"I reckon he figured to save Galloway the bother of tracking him down," Ross said.
"I can understand him getting it over with," Henryson said. "That'd be a terriblesome thing to take nary a breath for the rest of your life without worrying Galloway was sneaking up behind you. I'd be tempted to get it over with too."
"But they ain't found his body yet," Stewart noted. "There's some hope in that."
"He was always a clever lad," Henryson said. "He might have been trying to throw them off his trail."
"No," Ross said, a discernable weariness in his voice. "What's left after the crawdadders and mudcats have their way with that boy will bob up somewheres downriver. Just give it a few days."
"MEEKS told me Albright called," Serena said that night as she and Pemberton prepared for bed.
"He's starting eminent domain proceedings next week," Pemberton said, "unless we take his offer."
"Is his offer what it was before?"
Pemberton nodded as he leaned to take off his boots, but did not raise his eyes…
"We'll take it then," Serena said. "Thirty-four thousand acres of stumps and slash will buy a hundred thousand acres of mahogany in Brazil."
Serena removed the last of her clothing. Pemberton noted that the scar across her stomach had not changed Serena's lack of self-consciousness. She stepped toward the chifforobe with the same feline grace and suppleness as she'd done that first night in Boston. Pemberton remembered the evening she'd returned from the hospital, how she'd stood naked in front of the mirror, studying the scar carefully, letting her finger glide across it as she stared into the mirror. My Fechtwunde, she'd told Pemberton. She'd taken his hand and had him trace the scar's length as well.
"So the Chicagoans are ready to sign?" Serena said as she placed her shirt and pants inside the chifforobe.
"Yes," Pemberton said.
"I'm assuming Garvey won't venture this far south."
"No, he's sending his lawyer to sign the contract."
"Even in the North I'm sure it's hard for him to find investments," Serena said. "He may become our best long-term partner. What about our investors from Quebec?"
"They have more questions before they sign."
"They'll sign," Serena said. "You told them of your birthday party?"
"Yes," he said tersely.
"Don't be so grim about it, Pemberton. This may well be the last time that we see any of them. Once we're in Brazil, they'll be nothing more than names on checks."
Serena stepped to the window and opened the curtains, looked toward the ridge.
"I talked with Mrs. Galloway today. I never had before but she was at the commissary. I must say I find her augury deficient," Serena said, her voice becoming more reflective. "Which may explain why the lamp in her stringhouse is still off."
Serena opened the curtains wider. She angled her head close to one of the higher panes, as if to frame it inside the mullion.
"The lunar eclipse is tonight," she said. "I've always found it stunning, not just the brightness but how the hues change. Galloway calls it a hunter's moon. He says there's not a better night to hunt."
Serena didn't turn around as she spoke. Her eyes peered beyond the stringhouses and the ridge, into a sky that had yet to usher forth its moon and stars. Pemberton's fingers paused on a shirt button as he let his gaze settle on the crescent line where the paleness of Serena's upper back and shoulders darkened at the neck. His fingers and lips had often traced that demarcation between the part of herself Serena allowed others to see and what was seen only by Pemberton. He allowed his gaze to follow the curved flex of Serena's back as she twisted to look out the windowpane, then down the tapering waist and on to the hips and the muscled calves and the ankles and finally the feet themselves, heels uplifted as Serena's weight balanced on the balls of her feet. She did not move from the window, as if holding a pose for him. A pose that that even in its stasis embodied motion as well, like a stream current beneath a calm surface.
Pemberton knew Serena was waiting for him to come and press his chest against her back, cup her breasts in his hands, feel her nipples harden against his palms as her hips pushed into his groin, her mouth turning to meet his. He did not go to her. After a while Serena turned from the window, leaving the curtains open. She got into bed and lifted the covers as Pemberton finished unbuttoning his shirt.
"Come on to bed," Serena said softly. "Let me finish undressing you."
Pemberton lay down and felt the bed's feather mattress and springs give under his back. Serena placed her knees athwart his hips and leaned over him, her hands pulling the shirt off his shoulders, freeing his arms one at a time from the cloth. Serena's hands traced a path up his ribcage as she leaned closer, pressed her lips to his as her body settled over him. He did not respond.
Serena finally eased herself off Pemberton and lay beside him, her hand resting lightly on his chest.
"What's wrong, Pemberton?" Serena said. "Is your mind elsewhere?"
Thirty-one
RACHEL CROSSED THE TRACKS AND SOON WAS on the sidewalk, in her pocket one of the twenty-dollar bills to buy groceries. At the curb a wagon creaked by, a Holstein's black-and-white head poking through the board slats. Rachel smelled the manure and straw, so much more clear and familiar than the stew of odors in Kingsport. Probably going to be someone's milk cow, she thought, and took one step off the curb. She did not take another.
What she saw first was absence, a gap in the human form where wrist and hand should be. He lounged outside the post office, a matchstick in the corner of his mouth. Even at a distance, there was no doubt in her mind. The slick black hair and small wiry frame, the way his head cocked slightly to the side. The day's waning sunlight suddenly felt thicker, more contained, almost as if she could wave a finger through it and find her skin tinged yellow. Rachel stepped back slowly, afraid a quick movement would divert his gaze from those who passed nearer.
When she was out of sight she ran, at first toward Mrs. Sloan's house. Then her body and mind swerved as one, and she ran instead toward the depot. When she made it to the entrance, Rachel paused to calm herself before stepping inside. He didn't see you, and he don't know where we're staying, she told herself. We got time.
Behind the ticket booth, a stout moon-faced man studied numbers in a wire-bound notebook. When he looked up, Rachel searched for something in his features to reassure herself and found it in his bow tie and spectacles. Like what a doctor would wear, she thought.