The Alpine Fury Read Free

snow, depending upon the season. All my editorial efforts at putting a Local Improvement District bond issue on the ballot had been in vain.
    “Black ice is hard to see,” I conceded, pulling out Leo’s chair. “How do you feel?”
    If Leo truly had been drunk this morning, he was sober now. His face reminded me of tree bark—rough, seamed, weathered, indifferent to the elements but vulnerable to time. His graying auburn hair wasn’t combed as carefully as usual, and his sharply pressed flannel slacks were rumpled.
    “It’s not serious,” Leo announced, aware that all eyes were upon him. “Two, three days. That’s it. Ace bandage, painkillers, crutches. No biggie.”
    Carla’s sigh was elongated, trenchant. “You’re lucky. Physical wounds heal. I’m emotionally scarred forever.”
    Having worked with Carla for three months, Leo wasn’t disturbed by the remark. He ignored her, which, I realized, was his custom. I suspected that Carla reminded Leo of his grown children in California. I was aware that they were not a pleasant memory.
    “Okay,” I said in my most businesslike voice, “time marches on. We’ve got a paper to get out. Let’s hit it.”
    Vida did, by putting on her coat and a wool pillboxwith earflaps. Without another word, she left the four of us staring at each other.
    The silence was broken by Ginny Burmeister. At twenty-three, Ginny seems older and wiser. Certainly she’s competent, not only running the office, but helping with the advertising. Ginny is one of those redheads whose sole claim to beauty is her hair. Still, Carla’s recent attempts at a makeover had improved Ginny’s appearance. Under certain circumstances, Ginny is almost pretty. On this November morning, she was plain as a post.
    “The mail will be late,” Ginny announced in a flat tone. “Marje Blatt says the post office doesn’t want to chain up, except for the rural routes. If they hit a bare spot in town, the chains break and it costs the taxpayers money.”
    Leo emitted a growl. “What doesn’t?” He busied himself with a layout for Stuart’s Stereo. “I should get chains, I suppose. I never had them in L.A.”
    Ginny stared. It was obvious she couldn’t imagine a Southern California winter. Judging from her expression, it was also obvious that she wouldn’t want to live in a place where November through April didn’t bring snow. Ginny left the news office on a trail of disapproval.
    I had edged over to the window. The skies had lifted slightly, and pedestrians on Front Street were walking without undue care. They included Vida, who had just gone into the Bank of Alpine. No doubt she would return in half an hour with Little Bobby Lambrecht’s life story encapsulated.
    Vida was back in less than ten minutes. I was pruning my annual editorial on Halloween vandalism when she stomped into my little office and closed the door. “Bobby’s in a meeting with Marv Petersen,” she announced,undoing the ties that held the woolen hat under her chin. “I wonder why.”
    In the spring, there had been a rumor that Washington Mutual Savings Bank planned to open a branch in Alpine. There had also been rumors that Fred Meyer and Starbucks were coming to town. Fred Meyer had gone elsewhere. Starbucks had made its local debut in early September. Washington Mutual apparently had changed its mind. But perhaps their interest had piqued that of other financial institutions, such as the Bank of Washington.
    I gave Vida a curious look. “A buyout?”
    Vida was horrified. “Of the Bank of Alpine? Good grief, what next? Annexation to Everett?”
    My remark hadn’t been intended to upset Vida. I’d spent my first twenty years in Seattle and most of my second in Portland, where big-city mergers and acquisitions were common. I should have known better when it came to Alpine. The bank belonged to the town, in the same way that residents claimed Mount Baldy, Tonga Ridge, and the upper Skykomish River.
    “The Petersens would never