Rock Bottom (Em Hansen Mysteries)

by Sarah Andrews

  “He didn’t do that,” said Olaf. “I was on the middle raft all night, and he would have had to climb over me to get to the dory. He’d have woken me up.”

  “Son of a bitch is probably passed out in the willows,” said Mungo.

  Fritz let out a long sigh. “Okay, let’s have a look around and see if we can find where he’s hiding.”

  When a cursory check of the tents and the paths that led through the willows did not yield the desired result, Fritz organized us into teams for a more thorough search. When that bore no fruit, he sent people to each end of the ledges to look for footprints or tumbled rocks in case Wink had managed to climb the cliff face like a mountain goat. Finally, he laid out a search grid that took us back over the same ground.

  As we marched along poking under the small trees and shrubs, I heard Brendan ask, “Is this what you call the ‘missing man formation,’ Dad?”

  Fritz said gently, “No, son. That’s when you fly aircraft over a pilot’s funeral. We plan to find this man alive.”

  When it was clear that Wink Oberley was no longer present at the Ledges Campsite, we pried open both hatches of his dory and even probed an oar into the water all along the river below the lowest ledge.

  “This is serious,” said Fritz. “When we were digging through his dory, I checked to see if both primary and spare PFDs were present. They were. Is anyone missing a Paco Pad or any other kind of air mattress?”

  All shook their heads. Glenda called from the kitchen, “Wink’s Paco is still up in my tent. You don’t think…”

  “We should call the Park Service,” said Mungo. “There must be a protocol.”

  Fritz strode quickly toward his raft, jumped from the ledge to the oarsman’s seat, and opened the ammo can that held the rented satellite telephone. Scrambling quickly back up onto the ledge with the phone and a three-by-five card that listed emergency numbers, he began the struggle to connect to a satellite. While we waited, the rest of us paced up and down the rock, fiddled with equipment, or stared obsessively into our coffee mugs.

  Fritz grumbled, “The battery on the telephone is really low. Has someone been using this phone without telling us?”

  No one answered. I gritted my teeth, worrying that I might have left the thing switched on when I phoned Faye from the confluence of the Little Colorado. But I had switched it off; I could remember doing it. Who had run down the one good battery?

  As Fritz struggled with the telephone a discussion arose regarding who had seen Wink last, what state he had been in at that time, and what might have become of him.

  Mungo said, “Dell and I turned in at about ten thirty, and except for Wink, we were the last ones up. I told him to put the fire out before he turned in, and he said yeah, sure, and just waved us on, but you can see that it was left to burn itself out. He’d put away a couple more beers by then on top of that single malt he swiped, and each time he went down to the river to piss he looked a little more wobbly. He got to the point where he was spilling his beer. You don’t think…”

  “I don’t want to think,” said Dell. “I don’t want to think at all that I might have gone to bed and left him to fall into the river drunk.”

  It was out, the obvious answer, and we all stared at it just as if it were a dead animal we had found lying in the ashes of the campfire.

  “Did he actually drink all that whiskey and beer?” I asked.

  Jerry said, “He swiped half of Don’s granola bars, but I’ll bet they’re still floating in his bilge.”

  “He was crumpling the empty beer cans,” said Dell.

  We all fell silent as Fritz continued to watch for a sat-phone connection.

  When Fritz was finally able to get a call through to park headquarters, he shifted automatically to his pilot’s radio communications voice, employing the calm I had come to expect of him as he made his calls from the aircraft he and Faye flew as a charter airline. When he lost the connection in the middle of the conversation, he stared up at the canyon walls as if he could see the satellite that had just winked out of sight beyond the rim. Then he began to pace. “They’re sending someone. At least, I think they are. The connection quit, right in the middle of that part. I’ll call again in a minute. I need to think.”

  In the end no amount of thinking changed our circumstances. Fritz made another call to the park and was assured that a search party was coming, though it would take a few hours to arrive. A helicopter would respond to our distress, and we should all just sit tight.

  “Tiny and I had planned a second layover day,” said Fritz. “Unfortunately it’s going to have to be here.”

  We all did our best to put a pleasant face on the day, some taking out a book to read, others starting a quiet game of cards. Nancy Skinner pulled some knitting out of the bottom of a dry bag, and organized a tutorial, teaching several of the men how to knit. No one said anything more about what had happened, lest our fear that Wink had drowned become real.

  Fritz used the time to reorganize our raft, cinching everything absurdly tight, and after a while he pulled out the satellite telephone one more time and began the tedious task of getting a connection through to Tiny, then Faye. That connection lasted long enough that I could say hello. “This sucks,” I told her.

  “Big-time,” she replied, just as the connection died.

  Fritz switched the phone off and put it away in its box. “I am appalled by these batteries,” he said. “For what we’re paying to rent this thing, you’d think they’d give us something that could hold a charge.”

  I said, “We came down here to get away from it all, so to hell with the sat phone and the whole technological revolution. Look at this camp; we’re living in the Stone Age. Let’s just relax as best we can.”

  “Iron Age,” said Brendan.

  I lifted an eyebrow at him.

  “My teacher at school says Stone Age means all you have is rocks. We’re at least in the Iron Age. You have your rock hammer, and I have my pocketknife, and the oarlocks are metal, too. And then there’s the rafts. Was there a Rubber Age?”

  Fritz ruffled Brendan’s hair and kissed him on the top of his head. “My clever son,” he said.

  It was getting on for the later part of the afternoon when a Park Service helicopter came low overhead on its way toward a landing upriver, and a short while later, Ranger Seth Farnsworth pulled up to our moorage in a motor-powered Zodiac raft that had been deployed from the chopper. He climbed out in his Park Service green pants, tan T-shirt, and green cap and set to work assessing our situation. He was polite and efficient and kept his questions respectful while maintaining a sense of remove.

  Finally, Mungo Park broke the formality by saying, “I take it this isn’t your first drowning.”

  Ranger Farnsworth shook his head. “No, it is not.” He looked up along the cliff face. “I can’t see him climbing out of here.”

  “We already checked for climbing routes,” said Fritz. “Though I can’t see him making it up this cliff alive. He’d had several ounces of Scotch, remember, and a number of beers. And the moon wasn’t up.”

  Farnsworth nodded. “But Oberley is well known in the canyon. He was an experienced river runner and a little unpredictable, so I’ll just have a look.” He started his engine and churned upriver a short distance. The helicopter reappeared, providing air support, searching the cliffs and heading downriver when the Zodiac had to stop before the next rapids.

  The Zodiac came back into view, searching the eddies for any signs of the remains of an unlucky man. When he returned to the campsite Farnsworth said, “I found no sign of him, and I expect we won’t find him for quite some time. Bodies tend to sink in this cold water and not come up for days or even weeks.”

  Nobody said anything.

  Farnsworth said, “I’m sorry for your loss. I suppose you’re here for another night, then?”

  Fritz gazed up at the patch of sky that still blazed over the lengthening shadows and said, “Where do we go from here? I mean, aside
from the obvious.” He made a gesture that said, We go down the river.

  The ranger gazed at the half-sunken dory. “You’ll need to get his gear to the take-out at Diamond Creek. It looks like that may be something of a chore, but the rule is that you pack out what you bring in.”

  Behind me Nancy Skinner mumbled, “Garbage in, garbage out.”

  “Are we going to find him floating in an eddy?” asked Dell.

  The ranger shook his head. “Typically a body sinks and stays down for about two weeks. You’ll be long past it before that happens.”

  After the ranger had gotten back into his raft and taken his leave, and the helicopter had clattered away toward the South Rim, we all stood around the cold fire pit for a while staring into the ashes of the fire Wink had allowed to burn out. Glenda Fittle held her arms folded tightly around her chest, staring at her feet. She seemed to have shrunk to a smaller size over the hours of the day. “Maybe we should hold some kind of memorial service for him,” she said.

  People shifted nervously. “I suppose you’re right,” said Jerry.

  Fritz stepped swiftly into the leadership void. “I agree. One of our number has apparently … died, and it would help the rest of us … put this behind us. Does anyone know if Wink was religious?”

  Nancy said, “He was hanging out with those über-Christians.”

  Glenda pulled back in shock. “What are you talking about? Wink always laughed at the idea of religion. He recognized the value of spiritual traditions, but organized religion … well, that was anathema to him! He said so! Many times!”

  Nancy stepped up and put an arm around her. “That’s okay, dear. You’ve had a nasty shock. We all have.”

  “We don’t even know for certain that he’s dead,” said Mungo.

  Glenda burst into tears.

  Fritz once again stepped into the breach. “Okay then, we’ll each put some thought into this and come back together in an hour and have an observance that shows respect. If anyone else has any ideas, then great. Meanwhile this evening’s dinner crew can get started.”

  Nancy steered Glenda over toward the camp chairs and sat her down. The three kayakers headed for the kitchen area. Gary lit a burner under a pot while Lloyd and Olaf headed out onto the rafts to fetch ingredients. The rest began to wander this way and that, leaving Fritz, Brendan, and me standing at water’s edge staring up into the sky.

  Brendan summarized our situation with an economy of words. He said, “Missing man, Dad. Missing man.”

  APRIL 17–18: THALWEG

  We launched from Ledges early the next morning. Fritz had Brendan help row as he tested the drag caused by the dory, which followed us with reluctance.

  “How’s it coming?” Don called from his raft. Jerry was rowing, and even as petite as she was, she was easily pulling ahead.

  “Not so good,” said Fritz. He didn’t elaborate.

  I was sitting in the bow. “Shall I recite ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’?” I asked.

  “Please don’t.”

  Don said, “Perhaps we should have someone row it for a while. One of the kayakers could tow his boat behind it, or lash the kayak on top of one of the rafts. You’re going to exhaust yourself.”

  Between clenched teeth, Fritz said, “I don’t want anyone having to mess with this thing.”

  I stopped trying to make light of the problem. Fritz was doing penance, plain and simple. Being a reasonable man, he felt blame for what had happened. I could hear his voice in my head, saying, I’m the trip leader. I should have prevented this. All of this.

  We stopped three miles downriver at the mouth of Havasu Canyon, a lovely narrows where Havasu Creek carved a meandering slot through ribs of Muav Limestone. Several of our party climbed out and hiked up that side canyon while Jerry and Nancy and I huddled in the shade of the canyon walls, lounging back in our rafts and chatting.

  Jerry said, “I hiked up Havasu to the travertine pools on another trip. They were really pretty, but a flash flood tore them out, so I’m just as happy to save my energies this time.”

  I asked, “What’s up there farther? The river guide has a whole page for this creek, which is kind of unusual.”

  “It’s the Havasupai Indian Reservation,” she said. “They have a town—Supai—and you can eventually rim out, though it’s a long way up there. This is where Eddie McKee described the Supai Group. He named the formations he split out after several of the ‘temples’ that cap the cliffs up there. Wescogame … Manakacha … what are the others?”

  “Bottom to top it’s Watahomigi, Manakacha, Wescogame, Esplanade,” I said.

  Nancy snickered. “You science nerds are a riot.”

  “We exist to entertain,” I said, opening up the river guide. “So it looks like a long way out to Supai and the rest of the world.”

  Jerry said, “Oh, I’d say it’s about fifteen miles to the nearest thing like a highway, and that’s probably a gravel road. I hear it’s kind of a mule trail at best, like you wouldn’t get a car in there. It connects out to Kingman or some place like that. Oh, look, here are our returning heroes. Shall we get some snacks ready?”

  Nancy said, “I’m always ready for snacks. I vote for adult candy bars.” She opened up a rocket box and pulled out a handful of granola bars. “These include the most important food group: chocolate.”

  We passed around munchies and got back on the river. Stuck for a place to stow the wrapper of my granola bar, I folded it up and put it in the mesh pocket on the front of my life vest. It was nice to be in a place that had almost no trash, and I intended to keep it that way.

  Fritz was pulling hard at the oars.

  “I’ll plot the thalweg,” I told him.

  “The who?” asked Brendan.

  “Thalweg. It’s a two-bit term for the line along the river where the current is fastest.”

  “You’re making that up.”

  “It’s a loan word from German. Actually a compound word, from thal, meaning valley, and weg, meaning way. So if we want the water to do as much work for us as possible, we follow the valley way. It’s the most efficient route, as the river turns and wanders through the canyon.” I didn’t add that staying in the thalweg would also keep us out of the eddies, which might be unpleasantly decorated with the corpse of our recently departed doryman.

  “I have a much better idea to add efficiency,” said Brendan. “Let’s just burn the thing.”

  Fritz’s eyebrows shot up. “There’s an idea.”

  I slapped Brendan a high five, but staring into the eddies got me thinking: Now that the immediate issue of whether or not Wink could be found at Ledges was past, questions still remained. How exactly had he left the campsite? And where would he be found? There was something about the whole scenario that did not quite stack up for me. I had been accused once or twice by FBI colleagues of having a spider’s sense for the slightest twitch in the web of evidence, which was apt: For me, evidence was, much like a web, a pattern, and sometimes the pattern matched something I’d seen before, while other times the pattern was new. Either way, if the pattern did not hang together then something was wrong, and it bugged me, and I picked at it, searching for another bit of the design, until the overall picture made sense.

  Nothing about George “Wink” Oberley made sense to me. Why would he work so hard at lying, making things incredibly difficult for himself, when he was bright and able enough to make his way through honest means? Why, for instance, had he come on our trip? What had he gained through that? Perhaps if he loved anything he loved this canyon, but why then would he make such a point out of provoking everyone around him into wishing he were anywhere else?

  Yet Wink had been kind to Holly Ann, the girl from the Christian fundamentalist trip. Why be nice to her when he was such a shit to everyone else? I couldn’t match up Wink’s obvious attempts to look nice and play nicely with the rest of Holly Ann’s group, which had been a lie, with his kindness to Holly Ann, which had seemed genuine. It was all just terrib
ly confounding. I rolled onto my back on the floor of the raft and watched the sky and the rims of the canyon walls make their slow minuet, pondering our line of flow.

  “Hey, Dad,” I heard Brendan say. “I like this thalweg idea. I see how things drag over here and start turning around the wrong way, making an eddy, and then over there on the other side of the river, there’s another eddy turning the opposite way. But if you stay in between them, the water runs fast and straight. That’s the place to be, Dad, running straight, staying out of the confusion. That’s the difference between you and Wink, Dad. You’re smart. You let the water help you and don’t get caught up in places that are going backwards.”

  I smiled for the first time that day. With every turn in the river, Brendan was growing up, growing wiser, sorting things out for himself and beginning to make his own discernments in life. Momentarily at peace and flowing within my own thalweg, I closed my eyes and took a much-needed snooze.

  We camped that evening at the mouth of National Canyon. Camp life was subdued but much calmer, and Mungo exhorted us all to put together some skits and acted them out for each other. I felt badly that someone had to disappear to make a happier campfire life possible, but I reasoned that Wink had brought his woes on himself.

  The morning of April 18, we launched and headed on down the river like a well-oiled machine. The rapids were all fairly small, and we made reasonable time, even though we had to stop periodically to bail out the dory, which had grown increasingly waterlogged. We stopped at Fern Glen Canyon to enjoy a nice stroll up through its cool depths and made it to Cove Canyon to camp.

  All was going well with camp setup when I heard Mungo shout, “Em! Your life vest is going down the river without you!”

  It was floating away into the gathering current, starting to bob its way into the heavy riffle that fed around the small jumble of rocks from the side canyon.