The Widows

by Jess Montgomery

  Tom yelps, “I never done it! If I had’ve, like you said, I’d have been long gone by now!”

  “So tell me where you’ve been?”

  Tom sighs. “All I know is I was pulled off work days ago—”

  “What day?”

  Tom shakes his head. “I don’t rightly know. What is today?”

  “April 1.”

  Tom stares off, seems to be calculating. Then he looks back at Lily. “The twenty-fourth.”

  Lily’s heart pounds. The night that Harvey Grayson, the Pinkerton, had come to the house about a prisoner for Daniel to fetch. She forces her voice to remain even. “Go on.”

  Tom shrugs. “Not much to tell. Sometime in the night, one of the Pinks came and got me. Put a blindfold over my face, and took me somewhere. I was kept for a few days, and then I got away, and hid out until old man Hilliard found me.”

  “Who pulled you off work? Took you out of the Rossville holding cell?”

  “Pinks don’t exactly introduce themselves all proper like,” Tom says. “I don’t know.”

  “Does the name Harvey Grayson sound familiar?”

  Tom shakes his head and slurps more coffee. Frustration wells in Lily’s heart. “Did he have a harelip?”

  Tom nods.

  Grayson.

  “But I didn’t get a look at whoever pulled me from the cell,” Tom says. “I was asleep, and they set upon me afore I was fully awake. It was dark when I got away from where I was held, and I didn’t memorize faces. I just ran.”

  “But you didn’t keep running. You could have been long gone by now,” Lily says. “Not the action of a man guilty of shooting the sheriff.”

  Tom stares at her, hope widening his eyes and expression. “So you believe me?”

  She does, or at least she wants to. Still, doubt nettles Lily. What if she’s figured wrong about Daniel being shot on his way to Rossville? What if the glass and hay and button had just been swept all the way across the road, for some reason, even if that was more inconvenient?

  “It would help if I had an idea why someone would want to kill Daniel and set you in particular up to take the fall.”

  Suddenly Tom stares down into his now empty coffee mug. “I’ve told you all I know.”

  Lily shakes her head. “You haven’t. And it’s not going to matter if I believe that you didn’t kill Daniel. In the end, if it’s just your word, well—”

  “I’m fuel for Old Sparky?” Tom scoffs bitterly.

  Lily regrets her earlier taunt about the electric chair. “Why do you think you were set up? Why is someone trying to rattle Marvena and me? Do you think Daniel’s death has anything to do with Eula? With him looking into it?”

  Tom shakes his head.

  “What then?”

  Tom drops his head to his hands. “I don’t know whether to trust you.”

  “At least tell me why you didn’t keep running. Most men would have—guilty or not.”

  “With me gone, my boy’ll be in the mines. He—he’s just eleven.”

  The image of the boy she’d seen at the Rossville chute flashes before her, softens her at last. “What’s your boy’s name?”

  “Alistair.” His voice breaks on the syllables. One hand roves to his bashed eye. She sees that he’s afraid of having said so much. If she pushes him too hard, he’s not going to tell her anything more. A break might do them good, and yet she wants to win his trust.

  It occurs to her that she still has the garden to put in. Seasons past, Daniel had done the tilling. A pang curdles her abdomen. She doesn’t feel up to the gardening task. She picks up her shotgun. “I could use some help. And I reckon we could both use some fresh air.”

  * * *

  A few hours later, Lily sits out by the patch garden in one kitchen chair, her feet propped up on another, watching Tom turning the heavy earth with a spade, Jolene breaking up clumps with the hoe. Lily started out helping, but Tom insisted that she should rest, so finally she’d had Jolene bring the two chairs up to the top of the yard, by the garden.

  Micah, sitting to the left of Lily on an old tablecloth she’s spread out over the ground, merrily bangs a wooden spoon against the bottom of a saucepan, though every now and then he looks to the empty coop and wails. She picks him up and hugs him until he settles. She’s bundled him up in extra shirts. The shotgun is by her right side.

  Lily hears footsteps coming up behind her—Martin’s tread. “Everything all right, Lily?”

  “Why wouldn’t it be? It’s a beautiful day, and Tom here is putting in my garden for me. Good for me. Fresh air for him.”

  “The prisoner ought not be out of jail. What would Daniel think?”

  “Daniel would say I’m a better shot than he ever was.”

  Martin clears his throat again, a nervous tic. “Luther came by my house this morning and said he’d tracked down Harvey Grayson, just like you asked. He’s visiting his wife down in Kentucky, but he sent a telegram confirming that he released Tom to Daniel on the morning of the twenty-fifth. He’s willing to testify to that in court.”

  Lily looks out at Tom, standing in her garden. He’s stopped moving, leans into the spade as if it’s a cane. His body quivers. Jolene drops her hoe and stares at Lily.

  Martin reaches into his vest pocket, pulls out the telegram, holds it out to Lily. She takes it, reads it quickly, and tucks it into her skirt pocket. “Luther came to you?”

  Martin cocks an eyebrow. “He said you two weren’t getting on very well.”

  “That’s not what happened!” Tom yells. “This is a setup, if ever—”

  He stops as Jolene starts crying and runs to Lily.

  “Go inside,” Lily tells Jolene. “Take Micah.”

  After the back door squeals and slams shut, Lily looks back at Martin. “By rights, Luther should have come to me. Plus, a telegram is not sufficient. Mr. Whitcomb here has given me a different testimony. Before I can make an arrest and ask the judge to file formal charges, I need Harvey Grayson to come in for questioning. In person.”

  “He’s in Kentucky, Luther says. With his wife.”

  The image of Grayson leering at her, the night he came to their house to bring word to Daniel to fetch a prisoner, rises up tauntingly. Lily shudders, pitying his wife—if it’s true he has one. “He got there, I’m assuming, by train. He can come back here by train.”

  “That will take days.”

  “He has another day to get here, to make his accusation, before I release Tom.”

  “What? Lily!”

  “By law I can only hold a suspect for questioning for forty-eight hours. Unless the suspect confesses. Which he hasn’t.”

  Lily rises. She’s light-headed, but she forces herself to stand steadily. “Procedures, Martin. You must know that Judge Whitaker is a stickler for procedure. He’s not a fan of Pinkerton men. Though my brother-in-law is, I also know he doesn’t take kindly to coming up on the wrong side of the judge. Especially Friday nights.”

  Martin frowns.

  Maybe she’s gone too far, referencing the technically illegal Friday-night poker games at the speakeasy in the Kinship Inn basement that everyone—including Daniel—turned a blind eye to. As a woman, she’s not supposed to know of them. Of course, there’s much of life she’s not supposed to know about but does, and she’s not in the mood for pretense.

  After she locks Tom back in his cell, Lily comes out of the jailhouse for fresh air and finds Martin waiting for her.

  “Now Lily, listen here,” Martin says. “Why would you want to let go the man Harvey Grayson swears he turned over to Daniel?”

  “All right, let’s say Grayson turned Tom Whitcomb over to Daniel. Let’s say somehow that skinny, undernourished miner bested my husband. That he got Daniel’s revolver. Wouldn’t he shoot Daniel from within the automobile, immediately?”

  Martin nods. “Sure, but—”

  “But the window was shot out. The door was shot into. So for some reason, Tom runs around the automobile, starts shootin
g as Daniel gets out. Misses with the first two shots—for there’d be no reason to waste bullets if the first shots hit Daniel—and somehow Daniel still doesn’t best him. Then Tom shoots him, and runs off with Daniel’s revolver.”

  Martin blanches at the scenario Lily’s just painted, but she goes on. “Suppose all that is true. Daniel’s revolver had a seven-round magazine. Three bullets left. He kept it fully loaded when he went out on his rounds. Where’s the revolver? Tom wouldn’t have thrown it away. He’d have kept it for protection. If he was a cold-blooded killer, wouldn’t he have used it to kill Farmer Meyer, rather than be easily overcome?”

  Lily waits for Martin to take in what she’s said. Long moments pass. And then comprehension widens Martin’s eyes.

  She nods, grimly, seeing that at last Martin understands. She says, “Tell Luther I want to talk with Harvey Grayson myself. I want to know exactly what he said to Daniel the night he came here. I want him to look me in the eyes and tell me exactly what time he handed Tom over to my husband on the morning of the twenty-fifth. Or I won’t hold Tom a moment longer than I have to. And I’ll consider Grayson the one on the lam—and a suspect.”

  * * *

  That night, after dinner, Lily fills a tray with corn bread, buttermilk, and a bowl of thick beef stew. She brings Jolene with her to the jail and hands the tray and lantern to Jolene. Lily works the lock and key and then, after opening the door, pockets them and unburdens Jolene.

  “Jolene, you wait right here by the door,” Lily says. After the chickens, she’s afraid to send her daughter at night on even the short walk from the jailhouse to the kitchen door.

  “But Mama, I want to say good night to Mr. Whitcomb,” she says.

  “After I’ve talked with him, sweet pea,” Lily says.

  Jolene’s face folds up in a pout, but she waits. Lily puts the lantern on the desk, moves to the cell. She slides the tray through to Tom. He takes the tray and Lily notices that his hands, despite the day’s labors, are now steady.

  Tom scoops up a heaping bite of stew, moans appreciatively, closes his eyes as he savors it. Lily pulls her chair over to his cell, gets the lantern from the desk, puts it by her chair. She doesn’t want Jolene to hear their conversation echoing across the jail cell. She sits. Waits.

  After he’s finished about half the bowl, Tom says, “You going to sit here all night watching me eat?” He nods toward the door. “Your little one is bound to be tired.”

  “You too,” Lily says. “You worked hard. Thanks for turning the garden for me.”

  Tom picks up the corn bread, sops up thick broth remaining in the bowl. “I’m grateful for you standing up for me today, but once that Pink’s here, no one else will believe me.”

  “Then tell me why you think you were set up. Why someone else wanted to kill Daniel.”

  “Two birds, one stone. I’m wanted for unionizing,” Tom says. “With your husband.”

  Lily gasps at this revelation. She knows that Daniel was planning to speak up as being pro-union, but an editorial in the local newspaper is far less serious than actually helping miners organize. That would have been overstepping the boundaries of his role as sheriff.

  But then, Daniel had certainly done that on the matter of Prohibition.

  And on the matter of Marvena.

  Daniel as an activist for the unions would anger many people who were anti-union. Luther, of course. But other management, who worked for Luther. Kinship shopkeepers, who liked to stay in the good graces of management and the Pinkertons, who weren’t bound to shop in the company store. Even owners and managers of other mining companies in other counties nearby. A sheriff actively working on behalf of unionization was dangerous.

  Lily recollects reading about the Battle for Blair Mountain. News of the bloody West Virginia fight had made even small newspapers like the Kinship Weekly Courier. Then the memory of a different prisoner in this very cell—the Pinkerton they’d held for roughhousing, the one who’d taunted her on the morning of Daniel’s murder, just minutes before Elias came to her with the news Daniel’s been found—came back to her. He’d been hoping for a fight, for a war. She had warned him that Sheriff Ross would not stand for that in Bronwyn County.

  Now she is Sheriff Ross.

  Lily walks up to Tom’s cell. “I know that Daniel told Marvena about my father, Caleb McArthur, dying alongside John Rutherford, trying to save those poor trapped miners last fall. So I’m sure you’re aware of who my daddy was. Please. If Daniel’s sympathies had anything to do with his murder, please for his sake—for the sake of my daddy, for all the other men who died that day, for your son’s sake—please tell me what you know.”

  He hesitates. Lily waits silently, barely daring to breathe in the fragile moment while Tom decides whether or not to tell her what’s on his mind. Finally, he looks up at her. “Daniel found out that Luther was planning to reopen the Widowmaker again soon, from the eastern side of the hill. There’s been talk, leaked from some in management who are against it but too afraid to stand up to Luther. Under the old, closed Rossville Cemetery.”

  Lily inhales sharply, steps back, leans against the desk.

  “No one knew ’cept me and Marvena,” Tom says, “but Daniel promised he would contact someone for us. A war buddy, who works at the Bureau of Mines. Daniel didn’t give a name.”

  Lily frowns. Daniel hadn’t talked about any friends made during the Great War. Then again, he hadn’t talked about the war much at all. There’s so much she didn’t know about her husband’s life until his death.

  Tom goes on. “Would you know who—”

  “Mama?” Jolene’s weary voice pipes from the doorway.

  “Tend your little one,” Tom says. “Then I will tell you what happened after I was taken.”

  Lily’s heart folds on itself for a moment. She doesn’t dare speak, for fear the quivering need in her voice will make him change his mind. So Lily nods, stands, then heads to the door.

  But just as she steps over the threshold and reaches to take Jolene’s hand, pain slices through her abdomen. The baby. Blood and life suddenly rush from her, and as Lily sinks to the ground, calling for Jolene, loss overcomes her.

  CHAPTER 16

  MARVENA

  Three days after her meeting with the women, Marvena is back in Rossville to collect the dynamite and sneak it out, rolled up in the rag rugs. She and Frankie had crept down Devil’s Backbone early that morning hours before dawn, taking winding ways Marvena knew from childhood but hadn’t been on in years. She’d hated taking Frankie out in the cold and dark again, but she can’t risk leaving her alone in the cabin.

  Now, just over the ridge above Rossville, Marvena spots the back of the boardinghouse below. The glint of the tiny diamond in Eula’s box flickers in her mind’s eye. It has been winking at her ever since she discovered it, three nights before.

  Shivering, Marvena thinks, Focus on the mission! But then she thinks, Eula.

  Daniel hadn’t come back with news. Lily had delivered the box he’d found of Eula’s and had promised to find out more, but she’d never come back, either. What a fool she’d been to think that the wife of a man who’d kept someone like Marvena a secret all these years would want to help her. The only reason Lily’d come to visit was to satisfy her curiosity.

  Now Marvena kneels down and looks at Frankie. “Can you get to Nana and Jurgis’s house from here? On your own?”

  Frankie nods.

  “See that alley? Right there, between the schoolhouse and company store?” Marvena whispers to Frankie. “Cut through there, then on down to Nana’s. I’ll be there right quick. I just—I just have an errand.”

  Marvena watches Frankie dutifully cut through the alley. Then she treks down the hill, holding her nose and fighting back a gag at the rotting trash heap at the back of the house. She walks around to the front of the house. The door hangs half-open on loose, rusty hinges.

  Once she is inside, it takes a moment for Marvena to adjust to the dimness of th
e tiny foyer, to see the long, narrow corridor extending before her, a suffocating tunnel. She inhales the weary odors of cabbage and tobacco and body odor, new sources but same old smells, and they threaten to loosen a rush of dark, unwelcome memories.

  Go, go on back out.… But Marvena walks down the hallway and through a door into a large dining room, filled with wooden tables and chairs. She steps in quickly. Light filters in from the scummy windows and there are a few coal-oil lamps burning on some of the tables.

  At first Marvena is alone, but a moment later a tall, thin blond woman, in a grimy cotton dress and apron, comes out of the kitchen, holding an armful of tin plates. She sets the stack clattering onto a table, regards Marvena with a bemused smile.

  “We’re not hiring, honey,” the woman says, “and you’re a bit long in the tooth anyway.”

  “I’m looking for Joanne Moyer.”

  The woman lifts her eyebrows at Marvena’s firm tone. “That’s me. And who are you?”

  “Marvena Whitcomb. Eula’s mama.”

  “She’s been gone over a month now. Sorry, honey.” Joanne shrugs. “Girls like that come and go all the time.”

  This, finally, is too much. Marvena leaps, shoving Joanne against the wall, pinning her shoulders. “I want to know—”

  Joanne struggles to break free. “Crazy woman! I don’t recognize you, but I’ve heard of you. Guess your young ’un ain’t far from the tree … so don’t think I won’t call Mr. Luther!”

  In one swift movement, Marvena pulls her knife from its sheath tucked just under her skirt’s waistband. She puts the blade to Joanne’s throat. “An’ don’t think I won’t slice you if’n you don’t tell me what you know of her.”

  “I … I don’t know much … she just run off with a miner.”

  “Is that what you told the sheriff?”

  Joanne’s eyes widen. “I—I never talked to the sheriff.”

  Now Marvena smiles, coldly. “I know he came by here. Asking on my behalf after Eula. And that he left with something of Eula’s.”