In the Valley

by Ron Rash

  Exasperated, Henryson turned to Ross.

  “Can’t you show the nonsense of his notions?”

  “All I know is I want it to end,” Ross said.

  A cry followed by a moan came from their left.

  “Bowden better find her some more men,” Henryson said. “Them over there is gonna thin out quick.”

  Snipes went up the ridge, stopped in front of a hickory to judge its girth. As he did, an ax came twirling toward him. With a loud thwack the blade entered the bark just above Snipes’s cap and bells.

  “Shit fire!” Quince cried out. “Ain’t there enough to put us in a grave without our having axes hove our way?”

  Snipes reached up and pulled the ax free, examined it as he might some rare artifact.

  “I venture it the first tree that ax hit,” Henryson said.

  A man in a striped broadcloth shirt appeared out of the fog. Unlike the soiled pants, the shirt looked newly washed, leading Snipes to suspect it had been snatched off a clothesline.

  “You looking for this?” Snipes asked.

  “Yeah,” the man answered.

  “You ever logged before?” Snipes asked.

  “Well, no,” the man answered, “but I’ll soon catch the hang of it.”

  “Let me offer you a suggestion,” Snipes said, handing the man the ax. “It works a whole lot better if you hold on when you swing instead of throwing it.”

  The man disappeared back into the fog.

  “I’d say it’s best to get on back to work,” Snipes said. “A moving target’s always harder to hit.”

  The men picked up their tools and began to work. Not long after, cooks and servers came up the ridge carrying pails of water, leaving two with each crew before heading back to camp.

  “Whatever that’s about, it ain’t good,” Henryson said.

  The rain ceased, but the sun did not appear. Instead, tendrils of fog began to knit together. The fog covered the valley floor and, like water filling a pond, slowly rose. The camp buildings disappeared, then the ridges. The fog seemed to have swaddled the world inside some older measure. What had been cracks sharp as gunshots were now not only softened but also unsourced. In some places, such was the denseness that ax heads floated into view, vanished before striking wood. Logs hooked to cables appeared too late to be dodged. Crews lost all bearings of where other crews were. The injured were hard to locate, and their muffled cries and moans filled the ridge. More trees fell, but how far or near was hard to gauge, as some men realized too late.

  A neighboring logger yelled “hornets.” Men rushed toward Snipes’s crew waving their hats wildly as cowboys caught in a cattle stampede. Snipes’s crew was soon swatting at the insects too, incurring their own stings before the hornets retreated. When the hickory Snipes and Henryson sawed fell, Henryson gave an exhausted sigh.

  “Ain’t no wood in Brazil any harder to saw than locust and hickory,” he said.

  “I’d not argue it,” Snipes said, “but there’s a tree you’ll be glad to see.”

  Snipes pointed up the ridge where the fog had begun to lighten. Just visible through the mist, a smidge of green appeared amid the hardwood trunks.

  “Please tell me that ain’t just some rhododendron,” Henryson said.

  “It’s a fir,” Snipes said. “We’re getting near the top.”

  * * *

  —

  All the while, Serena and Galloway made their rounds, the horse’s coat so closely matching the fog that Serena at first appeared to hover above the ground. Galloway trod on foot, but with such soundlessness that men found him suddenly there. Twice Serena and Galloway came upon men asleep. The henchman’s steel-capped boot kicked them awake as Serena told them they were fired. Each tumbled down the ridge, Galloway still kicking at ribs already cracked. The Pinkertons patrolled the ridge too, blackjacks in hand, and dealt similar punishments.

  Serena and Galloway passed by Snipes’s crew but did not linger, though Galloway and Ross exchanged glares. Not long after, an ashen-faced logger came out of the fog, a gash in his upper leg spurting blood. He did not pause for aid or solace, but staggered past the crew and tumbled down the ridge and out of sight. Wounded men continued to call out from the fog.

  “My stomach argues that it’s way past noon,” Quince complained, and Henryson quickly agreed.

  Snipes declared a brief break. The men ate the biscuits stuffed in their overalls, washed them down with water from the pails.

  “My Lord, just listen to them poor souls,” Quince said. “How can you help a man who can’t be found? I never seen such fog in all my days.”

  “Best be glad you got some color on you,” Snipes said. “It gives a bit more visioning amongst us.”

  “What you said last night about the weather,” Quince said to Snipes. “You meant this here fog, didn’t you?”

  “It or something else to hide the sun.”

  “You think that hag is down there in this mess?” Henryson asked.

  “Not to conjure where that girl and child are,” Snipes said, “but this weather argues that she’s keeping herself busy.”

  Ross had picked up his ax, but suddenly turned.

  “Why do you say that, Snipes?”

  “Murrell said the girl’s so far away that witch can’t get her beaded good.”

  “It’s not like them to give up,” Ross said.

  “They’re not,” Snipes said. “Galloway and the hag are heading west.”

  “When?”

  “Either late tonight or in the morning.”

  “By train?” Ross asked.

  Snipes nodded and the men returned to work.

  The fog began to lighten, not only above but around the men, enough so that several injured loggers were found and helped across the valley to the boxcar. More trees fell, were hooked to cables, then, as if adrift some current, floated above the valley floor to where the loader and flatcars waited. The soil became thinner and the trees smaller and farther apart. As Snipes and Henryson sawed a sixty-foot chestnut oak, Ross moved above to clear a patch of mountain holly. Snipes yelled “timber” and the oak teetered. More trees remained to be sawed, but a gap the width of a Biltmore stick opened upward before them, allowing the first view of the rock-domed crest.

  11

  When Jacob was a week old, Rachel had set the child on the ground to feel the rocky Appalachian soil, to begin to know his place in the world. She’d taken him around the farm to touch the trees and wildflowers, the furrows where the land was plowed. She’d placed the child’s hand firm to the earth. Feel of it, she’d told Jacob, this is your home. Despite all the hardships change had brought, especially her father’s death, Rachel had found comfort knowing the surrounding mountains were steadfast, could even believe that they would watch over her and Jacob.

  But North Carolina was no longer home for Jacob, so one Sunday Rachel took him to where the Duwamish River flowed into the ocean. They followed a trail to the Pacific shore. Rachel immersed Jacob’s hand in the water, raised his fingers to his lips so he might taste the ocean brine. She let him crawl around and sink his hand into the sand, feel seaweed and rocks and shells. This is our home now, Rachel told him. She too tasted the water.

  Rachel finished dressing for work, quickly changed Jacob’s hippin. The black-sailed ship had come again last night, except Galloway wasn’t alone. Beside him stood a tiny woman, her face concealed inside a black bonnet. She remembered the morning when Miss Stephens had shown her third-grade class a map of the United States. She’d pointed out North Carolina, then asked Joel Vaughn to come up and point out the farthest place away. Joel had looked at the map a few moments and put his finger on a dot that had Seattle above it.

  Where else could she and Jacob flee, if they were already as far away as possible? Rachel thought of the thousands of miles she and Jacob had travel
ed, all of the towns and cities where she could have decided This is far enough but always going farther. If Galloway could find them here, a whole continent away, he could find them anywhere. No, Rachel decided. They would not run again. She placed the bowie knife in the long right pocket of her work skirt. She lifted Jacob. Seattle, she told him. This is our home.

  12

  It’s better if you handle this alone. As I have said before, her partners tend to live much longer when they keep their distance, and that includes a matter such as this.

  These were Calhoun’s words an hour earlier, after reminding Brandonkamp it was he who’d altered the contract. As if Brandonkamp needed reminding, hadn’t spent hours thinking about anything else. All equipment must be loaded on train cars by the deadline. The sentence, each word, each syllable, wailed inside his head like a banshee. Lawyer Weatherbee cautioned him not to make the change. It’s not worth it, the amount of money you gain is so minimal, the lawyer had told him. Why hadn’t he listened to Weatherbee and Calhoun, the others who’d dealt with this she-devil? He’d even bragged about besting Serena Pemberton at the Grove Park, then ordered sherry and cigars for all. Only then, glasses filled and cigars lit, did Calhoun (of course it would be Calhoun) ever so casually mention Meeks’s drowning. Obviously nothing more than a tragic accident, Calhoun had noted dryly. Probably just out for his constitutional, chose to stroll along the riverbank and fell in. He did walk two miles to get to that riverbank and did so in the middle of the night, but we all have our quirks. Nothing about it suspicious at all, Calhoun had concluded, and raised his glass to Brandonkamp. Cheers.

  Brandonkamp left the blacktop and began his descent into the valley. He was dressed in his best business suit, dark tie to better show his gold tie clasp, a reminder that, unlike Meeks, he was a man of some importance. Unfortunately, the Packard had been built for a real road, not a goat trail, and its size made the descent more dangerous. Another thought came: the maniac Galloway driving from the other direction. At any moment his face might appear behind the Pierce-Arrow’s steering wheel, the highlander still smoking his infernal cigarette as he calmly awaited the collision that would send both automobiles into the abyss.

  Brandonkamp squinted his eyes, hoping to see better, but it did not help. He’d expected Meeks to be chastised for his lack of business acumen, perhaps even fired, but killed? He’d protested as much to Calhoun, who responded with gleefully unnerving accounts of others around Mrs. Pemberton who’d suffered similar “misfortunes,” a litany of hunting mishaps, falls down stairs, and automobile wrecks, aside from shootings and stabbings. When Brandonkamp asked for at least some small piece of advice, Calhoun suggested a life jacket.

  The fog shrouding the road made his journey even more treacherous. The Packard now moved at a funereal pace. And he dark-suited as a mourner. Brandonkamp wished he’d stayed out of the timber business and continued to work on Wall Street. In New York, people at least behaved in a civilized manner when they made fortunes fleecing others. But no, at forty-eight, he had to strike out to build a timber empire, and, irony of ironies, one inspired by George Pemberton’s success. He drove even slower, twice having to stop and get out, ensure there was a road and not a drop-off before him.

  The ground finally leveled and he passed the mess hall and farmhouse. When he pulled up in front of the office, Galloway stood on the steps as if expecting him. Brandonkamp did not exit the Packard immediately. Instead, he gripped the steering wheel so hard his hands reddened. He had always been good at negotiations, he reminded himself and at Princeton, an orator of some note. He tilted his head to catch his reflection in the mirror. Wishing to see something other than a fool, he fixed his gaze on the manly chin and thick mustache. Even the gray hair was a reminder he’d been a businessman, a very successful one, longer than Serena Pemberton had been alive. Brandonkamp straightened his shoulders and got out of the car. He looked toward the east ridge. It was immersed in whiteness. Most everything else was as well. Work continued. He could hear the shay engine, the skidder and McGiffert loader. Such conditions surely slowed the progress, though that hardly mattered now.

  “I need to speak to Mrs. Pemberton,” Brandonkamp said.

  Galloway appeared to ponder the request, then nodded. The door was open so Brandonkamp went in. Galloway followed, shutting the door behind him. Serena closed a ledger and stood. To emphasize her superior height, Brandonkamp suspected.

  “What brings you here today, Brandonkamp?” Serena said tersely. “Another proviso?”

  “Certainly not,” Brandonkamp stammered. “As a matter of fact, getting rid of the one in the contract is the main reason why I am here.”

  “And the other reason?”

  Brandonkamp’s smile widened as if a bit had been inserted. Why in God’s name hadn’t he just said the and left out main. Meeks’s death was not to be brought up until later, after goodwill and trust had been established, not in his opening gambit.

  “Hardly important at all,” Brandonkamp answered, waving a dismissive hand for emphasis. “Much more important is the contract, which I’ve given much thought to, and recognize…”

  “But first the other reason for your coming,” Serena said. “It’s better to have all matters addressed from the start.”

  Brandonkamp thought of making up another reason, but with her gray eyes staring right into his, she’d know it was a lie, and that would only make things worse.

  “Well, Calhoun mentioned to me the death of Mr. Meeks.”

  “What of it?” Serena said, her tone not defensive but casual.

  “The suddenness I find, well, troubling, especially since he was the one who agreed to the proviso.”

  “So you believe they are connected, is that what you’re saying?”

  “It’s just…”

  “If you believe it is something more than coincidence, not an accident but foul play,” Serena said, “you should go to Sheriff Bowden’s office. Perhaps you even have suspects?”

  “No, nothing of the sort, Mrs. Pemberton. I’m just saying…”

  “You ain’t said much of nothing yet,” Galloway sneered.

  Without the garrulous Calhoun present, the office should have felt larger, but with each exchange the walls seemed to close in, drawing the three of them closer and closer. He contemplated sitting down, but that would only make him feel smaller, more vulnerable. Brandonkamp thought hard for the right words, the right order. Then he found them, what he should have said at the very start.

  “The reason I came, the whole reason, is my sincere wish to conclude our negotiations on the best of terms.”

  “What are you suggesting?”

  For the first time since entering the room, Brandonkamp heard a tone that, while not conciliatory, wasn’t outright hostile.

  “That we forget this nonsense of a proviso, Mrs. Pemberton. I’ll pay your original asking price without the ten percent penalty regarding the equipment. Glad to do so, actually. It was, after all, rather unfair of me. I see that now and wish to make amends.”

  “Amends?”

  “Yes,” Brandonkamp said. “I prefer we part on the best of terms.”

  Serena looked out the window, though with the omnipresent fog, there was nothing to see. Galloway struck a match, but it seemed done with some delicacy, as if not to disturb his master’s concentration. Though Brandonkamp watched intently, nothing in her demeanor changed, but her left hand, almost invitingly, gestured at the chair beside her.

  “Mahogany,” Serena said. “I know there’s still profit to be made here, but in another year, two years at most, all the inexpensive tracts will be bought up. The future is Brazil, though there are risks in such a venture, which others in our business are too timid to take. But I’ve never been afraid of risk, have you?”

  No, Brandonkamp was about to say, but checked himself.

  “Why do you ask, Mrs. Pemberton
?”

  “I have a better way to part, as you suggest, on the best of terms.”

  “Which is?”

  “We wager, all or none,” Serena said. “If I miss the Friday deadline, the equipment is yours for free, but if I make the deadline, you pay me double.” She took out a piece of paper, wrote on it, and slid it across the table. “Whether I win or lose, I assure you that we’ll part on the best of terms.”

  He stared at the paper as he might a treasure map afloat in quicksand.

  “But with all due respect, you will surely lose.”

  Brandonkamp’s mind teetered. He was certain the deadline could not be met. He’d seen the amount of uncut wood and the amount of men. He knew the machinery and what it could do and how quickly. He even knew, as Calhoun had assured him, that Serena Pemberton always honored business agreements. Yet another part of Brandonkamp warned, Don’t do it, for somehow, somehow, this woman would find a way to make him lose. But how? It would have to be some sleight of hand, perhaps something she knew the fog would hide. What if they somehow made the road take him to a different valley, one already cleared? But even in the fog he’d seen all the buildings, heard the shay engine, the skidder and loader. As absurd as imagining that the ridge had simply floated into the ether.

  But how could a man think clearly with her eyes boring into him and a knife-wielding golem at his back? Brandonkamp had a sudden urge to prevail.

  “I need a minute to think this over, Mrs. Pemberton,” Brandonkamp said, and stepped out on the porch.

  He took a deep breath, let it out. The most primal directive of all came to him. If, against all logic, he lost, even if it nearly bankrupted him, at least he’d still be alive to write the check. But would he lose? Brandonkamp looked toward the east ridge. Still shrouded but, albeit faintly, he could hear the axes and saws. If he could just see the trees…But he had seen the trees, just two days ago, and knew at a glance that the deadline could not—would not—be met. And why couldn’t Serena Pemberton be wrong? She’d run the business without George Pemberton for less than a year. What proof was there that her entire Brazil venture wasn’t a boondoggle? All Calhoun had seen was a map.