Ron Rash - Serena

Pemberton watched from the office porch as Serena and Galloway slogged on through the wasteland and disappeared up Cove Creek. As the morning passed, he worked on invoices and talked with Harris about meeting two potential investors. Every half hour, Pemberton got up from his desk and looked west to where Serena was. At eleven, it was time to check in with Scruggs, the man who'd overseen the saw mill operation since Buchanan's death. But Pemberton was reluctant to leave the camp, and not just because he was worried about Serena. For the first time he could remember, Campbell hadn't shown up for work. Pemberton found Vaughn and told him to stay in the office and answer the telephone. As Pemberton drove out of camp, he saw Serena and the horse ascending Half Acre Ridge. He remembered the workers' surprise at how the thin mountain air never affected her, even in her first days when she'd ridden into the tract's highest elevations. They forget where I'm from, Serena had told him.

When Pemberton arrived at the saw mill, he found Scruggs at the splash pond supervising two workers guiding timber toward the log buggy. Using their eight-foot-long jam pikes like acrobats, the men moved quickly across the splash pond's surface, stepping log to log with a confidence that belied the job's dangers. Pemberton saw that the older man was Ingledew, a foreman who'd worked at the saw mill since it had begun operation. Ingledew wore cutter boots, their steel points grabbing the wood like claws, but the youth with him still worked barefoot, despite being at the saw mill a month.

"Is that Jacob Ballard?"

"Yes sir," Scruggs said, a slight surprise in his voice. "I didn't know you knew him."

"I remember his name on the payroll," Pemberton said. "Why hasn't he bought his cutter boots yet?"

"I been telling him to," Scruggs said, "but he's sparking some girl over in Sevierville every Sunday. Young Ballard there would rather waste his money buying gewgaws for her."

Pemberton and Scruggs watched as the youth stepped barefoot across the pond's all but hidden surface, now wielding the jam pike like a harpoon as he jabbed and herded the timber into position for the log buggy, Ingledew behind him untangling timber as well. Most of the logjams gave readily, but some had knit together like stitches, the whole jam moving instead of a single log, forcing the two men to crouch and untangle the timber by hand.

"Good at it though, ain't he, especially to be so green," Scruggs said. "He glides over that pond like a water spider."

Pemberton nodded as they watched Ballard scamper to another log, prod more timber toward the buggy where a third worker waited to transport it onto the log carrier. Ballard was skinny but Pemberton could tell from the way he shoved the logs around that, like so many of the highlanders, he possessed a wiry strength.

Pemberton was about to leave when he saw Ingledew unlock another logjam and free the lower trunk of a large poplar, push it toward the single slab of timber Ballard rode. The poplar log bumped against a smaller one only a yard behind the younger worker, it in turn bumping the timber the youth rode. It was hardly more than a tap, but enough. The log rolled and Ballard slipped. He plunged feet first through a small breech in the timber as through a trap door. Legs, trunk, and then head fell in a blur, all vanished except for a hand and a few inches of wrist. Somehow Ballard managed to hold onto the jam pike with his right hand. For a few moments, Pemberton thought it might save him, because each end of the pike had snagged timber. Pemberton watched the hand gripping the pike, willing the boy to hold on while Ingledew hurdled logs to come help. As Ingledew came closer, his wake caused the timber near where the youth fell to shift, and the breech Ballard had fallen through became no wider than the fist poking through to clutch the jam pike.

Another five seconds and Ingledew might have been able to pull him out, but Ballard's hand let go of the jam pike to make a last clawing grab at a log, his fingertips breaking off a piece of oak bark. The last breech in the gap disappeared along with the hand. Ingledew frantically opened a hole in the timber, but Pemberton knew as well as the workers that under the splash pond's calm surface the creek's old currents yet swirled. Ingledew kept moving, prying open more holes nearby as Pemberton and Scruggs scoured the pond for a logjam rocked or swayed by Ballard pushing from underneath. The man operating the log buggy was on the water as well now, but Ballard was lost. After twenty minutes Ingledew and the other man gave up and came to shore.

Scruggs, the sole Catholic in the camp and perhaps the whole county, bowed his head and crossed himself.

"Them logs sealed that boy up like a coffin lid," Scruggs said softly.

Pemberton stared out at the pond's timbered surface, so calm now that the logs could have been perceived as resting on land, not water. The world suddenly appeared to Pemberton to widen in distance between the earth and sky, followed by a lightheadedness like what had caused him to pass out on the hospital gurney. For a moment, Pemberton feared his legs would give way. He bent his knees slightly and lowered his head, hands against thighs as he waited for the feeling to pass.

"You all right?" Scruggs asked.

"Just give me a second," Pemberton said and slowly raised his head.

Pemberton saw that not just Scruggs but also Ingledew and the other worker watched him. Scruggs reached out to steady him, but Pemberton waved the proffered arm away. He took slow breaths, let the space between the sky and world contract, steady itself.

"You want to sit in the office for a while, Mr. Pemberton?" Scruggs asked.

Pemberton shook his head. The lightheadedness had been replaced by nausea, and he wanted to be gone from this place before it got worse.

"Come into camp tomorrow and we'll get you a new man," Pemberton said, already walking back to his car, "and this time make it clear he buys cutter boots with his first week's pay."

"Yes sir," Scruggs said.

Pemberton got in the Packard and drove until he was out of sight of the saw mill. He pulled off the road and opened the door, waiting to see if his stomach was strong enough to hold its moiling contents.

Once back at camp, Pemberton found that Campbell still hadn't shown up, so he sent Vaughn instead to check on a problem with the second skidder. Pemberton went back to the invoices on his desk, but after getting up and standing by the window a third time, he placed the checkbook back in the Mosler safe and went to the stable after telling Vaughn that he'd return in the late afternoon. Pemberton mounted his horse and rode through slash and mud to Wash Ridge where he found Serena talking to a crew boss. The eagle's hooded head swung in Pemberton's direction as he approached.

"Come to check up on me, Pemberton?" Serena said as he rode up beside her.

"You'd do the same."

"True enough," Serena said, and reached out and touched his cheek. "But you're the one who looks a little peaked. Are you all right?"

"I'm fine," Pemberton said.

As the foreman asked Serena a final question, Pemberton thought of Ballard's hand grasping the jam pike. He imagined the youth hanging in the murky water, debating whether or not to let go, to try and save himself or wait to be saved. Those seconds would have felt like minutes, Pemberton knew, the same way it had been when the bear enveloped him. Closing over the youth like a coffin lid, Scruggs had said. It would have felt that way, Pemberton knew, just as black and hopeless.

The foreman nodded to Serena that he understood. He doffed his battered felt hat and went back to his men as Pemberton moved his horse alongside the Arabian.

"Harris called," Pemberton said. "We meet our potential investors at the Cecils this weekend."