Leaving Blythe River: A Novel

by Catherine Ryan Hyde

  He grabbed hold of the saddle horn and tried to mount. And failed miserably. He couldn’t even lift his left leg up to the stirrup. It felt dead. Disconnected. He let go of the horn and held his left leg with both hands, just above the knee. He physically lifted it to the stirrup. Then he grabbed the horn again and tried to swing over. He managed to lift himself a foot off the ground, if that. Then his upward motion lost power and stalled, and he landed on the ground again.

  “Ow,” he said.

  “Here,” Jone said. She moved around to the left side of the mule, one arm hooked through the reins. She laced her hands together and offered them to Ethan. “Put your knee there. A little below the knee, actually. Put your shin there.”

  Ethan did as he was told.

  “One,” Jone said, and Ethan feared the moment she got to three. “Two. Three.”

  He jumped as best he could, and Jone used the strength of her arms and back to launch him, and he landed in the saddle. Too heavily, and he kicked poor Dora again on the way over, hard, but he got there. And she didn’t bolt. She must have expected it by then.

  “Ow,” he said. Then, when the mule had stopped fidgeting, he patted her dirty neck and said, “Sorry.”

  Ethan sat up straight again, and looked around for his dog. He still had no idea what they were going to do about his dog. He found Rufus in Sam’s arms, just inches from Dora’s saddle.

  “Here,” Sam said. “He’s all yours.” And he set Rufus across Ethan’s legs.

  Rufus scrambled for purchase and balance, but his sock-covered paws only slipped off the saddle leather again. Ethan used his arms to adjust the dog into a steadier position. But no position was quite steady enough. Rufus was uneasily perched there on the saddle at best. Ethan would have to hold him as they rode. There was no other way this could go.

  “Let’s make some miles,” Sam said. “We haven’t covered much ground so far today.”

  They rode on.

  Not five minutes into the uncomfortable ride, Marcus’s predictions began to take shape. Sam and Jone had a decision to make. And they couldn’t see eye to eye. And they had begun bickering.

  Ethan was bringing up the rear, and his mule kept falling behind, so he couldn’t hear every word they said. But from what he could gather, there was a trail intersection coming up. One direction took them deeper into the wilderness. The other looped them around toward home.

  Sam thought they should go deeper in.

  Jone thought they’d already gone farther than a person could have gone on foot, considering he’d only planned a day trip.

  Sam said she didn’t know how much mileage his dad was capable of covering.

  Jone said yes, she did, but it didn’t matter. Because by the time they got to the intersection, they’d be halfway into a twenty-two-mile loop.

  Sam said that was not necessarily true. He said it depended on the series of trails Ethan’s dad had taken. And since they didn’t know, they should be thorough.

  Jone said the odds were greater of an accident happening closer to home.

  Sam said the odds of getting lost were greater if he’d gone in deeper than usual.

  Sam also said the professional searchers probably didn’t believe anybody would try to cover twenty-plus miles in a day, and likely scoured the trails closer to home. And if they didn’t believe the miles this guy ran, and so didn’t search deep enough in the wilderness, somebody should.

  Jone said maybe there was a good reason they didn’t believe it. Maybe the miles you run are like fish stories. The big one that got away. She said a guy sure as hell wouldn’t brag that he’d run fewer miles than he really had. She said exaggeration is predictable. It only goes one way.

  The more they argued, the more they raised their voices, and the better Ethan could hear each word. Even though he and Dora and Rufus were having more and more trouble keeping up.

  Then Sam and Jone were stopped, sitting their horses in the middle of the trail. Not fighting. Not saying anything. Just giving Ethan a chance to catch up. Though Ethan wasn’t sure if they’d done so intentionally. They hadn’t looked around for him in some time, and didn’t seem to be paying him any mind at all.

  As Ethan rode up and stopped beside them, he saw they had reached the intersection. It was marked with a wooden sign. Burned into the wood he read: “Sawtooth Camp: 3.7 mi.” And an arrow pointing left. “Avery Trailhead: 11.1 mi.” And an arrow pointing right.

  They all three stared at the sign for a moment in silence.

  Ethan’s arms more than ached from holding his dog in place on the saddle—they fairly screamed. And his back had grown tight and sore from leaning forward to do so.

  And it wasn’t even time to stop for lunch.

  “Which way do we go?” Ethan asked.

  Jone snorted. “That would be the question, yeah,” she said.

  “You hear any of what we were saying?” Sam asked. “When we were trying to decide?”

  “I did,” Ethan said.

  “We have a basic difference of opinion,” Jone said.

  You have a lot of them, Ethan thought. But he didn’t say it. Marcus had been right. They were wearing down, all of them. Getting tired and sore and frustrated and discouraged. The battles would likely escalate from here. And Ethan would have to figure out how to be the peacemaker.

  “The problem,” Sam said, “is that everything is guesswork. He could’ve slipped off the trail a mile from home. He could’ve gone in miles farther than usual and gotten lost. We just have no way of knowing. We’re just guessing. A man’s life is at stake, and all we can do is guess.”

  “If he’s even out here,” Ethan replied.

  They both turned their heads to look at him, but Ethan refused to look back. But he could feel the weight of their stares.

  “Yeah, well, that’s guesswork, too,” Jone said. “But we’re out here, so we’re committed. We knew the risk going in. But we’re doing it. So we better act as if we’re sure he’s here. Even if that sureness tends to flag some on the bad days.”

  They sat their mounts in silence for a moment or two. Ethan would have given anything to let go of the dog and straighten up. But he knew if he did, Rufus would hit the ground immediately.

  “What time is it?” he asked.

  Sam peered at his watch closely, as if his vision weren’t too good.

  Great, Ethan thought. That’s encouraging for the lead member of a search party.

  “Ten twenty,” Sam said.

  “Can we stop right here and have lunch early? Give ourselves some time to think?”

  For a few beats, nothing but silence. Ethan was beginning to assume he’d proposed a laughable plan.

  “I think that’s a great idea,” Jone said.

  She dismounted, led the chestnut around closer to Dora, hooked one arm through the reins, and reached her hands out to accept the dog from Ethan.

  Ethan handed him over, and straightened his arms and back, all of which screamed in pain at the sudden change in position.

  “Ow,” Ethan said.

  “I keep thinking about those outcroppings of rock,” Ethan said to no one in particular.

  They were sitting cross-legged in the rocky dirt, eating mountains of pasta with a creamy cheese sauce. Rehydrated. But it was good. It was the best thing Ethan had eaten since he’d left the last bits of Joan’s nonrehydrated chicken stew behind.

  Rufus lay in the dirt next to them, eating kibble from a collapsible bowl.

  “What outcroppings of rock?” Sam asked.

  “The ones I was checking as we came up that steep section of trail this morning. The places where somebody could slip off the trail and not fall all the way down into the valley. Because there’s something sticking out to break their fall.”

  “What about them?” Sam asked.

  Jone was staring into her cup of food as she shoveled it into her mouth, seeming lost in thought.

  “I keep thinking about that first steep trail we came up. The one with the drop
-off on the right. I said it was snowy when he started his run that day. And that he might’ve slipped off that trail. You said if he did, he would’ve fallen all the way down into the valley. Five hundred feet at least. So no way he could survive that fall. But are you sure there’s no place anywhere along that trail with those little shelves of rock to break his fall? Not even one?”

  Sam chewed in silence for a moment.

  “Can’t say for a fact there’s not even one. No. But if I’m remembering right, it’s more of a sheer cliff than the one you were just checking. What do you think, Jone?”

  She seemed to jump at the mention of her name. She’d clearly been far away.

  “About what?”

  “Ethan’s thinking we should’ve been looking over the edge on that first piece of steep trail. But I’m thinking that’s pretty sheer. Not too many places that could break a fall. At least, as I recall it. But I won’t lie and pretend I ever looked at it from the valley with an eye for such a thing.”

  “Me neither,” she said, still chewing. “But even if he did slip off the trail early on . . . that’s where the rangers and the search team would’ve been most likely to find him. Either way. Whether a shelf broke his fall or whether he went all the way to the valley. They must’ve looked there.”

  “Unless they more or less looked right at him but he blended in,” Sam said. “You know. Some people know to wear bright colors on the trail. Some don’t think of it. Any idea what your dad was wearing that day, son?”

  “Little late in the game to be asking him that,” Jone said. “Don’t you think? You know the ranger must’ve asked him that first thing.”

  It sounded like an invitation to another argument, the way she said it. A little dig at Sam. So Ethan jumped in fast, hoping to prevent another problem.

  “Let me try to remember. Did he?” His conversation with Ranger Dave seemed like such ancient history. Like something that had happened months before. “I think he did. I must’ve said I was asleep when he left, and I didn’t see him go. But all his running clothes are pretty much the same. He wears shorts and a T-shirt, and a fleece that he takes off and ties around his waist once he’s warmed up. And they’re all gray. You know. That sort of light heather gray.”

  Sam and Jone both groaned, and at almost exactly the same moment.

  “Great,” Sam said. “He went out into the mountains disguised as shale. You tell the ranger he was wearing rock gray?”

  “I think I must have,” Ethan said. “Because that groan sounded familiar.”

  “Such an experienced outdoorsman,” Sam said. “You’d think he’d know better.”

  Ethan shook his head. “There are things he’ll wear and things he won’t. I don’t know how to explain my dad any better than that. And he never goes out like something could happen. He never prepares for the worst. It’s like he figures he can do anything. That he’s immune from everything. Except he does take bear spray. I guess because it’s life or death.”

  “So is all the rest of this,” Sam said.

  They ate in silence for a time.

  Then Ethan said, “By the time he got to that steep trail we just climbed, the snow would’ve melted. It would’ve been at least late morning by then. And you remember it warmed up fast that day. That’s the day the weather changed and it got hot.”

  “Meaning?” Sam asked.

  Jone had gone away again. Figuratively speaking.

  “I just think he was more likely to slip off the snowy trail.”

  “Wet rock with snowmelt running off it isn’t much better in the traction department.”

  “But we looked over the edge of the second drop-off. We didn’t look over the edge of the first.”

  No one chose to comment. In fact, most of the rest of their lunch break passed in stony silence.

  “We still haven’t figured out what to do next,” Sam said after a time.

  “I say we let Ethan decide,” Jone said.

  “Ethan?” Sam asked.

  “Me?” Ethan chimed in.

  “Yeah. Why not you? It’s your trip. It’s your father.”

  “But I know this place less than anybody.”

  “Not sure that matters,” Jone said, setting her empty cup on a rock. “You can know this place like the back of your hand, but that won’t tell you where the man got lost or hurt inside it. That’s just guesswork. You’re the one has to live with it most if we guess wrong. So I figure you ought to have your say.”

  Ethan ate the last of his pasta in silence.

  He felt the weight of the decision but, surprisingly, did not feel overwhelmed by it. There was no right or wrong choice. No, that wasn’t quite true. If his father was out here, there was a trail he’d taken and a trail he hadn’t. But there was no way to know one from the other. Ethan accepted that—really let it sink in, all the way down to his gut. Guesswork was all they had. Ethan simply needed to choose. And if he chose wrong, he needed to live with it. Like Jone said. And he would. Because it had been his best effort. He was out here long after the professionals had given up. He was doing all that could be done. He had an approximately fifty-fifty chance of choosing wrong, but there would be no carelessness or negligence involved. Just the luck of the draw.

  It’s not like somebody else was smarter, or had more experience, and could do better. Lots of people had more experience. Sam and Jone, for example. The rangers and the search pilots. But they weren’t doing any better.

  “I say we turn right,” Ethan said. “Take the trail that leads back home. I want to ride that first valley, right up against the edge. Right where he’d land if he slipped off that trail. Maybe they only searched that by plane, and maybe he didn’t stand out from the rocks he landed on. And we can look up at the rock face from there and see if there’s any place that could’ve broken his fall. And if there is, we can ride up onto the trail again and look down from above.”

  Ethan stopped, breathed. There. It was done. Right or wrong, it was done. He’d made the decision.

  “Fair enough,” Jone said, clearly pleased that he’d agreed with her thinking.

  Sam said nothing. Not as they cleaned up from lunch, not as they mounted up and headed on.

  So apparently Sam was not pleased.

  Halfway back down the steep trail, winding downhill to the other side of the valley, Jone asked him a question.

  “Anything special you factored into that decision?”

  “Yeah,” Ethan said. “One thing. If my dad says he does twenty miles, I figure the truth is he probably does less. That’s just the kind of guy he is, you know? Based on what I know about him. And I guess I know him pretty well. After seventeen years.”

  Sam was close enough to hear them. But still he said nothing.

  What might have been two painful hours later, they rode over a rocky pass that made Ethan’s heart pound and his forehead sweat. But he convinced himself that it was not the same one. Still, he carefully chose not to look over his shoulder into the valley behind them, which would have been the best way to identify the location.

  Ethan heard a sharp rapping sound, and looked up to see that Sam had just ridden over a familiar-looking shotgun lying on the trail. One of the bay’s hooves must have knocked into it. Ethan could see it skitter a few inches along the trail.

  Ethan’s heart ratcheted up to what always felt like near-death speed. How hard could a heart beat before it exploded, anyway?

  Rebar managed to miss the shotgun with all four hooves.

  Jone stopped her chestnut right in front of it.

  Sam rode on without noticing.

  “This look familiar to you?” she asked Ethan.

  She swung down off her horse and picked it up by its stock, holding it up high for Ethan to see. Ethan closed his eyes so he wouldn’t see it. And so his heart wouldn’t kill him.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said. “I mean Jone. It’s my father’s.”

  Ethan wondered if she could hear the tremble in his voice. The shortness of breath.


  “He takes it with him when he’s running?”

  “No. He takes bear spray. I brought it up here.”

  “You came up here with a shotgun?”

  “Right.”

  “Why?”

  “To find my dad. Oh. You meant why the shotgun. I thought it would protect me against bears.”

  “How’d that work out?”

  “Not so well, actually.”

  “Yeah. Having a gun you don’t know how to use tends to cause more problems than it solves. But it’s worth something, so we’ll take it home, anyway.”

  She swung up into the saddle and braced the weapon across her thighs. They rode on. It was a long, shaky ride down off that pass for Ethan.

  It took them several minutes to catch up to Sam, who didn’t seem to notice that he’d left them behind. Either that or he didn’t care.

  They rode through the afternoon, and Sam said nothing. And Jone said nothing. Ethan figured he knew why Jone stayed quiet. She simply had nothing to add to Sam’s silent tantrum. Ethan said nothing because Sam was riding too far ahead, and so Ethan couldn’t ask him why he was acting this way. And also because, even if he’d been closer, he likely wouldn’t have known how to start.

  So Ethan hunkered over his dog and tried to keep him from slipping off the front of the saddle, even though his arms were so sore and trembly he was tempted to cry.

  The sky covered over with dense, white, scudding cumulus clouds, racing above and ahead of the team on a rising wind.

  In time Ethan saw, in the distance, the high trail they’d ridden their first day out. The one they had vowed to recheck. It stretched Ethan’s brain uncomfortably to think it had only been yesterday morning, so he stopped thinking about that. It was too hard to understand. The sheer face of the mountain looked a long way off across the newly green valley. Maybe farther than they could ride with the daylight they had left. Maybe only farther than Ethan wished they would.

  They came upon a winding stream, wide, and with a steep bed. It looked about as deep as Dora’s knees, yet Ethan could see the sparkle of rocks on its bottom. They shone bright and colorfully varied in a ray of sun that peeked out between a keyhole of two clouds and then disappeared again.