* * *

 

• • •

She would have laid down money, said Beth afterward, that that was the finest librarians’ meeting that had ever taken place in Lee County. Izzy and Sophia had sung their way through every song they could recall, teaching each other the ones they didn’t know and making up a few on the spot, their voices wild and raucous as they grew in confidence, stamping and hollering, the girls clapping in time. Fred Guisler, who had indeed been happy to fetch his gramophone, had been persuaded to dance with each of them, his tall frame stooped to accommodate Izzy, disguising her limp with some well-timed swings so that she lost her awkwardness and laughed until tears leaked from her eyes. Alice smiled and tapped along but wouldn’t meet Margery’s eye, as if she were already mortified at having revealed so much, and Margery understood that she would simply have to say nothing and wait for the girl’s feelings of exposure and humiliation, however unwarranted, to die down. And amid all this Sophia would sing out and sway her hips, as if even her rigor and reserve could not hold out against the music.

Fred, who had declined all offers of moonshine, had driven them home in the dark, all crammed into the backseat of his truck, taking Sophia first under cover of the rest, and they had heard her singing still as she tapped her way down the path to the neat little house at Monarch Creek. They had dropped Izzy next, the motor-car’s tires spinning in the huge driveway, and had seen Mrs. Brady’s amazement at her daughter’s sweaty hair and grinning face. “I never had friends like you all before,” Izzy had exclaimed, as they flew along the dark road, and they knew that it was only half moonshine talking. “Honestly, I never even thought I liked other girls till I became a librarian.” She had hugged each of them with a child’s giddy enthusiasm.

Alice had sobered completely by the time they dropped her off, and said little. The two Van Cleve men were seated on the porch, despite the chill in the air and the late hour, and Margery detected a distinct reluctance in her step as Alice made her way slowly up the path toward them. Neither rose from his seat. Nobody smiled under the flickering porch light, or leaned forward to greet her.

Margery and Fred drove the rest of the way to her cabin in silence, each lost in their own thoughts.

“Tell Sven I said hey,” he said, as she opened the gate and Bluey came bounding down the slope to meet her.

“I will.”

“He’s a good man.”

“As are you. You need to find yourself someone else, Fred. It’s been long enough.”

He opened his mouth as if to speak, then closed it again.

“You have a good rest of your evening,” he said finally, and tipped his forehead, as if he were still wearing a hat, then turned the wheel and drove back down the road.

SEVEN

   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 pieces.”

“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 center 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 center 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 smelled of woodsmoke and something sweet that existed only in the forest. Alice breathed it in.