“Looks like we got us an outing. Here, eight tomorrow?”
“Let’s make it seven,” said Beth.
For the first time in days Alice found she was smiling.
“Lord help the lot of you,” said Sophia, shaking her head.
TWENTY-FIVE
It was clear within a couple of hours of setting out why only Margery and Charley ever undertook the route to Arnott’s Ridge. Even in the benign conditions of early September, the route was remote and arduous, taking in steep crevasses, narrow ledges and a variety of obstacles to scrabble down or over, from ditches to fences to fallen trees. Alice had brought Charley, confident he would understand where he was going, and so it proved. He strode out willingly, his huge ears flicking backward and forward, following his own well-worn tracks along the creek bed and up the side of the ridge, the horses following on behind. There were no notches on trees here, no red ribbons; Margery had plainly never expected anyone but herself to take such a route, and Alice glanced behind her intermittently at the other women, hoping she could trust Charley as a guide.
Around them the air hung thick and moist and the newly amber forests lay dense with fallen leaves, muffling sound as they made their way along the hidden trails. They rode in silence, focused on the unfamiliar terrain, only breaking off to praise their horses quietly or warn of some approaching obstacle.
It occurred to Alice as they headed along the track into the upper reaches of the mountains that they had never ridden together, not all of them, like this. And then that it was entirely possible this would be the last time she rode into the mountains.
In a week or so she would be making her way by train toward New York and the huge ocean liner that would take her to England, and a very different kind of existence. She turned in her saddle and looked at the group of women behind her and realized she loved them all, that leaving each of them, not just Fred, would be a wrench almost greater than anything she had endured up to now. She couldn’t imagine meeting women with whom she would feel so in tune, so close to in her next life, over polite chit-chat and cups of tea.
The other librarians would slowly forget her, their lives busy with work and families, and the ever-changing challenges of the seasons. Oh, they would promise to write, of course, but it wouldn’t be the same. There would be no more shared experiences, the cold wind on their faces, the warnings of snakes on tracks, or commiserations when one of them took a fall. She would gradually become a postscript to a story: Do you remember that English girl who rode with us for a while? Bennett Van Cleve’s wife?
“Think we’re getting close?” Kathleen broke into her thoughts, riding up alongside.
Alice pulled Charley to a halt, unfolding the map from her pocket. “Uh . . . according to this, it’s not far over that ridge,” she said, squinting at the hand-drawn images. “She said the sisters live four miles that way, and Nancy would always walk the last part because of the hanging bridge, so I make the McCullough house . . . somewhere over there.”
Beth scoffed. “You reading that map upside down? I know for a fact the damn bridge is that way.”
Alice’s belly was tight with nerves. “If you know better, you want to head off on your own and let us know when you’re there?”
“No need to get ornery. You’re not from here is all. I just thought I—”
“Oh, and don’t I know it. Like the whole town hasn’t spent the last year reminding me.”
“No need to take it like that, Alice. Shoot. I just meant some of us might have more knowledge of the mountains than—”
“Shut up, Beth.” Even Izzy was irritated. “We wouldn’t even have got this far if it wasn’t for Alice.”
“Hold up,” said Kathleen. “Look.”
It was the smoke that alerted them, a thin apologetic whisper of gray that they might not have spotted had the trees nearby not lost their leaves from the crown, so that the wavering plume was briefly visible against the leaden sky. The women stopped in the clearing, just able to make out the shack squatting on the ridge, its shingle roof missing a couple of tiles, its yard unkempt. It was the only house for miles and everything about it spoke of neglect and an antipathy toward casual