"He's taking your offer seriously?" Serena said.

"Very much so," Davis said. "He's smart enough to know a small profit is better than a big loss."

Secretary Albright stood and the rest of the delegation rose as well. Wilkie and Buchanan accompanied them as they walked back to the train.

"A total waste of time," Harris complained on the office porch.

"I disagree, Mr. Harris," Serena said. "We may have learned about a tract we can invest in together."

"Ah," the older man said, his smile broadening enough to show glints of gold. "That would be something, wouldn't it? Buying Townsend's land out from under them would really throw a monkey wrench in this park business."

Harris paused and watched as the train pulled out and headed back to Waynesville. He took out his car keys, jangled them loosely in his palm before enclosing them in his fist, mimicking a throw of the dice.

"Let's get it in touch with Townsend. They've mined copper on that tract. I don't know how much, but I can find out. This could be a boon for both of us, virgin hardwoods for you and copper for me."

Harris walked out to his Studebaker and drove off. As Pemberton and Serena walked toward the stable, Pemberton saw Buchanan and Wilkie lingered beside the tracks though the train had disappeared over McClure Ridge.

"I believe Buchanan's wavering."

"No, he's not wavering" Serena said. "He's already decided."

"How do you know?"

"His eyes. He wouldn't look our way, not once." Serena smiled. "You men notice so little, Pemberton. Physical strength is your gender's sole advantage."

Pemberton and Serena stepped inside the stable, pausing a moment to let their eyes adjust. The Arabian stamped his foot impatiently at Serena's approach. She unlatched the wooden door and led the gelding out.

"Wilkie wasn't as resolute as he usually is either," Pemberton said.

"Hardly," Serena said. "They stroked him like a housecat and he purred."

She paused and lifted the saddle, placed it below the horse's withers.

"So if Buchanan sides against us," Pemberton said, "you believe Wilkie could be swayed as well?"

"Yes."

"So what should we do?"

Serena led the Arabian to the mounting block and handed the reins to Pemberton.

"We'll rid ourselves of Buchanan."

She strapped the gauntlet on her right forearm and opened the adjacent stall where the eagle waited quiet and unmoving as a soldier at attention. It's a Berkute, Serena had told Pemberton the week after the creature arrived, much like the golden eagles she and her father hunted with in Colorado, only bigger and stronger, more fierce. The Kazakhs hunted wolves with them, and Serena had claimed Berkutes attacked even snow leopards given the opportunity. Looking at the eagle's huge talons and muscled keel, Pemberton believed it possible.

Serena emerged from the stall, the bird on her arm. She stepped onto the mounting block, then slipped her left foot in the stirrup and swung onto the saddle. Serena's legs and hips clinched the horses saddled midsection as she balanced herself. It was a deft maneuver, equal parts strength and agility. The eagle raised its wings a moment, resettled them as if also balancing itself.

"Are you still hunting with Harris Sunday?" Serena asked.

"Yes."

"Ask Buchanan to come along as well. Tell him it'll give the two of you a chance to discuss the Secretary's offer. On the way out there, talk to Harris some more about the Townsend land, maybe also mention the Jackson Country tract Luckadoo called you about. You probably won't have a chance to talk afterward."

Because? Pemberton almost said, but then understood. Serena stared fixedly at Pemberton, her pupils waxing in the barn's muted light.

"I need to get that second skidder up and running Sunday morning, but I could join you in the afternoon. I can do it, if you want me to."

"No. I'll do it."

"Another time for me, then," Serena said.

THE PARTY GATHERED SUNDAY MORNING IN FRONT of the commissary. Galloway suggested they hunt an abandoned homestead at the headwaters of Cook Creek, an apple orchard that had drawn game all winter. Fresh tracks showed plenty of deer yet lingered. Enough to draw any panther that might be around, Galloway had added, and told Pemberton to carry the twenty-dollar gold piece in his front pocket, just in case. Vaughn and Galloway and the hounds rode in the wagon while the other men followed on horseback.

The hunting party crossed Noland Mountain and then Indian Ridge, moving beyond the last timbered land. Buchanan and Harris rode side by side. Pemberton followed. Woods soon surrounded them, newly fallen leaves softening the trail. A few large hardwoods caught Pemberton's eye, but much of what they passed through was white pine and fir, near a creek a stand of river birch. Pemberton noted as much to Buchanan, who only nodded in response, his gaze fixed ahead of him. They began their descent into the gorge. The trail followed a creek, and Harris' eyes scanned the bedding of the exposed rock.

"Think there might be something of value here?" Pemberton asked.

"Up top there was granite, maybe enough for a quarry, but this is more interesting."

Harris tethered his horse to a sycamore and stepped across the creek. He ran his finger across the lighter color streaking an outcrop.

"Copper," Harris said, "though impossible to say how much without some blasting and sediment samples."

"But not coal?" Pemberton asked.

"Wrong side of the Appalachians," Harris said. "The Allegheny plateau, that's where the coal is. You have to go to Pennsylvania to find any on the eastern slopes."

Harris kneeled on the creek bank and used his fingers to sift through sand and silt. He picked out a few small stones, examined each a moment before flicking it into the water.

"Looking for something special?" Pemberton asked.

"No," Harris replied, and stood up, brushing wet sand off his corduroy breeches.

"I talked to Colonial Townsend last night," Pemberton said as the older man remounted. "He's as willing to sell to us as to Albright."

"Good," Harris said. "I know a geologist who's worked for Townsend. I'll have him send me a report."

"We also found nine thousand acres in Jackson County that looks promising, a recent foreclosure."

"Promising for who," Harris said brusquely. "That Glencoe Ridge tract was 'promising' as well, but only for you and your wife."

They rode on. The trail narrowed and they traveled single file behind the wagon, Buchanan first, then Pemberton. Harris trailed, still studying the landscape's geology. Buchanan wore a black split-tailed fox hunting coat ordered from London, and as they passed through the narrowest portion of the trail Pemberton kept his eyes on Buchanan's coat, using its dark cloth to better summon forth a picture of the past.

Buchanan's wedding had been at Saint Marks in downtown Boston. Unlike the Pembertons' civil ceremony, it had been a large and elegant affair, Buchanan and the groomsmen and the bride's father in tuxedos, the reception afterward at the Hotel Touraine. Buchanan and his bride had stood at the head of the receiving line as guests entered the ballroom. Pemberton had shaken his partner's hand and hugged Elizabeth. Pemberton recalled how small her waist had been as they embraced, an hourglass figure a recent photograph in Buchanan's office showed she'd retained.

Pemberton closed his eyes a moment, trying to raise an image of who'd been next in the receiving line. Buchanan's parents were dead, so it had to have been Elizabeth's parents. A dim face surfaced and then receded, nothing more than white hair and spectacles. Of the mother he could remember nothing, nor of Buchanan's siblings. Their lack of any lasting impression boded well, Pemberton realized. He'd always believed himself good at recognizing formidability in others.