The land began a steep ascent, and soon there were no more farms. Pressure built in Pemberton's ears and he swallowed. He turned off the blacktop onto a dirt road that curved upward almost a mile before making a final sharp rise. Pemberton stopped the car and they got out. A granite outcrop leaned over the road's right side, water trickling down the rock face. To the left only a long falling away, that and a pale round moon impatient for the night.
Pemberton reached for Serena's hand and they walked to the drop-off's edge. Below, Cove Creek Valley pressed back the mountains, opening a square mile of level land. At the valley's center was the camp, surrounded by a wasteland of stumps and branches. To the left, Half Acre Ridge had been cut bare as well. On the right, the razed lower quarter of Noland Mountain. As it crossed the valley, the railroad track appeared sewn into the lowland like stitches.
"Nine months' work," Pemberton said.
"We'd have done this much in six out west," Serena replied.
"We get four times the amount of rain here. Plus we had to lay down track into the valley."
"That would make a difference," Serena acknowledged. "How far do our holdings go?"
Pemberton pointed north. "The mountain beyond where we're logging now."
"And west."
" Balsam Mountain," Pemberton said, pointing it out as well. "Horse Pen Ridge to the south, and you can see where we quit cutting to the east."
"Thirty-four thousand acres."
"There were seven thousand more east of Waynesville that we've already logged."
"And to the west, Champion Paper owns that?"
"All the way to the Tennessee line," Pemberton said.
"That's the land they're after for the park?"
Pemberton nodded. "And if Champion sells, they'll be coming after our land next."
"But we'll not let them have it," Serena said.
"No, at least not until we're done with it. Harris, our local copper and kaolin magnate, was at the meeting I told you about, and he made clear he's against this national park scheme as much as we are. Not a bad thing to have the wealthiest man in the county on our side."
"Or as a future partner," Serena added.
"You'll like him," Pemberton said. "He's shrewd and he doesn't suffer fools."
Serena touched his shoulder above the wound.
"We need to go and dress your arm."
"A kiss first," Pemberton said, moving their joined hands to the small of Serena's back and pulling her closer.
Serena raised her lips to Pemberton's and pressed them firm against his. Her free hand clutched the back of his head to bring him nearer, a soft exaltation of her breath into his mouth as she unpursed her lips and kissed fiercer, her teeth and tongue touching his. Serena pressed her body fully into his. Incapable of coyness, as always, even the first time they'd met. Pemberton felt again what he'd never known with another woman-a sense of being unshackled into some limitless possibility, limitless though at the same time somehow contained within the two of them.
They got in the Packard and descended into the valley. The road became rockier, the gullies and washouts more pronounced. They drove through a creek clogged with silt, then more woods until the woods were gone and they were driving across the valley floor. There was no road now, just a wide sprawl of mud and dirt. They passed a stable and a shotgun frame building whose front room served as the payroll office, the back room a bar and dining area. To the right were the workers' dining hall and the commissary. They crossed over the railroad track, passing the line of flat cars waiting for morning. A caboose that served as a doctor's office sat next to the track, its rusting wheels sunk into the valley floor.
They passed below a row of three dozen stringhouses set precariously on Bent Knob Ridge, their foundations propped by ragged locust poles. The stringhouses resembled cheap wooden boxcars, not just in size and appearance but also in the way cable connected each in the line to the other. On top of every one was an iron rung. Axes had gouged splintery holes through the wood to serve as windows.
"The workers' housing, I assume," Serena said.
"Yes, as soon as we're finished here we can set them on flat cars and haul them to our new site. The workers don't even have to move their belongings."
"Very efficient." Serena said, nodding as she spoke. "How much is the rent?"
"Eight dollars a month."
"And their pay."
"Two dollars a day right now, but Buchanan wants to raise it to two-ten."
"Why?"
"He claims we'll lose good men to other camps," Pemberton said as he pulled up in front of their house. "I say these government land grabs mean a surplus of workers, especially if Champion sells out."
"What does Wilkie think?"
"Wilkie agrees with me," Pemberton said. "He says the one good thing about this stock market crash is cheaper labor."
"I agree with you and Wilkie," Serena said.
A youth named Joel Vaughn waited on the front steps, beside him a cardboard box, in it meat and bread and cheese, a bottle of red wine. As Pemberton and Serena got out of the Packard, Vaughn stood and doffed his wool golf cap, revealing a thatch of carrot-colored hair. A mind equally bright, Campbell had quickly realized, and trusted Vaughn with responsibilities usually given to much older workers, including, as evidenced by the scraped forearms and purple swelling on his freckled left cheekbone, tussles with a horse as spirited as it was valuable. Vaughn retrieved the grips from the car and followed Pemberton and his bride onto the porch. Pemberton opened the door and nodded for the youth to enter first.
"I'd carry you over the threshold," Pemberton said, "but for the arm."
Serena smiled. "Don't worry, Pemberton. I can manage."
She stepped inside and he followed. Serena examined the light switch a moment as if skeptical it would work. Then she turned it on.
In the front room were two Coxwell chairs set in front of the fireplace, off to the left a small kitchen with its Homestead stove and ice box. A poplar table with four cane-bottom chairs stood beside the front room's one window. Serena nodded and walked down the hall, glanced at the bathroom before entering the back room. She turned on the bedside lamp and sat on the wrought iron bed, tested the mattress's firmness and seemed satisfied. Vaughn appeared at the doorway with the steamer trunk, which had belonged to Pemberton's father.
"Put it in the hall closet," Pemberton said.
Vaughn did as he was told and went out, came back with the food and wine.
"Mr. Buchanan thought you might be needful of something to eat."
"Put it on the table," Pemberton said. "Then go get iodine and gauze from the caboose."