The Same River Twice

by Stephen Legault

  “You’re insane. It isn’t even raining.”

  “Not anymore.”

  “Who plays the National Guard in your little story?”

  “That’s where your old man comes in.”

  “It’s not going to work. My dad couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn with a cannon. And he’s not going to let you lure him all the way out to Horse Canyon.”

  “Then we’ll have to resort to plan B. I just shoot you both in the head and disappear down into the Canyons.”

  Robbie was shaking his head. “Why did you kill Penelope?”

  Hayduke pounded his hand on the steering wheel. “That bitch. She went off the reservation.” Robbie waited for more, but Josh seemed lost in thought.

  “She betrayed you?”

  “She betrayed Glen Canyon. She betrayed the Colorado River. She betrayed us all.”

  “This is linked to the blackmail of Senator Smith.”

  “We had a plan. Use what we had to stop Smith from changing the Colorado River Compact. Once that was done, we would press him and others to decommission the dam. It’s fucking useless right now; all it does is trap more and more silt. Another twenty years and it will be clogged with mud. So we tear it down. Blast the fucker right out of the canyon. But Penny backed out. She got cold feet or maybe she got political. I don’t know. But she stopped. She gave the photos to that reporter Kresge and told him to sit on them. Then she cut a deal with Smith that we would sit tight with the dam so long as he and his cronies in the Senate wouldn’t push for a new Compact. So we got half of Glen Canyon, and he got the other half. But half wasn’t what we wanted. It wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted it all.”

  “So you killed her and tried to do it yourself.”

  For a moment Josh looked as if he might cry. He pounded his hand on the steering wheel over and over again and punched the glass of the windshield of the Jeep, leaving a smear of blood. “That fucking bitch had it coming! I tried to talk sense into her. We even walked down the Hole in the Rock to look at what those fuckers had done to the Glen, but she said we had to be realistic.”

  “You executed her.”

  “We were camped at Dance Hall Rock. We argued all night. In the morning I put an end to the argument.”

  “Why did you dump her in Lake Powell?”

  “She had to see what she’d done.”

  There was a very long silence. Robbie watched Hayduke out of the corner of his eye. After some time he asked, “And the others?”

  “That was after. It was your father’s fault. If he hadn’t started snooping around they would still be alive. But he was getting too close with that Hopi girl he found back in Courthouse Wash. So I had to kill the others so they wouldn’t start all working together.”

  “You led my dad right to you.”

  “I had to. I had to find out what he knew.”

  “The journal. That’s how you did it. You knew that he would go to that kiva in Harris Wash after he learned that the Wisechild woman had been working there and you planted the journal for him to find. You tried to kill him when he was there.”

  “Fuck, man, I could have killed your old man a dozen times by then. I had already been in his place a few times. Once I was there and he came home. I was hiding under his bed. I left when he got into the shower. But yeah, I followed him into Harris Wash and when he went down into the kiva looking for whatever he was looking for, I untied the rope.”

  “Why not just shoot him like you did Penelope? Or knock him out with chloroform like you did me, Darcy, and Kiel?” Robbie was making a leap but it seemed to fit.

  “I didn’t want it to be obvious. I hadn’t even done Darcy at that point. I thought if I could get Silas out of the picture, make it look like he just got stuck in that kiva and died there, then I could keep on trying to tear down the dam and leave it at that. But your old man, he’s got a lot of fight in him.”

  “So now what?” The Jeep stopped. In the distance was another spire of stone.

  “Now we wait.” Hayduke got out of the Jeep, opened the door, and went around and pulled Robbie out. Robbie hit the ground like a sack of wet laundry. He managed to right himself.

  “You know, you’re not going to be able to escape into the Canyons. They’ll find you. It’s really not that remote. I bet you last a day, maybe two. And when they find you, you’re going to find yourself on death row.”

  Josh struck him in the side of the face with the butt of his pistol. A thread of blood leaked from Robbie’s cheek.

  “You could plead out, call it insanity—”

  Another sharp blow; this time Robbie fell on the ground and spit blood. Josh kicked him in the ribs and then the face. Robbie’s world swam around him and then went black.

  Josh stood up and holstered his weapon. He started the Jeep up and drove it down a narrow wash, between the outstretched arms of juniper trees. He took a duffel bag from the back of the vehicle, removed a camouflage net from the bag and draped it over the Jeep, and used a juniper branch to brush the tracks of the Jeep from the wash. He tossed the branch to the side of the road. He checked his watch. Another few hours and Silas should be coming along.

  He drew in a deep breath and looked around at the circling sky and the distant canyon walls, bright in the afternoon sun. The story was almost over. He felt a tremendous relief.

  48

  SHE TOUCHED HIS FACE. HE was lying on the sand on his back, his arms outstretched as if he were Jesus Christ lost in supplication. He could hear the river close by. Always flowing, never the same river twice.

  “But what is life? The bird that flies from the night into the lighted banquet hall circles twice around the blazing candles and then flies out.” Her voice was soft, like a gentle breeze.

  He forced himself to open his eyes. She was smiling at him. She touched his face.

  Don’t go.

  “I have to. It’s time.”

  Please don’t go.

  “Life is short, Silas. Abbey said it himself. The bird that flies from the night. That’s us. It’s so very short. It’s time for you to let go. It’s time for you to wake up.”

  I don’t want to.

  “It’s time to let go.”

  49

  IN THE PERFECT SILENCE OF the Canyonlands, Silas didn’t hear the shot.

  He had his eyes closed. Josh had the Magnum pressed to his forehead, the hammer at full cock, and then … nothing happened.

  Silas heard a heavy thud and felt the ground move. He opened his eyes. Josh was not there. Robbie was conscious and kneeling, a wild look on his face. He was shaking his head side to side. Next to him, on the ground, was Josh Charleston, a hole in the side of his head as big as a fist, the contents of his skull trailing for a yard across the broken surface of the American desert.

  IT TOOK NEARLY a minute: four men swarmed Silas and Robbie. Two of them carried high-powered sniper rifles, their long tan-colored barrels extended with heavy silencers. The others carried the weapon Katie had called a CAR-15. They were dressed head to foot in desert camouflage and all had helmets, face masks, and eye goggles on. One man quickly took the .357 Magnum from Josh’s hand and lowered the hammer gently. He placed the weapon on a flat piece of red stone. Two men went to Robbie and unbound his wrists and mouth. The fourth attended to Silas.

  The man who checked on Silas said, “Are you Dr. Pearson?” Silas nodded. The man pressed on his own throat. “Package secure. One target down. Land the bird.”

  Robbie stumbled into his father’s arms. Silas wrapped him tightly there. “It’s alright, son, it’s over now.”

  They both looked down at the body on the sand and stone.

  “Where’s Katie? Is she alive?” asked Silas.

  “We don’t have Dr. Rain yet, sir.”

  Silas stood up quickly.

  “Please, Dr. Pearson, we’ll take care of this.”

  “I have to find her.” He broke from the small circle of men. He could hear a helicopter in the distance. He ran in the direction that
Hayduke had emerged from, toward the base of Standing Rock. On the far side he found her. “She’s here! She’s here!”

  He crouched down. She was lying on her side, her head bleeding, a heavy stone beside her. Silas felt for a pulse; his own heart was racing so fast he couldn’t tell if he felt her heartbeat or his own. He rolled her over and put his head to her chest and then near her mouth, listening for the intake of breath. The adrenaline in his system seemed to mask all of his senses.

  He tilted her head back and was about to start CPR when she coughed once and opened her eyes.

  “Oh, thank Christ,” he said, sitting back and putting his head in his hands. “Thank God.”

  Rain coughed again as two of the FBI tactical unit members reached the top of the debris cone at the base of Standing Rock.

  “Dr. Rain, are you alright?”

  “I’m alright. Head hurts. Could use some water.” She turned to Silas and said weakly, “If you wanted to kiss me, you could have just done it when I was awake.”

  A Little Bird helicopter emerged from the direction of the Orange Cliffs and set down on the road. Dwight Taylor and Eugene Nielsen emerged along with two other members of the FBI Hostage Rescue Team. Rain sat up and waved, and they waved back. The FBI team members gave Rain water and attended to the wound on the side of her head.

  Silas stood and walked to the north, to where the plateau dropped off into the Maze and the dendritic branch canyons that led to Horse Canyon, the Green River, and then the Colorado.

  Penelope was right, of course. It was time to say goodbye.

  INSIDE OF AN hour there were a dozen law enforcement vehicles and a second, larger helicopter at Standing Rock. A sheriff’s deputy from nearby Kane County was brought in to serve as the medical examiner for the case, and the sheriffs of Garfield and Wayne Counties attended the crime scene. FBI evidence recovery technicians Huston and Unger arrived by air from Monticello. A medical team attended to Silas, Robbie, and Katie.

  Assistant Special Agent in Charge Dwight Taylor stood nearby as the EMT patched the various rents on the three friends’ faces. Silas winced as a suture was sewn into his cheek. When the doctoring was done, he patted his son’s knee and smiled at Katie Rain. “How? How did they find us?”

  “I called Eugene before we left Escalante. I have a GPS tracking device in my truck. They were on us from the time we reached the White Canyon Bridge all the way. I used my government cell phone—the one you didn’t crush with your boot—to call Dwight while I pretended to go for a pee. I’m sorry, Silas.”

  “I’m the one who should be sorry.”

  “I trusted Taylor’s team.”

  “It saved all of our lives,” said Silas, looking down and shaking his head. “As much as I’m glad this is all over, something is going to eat at me for some time to come. I’ll never learn why. Why did Josh have to kill them?”

  Robbie cleared his throat and looked from his father to Taylor and back. “I think I can help you with that.”

  50

  THERE WAS SNOW ON THE ground. Underfoot the needles from juniper and pinion pine crunched, sending waves of autumnal scent into the cool fall air.

  They parked at the Visitor Center on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon and, shunning the wide, paved path, stepped into the airy forest. Nobody said anything as they walked, back and forth, picking a route at random through the woods.

  A black-winged, full-bodied raven sat at the top of a twisted juniper and croaked, his voice a harsh call, puffs of breath condensing as fog against a deep blue sky.

  The three men paused, watched the bird a moment, and carried on.

  All at once the space around them seemed to lighten; the thin glow of late afternoon seemed to gain buoyancy as the trees parted. They crossed another paved hiking trail—six inches of snow rested on it—and then the world dropped away before them.

  Silas used his boots to push snow from a slab of limestone just a few feet from edge of the canyon. From his pack he pulled out a blanket and put it on the stone. His two sons stood slack-jawed, staring in amazement at the delicate pink hue of the stone that stretched for sixteen miles to the snow-clad North Rim.

  “I promised Penny that I would take both of you here one day. She liked the way it felt to come upon the canyon as if it were a surprise; it was like discovering it over and over again.”

  The boys sat down next to their father. Robbie put a hand on his dad’s arm. Silas pulled the journal from his pack, rested it on his lap, and patted it gently.

  51

  IN AN HOUR THE SUN would be down. Silas moved quickly up the trail, a few small patches of late spring snow accenting the brilliant red sandstone. The golden evening light seemed to get caught in the sandstone like leaves blown from cottonwood trees. The layers of stone looked like ripples on the ocean, frozen in time, painted red as if to accentuate the point.

  There was no one else on the trail to the popular destination. In late March there were few tourists in Arches National Park, and any locals who were in the vicinity were likely already enjoying the world-famous view that Silas was rushing to take in. He was breathing hard and almost running up the trail.

  Silas wore a wool cap, pulled down over his ears, and carried a light pack. If he’d spilled its contents on the ground even he would have been surprised. There was no GPS unit ticking off the miles of his five-year-long, lonesome search. There was no topo sheet, cross-hatched and colored to indicate the demarcation of his long hunt. No jumars, no length of nylon climbing rope, no frozen bottles of water.

  The bottle of wine and plastic wine goblets would have seemed utterly foreign.

  Ahead, on the crest of land that gave way to the amphitheatre, a figure was backlit. “Hurry up, old man,” came a singsong voice.

  Silas smiled. His face, often sunburnt and wind-blasted, seemed to have softened, taking a few years from his countenance. Even his porcupine-quill hair had grown back in softer after the previous fall’s scorching. He was a new man, reborn.

  He reached the top of the rise. The basin beyond was shaped like an oblong dish, with high-backed red walls on three sides and on the fourth an open portal that gave a tremendous view to the snow-capped, cloud-cloaked La Sal Mountains in the distance. In the foreground the familiar shape of massive and iconic Delicate Arch glowed in the final light of day.

  “How did you get up here so fast?”

  “It’s not every day I get to out-hike the great Silas Pearson.” Katie Rain smiled. She was decked out in a bright down coat to guard against the early spring chill.

  “It might be. These legs aren’t getting any younger.”

  “Come on, let’s find a good seat.”

  They clambered down into the basin. There was one other person there, a photographer set up and shooting the setting sun. Out of respect they found a seat out of his line of sight and on the far side of the amphitheatre. Later in the spring there would be hundreds of people in this bowl watching the sun set every night. For now they had the place to themselves.

  They sat down on a blanket that Katie pulled from her pack. Silas opened the wine. They leaned back against the sandstone and watched in silence for a while. From time to time one of them would point to some patch of light glowing on the distant mountains, or comment on the color of the rock in the basin. Otherwise they sat in silence. For once there was nothing else to say.

  The sun sank below the curving earth and the show ended for another night. The photographer packed up and left. Katie and Silas remained, seated next to one another.

  “I don’t really know what to do with myself these days,” Silas said quietly.

  Katie said nothing. She touched his arm gently.

  “I mean, I’ve got my little project. In fact, I forgot to tell you, but I got my first order of books in today. I don’t even have the store finished, but I’ve got books. In about a week I’ll be able to hang out the shingle for the new, improved Red Rock Canyon Bookstore.”

  “What does Mary at Back of Beyond thi
nk?”

  “They’ve had Main Street all to themselves for, what, thirty years? Competition is the American way, or so I’m told. The store is fun, and it’s going to be a good way to spend some time during the tourist season, but sometimes I wake up and I look at my bare walls, where there used to be nothing but maps, and I don’t know what to do.”

  “What about travel? See the world?”

  “I’ve been to Vancouver twice this winter. Does that count?”

  “I’m sure it was lovely, but I was thinking more along the lines of Africa or India.”

  “Maybe. I’m just restless, that’s all.”

  “It will pass, Silas. You’ve spent five years completely focused on a mission. You wore yourself out. Maybe having a little time to just kick about Moab and the Castle Valley isn’t such a bad thing. If you get too bored, come up to Salt Lake and I’ll show you around the lab. That will curl your toes.”

  “I might just do that.”

  The last light of the evening was seeping from the landscape. The glow of reds, oranges, and pale whites was eclipsed by the inchoate night, a palette of deep blues and grays and, in the parabola of heaven, a perfect blackness, pocked only by a few tentative stars. Silas pushed himself to standing and reached a hand down to help Katie up. She was smiling at him.

  EPILOGUE

  THEY STOOD ON SEPARATE SHORES. He on a sandbar where the Green and the Colorado Rivers met; she on the opposite bank, watching the waters merge to form one great river. Despite the distance and the thrum of the rapids downstream, he could hear her speak as if she was beside him.

  “Now you understand,” she said.

  He nodded.

  “It was always about this place.”

  “I wish I had come here with you.”

  “You still can.”

  He nodded, reaching up to push a tear from his eyes.

  “You know that I always had one great love; all others came second.”