Far Country

by Malone, Karen

  Steve managed a cordial nod and pulled back onto the road, forcing himself the drive at a sedate 15 mph, instead of flooring the gas peddle the way he wanted to. Minutes later, he parked the truck outside the Visitor’s Center and strode into his office, shutting the door. He stood at the window, staring up at Moore’s knob. He wished with all of his heart that he could walk out of the door and just keep on walking. Reverend Graham didn’t understand a thing, really. What he had done with his life, he had done waiting for Sarah to come back to him; to be ready for when she came out of that coma. The Reverend wanted him to ‘get past that summer’. Didn’t he know that his life had stopped with Sarah’s? To get past it would betray his love for her!

  Unbidden, his fingers wrapped around the velvet bag in his pocket, feeling the familiar shape of the ring through the cloth. It was like a worry stone. He’d rubbed the nap right off in some places. He wondered what Robert Graham would really think about how well he was doing, if he knew that Steve had carried an engagement ring in his pocket ever since the accident. Probably call it fool’s gold, he reflected. Only a fool would still dream of marrying a girl who had spent the last five years in a coma. As if, Steve thought bitterly, she would want anything to do with the man who had put her in the coma in the first place!

  Slowly, he untied the bag and opened it. The diamond was tiny, really. Just a chip. He couldn’t afford anything more back then. He’d planned to tell her that was just a glimmer of what he hoped he would be able to give her one day, if she said yes…Steve pushed away the daydream with an effort, angry with himself for indulging that particular fantasy one more time. He supposed he must look pretty pathetic.

  He stared down at the ring. Over five years, and not a word, not a hint of a change in her condition, or in her family’s steadfast refusal to allow him to visit her.

  Was Reverend Graham right? Was it time? Not to give up, but to set the past aside. Could he? Slowly, Steve slipped the ring back into the worn blue velvet bag. He set it on the bookshelf by his office door, then deliberately turned his back on it and sat down behind the disk. He picked up the report he had been working on that morning and began filling in the blanks.

  Fifteen minutes later, Jill knocked at his doorway. “Steve, we just had a hiker report that a boy fell and twisted his ankle pretty bad on the Hanging Rock trail. The parents are having difficulty getting him down.”

  Steve stood up quickly, relieved to have something to do. “I’ll go pick him up. Did they say how far up he is?”

  Jill shrugged. “They weren’t exactly sure, but he is off the top.”

  “That will make it easier.” He walked to the door and reached for the keys to his truck. Most of the trail was graveled, and wide enough to drive to within a half a mile of the summit. As he lifted the keys from their hook, he hesitated, his hand hovering inches from the velvet pouch on the shelf. The battle lasted only seconds. With an angry oath, he scooped up the ring and restored it to its customary pocket, then hurried out the door to the truck.

  Ch 9

  River Run

  Chuck stuck his head in Steve’s office around 9:00. “Tubing after we get off today, you in?”

  Steve looked up from his latest stack of paperwork. He raised an eyebrow and looked pointedly out of the window. “It’s been raining for four days, amigo.”

  Chuck blinked. “So what’s your point?”

  “Besides the fact that it is still raining?” Steve replied in exasperation. “If nothing else, the water will be incredibly cold!”

  Chuck shook his head in mock disgust. “Who’d have believed it? Only four weeks behind the desk and you’ve gone soft! I’ll be sure to get you a pipe and bunny slippers for Christmas,” he said, shaking his head he turned to go.

  “Fine!” Steve replied, stung by Chuck’s words. “I can hack it; I just didn’t want to hear you whine for two hours!”

  Chuck looked offended. “Me? Whine? I think you’re confused. I don’t whine.”

  Steve snorted. “Yeah, right,” he muttered under his breath. He sighed in resignation. “Who else is coming?”

  “Just about everyone – and all the girls!” Chuck promised with a grin. “We’ll have a regular flotilla”

  “I can’t wait,” Steve muttered darkly as Chuck disappeared from sight, whistling cheerily down the hall. He studied the sky dubiously. If it didn’t clear up soon, it would be one miserable trip! He started to check in with NOAA, but then he decided against it. He was going, rain or snow or tornado! In the meantime, he could at least hope it would clear up…

  Steve checked his watch. A lot could happen in six hours. It was possible...

  As it turned out, a line of thunderstorms rumbled through the park around noon. After an earsplitting half hour the sky cleared and the sun beat down almost abnormally hot, as if attempting to make up for four days of drizzle in just three hours.

  Steve left the Visitor’s Center and returned to his trailer to change, the sun hot on his neck. He slipped on his trunks, an old T-shirt and a pair of holy sneakers that he kept just for tubing, in case he had to wade through any of the sections. It was doubtful after all the rain, but you never knew.

  The Dan River was a lazy ribbon of water that wound through the park and passed through the center of town. One of the small grocery stores, strategically located at a bend in the river across from the city park, did a booming business with the tourists, renting out inner tubes and transporting groups to a drop point four miles upriver.

  After so much rain there were few tourists interested in tubing, so the manager was both surprised and pleased to see the group of young rangers, albeit a much smaller group than Chuck had claimed were coming, waiting to sign in. In minutes they loaded onto the converted school bus and were headed toward the boat ramp that served as the starting point for the float.

  Steve, Chuck and Pete had often made the trip down the river. Sprawling in a rubber inner tube, traveling no faster than the easy flowing river current was a pleasant way to relax for a few hours on a day off. But today, looking at the river as they unloaded their tubes from the back of the bus, Steve was pretty sure he was not looking forward to the trip.

  The storms had churned up the red brown mud from the river bottom, making the water opaque and unpleasant to look at. It was deeper too, several inches higher than usual. Steve watched a leaf speed by the ramp and disappear in to a little whirlpool of river trash fifty feet beyond. This would hardly be the laidback passage the group was expecting.

  Jill and Deb, tubes in hand, joined him at the water’s edge and gazed dubiously at the muddy flow.

  “This is the ‘cool float’ that y’all claim is so relaxing?” Jill asked incredulously.

  “Oh, I guarantee the cool part,” Steve replied. “I don’t know about relaxing though. She’s running high from all the storms.”

  Deb looked at Jill and shrugged. “It’s just water and good clean dirt, right?”

  Jill waffled, wrinkling her nose. “I don’t know, maybe we ought to wait a day or two for it to settle down…” But even as she spoke the bus rumbled to life and sped up the dirt road out of sight. Chuck and Pete walked up and surveyed the river.

  “I don’t think I was expecting it to be like this,” Chuck said, frowning in consternation.

  “I tried to tell you,” Steve said in a martyred tone, “but of course, nobody listens to the desk jockey.”

  Chuck rolled his eyes in disgust. “Yeah, and nobody is listening to you now, pal.” He hefted his tube and stepped off the ramp into the water.

  “Son of a…”

  “What?” Jill asked, with a worried expression.

  Chuck took a deep breath and smiled reassuringly. “Nothing. Just stepped into a hole, caught me off guard.” He steadied his tube and flopped backwards into the donut. The current grabbed him immediately and he spun away. “C’mon, kids!” He admonished. Nobody’s gonna pick up a bunch of hitchhikers with inner tubes. The quickest way back is two hours down this river!”
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  Jill went next, and gave a small yelp of shock as she stepped into the rushing water. She turned stiffly, and through gritted teeth looked at Deb. “Watch that first step,” she warned. Clumsily, she flung herself belly down on the straining tube and shot after Chuck.

  Deborah stepped off the ramp more cautiously than Jill and Chuck. Her reaction was immediate. “You’re nuts!” She screamed after the bobbing figures already far ahead. She turned back to Pete and Steve, who were making no moves to join her in the river. “This is freezing!” She yelled in an accusatory tone.

  “Yeah,” Steve replied sadly. “I figured it would be.” He turned to Pete. “What do you say, man – bonsai?”

  Pete nodded, never taking his eyes off of Deborah, who still stood indecisively in the thigh deep water. “Bonsai it is,” he agreed solemnly.

  Raising the tubes over their heads, Pete and Steve launched themselves at a dead run off the ramp, deliberately flanking Deborah as they landed belly down on their tubes. Deb howled as the spray from their belly flops soaked her. She shook herself like a cat caught in a downpour, and promptly lost her hold on her tube. It quickly floated out of reach and she stumbled forward, screaming and lunging awkwardly into the center of the muddy flow. She tripped on the rocky bottom and went under for a moment, only to shoot up gasping at the shock of it. Luckily, her tube had been washed out of the strong current and spun just out of reach, under the tree branches on the far bank. Deborah hurled herself at it and landed in an ungraceful sprawl on the rubber donut.

  “Sorry about that!” Pete called, not sounding repentant in the least. Steve just grinned and waved. “Don’t worry! The sun will dry you out in no time – if it doesn’t rain again,” he added glancing pointedly at the huge thunderheads lurking on the horizon.

  Deborah glared but didn’t bother to answer as she struggled awkwardly to flip herself over on the tube. A moment later it shot out from under her, and she disappeared under the water yet again.

  “It’s easiest to sit in the tube in the shallows!” Steve called helpfully. Pete splashed Steve in a warning. “Don’t tell her that! If she manages to catch up before she dries out some, she’s gonna drown us both.”

  Steve grimaced. “Right. Sorry.” He was still perched belly down, balanced on his forearms and thighs, intent on keeping as much of himself out of the water as possible. Even so, he found that he was glad to be out of that small office and away from the dullness of his work. The enforced inactivity had worn on his soul. Cold water and all, being outside in the sun was a relief!

  Before long, Steve grew tired of trying to keep himself suspended above the water. Carefully, he twisted his body until he was able to drop into the donut hole on his back, wincing momentarily as the cold river washed over his mid section. Settling in more comfortably, he looked around for his comrades. He saw that Deborah had finally managed to get her own tube under control and was quickly catching up with the rest of the party.

  Steve studied Deborah for a moment, liking what he saw in her a little more each day. She had a gentle touch and a way about her that seemed to soothe his wounded heart. Both she and Pete had proven themselves to be true friends, and he had soon put the uncomfortable experience in the hospital behind him.

  But Deborah…the way she looked at him sometimes made him wonder if she too thought about those love scenes they had shared in ‘Oklahoma!’ so many years before. If it weren’t for his commitment to Sarah, Deborah would be a girl he would like to get to know better. Steve sighed and pushed away the thoughts that were beginning to occupy too much of his mind. He loved Sarah! Time had not changed that, even though it was becoming more and more obvious even to him that his dreams of her eventual recovery were never going to come true. He firmly put thoughts of Deborah aside, then he closed his eyes and concentrated instead on the sun and water and clean fresh air, that still tasted of rain. Slowly the tension of the last weeks drained from his body, and Steve relaxed in his tube, simply enjoying the ride.

  With the river flowing fast after so much rain, they soon passed under the trestle bridge and floated past the first set of ‘islands’. In dryer weather this marked a stretch where tubers were often forced to walk downstream several hundred yards to the next stretch of deep water. Today, Steve could barely see the bottom as they sped around the little islands.

  From there, the river broadened and slowed down for awhile, and the rangers floated past a series of homes built along the river bank, and under huge trees, which arched out over the water. They passed through an exciting series of small rapids, where they struggled to steer their tubes around and over large rocks, bumping spinning and scraping until the water smoothed out again. Occasionally they rounded a sweeping curve to stare up at huge rocky outcroppings, which jutted halfway across the waterway.

  Then the river broadened out, and the rush of water slowed. Steve sprawled on his back in his tube now, drowsy and relaxed. The sun warmed him from above and the river water cooled him from below. The air smelled fresh from the recent storms. Laughter and snatches of songs from his friends added to the peaceful feeling of the day.

  Friends. Yes, these were his friends, Steve admitted to himself, a little surprised by the thought. These were people that he not only liked, but people he thought he could trust. For so many years he had held himself apart, never really letting down his guard around his co-workers, never wanting to repeat the hell he’d experienced losing Sarah and David. But somehow, in just the last few weeks, all that had changed. It worried him a little, but it felt good, too. Anyhow, he supposed, it was too late to do anything about it now. Steve’s eyes closed and he felt himself drifting near to sleep.

  A shower of icy water jerked him rudely out of his reverie. Instantly, Steve scooped up a handful of water and flung it in the direction of his attacker. He had been waiting for this, certain that Deborah would eventually attempt to repay him for soaking her at the ramp. But instead of Deborah, Steve found himself staring into Jill’s laughing blue eyes. Jill was a tall blonde with a Georgia drawl. Steve had barely spoken to her in the two years they had worked together. He smiled back uncertainly, troubled by the unmistakable invitation in those deep blue eyes. Jill and Chuck had dated off and on for the last year, was she seriously flirting with him? Or just trying to make Chuck jealous? He glanced toward Chuck, who appeared to be unaware of Jill entirely.

  Jill flung another spray of water in his direction, daring him to do something. Steve decided to play along for the moment. He frowned threateningly. “Don’t start something you can’t see through to the end,” he growled.

  Jill arched an eyebrow. “Who says I’m not willing?” She countered, her drawl thicker than ever. Despite the chilly water, Steve felt himself grow unnaturally warm at the implication.

  Steve glanced at Chuck again, but Chuck seemed unperturbed by the scene unfolding before him. If Jill was trying to make Chuck jealous, she appeared to be failing miserably.

  The tubes floated around the gradual bend in the river and Steve’s eye was drawn to the thirty foot high cliff that rose steeply on the right, marked by a small cave near the top. He looked across to the other side. A rope swing dangled on the left bank. They were in one of the slowest and deepest parts of the river. Perfect.

  “So, do you think you can take me?” Jill taunted, recalling his attention to her.

  Steve smiled. “No problem.”

  In an instant he flipped off of his tube, dove under Jill and dumped her into the water. He continued at a fast crawl to the foot of the cliff, and turned to gloat at Jill’s face after her unexpected dip, but his laugh died in his throat. Jill had recovered much more quickly than he’d imagined, and was in hot pursuit. The look in her eyes was murderous.

  “Just let her catch you and take the punishment,” Chuck advised, still sounding more amused than jealous. Steve wasn’t sure who was more irritated by his lack of response - himself or Jill! The man really was infuriatingly non-committal! But as for simply letting Jill catch him…?
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  “Not a chance!” Steve retorted. He clambered out of the water and attacked the cliff face from the left side. He’d tried this route before, thinking to explore the little cave. It was a tricky climb, and he knew that Jill did not like heights. He was certain that she’d give up quickly.

  His guess was correct. Jill reached the shore and paused, following his route incredulously with her eyes. “You’ve got to be kidding, that’s almost straight up!”

  Deborah who had not seen how the whole episode had started, waded out of the river and stood beside Jill. “I can’t believe that he got you soaked, too!” She grumbled sympathetically. “We need to teach him a lesson!” She shaded her eyes, following Steve’s progress, pointing. “Look, he’s heading for that cave – come on!

  “Coward!” Deborah called after Steve as she waded out of the water. “Don’t think that you can soak us both and get away with it, Steve Williams! We’re right behind you!”

  Jill watched Deborah’s progress without making any move to join her. Finally Deborah paused, sensing that Jill was not right behind her. She looked back at Jill inquiringly.

  Jill shook her head. “No thanks, I choose to live.” She cupped her hands and called after Steve. “Okay, hotshot! You win this round, but you have to come down eventually. I’ll be waiting!”

  At her words, Deborah, already a third of the way up, paused and looked back in surprise and exasperation. “Isn’t anyone else coming up?”

  Pete shook his head and Chuck, who had pulled over onto the opposite bank waved her on lazily. “You go on. Somebody needs to wait down here to pick up the body parts.”

  “You’re all cowards,” Deborah muttered. She scanned the cliff. It was a good deal more difficult than she’d first thought it would be, but she hated quitting! She tried to pick out Steve’s route, and then struggled along after him. Her hand and foot holds were tenuous at best, and her fingers were stiff from the cold water. She stopped, considering the wisdom of turning back.