The soothing sound of water lapping against the boat, of the oars splashing, was starting to have a relaxing effect on Dana. One hand still gripped the rope, but the other brushed a loose strand of hair from her eyes as she took in the scenery. Something in the distance caught her attention. Sam glanced up to see a pair of ravens playing in the wind on the edge of a bluff. As Dana watched them tumble and surf in the wind, a slow smile lit her face. She saw it: the sheer joy of the birds playing together, testing themselves against the wind. Most people never noticed, much less appreciated, things like that, but Dana did.
Sam had always felt drawn to birds, to the huge variety in the way they looked and the way they moved. Eagles soared for hours, hardly moving their wings at all, as they swept the sky in circles. Hummingbirds beat their wings faster than the eye could see. Puffins, awkward on land, cut through water like fish-seeking missiles, with no extraneous movement or wasted effort. Each bird had found their niche.
When Sam rowed or paddled a boat, he felt like the loons he loved so much, skimming across the water. His arms, his back, his whole body worked together to control the craft, instinctively making tiny adjustments in course and speed. It felt natural.
He was going to miss this when he got that promotion Ethan had hinted at. It could be anywhere from Trinidad to Azerbaijan, but one thing was for sure—it would be a long way from Brazzle Creek. But taking the position would move him up in the company, just like Tommy said. Sam hoped Tommy somehow knew he’d earned that engineering degree they talked about, had worked his way into management, because Sam owed it all to him. Tommy had believed in him, and Sam was determined to make him proud.
Being on the river always reminded him of Tommy, who taught Sam everything he knew about rafting, fishing and camping. Even more important were the things he taught indirectly. By following Tommy’s example, Sam learned how to deal with people, how to inspire confidence, how to be a man. He hoped he was half the man Tommy had been. It was a shame Dana and Tommy would never have the chance to meet. They would have liked each other.
A warm breeze stirred Dana’s hair. She tilted back her head and closed her eyes, letting the sunshine warm her face. That didn’t take long. She was drinking it in, feeling the natural energy of the river. In spite of the puffy, orange life preserver she wore, she’d never looked more beautiful. He watched her as he rowed, watched the way the corners of her mouth twitched. Whatever she was thinking about, it made her happy.
He hated to disturb her, but he could hear the sound of rushing water up ahead. The first set of rapids was coming. “Dana.”
She opened her eyes. “Yes.”
“We’re coming up to a little boulder field. Put on your helmet.”
She scrambled to snap the helmet in place and grabbed the rope, her mouth in a grim line. Sam almost laughed out loud, but managed to school his face into a neutral expression while he buckled his own helmet. With a quick double-oar turn, he reversed the raft so that he was facing the river. Dana half turned to watch the water. They came around the corner and he saw the souse-hole to the left below the boulder. He hugged the bank on the right, sweeping around the bend and over a small drop. The raft bucked as it dropped and water splashed up to spray their faces. Dana squealed.
Sam laughed, half from amusement and half from pure joy. A couple of strokes positioned them perfectly to make the next obstacle, an enormous boulder that bisected the river. He might have chosen the right if he were on his own, but this time he went left to minimize the impact into a series of small shudders instead of a heart-stopping drop.
Three more drops, and they were almost through the rapids. Dana was looking more confident now, her eyes shining as they swept the river. He saw her checking out the hole to their right. Good, she was starting to read the water.
The banks closed in tight, forming a chute. In this spot, he had no latitude for a choice of how wild to make the ride. He folded in the oars so they didn’t accidentally snag something and let the rushing current carry them through like a bobsled. Frigid water sprayed over the sides of the raft.
Dana gasped, and then she laughed out loud and shook the water from her face. Her eyes sparkled from excitement. They twisted through a narrow bend and dodged another huge boulder before the river spit them out on the other end of the narrows, suddenly gentle once again.
Sam resumed oaring. Not far downriver, they passed a distinctive double-crowned cottonwood that Sam used as a landmark. With a couple of strokes of the oars, he pushed the raft onto the gravel shoreline, hopped out of the boat and tugged it higher on the beach.
He smiled at Dana. “We’re home.”
“Already? I was just getting into it.”
“Don’t worry. There’s more tomorrow.”
* * *
DANA WOKE THE next morning and lay still, listening to the birdsong. She recognized the chirrup of a robin among the twitters and squawks. Warm and comfortable inside Sam’s spare sleeping bag, she tried unsuccessfully to convince her bladder it wasn’t yet time to get up. Last night, when she inquired about bathroom customs in the woods, Sam handed her a folding shovel, a roll of biodegradable toilet paper and a can of bear spray. The DIY nature of personal hygiene in the wilds made staying in bed longer even more attractive.
What time was it, anyway? The sun was shining on the tent, but since it didn’t set until midnight and came up at something like four in the morning, that didn’t help much. She hadn’t bothered to dig her cell phone out of the dry bag after rafting. She bit the bullet and sat up. Sam’s sleeping bag and the spot where Kimmik had spent the night were empty.
Dana stretched, crawled out of the sleeping bag and pulled a pair of sweats over the thermals she’d slept in. She didn’t immediately see Sam when she emerged from the tent, so she grabbed the bathroom kit and slipped behind some bushes. When she came back, Kimmik ran from down the river to greet her.
Sam followed, carrying a speckled fish. “Good morning. Ready for breakfast?”
“Sure. What have you got there?”
“We’re in luck. Trout are catch and release in this river, but I finally hooked a Dolly. I thought that sounded better than powdered eggs.”
Dana had to agree, although the freeze-dried chili mac they had for dinner the night before was better than she expected. “So why did we bring a cooler and dry ice if we’re eating freeze-dried food?”
“To take home the king salmon we’re going to catch farther downriver.”
“Aha. In that case, I’m all about eating fish for breakfast. Did you say it’s a trout?”
“A Dolly Varden, technically a char, but a close relative. They taste like trout.”
Sam lit the camp stove that looked like a leftover from an Apollo space mission and set a pot of water on top. Considering they were what Sam called “primitive camping,” he was equipped with a huge assortment of high-tech stuff. Dana wasn’t sure if it was because he was an engineer, or if all campers carried ultraviolet water purifiers, magic paste that came in a tube like toothpaste and started campfires from damp wood, and an entire menu of freeze-dried foods.
Soon the water boiled, and Dana brewed coffee with a French press. Meanwhile, Sam heated oil in a folding skillet and fried the fish. It may have been due to the fresh air stimulating her appetite, but Dana had to rank Dolly Varden as one of her all-time best breakfasts.
Once they’d washed the dishes, Sam announced it was time to break down camp. Dana rolled up their sleeping bags and pads and packed the cooking equipment while Sam took down the tent. Together they sealed everything in bags so it would stay dry and strapped the bags into the raft.
A limb lay on the ground where it had broken off a tree. The end had split down the middle and peeled away. Sam studied the branch a moment. He pulled what looked like a piece of jagged wire from a bag and used it as a saw to cut off a piece about two feet long. H
e tossed it into one of the mesh gear bags in the raft and turned to Dana.
“Are you ready to go?”
“Are we heading through rapids like we did yesterday?”
Sam nodded. “Today is the biggest white water we’re going to see.” Laugh lines appeared at the corners of his eyes. “Want to back out?”
Dana grinned. “Do I have a choice?”
He pretended to consider it. “Well, I suppose we could call for a rescue with the satellite phone, but they’re not going to be happy if they find you’re not in distress. Emergency workers have no sense of humor about things like that.”
“We have a phone?”
Sam pointed toward a bag attached inside the rear of the raft with a carabiner. “In the red dry bag with the camera and cell phones. It’s for emergencies.” He reached inside a blue bag and pulled out their helmets. “Rescue ropes are in this bag, should it ever come up.”
“Good to know, even if I have no idea what to do with a rescue rope.” Dana accepted the helmet. “Actually, once I figured out I wasn’t going overboard, I rather liked the fast parts yesterday.”
“Oh, yeah?” Sam held out a hand and helped her climb into the raft. He whistled for the dog. “Better than a roller coaster, don’t you think?” He shoved the raft free of the gravel shoreline and jumped in.
“Way better.”
The day started out with an easy float. Sam rowed smoothly, keeping the front of the raft partly turned toward the shore and the tail toward the center of the river, as the current carried them along. All the while, his eyes swept back and forth, scanning the river.
He seemed a part of the wilderness, somehow. Maybe it was the confident way he moved, as if piloting the boat came as naturally to him as breathing. He’d been the same way in the kayak, treating the paddle almost as an extension of his body.
“Why do you keep the boat at an angle like this?”
Sam slowed his oaring. “By turning across the current, it gives the river more surface to push the raft along. I keep the head toward the bank and the tail away so that the current doesn’t push us into the bank on sharp bends.”
“Oh, I see. You’re catching the vector of the current.”
He raised his eyebrows. “You know about vectors?”
Dana shrugged. “It’s just math.”
“Yes, it is, but you’re the first person I’ve ever had in my raft who mentioned it.”
At his look of approval, she could feel her cheeks growing warm. She quickly changed the subject. “What is it you’re looking for when you study the water?”
Sam explained about the ripples and currents, how to see where the main channels were and how not to get suckered into a side channel that led nowhere, and where he liked to position the raft on river bends. “The trick to getting through the white water is to understand where the water is flowing. That way you’ll be in the right position to get around obstacles and reversals.”
“What is a reversal? Where the river bends and goes the other direction?”
Sam shook his head. “In white water, a reversal is where the current reverses upriver and sort of swirls around itself.”
“Like a whirlpool?”
“Yes. Or a hole, or sometimes a curler, a wave that folds back in on itself. A keeper is an exceptionally strong reversal that can trap a raft, very dangerous. You want to avoid keepers.”
“No keepers. Got it.” Dana spotted some animals moving in the shadows along the water’s edge. “Oh, look. Are those beavers?”
“River otters.” The fond look on Sam’s face made it clear they were a favorite of his. He oared the boat into the slower water on the other side of the river and rowed backward to hold the raft in place. “Pull out the camera from that red bag if you want to take some pictures.”
Dana managed to get the dry bag unclipped and unrolled and found the camera he’d mentioned. The otters had disappeared when they spotted the raft, but Sam held the raft in place, and after a few minutes Dana saw a head pop up, and then another. Soon, several of them climbed onto the riverbank. With the telephoto lens, Dana was able to get close-ups of the youngsters wrestling together and sliding down the muddy bank to splash into the water. Sam kept the raft in position until she’d taken all the photos she wanted.
“They are so cute. You’ll share these pictures with me, won’t you?”
“Of course, if you give me your email.”
“I will.” It was strange to think Sam didn’t have her address. It seemed like a lifetime ago that she woke up to strange noises in a strange house and threatened to shoot him with the flare gun. Good thing he didn’t panic as easily as she did. For a man held at gunpoint in his own house, he’d been incredibly calm that night. He hadn’t even raised his voice, just talked to her soothingly. Cool under pressure—no wonder they’d put him in charge of giant oil rigs. He’d probably be a great dad, able to handle whatever troubles kids might throw at him. Her lips curved at the thought of a posse of miniature Sams climbing all over him.
“What are you smiling about?”
She shook her head. “I was thinking of the expression on your face when you saw me holding the flare gun.”
“Yeah, probably the image of sheer terror.” He chuckled, and she clicked a picture of him with his head thrown back in laughter, the sun shining on his face.
“Not at all. You acted as though it was quite reasonable of me to question why you were in your own house. Such a gentleman.”
“That’s me. Okay, you probably ought to put that camera away and strap everything down. We’ll be coming up to some rapids before long.”
Dana packed the camera into the gear bag, rolled and fastened the top and clipped it to the carabiner on the raft ring. She finished donning her helmet just as the current picked up speed.
Dana grabbed the line and pushed her foot between the thwart and the bottom of the raft for extra security. A row of boulders blocked the left side of the river, leaving a narrow channel of frothy water on the right. The raft bucked over the small waves, flexing the thwart away from the bottom of the raft and releasing Dana’s foot. So much for that theory. She held tighter to the line. Ahead, waves curled like the tops of soft ice-cream cones, almost as high as her head. The raft dived low into a dip and then rose over the wave, momentarily bouncing Dana off her seat. After a few seconds to regroup, they dropped over a ledge across the river. A huge splash washed over them into the raft. Dana gasped and used her sleeve to mop icy water from her face, then looked back to find Sam grinning at her as he rowed. She laughed and pushed her wet hair from in front of her eyes.
He guided them past a school bus–sized boulder on the right side and, with two quick strokes, crossed the river so that they took the next ledge on the left. It was another big drop, with a corresponding splash of water, but they avoided a frothy hole on the right side.
The ride continued, bouncing and churning through the section of river at high speed until all at once the river widened and calmed. Dana looked back at Sam. Behind him, Kimmik shook the water from his ears and wagged his tail. Dana let go of the grab line and turned to face them.
“That was so much fun.”
Sam grinned. “You liked it?”
“I loved it. It’s like a flume ride at an amusement park, but without all the people and lines and manufactured thrills. It’s the real thing.”
“A little too real for most people. That water’s cold.”
It was, but Dana didn’t care. Thanks to the protective clothes and her helmet, only her hands and face were really wet, but the sun was out and the air was warm. She’d do it again in a flash. “Any more white water today?”
“Not today. We need to make a few more miles before camp. There will be some ripples, but just one more real rapid in this river, and we’ll hit it late tomorrow.”
&n
bsp; “Good. I’m really starting to like this white-water stuff.”
Sam laughed. “Who would have guessed you were a secret adrenaline junkie?”
“Not me.” She smiled, thinking of the looks on the faces of her former coworkers if they could see her now, riding a rubber raft down a wild river. The Dana they knew would never have considered something so risky. But here in Alaska, the old Dana had given way to a bolder, more daring version of herself. Alaska Dana kayaked and flew in tiny planes and white-water rafted. Alaska Dana was a lot of fun. She’d miss her when she went home.
* * *
SAM BEACHED THE raft on a gravel island in the center of the river and folded the oars out of the way. He shrugged his shoulders in circles, loosening them up after a day of rowing.
Dana inspected the island. Two spindly spruce trees grew at the downriver edge of the island, one leaning precariously over the water. Otherwise, the island consisted of washed gravel and a few large boulders, littered with pieces of twisted driftwood.
She looked at him, her expression dubious. “We’re camping here?”
Sam nodded. “The breeze along the river tends to knock down the mosquitoes a bit.” Besides, if they were lucky, there might be some kings pooled up. He’d caught them there before.
“Okay,” Dana said slowly, “but there’s not a lot of privacy on the island.”
Sam winked. “I promise to turn my back. You said I was a gentleman.”
“I did say that, didn’t I?” She laughed and started handing him gear from the raft.
The Alaskan Catch Page 14