River Thunder

by Will Hobbs

  Where was my life jacket? Panicky, I started reaching around, trying to find it. It’s on the shore, I realized, clipped to tammie branches. If he lets go, I’m dead.

  Troy had a strange smirk on his face. He’s doing this to scare me, I thought. He knew I’d wake up over the choppy water. He must be crazy! One good surge from the current and he won’t be able to hold on. Doesn’t he realize he could kill me?

  “Troy!” I called out in desperation. My heart was hammering so hard it hurt. I was screaming now. “Troy!” All I could hear was the rapid.

  Suddenly he was reeling me in. He brought me all the way in to shore. I realized that all I had on was my long nightshirt.

  “Saved your life,” he said with a grin.

  “What were you doing, Troy? You nearly scared me to death!”

  He smiled, and the smile acknowledged how much he’d enjoyed my terror and his moment at the controls of the power of life and death.

  “I was retying your raft. I check on the boats every night, with the water coming up and all. Bet you never knew that.”

  “But what was I doing so far out there? I was fifty feet out in the river!”

  He laughed. “Scouting the rapid?”

  Chapter

  22

  “Not a good sign,” Adam reported laconically as he sipped his coffee in the morning. He was looking down into the slop bucket. We went to see. A drowned mouse was floating above the greasy dishes, teeth up.

  “That’s disgusting,” Rita said.

  Joe picked the mouse up delicately by the tail and tossed it into the bushes. “Poor guy probably swam half the night before he cashed it in.”

  I thought, with a glance at Troy, I wouldn’t have lasted but a minute or two in the river. I shuddered, picturing him stealthily untying my knots and then letting me drift out to the very edge.

  Troy wasn’t looking at me. He was eyeing the dancing turtle on Joe’s ankle, with disapproval, I thought. Joe was barefoot again this morning. Something told me Troy didn’t like Joe’s ponytail, either.

  Star wasn’t saying anything, but I could tell from her expression exactly what she was thinking. The drowning of the mouse at our campsite, seemingly an insignificant event, was indeed a sign.

  I would have argued that the death of the mouse was a preventable accident. But I wasn’t in a mood for arguing philosophical points, or for arguing at all.

  Yet arguing became the theme of the morning. It started as we were packing the rafts. We were tense looking at Tapeats Creek Rapid and the spot downstream where the river raged around the corner. The Colorado at 92,000 cubic feet per second was a beast on a broken leash. We were at Mile 132 and had ninety-three miles to go to reach the takeout at Diamond Creek, where a van with a trailer was going to meet us.

  “Rig for bombs,” I called tersely as I was checking all the tie-downs on the frame and the spare oars. “We got Upset to deal with today.”

  Adam wailed, “Now you’ve gone and got me all upset.”

  “Just don’t upset the Hired Gun,” Pug called. “We gotta keep our powder dry for Lava.”

  Joe had his backpack in his hands. “Which raft should this go on?”

  Troy, who was pumping the tubes of his raft tight with his foot pump, looked up suddenly and said, “We need to have a meeting, everybody.”

  Rita was suspicious. “Whaddaya mean, a meeting?”

  “A meeting,” Troy repeated. “Jessie, Star … let’s everybody get off the boats and sit down and have a little meeting.”

  Rita pursed her lips. “I don’t like the sound of this, for some reason.”

  I was already holding my breath. What was this all about?

  We sat in the sand and waited.

  “Okay …,” Troy began. Suddenly he thought better of standing, and sat down among us, tucked in his long legs with slow deliberation, and continued. “I remember Canyon Magic saying these were not normal times. We’re running at 92,000 c.f.s. now. Even the people who know this river blindfolded don’t know what that means. We’re way too loosey-goosey to keep approaching this the way we have been.”

  I thought, Where’s he going with this?

  I looked around. Pug was looking straight down into the ground. Adam was stroking his chin. Rita’s black eyes were smoldering. Star had her eyes closed. Joe looked abashed and embarrassed.

  “I learned something from Canyon Magic,” Troy continued. “Even with five experienced guides, they had a trip leader. They don’t split themselves apart all the time by voting. Everybody gives input, sure. But one person takes the responsibility. One person makes the calls.”

  Rita erupted. “So you’ve named yourself trip leader, Troy, is that what you’re saying?”

  He shrugged. “I figured you wouldn’t be able to just listen, Rita.”

  “But you said at the beginning that everything was going to be democratic on this trip. Everybody remembers that, Troy.”

  “Well, so do I. But none of us could anticipate these conditions. I’m concerned about only one thing now: getting out of here. I don’t want to think about maybe we’ll do this and maybe we’ll do that. I’m taking the responsibility because I already took it—I got the permit and rented all this stuff in the first place.”

  Rita shook her head emphatically. “That’s not the way it was supposed to be. This is bait-and-switch, Troy. I told you I wasn’t going to put up with this kind of stuff this time, and I meant it.”

  Troy raised his voice. “Settle down,” he warned. “I know everybody wants to hike Havasu Creek. We’ll take the time to do that one side-hike, that’s all.”

  “What does Jessie think?” Rita demanded. “She’s the other one rowing a boat. She’s got a lot of responsibility, too.”

  I weighed carefully what I was going to say. Nothing that would set Troy off. I was scared for all of us. “I think this is sad,” I said. “But we can’t afford to fight about it—we have too much to lose. I thought we were doing okay making decisions by consensus.”

  I was surprised by who spoke up. Pug said, “We been doing pretty good when you think about it, Troy.”

  “Don’t give up being democratic, Troy,” Star pleaded. “Let’s just keep trying.”

  Troy was shaking his head. “Let me give you an example, Star. Like yesterday, we could’ve lost the whole kitchen when the water came up so fast. Nobody was thinking about what could happen, like a trip leader would naturally do. I wasn’t thinking about it, either. I just happened to be there.”

  “Got a point there,” Pug said.

  Troy stood up abruptly. “So that’s it. I’m runnin’ first, and I’ll decide when we’re going to stop for lunch and when we’re going to camp and all that. We’ll scout anything Jessie or I think should be scouted.”

  Rita gained her feet. “And you’ll make yourself scarce when there’s work to be done in camp.”

  He laughed. “Rita, don’t act so put out. You’re getting a free trip, or did you forget that?”

  She turned to Adam as we were all getting up. “Adam, what do you think?”

  Adam shrugged. “It’s his bag of marbles, I guess. And the game wasn’t all square when we got in.”

  “It just ain’t fair,” Rita muttered.

  “Fairness is not an issue,” Troy told her. “Oh, one more thing, everybody. With this 92,000 and all, we have to have our roles down on the boats. By now we pretty well know what to expect from each other in all sorts of situations.…”

  I thought, What’s he getting at now?

  As Troy paused he glanced at Joe, and then he said, “I’ve decided we can’t take Joe down to Havasu Creek.”

  “What?” Rita yelled. “What are you talking about?”

  “That’s twenty-four river miles, including Upset. Way too much responsibility, and it’s illegal, too. He’s not listed on the permit.”

  “Neither was Adam,” I put in quickly. “That ranger could’ve busted us at Bass if he’d realized Adam was with us, not that motor group.”r />
  “I know that,” Troy said wearily. “Adam’s different. But adding this guy—it’s illegal, and I’m not going to do it. He can wait for another group that’ll take him.”

  “Hey, buddy …,” Pug pleaded.

  “I can’t believe this!” Rita exploded. “Troy’s giving us this legal stuff. That’s about as small as you can get. We got extra life jackets, we got plenty of food—”

  “Get over it,” Troy said regally, and turned toward his boat.

  “I’ve had it!” Rita yelled. “Up till now I’ve been able to get along with you, Troy. I know nobody’s perfect. I try to take people the way they are. But this is too much even for me. I’m not staying one minute longer on your boat!”

  She sprang onto their raft and started undoing the straps across the tarp in the back. In a couple of seconds she had her hand on her dry bag. Troy jumped onto the boat, too, and yelled, “Leave everything right where it is!”

  “You’re like traveling with a two-year-old!” she screamed. “If you don’t get your way, you just want to quit and go home. You’re just a spoiled rich kid, Troy, that’s all you are! You haven’t changed at all!”

  She stood up with her dry bag. The boat was rocking under her. “Nothing’s ever good enough for you! If anything ever goes wrong, it’s always someone else’s fault! I’ve been sitting on this boat listening to you putting everybody else down, and I’m sick of it.”

  Troy moved to the middle of the tube to block her way off. “Put it back, Rita.”

  “For once in your life, Troy, try thinking about somebody else besides yourself. You think the world revolves around you—it’s not all about you!”

  Rita tried to force her way past him with her heavy dry bag. Troy didn’t get out of the way completely. They were struggling over the dry bag; Rita lost her balance and fell headfirst, arms flailing, into the center of the raft.

  Amid our cries and all the confusion, she struggled back up without taking the hand Troy offered. Troy retreated off the boat. Rita was looking at a bad scrape all the way down her right arm.

  “Anything broken?” Adam worried.

  “I don’t think so,” she said quietly.

  Troy relented. “Okay, we’ll take Clueless down to Havasu Creek.” He said it in the way a military commander might, forced to change his mind. Troy’s pride was mortally wounded, yet it was obvious he wasn’t going to give an inch on having taken over as trip leader.

  “Say you’re sorry,” Star suggested.

  Troy glowered at her. “I’m not, okay?”

  Suddenly Joe spoke up. “Thanks a lot, guys,” he said, looking around to everybody. Then he added firmly, “I’ll wait for another group.”

  Over our objections, he said, “You guys don’t need four on a boat in this water.”

  Joe had his own standards, his own pride.

  Star’s eyes were about to brim over with tears. The only time I’d ever seen her cry was when she was moving into her new bedroom when she first came to live with me.

  Joe told her, “Star, I’ve got all the time in the world to get across the river. It’s okay. What do you say I look you up this fall in Boulder?”

  “I’d like that very much,” she said, and stopped the tears before they ran.

  He kissed her on the cheek and withdrew his backpack to the shade of the first big cottonwood up Tapeats Creek.

  Star offered to ride on Troy’s boat so Rita could come onto ours. Rita, who’d had her head down, looked up and said, “No, I want to stay where I’ve been. I don’t want to split you up, and I’d miss the big guy too much. We’re a team.”

  She gave Pug a smile to die for.

  A few minutes later, we launched on our twelfth day on the river. Star stood up and waved to Joe; he waved back. Star sat down and I pulled to get into position to row Tapeats Creek Rapid.

  Chapter

  23

  The walls drew in close as the middle gorge began to tail down into the river. The unleashed Colorado did not take kindly to being forced through Granite Narrows. The current line failed completely, and the boats were shunted unpredictably this way and that by the huge forces surging beneath us. Troy and I were both crashing into the walls, first on one side of the river and then the other.

  Whirlpools appeared from nowhere, like tornadoes. Some of them sucked the tubes down so powerfully that the river came pouring in. I fought with all the strength I had. Troy was rowing like a man possessed, but I’m sure there was no joy in his heart. He’d taken the joy of the Canyon out of my heart as well. I hated him for what he’d done to all of us.

  The gorge gave way ten minutes later and the river widened. Lighter shades of rock appeared, and we could see up and out again. On our right, Deer Creek Falls plummeted a hundred feet or more to the river through a crack in the sandstone. We surged by so quickly, it was out of view in a few moments.

  The sky was turning dark on the left, real dark, and we heard distant thunder. I had a feeling this time it was going to get us. We raced downriver, putting the miles behind us as well as the rapids. Back when we were on 65,000 c.f.s., we’d calculated that we were going eight miles an hour. On 92,000, we could only guess. The walls were flying by.

  Much sooner than I was ready for it, we were rounding the bend before Upset. We pulled out on the right, far upstream, to avoid being swept into the rapid without the chance to scout. Troy and I threaded our way through slabs of limestone to get down to where we could take a look at it. I was expecting the worst of the two holes at the bottom—the ones that I’d been trying to avoid all winter in my dreams. At this level I was expecting them to look something like a twin version of the hole in Crystal.

  To my immense relief, the holes had lost their definition in the floodwater. Upset was going to be a huge ride, but it looked doable. “Let’s hope for the same at Lava,” Troy said.

  I realized that the exact place we were standing was the farthest point I’d reached in October. A flood of memories threatened to overwhelm me, but I pushed them away. I had to focus.

  Back at the boats, it was starting to spit rain. The sky was still black and blue to the south, high above the rim on the left side. Thunder kept rumbling like the end of the world was happening up there. Still, we were only getting spatters and wind.

  “Let’s go get wet,” Troy proclaimed, and both boats pushed off. Nobody answered him.

  I ran Upset bow-first, pushing on the oars, making little adjustments all the way through. Upset ran like an immense storm drain, dirty and fast. Below it, I looked back up at the staircase of whitewater I’d been rowing in my sleep all winter. Upset was behind me now. Strange to think I had actually just run it.

  Of all the Big Drops, only Lava remained.

  In the whirlpools at the bottom of Upset, Troy and I bumped boats. With a proud grin plastered across his face, he yelled, “Down to Havasu!”

  Again nobody echoed his cheer. He’d succeeded in turning us to stone. Every mile we were seeing now was new for all of us, yet we were feeling no thrill of discovery, only a depressing combination of dread, regret, and shame. Seeing Havasu Creek with its blue-green pools, waterfalls, and hanging gardens was going to be joyless, nothing resembling our romp to Thunder River.

  Troy, you kill the thing you love.

  Between the raging current and the strange topography of the mouth of Havasu Canyon, it was tough managing a landing there. It wasn’t a typical canyon mouth at all, just a narrow, unannounced slot around a corner on the left side. Fortunately we’d been hugging the left wall so we wouldn’t miss it. A cluster of motor rigs appeared suddenly in a tiny eddy, and it was all we could do, rowing hard, to grab hold of those big rafts and put ropes on them. The back halves of our rafts remained out in the current that was racing toward the lip of the rapid, less than a hundred feet away.

  We were disappointed to find that Havasu Creek, world famous for its blue-green water, was running brick red. The rainstorm to the south was obviously affecting the drainage of Havasu
Creek.

  Nevertheless, we grabbed our daypacks, stuffed some lunch into them, and reached the shelves of stone along the shore by scrambling across the big rigs. Pug talked of raiding their beer, but it was only talk. We scrambled up the trail through layers of broken rock that led up to a shoulder and then back down to the creek.

  The people from the motor rigs were all perched on ledges above the creek having lunch. They told us they’d tried to make this first crossing with the help of a rope, but their boatman said the creek was running too high and they’d have to skip the hike.

  “Too bad,” Troy said. He sounded happy about it. He turned to us and said, “Let’s blast.”

  “Couldn’t we just try it?” Star suggested. “We could all hold hands—maybe we could do it. This is our last hike together.…”

  “Look around, Star. How much of a sign do you need? Even Mother Nature has it in for us.”

  It turned out we weren’t even going to stop and eat lunch together. Troy was in a frenzy to get going. “Everybody’s got something to eat in their daypacks,” he ordered. “We can eat back on the river.”

  Troy and I reached the boats first, and were buckling our life jackets as the rest were climbing across the motor rigs and down into our boats. I had just taken a bite of an apple and was leaning down to tighten my sandals when I heard it—a roaring sound, sort of like thunder but different. I looked up, trying to determine where it was coming from.

  Everybody was spooked: waiting, listening, looking around. Then we heard yelling up above, from onshore. We saw people running into view, all panicky. Somebody yelled down at us, “Flash flood!”

  Before we could grasp that we were directly in harm’s way, a torrent of red water came roaring out of Havasu Canyon’s narrow mouth. The impact rocked the big motor rigs, and then a moment later it rocked us.

  “Hang on!” I yelled, but I was too late. Rita was already flying out of Troy’s boat into the river, without her life jacket.

  Even though it happened fast, I saw it all. I was trying to keep my balance amid the brick-red violence of the water and the confusion of colliding rafts. I was looking directly at Troy. He saw Rita being swept away and he hesitated for half a second. Then, to my astonishment, he dove headlong into the river after her.