by Ron Rash
“From now on Mrs. Pemberton is in charge,” he said, then joined the men he’d just addressed.
Serena Pemberton approached the railing. On level ground she was taller than most of the loggers, but she towered over them from the porch. Many of the men had worked at the Cataloochee camp and, as then, they viewed their employer with a mixture of awe and trepidation. Her eyes passed over the veterans to settle, one at a time, on the recent hires. None seemed to impress her. Her gaze widened again.
“You knew my deadline last year when you came here to work,” Serena said. “You’ve been well fed and housed. You took every paycheck knowing the deadline. We will finish on time, and because of Meeks’s further incompetence, that includes having all equipment loaded on the train. Any man who quits or lags gets no paycheck for this month.”
Incredulous looks appeared on many of the men’s faces. Murmurs of discontent were heard.
“If you’ve got something to say, say it out loud,” Serena said.
A foreman named Bolger timidly raised his hand.
“Ma’am, my crew won’t ease up until nary a tree’s on that ridge, but there’s not time enough to make that deadline.”
“We’ll make the time,” Serena answered.
Bolger looked at the east ridge.
“Ma’am, I’m just saying what I believe.”
“Get your belongings out of the bunkhouse, and make sure you leave your ax,” Serena said.
“Ma’am,” Bolger stammered.
Galloway said something to the Pinkertons, who nodded and stepped off the porch, but Bolger was already leaving.
“Anyone else who believes the same, go now,” Serena said. “We’ll be bringing in more men to help.” She turned to Zack Murrell. “I’ve promoted Murrell so he’ll be responsible for conveying most orders. If you’ve got a problem, go to him.”
“Too bad you didn’t get the promotion,” Henryson said quietly to Snipes. “From the look of it, Murrell’s wishing the same.”
“Anything else?” Serena asked the men below her. No hand rose. “If not, Sheriff Bowden has something to say.”
The young man gave a nervous nod to Serena and stepped forward. He held a piece of paper, studying it a few moments before addressing his audience.
“I’ve come to ask your help in an investigation about the death of my predecessor, Sheriff McDowell. We need to locate Rachel Harmon, whom many of you should remember, since she worked in the kitchen at the Cataloochee camp.” Bowden looked at the paper again and nodded at the Pinkertons. “We will be assisted by professionals, but we also need your help. Any names of out-of-state relatives or friends she may be staying with, or even places she might have mentioned, could be important. There’s a fifty-dollar reward for anyone who helps us find her and the child.”
As Bowden went to stand beside Serena, Galloway stepped beside the mess hall’s doorway, in his hand a black-and-white photograph of Rachel Harmon and her son.
“In case you forgot, here’s the look of her.”
Galloway held the photograph toward the loggers a few moments, then placed it against the wall, held it there with his forearm while he pulled a spring-back knife from his pocket. The blade locked into place and Galloway jabbed its point through the photograph and into the wood, burying the tip in Rachel Harmon’s throat.
“There’s one other thing,” Serena said, nodding at Galloway, who left the porch to stand among the loggers.
“Your watches,” Galloway said, holding out his felt hat.
Most of the men possessing timepieces were crew foremen, all of whom knew Galloway from the previous camp. They did not ask when or if the watches would be returned but silently dug into their pockets or tugged on brass and silver fobs. They set them in their palms and came forth singly to drop their watches into Galloway’s hat.
When the last timepiece was surrendered, the Pinkertons barring the mess hall’s entrance stepped aside.
“Can you make out the heads or tails of this?” Henryson asked Snipes.
“I’ve got a notion,” Snipes answered. “Let’s just see what tomorrow’s weather is like.”
4
Ever prudent, even as a child, his mother had said of Meeks. So she’d accepted the necessity of his leaving Boston for the wilds of Carolina, where he’d be Pemberton Lumber Company’s head bookkeeper. To be employed by such a prominent family was a rare opportunity. True, the scandalous hussy George Pemberton married gave one pause, but Meeks would be working for George, not his wife, and since the Carolina venture was nearly finished, the Pembertons and Meeks would soon return to Boston. At most nine months, he’d assured his mother.
Now, as he snapped the suitcase’s brass locks shut, Meeks knew he’d not been prudent enough. Just weeks after hiring him, George Pemberton had died, but Meeks stayed on when Mrs. Pemberton offered the promotion. She would be in Brazil, a continent away, leaving Meeks in charge of the whole North Carolina operation. All he had to do was make the deadline he’d been given. Before agreeing, he’d researched company records and found, based on past performance, that the date looked easily doable, so much so that he promised Serena Pemberton it would be met. But the snow had been heavier than in a decade. How was that his fault? And having to run the camp and be the bookkeeper, how could he be expected to notice a one-sentence proviso in a twenty-page contract? She had humiliated him in front of the whole camp. Then as if that were not enough, sent him to this bunkhouse to sleep among a bunch of snoring ruffians.
No, he wouldn’t put up with it. He slipped on his white linen jacket. Besides, though he’d never actually believed the stories about Serena Pemberton murdering those who fell out of favor, the prudent move was to leave, and to do so discreetly. Why tempt fate, especially when Mrs. Pemberton would be aware, as was most of America, of Fred Ries, the bookkeeper who’d recently helped bring about Capone’s downfall.
Meeks stepped out of the bunkhouse, took matches from his shirt pocket, and lit the lantern. Soon he came to his former office. The Pierce-Arrow was parked there, which could get him to the depot in ten minutes if Galloway hadn’t demanded the keys. They’d taken his strap watch too, yet another humiliation, but it couldn’t be much past ten o’clock. At midnight a train would take him to Asheville, from there eventually to Boston. The walk was only two miles. He had plenty of time.
Soon a full moon rose, but not a single star emerged. No doubt the highlanders would find some portent in such a thing. An owl seen in daylight, a broken mirror, a design in a spider’s web—all were signs of something to these people, and that something was almost always bad. Just hours ago as Meeks announced he was no longer in charge, they’d stared up at him as if the porch were a scaffold. Enough of such thoughts, Meeks told himself. Once he was on the train, all would be fine. In less than a week Serena Pemberton would be back in Brazil and Meeks would give her no cause to return. He’d keep his mouth closed about the political donations and tax evasions. After all, safe on another continent, she’d realize Meeks would be indicting only himself.
He quickened his pace but soon had to stop to catch his breath and rest his arms. He hadn’t thought it would be this hard. In the Pierce-Arrow two miles had not felt far at all, and uphill had only been a matter of shifting gears. Meeks was sweating. Dust coated his shoes and pants cuffs. The road made a sharp ascent and he was quickly breathing hard again. The lantern and suitcase felt like iron weights some circus strongman might lift. As if that weren’t enough, the wingtips blistered his heels, each step a fresh scald of pain. Get on your feet, happy days are here again. Where had he last heard that song? Not here in this godforsaken place, he knew. The only music in this valley was the highlanders’ doleful ballads.
The road straightened and Meeks saw before him yet another long ascent. He suddenly felt unable to muster another step. For the first time, he feared he’d perhaps made a mistake leaving the cam
p at night and in secret. How could Mrs. Pemberton not suspect treachery for his doing so? Even if she hadn’t thought to harm him before, now she would have real cause. Once on the train he’d be safe, but what if he didn’t get to the depot on time? The next train to Asheville wouldn’t arrive until eight a.m. By then she’d know he’d left. She’d send her ogre to find him, and the first place he’d look would be the depot. Meeks’s head felt like a hive, thoughts darting in and out, no one he could hold and be sure of.
But that was not true. There was one: he had to get to the depot before twelve. Meeks looked up at the midsummer night. Still no stars, but the moon’s light would surely be enough. There was no shoulder here, only a sheer of granite on one side, a long fall on the other. He pitched the lantern into the dark as he would a horseshoe. The glass globe shattered louder than he’d wished, but this far from camp it didn’t matter.
Then Meeks thought he heard his name called, though from where he could not say. He didn’t hear it again. Just my imagination, he told himself. Carrying only the suitcase now, he resumed walking. The moon was higher, its light spilling across the road. At the top of the rise, the road leveled. To his right the ground conjoined with the valley’s north ridge, where, last November, the logging had begun. Just nine months ago his future had been all bright promise. Once the valley was logged, Serena Pemberton would send him back to Boston, where, as head of Pemberton Lumber’s U.S. operations, he’d be feted as a rising captain of industry. That had been the dream, not this nightmare.
Meeks stopped again and set the suitcase down. He looked up the road and still saw no town lights, but he had to be close. Once around the next curve, Meeks assured himself, he would see the lights of the town, of the depot, then the train with window after window, each a warm square of light.
A childhood memory came of an evening only days before Christmas, bright packages already beneath the tree. He’d been tucked in bed by his mother, the light turned off, but he’d gotten up to look out the bay window. Snow flurries swirled around a streetlight, the cobblestones shiny from their moisture. No vehicles, no one walking. How cold and lonely the streetlight had looked, but he was inside warm and with his family. As he heard their voices downstairs, tears had gathered in the corners of his eyes. Two days and you’ll be back in Boston, Meeks told himself, and picked up the suitcase.
Then Meeks did see a light, not ahead but behind him. It was Galloway, a lantern swaying before him. He trotted ahead of Mrs. Pemberton, she astride the horse whose pale coat appeared to cast its own light. Meeks stumbled off the right slope and fell to the ground. He didn’t think they’d seen him. He opened the suitcase, pushed aside clothing and toiletries, and withdrew an oval-glassed daguerreotype of his mother, a Waterman fountain pen, and a clean pair of socks, stuffed it all into his pants pockets.
Keeping low, he moved into a wasteland leveled by ax and saw. Last November, he’d smoked a Partagas cigar as the tract’s last tree fell, but the same denuded landscape he’d celebrated was now exacting its revenge. The land shadowless, moonlight fell full upon his hunched form. Yet bright as the moon shown, the stumps and slash blended with the ground. Every few steps he fell, got up, and fell again.
He’d progressed half a furlong when the lantern’s light appeared where he’d left the road. The light began moving toward him. Meeks could see the north ridge’s crest, which marked the end of Pemberton Lumber Company’s property. If he could get over it, there were trees to conceal him.
Meeks hobbled up to the crest, only then looked back. Below, the whole valley could be seen, thousands upon thousands of stumps. In the moonlight, they looked like gravestones. Only the uncut portion of the east ridge denied the illusion. Nothing in the valley or ridges moved, except the light that stalked him. Meeks went down the opposite flank, much of the moonlight hidden by the canopy. He descended low to the ground and, feet first, sliding at times before being braked by a tree. When he looked back, Meeks saw only darkness.
Then the woods opened and Meeks heard water rubbing against a bank. He stepped closer. Upstream, only a silky darkness, but downstream the river widened. The moon fell upon it there, rocks glinting midriver, so perhaps shoals. Not far beyond that, where the river narrowed again, something else. He thought it a dam, then realized it was a covered bridge and knew where he was. Meeks started downstream, struggled through a tangle of mountain laurel, but after that a wide bare bank. He heard the hoot of a train. It couldn’t be midnight yet, but an earlier train did go to Chattanooga. Anywhere out of this hellscape would be fine. He touched his back pocket, felt the wallet still there. Torn and frayed as he was, he’d likely be mistaken for a hobo, but even a hobo’s money bought a ticket.
He stepped onto a road latticed by wagon wheels. Across the river, Meeks saw the depot’s lights. As he approached the bridge’s dark mouth, he decided Chattanooga might be better. They would expect him to head to Asheville. Meeks looked upriver. Only darkness. The train slowed to a stop in front of the depot. Brakes hissed. A bell clanged. He was going to make it.
Meeks stepped inside the bridge, felt the planks under his battered feet. There was no light, so he put a hand on the wall to guide him. Meeks took a tentative step, then a second, and the darkness deepened. He remembered the matchbox and patted his shirt. It wasn’t there. Then a match rasped, summoned forth a flicker of flame. A wick caught and, as if rising out of the lantern itself, Galloway’s face appeared.
Meeks took two slow backward steps. As he turned to run, Mrs. Pemberton came out of the woods. He leaped off the bank and landed amid the boulder-strewn shallows. He stumbled forward and dove underwater. Breaking the surface, Meeks found himself neck-deep in the river. He turned and saw Serena on horseback in the shallows, her left hand circling as if beckoning him to return. Then something floated toward him in the air. Directly overhead, the lariat stalled, dropped into the water. For a moment it lay flaccid. Then the rope snapped taut around his neck. Meeks tried to free the noose, legs kicking to keep from going under. Serena secured the rope to the pommel. She turned the horse and Meeks was jerked forward, dragged headfirst toward shore where he saw Galloway, knife at the ready. The water shallowed and Meeks’s right shoulder slammed against a boulder. As it did, the rope jerked his head sideways and the neck bone snapped.
Meeks’s eyes were still open, but they did not see Galloway cut free the noose, unclasp the suspenders from the linen pants. Nor did Meeks see the henchman’s one hand wield a hickory branch like a peavey stick, prod his body out of the shallows into the river’s main current, and, as Meeks drifted downstream, his eyes, though looking upward, did not see the morning sun when its angled beams gilded the river. He did not see in that same sky the first dark forms assembling, then slowly kettling downward, somber-suited ferrymen, who asked of him no coin as they accompanied him on his passage.
As silt choked the creek, the speckled trout left first, and then the greenfin darter and warpaint shiner, blacktail redhorse and rosyside dace, and after them the longnose darter and mottled sculpin, creek chub and river chub, and after that the snapping turtle and painted turtle, bullfrog and pickerel frog, the mudpuppy and red-spotted newt…
5
After he and Serena returned, Galloway went to his room, hoping for a last bit of sleep. His mother, who’d waked him earlier to announce Meeks had fled, lay in the bed beside his. He didn’t tell her they had found Meeks and killed him. She already knew, just as she knew they’d find Meeks by a bridge. You’ll find him where a man can walk across water, she’d said.
Only once, when he was seven years old, had Galloway tried to lie to her. For two nights he’d seen bright-colored lights in a field across the railroad tracks. He had no notion of what was in the field, but a man in town had winked at another man and said wonders aplenty were there. So he’d asked his mother for a nickel to buy licorice whips at Darby’s Store, but instead had crossed the railroad tracks to join others wandering the
sawdust-strewn fairground. Paintings on each tent did indeed promise wonders: a snake long as a telegraph pole, a woman with a beard, a man eating fire and another a live chicken. Outside the tents, there were also things to eat. Candy apples, taffy, popcorn, and ice cream. His eyes and belly were fighting for the nickel, until he came to the last tent.
Galloway stared at the painting draped to the right of the entrance: a pretty woman with long black hair that curled snaky to her shoulders, her privates top and bottom barely covered. But that was not what held his eye. Swords floated in the air, each aimed at the woman who spread a hand before her as if trying to hide behind it, her mouth open in a silent scream. He counted the swords 1 2 3 4 5 6.
A man stood at the entrance selling tickets. He wore a red-and-white striped coat and white pants and had a wooden cane in his hand. Come inside if you dare, the man said, and watch a brave woman face certain death. Only ten cents, ladies and gents. He’d rubbed the nickel between his thumb and finger. It was hard but greasy too, and he could feel the V etched on the coin and it was pointing at the tent, like even the nickel was saying this was what he had to see. He felt his flesh stir. Looks like you taken a shine to her, boy, the man said, pointing the cane at the front of Galloway’s britches. But yours ain’t the first pecker she’s raised. Likely she’ll raise quite a few more before we leave this town, but it’ll cost more than a nickel.
The man laughed and looked past him, resumed calling passersby. Laughing at me, he knew, but he still wasn’t going to leave.
I’ll give you this here nickel if you let me in, he told the man.
He said it twice before the man looked down at him.
It ain’t for children, the man said, and called out that the show was about to begin. But no one else came forward. The man gave a quick look around.
Give me it.
Inside was a small wooden stage, on it an upturned metal box the size and shape of a steamer trunk. The box had a door and soon the woman came on the stage, gave a bow, and got inside. There wasn’t room enough to stand so she scrunched up as best she could. A man with a mustache closed the door and bolted it so the woman couldn’t get out. There were three slits on the door and three in the back and three on each of the sides. So she can fetch her breath, Galloway had figured. Men sat on benches around the stage, but he stood so he could see better. Another man came on the stage, holding six swords in his arms. The mustached man took one and walked over to the metal box. He put its tip in the door’s highest slit and pushed the sword in until the tip came out the other side. The man didn’t take out the sword, but instead went to the side and sent the second sword through its top slit.