came to see her, he’d shared that his wife was again with child, pride in his expression but concern in his voice. Now Marvena rashly seeks hope in the awful possibility that the wife—Lily—lost the child. That the mourners are for her.

  Marvena feels Frankie’s small hand in hers, squeezes it, reassuring. Marvena straightens her shoulders, keeps her gaze steady, even at the sight of Luther Ross, that cruel son of a bitch, and two more of his Pinks with their fine felt hats and string ties and pins on their lapels and cocksure attitudes. Marvena wants to grab Luther by his scrawny neck, shake him hard.

  “Mama?”

  “Hush, child.” The admonition is really a reminder to herself: she’s here to see Daniel, to ask about Eula. She’d also intended to ask him about his Bureau of Mines friend and Tom, but all that will have to wait with Luther around.

  She tries to ignore Luther as she goes up Daniel’s porch steps and then reaches for the door knocker, but he grabs Marvena’s elbow. “What’re you doing here?” She nearly gags at the reek of shine trailing the hiss of his words. Not her shine. She’s been careful, with Daniel’s help, to keep her business out of Luther’s sight. She’d started it up after John died last fall, using the techniques she’d picked up from her daddy. Luther would have taken cruel pleasure in insisting Daniel enforce Prohibition on Marvena.

  “You don’t belong here!” Luther growls.

  The opening door interrupts him, and instantly she knows: it’s Lily. Daniel often spoke of Lily, describing with a loving grin something his wife had done or said. As Marvena sees her now, for the first time, it’s as if Daniel’s words have flown together and created her right there: petite, strong, beautiful Lily Ross. The only woman Daniel had ever loved.

  And now here she stands. Pleasingly curvy, yet also a no-nonsense presence—shoulders straight, defiant tilt to her chin. Her dark brunette hair, swept up into a smooth twist, and her black high-necked mourning dress make her smooth, fair skin look like porcelain. Yet a telltale flush to her cheeks, a slight curve to her belly, tell Marvena that Lily is still with child—though if Daniel hadn’t told her she’d not have known.

  As if of its own will, Marvena’s rough hand smooths back the matted strands of gray-brown hair, pulled loose from her bun. She feels suddenly the bow of her back, the scrawniness of her own body, the ruddiness of her skin. Her tongue darts to the empty spot of a bottom incisor.

  But then she sees that although Lily’s heart-shaped face is unmarred by tear tracks, her blue eyes are dull, darkly circled. A speck of blood on the outside of the other woman’s lower lip is a telltale sign that she’s been biting into it.

  Oh God.

  The horrid realization that the black bunting, the people gathered, are absolutely for Daniel binds and gags her.

  It’s Frankie who saves her by speaking up. “We are here to see Sheriff Daniel T. Ross, ma’am,” each word a careful chirp. Frankie looks up at Marvena proudly: I didn’t say “Uncle Daniel.”

  “Sheriff Ross is my husband,” Lily says. “I’m afraid that he’s dead.”

  Though she’s already pieced this together, Marvena reels back as if Lily has slapped her. Frankie moans but quickly quiets as Marvena squeezes her hand.

  At their mournful reactions, the briefest flicker of surprise ripples Lily’s carefully still face. Course, Marvena thinks, course she don’t know anything about me.

  “Lily, this woman’s nothing but trouble,” Luther says. “We can take care of her.”

  Lily ignores Luther. “Perhaps you could tell my husband’s deputy your business?”

  Marvena glances behind Lily at a sorrowful-looking man. “I’m Martin Weaver, ma’am,” he says. She’s never met his deputy; Daniel always came to her cabin by himself. So why should she trust this man enough to confide in him?

  Marvena blinks back a hot rush of tears. “I’ll not be speaking to the likes of him.”

  A girl, Frankie’s size, comes by Lily’s side. She clings to Lily’s skirts, stares at Frankie. Must be Jolene. Daniel’s talked a lot about her and the son, Micah. His hopes for the third child.

  “I see,” Lily says. “In that case, I’m not sure how I can help you, but—”

  Just then, Frankie reaches for Jolene and touches the other girl’s chin. Jolene doesn’t flinch as Frankie swipes away a bit of jam.

  “Frankie! Don’t be rude—” Marvena starts as Lily says, “Jolene, I thought I sent you to wash up!” The women look at each other, for a moment simply like-minded mothers. They fall silent as Frankie sticks her jam-covered finger into her mouth and sucks eagerly.

  A heavy silence throbs on the Ross porch, strummed by the sounds of Frankie’s rhythmic sucking. Luther, barely holding back his seething, gives a look to the Pinks. They t
ense, lean closer toward Marvena.

  Slowly, Marvena starts to turn away from Lily, toward Luther and the Pinks, calculating how she’ll keep them in her sight while she and Frankie retreat down the road.

  Lily stops her: “You appear to have come a long way. Please come in for a moment.”

  Luther steps between them. “Lily, that isn’t a good idea.”

  Lily frowns. “Luther, please. This woman has come seeking help—”

  “Marvena Whitcomb?” He curls her name nastily. “She’s been nothing but trouble for years. Her man was an organizer. Trying to turn Daniel against the company our father founded, against me.…” Luther is emboldened by his role as revealer and spits over the porch railing with gusto before finishing, “Back in his sowing wild oats days, Daniel’s little whore.”

  Lily’s face stills with shock. Marvena feels her child start to tremble and again turns to leave, to protect the few remaining shreds of her dignity.

  But she spots the tremor of hurt rippling Lily’s brow and is snagged by pity for the woman learning in such a horrific way that Daniel had kept secrets from her. Secrets that extended as far back as childhood.

  Though Lily’s gone pale, her voice stays firm. “Luther, that’s no way to speak of someone who’s come for help. This is still my home and I will decide who is welcome here. Now move out of her way, please.”

  Martin steps around Lily out onto the porch, then takes Luther by the elbow. “Come, now.” His voice is half-soothing, half demand. “It’s been a long day. Let’s have a smoke.” He maneuvers Luther down the porch steps.

  Lily’s voice softens. “I’m sorry about that. Please come in.”

  Marvena tries to discern if Lily’s invitation is in defiance of Luther, out of curiosity about this woman from her dead husband’s life, or simple kindness. Whatever the reason, Lily and her little girl turn and enter the house. Marvena starts to follow, but Frankie hesitates at the threshold they’re about to cross. Until today, Frankie has never seen any abode finer than their own humble cabin or the tiny miners’ houses in Rossville on rutted roads. Here, on a broad street lined with fancy automobiles, the two-story houses boast attic turrets and real pane windows and freshly painted shutters. Why, the porch on which they stand now is bigger than their whole cabin.