What the Other Three Don't Know

by Spencer Hyde

  Wyatt placed another cam in the wall and made sure Shelby and I were secure. I checked the knot, and then tried to help Skye get Nash closer to the wall.

  But we didn’t have time to get him to the wall or say the prayers we’d been hoping to say, because a giant wave of water was upon us. A deafening roar, like a jet engine, split the sky and rushed past us like a fierce wind, and then the water pulled Nash away and the rest of us with him.

  The other company clung to the wall as the water hit them. One of the four men standing next to the guide slipped past the ledge and was gone, a dot in the water, vanishing beyond the orange waves. His screams, and the screams of his friends, were swallowed by the deafening roar from the water.

  Skye was in water up to his waist and trying to keep his footing. The other guide and his group began free solo climbing as high as they could next to us, crimping, keeping their bodies close to the wall, their faces pressed against the rock and their eyes closed against the spray from the water. Another of their group slipped and grabbed Nash’s body in the process.

  Shelby and Wyatt were both holding onto the cams, their bodies sliding horizontally from the thrash of the water, the surge of the flood.

  I saw Nash’s body begin to slip from the rope, so I created slack in the line and, without thinking, I dove for him. The water was pulling him away and his hands were reaching out and his face was underwater, like some demented swimmer with no way to kick, no way to advance.

  A log riding the water missed me by a few feet but knocked into Nash’s leg, propelling us both out farther from Skye. That same log took another rafter with it. The other company was down to three people, including the guide.

  I grabbed onto Nash’s shoulder on his good arm and tried to find his hand, but his hand found my necklace first. The chain popped, and I felt the release of it as I swung my other arm to grab Nash’s hand.

  Skye was horizontal in the raging current, and we all attempted to keep our heads above the water, our feet downstream, as Wyatt and Shelby worked on pulling us back in.

  The raft was miles down what seemed to be a mile-wide river.

  Along with my mother’s ring.

  I couldn’t think about what I’d lost when Nash pulled on my necklace, only the fact that he wasn’t lost.

  The wall of water that wiped away our raft, and had almost taken Nash with it, had also been the last surge of water from what seemed an inexhaustible glut of water from the silver sky above.

  Darkness continued to descend as Nash and I slowly approached the wall in short bursts of swimming. Skye, who was now at the wall and hooked into a cam, shouted at me to swim hard, and then he’d cinch off the rope on his belay device and wait for me to rest before another try.

  After three more sharp bursts of energy, I was only a few feet away from the wall, and Skye was able to pull me in. Nash stayed in the water while Skye, Wyatt, and Shelby worked to set up the Z-pulley. I held Nash close to me as Skye shouted that he would be climbing ten feet above and setting up our exit, the pulley, our rescue.

  What felt like an hour had only taken a few minutes.

  “You didn’t hesitate, Indie,” Nash said, coughing out water.

  “What?”

  “No hesitation. Just like your mother.”

  Nash looked like he’d aged ten years, and I was sure I looked as awful and haggard, but it didn’t matter. In that moment, I built a church in my heart for my mother. A sanctum to honor those lost and those found.

  What I hadn’t noticed until we were closer to the wall and hugging the rock were the waterfalls that were spouting off the canyon rim and into the river. What I’d taken for crazy amounts of rain turned out to be water rushing from the canyon cliffs above.

  I was cold and alive and thankful to be feeling cold and alive. My arms were numb. My feet were numb. My face had little to no feeling. My hands were almost nonresponsive. My injured arm was still throbbing, Wyatt’s makeshift bandage long since gone, but I kept holding onto Nash.

  Shelby had worked another cam into the wall, though it didn’t look very sturdy. The guide from the other group had ripped the rope from their raft’s outer rim and clipped it into our rope. If he fell, at least we could keep him and the two others from floating into oblivion. Maybe.

  And Nash was right. I hadn’t hesitated. I reached for him instead of the necklace, and I didn’t think twice about the choice I was making.

  Because even those we once hated can show us how to love. Because choices will always exist, and when they present themselves, I hope to always reach for the right hand. Because forgiveness is the real river we run in this life.

  TEN

  It’s no use going back a day or two or ten, because I was a different person then. I knew who I was when I got in that hearse with Grandpa and made my way to Hells Canyon, but I wasn’t so sure I knew who I was when I jumped in the river for Nash. Or maybe I didn’t know who I was when I got in that hearse, and I finally found myself in my leap for Nash. I couldn’t explain it myself because I wasn’t acting like myself. My selfhood was no longer a part of me. It had detached and floated down the river, and I’d become this new thing, this new person, this new being who would leap into the void for somebody I once hated. I didn’t know who I was.

  Not anymore. The energy I’d kept coiled within my chest had whispered out of my body like a breath and vanished into that canyon. All the anger and hate I’d kept for Nash was gone, like I’d finally opened the cage and let the animal loose. That cage had rattled for two years, my fingers white from gripping the lock, but the feeling was beginning to come back to them now that I’d finally released it and let the thing swing open.

  I thought of this as I stared at Wyatt and Skye while they helped Nash into a stable position in a chimney rock formation they’d found. We left him there until we figured out how to help the other guide and the two rafters with him climb up onto the lip near the plateau, where they could finally rest their hands after crimping for ten minutes, hugging the wall with their fingertips.

  And then the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen in my life happened: a full moon pushed its way through the silver clouds, and a black sky began to materialize in place of the thunderheads. Stars scattered above like a billion holes in a piece of black paper or a sheet of corrugated tin set to the light. The stars were center stage, like they’d been waiting in the wings until the flood passed so they could hog the spotlight.

  The river was receding, but slowly. It was still roiling beneath the crag, but we were focused on setting cams in the wall and figuring out if we had enough gear to make it to the canyon rim.

  Fortunately, from where we were, the wall didn’t seem to be as high as I’d once thought. Or it could have been the fact that anything short of Everest looked like a day in Bali after surviving a flash flood. Either way, we mapped out an exit route just in case the clouds decided to change course. Again.

  “I’ve never been so thankful for light,” I said.

  “Me neither,” said Shelby. “Good homonym, though. I like it.”

  She was resting against the rock with her foot in a jug the size of Texas. Having both of us standing on the lip meant the three others below us could keep the entire ledge to themselves, even though it was still a tight squeeze.

  Above us, Skye worked on placing more gear in the wall on the outside of the chimney. Wyatt belayed Skye using the harness I’d been wearing earlier. Using some webbing from our guide rope, the guys hooked Nash into the wall to help him stay semi-secure.

  We both stood against the wall, leaning our weight into the rock, and I rested my head on Shelby’s shoulder.

  “Can we still be friends after all of this?”

  “I think that’s part of the whole we-almost-died contract,” she said. “Like, it’s written into the thing. No way out of it, now.”

  “And you’ll forget what a jerk I was
to Nash? And you? How I brooded for, like, days?”

  “That wasn’t brooding. Come over to my house, and I’ll show you how to really brood. Wait till my stepfather walks into a room, and I’ll show you how it’s done. I’ll freaking brood you out of your mind. I’ll brood up a storm.” She grinned. “But that means you have to forget about my bald head.”

  “Shut up. It looks great. I meant what I said. I wish I could pull that off.”

  Above us, Wyatt pulled in and cinched the rope at his ATC before letting out more as Skye clambered up the wall. I heard the rope zip past a carabiner, and the distinct clip of the quickdraw that followed before Skye shouted, “Take!”

  Wyatt eased back into his harness and set his feet on the rock, waiting for Skye to climb on.

  Perhaps because of what we’d been through that day, the idea of climbing seventy feet out of the canyon didn’t seem to faze us. If we got out of the canyon, even without food or water or shelter, I felt we’d be safe. Something about rising above those towering walls made me feel hopeful and light.

  “What are you going to write your feature piece on?” I asked Shelby.

  “Seriously? Right now? You want to talk about school?”

  “No. I want to talk about something to keep from thinking of how we’re not back home or anywhere near school. Because school is safe. Easy. Warm.”

  “That’s fair,” she said.

  “You know, I was all set on writing about tourism ruining the environment. Like, really sticking it to this outfit and others like it because of what happened to my mom. But now, I don’t know what to write about.”

  “I’m going to write mine on being hairless.”

  “No more wigs at school?”

  “Nope.”

  “Hairless and careless. Carefree, more like it,” I said.

  “What’s yours gonna be on, then?” she said, resting her head on mine in turn.

  “Not sure yet.”

  “You know, good stories remind us what it means to be. To exist.”

  “And good reporting?” I said.

  “Same thing. It’s not about sending a message about your world; it’s about writing articles so people recognize it’s our world.”

  “We’re in this together,” I said.

  “Yep.”

  At that moment, Wyatt zipped down the rope and released tension and shouted to Skye. Shelby and I stood up, and I felt my muscles retract and the ache return. My left knee was pulsing with pain on either side of the kneecap, and I wasn’t sure if something was torn or pulled or strained or yanked or snapped. I wasn’t sure of much.

  They’d set up a top-rope climb and tied into a tree on the rim of the canyon with the cut-up webbing of the old guide rope from the raft. Nash was already up top. Wyatt was out of breath and leaning into the wall.

  “Time to climb,” said Wyatt.

  “Shelbs first,” I said. “I mean, Shelby.”

  “Shelbs is okay, but only with you guys. Not at school.”

  “Shelbs it is,” I said.

  “I don’t know if I can do this, guys,” she said. “I’m afraid of heights. I’ve never even been climbing except for when we rappelled into this stupid canyon. This is ridiculous.”

  Wyatt put the harness on Shelby and tied the figure-eight knot, then traced it back and tugged on it as she continued to fret.

  “Did you see any other outfits?” Shelby said to the three guys below us as Wyatt secured her harness.

  The guide looked up, the moon reflecting in his dark eyes, and brushed his hair back. “We saw one flipped raft, and one jet boat sinking. There is one other party up a ways tied to a tree, but I don’t know if there’s any other way out. We can’t risk another earth dam breaking and taking us with it.”

  “Only one way out, Shelbs,” said Wyatt, tugging on the rope.

  “Up,” I said.

  My voice echoed, and I wondered if that echo would ever escape the canyon walls. Up. I didn’t want to make Shelby more anxious, so I didn’t mention the fact that we had to hurry. Nobody knew what the clouds were going to do, and I wasn’t ready for another wall of water to rip through the canyon.

  Shelby was a decent climber, despite her reservations. She was all arms, typical of a rookie, but Wyatt coached her through it and helped her find the large features and footholds.

  Thirty minutes later, Shelby was up top with Nash and Skye, and the rope was back, attached to the harness, for me.

  “Easy climb,” Wyatt said. “You can do this in half the time it took Shelbs. Lots of big jugs. Not a joke about anatomy, just a climbing term.”

  “I know how to climb,” I said. “And I know that jugs are easiest to grab.”

  I had to focus on my footing even with the large jugs—my arms were torn up, and my shoulders were particularly sore from my work with the oars. Thankfully, with a top-rope climb, a lot of work was done by Wyatt cinching off on his ATC with my every move and counterbalancing with his weight.

  He pulled me up the wall more than I climbed it, really. At least it felt that way. He made quick work of helping the other three guys up the wall, and we got them safely out of the canyon. When the other guide topped out, I used my own belay device to help Wyatt up the wall. He climbed it in half the time I had. He made it look easy. I was impressed he still had enough energy to scamper like that.

  When Wyatt got to the top, I set the rope out next to Nash, who was hunched and groaning from the pain. Shelby was flat on her back and had removed her PFD, her chest rising and falling in the moonlight. Skye was looking into the distance, where the mountain features bled into the dark-blue starlit sky and then into the black. The other three guys were huddled near a twisted pine tree, shivering and clinging to their PFDs.

  It felt like it was fifty degrees outside, and before the adrenaline finished its course in our systems, Wyatt shouted at us to remove our PFDs and huddle up.

  “Not this again,” said Shelby.

  “Only way to stay warm,” he said, sidling up to Shelby. Skye followed shortly thereafter, and I rushed to bear hug Shelby as well.

  “Fair enough,” said Shelby. “I guess with what we’ve been through, no amount of snuggling theatrics would surprise me anyway.”

  Shelby started laughing, and we all joined in, feeling this odd release of tension, because even if the clouds returned and the rain picked back up—even then—we’d be free of the massive canyon walls and the way they leaned over us and stared at us. Oh, and the crushing rapids, of course. I’d never been so happy to be clear of a river. Usually, I was aching to get near the water, to cast a line and see what was biting.

  We huddled together for what seemed like another hour, sleeping in fits and starts, like the sound of birdsong in the morning. Nash’s breathing slowed, and he repeated the same thing over and over: “I’m sorry, team.” That word, Sorry. A word I once leaned on without understanding its power, its bearing-wall strength. But I knew he did, and it had cost him more than I’d first imagined.

  Wyatt was checking Nash’s pulse with his fingers on his neck and looking at his arm and leg when I heard the most beautiful sound. No, it wasn’t the river. No, it wasn’t the osprey sending its call out into the night or the bald eagle calling back. It was the sound of a helicopter in the distance, all those blades cutting the nighttime sky, thwump-thwump-thwumping in the blackness.

  I thought I saw a spotlight in the distance, but I wasn’t sure until the light washed over us, and the helicopter drew close to our position and hovered. A rescue worker lowered an odd combination of a stretcher and a cage attached to his rope, and one by one, we each rose into the sky, into safety, into a world apart from the arms of water still thrashing below, still reaching for us, still opening and closing in rage.

  The blades turned overhead, and the sound boomed, drowning out any other noise. Skye scooted closer, and the wool
blanket around his shoulders scratched at my frozen cheeks.

  I reached for my necklace only to grasp nothing, and remembered that somewhere below, in the pull of the river, the ring was caught beneath the deep blue rapids where shimmering fish darted. I tasted salt in my mouth. I feared the heaviness in my gut might take hold of me and sink me through the floor of the helicopter and back into the canyon, to be washed away like the ring.

  Skye pulled me into his body, and I felt the warmth from his chest soak into my cold frame. The idea of returning to school and seeing Skye there and being part of a different group and having friends who knew me—like, really knew me—gave me hope.

  Certain things, certain people, once known, cannot be unknown or escaped. Nor would I want to escape that. That hope burst like millions of stars in my mind as my body sank into a slump. The stars blurred beyond the helicopter’s windshield. I gazed in silence and began to doze. I didn’t need the movement of the helicopter to lull me—I was already exhausted. I shifted my weight, and I fell asleep against Skye as the nighttime stars continued to burn before the helicopter, unmoved.

  When I woke in the hospital, there were no other beds in my room. I saw options appear before me, which meant I was probably still alive.

  1.Start screaming hysterically until a nurse arrives. Ask for some Jell-O and a TV remote and binge-watch HGTV.

  2.Sleep for another week.

  3.Ask for a wheelchair. Practice wheelies in the hallway.

  4.Find the others immediately.

  I considered number 2 briefly, but ended up going with number 4. I did call for a nurse, but only to ask for a wheelchair. The nurse told me I should stay in my room and rest under the weighted blankets, but I was already sweating so much that damp tacos had formed under my arms. I told her I needed to cool down a bit and got out of bed.

  I wheeled myself down the hallway to Shelby’s room. The fluorescent lights pooled and reflected off the laminated tile. It was a depressing glimmer, but I wasn’t feeling depressed.

  Once the nurse had gone, I climbed out of the wheelchair and jumped into bed with Shelby. Her head popped up in surprise.