The Widows

by Jess Montgomery

  “Looked to be one of the fancy shopkeepers from your town,” he grunts.

  “I don’t just serve the town,” Lily says. “I serve the county.”

  She gets the man’s name and a description of the shopkeeper who’d shot him and promises herself she’ll make a note of both in her notebook. For now, it’s at Nana’s. She walks on. So already ordinary men from Kinship were arming up. This was growing, a momentum of its own. Soon the fight would be inevitable.…

  “Now listen up, you can talk all tough if you want, but you’re not gonna go fighting in the battle! If’n things get bad, if something happens to me, you’re the man of the family, and you have to take the others, lead ’em on over the hills! Sun rises where?”

  Lily stops, struck by the fear and stridence of a young woman’s voice, coming from just inside the makeshift tent by which she’s stopped.

  “East, ma’am.” The voice of a boy, trying to sound like a man, pipes out of the tent.

  A boy. The man of the family. Was his father one of the miners who’d died days before?

  “That’s right. So follow the sun east. If’n we get separated, don’t wait for me. Get to West Virginia. Get to your mamaw and papaw—”

  A child runs out of the tent and right into Lily and falls onto her bottom. It’s a little girl, who stares up at Lily, suddenly fearful, lip quivering.

  “Oh, honey, you’re all right,” Lily says, scooping the child up.

  A woman pops out of the tent. “What did I tell you about running from bees? Why, my swat’ll be worse than their sting—”

  The woman stops, seeing Lily holding her child. Then she sees Lily’s badge. “Oh. I’m sorry, ma’am. Did my little ’un run into you—”

  “I’m fine,” Lily says. “She didn’t hurt me.” She hands the child over to the mother. “I’m looking for Marvena. Do you know her, or know where I could find—”

  “Oh, course I know her. She came around several times, got my man caught up in big dreams, thinking he could—” The woman stops, stares down.

  “I’m sorry. Is he one of the men we lost in the explosion?”

  The woman looks surprised at the use of the word “we,” but it seems to soothe her. She smiles briefly. “No. He died afore that. Beaten by a Pink.” The woman cocks an eyebrow. “Died, I reckon, same day as your husband. I was right sorry to hear about Sheriff Daniel.”

  Lily wipes her brow with the back of her hand. She’s sweating. “Thank you. What was your husband’s name?”

  The woman straightens her back, tightens her expression as if trying to keep any soft emotion locked up. “Lloyd. Lloyd Zimmer.”

  “And what is your name?”

  “Rowena.”

  “Well, Rowena, I’m sorry for your loss, too. I’m sure Lloyd was a good man.”

  For a moment, the two women look at each other. A moment is enough for them to acknowledge each other’s loss. What it is to be widows.

  Then they hear rustling behind them and look to see a boy standing in the entry of the Zimmers’ makeshift home, and several smaller children behind him.

  Lily looks at the boy. “Are you the one your mama calls the man of the family?”

  He nods. “Yes, ma’am. And I am, too. I worked the chute!”

  For a moment, Lily is struck still. This is the boy she’d seen on that first trip to Rossville. Then she says, “Well, you need to listen to your mama.” She taps the star on her bodice. “I’m telling you, and you need to listen to me, you are not to fight. Do as your mama says.”

  He nods again. “Yes, ma’am.”

  Lily looks back at Rowena. “I don’t want a battle, or for your family to have to run. I’m looking for Marvena to try to prevent it. Can you please tell me where she might be?”

  Rowena says, “Likely, up the hill over yonder. That’s where she put her stash.”

  “Stash?” Lily frowns. Does the woman mean shine?

  “Dynamite. I reckon she’s about ready to put her final plan in motion.”

  “Which is?”

  “Why, blow up the Widowmaker for good, if’n Mr. Ross won’t talk unionization.”

  * * *

  Lily watches the woman and her children go back into their tent, and then she hurries away, in the direction that Rowena had pointed.

  But then she hears a familiar voice—Joanne Moyer, the boardinghouse proprietress, calling her name. Lily turns to face her.

  On the one hand, Lily can’t help but feel a moment of sympathy for Joanne, who looks weary and bedraggled. Then, too, Lily realizes, Luther had run away without any thought of taking Joanne with him. On the other hand, Lily has to ask: “Why are you still here?” She has to have enough cash on hand to leave.

  Joanne smiles ruefully. “It’s more dangerous to travel out of here on foot or horse than it is to stay right now. But as soon as I can get to Kinship, I’m taking the train—” She shakes her head. “Anyway. I was going to come find you; then I saw you here—Look, not many woulda done what you did. Maybe not even Daniel. So I thought you ought to know that I didn’t give that candy box to him. When he came in, he demanded to know what I knew about Eula. I stuck to the story—that she’d run off with a miner. That’s what Luther told me to say if Daniel ever came by asking questions.”

  “And did you think to ask him why he’d expect Daniel to do that?”

  “I didn’t question Luther ’bout that—’bout anything. Anyhow, Daniel didn’t just accept that. He said he wanted to search Eula’s room. I said sure—by then she’d been gone three weeks and everything was cleared out. The room was already taken up by some other girl, come down here from a little town north of here—anyway. Eula must have had a hidey spot, because Daniel came barreling down the stairs, fit to be tied, carrying that box. And something else.”

  “What? What else?”

  Joanne shakes her head. “I didn’t get a good look. But it appeared to be folded-up papers of some sort. And truth be told, I didn’t think much of it—until Luther told me what to say about that poor miner set up for Eula’s murder.”

  “Seeing that he was willing to let an innocent boy take the fall was too much for you?”

  Joanne frowns. “I know you don’t think much of me, but I don’t have to tell you this.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m weary—and I don’t feel very well.”

  “Well, no wonder. Getting in that foul water, that’s enough to make anyone sick. You been to Nana for some tea?”

  In spite of everything, Lily can’t help but laugh. “Please, tell me what you were about to say, about the miner.”

  “It’s true that I accused Eula of taking my jewelry. But that necklace—she never took that. I handed that over to Luther before you came in. He asked me to bring the necklace he’d given me last Christmas—he didn’t say why, and I know not to ask too many questions. What she did take were the matching earrings. And I saw a flash of them in the drawer, when he opened it to get out the necklace.”

  Lily thinks back, recollects the look of shame and surprise on Joanne’s face, right after Luther opened that drawer.

  “And I’ve been thinking ever since, just how did he get that jewelry from her? If she was wearin’ it, when she supposedly ran off with that boy? And why’d he get so upset that there was a loose diamond in her play-pretty box? Well, the only way he could have gotten it was directly from her. Why would he be spending time with her? Then I got to thinking, well, his men liked her for lots of reasons, but partly because there was talk she was Daniel’s niece—sorry—and what if Luther, well…” Joanne looks down, her face again burning with shame.

  “My God,” Lily says, the import hitting her. What if Eula hadn’t been consorting with Harvey Grayson? What if she’d been with Luther?

  Had Luther brashly brought her out to the Ross farmhouse, where he lived with Elias?

  Did Elias know what was going on, look the other way? Or did Luther keep the assignations hidden?

  Lily’s stomach turns, the weight of this re
velation breaking over her, stirring in with everything else. Had Daniel known? Had he known the girl was dead?

  She turns, to hurry back toward Ross Mining, to look in that drawer of Luther’s.

  “Lily?” Joanne calls after her.

  But Lily quickens her stride.

  Thirty minutes later, Lily is back in Luther’s office. It’s empty; Ben must have stepped out to take a break.

  Quickly, Lily goes to Luther’s desk and opens the drawers. In the bottommost one she sees an elaborate diamond necklace and earrings. One of the earrings is missing a tiny diamond.

  Then Lily spots something else underneath the jewelry. A telegram. She picks it up. Her hands shake as she reads.

  MARVENA

  Marvena says, “What’n the world you mean, she just ran off?”

  Nana stares up at her, sinks back into her chair.

  Marvena rubs her hands to her face. She’s frightening the woman. She tries again, more gently. “I could see Lily wasn’t feeling well in our meeting. We took a break and Tom and I went to talk to some of the men. Rowena told me she’d been in the tent city, looking for me. So I reckoned she was here.” Nana had just confirmed Lily had been, but only long enough to grab her bag and notebook, and then she’d taken off.

  Nana stares down at her hands. “I offered to make her tea—”

  “Oh, for pity’s sake!” Marvena snaps. She has no heart for patience after all. “Why did Lily come here? What did she say?”

  “She’d been to the tent city, and then to the Ross Mining office. Said she’d found some important things, that she needed to go somewhere to think, that when I saw you to tell you not to do anything until you talk with her.”

  “Not do anything?”

  “Rowena told her about the dynamite. About the last-ditch plan.”

  Marvena rubs her eyes. So weary. But she needs to figure out where Lily would go.

  “I couldn’t stop her. She shouldn’t be out in these hills alone!” Nana moans. “I don’t know where she took off to.…”

  “I do,” Marvena says. “It’s where I’d go.”

  Where Daniel would go, too.

  Kinship Tree, twining trunks, spreading boughs over cool water …

  LILY

  Here at last, Lily runs her fingers over the fused trunk of the Kinship Tree. Three trees, sycamore, maple, beech, growing together since they were saplings, their fates intertwined.

  She’s sweaty, exhausted. She’d driven most of the way, but she didn’t want the sheriff’s automobile spotted so near Luther and Elias’s. So she’d parked a good ways up Kinship Road and hiked the rest of the way, carrying her shotgun.

  Now she leans against the tree, sinks down to the ground. She pulls her notebook out of her bag, rereads all of her notes, rereads the article clipping Abe had given her. And the telegram she’d found in Luther’s office drawer.

  Above her, branches sway in the soft breeze. Light and shadow mingle. The creek rushes before her, spring-water swift. A bird calls; another answers. Resting a hand on the ground, she doesn’t twitch at the tickle of an ant trailing over her fingers. She’d spent years teasing Daniel about his belief in signs. But now she searches for anything that Daniel might call a sign, a sign to answer: What must I do?

  She spots nothing that might be a response.

  A bare snap snares Lily’s full attention. She grasps her shotgun, slowly slides up to standing. Then she holds herself still again, waiting.

  Marvena steps into view.

  Lily says, “How’d you find me?”

  “This is where I’d go,” Marvena says. “Nana told me that you’d found something at Luther’s office. That Rowena told you about the dynamite. Lily, you didn’t really think I’d do something like that without warning you? Not after all we’ve—”

  Marvena stops, and Lily takes in Marvena’s taut face, the anguished twist of her mouth.

  “How did you get here so fast?”

  “Mule,” Marvena says.

  In spite of everything, Lily smiles. But then the words gasp out of her: “Oh God.”

  MARVENA

  “Lily, what is it?”

  Lily reaches into her bag and pulls out something. She’s already, over the past few days, told Marvena everything about the gathering in Luther’s office before the explosion. Then she holds her hand out and opens her fist. Earrings sparkle in the sun. Beautiful, dangly earrings. But one of them is missing a tiny diamond.

  Marvena sees in her mind’s eye the tiny diamond she’d found in Eula’s candy box.

  “Eula took the earrings from Joanne,” Lily says. “But they weren’t on her when we found her. They were in Luther’s drawer all along, with the necklace.” Marvena listens as she recites her conversation with Joanne back at the tent city. “How could Luther get them unless Eula and he, unless they…”

  Marvena drops to her knees. She stares up at Lily. “I will kill him. If he … I will—”

  “Listen! Please … Joanne said Daniel searched Eula’s room, came out with the box, and something else, a paper of some sort. It must have been something that made Daniel understand the possibility of their having had a relationship, that made him confront Luther,” Lily says. “He was so tense the week before he died, so distant. But the earrings alone wouldn’t entirely convince me that Luther is to blame.”

  Lily returns the earrings to her pocket and pulls out a paper. “I found this in the drawer under the earrings. It’s a telegram. From George Vogel.”

  Lily’s hands tremble, and Marvena stands. She goes over to Lily, puts her arm around her friend’s shoulder. “You’ll need to read it to me,” she says softly.

  LILY

  For a long moment, Lily can only stare at the words blurring before her. She is grateful for Marvena’s light, comforting touch.

  She’s worked so much out. The telegram gives another piece of the answer about how Daniel died. But there are still so many questions.

  “The telegram is from George Vogel to Luther,” Lily says. “Sent March 22. And it states: ‘Set for March 25. Send your best.’ Harvey Grayson must have been Luther’s best—to convince Daniel to come to Rossville. To set it up so that Daniel would stop at the hairpin turn.”

  Lily thinks about her notes: The hay mixed in with the glass, right there by Ada’s farm. Her missing farmhand, Rusty. How easy would it be to pay Rusty to drop the hay bale? Wait for Daniel to be shot? Go get Elias? And by now, Rusty is surely long gone, just like Harvey Grayson, whose wife in Kentucky is probably fictitious. With enough cash, it is so easy to disappear in this vast country, start over with a new name, difficult to trace. The broken tree branch—a sniper George Vogel had sent.

  “Lily?”

  Marvena’s voice comes from a great distance. Lily turns, looks at her.

  “What now?” Marvena asks.

  “I think Daniel found out about Eula and Luther. That he confronted Luther. That Luther was afraid Daniel would kill him sooner or later.” She pauses, thinking of Daniel’s calculated violence in the boxing ring. His fury in the alleyway and threat to kill her attacker. The clipping Abe had given her. Luther had been right to fear for his life at Daniel’s hands. “And I think that somehow Luther used George Vogel to set up Daniel’s murder.” The words feel like they’re coming from outside of her, as if she’s hearing them from someone else.

  “My God. If what you say is true … I’ll kill Luther myself.”

  “No. And I can’t arrest him—or Vogel—either. What we’ve pieced together isn’t enough. Of course, I couldn’t possibly bring Vogel down even if I had absolute proof. He has too much power. Too many people indebted to him.” Too many people like Daniel.

  “Then we can do nothing?” Marvena’s voice rises so shrilly that a bird startles from the tree. Lily looks up, seeking the bird, but too late. She sees only clear sky above the tree.

  Lily faces Marvena. “Above all, George values loyalty. I know Daniel would not have betrayed him. But Luther must have convinced Geor
ge that he would. It’s the only thing that would make George do Luther’s bidding.” She holds up the telegram. “This gives us a choice.”

  MARVENA

  Marvena turns the words over in her mind, shakes her head. “I don’t understand.”

  Lily steps forward, folds the telegram in half, puts it back in her pocket. She leans against the Kinship Tree, stares down over the bank. Marvena rises, stands beside Lily, gazes too. For a long moment the women’s eyes are bound together on the cool, still water below, different memories resting just under the surface for each of them.

  “We go to Abe Miller. He said I only had one favor to ask of him, but if we tell him everything we’ve pieced together, he’ll listen. He may or may not know of the plot against Daniel, but he will definitely know this: His boss cannot abide being used and thus made a fool. Or word spreading that he can be duped in any way. So, we let him know Luther was using Vogel, that Daniel would not have betrayed him. And then Vogel will have Luther taken out.”

  Marvena waits for a victorious rush of joy. Kill the man who’d abused so many for so long, who’d had her daughter and Daniel killed, who’d foolishly reopened the Widowmaker, causing so many more good people to die.

  There’s no rush of joy.

  Only coal hardness reclosing over her heart.

  Marvena waits for Lily to say something more. Sees even darker hardness in her eyes.

  “Lily? That’s what we’re going to do,” Marvena says. “Isn’t it?”

  LILY

  Lily wants, with all of her being, to nod at Marvena. To simply say, Yes.

  This is what she’s wanted, ever since Daniel’s been found: simply to find who killed Daniel. Then, vengeance.

  And yet … there’s another choice.

  Lily stares beyond Marvena, prays again for one of Daniel’s precious signs. A sign, dear God. Something to let me know how to choose …

  She’d come to the Kinship Tree because here had been set in motion the events that brought her and Daniel together. But there is no hawk facing her, no calls or cries or chirps, no movement in the sky, no sign from Daniel.