Tracker's Canyon

by Pam Withers

  “And a pot of gold,” I say sarcastically.

  She looks blandly at me. “My mom was a geologist, you know. She said there could be gold down here. It hides in gravel bars on the inside bends of creeks.”

  I snort. “Well, lots of bends on this creek, but I didn’t bring a gold pan with me, did you?”

  She gives me a half-hearted snarly look, then her shoulders slump with weariness. She opens her pack for a chocolate bar.

  “I’m going a little way ahead to scout. I’ll be right back,” I say.

  “No need to scout; I know what’s coming up. I just need a few minutes to catch my breath.”

  “I know. Take what you need.”

  Ten feet, twenty feet, I’m finally out of her sight. The ledge goes around a corner and gets narrower, but I can handle it. Think fast, Tristan. She’ll follow soon.

  A patch of dense brush ahead and below is almost within jumping distance. As the ledge peters out, I edge toward those bushes. I lower myself to a crouch, but just as I’m ready to leap, the slippery ledge seems to slide out from under me. It plunges my flailing body, pack and all, into the water with a loud splash.

  Water forces itself up my nose, and I wrestle hard to eject my pack. Gasping as my face emerges above the surface, I half swim, half crawl toward the bush, slippery rocks underfoot mocking my attempts to stand. I’m making headway, dragging my pack behind me, all focus on getting behind those branches, when I hear the shout.

  “Tristan!”

  She’s standing there with a throw rope. How did she catch up so fast?

  “Grab the rope! I’ve got you.”

  CHAPTER 17

  We trudge on in silence, the rain easing. I’m in a lousy mood but trying not to show it. Did she know I was trying to escape her? And why exactly am I in such a panic to ditch my guide, the one with all the equipment and knowledge of this place, anyway? Is it even right to leave her on her own, dangerous and deluded as she is?

  “Dominik will rejoin us soon,” Brigit says cheerfully.

  “Good,” I say. And hopefully not Dean, who is absolutely not up to this level of canyoneering.

  “The next big drop is called Twin Falls.”

  “Oh.” I refuse to look at her; I pretend I don’t remember her claim that she came across my father there during the Search and Rescue operation. She has a screw loose and a noxious nasty side to have made that up.

  “Twin Falls is usually jumpable, but one of us needs to lower the other down just far enough to scout for where we should jump. In case a log has washed in or rocks have shifted during spring melt.”

  “Makes sense. I’ll scout if you like.” Then I’ll let you jump, but I won’t jump after you.

  At this point, big drops are like burned bridges to me. Not since Plunge Falls have we scrambled down anything impossible for me to make my way back up. I should know; I’ve been memorizing the route like a Special Forces agent on reconnaissance. But if I jump down Twin Falls — which she just described as a big drop — my fate will be sealed. I’ll have to carry on to the end of the canyon with this madwoman pretending to believe my father is wandering around the canyon somewhere, searching for her drowned mother.

  Alex told me Brigit wanted to do this canyon alone with me. And here we are, just the two of us. Why? The very question spooks me.

  “She cycles,” Dean had told me like he was confiding some big secret. What was he trying to say? Cycles, cycles, cycles. I think again how crazy Brigit seems, then it strikes me: Her brother wasn’t informing me that Brigit rides a bicycle. Duh. He was trying to tell me she has phases. The moon has lunar phases, or a cycle. And there’s a reason they call crazy people lunatics. Right? So, maybe Brigit seems normal for a while, then turns into some kind of maniac, then returns to calm and logical. I can totally believe that.

  Another thought comes to me. When I asked Dean why he’d slid down that tree, he replied, “To look after her. And you.”

  And me? To protect me from her?

  With neither Dean nor Dominik around anymore, I’ve got to protect myself. And that means getting out of here. After Brigit jumps Twin Falls, I will turn and make my way back upstream to that exit that Dominik and Dean took earlier. And wait an hour or two or whatever it takes for the water level to drop.

  A low-throated rumble brings me back to the present. Waterfall ahead.

  “Here it is!” Brigit says.

  I force a smile and nod. A fog floats above Twin Falls like a phantom. I shiver despite myself. Maybe Dad did survive Plunge Falls and managed to find shelter somewhere around here? No! He’d have made his way home. Don’t believe Brigit’s lies.

  But I have nothing to bring home to Mom. Not even the bandana. Well, a left boot if I raid Brigit’s pack for it. But neither boot nor bandana are really going to cure my mom. That thought drop kicks into my brain for the first time. I’m on this mission because of Elspeth, the town hippie. Elspeth means well, but my mom needs real help. The kind she’s probably getting now in the hospital. I’m worried sick about her and I miss her. With my dad gone, she’s all I’ve got. It’s time to get home.

  • • •

  I crash into Brigit when she stops just upstream of the drop.

  “Hey! Watch where you’re going,” she says.

  “Sorry.”

  The canyon walls curve in on either side of the falls, preventing us from scouting without hanging over the falls with rope. Three flat boulders ten feet back from the falls’ lip resemble giant stepping stones that lead from the bank where we’re standing to the middle of the falls. But they offer no undercuts, cracks, or edges for a safe anchor.

  “Don’t see anywhere to place webbing,” I say worriedly.

  “Never has been here,” she says matter-of-factly. “We need to do a meat anchor.”

  She watches my face as I take that in. It means she’s going to use her body to anchor me as she lowers me down. She’s the “meat.” What does that make me? Dead meat? Ha ha. I’m really getting paranoid.

  “You said you’d do the scouting, Tristan. So I’m going to get myself to that middle rock and get ready for you.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  She leaps from stepping stone to stepping stone like she’s on a casual stroll, not a few feet upstream of a drop-off emitting deafening thunder and clouds of spray. She sets up the rappel and sits straight-backed and cross-legged on the third rock like some kind of yoga master.

  I follow, legs jittery as gelatin for no good reason. I grab the rope and clip in. If only I could see down to the pool below without being lowered down a ways.

  The falls are swollen with the morning’s rain shower, but there’s a small gap in the middle immediately below our rock. A dry stripe between wide jet streams. Like long hair with a part in the centre. Guess that’s why it’s called Twin Falls. It’s a gap I’ll have to stay in to keep from being power-washed as I inspect what’s below.

  “Whistle three times when you want more rope,” she says.

  “I will,” I say, lifting my whistle to my mouth and doing a little test. “Ready to be lowered.”

  Soon I’m in the stream and drifting toward the lip. That’s when Brigit leans forward and shouts through the din of the falls, “This is where I met your father, remember? It’s where he and I spoke. If he’s still down there, tell him to go to hell!”

  What? I grab for a rock to serve as my last-chance handhold, but it’s too late. Brigit is feeding out the rope I’m on. My last glimpse of her is glowing eyes with over-large pupils and a smile that is pure evil.

  I concentrate on staying within the all-too-narrow ribbon of oxygen between the falls’ twin avalanches of water as I’m lowered. I look down. No logs, no pile of rocks in dead centre, but both to either side. The pool below looks deep.

  Hardly has that thought registered when one accidental, panicky twist places me under one of th
e jet streams. Battered like a punching bag, I can hardly breathe or move.

  Okay. I’m like a puppet on a string. I cannot climb up, and I need her to lower me out of this.

  Screech! Screech! Screech! I blow my whistle with what breath I can find. It’s a distress signal, though the last two blows sound like they’re coming from underwater, more of a gurgle than a piercing call for help.

  She has to have heard me; she knows. She can’t be unaware that I need her to lower the rope. She’s letting me drown. But why? This is deliberate, revenge for her mother’s death, right? There’s no help coming from above; it’s up to me to take emergency measures. But I dare not release my grip on the rope until I’m out of the falls’ force and hovering over the clear spot.

  With all my strength, I push my left leg against the rock face. In response, the rope swings slightly to the right. If the falls doesn’t drown me, there’s a chance I can pendulum back to the clear centre strip, cut the rope, then fall. I’m much higher than I’d like for doing so, but better to take my chances dropping within the deep spot than to stay and drown where I am now. Which I will if she won’t lower me down.

  Two steps one side, two steps the other, ever closer to the air pocket “between” sections. Three steps one side, three steps the other — then I’m there. With a scream no one can hear, I slash the rope and fall through moist air and into a churning whirlpool that feels like it wants to suck me under forever.

  Deep underwater now, I am like an astronaut without a tether, tumbling and pin-wheeling in suspended darkness, head over heels over head. Cushions of bubbles — so many bubbles — surround me like a bubble-wrap spacesuit. If I had no need to breathe ever again, I could spin softly like this forever, but already my lungs are crying out for release.

  “If you’re ever caught in a keeper whirlpool, dive for the bottom; the lower currents should release you downstream.” How many times did Dad tell me that? But what if you don’t know top from bottom? Yes, there are split seconds where my body is flung somewhere with pale yellow light that must be just beneath the water’s surface. But never does the spinning force let me reach the surface for a gasp of breath. Instead, it yanks me viciously toward darker sets of bubbles, where I have no time to contemplate diving before being flung up again. Must find a way out before my lungs explode.

  Unfolding my body as best I can, I flail my legs like a madman the next time it goes dark. And sure enough, some rogue current nabs me and kicks me like a football to somewhere that’s not spinning.

  When my head surfaces, I all but choke on the welcome air, then propel myself with every fibre of every muscle to a grey rock.

  A rock means land. As I grasp its slippery sides, I feel I’ve been tossed to a different world. Slowly it dawns on me that I’m in a cave whose entrance is through twin walls of water. The current has thrown me not downstream but upstream. I’m behind the falls in a surprisingly large grotto. It offers a gravelly floor that tilts on one side into a giant mud puddle.

  Brigit! She’ll surely jump any second and propel herself in here to finish the job the jet stream failed to do. I have to hide, fast!

  I gaze at the mud puddle, and hoping it’s deep enough, decide it’s what I need. I dig in my pocket for the stick of jumbo licorice Dean gave me and put it into my mouth like a cigarette. Breathing through the sweet, hollow stick, I sink into the mud and disappear from the world.

  CHAPTER 18

  Being submerged in a mud puddle doesn’t allow me to see her stick her head behind the shower to do a quick visual of the cave. But I know when she does so by the muffled rant she conducts for a minute — no doubt directed at my father — and the gravel she kicks so hard that pieces plop into my puddle and rest on my chest.

  I sense (or maybe just guess) when she exits, but even so, wait at the bottom for a very long time after she leaves.

  When finally I rise and wipe brown muck from my face, I’m awed by my surroundings. Sun filters through the hydrosphere like a glass ball lighting a dance floor. I’m inside a miniature cathedral with a never-ending cascade of powerful music. Its ancient walls are pockmarked by a hundred cubbyholes, eerily like our grotto at home.

  I stand and run my hand along the wet walls, poking my fingers into some of the niches. Instinctively, I look for the largest chink, in which rests a stone as big as a carved marble head.

  My hand is drawn to it: the hand of my younger self seeking a prize as my parents gaze lovingly from nearby. Slowly, reverently, I roll the big stone aside, then step back in shock, certain I’m seeing a mirage. Standing there like a vase on a fancy bookshelf is my father’s blue dented aluminum water bottle. Placed where only I would find it.

  “You have powers they don’t. I feel it in my bones, Tristan. Your ability to locate what he left behind.” How did Elspeth know? Maybe she’s got more going on with her vibes than I thought.

  It takes me a full minute to work up the nerve to reach for it. I’m so afraid it will disappear before my eyes. When it’s in my hands, I sink down to the cave floor and shake the container. Not a drop of water. I unscrew the cap, remove my gloves, and feel around inside. My fingers touch pages of a waterproof field notebook rolled up like a scroll. I pull them out, unfold them, and begin reading.

  Dear Mary and Tristan,

  I hope you never see this letter, because if I make it home I intend one day to return and destroy it. I am holed up in the cave behind Twin Falls — the very cave that inspired me to design our grotto many years ago — with a broken ankle and cracked ribs. It is damp, cold, and lonely here, and I am beginning to succumb to hypothermia. I want to write you before help arrives or the canyon defeats me.

  Mary, my love, you know I was keeping a secret from you, but my only intent was to surprise you and Tristan with a wonderful gift — not to hurt you or allow fate to separate us.

  Months ago I was approached by a geologist from Lillooet, Evelyn Dowling, who is convinced there are major gold veins in the Lower Canyon. She hoped to locate one so she could stake a claim.

  Although a canyoneer herself, she wanted a skilled guide to accompany her, and offered me a percentage of the profits from the find if it materialized. We signed a contract accordingly. (You will find it in the smallest cavity of our grotto.)

  We had to keep our discussions top secret, as anyone can pursue a gold find before it is staked, and there is no point registering it before actually taking the time to pan and assess it.

  I’m sure I don’t need to assure you, Mary, that there is nothing more than a business relationship between Evelyn and me. I state the obvious only because I suspect her somewhat unstable daughter, Brigit, believes otherwise, or that false rumours may spread if we do not return.

  I know now I was a fool to keep the details of this trip from you, Mary and Tristan. I imagined announcing we were rich at the end of this descent. I suppose I caught “gold fever” from Evelyn.

  The good news is that she was right. We found a significant lode, and should you get your hands on this note before anyone else, you and Evelyn’s family can make money from it. (I’ve drawn a map below identifying the location.)

  Now I will explain how I ended up in this cave. After Evelyn descended Plunge Falls without a problem, a sharp rock sawed through the rope as I was rappelling and dropped me onto the rocks at the bottom. I’m lucky to be alive. I broke only my left ankle. Evelyn helped me out of the water, but when I removed my boot to look at the injury, the boot slipped from my hands and disappeared downstream.

  Despite our problems — including having lost most of our main rope — Evelyn and I managed to reach Twin Falls. There, while serving as a meat anchor for her, I had a shooting pain in my ankle that caused me to shift and tumble down. The fall broke my ribs. Evelyn insisted on carrying on alone to get me help. I had no choice but to agree.

  So, as I write this, she is somewhere downstream attempting to complete the canyon. I
worry whether she’s up to the challenge, but God willing, she will succeed, and I will be home shortly.

  If not, I’m comforted by having written this note. If I do not return, I beg your forgiveness. Mary, please be strong and help Tristan find his way in life. And son, know how proud I have always been of you. I know you will help your mother in every way you can.

  Finally, if Evelyn does not make it out, I urge you to honour the contract and help her family.

  My body is so chilled I’m shaking, and I’m overwhelmingly sleepy. I will stash this note now and crawl to where hopefully rescuers can find me.

  With all my love, Julian

  My sobs shake the cave until its walls, the world, and my heart crack and collapse.

  Finally, balled up and fully spent, I lie immersed in muddy water and thought. Eventually, it occurs to me that Brigit found his boot near here; maybe she imagined seeing and talking with him. Maybe she just lied. No point dwelling on that. All that’s important is that I get out of this damp place and back to my mom with this letter.

  I wade through one edge of the water curtain and re-enter the world.

  • • •

  Canyoneering boots are more or less soundless. To make absolutely certain I’ve won my freedom at last, I move like the Sultan of Stealth I am. I’ve decided to follow Brigit at just the right distance behind. I’ll trail her until Dominik appears, if he does and regardless of whether I can still trust him. I just hope that will be before a falls requiring more than my puny throw-bag rope. Meantime, I’ve got to find my backpack, which hopefully my crazy guide tossed down from her stepping stone.

  The concentration and discipline of stalking Brigit soon gives me the buzz of total focus. I move like a tiger sneaking up on prey; all my senses are on overdrive. Brigit may be a canyoneer, but she’s no tracker, and I know just how to stay unseen and keep from leaving any signs of my presence.