The Gorge

by Ronald M. Berger

  “I meant for a professor.”

  When it was time to move out, Carlyle brought his crew together. Sounding like a mother seal comforting her tiny white pups as the guys with clubs appeared, he said, “A hundred yards downstream, the river hooks right. Then it’ll throw a half-dozen big waves at us. Ignore them. Keep your eyes fixed on the water and paddle like your girlfriend’s husband is chasing you.”

  Carlyle checked their life vests, pushed his boat into the current ahead of the others, and let the river drag them toward the Narrows. They picked up speed. “As soon as we turn this corner, the current’s going to try to slam us into a boulder on our left.”

  “What’s it look like?” asked the guy in front of him.

  “From where you’re sitting, like one of Godzilla’s turds.”

  The Narrows resembled an enormous washing machine on steroids. Tightly packed rows of white pine, ash, and maple plastered the sheer cliffs. As the river slithered over and around sub-surface boulders, it sounded like a child’s anguished screams. The Hudson, dropping into the gorge at two hundred feet a minute, swallowed Carlyle’s cries of “Forward! Forward!”

  Ahead of them were six corkscrewing waves, each ten feet tall. The gorge had no room for all that water. It slammed into the walls of the canyon, reversed direction, and came barreling back at them.

  The crew hesitated for an instant, and the boat immediately lost momentum and hung motionless at a forty-five-degree angle. In seconds, they would flip backwards and find themselves in near darkness, surrounded by paddles spinning like propeller blades, moving helplessly toward the next set of rapids.

  Carlyle shouted, “Come on, damn it! Pull us over!” His refusal to let them capsize worked. The boat mounted the first crest, dropped into the trough, and rushed toward the next crest. Sheets of water as fine as mist, but hard as marbles lashed Carlyle’s face. “Together now. Pull! Pull!”

  They still had five waves ahead of them, a hundred yards of whitewater dropping almost vertically out of the gorge. Carlyle pushed his foot into the restraining strap, leaned out over the stern and, fists planted in the river, steered them toward the middle of that vortex. After ten seconds, time he measured only by his labored breathing, the raft freed itself from the Hudson’s grip and slid into a large tree-lined eddy.

  Water streaming from their helmets, the crew slapped hands, pounded their paddles against the sides of the raft, and grinned at each other like chimps in a banana plantation.

  “Don’t celebrate yet,” Carlyle said. “There’s three more miles of this ahead of us.”

  Because Carlyle had passed the point of exhaustion, his movements became almost robotic when they entered the Hudson again. He steered them around Big Nasty and through a seemingly endless series of turns in Mile Long Rapid.

  A half-hour after they entered the gorge, they neared Givenny’s. One-hundred-and-fifty yards of narrow channels and pounding waves lined the only safe route through the rapid. The river then funneled them toward Soup Strainer, the one hydraulic on the Hudson that scared even experienced guides.

  “Slow down!” Carlyle yelled. “I need time to see what this sucker looks like.” The current kept driving them toward the hydraulic, however. “All back two.” The raft pivoted and slid across the lip of the big wave coming off Soup Strainer. “We made it,” Carlyle said. “Now forward hard.”

  After ninety seconds of furious maneuvering, the boat juking left and right, Carlyle pulled into a large eddy just above Gun Sight Rapid, and the other rafts followed. They were five hundred yards from Harris.

  Carlyle said to Nash, “I need a minute.”

  “It’s your call. Just give us the word.”

  Pretending he was adjusting his foot strap, Carlyle thought about the past two weeks. The incident in Harris four days ago proved that Marshall’s enemy was a highly skilled boatman, but he had managed to conceal his responsibility for the deaths of Sanders and Blake.

  “You ready?” Nash said.

  “Gimme another second. I’ve got to check these PFD’s again.”

  “Come on, man. We’re waiting on you.”

  “Okay, I’m set. Sayers, you want to take over now?”

  “Screw you all. I’m done fucking around. There’s an abandoned logging camp just beyond the trestle. I’ll meet you all at the Boreas.” Sayers pushed his boat downstream toward Harris.

  “Sutcliffe,” Carlyle said. “I guess it’s your turn.”

  “Fine by me.”

  “You sure about this?” Carlyle said.

  “It’s not Niagara. Why the hell not?”

  “What are you doing?” Nash said. “We don’t know this guy.”

  “You heard Betts,” Carlyle said. “It’s my show today.”

  “For Christ’s sake, tell me what’s going on,” Nash said.

  “I’ll explain when we get to North River.”

  “Keith,” Betts said. “Let’s listen to Carlyle for once.”

  “I can’t just sit here any longer,” Sutcliffe said. “See you gents later.”

  As the convoy prepared to move out, Sutcliffe grinned at Carlyle and turned his raft hard left, away from the route outfitters used, as he disappeared into the maelstrom.

  “What the hell’s he doing?” Betts said. “Nobody runs it that side. We’ll be right under a sheer cliff the whole way down.”

  “Be quiet a minute,” Carlyle said.

  “Don’t tell me to shut up,” Betts said. “I’ve never even seen that side of Harris.”

  Carlyle stood in knee-deep water as he steadied his raft. There could be only one reason why Sutcliffe changed course from the path that Marshall and the other outfitters habitually took, the one Sayers had just followed.

  “What’s going on?” Betts said.

  “Listen to me,” Carlyle said. “I want you two to follow Sutcliffe.”

  “That’s a kayak route,” Nash said as they stared at the drop-off. “It’s all holes and rocks.”

  “Trust me,” Carlyle said. “I know what I’m doing here.”

  “You’re crazy!” Nash yelled. “We’ll all get trashed if we follow him.”

  “I’m through arguing with you,” Carlyle said. “Just do as I say. I’ll explain everything when I meet you.”

  “Where the hell are you going?” Betts said.

  “To see what happened to Sayers.” Carlyle tightened the straps of his life vest and turned to his crew. “Listen up. We’ve probably got a crew in trouble just downstream. You’ve got to pay attention here.”

  As Carlyle’s boat approached the drop-off into Harris, one of the clients shouted, “You sure this is the right way?”

  “Just trust me. Now, back left one. Stop.” Their raft scraped the top of a submerged boulder and hesitated before plunging over the edge. “Hold on. Here we go.”

  As soon as he entered the rapid, Carlyle spotted Sayers’s raft. It was upside down, impaled on a piece of rebar that had been driven like a harpoon clean through the boat’s floor. The guide and his six-person crew, waves breaking over their heads, were clinging to the chicken line as the current did its best to sweep them down into Harris.

  Carlyle had done half a dozen river-rescue courses, but never alongside raw, untested recruits. He knew that with no place to anchor midstream, he’d have only one chance to save Sayers’s people. “All back! We don’t want to crash into them.”

  His boat pulled up alongside the disabled craft. He reached over, slid a rescue line through a d-ring, and pulled his raft close. “Grab their life vests at the shoulder, lean back, and pull them out one at a time. Make sure no one slips under our raft. I can’t hold on much longer.”

  When there were six people sitting on thwarts in the middle of his raft, Carlyle turned toward Sayers. “It looks like there’s another piece of iron just thirty yards downstream. We’ve got to turn hard left as soon as I cast off. Grab the spare paddle and let’s get out of here.”

  Carlyle’s boat, its gunnels now only four inches above the
river, cut across the current and began following the shoreline toward the trestle at the bottom of the rapid.

  Ten minutes after he entered Harris Rift, Carlyle roared into an eddy at the mouth of the Boreas and found Sutcliffe’s boat parked twenty yards upstream of the abandoned railroad trestle.

  Betts yelled, “What the hell is going on?”

  Carlyle looked over at Nash. “How’s Marshall?”

  “He’ll make it,” Nash said. “Just answer Betts.”

  Carlyle pulled his boat close to Sutcliffe’s raft. “Where’s your guide?”

  A ranger sitting front left said, “When we got here, he jumped out and ran into the woods at the top of the slope. A minute later we heard an engine fire up. It sounded like an ATV.”

  “What’s your name?” Carlyle said.

  “Jason Williams, sir.”

  “Jason. You afraid of heights?”

  “No, sir. I manage a skydiving club when I’m not doing stuff like this. I’ve got a couple hundred jumps in my book.”

  “Great. Run up to the trestle, cross it, and make your way back to the top of the rapid. If any other boats show up, tell them to run the left side of Harris, the same one we just did. You got that?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Say everywhere else is booby-trapped. Someone will come get you in an hour.”

  Williams jumped from Sutcliffe’s raft, scrambled up the slope, and made his way to the middle of the bridge. “You would not believe the view!” he shouted. “I can see the gorge and the mountains north of here. There’s still snow on them!”

  Carlyle shouted, “Forget the scenery! Just get going.” Carlyle pointed to the people in Sutcliffe’s boat. “I want all of you to move to our other rafts.”

  Betts said, “Wait a minute. How’d you know Harris would be booby-trapped?”

  “I’ll explain after we put Marshall in an ambulance at North River. Sutcliffe could be planning something else.”

  “Sutcliffe? He’s the asshole responsible for all this?”

  “It’s him, all right. Now get going, but stay away from Bus Stop. We can’t do that to Marshall.”

  Carlyle shoved his boat into the current and let the Hudson, now a relentless dark green surge, push them downstream. Worried about another attack, the four guides kept their rafts no more than twenty feet apart. The six rangers in Carlyle’s boat sat grim and silent, staring at the woods and the abandoned railroad track as they rushed south through the valley. Thirty minutes later, when a chopper appeared over the beach at North River, Carlyle said, “You can relax. We’re out of danger now.”

  Betts stood up in his boat. “There’s police cruisers, ambulances, and cops with shotguns all over the put-in.” Yellow tape kept a fifty-person crowd, mostly media, far from shore.

  Caleb Pierce, careful to avoid the mud, made his way down the bank as Carlyle’s raft hit gravel.

  “How’d you hear what happened?” Carlyle said.

  Pierce grabbed the front of Carlyle’s raft. “That ranger, Williams, he had a cell phone. He made it sound like a war was going on out there.”

  “He tell you anything else?”

  “Only that Sutcliffe ran out on them.”

  The rangers unloaded their gear, thanked Carlyle, and marched up to the road.

  “Have they found him?” Carlyle said.

  “We’ve got a dozen patrol cars searching a twenty-mile radius around the gorge,” Pierce said. “That doesn’t include the units stationed at Wevertown and Warrensburg. But nothing yet.”

  When the ambulance carrying Marshall had left, Bognor walked down the embankment and over to Carlyle. “How did you flush him out?”

  Carlyle told Bognor about Sutcliffe’s refusal to take the usual path through Harris. “He was clever enough to follow Marshall into the first trap, but he knew where to duck. When he abandoned his raft and crew for a getaway vehicle, that clinched it.”

  “I can’t wait to get my hands on him,” Pierce said.

  Bognor turned to Pierce. “Give us a minute, would you?”

  Bognor led Carlyle fifty yards up the road, away from the media, to where his cruiser was parked. The two men leaned against the vehicle, facing the river.

  “Ric,” Bognor said, “I know you’ve had a tough day, but I’ve got some bad news.”

  Carlyle slammed his fist into his own chest. “Is she okay?”

  “She? Who?”

  Carlyle let out a breath. “Sorry. I was worried about my wife. What, then?”

  “They found Wells this morning.”

  “Found him? Where?”

  “At the base of Mitchum Rock. He died trying to save an ice climber who’d been stranded overnight on a ledge. I’m really sorry.”

  Carlyle rested his hands on the cruiser. “He wanted to come with us today. I told him to stay with Search and Rescue.”

  “Come on, you’re not responsible for his death.”

  “I can’t believe it. We were together just yesterday. Where is he?”

  “They’re taking his body off the mountain in a couple of hours. Sorry to bring this up, but what about Sutcliffe?”

  Carlyle said, “We need to bring our search team to the lodge. I have an idea where Sutcliffe’s headed right now.”

  “Where?”

  “Johnston Mountain. And I’ve got a pretty good idea why he’s going there.”

  Sixteen

  At five that afternoon, Bognor, Pierce, and Morris fought their way through a gauntlet of TV cameras and print reporters surrounding the lodge and locked themselves in Marshall’s conference room.

  Although sunset was still three hours away, the room was bathed in darkness. Two troopers stood outside the front door and a half dozen others were patrolling the woods surrounding Ryan Marshall’s property.

  Carlyle, who had changed out of his rafting gear, walked into the room and sat next to Bognor.

  Bognor peered at him. “You look beat.”

  “I forgot what that river’s like. My arms feel like I’ve been hauling sandbags around all day.”

  “Welcome to middle age.”

  “Beth will see this on tonight’s news. If we don’t catch Sutcliffe soon, my marriage may be over.”

  “They’re calling you a hero.”

  “Who’s saying that?”

  “The rangers in your boat, that’s who.”

  “Don’t congratulate me yet.” Carlyle stood up and poured himself a coffee. “Anyone hear how Marshall’s doing?”

  “The hospital’s not talking,” Bognor said. “The building’s locked tight. No one gets near him without a damn good reason.”

  “Is his business closing down?” Carlyle asked.

  “He’s got no reservations and the State has pulled his license,” Morris said. “There’s nothing else for him to do.”

  “What about next season?”

  “I heard that his father is talking about selling the business,” Bognor said. “You ever think about becoming an outfitter?”

  “Me? You must be out of your mind.”

  Someone banged on the Conference Room door.

  “Caleb,” Bognor said, “would you mind seeing who that is?”

  When Pierce opened the door, Alan Metzger, the stringer for North Country News, pushed his media badge into his face. “Can you confirm the rumor that David Sutcliffe murdered those two guides?”

  “How’d you get into the building?”

  “Is it true that Sutcliffe’s an eco-terrorist?”

  “Are you looking to be arrested for trespass and harassment?”

  “You have any idea at all where Sutcliffe’s at?”

  “Get the hell out of the lodge.”

  “Who’s in the room behind you?”

  “None of your business.”

  “Did he really set off a bomb in the gorge?”

  Pierce turned to Bognor. “Sheriff, okay if I pepper spray him?”

  “Caleb, watch it.”

  Pierce grabbed Metzger by the neck, shoved h
im into the corridor, and slammed the door.

  “If you’d left this operation to us,” Morris said, “we wouldn’t have a killer on the loose now.”

  Bognor waved off the comment. “Right now, I want to know what we do next.”

  “Figure out how to narrow our search radius,” Carlyle said.

  Morris pulled out a map. “I’ve got cars patrolling all major roads from Albany to the Canadian border, as far east as the Mass. line and west to Syracuse. Both lanes of the Northway have been blockaded. Warren, Hamilton, and Essex are on lockdown.”

  “You can pull those cars back,” Carlyle said.

  “You mind telling me why that is?”

  “I think he’s going to stay put in Warren County.”

  “This going to be another one of your theories about how we deal with hardened criminals?” Pierce said.

  “Let’s look at what we know about Sutcliffe. First, he’s never strayed outside this region. Second, the gorge is the only place where he feels safe.”

  “Which means exactly what?” Morris said.

  “We’ve got to focus our search on an area where he has resources.”

  “I need specifics.”

  “I’m not done. Those antique tools and disguises may hold the key to finding him. That and why he seems obsessed with the logging community.”

  “Where are you going with all this?”

  “While I was on the computer in Marshall’s office, I discovered that Sutcliffe didn’t have a criminal record. Then, on a hunch, I went back a hundred years and did a search on homicides in Hamilton County. There was something about the way our guy’s been behaving that struck me as familiar.”

  Pierce shook his head. “Another history lesson?”

  “This region’s always been a fairly lawless place,” Carlyle said. “But I hit pay dirt when I came across the records of the Pasco affair.”

  Grace Irwin walked into the conference room. “You all go on with what you’re doing. Just ignore me.”

  “You can’t just barge in here,” Pierce said. “We’ve got a crisis on our hands.”

  “I won’t be but a minute. Since this business is in the shitter now, I figured I’d just pick up my last paycheck.”

  Pierce stood up. “You can get your money after we capture Sutcliffe.”