“Yes,” the doctor said. “She will live.”
The orderly and doctor helped Pemberton off the gurney.
“You gave a lot of blood,” the doctor said. “Too much, so be careful. You could pass out.”
“Which room?” Pemberton asked.
“Forty-one,” the doctor said. “Crenshaw here can go with you.”
“I can find it,” Pemberton said and walked slowly toward the door, past the corner table where nothing now lay.
He stepped out of the emergency room and down the corridor. The hospital’s two wings were connected by the main lobby, and as Pemberton passed through he saw Campbell sitting by the front doorway. The highlander rose from his chair as Pemberton approached.
“Leave the car here for me and take the train back to camp,” Pemberton said. “Make sure the crews are working and then go by the sawmill, make sure there are no problems there.”
Campbell took the Packard’s keys from his pocket. As Pemberton turned to leave Campbell spoke.
“If there’s someone asks about how Mrs. Pemberton and the young one is doing, what do you want me to say?”
“That Mrs. Pemberton is going to be fine.”
Campbell nodded but did not move.
“What else?” Pemberton asked.
“Dr. Carlyle, he rode into town with me,” Campbell said.
Pemberton tried to keep his voice level.
“Where is he now?”
“I don’t know. He said he was going to get Mrs. Pemberton some flowers but he ain’t come back.”
“How long ago was that?”
“Three hours.”
“I’ve got some business with him I’ll settle later,” Pemberton said.
“You ain’t the only one,” Campbell said as he reached to open the door.
Pemberton stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.
“Who else?”
“Chaney. He come by a hour ago asking where Dr. Carlyle was.”
Pemberton took his hand off Campbell’s shoulder and the worker went on out the door. Pemberton walked across the lobby and up the opposite corridor, reading the black door numbers until he reached Serena’s room.
She was still unconscious when he came in, so he pulled up a chair beside her bed and waited. As late morning and afternoon passed, Pemberton listened to her breath, watched the slow return of color to her face. The drugs kept Serena in a drifting stupor, her eyes occasionally opening but unfocused. A nurse brought him lunch and then supper. Only when the last sunlight had drained from the room’s one window did Serena’s eyes open and find Pemberton’s. She seemed fully cognizant, which surprised the nurse because the morphine drip was still in her arm. The nurse checked the drip to make sure it was operating and then left. Pemberton turned in his chair to face her. He slid his right hand under Serena’s wrist, let his fingers clasp around it like a bracelet.
She turned her head to better see him, her words a whisper.
“The child is dead?”
“Yes.”
Serena studied Pemberton’s face a few moments.
“What else?”
“We won’t be able to have another child.”
She remained silent a few moments, and Pemberton wondered if the drugs were taking hold again but then Serena spoke.
“Better this way, just us. We should have known so from the very start.”
Pemberton nodded and squeezed Serena’s wrist, felt again the strong pulse of their blood.
V
On an evening three weeks later the sun’s last light soaked into the western ridgetops. Night thickened but offered no stars, only a rising moon pale as bone. Pemberton and Serena ate alone in the office’s back room. Serena had ridden out to supervise the crews for five days now. Her face was haggard evenings when she returned, but the clothes no longer hung loose. She’d taken the eagle with her that morning, which Pemberton believed the surest sign of her recovery.
When they’d finished their coffee, Pemberton pushed back his chair and stood but Serena remained seated.
“I have a bit more work to do tonight.”
“I or we?”
“I,” Serena said.
“And it can’t wait till morning?”
“No, better to go ahead and get it done.”
“You’re not well yet,” Pemberton said. “Not completely.”
Serena rose and came around the table and stood before him. She reached her hand behind Pemberton’s head, clutching his hair as she pressed his mouth to hers. She held the kiss, settled her free hand on his lower back and pressed him closer. A full minute passed before she stepped away.
“Still believe I’m not completely well, Pemberton?”
“I’m convinced,” he said. “But still …”
“Go on to the house,” Serena said. “Chaney will be around if I need help.”
Serena took him by the upper arm, led him toward the office.
“Go on, Pemberton,” she said softly. “I’ll join you in just a little while.”
Chaney waited on the porch. As soon as Pemberton went by, Chaney stepped into the office, where Serena had remained. Pemberton walked past Dr. Carlyle’s house, empty since its former inhabitant was found in the Asheville train station’s bathroom with a peppermint between his death-locked teeth. Pemberton mounted the steps to his house and went inside. A counteroffer for the Jackson County tract lay on the kitchen table. He sat down and began to read.
When an hour had gone by Pemberton left the kitchen and stood on the front porch. The office lights were off, dark in the barn and stable as well. He walked over to the porch edge, stared up the ridge and found Chaney’s stringhouse. It was dark. Just as Pemberton was about to go back inside, the moon emerged from behind a cloud. The first full moon of October, what the mountaineers called a hunter’s moon, and at the same moment a stooped figure emerged on Chaney’s porch like something rising out of deep water. The old woman faced not toward the camp but westward.
Serena returned at dawn. She undressed and got in bed, pressed her body against Pemberton’s. He felt the night’s chill in the hand she rested on his side. Serena’s lips lightly touched his, then she settled her head into the feather pillow and slept.
THE FOLLOWING AFTERNOON Sheriff McDowell knocked on the office door and waited for Pemberton to acknowledge him before entering. Pemberton motioned for the sheriff to come in. He did not offer the man a seat, nor did the sheriff ask for one.
“What brings you to the camp that a telephone call couldn’t convey, Sheriff McDowell?” Pemberton said, looking over at the clock for emphasis. “I’ve got too much work to entertain uninvited guests.”
McDowell did not speak until Pemberton’s gaze again focused on him.
“Sarah Harmon and her son were found in the river this morning.”
The sheriff’s eyes absorbed Pemberton’s surprise.
The only sound for a few moments was the Franklin clock ticking on the credenza.
“So they drowned?” Pemberton asked.
“The mother did, or so Saul Parton claims, though he’s not filling out his coroner’s report until someone from Raleigh has a look at her.”
“And the child?”
“His throat was cut. Left to right, so whoever did it was a lefty.”
Pemberton told himself not to look in the direction of the gun rack until McDowell was out of the office. What else not to do, he asked himself, but could think of nothing else. He checked the clock but the minute hand had not moved.
“How long were the bodies in the water?” Pemberton said.
“Parton believes since around midnight.”
“Perhaps the river caused the cut throat,” Pemberton said. “That river is rocky and fast. A body could be tumbled about, cut by a sharp rock.”
The sheriff looked at the floor a few moments as if studying the grain of the wood. He slowly raised his eyes to look directly at Pemberton.