Ron Rash - Serena

Pemberton scanned the closest benches and found his cook, stepped into the makeshift aisle and motioned to the man. Pemberton moved past more tables and finally found a server, but the woman was so rapt that Pemberton was almost beside Bolick before he got her attention. The woman left her seat and made her way slowly through a bumpy aisle of knees and rumps. But Pemberton no longer looked at her.

The boy sat in his mother's lap, clothed in a gray bundling. He held a toy train engine in his hand, rolling the steel wheels up and down his leg with a solemn deliberateness. Pemberton studied the child's features intently. He'd grown immensely since the day of the photograph, but that was the least of it. More striking to Pemberton was how the face had become thinner, more defined, what had been wisps of hair now thick. Most of all the eyes dark as mahogany. Pemberton's eyes. Reverend Bolick stopped speaking and the dining hall became silent. The child quit rolling the train and looked up at the preacher, then at the larger man who stood close by. For a few moments the child stared directly at Pemberton.

The congregation shifted uneasily on the benches, many of their eyes on Pemberton as Reverend Bolick turned the Bible's wide pages in search of a passage. When Pemberton realized he was being watched, he made his way to the back of the hall where Harris and the kitchen workers waited.

"I thought for a minute you were about to go on up and deliver the sermon yourself," Harris said.

The cook and server went into the kitchen, but Harris and Pemberton lingered a few more moments. Bolick found the passage he'd been searching for and settled his eyes on Pemberton. For a few seconds the only sound was a spring-back knife's soft click as a worker prepared to pare his nails.

"From the book of Obadiah," Reverend Bolick said, and began reading.

The pride of thine heart hath deceived thee , thou that dwellest in the cleft of the rock, whose habitation is high, that saith in his heart, who shall bring me down.

Harris smiled. "I believe the right reverend is addressing us."

"Come on," Pemberton said, and took a step toward the kitchen as Bolick continued to read.

Harris grasped Pemberton's arm.

"Don't you think we should hear the fellow out, Pemberton?"

"Serena's waiting for her dinner," Pemberton said tersely and pulled free from Harris' grip as Bolick finished the passage.

The preacher closed the Bible with a slow and profound delicacy as if the ink on the onionskin were susceptible to smearing.

"The word of the Lord," Reverend Bolick concluded.

After Harris had eaten and left, Pemberton went to the house with his and Serena's dinner. He set the dishes on the table and went to the back room. Serena was asleep and Pemberton did not wake her. Instead, he softly closed the bedroom door. Pemberton didn't go to the kitchen and eat but instead went to the hall closet and opened his father's steamer trunk. He rummaged through the stocks and bonds and various other legal documents until he found the cowhide-covered photograph album his aunt insisted he pack as well. He shut the trunk softly and walked down to the office.

Campbell was in the front room, working on the payroll. He left without a word when Pemberton said he wished to be alone. Orange and yellow embers glowed in the hearth, and he set kindling and a hefty ash log on the andirons. Pemberton felt the heat strengthen against his back as he took Jacob's photograph from the bottom drawer. The fire's rosy glow heightened and soon spilled over the desk's surface. Pemberton turned off the lamp's bunched electric light, thought for the first time in years of a parlor and its wide fireplace. His earliest memory was of that hearth, its warmth enclosing him like an invisible blanket, light flickering on the fireboard's marble fonts where strange men with wooly legs played flutes while long-haired women in swaying dresses danced. Whenever Pemberton had watched them long enough, the figures had begun to move in the wavering flames and shadows. As Pemberton carefully opened the photograph album, he had the sensation of entering an attic on a rainy day. The desiccated binding creaked with each turned cardboard page, releasing the smell of things long stashed away. When Pemberton found a photograph of himself as a two-year-old, he stopped turning.

SLEET FELL AGAIN IN THE MIDDLE OF THE night, but by morning the sky rose blue and unclouded. Ice clung to Noland Mountain's remaining hardwoods like brittle sleeves, a marvel of shifting hues when the sun shone full on them. Most of the workers shaded their eyes as they trudged into the upland, but a few held their gaze until their eyes burned from the glare, such was the beauty of it. By the time the last man made his ascent to the ridge, the warming ice had begun to slip free from the branches. Smaller pieces at first, tinkling like bells as they hit the frozen ground. Then came water-clear downfalls that quickly covered the understory, crackled and snapped beneath every footstep. Men walked through them as they would the remnants of a vast shattered mirror.

Pemberton had just set his coffee on the office desk when Harris called, his voice even more brusque than usual.

"Webb and Kephart made an offer on the Jackson County land," Harris said. "They came in soon as Luckadoo opened up, and they're willing to pay him full price."

"Were the Cecils with them?"

"Hell no. You think they'd deign to come down from their castle for something like this. They'll wait till it's over, have that goddamn waterfall named after them."

"But you still believe it's the Cecils behind all this?"

"It doesn't matter a dog's turd who is backing them," Harris shouted. "That son-of-a-bitch Luckadoo thinks Webb and Kephart have the money. He gave me a courtesy call."

"How far along with this are they?"

"They've co-signed everything for the down payment. All that's left is the transfer deed." Harris paused. "Damn it, I knew I should have called Luckadoo last night."

"It's a good tract but so is Townsend's," Pemberton said. "You said as much yourself yesterday."

"This is the tract I want."

Pemberton started to speak, then hesitated, unsure if he wanted to risk Harris' wrath being turned on him, but it was a question he and Serena needed answered.

"Are you sure you're not just wanting to spite Webb and Kephart?"

For a few moments Harris didn't respond. Pemberton could hear the older man's breath slow. When Harris spoke, his words were more measured but just as belligerent.

"If we don't do this deal, Pemberton, we never do one, and that includes Townsend's acreage."

"But if the transaction's gone this far…"

"We can still get the land if we pay off Luckadoo. That's the only reason he called me in the first place. It's just going to cost more."

"How much more?"

"Five hundred," Harris said. "Luckadoo's giving us an hour to make up our minds. Like I said, we do this deal or we never do another one. That's the way of it, so make up your mind."

"I'll have to talk to Serena first."

"Talk to her then," Harris said, lowering his voice for a moment. "She's smart enough to know what's best in your long-term interest."

"I'll call you back as soon as I can."

"You do that," Harris said. "And make damn sure soon is within an hour."

Pemberton hung up and walked to the stable. Serena was in the back stall with the eagle, her fingers reddened from the raw meat she fed the bird. He told her about the phone call. She fed the eagle a last piece of meat and placed the hood back over its head.

"We need Harris' money," Serena said. "We'll have to humor him, this time, but have Lawyer Covington put in the contract that Harris can't begin any mining operations until the site's timber is cut. Harris has found something up there besides kaolin and some copper, something he doesn't want us to know about. We'll hire our own geologist and find out what it is, then refuse to cut the timber until Harris gives us a percentage, a good percentage."