Dillon's prior paranoia is justified at the end of the novel. The book closes with the breaking of the dawn above the towns, and eventually shows once again that the mining company's guarantee of safety was untrue. Jackie is left alone after the deaths of Tom and Dillon in the flood and moves away. The story closes with Jackie wanting to forget the place she called home. The book does a good job of creating a scene of mountain utopia that was slowly eroded away by the mining to an area that was undesirable and almost uninhabitable.