“Never had a problem with them, before,” Deke offered, well aware of her interest, his romantic radar as finely tuned as Gail’s hormonal signal.
Gail blushed. She reached under his left arm and took hold of the slack line. Her body touched his here and there. Gail got suddenly nervous, turned on by the contact and the warmth and tautness of Deke’s skin. Visibly embarrassed, she started to guide his arms through the motion of casting. “Just remember, ten and two. Ten o’clock on the front end, two o’clock on the back … wait a minute for the line to unravel … then do it again, ten and two, letting out a little more line with your left hand. So your right hand’s your power hand. Your left hand’s your control hand.”
Tom looked up from his model to see his wife virtually embracing Deke from behind. Tom was not the kind of man to get jealous, so it troubled him when he felt a surge of jealousy surge through his body.
** ** **
By late afternoon they had leapfrogged downriver to another place to pull over and fish. Gail’s raft had gone ahead and was beached below a promising riffle that linked the rapids at the head of the pool with the deeper, slower water downstream. Gail sat on her raft, sipping a beer, admiring the towering canyon wall. She had directed Tom and Roarke to start fishing halfway down the pool and work their way up to the riffle.
Upstream, Deke shot Terry a look of concern from his bow position. They were in the tail out of the pool above—twenty yards above the rapids that Gail had recently navigated. The serenity of the deeper, smooth water gave way to the ruckus the interim rapids were making. Terry looked across the top of white-frothed water to the still green pool below. “Fuck me, Deke,” he said.
“Just do what she told you.”
“Tellin’ and doin’ are different things,” Terry complained, as their raft sped up over the shallow tail-out and plunged into the rapids.
Deke spread his knees on the bottom of the raft for better balance and gripped the canvas straps port and starboard. Just his eyes were visible above the rounded shoulders of the raft. A boulder seemed to race toward them. It cleaved the river, sending tongues of faster water left and right and a rooster tail over the top. Deke turned to Terry and screamed “Boulder!”
Terry flailed at the oars. Everything happened faster in rapids. The uneven texture of the water made it harder to get a purchase with the oar blades. Terry’s body kind of jerked this way and that, as a mighty pull on one oar came up empty on one side and dug his oar deeper into the water on the other. He found himself doing the opposite of what Gail had said: trying to push the raft past the obstacle, instead of aiming the bow at it and rowing in the opposite direction.
Deke screamed again at Terry as a collision seemed ever more unavoidable. “She said the other way!! You’re pushing us into it!” Deke watched the rock loom larger as if in slow motion. “The other way, goddamnit!”
“Hold on!” Terry screamed.
The raft smashed into the rock, catapulting Deke out of his defensive stance and into the froth. His body careened off a few rocks as he flailed his arms and dog paddled to try to keep his head above water.
Gail heard his screams and glanced up just as the current pushed Deke into view, with Terry only yards away, the raft spinning wildly out of control. Deke was swept against another rock and forced underwater. He surfaced a few yards downstream, flailing away, screaming, “Help … help!” He disappeared once more as Terry gave up hope of controlling the raft, pulled in the oars, and slipped onto the water-sloshed rubber floor. The raft swung wildly as it was sucked into tongues of current, thrown against rocks, and spun, the bow and stern taking turns leading the way. Finally, it bounced down the final chute and into deeper water.
“He can’t swim!” Terry yelled to Gail as the current carried him past her.
Deke, meantime, had also reached deeper water. The final descent had sent him underwater. He righted his positioning by looking up to light and clawed his way to the surface. He swallowed a mouthful of water before catching a breath. He pawed at the water’s ever-smoother surface like a dog who hasn’t figured out to add his hind legs to the mix. The current pushed him closer to the canyon wall, farther away from the safety of shallow water.
Gail vaulted out of her raft and sprinted downriver in shallow water before diving in at an angle she hoped would intercept Deke. She kicked and pulled hard before lifting her head up to locate him. His head bobbed to the surface. She took a breath and swam with powerful frog kicks and breast strokes toward his body, visible in the pristine, deeper water. She surfaced beside him and grabbed an arm. A frantic Deke tried to crawl on top of her, pushing her under. Their bodies were swept along, entangled, Deke so desperate to get a purchase that Gail was afraid his strength and fear would take them both down. Deke locked an arm over her head, driving breath out of Gail, forcing her to inhale a mouthful of water. Gail knew she was at the brink of passing out. A calm came over her that had surfaced at dozens of dangerous encounters in the past—a reflex born of experience. She let her body go limp, temporarily reducing the force of Deke’s grip, then jammed an elbow into his ribs. The blow loosened his grip enough for Gail to squirm out and surface behind him. She gasped for air as she locked an arm across his neck and chest, lifting his face clear of the water. He fought her for a moment.
She yelled, “Stop fighting Deke! You’re okay. Just let go. I have you.”
Deke puked up water. He coughed and made some growling sounds. He backpedaled with his arms to help steady himself. After a few strokes, Gail could feel the current lessen. She had made it to slack water. She slid from her side to her back and traded her one-arm grip for a two-handed cupping of Deke’s head. She began frog kicking for shore. There was blue sky overhead, but the first clouds of the trip started to nudge into view over the rim of the canyon wall.
** ** **
It was coal-black in the canyon. Cloud cover had wiped away even the faintest glitter of stars. The only light came from the embers of a campfire in planned decay. Roarke had turned in—fully marinated by a day of water and sun. Tom and Gail sat on one side of the stone-ringed fire pit, leaning against the rotting trunk of a toppled pine, sipping wine from tin cups. Deke and Terry sat across from them. Silence reigned—a natural state after the close call on the river. Fires stoke contemplation anyway. Add a life-threatening event to the mix, and the meaning of life inevitably rears its head. Deke’s face was bruised and scratched. His wet clothes hung from sticks jammed into the ground close by the fire. Terry whittled a stick. A single streak of lightning flared up behind the cloud cover, muted, but noticeable by the sudden pulse of brightness.
“Might get a shower, tonight,” Gail said.
Deke peered at Gail’s backpack … noticed, for the first time in the mesh pocket on the outside of the pack, the handle of her revolver, poking out of its oilskin. He looked at Gail across the fire. She was lost in thought. Deke’s face tensed. He shifted his body and ever so slowly slid is hand toward the handgun … closer … closer. He snatched the .22 from the backpack and trained it vaguely on Gail. “Don’t move,” he said quietly.
Tom and Gail stiffened, more startled than scared. “What are you doing, Deke?” Tom asked.
“Don’t move!”
Terry looked at his partner with visible confusion. “Not now,” he whispered.
“Stay still,” Deke hissed.
His finger closed on the trigger. Gail stared down the barrel of her own weapon, a bad feeling, compounded by a stupid feeling. Tom braced himself, too paralyzed to react. Deke took careful aim down the short barrel, added a second hand to steady the shot, and seemed to hold the gun for the longest time…. Blam!
A rattlesnake flew out of the end of the rotting pine log, a foot from Gail’s shoulder. The headless snake squirmed for a few feet before ceasing its grotesque death throes.
Tom and Gail took in the spectacle, stunned.
“Must have been sleeping in the log,” Deke said. “I can see why you bring one of these along.
” He turned the revolver around in his hand and offered it back to Gail, grip first. Gail accepted her weapon, still a little shocked. For an old river pro, this was the most scared her family had seen her. “Thanks.”
“Got to keep the group leader alive,” Deke offered. He pushed himself to his feet, dusted the dirt off his pants. “Anyway, it only makes us even. Time to put this day to bed before anything else bad happens.” He laughed. “Though”—he cautioned Tom and Gail with a playful finger—”if bad things happen in threes, we might have one more to go. Night.”
Terry stood, dusted himself off, more than anything not wanting to be exposed to questioning all on his own. “Good night, folks.”
He and Deke disappeared into their tent, ten yards away.
Gail picked up a stick and reached into the fire pit to scatter the coals.
“This river get any wilder?” Tom asked.
“Oh yeah,” Gail reassured him, her normal self-confidence seeping back into her body. She wrapped an arm around his shoulder. “Having fun?”
“Not as much as you and Deke.”
Gail withdrew her arm—hurt, and a little disappointed.
“One near drowning. One shooting. One close-quartered casting lesson with a shirtless stranger. Isn’t this the perfect family vacation?”
“Tom, don’t.”
They peered into the fire in awkward silence. “Can we suspend tit for tat,” Gail asked, “at least while we’re on the river?”
Tom felt embarrassed and small. He reached out and took Gail’s hand by way of apology. “Tell you what…. Being on this river’s like being inside one of my models rather than looking at one. I’m glad Roarke’s seeing it from the inside out. It makes a difference. Makes me see things differently, too.”
Gail smiled, pleased. “Good. That’s what it’s supposed to do.”
More silence passed. Their body language warmed. “I think a city kid needs to know what it’s about,” Gail said. “Just like the country girl needed to learn about the city.” She looked at Tom: “And found the right person to help her do that.”
“Any regrets?” Tom asked.
“One’s good for the heart,” Gail said. “One’s good for the head. Doesn’t mean we have to live in Boston … or anywhere else, forever.”
She glanced at Tom, hoping to get a rise out of him, happy to have couched her longing in such nonthreatening terms.
“I thought you were the one who told me it snows in some part of Montana twelve months out of the year. Don’t you get enough of winter in Boston?”
Gail laughed. “It’s a different kind of winter. Urban winter.”
“I have to admit there’s something purifying about this place, almost as if it reconnects you with something primitive—with your inner animal.”
“Tom Unleashed. Wouldn’t that be a sight to see.”
“Watch what you wish for.”
Gail squeezed his hand. “Yeah,” she exhaled, “back to basics. It’s why I like it out here.” After a moment: “We used to do better … with the basics.” Her voice was wistful.
Tom stared at the fire. “We also used to love the differences between us, back when they seemed charming, and hadn’t become … just differences.”
The truth filled Gail’s face with sadness. The campfire had done it again. Tom knew that poking at their relationship further could only lead to the conversation they had long avoided. He stood, dusted himself off and touched Gail’s head. Then he walked back to their tent.
Gail gathered her knees in her arms, rested her chin on top, and stared at the fire. It bathed her face in an orange light. A tear slid down her face. It felt like the end of something.
Later, the fire had died to a few embers, plunging the campsite into almost total blackness. Lightning pulsed again behind the cloud cover … closer, brighter. This time thunder followed, filling the canyon with a low rumbling. A breeze ruffled Deke’s drying shirt.
Gail crawled out of her tent wearing shorts, a T-shirt, flip-flops and a fisherman’s headlamp. She headed into the woods to relieve herself. A stronger gust of wind, soft with the promise of rain, rustled through the camp, lifting Deke’s shirt off its branch. A fat raindrop hit a rock encircling the fire pit. Another made a hissing sound as it hit a glowing ember. Gail emerged from darkness to police the area. She lifted Deke’s shirt out of the dirt and shook it. A plastic baggie, holding a folded piece of paper, fluttered out of the pocket onto the ground. Gail picked it up and trained her flashlight on it. It was a Montana fishing license. She pressed the baggie flat to better read and twisted her headlamp to a brighter wattage. The name on the license was Jim Ladage. Gail peered at it, confused. She felt physically sick. Her mind went to dark places. She glanced around frantically, to make sure no one was watching.
She twisted off her headlamp so as not to draw attention to herself. Rain started to fall harder, big fat, summer-storm drops, liquid hail that splattered here and there. She retreated in darkness and scrambled into her tent.
She twisted her headlamp back on when she was inside the tent. She aimed it at the tent flap so she could zip it up. She swung the lamp briefly onto Roarke and Maggie, asleep to one side of the tent, the boy’s arm cradling the dog’s head. She crawled over to Tom, a lump in a sleeping bag on the other side of the tent. “Tom!” she whispered urgently. She jostled his shoulder. “Tom. Wake up!”
Tom rolled onto his back and looked up. His eyes blinked open … then blinked some more, blinded by Gail’s headlamp. He raised his hand between the lamp and his eyes. Gail twisted the lamp off. “Tom … sit up. I have to show you something.” She clamped a hand over his mouth. “Don’t talk.” She removed her hand and twisted her headlamp on again, aiming the beam away from Tom, and into her hands. “Look at this.” She held the license closer to Tom’s face.
“What? … A fishing license.”
Gail, frightened: “Look at the name. It’s Jim’s.”
Tom stared at the license. Roarke stirred, drowsily opened his eyes. He had one arm around Maggie.
Tom said, “So?”
“What’s going on?” Roarke asked.
Gail nudged his head gently back down. “Nothing, honey. Go back to sleep.” Roarke settled back. Gail rubbed his forehead. In moments he was back asleep. Gail swung her gaze to Tom. She was trembling.
“I found it in Deke’s shirt.”
Tom wrestled to make sense of what she was saying.
“Don’t you understand!?” Gail said, leaning closer. “He’s wearing Jim’s things. And Terry’s probably wearing Peter’s. No wonder nothing fits.”
“Maybe Jim lent him his shirt and forgot his license was in the pocket.”
Gail considered that possibility. Her danger radar was on code red. Tom could see her straining to review events. “Tonight,” Gail said, “Just before Deke shot the snake … did you hear Terry say, ‘Not now’?”
Tom gave that some thought. Shook his head. “No.”
Gail, on her knees, started to rock back and forth. “Oh shit. Shit, shit, shit. He did say that. I’m sure.”
“I don’t remember,” Tom said. “It’s hard to remember anything else when someone’s holding a gun on you.”
The inside of the tent brightened with a flash of muted lightning. Thunder boomed … the loudest yet. A torrent of rain slashed against the tent’s protective fly. The sides of the tent pulsed like puffed cheeks.
Deke sat bolt upright in his tent, awakened by the thunder. He peered at the top of the tent, which was being assaulted by rain. A gust of wind shook the whole tent, then subsided. Deke heard muffled voices—Tom’s and Gail’s. If the words were hard to understand, the frantic tone was clear. Deke climbed out of his sleeping bag and crawled to the edge of the tent closest to Tom and Gail. Thunder crashed again.
In Tom and Gail’s tent, Tom held his wife close to him, doing his best to console her. She felt whiplashed by the day; her emotions spilled over. She was softly sobbing. Rain slashed down onto the campsite.
The campfire surrendered with a final hiss and a plume of white smoke. Water began to puddle everywhere and was collected in the pots and pans left by the fire. The whoosh of the rain now overtook the rush of the river as the lead acoustic. Deke was squatting beside Tom and Gail’s tent, listening. Water soaked his clothes, dripped from his face. His eyes were fierce, cold, and calculating. Another bolt of lightning—the closest yet—filled the canyon like an outdoor flash, briefly lighting the campsite where Deke squatted motionless, like a maniacal gargoyle. If Tom or Gail had lifted their gaze from one another, they would have glimpsed his ghosty shape momentarily projected on the tent’s translucent nylon wall. It was gone in a blink; then darkness. Thunder rumbled close on the tail of the lightning. The full brunt of the storm was getting closer.
12
A solitary truck sent a rooster tail of water into the air as it slogged through the downpour along a Montana highway, hurtling past a rest stop where the lone vehicle was a parked pickup truck with four dog crates. The sixteen-wheeler’s red tail lights were still visible when the sound of baying dogs poked through the drumbeat of rain, coming from the dense woods behind the rest stop. The baying grew louder and was soon accompanied by stabs of flashlight beams poking the curtain of darkness. The only other light was provided by an illuminated map of Montana, where a red-circled “You Are Here” reference point indicated proximity to Canada.
The baying grew louder, closer, until a team of bloodhounds burst out of the woods and scrambled up the slight hill to the paved rest stop. Their handlers—one of whom was State Trooper Page Noel—were bundled head to foot in foul weather gear. The dogs pressed their noses to the mud that ringed the paved area, searching for a scent. The mens’ boots sunk into the saturated ground. Their slickers shined like fresh enamel paint. Page steered his two dogs over to the map, glanced at where they were and what they had covered. The dogs strained at their leashes, eager to keep going, happy as kids stomping in mud puddles.
The River Wild Page 7