"Her putting that eagle in the stable all night," Dunbar said. "Ain't she afeared of some fox or other varmint getting it?"
Ross looked up from his sandwich and nodded at the dead snake.
"If it can handle a boss rattler like that one it can handle anything on four legs or even two if it come to that. I'd no more strut up and tangle with that eagle than I'd tangle with the one what can tame such a critter," Ross concluded.
Eleven
IT WAS CAMPBELL WHO TOLD PEMBERTON THAT the Harmon girl had returned to the camp.
"She's waiting over at the dining hall," he said. "She wants her old job in the kitchen back."
"Where's she been all this time?" Pemberton asked.
"Living up at her daddy's place on Colt Ridge."
"Does she have the child with her?"
"No."
"Who's going to care for the child while she's working?"
"A widow-woman who lives near her. She said she'd still live up there and take the train to camp." Campbell paused. "She was a good worker before she left last summer."
"You think I owe her a job, don't you?" Pemberton said, meeting Campbell's eyes.
"All I'm saying is she's a good worker. Even if we don't need her right now, one of our dishwashers is leaving end of the month."
Pemberton looked down at his desk. The note to himself to call Harris, which he'd done earlier, lay crumpled on the foolscap showing Serena's plans for a new spur line. Pemberton stared at the charcoal etching's precise rendering of topography, the carefully calibrated degrees of ascent, all done by Serena's hand.
"I'll have to talk with Mrs. Pemberton first," he told Campbell. "I'll be back in an hour."
Pemberton got his horse and left camp. He crossed Rough Fork Creek and wove his way up the ridge through the stumps and slash. He found Serena on a down slope giving instructions to a cutting crew. The men slumped in various attitudes of repose, but all were attentive. After the foreman asked a final question, the lead chopper began notching a looming tulip poplar, the only uncut hardwood left on the ridge. Serena watched until the sawyers began their work, then rode over to where Pemberton waited.
"What brings you out this morning, Pemberton?"
"I talked with Harris. Secretary Albright called over the weekend and wants to set up a meeting. Harris says he's willing to come here."
"When?"
"Albright's willing to accommodate us on that as well. He said anytime between now and September."
"September then," Serena said. "However this turns out, the more time we have to keep logging the better."
Serena nodded, her eyes rising beyond the tulip poplar to the ridge where crews had gained a first foothold above Henley Creek.
"We've made good progress in the last six months, even with the bad weather."
"Yes we have," Pemberton agreed. "We could be finished here in eighteen months."
"I think less than that," Serena said.
The gelding snorted and stamped its foot. Serena leaned slightly forward, her left hand stroking the Arabian's neck.
"I'd better go and check the other crews."
"There's one more thing," Pemberton said. "Campbell says the Harmon girl's in camp. She wants her old job in the kitchen back."
"Does Campbell think we should hire her?"
"Yes."
Serena continued to stroke the Arabian's neck, but she looked at Pemberton now.
"What I said at the depot, about her getting nothing else from us."
"Her wages will be the same as before," Pemberton said, "and like before she won't be living in camp."
"While she's at work, who cares for the child?"
"A neighbor will keep him."
"'Him,'" Serena said. "So it's a male."
The sawing paused for a few moments as the lead chopper placed another wedge behind the blade. Serena raised her left hand and settled it over the saddle pommel. Her right hand, which held the reins, settled over the pommel as well.
"You be the one to tell her that she's hired," Serena said. "Just make it clear she has no claim on us. Her child either."
The cross-cut saw resumed, the blade's rapid back-and-forth like inhalations and exhalations, a sound as if the tree itself were panting. The Arabian stamped the ground again and Serena tightened her fist around the reins, preparing to turn the gelding's head in the direction of the cutting crew.
"One other thing," Serena said. "Make sure she's not allowed around our food."
Horse and rider made their way back through drifts of snow toward the deeper woods. Serena upright, her posture impeccable, the gelding's hooves set down almost disdainfully on the whitened earth. Cut proud, Pemberton thought.
When Pemberton returned to camp, he went into the dining hall where Rachel Harmon waited alone at a table. She wore a pair of polished but well-worn black oxford shoes and a faded blue and white calico dress Pemberton suspected was the nicest clothing she owned. When he'd had his say, Pemberton asked if she understood.
"Yes sir," she said.
"And what happened with your father. You saw it yourself, so you know I was defending myself."
A few moments of silence passed between them. She finally nodded, not meeting his eyes. Pemberton tried to remember what had attracted him to her in the first place. Perhaps her blue eyes and blonde hair. Perhaps that she'd been almost the only female at the camp who wasn't already haggard. Aging in these mountains, especially among the women, happened early. Pemberton had seen women of twenty-five here who would pass for fifty in Boston.
She kept her head slightly bowed as Pemberton surveyed her mouth and chin, her bosom and waist and the white length of ankle showing below her threadbare dress. Whatever had attracted him was now gone. Attraction to any woman besides Serena, he realized, unable to remember the last time he'd thought of a past consort, or watched a young beauty in Waynesville and imagined what her body would be like joined to his. He knew such constancy was rare, and before meeting Serena would have believed it impossible for a man such as himself. Now it seemed inevitable, wondrous but also disconcerting in its finality.
"You can start the first of December," Pemberton said.
She got up to leave and was almost to the door when he stopped her.
"The child, what's his name?"
"Jacob. It comes from the Bible."