Desolation Canyon

by Jonathan London

  Their raft!

  It was upside down, half out of the water on the sandy beach.

  Dad and Cassidy were gone. My heart hung suspended in a high dive off a steep cliff. My eyes, like caged animals, searched the shore.

  “Dad! Dad!” I screamed against the wind and the water and the cliffs.

  Once ashore it took all of us to heave Dad’s raft over, right-side up. It was like wrestling a giant kite in that wind.

  Inside, more blood. Splattered all over. It felt like a knee to my gut.

  “Oh my God!” Lisa cried.

  My mind was still frozen. I searched frantically, expecting to see my dad, expecting to hear him say, “What’s up, kiddo?”

  “Tracks,” Willie called out. He was kneeling in the moist sand nearby and we all knelt beside him. “Cassidy’s,” he said, pointing. The wind had smeared the tracks; to me they were barely visible.

  “How do you know?” I asked, my voice cracking.

  “Cassidy’s Doc Martens,” he said. “The tread is pretty obvious. Your dad was wearing river sandals.”

  Cassidy’s boot tracks led up the beach, then into the brush toward the high canyon walls.

  Alone.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  THE SEARCH

  I was frantic. I started running up and down the beach, looking for Dad, calling his name. “Dad! Dad!”

  “Aaron! It’s getting dark fast,” Willie said, trying to calm me down. “I’m going to follow Cassidy’s tracks while there’s still light. You stick with Roger. He wants to get camp set up so there’s a warm place to bring Cassidy and your dad back to, once we find them.”

  Willie had been a squad leader in the Iraqi desert, so I figured he knew what he was doing. He was following the tracks of his only son, but I couldn’t think about that right now.

  Dad was my only dad.

  I started jogging along the river again. Roger called after me but I kept running, hopping over rocks, looking into the river, scanning the shoreline.

  But soon the cliff walls came straight down into the water, blocking my way. I shouted Dad’s name one more time, kicked the sand, and turned back. Still running.

  We managed to set up camp quickly in among the rocks and tamarisk bushes. Roger said I could lie down and rest while he and Lisa set up, but there was no way that was an option. I didn’t want to think; I wanted to keep moving. I wanted to look for Dad, but there was stuff to get done. Lisa stayed by my side; she even helped me pitch our tent—Dad’s and mine.

  Dad.

  The word lodged in my throat like a stone. I had to keep working, keep busy. But my eyes kept darting around, searching, searching. Maybe I’d see a clue.

  Roger said, “Stay put, mate,” and scouted along the river, wading hip high where the cliffs met the water. I started to go after him, but I wasn’t sure I could handle what we might find. I fought off the image of Dad’s dead and shredded body, and after slipping on a mossy rock, I finally turned back.

  Lisa was right behind me. “Come on, Lisa. Let’s get some wood. Make a fire. Maybe my dad will see it.” It was wishful thinking, but it was almost full dark now.

  “I’m sorry,” Lisa said, touching my arm. I pulled away and scrambled over boulders, scrounging for driftwood.

  I saw a movement across the river—something dark slithering into water. I kept looking, but it was gone. Probably a mink or river otter.

  Lisa and I collected a big pile of wood—enough to last all night—and took turns chopping some of the larger pieces with an ax. When it was my turn, I drove the ax into the wood with so much fury that Lisa said, “Stop it, Aaron. You want to lose your leg?”

  Better than losing a dad, I thought, but didn’t say.

  Roger came back, slipping on wet boulders. He was soaking wet, and he looked worn out.

  “Sorry, Aaron,” he said. Everybody was sorry. My dad was gone, just slipped into darkness like the mink or otter, and everybody was sorry.

  What could have happened? Did the boat flip and he … drowned? I couldn’t even say the word to myself. Or did Cassidy clobber him with an oar, like the man he hit with the bat?

  And if Dad went under, why did Cassidy take off on his own? Wouldn’t he have tried to save him?

  I waved my hands in front of my face, swatting away images like flies. I had no tears. Not yet, anyway. I lurched forward and snatched up a long piece of driftwood.

  We got a fire going. Roger changed into dry clothes, then sat on a stump and unfolded a big map of Desolation Canyon. The wind had died down to a deadly stillness, but the map shook in Roger’s hands.

  We heard a shout. I jumped up, heart pounding in my throat.

  But it was only Willie. Alone. He threw his hat on the ground and squatted by the fire. He was breathing hard.

  “It got too dark to look anymore. And the wind, it wiped out most of Cassidy’s tracks. I climbed as far as I could, then had to turn around.” He rubbed his eyes and a wrinkle shaped like a bird’s wings creased his forehead. A tremor passed through him. He picked up his hat, put it on, took it off again, then slapped it back on.

  “According to the map,” Roger said, “there’s a side canyon back in there that looks like it might lead up to the rim.”

  “Yeah, I saw a trail of sorts,” Willie said, “but it looked more like a deer path to me. It might just lead into a box canyon, a dead end. Or—who knows—it could wind its way on up to the top. We’ll climb it first thing in the morning.”

  “The Outlaw Trail,” I said. I tried to laugh, but nothing was funny. Silence, filled with the roar of the river, the roar of my heart. Were they all thinking what I was thinking? Cassidy the outlaw. Dad probably tried to help him row, got up in his face, so Cassidy whacked him with an oar, blood flying. Why else would Cassidy run away? He was fleeing the scene of the crime.

  “I think the raft flipped in the wind,” Willie said, as if he read my mind and wanted to stand up for his son.

  “Then why’d Cassidy run?” I spat it out. Somebody had to say it.

  Nobody answered. Everybody stared at the fire.

  All of a sudden the night sky crushed down on me. I turned away from the fire and clutched my head.

  Then Lisa was sitting beside me and slipped her arm around me. I started to rock and she rocked with me.

  Still no tears. My head felt like a stone under tremendous pressure. A stone about to burst into a million pieces, a million shards.

  Willie jumped up and let out a howl like a coyote. Like Cassidy. Was he hoping to hear Cassidy howl back, or was it a howl of despair?

  Roger got up and walked Willie a few feet away from the fire. He put his arm around Willie’s shoulder and bent close.

  “If he fell in the river,” Roger whispered, “his body would have risen to the surface after a while. It would have floated downriver and eddied out, or got caught by a snag.” He must have thought I couldn’t hear him, but I could hear every word as it bit into my flesh like a monster horsefly. “I would have found him,” Roger said.

  “Not if the river took him, pard,” Willie whispered back. “His body could have got stuck in a keeper hole.”

  I sat up with a jolt and asked, “What’s a keeper hole?” I was flooded with dread.

  “Just rest, mate,” Roger said. “Lisa, maybe you could help him to his tent, sweetheart?”

  I jumped to my feet. “I don’t want to rest! I want to know what a keeper hole is! I want my dad back!”

  Roger stared at me. He knew I wasn’t going to let this go. I hadn’t seen him crying, but his eyes were red as if he had.

  Finally he answered, “A keeper hole’s a whirlpool eddy that sucks you down and holds you under. You could circle around and round down there forever.”

  “Geez! So you’re gonna leave my dad there, spinning round and round forever?” I was getting dizzy, nauseous. It felt like a swirling, dark hole was funneling me down, down, like in the nightmare I’d had on our first night.

  “Now listen up, son,�
� Willie said. “Here’s what we’re gonna do. We’re gonna wait here tonight for your dad and Cassidy. All of us. Together. That path I saw back there may or may not lead up to the rim, but we don’t have time to find out. We don’t know jack about what happened. I’m sure your dad’s alive. He probably floated downriver and right now he’s holed up in a cave, trying to keep warm. Maybe Cassidy climbed up out of the canyon to signal a plane for help. If he did, he’s gonna need help himself. It’s total desert up there and he’ll be wanting for water. Or maybe he ran into a box canyon and is heading back down now. Just in case, when we leave tomorrow, we’ll leave your dad’s raft behind. But tonight we wait. Tomorrow we search downriver and try to get help. That’s the plan. Nobody’s dead ’til the fat lady sings.”

  The fat lady? Who’s the fat lady?

  All I could see were flowers of blood blooming on the raft. And a keeper hole with a skeleton whirling around inside. Dad’s skeleton.

  I rammed my fists into my eye sockets. I had to get rid of these images.

  I had to think.

  No, I couldn’t think. Not straight thoughts, anyway.

  “AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!” I just had to yell or I would explode.

  I stalked toward the river. I’m not sure what I was going to do. Maybe jump in, just to drown out the images. The deadly anxious fear. The feeling of doom.

  Then I heard a sound and I stopped to listen. It was coming from way up the canyon walls, up where the stars choked the narrow sky.

  It sounded like the yipping of a coyote.

  Or my dad, calling my name.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  THE NIGHTMARE

  I kept listening … but there was nothing more. Just the river-speak of the canyon and the hiss of the fire.

  And the dread.

  “Musta been coyotes,” Roger said.

  Or Cassidy, with his coyote howl, I thought. But I didn’t say anything. What was there to say?

  “I’ll rustle up some grub,” Willie said. “We got to eat.” He tossed a chunk of wood into the fire and clambered off to fetch the food chest.

  “We have to find my dad!” I snapped back.

  “We will, son. We will. Tomorrow. It’s too dark now. The last thing we need is another lost person on this trip.”

  Willie marched off. I stared after him. I couldn’t think. I took a step into the darkness and almost fell. I stopped and swayed in the darkness.

  I felt like a caged animal.

  I didn’t think I could eat, so I staggered off toward my tent.

  “I’ll go with you,” Lisa said, reaching out and touching my arm. I kept walking.

  I crawled into my sleeping bag fully clothed. Lisa sat at the opening of my tent. “Do you want me to come in?” she asked. It was almost a whisper.

  I didn’t answer. Yes, I wanted her to come in, but I couldn’t say it. I could barely even think it.

  She got up and walked away. Great, I thought. My dad’s missing. Maybe dead. And just when I don’t want Lisa to go, she goes.

  Then she was back. “I brought you something to eat. You should eat something.”

  She reminded me of my mother. But not really. Mom was always saying, “Eat your dinner, pumpkinseed. You have to eat. You’re a growing boy.”

  But Lisa didn’t sound like my mom. Lisa was nothing like my mom, actually. Except they both could be sweet.

  Lisa knelt at the entrance holding something that smelled good. Real good. But my stomach was churning and twisting. I couldn’t eat. I knew I couldn’t eat.

  “Eat,” she said again.

  She held out a bowl of soup. Chicken soup, from the smell of it. Steam rose in the tent and curled around me.

  “I can’t,” I said.

  I was hungry, I think. It was hard to tell. My stomach twisted and made weird gurgling sounds. But I could not eat.

  “I could feed you,” she said, a tiny smile hesitating on her lips.

  Was that flirting in her voice? Now?

  “I can spoon the soup into your mouth like I did when my grandma had pneumonia.”

  Flirting or not, I wasn’t in the mood.

  “I’m not your grandmother! And I can’t eat right now, so knock it off!”

  Her face crumpled and she looked like she might cry. But instead she said, “I feel like throwing this at you.” They were angry words, but she didn’t sound angry. Just sad.

  “Why don’t you?” I answered. “I wouldn’t feel a thing.” And it was true. Except for my stomach, I felt totally numb. My body. My tongue. “I think I’m …”

  All of a sudden the words just drained out of me, like the last of the sand in an hourglass.

  Lisa set down the bowl of soup and crawled into my tent. She sat cross-legged beside me, her head hunched beneath the slope of the tent wall. I could smell her. Coconut. Maybe she washed her hair with coconut shampoo.

  I didn’t know what to say, and even if I did, I doubt I could’ve said it. I really liked her being there, but I couldn’t tell her that. No way. I closed my eyes, as if that would help me, protect me.

  “Your dad’ll be okay,” she said. But it was just something people say. It didn’t help.

  “You’ll see,” she said, after a long pause. “Like one time when our cat, Mango, went missing. She was an orange cat, almost blind. She was gone for a whole week, and we thought she was dead for sure. Then one day she just showed up, like nothing had happened.”

  He left no footprints! I wanted to shout at her. He went into the river and he didn’t come back! He could be dead. And he’s not a cat—he’s my DAD!

  Lisa kept talking, but I couldn’t hear her anymore. My thoughts raced along, tumbling down rapids, bouncing off boulders, dunking under the water, then kicking back up toward the surface again, screaming for air.

  Finally, I drifted off to sleep. I dreamt that we were in our raft—me and Dad—rolling over the edge of a bottomless waterfall. I panicked and clawed the air, but suddenly the dream changed. I was in a tunnel. A long, dark tunnel. Alone. There was no light at the other end. Water dripped, making hollow plops, but there was no other sound.

  I stepped forward cautiously, blindly, splashing through rank shallow water.

  Squirmy things touched my legs. Swished and gurgled and plunged. Then rose to the surface.

  Water babies!

  They snatched at me. I tumbled in. I was sinking. I was sliding under. I thought I was awake and couldn’t sleep but really I was asleep, dreaming I was awake, sinking into a deep, watery grave.

  Suddenly, the dream switched again and I was spinning around and around underwater, funneling down. A trickle of water tickled my throat and I started to cough. To gag. To panic.

  In the middle of my frenzied fight for life, I heard a sound.

  Dad!

  I stopped struggling and listened. Dad was calling me from far away, in the dark, beyond the water.

  “A-a-a-a-a-r-r-o-n-n! A-a-a-a-a-r-r-o-n-n!”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CANYON SPIRITS

  I sat bolt upright. It was no dream! Lisa was curled up beside me, outside my sleeping bag. She was sleeping, clutching herself in a hug.

  “It’s my dad!” I shouted.

  Lisa jerked awake. “Did you hear something?” she said.

  She didn’t wait for an answer. She threw back the tent flap and we scrambled out into the darkness together. The bowl of soup toppled over. We looked up and above us the night was a river of stars between the canyon walls.

  I heard noises and saw two dark figures dart from the other tents. Our camp was suddenly a hive of activity.

  One of the dark forms came close. It was Willie, wild-eyed.

  “Follow me,” he said. “Now!”

  I ducked back into my tent, grabbed my flashlight, and followed.

  Willie joined Roger, who was carrying a first aid kit under his arm, and the two of them lead the way up toward the dark looming cliffs.

  Willie stopped, drew his hunting knife, and cut a branch o
ff some brush. “Creosote,” he said. “Makes a great torch.” With a flick of his lighter, he set it aflame.

  Soon we were climbing a steep and windy deer path by the light of a torch.

  This was really happening. It felt like I was in another dream, but it wasn’t a dream. It was real. I held tight to myself, so I wouldn’t fly away. I climbed to keep up. To find what we would find.

  Our breathing came in gasps. Beside us, the earth fell away into darkness. Into the huge emptiness of the canyon crowded with spirits.

  Spirits of the Blue Sky People. Of people poisoned by snakebites. Of people snatched by keeper holes. Of people drowned in the river.

  The spirits of the dead.

  Up and up we climbed, following the flickering flames. They licked the night, creating a small halo of light in the overwhelming darkness.

  Breathing heavily, Willie stopped at a twisty, stunted tree. Its roots were clawing a big boulder on the edge of the sheer drop.

  “This is where I turned back earlier,” he said.

  But now there was no turning back.

  We took swigs from Roger’s canteen, then marched on, up and up, following Willie’s torch on the narrow path. Far below, the river rushed like a loud wind through a forest. The forest of the night.

  Tyger, tyger, burning bright, in the forests of the night … I chanted insanely to myself. It was a poem by William Blake I had to memorize in Mrs. Gruber’s class a month ago.

  A million years ago.

  “What are you muttering?” Lisa tugged on my shoulder.

  “Nothing.” I looked at my flashlight. It was half-dead, so I turned it off.

  We climbed. It was cold, but I was sweating. Loose rocks tumbled down. I waited to hear a splash or a thunk into sand. Nothing. Just the sound of our feet, our breathing, the wind like a river or the river like the wind.

  Suddenly, Willie tripped over something and sprawled across the path. I bumped into Lisa from behind and we both fell over. My flashlight bounced a few times, then flew over the cliff.