Downriver

by Will Hobbs

  Freddy and Troy were on the highest boulder, tracing a possible route, when Rita yelled and pointed to a guy with a pack on his back coming toward us. He was leaping from boulder to boulder, really moving.

  It was Al, in his marine fatigues. Dressed for battle, I thought.

  Nobody said a thing.

  Al scrambled over, jumped to a boulder right by us, and gave us a big smile, a classic mix of amusement and anger. Al, our ex-leader, in the flesh.

  “May I offer my services?” he said.

  11 //

  Al’s eyes went from Pug’s buck knife in its sheath to Pug’s face. “Good case of poison ivy you’ve got there, Pug. I see you discovered the falls at Vasey’s Paradise.”

  Pug only grunted. Then Al looked into our eyes, one person at a time. It was obvious he wasn’t afraid of Pug or any of us. It was more as if he was asking how we could do this to him. He shook his head. “So what do you guys think you’re doing?” he said.

  “What are we doing?” Adam repeated melodramatically. “What are we doing? We are . . . searching, that’s it, we are all searching for something. Some are searching for justice, others for lost honor, others for gold, glory, or enlightenment. Some of us are searching for the Northwest Passage, some the Lost Continent of Mu, others a mislaid toothbrush. Some of us are searching for the cure to cancer, others seek to mend broken hearts—”

  “How ’bout the San Juan River?” Al suggested wryly. “Are any of you searching for that?”

  “We were afraid of it,” Troy said sarcastically. “We thought you were going to kill us all. We thought we should tune up first.”

  “Yeah,” Pug added. “Get in some practice.”

  Al pointed to the big water. “Hance Rapid should be a good tune-up. At this water level, it’s about a nine on a ten-scale.”

  “Done fine so far,” Rita blurted out.

  “Look,” Al said decisively, and his hand made a quick karate chop in the air, “this is Hance, and it’s only the first of the Big Drops.”

  Adam responded to the karate chop by springing to another boulder and adopting a ninja pose. As we giggled at the sight, Al pointed downstream and raised his voice even higher over the roar of the rapid. “That’s the Inner Gorge down there. Sockdolager, Horn Creek, Granite, Hermit, Crystal, Lava . . . you ever hear of Lava Falls, the steepest navigable rapid in North America?”

  “Sure,” Troy answered nonchalantly, “you told us all about it at Westwater.”

  This time Al pointed to the sky. A ribbed layer of high, thin clouds was racing toward us from downstream. “Add weather,” Al said. “I think the weather’s gonna change—think about that. This is October we’re talking about, and when it rains, you’re gonna freeze. Late October and no wetsuits—you have no idea what it can be like down here. So far it’s been a picnic. It’s October, folks, no commercial trips running anymore and hardly any private trips, either. No one to rescue you if you get into trouble. You haven’t run even one of the Big Drops yet.”

  The Big Drops. The name alone made me feel sick.

  “Thanks a lot for the advice,” Troy said. “Now butt out.”

  Al gave Troy a quick appraisal, and shook his head. “So you’re the leader, Troy. That’s what I’d guessed. Your idea to begin with?”

  “Mine,” Pug declared.

  “No, mine,” Rita said.

  “Who’s rowing the gear boat?”

  “Troy is,” I said, “—and he hasn’t had any trouble.”

  Troy shot me an approving glance, while Al gave me an annoyed look, a look that indicated he’d expected better of the professor’s daughter, and said, “Well, I’m rowing through Hance. I’m joining you guys whether you like it or not. I can get you through Hance and the rest in one piece.”

  Troy laughed. “Hey, don’t worry about us.”

  “These are my boats, Troy. My gear. You don’t have the experience to be running this river. Aside from being responsible for your safety, I have my investment to protect.”

  I never thought about that. Al wasn’t exactly wealthy, and he had an awful lot tied up in all this gear.

  Everybody turned silent for a minute and looked out at the rapid. It was ferocious. The sun was off us, the wind was whistling up the canyon, and it was turning cold fast. “Better camp here tonight,” Al said. “If we have trouble in Hance, there’s no recovery all the way through Sockdolager and below. No camp until Grapevine.”

  It was odd hearing the names of everything, and hearing about what was waiting for us downriver. It made everything scarier, but I’m sure that’s what Al had in mind.

  We made camp, and Al insinuated himself back in the middle of us. He helped unload the boats, set up the kitchen, and start dinner. It gave us a lift physically, but it was highly strange to have him there among us after so much time by ourselves. We whispered a lot. Troy and I were suddenly as close as ever. Everybody was asking what Troy was going to do. Troy was saying we’d get together later without Al and talk about it.

  As we lined up for the green chili casserole, Al was right there with plate and fork along with the rest of us. Pug was getting really uptight, trying to use his bulk to keep Al from advancing too close to the casserole, all the while appealing to Troy with his eyes. Finally Pug said, “Hey, Troy, are we going to let this guy eat our food?”

  I remembered my father saying that even the fiercest tribes in the Sahara Desert would share bread and salt with their enemies. Troy’s and my eyes met. He was uncertain. “There’s plenty,” I whispered.

  “’Course we’re going to feed him,” Rita said, jumping up and grabbing the serving spoon, dishing out a healthy portion. “It’s not like you’re going to starve, Pug.”

  Al got this quizzical look on his face, like he was almost enjoying the situation.

  We ate for a couple minutes in silence, looking around at each other and taking in how much Al had changed everything.

  “Good green chili,” Al said. “One of my favorite meals.”

  Adam dragged the rocket box he was sitting on over next to Al and sat down. “So how’d you know we’d be right here right now?” he asked with a conspiratorial wink. “Satellite photography? You got the CIA on our case?”

  Al shrugged. “I saw you from the tower on the rim.”

  “Through a telescope?” Pug asked eagerly.

  “That’s right.”

  “I knew we should’ve mooned ’em!”

  “Too bad,” Al remarked dryly. “An opportunity for greatness lost forever, eh? So I took off down the New Hance Trail. I knew you’d have to pull out to scout Hance.”

  Adam whistled his admiration. “Bet you had to hustle.”

  “Look, guys, I appreciate the meal, but I have to wonder—have you been rationing your food?”

  Nobody answered. If anything, we were borrowing from supplies intended for future meals. Rita especially liked to “spice things up,” and Pug was always nibbling. I even wondered if he nibbled at the food that was hard to count, like dried fruit and trail mix, in the middle of the night.

  “Looks like you haven’t. Let’s see . . . ten days of food, and you’re at mile seventy-six and on your sixth day. You aren’t quite a third of the way through the canyon. . . .”

  “A third of the way?” Rita gasped.

  Mile seventy-six, I thought. I looked around. Everybody was shook up.

  “Looks like you’re in for some fasting.”

  “Troy,” Rita said, “what made you think we could do this trip in ten days?”

  In my mind I was inventorying the dwindling food supplies in the rocket boxes. “We have plenty of rice,” I said.

  “It’s all relative,” Al said. “When Major Powell and his men were here at Hance in 1869—they were the first—they were living on coffee grounds and rancid bacon.”

  Al looked around, and he could see he had us plenty worried.

  “Are you taking off at Diamond Creek, Troy, or Lake Mead?”

  “Figure it out when we get
there,” Troy mumbled.

  Al reached into his pack, pulled out a waterproof mile-by-mile guide to the Grand Canyon, and began turning back the pages. “Let’s see—Hance is at mile seventy-six, the Diamond Creek road’s at two twenty-five, and Pierce Ferry’s at two eighty. Of course if we go all the way to Pierce, the last forty miles, I suppose you know, is on Lake Mead, even though it still looks like river on the guide. No current in there—did you arrange for a motorboat to pull you out?”

  “We’ll deal with it when we get there,” Troy said tiredly.

  “Could I see that guide?” I asked.

  I started paging through the guide. It was a gold mine of information, not only rating all the rapids and showing all the camps, but with sections about the geology, all the plants and animals of the canyon, the history of river running in the Grand Canyon, even a chart on the “daily tides” so you could predict at a certain mile on the river when high and low flows would reach you. “Look at this, Star!” I exclaimed. As chance would have it, I’d happened on a photograph of the big cavern where we’d braided Rita’s hair. “We camped right here—it’s called Redwall Cavern. Oops, it says no camping allowed.”

  Al was shocked. He was looking at us like we were crazy—bigger fools than he’d even given us credit for. “You don’t mean to tell me that you don’t have a mile-by-mile guide?”

  “We make it up as we go,” Adam said proudly. “We make up our own names for things. This camp, for example, we’ll call ‘Camp Where Big Al Brings Book Down from Mountain.’”

  “Wait a minute, you have to be kidding. You really don’t have a mile-by-mile guide?”

  “Is there an echo in here?” crowed Rita.

  “Did Powell have that map?” Troy said. “I thought you were big on ‘wilderness therapy,’ Al. Self-reliance and all that. We’re doing everything you said. ‘Do something great’ and all that, remember?”

  “Big difference, Troy,” Al replied quickly. “Powell was a legend in his own time. You’re what I’d call a legend in your own mind.”

  “Burn!” Adam sang. “Chalk one up for old Al.”

  “What I want to know,” Pug said, “—did Heather squeal on us or what?”

  Al more or less sighed. “She told me where I could find the van, and about how you were going to run the Grand. I was pretty impressed, believe me. You guys have got more imagination than sense, I’ll grant you that. I didn’t know if I was more angry or worried. No group’s ever taken off on me like that before. Individuals, yes, but never a group acting together.”

  “We’re a dastardly crew, all right,” Adam said. “Did you tell the cops and the Park Service on us?”

  Al hesitated for a moment, then said, “I thought about it, but no, I didn’t.”

  “How do we know you’re not lying?” Troy asked him.

  “Well, have you seen any evidence that the Park Service knows you’re down here?”

  When nobody replied, Al said, “I just want to tag along, row my boat, and see you safely through. Believe it, you need me. I’m not going to be a bother, other’n seeing that you abide by the park rules.”

  We were all done eating, and Pug was up scraping out whatever of our casserole stuck to the sides of the Dutch oven. Adam handed his blue scorpion-home over to Al. “Care for a chocolate?”

  I held my breath as Al took the soap case in his hand. He knew it was some kind of a test. He looked around, trying to read us, and then he opened it up.

  He opened it up a little way, peeked inside, and saw the scorpion. Very deliberately, he snapped the case shut and handed it back to Adam. His face flushed in a hurry—he was pretty mad. Just as quickly he regained control. “That’s very funny,” he said. “That’s the slender scorpion you’ve got there, Adam. There are six varieties of scorpions in the canyon, and that’s the only deadly one.”

  Pug laughed derisively. “Sure it is, Al.”

  Al nodded toward me. “Key it out in the guidebook. Over fifty deaths in Arizona alone. It’s much more dangerous than a rattlesnake bite. It’s got a nerve poison, and you can go into shock real quick.”

  I was looking it up. Everything he said was there, in the guide, including pictures of the six scorpions. Sure enough, Adam’s was the deadly one. Sixty-five deaths in Arizona over a twenty-year period. It said that the really nasty-looking one, the giant hairy scorpion, was relatively harmless.

  “So, Rita,” Al said, seizing the initiative, “where’d you get the cut, and who stitched you up?”

  She looked over at Adam. “I got it from a falling meteor, and a veterinarian sewed me up.” She gave Freddy a poke. Everybody was laughing.

  Al could see it was an inside joke. His reaction made me think how pathetic his whole position was. Everything at this point was an inside joke. It’s hard enough for a man in his forties to boss around a bunch of teenagers in the first place, and then they take off and make a fool of him.

  Al kept trying to hang in there. “Looks like he did a good job of it too. I haven’t heard from you, Freddy—what are you up to, besides practicing medicine?”

  “Runnin’ the Grand Canyon,” Freddy said with a shrug. He always seemed to avoid Al back at base camp. He seemed to distrust authority as much as any of us. After what had happened to his father, I could understand why.

  “How about you, Star?”

  “I’m with them,” Star said simply, and you could tell that was all she was going to say. I was proud of her. Even though she wasn’t as loud as most, she was one of us and she felt okay about it. I did too. I thought how well we’d done on an unknown river, coming through one tight spot after the next and doing it in style. Still, as Al said, we hadn’t run the Big Drops yet. . . .

  After it got dark, Troy asked Al to leave. “Take a long walk,” Troy said. “We’ve got a lot to talk about. We’ll yell when you can come back.”

  Al stood up, zipped his jacket, and grabbed his knit cap out of his pack. “Fine,” he said. “Just remember what’s at stake here. You guys need me. This ain’t no disco—this is the Grand Canyon.”

  “Beat it,” Pug said.

  “Tell us if you find the disco,” Rita called after him.

  We pulled in close and had our huddle. Everybody was so pumped up. “Let’s tie him up and leave him behind,” Pug said.

  “Ah yes,” Adam sang. “The old honey and red ants ploy. Or how about tie him up and take him along—more possibilities.”

  “Keelhaul him!” Pug shouted, as he unleashed his pirate blade and stuck it between his teeth.

  “How about if we let him run along the side?” Adam continued. “It would be interesting to see if he could keep up. Can’t you picture him climbing up the gorge, leaping across chasms, plunging into the river? Al could do it, if anybody could. . . .”

  “How about,” Rita suggested hopefully, “how about if we keep him on the condition that he does all the cooking and all the dishes, unloads the boats, puts up our tents and all that?”

  “Good idea,” Adam said brightly. “We’ll make him wear a little apron. Maybe we can improvise a maid’s outfit from yucca leaves and driftwood. We’ll send him out for fast food.”

  Freddy, I noticed, was hugely enjoying all this. Troy, however, was too busy thinking and was missing most of Adam’s routine. “How about if we brainwash him,” Adam went on, “turn him into a—”

  “All right, all right,” Troy said, waving his hands. “We have to think. Will somebody pour ice water on this guy’s brain?”

  Adam gave a snappy salute. “Sorry, Captain, lost my mind for a moment. Waiting for instructions, sir.”

  “The question is, do we need him or not?” Troy said soberly. “Do we need him to get through the rapids? Does anybody want him around otherwise?”

  “No way,” Rita said. “It’s more fun without him, no question about it.”

  Troy picked up a little stick and started jabbing it in the sand. “I’d say we’re agreed on that—we’d rather see if we can get through the canyon on our
own, which is what we set out to do. Not taking Al back in, that’s not a crime, is it? Whatever we’ve done, we’ve already done. Look, you guys, we decided to run it on our own. Why should Al showing up change anything?”

  “I’m havin’ a good time,” Rita said. “I don’t want to make any deals, if that’s what some of you guys are thinking.”

  “Right on!” said Pug.

  Rita was right about me at least. I was suddenly picturing myself in jail, and thinking if we’d let Al join us here, maybe all would be forgiven. But I sure wasn’t going to say it out loud, not now, not under Troy’s eyes.

  “Look, you guys,” Troy said. “We don’t need him. He wants to scare us into thinking we do, but we can run those Big Drops as well as he could. I say we take off without him in the morning.”

  “He’s gonna be watchin’ us close,” Rita said.

  “If it comes to it, we could push him off the boat.”

  “Count me out,” Freddy said abruptly. “I ain’t wrasslin’ with Al. Remember who this guy is. He fought in Vietnam, don’t you remember?”

  Pug whipped out his knife. “We got a persuader.”

  I was vividly recalling a certain chapter from Pug’s biography. I wished we were talking about leaving him behind too.

  “I got nothing against Al,” Freddy said. “I just want to run the Grand Canyon.”

  “You can put the toad-sticker away now,” Troy said to Pug, and then turned to Freddy. “So you’d rather take him along?”

  Freddy shrugged. “Can’t hurt, can it? Besides, I’m not really sure we can make it through this rapid right here without him, are you?”

  “What does he know that we don’t?”

  “The route, maybe—I sure don’t see it, do you?”

  “No,” Troy said uncomfortably, “but we can pick one and give it our best.”