'South of Bryson City.'

'Perhaps you could be a bit more specific?'

'I can't give you coordinates.' I did not mask my irritation.

'Please forgive my beastly rudeness. I've been excavating in Swain County, and I was worried about damage to the site. How selfish of me.' Again the giggle. 'I apologize.'

At that moment my host joined us.

'May I?' He waggled a smal Nikon.

'Sure.'

I assumed the Kodak smile.

'It's for the departmental newsletter. Our students seem to enjoy it.'

He thanked me for the lecture and wished me wel with the recovery. I thanked him for the accommodations, excused myself to both men, colected my slide carousels, and hurried from the auditorium.

===OO=OOO=OO===

Before leaving Knoxvile I located a sporting goods store and purchased boots, socks, and three pairs of khakis, one of which I put on. At an adjoining pharmacy I grabbed two packages of Hanes Her Way cotton bikinis. Not my brand, but they would do. Shoving the panties and extra khakis into my overnighter, I pointed myself east.

Born in the hils of Newfoundland, the Appalachians paralel the East Coast on their plunge from north to south, splitting near Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, to form the Great Smoky and Blue Ridge chains. One of the world's oldest upland regions, the Great Smoky Mountains rise to over 6,600 feet at Clingmans Dome on the North Carolina-Tennessee border.

Less than an hour out of Knoxvile, I'd traversed the Tennessee towns of Seviervile, Pigeon Forge, and Gatlinburg, and was passing east of the dome, awed, as always, by the surreal beauty of the place. Molded by aeons of wind and rain, the Great Smokies rol across the south as a series of gentle valeys and peaks. The forest cover is luxuriant, much of it preserved as national land. The Nantahala. The Pisgah. The Cherokee. The Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The soft, mohair greens and smokelike haze for which these highlands are named create an unparaleled alure. The earth at its best.

Death and destruction amid such dreamlike loveliness was a stark contrast.

Just outside Cherokee, on the North Carolina side, I made another cal to Katy. Bad idea. Again, her voice mail answered. Again I left a message: Phone your mother.

I kept my mind miles from the task ahead. I thought about the pandas at the Atlanta zoo, the fal lineup on NBC, luggage retrieval at the Charlotte airport. Why was it always so slow?

I thought about Simon Midkiff. What an odd duck. What were the chances a plane would drop precisely on his dig?

Avoiding the radio, I slipped in a CD of Kiri Te Kanawa, and listened to the diva sing Irving Berlin.

===OO=OOO=OO===