The Giver of Stars

7

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, agents for land companies had swept through the [Kentucky] mountain region buying up mineral rights from residents, sometimes for as little as 50 cents per acre … the broad form deeds often signed over the rights to ‘dump, store and leave upon said land any and all muck, bone, shale, water or other refuse’, to use and pollute water courses in any manner, and to do anything ‘necessary and convenient’ to extract subsurface minerals.

Chad Montrie, ‘The Environment and Environmental Activism in Appalachia’

‘The prince told her she was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen, and then he asked if she would marry him. And they all lived happily ever after.’ Mae Horner brought the two sides of the book briskly together with a satisfying slap.

‘That was really very good, Mae.’

‘I read it through four times yesterday after I collected the wood.’

‘Well, it shows. I do believe your reading is as good as any girl’s in this county.’

‘She’s smart all right.’

Alice looked up to where Jim Horner stood in the doorway. ‘Like her mama. Her mama could read since she was three years old. Grew up in a houseful of books over near Paintsville.’

‘I can read too,’ said Millie, who had been sitting by Alice’s feet.

‘I know you can, Millie,’ said Alice. ‘And your reading is very good too. Honestly, Mr Horner, I don’t think I’ve ever met two children take to it like yours have.’

He suppressed a smile. ‘Tell her what you did, Mae,’ he said.

The girl looked at him, just to check for her father’s approval.

‘Go on.’

‘I made a pie.’

‘You made a pie? By yourself?’

‘From a recipe. In that Country Home magazine you left us. A peach pie. I would offer you a slice but we ate it all.’

Millie giggled. ‘Daddy ate three bits.’

‘I was hunting up in North Ridge and she got the old range going and everything. And I walked in the door and there was a smell like …’ He lifted his nose and closed his eyes, recalling the scent. His face briefly lost its habitual hardness. ‘I walked in and there she was, with it all laid out on the table. She had followed every one of those instructions to a T.’

‘I did burn the edges a little.’

‘Well, your mama always did the same.’

The three of them sat in silence for a moment.

‘A peach pie,’ said Alice. ‘I’m not sure we can keep up with you, young Mae. What can I leave you girls this week?’

‘Did Black Beauty come in yet?’

‘It did! And I remembered what you said about wanting it so I brought it with me. How about that? Now, the words in this one are a little longer, so you may find it a little harder. And it’s sad in places.’

Jim Horner’s expression changed.

‘I mean for the horses. There are some sad bits for the horses. The horses talk. It’s not easy to explain.’

‘Maybe I can read to you, Daddy.’

‘My eyes ain’t too good,’ he explained. ‘Can’t seem to aim the way I used to. But we get by.’

‘I can see that.’ Alice sat in the centre of the little cabin that had once spooked her so much. Mae, although only eleven, appeared to have taken charge of it, sweeping and organizing so that where it had once seemed bleak and dark, there was now a distinct homeliness, with a bowl of apples in the centre of the table and a quilt across the chair. She packed up her books and confirmed that everyone was happy with what she had brought. Millie hugged her around her neck and she held her fiercely. It was some time since anybody had pulled her close and it provoked strange, conflicting feelings.

‘It’s a whole seven days till we see you again,’ the girl announced solemnly. Her hair smelt of wood smoke and something sweet that existed only in the forest. Alice breathed it in.

‘It certainly is. And I can’t wait to see how much you’ve read in the meantime.’

‘Millie! This one’s got drawings in it too!’ Mae called, from the floor. Millie released Alice and hunkered down by her sister. Alice watched them for a moment, then made her way to the door, shrugging on her coat, a once fashionable tweed blazer that was now scuffed with moss and mud and sprouted messy threads where it had caught on bushes and branches. The mountain had grown distinctly colder these last days, as if winter were settling into its foundations.

‘Miss Alice?’

‘Yes?’

The girls were bent over Black Beauty, Millie’s finger tracing the words as her sister read aloud.

Jim looked behind him, as if making sure their focus was elsewhere. ‘I wanted to apologize.’

Alice, who had been tying her scarf, stopped.

‘After my wife passed I was not myself for a while. Felt like the sky was falling in, you know? And I was not … hospitable when you first came by. But these last couple of months, seeing the girls stop crying for their mama, giving them something to look forward to every week, it’s – it’s … Well, I just wanted to say it’s much appreciated.’

Alice held her hands in front of her. ‘Mr Horner, I can honestly tell you that I look forward to seeing your girls just as much as they look forward to my visits.’

‘Well, it’s good for them to see a lady. I didn’t realize till my Betsy was gone how much a child misses the more … feminine side of things.’ He scratched his head. ‘They talk about you, you know, how you speak and all. Mae there says she wants to be a librarian.’

‘She does?’

‘Made me realize – I can’t keep them close by me for ever. I want more for them than this, you know. Seeing as how smart they both are.’ He stood silent for a moment. Then he said: ‘Miss Alice, what do you think of that school? The one with the German lady?’

‘Mrs Beidecker? Mr Horner, I think your girls would love her.’

‘She … doesn’t take a switch to the children? You hear some things … Betsy got beat something awful at school so she never wanted the girls to go.’

‘I’d be happy to introduce you to her, Mr Horner. She is a kind woman, and the students seem to love her. I cannot believe she would ever lay a hand on a child.’

He considered this. ‘It’s hard,’ he said, looking out at the mountain, ‘having to work all this stuff out. I thought I’d be just doing a man’s job. My own daddy just brought home the food and put his feet up and let my mama do all the rest. And now I have to be mother as well as father. Make all these decisions.’

‘Look at those girls, Mr Horner.’

They glanced to where the girls, now lying on their stomachs, were exclaiming over something they had just read.

Alice smiled. ‘I think you’re doing fine.’

Finn Mayburg, Upper Pinch Me – one copy The Furrow, dated May 1937

Two copies Weird Tales magazine, dated December 1936 and February 1937

Ellen Prince – Eagles Top (end cabin) – Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

From Farm to Table by Edna Roden

Nancy and Phyllis Stone, Arnott’s Ridge – Mack Maguire and the Indian Girl by Amherst Archer

Mack Maguire Takes a Fall by Amherst Archer (note: they have read all current editions, ask if we can find out if there are any more)

Margery flicked through the ledger, Sophia’s elegant handwriting neatly transcribing date and routes at the top of each page. Beside it sat a pile of newly repaired books, their bindings stitched and the torn covers patched with pages from books that couldn’t be salvaged. Beside that lay a new scrapbook – The Baileyville Bonus – this edition comprising four pages of recipes from spoiled copies of the Woman’s Home Companion, a short story titled ‘What She Wouldn’t Say’, and a long feature about collecting ferns. The library was now immaculate, a system of labels marking the back of every shelved book so that it was easy for them to find their place, the books precisely ordered and categorized.

Sophia would come by at around 5 p.m. and would usually have done a couple of hours by the time the girls returned from their routes. The days were growing shorter now so they were having to return earlier because of the falling light. Sometimes they would all just sit and chat among themselves while unloading their bags and comparing their days before they headed off to their homes. Fred had been installing a wood burner in the corner in his free time, though it wasn’t finished yet: the gap around the flue pipe was still stuffed with rags to stop the rain coming in. Despite this, all the women seemed to find reasons to hang around a little later each day and Margery suspected that once the stove started up she would have trouble persuading them to go home.

Mrs Brady looked a little startled when Margery explained the identity of the newest member of their team but, having seen the altered state of the little building, to her credit she simply compressed her lips and raised her fingers to her temples. ‘Has anybody complained?’

‘Nobody’s seen her to complain. She comes in the back, by Mr Guisler’s house, and goes home the same way.’

Mrs Brady mulled this for a moment. ‘Are you familiar with what Mrs Nofcier says? You know of Mrs Nofcier, of course.’

Margery smiled. They all knew of Mrs Nofcier. Mrs Brady would shoehorn her name into a conversation about horse liniment if she could.

‘Well, I was recently lucky enough to attend an address for teachers and parents that the good lady gave where she said – hold on, I wrote this bit down.’ She riffled through her pocketbook: ‘“A library service should be provided for all people, rural as well as urban, coloured as well as white.” There. “Coloured as well as white.” That was how she put it. I believe we have to be mindful of the importance of progress and equality just as Mrs Nofcier is. So you’ll have no objection from me about employing a coloured woman here.’ She rubbed at a mark on the desk, then examined her finger. ‘Maybe … we won’t actually advertise it just yet, though. There’s no need to invite controversy, given we’re such a fledgling venture. I’m sure you catch my drift.’

‘My feelings exactly, Mrs Brady,’ Margery said. ‘I wouldn’t want to bring trouble to Sophia’s door.’

‘She does a beautiful job. I’ll give her that.’ Mrs Brady gazed around her. Sophia had stitched a sampler, which hung on the wall beside the door – To Seek Knowledge Is To Expand Your Own Universe – and Mrs Brady patted it with some satisfaction. ‘I have to say, Miss O’Hare, I am immensely proud of what you have achieved in just a few short months. It has exceeded all our expectations. I have written to Mrs Nofcier to tell her as much several times and I am sure that at some point she will be passing on those sentiments to Mrs Roosevelt herself … It is a profound shame not everyone in our town feels the same way.’

She glanced away, as if deciding not to say more. ‘But, as I said, I do believe this is a true model of a packhorse library. And you girls should be proud of yourselves.’

Margery nodded. It was probably best not to tell Mrs Brady about the library’s unofficial initiative: each day she sat down at the desk, in the dark hours between her arrival and dawn, and she wrote out, according to her template, a half-dozen more of the letters that she had been distributing to the inhabitants of North Ridge.

Dear Neighbour

It has come to our attention that the owners of Hoffman are seeking to create new mines in your neighbourhood. This would involve the removal of hundreds of acres of timber, the blasting of new pits and, in many cases, the loss of homes and livelihoods.

I write to you in confidence, as the mines are known to employ devious and harsh individuals in the interests of getting their way, but I believe that it is both illegal and immoral for them to do what they plan, that it would be the cause of abject misery and destitution.

To that end, according to law books we have consulted, there appears to be a precedent to stop such wholesale rape of our landscape, and protect our homes, and I urge you to read this extract provided below, or, if you have the resources, to consult the legal representative at Baileyville’s court offices in order to put such obstructions in place as may be required to prevent this destruction. In the meantime do not sign any BROAD FORM DEEDS for these, despite the money and assurances offered, will give the mine-owners the right to mine under your very house.

If help is needed with the reading of such documents, the packhorse librarians may be happy to assist, and will, of course, do so with discretion.

In confidence,

A friend

She finished, folded them neatly, and placed one in each of the saddlebags, except Alice’s. She would deliver the extra one herself. No point making things more complicated for the girl than they already were.

The boy had finally stopped screaming, his voice now emerging as a series of barely suppressed whimpers, as if he had remembered himself to be among men. His clothes and skin were equally black from where the coal had almost buried him, only the whites of his eyes visible to betray his shock and pain. Sven watched as the stretcher-bearers lifted him carefully, their job made harder by the low pitch of the roof, and, stooping, began to shuffle out, shouting instructions at each other as they went. Sven leaned back against the rough wall to let them pass, then turned his light on those miners who were setting up props where the roof had fallen, cursing as they struggled to wedge the heavy timbers into place.

This was low-vein coal, the chambers of the mines so shallow in places that men were barely able to rise onto their knees. It was the worst kind of mining; Sven had friends who were crippled by the time they were thirty, reliant on sticks just to stand straight. He hated these rabbit warrens, where your mind would play tricks in the near dark to tell you the damp, black expanse above your head was even now closing in on you. He had seen too many sudden roof falls, and only a pair of boots left visible to judge where the body might be.

‘Boss, you might want to take a look through here.’

Sven looked round – itself a tricky manoeuvre – and followed Jim McNeil’s beckoning glove. The underground chambers were connected, rather than reached through new shafts from the outside – not uncommon in a mine where the owner championed profit over safety. He made his way awkwardly along the passage to the next chamber and adjusted his helmet light. Some eight props stood in a shallow opening, each buckling visibly under the weight of the roof above it. He moved his head slowly, scanning the empty space, the black surface glittering around him as it was met by the carbide lamplight.

‘Can you see how many they took out?’

‘Looks like about half remaining.’

Sven cursed. ‘Don’t go any further in,’ he said, and, twisting, turned to the men behind him. ‘No man is to go into Number Two. You hear me?’

‘You tell Van Cleve that,’ said a voice behind him. ‘You got to cross Number Two to get to Number Eight.’

‘Then nobody is to go into Number Eight. Not till everything’s shored up right.’

‘He ain’t going to hear that.’

‘Oh, he’ll hear it.’

The air was thick with dust, and he spat behind him, his lower back already aching. He turned to the miners. ‘We need at least ten more props in Seven before anyone goes back in. And get your fire boss to check for methane before anyone starts work again.’

There was a murmur of agreement – Gustavsson being one of the few authority figures a miner could trust to be on his side – and Sven motioned his team into the haulage-way and then outside, already grateful for the prospect of sunlight.

‘So what’s the damage, Gustavsson?’

Sven stood in Van Cleve’s office, his nostrils still filled with the smell of sulphur, his boots leaving a fine dusty outline on the thick red carpet, waiting for Van Cleve in his pale suit to look up from his paperwork. Across the room he could see young Bennett glance up from behind his desk, his blue-cotton shirtsleeves marked with a neat crease. The younger man never looked quite comfortable at the mine. He rarely stepped out of the administrative block, as if the dirt and unpredictable nature of it were anathema to him.

‘Well, we got the boy out, though it was a close thing. His hip’s pretty bust.’

‘That’s excellent news. I’m much obliged to you all.’

‘I’ve had him taken to the company doctor.’

‘Yes. Yes. Very good.’

Van Cleve appeared to believe that was the end of the conversation. He flashed a smile at Sven, holding it a moment too long, as if to question why he was still standing there – then shuffled his papers emphatically.

Sven waited a beat. ‘You might want to know what caused the roof fall.’

‘Oh. Yes. Of course.’

‘Looks like props holding up the roof have been moved from the mined-out area in Number Two to support the new chamber in Seven. It destabilized the whole area.’

Van Cleve’s expression, when he finally looked up again, betrayed exactly the manufactured surprise Sven had known it would. ‘Well, now. The men should not be reusing props. We have told them as much many a time. Haven’t we, Bennett?’

Bennett, behind his desk, looked down, too cowardly even to tell a straight lie. Sven swallowed the words he wanted to say, and considered those that followed carefully. ‘Sir, I should also point out that the amount of coal dust on the ground is a hazard in every one of your mines. You need more non-combustible rock atop it. And better ventilation, if you want to avoid more incidents.’

Van Cleve scribbled something on a piece of paper. He no longer appeared to be listening.

‘Mr Van Cleve, of all the mines our safety crew serves, I have to inform you that Hoffman’s conditions are by some distance the least … satisfactory.’

‘Yes, yes. I have told the men as such. Goodness knows why they won’t just get on and rectify matters. But let’s not make too big of a deal of it, Gustavsson. It’s a temporary oversight. Bennett will get the foreman up and we’ll – uh – we’ll sort it out. Won’t you, Bennett?’

Sven might reasonably have pointed out that Van Cleve had said exactly this the last time the sirens had gone off some eighteen days previously because of an explosion in the entrance of Number Nine, caused by a young breaker who hadn’t known not to go in with an open light. The boy had been lucky to escape with superficial burns. But workers came cheap, after all.

‘Anyway, all’s well, thank the Lord.’ Van Cleve lifted himself with a grunt from his chair and walked around his large mahogany desk towards the door, signifying that the meeting was over. ‘Thank you and your men for your service, as ever. Worth every cent our mine pays towards your team.’

Sven didn’t move.

Van Cleve opened the door. A long, painful moment passed.

Sven faced him. ‘Mr Van Cleve. You know I’m not a political man. But you must understand that it’s conditions like these here that give root to those agitating for union membership.’

Van Cleve’s face darkened. ‘I hope you’re not suggesting –’

Sven lifted his palms. ‘I have no affiliation. I just want your workers to be safe. But I have to say it would be a shame if this mine were considered too dangerous for my men to come here. I’m sure that would not go down well in the locality.’

The smile, half-hearted as it was, had now vanished completely. ‘Well, I’m sure I thank you for your advice, Gustavsson. And as I said, I will get my men to attend to it. Now, if you don’t mind, I have pressing matters to attend to. The foreman will fetch you and your crew any water you might need.’

Van Cleve continued to hold the door. Sven nodded – then as he passed, thrust out a blackened hand so that the older man, after a moment’s hesitation, was forced to take it. After clasping it firmly enough to be sure he would have left some kind of imprint at least, Sven released it and walked away down the corridor.

With the first frost in Baileyville came hog-slaughtering time. The mere words made Alice, who couldn’t tread on a bug, feel a little faint, especially when Beth described, with relish, what happened in her own home each year: the stunning of the squealing pig, the slitting of its throat as the boys sat hard on it, its legs pumping furiously, the hot dark blood pouring out onto the scraping board. She mimed the men tipping scalding water over it, attacking the bristles with flat blades, reducing the animal to flesh and gristle and bone.

‘My aunt Lina will be waiting there with her apron open, ready to catch the head. She makes the best souse – that’s from the tongue, ears and feet – this side of the Cumberland Gap. But my favourite part of the whole day, since I was small, is when Daddy tips all the innards into a tub and we get to choose the best bit to roast. I’d elbow my brothers in the eye to get to that old liver. Put it on a stick and roast it in the fire. Oh, boy, nothing like it. Fresh roasted hog liver. Mmm-mm.’

She laughed as Alice covered her mouth and shook her head mutely.

But, like Beth, the town seemed to greet the prospect with an almost unseemly relish, and everywhere they went the librarians were offered a lick of salt bacon or – on one occasion – hog brains scrambled with egg, a mountain delicacy. Alice’s stomach still turned at the thought of that.

But it wasn’t just the hog-slaughtering that was causing a frisson of anticipation to run through the town: Tex Lafayette was coming. Posters of the white-clad cowboy clutching his bullwhip were all over town, tacked hastily onto posts, and scrutinized by small boys and lovelorn women alike. At every other settlement the name of the Singing Cowboy was spoken like a talisman, followed by – Is it true? Are you going?

Demand was so great that he was no longer booked to appear in the theatre, as originally planned, but would perform in the town square, where a stage was already being constructed from old pallets and planks, and for days beforehand whooping boys would run across it, imitating playing a banjo, ducking their heads to avoid the flat hands of the irritated workmen as they passed.

‘Can we finish early tonight? Not like anyone’s going to be reading. Everyone for ten miles yonder’s already headed to the square,’ said Beth, as she pulled her last book from her saddlebag. ‘Shoot. Look at what those Mackenzie boys have done to poor old Treasure Island.’ She stooped to pick up the scattered pages from the floor, cursing.

‘Don’t see why not,’ said Margery. ‘Sophia has it all under control, and it’s dark already anyhow.’

‘Who is Tex Lafayette?’ said Alice.

The four women turned and stared at her. ‘Who is Tex Lafayette?’

‘Haven’t you seen Green Grows My Mountain? Or Corral My Heart?’

‘Oh, I love Corral My Heart. That song near the end just about broke me,’ said Izzy, and let out a huge, happy sigh.

‘You didn’t have to trap me –’

‘For I’m your willing prisoner –’ broke in Sophia.

‘You didn’t need a rope to corral my heart …’ they sang in unison, each lost in a reverie.

Alice looked blank.

‘You don’t go to the picture house?’ said Izzy. ‘Tex Lafayette has been in everything.’

‘He can bullwhip a lit cigarette out of a man’s mouth and not leave a scratch on him.’

‘He is a grade-A dreamboat.’

‘I’m too tired to go out most evenings. Bennett goes sometimes.’

In truth, Alice would have found it too strange to be beside her husband in the dark now. She suspected he felt the same way. For weeks they had taken care that their lives crossed as little as possible. She was gone long before breakfast, and he was often out for dinner, either on work errands for Mr Van Cleve or playing baseball with his friends. He spent most nights on the daybed in their dressing room, so that even the shape of him had become unfamiliar to her. If Mr Van Cleve thought there was anything odd about their behaviour, he didn’t say: he spent most of his evenings late at the mine, and seemed largely preoccupied with whatever was going on there. Alice now hated that house with a passion, its gloom, its stifling history. She was so grateful not to have to spend her evenings stuck in the dark little parlour with the two of them that she didn’t care to question any of it.

‘You’re coming to Tex Lafayette, right?’ Beth brushed her hair, and straightened her blouse in the mirror. Apparently she had a thing for a boy from the gas station but had shown him her affection by punching him twice on the arm, hard, and was now at a loss to work out what to do next.

‘Oh, I don’t think so. I don’t really know anything about him.’

‘All work and no play, Alice. C’mon. The whole town is going. Izzy’s going to meet us outside the store and her mama has given her a whole dollar for cotton candy. It’s only fifty cents if you want a seat. Or you can stand back and watch for free. That’s what we’re doing.’

‘I don’t know. Bennett’s working late over at Hoffman. I should probably just go home.’

Sophia and Izzy started to sing again, Izzy blushing, as she always did when she found herself singing to an audience.

‘Your smile’s a rope around me

Has been since you found me

You didn’t need to chase me to corral my heart …’

Margery took the small mirror from Beth and checked her face for smudges, rubbing at her cheekbone with a moistened handkerchief until she was satisfied. ‘Well, Sven and I are going to be over by the Nice ’N’ Quick. He’s reserved us an upstairs table so we can get a good view. You’d be welcome to join us.’

‘I have things to do here,’ said Alice. ‘But thank you. I may join you later.’ She said it to mollify them and they knew it. Secretly she wanted just to sit in peace in the little library. She liked to be on her own there in the evenings, to read by herself, in the dim light of the oil lamp, escaping to the tropical white of Robinson Crusoe’s island, or the fusty corridors of Mr Chips’s Brookfield School. If Sophia came while she was still there she tended to let Alice alone, interrupting only to ask if Alice might place her finger on this piece of fabric while she put in a couple of stitches, or whether she thought this repaired book cover looked acceptable. Sophia was not a woman who required an audience, but seemed to feel easier in company, so although they said little to each other, the arrangement had suited both of them for the past few weeks.

‘Okay. We’ll see you later, then!’

With a cheery wave, the two women clumped across the boards and out down the steps, still in their breeches and boots. As the door opened, a swell of anticipatory noise carried into the little room. The square was full already, a local group of musicians fiddling to keep the waiting crowds happy, the air thick with laughter and catcalling.

‘You not going, Sophia?’ said Alice.

‘I’ll have a listen out the back later on,’ said Sophia. ‘Wind’s carrying this way.’ She threaded a needle, lifted another damaged book, and added quietly, ‘I’m not crazy about places where there are crowds.’

Perhaps as a kind of concession, Sophia propped the back door open with a book and allowed the sound of the fiddle to creep in, her foot finding it impossible not to tap along occasionally. Alice sat on the chair in the corner, her writing paper on her lap, trying to compose a letter to Gideon, but her pen kept stilling in her hand. She had no idea what to tell him. Everyone in England believed she was enjoying an exciting cosmopolitan life in an America full of huge cars and high times. She didn’t know how to convey to her brother the truth of her situation.

Behind her, Sophia, who seemed to know the tunes to everything, hummed along with the fiddle, sometimes allowing her voice to act as a descant, sometimes adding a few lyrics. Her voice was soft and velvety and soothing. Alice put down her pen and thought a little wistfully of how nice it would be to be out there with her husband of old, the one who had taken her in his arms and whispered lovely things in her ears and whose eyes had promised a future full of laughter and romance, instead of the one she caught looking at her occasionally with bemusement, as if he couldn’t work out how she had got there.

‘Good evening, ladies.’ The door closed gently behind Fred Guisler. He was wearing a neatly pressed blue shirt and suit trousers, and removed his hat at the sight of them. Alice startled slightly at the unexpected sight of him without his habitual checked shirt and overalls. ‘Saw the light was on, but I have to say I didn’t expect to find you in here this evening. Not with our local entertainment and all.’

‘Oh, I’m not really a fan,’ said Alice, who folded away her writing pad.

‘You can’t be persuaded? Even if you don’t enjoy cowboy tricks, Tex Lafayette has a heck of a voice. And it’s a beautiful evening out there. Too beautiful to spend in here.’

‘That’s very kind but I’m just fine here, thank you, Mr Guisler.’

Alice waited for him to ask the same of Sophia, then grasped, with a slightly sick feeling, that of course it was obvious to everyone but her why he wouldn’t, why the others hadn’t pressed her to go with them either. A square full of drunk and rowdy young white men would not be a safe place for Sophia. She realized suddenly that she wasn’t entirely sure what was a safe place for Sophia.

‘Well, I’m going to take a little stroll down to watch. But I’ll stop by later and drive you home, Miss Sophia. There’s a fair bit of liquor flying around that square tonight and I’m not sure it’ll be a pleasant place for a lady come nine o’clock.’

‘Thank you, Mr Guisler,’ said Sophia. ‘I appreciate it.’

‘You should go,’ said Sophia, not looking up from her stitching, as the sound of Fred’s footsteps faded down the dark road.

Alice shuffled some loose sheets of paper. ‘It’s complicated.’

‘Life is complicated. Which is why finding a little joy where you can is important.’ She frowned at one of her stitches and unpicked it. ‘It’s hard to be different from everyone around here. I understand that. I really do. I had a very different life in Louisville.’ She let out a sigh. ‘But those girls care about you. They are your friends. And you shutting yourself off from them ain’t going to make things any easier.’

Alice watched as a moth fluttered around the oil lamp. After a moment, unable to bear it, she cupped it carefully in her hands, walked to the partially open door and released it. ‘You’d be here by yourself.’

‘I’m a big girl. And Mr Guisler is going to come back for me.’

She could hear the music starting up in the square, the roar of approval that announced the Singing Cowboy had taken centre stage. She looked at the window.

‘You really think I should go?’

Sophia put down her stitching. ‘Lord, Alice, you need me to write a song about it? Hey,’ she called, as Alice made for the front door. ‘Let me fix up your hair before you go. Appearances are important.’

Alice ran back and held up the little mirror. She rubbed at her face with her handkerchief as Sophia ran a comb through her hair, pinning and tutting as she worked with nimble fingers. When Sophia stood back Alice reached into her bag for her lipstick and drew coral pink over her lips, pursing them and rubbing them together. Satisfied, she looked down, brushing at her shirt and breeches. ‘Not much I can do about what I’m wearing.’

‘But the top half is pretty as a picture. And that’s all anyone will notice.’

Alice smiled. ‘Thank you, Sophia.’

‘You come back and tell me all about it.’ She sat back at the desk and resumed tapping her foot, half lost already in the distant music.

Alice was partway up the road when she glimpsed the creature. It scuttled across the shadowy road and her mind, already a quarter-mile ahead at the square, took a moment to register that something was in front of her. She slowed: a ground squirrel! She felt, oddly, as if the talk of all the murdered hogs had hung a sad fog over the week, adding to her vague sense of depression. For people who lived so deep in nature, the inhabitants of Baileyville seemed oblivious to the idea of respecting it. She stopped, waiting for the squirrel to cross in front of her. It was a large one, with a huge, thick tail. At that moment the moon emerged from a cloud, revealing to her that it wasn’t a squirrel after all, but something darker, more solid, with a black and white stripe. She frowned at it, perplexed, and then, as she was about to take a step forward, it turned its back on her, raised its tail, and she felt her skin sprayed with moisture. It took a second for that sensation to be supplanted by the most noxious smell she had ever breathed. She gasped and gagged, covering her mouth and spluttering. But there was no escaping it: it was all over her hands, her shirt, in her hair. The creature scuttled off nonchalantly into the night, leaving Alice batting at her clothes, as if by waving her hands and yelling she could make it all go away.

The upper floor of the Nice ’N’ Quick was thick with bodies pressed against the window, three deep, some yelling their appreciation for the white-suited cowboy below. Margery and Sven were the only ones left seated, the two in a booth beside each other, as they preferred. Between them were the dregs of two iced teas. Two weeks previously a local photographer had stopped by and persuaded the ladies onto their horses in front of the WPA Packhorse Library sign and all four, Izzy, Margery, Alice and Beth, had posed, shoulder to shoulder, on their mounts. A copy of that photograph now took pride of place on the wall of the diner, the women gazing out, decorated by a string of streamers, and Margery could not take her eyes off it. She wasn’t sure she had ever been prouder of anything in her life.

‘My brother’s talking of buying some of that land up on North Ridge. Bore McCallister says he’ll give him a good price. I was thinking I might go in with him. I can’t work down those mines for ever.’

She pulled her attention back to Sven. ‘How much land you talking about?’

‘About four hundred acres. There’s good hunting.’

‘You haven’t heard, then.’

‘Heard what?’

Margery reached round and pulled the template letter out of her bag. Sven opened it carefully and read it, placing it back on the table in front of her. ‘Where’d you hear this?’

‘Know anything about it?’

‘Nope. Everywhere we go they’re all about busting the United Mine Workers of America’s influence just now.’

‘The two things go together, I worked it out. Daniel McGraw, Ed Siddly, the Bray brothers – all those union organizers – they all live on North Ridge. If the new mine shakes those men out of their homes, along with their families, it’s that much harder for them to get organized. They don’t want to end up like Harlan, with a damn war going on between the miners and their bosses.’

Sven leaned back in his seat. He blew out his cheeks and studied Margery’s expression. ‘I’m guessing the letter is you.’

She smiled sweetly at him.

He ran a palm across his forehead. ‘Jeez, Marge. You know what those thugs are like. Is trouble actually in your blood? … No, don’t answer that.’

‘I can’t stand by while they wreck these mountains, Sven. You know what they did over at Great White Gap?’

‘Yes, I do.’

‘Blew the valley to pieces, polluted the water, and disappeared overnight when all the coal was gone. All those families left without jobs or homes. They won’t do it over here.’

He picked up the letter and read it again. ‘Anyone else know about this?’

‘I got two families headed over to the legal offices already. I looked up legal books that say the mine-owners can’t blow up land if the families didn’t sign those broad form contracts that give the mines all the rights. Casey Campbell helped her daddy to read all the paperwork.’ She sighed with satisfaction, jabbing her finger onto the table. ‘Nothing more dangerous than a woman armed with a little knowledge. Even if she’s twelve years old.’

‘If anyone at Hoffman finds out it’s you, there’s going to be trouble.’

She shrugged, and took a swig of her drink.

‘I’m serious. Be careful, Marge. I don’t want nothing happening to you. Van Cleve has bad men on his payroll on the back of this union fight – guys from out of town. You’ve seen what’s happened in Harlan. I – I couldn’t bear it if anything happened to you.’

She peered up at him. ‘You’re not getting sentimental on me, are you, Gustavsson?’

‘I mean it.’ He turned so that his face was inches from hers. ‘I love you, Marge.’

She was about to joke, but there was an unfamiliar look to his face, something serious and vulnerable, and the words stilled on her lips. His eyes searched hers, and his fingers closed around her own, as if his hand might say what he wasn’t able to. She held his gaze, and then, as a roar went up in the diner, she looked away. Below them Tex Lafayette struck up with ‘I Was Born in the Valley’, to loud whoops of approval.

‘Oh, boy, those girls are going to go hog wild now,’ she murmured.

‘I think what you meant to say is “I love you too”,’ he said, after a minute.

‘Those dynamite sticks have done something to your ears. I’m sure I said it ages ago,’ she said, and shaking his head, he pulled her towards him again and kissed her until she stopped grinning.

It didn’t matter where they’d said they were going to meet, Alice thought, as she fought her way through the teeming town square: the place was so dark and dense with people that she had almost no chance of finding her friends. The air was thick with the smell of cordite from firecrackers, cigarette smoke, beer and the burned-sugar scent of cotton candy from the stalls that had sprung up for the evening, but she could make out almost none of it. Wherever she went, there was a brief, audible intake of breath and people would back away, frowning and clutching their noses. ‘Lady, you got sprayed by a skunk!’ a freckled youth yelled, as she passed him.

‘You don’t say,’ she answered crossly.

‘Oh, good Lord.’ Two girls pulled back, grimacing at Alice. ‘Is that Van Cleve’s English wife?’

Alice felt the people part like waves around her as she drew closer to the stage.

It was a minute before she saw him. Bennett was standing over near the corner of the temporary bar, beaming, a Hudepohl beer in his hand. She stared at him, at his easy smile, his shoulders loose and relaxed in his good blue shirt. She observed, absently, that he seemed so much more at ease when he wasn’t with her. Her surprise at his not being at work after all was slowly replaced by a kind of wistfulness, a remembrance of the man she had fallen in love with. As she watched, wondering whether to walk over and confide in him about her disastrous evening, a girl standing just to his left turned, and held up a bottle of cola. It was Peggy Foreman. She leaned in close and said something that made him laugh, and he nodded, his eyes still on Tex Lafayette, then he looked back at her, and his face creased into a goofy smile. She wanted to run up to him then, to push that girl out of the way. To take her place in the arms of her husband, have him smile tenderly at her as he had before they were married. But even as she stood, people were backing away from her, laughing or muttering: Skunk. She felt her eyes brim with tears and, head down, began to push her way back through the crowd.

‘Hey!’

Alice’s jaw jutted as she wound her way through the jostling bodies, ignoring the jeers and laughter that seemed to swell in bursts around her, the music fading into the distance. She was grateful that the dark meant barely anybody could see who it was as she wiped the tears away.

‘Good Lord. Did you catch that smell?’

‘Hey! … Alice!’

Her head spun round and she saw Fred Guisler pushing his way through the crowd towards her, his arm outstretched. ‘You okay?’

It took him a couple of seconds to register the smell; she saw shock flicker across his features – a silent whoa – and then, almost immediately, his determined attempt to hide it. He placed an arm around her shoulders, resolutely steering her through the crowd. ‘C’mon. Let’s get you back to the library. Move over there, would you? Coming through.’

It took them ten minutes to walk back up the dark road. As soon as they were out of the centre of town, away from the crowds. Alice stepped out of the shelter of his arm and took herself to the side of the road. ‘You’re very kind. But you really don’t need to.’

‘It’s fine. Got almost no sense of smell anyway. First horse I ever broke caught me in the nose with a back foot and I’ve never been the same since.’

She knew he was lying, but it was kind and she shot him a rueful smile. ‘I couldn’t see for sure, but I think it was a skunk. It just stopped in front of me and –’

‘Oh, it was a skunk all right.’ He was trying not to laugh.

Alice stared at him, her cheeks flaming. She thought she might actually burst into tears, but something in his expression felled her and, to her surprise, she began to laugh instead.

‘Worst thing ever, huh?’

‘Truthfully? Not even close.’

‘Well, now I’m intrigued. So what was the worst?’

‘I can’t tell you.’

‘Two skunks?’

‘You have to stop laughing at me, Mr Guisler.’

‘I don’t mean to hurt your feelings, Mrs Van Cleve. It’s just so unlikely – a girl like you, so pretty and refined and all … and that smell …’

‘You’re not really helping.’

‘I’m sorry. Look, come to my house before you go to the library. I can find you some fresh clothes so you can at least get home without causing a commotion.’

They walked in silence the last hundred yards, peeling off the main road up the track to Fred Guisler’s house, which, being behind the library and set back from the road, Alice realized she had barely registered until now. There was a light on in the porch and she followed him up the wooden steps, glancing left to where, a hundred yards away, the library light was still on, only visible from this side of the road through a tiny crack in the door. She pictured Sophia in there, hard at work stitching new books out of old, humming along to the music, and then he opened the door and stood back to let her in.

Men who lived alone around Baileyville, as far as she could make out, lived rough lives, their cabins functional and sparsely furnished, their habits basic and hygiene often questionable. Fred’s house had sanded wood floors, waxed and burnished through years of use; a rocker sat in a corner, a blue rag rug in front of it, and a large brass lamp cast a soft glow over a shelf of books. Pictures lined the wall and an upholstered chair stood opposite, with a view out over the rear of the building and Fred’s large barn full of horses. The gramophone was on a highly polished mahogany table and an intricate old quilt lay neatly folded to its side. ‘But this is beautiful!’ she said, realizing as she did the insult in her words.

He didn’t seem to catch it. ‘Not all my work,’ he said. ‘But I try to keep it nice. Hold on.’

She felt bad, bringing this stench into his sweet-smelling, comfortable home. She crossed her arms and winced as he jogged upstairs, as if that could contain the odour. He was back in minutes, with two dresses across his arm. ‘One of these should fit.’

She looked up at him. ‘You have dresses?’

‘They were my wife’s.’

She blinked.

‘Hand me your clothes out and I’ll douse them in vinegar. That’ll help. When you take them home get Annie to put some baking soda into the washtub with the soap. Oh, and there’s a clean washcloth on the stand.’

She turned and he gestured towards a bathroom, which she entered. She stripped down, pushed her clothes out through a gap in the door, then washed her face and hands, scrubbing at her skin with the washcloth and lye soap. The acrid smell refused to dissipate; in the confines of the warm little room, it almost made her gag and she scrubbed as hard as she could without actually removing a layer of skin. As an afterthought she poured a jug of water over her head, rubbing at her hair with soap and rinsing it, then rough drying it with a towel. Finally she slipped into the green dress. It was what her mother would have called a tea-dress, short-sleeved and floral with a white lace collar, a little loose around the waist, but at least it smelt clean. There was a bottle of scent on top of a cabinet. She sniffed it, then sprayed a little on her wet hair.

She emerged some minutes later to find Fred standing by the window looking down at the illuminated town square. He turned, his mind clearly lost elsewhere, and perhaps because of his wife’s dress, he seemed suddenly shaken. He recovered himself swiftly and handed her a glass of iced tea. ‘Thought you might need this.’

‘Thank you, Mr Guisler.’ She took a sip. ‘I feel rather silly.’

‘Fred. Please. And don’t feel bad. Not for a minute. We’ve all been caught.’

She stood for a moment, feeling suddenly awkward. She was in a strange man’s home, wearing his dead wife’s dress. She didn’t know what to do with her limbs. A roar went up somewhere in town and she winced. ‘Oh, goodness. I haven’t just made your lovely house smell awful but you’ve missed Tex Lafayette. I’m so sorry.’

He shook his head. ‘It’s nothing. I couldn’t leave you, looking so …’

‘Skunks, eh!’ she said brightly, and his concerned expression didn’t shift, as if he knew that the smell was not the thing that had so upset her.

‘Still! You can probably catch the rest of it if we head back now,’ she said. She had started to gabble. ‘I mean, it looks like he’ll be singing a while. You were quite right. He’s very good. Not that I heard a huge amount, what with one thing and another, but I can see why he’s so popular. The crowd does seem to love him.’

‘Alice –’

‘Goodness. Look at the time. I’d better head back.’ She walked past him towards the door, her head down. ‘You should absolutely head back to the show. I’ll walk home. It’s no distance.’

‘I’ll drive you.’

‘In case of more skunks?’ Her laugh was high and brittle. Her voice didn’t even sound like her own. ‘Honestly, Mr Guisler – Fred – you’ve been so very kind already and I don’t want to put you to more trouble. Really. I don’t –’

‘I’ll take you,’ he said firmly. He took his jacket from the back of a chair, then removed a small blanket from another and placed it around her shoulders. ‘It’s turned chilly out there.’

They stepped onto the porch. Alice was suddenly acutely aware of Frederick Guisler, of the way he had of observing her, as if looking through whatever she said or did to assess its true purpose. It was oddly discomfiting. She half stumbled down the porch steps and he reached out a hand to steady her. She clutched at it, then immediately let go as if she’d been stung.

Please don’t say anything else, she said silently. Her cheeks were aflame again, her thoughts a jumble. But when she glanced up he wasn’t looking at her.

‘Was that door like that when we came in?’ He was staring at the back of the library. The door, which had been open a sliver to allow in the sound of the music, was now wide open. A series of distant, irregular thumps came from within. He stood very still, then turned to Alice, his ease of the previous minutes gone. ‘Stay there.’

He strode swiftly back inside and then, a moment later, emerged from his house with a large double-barrelled rifle. Alice stepped back as he passed, watching as he walked towards the library. Then, unable to stop herself, she followed a few paces behind, her feet silent on the grass as she tiptoed down the back path.

‘What seems to be the problem here, boys?’

Frederick Guisler stood in the doorway. Behind him Alice, her heart in her mouth, could just make out the scattered books on the floor, an overturned chair. There were two, no, three young men in the library, dressed in jeans and shirts. One held a beer bottle, and another an armful of books, which, as Fred stood there, he dropped with a kind of provocative deliberation. She could just make out Sophia standing, rigid, in the corner, her gaze fixed on some indeterminate point on the floor.

‘You got a coloured in your library.’ The boy’s voice held a nasal whine and was slurred with drink.

‘Yup. And I’m standing here trying to work out what business that is of yours.’

‘This is for white folks. She shouldn’t be here.’

‘Yeah.’ The other two young men, emboldened by beer, jeered back at him.

‘Do you run this library now?’ Fred’s voice was icy. It held a tone she had never heard before.

‘I ain’t –’

‘I said, do you run this library, Chet Mitchell?’

The boy’s eyes slid sideways, as if the sound of his own name had reminded him of the potential for consequences. ‘No.’

‘Then I suggest you leave. All three of you. Before this gun slips in my hand and I do something I regret.’

‘You threatening me over a coloured?’

‘I’m telling you what happens when a man finds three drunk fools on his property. And if you like, just as easy, I’ll tell you what happens if a man finds they don’t leave as soon as he tells them. Pretty sure you ain’t going to like it, though.’

‘I don’t see why you’re sticking up for her. You got a thing fer Brownie here?’

Quick as a flash, Fred had the boy by the throat, pinned against the wall with a white-knuckled fist. Alice ducked backwards, her breath in her throat. ‘Don’t push me, Mitchell.’

The boy swallowed, raised his palms. ‘It was just a joke,’ he choked. ‘Can’t take a joke now, Mr Guisler?’

‘I don’t see anyone else laughing. Now git.’ Fred dropped the boy, whose knees buckled. He rubbed at his throat, shot a nervous look at his friends and then, when Fred took a step forward, ducked out through the back door. Alice, her heart pounding, stepped back as the three stumbled out, adjusting their clothes with a mute bravado, then walked in silence back down the grit path. Their courage returned when they were out of easy range.

‘You got a thing for Brownie, Frederick Guisler? That why your wife left?’

‘You can’t shoot for shit anyway. I seen you hunting!’

Alice thought she might be sick. She leaned on the back wall of the library, a fine sweat prickling on her back, her heart rate only easing when she could just make them out disappearing around the corner. She could hear Fred inside, picking up books and placing them on the table.

‘I’m so sorry, Miss Sophia. I should have come back sooner.’

‘Not at all. It’s my own fault for leaving the door open.’

Alice made her way slowly up the steps. Sophia, on the surface, looked unperturbed. She stooped, picking up books and checking them for damage, dusting their surfaces and tutting at the torn labels. But when Fred turned away to adjust a shelf that had been shoved from its moorings, she saw Sophia’s hand reach out to the desk for support, her knuckles tightening momentarily on its edge. Alice stepped in and, without a word, began tidying, too. The scrapbooks that Sophia had so carefully been putting together had been ripped to pieces in front of her. The carefully mended books were newly torn and hurled across the room, loose pages still fluttering around the interior.

‘I’ll stay late this week and help you fix them,’ Alice said. And then, when Sophia didn’t respond, she added: ‘That is … if you’re coming back?’

‘You think a bunch of snot-nosed kids are going to keep me from my job? I’ll be fine, Miss Alice.’ She paused, and gave her a tight smile. ‘But your help would be appreciated, thank you. We have ground to make up.’

‘I’ll speak to the Mitchells,’ said Fred. ‘I’m not going to let this happen again.’ His voice softened and his body was easy as he moved around the little cabin. But Alice saw how every few minutes his focus would shift to the window, and that he only relaxed once he had the two women in his truck, ready to drive them home.