Herb Kowalsky moved closer to Brennon. “What?” Kowalsky asked, looking not at the twins but at Brennon. “They’re not going in after all this?”

“You’ve got to go in,” Brennon said.

“We ain’t got to do nothing,” Ronny said.

Randy heaved his oxygen tank toward Brennon. The metal clanged as it hit the ground. Ronny did the same, but aimed his toward Kowalsky.

“There,” Randy said. “You two go in if you’re so sure it’s safe.”

The gorge suddenly seemed quieter, even the water. I looked at the dam. The water rose to within a foot of the top. The polyurethane waved and billowed. Joel no longer stood on the far bank. He walked slowly up the trail. Like Billy, he’d evidently seen enough.

“Please,” Ellen Kowalsky pleaded. “Please get my daughter out of there.”

She opened her palms to Randy as if to say she had nothing to offer but her words.

“Please,” she said again. “Please.”

Randy stared right at her but didn’t speak. I felt Allen’s hand settle on my shoulder. It suddenly seemed as if we had all gathered for this one moment. Except moment was the wrong word, because what I felt was an absence of the temporal, as if the mountains had shut us off not only from the rest of the world but from time.

“Don’t do it,” Ronny said to his twin.

Randy reached out for his tank. “Got to,” he said.

Ronny picked up his mask. “I’m going in too,” Ronny said.

“No, I need you on shore.”

Randy put on his flippers and mask and stepped into the water.

“The rope,” Ronny said, and flung one end to his twin.

Randy grabbed the rope and tied a single quick knot as he waded into the pool. He inserted his mouthpiece and leaned into the water. One black fin broke the surface and he was gone.

Walter Phillips’s walkie-talkie crackled and I heard Earl Wilkinson’s voice announcing the river was at two feet.

“We’re still okay,” Brennon said, his eyes fixed not on the pool but on the dam. For the first time his voice sounded tentative. “We got a few more minutes.”

I looked at the dam. The water was no longer a foot from the top but inches.

I jerked my shoulder free from Allen’s hand.

“Get him out,” I yelled at Ronny. “Right now.”

Ronny turned to us. He stood in the shallows, the rope in his left hand. For a moment I didn’t think he heard me. Then he began quickly pulling in the slack.

“Two minutes,” Brennon shouted at Ronny. “Give him two more minutes and we’ll have her out.”

I turned back to the dam, trying to will it to stay up until Randy was out. Something seemed to buckle slightly on both ends, then just as quickly stabilize.