He stares at Alice while the trees grow outside.
“Letty set this all up,” he says. “She must have knowed.”
“No, she didn’t, Cash. Not a soul knew my side of it but Annawake. I didn’t even tell Sugar.”
“Well, how in the world?”
“I don’t know,” Alice says. “I’m suspicious of miracles.
There’s near about always something behind them.”
“Sugar didn’t know?”
“No. I swear on the Bible.”
“I figured this business with you and me was something Sugar and Letty cooked up. Otherwise, Letty wouldn’t have knowed you was fair game.”
“Then it was Annawake,” Alice says suddenly. “It was. She had to have done this. She said she’d been working on Plan B, I’ll swan, I could tan her hide! She’s trying to find a way around doing her rightful duty by Turtle.”
Cash looks wary. “What is her rightful duty?”
Alice stares back, comprehending his position. “Nothing’s settled, is it?”
Cash lays his knife across the edge of his plate. “No. Nothing’s settled.”
Alice has spent all Sunday afternoon with her teeth clenched and unkind intentions in her heart, hunting down Annawake.
She feels like one of those Boston Stranglers you can read about. The first thing she did when she came home to Sugar was spill the whole story, start to finish, leaving out only the details of last night with Cash, which were nobody’s business. Sugar agreed she ought to give Annawake a good talking to, for meddling. They enlisted Roscoe to drive over to Annawake’s place in Tahlequah. Sugar sat in the cab between Alice and Roscoe, squeezing Alice’s hand as if she were having a baby instead of about to lose one.
In Tahlequah, Sugar and Roscoe waited in the cab while Alice knocked on the door and talked to a heavyset girl holding a baby, who said Annawake was down at the Nation offices. They drove down the highway to Nation Headquarters, only to find the place deserted. There was one secretary in the whole place, who pointed them to Annawake’s office across the street. It was locked. Alice tried to peer in, but saw only houseplants. She festered in the truck for nearly an hour, waiting, before deciding to drive back to talk again to the heavyset girl, who seemed, in all fairness, just as sweet as she could be. She said Annawake had come and gone again, fishing this time, down at her uncle’s houseboat. Alice climbed back in the cab and surprised Sugar and Roscoe by claiming to know the way to Ledger Fourkiller’s. When they dropped her off at the path running down to the river, they offered to wait, but Alice waved them on.
“I know my way. If she’s not here, I’ll just walk on back.”
“Well, honey, that’s miles and miles,” Sugar had protested before they drove off. “And dark. You’re liable to run into a skunk.”
But Alice feels determined as she sets off down the path, skunk or no skunk. If she ran into one right now, he’d have to take his chances. She doesn’t really expect to strangle Annawake once she finds her, but she hasn’t ruled out the possibility.
Annawake has given up the pretense of fishing. Nothing down there is hungry, and to be honest, neither is she; it seems reasonable to call a truce. She swirls her legs in the water, watching the reflected stars tremble in each other’s company. The water is warmer than the air, and moves against her skin as if it cared for her. She tries not to think how long it has been since she was hugged by someone who wasn’t a relative.
She hears steps on the footbridge, or rather, feels their vibrations approaching, the way a spider knows the com-merce of her web. “Ledger?” she calls out.
A human silhouette appears in the darkness at the edge of the porch, and it isn’t Ledger Fourkiller. Smaller, meaner, not at home. Her heart thumps.
“Well! If it’s not Miss Lonelyhearts.”
Annawake knows the voice. Thinks hard.
“It was you, wasn’t it? You set up me and Cash.”
“Alice Greer?”
She approaches as slowly as a dog outside its territory, until she is standing five feet away, hands on her hips, both angry and hesitant.
“You’re mad? I saw you two giggling like kids at the Sanitary Market. I thought you’d be sending me a thank-you card.”
“That was a sly, sneak-handed business you did. You figured I’d take a shine to Cash and wouldn’t want to take his baby away from him.”
Annawake feels this woman’s anger sharpened like a hunting knife. “Did you ever think it might work out the other way? That he might like you that much?”