Ron Rash - Serena

Rachel went to meet her, Jacob already waving at the older woman.

"I figured hard as you had to work on your day off, I'd fix you a supper," Widow Jenkins said, nodding at the basket. "There's fried okra and bacon in there, some hominy too."

"That was awful kind of you," Rachel said. "It has been some work."

Widow Jenkins looked at the roof and chimney and studied it a few moments.

"You done a good job," she said. "Your own daddy couldn't have done better."

They walked over to the porch. Rachel sat on the steps, but when the older woman set the basket down she did not sit herself.

"That cloth ought to keep those victuals warm long enough for me to hold that rascal a minute," Widow Jenkins said, taking Jacob and jostling him until he laughed. "The way he's growing these old arms won't be able to do that much longer."

She gave Jacob a final nuzzling before handing the child back to Rachel.

"I better be on my way so you can eat and get some rest."

"Sit with us a few minutes," Rachel said. "I'd like the company."

"All right, but just a few minutes."

The sun had fallen enough now that the air was cooling, the day's first breeze combing the white oak's highest branches. The bullfrog that lived above the springhouse made its first tentative grunts. Rachel knew the katydids and field crickets would soon join in. All soothing dependable sounds that always helped her fall asleep, not that she'd need them tonight.

"Joel Vaughn asked about you at the service today," Widow Jenkins said. "He was worried you or the young one was feeling puny. I told him you had some chores needing done."

Widow Jenkins paused and looked straight ahead, as if observing something in the woods beyond the barn.

"He's turned into a right handsome young man, don't you think?"

"Yes ma'am," Rachel said. "I suppose so."

"I think he'd make you a good sweetheart," Widow Jenkins said.

It was the kind of comment that would normally make her blush bright, but Rachel didn't. She shifted Jacob on her lap, let her fingers smooth the down on the back of his neck.

"I'm beginning to think us Harmons don't do very well when it comes to love," Rachel said. "It didn't for Daddy and Mama, and it didn't for me."

"Young as you are you could yet be surprised," Widow Jenkins said, "and I expect someday you probably will be."

For a few moments neither of them spoke.

"Do you know where my mother went when she left? Daddy never told me, even when I asked."

"No," Widow Jenkins said. "Your daddy met her in Alabama when he was in the army. Maybe she went there, but I don't know for sure. The one time your daddy talked about it, he said your mama never said where she was going. All she told him was that life up here was too hard."

"Hard how?"

"The farm land being so rocky and hilly, the long winters and the loneliness. But she told him the hardest thing was the way the mountains shut out the sun. She said living in this cove was like living in a coal mine."

"Did she want to take me with her?"

"She tried. She told your daddy if he really loved you that he'd let you go, because you'd have a better life if you left here. A lot of folks argued against him for not letting you. They claimed what she said, that if he really loved you he'd have let you go. They thought he did it to spite your mother."

Widow Jenkins paused and took off her glasses, rubbed them on her black skirt. It was the first time Rachel had seen the old woman without them. Eyes that had appeared pop-eyed now receded into her face. Widow Jenkins had never looked younger than at this moment-the eyes usually fogged by the thick spectacles a bright blue, the lashes long, the high-boned cheeks smoother than when the gold rims creased them. She was my age once , Rachel thought with a kind of wonder.

"Why do you think he wanted me to stay with him?" Rachel asked.

"I don't like to speak any ill about the dead," the old woman said after a few moments. "All I'll say is that he had a temper and he could hold a grudge, like every Harmon I've ever known. Your granddaddy was the same way. But your father loved you. I never doubted that and you shouldn't either. I'll tell you something else I think. It would have been wrong to take you away from these mountains, because if you're born here they're a part of you. No other place will ever feel right."

Widow Jenkins put her glasses back on. She turned to Rachel and smiled.

"Maybe that's just an old woman's silly notion, about the mountains I mean. What do you think?"

"I don't know. How can I if I've never been away from them?"

"Well, I never have either, but you're young and young folks these days get restless," Widow Jenkins said, slowly lifting herself from the steps, "so if you ever do find out you'll have to let me know."

Widow Jenkins bent down and tousled Jacob's hair.

"I'll see you in the morning, buster."

After Widow Jenkins left, Rachel lingered a few more moments on the porch. The sun had fallen behind the mountains now, and the cove seemed to settle deeper into the earth, the way an animal might burrow into leaves to make a nest before it slept. All the while, the thickening shadows made the mountains appear to fold inward. Rachel tried to imagine what living here had been like for her mother, but it was impossible, because what had felt like being shut in to her mother felt like a sheltering to Rachel, as if the mountains were huge hands, hard but gentle hands that cupped around you, protecting and comforting, the way she imagined God's hands would be. She supposed Widow Jenkins was right, that you had to be born here.

Rachel lifted Jacob into her arms.

"Time for us to eat some supper," she told the child.

MEN SEEKING WORK CAME TO THE CAMP IN A steady procession now. Some camped out in the stumps and slash, waiting days for a maimed or killed worker to be brought from the woods in hopes of being his replacement. These and others more transient gathered six mornings a week on the commissary porch, each in his way trying to distinguish himself from the others when Campbell walked among them. Some went shirtless to show off powerful physiques while others held axes brought from farms or other timber camps, ready at a moment's notice to begin chopping. Still others carried Bibles and read them with great attentiveness to show they were not blackguards or reds but Godly men. Some bore tattered pieces of paper testifying to their talent and reliability as loggers or discharge papers for military service, and all brought with them stories of hungry children and siblings, sick parents and sick wives that Campbell listened to with sympathy, though how much such stories influenced his choices none of the workers could discern.

Serena continued to go out with the lead crews each morning. Galloway trailed behind her, the nubbed arm dangling like rotten fruit clinging to a branch. As Serena moved from crew to crew, no man spoke to her of the coming child, and none let his gaze settle on her stomach. Yet all in their way acknowledged her waxing belly, some offering dipperfuls of spring water, hats holding raspberries and blackberries, ferns twined around chewy combs of sourwood honey. Others gave Galloway pint mason jars filled with spring tonics made of milkweed and sassafras, mandrake and valerian root. One logger offered a double-beveled broad axe to place under Serena's birth bed to cut the pain, still another a bloodstone to prevent hemorrhaging. Foremen came running when Serena appeared so she wouldn't have time or need to dismount. On warm days, the crew bosses led the Arabian into uncut trees so Serena would be shaded.

She often drank the spring water, occasionally ate some of the proffered berries and honey. Galloway placed the tonics in his tote sack. Whether Serena drank them none knew. As Galloway followed Serena from crew to crew, the jars clinked against each other softly, like wind chimes.