Darline's Arc

Chapter 11 of 13

That evening, Darline left the journal on a bench outside the saloon where travelers gathered for gossip. She watched from the doorway as a man in a dust-covered coat picked it up, flipped through the pages, and slipped it into his saddlebag. By morning, the convoy would be chasing ghosts across the territory while the real growers stayed safe. Darline walked back inside and poured herself a drink, her notebook light in her apron pocket. She'd warned every shop she could reach. Now gossip would do what it did best—spread like wildfire and lead hunters astray. But the man didn't leave. He sat down at one of the worn tables near the window and opened the journal again, reading carefully. Darline froze behind the bar as he pulled out a pencil and started marking pages. He was checking the names against something—a map, maybe, or another list. She'd made the entries look real, but not perfect. If he studied them too long, he'd see the pattern: towns clustered too close together, dates that didn't match shipping schedules, suppliers who'd been dead for years. Darline grabbed a rag and walked over to wipe down nearby tables, staying close enough to listen. The man muttered to himself, running his finger down the scroll tucked inside the journal's cover. Then he looked up and caught her eye. "You work here long?" he asked. Darline nodded, her heart pounding. "Long enough," she said. He held up the journal. "Someone left this. Looks like shipping records. You know anything about rose growers passing through?" Darline wiped the same spot on the table three times, then shook her head. "Just travelers," she said. "They come and go." The man studied her face for a long moment, then tucked the journal back into his coat. "If you hear anything," he said, "there's coin in it." He stood and walked out, leaving his drink half-finished. Darline watched him mount his horse and ride toward the north road—the opposite direction from Waverly's cabin and the growers she'd hidden. She exhaled slowly and returned to the bar, her hands steady now. The journal had worked. The convoy would follow her false trail while the real growers stayed buried in her silence. She'd turned gossip into a shield instead of a weapon, and for the first time in years, the weight of her secrets felt like protection instead of revenge.