Hi Wonderful Readers! As always, thank you so much for being so lovely and reading/following/favoriting/reviewing! You all are the best!
While Jack and Cricket drove through the back roads on their way to meet with Gummy Walsh, Alice and Howard headed for Rocky Mount. With her deadly wicker basket in front of her feet, rattling with the occasional bump in the road, and her Remington Model 30 Express .30 Springfield 1906 carefully placed in the back seat, Alice sat calmly beside Howard, who was testing out the range of the V-12 engine. Over it's roaring, Howard, slightly sloshed as he often was, posed a question.
"So how come you ain't married?" It was a genuine question out of curiosity. He could see how taken Forrest was with her, and assumed there were others who had been taken with her too.
Alice laughed out loud. "What?"
Howard smiled "You heard me. How come you ain't married?"
Alice smiled.
"The truth? Because I scare most of the men who would have been considered eligible for me. Not to say that they never asked. I just never found one I liked enough, and after '29, they all stopped trying altogether. It made me wonder what they were really after. Also made me glad I never said yes."
Howard nodded in agreement.
"I can see them fancy boys bein' scared of you. They probly though you'd shoot 'em."
"I'm sure I would if I had cause enough!" Alice protested, laughing. Then she grew serious.
Queue Gilian Welch - "Hard Times"
"I only have guns because I liked to target shoot with my father. Clay targets we'd load into the thrower and shoot in the air, and cast iron shooting rack targets, mostly. Paper targets, too. And the occasional shine jar."
She giggled, thinking of the satisfying sound of exploding glass. Then she continued.
"I only carried firearms in camp because cutting up the forest brought bears and lions and coyotes and snakes and wolves out of the bald patches we cut. Looking for food. Or trouble. I'd mostly just fire to scare them if I saw them. My father also wanted me to be able to signal for help if I got lost riding or had an accident. Three shots will do it."
It was a common mountain technique for those in the woods to fire three shots in order to be located by search parties if they were hurt or lost. And the loud sounds helped to discourage scavengers. Black bears could often be found near the commissary refuse pile, trying to steal a hardened lump of unused bacon fat or stale cornbread.
"Sounds like a good man, your father."
"I thought so."
The way Alice emphasized the word 'thought' seemed to sound to Howard that it was not as if she used to think so of him and now that he was gone her thoughts were in the past, but rather that she felt betrayed by him, disillusioned. That she used to think he was a good man, but now she did not. Howard had looked at her differently once he had truly considered how she'd survived her father's suicide. Howard thought of himself, of his battalion sinking to the bottom of the sea while he stayed afloat, and how he'd felt when everything around him had turned to black water teeming with oil afire and soldiers drowning. He still dreamt of them, of cold, salty water awash with hopelessness. He could imagine wanting to leave of one's own accord.
"We all have our demons," was all he said. And she nodded. Alice had met them all in the past year and a half.
"So how'd you learn how to catch a rattlesnake?" He turned to her, as he spoke, and shifted gears as they headed down a hill.
"We had snake handling churches near the camps. Because of the deforestation, there were plenty of rattlers and copperheads. My father offered rewards for dead snakes, because they often bite loggers. But there were plenty of Pentecostal parishioners who would go onto the ridges or down in the valleys to try to catch them alive to use in service. I've seen them do it."
Howard shook his head. "You musta seen some strange things, huh?"
Alice smiled, thinking again of Johann, fondly this time.
"That's why I'm called Alice. After the book, 'Alice in Wonderland.' My father was making preparations to buy his first tract and set up camp when my mother told him I was going to be born. He always said he knew somehow that my life would be an adventure, with all kinds of people to meet and things to see. And I suppose he thought it was a pretty name." She smiled to herself.
"In camp I was called 'Alice in Lumber Land.'" And Howard chuckled.
She paused. Howard's words of understanding concerning demons had effected her in some way, and she couldn't push sympathetic thoughts from her mind. For so long she'd only been fiercely angry and defensive concerning Johann.
"My father raised me to take care of myself when he was gone. He was prone to bouts of great sadness sometimes. Perhaps he always knew he'd have to go before his time some day. He heard it from plenty of society women, about how he was raising his 'daughter." Alice grinned for a moment, from ear to ear.
"He used to say," She mimicked her father's thick Danish accent, sprinkled as it was with the southern twang he acquired later in his life.
"'I'm not raising a daughter, I'm raising a Valkyrie.'" She paused for a moment, thinking. He'd loved her. That was the difficult part. He'd abandoned her, and for so long she'd wanted to shut him out. But he'd shaped her, and molded her. Indeed, he'd made her, and ironically, it was he who had prepared her all these years to survive after his own death. And Lettie. She'd have been lost without Lettie.
Howard scrunched up his face. "A what?"
Alice smiled "A Valkyrie. My father treasured the legends of his people. In Norse mythology, they're beautiful women on horseback who ride into combat to decide which men will live in battle, and which will die. Then they escort the heroes to the great mead hall in Valhalla. A place of honor."
Howard nodded. "That sounds about right."
Alice threw Howard a look, intended to show him she thought he was funny, but not that funny. She decided she'd wait to explain what a Huldra was until another time. Her father had named her Alice Huldra Ostergaard with very specific intentions. He was drunk when he chose the specific moniker of 'Huldra," but the sentiment achieved had been intended from the beginning.
Howard was silent for a moment, popping the clutch to switch gears again before asking his third question.
"So when you gonna marry Forrest?"
Alice had to stop for a moment to be sure that Howard had actually asked her the question she thought he had asked her. As she paused, she panicked, feeling the flush rise to her cheeks with a rush so sudden she was sure she would never be able to conceal her embarrassment.
"What?" she asked, as innocently as possible.
"When. Are you. Gonna marry. My brother." He asked, again. This time, he was flat and deadpan, joking with her because he knew she'd heard him.
Alice looked down at her pants, smoothing her hands over the legs, and wringing her leather riding gloves in her hands, busying herself.
"He hasn't asked me to. Why do you ask? I don't even think he..." she was flustered, and she struggled to maintain her composure "...thinks of me that way."
"So you're crazy and blind." Howard said.
Alice looked at him, completely prepared to be slightly insulted. But Howard was grinning at her with an air of mischief that told her he was being charming, not insulting, in his unique Howard way, and she laughed, blushing further and saying nothing.
"Forrest don't say much," he began, quietly. He was serious now, telling her things he thought she needed to know.
"I noticed," she said, smiling to show she had both noticed his proclivity for grunts and grumbled "Mmms" of assent, and that she didn't mind it. Not one bit. She was used to men who liked to pontificate, and was tired, genuinely tired, of hot air.
"…but one day he will." Howard continued. " I think it's worth stickin' around for."
Howard was carefully telling her, in his own way, that he wanted her to stay. And Alice's heart swelled. She had always wanted brothers. And now she knew which ones. And she wanted Forrest, though she couldn't begin to parse out why or how he'd want anything to do with her. Quiet and sensible as he was. She prayed a silent prayer that Howard was right, that some day maybe Forrest would say something definitive. And she wondered how she'd manage to contain herself through the wait. She thought of the funny angle at the back of his hat, where it flipped up, and his smell, of coffee and cigars and the slight woodsy cologne of his aftershave and soap. And him. He smelled like Forrest. She was having all kinds of thoughts. Of burying her face in his big barrel chest, his big tree trunk arms hugging her close, protectively. Of running her fingertips up underneath his cardigan and over his massive shoulders, between the scratchy wool and the soft cotton of his button up shirt. Stop now, she told herself. She always felt uncomfortable and vulnerable, letting her mind wander when she wasn't alone, burrowed and bundled into her bedcovers, waiting for sleep and dreams. She was being silly, she thought. Their closest intimacy had been when he'd held her hands to pick her up when she'd fallen in the dirt. And he was just being gentlemanly. A panic swept through her chest, broiling her insides when she was reminded they'd almost lost him not even twenty four hours ago. She felt sick. She couldn't imagine going without Forrest Bondurant now that she'd found him.
"I'm not going anywhere," Alice said, her voice soft and gentle. Then she perked up, saying "I moved in, didn't I?"
Howard shifted gears again as they crested the last hill and headed down towards Rocky Mount. "Sure did."
Alice saw her opportunity and took it.
"So when you gonna marry Maggie?"
She wasn't expecting an answer, so when Howard simply chuckled and shook his head, she laughed herself. Serves him right for asking me about Forrest, she thought, half seriously. But she was happy they could share some pleasant banter.
They parked the car near the Rocky Mount hospital, and approached the hotel from the service entrance, lurking in the growing darkness until Alice spotted a young man she knew.
"Jonah!" she called. The fourteen year old, who often did odd work with the hotel repair man, perked up. He waved and jogged over.
"Hi Miss Alice," he said, taking off his hat and placing it over his chest.
"Jonah, could you find Max and send him out please?" Alice knew she could trust her little ally.
Jonah nodded to her, and jogged back inside in search of the little boy. Howard lurked in the shadows, watching the picnic basket, which had remained relatively quiet, but for when they had taken it out of the car. Soon, the small shadow of the seven year old appeared on the brick loading dock where deliveries were made, peering around. Alice approached, and waved to him, meeting the child on the stairs.
"Miss Alice. You left." Max said, distressed. Alice leaned down, putting her hands on her knees so she could speak quietly to him.
"I'm renting a room from the Bondurants, near my cottage, Max." She said.
"With all these prohis around, I feel safer there." She smiled at him and looked around, feigning secrecy, "I'm not brave like you."
The little boy flushed.
"Can I help with something?" he asked. He hoped she'd still need him occasionally even if she weren't living in town.
"Yes, in fact." Alice said. "I won't tell you exactly what, so you don't have to lie. First, can you get me a skeleton key? And second, can you keep a secret?"
"I sure can! Both things!" The boy said, grinning. "It's lucky I'm here late. Momma's workin' supper tonight. Her key is in her cleaning apron, not her cooking one. And I can git it. I think."
Alice beamed. "All right. Where's Rakes?" She asked.
Max made a little scrunched up face as if he'd tasted something terrible. Like broccoli, or asparagus, the seven year old's most loathed vegetables.
"Havin' his supper. He smells like old flowers."
Alice nodded.
"He does indeed. Check to be sure he's still there. I'm going to climb the back staircase to the second floor with Howard there," she gestured to the tall, lean figure standing by the corner of the building.
"Can you meet me with the key, and I'll give it right back when I get where I need to go?"
Max nodded enthusiastically.
Alice took his hand and gently squeezed it.
"Okay. Quick as you can. Whistle for me into the stairwell."
The little boy puffed up his chest and stood up tall, filled with purpose, then scampered away.
Alice and Howard waited for what seemed like hours by the staircase until a tiny whistle finally came from the top of the steps, and they both quickly hustled up the stairs, the basket rattling on Howard's arm.
"Still eatin' with his men." Max said, holding out the key on a string.
Alice nodded, and patted his head.
"Okay." While Howard held the basket out far away from him, Alice rounded the corner and unlocked the door to Rakes' room, and ushered Howard inside, before heading inside herself and giving Max back his key.
"Put this back now. Then meet us out back where the deliveries go." She said. Max nodded again, giving a strange look to Alice and Howard, wondering what kind of crazy antics they could possibly be up to.
"Quick!" Alice whispered.
They looked around Rakes' room. It smelled like lilac cologne and oil used to clean guns. Alice pointed to the bed, and Howard set the basket down on the middle of the bedspread. Then Alice took a pen and scrap of paper from the desk and wrote "Spec. Deputy Rakes" in flowing script on the paper, placing it on the basket, while Howard shuffled around, emptying all Rakes' guns of ammo and stuffing the bullets in his pockets. He would have done more to the room, but he was with a lady, and they had very little time. They looked at each other, nodded wordlessly, and slipped out, rounding the corner at the end of the hall to access the service stairs, taking them two at a time. Both breathing hard, they arrived on the landing below, breathless and triumphant at the bottom of the steps. Then they looked at one another and shared a devilish smile.
Queue Thomas Newman - "Cold Lamb Sandwich"
Then Howard laughed out loud, shaking his head. He followed as Alice went to find Max, who was patiently sitting with his legs dangling over the edge of the service dock. She beamed at him, and put a finger to her lips in reminder that he needed to keep her secret. Before he could get up, she hustled over to him and stood eye to eye with him as he sat.
"May I call on you again, Mr. Swift, if I need assistance?" She asked.
"Oh boy, you sure can, miss Alice!"
Max beamed at her, taking off his newsboy cap and bowing his head in deference, showing he was at her service, as always. Howard watched Alice and the small boy from a few yards away, certain that his brother had chosen well, thinking...if he'd ever make his damn move like I told him to.
Alice reached down and unzipped the little silk pocket purse she kept fastened to the belt of her riding pants. "I'm going to miss you, Max." She said.
"Oh…" she paused. "What's this?" She pulled a bill out of the purse.
"Oh Boy, a whole sawbuck!" The little boy shouted.
"Shhh!" Alice said, laughing. "Our secret, remember?" The little boy blanched, believing himself in trouble, and she smiled to reassure him.
"It's all right. I will see you around then?"
He placed the ten-dollar bill in his pocket, then looked up and nodded to her. Then she took his face delicately in her hands and kissed his forehead.
"Goodbye, Mr. Swift. I know I will see you soon." Then the little boy reached out and put his arms around her, hugging her, and she thought she was going to melt.
"You'll tell me if things get hard for you and your momma now? Promise? You won't be too prideful?"
She knew his mother worked extra hours in the hotel making almost nothing, ever since his father had to go work in the coal mines for yet another meager sum, the family struggling with the depression on. She had left a sizable tip for her that afternoon.
She heard little Max whisper "Yes, Miss Alice," and when she broke the hug, he had tears in his eyes.
As she walked away following Howard, she looked back at him and called
"You're a good man, Maxwell Swift! Don't ever let anyone tell you different!"
And she watched him and waved until she and Howard were out of sight, hustling to the Pierce Arrow in the darkness.