I searched the room for Earl Wilkinson. I was curious as to which side he was taking. He stood by himself near the back door. Although he hadn’t been as instrumental as Luke, he’d done his share to get the Tamassee its Wild and Scenic status. But he was also a businessman. As Earl put more and more rafts on the river, some people, including Luke and Billy, had come to believe he was more interested in protecting his profit margin than the Tamassee.

Sheriff Cantrell stood conspicuously by the table as Walter Phillips stepped up to the podium.

“This meeting won’t go on until people get back in their seats,” Phillips shouted above the din. “Otherwise I’m adjourning it right now.”

People lowered their voices and sat down.

“Does anyone who hasn’t yet spoken have anything to say?” Phillips asked.

Harley Winchester stood up. He’d been sitting in the back row on the right side so his good eye faced the lectern. Harley wore steel-toed brogans and overalls. Sweat and dirt and grease stained his V-neck T-shirt.

“I got something to say.”

Harley looked the room over, his dead right eye milky blue, unfocused. He’d lost that eye ten years ago while logging just outside the Tamassee’s Wild and Scenic boundary. Someone had hammered a nail into a big oak, and Harley’s chain saw hit it and sent a piece deep enough to plunge his right eye into darkness forever. Harley held Luke responsible for that nail being in the tree. Not that Luke had necessarily done it himself but that whoever did had been one of Luke’s followers.

“I know how they done it twenty years ago,” Harley said, his eye sweeping across the room. “They’d throw some dynamite in that pool and let the concussion free her. But things have changed on the river now, changed a lot. Twenty years ago I could cut timber anywhere on the Tamassee I wanted. I could cut a new logging road or float timber downstream if I needed. Now I can’t log within a quarter mile of it. If I was to throw a rock in that river I’d probably get arrested.”

Harley let his left eye settle on Luke.

“Of course it’s different for rafting people and photographers. They can use that river to make money and then tell everybody else not to touch it, even to get a body out.”

For a few seconds nobody said a word. Harley was in his fifties, but he could still outwork any of the other loggers. He carried a lot of weight in his belly now, but his arms were muscled like a pro football player’s. He had a reputation for being strung tight as new barbed wire. People up here liked to stay on Harley’s good side.

Luke did not bother to stand up.