Desolation Canyon

by Jonathan London

  “Another rock garden ahead,” he said, pointing to the river. We looked down at the rapids below, a roaring maze of holes and boulders and waves.

  I studied it carefully. All of a sudden, it made sense—boulders and currents fell into place and I could see a path snaking downriver. It was like reading words on a page—for the first time.

  “I think I see a way through it,” I said, and told them the route I saw.

  “Not bad, mate,” Roger said, “Not bad. You’re learning to read the river like us old river rats!”

  I beamed. Lisa elbowed me. “You old river rat.” Then she pinched her nose and said, “And you smell like one, too.”

  It amazed me that we could joke around like this when so much was riding on the next several hours. Our way of letting off steam, I guess.

  This time Lisa got in our boat. Willie wanted to lighten up the heavier kitchen boat. He was afraid of getting stuck on a boulder. And he swore that he was “shipshape” when Roger asked him about his shoulder.

  Cassidy had come to again. He yelled something, but it didn’t make any sense. He was grinning weirdly, but his teeth were chattering and his eyes looked as red as hot coals. I noticed my anger toward him had melted away, like clouds on a summer day. All I felt for him now was sympathy. And gratitude—assuming he did save my dad.

  I was still full of questions, but one look at Dad, who was still out cold and looking worse than ever, and I knew we had to act now and save our questions for later.

  Willie and Cassidy went first. He eased out into the current, slid downstream, angling toward the cut bank, then shot into the rapids. We waited half a minute, then nosed into the current and followed.

  I sat in the bow, shouting warnings. Lisa curled down in the bottom, trying to keep my dad from bouncing around too much. Roger spun the boat around, then we plunged into the chaos and violence of the rapids.

  We were on a mission. A mission to save Dad and Cassidy. A mission to save us all. And no rapids were going to stop us.

  We came around a bend and there was Willie. His boat, with Cassidy and all the kitchen gear, was still too heavy and was stuck atop a submerged boulder, the river raging around it. Willie was rowing with all his strength, but the raft wouldn’t budge.

  “Throw the rescue line, Aaron!” Roger commanded, as we bounced toward them.

  As we came even with their boat, I was ready. With my knees and toes wedged securely against the tubes, I flung the line out with all my might. The nylon rope uncoiled as it sailed through the air toward Willie.

  But we were moving super fast, and Willie clutched his shoulder just as I threw it, so the line flew just over his head as we shot by. I tried pulling it back in for another attempt, but it was too late.

  Willie yelled something—or was it Cassidy? Whoever it was, the roar of the river drowned them out. They vanished from sight behind us as we were swept around the bend and down through what Coal Creek Rapids had to offer.

  There was no turning back. Willie and Cassidy were on their own.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  THE THUNDER HOLE

  Aaron!” Roger shouted. “We have to find a place to eddy out!” I knelt in the bow. A sheer wall on one side, giant chunks of rock on the other. We rounded another bend and there, behind a tall boulder to the right, was a small eddy of smooth water. I pointed and Roger gave our raft a spin and pulled out of the rampaging current and into the tiny cove.

  There was no beach, so I had to jump into thigh-high water and tie the bowline around a rock. Roger hopped out and immediately began scrambling over boulders, heading back upriver. Swallows were swooping and darting overhead, as a fine mist rose above the roar of the rapids. Lisa climbed after Roger like a mountain goat, and I followed behind her.

  We quickly reached a spot where we couldn’t go any further. We were at a cliff with a straight drop of seventy, eighty feet or more, right down into the boiling cauldron of the rapids. And no visible path across it. We pulled ourselves up on a ledge beside Roger and looked upriver.

  There was Willie still hung up on the boulder! He was maybe two hundred feet upriver and standing on his raft. No. He was jumping from one side to the other, right over Cassidy’s body—rocking the boat! Jump. Jump. Jump. He jumped one last time and suddenly his raft wobbled … tottered … and slid off the boulder!

  It whirled free and raced down the river, Willie back at the oars. We whooped and cheered as they flew by.

  “Wild Man Willie does it again!” Roger howled. “Let’s go, me lad and lassie!”

  When we got back to our raft we had a big surprise: Dad was awake!

  “Dad!” I cried, so relieved he wasn’t in a coma.

  But he didn’t answer me. He didn’t even look at me, just mumbled some nonsense. He was delirious. I thought I heard him say Cassidy’s name. Was he replaying those last moments before his boat flipped?

  How did their boat flip? I asked myself for the hundredth time. Had there been a fight over the oars? Maybe Dad wanted to help row against that wind but Cassidy was too macho to let him. Maybe Dad stood up and without his weight on the bow the boat flipped. Or did it flip after a fight? Maybe Cassidy swung his oar and Dad fell in, tipping the raft. Cassidy, feeling guilty, might have dived in after him. But then why did he leave him on the trail?

  I was dying to ask Dad and Cassidy all these questions. When there was more time. And when they were coherent. But when would that be?

  “Here, Dad, drink this.” I tipped some water from my canteen onto his lips. His head rolled from side to side and the water spilled down his chin. I had to try again. I was afraid he’d die of dehydration. Dehydrated on a river, with water all around!

  “Water, water, everywhere, but nary a drop to drink,” I mumbled to myself.

  Wasn’t that from a poem or a song or something? I tried giving him water again. Finally some seeped in and Dad licked his lips. They were cracked and swollen. Parched dry as the desert itself. Within seconds, the water trickled out again. Dad gagged and coughed and I turned his head so the rest could spill out and not get into his lungs. There was nothing else I could do.

  “When we join up with the kitchen boat,” Roger said, “we’ll look for a funnel. Might help. For now, it helps to at least keep his lips and tongue and mouth wet, or they’ll get worse.”

  Roger unwrapped the bandage and rinsed the blood out in the river. He changed the dressing on Dad’s gash and added some more antiseptic before rewinding the wet bandage around his head. Lisa tried to soothe him with a cool wet cloth and a soft hum.

  It was hard to know when to cool him and when to warm him. He was still wrapped in a tarp but was pretty wet from the waves crashing in. Meanwhile, the sun blazed down. Still not a cloud in the sky.

  “We’re almost there, Dad,” I said, not really knowing where “there” was or what would happen when we finally arrived. I wanted to reassure him, but there was no time to linger. We had to keep moving.

  It was a race against the clock. And if the clock stopped ticking, so did Dad.

  We caught up to Willie when he pulled over to scout Rattlesnake Rapid, which we could hear roaring downriver. Cassidy was propped up inside the raft. He was grimacing, blinking his eyes and mumbling.

  “Hey, Cass,” Lisa called out, “my dad told me one of the Wild Bunch got shot here.”

  Was it a trick of the light, or did Cassidy’s eyes open at the sound of her voice?

  “Yeah,” Roger added, “a guy named Flat Nose Curry. He got a fatal dose of Western justice right around here.”

  Lisa and I followed Roger and Willie up the wall of the canyon to a rocky ledge and looked down at the next set of rapids.

  “Rattlesnake,” Willie said. “Another killer.” There were at least a dozen boulders jutting out of the water. There were several deep holes among the haystack waves. I tried to read the river again, looking for the main current, looking for a path.

  “There’s the tongue,” I said, pointing. “We enter it from the r
ight, then slide to the left around that boulder there—the one that looks like a skull.…”

  “Good eye, pard,” Willie said.

  But Roger said, “Yeah, good eye, mate, but I think we should shoot straight down the left side, and try to avoid that boulder all together.”

  “If we can,” Willie said, “that would be the best.”

  I didn’t agree. I thought the current would suck us around the boulder, but I held my tongue. They had way more experience than I did.

  We scrambled down into our boats and Willie took off in the lead. After a minute, we slipped into the current behind them.

  This time Lisa sat on the bow and I sat in back with Dad. We hit the rapids and slid into the tongue from the left. Suddenly, the current grabbed hold of us, gripped us in its coils, and whipped us to the right. We dropped and spun like a teacup, right around the boulder that looked like a skull.

  Too close! The boat whiplashed with a jerk and I flew into Roger. Lisa screamed, but held on.

  We slammed against the backside of the boulder and I could feel the front pulling toward a dark, swirling funnel.

  “Keeper hole!” Roger yelled. I could barely hear him over the thundering water. This was more than just a keeper hole. It sounded like a thunder hole to me.

  Our raft was trapped against the boulder by a back wave. If we slid off, we’d be snatched by the whirlpool and spun round and round. If we flipped or fell in, we’d be sucked down.

  And never come back up.

  “High side! High side!” I shouted.

  Lisa and I leapt up and clung to the side that was riding up the boulder. I had to hang on to Dad at the same time, or he could topple in.

  And if he toppled in, he’d be a goner for sure.

  Willie was downriver, out of sight. We were stuck alone on the edge of doom.

  The river started tumbling in, filling the raft faster than the raft could self-bail. The whirlpool was pulling us in, tugging us down like a pack of vicious water babies.

  The thunder hole had us.

  “Bail! Bail!” Roger shouted. Lisa unclamped the bail bucket and started scooping water out, as quickly as a dog digs sand. Roger let go of an oar to join me on the high side and help hold Dad. The oar blade caught in the edge of the whirlpool and the handle smacked into Roger’s elbow. He yelped with pain and cupped his elbow.

  Roger jumped beside me on the high side and clamped his good arm and both legs around my dad. With the extra weight, the raft started to slide down toward the lip of the hole.

  “We’ve got to row out of here,” I said, “or the hole will suck us in! I’ll row! You stay high side and hold my dad!”

  “There’s no way you’re strong enough, mate!”

  “Lisa can help!” I countered, and jumped toward the seat.

  “You got that right!” Lisa said. She had bailed enough. She jumped up to the oars and sat down, facing me. I swung my leg out and kicked off from the boulder just enough to wedge the high side oar in. Then Lisa grabbed hold of both oars, placing her hands next to mine.

  “Go for it!” Roger yelled. “And follow your own route!”

  Lisa and I had to coordinate. She would push when I pulled.

  “Push!” I called, as I pulled with all my strength. And together we rowed so hard on the wooden oar that it actually started to bend.

  “Pull!”

  “Push!”

  “Pull!”

  Lisa and I were a team and I knew that together we could do this. We could save the day.

  And my dad.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  RACING FOR RESCUE

  We pushed and pulled with our legs and arms and backs, straining every muscle in our bodies.

  We were still sliding toward the hole when suddenly the edge of the whirlpool caught the nose of our raft, ripping us away from the boulder and spinning us around.

  “We have to turn counterclockwise!” I yelled. We dug an oar in and helped the nose pivot in the whirlpool so that the tail of the raft swung back out, snagged by the main current. Then with all our might we rowed away from the whirlpool. It was a tug-of-war between the current and the keeper hole, with Lisa and me on the side of the current.

  We won! The whirlpool spit us out and our raft spun free.

  Lisa and I whooped. “YAHOO!”

  “YEAH!” yelled Roger. We would’ve slapped high fives but we didn’t dare let go of the oars. There was still more to this rapid. A lot more.

  “Great work, mateys!” Roger was so happy he pumped his fists in the air. Then his face crumpled in pain and he cradled his bruised elbow.

  Now that we were back on course—my course—down the rapids, Roger was able to slide down next to Dad and rest. I guess he figured we didn’t need his help anymore.

  Lisa and I stayed at the oars, snaking down Rattlesnake Rapids. Before we had a chance to catch our breath, we were pinballing off boulders again in Nefertiti Rapids just below.

  As much as I wanted to relax, there was no time for it. Dad was moaning again. He looked like a mummy wrapped in that tarp. We had to keep going. Keep up to speed.

  Lisa and I rowed, our bodies going through the motions, numb with exhaustion.

  Roger closed his eyes as he said, “Lemme know when you two need a break, mateys. I’m gonna rest my eyes for a bit, but this Captain’s ready to row any time.”

  “We’re good,” I said. “Right, Lisa?”

  “Totally.” We both kicked ourselves into gear. It was like we’d gotten a second wind.

  We ran one more set of rapids, which Roger kept mum through, and it was awesome. From the thunder hole to here, it was our first time running rapids with just the two of us, no adults barking orders. We breezed right through, and slapped high fives at the far end.

  “That was awesome!” I said.

  “I know, right?” Her smile was so big I thought her teeth would fall out.

  She hopped over and sat up on the tube in the bow, facing me and said, “Let me know when you want me to spell you, Aaron.”

  I started to say, “I can spell Aaron. A, A …” but just then we rounded a bend and the canyon opened out like a fan. There were wide stretches of flat desert between the river and the high canyon walls.

  Room for a plane.

  “There’s Willie!” I hollered. Lisa joined me again at the oars and we rowed for the shore for all we were worth.

  Finally, after twenty miles through the hardest rapids of the river, we eddied out. Lisa and I jumped up and did a little dance in the bow.

  “YAHOOOOOOO!”

  “Keeper hole almost swallowed us,” Roger said, hopping onto the beach.

  “Wondered what took you so long, pard,” Willie said. He didn’t stop to chat, but walked down the beach collecting wood and brush in his arms. He already had a big pile gathered and burning up the beach. I could see Cassidy next to it in a sleeping bag. His face was ghost white.

  “Got to get this fire smokin’ before dark,” Willie continued. “We need a plane—now!”

  We carried Dad to the fire and wrapped him up in a sleeping bag next to Cassidy. The sun was sinking toward the western ridge and the far cliffs already glowed a blood red. A chill crept into my bones even though the fire was big and hot. It was getting dark fast, but we hadn’t heard a plane since early morning. What were the chances?

  “We need more smoke!” Willie bellowed. “More firewood! Everybody. Pronto!” Lisa and I scrambled across the dry flats, scrounging up dead, fallen mesquite and creosote branches, and carrying them back to the fire.

  I was exhausted, stumbling over roots and stones. I wanted to sleep. Or at least to sit and rest. And I was starving too. Nothing but gorp all day. But I could see Roger and Willie hustling around and I felt their urgency and forced myself to move faster. The faster I worked the more urgency I felt.

  I knew that if we didn’t signal a plane before dark and get Dad to a hospital, he’d have a hard time surviving another night. We hadn’t been able to get any fluid
s into him all day. Roger said he was totally dehydrated. He was also wheezing and had lost a lot of blood.

  More than ever, I was really, really scared. For Dad, it was do or die time.

  Fear can freeze you or give you a jolt. In this case, it gave me a jolt. I moved faster than ever, spilling armfuls of wood next to the fire and racing back for more. Lisa was doing the same, and it wasn’t even her dad that was in danger.

  I think I loved her in that moment. No, not that way! Just, you know. I was just so grateful that she understood how I felt and wanted to help.

  While Lisa and I scurried around like beavers, Willie built a roaring bonfire. Yellow flames stretched up into the sky, licking at the darkening air. Lisa and I tossed on bark and leaves, damp driftwood, and green branches we’d found beneath the cottonwoods. Smoke billowed up in giant puffs, hopefully big enough for a plane to see.

  “That’s the idea!” Willie yelled. “Keep it coming!”

  “Now we’re smokin’!” Cassidy said. He was awake! He was still propped against the stump and his eyes were wide open. “Who wants burgers and fries?” he said with a giggle.

  I was staring at Cassidy, waiting to hear about his next hallucination when I heard something else: a drone. Like a lawn mower. It was getting louder and louder, closer and closer. I froze and scanned the sky. I felt as alert as a hungry dog staring at a juicy bone.

  Finally, up over the ridge buzzed a little bush plane! It roared through the canyon, straight toward us. We dropped our loads of wood and raced out to the sand flats to watch it land. Willie was shouting and waving his arms over his head.

  “Wait!” Willie hollered. “It has pontoons!”

  It was some kind of seaplane! We all tore back through the brush and sand to the riverbank, anxious to see the plane come skidding along the river.

  But it didn’t! The plane kept going, dragging my heart right along with it.