Chapter 22: The Wages

By noon the whole farm knew, and by one o'clock nobody was working.

Twenty-three people stood in the yard outside the north barn.

They were grooms and exercise riders, a cook, two farriers, a girl who drove the feed truck.

They stood in a tight group with their hands in their pockets.

They looked like people who had been told to wait by somebody who was never coming back.

I came across the gravel in my black dress, with Jude beside me and Abel a step behind.

Nobody clapped.

I had expected cheering.

I had not expected a woman in a barn coat to step out of the line and look me in the eye.

"Miss Redmond," she said.

"Everyone here is glad she's gone.

"I want to say that first."

"Thank you."

"But you should know what you've walked into.

"We haven't been paid since June."

A murmur ran down the line.

"Mrs. Redmond said there'd been a bank delay, and then an audit.

"Then she said it'd all be settled when the farm sold.

"Half of us have been paying for feed with our own money, so the horses wouldn't go hungry."

"Four months," said a farrier, low.

"Some of the boys have kids."

Behind me, I felt Abel go rigid.

"You didn't tell me," I said, to him.

"I didn't know it was that bad.

"She had me eating supper in the barn, so I never saw the pay envelopes."

I looked at the line of faces.

None of them looked angry at me.

They looked like people who had been holding a fence post for four months with their bare hands.

"Where are the books?" I said.

The woman in the barn coat blinked.

"The estate office.

"Mrs. Redmond kept them in the safe."

"Open it."

"It's locked."

"Then the trooper has the combination," Jude said.

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