“Maybe so, but this was at the top of my list. ” With a smile, he helped her climb into the additional row of backseats. “You going to be okay back there?”
“Yes. ” She settled herself, but her mind was churning. Now here was a considerate man. She’d sensed it the day he’d helped free her car from the snowbank. This was a man who wouldn’t chew off a woman’s ear about bait lines. She wasn’t used to getting help, though, and twice in a row from the same man no less. She felt bad putting him out. “You don’t need to drive us old biddies to our meeting. ”
“I don’t see any biddies here. ” He gave Pearl a wink.
The moment she was buckled in, Ruby leaned forward to study the complicated control panel that was nestled between the front seats. The police radio crackled to life, and distant, unintelligible chatter filled the SUV.
The ladies gasped. Marlene had a chuckle to herself. They’d be talking about this for weeks.
They talked about it now, seated in the Sierra Falls Town Hall, waiting for the meeting to come to order. She and Edith sat at the front, and she could sense that her friend was dying to gossip about the sheriff, but Marlene silenced her with a look. They were the heads of the historical society, and it was up to them to project an official air.
As chairwoman and de facto treasurer, Marlene was the one who got to use the gavel, and she banged it. “Time to get this meeting to order. First item of business is our budget. ”
They addressed their dwindling bank account, and as was often the case with money talk, the discussion dissolved into grumbling and fretting.
Edith shushed them, and Marlene’s head swiveled to give her friend a startled look. “Marlene and I think we have a solution,” Edith said. “We found letters. ”
Marlene gave a quick pat to her friend’s hand. It wasn’t like Edith to put herself out there like that. It looked good on the woman.
“Letters?” a woman in the back asked. “How are a bunch of letters going to help us?”
“They’re historical letters,” Edith said.
Other voices chimed in. “What kind of historical?”
“Maybe they’re just old. ”
June Harlan spoke louder than the rest. “How do you know they’re real? It’s impossible to date things with the naked eye. ”
Pearl turned in her seat. “You listen up, June, and let her tell it. If Marlene says she has letters, there are letters. ”
“Well, where’d she find them?”
Marlene banged the gavel again. “The Bailey family found them. ”
Edith gave a proud smile. “And we think our next festival should be a Buck Larsen festival. ”
June was looking frustrated. She turned to Pearl, asking in a loud whisper, “Did she say Buck Larsen?”
Ruby spoke up, sounding confused. “Buck Larsen’s dead. He can’t come to the festival. ”
“No,” Pearl said. “He wrote the letters. Isn’t that what you’re saying, Marlene?”
“No. ” Marlene regretted not telling this news to her aunts and mother in advance. She’d thought it’d be a fun surprise, but the real surprise was how the meeting was crumbling into chaos. “The letters were written by Sorrow Crabtree. ”
Emerald turned to Ruby. “Isn’t that Edith’s child?”
Ruby nodded and piped up, “What’s that about Sorrow?”
“Sorrow wrote letters. ” Pearl was hard of hearing, and her whisper had echoed down the aisles.
“Not our Sorrow,” Edith said, exasperated. “Our Sorrow found the letters, from her great-great-great-grandmother. ”
As understanding dawned, female voices swept across the hall like a sigh. “Ahh. ”
Marlene put down her gavel. “Turns out, Buck Larsen was one of the pioneers of our town. If we theme our next festival around Buck Larsen and the gold rush, we might draw more tourists. ”
Edith leaned in to add, “More tourists means more money for Sierra Falls. ”