River Thunder

by Will Hobbs

  Our boats were rocking violently, threatening to flip with the force of the water blasting us from the side. The motor rigs were starting to ride over the tops of our tubes and we were about to be crushed. “Cut your rope!” I yelled to Pug as I pulled my knife from its scabbard on my life jacket and cut ours.

  I was struggling to get control of the oars as we went over the lip of the rapid and bounced against the rocky shelves on the left. With a glance downstream, I saw that Troy had caught up to Rita and had hold of her in a cross-chest carry. He was buoying her faceup so she could breathe. The waves kept washing over them; they were visible only in snatches. “Don’t take your eyes off them!” I yelled to Star and Adam.

  I turned the stern downstream and rowed hard to get to them. We caught up just below the tailwaves, in the boils. Adam hauled Rita aboard, gagging and choking, while Troy clung to the chicken line, coughing up water.

  Adam made Rita keep her head down, between her knees, and Star held tight to her. Rita kept gagging. “Breathe, Rita,” Adam said firmly. “Are you breathing okay?”

  Rita couldn’t talk yet, but she nodded emphatically. Adam reached for the back of Troy’s life jacket and pulled him into the boat. Troy was exhausted. Star scrambled to the back of the raft to free the spare life jacket for Rita. With a glance upstream, I saw Pug strong-arming the oars, trying to keep the other raft off the wall.

  Rita was sitting up now. Her color was coming back to normal. She was panting, hyperventilating, as if she’d never get enough air into her lungs again. Adam, smiling and shaking his head, turned his attention to Troy. “Great job!” he cried, slapping him on the back. “Good going, Troy—unbelievable!”

  Rita took a long, hard look at Troy. She was trying to comprehend what had just happened. So was I. So, maybe, was Troy. We all knew what would have happened if she’d hit those monstrous whirlpools at the foot of the rapid before anyone got to her. Without a life jacket, she would have been pulled down in a second.

  “You saved my life,” Rita said. Her dark eyes stared at Troy with a mixture of gratitude and confusion. “You’re a strange one, Troy, that’s all I can say.”

  He shrugged it off with a smile, as if to say he’d take that for a compliment. His teeth were chattering. He didn’t say anything at all.

  There was no reason to go to shore. We bumped boats and transferred passengers midstream. Now that it was over, Rita was shaking, and not only from the shock of the cold water. She started digging through her bag, looking for warmer clothes.

  “Let’s get on down close to Lava,” Troy said to me.

  I nodded, spun my boat around, and pulled on the oars.

  Chapter

  24

  We surged downstream toward Lava. The side canyons went flying by: Tuckup, National, Fern Glen, Stairway, Cove.

  It was getting late in the day. We’d covered forty-five river miles since the morning. We kept looking for Vulcan’s Anvil, the landmark that would prevent us from accidentally being swept over the edge of Lava. Pictured in the mile-by-mile guide, Vulcan’s Anvil is the neck of an extinct volcano rising from the middle of the river.

  Even before we saw the Anvil, signaling Lava more than a mile downstream, we could hear the River Thunder. Thunder on a scale even Crystal couldn’t approach.

  “Like the drums of doom,” I heard Adam whisper.

  We’d read in the guidebook that it was considered good luck to touch or kiss Vulcan’s Anvil on the approach to Lava Falls. It was all I could do to keep control of the boat and keep it out of the whirlpools—we missed the opportunity. Keeping hard to the right, we searched the shore for anything that might serve as a camp. We found an approximation of one on tiny pockets of sand among boulders of dark basalt only a quarter mile above the falls. From the path leading downriver, we guessed our camp was actually a couple of wide spots on the scouting trail.

  It was going to be a deafening evening. I told Rita she was excused from making dinner. “Au contraire,” she said. “And I give you fair warning, I’m feeling the need for some garlic therapy.”

  Troy was working on his raft, making sure everything was going to be tight for the morning.

  He caught a glimpse of me coming down to his boat. He looked away.

  “Permission to come aboard,” I requested.

  With a weary smile, he nodded.

  I sat cross-legged on his deck; he was on his boatman’s seat. I said, “I think I can wait until morning to take a look at Lava. How ’bout you?”

  “Ditto.”

  “Well?” I asked.

  “Well what?”

  “What you did—diving into the river after Rita.”

  With a smile, he said, “Oh, that.”

  “Yeah, that.”

  “I can’t exactly take credit for that. It happened so fast. I was shocked when I realized I was actually in the river.”

  “You’re right that it happened fast. But first you looked around for a split second, and whatever you were thinking about, it wasn’t about your own safety.”

  “I was trying to think what to do about the boat—we were tied up and getting blasted. But then I realized Rita just didn’t have any time.”

  I hesitated, wondering if I should leave well enough alone. But it seemed like a moment that maybe wouldn’t ever come again. “But why?” I pressed him. “I still don’t understand why you did it.”

  “Just a reflex?” he said with a shrug.

  “I don’t think so. I saw your face. I think your reaction came from the best part of you—before all that thinking and calculating you’re always doing.”

  He looked at me with those amazingly blue eyes, and for once I didn’t feel like he was trying to use them to play me one way or the other. He said, “All those things Rita said about me this morning, about how I only look out for myself—she was just saying what everybody else thinks, anyway. That’s the picture. That’s the way it’s always been for me.”

  “It’s part of the picture, but not the whole picture, right?”

  “I wish,” he said softly. “I don’t know, maybe I was just reacting to what Rita had said this morning. You know, trying to show she didn’t know me as well as she thought.”

  I nodded encouragement. “I wish you’d give yourself a chance, Troy. You know, Star thinks everybody can create their own life, no matter where they’re starting from.”

  He looked away, down the river. After a long silence, he said, “Where I’m starting from is not pretty, Jessie.”

  “You have to start somewhere,” I said, touching his hand. “But you don’t have to keep being your own worst enemy. You get your expectations up so high, Troy. Like for this trip, for us …”

  He looked quickly back. “I can’t help it. I just can’t help it. I always wreck everything. I bring people down and end up bringing myself down. I’ve never been able to stop myself.”

  “But you can.”

  “It’s not that easy. This trip is a perfect example. I wanted this trip to be perfect, for you and for me. I tried so hard not to blow it. But I kept seeing the bad side of everything, right from the start. I just knew something would go wrong. Remember when you said you felt like I wanted you to flip? You were right—I did.”

  “But why?”

  “When we first got on the river, I thought that if you kept having trouble, it would make you need me. I’d be able to help you, and we’d grow closer. But when you started getting so good at rowing, I could see that you didn’t need me. So I started wanting you to fail. I wanted you to flip, especially in Crystal. That’s what I mean—I get so angry and I don’t know how to stop myself.”

  “If this is an apology, I accept it.”

  With that, he broke into his killer smile. “You know, I’ve never done anything before in my life like going in after Rita.”

  “Not many people have,” I said, returning the smile.

  He laughed. “That Rita! And to think I kept that wild woman’s face above water without getting an ear bit
off! I mean, she was just that close!”

  The thought came to me that Troy was trying on a new image of himself, seeing himself in a new light. After what happened today, maybe he’d have something to build on, find a new place to start.

  Suddenly serious, he said, “I won’t see you again after this trip, Jessie. That’s a promise. I’ll leave you alone.”

  “What will you do?”

  “I don’t know yet, but I can see I’m going to have to ‘get a life,’ as they say. I’ve thought a little about computers, they sort of interest me …”

  “Well, I wish you the best, Troy,” I said. “You know I do.”

  He bathed me in those blue eyes. “I’ll never forget you, babe. And I want you to have a glory run tomorrow in Lava, you hear me? I mean an out-and-out glory run.”

  “You too,” I said. “And keep your sunny side up on the big river of life.”

  Chapter

  25

  Lava Falls. “The steepest navigable rapid in North America,” the mile-by-mile guide calls it. John Wesley Powell, the explorer who first ran the river, was more than impressed. In his journal, he speculated on what Lava might have looked like eons ago. “What a conflict of water and fire there must have been here! Just imagine a river of molten rock, running down into a river of melted snow. What a seething and boiling of the waters; what clouds of steam rolled into the heavens!”

  Troy and I hiked alone, before anyone else was up, to take a look. I hadn’t been able to sleep and neither had he. In the cool of the dawn, we stood on the scouting escarpment at the brink of the rapid and took it in—the Power and the Glory.

  I felt insignificant and frail in between the thousands and thousands of feet of cliffs towering above me, and the crushing force of the inconceivable amount of water plunging by below.

  “Way to the ugly,” Troy said.

  I was already looking for a route. I saw right away there was going to be no sneak of Lava Falls, no strip of safe water to be reached by scooting early off the enormous tongue. To the extreme left, there were gigantic pourovers that must normally be boulders high and dry above the river in the outwash fan of Prospect Creek. To the extreme right, it was absolute fury and chaos as the river was pushed against and over giant lava rocks.

  “What do you see?” Troy asked.

  “It’s all pushing to the right,” I said, “toward those monster waves at the bottom.”

  “Look at the weird ways they’re breaking. Some moments it looks like you could go over the tops of them, like at Horn Creek. Other moments they’re breaking back like Crystal. Are you thinking about doing your ‘thing’?”

  “I can’t see how it could help here. What do you think about pushing in bow-first down the left side of the tongue?”

  “And hope you don’t get kicked into all the huge stuff down at the bottom. Same thing I’m thinking. Are you going to wear your lucky hat? The one Kit gave you?”

  “Not a chance. I want to take that home with me! The hat’s taking the ride in a rocket box.”

  “Too bad on the 10-scale they can only give it a 10.”

  We headed back to camp. Everyone was up and transcendentally cheerful. Rita was flipping pancakes. She was wearing a purple outfit we hadn’t seen before. It looked sensational with her black hair. “Whatcha find?” she called as we came in. “What’s making all that noise?”

  “A Park Service recording?” Adam ventured. “Lava’s all washed out, right?”

  “Washed,” Troy replied. “Piece of cake.”

  Adam asked, “Rita, are you going to make any predictions?”

  “Heh-heh-heh,” she laughed. “Kick its butt.”

  “Goin’ to the boat-wash,” Pug sang out.

  Star’s eyes lit up. “We’ll wash ourselves clean in the river.”

  Adam leapt over and gave her a couple of those Hollywood-style air kisses, one on each cheek.

  We kept moving the camp chores along. We intended to run as soon as other boats came. We’d all agreed that it would be more than foolhardy to try it without cover below. We were hoping for a motor rig or two.

  That’s what finally came down the river about eleven in the morning—two Grand Canyon battleships.

  Now we had to hope that they would stop to scout, instead of motoring on through.

  They pulled over. Their boatmen explained that the word was out about what had happened to the motor rigs in front of them, especially in Crystal. They weren’t taking anything for granted. Yes, they’d be happy to cover for us. “How many flips you guys had?” one of their boatmen asked. “Just out of curiosity.”

  “Three,” Troy answered.

  “I’d say that’s not too shabby.”

  Their thirty-five or forty passengers hiked up to the scouting rock with them, and all of us came along. I heard a lady asking Pug if we were going to go down Lava Falls in “those tiny little boats.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Should be exciting.”

  The boatman who’d asked about our flips, a man built like a fireplug, took us aside. “Have you guys heard about all the damage up at the dam?”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “The river’s been eating its way around the side of the dam through the cliffs. The concrete linings in the spillways are history, and word is, the river’s been chewing up the sandstone like butter.”

  “So what’s going to happen?” Troy asked him nervously.

  “Well, the good news is, they say the water’s finally coming down. They’ll be able to close those spillway intakes.”

  “What a relief,” I said. “It’s so great to hear you say that.”

  Troy added, “Our takeout is tomorrow—we’ve been stressin’ all the way down the river, not knowing what to expect.”

  “You aren’t the only ones, I can tell you that. You know, this could have been a lot worse. For a while there, rumor had it that the boys at the dam almost lost their whole herd of horses—I’m talking about Lake Powell.”

  “Like how do you mean?” Troy asked.

  “Talk was, the whole reservoir could’ve drained through the new routes the river was gouging out of the spillway tunnels.”

  I was only beginning to comprehend. “What would that have looked like?”

  The boatman shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine. I was picturing a wall of water coming at me high as a ten-story building. So I’m thinking that running Lava at only 90,000—hey, we’re getting away with murder!”

  I managed a chuckle. “We’ll try to look at it that way.”

  “We’ll be waiting below. Don’t worry, just enjoy it.”

  With that, the motor boatman turned and walked down the path toward his boats. Troy and I took our final scout. We knew it was going to be difficult or impossible to see where we were when we got out on the river. The rapid dropped so abruptly, there’d be no seeing over the edge until the last couple of seconds. We studied the riffle line coming off a boulder on river-left, which angled toward the brink at left-center. In the time that we’d have above the brink, we decided, we’d row as far as we could toward that riffle line, but not past it. If we reached it, we’d be set up for a ride down the left side of the tongue.

  We walked back to the boats. It was so hot. I had Adam throw a bail bucket of water on me, and then I took a long drink. I snugged my vinyl gloves down on my fingers. My heart was pumping pure adrenaline.

  The first motor rig started down the river. The man at the motor, the one who’d just confided in us, gave us a little salute. He drove the huge raft out to left-center, where we wanted to get to, and dropped out of sight. Their second raft followed about thirty seconds later.

  We were alone again, but we knew they’d be covering us down below.

  I looked over to Troy. He gave me a thumbs-up. “Good luck, Jessie,” he said.

  “Good luck, Troy. Good luck, you guys.”

  Troy said, “I want to run first just to get it over with. If it’s okay with you.”

  “You got it
,” I told him. “Kit said it all happens in about twenty-five seconds.”

  Troy took about five deep breaths. Then he nodded to Rita to give a push and jump in the boat.

  They were off. Troy was ferrying as hard as he could, to get as far toward our riffle line as possible. I gave him about thirty seconds, and then I nodded for Adam to push us off and jump in. “It’s all yours, river lady,” he said, crouching past me to get to his seat. “Have a good one!”

  I started pulling hard, digging deep, rowing with my whole body. Pulling, pulling, pulling. With a glance over my shoulder, I saw Troy drifting toward the edge, possibly left of center. It didn’t appear that he was going to make it as far left as we’d hoped. If he couldn’t get that far over, I knew I couldn’t.

  With my peripheral vision I saw him disappear. I was still trying to get as far over as I could. Finally, midriver, I reached a place where it was useless to pull against the current. It was sweeping right, and we were on the verge of going over the brink, anyway. I pivoted the boat to face our bow downstream, and I let the current take us.

  At last I could see. Just before we went over the edge, I could see that we were going to head down the right side of the tongue. It wasn’t where I’d wanted to be. I saw that we were about to drop over a submerged ledge under the brink. It was going to have some snap to it. “Hang on!” I yelled as we went over the edge into the maw of the Thunder.

  It was so steep, almost like we were in free fall. I braced for the snap and raised the oar blades high as we dropped into the ledge. I got thrown back by the jolt but held on to the oars and sat upright as we plunged on down the tongue toward the whitewater. As we hit the first whitewater, Star and Adam and the entire front of the boat disappeared in the deluge.

  It was all exploding whitewater, towering whitewater, breaking from both sides. My oar blades caught the brunt of the turbulence and my arms flew forward as I instinctively tried to hang on to the oars. My arms would have been yanked from my shoulders if I’d hung on any longer, not that I could. The oars went flying out of control just as a wave from the right broke on me.