Downriver

by Will Hobbs

  We started back to camp. “What a night,” I said.

  Ahead we could see a little fire going. It made a cheerful sight.

  // 9

  Freddy was sitting by the campfire and cradling a steaming cup of coffee in his hands. “Care for some?” he asked, and then fetched cups for us out of the kitchen box. “Got a few grounds,” he cautioned. The three of us sat around for almost an hour drinking coffee and watching the glow on the canyon walls turn a richer and richer gold while waiting for the others to get up. We didn’t talk much, but Freddy was easy to be around. He and Star were talking about birds, and it was interesting. Freddy was saying he mostly knew about birds in the mountains. I was looking across the river, and I noticed that the water level had dropped drastically overnight. The river had an ugly bathtub ring of mud and rocks maybe twelve feet high. “The river sure has gone down,” I remarked.

  “A lot,” Freddy agreed. “You want to see something?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  “It isn’t very pretty.”

  He led us over to where the boats were tied. They were a startling sight, hanging almost vertically from their ropes. It looked as if someone had pulled the plug on the river. “I tried to lower them,” Freddy said, “but they’re hung up on those rocks. I hope nothing fell out.”

  After everybody else was up, we clustered on the top of the bank and talked about our predicament. It turned out we lost the spare paddle and the spare life jacket. They weren’t tied down and they’d simply fallen off the back of the gear boat. We agreed we weren’t going to leave the boats on a drop-off again, and we heaped abuse on the engineers at the dam who jerk the river up and down, depending, we concluded, on how much electricity they want to generate at any given time. We talked about what we were going to do about it: wait for the river to rise or work like slaves to free the boats. We went to work. The water level, we noticed as we were standing there talking, was still going down.

  At last we were floating in the sunshine once again. Troy had his shirt off and I was sitting on the gear lashed behind him, chattering away and massaging his shoulders with lotion. “It could have been worse,” I was saying.

  “I just hope they hang on to their paddles.”

  “We still have mine, which makes an extra.”

  I jumped to the front as we approached a rapid. We ran it and then a second with no problem at all. The paddle raft was sticking close, and they were doing fine too. Adam had given the rudder position and the captainship over to Freddy, who was a natural.

  Ahead on the right side an amazing sight came into view: bright green hanging gardens and two waterfalls bursting out of caves in the cliff. Troy and I were first to see them, and we shared the moment. “I can’t believe this,” I said. “What a paradise!”

  Troy nodded proudly and rowed for the shore.

  We parked at the foot of the oasis where the cave-fed creek met the river, and we all hiked up to the foot of the falls. Most of us hiked up and around, but Pug, who was eager to join us, came charging right up through the greenery like a rogue elephant. Freddy hollered down that he thought that stuff might be poison ivy. Freddy’s warning slowed Pug’s rampage for about two seconds, and then he came on through.

  Adam, who was as nimble as those ninja warriors he so admired, soon scrambled up the steplike terraces high into the waterfall and actually gained the mouth of the caves. Freddy quickly joined him. It was quite a sight to see those two standing up there. Adam actually squeezed into one of the caves alongside the jet of water. One slip, I’m sure, and he would have been jetted onto the slippery stairs and all the way down to where we were standing.

  Star and I climbed halfway up to the cave, where the falls fanned out onto the stairs, and we sat on moss-covered benches in the rippling water. Alongside us a world of ferns and wildflowers took in the spray. It seemed like a glorious way to live. I said to Star, “If I were to be reincarnated as a plant, I wouldn’t mind living right here. And look at the view!”

  At the foot of the falls was a small pool, and four of us took turns sitting in it and letting the little creek pound on our shoulders while we waited for Freddy and Adam to come down. Pug was off to the side, sitting atop a boulder, looking worried and starting to scratch.

  Back on the river, we floated below the mouth of a large cave perched at about the same level as those that spouted the falls, and Adam had us all quickly paddling for shore. He was sure we could get up there, and he was sure the cave mouth was a mere doorstep to a fabulous network of caverns.

  Out came the ropes. The idea was, everybody was supposed to get up to the cave and explore it. Adam was certain we could all do it. He kept pointing out the route. “There’s only one rough spot. Freddy or I can go up with the rope.”

  I was thrilled, of course, remembering my most recent climbing adventure. Adam came over and lobbied me pretty hard. I started out with the rest. Only Star stayed behind. I went along, not because of Adam’s persuasion, but because I knew I had a hang-up to get over. Maybe even more than that, because I didn’t want to miss anything.

  We got up there all right, every one of us. With Adam and Freddy up above, and Troy giving me an assist from below, I made it up the rope, and this time I remembered Freddy’s advice on Storm King: “Jessie, don’t look down.”

  It was quite a feeling, and an accomplishment, to stand in the mouth of that cave. I felt pretty good about myself. I waved to Star down by the boats, and she waved back. As we stood there another group floated by—three boats. They saw us up there, and they hollered their appreciation. People in their twenties and thirties, it looked like. They sure weren’t nosy or suspicious about us. Maybe from that distance they couldn’t tell how young we were. Soon their boats were tiny in the distance and drifting around the bend. “Perfect timing,” Troy said. “We didn’t have to visit with them.”

  Everybody started talking about Heather, wondering if she’d squealed on us. “Maybe not,” Troy said. “Looks like we’re in the clear.”

  Pug was scratching away at the rising rash on his arms, neck, and face. “Don’t scratch it,” Troy told him. “You’ll make it worse.”

  We turned to explore the cave. It wasn’t Carlsbad Caverns, but then we never got to the end of it, either. We came to a big room full of fountains of stone, and we stopped there and poked around. On a wall, my flashlight illuminated patterns—handprints. “Over here,” I said. There were dozens of them, a deep red, some apparently made by pressing a hand dipped in pigment against the wall, and some made by pigment blown everywhere but where the hand was. I knew how they were made; my dad had explained it to me.

  “Cavemen,” Rita said. “Incredible!”

  “Check out the gazelles,” Troy said, discovering a parade of horned animals farther down the wall.

  Bighorn sheep, I realized. I saw Freddy smiling. He and I were both from this part of the country. Rock art like this was quite common, the work of Anasazi cliff dwellers from about a thousand years ago. He gave me a little wink, and neither of us corrected Troy about his gazelles.

  On the way down from the mouth of the cave, Adam, in his casual manner, got a little careless and kicked a rock loose, a small but hardly harmless rock. It caught Rita, who was just below him, right on the scalp line and opened up a gusher of a head wound. In an instant the fun was over. This was going to be serious.

  I’d barely come down, and was standing with Troy at the base of the drop when Rita was hit. She was still on the rope. The rock could just as easily have sailed by her and struck me or Troy. Rita clung to the rope as blood ran down her face and onto her T-shirt. She cursed up at Adam and he said lamely, “Sorry.” She cursed him again, and then dropped beside me. I grabbed her legs as she was falling and hung on to her. Her blood was getting all over me too. It was frightening how much blood there was. Rita was so scared, she didn’t know what to do, and I sat her down fast and pressed the palm of my hand hard against the wound to stop the bleeding. “I need something—I need a co
mpress,” I told Troy, and he mumbled, “I can’t stand the sight of blood.”

  Adam, who was watching from above, whipped off his T-shirt, tore out a patch of material, and tossed it down to me. Troy was already on his way down to the boats. I couldn’t believe he was just going to walk off like that, but that’s what he did. I walked Rita slowly down to the boats, holding the compress tightly against her head. Her blood was all caked in her thick black hair, and she looked a mess. Her olive complexion had gone white. “We need to do something,” I said to Freddy, who was springing off the gear boat with the rocket box marked FIRST AID. None of us had even looked in it before. “Lemme see how bad,” he said, and I lifted the compress so he could see. The wound started bleeding again, but not as badly as before.

  I said, “I don’t know what kind of bandage would work.”

  “Needs stitches,” Freddy said.

  “Stitches!” Rita yelled. “You gotta be kidding!”

  She started to swoon. I had her sit down. “Freddy,” I said, “on the inside of the lid—see if it says anything about stitches on the list.”

  Freddy was looking at the paper, but he wasn’t even focusing. Was he going to be useless too? “What’s the matter?” I said impatiently. “Does it have stitches or not?”

  “I can’t read very good,” he said quietly. He looked away. I’d made him feel ashamed. I had no idea. . . .

  “I’m sorry,” I said, and asked him to hold the compress while I read Al’s typewritten and laminated list on the inside of the lid. “Suture kit,” I called out, and started hunting for it. “Now where does that get us? I’ve never done stitches.”

  Everybody was crowding around by this time, except for Troy, who was hanging back. He looked as pale as Rita. I guess it was true what he said about how he couldn’t take the sight of blood. Me, on the other hand, I’d make a pretty good emergency nurse, if I knew anything, that is.

  “I can do it,” Freddy said.

  Nobody was going to take the job away from him.

  “Are you sure?” Rita said. “Don’t I get a shot or anything?”

  “Good question,” I said, and looked through the list hoping to find some kind of local anesthetic. No such luck. Apparently Al wasn’t a practitioner of painless surgery.

  The cut was right on Rita’s hairline. Freddy called for a razor, soap and water, and peroxide. Adam had recovered enough to hang around and banter with Rita, who was starting to enjoy being the center of attention, now that she could see she wasn’t going to drop dead.

  When Freddy was set, Adam yelled, “Hold everything,” then scurried along the waterline and came running back with a small driftwood stick. “For her to bite on,” he explained. “Like in the movies.”

  Up close, I watched Freddy sew as Rita stifled the screams. She bit down hard on that stick, tears running down her face. Pug was holding her head still, and was clearly enjoying the job.

  Freddy’s fingers were quick and deft. It was obvious he knew what he was doing. He made one stitch, toward one end of the cut, and then tied it with a twist of the needle pliers. Then he did a stitch at the other end. “I would’ve thought you sewed like you do with clothes,” I remarked. “You know, around and around with the same thread. How come you know how to do this?”

  He smiled. “Oh, I’ve sewed up plenty of sheep.”

  At that the driftwood stick went flying from Rita’s mouth, and everybody was laughing. “Sheep! He’s sewed up sheep! I am not a sheep!”

  One more stitch in the middle, and Freddy was done. Rita fought her way free of Pug’s embrace and ran after Adam, who was blatting at her in an uncannily sheeplike manner. “Come back here, you ninja assassin scumbag!”

  It was midafternoon already. We ate lunch, and there was talk about camping as soon as possible. Nobody really wanted to press on, even if we hadn’t covered our miles for the day; we’d make them up tomorrow. Before long we came to an immense overhang on river left. We beached and ran up under that roof. The cavern was like a domed stadium, with a playing surface of fine sand. The ever-playful Adam sprinted back to the boats and returned with a pie plate to toss around. We quickly agreed that we’d never find a better camp.

  We threw the pie tin around until we were exhausted from all the running. Even Star joined in for a little bit, though she couldn’t really throw or catch very well. It was good to see she was feeling better, and focusing again.

  After a while Star and Rita and I drifted way down to the end of the cavern along the waterline. We had a project—getting Rita cleaned up and back to normal. Now that the emergency had passed she was pretty distressed about her appearance. With all the dried blood on her face and in her hair, she did look like a massacre victim.

  It took quite a bit of my bottle of shampoo and a lot of careful work around the stitched cut to restore her hair to normal. She had such thick, black hair, and it was all matted together, almost glued. My fingers worked the suds in while Star poured water gently from a bail bucket. We even gave Rita the creme rinse treatment after the shampoo. Rita really settled down. I wouldn’t have thought, as perpetually hyperactive as she was, that she had it in her to sit still like this. The way the three of us were, it was almost as if we were performing a ritual, and Rita felt very soothed by it all.

  Now if we could just keep her hair from getting into the stitches while the cut was healing. “A French braid,” I thought aloud. “Rita, how would you like your hair in a French braid? I can do it, and I think it would look really nice.”

  For once, Rita didn’t seem to know what to say. I’ll bet she never had anyone fussing over her hair before. I didn’t wait for an answer, just started parting her thick hair into sections and braiding it. Not too tight, I told myself, so it doesn’t pull on the cut and the stitches. We were sitting a few feet back from the water, in the warmth of the sunshine, and feeling good. Star left for a few minutes and then returned with her Tarot deck. As I was braiding Rita’s hair, the wildwoman closed her eyes, faced the sun, and discovered the power of meditation for what I would guess was the first time in her life. Star spread out her blue silk scarf a little way down the beach, scribbled a question on her notepad, and slowly began to lay out the cards.

  None of the three of us spoke. Rhythmically braiding Rita’s hair, I’d glance from Star to the river, to the cliffs, and back to Star. The song of the canyon wren was there with us, water and music blended together and piped from the throat of that nondescript little bird. Such an ordinary-looking bird, I thought, to give voice to the essence of the canyon. The reflections, the subtle lapping of the calm water against the margins of the river, the crystalline quality of the light in the pure, dry air—all of it was expressed in that falling stream of droplets that was the canyon wren’s song. Whatever happens downstream, I thought, this beauty right here, right now, makes it all worthwhile.

  The moment took me back to times with my dad. There’d been times like this one, more than a few. One I’ll never forget was when we watched a sunset from the top of one of Colorado’s fourteen-thousand-foot peaks, Mount Wilson, and we saw those hundreds and hundreds of peaks in the Uncompahgre and the San Juans all bathed in that glowing light. I found myself wishing my dad could be on the river with me, that it could be like it was in the years before it all got so confusing. He would appreciate it so much. Gone are the days, I thought. I wonder if I’ll ever share those feelings with my dad again, now that he has Madeline.

  I’d finished braiding Rita’s hair. My hands were still. She really looked pretty with her hair pulled back like that. Neither of us spoke for a while, and then she said, “Thanks, Jessie,” and got up and wandered back to the kitchen, where almost miraculously the guys were cooking dinner all by themselves. I went over and sat by Star, and looked at all the pretty cards laid out in front of her. The sunlight had left the beach and goose bumps were popping up on my arms. Star turned to me with a look of relief. “What is it, Star?” I asked. “What’s the Outcome?”

  With a deligh
ted look on her face, she held up a card that said, THE STAR. It depicted a young girl pouring water from two vases, one into a clear pool, and one onto the shore. In the background was a ring of stars encircling one large star. “Pretty special,” I said. “What does the Star mean?”

  “Inspiration and hope—spiritual gifts.”

  “Good,” I said. “I’m so pleased for you.” I was happy to have Star feeling better, even if it took the cards. Good thing she hadn’t thrown some awful, scary reading.

  The guys were beating the propane bottle with the crescent wrench, our dinner bell as it were, and Pug was hollering at us for good measure in the voice of a little boy who’s discovered himself doing something good and was anxious to have admiration heaped upon him. I’d be happy to oblige. I was hungry.

  As I was getting up I noticed a bright star rising on the horizon, encircled with companions. “Look, Star! Especially for you.”

  That night everybody sat around a bonfire of driftwood, enjoying the glowing warmth of the flames. We talked and we laughed, we heard a few stories. Adam was a master storyteller, mostly of autobiographical tales. I wasn’t doing much talking. I was with Troy, leaning back against him and enjoying the feel of his arms around me. Troy and I stayed, talking softly, long after everyone else drifted away. I asked him what it was like going to private schools back East. He told me he’d been kicked out of the last three, for not following the rules and showing other kids they didn’t have to, either. “I’m so tired of all that,” he said. “I want to get on with my life.” At his last school, the one where he was before he came to Hoods in the Woods, he lasted only two weeks. I got the feeling something more serious had happened there, but he didn’t elaborate, so I let it drop. Our whispering meandered into the night along happier paths, until finally we weren’t speaking at all. There was just the sound of the river, that incredible starry sky, and us. The King of Hearts . . . the cards were right.