Too many maybes.
We motored on.
“Class Three rapid coming up,” Wes called out.
He throttled down, because there was already a raft running the rapid, a smaller oar-powered craft, which bobbed and bumped its way through, and then we took our turn—river manners, wait your turn—and indeed the rapid was just a bump in the road that sprayed us and jostled us. There were no truck-eating waves, and we novices aboard rode coolly.
Fun, I conceded.
The oar-powered raft headed for a big sandy beach on river right, another beauty. I could see hikers coming down a cliffside trail, and I thought, good access into the Shinumo, and Wes called out “Reid?” Reid looked and shook his head and I believed him, and then I didn't believe him, but it didn't matter because we moved on downriver. We passed more beaches, smaller, and small coves, a wealth of anchorages, and Reid kept shaking his head and nobody read it differently. We kept going.
We rounded a bend.
The river ahead boasted more choice beaches, with a raft anchored at one, but Reid shook his head and I was wondering how far he was planning to steer us astray.
All the way past this long stretch of riverside accesses into the Shinumo 'hood?
I thought, we're going to have to stop him.
We passed a postage-stamp beach. Reid shook his head.
Walter said, sharply, “Where then, Reid?”
Reid didn't answer. He'd dipped his chin and pressed his good hand to his temple, as if holding back a sudden headache.
“Shinumo Rapid dead ahead,” Wes said. “Class Two-plus.”
Reid was silent.
“After that,” Wes said, “no more beaches for a couple miles. And we leave the Shinumo.”
Quillen turned to Reid. “Where the hell you taking us, Mr. Lassen?”
Reid snapped his attention to the FBI agent. And then he looked beyond Quillen, to the shore. He hunched his shoulders. Kept staring.
Wes throttled down. Giving us all time for a good look.
There?
I thought, small world.
It was a rocky debris fan at the mouth of a gorge, a tract of land bisected by the outflow of Shinumo Creek. I'd seen it on a sat map, up close and in 3D. I'd looked because this was the terminus of the creek we had followed five days ago, on our hike. Then, we had come to its upcanyon confluence with White Creek, and we had followed Shinumo Creek eastward, ending our hike at the avalanche site. If we had, instead, followed Shinumo Creek southwest, downstream to meet the Colorado, we would have exited here.
If we had, maybe our cameraman would still be getting footage.
“Land now or we take the rapid,” Wes called out.
“Reid?” Walter said.
Reid's hand was at his forehead again. Fighting that headache again. It looked for all the world as if he was trying to remember. And then he said, “No.”
Walter turned to Wes. “Land us.”
Reid twisted to look at Walter, shaking his head, but Wes was already steering our raft toward shore.
We nosed in at a slice of rocky beach, and Wes shut off the motor. Pete moved onto the aluminum deck that fronted the raft. He took the end of the bow line, and I watched it uncoil as he jumped down from the raft and crossed the gravelly silty strand that edged the water. He walked up the rocky beach to a cliff face and tied off on a thumb of rock there.
I studied our anchorage. Where the tamarisk-fringed creek outflow met the river, there were small slices of sand. But here, where our line laid across the debris fan, there was mostly rock. If Walter's hunch had been right, if Walter had read Reid's body language correctly, if Reid's party had indeed anchored here, no fresh grains would likely have worked their way into his bow line.
If...one mystery solved.
And now Pete was back to extend a helping hand, from the deck of the raft onto shore. No help really needed, but we accepted.
All but Reid, who remained aboard.
Quillen turned. “Coming, Mr. Lassen?”
Reid's tanned face had gone pale.
Reliving some trauma? Anxious that we'd made this last-ditch stop at the edge of the Shinumo? A neighborhood he wanted to avoid?
Walter walked back and climbed into the raft and held out his hand.
Slowly, Reid got to his knees. It was only when he'd grasped Walter's hand that he rose and stepped around the gear boxes onto the aluminum deck and then onto dry land. He let go of Walter. He gave the beach and the outflow the once-over and then he took in a long breath and produced his grin. “Good place to stop for water.”
Walter watched his old friend intently. “You remember?”
“No.”
Believe him? Don't believe him?
But here we were.
We all took off our PFDs and Pete placed them in the raft, clipping them securely to the rigging ropes.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
“THIS is a good place to stop for water,” Quillen said.
We grouped at the Shinumo Creek outflow, where the vegetation was lush and the clear water bubbled over rocks, an inviting place to fill one's water bottles.
Quillen turned to Reid. “So, did you?”
Reid said, “No.” His face was still pale.
“Where, then? Did you and your party stop?”
“Downriver.”
“Where downriver?”
Reid lifted his hand to his forehead. “You're talking to a man who can't trust his damned memory.”
“Then let's try a little re-enactment,” Quillen said. “Let's say you land here for the water. Then you all decide to stretch your legs. Go for a hike.”
Reid said, “How?”
We all turned to look at the dark ramparts of the Shinumo Creek gorge. Up that way, around a bend—so Pete had explained—was a steep waterfall where the creek plummeted down and pooled to create the outflow where we now stood. End of the line for Shinumo Creek. End of the line off this beach, at least in that direction.
Pete spoke. “There's a way. Bit of a scramble. Up and over the lower cliff.”
“Thank you, Pete,” Quillen said. “Let's continue our re-enactment, Mr. Lassen, since your party can have gone for a hike. Up you go, and then after you reach your destination and do whatever you do there, you return here. At which point, something happens, to induce panic. Frank Hembry and Sam Pendleton and you go into the river—you wearing your PFD. But what of Megan Schrader? With or without her vest, she might have fled whatever happened here and gone back up into the canyon, where she'd already hiked, where she knew the way.”
Reid said, with some heat, “I. Don't. Remember.”
Walter stepped in. “You looked in distress when we saw this place from the river.”
“You stopped us here. I didn't stop us here.”
The two of them fell silent, facing off. I envisioned them as grad-school geologists, fit and impossibly young, whiz-kids, mappers training to prowl the terrain, to discover, to push the limits. Debating where to go on the field trip. Arguing. Passionate in their points of view. I saw them now—aged and weathered, shirtsleeves rolled up, showing their sinewy arms, showing their wounds, Walter's right arm scabbed from the rock avalanche, Reid's bruises and scrapes from his trip through the river still in evidence. And yet, both of them still fit. Both of them still passionate. Arguing.
Two old friends with a chasm between then, and now.
Walter said, at last, “The problem with continuing downriver, Reid, as you suggest your party did, is that you leave the neighborhood of the Shinumo.”
“We went downriver.”
“The chips in the baggies say otherwise. The Tapeats. The Muav. And, if you'll recall, you agreed that Megan Schrader would be carrying the Bright Angel Shale.”
“I recall,” Reid said, brusquely.
“There we go.”
“Tonto Group rocks can be found downriver.”
“These Tonto Group rocks lead into the Shinumo,” Walter said. “Right?”
“
I wouldn't know. I don't recall collecting them. I certainly never scoped them.”
“Cassie and I did.”
Reid shrugged.
Walter said, “So let's do what we trained to do.”
“What's that?”
“Follow the geology.”
AFTER WE'D CHECKED out the waterfall and the tamarisks and all the places Megan Schrader might have fallen, after Pete had radioed his team to tell them where we were headed, we set off.
The scramble off the beach was not as bad as I'd thought—certainly not as gnarly as Serpentine Rapid—and we climbed without incident up to the ridge above the debris-fan beach. I gazed down at our raft, realizing I was looking for some hint of trouble. But the river was placid, aside from the small riffles of Shinumo Rapid. The rocky beach was deserted.
All was well.
We'd taken a break to drink from our water bottles, to wait for Pete to double-check his topographic map.
I returned my bottle to the mesh pocket on my pack. We all wore day packs, for fast travel. We carried headlamps, should we still be hiking when dusk fell. Should the need arise to camp, Ranger Molina would arrange for his team to bring us supplies. In that event, Agent Quillen would share a tent with Reid. Quillen carried a service weapon in his pack.
We'd come prepared.
We set off again, picking up a trail along the ridge, which eventually led to a descent into Shinumo Creek. We went single-file, Walter in the lead, then Pete, then Quillen, then Reid, then me. Wes hiked clean-up, silent. It was a rough path, and I took note how Quillen took the descent skillfully, more at home on land than on water. I took note how Reid took it cautiously, as if minding his balance. I supposed he could have balance problems, after his recent trauma. I supposed he could be making a show of his difficulty in the field—as if it was unlikely he could have been hiking up here five days ago, following us and Pete and Neely and Justin and Edgar.
When we bottomed out, at Shinumo Creek, with its muscular flow and its banks thickly haired with trees and shrubs, Quillen whistled and said, “As a Southwest native I'm floored by all this fresh water.”
“It's a perennial,” Pete said. “A rarity, in the Canyon.”
“Time to get wet,” I said. I remembered our experience last time, wading the creeks. We'd come prepared. We again wore our grippy trail shoes with the mesh uppers and carried our collapsible poles. Quillen had shopped REI for himself and Reid, who'd claimed to have thrown away his worn backcountry gear.
We started upcanyon. The lush greenery we'd admired became a thorny brushy obstacle course. We wove through thickets of willow and cottonwood, bushwhacked through the grasses and the shrubs, sidestepped prickly cacti, clambered over boulders, and several times waded the calf-high creek.
When we came to the confluence of Shinumo Creek and White Creek, we stopped to filter water and refill our bottles.
From here onward, we'd be retracing our steps from the previous hike.
Wes looked around. “Where'd you find the PFD?”
“Up ahead.” I pointed up Shinumo Creek, where Edgar had climbed the bank.
Walter addressed Reid. “We found a life vest, last time here. We'd thought rafter Schrader might have carried it.”
“Here?” Reid said. “That makes no sense.”
“Alternatively,” I said, “we'd thought your niece had lost it.”
Reid did a double-take. “Becca? Here?”
“She's missing,” Wes spat.
Reid turned to Wes. “She's gone off on one of her rambles. She'll turn up. Trust me.”
Wes eyed him in silence.
Trust was not a commodity, between the two men.
“Shall we?” Walter started up Shinumo Creek.
We all fell in. The hike up the creek was as I'd remembered. Bushwhacking, boulder-hopping, creek-crossing, cursing. It was easier, this time, because we wore light day packs. It was harder, this time, because we knew what lay ahead.
The enclosing Tapeats cliffs cast us in shade. By now it was late morning and the air temp was in the low eighties—not hot, by Canyon standards—but we were working up a sweat. The shade and the cool water were welcome. Reid's marine-transgression Tapeats Sandstone was welcome.
When we came to the site with the granite outcrop, where Walter and I had sampled the Tapeats, Walter stopped us. He turned to Reid, “Here's the first place the geology led us. Here's where the Tapeats in the raft baggie originated. Do you recall collecting it here?”
“No.”
“What's special about this place?”
'I've no idea.”
I jumped in. “I do. At first I thought it was a signpost. Your party stops back at the outflow beach. From there, you hike up Shinumo Creek and when you get here, you take the sample. But that makes no sense. You knew the way. You didn't need a signpost. So I'm thinking, you bagged the Tapeats as a trophy, of sorts. Could have taken it anywhere along this stretch, before you all hiked out of this Tapeats gorge. And you needed the Tapeats chips, because they're part of the Tonto Group. And that's your specialty. Marine transgression.”
Reid said nothing.
“So what's special here? As opposed to Tapeats elsewhere in the Shinumo Amphitheater?”
Reid snapped, “I've no idea.”
“Here's my idea—Shinumo Creek. You're a showman. Your Tapeats trophy is a signpost, pointing at the creek. Because the creek is special for you.”
Reid shook his head. He didn't bother to ask why.
In any case, I didn't have an answer. Why was this watercourse of value, to him? I hoped to find out.
We continued up the canyon.
Reid was slowing. Apparently tiring.
We all slowed, matching his pace.
When the course of the creek turned northward, we began to climb. We hiked out of the Tapeats and into the upper Tonto rock layers. The Bright Angel Shale was now underfoot, and it formed slopes on both sides of the creek. Above those slopes was the top Tonto layer, the Muav Limestone.
And then we came to the silvery Muav ledge I remembered so well. I looked up at it. My stomach clenched. Up there, I'd held out that chip of Muav with its telling blotch of calcareous mudstone, showing it off for Edgar's camera. Then Edgar had gone downhill to film Walter.
Walter now halted, at the place where it happened.
We all drew up. We formed a half-circle. Nobody looked up to the Redwall ridge high above, from whence the avalanche had come.
Nobody looked directly at Reid.
I couldn't bear to.
Walter spoke. “Here's the next place the geology led us, Reid.” He indicated the Muav outcrop. “It was a close match to the rocks Pendleton carried.”
Reid gave it a glance, said nothing.
Pete Molina said, “Here's where I tried to save a man's life.”
Reid said nothing.
Quillen put a restraining hand on Pete's arm.
And then Walter said, voice tight, “Cassie, you're up.”
I took the lead—now keeping an eye on the Bright Angel Shale underfoot. A dull greenish color, I took note.
We had entered unexplored territory. We hadn't come this far, last time. But we still followed Shinumo Creek, along its upward course.
The creek bubbled and whispered, as we moved along.
I paused, once, to kneel and lens the dull-green shale. Nope. Not yet.
Reid watched me, stone-faced.
We moved on.
I got a second wind. A surge of energy. On the hunt.
Scanning the Bright Angel Shale underfoot, on the slope, and the Muav ledges above.
Even then, I almost missed it.
It was tucked beneath a cliff of the mottled Muav, in an alcove of Bright Angel Shale. The color was nearly overshadowed by the lush green vegetation. But not quite. It was a vivid green, a thin lens of rock sandwiched between thick layers of dull-green Bright Angel mudstone.
My heartbeat ramped up. I called a halt to sample. Walter cocked his head. I nodded. I
was, in truth, surprised.
“Something?” Agent Quillen asked.
I climbed up through the brush to the shale alcove and plucked a dull-green stone from the thick mudstone layer, and then a vivid-green stone from the thin lens. I came back down and held out the stones, one in each palm.
The others moved in—Reid slowly.
I said, “Indulge me while I gush about color. First thing a geologist takes note of. Sooo, the Bright Angel Shale gets its green from the mineral glauconite—deposited by ancient seas. The shale usually shows up as this color,” I lifted the palm with the dull-green stone, “because it contains only scattered redeposited grains of the mineral. More rarely, we find a lens of almost pure glauconite,” I lifted the palm with the vivid-green stone, “because it was formed in place.”
Walter moved a little farther upcanyon, examining the cliffside.
Reid turned to watch Walter.
“Reid,” I said, “would Schrader's chips look like this?” I held up the vivid-green stone.
Reid's attention snapped back to me. “We don't have her chips for comparison.”
“In lieu of that, we have your geologic fireplace.”
He gave a small laugh. “What?”
“You modeled it on the original, in the Bright Angel Lodge. But you tailored yours. For instance, your Muav layer is thicker—and that helped lead us to the Shinumo area. And your Bright Angel layer is greener. Green as a pure glauconite bed.”
“So you studied my fireplace.”
I hadn't, in truth. I'd only had a few moments, before Reid and Walter returned with the drinks. But I had taken photos. And then I'd made my study. Noticed the thicker Muav. Then, later—while Walter was doing his investigation, putting together the documentary of Reid's life—I'd examined the photos again. And then I'd gone online and made a study of glauconite, in the Shinumo area. Matching a stone in the field to a photograph was not definitive. It was, rather, a gamble.
River Run Page 18
