Take Me to the River
Page 14
On my last day we hiked to the brink of Santa Elena Canyon, lay on our bellies, and looked eight hundred feet straight down to Rock Slide Rapid. From above, I wouldn’t have thought it was runnable. Rio said it wasn’t as bad as it looked. We talked about paddling it in the fall.
On my fly day, we had to get up early to catch my eight AM bus out of Alpine. The sun was rising over the Chisos Mountains as Ariel drove us north. The big open desert sprinkled with mountains no longer looked like the far side of the moon. With Alpine in our sights, I spied a sign that said DON’T MESS WITH TEXAS. I got the threatening tone but couldn’t make out what it actually meant, so I asked. My cousin got a good laugh out of that. He explained that it was the Lone Star State’s antilitter motto.
Pretty soon we were standing on the curb in front of the High Desert Hotel, waiting for the Greyhound to lope into town. Rio asked me what the little cardboard box in the top of my backpack was all about. I said there was no such animal in my backpack as far as I knew. He said I should check.
I did, and I found a small box like he said I would. Inside was a wicked-looking scorpion fashioned from copper wire, cleverly braided. Its stinger was curled up and ready to strike. The eyes were made of small blue beads. “Awesome,” I said, holding it out on my palm. Rio beamed.
There was more to come. Ariel had a bright-colored Guatemalan bag over her shoulder. She gave it to me and said the bag was for my mother. “Look inside,” Rio said.
“What’s inside the bag is for you,” Ariel added.
Here came the bus. I had just enough time to undo the bubble wrap and see what this present was all about. It was one of her hubcaps, with brightly colored geometric designs surrounding a canyon scene, a bird’s-eye view of the Lower Canyons. There were two boats way down there on the winding river. One was a blue raft, and the other was a red canoe.
I just lost it. So did they.
All too soon the driver was throwing my duffel in the baggage compartment. We said our good-byes and our see-you-soons. I boarded the bus and took a seat on their side of the street. I had time to give them two fist pumps in honor of Diego before the bus blasted off in a cloud of diesel.
I have only one more thing to report. At the airport in El Paso, there was a headline in the newspaper that grabbed my attention on the way to the gate. It went like this: FUGITIVE CAPTURED ALIVE IN MEXICAN DESERT.
The story included a photograph of Carlos snarling like a rabid dog. It came as no surprise when I saw that his name wasn’t Carlos. One of Mexico’s 10 Most Wanted was on his way to prison.
About the Author
WILL HOBBS is the award-winning author of eighteen novels, including FAR NORTH, CROSSING THE WIRE, and GO BIG OR GO HOME.
TAKE ME TO THE RIVER began with the author’s week-long canoe trip through the remote Lower Canyons of the Rio Grande on the Texas-Mexico border. Will’s fondness for Texas goes back to his high school years in San Antonio. A graduate of Stanford University, Will lives with his wife, Jean, in Durango, Colorado.
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.
Books by Will Hobbs
CHANGES IN LATITUDES
BEARSTONE
DOWNRIVER
THE BIG WANDER
BEARDANCE
KOKOPELLI’S FLUTE
FAR NORTH
GHOST CANOE
BEARDREAM
RIVER THUNDER
HOWLING HILL
THE MAZE
JASON’S GOLD
DOWN THE YUKON
WILD MAN ISLAND
JACKIE’S WILD SEATTLE
LEAVING PROTECTION
CROSSING THE WIRE
GO BIG OR GO HOME
Copyright
Copyright © 2011 by Will Hobbs. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
* * *
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hobbs, Will.
Take me to the river / by Will Hobbs. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary: When North Carolina fourteen-year-old Dylan Sands joins his fifteen-year-old cousin Rio in running the Rio Grande, they face a tropical storm and a fugitive kidnapper.
ISBN 978-0-06-074144-0 (trade bdg.) — ISBN 978-0-06-074145-7 (lib. bdg.)
[1. Canoes and canoeing—Fiction. 2. Cousins—Fiction. 3. Fugitives from justice—Fiction. 4. Rio Grande—Fiction. 5. Texas—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.H6524Tak 2011
[Fic]—dc22
2010003147
CIP
AC
* * *
First Edition
EPub Edition © 2011 ISBN: 9780062069689
11 12 13 14 15 CG/RRDB 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
About the Publisher
Australia
HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd.
25 Ryde Road (PO Box 321)
Pymble, NSW 2073, Australia
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.com.au
Canada
HarperCollins Canada
2 Bloor Street East - 20th Floor
Toronto, ON, M4W, 1A8, Canada
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.ca
New Zealand
HarperCollinsPublishers (New Zealand) Limited
P.O. Box 1 Auckland,
New Zealand
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.co.nz
United Kingdom
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
77-85 Fulham Palace Road
London, W6 8JB, UK
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.co.uk
United States
HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
10 East 53rd Street
New York, NY 10022
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.com