“This is some of the most exciting and scenic white-water anywhere. Today you’ll be rafting Section Four, the most challenging section on the legendary Chattooga River. You’ll encounter a series of Class Four and Five rapids, maybe some approaching Class Six. We’ve had a lot of rain, and the water is high today.”
Class Six rapids? The roughest navigable rapids. Melvin must have misunderstood my level of expertise. I thought we’d signed on for gentle Section III not Section IV. Certainly not Section IV with flood waters. Talk about performance anxiety. I’d never done a whole day of Class Fours and Fives.
I listened to the familiar instructions: Keep your hand around the paddle’s T-grip handle at all times so you won’t accidentally smack your raft mates in the nose; if you fall out, float feet-first downriver so your feet don’t become entrapped, forcing you underwater until you drown; wear your helmet so you won’t bash your brains out on rocks you can’t see coming; listen to your river guide unless you’d like to hike out or be lashed to the bottom of the raft with bungee cords. She really didn’t say that, but her tone said she wouldn’t countenance anyone getting stuck under a boulder and drowning in a hydraulic on her watch.
Everything felt familiar: the bright yellow rafts, the dingy white paddles, the clammy wetsuits, which were akin to wearing a giant bowling shoe. Plastic helmets hadn’t been required on my first raft trips. Then somebody—a raft company lawyer, an ever-watchful government official, who knew what helpful soul—said we had to wear them, to keep our heads from cracking like raw eggs. If we encased ourselves in enough bubble wrap, maybe we could completely eliminate the need for a raft.
For me, the most unfamiliar part of this trip was that little knot of anxiety. Was it because this was the roughest river I’d ever rafted? Was I afraid of getting hurt? Afraid I wasn’t physically ready to tackle such a challenge? For certain, I was afraid of making a whopping fool of myself in front of Melvin, the kayaker taking a step back into the baby pool for my benefit. No way I wanted to fall out of the raft or get myself caught in some newbie embarrassment.
As the recycled school bus carried us to the river put-in, Melvin chatted up some of our fellow rafters. I stared out the window, cuddling my plastic helmet to my life-vest-covered chest and trying not to smell my faintly mildewed wetsuit. When we arrived, I climbed out of the bus feeling like a stunt double for the Creature from the Black Lagoon.
Once we were on the water, my anxiety was quelled in the familiar movements of paddling and hard-backs and all-forwards. This section of the Chattooga didn’t allow much time to look for hawks overhead, and it lacked the open vistas and sweeping valleys of the French Broad. This was a hard, fast river, with dramatic rock formations and dark forest close on each side.
Our raft guide sat behind us, using her paddle as a rudder, planning how we would approach each rapid. The intensity of the flow could alter dramatically in just hours on a river this steep, and she knew the quirks that even subtle changes in water flow would create in each bend and drop.
She and the other three raft guides often shunted us into an eddy just before a rapid while they climbed a rock and took the river’s measure. I tried to look with her eyes at the water shoving over and around rocks, but I couldn’t pick the right path. I’d have to ask Melvin about the difference in kayaking and rafting. How would you know how to tackle this river? Who in his right mind ever first thought to paddle down it?
For lunch, we beached the four rafts, and the guides pulled sandwich fixings, hummus, and Oreos from the plastic pails that had bounced down the river with us all morning, lashed in back of the rafts.
I carried my paper plate and cup of water and climbed to a rocky perch from which I could watch the river and pretend I was here alone.
Locked in by the high rock walls and the thick trees, the sound of the water over the rocks drowned out thought. Unfortunately, it didn’t drown out the voices of the two middle-aged couples who gathered at the base of my roost.
At first, I didn’t pay much attention, but as they finished their sandwiches, their conversation got louder and more insulting.
“—looking for our mountain home. We’ve been to visit so often, we’ve just decided we need to own a piece of it,” said a woman, her accent sharp and nasal.
“Hope that doesn’t mean you have to fill your front lawn with yard art.” The other female Yankee accent screeched with laughter at her own joke. “Did you see the houses on the way here? Junk all over the yards.”
“Obviously no rules about parking your car in your front yard,” a man offered.
“Or every car you’ve ever owned. Saw one with a tree growing up around the engine block.”
“If you don’t find a house with a formal living room, you can always put your sofa out on the front porch like they all do,” said the screecher.
The whole group guffawed at that one.
“I’m just glad I could talk Gladys into this raft trip. She was convinced we were going to run into one of those retards or wild men.”
“Yeah, you talk all brave. Don’t tell me you haven’t been trying to see into those trees or up on those cliffs.”
Gawd, I hate James Dickey. I quietly scooted to the edge of my rock and sat on my haunches, perched above them.
“I’ve been listening,” said a man whose belly strained his wetsuit. “I haven’t heard anybody squealing like a pig.”
“Yet,” said the other. The laughter was weak. I picked that time to nudge a tiny granite pebble so it grated along the boulder and bounced down beside That shut them up. A dead hollow stare. The little group broke up quickly, gathering their picnic leavings. One of the women hazarded a backward glance at me. Out of embarrassment? Or fear? I just stared back.
After they left, I slid down the rock, about the time Melvin strolled over to join me. He stooped to pick up a napkin and some potato chips they’d left behind.
“That wasn’t very nice of you,” he said with a familiar wry turn at the corner of his mouth.
I just glared up at him.
He laughed. “Forget the carpetbaggers. Enjoying the river?”
I nodded. Why let them ruin it? Still, I shuddered to think they were here scouting out their new vacation homes. Them and thousands more like them, flocking to eyesores like Golden Cove. And here on the river, where I’d hoped to escape from thoughts of interlopers and change.
“Why don’t they just stay home?”
Melvin laughed again. “I figure the nice ones do. They just send us the ones that can’t get along with anybody up there.”
I had to smile at that. We stood watching the water.
“It’s so—sparkly,” I said. “Like it’s alive.”
“It’s the mica.”
“Huh?”
“That’s what makes it so bright. The mineral muscovite, a type of mica.”
“Hmm. Little sun mirrors, huh.”
He nodded, as if in approval.
The river had saved the best for last: Five Falls, with Corkscrew and Crack-in-the-Rock and the rest tumbling one after another, dropping two hundred feet in a mile.
We emerged into a slow-moving, swimmable stretch, calm and quiet, where we hooked the rafts together. A tiny motorboat came from downriver and towed us along sluggish, skinny Lake Tugaloo, and we carted the rafts to the bus for the forty-minute ride to base camp.
In the shower room, the lunch buddies gave me a wide berth. I gave them more silent stares, just for good measure. Maybe they’d decide to migrate elsewhere.
As I settled into the deep leather seats of his Jeep, I asked Melvin, “Did you enjoy it?”
He shrugged. “Yeah, I did. It was a different experience. But I liked it.”
‘Tamer than kayaking?”
He nodded. “That describes it. Not as solitary, not as immediate, I guess. Or as personally challenging. But it allowed time to relax and enjoy the scenery. Not so mentally demanding.”
We lapsed comfortably into our own thoughts. I could see h
ow Noah Lakefield, coming from Colorado, found the thick undergrowth claustrophobic, and how those Yankees might find what they don’t understand to be stupid or frightening. To me, it just felt like home. My sense of contentment with it surprised me.
As the road began to flatten into Dacus, I checked my watch. Uh-oh.
“You going to see The Mikado? ” I asked as we turned into the office driveway.
He shook his head. “I heard about that. Some local group?”
“My sister’s singing in it. She’s Yum-Yum.” I claimed my duffel bag full of wet clothes. “My niece said the men weren’t very good and the guy who’s playing Poo-Bah acts all swishy.”
“Now there’s a recommendation. You’re going?”
“Opening night. Couldn’t miss it.”
“Not wouldn’t miss it, I notice, but couldn’t.”
“Yep.”
“Have fun. You’ll be in the office tomorrow?”
I hadn’t thought that far ahead. “Probably.” I waved goodbye. According to my watch, I was in for a lecture from Emma if I didn’t hurry.
Bittersweet news awaited me at home.
24
Friday Evening/Saturday Morning
The front page of the Dacus Clarion lying on the kitchen table stopped my headlong rush for a real shower and a change of clothes.
Bambi’s Run Comes to an End
The Vietnamese potbelly pig at the center of a massive police search was captured without incident at 4:49 P.M. on Thursday. She had been nicknamed Bambi by her concerned and growing number of supporters in the community.
Local resident Red Paren looked out his kitchen door and saw the pig in his garage eating from his dog food bowls. “She [Bambi] had apparently come out of the woods looking for something to eat,” said Paren. “Pigs’ll eat about anything, but I hear she’s partial to dog food.”
Paren closed the garage door, trapping Bambi and ending a weeklong, citywide pig hunt.
“My dog was in the house raising a ruckus about something, so I happened to look out and see her. First I thought it was a bear, that big rump bent over nuzzling in the comer of the garage. Then I recognized her. I just mashed the door closer quick like. She didn’t try to run or nothing. She’s a right sweet pig. I’m glad she’s safe now.”
Bambi was taken to the county animal shelter.
“She’ll be examined and quarantined for a time. Then we’ll set about finding her a home,” said Amy Cole, county Pet Protection president. “Several people have expressed interest in adopting her.”
I was both sad and relieved that Bambi’s desperate bid for freedom had to come to an end. With all the publicity, she would certainly find a home.
I pulled on a black suit and purple sweater, put on mascara and lipstick, and managed not to make Mom, Dad, and Emma, who were waiting on me, late for the opening curtain. Emma’s dad, Frank, was helping back-stage, so she sat with us. She kept cutting her eyes up at me, biting her Up to keep from laughing whenever any of the men sang.
When Ko-Ko sang with Poo-Bah of his list of enemies, the lyrics had been rewritten to include nominees drawn from current headlines. The list brought chuckles from the audience. I bent down and whispered in her ear. “He is a bit prissy.”
She arched her eyebrows with an I-told-you-so look.
At intermission, as we stood and stretched, Emma announced, “I told you the men couldn’t sing very well.” Fortunately she whispered. Not that anyone would have disagreed with her candid assessment. No amount of false praise could change the painfully obvious.
The refreshment stand in the lobby—nothing more than a lunch room table set up with baked goods, giant bottles of soft drinks, and an ice chest—was busy.
“Bet our cookies are already gone,” said Emma.
People crowded around the table, and I couldn’t see what offerings remained.
“That’s what we get for having such good seats down front,” I said, handing her some dollar bills. “See what you can find us.”
Emma knows how to pick good treats.
I waded through the lobby toward the relative calm of the wall farthest from the refreshment table.
“Avery? Avery Andrews?” A pudgy guy who looked familiar waved me over to join a small group.
“Howie Mason. You might not remember me since I’m not wearing garden gloves. Ha!”
Or a panicked look on your face. The guy who’d run downhill after discovering the body in the mine. “From the plant dig. Hi,” I said.
“Avery’s new in town, aren’t you? She was up on the mountain that day. I was just tellin’ these folks about our adventure.”
I nodded to his friends, not bothering to explain how new I wasn’t. I’d never seen Howie Mason before or since the plant rescue, and hadn’t been introduced that day. Apparently my newness in town and his role as discoverer of the body had been all the introduction we needed.
“Boy howdy, that was something that day, wadn’t it?”
I nodded, remembering too many disquieting scenes the last few days.
“Yep, one minute, I’m minding my own business, the next minute. Whee-oo. Wisht I’d just stayed down the hill that day.”
A thirtyish brunette with big eyes and several rings sunk into her fleshy fingers asked, “Just how did you come to find him?” She looked interested in anything Howie had to say.
“Guess it was better me than some of those older ladies up there, huh, A’vry? Though I didn’t think so at the time. The lady in charge of the project sent me up the ridge to scout how far we were from an old logging spur. I wadn’t wild about hauling myself up that hill, I can tell you. But it sure didn’t take me long to make it back down.”
“Was he just laying there?” the other woman in the group asked. A bit younger than my parents, she and her husband seemed as anxious as the young woman with the beringed fingers to hear the gory details.
“He was head first in this big crack in the hillside. Or that’s what I thought it was. Who knew that’s what a gold mine looked like? His legs had bloated, all tight in his pants. He looked like he’d been blown up with a tire pump. Thank Gawd I couldn’t see his head.”
Emma picked that moment to return bearing two wrapped Rice Krispies treats and a drink. Bless her. “Our cookies are already gone,” she announced.
I murmured an “excuse me” and slipped away before I heard any more details. I already had plenty of mental pictures from that day, and those I’d been trying to erase.
Emma and I wandered down a deserted side hall and sat on the stairs, getting marshmallow sweet on our faces in companionable silence. Or relative silence. Emma absentmindedly hummed her new favorite melody, “I’ve Got a Little List.”
“Your mom’s doing a good job as Yum-Yum,” I said as I licked my fingers.
Emma nodded. “That wig she’s wearing weighs a ton. I don’t know how she keeps from snapping her neck or tipping over the edge.”
That would be something to distract everyone from the men’s singing in the second act. We dusted our rumps, washed the sugar off our faces in the water fountain, and filed back to our seats.
After the performance, I spent the night at my parents’ house. My dreams kept me busy reliving the day: rafting and singing and a handful of rings and mountain roads and Emma, all in an improbable jumble. I woke early on Saturday, planning to leave a note and slip out the back door, but I can never get up before Dad does.
“Want some coffee?” he asked as I tiptoed into the kitchen. He’d already read and refolded the Greenville News.
“Sure. Anything worth knowing about?” I nodded toward the newspaper.
“The usual.” He poured me a cup from the thermal carafe. “You talked to Hattie or Vinnia lately?”
“Uh, no. Well, not lately. Why?” I opened the refrigerator and bent to look for cream so he couldn’t see my face.
“Your mom was wondering. They said they had something they wanted to talk to you about. Just wondered if they caught you.”
<
br /> I shrugged, my face hidden behind the refrigerator door. I’m an awful liar. No way I could even casually mention they’d been to see me, but I couldn’t convincingly deny it, either. He didn’t change the subject.
“Something’s up with those three, though Lord knows what. Aletha has her nose out of joint, all snippy, and both Vinnia and Hattie are acting smug and self-righteous. Whatever it is, looks like two against one. Never seen the three of them have much of a sibling spat. Figured they’d fought all that out years ago. Letha, she takes on the whole town, all comers, but she’s always left her two sisters alone. Figured it was ‘cause they wouldn’t rise to the bait. Looks like they may have taken her on, though. Odd.”
Was he fishing for information? Probably my imagination. That really wasn’t like Dad. I kept my eyes down, pretending I was reading the news headlines upside down. I had to escape before Mom got up. I had never withstood one of her cross-examinations. “Did you see this?” Dad tapped one of the headlines as he turned the paper toward me.
Protest Thwarted: Radicals Arrested at Nuclear Plant
CAMDEN COUNTY. Plans by the radical Environmental Protest Alliance (EPA) to disrupt a press conference at an area nuclear facility were interrupted when police arrested protestors at two separate security roadblocks. The roadblocks were set up by a joint federal, state, and local law enforcement task force to protect a press conference announcing the plant’s first successful test of MOX reconstituted weapons-grade plutonium at the plant.
The use of weapons-grade plutonium has sparked international debate and controversy. Power company officials would not comment on whether additional security precautions are being taken at the facility. “Security remains our top priority,” said Sandy Gillen, company spokesperson. ‘Today’s arrests are only one example of our efforts.”
The Environmental Protest Alliance is part of a loosely defined underground of protest groups dedicated to “uncivil disobedience” The EPA has claimed credit for two high-profile incidents in the last decade: a research lab bombing in California, protesting animal research, and an arson fire that destroyed a ski lodge in Vail, protesting the further destruction of high-mountain animal habitat.
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