There was a collective whoop of approval, along with several whistles.
“Have you decided yet?” C2 asked.
Thor nodded and began pacing along the length of the table.
“Now that we’ve all met them, I do believe it’s time to come up with their appropriate Daredevil names.” Thor stepped behind me and gripped my shoulders tightly, giving me a slight shake as he did so. “I happen to know that Zack, here, is the owner of Lentari Cellars. Therefore, I’d like to extend a warm welcome to Bacchus!”
I couldn’t stop myself from grinning. Bacchus? The Roman god of wine? I could get on board with that. Vance and Harry were nodding, so I was at least grateful I didn’t have to explain to them they were naming me after a mythological god.
Thor stepped over to Harry.
“I’m told you’re the town vet, Dr. Watt. I guess if I would have had pets, I would’ve known that. Sorry, I don’t. Anyway, your name will be ‘Doolittle’.”
Vance and I both snorted with laughter while Harry shook his head with exasperation.
“What about him?” I asked, as he pointed at Vance.
“What does he do?” Yeti wanted to know.
Vance shrugged, “I work for the police department.”
This had the effect of quieting the room.
“You a cop, aintcha?” Dagger accused.
Vance nodded, “Detective, actually.”
Thor nodded knowingly and a broad grin appeared on his face.
“Oh, lord,” Vance moaned. “Let’s hear it.”
“Fellow Daredevils, I give you ‘Clouseau’!”
“Oh, shit,” Vance grumbled. “Seriously? You can’t come up with a better name than that?”
Both Harry and I had to look away. However, based on the age of this young crowd, we had a sea of confused faces staring blankly at us.
“Who’s ‘Clouseau’?” HQ naively asked. “I’ve never heard of him.”
This, however, surprised Vance.
“What? Are you serious? Chief Inspector Jacque Clouseau? From the movies?”
“Which movie?” HQ wanted to know.
“I just can’t,” Vance said, as he looked helplessly at me.
“It’s from the old Pink Panther movies,” I helpfully supplied.
“I thought that was a cartoon,” Techie said, puzzled. “There was literally a pink panther, and he was always being chased by this guy with a magnifying glass. Is that who you’re talking about?”
“Google it,” I smugly told Techie.
Unsurprisingly, he whipped out his phone to do just that.
“Now that we’ve all met the new recruits, it’s time to go over our next excursion,” Thor said, pausing only long enough for several Sarah’s Pizza Parlor employees to set a number of pizzas on the table before us. Once they left, Thor continued. “I know you three are very new to the group, and usually I like to get to know you better before we go out and do anything, but we’ve been planning this trip for a while now, and we’re all looking forward to it.”
“Looking forward to what?” I wanted to know. “A trip? Where are you guys going?”
“We”, Thor corrected, with a grin, “are all going rafting!”
“White water rafting?” Vance carefully asked.
“That’s right, Clouseau,” Thor said. “That’s the beauty of this trip. We don’t have far to go.”
“We’re going rafting on the Rascal, aren’t we?” Harry gleefully added.
Vance and I both turned to look incredulously at our friend.
“Hey, I’ve always wanted to try it, man,” Harry confessed.
“Please say you’ll come with us,” HQ implored, causing both me and Vance to look over at her. “Rafting is perfectly safe…”
“…with the appropriate gear,” Patch interrupted.
“…and the right guide,” TooTall added.
“It’s perfectly safe,” HQ repeated, as a frown appeared on her lovely face, “and so much fun!”
“I’ve never been white-water rafting,” I admitted to the room. “Does the Rascal River have enough rapids to make it worthwhile? I am no expert, but the stretches I’ve seen from the highway make it look fairly calm.”
Thor nodded, “Oh, don’t worry about that. Most of Rascal River has Class II rapids. It’s great for first timers.”
I immediately zeroed in on the one word that had leapt out at me.
“Most? Did you say, ‘most’? What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
Thor shrugged, “Well, if you want to get technical, there are a few Class III rapids, and one Class IV drop.”
There was an audible clunk on my right as Vance hastily placed his drink on the table.
“D-drop? What kind of drop?”
“You can get out beforehand,” Thor assured us. “In all the years I’ve rafted that river, never once has anyone who’s gone through it had a problem. Trust me, it isn’t that bad.”
“Still plannin’ on going with us, gramps?” Dagger smirked.
I wasn’t about to be shown up by some damn teeny-bopper, which explained why my head was nodding even before Dagger here had finished asking her question.
“Sounds like a day in the park,” I assured the girl.
Dagger grinned at me again, finished her pizza, and then pushed away from the table.
“I’ve gotta run. My shift starts at 5. See you Saturday at 7, Thor.”
“We’ll be there, Dag. Take care.”
During the next twenty minutes, the rest of the group finished their pizza and did the same. Only when it was just the three of us, after TooTall had left, did Thor look up from his pizza. He singled out Vance and frowned.
“I know you’re a cop. I knew it as soon as I saw your name.”
“Then why didn’t you say something?” Vance curiously asked. “Did you not want the others to know?”
“I wanted to make sure I wasn’t being investigated.”
Vance leaned forward and rested his elbows on the table. “You think I’m investigating you?”
I shook my head, “He isn’t. Do you want to know why we’re really here?”
Alarmed, Vance looked over at me.
Thor nodded, “Wouldn’t you?”
I hooked a thumb at my detective friend and chuckled, “Mid-life crisis. He’s turning 40 this year.”
Thor visibly relaxed. “Oh. Of all the things I was expecting to hear, that wasn’t it.”
“Since we’re all being so honest,” Vance began, “I think I should tell you that I am aware of the sky-diving accident that befell your club.”
Thor solemnly nodded, “I kinda figured you did.”
Vance sighed, “I hate to admit it, but Zack is right. I think I am going through a mid-life crisis. Harry and Zack are just trying to get me through it.”
Thor was all smiles.
“Well, you’ve come to the right place, buddy boy. Trust me, on next Saturday? You’re gonna forget all about turning the big 4-0!”
Well, for once, Thor wasn’t wrong.
FOUR
“How the hell did I let you talk me into this, man? I could be back home, on my couch, with a beer in my… whoa! Jeeeezus! It’s cold! You didn’t say it’d be cold!”
“We’re on the Rascal River!” Vance shouted, as our raft dipped low and another surge of water splashed over the edge, coating all of us with a fine mist. “This water is runoff from the mountains. Think it’s the tropics up there?”
I couldn’t help but smile. Here I was, in my 40s, sitting on a rubber raft, while traveling down Rascal River in Southwest Oregon. I turned around in my seat to look at the rapidly disappearing shoreline. Jillian was there, holding two leashes, and waving at me. Sherlock, the little putz, was still head-tilting me, as though he wasn’t sure why a grown man would venture out onto the water like this. After that first splash of water had hit me square in the face, I had to admit, I was having doubts.
I was gripping an oar with one hand and holding on to the raft’
s outside line with the other. For those who don’t know, an outside line is a safety rope running along the outside of the boat, designed to allow people to cling to it in case you ended up falling overboard, or as the rafters would say, ‘going for a swim’. Sitting on my right was PV detective extraordinaire, Vance Samuelson. And behind him? Town veterinarian, Harry Watt, who at the moment, was whining like a little kid.
I glanced to my right as yet another wave hit our raft head-on, which resulted in a huge spray of water hitting Vance and I so hard that it felt as though we had been slapped. Vance stifled a curse and gripped his oar tightly in his hands. For the record, I should point out that he wasn’t holding on to the outside line like Harry and I were. I could only assume Vance had more faith in the river rat hired to guide us safely down the river than I did. I do have to admit something, though. Vance did appear to be having the time of his life. If I was going to be honest, then I’ll have to admit that I was, too. As for Harry? Well, I can’t speak for the third member of our group, but based on the number of expletives coming from the next row back, Harry was most certainly regretting his decision to accompany us.
It might have something to do with attire. Sure, it was gorgeous outside, and I’m sure I could have gotten away with dressing in swim trunks, a tee shirt, and a pair of old sneakers. However, on a tip from one of the Daredevils, Techie, I believe, we were advised to wear wetsuits. Now, I’ve had the misfortune of wearing a wetsuit before, when I renewed my open water certification earlier in the year. Trust me when I say that a wetsuit magnifies every flaw you’ve got. However, I dropped all objections when I felt the temperature of the water. That’s when Jillian had suggested ‘shorty wetsuits’. They were just as snug and form-fitting as the full-sized version, only these 2.5mm neoprene suits ended about 4-6 inches above the knees.
Harry had taken one look at the snug, form-fitting wetsuits and immediately shot them down.
“You two will look okay in those,” Harry had told us. “Do you know what I’d look like if I put one of those on?”
“A person wearing a wetsuit?” Vance wryly suggested.
Harry shook his head, “Not even close. Haven’t you ever seen someone wearing something so tight that, if they were to bend over, they’d probably bust a seam? That’d be me, man. I already know how I’d look, at that’s not something I want to put on display.”
“I thought you said you were on a diet,” Vance argued.
Harry held his arms away from his side.
“Clearly, it’s working wonders, right? Losing weight has always been difficult, bro. It’s a sore subject. The only other thing I’ll say is that you won’t catch me wearing one of those.”
Well, since putting the kibosh on our choice of attire, Harry had instead elected to wear a simple t-shirt and a pair of shorts that looked like they were made of the same material as sweatpants. What kind of swimming trunks were those? Who in their right mind would want to wear something like that onto a boat? I mean, Harry had to know he was gonna get wet. Ever wear wet sweatpants? It wasn’t pleasant.
I lost track of how many times we were soaked by waves crashing over the boat. After the most recent, I turned to look at Harry, looking miserable in his soaked clothes. If only he would have listened to us. For that matter, if only he would have listened to Julie, his wife. Even she could see that he was not going to have a good time should he stick with his fashion choices.
“No one is gonna care what you look like,” I had pleaded, less than fifteen minutes before we pushed off from shore. “It’s not too late to change into a bathing suit. Julie even said she had brought one along.”
“This’ll be fine, bro,” Harry assured me. “I don’t plan on falling overboard, and this is comfy, so it’ll work.”
One look at Harry’s face was all it took to see that he was regretting his choices. Oh, well. I tried.
Commotion in my peripheral vision attracted my attention. Quickly verifying that our own raft was in no danger, I glanced to my left and saw an identical raft, similarly loaded with passengers. I checked to my right confirmed another raft was there, albeit farther upstream.
I guess I should tell you there were three rafts in our excursion. Thor was in the first boat, with what he deemed as the ‘intermediate’ rafters. That meant the raft was holding four other members besides our fearless leader. The third raft had been reserved for the professionals only. They were the ones, I’m told, who were planning on hitting every single rapid on the river, including the dangerous drop-off we had learned about earlier in the week.
Thanks, but no thanks. I do believe I will watch the proceedings from the safety of the shore, thank you very much.
The three boats in our outing were holding six people each. Our raft, which was number two, held the three of us, along with two other Daredevils who weren’t too savvy with this type of excursion, either. Vance and I were in the front row of the raft, with Techie and Harry directly behind us. In the last row was C2 and our guide, a nice – but firm – older gentleman by the name of Mick. Apparently, if you’ve been deemed a ‘noob’ in the eyes of Thor, you were relegated to the ‘kiddie’ raft.
The first raft held our exalted trip leader, Thor, TooTall, Dagger, HQ, Jafo, and another guide. Aptly named ‘river rats’, the guides typically sit in the back and instructs when (and how) to paddle. Thor and his crew were deftly leading the way down the river, as if they’ve done it hundreds of times. Well, chances are, they have. Anyway, to make matters worse, the bastards were rowing in perfect harmony, as though they were competing in an Olympic rowing event. Thankfully, Thor must have given orders not to ditch the rest of us, ‘cause every so often, all six members of the raft would jam their oars into the water at the same time and keep them there, immobile. It had the effect of slowing their raft considerably.
Bringing up the rear was raft number three. This was a larger raft, with an extra row in it. The people using this particular raft were the elitist jerks, led by Yeti, who apparently knew what they were doing. Included in their ranks were Patch, Hippy, Wednesday, and Jitters. Their guide was an older guy by the name of Jason, who was sitting in the back row. I remember thinking, when we were introduced to our guides, that Jason looked familiar, like I had seen him somewhere in town before, but damned if I could remember where. Sitting by himself, directly in the next row up, was Patch. I can only assume that, since they were planning to hit every single rapid there was, including the Class IV drop, that the boat needed to be a little bit bigger. I later learned that this particular raft was deemed a ‘sterny’, which meant the guide was sitting in the back and would occasionally use his two longer-than-normal oars for extra power.
To say that I was glad I wasn’t part of that group would be a severe understatement. Lost in my thoughts, I didn’t see the river narrow, which meant the current had picked up. Thankfully, our guide did.
“Look alive, ladies,” Mick snapped, as he jabbed his oar deep into the water and kept it steady. The raft immediately turned to the left, which brought us out of the drift we were experiencing. “Lateral, 12 o’clock.”
“What’s a ‘lateral’?” Harry quietly asked.
Vance pointed straight ahead.
“The river just got narrower, pal. Look at the water. We’re moving faster now.”
Mick nodded, “Precisely. Stay sharp. We gotta get the bow pointing straight ahead at all times. You don’t want to hit a lat going in sideways. Left side, oars in. Stroke. I said left side only, ladies. Now, stroke!”
True to Mick’s word, our speed picked up. With our guide shouting orders, we kept our raft pointing in the right direction. Being on the left, I ended up paddling whenever we were told to, and Harry? He tried several times to paddle, but since he was sitting on the right, got a handful of water dumped down his back by our irritated guide.
“Pay attention, dude,” I hissed at Harry. “Paddle only when you’re told.”
“I’m so done with this,” Harry groaned miserably.
The next thing I knew, we were rocketing down the river. Hoots and hollers sounded from the first and the third boats. Were any of us, in the kiddie raft, making a sound? Nope. Not one of us uttered a peep. I think all five of us were wondering the same thing: if we pee ourselves with fright, would enough water make it into the boat to wash the incriminating evidence away?
Just as quickly as it had appeared, the banks of the shore widened once again, which reduced our speed considerably. In fact, the stretch of river we were on was almost devoid of rapids altogether. The river was wide, calm, and clear, allowing us to see the riverbed below. Strangely enough, the first raft was here, and they were pointed straight at us, which meant they had deliberately turned their boat around. Plus, they weren’t moving. Why?
“What’s going on?” Vance wanted to know. “Why aren’t they moving?”
“I wanna know why they are pointed our way,” Harry added.
“It’s proving time,” Mick announced, sporting a huge grin on his face. “I love watchin’ these things. It’s why I sign up to lead these expeditions.”
Mick angled our raft so that it headed for Thor’s, and when we were within a dozen or so feet, he thrust his oar into the water to arrest our momentum. After a few minutes, with the three of us sharing confused looks with one another, the third raft arrived. They pulled up alongside us and tied their raft to ours. However, Thor’s raft remained where it was, floating serenely in the water.
“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” Harry muttered, as the three of us watched Thor reach down into the raft and pull out an inflated inner tube. HQ, wearing a bright, neon pink PFD (that’s personal flotation device for those of you who may be rafting-impaired), said something to Thor and then stood up on shaky legs. Within moments, she had pulled out a second inner tube and had passed it to our trip leader. A third tube was tossed over from Yeti’s raft.
“What are they doing?” Harry asked, perplexed.
“It’s time to see if you lot deserve to be among the Daredevils,” Mick announced, overhearing the question.
“How?” I asked, as I turned in my seat.
Case of the Dysfunctional Daredevils Page 6