“I don’t know,” Sheriff Cantrell said, “but the farther from here the better.”

Reverend Tilson and his congregation continued to pray in groups of three and four. The murmur of prayers merged with the sound of the river. It’s Sunday morning, I thought, as though somehow I’d not realized that. Sunday morning in a place where it meant more than sleeping late and a leisurely read of the Sunday paper.

Sunlight poured into the gorge now, warming the rocks, brightening the river. Yellow mayflies swirled over the pool below Wolf Cliff Falls, the females dipping occasionally to lay their eggs. A trout broke the pool’s surface. In the woods behind me a pileated woodpecker tapped a tree trunk as if sending a coded message. The morning felt like spring in a way the previous days here had not. The Tamassee and its banks seemed more alive, busier. I looked at the rhododendron and mountain laurel. They would blossom soon and the flowers would overwhelm the banks with their intense whites and pinks.

Herb Kowalsky still sat on the rock farther upstream. He looked diminished. He was not a likable man, and he must have been a hard man to work for, maybe to live with as well, but at that moment I wanted to be more generous to him. I wanted to believe that he had been as attentive to his daughter in life as in death. I wanted him to have that—despite whatever sorrow or guilt he felt—to know beyond any doubt he had been a good father to his daughter.

Allen reached his arm around my waist.

“Phillips is doing the right thing.”

“Yes, he is,” I said. “I just hope his superiors see it that way.”

“What will happen now?”

“That depends on whether Phillips gets any backing. Come July the river will be more rock than water. They shouldn’t have any trouble getting into the undercut then.”

“You think they’ll be willing to wait that long?”

“I don’t know.”

Someone was coming down the trail, moving quickly. I turned around, expecting Brennon or one of his crew, but it was Ronny, a backpack slung over his shoulder. He cut off the trail and shoved through mountain laurel till he reached the tailwaters of the pool.

“What are you doing, son?” Reverend Tilson asked, as Ronny waded into the shallows. Reverend Tilson took a few tentative steps after him. “What are you doing, son?” he repeated.

“Get out of there, Moseley,” Sheriff Cantrell shouted.

No one moved as Ronny opened the backpack and pulled out three sticks of dynamite, gray masking tape binding them together like a bouquet.

Luke reacted first, running down the ridge as Ronny flared a cigarette lighter. It took him three tries to light the fuse. Sheriff Cantrell and Walter Phillips and Hubert McClure stood at the pool edge now, but they didn’t enter the water.

“Don’t do it,” Sheriff Cantrell said.