Page 104 of The River We Remember

“You take this end, I’ll take the other,” he said. “I’ll give a holler if I find it.”

She felt guilty pulling the priest into this search. The boxes and bags and crates were numerous and heavy, and even across the length of the gym floor she could hear the old cleric grunt and wheeze as he lifted and moved them and bent and peered. But her desperation overwhelmed her conscience.

Nearly half an hour of digging, and she was almost to the place where she and the priest would meet. She’d given up hope by then and was moving simply to finish the task. Her mind was already going over all the consequences of that thoughtless moment when she hadn’t put her journals back into the drawer under lock and key. And she found herself marveling at the way disaster could hit you like a cartoon anvil falling from the sky.

That’s when the priest called out, “Eureka!”

She dropped the paper bag she’d lifted, and the books inside spilled out over the box beneath. She ran to the priest, who was, indeed, cradling the Heinz 57 box in his arms and beaming through a stream of sweat that ran down his reddened face.

“Oh, Father, thank you,” she said, sounding ridiculously Catholic to herself, but in her gratitude, she would have converted in an instant.

The priest set the box on the polished gymnasium floor. Angie knelt and opened the cardboard flaps. The journals weren’t there.

“So,” the priest said brightly. “Success?”

She lifted a hardcover copy of Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind. “Yes,” she said holding the novel up for him to see. “Thank you.”

He smiled but looked a little confused. “If you don’t mind me asking, what’s so special about that book?”

“It was given to me by my husband,” she said. Which was a lie, horrible in many respects, not the least of which was that, in her deception, she’d invoked the name of a sweet boy long dead. But she didn’t want the priest to feel that all his difficult effort was in vain.

“And now the book is in the hands where God always meant it to be,” he said.

Maybe he was right, Angie thought. Maybe all the good that had come into her life had been meant only to prepare her for this moment and all the terrible ones to follow. What did she know of God and his intentions? What did anyone?

She thanked the priest for his help and walked back to the Wagon Wheel. It was seven o’clock. The streets were empty and, except for the ubiquitous singing of the birds, quiet. She walked through long early shadows and through sunlight that, on any other day, would have made her heart leap. She didn’t notice at all the beauty of the morning.

On Sundays, the diner didn’t open until noon. But Ida was already there, preparing breakfast for the men in jail. Angie stood at the screen door, listening to her mother-in-law at work. Ida was a happy woman, always humming to herself. That morning she was humming “I Got Rhythm.” Angie stepped in, and Ida turned, smiling.

“Out for an early walk? It’s a glorious day.”

“A walk,” Angie said. “Yes.”

Ida came to her and peered at her face. “Are you all right? You don’t look well.”

“Just a little trouble sleeping last night.”

Ida put the back of her hand to Angie’s forehead, as she might have if Angie were a child, her child. “No fever. But maybe you should go on into the house and lie down, rest up.”

Angie thanked her and started out. She ran into Wendell Moon, coming in to get the kitchen prepared for later. He, too, was stopped by her appearance.

“Girl, you look like you been run over by a train. You okay?”

She told him she was, then went to the house and upstairs and sat at her desk, staring at the elm tree in the front yard, where morning sunlight dappled the branches.

She could already feel the anvil falling.

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

SUNDAY MORNING, SCOTT Madison brought breakfast for four men: the three in lockup—Bluestone, Creasy, and Felix Klein—and Brody Dern. It was a pan of Ida’s egg bake. He also brought a big thermos of strong, black coffee. And he brought one other item that had nothing to do with food: a small branch broken off a cottonwood tree.

Brody helped Scott divide and plate the egg dish and pour the coffee, and he oversaw the serving of the meal to the three men. Noah Bluestone asked Brody if it would be okay to take the cottonwood branch Scott had brought. Brody leaned against the doorway of the cellblock, arms crossed, and said, “All right.”

“I need one more thing, Sheriff,” Bluestone said. “A sharp knife.”

Brody considered the request, the man who’d made it, and the boy. He said, “Step away from the cell, Scott.”

The boy took a step back. Brody reached into his pocket and brought out a folded barlow knife. He handed it to Bluestone through the bars. Creasy gave a snort of disbelief but said nothing. Bluestone drew out the blade and carefully cut the thin cottonwood branch in two. He folded the blade and handed the knife back to Brody.