Saints at the River

by Ron Rash

  “This shouldn’t have been allowed,” I said to Allen, as we made our way down the ridge. “There will be silt running into the river for years. It will be like a bleeding sore.”

  “How could they have stopped it?” Allen asked. “The dam had to be brought in.”

  “They could have gotten it in without using a bulldozer. It’s another violation of federal law, and Luckadoo’s announcement this morning didn’t authorize it.”

  “An example of Luke’s domino theory?” Allen asked.

  “I’d say it’s no longer a theory. The proof is all around us, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, it is,” Allen said, and his voice was conciliatory. He stopped and lightly gripped my arm so I stopped as well. “Using the bulldozer’s wrong,” he said. “And I’ll say so in my next article.”

  Allen lowered his voice as two more reporters stumbled past us.

  “I don’t want this to be a problem between us.”

  “I don’t either,” I said, “so we won’t let it be.”

  “Good,” Allen said. “When this is over I want to canoe this river. Just you and me. I want to know this watershed the way you do.”

  Back up the ridge someone cursed. A few moments later a video camera banged down the trail, splitting apart when it hit a river rock.

  “One less Channel Seven exclusive,” Allen said.

  But there were plenty more camera crews and a couple of dozen reporters and photographers. Plenty of gawkers, too, standing and sitting downstream of Wolf Cliff Falls.

  Walter Phillips stood at the edge of the pool, a walkie-talkie pressed to his ear. Sheriff Cantrell and Hubert McClure were there as well. Across the river, Luke and his group perched like hawks on a granite outcrop. They were far enough away to keep Sheriff Cantrell happy, though I suspected he would have been even more pleased if they hadn’t shown up at all.

  More people came down the trail, including Kowalsky and his wife, then Brennon and his crew of eight men who carried the portable dam. Ronny and Randy came with them.

  “I’m going to talk with the Kowalskys a minute,” Allen said.

  I found a place on the bank dried by the sun and sat down. I opened my backpack and made sure the camera equipment and flashlight had not been damaged in the descent.

  The sun shone full on Wolf Cliff now, giving the cliff face a silvery sheen. The sky above was blue, though I knew as well as anyone else who lived here how quickly that could change. If that blue sky holds a few hours they’ll probably be able to do it, I thought.

  Shore rocks dry last week lay partially submerged. Rhododendron leaves that had been untouched now bent with the current. The water itself was clearing but still dingy, like watered-down coffee. Driftwood, twigs, and leaves circled in eddies. I would have guessed two feet above normal.

  “Quite a circus, ain’t it,” Billy said, sitting down beside me.

  “Yes, it is,” I said, moving over to give him more room. “You think the water will get low enough for them to try?”

  “It was two point three at noon. I haven’t seen a rafting party yet, so I guess Earl thinks it’s still too high. But it is going down. I’d guess an even two now, one point eight at the lowest.”

  “That’s about what I was thinking.”

  Brennon’s men put on bright orange life jackets and clasped safety belts around their waists. They huddled around Brennon while Ronny and Randy sat together on the bank behind them, caps pulled low over their eyes, their diving equipment beside them.

  “Look at that,” Billy said, and pointed into the water. A dead raccoon floated downriver, its belly swollen as if pregnant.

  “Got swept in, I reckon,” Billy said. “They’re usually smarter than that.”

  More people came down the trail.

  “Shit,” Billy said. “The Forest Service should’ve put up bleachers and charged admission.”

  People crowded the bank now, talking excitedly as if waiting for a boat race or athletic contest to begin. Several teenagers took off their shoes and splashed each other in the shallows. A man stood on the rock where I’d photographed Herb Kowalsky. He ate a Hardee’s breakfast biscuit as he peered into the water.

  I looked upstream and saw Ellen Kowalsky standing on the bank alone. She wore dark slacks and a dress jacket.

  Billy looked back up the trail. “Please, Lord,” he said, raising his eyes skyward, “let that son of a bitch fall and bust his ass. Let him roll all the way into the river.”

  I turned and saw Bryan thirty yards up the trail. He wore chinos and a green sports shirt. He also wore a pair of Docksiders, their slick soles offering as much grip on the mud as bald car tires on ice. One hand clutched a limb of mountain laurel. Bryan looked unsure whether to go down or back up. He moved closer to the plant, using its main stem to secure his right foot. A camera was strapped on his neck and he raised it, photographing the trail and the men installing the dam.

  It would set a precedent, Luke had said at the first meeting. Bryan now had proof of that precedent.

  Bryan took his final shot and tentatively turned around. He took a step and slipped, righted himself before he fell, and made his way cautiously back up the trail.

  “No good can come of those photos,” Billy said.

  “No,” I said. “No good at all.”

  Allen and Kowalsky stood on the shore edge together, but Kowalsky had turned to watch Brennon’s men. Allen faced the river. I stood and raised my camera, focusing in on Allen, bringing his face closer to mine. Allen turned in my direction and when he saw the camera he smiled. I clicked the shutter twice. Maybe I’ll have one good memory of this place, I thought, and sat back down.

  “Have you heard back from Fish and Wildlife about your photos?” I asked.

  “I did,” Billy said. “Their mountain lion expert wrote and said they were, in his words, ‘very intriguing.’ He’s in Tennessee, but he said come winter to call him after we get a good snow. He said he’d drive over and we could look for tracks.”

  “That’s exciting,” I said. “Your sighting may be verified yet.”

  “Yes,” Billy said. “It would be nice to be proved right. But that’s not the best part.”

  “What’s better?”

  “Knowing that despite people like Bryan and Luckadoo there’s still enough wild acreage left up here to hide a few things.”

  Billy looked upstream to where Brennon’s men worked.

  “At least for a little while longer,” Billy said.

  “Maybe more than a little while,” I said. “There are plenty of people who will fight Bryan if he tries to harm this watershed.”

  “We’ll see,” Billy said. “But I’ve got a feeling all this is going to make it a hell of a lot harder.”

  Across the river Joel emerged from the woods. He was by himself.

  “I’m surprised he’s come,” I said.

  “He wants to see himself vindicated,” Billy said. “He came in the store yesterday and said he doesn’t believe they’ll be able to raise one portion of that dam without it being knocked down.”

  “He might be right,” I replied. “Especially if they try today.”

  Four of Brennon’s men hooked ropes onto their belts. Two held jackhammers, two others bracing pins. The men waded into the flat water where Ruth Kowalsky had lost her footing. They moved with care, aiming to plant their feet on sand instead of algae-slick rocks. From the shore Brennon directed them to the places Ronny and Randy had found bedrock and they began to drill.

  “Looks like they made up their minds to try,” Billy said.

  A clattering suddenly rose from above Wolf Cliff, and a helicopter came into view. The machine hovered above the trees like a dragonfly, its shadow falling on the water as a cameraman leaned out to film. The river rats thrust their middle fingers in the air. Several people on the bank waved.

  Billy stood and dusted off the back of his jeans.

  “I should have known better than to come,” he said. “This is worse than gawking a
t a car wreck.” He looked across the river at Luke. “I’m on the wrong side of the river anyway. I’ll see you later, Maggie.”

  Billy made his way back up the ridge as the helicopter rose and vanished over Wolf Cliff.

  The sky was silent again, and still mainly blue, but darker clouds pressed in from the north.

  Allen stood with Phillips now. I took out the Nikon and photographed Brennon’s men in the river drilling, the others assembling portions of the dam. The water continued to clear. First glints of mica came to light, then the white sand, and finally the scuttle of minnows and crayfish and the drift of caddis fly pupas. It was like watching a photograph rinse into clarity.

  Luke now watched through a pair of binoculars. The binoculars aimed at Brennon’s men then shifted to the bulldozed gash before returning to the river. I had known Luke for eight years, and in that time my feelings toward him had covered the emotional gamut from love to hate. Only now did I feel something close to sorrow.

  “PHILLIPS CHECKED IN WITH EARL WILKINSON UP AT THE bridge,” Allen said when he sat down. “The river is up to one point nine.”

  “And they’re still going to try?”

  “Phillips isn’t thrilled, to say the least. I get the feeling if it were his call he’d stop it, but he’s getting big-time pressure, and it’s evidently coming from the governor on down.”

  Allen shrugged.

  “Who knows. Brennon says it will work, even with the water high.”

  “I’m not so sure,” I said.

  The helicopter clattered back over the gorge.

  “How long will it take them to put it up?” I asked.

  “Two more hours at most. They’ll drill seven holes, then bolt the supports together and stretch polyurethane across it. Then the divers go in.”

  I looked at Randy and Ronny.

  “Has Brennon asked the Moseleys what they think about the water level?”

  “I doubt it. This is Brennon’s dam. I suppose he figures he knows more than anyone else about what it can and can’t do.”

  Allen and I sat down on the shore. He pressed his hand against the back of my neck, his fingers kneading the muscles. I closed my eyes and let my head lean back into his touch.

  “That feels good,” I said, rolling my head from side to side, the sun warm on my upraised face. The tensions of the last few days broke free and drifted away. “It’s obvious Freud never gave a woman a neck rub, else he’d never have asked what a woman wants.”

  “I see,” Allen said. “I’ll have to remember that.”

  I leaned my head in the crevice between Allen’s neck and shoulder.

  I closed my eyes and must have napped, because when I opened them the drillers had waded out of the water, and seven metal braces rose like submarine periscopes in the water above the falls. I watched Brennon’s crew bolt the braces together. All the men wore life jackets and safety ropes. Four worked in the water while the other four held the ropes.

  I stood to look more closely at the river. The water was dingy again. I saw Joel on the far bank. He knew as well as I what that dingy water meant.

  I looked over at Phillips, the walkie-talkie strapped like a second pistol on his hip, then at Randy and Ronny, who were in their wet suits.

  “He may already know it, but I’d better go tell Phillips it’s raining upstream,” I said.

  “You want me to go with you?” Allen asked.

  “No, I’ll just be a second.”

  I walked upstream to where Phillips stood with Brennon and Herb Kowalsky.

  “It’s raining upriver,” I said, “probably near the Georgia line.”

  “We know that,” Phillips said. “Earl Wilkinson called a few minutes ago.”

  “But it’s not a real heavy rain,” Brennon said, as much as to Phillips as me. “The river may not go down anymore, but it won’t go up much either.”

  “What does Earl say the level is now?”

  I was asking Phillips, but Brennon answered. “It’s an even two feet. We’re still fine.”

  “I think you’d better postpone this awhile,” I said to Phillips.

  “This has been decided,” Brennon said. “Not by me or Mr. Phillips here but by Superintendent Luckadoo. Nothing can stop that dam from going up now.”

  “The Tamassee can stop it,” I said, and pointed upstream where the big white oak balanced on the boulders. “If it can do that, it can knock down a piece of polyurethane.”

  I turned to Phillips.

  “Luckadoo’s lived in the piedmont all his life. He doesn’t know anything about white water either. Only the people up here know.”

  Brennon was a man who had revealed little of himself. I did not know if he was being paid by Kowalsky or had volunteered his time and equipment. I didn’t even know if he had children himself. But in the last twelve hours there had been glimpses, first his compassion and now a much less noble attribute—arrogance.

  “I keep hearing that,” Brennon said, “and it’s going to give me a lot of satisfaction when I prove all you self-proclaimed experts wrong.”

  Phillips didn’t speak for a few seconds. His eyes scanning the river’s edge, he looked like a man trying to read a language he didn’t understand.

  “You’re positive this dam’s going to work,” Phillips finally said, his eyes steady on the river.

  “Yes, yes, yes,” Brennon said. “This is what I do for a living. I make them and I test them. Do I have to give you a sworn affidavit to be believed?”

  “Okay,” Phillips said.

  “At least make them wait a few hours,” I said.

  “Why?” Brennon asked. “So we can risk a downpour?” He turned to his men. “Let’s get going.”

  I walked downstream. When I glanced back, Phillips’s eyes were still on the river.

  I sat down beside Allen and we watched as four of Brennon’s crew shouldered the rolled-up polyurethane and waded into the water. When they got midstream they fastened it to the metal and began to work their way back toward shore. The dam unfolded like a huge flag. The river surged against the taut polyurethane, but the first section held. The dam was an A-frame, something I hadn’t realized until I saw the middle section unfold.

  As Brennon’s crew installed the second section, one of the workers slipped. One moment he stood by a metal brace, and the next he hurtled downstream toward Wolf Cliff Falls, his arms flailing for a hold that wasn’t there. Suddenly his rope jerked tight. The worker was dragged and jolted across the current toward shore, the man holding the rope now joined by two other men in a tug-of-war with the river. They didn’t quit pulling until he lay on a sandbar gasping for breath. He refused to go back in.

  Joel had made his way upstream and stood directly across from Randy and Ronny. When he got their attention he shook his head.

  “Is he telling them not to go in?” Allen asked.

  “Yes, that it’s too dangerous.”

  Brennon’s crew worked in shallower water now and their progress quickened. The crowd on the shore became more attentive. Several of the men shouted encouragement. A woman lifted a crying child so it could see better. The teenagers quit splashing each other and watched the men struggle to anchor the last of the polyurethane.

  The Kowalskys had been standing away from everyone else. But now they came to the pool’s edge. Wearing hiking boots, jeans, and a flannel shirt, Herb Kowalsky had dressed appropriately for the descent into the gorge, but his wife had not. Ellen Kowalsky’s sole concession to the terrain was a pair of black Reebok walking shoes, but the incongruity of her mismatched outfit did not lessen her dignity.

  She had evidently slipped during the descent, for mud stained her right leg and the side of her dress. She stood with her feet slightly apart, one hand clasping her husband’s upper arm as if she too bolstered the final link of the dam.

  Water hammered against all three sections of polyurethane. The dam bowed against the pressure as the water rose, but it held.

  “It’s going to work,” Allen
said, as I raised my Nikon and took several shots of the completed dam.

  The water did as Brennon said it would, diverting into the right side of the river, cutting the flow over Wolf Creek Falls in half.

  I moved my head and framed an upstream rock on the far shoreline that had been completely dry half an hour ago. Water rubbed against it now.

  “For a little while anyway,” I said.

  I lowered my camera and looked upstream at Ellen Kowalsky. She had let go of her husband’s arm. She faced the pool but her eyes were slightly averted, as though afraid to look directly at the water that held not her daughter but her daughter’s remains. I wondered if she had only now begun to realize what she was about to see.

  “Do you think she’s ready for this?” Allen asked.

  “No. Whatever comes out of that pool is going to be worse than anything she could imagine.”

  I looked at the rock again but couldn’t tell if the water had risen any higher.

  “She probably should have stayed at her motel,” I said.

  “Yes,” Allen said. “I understand that she has to see the body, but I wish for her sake it could be in a funeral home and in private.”

  Brennon waved us toward him.

  “Come on,” Allen said, as he stood up, “they must be getting ready to send a diver in.”

  I put the Nikon in my backpack before standing up.

  “You don’t think you’ll need that?” Allen asked.

  “No,” I said, looking at Ellen Kowalsky.

  We walked upstream, passing Sheriff Cantrell and Hubert McClure, who were now holding back everyone but the press from the pool. Sheriff Cantrell nodded as I passed. He might not have remembered my first name but he knew who I was because years ago he and Daddy had fished and hunted some together. Sheriff Cantrell had come by our house the week Ben had gotten home from the burn center. He’d given Ben a deputy’s badge and told him to heal up quick so they could go catch some bad guys.

  It would have been interesting to know which people, if any, Sheriff Cantrell considered the bad guys in this situation. He was too busy watching Luke and the crowd to talk now, but even if he’d had the time I knew he would have kept his thoughts to himself. Although the political pressure wasn’t as overt as on Walter Phillips, I suspected Sheriff Cantrell had received his share of e-mails and phone calls from Columbia politicians.