He shook his head and said, “No, maybe some of us should’ve been more like Joel. He was so desperate to be leader, we all let him do it, but I could’ve stepped up and didn’t. Alice could’ve, Shen, or George, all of us together. The reason he made so many mistakes was that none of us wanted to take responsibility.”

Barney turned and said, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of stupidity is that smart people say nothing.”

Kate did a double take. “That’s amazing, who said that?”

“I did,” said Barney. “Actually, I’m paraphrasing Edmund Burke, but, you know.”

Kate stared at him for a second or two, transfixed, yet one more person who seemed to have seen Barney with fresh eyes, then said, “Would you like me to take over with the oar for a bit? You’ve been at it a long time.”

“Willingly.”

“I will too,” said Emma, and moved to take the oar from Sandeep.

For the next half hour or so, the two girls handled the oars with the dog standing between them, facing ahead. Once again, there was only silence behind them, and even on the straighter stretches of river, Tom could see nothing of the other raft when he looked back.

They entered a stretch with a different kind of silence, something so unsettling that they all looked around, spooked, as if expecting to see something, or someone, staring back at them from the dark within the overgrown riverbanks.

And then the dog started to growl.

CHAPTER 45

The dog faced forward, head lowered, tail down, producing a constant low growl that sounded almost like an outboard motor. They looked at each other in confusion, because there was no threat visible, but they were all too unsettled to make a joke about it.

And then the boat exploded.

Tom flew up and out and then into the river, water going up his nose, filling his ears, his clothes immediately waterlogged, dragging him down against the current.

He surfaced, amazed to see the boat intact—it had felt as though it had been destroyed. Everyone on board was shouting and he glanced about quickly and saw two other heads in the water—Emma and Sandeep—then the dog, and a backpack floating on the surface.

Emma started to swim back to the boat, grabbing the pack and taking it with her, even as Kate shouted, “Leave the pack! It doesn’t matter!”

But she took it anyway, maybe because she hadn’t heard with everyone gabbling, asking panicked questions, no one with answers. Could it have been a caiman? But Shen or George had said they were unlikely to attack the boats. They’d also said it was important no one ended up in the river, and Tom was acutely conscious of the murky water beneath him now, and all the dangers it might contain.