by Will Hobbs
“I can see this one,” Freddy said softly. “I can see how bad it is. And I knew Granite wasn’t a ten. This one’s a ten, and I can see why.”
Troy’s face was all red. “Horn Creek was a ten in that stupid book.”
“Maybe not at the water level we did it at,” I pointed out for the sake of accuracy, and even more because I didn’t want to be silenced. I sure didn’t want to run Crystal. I’d gladly help Freddy haul the stuff around.
Troy turned on me, on everybody. “Look, we’re going to run it, okay.”
“Troy,” I pleaded, “let’s live to run another day.”
“Hey, Jessie,” Pug said. “If Troy says we’re running it, we’re running it. What a bunch of wimps. Professor’s daughter.”
I knew that would come up sometime. I snapped back the last thing I would’ve guessed, and I’m not even sure why. “I’m proud of my father, Pug. And you get out of my face.”
I noticed Adam looking away. This wasn’t his idea of a good time.
“So let’s get started,” Troy said.
“Sorry,” Freddy said. “I’m walkin’. If we lose the boats in there, then what happens to us?”
Only Freddy, I realized, only Freddy would have the courage to stand up to Troy. The rest of us were sheep, and had been, all the way down the river.
I looked to Star—she was plenty relieved too.
“We can carry around and be all ready when you run,” Freddy said helpfully, “in case anything happens.”
“You’re so sure we’re going to flip,” Troy sneered. “You’d love to rescue us, wouldn’t you, Freddy?”
“Wait a minute, Troy,” I said. “I want to get something clear. When you say ‘us,’ I hope you don’t mean me. I’m walking.”
Troy acted like I’d stabbed him in the heart or something. “Well, thanks a lot, Jessie, thanks for the vote of confidence. It’s good to know who your friends are.”
His eyes moved quickly to Pug, then to Adam. “Adam, will you run it with me?”
Adam looked so confused, all out of jokes and looking his age for once, standing there shivering in his suddenly ridiculous ninja suit. Troy’s eyes locked on him; Troy didn’t say another word. Adam’s face ran the gamut of emotions, and then he ended up with a silly little smile. He drew his sword, brandished it menacingly at the rapid, then bowed.
The rain slackened, and we carried the dry bags through the long boulder field down to the surf-lapped beach near the end of the rapid. Trudging back through the boulders, I remembered how the guide said that Crystal never even used to be a rapid. I mentioned it to Freddy as we walked. “Nineteen sixty-six,” I said. “All these boulders were washed into the canyon in one shot.”
Freddy really liked thinking about it. “Those rocks out in the river making those holes,” he said. “Think how big they are—the river can’t budge them, but they washed down this side canyon. Pretty neat.”
Now all we had to do was carry the paddle raft down. Over in the gear boat, Troy and Adam were making sure everything was secured, and were cinching their life jackets one last time. We didn’t talk to them. Obviously they were nervous as could be. Pug stood watching them wistfully, wishing he’d been honored with the invitation that had gone to Adam.
We simply said, “Good luck,” shouldered the paddle raft, and started our portage. As we crossed the creek and started into the boulder field, we heard a shout above the roar of the rapid and we looked upstream to see a brave, remarkable, idiotic sight: Troy at the oars, his boat picking up speed and approaching the rapid on the glassy incline that fed into the tongue. His ninja, jumping up and down in the front of the boat, was holding the bowline with one hand, hollering, and waving his free hand like a bronc rider.
We dropped the boat and scrambled for a better view. Evidently they didn’t think they needed a rescue boat. More glory without us.
Troy was rowing hard, trying to break off the tongue, trying to pull against that current and break over the big wave on the right side of the tongue. He was working . . . working . . . working . . . but he wasn’t making it. At the last second, when he was about to be swept sideways into the jaws of the hole, he spun the boat and took it head on. Amidst the fury of exploding red water, only flashes of them showed. I saw the black ninja suit hurtling the length of the boat, and I saw Troy’s legs directly above the boat, in the air.
A surge lifted the boat up and over the towering wave below the hole. Adam was awash in the river—his hood and mask had been stripped away—and Troy was still in the boat, fighting to regain the oars. The boat dropped sideways into the second hole, and then it flipped.
“Quick!” Freddy yelled, and we jerked the paddle raft over our heads and started stumbling through the boulders. I was breathing hard, falling down, banging my legs. They’re going to die, I thought. What in the world are we doing down here?
Halfway down the carry we spotted the gear boat, overturned and pinned against one of the rocks out in the river. It was stuck out there. No sign of Troy or Adam. “Holy mother,” Rita said. “Holy mother.”
It must have taken fifteen minutes for us to get our boat back in the water. Then we took off, paddling as hard as we could.
We found Troy on the left bank, where he’d crawled out of the water. He was lying facedown on the rocks, breathing hard. Pug said, “Buddy, you don’t look too good.”
“Let’s hurry,” I said. “We still have to find Adam.”
Pug tried to lift Troy. Troy shook him off. “I’m okay, I can get up on my own.” He slowly made his way to the paddle raft and got in.
We could have floated right past Adam. Star saw his head barely above the water on the right shore. He had one arm curled around a rock, his body hugging its downstream side. We were all shouting for joy; but when he saw us, he lacked the strength even to smile.
As Pug tied up the boat, we went to pull Adam up on the shore. “My arm,” he said. Freddy got in the water with him and came stumbling up the bank with Adam on his back, crying out in pain. As we took him from Freddy and eased him down on a ledge, we could see his right arm dangling useless at his side.
“Dislocated,” Adam groaned. “Dislocated my shoulder.”
“You’re alive,” I said. “That’s what matters.”
“I couldn’t get out of the current,” Adam was telling Troy. “I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to get to shore—couldn’t use my arm.”
Troy wasn’t saying anything. I wondered if he was even hearing Adam.
I tried to look them over for other injuries. Cuts and bruises, lots of those, but I couldn’t see anything worse, only Adam’s dislocated shoulder. My mind was racing, trying to think if there was anything we could do about his shoulder. I wished I knew more. We scrambled for the dry clothes from the paddle raft. At least we had dry clothes, sleeping bags, and tents with us. I don’t think we could’ve kept those guys alive otherwise. Most of the rest of our stuff was lost under the flipped boat. I knew about hypothermia, knew we had to get them warmed up, and fast. Freddy and Star set up a tent in record time, and we got them into dry clothes and sleeping bags inside the tent.
Before too long the sun came out and the temperature shot up about twenty degrees. Troy and Adam were able to come out of the tent and warm up in the sun.
“I could use one of those helicopters about now,” Adam said. I could tell he was in a world of pain. “Where are they when you need them?”
Freddy was thinking about it. He looked doubtful.
“If they don’t come soon,” Rita said, “we’re sunk without that other boat. All our stuff’s on it. What are we going to do now?”
“Well, Rita,” Adam said, “so much for kicking the Grand Canyon’s butt.”
• • •
Troy still had nothing to say. He was lying on his back in the sun with his eyes closed.
Freddy said suddenly, “Is the water going down or coming up?”
“It was really low early this morning,” I said.
“High water might free our other boat from that rock it’s stuck on. We better be ready to catch it if it comes by.”
We went to work pushing the paddle raft upstream, two hundred yards at least. We had to make sure we weren’t going to get swept downstream and separated from the two guys if we got out in the current chasing the other boat.
And then we waited, as the shadows started to grow across the river.
I thought I saw something moving. A rock maybe, but where there wasn’t one before. “Rocks don’t move!” I yelled. “Here it comes!”
We paddled out and snagged it, then went back to Adam and Troy.
The good news was that we had our boat back; the bad news was that it was upside down. We could all remember what a struggle it had been to right the much lighter paddle raft when it had flipped. Plus, we were short one man. Adam sure couldn’t pull on anything right now. Getting this dead weight turned over seemed like an impossible task to me, but Freddy went to work rigging a pulley system, zigzagging a long rope through climbing carabiners. Nobody had the slightest idea what he was doing, but he seemed to have a plan, so everybody was happy to just do what he said. And it worked. By degrees we pulled on the free end of the rope and watched the beast of a boat lift little by little out of the water until it stood vertical and flopped down upright. A major victory.
We were losing the day. People were talking about getting some rice cooked. Freddy was looking around a lot, and then he said, “I don’t think we should camp here.”
“You gotta be kidding,” Rita said.
Freddy pointed. “We’re at the mouth of a wash. It’s clouding up again. The weather might come back—it could flash flood here. We should go downstream and find someplace else.”
Troy glared at him. He’d had more than enough of Freddy for one day. “Give it a rest,” Troy said wearily. “I’m stayin’ right here. That wash doesn’t go anywhere. It’s not like the mouth of a creek or anything.”
I didn’t know what to do. But like everybody else, I was too tired even to think. Probably nothing was going to happen to us. It wasn’t worth the effort under these conditions. We let the night come.
Adam was trying his best to be brave, but anyone could see his shoulder was terribly painful. “I could try to fix it for you,” Freddy said.
“You’re kidding.”
“I might make it worse, but probably I can pull it back in.”
“You’ve done this before?”
“Watched my dad do it.”
“To who?”
“A guy that got thrown off a horse.”
“Give it a try, Freddy.”
“You’re sure?”
“I have a feeling that help is not on the way.”
By the gas lantern, Freddy had Adam lie on his back in the sand. Freddy took off his left shoe and lay down on his own back alongside Adam, nesting his left foot in Adam’s armpit. Freddy sat up a bit, took Adam’s forearm with both hands, and said, “Ready?”
“Is this the part about stretching ourselves?” Adam quipped.
Freddy leaned back and pulled, smoothly and decisively.
And that was it. We heard it go back in. The bone went back into its socket, and Adam could feel it as quickly as it had happened.
“How does it feel?” we were all asking.
“A lot better—like a bad ache instead of bloody murder.”
“This guy’s somethin’ else,” Rita said. “Freddy, what can’t you do? Want to come back to New York with me? We could use a guy like you.”
Well after dark, Star and I were finally in our bags and about to succumb to exhaustion when we heard someone moving around, coming and going from the kitchen. I wondered if the ever-ravenous Pug was wiping out the remains of our food.
The beam of my light fell on Freddy. He had one of the gas bottles in his hand. “What’re you doing?” I asked him.
“Moving this stuff out of the wash.” He pointed at the sky, to clouds speeding under the moon. “Look how fast the clouds are moving.”
Star and I struggled out to help him. We stumbled around like sleepwalkers, but we did manage to move the most essential gear to higher ground. I’m sure everyone could hear us, but nobody else appeared. Back in our tent again, we collapsed on top of our bags, unable to muster the strength even to get inside them. “This is one pooped pup,” I murmured.
“Me too. Thank God for Freddy.”
“I don’t even want to think of where we’d be without him.”
15 //
Thunder was rumbling, moving our way. My dad and I were in a lot of trouble and we knew it. We were way above the tree line, trying to get over a pass, as the clouds were turning black and the wind began to blow. “Can’t we turn back?” I pleaded, but he answered almost desperately, “It’s too late now,” and kept climbing with giant strides. I struggled to keep up, but I couldn’t. Lightning started snapping and the thunder shook the mountains. Suddenly the swirling clouds dropped, and my dad was disappearing into the mists. “Dad!” I called. “Wait up! Wait for me!” Then he was gone, and I was running this way and that, stumbling, lost in the fog, calling his name. I caught sight of him again, nearing a lake at the bottom of the slope. The surface of the lake was all jumping with hail. As he went striding into the water, I yelled, “What are you doing?” and he said, “It’s not any wetter in the lake.” I saw his face for a minute but then he suddenly disappeared as the lightning struck, and I ran up and down the shore, trying in vain to catch another glimpse of him. “Dad!” I cried. “Dad!”
As I struggled myself awake, I saw the vague form of Star’s face, still asleep, and I remembered where I was. My dad can’t help me here, I thought. Thunder rumbled ominously, not very far away. And then again, closer. This was real thunder, not dream thunder. Star’s face was suddenly illuminated as if by a flashbulb, as lightning cracked close by, and then the thunder rattled the gorge with an overwhelming concussion, like a bomb blast. Star woke, I heard curses. Suddenly the wind hit, a cyclone of a wind, and collapsed our tent around us. Before we could even react, the rain came, a raw, primal, take-no-prisoners deluge. If you’re going to venture into the bowels of the earth, it seemed to say, take this! I was wide awake now.
Where to start? What could we possibly do?
Star was flailing around, elbows flying. Water was already coursing under the tent. “Stuff your sleeping bag before it gets wet,” I told her, and so that’s what she did. Next thing, we reached out and grabbed our sandy slickers. We pulled them on, half inside and half outside the wreck of our tent, and found ourselves standing in the downpour amidst the flashing lightning. In the earliest light of predawn, punctuated by brilliant strobes of lightning, the innumerable jagged facets of the gorge were glistening like slick knives. Immediately behind our camp, sudden waterfalls were spilling off the black rock and streams were running everywhere through camp.
I saw a form running, and recognized Freddy. He grabbed a rocket box that was being swept down the creek that was suddenly running through the middle of our camp. I could see odds and ends out in the river, lost and gone forever, stuff we hadn’t had the energy to move the night before. Troy and Pug were standing on the far side of the wash, which was running almost hip-deep. They seemed paralyzed. Freddy yelled to them to get on this side of the creek, and fast.
Freddy sprinted up the hillside to the landing where we’d stashed the group gear. Back to the beach in a few bounds with a propane bottle in each hand, he yelled, “Get what you can, get it into the boats!”
Everybody got the message. But for a moment I paused to look. In the first light of dawn, lit brighter every few seconds with flashes of lightning, monumental red waterfalls were pouring off the cliffs and into the river. Star and I scrambled our way up toward the gear, then hurtled down the disintegrating slope with it to the boats. I saw Rita’s face, I saw Adam’s. Everybody was working now in an amazing display of what can be done in almost no time by people who are scared out of their minds. Troy and Pug were
in the boats catching gear, and the rest of us were making as many trips as we could. What little beach there had been was washing away before our eyes. Rocks were starting to tumble down among us, some as big as basketballs.
“Let’s get out of here!” Rita yelled.
Then I heard a sound I’ll never forget and likely never hear again: the low grinding of boulders tumbling down the wash.
Suddenly the boats were out in the middle of the river, and nobody had untied them. I saw Troy leap for the oars and Pug reached for a paddle. “Swim!” Freddy yelled, and jumped into the river. Glancing back and seeing all hell breaking loose, I realized I had only a moment, and jumped in after him.
I had no life jacket—we’d thrown them into the boats. I was swimming for my life. I looked over and saw Adam alongside me, struggling. I was able to reach the side of the paddle raft, grab Adam, and hold on to the precious chicken line. Troy was hauling Rita into the gear boat. Freddy and Pug helped Adam and me into the paddle raft. I looked back to shore. The side-stream was huge by now, flushing at high speed out of the steep draw and occupying all of what had been camp. Even above the rain I could hear the grinding of the boulders.
Star, I realized. “Oh my God, where’s Star?”
It didn’t matter how many times we double-checked. She wasn’t in either of the boats, she was just gone. And I had promised I wouldn’t let her out of my sight.
“We’ve done it now,” I cried.
“Anybody see her get off the shore?” Troy asked.
No one had.
Numb, we floated on in the murky light, as the awareness of our loss grew and grew. No one could speak. All was black.
Rita couldn’t resist. From right there in the front of Troy’s boat, she turned around to Troy and said, “Freddy told you not to camp there.”
“Shut up, Rita,” he said wearily.
“Yeah, well, now Star’s probably dead.”
He took an oar off its pin, swung it, and swatted her off the front of his boat and into the river. Pug stood with his mouth agape, and the rest of us started paddling over toward Rita.
