The Alpine Christmas Read Online Free PDF Page A

more like an outsider. As the editor and publisher of the local newspaper, I was supposed to know all—but names were still my nemesis.
    Henry noted my blank expression.
    “Evan’s new in town, what you might call a free spirit.” He wrinkled his aquiline nose. “As a rule, I’m not in favorof hiring that sort of person, but this sleigh driver’s job was hard to fill. The Dithers Sisters volunteered to take turns since we’re using their horses, but you know what
they’re
like.” This time, Henry not only wrinkled his nose, but wiggled his eyebrows. The Dithers Sisters were a pair of middle-aged horse owners who had been left a considerable amount of money by their parents. It was probably the greatest misfortune ever to befall them, since neither had ever had to work, except to keep the farm going. That should have been sufficient to instill a sense of responsibility, but they’d had enough wealth to hire help. Judy and Connie Dithers spent their days pampering their horses and their nights watching TV. They were said to be eccentric, miserly, reclusive lesbians. As far as I could tell, they were none of the above. Occasionally, they played bridge in the same group I did, and the worst that could be said of Judy and Connie was that they were unmotivated and dizzy. Still, I had to agree with Henry—I wouldn’t want them pulling my sleigh, either.
    “… how fussy some people can be,” Henry was saying in his flat delivery. I realized I was wool-gathering, thinking not only of the Dithers Sisters, but admiring Evan Singer’s art work. “And don’t I know it, running a resort. But what I say is that Video-to-Go’s loss is my gain.”
    Hastily, I tried to reconstruct the conversation. “Evan was there … how long?” I took a wild guess.
    “Just a month,” said Henry, initialing the mock-up with his silver ballpoint pen. “He came to Alpine in October, one of those city boys who thinks the grass is greener in a small town.” The glance Henry shot me implied that such beliefs were quite right. I could have argued the point, but didn’t.
    “Dutch Bamberg fired Evan, but he gave him a recommendation anyway,” Henry went on earnestly, as if he needed to justify the hired help with me. “Dutch said Evan not only knew movies backwards and forwards, but that he’d waited tables, driven a cab, done some retail, and worked ata riding stable near Issaquah. That was good enough for me. Then I found out he could draw, too.”
    I gave Henry an encouraging smile. “Evan sounds like a real Renaissance man. Who did Dutch get to replace him at Video-to-Go?”
    “He hasn’t found anybody yet,” replied Henry, looking troubled. Even though it appeared that Evan Singer had been dismissed for reasons I hadn’t quite grasped, Henry, in his typical self-flagellating manner, seemed to blame himself. “By the time Dutch let Evan go, most of the folks around here had taken seasonal jobs. The only people out of work right now are loggers, and they wouldn’t fit in at Video-to-Go.” Henry looked very somber, as if the idea of a former logger discerning between Woody Allen and Woody Woodpecker was impossible.
    Henry lingered long enough to grouse about the Forest Service’s recent decision to reject expansion plans for the White Pass ski area near Mount Rainier. Supposedly, the project would endanger the habitat of the spotted owl, the grizzly bear, and the gray wolf. “I’ve been considering adding two downhill runs and a warming hut below Mount Sawyer, but I’ll never get approval now. If one of those grizzlies ate a couple of environmentalists, I wonder if they’d change their tune?”
    Still grumbling, Henry left just as Vida returned with Bridget Nyquist in tow. It might seem coincidental that I could run into two Nyquists in less than two hours, but Alpine was small enough to make such occurrences unremarkable. Indeed, I had seen Bridget the previous afternoon at the Grocery Basket, and on Sunday she had