Tomorrow River by Lesley Kagen Page B

have it. There would have been punishments. My mother must’ve moved it. Hid it somewhere else and didn’t tell me. I bet she told Woody, who is such a Mama’s girl.
    I get up off my knees, toe the rug straight. I’m feeling miserable. I bet Sam will, too, when I tell him that I looked in the last best place for his note and found nothing, not even dust. And poor Woody. How will she ever fall asleep without Mama’s scarf?
    “What do you think you’re doing?” another voice accuses.
    I almost shout out, “I’m just tryin’ to find my mother before my family falls apart worse than it already has. Can’t you just leave me be?”
    But I’m not imagining the voice this time. I can smell horse sweat and Maker’s Mark.
    I look up to see Papa scowling at me in the mirror above Mama’s dresser. He couldn’t get much realer.

C hapter Ten
    “I s that you, Jane Woodrow?” Papa asks, striding through the doorway in his boots and breeches. For such a small man he takes such large steps.
    I spin and most especially grin so he can see Woody’s and my only identifiable difference—my gaped teeth. He’s always had a hard time telling us apart. “Golly! You startled me, Your Honor,” I say, tempering it with a chuckle lest he accuse me again of impertinence. “How was your ride this mornin’ . . . I mean morn ing ?” He is very particular about how we speak. No calling ourselves Woody and Shenny in front of him neither. Pet names are not allowed. “Was Pegasus—”
    “What are you doing, Shenandoah?”
    “I . . . I . . .” Can’t help myself. I don’t care how messy he looks or how mad he is. I would love for him to take me into his arms, press his stubbly cheek against mine, rub his high-bridged nose with my snubbed one. I want to take a comb to his hair, no matter how many teeth got broke. I venture closer and try to untie my tongue. “Did . . . did you notice those shooting stars last night and that Jupiter has been real close and . . . and don’t forget the men are going up to the moon next month and you promised last summer that we’d—”
    “You’ve been warned about coming in here,” he says, striking his riding crop against his leg.
    “I know, sir, and under any other circumstances I wouldn’t.” I wish I could tell him what I was really up to. How I was looking for the diary in the stronghold, hoping to find a clue to where his lovely wife has gone, but he’ll get sadder if he knows that Mama kept something hidden from him. You have never seen someone so enraptured like my papa was with my mama. When she left a room, his breath would go with her. He’ll thank me once she’s back in his arms. “I’m really, really sorry, but . . . Wood . . . Jane Woodrow, she’s having the hardest time sleeping. I thought that if I could find . . . she needs to—” I bet he doesn’t even remember shredding Mama’s scarf last night before he took us down to the root cellar.
    “Was that you and your sister I saw at the creek?” he asks, coming closer and closer.
    “No, Your Honor, no, it wasn’t.”
    “How odd,” Papa says, acting comically confused. “I could’ve sworn I saw the two of you lying beneath the weeping willow tree when I came out of the barn.” His hands are clasping me right below the Speranza watch that Sam Moody gave Mama. How could I have been so careless? I got so worried about being late that I forgot to put it back under my pillow when Woody and I got home.
    “Are you referring to the big willow tree?” I ask. “The one with the cracked stump? Is that the one you mean?” I pretend to consider that. “No, uh-uh, sir. That wasn’t us. But speaking of the creek, you remember Mr. Clive Minnow, don’t you? Our neighbor? Virgil from the grocery found him lying dead in the water and so now his old dog, Ivory, is all alone and . . . do you think I could go get him? You know how Woody loves dogs and—” I’ve gone and trapped myself. I can tell by how crafty Papa is