“It’s federal law, Luckadoo,” he shouted. “Federal law. It’s not something you or anybody else decides. It’s been decided, and if you allow this dam you’re breaking the law and you know it.”

Sheriff Cantrell and Hubert McClure grabbed Luke by the arms before he could say anything else. They shoved him through the crowd and out the door. People soon began to follow them out.

I left Allen and made my way to the second row of chairs where Daddy still sat.

“You shouldn’t have come,” I said.

Daddy looked up at me.

“I figured no one else would say some things that needed to be said. It turned out I was right.”

“Who brought you?” I asked, because Daddy hadn’t been sitting with anyone I knew.

“Joel dropped me off. He wouldn’t come in though.”

“When’s he coming back to get you?”

“I don’t know that he will. I figured to get a ride with someone heading out that way.”

I looked around the room. Billy was gone as well as anyone else who might be driving down Damascus Church Road.

“Did Joel say he’d be at home?” I asked.

“He didn’t say.”

I looked up front. Myra Burrell had not left, but she lived back toward the river.

“Let me get the car keys,” I said.

“You don’t have to take me,” Daddy said, the stubbornness in his voice pricking like a briar.

I walked up to the podium where Allen had joined the circle of reporters around Brennon and Kowalsky.

“I need the car keys so I can take my father home,” I told him.

Allen fished the keys from his front pocket. “You want me to go with you?”

“No,” I said. “It’s not far. I’ll be back in fifteen minutes.”

“I would like to meet him,” Allen said.

“Some other time,” I said, and walked out to the parking lot where Daddy waited.

The sun was settling into the trees now, and shadows unfurled up mountainsides. Across the road in Herb Greene’s pasture, cows clumped together under trees. Daddy didn’t see them. If he had he’d have said it was a sure sign of coming rain.

“You ought to turn on your headlights,” Daddy said, as I pulled out of the parking lot.

“I know how to drive,” I said, then turned on the headlights anyway. It was simpler to do so.

“It seems I can’t ever say the right thing to you,” he said, his words low, too low to tell which of us he felt was responsible for that.

We passed Billy’s store. Billy and Wanda sat on the porch while their boys kicked a ball in the parking lot.

Daddy shifted in his seat. I looked at the road but I knew his eyes were on me.

“There’s things I got to say to you,” he said.