Serena

by Ron Rash

  “This way even if the corn don’t draw a deer, that cat will have something to gnaw on,” Galloway said, and pointed halfway up the far ridge where a granite outcrop pushed out of the slantland like a huge fist. “There’s a flat place on that biggest rock, even has a cave goes back in it a ways on the nigh end. You can set there and see this whole meadow, and it’s high enough for that cat not to smell you. Some deer should show for them corn shucks come the shank of evening, and that panther won’t be far behind.”

  Pemberton looked at the ridge dubiously. There was no discernable way up, nothing but mountain laurel and rock.

  “Is there a path?”

  “Not but the one we’ll make getting there,” Galloway said. “Mountain laurel covers up a place so fast you’ve barely got time to look behind and see your own footprints.”

  “There’s not an easier way?”

  “Not to my knowing,” Galloway replied. “I’ll haul that rifle in the crook of my arm if you want. Might make it easier for you.”

  “I’ll carry my own damn gun,” Pemberton said.

  Galloway stepped into the mountain laurel. The plants quickly enveloped him up to the chest. Pemberton followed, gripping the rifle just below the trigger, the barrel held skyward so that only the stock brushed the plants. Galloway stepped through the tangles with no attempt to watch where his feet set down. The laurel soon became sparser as the land’s angle increased. The sun was at their back, and its heat settled directly on the ridge. Pemberton’s hunting outfit had not been uncomfortable in the woods, but here only a few stunted fir grew, nothing to give any shade. They moved around the barn-wide rock. The soil was loose, thinned by granite Pemberton now realized was the undersurface of the whole mountainside. Galloway gauged his steps, moving a few yards sideways to find where the foothold would be best. Pemberton’s breath became labored. When he had to stop and rest, Galloway looked back.

  “If you’re not born to this skinny air a fellow will lose his breath easy up here.”

  They stood a minute in the outcrop’s shadow. Galloway studied the jut of rock and pointed to his right.

  “Seems last fall that I went around that side.”

  Galloway stepped edgewise and angled his way out of the rock’s shadow, no soil beneath their feet, only granite. The last few yards Pemberton leaned forward and used his free hand to keep from slipping. The granite was hot to his touch. A thought crossed his mind that this could be another of Serena’s japes. When they were almost level with the outcrop, Galloway veered a few steps more to the right and stopped where a spring flow created a natural basin. The older man sat by the pool and laid the tote sack beside him. Pemberton sat as well and tried to slow his panting. Below, the whole meadow unfurled, beyond it to the west Sterling Mountain that marked park land. Galloway pulled two sandwiches from the sack, unwrapped the butcher’s paper and inspected one.

  “This is turkey,” he said, and offered Pemberton the other. “Your missus said you was partial to beef on your sandwiches. She had the cook slab it up good with mustard too.”

  Pemberton took the sandwich and ate. It wasn’t particularly good, too much mustard and the bread tasted moldy, but despite the hangover he found the hike and bear crawl up the ridge had given him an appetite. He finished the sandwich and cupped his hand in the creek and drank, as much to wash the sandwich’s taste from his mouth as thirst.

  “That spring up top gives cold water even in the dog days,” Galloway said. “You’ll not find better water.”

  “It’s damn sure better than that sandwich.”

  “A shame it’s not to your liking,” Galloway said, feigning disappointment, “especially after the missus made it up special for you.”

  Pemberton cupped his hand and drank more. The sandwich did not sit well on his stomach, and he hoped the cold water might help.

  The sun was full upon them, and the granite gathered the midday heat and held it in the rock gaps. Pemberton yawned and might have napped a few minutes, but his guts began cramping and nausea followed. He thought of last night’s drinking and wished again he’d been more moderate.

  He checked his watch. Almost three o’clock. Galloway opened the tote sack and removed a plug of tobacco and the hawkbill, which he unlocked by setting his foot on the handle, using thumb and forefinger to free the blade. Then he set the plug on his knee, picked up the knife and slowly pressed the blade into the tobacco. Galloway placed the larger portion back into the sack, locked the knife and put it back as well. Each step was done with the solemnity and preciseness of ritual.

  “Best go ahead and get up on that ledge,” Galloway said.

  Pemberton studied the outcrop.

  “How do I get up there?”

  “Stand on that smaller rock,” Galloway said, pointing with his hand. “Then put your foot in that crack above it.”

  “Then what?”

  “You got to hoist yourself the rest of the way. Grab hold of the ledge with your left hand, then drape your yonder leg up and hoist yourself over. It’s flat as a skillet on top, so you ain’t going to roll off.”

  Pemberton scanned the far edge of the meadow, searching for a glint of binoculars. He turned to Galloway, who examined the cut of tobacco as if searching for some flaw in it.

  “If this is a rusty Mrs. Pemberton put you up to…”

  Galloway met Pemberton’s eyes. He lifted the black plug of tobacco to his mouth and used his index finger to tuck the wad behind his back molars. Only then did Galloway speak.

  “It ain’t no rusty.”

  Galloway brushed a few loose stems of the tobacco off his jeans but made no move to get up. He looked into the spring as if searching for something.

  “I’d be of a mind to get on up there if I was you,” Galloway said. “Won’t be too long before the meadow starts to shadow up. Soon as it happens that panther will start making his way out of the park.”

  Galloway squirted a brown stream of tobacco juice into the spring and stood.

  “When you get up there, I’ll hand you your gun. It’ll be easier that way.”

  Pemberton studied the outcrop, imagining foot and hand placements. There appeared to be no other way. He gave the rifle to Galloway and climbed up on the smaller rock, raised his left hand to grip the ledge top’s surface. He put his full weight on the rock to make sure it was steady, then placed one boot toe in the crevice. As Pemberton lifted the other foot, he raised his right hand and placed it beside the left. Pemberton took a deep breath and kicked his right leg over the outcrop and rolled onto the ledge, arms spread outward so that he turned over only once, faced the sky.

  A buzzing filled the air, and Pemberton first thought he’d disturbed a hornet’s nest. He felt a stinging in his calf and raised his head to see a rattlesnake retracting into its coil. Three other snakes coiled less than a yard from where he lay, filling the air with their warnings. One of the snakes lunged and Pemberton felt its fangs strike his boot, snag a moment, and pull free. Then he was rolling off the ledge, hitting first the smaller rock and then the ground and then sliding and tumbling farther down the ridge. Pemberton stalled his descent a moment by clutching a sapling, but the roots jerked free from the thin soil and he continued tumbling downward until level land and mountain laurel stopped him.

  Pemberton did not move as he waited for his body to tell him what damage had been done. His left ankle throbbed, and one glance at its odd angle told him the ankle was broken. Two, maybe three ribs were cracked as well. The hunting knife had opened a deep gash in his arm. Pemberton told himself he would be all right, but at that moment the venom that coursed through his veins announced itself, and not just in the leg. He could taste the poison in his mouth, though Pemberton couldn’t understand how this was possible.

  He stared upward, and for a moment Pemberton had the sensation that he was actually falling away from the earth and toward the sky. He closed his eyes. When he reopened them, he felt the earth solid beneath him. Pemberton raised his arm and saw the bleeding had
not stopped. But at least not an artery, he told himself. Pemberton took a handkerchief from his back pocket and pressed it against the gash. The cloth quickly saturated, so he took a pair of wool socks from his jacket and pressed them against the wound. The socks were soon blood-soaked as well, but when he removed them the bleeding had lessened.

  He touched his jacket pocket tentatively. The knife was still there, though its blade had cut hilt-deep through the lining. Pemberton placed his right hand inside the pocket, let his palm cover the elk-bone handle. He found the knife handle’s solidity reassuring and did not loosen his grip.

  A long time passed before Galloway made his way down the ridge and stood above him. The highlander seemed content to stand and gawk for the rest of the afternoon. Pemberton let go of the knife and pulled himself to a sitting position.

  “You’re about tore up as a fellow can get,” Galloway said. “Lost a lot of blood too from the looks of it.”

  “Help me up,” Pemberton said, and held out his arm.

  Galloway lifted Pemberton to his feet, but once up the poisoned leg and broken ankle made it impossible for him to stand without help. Galloway put his arm around Pemberton’s waist.

  “Get me into the meadow.”

  Galloway helped him through the mountain laurel and onto the open ground, eased Pemberton into a sitting position amid the broom sedge.

  “A rattlesnake bit me,” Pemberton said.

  He pulled up his right pant leg. Just above the boot, two small holes broke the skin, the flesh puffy and streaked red around the punctures. The taste of venom lingered in his mouth while sweat seemed to seep from every pore in his body. A tingling began in his fingers and toes, and Pemberton wondered if the bite caused this as well. Galloway squatted beside Pemberton and peered closely at the bite mark.

  Pemberton took the hunting knife from his jacket and cut the pant leg from the thigh all the way through the cuff. The cloth fell away like a loose layer of skin.

  “Won’t do much good,” Galloway said. “That poison has done got in your veins.”

  “I might get some of it out,” Pemberton said, and pressed the blade tip on the bite mark.

  Galloway placed his hand over Pemberton’s.

  “Let me cut. I done it before.”

  Pemberton released the knife and Galloway lifted the blade from the flesh. He studied the wound, then probed around it with the knife tip.

  “Cut, damn it,” Pemberton said.

  Galloway methodically cut an X across the bite. He cut deep. Too deep, Pemberton suspected.

  “That snake got you good,” Galloway said as he raised the knife from Pemberton’s flesh. “Sometimes they’ll dry bite you, but this one’s give you the full dose.”

  The two men stared at the leg as it continued to redden and swell. Pemberton remembered how Jenkins’ leg had blackened and begun to stink. But he was a bigger man than Jenkins, and that would help dilute the poison. For the first time since he’d seen the snake on the ledge, Pemberton realized how dire the situation could have been. If he’d rolled onto several of the rattlesnakes or hadn’t reached for the sapling, he could be dying, if not already dead. Pemberton felt a sudden heightened aliveness, the same as when he’d survived Harmon’s bowie knife and the bear’s teeth and claws. What he’d felt most of all that moment he and Serena held each other outside the burning house. Even the pain in his belly and leg and arm could not dim his euphoria.

  Galloway wiped the blade on the tote sack. He laid the knife on the cloth and squatted. Pemberton knew some said you needed to suck the poison out, but he couldn’t do it and damned if he’d let Galloway’s rotten mouth try. Instead, Pemberton pressed the skin around the wound, squeezing out as much blood as possible. He stripped the leather bootlace from the eyelets and tied a tourniquet above the kneecap. Even without the lace, the right foot was so swollen that he had to turn and twist the boot to get it off. When Pemberton finally freed the boot from his foot, he peeled off the sock as well. He touched his foot, and the skin appeared ready to split open like fruit swollen past ripeness. His stomach felt as if he’d swallowed a bottle of lye. Galloway squatted nearby, his eyes on Pemberton, attentive.

  “I won’t be able to walk out of here,” Pemberton said, and felt a wave of chills ripple through his body.

  “And I couldn’t haul you out even if I had a mind to,” Galloway said.

  Pemberton’s temples ached as if gripped by metal tongs. The taste of the venom intensified and his stomach spasmed.

  “Damn stomach,” Pemberton gasped, then paused a moment. “I’d not think a snake bite would cause that.”

  “It don’t,” Galloway said. “I reckon that sandwich is what’s bothering your guts.”

  Galloway didn’t look at Pemberton as he spoke. He looked west toward the park land.

  “You’re gonna be in this meadow a while.”

  “Where’s my rifle?”

  “Guess I left it up there at the cliff rock,” Galloway said.

  Pemberton cursed.

  “Take the car and go find a phone,” Pemberton said, his voice tightening when a new wave of pain hit. “Call Bowden and tell him to fetch a doctor and get up here. Then go on to the camp and find Serena. She’ll tell you what else to do.”

  Galloway did not reply at first. He instead stepped over to the tote sack and placed the hunting knife inside, used his fingers and thumb to slip the sack through his belt and make a knot. It was done so deftly as to appear one fluid motion.

  “She already has,” Galloway said, “told me what to do, I mean. Which is why I’ll be leaving you here.”

  For a few moments Pemberton did not understand. His guts contracted with such force he grabbed his stomach, fingernails breaking the skin as if trying to dig out the pain’s source. He shivered violently, and the pain lessened only to return again just as intensely. Pemberton felt lightheaded, almost ready to faint, and he wondered if that might be as much from the loss of blood as the venom.

  “Must be that sandwich your Missus made special for you,” Galloway said. “She mixed some rat poison into the mustard, then added some of that Paris Green to sweeten it. I asked her what if you tasted the poison, but she said men never noticed nothing that wasn’t square in front of them. Guess she was right about that.”

  Galloway paused and wiped a dribble of tobacco juice from his chin. Pemberton felt blood inside his mouth and knew his gums bled. He spit out some of the blood so he could speak, but Galloway began talking again.

  “She said to tell you she thought you the one man ever strong and pure enough to be her equaling, but you wanting that child alive showed the otherwise of that.”

  Pemberton closed his eyes a few moments and tried to focus through the pain. He tried to understand what Galloway was telling him, but it seemed too much. He tried to settle on one thing.

  “How’d she find out?”

  “Mama told her that day I was in Kingsport, but your missus didn’t believe it. It was Sheriff McDowell set her straight. That day I went to visit him in the jail. He even told me the exact dollar amount you give him so she could check it against the ledgers and know he wasn’t lying.”

  “Just you? He didn’t tell Bowden?”

  “Bowden run out the back door before I even got started good. He was out there vomiting. He didn’t come back in till I was through.”

  “Telling about the child,” Pemberton said. “McDowell thought it would save his life?”

  “No,” Galloway said, frowning slightly as he shook his head. “He knowed what the truth of it was the second I come in that cell. He knowed he was a dead man.”

  Pemberton looked into Galloway’s eyes and knew he was seeing the same flat stare McDowell had seen.

  “Did McDowell know where they are?”

  “I believe he did,” Galloway said, “at least where they went from Knoxville.”

  “But he didn’t tell you?”

  “I knowed McDowell wasn’t going to offer up where they was. Oh, I whittled o
n him a good bit, enough to where any another man would have give up his own mama, but he wouldn’t tell.”

  Galloway paused and scratched the end of his stump, became more reflective.

  “He deserved better than he got, McDowell did. He lived and died by his own rights. If I had it to do over, I’d as lief have killed him quick.”

  Galloway took the wad of tobacco from his mouth and examined it a moment, threw it toward the mountain laurel. Pemberton squeezed his eyes shut. Words came harder now, the smooth glide of thought from brain to tongue ruptured. He formed a sentence and held it in his mind a few moments so it might clarify.

  “Why’d he tell you about me helping him?”

  “I’m of a mind he figured it’d be a way of getting at least one of you killed,” Galloway said. “I reckon he was right about that.”

  Pemberton did not speak for a few moments. He thought of the child in the sheriff ’s office and tried to recall something besides the intense brown eyes. He remembered the child’s hair. It hadn’t been blonde but dark like his own.

  “So the child’s safe.”

  “Mama says he is, him and the Harmon girl both, but that’s all Mama can tell me. They’s got so far away she can’t get them in her mind no more. That trail’s went colder than a well digger’s ass.”

  Galloway paused and his countenance appeared almost wistful. He raised his nub and brushed a bead of sweat from his forehead. Galloway stepped closer and kneeled next to Pemberton. He took the hawkbill knife from his pocket and freed the blade with the same slow deliberateness he might undo a bow. The blade clicked as it locked into place.

  “Your missus said she didn’t want you suffering any more than you had to,” Galloway said, “but I can’t kill you quick after the way I done the sheriff. It’d lay too heavy on my conscience.”

  The hawkbill slashed down, cutting open Pemberton’s front pant pocket and freeing the twenty-dollar gold piece. Galloway picked up the coin.