The Alliance Read Online Free Page B

survival. But I can only catch a glimpse of a tin roof and an assortment of cars and trucks that look out of place, compared to all this treated wood and black canvas.
    Leora maneuvers the horse and buggy up to the schoolhouse and around the other contraptions like she’s been doing it her entire life. She gets out of the buggy, loops the reins around the hitching post, and knots them with a downward jerk. Coming back, Leora opens the door on my side of the buggy before I’ve had time to remember about my leg. She stands there, not offering a hand or even a glance, but just waiting for me to clatter down and lean on her—this person who looks like she’d get bowled over in a stiff breeze. My pride would love just to stride right past, leaving her in my dust. The truth is, though, without her help, I’d fall flat on my face within a few feet. So I put my arm around her shoulders.
    Leora looks at my arm without enthusiasm and begins leading me toward the schoolhouse’s open doors. I try to keep from putting my full weight on her, but the strained tendons in my ankle make it impossible to put any pressure on that foot. The ground is also rutted with a multitude of hoof- and bootprints, making it difficult to maintain balance with my good leg.
    She takes a breather before we reach the schoolhouse porch and inspects me like she’s going to spit-shine my face. She seems to think my hair and beard are a lost cause, ’cause she just sighs and pulls down the sleeve of the shirt that she let me borrow from someone who I guess is her younger brother or else a very small man. “Keep that tattoo covered,” she instructs in this prissy voice, “or they’ll not listen to a word you say.”
    Feeling a fool, I nod and hop over to the edge of the porch with my arms flailing in double time to make up for one bad foot. I glance up. On the front of the schoolhouse, there are two doors—trimmed in green, almost side by side—and a handrail that divides the middle. Leora tucks some stray pieces of hair beneath this white netted thing on her head that reminds me of a miniature Spanish mantilla. She starts climbing the four steps toward the left door, and I go around the dividing rail and begin walking up behind her.
    She turns and says, “This is the women’s side,” like I’ve committed some cardinal sin.
    I think, For crying out loud, woman, I’ve got a busted ankle! But I mind her by hauling myself over to the other side and clomping up the steps. This tall, dark-haired guy about my age is speaking at the front of the room. But he stops when he sees Leora and me coming in through the segregated doors. He looks at her again, and then at me . . . then back at her. His narrowed eyes keep ping-ponging between the two of us in a way that would be comical if he didn’t look so disturbed. I nod at him in a friendly way. He nods back but doesn’t seem impressed.
    The guy keeps speaking in a low monotone, and my shell-shocked ears have a hard time hearing this far in the back. I hop down the center aisle and note that the men are seated on the right side and the women on the left. Most of the women are wearing plain dresses like Leora’s, and their head coverings are made from the same white netted material with untied ribbons trailing down onto their shoulders. The men are wearing collared shirts like the one I’m borrowing. But they are all made in different pastel colors that would look effeminate except for the fact that the men wearing them have these enormous forearms and beards that make mine look like pubescent fuzz. Their massive backs are x-ed with suspenders, and their bowl-cut hair is imprinted with ironed rings from the hats they must’ve been wearing in the field.
    I take a seat at the end of the second row and glancedown at the backless pew that is so crude and unsanded, it must be an incentive not to move during the service or risk getting splinters. I spot a few men who are dressed normal like me—or, I guess,