River Run

by Toni Dwiggins

  “You're talking about the rafter story.”

  “I'm talking about the new twist in the rafter story.”

  I glanced at Walter.

  His face was grim and his arms remained folded.

  The Superintendent cleared his throat. “I think we should put our heads together, see if we can work everything out. HGPs work is good for the Park Service, bringing attention to the problems with the river. And Walter makes a valid point about Lassen's right to privacy. Whatever the issue with his background, this rafting incident is becoming a real tragedy.”

  “All the more reason,” Neely said, “to make it mean something.”

  “Like what?” I asked.

  “Let me storyboard it for you.” Neely hit a key on her laptop. A cable ran from its port to a big-screen television at the front of the room. The television went from blue screen to a Google Earth view of the Colorado River.

  I'd seen this map before, in Neely's rim cabin, the day we arrived. The mapped river had impressed me then. It impressed me now. It ran nearly fifteen hundred miles, traveling through seven states from the Rocky Mountains all the way to Baja California.

  The river was so long that she'd had to piece together numerous Google Earth images.

  Neely ran a hand through her curls. “All right, team, we're doing a documentary on the Colorado River. Challenges to its survival. Drought. Groundwater depletion. Too much demand for its water. Cities, farms, hydro power, recreation. Dams and diversions. The river is running dry.”

  She tapped her keyboard and an arrow appeared on the TV screen, pointing at the delta of the Gulf of California. There was no river. There was only riverbed. The mighty Colorado had once emptied into the Gulf. Now, it dried up fifty miles before reaching the sea. Lost River.

  She looked at us. “Problem is, people have heard about it. Old news. Ho-hum.”

  I said, “Isn't it your job to make them hear it anew?”

  “With a truffle, half the job is done.”

  Justin gave a short laugh. “It's not a cooking show.”

  She grinned. “Justin the literalist.”

  “Damn straight.”

  Neely held out her right hand, palm open. “We can do it Justin's way. The way we planned, straight-up docu. Start with the Colorado River Compact of 1922. How the river was carved up, handing out water rights to the seven states the river goes through—with Mexico added later because the river flows there. Used to flow there. Everybody still squabbling over rights. Senior rights. Junior rights. Thirsty rights-holders defending their turf. Too many straws in the river.”

  Edgar nodded. “Works for me.”

  She winked at her cameraman. “That's why I love you, Edgar. Everything works for you.”

  He blushed.

  She put out her left hand, palm up. “Or we anchor our story with the lost rafters. Get to know them. Home towns. Names. Hobbies. Backgrounds.” She glanced at Walter. “And the trip leader, with a mysterious past? Viewers will be hooked.”

  “Hook them another way,” Walter said.

  “Just hear me out. We invest our viewers in those rafters. And our viewers climb on board. They're there. They lose their raft. They go into the water. The cold shocks them. The current grabs them. The water chokes them. And I can double-dog guarantee that they will sign on. They want to know what happened to that rafting party.” She closed her left palm, making a fist. “And then we've got them.”

  I said, “And then you've got a story about a rafting tragedy in the Grand Canyon.”

  “We've got a story about a tragedy on the Colorado River. Our viewers want to know what brought the rafters to this amazing place. Our viewers care about them. And now they care about the river. What threatens it. The viewers feel that threat, same way they felt the threat to the rafters. And they're outraged.”

  Edgar rubbed his bald head. “That way works for me too.”

  “Justin?” Neely said.

  “You're the boss.”

  “And that's why I love you, Justin.” She turned to the Superintendent. “Martin?”

  “I'd need to review the footage. Anything involving the Park.”

  “You got it.”

  “Then I'm on board.”

  She turned to Walter and me. “I need you on board, too. Think about it—we raise awareness about the river, the public demands it be saved. But first the public, bless them, needs to be lured.”

  I said, “It's up to Walter.” It was his old friend who'd ramped up Neely's interest. His call.

  “Use the rafter story,” Walter said. “Leave the zombie apocalypse out of it.”

  She gave a slow nod. “Lassen hurt you?”

  Walter did not reply.

  “Boss,” Justin said, “the rafter story is your truffle.”

  She put up her hands.

  “Then we have consensus.” Martin looked around the table, a hunting bird on watch. “Now, we still have two missing rafters. Do the Hembry rocks tell us anything?”

  Walter nodded to me. All yours.

  The Hembry rocks were not going to narrow the target neighborhood. And what I was about to reveal was going to add a detour. It was time to put strange on the table.

  I got the specimen dish of gray shale chips, opened it, and set it out for all to see.

  They looked.

  Then I directed their attention to the tall rock tower at the back of the room. It was clearly inspired by the 'geologic fireplace' in the lobby of the Bright Angel Lodge, next door to our rim cabins. Layer by layer—from the wide base of dark Vishnu Schist, basement rock of the Canyon, to the light Kaibab Limestone up top—this tower replicated the geologic sequence of the iconic layers in the Canyon. There were two shale layers: the brick-red Hermit near the top of the tower, and further down, just above the brown Tapeats Sandstone, the greenish Bright Angel.

  There was no layer of gray shale.

  I said, “It's not there.”

  Attention jumped back to me.

  I said, “The story is no longer confined to the Grand Canyon.”

  A puzzled silence fell around the table.

  Martin broke it. “Wait a minute. The raft trip started at Lee's Ferry. Takeout would have been at Diamond Creek. In the Canyon.”

  I selected one of the Hembry chips and held it up. It was an unimpressive-looking piece of geology. I gave them the ID. “Mancos Shale.”

  Justin suddenly put out his hand. “May I?”

  I passed him the chip. “Check out the white veinlets.”

  He studied it, nodded, then passed it along to Edgar. Edgar gave it a glance and said, “You could call it green cheese and it would work for me.” Edgar passed it along to Neely, who tossed it like a coin, caught it, and said, “Just tell me what it means.”

  I could have told them from the get-go but I wanted them to come to it the way I had. Moving from the obvious expectation, to the unexpected.

  “I'll tell you what it means, Neely.” Justin gave a wolf whistle.

  Well well, I thought. “So you know?”

  “I do my homework, Cassie. I have a binder. The Mancos gets its own section. It's widely associated with deposits of gypsum—your veinlets.”

  “I'm impressed.”

  “It's notorious.”

  So I'd been learning.

  “I'm not impressed yet,” Neely said.

  “Salt,” Justin said. “The Mancos is filthy rich in salt. And salt, boss...”

  She whistled. “Salinity. The biggest threat to the Colorado. Now I'm impressed.”

  “That's no secret,” Martin said. “And why was Hembry carrying Mancos rocks on a Grand Canyon trip?”

  “Bigger question,” Justin said, “how's Cassie going to track them? The Mancos covers one hell of a large region.”

  Walter spoke. “Finish it, Cassie.”

  I selected another chip, the holy-shit chip. “This one has a fossil inclusion.”

  Everyone peered.

  The awl-shaped whitish inclusion in the gray shale
matrix was not immediately identifiable. I'd certainly taken a good minute, a few hours ago back at our lab, to realize what I was looking at. And then I had let out my own version of a wolf whistle. Whoa.

  I said, now, “Scapanorhynchus.”

  Edgar said, “Scap what?”

  Yeah, it was a mouthful. “I have a colleague who does fossils so I emailed a photo to him and he ID'd it.” I paused, just slightly milking the moment. “Back in the Cretaceous Period, our bad-boy marine Mancos Shale caught a shark tooth.”

  “Shark tooth?” Neely whooped.

  Justin kept his focus on me. “How many shark-teeth fossil beds are there in the however-many-square-miles of the Mancos, do you estimate?”

  “Good point. The Mancos is the most fossiliferous of the Cretaceous rocks in the region. But we only need one source. My colleague belongs to a fossil-hunter forum. He put this Scap to them. Turns out they knew about it. Turns out some guy made a notable find a few years ago, in the heart of Mancos country.”

  “Frank Hembry?” Martin guessed. “Makes sense. It was in his pocket. He brought it to show his geologist buddy.”

  “Actually,” I said, “it was his geologist buddy who made the find.”

  Silence fell around the table.

  A holy-shit silence.

  “Reid Lassen,” Walter elaborated. As if anybody else could fit that bill.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  BECCA WOKE SHIVERING.

  She'd been sleeping again. That was a bad idea. She knew that. Sleeping with a head injury was a bad idea. But it just happened. And then the shivering woke her up.

  She was shivering like—look out!—hypothermia.

  She hugged herself but it didn't help. So cold. Move. Make body heat. No, don't move. Remember last time. Moving hurt. When was that? How many times did she sleep? She didn't know.

  Oh shit oh shit oh shit.

  Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.

  She breathed, and she shivered, and she was hurting, but she suddenly knew something important. Her head didn't hurt now like it hurt before. Before, it hurt like the worst pain ever. Now it just hurt.

  She needed to think. She could do that now. Think through the pain. This was baby pain.

  Think, Becca.

  She was trying. She couldn't remember what happened—how she got here, where here was—but she remembered old stuff. And that was better than nothing. That was short-term memory loss. That could happen after a blow to the head. She'd learned that in that first-aid course.

  That meant her long-term memory was okay. Yes. She knew her name—Becca Warren. She knew her family, she knew where she lived, she knew why she didn't spend much time there—she said up and they said down, screw that—she knew why she took a job away from home, she knew where she lived for her job, in that scuzzy trailer.

  When she wasn't living here in the dark.

  But where was here?

  She tested more memory, poking it. She remembered what she had for breakfast! Bacon and eggs, her favorite. With a big glass of orange juice. Her tongue swelled. So thirsty so thirsty oh god orange juice.

  Wait, when was breakfast? Today? Yesterday? Longer ago?

  Oh shit oh shit oh shit.

  Stop it, Becca.

  Go back to bacon and eggs. She'd had breakfast and then after that... After that...

  Her head exploded in pain.

  She was crying now. She told herself to stop because crying used liquid and she didn't have enough. Thirst was already killing her.

  Could kill her.

  She remembered from that first-aid course. The rule of threes. You can go three minutes without oxygen, three days without water, three weeks without food. She already had oxygen. She didn't want food. Her mouth was full of thistles.

  She wanted water.

  Had she been here three days? No way. Please, no. Was she going to die of thirst before she froze to death?

  Move, Becca.

  I can't.

  Yes you can, you lazy girl.

  I hurt.

  You'll stop hurting if you freeze to death.

  Bitch.

  Good girl. Get mad. Get moving.

  With a cry of pain Becca rolled onto her right side. She lay there gasping. Her head started killing her. Her ankle burned. She sobbed.

  Move, girl.

  She took forever but so careful she pushed up onto her elbow. That hurt. Elbow digging into the hard floor. She brushed her hand across the floor and learned something. It wasn't concrete. She wasn't in jail. The floor was rock. And it had sharp bits that felt thistly. Maybe the floor was the boar's skeleton, with just the thistles left.

  But how did the boar get in here? She couldn't remember.

  Wait—there couldn't be a boar, right? She was going crazy, right?

  She let herself down, on her side. She bent her knees and curled up like a baby. Maybe that would be warmer. She waited minutes. Hours? No, she was losing track of time. She was shutting down. Hypothermia. She'd learned about that in that first-aid course.

  She knew how to fight hypothermia. Put on warmer clothes. Ha! Start a fire. Ha!

  Move, Becca.

  Okay.

  Very carefully, guarding her ankle so she wouldn't scream—so she wouldn't wake up the boar—she rolled over and got onto her hands and knees. Her head exploded. Dizzy dizzy dizzy, shit. She spread her hands out more, for support. Don't fall over.

  She froze there like an animal but she did not fall over.

  The rock floor hurt her knees, hurt her palms. The thistles dug into her skin. No no no, not thistles. Pebbles. Rock floor. Pebbles. Duh! But the pebbles were sharp and thistly.

  All of a sudden she noticed what pants she was wearing. Hiking pants. She reached down to her feet. Boots. Hiking boots. And thick socks. And a swollen ankle that was on fire, that throbbed.

  Think.

  She'd been out hiking, duh. And she'd fallen and twisted her ankle and hit her head and slammed onto her back, ending up in this dark place.

  A cave?

  Made sense.

  She liked caves.

  And tunnels.

  Oh yeah, she loved caves and tunnels. That's where she was—back at home! Could that be? She had breakfast at home and then went to the tunnels. But why wasn't there any light? In her favorite cave, there was a little light from outside. Okay, but there were lots of tunnels and maybe she got lost and ended up in the wrong cave.

  Becca! Pay attention! You need to move!

  Okay okay okay.

  She pushed herself off the rock floor. Pushed up with her hands. Balancing on her knees. Kind of upright. Like a prairie dog. She giggled.

  She shook so hard she almost fell over.

  Cold.

  Stand up, Becca.

  She tried. Put her weight on her right foot, and that was okay. Put her weight on her left foot and her ankle screamed and she screamed but she bent at the knees like an old lady and straightened and shifted her weight mostly onto her right foot and she was standing. Bent and crooked like an old lady. But standing.

  Doing it.

  Crying from the pain like a baby.

  Never mind, baby, you're standing. She made a fist and lifted her arm and pumped the fist.

  You go girlll.

  I am, she told her inner Becca.

  She took a step. Hobbling, right foot taking most of her weight. Wobbly, but a step.

  And then another step.

  And then her boot struck something soft and she screamed.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  DOWN BELOW THERE WAS a river runner.

  Up here, Wes Hawthorne was piloting his helicopter low and slow, following the Colorado River northeastward just below the mesa rims, twisting and turning with the skill of a hawk, and with a hawk's-eye view I noted how the river carved the canyon, how the river ran through rock, how the river was the maker of the world here in the plateaus and canyons of the Southwest.

  We were approaching the eastern boundary of Grand Canyon National Park
.

  The Colorado River continued on.

  This morning at the Village, Superintendent Atherton had made the point that we'd be leaving his jurisdiction, in leaving the Canyon—but not before he'd given Neely permission for a low-flyover to get footage. Footage was the magic word that opened doors.

  Edgar sat up front beside Wes in the catbird seat, filming. Neely and Justin sat in the second row, and Walter and I were in back.

  Neely kept leaning forward to tap her cousin's shoulder. Go lower. Always lower.

  She wanted drama.

  I wanted answers. Even though the Mancos Shale led away from the Canyon, I hoped it would illuminate something about the rafters. Why was Frank Hembry carrying a gypsum-veined shark-toothed rock chip, presumably collected by his geologist buddy? And why hadn't Reid mentioned it at the hospital, when we'd talked rock-collecting? If we could find the source, it might give a clue about the rafting incident. Even something small, something not immediately revelatory. The stuff we haven't found yet, that we couldn't imagine. This is what we do. Go find the site and look. We needed to look, in order to see.

  Right now, I looked at the rafter below, growing larger as Wes flew lower. The rafter skillfully paddled downriver, toward the gnarly rapids in the Grand Canyon.

  “You've paddled worse than that, Cassie.”

  I glanced at my partner. Seemed he was still set on getting us onto the river.

  Neely's voice came in my headphones. “You a rafter, Cassie?”

  “I've done some kayaking.”

  The river runner below disappeared from view. We were going in the opposite direction, heading for a site marked by GPS coordinates on a fossil-hunter's forum. Following the river to get there, because Neely wanted footage, because this was a multi-tasking trip.

  “Lee's Ferry coming up,” Wes said.

  I angled to look ahead at Lee's Ferry, where river trips that run the Canyon start. I saw the parking lot and ranger station and boat ramp and two rafts parked at the muddy beach waiting for permission to launch. I assumed the solo rafter had pushed off from Lee's not long ago.

  That's where Reid's group had launched their ill-fated trip almost a week ago.