Rock Bottom (Em Hansen Mysteries)

by Sarah Andrews

  I looked again. She was right; it had enormous, lovely fins. I could imagine it gliding through the shallows.

  The other members of our group continued to run up the riverbank and float down. When I saw Jerry and Don floating along holding hands just as easily as if they were sitting in deck chairs sipping drinks, I considered joining them. Surely it was time I completely overcame my fear of moving water.

  “Want to try it?” asked Fritz, who had sneaked up behind me to apply one of his cradling hugs.

  “Hey! You’re wet and cold!” I squealed. “But don’t go away, it feels good.” I wrapped my arms across his and leaned back against him.

  Brendan popped up out of the water onto the riverbank and ran back up-current for another run. Danielle ran after him, and Julianne, and now Wink, who was splashing along in the shallows next to Julianne, playing a little game of grab-ass. She shrieked with uncertain pleasure, then swung her arms into the water and splashed Wink. He splashed her back, missing widely and hitting Brendan instead.

  “Hey!” shouted Brendan.

  I stiffened and felt Fritz’s arms tighten, too. “Let him handle it,” he whispered. “He can do it.”

  Wink splashed Brendan again, purposefully this time, pouring on the aggression. Brendan waded into the water and smacked it hard, kicking up a rooster tail of spray. Wink set his jaw in a grim line and hit the water again. The fight deteriorated quickly into a rage of foam as the two battled toward each other. Wink charged forward in the water, closing the gap, then reached forward, grabbed Brendan’s head, and pushed him down into the water.

  I said, “This doesn’t look like a game, Fritz.”

  I could hear my husband’s breath in my ear coming in hard puffs, but he did not move.

  Where was Brendan? Suddenly, the boy shot out of the muddy water several yards away from Wink, swimming hard to widen the distance between them. When he had gained a distance of about ten yards, he climbed out of the riffle of water and stood in a shallows with his back to all of us, shaking water from his small body.

  Wink lifted his head and thrust out his jaw in victory.

  Still Fritz did not move. The boy had to prove himself, and the father must not help.

  I felt sick to my stomach. I disentangled myself from my husband’s grip and stumbled away on the uneven trail.

  Nancy was laying out lunch next to the rafts. She unscrewed a plastic jar of peanut butter and jammed a butter knife into it. “What a jackass,” she said.

  “Who?” I asked. I was so upset that for a moment, I thought she was talking about Fritz.

  “Wink. He can’t keep clear of that kid. I’ve watched him.”

  I wanted to cry, but even that was stuck. “Why does he do that?” I asked.

  “Wink has a thing about authority figures, haven’t you noticed?”

  “Yeah, but…”

  “So who’s the biggest authority on this trip? That would be Fritz, right?”

  “Then why not go after Fritz?”

  Nancy laughed. “You think Wink has the chutzpah to go after the real thing? Hell no, he goes after a proxy, someone smaller or weaker than he is. That’s why he ran you through the rapids just upriver, too, unless I miss my guess.”

  I bowed my head and rubbed my forehead. “The man is a problem,” I said simply.

  “The man is not a man. He’s a boy, and I don’t mean like Brendan. Brendan is already twice his age emotionally.”

  I sighed. “I guess that would fit with the fact that he was kicked out of the Airborne Rangers before he more than just got started with the training.”

  “The Rangers would make short work of a fool like him. He can’t cooperate worth a damn. You have to be able to work as a team to do that job, be trustworthy and trust those around you. I had a chat with one of the commercial boatmen that camped next to us at Nankoweap, and he told me there’s not a company on the river that will employ Wink anymore. You just can’t have a loose cannon rowing your boats when you’re trying to run a business down here. The guy told me they fired his ass years ago, and that’s when he built that leaky dory.”

  I said, “He told Fritz that he built it so he could do fieldwork for his master’s.”

  Nancy said, “And that would be how he’s gotten permits to keep rowing here.”

  Jerry Rasmussen came down the path to the rafts. “Whose character are we assassinating here? Wink’s?”

  Nancy nodded. “It’s easy pickings.”

  Jerry said, “Well, you can’t blame a man for loving this place, but I am curious to know why Tiny invited him on this trip.”

  I said, “Tiny met him at a biking convention down in Vegas a couple months back and they got to talking about the river over drinks at the bar. I guess he knows how to make a first impression. Sometimes.”

  Nancy asked, “How did Tiny and Fritz get to be friends? They’re kind of an odd match, the navy jet driver and the biker—though I guess when I look at it from that angle, they do have a bit in common.”

  Jerry slathered peanut butter on a slice of bread. “They both like wind in their armpits, you mean?”

  I said, “They both love adventure, and like Fritz, Tiny has a big heart. A little too big this time, I guess.”

  Nancy said, “Or maybe his fecal filter was clogged.”

  Jerry said, “What I’ve been wondering is why Wink wanted to come with us. He doesn’t really seem all that happy. The only thing that I can figure is that he wanted to impress Molly so she’d hire him when he finishes his Ph.D.”

  Nancy began to nibble on her sandwich. “If he finishes his Ph.D. How old did he say he was?”

  I said, “Why would anyone behave like he does? I mean, where does it get him?”

  Jerry said, “He gave Don a big sob story about how he was abused as a child. His dad—or perhaps it was one of his mother’s lovers—was some kind of terror.” She shrugged her shoulders as if to shake off a chill. “I just hate child abuse. It just ricochets down through the generations. He gets abused, so what does he do? Takes it out on whoever’s smaller than he is. I feel sorry for his kids.”

  My mind was running like a fevered squirrel in a cage, trying to figure out a way to separate Wink Oberley from Brendan for the rest of the trip.Fritz might have other ideas about how to manage things, but the boy was suffering, and knew that I couldn’t stand by and do nothing.

  I grabbed the box that had the satellite phone in it and carried it up the slope above the river and dialed. Faye answered. Seldom had I been more relieved to hear her voice. After describing what had just happened, I said, “It’s time to get someone to do a background check on him. Maybe he has a record of violence. You still have your contacts at the FBI, or maybe Ray at the Salt Lake police could help. I’ll call back when I can,” I said, just as the connection failed.

  I hurried down the slope to stow the sat phone before Fritz caught me using it, so I wouldn’t have to explain.

  As if on cue, Nancy straightened up and shouted, “Hey, you bunch of crazies! Lunch is ready!” We stuffed our faces, then climbed back into our various boats and headed off downriver through the mixing waters.

  Olaf, Lloyd, and Gary all played in their kayaks through the long riffle, spinning and bobbling. A modern whitewater kayak is impossibly short, a glorified extension of the kayaker’s legs, and is shaped like a pumpkin seed. The union of kayaker to kayak is exaggerated by the spray skirt, which is a neoprene gaiter that fits tightly around the paddler’s ribs and spreads downward to a tight gasket fit inside a flange in the cockpit of the boat. The three men wore helmets and life vests, and each also wore a paddle jacket, which is a water-repellent shirt that comes to a snug, neoprene closure at neck and wrists. The bottom of the jacket is cinched under the spray skirt. Two of the men also wore neoprene gloves, the better to deal with the cold water that was constantly soaking their hands as they dipped their double-ended paddles this way and that.

  I enjoyed watching the kayakers spin around on the water, playing in
the waves, and was comforted to know that were I to fall off my raft or, worse yet, be hurled into the water should the thing flip in a rapid, one of these men would be at my side to assist within a matter of seconds. So maneuverable were these little boats that these crazy men actually went looking for “holes” formed where the water flowed over submerged rocks. They liked to slip into the backward-curling waves kicked up by these obstacles and play at rolling over. I watched with amazement as they purposefully flipped upside down, practicing Eskimo rolls, frolicking in the foam. Better them than me.

  Brendan turned to his father and asked, “When do we hit the big water, Dad?”

  “Day after tomorrow.”

  “I can’t wait!” said Brendan. “I hear the drop gets to twenty feet on Tanner, then Unkar drops twenty-five feet, and Hance! I was reading the river guide, and it says it drops thirty feet!”

  I said, “You don’t mean drops like in a waterfall, do you?”

  Brendan laughed. “Oh, Em, you’re such a worrywart. No, that’s how far the river drops over the length of the rapid. That can be as much as a quarter mile. Don’t worry,” he said, patting my shoulder, “I’ll look after you!”

  I wished I shared his confidence. It was good to see him grinning again, his sunburned face shining with excitement, and in that moment I saw what Fritz saw when he looked at him: a young man. His jaw was growing, and was that the beginning of a downy fuzz I saw along it? I took his hand and squeezed it, smiling my love to him. Having waited until I was past forty to marry, I didn’t suppose that I could have a child myself, but in moments like this, when the three of us were together and happy and enjoying life, I got little glimpses of what it might be like to be a mother.

  Fritz said, “Sockdolager Rapid is the real dog of the bunch. The drop is only nineteen feet, but it comes over a shorter distance, and the river narrows there as it carves down below the sedimentary rocks and we head into the Granite Gorge. It’s like one long slide of waves. There’s nowhere to eddy out until you get to the bottom.” He was referring to the use of still pockets and back-currents as places to duck out of the waves during descent down a rapid. “Our safety kayakers won’t be able to tuck in and wait mid-rapid. They’ll just go for the bottom and hope we make it down right side up!” He grinned, sharing the joy of risk with his growing son.

  Brendan grinned back as he flipped pages in the river guide. “Hey, Dad, that campsite we’re just passing on river right? Why’s it called Crash Canyon?”

  Fritz’s grin faded. “Two aircraft crashed up there in the cliffs back in 1956, a TWA Super Connie and a United DC-7.”

  “Really, Dad? Two planes crashed up there the same year?”

  Fritz stared into the water in front of him. “The same day, Brendan. They hit each other. Both pilots had diverted from their assigned routes to show their passengers the canyon, and they collided. They found the left wing of the DC-7 tangled up with the Connie. I guess they kind of hooked together in midair.”

  “Whoa!” said Brendan. “That’s really stupid, isn’t it, Dad? I mean, to hit another plane like that?”

  Fritz pulled on one oar rather harder than was necessary. “They never saw each other. Aircraft have rather large blind spots.”

  I thought, Aircraft aren’t the only things with blind spots. How had Wink found his way through ours?

  Brendan asked, “Was anyone hurt?”

  Fritz nodded. “There were a hundred and twenty-eight people on board those two planes. All lives were lost. The Hopi and the Navajo consider it sacred ground, and the National Park Service has set it aside as a protected site.”

  “Why?”

  Fritz stopped rowing. “Because they couldn’t find everyone. Or all the parts of everyone. The Connie slammed into Temple Butte, and the climbers could reach parts of that, but the DC-7 hit Chuar Butte so high up they couldn’t reach every … thing. They only recovered … well, only some of … like a third of what they were looking for.”

  Brendan’s jaw gaped open in adolescent amazement. “So you mean there are human body parts up there?”

  “Yes.”

  “Wow!” said Brendan. “This place is amazing, Dad! Those people died trying to get a look at the place, but did you know you can also die here just taking a leak? Mungo says that some people just fall into the river and because it’s so cold they can go into shock and drown! Or you can fall out of your boat, I guess, and hit your head on a rock, or you could fall off a cliff, or…” He leaned back and stared up at the cliffs where the airliners had met their fate, and added, in a tone of amazement heard only from those who haven’t lived long enough to understand their own mortality, “There are just so many ways to die in the Grand Canyon!”

  Notes of Gerald Weber, Chief Ranger

  Investigation into the death of George Oberley

  April 19, 9:30 A.M.

  These facts have been established:

  Deceased is George Oberley of Rocky Hill, N.J.

  Cause of death = blow to back of head by square-headed (mineral hammer?) object + knife wound

  Mode of death = murder

  Body found Whitmore Wash April 18 approximately 7:15 A.M.

  (reached beach well before that, judging by vulture damage)

  Oberley last seen alive April 15 Ledges Campsite @ 10:15 P.M.

  Absence reported April 16 at 9:45 A.M. by alternate private permit holder Fritz Calder

  Background on Oberley, from conversations with Farnsworth and others:

  Highly experienced river guide

  Military service

  At Princeton working on Ph.D. in geology

  Something of a loose cannon

  Questions:

  How did body get to Whitmore?

  Ledges to Whitmore = 36.5 miles

  Maximum time between last seen at Ledges and first seen at Whitmore = 57 hours

  River current = avg. 3 to 4 mph, faster over rapids

  Ergo, theoretically floating object could make distance in ~10 hours

  BUT: corpses and other flotsam usually get caught in eddies.

  Why didn’t this one get caught?

  Of interest:

  Calder overheard threatening Oberley

  Calder’s voice on dispatcher’s recording surprisingly calm—why?

  Calder had been awake since 5:15 A.M.—what was he doing for FOUR HOURS?

  Steps that should now be taken:

  Inform next of kin

  Interview river ranger Maryann Eliasson re: Observations of party at Lee’s Ferry

  Track down and interview woman who overheard Calder making threat (need first hand testimony)

  Arrive at decision re: culpability of Calder and party before scheduled take-out April 21

  APRIL 8: THE VIEW FROM UNKAR DELTA

  Beyond the confluence of the Little Colorado, the river made a huge turn from flowing south to flowing west. The canyon was particularly wide for a few miles, forming a bottomland, and we stopped on the broad, sandy delta formed where Unkar Creek flows into the river from the north and visited the ruins of stone houses.

  Brendan was flabbergasted. “People lived here. Wow,” he said, bending to examine a pot shard that still showed a fragment of decoration.

  Fritz said, “It’s been a while. These homes were last occupied eight hundred years ago.”

  “I wonder why they left.”

  Fritz smiled. “That’s a good question. Maybe you’ll become an archaeologist and find out.”

  “Or you can ask their descendants,” said Mungo. “Their great-great-some-odd-great-grandchildren live not too far from here.”

  Brendan gave him a look that was hard to interpret.

  Fritz had given Brendan a camera to use, and the lad put it to good use photographing groups of pot shards. “My independent study report is going to be awesome! So I’m thinking I should put in some stuff about the geology, too,” he said, turning to me. “Like, for the report it doesn’t matter so much what Mom says anyway, because they teach it differ
ently in school.”

  It, I thought. They teach “it.” And what exactly was “it”? Was he talking about earth history, religion, or what?

  “Well?” he said. He had flipped his sunglasses down like a visor.

  Fritz artfully took a stroll farther along the path until he had exited the sphere of our conversation, then stooped to examine a flowering bush as if it held his undivided interest.

  So it was time to take another walk through Brendan’s personal mine field. I fixed my own gaze on that which always anchored me—the rocks, the bones of Mother Earth—and said, “Sure, kiddo, what do you want to know?” Here the river had carved deeper into the earth, down and down, down below the vertical walls of Redwall Limestone that dominated the upper reaches of the canyon into more complex stuff below. At this wide place in the canyon the palisades of sedimentary rocks stepped away toward the horizon like a giant flight of stairs. The biggest step was the Tonto Platform, formed where the soft Bright Angel Shale had eroded back across a table of the more resistant Cambrian-aged Tapeats Sandstone, and the cliffs of Redwall and Supai and everything else above receded beyond it. Here beneath the Tapeats, the river had cut downward into older layers yet, into Precambrian rocks, strata that had been laid down almost a billion years ago, when life on earth was just beginning to evolve from simple cells to more complex forms. The splendor of the landscape soothed me, but how could I explain all of this to a kid whose mother believed that these bands of rock fell out of the waters of a forty-day flood and that the canyon had been cut in the weeks that followed?

  “Why are those rocks so screwed up?” Brendan asked. Gazing at the cliffs, he put his left hand at the angle of the Precambrian strata, which were tipped to the north, and lined up his right hand above it at the angle of the younger rock layers, which lay relatively flat.

  “Good eye, Brendan,” I said. “That’s called the Great Unconformity. So what do you think happened there?”