Far down the river Mark stood in the paddle wheel watchingthe flames, and he wept. When the boat bumped a rock, he began to fire the engine and then, under power, continued downriver. When he reached the Shenandoah he turned south and followed it until the big boat could go no farther. It was almost dawn. He sorted the clothes he had gathered together in the women's quarters and made up packs of the boat's provisions; they would need everything they could carry.

When the women began to stir, he would give them tea and cornbread, and get them ashore. He would take the boat out to the middle of the river and let it float downstream again. They would need it back in the valley. Then he and the women would start through the forests toward home.

Epilogue

Mark kept behind trees as he approached the ridge over the valley once more. Twenty years, he thought. Twenty years since he had seen it. It was possible they had set up an elaborate alarm system, but he thought not. Not up here anyway. From all appearances, the woods up here had not been entered for many years. He ran the last few feet to the ridge, concealed himself behind a tangle of wild grapes, and looked below. For a long time he didn't move, hardly breathed, and then he slowly began to walk down the slope.

There was no sign of life. Aspens grew in the fields, willows crowded the riverbanks; around the buildings the junipers and pines that had once been kept trimmed now grew high and almost hid the buildings. The rose hedge had become a thicket. He started and whirled around at a sudden shriek that sounded almost human. A dozen large birds launched themselves into the air and flew awkwardly toward the nearest copse. The chickens had gone wild, he thought in wonder. And the livestock? He could see no sign of cattle, but they would be in the woods, along the riverbanks, spreading throughout the region.

He walked on. Again he stopped. One of the dormitories was gone, no trace of it anywhere. A tornado, he thought, and he saw it now, a line of destruction that time had smoothed over, erased; a path where there were no buildings, no large trees, only the new growth of alders and aspens and grasses that would hold the ground until the spruces made it down the hillside, until the maple and oak seeds could be blown in to land on a hospitable site and take root. He followed the swath cut by the tornado, more certain as he moved that that was what had happened. But it couldn't account for the death of the entire community. Not that alone. Then he saw the ruins of the mill and stopped.