The Alpine Pursuit by Mary Daheim

of the throng and entered the auditorium through a side aisle. Except apparently for Thyra Rasmussen and her devotees, who were moving into the third row center, seats weren’t reserved. I sat two-thirds of the way back and four seats over. Nobody was yet sitting in the row, so I concentrated on reading the cast of characters one more time:
    THE OUTCAST Written and Directed by
Destiny Parsons
    Narrator Spencer Fleetwood
    Leroy Billingsate,
developer
Fuzzy Baugh
    Dane Olmquist,
animal rights activist
Jim Medved
    Ted Owens,
unemployed logger
Rip Ridley
    Dorothy Oz,
a lost young woman
Clea Bhuj
    Otto Meeks,
café owner
Hans Berenger
    Angela D’Amato,
waitress
Rita Patricelli
    Alex Garcia,
itinerant worker
Rey Fernandez
    John Brown,
sheriff
Nat Cardenas
    Jamie Jejune,
teenager
Roger Hibbert
    Kevin Chang,
attorney
Dustin Fong
    Gabriel,
an angel
Otis Poole
    Chester White,
café customer
Ed Bronsky
    Dodo,
a dog
Dodo
    I’d finished reading the credits, the list of donors, and the ads—including our own—when Milo arrived, about two minutes before curtain time. The row I was in had filled up, mostly with students. The sheriff moved in behind me, one seat over. Reaching out with a long arm, he tapped me on the shoulder.
    “It’s starting to snow,” he said, nodding at Vida, who was coming my way with the Hibberts.
    “Great.” I wondered if Thyra had been carried in by her family members. Carpet slippers weren’t suitable for snow-covered ground. “Very hard?”
    “Not yet,” Milo replied, looking uncomfortable in his seat. I guessed that there wasn’t sufficient room for his long legs. He was wearing a shirt and tie under his heavy nonregulation jacket. Somehow, formality didn’t suit the sheriff. In all the years I’d known him, I’d only seen him dressed up about four times. “It’s supposed to get heavier later in the evening,” Milo went on, shrugging out of the big brown parka. “I had to call Sam Heppner and Dwight Gould in to keep track of the highway and the side roads. They’re pissed. They wanted to watch Dustin act.”
    Vida sat down next to Milo with Amy and Ted in the next two seats by the aisle. “Goodness!” she exclaimed. “I never thought I’d see Queen Thyra in Alpine, theater or not. I swear she hasn’t left Snohomish in thirty years. And those slippers! Couldn’t she put a pair of galoshes over them?”
    The auditorium was filling up. Leo had told me that the premiere was a sellout and that sales were going well for the next three performances. All profits would be plowed back into the theater, since no one was getting paid.
    Vida’s mind was running parallel with mine. “I wonder if Thyra expects to make money out of this. I wouldn’t be surprised if she took some off the top. To paraphrase the Duchess of Windsor, ‘No woman can be too mean or too rich.’ ”
    I expressed my doubts about Thyra dipping into the theater’s fund. “But to quote the Duchess,” I said as I saw Scott Chamoud creeping near the stage to take pictures, “the old girl is also thin.”
    “Piffle,” said Vida as the doors were closed and the houselights began to dim. “She’s not just thin, she’s scrawny. She always was. Now she’s more so.”
    The audience grew silent except for someone behind Vida who asked politely if she’d please remove her hat. The request was ignored.
    Spence began his narration. He was a professional, and I had to admit that he raised the bar for the performers who followed. When he finished and the café interior was revealed, the audience burst into spontaneous applause. It was, in fact, a fine set. The program gave credit to students and a couple of volunteers from Jack Blackwell’s mill.
    It also seemed that the actors, who were now in costume, looked more credible. Certainly the theatergoers thought so. They seemed caught up in the drama, gasping at the confrontation between Coach Ridley and Jim Medved, sighing at Clea Bhuj’s bewilderment, laughing at Rita