by Pam Withers
I study the big white eye in the sky and notice how mottled its luminescent surface is. A cloud scuttles across its lower face, hiding what seems for a second like a smirk.
“You canoe a lot with your parents?”
“Since I was too young to remember,” Herb replies. “But they never let me do any big whitewater. They’re total control freaks and still treat me like I’m a kid.”
“I know the feeling.”
“Your parents are overprotective?”
“No, the opposite. They’re always finding ways to get rid of me so they can fit in a few more hours of work. They haven’t figured out that I’ve grown up while they’ve been busy being workaholics.”
“So that’s why you hate Camp Wild? ‘Cause they dump you here?”
“Something like that.”
“How often have you canoed river rapids?”
“Spent two intense weeks in a whitewater canoeing course my parents signed me up for. I can handle the canyon coming up, if that’s what you’re asking.” I hope, anyway.
We both jump as a splash sounds nearby. Herb flicks his flashlight on just in time to see a tail disappear.
“River otter,” he observes. “Listen.”
My ears perk up. I can hear fast moving water. I can feel the canoe picking up speed. I reach out, draw a wide sweep stroke and begin pumping for shore. Herb is several strokes ahead of me. Everything happens fast after that. A cloud blots out the moon. I hear Herb leap into the water and haul his boat up to shore with a giant heave. Then, just as I realize I’ve missed the last easy eddy to catch, I hear a splash and feel my canoe being hauled to safety by Herb’s shadowy figure.
Okay, I take it back. He’s not geeky and lumpy and useless. Well, he is, but not when there’s a canoe in the vicinity. As we hide the canoes and bed down in the dark forest, I secretly decide not to ditch him till we’re through the whitewater.
“Wilf?” he says as I’m drifting off to sleep.
“Yeah?”
“This is fun. I’m glad you decided to run away.”
“Uh huh. Good night, Herb.” Thankfully, no bunk bed shakes as he turns over and starts snoring.
chapter seven
“Herb, wake up.” The dew is so heavy on his sleeping bag that my hand gets wet shaking him. He sits upright. His sleepy eyes take in the dawn. Mickey Mouse confirms that it’s nearly six AM.
“Got to get into the canyon before anyone figures out we’re gone,” I urge. “I don’t think they’ll follow us past the canyon entrance.”
“I agree,” he says groggily.
We munch on some chocolate bars and drink heavily from our water bottles. We pack up our gear and stow it, carefully balanced, in our canoes. We’ve divided the food supplies between us in case one of us tips and loses his boat. I shiver in the weak morning light as I don my wetsuit and scout the first rapid. No big deal. Just a little maneuvering, I decide.
I lash the extra paddle in place and mutely apologize to Camp Wild for taking off with all this equipment. But hey, it’ll all be back on the racks soon. Anyway, I’m a paying customer at the camp, just on a sort of “independent study program” at the moment.
Herb is coiling his rescue rope into its special bag and placing it within easy reach. I wanted to do this trip alone, but for the moment, I’m vaguely glad of his presence.
We push off and suddenly, I’m too busy to think of anything but how to keep my canoe upright and undented. River boulders start coming at us like a horizontal meteor shower. J-stroke, sweep, crossbow. Sweep, draw, breathe. For half an hour, we slalom through the rock gardens, too distracted to enjoy their beauty. There’s an occasional bang or scrape in shallow stretches, but no one is getting stuck or tipped or panicked, yet. The rescue ropes lie unused. My confidence is building. This is the life, I decide, pitting oneself against nature. I watch the sun rise over three-storey trees. Down the shore, startled deer raise their antlered heads and bound away. A silver arch flashes ahead, a fish longer than my arm. Cool. An eagle’s white plumage catches my eye as it tilts overhead like a small plane signaling hello.
Mom and Dad would enjoy this, I reflect. I’ve seen old photos of them canoeing lakes. I guess that was before I was born. Did having a child spoil everything for them? I picture my birth certificate being delivered to them with a telegram that states, Kid, fun or work: Choose two of these three. Reluctantly, they tick off kid and work. A few years later, after they have become successful, a second telegram demands, Now choose one of the two.
“Wilf!” Herb is still leading. Maybe I should take over, but hey, blackmailers don’t deserve any favors. Let him be the first down the rapids, like a miner’s canary.
“What?”
He points ahead. I follow his finger to the granite walls squeezing in. Yup. Our river is feeding us into a roofless tunnel, a gorge that dictates no chance of paddling or walking back upstream, let alone portaging anything tricky. This is a good thing, I remind myself. It makes us safe from pursuit until we hit the lake. At that point, anyone from camp wanting to catch us will be coming from the other direction. On this much Herb and I have agreed.
I glance behind and see nothing but rapids well conquered. I glance ahead and feel my breath catch. Our rock garden appears to be sliding downhill like an avalanche. The river is foaming, pitching and seething as if angry at being bottlenecked between sheer cliffs.
“Whoa,” I tell my canoe. “Slow down.” I don’t think it can hear me, nor do I think it trusts me at the reins. It plunges into the white and starts bucking. I fasten my eyes on a big, calm eddy far below. I dig in and bite my tongue as I fight to reach it. How cold will this water be if I spill in, I wonder. I’m wearing a wet-suit, lifejacket and helmet, but they seem slim protection against what this river is becoming.
Claire said the canyon has rapids non-stop for hours. What chance do Herb and I have of arriving at the falls still in our boats? As I pry my way past a boulder the size of a bulldozer, I decide Clare wasn’t exaggerating about this section being intense. But she and her buddies made it. Doesn’t that mean Herb and I will?
At least it has a few big eddies where we can stop and catch our breath. We grab them the way trapeze artists leap from swing to swing. In these calm patches, we bail water out of our canoes with large cut-off plastic milk jugs, slow our breathing and crane our necks to scout what is coming up next. Once or twice during the first hour, we stop long enough to drink water and congratulate one another on our success so far.
“What’s for lunch?” Herb asks during one such pause.
I dig through the tins and produce two cans of tuna, a can opener and two plastic forks.
“Caught fresh this morning,” I joke. Herb’s mouth is already too full to answer.
Fifteen minutes later, I am watching a mother duck and her ducklings work their way upstream, wishing I had that kind of power in my paddle, when I hear a cry and catch a flash of orange in the whitewater above. Herb and I jump out of our canoes onto a large, flat rock beside us.
“No way,” I mutter in disbelief. It’s Charlie, bobbing behind an empty kayak. We quickly grab our rescue ropes and let fly. The ropes fall close enough to Charlie that he is able to grab them with his free hand. The other hand is applying a death grip to his paddle and stern’s grab loop.
Good boy, I think. You remembered to stay behind your kayak, keep your feet up and hold onto your paddle.
Good boy? More like, What the heck are you doing here? And who else is coming down the river behind you?
“S-s-sorry,” Charlie splutters as Herb and I lift him from the water onto the rock. “I rolled three times, but I just c-c-couldn’t on the last spill.”
Herb and I look at one another. We shade our eyes to look upstream.
“Charlie, are you alone?” Herb asks.
“Yes,” he says as defiantly as a semi-hypothermic ten-year-old can. He’s shivering so hard that his teeth are rattling. I look at his blue hands.
“Out of that wetsui
t, now,” I order. Herb, obviously thinking along the same lines, pulls my sleeping bag from its waterproof bag in the canoe.
Charlie doesn’t argue. He may be a sneak, a thief and a pain, and he may have just jinxed our getaway, but for now, he’s a dangerously cold kid who needs serious warming up. He’s also one heck of a gutsy and competent guy to have gotten this far.
chapter eight
It’s the middle of the afternoon, and I’m peeling lumps of moss off our rock and hurling them into the river impatiently. Herb is babying Charlie, who is curled up in my sleeping bag on the flattest portion of our tiny island. He has stopped shivering. I figure he’s nearly warmed up enough to carry on.
“Sure you don’t need another snack?” Herb asks Charlie. “We have chocolate bars, canned applesauce, even canned chili.” Yeah, thanks to me.
“I’m okay,” Charlie says in a low, flat voice.
“What about another sweater? I brought an extra one.”
“I’m okay,” he says sharply. The flash of defiance is a good sign.
“Whatever made you think you could kayak whitewater like this by yourself, kid?” Herb continues. “Couldn’t you see how dangerous it was? What if we hadn’t been here? You’d have died! Not to mention how upset you’re making everyone back at camp. They know Wilf and I can cope. They’ll go nuts knowing you’ve followed us. Or they’ll think we had something to do with you disappearing.”
Charlie stays silently curled up like a caterpillar on a leaf.
“Wilf, try and tell him how stupid and unsafe this was.”
I shrug. “I never asked either of you to follow me. And I never fooled myself into thinking that it was smart or safe to canoe alone.”
“Yeah, well here we are. None of us can paddle back upstream or climb these cliffs. So what’re we going to do?”
I toss another lump of moss into the water. “I think you just answered that for yourself.”
“Wilf, are you saying Charlie should carry on down with us? He’s not good enough. His swim just proved that.”
“I got down lots of rapids already,” Charlie says, standing up. His eyes flash. “And I rolled three out of four times.”
I reach into my canoe for my waterproof sack and toss it to Charlie. “Back in your wetsuit, Charlie. I don’t care if you ride in Herb’s canoe or if you kayak. I’m outta here.”
Herb’s mouth drops open a little, but Charlie knows I mean it. He’s out of the sleeping bag and into his damp wetsuit and kayak fast. Within minutes, I’m leading, my rage fueling every stroke. Charlie is paddling like a madman to stay on my tail, and Herb is shouting at us to slow down. One big happy family. Every time we stop to rest, Herb’s all over Charlie like a Papa Bear. “Are you okay? Need to rest? Tell me if you want to ditch the kayak and get in my canoe. You aren’t shivering, are you?”
I say nothing. Half the time, I don’t even warn them before I surge on ahead. Charlie’s keeping up amazingly well. He capsizes and rolls once: a good, no-hesitation roll. The one time I see him nearly splat against a rock, he leans into it and pushes away, just like I taught him. He has no right to be with us, but he’s surviving. He deserves to be scared out of his mind, but he shows no fear.
“Charlie, follow the deepest channel in this next rapid,” Herb is shouting from the back. “Don’t forget to accelerate in the big wave at the bottom and don’t get sideways to it, okay? You’re not afraid, are you? Watch out for logs, now.”
I offer neither advice nor encouragement. As far as I’m concerned, it’s every man for himself, and Charlie has opted for manhood. But now and then I wonder what keeps Charlie going: my cold silence and the fear of being left behind or a desire to keep out of earshot of Herb’s nagging. If he or Herb tips into the river, I’ll attempt a rescue, of course. Other than that, I haven’t signed on to be anyone’s lifeguard, friend or coach. This was supposed to be my big solo adventure, my proof that I could live in the wilds on my own. And the wilds are supposed to be quiet, not filled with Herb’s frantic chatter.
Trouble is, Charlie’s unexpected arrival and his close call with hypothermia have set us back a few hours. And even though I’m not slowing down much for my two uninvited companions, I’m not going as fast as I would without them. I’d hoped to make the falls before dark. Now I’m not sure that’s going to happen.
“Guys, don’t forget to keep drinking water,” Herb says as we complete a steep drop. “Otherwise we could get dehydrated. Wilf, better let me lead for awhile.”
“No way.”
“Why not? We’re in this together. We need to change off, keep fresh. Anyway, you’re not being thoughtful of Charlie. He’s not as strong as us. We need to take more breaks.”
“Shut it, Herb. Both of you are gatecrashers on my party. Don’t be anchors too, or I’ll cut the chain.”
“Wilf, you’re being ridiculous...”
And so on, as Charlie keeps tight-lipped and just keeps on paddling. In fact, in the milder rapids’ playful waves, I even detect a smile. He can surf, spin and catch up with us, even if we don’t pause, because his kayak is so much lighter.
I’m selecting eddies I’m sure Charlie can catch. We all hop from one to the next, twisting and turning out of harm’s way in between. Both roller coaster waves that hide what’s coming next and rocks lurking just beneath the surface spell danger. As I complete one particularly hairy rapid successfully, I hear a shout behind me. I turn to see Herb’s canoe thrown precariously against a tall boulder in the middle of the river. He has done the right thing: leaned hard into the rock, but he has lost his paddle in the process. As water pounds into the upstream side of Herb’s canoe, I see the paddle disappear around the river bend below me. Do I chase it, or stand by ready to help? Herb is frantically trying to unleash his spare paddle without upsetting the boat. Charlie enters my eddy safely, concern on his face.
I reach for my rescue rope, hoping I won’t have to use it. Just as Herb frees his spare paddle, a surge of water slams the canoe even harder against the rock. The second paddle drops into the water and slides away as Herb only just manages to steady the now waterlogged boat. He’s at severe risk of sinking and of his canoe wrapping like a dishcloth against the upstream side of the boulder. The boulder itself is too steep for him to climb up onto. In moments, he’ll be in the icy water—or worse, trapped underwater against boat and rock.
I’m still trying to figure out what to do when Charlie sprints out of our eddy with a tidy eleven o’clock angle. He works his way against all odds to the middle of the river, just beneath Herb’s boulder. Then, carrying on to where only a small kayak could maneuver, he reaches the floating spare paddle. He picks it up, makes his way back to below the boulder and throws it upriver to Herb.
Herb, looking relieved, catches it and bails like crazy with his chopped-down milk jug. As Charlie returns to my side, Herb tries a high-risk move. He leans hard against the boulder, and using his hands like claws against it—one still clutching the retrieved paddle—he pulls himself and his canoe past the rock. Then he uses his paddle to brace upright as he slides past his stony captor.
When he finally arrives in our eddy, I let my breath out slowly and raise a hand to lock it on Charlie’s shoulder. “You’re the man,” I say. For the first time since he has joined us, I see him grin from one elfish ear to the other.
chapter nine
Herb and I finally agree on something: We’ll paddle one more rapid before stopping for the night. Deep in the canyon here, the light is growing weak long before actual darkness is ready to set in, but the canyon is beginning to open up in places, allowing access to bits of land level enough that we can camp. I don’t know how close we are to the falls, but I know I don’t want to reach the lip too tired to pull off the quick ferry required to keep from spilling over. Anyway, there’s no way we can complete a complicated portage around the falls before dark. Truth is, I’m pretty bushed. I figure that means Herb and Charlie are too. We’ve come a long way in high-stress conditions. Both C
harlie and Herb have had close calls. I’m happy that I’ve done okay, but the long day has taken its toll.
“Just one more rapid,” Herb is saying to Charlie. “Then we’ll feed our faces and crash in the woods. Way to paddle all this way with your sleeping bag in a dry-bag in your boat. You’re a real organized camper, you know, even if you shouldn’t have come down the canyon. We’ll get you out of here, don’t you worry. But then it’s straight back to camp with you. Your parents are probably having kittens.”
Charlie doesn’t respond. I wonder if Herb’s or my parents are having kittens. I feel a surge of victory for having made mine worry. Or maybe they’re just letting the camp handle it as they fit in a few more business appointments. If they ground me for this, I swear I’ll run away from home for a lot longer. I’ve tasted freedom and tested my limits, and I’m getting stronger and prouder by the minute.
Of course, having Charlie along complicates my plan. Once we’re on the lake, we’ll be spotted and swooped down on for sure. If I can escape these two by then, Herb will do the job of turning Charlie over. Herb himself will be ready to go back by then, I figure. He’s had his bit of fun. Anyway, from the sounds of his parents, they’ll send the army to find their endangered son. I don’t want the army after me.
Maybe I should sprint ahead in this rapid, after all, and then lose them. Maybe I can get around the falls before dark. Without warning, I ferry out into the rapid, which looks like a big one.
“Hey!” Herb calls. “We’re not ready!”
“Catch me if you can,” I reply, but the thunder of the drop probably drowns out my message.
For a few minutes, I’m acing everything. My bow lifts and plunges through the big waves. My eyes are everywhere, sighting the rocks and reversals long before I’m near them. But I don’t count on the one danger every river runner dreads: a submerged log. The bang as I hit it at full speed is sickening. Like a stone in a slingshot, I’m launched out of the canoe and into the drink before I can register a thing. Hours later, I’ll reflect that I was lucky to be ricocheted beyond the log instead of sucked under it. All I know at the time is that my lungs are compressed almost to my backbone by the cold water. I’m gasping, I’m reaching, I’m being carried along by a coffin-shaped pocket of bubbles that turn strange, yellowy colors as my head bobs alternately on top of and then beneath the surface.
