Serena by Ron Rash Read Free Book Online

payroll.”
    “Is there a reason we shouldn’t?” Pemberton asked.
    “He has a wife and three children.”
    The words were delivered with no inflection, and Campbell’s face was an absolute blank. Pemberton wondered, not for the first time, what it would be like to play poker against this man.
    “All for the better,” Serena said. “It will make a more effective lesson for the other workers.”
    “Will he still be a foreman?” Campbell asked.
    “Yes, for the next two weeks,” Serena said, looking not at Campbell but Pemberton.
    “And then?”
    “He’ll be fired,” Pemberton told the overseer. “Another lesson for the men.”
    Campbell nodded and stepped back into the office, closing the door behind him. The clacking, ratchet and pause of the adding machine resumed.
    Buchanan appeared about to speak, but didn’t.
    “A problem, Buchanan?” Pemberton asked.
    “No,” Buchanan said after a few moments. “The wager did not involve me.”
    “Did you note how Campbell attempted to sway you, Pemberton,”Doctor Cheney said, “yet without doing so outright. He’s quite intelligent that way, don’t you think?”
    “Yes,” Pemberton agreed. “Had his circumstances been such, he could have matriculated at Harvard. Perhaps, unlike me, he would have graduated.”
    “Yet without your experiences in the taverns of Boston,” Wilkie said, “you might have fallen prey to Abe Harmon and his bowie knife.
    “True enough,” said Pemberton, “but my year of fencing at Harvard contributed to that education as well.”
    Serena raised her hand to Pemberton’s face and let her index finger trace the thin white scar on his cheek.
    “A Fechtwunde is more impressive than a piece of sheepskin,” she said.
    The kitchen workers came in with raspberries and cream. Beside Wilkie’s bowl, one of the women placed a water glass and bottles containing bitters and iron tonics, a tin of sulpher lozenges, potions for Wilkie’s contrary stomach and tired blood. The workers poured the cups of coffee and departed.
    “Yet you are a woman of obvious learning, Mrs. Pemberton,” Wilkie said. “Your husband says you are exceedingly well read in the arts and philosophy.”
    “My father brought tutors to the camp. They were all British, Oxford educated.”
    “Which explains the British inflection and cadence of your speech,” Wilkie noted approvingly.
    “And no doubt also explains a certain coldness in the tone,” Doctor Cheney added as he stirred cream in his coffee, “which only the unenlightened would view as a lack of feeling towards others, even your own family.”
    Wilkie’s nose twitched in annoyance.
    “Worse than unenlightened to think such a thing,” Wilkie said, “cruel as well.”
    “Surely,” Doctor Cheney said, his plump lips rounding contemplatively. “I speak only as one who hasn’t had the advantages of British tutors.”
    “Your father sounds like a most remarkable man,” Wilkie said, returning his gaze to Serena. “I would enjoy hearing more about him.”
    “Why?” Serena said, as if puzzled. “He’s dead now and of no use to any of us.”

Three
    D EW DARKENED THE HEM OF HER GINGHAM dress as Rachel Harmon walked out of the yard, the grass cool and slick against her bare feet and ankles. Jacob nestled in the crook of her left arm, in her right hand the tote sack. He’d grown so much in only six weeks. His features transformed as well, the hair not just thicker but darker, the eyes that had been blue at birth now brown as chestnuts. She’d not known an infant’s eyes could do such a thing and it unsettled her, a reminder of eyes last seen at the train depot. Rachel looked down the road to where Widow Jenkins’ farmhouse stood, found the purl of smoke rising from the chimney that confirmed the old woman was up and about. The child squirmed inside the blanket she’d covered him in against the morning chill.
    “You’ve got a full belly and fresh swaddlings,” she whispered, “so you’ve no