Saints at the River Page 17

In my mind I followed the telephone lines up Highway 76 and through pasture and orchard edge, down Damascus Church Road, then across the pasture to where my father sat in his front room, the glassed photographs of his wife and children staring down on him.

  “About last week,” I said, and paused. What I wanted to say was I was sorry, sorry for a lot of things.

  But the words wouldn’t come. Because I was imagining how Wanda or Jill Moseley would react to my words, how they’d be justified in saying it was a damn convenient time for me to be so suddenly forgiving. Daddy could say much the same.

  “You told me what you believed,” he said, petulance sharpening his voice. “You got what you think of me out in the open.”

  The vacuum cleaner shut off. I could hear it being rolled farther up the hall.

  “I want things better between us,” I said.

  “You haven’t much acted like it,” Daddy said. “That’s what I’ve been trying to do ever since you been up here.”

  Anger sparked inside me for a moment but didn’t catch. I was too weary to nurture it.

  “I’m going to try harder,” I said.

  Daddy said nothing for a few moments. “I’m sorry you were there today,” he said. “I’d have wished it otherwise.”

  “I know that,” I said, and told him good night.

  I slept that night, more than I thought possible. I woke once and the radio clock glowed two-twenty. I wondered if Allen was awake. I thought how nice it would be if I were lying with his chest pressed into my back, his knees tucked behind mine. A breeze ruffled the curtains. Crickets and tree frogs gave voice to the weeds and branches. I’d often had trouble sleeping well in Laurens and Columbia and always assumed the reason was the sound of cars passing, neighbors shutting doors and dragging trash cans to the curb, but now I realized it was also what I didn’t hear—rain on a tin roof, crickets, tree frogs, owls, whippoorwills—sounds so much a part of the night you didn’t even notice them until they were absent.

  I thought about the words I’d almost said to Daddy. “What can be spoken is already dead in the heart,” Luke had often said. Nietzsche. I didn’t believe that was always true. But words could be easy, mere movements of the mouth. As I lay there trying to articulate what I felt toward Daddy, toward myself, the words rang hollow—hollow and self-serving.

  Eventually I sank back into sleep. I dreamed of a face staring up at me from the bottom of the pool at Wolf Creek Falls. The water was murky but it slowly began to clear, the face becoming more and more familiar.

  REVEREND TILSON HAD AGED SINCE I’D SEEN HIM LAST, IN large part because of the heart attack he’d suffered in December. New lines creased his face. The slump in his shoulders was more pronounced. He had been an energetic man who rarely stayed behind the pulpit when he preached. Instead, he’d roamed the aisles, Bible in hand, still only when reading a passage. On summer Sundays he wore no suit or tie but preached in a white short-sleeve dress shirt and his one suit’s black pants. Sweat soaked his shirt, sticking to his skin like gauze to a wound. When I was twelve he carried me in his arms into the Tamassee. I had felt his biceps tense against my back as he’d eased me into the water.

  “You’re a child of God now,” he told me, as I’d come sputtering out of the water, “and ever always you will be.”

  Now, sixteen years later, he paused between each step as if uncertain the ground would support him. His son helped him down the trail to where the rest of the congregation gathered on the shore below Wolf Cliff Falls, but once on the bank he walked alone to the water’s edge. He turned his back to the falls and faced his congregation.

  At the angle where I stood, I recognized faces I’d known since childhood, some of them belonging to relatives. Some returned my gaze, and their eyes made it clear they knew I’d played a role in their gathering here this morning. Jill Moseley and her mother-in-law stood in the center, the rest of the church members huddled around them. Only Ronny did not wear his church clothes, dressed instead in a black T-shirt, jeans, and tennis shoes. His children were not present, nor were Randy’s.

  Upstream, Sheriff Cantrell and Walter Phillips stood where the dam had been built. To the left of Sheriff Cantrell lay Ronny’s wet suit, tank, and flippers. Up on the ridge across the river, Luke sat by himself. He wore what he’d worn yesterday. I knew he, like Hubert McClure, had stayed here all night.

  Reverend Tilson bowed his head.

  “Lord, hear our prayers this morning. Let not our hearts be troubled in this trying time,” he said, his voice still strong. “Let us know you are with us this morning, Lord, in our time of trial. Amen.”

  “Amen,” the congregation echoed.

  Reverend Tilson raised his head.

  “Let us pray individually now. Let the Lord know our hearts, our needs at this troubled time. Any so moved speak now.”

  “I’ll be back in a few minutes,” I told Allen, and lifted up my backpack. I walked up the trail as Agnes Moseley prayed for her son’s soul.

  I soon left the trail and made my way to the cave. I clicked on the flashlight as I entered and felt again its cool moistness. I swept the light in front of my feet and in a few minutes came to the campfire. Beside it lay marbles and a toy train Aunt Margaret had bought Ben when he was still in the hospital. Soft drink cans and candy wrappers lay on the cave floor as well.

  And a paint set, left open, a brush lying beside it. I shined the light on the cave wall.

  The stick figure was still on the wall, but now three other ones had joined it, one the same size and two larger. Their arms too were upraised. The face of the original figure was now smudged black, not by paint but ashes. The second figure was smudged as well, not on the face but on one arm and one leg. The larger figures were unmarked but one arm of each connected to an arm of a smaller figure. All four faces looked upward, and tears of white paint fell from their eyes.

  I sat down on the floor. I cut off the flashlight and put my head on my knees. I didn’t want to see or be seen.

  After a while I got up and walked back down to the river. The last of the individual prayers were being offered when I rejoined Allen.

  “Sister Lusk, will you sing for us?” Reverend Tilson said when no one else raised a hand to pray.

  Aunt Margaret nodded and took a step forward. Hours spent in her garden had tanned her arms and face. She seemed to have grown stronger with age. She and my father looked less alike now than any time in their lives. But her eyes were my father’s eyes, the same shade of blue. My eyes as well.

  She had sung at tent revivals and weddings and funerals since her teen years and had accepted invitations to sing as far away as West Virginia. In 1985 the Smithsonian had recorded her for its folksingers collection. But Aunt Margaret always said singing for family and friends was what meant the most to her.

  She looked my way and nodded, her face as open and generous as it had always been. She began to sing.

  Shall we gather at the river,

  Where bright angel feet have trod,

  With its crystal tide forever

  Flowing by the throne of God?

  Yes, we’ll gather at the river,

  The beautiful, the beautiful river;

  Gather with the saints at the river

  That flows by the throne of God.

  On the ridge above me I heard voices. Through the trees I saw Brennon and his crew bringing down their equipment. Herb Kowalsky trailed them. His wife was not with him but a man carrying an oxygen tank and duffel bag was. On the other side Luke no longer sat alone. Carolyn and several others had joined him.

  Soon we’ll reach the shining river.

  Soon our pilgrimage will cease.

  My aunt’s voice echoed off Wolf Cliff. I looked at Ronny and tried to remember the last time I’d seen him without his brother beside him.

  Yes, we’ll gather at the river,

  The beautiful, the beautiful river;

  Gather with the saints at the river

  That flows by the throne o
f God.

  “Thank you, Sister Lusk,” Reverend Tilson said, as Brennon’s crew dropped what they’d carried on the shore. Brennon led his men back up the trail to get the rest of the equipment, leaving Kowalsky and the diver behind.

  Walter Phillips stepped closer to the trail.

  “Mr. Brennon,” Phillips said, but Brennon did not turn around. “We haven’t had our meeting yet, Mr. Brennon,” Phillips said. “Nobody’s going to do anything until I’m positive what happened yesterday can’t happen again.”

  Brennon turned. “You heard what Luckadoo said on the phone last night,” he said, and continued up the trail, his men following. Kowalsky and the diver did not join Sheriff Cantrell and Phillips but stayed at the trailhead.

  When the gorge grew quiet again, Reverend Tilson opened a tattered Bible bound by black electrician’s tape.

  “The word of the Lord,” he said, and began to read.

  “ ‘Behold, there was a great earthquake: for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it. His countenance was like lightning, and his rainment white as snow. And for fear of him the keepers did shake, and became as dead men. And the angel answered and said unto the women, Fear ye not: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified. He is not here: for he is risen.’ ”

  Reverend Tilson closed his Bible. He stepped into the shallows until water rose to his calves.

  “Christ rose that we all might rise,” he said, waving the Bible over the water. “Randy Moseley, our brother in Christ, may be in that river, but if God wills it he will rise from it this morning and be among us.”

  Jill Moseley held on to Ronny’s arm as she slowly pressed her knees into the sand one at a time. Others knelt as well.

  “Raise him, Lord,” Wallace Eller shouted.

  Allen leaned toward me, his hand pressing my arm. “Do they really believe their prayers can resurrect him?”

  “Yes,” I said. “They do.”

  “Raise his soul, Lord,” Reverend Tilson shouted, “as you have promised. And we would ask more, Lord, for you to raise his body from this river so his family may see him a last time.”

  “Please, Lord,” Jill Moseley prayed, eyes closed, voice fervent. Her face and arms were uplifted, and the late-morning sun lay like a palm of light across her forehead.

  “He was baptized in this river, Lord,” Reverend Tilson said. The old man stooped so the fingers of his left hand touched the water that swirled over his ankles. “I’ve lifted him from this river in my own arms and in Thy name. I’m too old to lift him, Lord. You must lift him from these waters now.”

  Reverend Tilson pointed his dripping hand toward the hydraulic. “And this child who lies with him, given the name Ruth by her parents, a Godly name, Lord. Raise her too, body and soul into the light.” Everyone in the congregation knelt now except Ronny and Reverend Tilson.

  I knelt as well. Allen hesitated, then pressed his knees into the sand beside me.

  “Hear our prayers, Lord,” Reverend Tilson said, “as we make our individual petitions to You on this riverbank. Hear us, Lord. Amen.”

  “Amen,” the congregation answered, and dispersed into groups of three and four to kneel together and hold hands, their prayers blending with the sound of the river. Allen helped me to my feet.

  Ronny walked upstream, neither nodding nor speaking as he passed in front of Allen and me. He didn’t speak to anyone else, either. He found a spot between Kowalsky and Phillips. Ronny crouched, not as though to pray but as he would in his orchard, hips touching the backs of his calves but not the ground while he rocked slightly on his heels.

  “What’s he doing?” Allen asked.

  “Making sure he’s part of whatever is going to happen,” I said.

  In a few minutes Brennon and his men came back down the trail with the remainder of their equipment. Kowalsky and the diver joined them, as did Sheriff Cantrell and Ronny and Walter Phillips.

  “So what do you want to meet about?” Brennon asked Phillips, not looking at Phillips as he spoke but at his men checking the equipment.

  Walter Phillips looked weary beyond his years. If he’d slept at all last night it had been very little. I wondered if what had kept him awake was frustration, stress, or, perhaps, guilt. Maybe he had someone he could confide in, a close friend or relative, but that person was not in Oconee County. This morning he was seemingly alone.

  “I want to know why I should believe this dam of yours will work any better today than it did yesterday,” Walter Phillips asked.

  “The water’s lower today,” Brennon answered brusquely. “Wilkinson said it’s down to one point five.” He gestured toward the river. “Look how clear it is compared to yesterday.”

  “If that dam can’t hold up at one point eight,” Phillips asked, “why should I believe it can hold up at one point five?”

  “We’re wasting time here,” Brennon said. “It may start raining again.”

  “We’re not rushing this,” Phillips said, and as he spoke I looked at his hands and saw they were clinched as they’d been in my photograph. His shoulders seemed to widen slightly, his stomach tightening as if preparing to receive a blow. Or maybe deliver one.

  “He puts it up, I’ll go in,” Ronny said and pointed to Brennon’s diver. “He don’t have to go. It’s my brother in there. I’ll take the risk.”

  “I’m not afraid to try it,” Brennon’s diver said, as much to Ronny as Phillips.

  “Then we’ll both go in,” Ronny said.

  Walter Phillips spoke softly, so softly no one seemed at first to understand what he had said.

  “What did you say?” Herb Kowalsky asked.

  “I said nobody’s going in. That dam’s not going up, not until I’ve got good reason to believe it will hold.”

  “You can’t do this,” Brennon said. His face flushed with anger. “You heard what Luckadoo said last night. He said if I was confident the dam would work to go ahead. He didn’t say you. He said me.”

  “Luckadoo isn’t here,” Walter Phillips said. “This is going to be my call.”

  At that moment I knew Walter Phillips might well be kissing whatever career he hoped to have with the Forest Service goodbye. I suspected he understood this as well, and tomorrow or ten or thirty years from now he could conceivably look back with regret on this moment.

  “You can’t do this,” Herb Kowalsky said, but the dejected tone in his voice argued that he knew Phillips could. And had.

  Brennon looked at his men for a moment. They had stopped unpacking equipment. Their eyes were on their employer, waiting for instructions.

  Brennon turned his gaze back to Phillips.

  “What if we go ahead and decide we’re going to build that dam anyway? What are going to do about it?”

  “Stop you,” Walter Phillips said.

  I looked at the polished black holster on his hip. Walter Phillips had probably taken his gun from that holster a few times on the job. He looked at Brennon, and his eyes, like his voice, revealed no fear or even nervousness, only resolve.

  Brennon turned to Sheriff Cantrell.

  “Whose side are you on?”

  Sheriff Cantrell nodded at Phillips.

  “His.”

  Sheriff Cantrell raised his voice so Brennon’s crew could hear him. “And so is my deputy. If one of your men so much as dips his toe in that river I’ll lock him and you both up.”

  “You’ve no right to do this, Sheriff,” Herb Kowalsky said, “no more right than Phillips does.”

  “I’ll worry about what rights I got, Mr. Kowalsky,” Sheriff Cantrell said. “I’m sorry about your daughter, I really am, but one man has already died trying to get her out. I’ll not let that river kill another.”

  “This is going to cost you your job,” Brennon said to Sheriff Cantrell.

  Sheriff Cantrell smiled at Brennon.

  “Sheriff’s an elected office in Oconee County, Mr. Brennon, and we don’t tend to get man
y write-in votes from Illinois.”

  “I’m calling Luckadoo soon as I get back to the motel,” Brennon said. He motioned to his men to begin picking up the gear.

  I waited for Kowalsky to make further threats himself, but the face he’d worn at the meetings and on the river fell away like a discarded mask. He looked like his wife when she’d spoken at the community center. Something had broken inside him now as well, or maybe, up until now, he’d just been able to hide that break beneath his anger and indignation. He did not follow Brennon and his crew up the trail. Instead, he walked ten yards downstream and sat on a rock. I wondered if he was pondering what he would tell his wife. Or perhaps merely delaying those words a few minutes longer.

  Ronny started walking upstream.

  “You best leave that diving equipment where it is, Ronny,” Sheriff Cantrell said. “I’m going to hold on to it for a few days.”

  Ronny did not acknowledge Sheriff Cantrell’s words, but he didn’t try to pick up his diving gear either. He was walking toward Reverend Tilson’s service when he suddenly turned and backtracked to the trail. He followed the last of Brennon’s men up the ridge.

  “Where do you think he’s going?” Phillips asked.

  “I don’t know,” Sheriff Cantrell said, “but the farther from here the better.”

  Reverend Tilson and his congregation continued to pray in groups of three and four. The murmur of prayers merged with the sound of the river. It’s Sunday morning, I thought, as though somehow I’d not realized that. Sunday morning in a place where it meant more than sleeping late and a leisurely read of the Sunday paper.

  Sunlight poured into the gorge now, warming the rocks, brightening the river. Yellow mayflies swirled over the pool below Wolf Cliff Falls, the females dipping occasionally to lay their eggs. A trout broke the pool’s surface. In the woods behind me a pileated woodpecker tapped a tree trunk as if sending a coded message. The morning felt like spring in a way the previous days here had not. The Tamassee and its banks seemed more alive, busier. I looked at the rhododendron and mountain laurel. They would blossom soon and the flowers would overwhelm the banks with their intense whites and pinks.