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 toward 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.