“Let’s go take a look.”
Carlyle and Marshall left the bridge and walked over to a small shed, where Hernandez was stowing equipment.
“You mind showing us Sanders’s boat?” Carlyle said.
“What the hell for?” Hernandez said.
“Just do us a favor.”
Hernandez reached into the trailer, peeled back two rafts, and found the one Sanders had used.
Carlyle reached for the foot strap, but Hernandez beat him to it and pulled it up. Only one end was attached to the raft. “The piece of shit came apart. We ought to sue the damn company.”
“I knew the kid hadn’t made a mistake,” Marshall said.
“Better leave it,” Carlyle said. “A lawyer will want to see the boat.”
Carlyle and Marshall walked back toward the lodge.
“You still going ahead with your trip on Wednesday?” Carlyle said.
“DEC says I’m good to go so long as I never have another accident like this one.”
“How you going to do that?”
“They told me to find someone qualified to supervise my entire operation. I said you’d do it.”
“No way. I only agreed to come up here today to check out Sanders.”
“You were right next to him. Why didn’t you do something?”
“Are you serious? You know how hard I tried to save that kid.”
“Don’t you feel any responsibility for what happened?”
“I can’t just leave my students this time of year.”
“I’ve got eleven people on my payroll,” Marshall said. “If we shut down, they all go on unemployment.”
“Nothing doing.”
“Are you really going to walk away from us like that?”
Carlyle stopped when he got to the front steps of the lodge. “I’ve got one condition.”
“What’s that?”
“You let me handle everything on Wednesday. I mean everything.”
“Suit yourself.”
“Just to make sure no one gets hurt like this again.”
“Fine,” Marshall said. “Then you can go back to that desk job of yours.”
Two
Wednesday
He left his cabin at 3:00 a.m. and drove slowly down a series of switchbacks, past boarded-up ice cream shops and antique barns, past all-night convenience stores and gas stations, past shuttered motels, second homes, and cabins, and finally, when he had left the last town behind, past a half-dozen foreclosed dairy and cattle farms.
Thirty minutes later, just as the right-wing commentators began lashing out at liberals on the local news station, he pulled off into the woods a half-mile past Bell Mountain and started unloading his truck.
If the police discovered that Sanders’s death was no accident, he wouldn’t be able to launch another attack from anywhere near the Gooley Steps again. The top end of Cedar Ledges, where the Hudson appeared out of the north and overwhelmed the Indian, was his only option now.
They would never expect him to come in from the main road. The area had no trails, not even a decent footpath. It was too remote for the snowmobile guys, people who cruised half-sober all night in terrain that sane people would not approach. There were no houses, backwoods cabins, or ranger outposts where a man could hide or lay over in case he got in trouble. Even hunters, afraid of getting lost in the dense woods south of the river, stayed clear of the region.
But he knew something that even the locals had long forgotten—a single, long-abandoned footpath that ran in from the main road past Lake Francis and Bad Luck Mountain and ended no more than an eighth of a mile from the Confluence. The route was easy enough in the fall, but at this time of year he would have a three-mile slog through knee-deep snow, a round trip that could take five or six hours.
No one would be out there now. If he broke his femur, slipped down a cliff face, severed an artery with his axe, or lost his way in the nearly impenetrable underbrush, he would die.
With his truck shielding him from the road, he put on knee-high gaiters, two pair of gloves, and a headlamp. His pack contained a twelve-inch saw-toothed knife, twenty-five feet of three-quarter-inch nylon line, a folding snow shovel, duct tape, three large carabineers, four high-strength prussic loops, and spare batteries wrapped in wool. He pulled a pair of backcountry snowshoes from the truck and shoved his boots into the bindings.
If he’d forgotten a single piece of equipment, the map, compass, or pocket thermometer, the four-by-six tarp or the fire starters, candles, water bottle, energy bars, knife or matches, he could be in desperate trouble. Without the extra pair of laces, the glove liners, or a space blanket, he would not survive long. If he turned an ankle, dislocated his shoulder, or fractured a rib, he would be forced to dig his own grave out there. It was a region with no trail markers or reference points to guide him back to the road.
He wouldn’t have it any other way.
Three hours later, after following the trees he had notched a week ago and stopping only once to drink hot tea from a thermos, he broke from the woods a hundred-and-fifty yards due east of where the Hudson collided with the Indian. A large sheet of pack ice glided past him, crashed into a submerged granite boulder, and broke into a thousand jagged fragments.
It was 6:55 a.m. Sunlight washed over the summit of Pine Mountain. The snow at his feet went from dull gray to ivory and began to glisten. He would have to be out of here in no more than two hours. He dropped his pack on the snow and went to work.
A thick canopy of pines blocked sunlight from reaching the valley floor. It was thirty-seven degrees, but, breathing hard from his hike, he was still warm. Dangerous as this stunt was, he liked being out here alone. There was no one to order him around, lie about why he was losing his job, or remind him that his family had been outcasts for two generations.
Walking back and forth, he found a rotting sapling eight feet tall and six inches in diameter just ten yards from the water. He dragged it toward the Indian and spent twenty minutes maneuvering it into place. For a brief time, he was forced to place his left foot in the river and the right on a slimy, lichen-covered rock. He refused to think about what would happen if he fell into the water. This job was insanely dangerous, but people like him could not choose what kind of work they took up. They either cut wood, milled logs, or drove a school bus. Better to die like this than in some nursing home.
An hour later, his work done, his tools packed, and his boot prints brushed out of existence, he turned his back on the Hudson. After Marshall and the other outfitters had passed through here, he would come back and erase all evidence of his presence.
After a night with little sleep, Carlyle pulled on a wool hat and gloves and stepped off the front porch of the lodge. It had been snowing since dawn. A storm sweeping in from the west pushed dense gray clouds across the mountains. A half-hour ago, the snow had turned to sleet—a tough, slashing deluge that covered every tree with a thick coating of frost.
As he crossed the yard toward the gear shed, he saw Eric Munck on top of the bus, smacking ice from the rafts with a baseball bat. “Watch yourself up there,” Carlyle said.
Munck stopped swinging the bat and turned around. “Listen. Since working for Marshall, I’ve cracked an elbow, broken a foot, and fractured an eye socket. All that for seventy-five bucks a day. You think he gives a shit what happens to me?”
Munck had been working the occasional weekend as a guide for the past four years. Carlyle had no idea where he lived or what he did when he wasn’t pushing boats down the Hudson. Someone said he’d once been an ironworker. The guy certainly looked like he’d been lifting something heavy. He was five-ten, maybe two hundred five pounds, with a torso shaped by bratwurst and lager. He had two scars on his left cheek, both earned in bar fights. Betts called him a train wreck, the only person on this crew Betts went out of his way to avoid.
Munck went to work with the bat on another raft. Ice crystals filled the brittle, white air and fell to the ground. “Seen Marshall
this morning?” Carlyle said.
“Just turn around. He’s right behind you.”
Marshall, clipboard in hand, walked toward them. He looked up at Munck. “Are we all set to go?”
“Have you seen the thermometer?” Munck said.
“I’ve got eyes. You don’t expect me to cancel now, do you?”
The air temperature was 38, the water 34 - two degrees north of a slushie. Carlyle knew that any time those two figures together added up to less than a hundred, Marshall was putting people in harm’s way.
The town released water from the big lake west of here ten weeks a year. If Marshall were lucky, he would have a hundred days a year to make a living. If he didn’t run boats through the gorge in April, when people were still skiing in the mountains, he would lose his business.
“You sure you want to go through with this trip?” Carlyle said. Neither man wanted to discuss what had happened to Sanders on Saturday. They’d talked themselves out, going over and over the way he’d drowned and wondering if they could have saved him.
“I’ve got forty-six people standing around the lodge,” Marshall said. “We’ve given them wetsuits, helmets, boots, rain jackets, wool socks, and gloves. You really expect me to march in there and say ‘sorry, I changed my mind, my guides screwed up five days ago and I don’t think I can keep you safe today?’”
“The state’s watching every move you make.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I got a call from Karen Raines.”
“Who the hell is she?”
“Head of Region Six for DEC. She said she’ll let you continue to run trips only if I supervise your operation for the rest of the season.”
“No fucking way. This is my business. I’m in charge here.”
“You want me to tell her that, just say so.”
“All right, what’s her bottom line?”
“I make sure nothing goes wrong today. You prove there’ll be no more mistakes, and I go back to my classroom life.”
Marshall looked up at Munck. “Don’t you have something to do in the gear shed?” Munck got off the bus and walked away.
Marshall turned and faced Carlyle. “What do you need me to do?”
“Tell me everything about your plans for the day.”
“Nash, my best guide, is running sweep. He’ll have the first-aid kit, two seventy-five-foot ropes, and the tag line. You okay with that?”
“Did you check everyone’s gear?”
“You ever remember us leaving anything behind?” Guides, who liked to believe they were just as good as Navy Seals, carried all the fancy gear they could lay their hands on: multi-colored prussic loops, heavy-duty climber’s webbing, flares, signal mirrors, rescue hooks and pulleys, and carabineers in assorted sizes.
Carlyle thought some of this stuff was nothing more than lucky charms—talismans to ward off danger— but guides, who defended their craft with tenacity, insisted every piece of equipment was vital.
“Did you inspect your boats?” Carlyle said.
“This morning at seven. I guarantee you, none of them have defects.”
“Who’s on the crew today?”
“Hernandez, Nash, Betts, Chris Blake, and Munck.”
“You ever have problems with any of them?”
“Are you crazy? You think I’d put someone out there who’d make me go through a repeat of last week?”
“What about Blake? I’ve heard he’s pretty raw.”
“It’s only his second season, but he’s done nine trips already and he hasn’t made a single mistake on any of them.”
“Maybe you should think about having a veteran out there with him.”
“You really want me to walk up to Blake and tell him to take a hike? Or maybe you’re willing to do it.”
“Okay, it’s on your shoulders.” Carlyle looked down at the list in his hand. “What about your boat order?”
“I lead my guys through the gorge. An experienced person usually follows me, but I’m letting Blake run second today.”
“You’re not serious.”
“He deserves a chance to show his stuff.”
“Really? Fifty people watched one of your employees drown five days ago. No one will give you a break this time if you make another tragic error.”
“I’ll tell Blake to stay right behind me. You ride with Nash. The two of you can watch every step he takes if you’re so worried about him.”
“I had to pull Sanders’s body out of the Hudson, remember? Don’t make me go through that again.”
“When we get back, you can tell Raines I’ve been a bad boy,” Marshall said. “If she wants to punish me, I’ll take the whipping. But Blake’s riding on my tail.” He turned away and walked toward his clients.
Forty-five minutes after boarding the bus that would take them to the river, Marshall’s crew turned off the main road running through the valley and drove past a string of gaunt jack pine. Four-foot snowdrifts lapped at the sides of the bus. A bitter wind hurled shards of ice against the windows. To Carlyle’s right, thick sheets of water thundered down a steep concrete spillway into a cavernous, boulder-strewn gorge.
A Volvo salesman from Saratoga Springs, a guy who had looked worried all morning, stood up and walked over to Carlyle. “We’re really going to go out there with the weather like this?”
“We carry plenty of extra gear. Everything you’ll need if you get cold.”
“If we get cold?”
“I promise, you’ll have a great time.”
After his client backed off, Blake turned to Carlyle. “The guy seemed kind of nervous.”
“It’s a bad sign when they’re like that before a trip. Keep an eye on him.”
The bus, its wheels churning up snow and mud, rumbled past the dam.
Carlyle said, “Ryan wants you to back him up today.”
“You sure about that?”
“Absolutely. Now get ready. We’re almost there.”
When the bus came to a stop, the six guides, knowing they couldn’t let their clients stand around in the cold, rushed out the door. Munck mounted a ladder to the roof and began dropping the boats to outstretched arms.
Carlyle watched the guides corral their people into boats. It was all coming back to him, the excitement and the spectacle at the beginning of each trip, the waiting and the uncertainty, the expectation of what lay ahead.
Marshall shouted, “Come on. Move! We’ve got to get on this river while the sun’s still around.”
After the guides had lashed down their gear, Marshall told them to hoist the boats and move toward the path leading down to the Indian. Eight people, who looked like philosophy majors delivering a grand piano, slowly lugged Nash’s heavy raft down the mud-slicked trail.
“Anyone ask for a ride back to the lodge?” Carlyle asked Nash. Every week, after realizing they had four or five hours of isolation and misery ahead of them, one or two clients usually jumped ship.
“Not yet. But keep your eyes open.”
When all six rafts were lined up at the top of the slope, Marshall yelled, “Hop in, grab a paddle, and pray.”
The Volvo dealer grimaced. “What’s going on?”
“Do what he says,” Carlyle said. “Just get in your boat.”
When Marshall yelled, “Now!” Nash put his shoulder against the raft and pushed. They quickly gathered speed, and then began rushing down the trail toward the Indian.
During his rookie season a decade ago, one client told Carlyle, “That stunt on the hill made me think you were all a bunch of madmen.”
Using the rafts as bobsleds today was plain stupid. But every trip was a crapshoot. If you eliminated all risk, your clients got bored and didn’t sign up again. If you took too many chances, someone ended up in the river.
“I heard you talking to Marshall,” Nash said. “I wish Blake were at the three spot, where we all could watch him.”
“Marshall never listens to advice.” Although the guides were fo
cused on the trip ahead of them, Sanders’s death could not have been far from their thoughts. Hernandez, who ran his mouth constantly, had been silent on the bus. Betts, more nervous than usual, had called his clients “stupid mules” on the way down to the basin. Even Nash, who was usually pretty calm, had been chewing on his emergency whistle all morning.
Two minutes after they reached the basin, Marshall’s guides began teaching their crews the skills they’d need to survive what lay ahead in the gorge.
As they moved out into the swift current pulling them downstream, Carlyle said to Nash, “Let’s keep a close eye on Blake.”
“You’re the boss,” Nash said. “That is, until Marshall tells us he’s had enough of you.”
As soon as Chris Blake’s blunt-nosed raft slid into the Indian, it began to pick up speed. He cut left to avoid two midstream boulders and began teaching his crew how to stay safe in a river running downhill like a herd of stallions. Blake loved this job. The river was one big adrenalin machine, a device designed to make his heart race.
Knowing that he could not take his eyes off the water, that tree roots, rocks, and granite outcrops could appear at any second, Blake tried to imagine what problems lay ahead of him. On his rookie trip, Marshall had said, “Don’t focus on what’s right in front of your boat. The horizon is your target. That’s where the danger is.”
Freezing spray coated Blake’s eyelids and lashed his face. The numbing cold had begun to penetrate his clothing and his fingers were beginning to cramp up. The Indian was supposed to be a brief overture to what lay ahead, but the early spring runoff this year had transformed the narrow, boulder-strewn current. In the lodge this morning, Betts, who knew that an inch or two of rain could alter a river in minutes, had called this part of their trip “difficult if you’re not careful, bloody murder if you not paying attention.”
Blake’s raft punched through Mixmaster and rushed downstream. For six or seven minutes—an eternity for those who’d never lived through it—his boat careened through Gooley Steps, a frenzied landscape filled with boulders and back-washing waves. As the Indian became steeper, it rumbled rather than screeched, a sign of its volume and speed. Sunlight streaming through the thick canopy of pines on both sides of the river alternately blinded and distracted the young guide.
The Gorge Page 2