Downriver

by Will Hobbs

  “Stretch yourself!” Adam repeated, marveling over the phrase like it was a work of art. “Go stretch yourself.”

  “You know what I’m talking about, Adam,” Al said defensively.

  “Sure. Stretching is torture and torture is good. Torture is the way to enlightenment—ancient marine wisdom.”

  Pug’s ears perked up. I could tell it was either torture or the marines that had him excited, probably both.

  “Naw, let’s not call it torture,” Al said, the knowing grin returning to his face. “How about, ‘wilderness therapy’?”

  “Wil-der-ness ther-a-py,” Adam chanted. “I like the sound of it. Lots of stretching involved in that ‘wilderness therapy,’ I bet.”

  Pug wasn’t following closely. “I think we should fight the Vietnam War over again, and win it this time.”

  This wasn’t the first time he’d pestered Al about Vietnam. He couldn’t stand it that Al wasn’t gung-ho, especially considering he’d actually been there and fought in combat.

  “You’d have to kill most of the civilian population,” Al said.

  “Fine with me,” Pug snorted. “Waste ’em all and let God sort ’em out.”

  // 4

  The first thing I did when we got to base camp was race into my cabin and look in the mirror. It was much worse than I’d even guessed. My hair was all plastered down, my face was a total mess. There was a big smudge on my cheek, where I’d touched my face, from the black that comes off the cooking pots. Star came in behind me and smiled as she saw me looking in the mirror. “I can’t believe it,” I said. “Tell me if I ever look this bad again, okay? I can’t wait to get into the shower.”

  “Me too. Rita and Heather said to tell you that the guys are building the fire in the boiler, and they’re planning on getting into the shower first.”

  “How unchivalrous! I mean, we’ve been out in the rain for a week and none of us complained about suffering along with the guys, but I really wouldn’t mind a little inequality just once, like now, when it comes to the showers.”

  “That’s what Rita and Heather thought. They said we’ll sneak in right before them.”

  “All right! Are you with us?”

  “Sure.”

  Star and I got our kindling fired up in the little potbelly stove, and started stoking it with wood we’d split and kept dry while we were gone, in anticipation of this moment. Pretty soon the cabin was toasty hot. Across from us, Heather had her cabin’s chimney puffing, while Rita staked out the showerhouse. She watched as Pug came and went, restoking his fire in the boiler and testing the temperature of the water. After hollering “Almost!” to Adam, who was out in front of his cabin chopping wood, Pug disappeared into the cabin he shared with Troy. Freddy was nowhere around. At Rita’s signal we sneaked around the back of the showerhouse. Each time Adam raised the axe over his head and concentrated on his target, one of us would dart inside, laden with clean clothes and towels and all the soap, shampoo, conditioners, and lotions we could carry.

  The water was plenty hot. It was exquisitely hot. I don’t think I ever felt so good in my whole life as I did letting it pound on my sore shoulders. We were all shrieking with the pure pleasure of it and the joyous sight of the week’s grime heading for the drain. I shampooed again and again, I scrubbed and scrubbed, I let the hot water play all over my back. “Hot stuff!” Rita was hollering. “We’re hot stuff! Mountain girls!”

  The hot water was running out as we heard voices suddenly snickering in the changing room, and then the outside door banged, and Pug and Adam were whooping it up. We looked at each other, suddenly realizing our predicament, and Heather said, “Uh-oh.”

  “You guys give us those clothes back,” Rita screamed, “or you’re gonna be sorrier than sorry.”

  Pug was laughing his head off. I could picture him well enough, with all our clean stuff balled up in his huge, grimy grasp.

  “What’ll you give us for ’em?” Adam wanted to know.

  By now I could hear Troy’s laugh along with theirs. For a second I thought of appealing to him, but I knew I shouldn’t.

  “Give ’em back right now and we won’t rip your faces off,” Rita declared.

  “You’re going to have to do better than that. You girls have committed a heinous crime, and now you’re going to have to pay!”

  “State your terms,” I shouted.

  “Ah,” Adam replied merrily, “the voice of reason . . . Let’s parley, mates.”

  They had their parley. It was a spirited debate. We could hear only snatches of it, and most of those I wouldn’t care to repeat.

  “Hurry up!” Heather wailed. “We’re completely out of hot water . . . it’s cold in here!”

  “Too . . . bad. . . .”

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” Adam intoned, “the terms are as follows: It’s Troy’s and my turn to cook tonight. We return your stuff if Rita cooks that same lasagna she did before we went out on the hike.”

  “Deal!” Rita shouted. “Hey, I love to cook.” Then she turned to us and whispered, “You watch. Where I come from we don’t get mad, we get even.”

  Back in our cabin, Star and I stoked the fire and sat with our backs to the stove, drying our hair. Mine dried first—it’s shoulder length, and not as thick as Star’s, either. I brushed Star’s out for her, and as we talked, I found myself telling her how I’d been thinking about calling my father, but now I wasn’t going to. “I can’t believe he’s marrying a lawyer,” I said. “She seems so different from him. And she’s a lot younger than he is—she’s only thirty-four. My dad is forty-five.”

  Star didn’t comment. I had the sudden insight that I was telling a homeless girl about my home.

  “I was really scared up there, when I fell,” I said.

  “You were brave.”

  I laughed. “Sure.”

  “No, really, you went first, with Freddy. That peak was swirling with negative energy.”

  “It was, wasn’t it? I felt like I got hit by a train. And could you believe Al, the line he was feeding me? After he almost got me killed?”

  Star got up, took the crystal from the pendant around her neck, and offered it to me. “If you lie back, put this on your forehead, and think positive, your anger will leave you.”

  I set the brush aside. “Sure,” I said with a little laugh, “why not?”

  Star walked lightly as ever over to her bed. Her reddish-brown hair fell halfway to her waist. Freshly washed and brushed, it was beautiful. On her left hand and right ankle she wore those colorful woven “friendship bracelets.”

  I lay back on my bed with the crystal on my forehead, smiled a little to myself, and rested. Star brought out a small wooden box, the kind you might find in Mexico, from among her things. I’d never seen it before. One of her secrets. “What’s in it?” I asked.

  “The Royal Road of Tarot.”

  I sat up. “Tarot cards? I’ve heard of them, but I’ve never seen them.”

  “I thought you might be a person who is open to what the Tarot can offer.”

  “I need some kind of help. I feel like a wreck.”

  “Let’s sit on the floor. The floor would be best.”

  “How come?”

  “Wood enhances the spirit of the cards and shields them from negative vibrations. That’s why I keep them in this wooden box.”

  We sat side by side on the floor. Star gently lifted the lid of the box and removed a silk-wrapped bundle.

  “What pretty silk,” I remarked, and touched it. It felt lovely.

  “Silver for my soul color. Silver is the color of starlight.”

  “Did your parents name you ‘Star’?”

  “No,” she said calmly. “I did.”

  I wasn’t sure if I should press her to talk about her past, so I let the moment go, but I felt closer to her. She was right about her “soul color,” I thought. Wispy silver, fragile and ethereal, like herself. I felt like it was an honor to have her pull out her cards for me and tell me about her so
ul color. I wondered why someone so gentle could have been left homeless. I wondered, too, about the horrible things I’d heard that happen to homeless girls on the streets. Could Star have been through things like that?

  She unwound the silk wrapping from the cards and handed them to me. “Shuffle them,” she said. As I was doing so, she spread a royal blue silk cloth out on the floor.

  When I had shuffled them three times, she said that it was enough. She took a small notepad and pencil from the wooden box and handed them to me. “Write out your question,” she said.

  “Me? What question?”

  “Whatever you want to know,” Star said softly. “Or if you don’t have a specific question, just write, ‘Wisdom of the Tarot.’”

  I felt a little strange. I wrote, “Wisdom of the Tarot,” whatever that means.

  “Concentrate on the paper, and the question will absorb the energy of the deck.”

  Star began to lay out the cards. “This is called the Celtic Cross. This first card, the Nine of Pentacles, helps me to understand your state of mind. This next card, the Magician, can be either good or bad. We’ll need to see first how the other cards come up. The Four of Cups tells how your past is affecting you right now. The Five of Swords is your past. The King of Cups could come into your life. The Wheel—”

  I was fascinated. “What are ‘cups’?” I interrupted. “What are ‘pentacles’?”

  “Cups are like hearts in a regular deck of cards. But wait—we have to finish laying out all ten before we can interpret. Close your eyes, Jessie, and tune in to your higher self. Let your inner eye see the cards. Now, the seventh card . . . the Wheel of Fortune represents your negative feelings. The Sun represents the feelings of those around you. The King of Cups represents your own positive feelings, and the Eight of Cups is the outcome.”

  “Can I open my eyes?”

  “Sure.”

  The cards were pretty to look at, exotic human figures and strange symbols. “Well?” I asked expectantly.

  Star smiled. “Lots of cups, Jessie.”

  “So what are ‘cups’?”

  “Love and happiness. Like hearts, remember?”

  “Oh, good. Tell me more.”

  “Five out of ten cards are cups. That’s pretty unusual. Love and happiness, then, is the center of your reading.”

  “Is that all?”

  “Except that the King of Cups here is in the reverse position. That means you are open to a new relationship.”

  “Sounds good to me,” I giggled. “The King of Hearts. Think it could be anybody we know?”

  The dinner gong was sounding. That meant we had to get to the dining hall quickly, or Pug would eat all the food. “Quick,” I said. “Let’s go.”

  I was pulling on my sweater and was halfway out the door. Star was still sitting cross-legged on the floor, looking perplexed that I’d want to run out in the middle of our reading. “I’m starving,” I explained. “Is there something more?”

  “Your wish will not come to fulfillment at this time.”

  “Darn!” I said. “C’mon, Star, let’s eat.”

  We ran over to the dining hall. Rita was serving her lasagna buffet-style. She’d baked it in two casserole dishes, and as she set them out at some distance from each other, she shouted that the smaller one was for the girls and the larger one for the guys.

  “How considerate,” Adam said, in a mock British accent.

  First in line, Pug was delighted, and dished up even more for himself than usual.

  We served ourselves and sat down at the big table. Freddy was back. I noticed him glancing at me, just a glance, and when he saw me notice him he looked away. The place was buzzing. A genuine hot meal, and everyone knew in advance it was going to be world-class.

  As Troy sat down next to me, he said, “Feeling good?”

  “I sure am,” I said. “I feel great.”

  “Good.”

  I took a bite of Rita’s lasagna. It was delicious. I felt warm and good. I thought about my Tarot reading and smiled to myself. I wondered how Troy fit into my “love and happiness.” I might be open to a new relationship—the cards were right about that. The cards must always be right, I thought, like fortune cookies. Really they could apply to anything. But I wouldn’t tell Star how skeptical I was. The cards were fun, anyway, and gave you a lot to think about. What about Troy? I wondered. Was he the King of Hearts?

  All of a sudden, there was pandemonium. Troy was gagging, and so was Adam. Pug was shoveling the lasagna down so fast, he hadn’t realized there was a problem, but now he did—he spit out what was in his mouth.

  Adam said, “Try a little garlic next time, Rita.”

  Rita sprang to her feet and raised a fist in triumph. “Gotcha!”

  “Got me too,” Al muttered.

  I tried a little bit of Troy’s lasagna. It was unbelievable. A half-dozen garlic bulbs—not cloves—must’ve gone into the guys’ casserole. The one for the girls tasted just great.

  Al didn’t look too happy. He was hungry. But what was he going to do about it?

  “Check out Freddy,” Pug said.

  Freddy was eating away like nothing was wrong. His plateful of lasagna was half gone.

  Heather tried a bit of his, and said, “‘Try a little garlic’ is right. How can you eat that?”

  He shrugged, and flashed his smile. He had the most beautiful teeth. “Pretty good. Kills worms, too, I bet.”

  Everybody laughed, and the way it ended up, it turned into a macho contest. The guys cleaned their plates, even Al. Adam was going around to each of the girls with his lips out like a goldfish, saying, “Give us a kiss, give us a kiss.”

  After dinner we were supposed to be making plans for running the San Juan River. The girls were off to one side, keeping their distance from the garlic victims. Everybody was complaining that there wouldn’t be any rapids on the San Juan. “We all want to do a white-water river, Al,” I said.

  “I’ve been looking into that,” Al said, with a grin.

  “And? . . .” asked Troy.

  “It’s hard to find white water this late in the year,” Al explained, “but with the recent rains, the Colorado River is running high in Westwater Canyon, below Grand Junction and just across the Utah line. Ten thousand cubic feet per second—I called and checked. That’s a great level for Westwater. Before we do our long trip on the San Juan, we can train on some prime white water on the Colorado. Westwater is a one-day stretch, but we could camp there for three or four days and just keep running it over and over.”

  “Is it very . . . rough?” Heather asked.

  “There’s a rapid in there that, at some water levels, is rated a ten on a ten-scale. It’s called Skull, and it can be just as nasty as Crystal or Lava Falls.”

  “I’ve heard those names,” said Troy. “They’re in the Grand Canyon.”

  “So why don’t we just run the Grand Canyon?” Rita shouted. “We’ll kick its butt.”

  “Yeah, right,” Al said with an appreciative smile. “Well, among other considerations, we can’t get a permit for the Grand, but we can pick one up for Westwater on the spot. I promise it’ll knock your socks off.”

  Adam couldn’t help himself. In a perfect mother impersonation, he said, “Bring lots of extra socks, everybody.”

  // 5

  Al had been right about Westwater. It knocked our socks off. We were still talking about it as we approached the San Juan River. Al was driving slowly because we were pulling the heavy trailer with gear for a ten-day float. We were suffering from white-water withdrawal. “Skull was awesome,” Adam was saying. “I’ll never forget it. Especially the look on everybody’s face when we dropped into the hole.”

  “I was too busy paddling to notice,” Rita shouted. “Maybe if Redhead here was paddling instead of messing around, we wouldn’t have gone into the hole. Al missed it by a mile with his raft.”

  “Your mother . . . ,” Adam teased.

  Rita reached out and grabbed Adam�
�s T-shirt by the neck, and pulled him toward her. “—wears ordinary women’s shoes, and if you say anything different . . .”

  “Al was rowing, not paddling,” Troy said. “You have more control with those oars than with a bunch of paddles.”

  “The part I liked best,” Adam said merrily, “was the Room of Doom. We almost got sucked in there the first day. Around and around you go, and you can’t get out. That would’ve been interesting—floating around all day with that dead cow.”

  Pug was chortling. “The part I liked best was when Heather went flying, like she was shot out of a gun. And the look on her face when she was suddenly out in the river.”

  Riding shotgun in the van, Heather rolled her head and groaned. It wasn’t a pleasant memory, I’m sure. When we dropped into that hole in Skull Rapid, in Westwater Canyon, the boat folded like a sandwich made from one slice of bread. Everybody crashed into each other, and when the boat sprang back to its normal length, it catapulted her out just the way Pug said, as if she’d been shot from a cannon. But that wasn’t the worst part. She was caught in the hole, and the white water recirculated her over and over before spitting her out. It must have felt like she was in a cross between a washing machine and a garbage disposal.

  Once Heather was rescued, she lost it, got really hysterical. It wasn’t pretty to watch. Star and I helped settle her down. After that, the fear never left her eyes. That happened on our first day on Westwater, and then she wouldn’t get back on the water for our second and third runs, no matter how much Al counseled her about “getting back on the horse.” She stayed by the van and waited for us.

  After our last run through Westwater Canyon, we spent a couple of hours loading the boats with all the overnight gear we’d need for three more days of flat floating downstream, all the way to Moab, Utah. Heather got back on board after Al promised it would all be flat. It was. Pretty in stretches, with red cliffs along the river and snow-covered mountains in the background, but it wasn’t white water.