Ron Rash - Serena

They hit and rolled free of the flaming blanket and pressed their naked flesh against each other's. He and Serena stayed on the ground, holding each other though coughs racked their bodies like seizures. Fire had burned Pemberton's forearm and a six-inch glass shard jagged deep into his thigh, but he did not break his and Serena's embrace. As the roof collapsed, orange sparks spewed upward, hovered a moment and dimmed. Pemberton shifted to cover Serena, ash and cinders stinging his back before expiring.

A tumult of shouting came toward them as what workers remained in the camp gathered to contain the fire. Meeks appeared out of the smoke and leaned over them, asking if Pemberton and Serena were all right. Serena said yes, but neither she nor Pemberton unclenched. As the heat washed over him, Pemberton thought of their stumbling rush toward the window and how, at that one moment, the world had finally revealed itself to him, and in it there was nothing but himself and Serena, everything else burning away around them. A kind of annihilation. Yes, he thought, I understand now.

Pemberton finally let go of Serena to pull free the glass shard. Meeks helped Serena and Pemberton to their feet, placing a bedsheet around them as he did so.

"I'll call a doctor," Meeks said, and walked briskly back to the office.

Serena and Pemberton began slowly walking in the same direction, arm in arm. The flames cast the whole camp into a pulsing translucence, light gathering and dispersing like brightened shadows. Pemberton made a quick inventory of what had burned inside the house that could not be replaced. Nothing. A foreman came up to Serena, his face damasked with a sooty sweat.

"I've got men checking to make sure it don't spread," he said. "When we get it put out, you want me to send the crews out?"

"Keep them around camp, just in case," Serena answered. "We'll let them rest up and get a full day from them tomorrow."

"You was lucky to have got out of there," the foreman said, looking toward the house.

Serena and Pemberton turned and saw the truth of his statement. The back portion was still aflame, but the front was a tumble of black smoking wood but for the brick steps that now rose toward nothing but singed air. A man in silhouette sat in a ladderback chair directly in front of the steps. The man watched the flames, seemingly oblivious to the workers who rushed and shouted around him. On the ground beside the chair was an empty ten-gallon canister of kerosene. Pemberton did not have to see the man's face to know it was McDowell.

IT WAS MID-MORNING BEFORE ENOUGH LIGHT filtered through the pall of smoke to see more than a few yards. Even then the ashy air brought tears to any lingering gaze. Much of the slash and stumps in the valley had burned along with the lean-tos of wood and tin assembled by squatters. Men begrimed by smoke and soot moved to and fro across the valley's smoldering floor, gathering sludgy buckets of water from the creek to smother what gasps of fire lingered. From a distance, they appeared not so much like men as dark creatures spawned by the ash and cinder they trod upon. Had there not been rain the day before, every building in the camp would have burned.

Snipes' crew sat on the commissary steps. With them was McIntyre, whose proven talent as a sawyer had gotten him rehired. The lay preacher had not spoken a single word since his return, nor did he now as the crew observed the black square that was once the Pemberton's house. Snipes lit his pipe and took a reflective draw, let the smoke purl from his rounded lips as if some necessary precursor to what wisdom the lips were about to impart.

"An educated man such as myself would of knowed better than try to kill them in their natural element," Snipes mused.

"Fire, you mean?" Henryson asked.

"Exactly. That's like throwing water on a fish."

"What would you have done?"

"I'd of planted a wooden stake in their hearts," Snipes said as he tamped more tobacco into his pipe. "Most all your best authorities argue for it in such situations."

"I seen Sheriff Bowden cuffing up McDowell earlier," Henryson said. "He was hitting at him, but it looked like he was doing no more than swatting flies off of him. Much as he's wanting to be, the new high sheriff ain't in them other three's league."

"I doubt there's not a one north of hell itself that is," Ross exclaimed.

For a few moments the men grew silent, their eyes turning one pair at a time to look at McIntyre, who in previous times would have gleaned half a dozen impromptu sermons after hearing the other men's comments. But McIntyre stared fixedly across the wasteland at the bleary western horizon. Since his return, McIntyre's silence had been a matter of much speculation among the men. Snipes suggested the lay preacher's experience had caused McIntyre to adopt a vow of silence in the manner of monks of long-ago times. Stewart retorted that in the past McIntyre had been vehemently opposed to all manner of things popish, but conceded that perhaps the flying snake had changed his view on this matter. Henryson surmised that McIntyre was waiting for some particular revelation before speaking.

Ross said maybe McIntyre just had a sore throat.

Yet none of the men laughed or snickered when Ross made his quip, and Ross himself seemed to regret the remark as soon as it left his mouth, for they all believed, even Ross, the most cynical of men, that the lay preacher had been truly and irrevocably transformed.

LATE that morning after being treated by the doctor summoned from Waynesville, Serena and Pemberton dressed in denim breeches and cotton shirts gleaned from what sundries remained in the commissary. They sent a worker to town to buy clothing and toiletries the commissary could not furnish. Serena gathered some of the kitchen staff to prepare Campbell's old house for them while Pemberton went to make sure any stray fires had been put out. As he followed the fire's leaps and sidles, Pemberton found that though acres of slash and stumps had burned, not a single building aside from the house had been lost. After these tasks had been done, he and Serena lingered in the office.

"I probably should go and ride the ridge," Serena said, "just to make sure the cables are undamaged."

Pemberton looked at the bills and invoices on the desk, then got up.

"I'll go with you. The paperwork can wait."

Serena came around the desk and placed her bandaged hand on the back of Pemberton's neck. She leaned and kissed him deeply.

"I want you with me," Serena said, "not just this morning but all day."

They went to the stable and saddled their horses. Serena freed the eagle from its roost and they rode out of the stable. The noon sun shone on the train tracks, and even in the dingy light the linked metal gave off a muted gleam. Soon it would be time to pull up the rails, Pemberton knew, starting with the spurs and moving backward. He looked forward to taking off his shirt and working with the men again, asserting his strength. It seemed so long since he'd done that, spending all his days in the office, poring over numbers like some drudge in a bank. With Meeks settled in, he'd be able to get out more, especially at the new camp.

Warm ash blackened the horses' hooves and forelegs as Pemberton and Serena rode across the valley floor. They passed exhausted workers washing soot off their faces and arms, the men looking not so much like loggers as minstrels unmasking after a performance. The men did not speak, the only sound their hacking coughs. The last flames doused were where the cemetery had been, and smoke wisps rose there as if even the souls of the dead were abandoning the charred valley for some more hospitable realm.