Frizzell set up his camera, aiming at a child wearing a blue gingham smock. The photographer disappeared under the black cloth, attempting to hold the child's attention with all manner of gee-gaws brought forth from the wicker creel. After a toy bluebird, rattle and whirligig had failed, Frizzell rose from beneath the cloth and demanded the child be made to sit still. Rachel Harmon emerged from behind the other churchgoers. Pemberton had not seen her until that moment. She spoke to the boy quietly. Still hunched over, she backed slowly away as if afraid any sudden movement might startle the child back into activity. Pemberton stared at the child, searching for a feeling, a thought, that could encompass what lay before him.

When Campbell made a motion to leave, Pemberton grabbed him by the arm.

"Stay here a minute."

The photographer disappeared under the cloth again. The child did not move. Nor did Pemberton. He tried to make out the boy's features, but the distance was too great even to tell eye color. A flash of light and the picture was done. Rachel Harmon lifted the child in her arms. Turning and seeing Pemberton, she did not avert her eyes. She shifted the child so it gazed in Pemberton's direction. Her free hand brushed the child's hair behind its ears. Then an older woman came and the child turned away, the three of them heading toward the train that would take them to Waynesville.

"Pemberton took out his billfold and handed Campbell a five-dollar bill, then told him what he wanted.

That night Pemberton dreamed he and Serena had been hunting in the same meadow where they'd killed the bear. Something hidden in the far woods made a crying sound. Pemberton thought it was a panther, but Serena said no, that it was a baby. When Pemberton asked if they should go get it, Serena had smiled at him. That's Galloway's baby, not ours, she had said.

SHE HAD FORGOTTEN HOW MUCH LOGGERS COULD eat, how it was like stoking a huge fire that burned wood faster than you could throw it on. Rachel worked the early shift, the hardest because breakfast was the camp's biggest meal. She lit the lantern and took Jacob to Widow Jenkins each morning and then walked down to the depot and rode the train to camp, arriving at 5:30 to help fill the long tables, setting out first the tin forks and spoons and coffee cups, thick kaolin plates and bowls soon to be heaped with food. All the while the fire boxes roared, their mouths opened and stuffed with hickory, their heat passing through the thin pig-iron partitions into the twin thousand-pound Burton grange stoves. Inside the oven doors, puddles of bread dough rose and browned while on the stove eyes pots rattled and steamed like overheated engines. The kitchen thickened with smoke and heat, soon hotter and more humid than the worst July afternoon. Sweat beaded the workers' skin with an oily sheen as they came and went. Then the food itself was brought forth from the yard-wide oven racks, ladled and poured from the five-and ten-gallon pots, slid and peeled off black skillets big around as harrow discs. Gallon bowls were filled with stewed apples and fried potatoes and grits and oatmeal, straw bread baskets stuffed with cat-head biscuits, heaped platters of hotcakes and fatback, thick wedges of butter and quart mason jars of blackberry jam. Last the coffee, the steaming pots set on plates, cups of cream and sugar as well though nearly all the men drank it black.

For a few moments everything waited-the kitchen workers, the long wooden benches, the plates and forks and cups. Then the head cook took his gut-hammer and clanged the three-foot length of train track hung outside the main door. The timber crews came in, and for fifteen minutes the men hardly spoke to one another, much less to Rachel and the other kitchen workers. They raised their hands and pointed to empty bowls and platters, their mouths still working as they did so. After fifteen minutes passed, the work bell rang. The men left so quickly their cast-down forks and spoons seemed to retain a slight vibration, like pond water rippling after a splash.

The tables were cleared immediately, but the dishwashing and preparation for the next meal were put off until after the kitchen staff themselves ate. Rachel had always found these moments the best in the workday. The chance to catch a breath after the rush of feeding the men, to talk to some of the folks who worked with her, it was something she'd looked forward to after months hardly speaking to an adult besides Widow Jenkins. But Bonny had gotten married and moved to South Carolina, and Rebecca had been fired. The older women hadn't had much to do with her before and even less so now. Rebecca's replacement, a woman named Cora Pinson from Grassy Bald, hadn't been especially friendly either, but she was younger than the other women and a new hire. After three weeks of eating alone, Rachel set her plate down where Cora and Mabel Sorrels had a table to themselves.

"Would you mind if I was to sit with you?" Rachel asked.

Mrs. Sorrels just stared at her as if she wasn't worth the bother of replying to. It was Cora Pinson who spoke.

"I don't sit with whores."

The two women lifted up their plates and turned their backs to Rachel as they moved to another table.

Rachel sat down and looked at her plate. She could hear several of the other women talking about her, not bothering to whisper. Go ahead and eat like it don't bother you, she told herself. She took a bite of biscuit, chewed and swallowed it though it went down like sawdust. Rachel set her fork in a piece of stewed apple, but she didn't raise it to her mouth, merely stared at it. She didn't even see Joel Vaughn until he set his plate opposite her. He took off his blue and black mackinaw and draped it on an empty seat.

"Don't pay no mind to them old snuff mouths," Joel said as he pulled back a chair and sat down. "I see them every morning out back sneaking them a dip. Don't want Preacher Bolick to see that nasty tobacco juice dripping down their chins like brown slobber."

Joel said his words loud enough for the women to hear them. Rachel lowered her head, but a smile creased her lips. Cora Pinson and Mabel Sorrels got up in a huff and went to the kitchen with their trays.

Joel took off his gray cap, revealing the thatch of curly bright-orange hair that had been an uncombable tangle ever since Rachel had known him.

"That young one of yours is sprouting up like June corn," Joel said. "When I seen him Sunday at church I'd have not known who it was if you hadn't been holding him. I didn't know babies grew so fast, but I reckon us boys don't know much about such things."

"I didn't know it either," Rachel said. "I don't seem to know much about babies at all."

"He's stout and healthy, so I'd say that shows you know enough," Joel said, nodding at Rachel's plate as he reached for his fork. "You best be eating too."

He lowered his eyes and ate with the same fixed attentiveness as all the other men. Rachel looked at him, and it surprised her how much he had changed but not changed. As a child, Joel had been smaller than most of the boys, but he'd caught up in his teens, not just taller but wider-shouldered, more muscled. A man now, even a thin mustache over his lip. But his face was the same, freckled and easy to grin, a boy you knew had mischief in him. Smart as a whip, and kind, a kindness you could see in his green eyes as well as his words. Joel set the fork down and raised the coffee cup to his lips, took a swallow and then another.

"You've been doing good for yourself," Rachel said. "From what folks say you'll be an overseer like Mr. Campbell before too long. There's no surprise in that though. You always had the most smarts of any of us at school."

Joel's face reddened into a blush. Even his freckles appeared to darken.