"Some of our best acreage," Pemberton said. " Campbell 's found a stand of tulip poplars where the smallest is eighty feet high."
Buchanan walked beside Pemberton now.
"This stock market collapse, Pemberton. I wonder about its long-term effects for us."
"We'll be better off than most businesses," Pemberton replied. "The worst for us is less building being done."
"Perhaps the need for coffins will offset that," Serena said. "There's evidently quite a demand for them on Wall Street."
Buchanan paused, grasped Pemberton's coat by the elbow and leaned closer. Pemberton smelled Bay Rum aftershave and Woodbury hair tonic, which bespoke coifed hair and smooth cheeks as part of Buchanan's hunt preparation.
"So the Secretary of the Interior's interest in this land. You still say we shouldn't consider it?"
Serena was a few steps farther ahead and turned to speak, but Buchanan raised his palm.
"I'm asking your husband's opinion, Mrs. Pemberton, not yours."
Serena stared at Buchanan a few moments. The gold flecks in her irises seemed to absorb more light even as the pupils receded into some deeper part of her. Then she turned and walked on.
"My opinion is the same as my wife's," Pemberton said. "We don't sell unless we make a good profit."
They walked another furlong before the land briefly rose, then began falling at a sharper grade. Soon the meadow's white leveling emerged through the trees. Galloway had brought a tote sack of corn the previous day, and a dozen deer placidly ate the last of it. Fresh snow muffled the hunters' footsteps, and no deer raised its head as the Pembertons and Buchanan tethered their horses, walked on through the remaining woods and took positions at the meadow's edge.
They each picked out a deer and raised their rifles. Pemberton said now and they fired. Two deer fell to the ground and did not move, but Buchanan's ran crashing into the brush and trees on the other side. It fell, got up, then disappeared into the deeper woods.
Galloway soon joined the Pembertons and Buchanan, the Plotts and Redbones gusting Galloway in different directions as if the leashes were attached to low-flying kites. Once in the meadow, Galloway freed the strike dog and then the others. The hounds ran in a yelping rush toward the far woods where the wounded deer had gone. Galloway listened to the pack for a few moments before turning to Buchanan and the Pembertons.
"This shut-in ain't got but one way out. If you flank this meadow and put one of you in the center, there ain't nothing on four legs getting by."
Galloway crouched on one knee and listened, his left hand touching the snow as if he might feel the vibration of the dogs running in the woods below. The hounds' cries grew dim, then began steadily rising.
"You best get them fancy guns of yours ready," Galloway said. "They're coming this way."
BY late afternoon the Pembertons and Buchanan had killed a dozen deer. Galloway made a mound of the carcasses in the meadow's center, and blood streaked the snow red. Buchanan had wearied of the shooting after his third deer and sat down with his rifle propped against a tree, content to let the Pembertons make the last kills. Midday there had been the sound of ice unshackling from limbs, the woods popping and crackling as if arthritic, but now the temperature had dropped, the woods silent but for the clamor of the hounds.
What sun the day's gray sky had allowed was settling atop Balsam Mountain when the hollow cries of the Plotts and Redbones quickened into rapid barks. Galloway and Vaughn stood at the woods' edge, not far from where Pemberton waited, rifle in hand. The barks grew more resonant, urgent, almost a sobbing.
"Struck them a bear, a damn big one from the fuss they're allowing it," Galloway said, his breath whitened by the cold. "Mama told me we'd have some good hunting today."
As the hounds' barks lengthened and deepened into bays, Pemberton thought of Galloway 's mother, how her eyes were the color of pockets of morning fog the workers called bluejon, like mist filling two inward-probing cavities. Pemberton remembered how those eyes had turned in his direction and lingered. A way to stupefy the credulous, he knew, but done damn well.
"You best be ready, for that bear's coming and once he hits this meadow he won't be dawdling," Galloway said, and turned to Serena and winked. "He won't care if you're man nor woman neither."
Buchanan picked up his rifle and positioned himself on the clearing's left, Serena in the center, Pemberton on the right. Galloway moved behind Serena, his eyes closed as he listened. The hounds were frantically baying now, yelping as well when the bear turned and swatted at its pursuers. Then Pemberton heard the bear itself, crashing through the woods with the torrent of dogs in pursuit.
It came into the meadow between Serena and Pemberton. The bear paused a moment and swatted the largest Plott off its hind leg, the bear's claws raking the dog's flank. The big Plott lay on the snow a moment before rising and attacking again. The bear's paw caught the dog on the same flank, only lower this time, the Plott sent tumbling into the air. It landed yards away, the hide on the dog's right side shred thin as shoestrings.
The bear rushed onward, straight towards Pemberton, only twenty yards away when it saw the man and swerved left just as Pemberton pulled the trigger. The bullet hit between shoulder and chest, enough to make the animal fall sideways as its left front leg buckled. The hounds leaped upon the bear, draping the creature's midquarters. The bear rose onto its back legs, and the dogs rose with it like pelts hung around the bear's belly.
The animal fell forward, steadied itself for a moment before charging toward Pemberton, whose second shot clipped a Plott's ear before entering the bear's stomach. There was no time for a third shot. The bear rose and pressed its bulk against Pemberton, and he felt himself swallowed within a vast weighted shadow. His rifle slipped from his hand as the bear clutched him. Instinct pushed Pemberton deeper into the bear's grasp, so close the creature's claws could do no more than rake the back of his duckcloth hunting jacket. The dogs leaped upon them, lunging and snapping at Pemberton as if believing him now part of the bear. Pemberton's head pressed deep against the bear's chest. Pemberton felt the creature's fur and flesh and the breastbone beneath and the quickened beat of the heart and the heat stoked by that heart. He smelled the bear, the musk of its fur, its spilling blood, smelled the forest itself in the earthy linger of acorn each time the bear exhaled. Everything, even the cries of the dogs, became slower, more distinct and heightened. He felt the whole of the bear's bulk as it teetered slightly, regained balance, felt also the bear's front right limb batting his shoulder as it slashed at the hounds. The bear growled and Pemberton heard the sound gather deep in the bear's chest before rumbling upward into the throat and out the mouth.
The Plotts circled and leaped, holding onto the bear with teeth and claw a few moments before falling away only to circle and leap again, the Redbones yelping and darting in to snap at the legs. Then Pemberton felt the barrel of a rifle against his side, felt its reverberation as the weapon fired. The bear staggered two steps backward. As Pemberton fell, he turned and saw Serena place a second shot just above the bear's eyes. The creature wavered a moment, then toppled to the ground and disappeared under a moiling quilt of dogs.