then failing to publish his findings.
“I'd love to hear about it, Simon, but I'm afraid I have to run.”
“Yes, indeed. Such a terrible tragedy. So many young lives.” His head moved sadly from side to side. “Where exactly is the crash?”
“Swain County. And I really must get back.” I started to move on, but Midkiff made a subtle shift, blocking my path with a size-thirteen Hush Puppy.
“Where in Swain County?”
“South of Bryson City.”
“Perhaps you could be a bit more specific?”
“I can't give you coordinates.” I did not mask my irritation.
“Please forgive my beastly rudeness. I've been excavating in Swain County, and I was worried about damage to the site. How selfish of me.” Again the giggle. “I apologize.”
At that moment my host joined us.
“May I?” He waggled a small Nikon.
“Sure.”
I assumed the Kodak smile.
“It's for the departmental newsletter. Our students seem to enjoy it.”
He thanked me for the lecture and wished me well with the recovery. I thanked him for the accommodations, excused myself to both men, collected my slide carousels, and hurried from the auditorium.
Before leaving Knoxville I located a sporting goods store and purchased boots, socks, and three pairs of khakis, one of which I put on. At an adjoining pharmacy I grabbed two packages of Hanes Her Way cotton bikinis. Not my brand, but they would do. Shoving the panties and extra khakis into my overnighter, I pointed myself east.
Born in the hills of Newfoundland, the Appalachians parallel the East Coast on their plunge from north to south, splitting near Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, to form the Great Smoky and Blue Ridge chains. One of the world's oldest upland regions, the Great Smoky Mountains rise to over 6,600 feet at Clingmans Dome on the North Carolina–Tennessee border.
Less than an hour out of Knoxville, I'd traversed the Tennessee towns of Sevierville, Pigeon Forge, and Gatlinburg, and was passing east of the dome, awed, as always, by the surreal beauty of the place. Molded by aeons of wind and rain, the Great Smokies roll across the south as a series of gentle valleys and peaks. The forest cover is luxuriant, much of it preserved as national land. The Nantahala. The Pisgah. The Cherokee. The Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The soft, mohair greens and smokelike haze for which these highlands are named create an unparalleled allure. The earth at its best.
Death and destruction amid such dreamlike loveliness was a stark contrast.
Just outside Cherokee, on the North Carolina side, I made another call to Katy. Bad idea. Again, her voice mail answered. Again I left a message:
I kept my mind miles from the task ahead. I thought about the pandas at the Atlanta zoo, the fall lineup on NBC, luggage retrieval at the Charlotte airport. Why was it always so slow?
I thought about Simon Midkiff. What an odd duck. What were the chances a plane would drop precisely on his dig?
Avoiding the radio, I slipped in a CD of Kiri Te Kanawa, and listened to the diva sing Irving Berlin.
It was almost two when I approached the site. A pair of cruisers now blocked the county road just below its junction with the Forest Service road. A National Guardsman directed traffic, sending some motorists up the mountain, ordering others back down. I produced ID, and the guardsman checked his clipboard.
“Yes, ma'am. You're on the list. Park on up at the holding area.”
He stepped aside, and I squeezed through a gap between the cruisers.
A holding area had been created from an overlook built to accommodate a fire tower and a small field on the other side of the road. The cliff face had been stripped back to increase the size of the inside tract, and gravel had been spread as a precaution against rain. It was at this location that briefings would take place and relatives counseled until a family assistance center could be established.
Scores of people and vehicles filled both sides of the road. Red Cross trailers. Television vans with satellite dishes. SUVs. Pickups. A hazardous-materials truck. I squeezed my Mazda between a Dodge Durango and a Ford Bronco on the uphill side, grabbed my overnighter, and wove toward the blacktop.
Emerging opposite the overlook, I could see a collapsible school table at the base of the tower, outside one of the Red Cross trailers. A convention-sized coffeemaker gleamed in the sun. Family members huddled around it, hugging and leaning on one another, some crying, others stiffly silent. Many clutched Styrofoam cups, a few spoke into cell phones.
A priest circulated among the mourners, stroking shoulders and squeezing hands. I watched him bend to speak to an elderly woman. With his hunched posture, bald head, and hooked nose he resembled the carrion- eating birds I'd seen on the plains of East Africa, an unfair comparison.
I remembered another priest. Another death watch. That man's sympathetic hovering had extinguished any hope I'd sustained that my grandmother would recover. I recalled the agony of that vigil, and my heart went out to those gathering to claim their dead.
Reporters, cameramen, and soundmen jockeyed for position along the low stone wall bordering the overlook, each team seeking the choicest backdrop for its coverage. As with the 1999 Swissair crash in Peggy's Cove, Nova Scotia, I was certain that scenic panoramas would feature prominently in every broadcast.
Shouldering my bag, I headed downhill. Another guardsman allowed me onto the logging trail, which had been converted overnight to a two-lane gravel road. An access route now led from the expanded trail into the
