The Canyon's Edge

by Dusti Bowling

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2020 by Dusti Bowling

  Cover art copyright © 2020 by Pascal Campion

  Cover design by Karina Granda

  Interior design by Carla Weise

  Cover copyright © 2020 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  Art here, here, here: © Nikiparonak/Shutterstock.com; here: © aksol/Shutterstock.com; here: © Digital Bazaar/Shutterstock.com; here: © Olga Rom/Shutterstock.com; here: © Sudowoodo/Shutterstock.com; here: © Naddya/Shutterstock.com; here: © Sabelskaya/Shutterstock.com; here, here: © aksol/Shutterstock.com; here: © Morphart Creation/Shutterstock.com; here: © 3dlibrary/Shutterstock.com; here: © moj0j0/Shutterstock.com

  Hachette Book Group supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact permissions@hbgusa.com. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

  Little, Brown and Company

  Hachette Book Group

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  Visit us at LBYR.com

  First Edition: September 2020

  Little, Brown and Company is a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc. The Little, Brown name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Bowling, Dusti, author.

  Title: The canyon’s edge / Dusti Bowling.

  Description: First edition. | New York : Little, Brown and Company, 2020. | Audience: Ages 8–12. |

  Summary: A year after the death of her mother in a restaurant shooting, Nora is left struggling to stay alive when a climbing trip with her father goes terribly wrong.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2019054068 | ISBN 9780316494694 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780316494687 (ebook) | ISBN 9780316494656 (ebook)

  Subjects: CYAC: Novels in verse. | Survival—Fiction. | Post-traumatic stress disorder—Fiction. | Hiking—Fiction. | Canyons—Fiction. | Family life—Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.5.B695 Can 2020 | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019054068

  ISBNs: 978-0-316-49469-4 (hardcover), 978-0-316-49468-7 (ebook)

  E3-20200806-JV-NF-ORI

  CONTENTS

  COVER

  TITLE PAGE

  COPYRIGHT

  DEDICATION

  PART ONE ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  PART TWO BLACK WATER

  EIGHT SECONDS

  HITTING

  TOO

  THE LAST THING

  LIVING WATER

  WAITING

  SHAME

  DAD’S HEIGHT

  SLIPPING

  THE SECOND TIME

  SINKING

  WHY?

  ONE RAGING RIVER

  WHAT IF?

  BREATHING

  BUT

  TRILL

  WIND

  BURNING

  FLAME

  DRIFTING

  NIGHTMARE

  REBUILD

  WEAKNESS

  ALMOST

  LIE

  NOT REAL

  WONDER

  STAY

  COLORS

  STEPS

  LOSS

  ENDLESS WALLS

  DEADLY

  AWAY

  ANOTHER LIE

  PANIC

  COPING

  GROUNDING

  KEEP MOVING

  NEEDLES

  DIGGING

  BEFORE AND AFTER

  A DRINK

  CARRIED AWAY

  PATTERNS

  SEARCHING

  DRYING

  STILL

  PROTECTION

  ONE CALORIE

  DIMMING

  ANXIETY

  FREE SOLO

  TERRIFIED

  FALLING

  NO ONE

  YOU CAN

  CAVE

  ANGER

  RAGE

  SCREAMING

  GONE

  FEELING

  NUMB

  PIERCING

  STUNG

  HEART

  REMEMBER

  INSIDE A TENT

  ONE LAST LIE

  HE’S HERE

  THINGS I DON’T TELL

  TWO CLAWS

  GASPING AND GRASPING

  STRONG ENOUGH

  LET IT BE

  BEATLES DREAM

  STILL HERE

  ALL FOR NOTHING

  THE ONLY PERSON IN THE WORLD

  UP

  TIME TO GO

  LEAVING

  CLIMBING

  GRIP STRENGTH

  STRESS

  THE TOP

  DESERT SUN

  REASON

  FORGIVE

  ANOTHER WAY

  WALKING ON WATER

  DESPERATION

  UNDERNEATH

  DANIELLE

  TRUTH

  LIMINAL SPACE

  IN-BETWEEN

  COME BACK

  WONDERSTRUCK

  SO CLOSE

  TWITCH

  DEAD

  ACCEPTANCE

  GUILT

  MORE

  COMPLICATED

  NIGHTMARE REWRITTEN

  A BLUR OF BROWN LEGS

  HE FOLLOWS

  REWRITING

  FREEDOM

  GROWTH

  FLYING

  BLACKBIRD

  LANDING

  DEFEATED

  STRENGTH

  TOGETHER

  PULSE

  HOPE

  CLOSING

  FIRE

  MOM

  CRESCENDO

  STILL FIGHTING

  PART THREE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  FOR MY MOM

  ONE

  I walk to the Jeep in the middle of a cold, dark desert night. Dad is already stuffing our supplies into the back, the tailpipe blowing steam tinted red by taillights. We need an early start; it’s going to take a while to reach the place where no one can find us.

  Dad lifts a hand and pats my rumpled hair. “Tired?” he asks.

  I nod.

  He pushes my backpack toward me. “Why don’t you double-check it?” I open my bag as Dad digs through his own and mumbles, “It feels like I’m missing something.”

  His words hit me right in the chest. We are missing something. We’ll always be missing something.

  Shivering, I zip up my pink hoodie, which I got at Sunset Crater. It says Get Out There, but this is the first time we’ll be “getting out there” since our family went from three to two.

  Pushing those thoughts away, I sort through the supplies Dad put in my pack: water bottles, sunblock, helmet, almonds, protein bars, and my favorite flavor of electrolyte powder, watermelon. He remembers.

  I smile up at him, but he’s now ripping everything out of his pack. “I know I’m forgetting something,” he says, his voice rising. He pulls out rope for rappelling, cams for climbing, carabiners for carrying, gloves for gri
pping, and harnesses to hold us.

  Touching his arm, I say, “I think we have everything,” though it feels like a lie. He continues emptying his pack until he pulls out one last item: gun.

  I stumble backward, choking on my own breath.

  Dad looks back at me and immediately sets it down. He takes me into his arms, much thinner than they used to be. “I’m sorry, Nora,” he whispers. “It’s just a flare gun.”

  My heart pounds so hard I’m sure Dad can feel it.

  “I doubt we’d ever need to use it,” Dad says, patting my back. “Hey, it’s gonna be a good day.”

  I take in a deep breath. “I know.”

  Dad looks up. “Almost no moon,” he says. “Did you hear about those bones they found on the moon?”

  My head snaps back. “What?”

  He grins. “I guess the cow didn’t make it.”

  I groan. “Oh my gosh, Dad.”

  He gives my long hair a gentle tug, then stuffs everything back in his pack and slams the hatch shut. He limps around to the driver’s side and gets in. He seems more like himself today than in a very long time. It really might be a good day.

  TWO

  We drive the empty desert highway for a couple of hours until Dad turns onto a rough dirt road that follows the power lines. I slide my hand across the foggy window and peer through the wet streaks. Nothing but desert surrounds us as we drive—no homes, no people, no cars except ours. Nothing but ocotillos, saguaros, mesquites, palo verdes, and wolf spiders with eyes that shine like diamonds in our headlights. Dad points them out to me.

  “You see that one?”

  I scan the lit area. “Yep.”

  “There’s another one.”

  “I see it.”

  Dad thinks wolf spiders are amazing.

  “You should have invited Danielle,” he says suddenly.

  I swallow, thinking about the last time we were all together, when we went camping and fishing at Bartlett Lake. How I had to hook all her worms because Danielle didn’t want to touch them. How she’d squealed in excitement at catching the smallest bluegill ever. How Mom had snapped a picture of it. How I threw it back in the water and Danielle had jumped in after it, yelling that she’d wanted to keep it as a pet. How I jumped in after her, and we spent the rest of the day swimming and splashing and scaring away the fish.

  “Sorry,” Dad says. “I just… miss her. That’s all.”

  I miss her, too, though I can’t bring myself to say it out loud.

  THREE

  It’s dawn by the time Dad stops, startling me awake. It was a quick nap, and I try to hold on to the dream, but it’s already gone.

  If it had been the nightmare, I would still feel it. I wouldn’t be able to forget.

  Dad turns off the Jeep and the lights blink out. I step into the cold morning and stretch, run my fingers through my long hair, and pull it back in a ponytail. The sun is rising behind the dark line of mountains, their tops jagged like the edge of a serrated knife. I reach back into the car and pull out my notebook and pencil and quickly jot down:

  The sapphire sky

  breathes in

  the desert morning

  and breathes out

  pink flame to burn up

  the wisps of silver clouds.

  I stuff the notepad and pencil in my backpack. When Mary, my therapist, found out I liked writing, she told me I should use it as a tool—that I could rewrite my nightmare. But I don’t want to do that. Rewriting it means I have to think about it. What I want is to crumple it up and throw it in the garbage, burn it, delete it forever. But Mary wasn’t totally wrong. Writing makes me feel closer to Mom, like I can somehow make up for all the things she’ll never write with my poems, though I don’t think I could ever write as well as she did.

  “Maybe you could read me what you’re writing later,” Dad says.

  “Maybe.”

  “It would be nice to share it with someone, don’t you think?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe it’s just for me.”

  Shrugging, Dad slips his backpack on and buckles it around his chest and waist. He runs a hand through his graying hair, overgrown and curling over his ears, then locks the Jeep. We set out away from the road, our hiking boots crunching over the hard desert dirt.

  I’m still sleepy, and I stumble over a couple of larger rocks.

  “Watch your step,” Dad says, but he should be paying attention to his own steps—he’s stumbling more than I am.

  I watch him limp, knowing every step hurts. Every night, he rubs his leg with special lotion. Every month, he visits the doctor. Every day, he swallows pills. Three surgeries and a metal rod. Nice words like I’m okay and I feel fine, but I know he’s still in pain. It will never go away.

  A bullet can do that.

  A bullet is tiny. It can weigh a fraction of an ounce and be a fraction of an inch long. And yet, something that small can rip flesh and shatter bone and puncture organs and stop hearts. Something that small can tear a hole in your life so large it will never close, so ragged it will never be sewn, so ugly no one will ever look at you the same again, so painful you’ll feel it every second for the rest of your life.

  Even when that tiny bullet never touched you at all.

  FOUR

  We stop after a few minutes, and Dad checks his map and compass. I gaze at the mountains to the west now that the sky has brightened, but the sun hasn’t yet reached them—it’s still really dark over there.

  “Well,” Dad says, and I turn to him. “We go this way.” He folds up the map and points to the east.

  It’s quiet except for the skittering of small lizards and the ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah of a cactus wren—the sound like an engine that won’t turn over. Surrounded by nothing but the cold waking desert, I feel the rising sun heat my face. I’m both cool and warm, worried yet hopeful, loving and hating, at peace and at war. We hike to the top of a small hill, and I get my first glimpse of the canyon.

  Mom, Dad, and I once watched a documentary about a man who walked over a canyon on a tightrope. Despite knowing he wouldn’t fall, I was as tense as the rope he walked on. This last year has felt that way—like I’m walking a tightrope. Or maybe like I am the tightrope. I told Mary this. She responded: “Eleanor”—she calls me Eleanor, even though everyone else calls me Nora—“you’re not the tightrope. You’re the canyon. And your healing is like the water carving you. It takes time. It’s a never-ending process. But as you heal and grow, something beautiful and layered and solid and lasting is formed.”

  I think Mary might be a poet, too.

  FIVE

  Dad and I finally reach the edge of the isolated, unnamed canyon he found for us. It’s narrow, widening and tapering, twisting and turning as far as I can see. Looking down into it is like getting a peek at an unknown world. I can only see the bottom in snippets, some of it hidden by the curving walls or outcroppings, some of it so dark that anything could be waiting in the shadows. The walls I do see are layered and look as though they’ve been burned in places. That’s the desert’s varnish. On the other side, maybe only fifteen feet across, a kangaroo rat scampers to the edge, seems to be inspecting the canyon, too.

  “Cool!” I say. “It’s a slot canyon.”

  The only other slot canyon I’d been to was Antelope Canyon, and that one had been packed with tourists. I’d wanted to take my time exploring every hidden crack and corner, every layer cut and carved by wind and water, but our guide had rushed us through.

  “Yep,” Dad says, clearly impressed with himself. “Hard to find, too. Took lots of expert research.” He leans over and looks down into the crevice, whistling. “Isn’t she a beauty?”

  “It’s actually pretty small.” I grin. “Honestly, it’s not all that impressive.”

  Dad presses a hand to his chest as if I’ve hurt him to his core. Then he picks up a rock and tosses it over the canyon. It bounces on the other side in a puff of dust and sends the kangaroo rat scurrying under a nearby brittlebush.
“You know, Nora, I think you could jump it.”

  I laugh. “Yeah, right.”

  “So it’s not that small, then?”

  I shake my head. “It’s medium at best.”

  Snickering, Dad unbuckles his backpack and tosses it on the ground. He pulls out our rope and harnesses while I secure my helmet. Dad finds a good-sized boulder at the edge and sets an anchor in it, then two backup cams in case the anchor fails. He raises a finger and says matter-of-factly, “Redundancy is essential.”

  Raising a finger, I finish, “Especially when risking your life.” We smile at each other, and I don’t think we’ve felt this normal in a year—one year exactly today.

  Dad threads the rope and ties stopper knots. We trade our hiking boots for rock shoes and step into our harnesses. I tighten mine around my waist, but Dad still double-checks it.

  Dad backs away from me. He stands at an angle on the edge of the canyon, his rope going taut, and a moment of hesitation, of fear, crosses his face. This is the first time since Before. Since his shot leg. Since it’s only the two of us instead of the three of us. Then the moment of fear passes. His face lightens. “To infinity and beyond!” he cries, lowering down.

  I stand at the edge, watching him. It’s obvious how hard it is for him to rappel down by himself. With no one holding the rope at the bottom to help him, he has to control his own descent, slowly threading the rope through the descender, his face twisting in pain and determination—no, it’s defiance. No one’s a better climber than my dad, and I know that when he makes it to the bottom, he’ll feel even more normal again. I want him to be normal again. I want him to be like he used to be.

  Slipping gloves over my shaking hands, my stomach clenches. Forty feet. It may not seem like a lot, but it’s enough to kill us, especially out here where no one can find us. But Dad doesn’t see it that way. In Dad’s mind, the only danger in the world is people. This canyon is safety.

  Dad wasn’t always like this. It started as only one person and one place he feared. But it spread until it became all people and all places. One minute we were tossing boxes of macaroni and cheese into a grocery cart. The next minute we were hiding in the cereal aisle behind a tower of Frosted Flakes on sale, our cart abandoned, Dad shaking, his arms gripped so tightly around me I could barely breathe. After that, Dad kept seeing more and more suspicious people. Kept looking for exits, paths of escape, routes to freedom.