“You coming, Alice? Reckon this is a good day for us to head round the town, schoolhouse and all. Long as we can keep Patch here from falling asleep we’ll have a fine day. You okay, girls? Off we go.”

* * *

• • •

Isabelle said almost nothing for the first hour of their ride. Alice, who rode behind her, heard the occasional squeal as Patch coughed, or moved his head. Margery would lean back in her saddle and call something encouraging. But it took a good four miles before Alice could see that Isabelle had allowed herself to breathe normally, and even then she looked furious and unhappy, her eyes glittering with tears, even though they barely broke out of a slumberous walk.

For all they had achieved in getting her onto a horse, Alice could not see how on earth this was going to work. The girl didn’t want to be there. She couldn’t walk without a brace. She clearly didn’t like horses. For all they knew she didn’t even like books. Alice wondered whether she would turn up the following day, and when she occasionally met Margery’s eye, she knew she was wondering the same. She missed the way they normally rode together, the easy silences, the way she felt as if she were learning something with Margery’s every casual utterance. She missed the exhilarating gallops up the flatter tracks, yelling encouragement at each other on wheeling horses as they worked out ways to traverse rivers, fences, and the satisfaction as they jumped a flint-strewn gap. Perhaps it would be easier if the girl weren’t so sullen: her mood seemed to cast a pall over the morning, and even the glorious sunshine and soft breeze couldn’t alleviate it. In all likelihood we’ll be back to normal tomorrow, Alice told herself, and was reassured by the thought.

It was almost nine thirty by the time they stopped at the school, a small weather-boarded one-room building not unlike the library. Outside there was a small grassy area worn half bare from constant use, and a bench underneath a tree. Some children sat outside cross-legged, bent over slates, while inside others were repeating times tables in a frayed chorus.

“I’ll wait out here,” Isabelle said.

“No, you won’t,” Margery said. “You come on into the yard. You don’t have to get off the horse if you don’t want to. Mrs. Beidecker? You in there?”

A woman appeared at the open door, followed by a clamor of children.

As Isabelle, her face mutinous, followed them into the yard, Margery dismounted and introduced the two of them to the schoolteacher, a young woman with neatly coiled blonde hair and a German accent, who, Margery explained afterward, was the daughter of one of the overseers at the mine. “They got people from all over the world up there,” she said. “Every tongue you can imagine. Mrs. Beidecker here speaks four languages.”

The teacher, who professed herself delighted to see them, brought the entire class of forty-odd children out to say hello to the women, pet the horses and ask questions. Margery pulled from her saddlebag a selection of children’s books that had arrived earlier that week, explaining the plot of each as she handed them out. The children jostled for them, their heads bent low as they sat to examine them in groups on the grass. One, apparently unafraid of the mule, stepped into Margery’s stirrup and peered into her empty bag in case she might have missed one.

“Miss? Miss? Do you have more of the books?” A gap-toothed girl, her hair in twin plaits, gazed up at Alice.

“Not this week,” she said. “But I promise we’ll bring more next week.”

“Can you bring me a comic book? My sister read a comic book and it was awful good. It had pirates and a princess and everything.”

“I’ll do my best,” said Alice.

“You talk like a princess,” the girl said shyly.

“Well, you look like a princess,” said Alice, and the girl giggled and ran away.

Two boys, around eight years old, sauntered past Alice to Isabelle, who was waiting near the gate. They asked her name, which she gave them, unsmiling, in a one-word answer.

“He your horse, Miss?”

“No,” said Isabelle.

“You got a horse?”

“No. I don’t much care for them.” She scowled, but the boys didn’t appear to notice.

“What’s his name?”

Isabelle hesitated. “Patch,” she said eventually, casting a glance behind her as if bracing herself to be told she was wrong.

One boy told the other animatedly about his uncle’s horse that could apparently leap a fire truck without breaking a sweat, and the other said he had once ridden a real-life unicorn at the County Fair, and it had had a horn and everything. Then, having stroked Patch’s whiskery nose for a few minutes, they appeared to lose interest, and with a wave at Isabelle, they wandered off to where their classmates were looking at books.

“Isn’t this lovely, children?” Mrs. Beidecker called. “These fine ladies will be bringing us new books every week! So we have to make sure we look after them, don’t bend the spines and, William Bryant, that we do not throw them at our sisters. Even if they do poke us in the eye. We will see you next week, ladies! Much obliged to you!”

The children waved cheerfully, their voices rising in a crescendo of good-byes, and when Alice looked back some minutes later, there were still a few pale faces peering out, waving enthusiastically through the windows. Alice watched as Isabelle gazed after them and noted that the girl was half smiling; it was a slow, wistful thing, and hardly joyful, but it was a smile nonetheless.

* * *

• • •

   They rode away in silence, into the mountains, following the narrow trails that bordered the creek and staying in single file, Margery deliberately keeping the pace steady in front. Occasionally she would call and point at landmarks, perhaps in the hope that Isabelle would be distracted or finally express some enthusiasm.

“Yes, yes,” said Isabelle, dismissively. “That’s Handmaiden’s Rock. I know.”

Margery twisted in her saddle. “You know Handmaiden’s Rock?”

“Father used to make me walk with him in the mountains when I first recovered from the polio. Hours every day. He reckoned that if I used my legs enough I would level up.”

They stopped in a clearing. Margery dismounted, pulling a water bottle and some apples from her saddle pack, passing them out, then taking a swig from the bottle. “It didn’t work then,” she said, nodding toward Isabelle’s leg. “The walking thing.”

Isabelle’s eyes widened. “Nothing is going to work,” she said. “I’m a cripple.”

“Nah. You ain’t.” Margery rubbed an apple on her jacket. “If you were, you couldn’t walk and you couldn’t ride. You can clearly do both, even if you are a little one-ways.” Margery offered the water to Alice, who drank thirstily, then passed it to Isabelle, who shook her head.