Leaving Blythe River: A Novel

by Catherine Ryan Hyde

  Ethan felt cold in the stiff wind.

  They rode their horses and mules across without a word spoken to each other. Dora’s hooves splashed occasional drops of water onto Ethan’s jeans, but his shoes stayed dry, and he was thankful for that.

  Their path across the valley was less an organized trail and more just riding across a valley, wherever you chose to ride. So Ethan put his heels to his mule and rode up beside Jone, and looked up at her face towering above him on her tall mount.

  “Was that an extra-big creek we just crossed?” he asked her.

  “That was the Blythe River.”

  “You’re kidding,” he said.

  But part of him must have considered the possibility. Because he’d asked.

  “Everything changes fast in the wilderness,” she said. “Sometimes in just a matter of hours. It was all swollen with snowmelt and rain and hail that morning.” Jone didn’t say “yesterday morning,” leaving Ethan to wonder if she couldn’t believe the compression of time, either. “Now most of the snow has melted. Sure, there’s more in the very highest elevations. But a whole bunch of it melted at once. Now the runoff has slowed way down.”

  Ethan found himself deeply comforted by the fact that someone was talking to him, for the first time in hours. He sincerely wanted her to keep talking.

  “Remember when we rode up that trail?” she asked, pointing to the line snaking up the mountain before them. “Remember it had all these little waterfalls? Falling on us, falling over the trail and into the valley. Remember that? Now look at it. Nothing coming down.”

  They both looked at it for a moment—over and ahead of their mounts’ ears—without speaking.

  “Damn,” Jone said. “Was that really just yesterday? Feels like a week ago.”

  “That’s what I was just thinking!” he said, excited to hear something familiar come from the inside of someone else’s head.

  They rode in silence for a few steps. Ethan felt something nagging at his brain. Something unfortunate and dark.

  “So if someone is stuck out here, that’s bad, right? Less water is bad.”

  “Depends,” she said. “It just all depends, hon. If someone was lost out here, it wouldn’t be hard to find water. I mean, look at us. We’ve found it everywhere we’ve gone. Lakes, the river. The river snakes all the way through this place, the whole length of it. And all these little tributaries and creeks leading into it. But if someone was injured out here. You know . . . not moving around . . . Well, I know what you’re thinking, Ethan, and I’m not going to lie to you. Time’s running out for your dad.”

  “I know,” Ethan said. “I’m really getting it, I think, that we’re going home tomorrow without him. I mean, we’re going to look in the valley underneath that trail. And ride up and look over the edge in case there’s any place partway down. But then what? We’re back close to home, and what’s the point of riding out again? Where can we ride that we didn’t already? What are we supposed to see that we haven’t already seen? I mean, I know there’s more wilderness. Lots more. But not that he could have gotten to in one day of running, and we’d have no idea which way to look . . .”

  “We tried.” Jone’s voice sounded deeper than usual. Sad and a little consoling. “We said we’d try, right?”

  “I guess,” he said.

  But still it felt like a hard pill to swallow. To turn around and go home and not know any more about the welfare of his dad than they’d known at the start.

  “That’s not a full day’s ride tomorrow,” she said. “Maybe a morning’s work at best. Or at worst, I guess I should say. Even if we ride all along the base of the cliff and then go slow back up the trail so’s you can look over. It’s still only a handful of hours.”

  “So we’ll be home early,” he said, which sounded like a tragic thing to be.

  “Or we can knock off a little early today,” she said.

  “Oh my God I would love that!” Ethan blurted out without thinking. “It is so hard to hold this dog onto the saddle with me. Every muscle in my body is killing me. My arms are killing me. My back is killing me.”

  She reined her horse to a halt.

  “Sam!” she called out sharply, cupping one hand around her mouth.

  Her voice was loud, and Sam wasn’t far ahead. Ethan felt Sam must have heard her. But he and the bay and Rebar kept going as if he hadn’t.

  “No, wait,” Ethan said. “No. I take back what I said. We can’t stop now. If my dad is out here . . .”

  “Honey. It doesn’t matter. By the time we get there it’ll be too dark to search.”

  “But if we keep going, we’ll be there earlier tomorrow morning.”

  “Ethan,” she said. And there was a deep gravity to the one-word sentence. Ethan winced in preparation for what would come next. “I think it’s time we can stop acting like this is life or death. I’m sorry to have to say it. But I think you can take care of your own needs now and consider that we’re more recovery than rescue at this point.”

  Ethan said nothing. He just sat his mule and felt the last thread of his hopes lift out of him.

  Jone laid the reins down on the chestnut’s neck and made a megaphone with both of her hands. “Sam Riley, you stubborn, pig-headed old bastard!” Her horse jumped slightly at the tone and volume. “We got a decision to make! So you get your ass back here and talk to us whether you’re talking to us or not!”

  A pause. Then Sam’s bay stopped. Rebar took a step or two and then stopped behind them. But Sam didn’t turn them around, or even look over his shoulder. Horse, man, and bad-tempered mule just stood their ground, facing off toward the mountains.

  “What’s wrong with him?” Ethan asked Jone quietly.

  “He’s a man,” Jone said. “That answer your question?”

  A moment later Sam’s rein hand came up, and he turned his bay around and rode back to them, stopping a few steps too far away. His face looked blank and expressionless. If he was angry, Ethan thought, he had a strange way of showing it.

  “It’s like this,” Jone said. “It’s going to take us maybe an hour to ride to the edge of the valley and another hour to ride all along it. If we do that tonight, we’ll have to camp there, with no water. Because it’ll be too late to go up that trail again and have enough light to look proper. Ethan’s tired, and I think we all are, so I propose we stay put right where we are. Right here near the river. What we got to do tomorrow we can do in a morning, easy. I think we need to knock off for the day.”

  Sam sat in silence for a minute or so. Ethan actually wondered if the older man had heard all that. He must have. But Ethan saw no sign that he had.

  Sam swung down off his big bay.

  “Wait,” Jone said to Ethan. “Let me get down first, and I’ll take the dog from you.”

  As he handed Rufus down to Jone, Ethan couldn’t help letting out a telling expression of pain. A kind of muffled grunt.

  “Holy crap, that hurts,” he said, in hopes of explaining the strange noise.

  “Need help getting down?”

  “I don’t think so. Let me just stretch a minute. It’s down, you know? Gravity ought to get me there.”

  Meanwhile Sam was unsaddling his horse and taking the packs off his mule.

  Ethan stood in the stirrups, kicked his leg out of the right-hand one, and lifted his right leg. It didn’t lift far. Not nearly far enough to clear Dora’s back.

  “Here,” Jone said, and stepped in. “I realize this is mighty undignified, but just bear with me.”

  She came up on Dora’s left side, wrapped an arm around Ethan’s waist, and simply pulled him off the saddle. His right leg, and then his foot, slid over the saddle seat, and both feet landed on the ground.

  “Ow!” he said.

  “Sorry. I wasn’t aiming to hurt you.”

  “It wasn’t that. It wasn’t your fault. There’s no move I can make right now that doesn’t have me saying ‘ow.’”

  They stood a moment, smiling small commiserating
smiles at each other.

  When they looked up, Sam was walking away.

  “Where’s he going?” Ethan asked, though he knew Jone could know no more about the subject than he did.

  “No idea. Maybe he has to relieve himself.”

  “Oh. Right.”

  “I know you’re tired,” she said. “But I’m going to walk the couple hundred yards back to the river and fill up that big water sack. The one that filters water by gravity.”

  “Oh. Is that what that hanging bag was? I wondered.”

  “Might do you good to walk with me. Keep from getting too stiff.”

  Ethan took a few steps with her, then looked around for his dog.

  “I’m worried he’ll try to walk with us.”

  “If he does, you can stay back with him if you want.”

  They took two more steps. Rufus sat down to watch them.

  “Guess I was worried about nothing,” Ethan said.

  “I don’t know how long he’s been gone exactly,” Ethan said. “But longer than it would take to do what you said.”

  Jone only grunted.

  They were lying side by side on sleeping bags in the grass, watching the clouds slide through. Resting up for the work of setting up tents and cooking dinner. Hoping Sam would come back and help. At least, Ethan was hoping that.

  “I’d ask what was wrong with him,” Ethan said. “But I figure I already did. And you told me.”

  “I’d like to withdraw my answer,” she said, “and apologize for it to boot. You’ll be a man yourself in a year or so, and I shouldn’t make blanket statements. All I can say is, you’ll have a choice about what kind of a man you want to be. Don’t be like that one. At least, not like that one’s being right now. Aw, hell, I already know you won’t. I can tell.”

  Ethan mulled that over in silence for a moment.

  “I’m not sure exactly what it is I’m supposed to avoid.”

  “One word, kid. Pride. Don’t get all hung up in false pride. Don’t always have to be the leader. Don’t always have to be right. Don’t get your feelings hurt over every little thing and take it out on somebody else. Everybody makes mistakes, and you get to be part of everybody.” She rolled over onto one elbow. Looked down at Ethan’s face. “You okay? You don’t look so good.”

  “I don’t think I’m sick, if that’s what you mean. I’ve just never been this tired and sore in my life. It almost feels like being sick. Like I feel cold, and a little shaky, and almost sick to my stomach, but not quite. But it feels like it’s because my muscles are so sore.”

  “Lactic acid,” she said, and dropped over onto her back again.

  “Oh,” he said.

  “Your muscles are releasing lots of lactic acid. You should push a ton of fluids tonight. All night, till you go to bed. You’ll have to wake up and pee, but you could do worse. It’s better than being in so much pain you can’t sleep in the first place. I’ll get you some water and some ibuprofen. That’ll help at least a little bit.”

  “Wait. No. Aren’t you just as tired?”

  “No,” she said. “I’m tired. But I’m not that bad. I’m old, but I’m tough. This isn’t all that far off the curve of what I do on an average day.”

  And with that, she got up and wandered off.

  Ethan shivered and breathed, and watched the clouds roll by. And wished there were some way out of his own skin. It was a purely miserable place to be.

  A few minutes later she returned, and helped him sit up. She handed him a tall plastic cup of filtered water, and four white tablets, which Ethan swallowed all at once.

  She wrapped a stiff blanket around his shoulders, and he pulled it more tightly to himself.

  “Thanks,” he said as she sat cross-legged on her sleeping bag. “Hey! Rufus! Don’t chew on that sock.” Then, to Jone, “He’s chewing on the sock.”

  “One of yours or one of Sam’s?”

  “Mine.”

  “Just as well it’s not Sam’s, based on his mood. I’m sure it’s no coincidence that Sam put yours on the front paws. Hey!” she said sharply to the dog. She reached over and bumped his head with her hand, and he stopped worrying the edge of the sock. “When you get into the tent tonight and out of the dirt, take all that off him. Bandages and everything. He wants to lick those sore places. Let him. Tomorrow before we head out we’ll get him set up again.”

  “Oh,” Ethan said. “I just remembered. I was going to wash out a pair of socks tonight.” He stared in the direction of the river for a time. “Command decision. I’m wearing dirty socks tomorrow. I just can’t make myself do it.”

  “Give them to me,” Jone said.

  “No. I draw the line at you washing out my dirty socks. You’ve done enough.”

  “If I’m down there doing something else, and it’s convenient, I’ll do it. If not . . .”

  Then they didn’t speak for a time. Maybe fifteen minutes or more. Ethan was too exhausted to speak.

  And Sam still had not come back.

  “I don’t really know Sam all that well,” he said at last. “I like him, so I hate to say what I’m about to say. But I guess I can kind of see why you keep him at arm’s length. Please don’t tell him I said that. He’d be hurt.”

  “I won’t. Aw, hell. What can I say about me and Sam? My husband’s been gone a damn long time, kid. Over ten years. Part of me wouldn’t mind a little company. And it’s not like there’s much of anybody else around. If Sam’d only come at me some better way all this time, you know? Not so . . .”

  But then she didn’t seem to know how to finish.

  “Like the kind of man you don’t want me to be?”

  “Right. But I know you won’t be.”

  “What about your husband? Was he like that?”

  “Oh, no. He was different. He didn’t waste his time with crap like that. He had living to do. He knew who he was and he didn’t have anything to prove to anybody. He had no problem saying he made a mistake, or he didn’t know. That’s a sign of confidence in a person. People think it’s the other way around. But it’s only people who don’t have their acts together who work so hard to make you think they do.”

  “I guess I see what you mean,” Ethan said. Then, a few scudding clouds later, “Those ibuprofen are starting to help. Thanks.”

  “I’ll go get started on some dinner. Sam can come back and eat it, or his helping can sit there and get cold. I don’t see it as any of my business. And frankly, I don’t rightly care.”

  And not caring proved to be a good thing, too. Because dinner came and went. The sky faded to night. And Sam did not come back.

  It was dark when Sam unzipped the tent flap and ducked in. Ethan would have guessed it was around ten o’clock, but he didn’t know for sure. But he was not asleep. He’d been lying awake watching the moon rise to directly overhead—where he could see it through the mesh top of the tent—and listening to Rufus lick his paws.

  Sam stripped down to his boxers and climbed into his sleeping bag without comment.

  A few minutes went by. Maybe three. Maybe ten.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Ethan asked Sam, without realizing he was about to speak.

  Sam sat up straight, sleeping bag and all.

  “What am I doing? What am I doing? What are you doing? Yelling at the person who brought you out here just to be a nice guy?”

  Ethan hadn’t yelled. But he couldn’t get a word in edgewise to point it out.

  “Hell, I don’t need this, Ethan. I got enough problems without you getting on my case. I could ride right out of here. Right now. By headlamp. And you and that . . . you two can just finish this little project by yourself.”

  Then Sam seemed to run out of steam.

  “I just don’t get what you’re so upset about,” Ethan said quietly.

  “Because. I’m. Blowing it!” Sam shouted. “Everything I try to do to impress her just backfires on me.”

  “But you keep trying the same things.”

  “What
do you mean?” Sam’s voice quieted. As if he was interested now. Because maybe Ethan knew something. Saw something Sam didn’t see.

  Hell, Ethan thought. Everybody sees something Sam doesn’t see. Of course, he didn’t say so.

  “You keep trying to impress her the same way. First you tell everybody to talk you up to her. Then you get all upset because there’s another man along on the trip. Like you’re a wild stallion or something and you have to drive all the other males away. Then you get even more upset because you had a different idea than she did about which way we should turn and I chose hers. I didn’t choose it to side with her. I chose it because I’m trying to find my dad. We’re out here to find my dad. Remember? It’s really not so much a dating thing, you know?”

  Ethan waited for Sam to blow. Maybe stomp out of the tent and ride home. Instead the older man just sighed deeply.

  “It was both for me. Okay? I don’t think you need to begrudge me that.”

  “I don’t,” Ethan said. “I mean, mostly I don’t.”

  Ethan breathed more deeply, happy that the explosive part of the conversation seemed to have passed on its own.

  “But it doesn’t matter now,” Sam said, “because it’s over. I lost. I made an ass of myself. I finally got my big chance and I blew it. I don’t know any other ways to impress her. I don’t know what the hell she wants.”

  “I do,” Ethan said. A brief, reverberating silence. “I know what impresses her.”

  “How? How do you know?”

  “She told me.”

  “You were talking about me?”

  “We were talking about her late husband, actually,” Ethan said. Because it was true enough. And more diplomatic. “She said he knew who he was. He had nothing to prove to anybody. If he made a mistake, he admitted it. If he didn’t know, he admitted it.”

  “That doesn’t help, buddy. Because that’s not me.”

  “She said something else. She said only people who don’t have their act together work so hard to make you think they do.”

  “Yeah. Well. It’s too late. I did exactly that, and she hates me.”