by Spencer Hyde
“That’s just it,” said Skye. “That’s the part I liked. I didn’t have to decide. It was decided for me, but it also made things easier. Like, I could go along for the ride knowing I was really good at something, even if I didn’t totally love it.”
“What do you totally love?” said Wyatt.
“I love to fish.”
“Your dad will like that,” I said.
“No. He hates that. He wants me to go to college, and with a soccer scholarship I could have afforded it. He never could. He thinks I’m throwing away the future he never had. That’s why I was so worried on the drive. But why can’t I decide what I want for my own life? So maybe in a few years I’ll hate still being in Idaho, but let me figure that out for myself, right?”
“Right,” said Shelby. “I feel that way sometimes too. People write me off, though, because they think I fit with girls like Lissy, when I really don’t know where I fit. If at all. And my parents never think I’m doing enough.”
“You can fit wherever you want to,” I said.
“Can I?” asked Shelby. “Would you and your friends let me hang with you? They wouldn’t make fun of me?”
“I don’t have any friends,” I said. “I have a dog. And my grandpa. And lots of dead people.” They all looked at me with confused faces. “The cemetery, I mean.”
“I get the parental expectations thing,” said Wyatt. “My dad always says I don’t work hard enough. He tries to exorcise the gay out of me every day, like it’s something I should be ashamed of.”
Everybody was quiet. Wyatt stared over the fire, small dots reflecting in his eyes. I dodged the smoke so I could see his face.
“What did you just say?” said Shelby.
“Does that make you uncomfortable, Skye?” said Wyatt.
“Not at all,” said Skye.
I looked around the fire at the other faces. Skye was leaning closer to the fire, as if trying to catch a smirk from Wyatt, as if Wyatt was out for another laugh and nothing more, as if Wyatt was doing his usual thing.
“This better not be a joke, man,” said Skye.
We were all quiet. We’d all heard different rumors over the last couple years at school, but wrote them off immediately because, well, it was Wyatt.
“Yes, I’m gay. The rumors are true. I figured you all knew by now.”
We were quiet for a beat, staring into the fire.
“So, is that, like, something you can decide to change if you want to?” said Shelby.
Wyatt shrugged, and there was a hint of kindness in his voice when he said, “Why don’t you just decide to grow your hair out?”
Shelby touched her wig, almost automatically. “Oh,” she said quietly. “I get it.”
“That’s who he is, Shelby,” I said. “It isn’t something you can change. And it isn’t something you should ever feel you need to change.”
“Then why not let people know?” Shelby asked. She stole the toasted marshmallow off Skye’s stick just as he pulled it from the fire.
“You know, guys, I want to share something too,” said Skye, standing. “I don’t know if you know this about me, but . . . well, I’m missing a leg.”
Wyatt laughed—loud and genuine—and Shelby and I joined right in.
“Truth is, I wish I could hide this. It changes the way people look at me,” said Skye. “So, yeah, I get why you wear a wig, Shelby.”
Shelby offered Skye another marshmallow to replace the one she stole. Skye smiled and accepted the peace offering.
“So, why the prepper getup?” I asked Wyatt, unsure if it was too soon to ask something like that or if it was too insensitive.
“I never want to feel like I need to rely on someone else to survive. And it’s not, like, a cover for my identity. But can’t a person be gay and love art—and also love guns and hunting and horses? The art thing has been approved, right? Society has allowed it. But the other stuff? Why not?”
“Sounds like my parents,” said Shelby. “I never do enough. I never am enough.”
We all knew that about Shelby—not that she didn’t do enough, but that her parents were never pleased. Gossip rose and fell in our small town like the water below the dam, but the rumors never lasted long. Well, not usually. Some did, like rumors of Nash and that day on the river. Or of Chisum. Or like rumors of Shelby’s parents’ divorce and all the money they were splitting up and how it had become like a cancer, eating away at any tissue keeping the family together.
Like the rumor that Wyatt’s dad beat him on nights when he was real sauced or just pissed, or when he’d head to the Knotty Pine and pick a fight with the biggest Neanderthal in the place. Now we knew he did it because his son was gay and didn’t fit with his idea of how the world tilted.
Like rumors of Skye and the way his parents had split years before and how Skye spent most of his time with his dad in the summer, fishing, and only stayed with his mom during the school year, and how they were crazy hard on him about grades and sports and getting out of Idaho and getting a good degree and supporting himself with a job that didn’t rely completely on tourism and good weather and the uncertain economics of small towns.
After a long silence, Wyatt spoke up. “I’m working on this post right now about light. I’m thinking of turning it into my essay for college applications. Got the idea from your grandpa, Indie.” He muffled the last couple words, his mouth filled with sticky marshmallows. He passed me his stick. “Try one. They’re good. Even with the bear spit.”
“Grandpa? Is it about a mortuary? Sounds dark.” I accepted the stick and moved closer to Wyatt, so I could access the good coals for roasting.
“No. I was trying to corner the paint that had gotten out again, and had the hackamore in my hand, when your grandpa showed up to help. Stepped right out of his trailer and shouted my way, said I was doing it wrong.”
“Sounds like Grandpa,” I said.
“But he was so kind about it. When we got the horse reined in, we got to talking, and he mentioned his great-grandpa. I can’t remember how we got on the subject, but he said his great-grandpa used to work in the Idaho mines. He told me about the Pottok horses the miners used. The horses have these small, sturdy legs for hauling heavy loads and can maneuver in tight spaces. But the craziest part is that the horses would go blind if they were brought to the surface after years of being down below in the mines, in the darkness.”
Wyatt stared into the fire, totally lost in the story, not caring to look elsewhere to gage reactions. I was spinning my marshmallow-roasting stick and watching the white mass darken.
“Some horses would have layer upon layer of cloth wrapped tightly over their eyes and around their heads when brought to the surface. Each week, another layer would be removed, slowly letting light in.
“Eventually, they could see again. Imagine it: finally witnessing the surface, the light, the vibrant colors. All those dots of color, like an impressionist painting. And seeing it again, for the first time, a second time. Right? I can’t stop thinking about it.”
Wyatt’s body relaxed, like he’d shifted a weight from himself to the rest of us, and we all felt it and opened our arms and held it up against one another. I thought of responding, but didn’t know what to say.
“Sounds like your dad isn’t ready to be brought to the surface,” said Skye. “He’s still got the wraps on, thinking sight can only be about one thing. Not all those colors.”
Wyatt smiled. Because he was seated next to me, I could see the wrinkles near his eyes, and I thought I saw his eyes well with tears, but I couldn’t be certain in the firelight.
“That’s going to be a sweet essay,” I said. “Light in art, lightness, darkness, the oil painting of an identity. Letting the light in. Removing the layers.”
“All those colors,” said Skye, staring straight into the fire.
“It’s no big deal
,” said Wyatt, sheepishly.
“It is a big deal,” said Skye, “because it makes you you, man.” He caught himself. “Sorry. I’m used to saying man, but it doesn’t change what I said.”
“It’s all good, Skye,” said Wyatt.
Just then, Shelby removed her wig and tossed it in the fire. It lit up with bright sparks and popped loudly for a moment before burning bright and disappearing into the school of scarlet fishes at our feet.
“Yeah she did,” said Wyatt.
“I can’t witness all this awesome opening up and stay beneath that thing. It itches to high hell, and I’m sick of it.”
“No filter,” said Wyatt.
“I only said ‘hell.’ But thanks, Dad,” said Shelby.
“No,” said Wyatt. “I mean, you always put ‘No filter’ on your posts, right?”
“You follow me?”
“Who doesn’t?” I said.
“You’ve got tons of stalkers, Shelbs,” said Skye. “But at least we’re the nice kind.”
Wyatt grinned. “I think it would be awesome if you started putting ‘No wig,’ or ‘No fake,’ or something like that under your posts. I bet you’d get way more followers. I’d be more interested in your posts if I knew you were really being you.”
Before Shelby could respond, I cut in.
“He’s right, Shelby,” I said. “You have hundreds of followers, right?”
“Seven hundred and eighty-six,” she said. “As of two days ago.”
“So, you’re just ballparking it,” said Skye.
“I bet you could get thousands if you put up a video and owned your baldness. Serious.” I pulled the crisp shell of the marshmallow off the stick and ate it, putting the rest back into the fire.
“You think so?”
“Being seen as you truly are? That’s probably the best thing you can do in this life,” said Wyatt.
“Much easier said,” said Skye, throwing another rock into the coals.
“I’m okay with you guys seeing this,” said Shelby. “It’s such a relief. But I don’t think I can go back to school and let everyone see me like this.”
“Because it’s really you,” said Skye.
“I like the videos because they are once removed, you know? Not in person. Not like this.”
“But you like this, right?” I said, gesturing to all of us sitting around the fire.
“I love it. But it’s not realistic. It’s a reality here, but I can’t take this back and set it up at home. It wouldn’t work.”
“How do you know it won’t work? Make it a reality at home,” I said. I set the stick in the fire and let it all burn.
Wyatt nudged me, mock-horrified, and then grabbed another stick and claimed the bag of marshmallows.
“You know,” said Wyatt, cutting in, perhaps sensing, as I did, that Shelby was being pushed a little too far and too fast for her liking, “we are all more than one thing, and that’s how things should be.”
“What do you mean?” said Skye.
“Mrs. Lutz taught us that light is both a particle and a wave, right?”
“Oh, she never stopped talking about that,” I said.
“You were listening?” Skye said to Wyatt. “I never thought you were listening in any class. Too cool for class. Too focused on getting back outside to track animals or build something.”
“You are good at generalizing, Skye,” he said.
“We all are,” I said.
“Whatever. If you really want to know, I have a 4.0, and I don’t plan on that changing,” said Wyatt.
“Yeah, right,” said Shelby.
“The fact that nobody believes it is probably a testament to it being true,” I said.
“Thanks, Indie.”
“So, what about light being two different things?” asked Skye.
“We only see the difference when we observe it closely,” said Wyatt. “The world tells us we can’t be multiple things, but screw that. Be what you want. Be a particle and a wave. Light bends just like the river, but only when we see it correctly. One path is set until we decide to look, then it all changes. Maybe we are all just finally looking.”
“Or seeing,” I said. My brain was on fire with this possibility. The night was colored day by this idea, and it was all I could see and taste and feel.
We were all trying to be multiple things, while thinking we could only be one. One thing. But sometimes you have to let things go to survive, right? That was what Nash had said. Let go of it. People matter—not the things. Be the thing that allows you to be you. Don’t let people corner you into being just one. Be both.
“This sounds great,” said Shelby, “but that’s because we’re river friends. And this is river life. But I know when we get back to Tetonia and Driggs and real life, things will turn back like they always have. Like they always do. We won’t be sitting around a fire and yacking about how great things could be.”
“She’s right,” said Wyatt.
“Doesn’t have to be that way,” I said.
“Yes, it does,” said Shelby. “But at least for another two days I can go without a wig. Pass the marshmallows.”
The conversation naturally died out, and Skye pulled out his piece of rope and began practicing climbing knots. Shelby went to her tent to read, and Wyatt said he was going to sketch, leaving me with Skye and the fire and the faint smell of burnt fish, burnt wig, and burnt marshmallows.
I looked over and saw that Nash had a light on, the outline of his squatting body visible through the sheer orange wall of his tent. Maybe he was doing yoga?
“Sorry,” I said, without looking at Skye.
“For what?”
“For last night,” I said.
“You don’t have to apologize.”
“I don’t have to, but I want to. Maybe you really do want to get to know me. I’m just not used to that. I’m not used to standing next to Shelby and being looked at. It’s just something I have to process. And the whole coincidences thing kind of irritated me for some reason.”
“Look, if I am right, and we were supposed to be on this river together, then that means I was ‘supposed’ to lose my leg and any hope of a scholarship or a life I could make sense of, right?” Skye walked around the fire and sat next to me.
“That sounds harsh,” I said.
“But even though I don’t believe in coincidences, I also don’t think we’re like some animals and birds, with everything hardwired into our brains when we’re born.”
“I don’t follow you,” I said.
“I hope not. Because then I’d have to call the cops. Another stalker.”
“Ha ha. I don’t mean it that way. And another?”
“You followed me to breakfast this morning, didn’t you?”
“No, I mean, mentally.”
“You seem a bit mental. It’s true,” he said.
“Wow. You’re the worst, and we’re still, like, kind of on the first leg of the journey.”
“Really—stooping to a leg joke? I thought you were better than that. But I would like to know, now that you’ve forgiven me and all, what your position is.”
“Shortstop.”
“I mean, on us.”
“Electrons don’t have a definite position. Why should I?” I said.
“Are you going to science your way out of this conversation? You’re not an electron.”
“So I don’t matter?”
“What?” said Skye.
“I am matter, and matter has electrons, so either I don’t have a definite position, or I don’t matter. You choose,” I said.
“Four-letter word for ‘confused’?” said Skye.
“Hug,” I said.
“What?”
“It’s only three letters, but it feels like a bigger word when you act it out.
”
Before Skye could move, I saw my options in the fire, right in front of us, waiting for me to choose one.
1.Tell him I have a severely contagious foot fungus that has spread to my entire body, and if he moves closer, he might contract the thing.
2.Deflect, now that things are a little more serious. Say something about someone else instead of myself. Never myself.
3.Ask him about his past and get him talking.
4.Hug and kiss him and scare him with my forwardness and then list all of the NBA power forwards I can think of.
“There has to be a better word that’s actually four letters,” said Skye, leaning closer.
“I don’t know what it is,” I said.
I guess I’d unwittingly chosen option number 4, but I left off the last part, because I didn’t care to talk about NBA players in that moment. I don’t know why I said it. Scratch that. I know why I said it. I wasn’t ready to say it in that moment. Scratch that. I was totally ready and wanting it and I knew what I was doing and what I wanted him to do and I leaned in just a little and let him go the rest of the way and then he did. He kissed me. And it was wonderful. And it wasn’t confusing at all. And it mattered. I knew that. He knew that.
We also knew that tomorrow we’d meet up with Thatcher and Sawyer at camp three, and they’d have supplies and food and new clothing.
What we couldn’t know is that we would never make it to camp three, and Nash would be without a satellite phone and in the worst position with any rafting crew that he’d faced in over thirty years of guiding.
What we all wish we knew is just how fast water can change a landscape, and a life.
SEVEN
The sun was a faceless orange coin in the sky. The canyon had its own language. The trees gathered together that next morning and said, Yes, a light breeze today. A sweet smell rode on that morning air, on that light breeze, and I hoped it was breakfast. Skye was cooking fish again, and Nash had set out the eggs on a makeshift table near the fire.
I watched Skye tuck the fish into the fire, and I thought of all my fishing back home, of the browns staging on the shallow, rocky corners, prepping for the spawn, of the middle narrows of the Tetons in October, of the float from Riverside down to Hatchery Ford and from the Lower Narrows to Henry’s Fork, where I would often let my line float the riffs, the seams in the water, and hook a lunker before tossing it back in to assuage the river gods and what Nash might call karma. I thought of what Grandpa said about letting the fish run, and imagined pulling up on the rod too fast. Like Grandpa says, that’s a good way to give the fish a sore lip, but not a good way to land it.
