by John Grisham
Phelan, dated December 9, 1996, in which he gives me the bulk of his estate. I am attempting to pattern this will after his.
3. I do not reject or decline that portion of his estate due me. Nor do I wish to receive it. Whatever his gift is to me, I want it placed in a trust.
4. The earnings from the trust are to be used for the following purposes: a) to continue the work of World Tribes missionaries around the world, b) to spread the Gospel of Christ, c) to protect the rights of indigenous peoples in Brazil and South America, d) to feed the hungry, heal the sick, shelter the homeless, and save the children.
5. I appoint my friend Nate O’Riley to manage the trust, and I grant him broad discretionary powers in its administration. I also appoint him as executor of this testament.
Signed, the sixth day of January 1997, at Corumbá, Brazil.
RACHEL LANE PORTER
He read it again, and again. The second sheet was typed and in Portuguese. It would have to wait for a moment.
He studied the dirt between his feet. The air was sticky and perfectly still. The world was silent, not a sound from the village. The Ipicas were still hiding from the white man and his plagues.
Do you sweep dirt? To make it neat and clean? What happens when it rains and the straw roof leaks? Does it puddle and turn to mud? On the wall facing him were handmade shelves filled with books—Bibles, devotionals, studies in theology. The shelves were slightly uneven, tilting an inch or two to the right.
This was her home for eleven years.
He read it again. January 6 was the day he walked out of the hospital in Corumbá. She wasn’t a dream. She’d touched him and told him he wouldn’t die. Then she had written her will.
The straw rustled under him as he moved. He was in a trance when Jevy poked his head through the door and said, “The chief wants us to leave.”
“Read this,” Nate said, handing him the two sheets of paper with the second one on top. Jevy stepped forward to catch the light from the door. He read slowly, then said, “Two people here. The first is a lawyer, who says that he saw Rachel Lane Porter sign her testament in his office, in Corumbá. She was mentally okay. And she knew what she was doing. His signature is officially marked by a, what do you say—”
“A notary.”
“Yes, a notary. The second, here on the bottom, is the lawyer’s secretary, who, it looks like, says the same things. And the notary certifies her signature too. What does this mean?”
“I’ll explain later.”
They stepped into the sunlight. The chief had his arms folded over his chest—his patience was almost gone. Nate removed his camera from the satchel and began taking pictures of the hut and the graves. He made Jevy hold her will while squatting by her grave. Then Nate held it as Jevy took photos. The chief would not agree to have his picture taken with Nate. He kept as much distance as possible. He grunted, and Jevy was afraid he might erupt.
They found the trail and headed for the woods, again staying away from the village. As the trees grew thicker, Nate stopped and turned for one last look at her hut. He wanted to take it with him, to lift it somehow and transport it to the States, to preserve it as a monument so that the millions of people she would touch could have a place to visit and say thanks. And her grave too. She deserved a shrine.
That’s the last thing she would want. Jevy and the chief were out of sight, so Nate hurried ahead.
They made it to the river without infecting anyone. The chief grunted something at Jevy as they got in the boat. “He says for us not to come back,” Jevy said.
“Tell him he has nothing to worry about.”
Jevy said nothing, but instead started the engine and backed away from the bank.
The chief was already walking away, toward his village. Nate wondered if he missed Rachel. She’d been there for eleven years. She seemed to have considerable influence over him, but she had not been able to convert him. Did he mourn her passing, or was he relieved that his gods and his spirits now had free rein? What would happen to the Ipicas who had become Christians, now that she was gone?
He remembered the shalyuns, the witch doctors in the villages who hounded Rachel. They were celebrating her death. And assailing her converts. She had fought a good fight, now she was resting in peace.
Jevy stopped the motor and guided the boat with a paddle. The current was slow, the water smooth. Nate carefully opened the SatFone and arranged it on a bench. The sky was clear, the signal strong, and within two minutes he had Josh’s secretary scurrying to find her boss.
“Tell me she signed that damned trust, Nate,” were his first words. He was yelling into the phone.
“You don’t have to yell, Josh. I can hear you.”
“Sorry. Tell me she signed it.”
“She signed a trust, but not ours. She’s dead, Josh.”
“No!”
“Yes. She died two weeks ago. Malaria. She left a holographic will, just like her father.”
“Do you have it!?”
“Yes. It’s safe. Everything goes into a trust. I’m the trustee and executor.”
“Is it valid?”
“I think so. It’s written entirely in her hand, signed, dated, witnessed by a lawyer in Corumbá and his secretary.”
“Sounds valid to me.”
“What happens now?” Nate asked. He could see Josh standing behind his desk, eyes closed in concentration, one hand holding the phone, the other patting his hair. He could almost hear him plotting over the phone.
“Nothing happens. His will is valid. Its bequests are carried out.”
“But she’s dead.”
“His estate is transferred to hers. Happens all the time in car wrecks when one spouse dies one day, then the other dies the next. The bequests go from estate to estate.”
“What about the other heirs?”
“The settlement stands. They get their money, or what’s left of it after the lawyers take their cuts. The heirs are the happiest people on the face of the earth, with the possible exception of their lawyers. There’s nothing for them to attack. You have two valid wills. Looks like you’ve just become a career trustee.”
“I have broad discretionary powers.”
“You have a lot more than that. Read it to me.”
Nate found it deep in his satchel, and read it, very slowly, word for word.
“Hurry home,” Josh said.
Jevy absorbed every word too, though he appeared to be watching the river. When Nate hung up and put the phone away, Jevy asked, “The money is yours?”
“No. The money goes into a trust.”
“What is a trust?”
“Think of it as a big bank account. It sits in the bank, protected, earning interest. The trustee decides where the interest goes.”
Jevy still wasn’t convinced. He had many questions, and Nate sensed his confusion. It was not the time for a primer on the Anglo version of wills, estates, and trusts.
“Let’s go,” Nate said.
The motor started again, and they flew across the water, roaring around curves, a wide wake spraying behind them.
________
THEY FOUND the chalana late in the afternoon. Welly was fishing. The pilots were playing cards on the back of the boat. Nate called Josh again, and told him to retrieve the jet from Corumbá. He wouldn’t be needing it. He would take his time coming home.
Josh objected, but that was all he could do. The Phelan mess had been settled. There was no real rush.
Nate told the pilots to contact Valdir when they returned, then sent them on their way.
The crew of the chalana watched the chopper disappear like an insect, then cast off. Jevy was at the wheel. Welly sat below, at the front of the boat, his feet dangling inches above the water. Nate found a bunk and tried to nap. But the diesel was next door. Its steady knock prevented sleep.
The vessel was a third the size of the Santa Loura, even the bunks were shorter. Nate lay on his side and watched the riverbanks go by.
/> Somehow she’d known he wasn’t a drunk anymore, that his addictions were gone, that the demons who’d controlled his life had been forever locked away. She had seen something good in him. Somehow she knew he was searching. She’d found his calling for him. God told her.
Jevy woke him after dark. “We have a moon,” he said. They sat on the front of the boat, Welly at the wheel just behind them, following the light of a full moon as the Xeco snaked its way toward the Paraguay.
“The boat is slow,” Jevy said. “Two days to Corumbá.”
Nate smiled. He didn’t care if it took a month.