The River Wild

by Denis O'Neill

  “Of course we do,” she said, “and more than that we love you more than anything.”

  “So why don’t you just get rid of the bugs? Then you wouldn’t fight.” Gail blinked away a tear. She kissed Roarke on the forehead and lay down beside him. “I’d love to get rid of the bugs, honey. The river’s a good place to do it. It always was for me when I guided. When I was younger. I found that being in nature helped de-bug me.” Gail couldn’t see Roarke’s hopeful smile in the darkness.

  “So let’s go to the River Wild and get you debugged,” he told her. “Make things simple, so that what you’re talking about is the same thing as what you’re talking about. Does that make sense?”

  Gail hugged him tightly. “Yes.”

  3

  Mary Walsh’s red Ford sedan ended up in a stand of cottonwoods behind an old, weathered barn at the end of a dirt road not far from Belt, Montana—a smudge of a town not far from Great Falls. The town, which took its name from nearby Belt Butte was in the heart of Lewis and Clark National Forest. The barn sat behind an abandoned ranch house surrounded by rusting farm equipment. The car was not visible from the narrow county road that cut a dark, paved line through the great swaths of burnt-yellow hay fields surrounding the house, stretching as far as the eye could see. If you took the time to count the passing cars, on a busy morning you might use up all the fingers on both your hands. A pair of ravens sat on a branch above Mary Walsh’s car, turning their heads one way, then another, staring curiously through a back window at a woman who held their gaze without blinking. Without moving.

  ** ** **

  Deke and Terry, no longer dressed in their prison grays, stood atop a railroad bed in the middle of Little Belt Mountains, looking down a shale-coated slope to the River Wild, a mile or more below. Downstream, in the distance, the ribbon of blue was swallowed up by an endless vista of green mountains. All of it tucked beneath the big sky the state was known for.

  Deke consulted a Montana road map, then folded it neatly and slid it in his jean pocket. He angled his head back and closed his eyes to take in the warm, early morning sun. He stretched out his arms. For a moment he looked like the Christ statue atop Rio de Janeiro’s Corcovado. He pulled his arms in and twisted his torso left and right, to loosen up.

  “Terry, I am never ever gonna let somebody lock me up in a cage again. Never. I will suck on the exhaust pipe of a mother-fuckin’ RV before that happens.” He took in the spectacular wilderness vista. “There she blows.”

  The vast remoteness and quiet of what he was seeing made Terry a little queasy. “I don’t know that this is such a good idea, Deke. You know? Whole lot of nothing out there.”

  “Exactly why we’re going,” Deke explained. “’Least I am. Suit yourself.” He leaped off the railroad bed onto the loose shale. He landed ten feet down the embankment, dislodging a handful of coaster-sized chips, regained his balance and bounded ten feet further down, like a mountain goat. His exuberant whoops accompanied the soft clattering of shale scattered by the force of each landing.

  Terry watched him, his face filled with indecision. He felt like the last jumper atop a stone quarry swimming hole. Backing out was not an option; it was just a matter of summoning the nerve. Overhead, a commercial jet carved its flight through a cloudless blue sky. Terry eyed it for a moment, wishing he were aboard. Then he took in the distant mountains—the place on the horizon where the blue of the River Wild seemed to vanish. He picked out Deke, growing smaller and smaller on the slope below.

  “Fuck me.” He took in and let out a breath, and jumped.

  4

  The inbound jet, originating in Boston, descended over the east fork of the Gallatin River and the surrounding fields of baled hay, and touched down at Gallatin Field, Bozeman, at the foot of the Bridger Mountains. Inside the plane, Gail peered out her window. She turned to Roarke, seated beside her, and squeezed his hand.

  “Made it, honey. Home.” Her face was radiant. Roarke smiled; he was used to his mother’s mood-ring persona. She was not someone to bury the lead.

  He angled his head to look past her, out the window. “Those are the Bridgers,” Gail told him. “Named for a legendary trapper, scout, and mountain man, Jim Bridger. He was one of the first white guys to see the geysers in Yellowstone. Married a Native American woman. Loved the American West.”

  Roarke was as familiar with his mother’s fondness for all things Montana as he was with his father’s passion for the Red Sox. He had long since memorized all the lectures—his and hers—and fine-tuned his lines. “How about you, Mom? What do you think about the West?” She wagged a playful finger in his face, Don’t sass me.

  ** ** **

  Maggie emerged from her travel crate at baggage claim, head bowed, tail wagging. Roarke grabbed her in an affectionate headlock. Maggie slobbered on him with grateful licks. Gail rubbed the dog’s head. “Good girl, Mag. Honey, take her outside and find a patch of grass.”

  Later, they stuffed their luggage in a rented jeep and drove to a Livingston outfitter to collect the rest of their needed gear. Maggie savored the short drive with her nose angled out a backseat window. A handful of drift boats and rubber rafts were parked in a row behind the shop, each strapped to a trailer. A giant painted wood trout appeared to leap over the wood-shingled roof. Gail pulled out a notebook to check off the mound of rented gear: coolers, lanterns, propane stove, tent, sleeping bags, bungee cords, and other necessities.

  Tom eyed the mound of gear. “Lotta stuff for three of us.”

  “Floating’s a little like car camping,” Gail told him, as she continued to check off her list. “If you don’t have to carry it on your back, it’s nicer to have it and not need it, then need it and not have it. Plus, where we’re going, there are no 7-Elevens for fifty miles once we set out.”

  Gail aimed the car north from the Yellowstone River, east of Livingston. The route took them between the Bridgers to the west and the Crazy Mountains to the east. It was a country highway, mostly straight as an arrow, with undulating prairie land stretching away from the road and up to the lower slopes of the mountains. Traffic was minimal. Antelopes were visible in all directions.

  Roarke and Maggie formed open window bookends in the back seat … each with a nose out the window … Roarke, headset in place, resting his head and shoulders on the doorframe. Tom sat back in the shotgun seat, happy for the wind on his face. Gail was in guide mode—a learned approach to life that coupled attention to logistics and details with an entertainment component that catered to the personalities of all aboard while providing storytelling backup when the weather turned bad and/or the fish went off the bite. She lectured as she drove, taking the wheel with one hand while gesturing with the other and alternating depending on which mountain range she was talking about. When she got to the good stuff, she’d flap an arm in Roarke’s direction to require a lowering of the headset.

  “So just to give you your bearings, we landed on the other side of the Bridgers. Those guys over there. And because of them, the Crazies, over there to the east, are drier and browner; the Bridgers cut off most of the moisture-bearing winds. Cool name, right? The Crazies. Want to know how they got their name? Funny you should ask, because I’m going to tell you. Supposedly there was a family named the Morgans, who stopped on the east flank of the Crazies … before they were the Crazies … en route to a new life in Oregon. The idea was to rest up before the final push west. Father, mother, two boys. This is maybe the mid-1800s. Anyway, one day, after the father didn’t come home for lunch, the mother sent out her boys to find him. Next thing she hears these terrible screams. She grabs an axe and rushes into the woods. What she finds are five or six Blackfeet Indians slaughtering her family. Without stopping, she charges into their midst, wildly swinging the axe, killing four Indians and driving off the others.”

  Tom turned to Roarke in the back seat. “Sounds like something your mother would do.”

  “Bet your ass,” Gail said. “The Ma Morgan Society. But she didn
’t save her family. And their deaths, they say, drove her crazy … and finally drove her to run off into the mountains, where she was never heard of again. But because of her story, from then on, they called the mountains the Crazies.

  “How many times did you tell that story when you were driving clients to rivers?” asked Tom.

  Gail laughed. “Enough to almost drive me crazy.”

  The jeep and trailered raft whooshed by an abandoned ranch house set back from the road. A bulldozer was plowing a road through the property. A sign on the highway read: RANCH LAND TO SUBDIVIDE. 40 ACRE RANCHETTES. NOTHING DOWN. $1250. PER MONTH.

  Tom’s inner architect rose up. “Build, build, build,” he said. “Now we’re talking.”

  Gail shook her head, disgusted. “They’re chopping up this beautiful state.”

  Tom saw an opportunity to get her goat—a tactic they both favored and employed at will. “I know … how about one gigantic hamburger stand stretching from these mountains to those … ” He sketched out the possible scope, swinging his arm in an arc. “We’ll call it Big Sky Burger Boy.” Gail resisted taking the bait. Her extended silence made Tom suddenly nervous, fearing a sudden, and predictable, Old Faithful eruption. He patted Gail on the thigh.

  “Honey, c’mon. It’s a joke. Gail … put the gun away. I’m kidding. It’s just a joke.”

  “It’s too true to be funny,” she said icily.

  ** ** **

  At sunset, the jeep slowed down to rattle across a cattle guard at a narrower road that angled off from the main road. A sign read: HOT SPRINGS CAMPGROUND, TWO MILES. Pavement soon gave way to dirt. When they crested a ridge, a river emerged in the distance—from this first vantage, it wound like a silver thread in a rolling green-and-brown landscape.

  “There she blows,” Gail pronounced softly, “the River Wild.”

  The first shapes and hues of a beautiful sunset began to form above it and the forested hills behind.

  The campground held dozens of cars and rafts. Tents were pitched here and there, fires glowed in hibachi grills and under propane burners. Fellow rafters gathered in groups to chew on hamburgers and swap stories and hometown intel. Pre-trip conversation always glowed with high hopes and pent-up energy. Several boys cast spinners into the river. At this point, it was a sweet, easy-flowing body of water only twenty yards wide.

  Gail found an open campsite to her liking and pulled in. Roarke spilled out of his door, his young body stiff and coiled for release after a long car ride. Maggie bounded out after him.

  Gail eased out of the driver’s seat and corralled Roarke long enough to confiscate his headset. Tom grabbed a beer from a backseat cooler and joined her. Gail took in the kaleidoscope of colors now filling the sky … pinks and reds and salmon ribbons spreading atop the ridge behind the river like horizontal northern lights. It was a sight for sore eyes—the stained glass behind the altar in Gail’s outdoor cathedral. Roarke and Maggie bounded past Tom and Gail and headed for the river’s edge. Maggie was barking joyously. Gail walked to the river. She untied one sneaker, slid the half sock off her foot and dipped it in the water.

  “Been gone twelve years,” she said. “Too long. Would you look at that sky!”

  A trout jumped out of the water, ten yards offshore.

  “Look, a trout!” Roarke shouted.

  Gail clutched Tom’s arm affectionately. “Thanks for coming.”

  Tom handed her his bottle of beer. She drank deeply. Together they watched Roarke and Maggie patrol the bank. Maggie splashed into the shallows.

  Roarke pointed to where another trout rose. “Get that fish, girl!”

  Maggie barked and peered at the even flow of current, turning ever more silver in diminishing light.

  Roarke pointed. “C’mon Maggie. You’re a retriever. Get that trout.”Maggie looked out at the unbroken surface, then up at Roarke, confused. She barked again.

  “The trout, dummy. There!”

  Gail smiled. Tom watched her study the river, practically mesmerized. “It’s like a book for you, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah,” she admitted, keeping her eyes on the water. “Moving, churned by currents, split by rocks, spun into eddies, scattered over shallow tail-outs. I love to read it … sort out the hydraulics, figure out where the fish are … or should be.” She shrugged. “Comes naturally when you do it all your life.”

  Gail knew she had the “hunter instinct” all fishermen possess who grow up dunking worms for brookies and bullheads in small streams and ponds.

  “I was always grateful for the fishing schools that got folks like Jim and Peter up and running,” she said to Tom. “And got me clients. They could teach the knots and show them how to cast a decent line, but the one thing they couldn’t teach is what lifelong fishermen learn when no one’s watching: where the fish are going to be, when to change tactics, and when to move on when they’re not there, or not biting.”

  “That, and don’t let fishing get in the way of fishing. Rule number one.” She handed the beer back to Tom. “It’s important to me that Roarke learn about the outdoors. He may or may not be a fisherman; that’s a hardwired thing. But I want him to appreciate this. There may be nothing here but ‘ranchettes’ ten years from now”—she gave Tom a look—“let alone Big Sky Burger Boy franchises.”

  “I couldn’t agree more,” Tom said. “Six nights sleeping on the ground and he’ll appreciate just how great an invention the mattress is. Not to mention indoor plumbing.” He wrapped an arm around Gail’s shoulder. “It is beautiful.”

  “Yeah, just give it a chance.” She looked downriver. “Just think, Peter and Jim are sitting around a campfire right now ten miles in.” She felt only contentment. “It’s such a peaceful river … here, anyway.”

  5

  Jim and Peter had fished as much of the ten miles between the Hot Springs put-in and their campsite at Mile Ten as they could before darkness. They had a map Gail had given them, and two or three landmarks to look for as they drew closer, so as to not overshoot the site. The one-day head start was planned so they could get a full day’s fishing out of one camp setup. Tomorrow they would wade fish up and down from the campground without having to break camp and repack the rafts; a bonanza of good water Gail had told them was worth pounding. Tom and Gail would pull in in the late afternoon. They would push off together the following morning.

  By Mile Ten, the river had settled into the miniature Grand Canyon configuration it would embrace for the next fifty miles—a series of “S” turns with towering granite walls alternating on one side of the river, then the other. The River Wild had carved out its magnificent slalom course over many millennia. Snowmelt in the Lewis and Clark National Forest unleashed a spring runoff that tumbled logs and boulders and gravel in the massive seasonal flow that ran as high as ten thousand cubic feet per second. It was the yearly scouring of the riverbed. Over time, as rivers do, the river had cut its way deeper into the granite bedding—the conveyor belt of abrasive materials acting like a giant, coarse sander. The trick for rafters was to book a trip when the runoff had subsided enough to bring clarity to the water and relative safety to the float … but not so low that the water warmed too much and the fish went off the bite … and not so low that you had to drag the raft over gravel bars at the end of the float.

  In her guiding prime, on more than one occasion, Gail and a few of her more adventurous fellow guides would wait until the river was rip-roaring with runoff and then put in for the ride of their lives. It wasn’t for the faint of heart or the inexperienced. Capsizing was common, the water was frigid with first snowmelt and cold spring nights. It was all churned up, too, making it all the harder to read the structure of any newly carved shoots and rapids. It was kind of a cross between bronc busting and river rafting. Once they even ran the Gauntlet—a class VI piece of white-water hell. It was Gail’s favorite time of the year, client-free.

  ** ** **

  Jim and Peter had set up their tent in fading light and collected firewood with
their headlamps cinched in place. Because of the canyon walls, the darkness at the site felt like being in a three-hundred-foot-deep well. It was darkness that was almost tactile. Flames from their campfire, built in a stone ring, flickered in this black void—blues and reds in the bed of embers. It was warm and beckoning, especially after a day of rowing and fishing and standing in water. The sporadic crackles of the fire punctuated the constant whoosh of the river like bass notes and cymbal taps. It was a soundtrack that mesmerized and soothed better than any store-bought meditation sleep aid—an acoustic, once heard, that returned you time and again to the wilderness.

  Jim and Peter had rib eyes and hash brown potatoes on board, a second bottle of Pinot Noir for a main fluid, and a bottle of twenty-four-year-old McCallan single malt whisky to help conjure memories gone by. They were sitting in low-to-the-ground camp chairs with back support, a requisite for campsite comfort no matter your age. The passage of time was always a topic on campouts and float trips, perhaps triggered by the river’s timeless flow. Both men peered at the fire for long stretches, content with the company of silence.

  “Tell you what,” Jim said, after a long lull in conversation. “You know you’re getting old when the drug of choice is Aleve, and the bodies you talk about are your own.”

  Peter laughed. Then said, “You hear that?”

  Jim responded with “What?”

  “Listen. I thought I heard something.”

  “Where?”

  “Not sure.”

  Jim peered into the dark, unafraid. “Could be anything. But if it’s a grizzly I want him to chew your bones first. I’m too full.”

  They listened hard for several moments.

  “It’s funny how your sense of hearing grows more acute when you lose your powers of sight at night,” Peter said. “You ever notice that? Soon as the light goes out of the canyon, the river sounds louder. It must be your senses do that to compensate for what’s lost. You know? Like there’s some central sensory computer that constantly makes adjustments. That’s why blind people have such a keen sense of touch.” Jim angled his head back. A shooting star streaked across the ebony sky. “Rib eye in the hold,” Peter said, “shooting stars putting on a show. Single malt. Fire. Beats work, buddy-boy.”