by Rex Burns
“The new fella? No. I ain’t been out there since he bought the place.”
“That’s a couple years ago?”
“About that. Tyler sold off two Octobers ago. He had his place up for a long time before Watkins bought it. I remember he came in here just as pleased, said a real estate agent over in Delta had a buyer for him, and it wasn’t a week later Tyler came by to say goodbye. I think he was kind of sorry he sold out and was leaving, but it was too late then, of course.”
“McGraw moved away?”
“California. Around San Fernando, I think. Somewhere in the valley. Took his money and run.”
“Do you know any of the people who work for Watkins? John or James Sanchez?”
The cropped graying hair shook slowly. “No. Not by name. I heard he’s got a crew, but I don’t know what he needs one for.”
“Why’s that?”
“I don’t think he’s running any cows out there. Unless he’s got his own farrier or he trucks one in from outside. I guess he could do that, but it’s a fool thing to do.”
“I don’t understand,” said Jo.
“Oh, honey, anybody running cows around here’s got to use horses. And anybody who don’t get me out to their place in a year and a half or so, well, they just ain’t using their horses very much.”
Wager thanked her, and she said, “Sure thing. Seven miles south, then east for three. Can’t miss it.”
The late-morning sun bounced back from the highway and from the short sections of cracked sidewalk in front of this or that building. Between them, trails were worn into the dirt and reminded Wager of the side streets of his old neighborhood where pavement was scarce and the sand would get hot enough to sting your bare feet.
“James said they had some cows,” said Jo.
“It wouldn’t be the first time he lied.”
A car slowly cruised down the highway past Vern’s Place; the driver lifted a hand as he went by, and Wager waved in reply.
“Can we make one more stop?” he asked Jo.
“It’s your vacation, too.”
They drove down one of the empty side streets that led toward the river until they saw the red-and-yellow sign for the Foamy Rapids Rafting Company. Wager pulled under the shade of a cottonwood, and they sat a moment looking at the river. Here the water ran almost unbroken, an even sweep of current fifty yards wide. Willow shrubs lined both banks, and the water had risen to sway them rhythmically against its swift flow. Only occasionally did a small wave splash or the steady liquid rustle rise above the sound of the cottonwood leaves overhead; instead, the water ran silent and quick, carrying an occasional branch or peeled timber in ominous haste.
The rafting company was a galvanized Quonset hut squatting a few yards back from the bank on a shelf of higher land. In an open shed protected by a roof of fiberglass panels, a dozen or so silver-colored inflated rafts were stored bottom up, and racks held lines of wooden oars and yellow life jackets. A path had been worn from the shed to a gap in the willows and led to a small pier that floated on drums a few feet out from shore. Firmly tied to iron stakes driven into the sand, two aluminum runabouts were pulled out of the water, motors cocked clear of the ground. Behind the shed was parked a trailer with a high framework of angle iron for ferrying rafts.
“How’d you like to do some white-water rafting?”
“On that?” She looked at the silent river. A tangle of roots from a submerged tree glided past without a ripple. “Do you know anything about rafting?”
“A little.”
“It looks awfully fast.”
“What’s a vacation without a few thrills?”
They pushed open the door cut into the end of the Quonset hut. Sprawled at a desk and reading a Louis L’Amour paperback, a boy in his mid-teens looked up suddenly. “Wow—I didn’t even hear you drive up!”
He was shirtless and wore khaki pants cut raggedly off at the knees. A pair of equally ragged tennis shoes swung from the littered desk, and he quickly shoved the book into a drawer. “Yes, sir—can I help you?”
Wager was interested in a trip for two people and the equipment he would need.
“The smallest we’ve got is a nine-footer, but you don’t want one much smaller than that, anyway,” he said. “Not the way the river is now.”
“Is it very dangerous?” Jo asked.
“Well, up in the canyon it’s pretty heavy. We got almost twelve thousand cfs right now, and it’s still rising. It’s a real good runoff this year. But, no ma’am, it’s not too dangerous if you know what you’re doing.”
“The canyon’s a lot farther upstream, isn’t it?”
“Yessir. But we run trips all along the river. A lot of people go in above the canyon at Bedrock and come out at Slickrock. Or they can take another leg down to here. It’s a real nice run.”
“You don’t seem too busy.”
“Well, no sir, I guess most people do get out at Slickrock. But this is a real pretty stretch of river—it’s not as exciting as the upper end, but you still have some class threes. And with the water this high, we might find some fours.”
“What’s that?” Jo asked.
“The degree of difficulty,” said Wager. “They have five classes. But a lot depends on how much water’s in the river.”
“Yes ma’am. Sometimes a class goes down with more water, but most of the time it goes up. It depends on the volume and how wide the channel is, and the gradient. Right now with this runoff”—his head wagged once—“it can get pretty exciting even with a class three.” He added, “At the end of summer, you can almost walk across here. The flow drops to about a thousand cfs, then. But look at it now. When they get that dam finished up at Cortez, I don’t know what we’ll have left. They say they want to keep the river open for rafting, but I don’t know. It’ll probably level off at five or six thousand, and that’ll make things pretty tame.”
Wager asked about renting a raft and guide for two or three days, and the boy quickly pulled a rate sheet out of the desk and started explaining options.
“This is the best deal, the three-day discount package. We provide everything except sleeping bags and personal gear. And if there’s any special thing you want to drink—you know, fancy wines or something—you got to bring that. But we’ll make room for it in the ice chest.”
“We want to stay on this part of the river. Camp over at the T Bar M and just poke around.”
“Yessir, we can do that. But it’s not as exciting as the upper part of the river. You’d really like that. With a five-day package, you could do both.”
Jo turned from studying a photograph that showed a raft plunging steeply into a maelstrom of foam and half-seen boulders that towered over the figures in the boat. In the bow, three riders, hair blowing back, stared fixedly at something just out of the photograph in front of them, and the oarsman, mouth a tense line, had lost one oar and was fighting to cling to the other. “I don’t think I want that much excitement.”
“That’s not this river—that’s Big Drop, over on the Colorado in Cataract Canyon.” He touched one of the blurred figures. “That’s me. The one with his eyes shut. I was just a kid, then.”
Wager studied the strip map of the river tacked to a partition; he located the T Bar M campsite marked by a red pencil. “Suppose we stay here the first night, where would we have to put in?”
“We could go in anywhere along here. Most of the ranchers don’t mind, if we get their permission first. Ron’s pretty strict about that—that’s the owner—he wants to keep on their good side.”
“What about the T Bar M?”
“They’re about the worst along this stretch—they don’t want anybody anywhere on their property. But Ron talked them into putting in a campground, and it’s worked out real well.”
“Was it that way under McGraw?”
“No, not for us, anyway. But he did get pretty testy about some of the private parties. Some of them leave a real mess when they go ashore, and you can’t blame
the ranchers for getting mad. But we’ve got a good reputation with them, so they don’t mind us.”
Above and below the campground, dotted black lines indicated ranch boundaries meeting the river. If they put in where the boy indicated, they would cross about one-third of the ranch’s property above the campground and the rest below. “How long does it take to go this far?” He traced the lower portion.
“Half a day in this flow. There’s some good rapids in here where we put in, and some more down here. And there’s rocks and bars all along this stretch, so it stays interesting. Down here, below the campground, is Boulder Field. That ought to be good in this much water. Maybe even class four.”
“Can we pull out and look at the shoreline?”
“If the owners don’t mind.”
“What if they do mind?”
“Well, we shouldn’t do it. But I guess they wouldn’t mind if they didn’t see us.”
CHAPTER 10
THE BOY TURNED out to be their guide, and his name turned out to be Sidney. Wager was relieved when he stopped calling them sir and ma’am and started using their first names as he stowed their sleeping bags and personal gear into large rubber sacks. The morning chill hung in the air, and the sun had not yet cleared the high ground east of the river when Wager and Jo parked their car at the office. But Sidney was already there, the raft mounted on a trailer behind a large, worn truck. In the bed of the truck was a mound of gear—a number of large plastic buckets with tight lids, coolers, chests, lines, oars, life vests. Sidney greeted them with a sleep-stiff smile and a good morning, and gave them ditty bags to carry things they might need during the day’s float. “You’ll want to put your lip cream and suntan lotion in here—sunglasses, medicine, whatever you want during the day. I’ve got a waterproof box for cameras, too.”
Jo busily rubbed lotion onto her legs before handing Wager the bottle. “You’ve thought of everything.”
“There’s no sense being uncomfortable—a raft trip’s supposed to be fun. Do you have fishing gear? We’ve got some extra rods if you don’t.”
They decided to bring that along, too. Last night, when the Volkers heard about the trip, Rusty named a couple of good side streams for trout. “Somers Creek comes in about here—you’ll get some good fishing there.”
“Did they tell you what to wear? What you ought to bring?” Neither Dee nor Rusty had rafted the river; it was something they thought of trying if they ever found the time. But she’d heard it was a nice way to spend a few days.
Jo showed her the mimeographed list of what to wear and what to bring. “They furnish everything else. I’m really excited about it. I’ve never been on a river trip before, but Gabe has.”
“Just a few small ones when I was a kid.” And in some circles, splashing a two-man raft down the South Platte through the heart of Denver wouldn’t count at all.
“Well, it makes me kind of nervous just to think about it—all that water and those big waterfalls.”
“Hell, Dee, they haven’t drowned more than a dozen people yet this year.” Rusty opened his gift of bourbon and poured drinks for all, a generous shot over a single cube of ice in each glass. “Don’t want to spoil the flavor.”
“Oh, they haven’t drowned anyone—don’t let him worry you, Jo.”
“I’m not worried. This end of the river’s supposed to be gentle. Besides, Gabe’ll look after me.”
“The water’s pretty high this year,” said Rusty. “It’s one of the biggest runoffs we’ve ever had. But you’re right, it’s not like upriver—the gradient’s a lot steeper up at that end. Ah, that’s smooth drinking!”
“Oh—Gabe—I almost forgot.” Dee fished out a large brown envelope. “This came for you yesterday.”
Inside were two items forwarded by Max. The first was from the Organized Crime Unit: a colored Xerox copy of an i.d. photograph and a brief rap sheet from the Imperial Beach, California, Police Department. Sergeant Johnston had identified Jerry Latta—he had one conviction for auto theft five years ago, and his name had surfaced in an investigation of an organized crime network based in Southern California about two years ago. The details weren’t provided—“I can talk to you about it but I don’t want to put anything in an open memo, Gabe”—but nothing had ever been proved. Wager studied the small set of photographs and tried to remember if the stiff face was the same one he had seen in that restaurant up in Leadville, the man who had come in with the Sanchez brothers and who later had studied Wager so carefully before trying to break into their room. It was hard to be certain, but a penciled-in mustache made him look familiar. If so, then Tom was right to worry about his sons.
The second item was a newspaper clipping with Max’s writing across the top: “Have a good vacation, Gabe.” The headline read “Justice Not Blind Toward Native Americans,” and the byline was Gargan’s. The story focused on three police cases involving Indians and their mistreatment by DPD. The one dealt with in most detail was Molly White Horse. “Miss White Horse, whose command of English is limited, told this reporter that she had been terrified by the manner of her arrest and questioning by homicide detectives, and that despite signing the Miranda Warning, she had not understood the procedures involved.” The rest of the paragraph outlined the charges against her, stressing the fact that Miss White Horse had seen the victim stabbed and lying prone before she poured beer over him in a futile and tragic effort to revive him. Gargan stated that Miss White Horse singled out an officer who seemed particularly eager to lay blame on her, Detective Gabriel Wager, whose unorthodox methods and challenges to departmental procedures had brought him to the attention of the press in the past.
“That’s a bunch of crap!” Jo, reading over his shoulder, looked up angrily. “You don’t even bring the charges—that’s the district attorney’s job. Kolagny! Isn’t that who it is? He’s the one Gargan should be after.”
“Fame is fleeting,” said Wager. “By the time we get back, Gargan will be on another crusade.” But Wager could imagine Bulldog Doyle reading the item, his cigar tilting slowly up as his jaw clenched tighter and no Gabe Wager to grab for. As a matter of fact, Wager didn’t like it much, either; but considering who it came from he wasn’t going to let it steam him. By God, he was on vacation—at Doyle’s urging.
Sidney and Wager heaved the last bundles of equipment onto the truck bed and climbed into the cab. It took over three hours to reach the launch site, and another to stow and lash the gear. They had lurched carefully down the shelves of a five-hundred-foot bluff onto a fan of sand and wiry shrub that formed the point inside a large bend of the river. “This is Lewis Bend—that was the Lewis ranch we passed back there. Make yourselves comfortable—I’m going to pull the truck back onto higher ground in case the water comes up.” He pointed to a tangle of dried weeds and twigs snagged waist-high in the surrounding brush. “That’s the watermark from last year. Ron wouldn’t be too happy if I let his truck get washed away.”
Here, the river swung its current against the far bank, a dark red cliff that rose fifty or seventy-five feet straight up before angling back toward the next shelf of the larger bluff above. In close, the water swirled in a broad eddy that tugged gently at the beached raft; between the eddy and the current, a ripple of rough water built into a series of small, choppy waves that foamed and splashed. In the current itself, the swift water piled whitely against a line of house-sized boulders and sent its roaring echo off the flat wall toward the clear blue sky.
“That’s a lot of water,” said Jo. “It’s scary.”
It was more water than Wager had ever ridden, and the channels between rocks seemed narrow, too. But there was no sense warning her against everything—she’d be worried enough. “The water’s only going about ten or eleven miles an hour.”
“It sure looks a lot faster.”
“That rough water over there is called an eddy fence. See how it fences the water and all the flotsam into the middle of the eddy?” This wasn’t horses, and Wager felt a little sa
tisfaction at being able to tell Jo something for a change.
“All right! You two ready to raft?” Sidney, face shaded by a frayed straw hat, grinned broadly as he hopped from the spongy stern tube of the raft to the rowing frame strapped amidship. “Come on—the river’s waiting!”
They had placed the equipment in slings mounted on narrow frames that crossed the boat from one thick side tube to the other. Lashed tightly in place, the bags and boxes formed an uneven deck suspended above the boat’s rubberized floor. In the center, long oars dangling on each side of the rowing platform, Sidney would sit facing the bow. In slack water when he rowed the boat downstream, he would turn the craft around so it moved stern first. In rough water, he faced the bow downstream to see where it was going and pulled against the current in order to slow the craft and guide it through the chutes and rapids. Life jackets snugly on, oiled and creamed against the glare of sun from sky and water, Jo and Gabe were told once more how to float through rapids if they were tossed out, where to sit for the safest ride, to keep their life jackets on in any rough water, to move to the downstream side of the raft if they were about to collide with a boulder, never to get in the water between the raft and a rock, never to go in the water on the downstream side of the raft if possible, to swim sideways or dive down if sucked into a hole. And to have fun.
“OK—all set? You get to push us off, Gabe. Jo, you get right up there in the bow—OK, here we go—give it a shove, Gabe. All right, here we go!”
He pushed the heavy raft into the eddy and splashed through the mud to tumble over the sun-heated stern. Sidney motioned him forward with Jo, and the two of them settled on the thwart tube, Jo clutching tightly at the thin safety line that circled the raft. Underfoot, the cloth decking heaved and wobbled, nudging their canvas shoes with the river’s life; and in front, an unbroken wall of foam and plunging water, the main current began to pinch between ragged boulders black with spray.
“Wow, feel that!” Jo lurched as the raft walked across the choppy surface of the eddy fence.
