"Here comes the tally," Ross said. "Get ready to have your pockets lightened, Dunbar."
Campbell stood on the ash tree's stump and took a pad from his coat pocket. The men grew silent. Campbell looked at neither the men nor the owners. His gaze remained on the pad as he spoke, as if to belie any favoritism even as he rendered the verdict.
"Mrs. Pemberton the winner by thirty board feet," Campbell said, and he stepped down without further comment.
The men began to disperse, those who had bet and won, such as Ross, stepping more lightly than the losers. Soon only those who'd watched from the porch remained.
"Cause for a celebratory drink of our best scotch," Buchanan announced.
He and Wilkie followed Doctor Cheney and the Pembertons into the office. They passed through the front room and entered a smaller room with a bar on one wall and a fourteen-foot dining table in the center, around it a dozen well-padded captain's chairs. The room had a creek-stone fireplace and a single window. Buchanan stepped behind the bar and set a bottle of Glenlivet and soda water on the lacquered wood. He lifted five Steuben tumblers from under the bar and filled a silver canister with chips from the ice box.
"I call this the Recovery Room," Doctor Cheney said to Serena. "You see it is well stocked with all manner of alcohol. I find it quite sufficient for my own medicinal needs."
"Doctor Cheney has no need for a recovery room elsewhere, because the good doctor's patients rarely recover," Buchanan said from behind the bar. "I know these rogues' preferences, but what is yours, Mrs. Pemberton?"
"The same."
Everyone sat except Buchanan. Serena studied the table, let the fingers of her left hand trail across its surface.
"A single piece of chestnut," Serena said appreciatively. "Was the tree cut nearby?"
"In this very valley," Buchanan said. "It measured one-hundred-and-twelve feet. We've yet to find a bigger one."
Serena raised her eyes from the table and looked around the room.
"I'm afraid this room is quite austere, Mrs. Pemberton," Wilkie said, "but comfortable, even cozy in its way, especially during winter. We hope you'll take your evening meals here, as the four of us have done before the pleasure of your arrival."
Still apprising the room, Serena nodded.
"Excellent," Doctor Cheney said. "A woman's beauty would do much to brighten these drab surroundings."
Buchanan spoke as he handed Serena her drink.
"Pemberton has told me of your parents' unfortunate demise in the 1918 flu epidemic, but do you have siblings?"
"I had a brother and two sisters. They died as well."
"All in the epidemic?" Wilkie asked.
"Yes."
Wilkie's moustache quivered slightly, and his rheumy eyes saddened.
"How old were you, my dear?"
"Sixteen."
"I lost a sibling as well in that epidemic, my youngest sister," Wilkie said to Serena, "but to lose your whole family, and at such a young age. I just can't imagine."
"I too am sorry for your losses, but your good fortune is now our good fortune," Doctor Cheney quipped.
"It was more than good fortune," Serena replied. "The doctor said so himself."
"What then did my fellow healer ascribe your survival to?"
Serena looked steadily at Cheney, her eyes as inexpressive as her tone.
"He said I simply refused to die."
Doctor Cheney slowly tilted his head, as if peering around a corner. The physician stared at Serena curiously, his thick eyebrows raised a few moments, then relaxed. Buchanan brought the other drinks to the table and sat down. Pemberton raised his drink, offered a smile as well to lighten the moment.
"A toast to another victory for management over labor," he said.
"I toast you as well, Mrs. Pemberton," Doctor Cheney said. "The nature of the fairer sex is to lack the male's analytical skills, but, at least in this instance, you have somehow compensated for that weakness."
Serena's features tightened, but the irritation vanished as quickly as it had appeared, swept clear from her face like a lock of unruly hair.
"My husband tells me that you are from these very mountains, a place called Wild Hog Gap," Serena said to Cheney. "Obviously, your views on my sex were formed by the slatterns you grew up with, but I assure you the natures of women are more various than your limited experience allows."
As if tugged upward by fishhooks, the sides of Doctor Cheney's mouth creased into a mirthless smile.
"By God you married a saucy one," Wilkie chortled, raising his tumbler to Pemberton. "This camp is going to be lively now."
Buchanan retrieved the bottle of scotch and placed it on the table.
"Have you ever been to these parts before, Mrs. Pemberton?" he asked.
"No, I haven't."
"As you've seen, we are somewhat isolated here."
"Somewhat?" Wilkie exclaimed. "At times I feel I've been banished to the moon."
" Asheville is only fifty miles away," Buchanan said. "It has its village charms."
"Indeed," Doctor Cheney interjected, "including several T.B. sanatoriums."
"Yet you've no doubt heard of George Vanderbilt's estate," Buchanan continued, "which is there as well."
"Biltmore is indeed impressive," Wilkie conceded, "an actual French castle, Mrs. Pemberton. Olmsted himself came down from Brookline to design the grounds. Vanderbilt's daughter Cornelia lives there now, with her husband, a Brit named Cecil. I've been their guest on occasion. Very gracious people."
Wilkie paused to empty his tumbler and set it on the table. His cheeks were rosy from the alcohol, but Pemberton knew it was Serena's presence that made him even more loquacious than usual.
"I heard a phrase today worthy of your journal, Buchanan," Wilkie continued. "Two workers at the splash pond were discussing a fight and spoke of how one combatant 'feathered into' the other. It apparently means to inflict great damage."
Buchanan retrieved a fountain pen and black leather notebook from his coat's inner pocket. Buchanan placed the pen on the notebook's rag paper and wrote feathered into, behind it a question mark. He blew on the ink and closed the notebook.
"I doubt that it goes back to the British Isles," Buchanan said. "Perhaps instead a colloquialism to do with cockfighting."
"Kephart would no doubt know," Wilkie said. "Have you heard of him, Mrs. Pemberton, our local Thoreau? Buchanan here is quite an admirer of his work, despite Kephart's being behind this national park nonsense."