12 I Get News of Alice

Chapter 12 IN WHICH I Get News of Alice We leave the Catskills behind north of the cemetery and enter the Helderbergs. I know we are in them when the forest trees change. Maples and hemlocks are replaced by yellow birch and the northland's black spruce. Dark bogs pock the mountaintops. We sink up to our calves in one of these, so avoid the others by checking the map and plotting a course around them. As we bushwhack along, the mountains themselves tell me we have arrived. The Helderbergs are made up of layers of limestone and shale, through which underground streams and rivers have carved miles of caverns. Some near the surface have caved in, leaving gaping sink holes in the land. Others are walk-in caves. These are magnets, and we explore each one we come upon. Deep in them we can hear subterranean rivers rushing off through the

netherworld, and our voices echo and reecho through the halls. We see a dimly illumed underground waterfall and climb down to it for a dark thundering shower. We spend the night by a cavern and before sunup are jogging along toward the 4-H Club fair. I am concerned about Alice's using the name Van Rensselaer. I can sense an Alice-scrape coming up. Imposters are not appreciated, not even yellowheaded ones. Shortly after sunrise we come down the steep road into Livingstonville, a small town of no more than forty houses and stores cozied at the confluence of the Catskill and Lake creeks. Virtually no cars pass us; the sidewalks are empty, and the homes, which were built many years ago, stand gray or paint-chipped behind walls of lilacs and groves of stately trees. Modernizing is not fashionable in Livingstonville. Even the store is an old grocery-gas-hardware-feed store and luncheonette–post office that dates back to the twenties, Bando says. It's a wonderful town. We enter the all-purpose store and sit down at the luncheonette counter. Only four people are here,

which is the right number for any store as far as I'm concerned. Bando picks up the menu. "Coffee, homemade sausage sandwich, and strawberry-rhubarb pie," he says to the woman behind the counter. She also seems to be the postmistress, for she is sorting mail as well as listening to Bando's order. I stare at him. We've just finished a breakfast of fish chowder and sow-thistle leaves, and here he is eating again. No wonder he has a paunch! Or he did have one. He's walked it off, I see. "Sam," Bando says. "What do you want to eat?" "Nothing," I reply. "I'm stuffed." When Bando's breakfast is set before him, I turn to the burly man beside me. "Sir," I say to the stranger, emboldened by the comforting shelves of canning jars and bins of nails and feed. "Can you tell me how to get to the Livingstonville fairgrounds?" "Fairgrounds?" His voice is so low it vibrates. "Ain't no fairgrounds in Livingstonville." "There aren't? But there's supposed to be a 4-H Club fair in Livingstonville." I'm devastated as

Alice slips away again. We just can't ever quite catch up with her. The postmistress finishes sorting the mail and brings me a glass of water. "I just happened to overhear you," she says, pushing back her gray hair. "I'll bet you're looking for that hog show." "I am," I reply. "It's at the Monroe Farm, a piece up Hauverville Road toward Rensselaerville." "Is that what you're looking for?" the man beside me asks. I nod. "Mammie's right. The hog show's up there on that farm. Lots of kids. Nice kids. They like pigs." I impatiently wait for Bando to finish his meal so I can go outside and talk to him without being overheard. I know why Alice took the name Van Rensselaer. The postmistress unwittingly gave me the answer. I nudge Bando. He picks up the newspaper lying on the counter, sips his coffee, and reads. He's not ready to leave. I count to one hundred slowly, then watch the postmistress read a postcard before putting it in a box.

"Here's a news story on the 4-H Club fair," Bando says. I count tractor tires. He turns the page and reads on. "This note in the personal column ought to interest you. 'Skri. Hacking falcons at Huyck Preserve, 6:00 P.M., 25th of June. Check R library for final arrangements.' "That is interesting," I say, leaning over his shoulder to read this item. I ask the postmistress where the Huyck Preserve is. "Just this side of Rensselaerville," she answers, and I thank her and get right to my feet. Bando is still reading, so I look at the jelly jars. My clay ones are nicer. Finally he lays down the paper, pays his bill, and we leave. "Bando," I say as soon as we step on the sidewalk. "I know why Alice used the name Van Rensselaer." "You do? Why?" "She's telling me her destination." "You're kidding. Where is she going?"

"To Rensselaerville." "How do you know that?" "Let me look at the Rensselaerville quadrangle map," I say and open it on the hood of a truck. "Yep, there's a waterfall there. It drops about a hundred feet." "She sent a message by changing her name?" Bando says incredulously. "That's pretty farfetched. She doesn't even know we're following her." "She sure does." "Come on, Sam. She's been at least twenty miles ahead of us ever since we left." "But she's playing On the Track." "So?" He throws up his hands. "I should have known when I found the compass on the sand spit. We always begin with a directional guide. I was so sure she was off to find her own home that I forgot about that game pretty much." I go on. "I didn't realize the name Van Rensselaer was a clue until the postmistress mentioned