Rachel removed her hand from a stone she knew would outlast her lifetime, and that meant it would outlast her grief. I've gotten him buried in Godly ground and I've burned the clothes he died in, Rachel told herself. I've signed the death certificate and now his grave stone's up. I've done all I can do. As she told herself this, Rachel felt the grief inside grow so wide and deep it felt like a dark fathomless pool she'd never emerge from. Because there was nothing left to do now, nothing except endure it.

Think of something happy, she told herself, something he did for you. A small thing. For a few moments nothing came. Then something did, something that had happened about this time of year. After supper her father had gone to the barn while Rachel went to the garden. In the waning light she'd gathered ripe pole beans whose dark pods nestled up to the rows of sweet corn she'd planted as trellis. Her father called from the barn mouth, and she'd set the wash pan between two rows, thinking he needed her to carry the milk pail to the springhouse.

"Pretty, isn't it," he'd said as she entered the barn.

Her father pointed to a large silver-green moth. For a few minutes the chores were put off as the two of them just stood there. The barn's stripes of light grew dimmer, and the moth seemed to brighten, as if the slow open and close of its wings gathered up the evening's last light. Then the creature rose. As the moth fluttered out into the night, her father had lifted his large strong hand and settled it on Rachel's shoulder a moment, not turning to her as he did so. A moth at twilight, a touch of a hand on her back. Something, Rachel thought.

As she rode back down the trail, she remembered the days after the funeral, how the house's silence was a palpable thing and she couldn't endure a day without visiting Widow Jenkins for something borrowed or returned. Then one morning she'd begun to feel her sorrow easing, like something jagged that had cut into her so long it had finally dulled its edges, worn itself down. That same day Rachel couldn't remember which side her father had parted his hair on, and she'd realized again what she'd learned at five when her mother left-that what made losing someone you loved bearable was not remembering but forgetting. Forgetting small things first, the smell of the soap her mother had bathed with, the color of the dress she'd worn to church, then after a while the sound of her mother's voice, the color of her hair. It amazed Rachel how much you could forget, and everything you forgot made that person less alive inside you until you could finally endure it. After more time passed you could let yourself remember, even want to remember. But even then what you felt those first days could return and remind you the grief was still there, like old barbed wire embedded in a tree's heartwood.

And now this brown-eyed child. Don't love it, Rachel told herself. Don't love anything that can be taken away.

WHEN THEY'D LAID THE TRAIN TRACK THE PREVIOUS September, Pemberton worked alongside the three dozen men hired for the job. He was as broad shouldered and thick armed as any of the highlanders, but Pemberton knew his fine clothes and Boston accent counted against him. So he'd taken off his black tweed coat, stripped to his waist and joined them, first working with the lead crews as they used picks and shovels and wheelbarrows to move earth and remove stumps, make the fills and cuts and ditching. Pemberton cut trees for crossties and set them on the proper gradient, unloaded flat cars stacked with rails and angle bars and switch gear, laid down relay rails and hammered spikes and never took a break unless the other men did. They worked eleven hour days, six days a week, moving across the valley floor in a fixed line. What obstacles not dug up or filled in were leveled with dynamite or trestles. When a new piece of track was set down, the Shay engine lurched forward immediately to cover it, as though the wilderness might seize the rails if they weren't gripped and held by the iron wheels. From a distance, train and men appeared a single bustling entity, the steel rails left in their passing like a narrow gleaming wake.

He'd enjoyed the challenge of working with the men, the way they'd watched for a first sign of weakness, for Pemberton to linger by the water pail or lean too long on a shovel or sledge hammer. To see how soon he joined Buchanan and Wilkie on the porch of the newly built office. When a month had passed and all but the spur lines were built, Pemberton put his shirt back on and went to the office where he'd spend most of his time from that point on. By then he'd gained more than just the workers' respect. He'd found among them a capable lieutenant in Campbell, and Pemberton knew first-hand which men to keep and which to let go when Boston Lumber Company hired the actual cutting crews.

Among those Pemberton insisted be retained was an older man named Galloway. Already in his forties, Galloway was at an age when most loggers were too worn down and damaged to do the job, but despite his graying hair, small stature and wiry build, he outworked men half his age. He was also an expert tracker and woodsman who knew the region's forests and ridges as well as anyone in the county. A man who could track a grasshopper across caprock, workers claimed, as Pemberton himself had learned when he'd used Galloway as a hunting guide. But Galloway had spent five years in prison for killing two men during a card-game dispute. Other workers, many with violent tendencies of their own, gave Galloway a wary respect, as they did his mother, who shared a stringhouse with her son. When Pemberton had suggested they make Galloway a crew boss, Buchanan had been against the idea. He's a convicted murderer, Buchanan had protested. We shouldn't even have him in camp, much less leading a crew.

Now, a year later, Pemberton again suggested Galloway be made a foreman, this time as Bilded's replacement.

"It's the most undisciplined crew in the camp," Pemberton said between bites of his steak. "We need someone they'll be afraid to buck."

"What if he tries to buck us instead?" Buchanan asked. "Besides being a convicted murderer, he's surly and disrespectful."

"A crew won't be laggards for a foreman they're afraid of," Serena said. "I would argue that's more important than his lack of social graces."

Buchanan was about to continue the argument when Wilkie raised a hand to silence him.

"Sorry, Buchanan," Wilkie said, "but I'm siding with the Pembertons this time."

"It appears Mr. and Mrs. Pemberton rule the day," Doctor Cheney said, his tone becoming manneredly casual. "Your wife, Buchanan, I assume she plans to summer again in Concord?"

"Yes," Buchanan said tersely.

"Perhaps you have similar plans to return to Colorado for the summer, Mrs. Pemberton?" Cheney asked. "I'm sure the family manse is much grander than your present abode."

"No, I don't," Serena said. "Once I left Colorado I've never returned."

"But who looks after your parents' house and estate?" Wilkie asked.

"I had the house burned down before I left."

"Burned," Wilkie exclaimed in astonishment.

"Fire is indeed an excellent purifier after contagion," Doctor Cheney said, "but I suspect burning the bed sheets would have sufficed."

"What of your family's timber holdings?" Wilkie asked. "I certainly hope you didn't burn those as well."

"I sold them," Serena said. "It's money better used here in North Carolina."

"No doubt in a venture with Mr. Harris," Doctor Cheney said, setting down his fork. "Despite his bluster he's a crafty old fox, as I'm sure you ascertained when you met him."

"I suspect Mrs. Pemberton can hold her own against Harris," Wilkie said, and nodded at Pemberton. "And Pemberton too. I for one wish them well in any new ventures, whether it's with Boston Lumber Company or anyone else. We need people with confidence right now, else we'll never get out of this depression."