Pemberton met her eyes, and saw within Serena's gaze a stark unflinching certainty, as though to think otherwise was not just erroneous but unimaginable. She patted the Arabian's flank and moved off a few paces to check the depth a steel cable had bitten into a hickory stump. Pemberton looked down at the camp. The sun shone full on the train tracks, and the linked metal gleamed. Soon it would be time to pull up the rails, starting with the spurs and moving backward to undo what they'd bolted to the land.
Just remember you were warned, Mrs. Lowell had said that first night in Boston. Serena told him later she'd come only because she'd heard a timber man named Pemberton would be present at the party. She'd made a few inquiries to people in the business and decided it worth her time to meet him. After Mrs. Lowell had introduced them, Pemberton and Serena quickly left the others and talked on the verandah until midnight. Then she'd taken him to her apartment on Revere Street and he'd stayed until morning. Weren't you afraid that first evening I'd think you a strumpet with such boldness, he'd teased her later. No, she'd replied. I had more faith in us than that. Pemberton remembered how Serena had not spoken as she unlocked the apartment's door. She'd just stepped inside, leaving the door open. Serena had turned and fixed her eyes on him. Then, as now, they'd contained the utter certainty that Pemberton would follow her.
AS they rode back, the sun's last light embered on the western ridge tops. A breeze had cooled the air on Shanty, but as Pemberton and Serena made their descent the air became stagnant, humid. In the graveyard only one worker remained, methodically shoveling the last clods of dirt over the coffin.
Serena and Pemberton ate their supper in the back room and alone, as they always did now, then returned to the house. At eleven Pemberton went into the back room to prepare for bed. Serena followed him but did not begin to undress. Instead, she sat in a chair across the room, watching him intently.
"Why aren't you undressing?" Pemberton asked.
"I have one more thing to do tonight."
"It can't wait till morning?"
"No, I'd rather get it done tonight."
Serena rose from the ladderback chair, came over and kissed Pemberton full on the mouth.
"Just us," she whispered, her lips still touching his.
Pemberton followed her to the door. As Serena stepped onto the porch, Galloway, seemingly unbidden, emerged from the shadows.
Pemberton watched as they walked to the office. Vaughn came out a few moments later and brought Galloway's car from behind the stable. When Galloway and Serena stepped onto the office porch, Pemberton saw something was in Serena's hand. As she passed directly under the porch's yellow light bulb, it gave off a silvery wink.
Galloway handed Vaughn a pen and notepad, and the youth wrote on it, pausing a moment to make movements with his index finger when Galloway asked something further. Pemberton watched Serena and Galloway drive off, his gaze following the headlights as the automobile moved across the valley floor, then disappeared. Vaughn, who'd watched the car beams diminish as well, went inside the office and closed the door. In a few minutes, Vaughn came out. He turned off the porch light and walked rapidly toward his stringhouse.
Pemberton went back into the house but did not go to bed. He set invoices before him on the kitchen table, attempting to lose himself in calculations of board feet and freight costs. Since the moment Serena and Galloway had driven off, he'd tried to block his mind from imagining where they were going. If he didn't know, he couldn't do anything about it.
But his mind worked in that direction anyway, wondering if what Serena had whispered was not "just us" but instead a single word. He figured the only way to stop the flow of thoughts was with the half-filled bottle of Canadian bourbon in the cabinet. Pemberton didn't bother with a glass. Instead, he tipped the bottle and drank until he gasped for breath, the bourbon scalding his throat. He drank again and finished off the bottle. He sat in one of the Coxwell chairs and closed his eyes, waited for the whiskey to take hold. Pemberton hoped the half-quart was enough and tried to help it along. He imagined the thoughts seeking connection in his head were like dozens of wires plugged into a switchboard, wires the whiskey would begin pulling free until not a single connection was possible.
In a few minutes, Pemberton felt the alcohol expanding in his skull, the wires pulling free, one at a time, the chatter lessening until there was no chatter at all, just a glowing hum. He closed his eyes and let himself sink deeper into the chair.
When the clock on the fireboard chimed midnight, Pemberton stepped back out on the porch. The whiskey made his gait unsteady, and he held onto the porch railing as he looked down at the camp. No light glowed through the office window, and Galloway's car was still gone. A dog barked near the commissary, then quit. Someone in a stringhouse played a guitar, not strumming but plucking each string slowly, letting the note fade completely before offering another. In a few minutes the guitar stopped, and the camp was completely silent. Pemberton raised his head, felt a moment of vertigo as he did so. Soon the last coal-oil lamp in the stringhouses was snuffed. To the west, a few mute spasms of heat lightning. Dark thickened but offered no stars, only a moon pale as bone.
Twenty-six
SHERIFF MCDOWELL DROVE INTO CAMP AT MID-MORNING. He didn't knock before entering the office. Pemberton found the sheriff's manner typically insolent and remembered it was Wilkie who'd advocated McDowell remain in office when the timber camp first opened. It will mollify the locals to have one of their own in the position, Wilkie had argued. Pemberton did not offer McDowell a seat, nor did the sheriff ask for one. Pemberton still felt the effects of the whiskey, not just the hangover but a residue of drunkenness as well.
"What brings you here that a telephone call couldn't convey?" Pemberton asked, looking at the invoices on his desk. "I've got too much work to deal with uninvited guests."
McDowell did not speak until Pemberton's gaze again focused on him.
"There was a murder up on Colt Ridge last night."
The sheriff's eyes absorbed Pemberton's surprise. The only sound in the room was the Franklin clock on the credenza. As Pemberton listened, the clock's ticking seemed to gain volume. Wires the alcohol had severed reconnected. Pemberton felt something shift inside him, something small but definite, the way a knob's slight twist allowed a door to swing wide open.
"A murder," Pemberton said.
"A murder," the sheriff repeated, emphasizing the first syllable. "Just one, Adeline Jenkins, an old widow-woman who never harmed anyone. Her throat was slashed. Cut left to right, which means whoever did it was left-handed."
"Why are you telling me this, Sheriff?"