One day Mr. Pemberton had fallen asleep before she left his bed. Rachel had gotten up slowly so as not to wake him, then walked room by room through the house, touching what she passed-the bedroom's gold-gilded oval mirror, a silver pitcher and basin in the bathroom, the Marvel water heater in the hallway, the ice box and oak-front shelf clock. What had struck her most was how such wonders appeared placed around the rooms with so little thought. That was the amazing thing, Rachel had thought, how what seemed treasures to her could be hardly noticed by someone else. She'd sat in one of the Coxwell chairs and settled the plush velvet against her hips and back. It had been like sitting on a plump cloud.
When her flow stopped, she'd kept believing it was something else, not telling Mr. Pemberton or Bonny or Rebecca, even when one month became three months and then four. It'll come any day now, she'd told herself, even after the mornings she'd thrown up and her dress tightened at the waist. By the sixth month, Mr. Pemberton had gone back to Boston. Soon enough she didn't have to tell anyone because despite the loose apron her belly showed the truth of it, not only to everyone in the camp but also to her father.
Outside of Waynesville the dirt road merged with the old Asheville Toll Road. Rachel dismounted. She took the horse by the reins and led it into town. As she passed the courthouse, two women stood outside Scott's General Store. They stopped talking and watched Rachel, their eyes stern and disapproving. She tethered Dan in front of Donaldson's Feed and Seed and went in to tell the storekeeper she'd take his offer for the horse and cow.
"And you won't pick them up till this weekend, right?"
The storekeeper nodded but didn't open his cash register.
"I was hoping you could pay me now," Rachel said.
Mr. Donaldson took three ten-dollar bills from his cash register and handed them to her.
"Just make sure you don't lame that horse before I get up there."
Rachel took a snap purse from her dress pocket, placed the money in it.
"You want to buy the saddle?"
"I've got no need for a saddle," the storekeeper said brusquely.
Rachel walked across the street to Mr. Scott's store. When he produced the bill, it was more than she'd expected, though what exactly Rachel expected she could not say. She placed the remaining two dollar bills and two dimes in her snap purse and went next door to Merritt's Apothecary. When Rachel came out, she had only the dimes left.
Rachel untethered Dan and she and the horse walked on by Dodson's Café and then two smaller storefronts. She was passing the courthouse when someone called her name. Sheriff McDowell stepped out of his office door, not dressed in Sunday finery like three months ago but in his uniform, a silver badge pinned to his khaki shirt. As he walked toward her, Rachel remembered how he'd put his arm around her that day and helped her off the bench and into the depot, how later he'd driven her back up to Colt Ridge and though the day wasn't cold, he'd built a small fire in the hearth. They'd sat there together by the fire, not talking, until Widow Jenkins arrived to spend the night with her.
The sheriff tipped his hat when he caught up to her.
"I don't mean to hold you up," he said, "just wanted to check and see how you and your child were doing."
Rachel met the sheriff's eyes, noting again their unusual hue. Honey-colored, but not glowy like that of bees fed on clover, but instead the darker amber of basswood honey. A warm comforting color. She looked for the least hint of judgment in the sheriff's gaze and saw none.
"We're doing okay," Rachel said, though there being only two dimes in her snap purse argued otherwise.
A Model T rattled past, causing the horse to shy toward the sidewalk. Sheriff McDowell and Rachel stood together in the street a few moments more, neither speaking until McDowell touched the brim of his hat again.
"Well, like I said, I just wanted to see how you're doing. If I can help you, in any way, you let me know."
"Thank you," Rachel said and paused for a moment. "That day Daddy was killed, I appreciate what you did, especially staying with me."
Sheriff McDowell nodded. "I was glad to do it."
The sheriff walked back toward his office as Rachel tugged Dan's reins and led him on past the courthouse.
At the end of the street Rachel came to a wooden frame building, in its narrow yard a dozen blank marble tombstones of varying sizes and hues. Inside she heard the tap tap tap of a hammer and chisel. Rachel tethered the horse to the closest hitching post and crossed the marble-stobbed yard. She paused at the open door above which was written LUDLOW SURRATT-STONE MASON.
An air presser and air hammer lay next to the entrance, in the room's center a work bench, on it mallets and chisels, a compass saw and a slate board chalked with words and numbers. Some of the stones lining the four walls had names and dates. Others were blank but for lambs and crosses and volutes. The air smelled chalky, the room's earthen floor whitened as if with a fine snow. Surratt sat in a low wooden chair, a stone leaning against the work bench before him. He wore a hat and an apron, and as he worked he leaned close to the marble, the hammer and chisel inches from his face.
Rachel knocked and he turned, his clothes and hands and eyelashes whitened by the marble dust. He laid the hammer and chisel on the bench and without a word went to the back of the shop. He lifted the sixteen-by fourteen-inch marble tablet Rachel had commissioned the week after her father had died. Before she could say anything, he'd set it beside the doorway. Surratt stepped back and stood beside her. They looked at the tablet, the name Abraham Harmon etched in the marble, above it the fylfot Rachel had chosen from the sketch pad.
"I think it come out all right," the stone mason said. "You satisfied?"
"Yes sir. It looks fine," Rachel said, then hesitated. "The rest of your money. I thought I'd have it, but I don't."
Surratt did not look especially surprised at this news, and Rachel supposed there were others who had come to him with similar stories.
"That saddle," Rachel said, nodding toward the horse. "You could have it for what I owe."
"I knew your daddy. Some found him too bristly but I liked him," Surratt said. "We'll work something else out. You'll need that saddle."
"No sir, I won't. I sold my horse to Mr. Donaldson. After this weekend I'll not need it."
"This weekend?"
"Yes sir," Rachel said. "That's when he's coming to pick up the horse and cow both."
The stone mason mulled this information over.
"I'll take the saddle then, and we'll call it square between us. Have Donaldson bring it back with him," Surratt said, pausing as another Model T sputtered past. "Who have you hired to haul the stone up there?"