Free Serena by Ron Rash Page A

you did or didn’t step close to a young woman and let your fingers brush a fall of blonde hair behind her ears, did or didn’t lean to that uncovered ear and tell her that you found her quite fetching.
    Pemberton smiled at himself. Dwelling on the past, the very thing Serena had shown him he, and they, had no need of. And yet, the child. As he mounted the porch steps, Pemberton forced his mind to a Baltimore furniture factory’s delinquent account.
     
    T HE following afternoon a worker on Noland Mountain was struck on the thigh by a timber rattlesnake. His leg swelled so rapidly that a crew foreman had to first cut free the denim pant with a hawkbill, then slashan X into each puncture. By the time the crew got the man to camp, his pulse was no more than a felt whisper. The leg below the knee swelled black and big around as a hearth log, and the man’s gums bled profusely. Doctor Cheney didn’t bother to take him into his office. He told the workers to set him in a chair on the commissary porch, where the man soon gave a last violent shudder and died.
    “How many men have been bitten since the camp opened?” Serena said that evening as they ate supper.
    “Five before today,” Wilkie replied. “Only one of them died, but the other four had to be let go.”
    “A timber rattlesnake’s venom destroys blood vessels and tissue,” Doctor Cheney said to Serena. “Even if the victim is fortunate enough to survive the initial bite, lasting damage is incurred.”
    “I’m aware of what happens when someone is bitten by a rattlesnake, Doctor,” Serena replied. “Out west we have diamondbacks, which reach six feet in length.”
    Cheney gave a brief half bow in Serena’s direction.
    “Pardon me,” he said. “I should never have doubted your knowledge of venom.”
    “Their coloration varies here,” Buchanan said. “Sometimes they are the yellowish complexion of copperheads, but they can also be much darker. Those called satinbacks are a purplish black, and believed much deadlier. I’ve seen one, a surprisingly graceful creature, in its own way quite beautiful.”
    Doctor Cheney smiled. “Another of nature’s paradoxes, the most beautiful creatures are so often the most injurious. The tiger, for instance, or black widow spider.”
    “I would argue that’s part of their beauty,” Serena said.
    “The rattlesnakes cost us money,” Wilkie complained, “and not just when a crew is halted by a bite. The men get overcautious so progress is slowed.”
    “Yes,” Serena agreed. “They should be killed off, especially in the slash.”
    Wilkie frowned. “Yet that is the hardest place to see them, Mrs. Pemberton. They blend in so well as to be nearly invisible.”
    “Better eyes are needed then,” Serena said.
    “Cold weather will be here soon and send them up to the rock cliffs,” Pemberton said. “Galloway says that after the first frost they never venture far from their dens.”
    “Until spring,” Wilkie fretted. “Then they’ll be back, every bit as bad as before.”
    “Perhaps not,” Serena said.

Five
    W INTER CAME EARLY. O NE S ATURDAY MORNING men awoke in their stringhouses to find a half-foot of snow on the ground. Wool union suits and quilts were pulled from beneath beds, the makeshift windows boarded up with oilcloths, scraps of wood and tin, the splayed hides of bear and deer, other pelts including the tattered remains of a wolverine. Smaller gaps were bunged with rags and newspaper, daubs of tobacco and mud. Before stepping outside, the workers donned coats and jackets that had sagged on nails for six months. They walked down to the dining hall tugging at sleeves and re-forming collars. Most wore mackinaws, though others wore wide-pocketed hunting jackets, black frocks or leather jerkins. Some donned what they’d once worn in more prosperous or martial times—lined submarine coats and Chesterfields, moleskin suit tops, coats from the Great War. Some wore what had been passed downfrom their