What the Other Three Don't Know

by Spencer Hyde

  Shelby laughed. I smiled and snuggled in closer to Skye.

  “He’s right. Best to be safe. Shelby knows I’m the best when it comes to bear hugs,” I said. I pulled her closer, and she laughed again, her bald head right next to my nose. It smelled of sage and pine and sweat, though collectively we smelled of wet dog. Not a good mix.

  We had water collecting nearby in the rain-fly. We hadn’t found anything to catch the water in, so we’d angled the tarp to create a small pocket that would overflow but still hold water.

  Wyatt spoke up. “When you’re warm enough, step out and get a drink of water. We’re losing a lot of good water, so better to drink it now and let it fill up again. Then come back and stay warm. I don’t want anybody to panic.”

  “But what about getting to the cabin?” said Shelby. “What about our rescue?”

  “We’ll probably get help soon once the weather clears,” said Wyatt. “Odds are, another outfit will pass us soon. We were pretty slow yesterday, and even slower today.”

  “And? What if we don’t see another group?” I asked.

  “Nash said bigger boats sometimes come up from the Sheep Creek Cabin area,” said Wyatt. “And he said some people even have cabins there, so there must be people around.”

  “What if they’re too busy staying warm inside their own tents?” said Skye.

  “The crew will start searching for us once they see we’re not at camp three. Which is looking more and more likely. Worst-case scenario, we don’t get food until morning. Nash should last until then. We’ll be okay,” Wyatt said.

  “Should?” I said.

  “I’m not a doctor, Indie. But we also can’t go back on the river in this weather.”

  Wyatt stood up and left us to check on the raft. I followed him outside and hugged him from behind before he could make it very far.

  “I’m glad you’re here,” I said.

  It was maybe a little forward of me, but I didn’t care.

  “Me too,” he said.

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. I’m glad I met you guys. Not for the whole almost-dying day, but the rest, of course.”

  “When do you think we can get back on the water?”

  “Won’t know until we know more.”

  “We should warm you up so you can English better.”

  He smiled. I got a drink from the fly and returned to the tent and snuggled up against Shelby.

  “There are some traditions we should remember from this expedition,” said Skye. “And I think those traditions will keep us close.”

  “Too close,” said Shelby. “Don’t tell anybody about this. Ever.”

  “I might let it slip,” he said. “But what if we, like, made this a weekly thing? We can swim at Shelby’s house in Jackson, and then retire to the pool house and snuggle instead of using towels.”

  “In your dreams,” said Shelby.

  “Yes. Yes, it will be in my dreams,” said Skye.

  It got quiet, and we were all tired and achy from the spill earlier and the resulting carnage, and I didn’t want to speak or move or make any attempts at anything.

  “This did help me forget about home, though,” said Shelby. “And for that, I’m grateful.”

  “You have an amazing house,” said Skye.

  “You mean, two amazing houses,” I said.

  “But not a home,” she said. “My parents only had me as a way of trying to keep the family together. Great idea, right? That always works. Except it didn’t, so they split.”

  “Not your fault,” said Skye.

  “I know,” she said. She was quiet for a minute. “Can I tell you guys something else? Sorry, talking helps me warm up and forget that I might die on this river.”

  I was breathing on Shelby’s neck, Skye was on mine, and, later, Shelby and I rotated to remain warm. Nash was a boulder in the middle of the tent, his arm in a sling, his leg bent like some contortionist in the oddest of circumstances. I was starting to feel like I wanted an outside position in the odd Tootsie-Roll squeeze we had going on.

  Wyatt unzipped the flap and hunched back into the tent. I could see out the door to the tree where Wyatt had tied our climbing rope to the raft to keep it in place. Much easier than dragging the raft up the slight incline in the dumping rain.

  “So my mom got remarried to this jackwagon from Jackson,” said Shelby. “They had a kid together, and I’ve been kind of, like, helping her out with stuff. Trying to be a good sister, I guess. A good stepsister. But she has these tics because of her OCD. She’ll alternate which eye blinks at which time, and she’ll tap her foot in sets of three and clear her throat in sets of seven. It’s so freaking weird.”

  “And you teased her about it?” I asked.

  “No. Worse,” Shelby said. “I was in Jackson with some friends, and they saw her and asked if she was my sister. And I said I didn’t know her, that she was a weirdo, and nobody I knew.”

  “Wow,” said Wyatt.

  “I know. I saw her tapping and blinking in patterns, and they all laughed, and I laughed with them and we walked away. I left her alone in the city center, even though she was just looking for someone to talk to who wouldn’t judge her. And look at me: head smooth as a baby’s bottom over here, judging others.”

  “To be fair,” I said, “I thought Skye was going to be a stereotypical athlete. Eating raw meat and talking about hamstrings and stuff.”

  “Those are the two things you go to? Raw meat and hammies?” Wyatt said.

  “I thought Wyatt was going to be super weird. I wasn’t too far off,” said Shelby.

  “Aww, thanks, Shelbs,” he said, reaching over to pat her arm.

  The rain pattered. Our breathing fell in sync. Wyatt shifted. Skye moved his hand to my arm and squeezed. Shelby didn’t say a word. None of us spoke for a moment.

  “I’m sorry about Chisum,” said Skye. “I mean it. I didn’t know him, but what I did was wrong.”

  “You didn’t know what they were planning,” said Wyatt. “I believe you.”

  “Yeah, but that doesn’t bring him back,” said Skye. “And that’s on me.”

  “That’s not on you,” said Wyatt.

  “It’s on all of us,” I said. “Because stories are webs and not straight lines.”

  “What?” said Wyatt.

  Skye squeezed my arm again, as if prompting me to continue.

  “You’re seeing the story move from A to B to C in a straight line, when in reality a great many strands came together to make Chisum’s life the way it was. Yes, we can be better, but you can’t blame yourself for what happened. You came in on one side of the web, and all the bullies came in on another. I can promise you that Chisum was thankful for having you as a friend.”

  “It’s like light,” said Shelby.

  “What?” I said.

  “Wyatt was talking about light earlier. I’m talking about lightness too, but the opposite of heavy, not the opposite of dark. All this crap at our feet is heavy. We make it light when we share it. I guess both meanings work. What is that, when the same word means different things?”

  “Homonym,” said Skye.

  “Cheater. Did you read that on a cereal box?” said Wyatt.

  “Ha ha,” said Skye.

  “Thanks for saying that, though, guys,” said Wyatt. “But I can’t bring Chisum back.”

  “And I can’t make Nash take responsibility in that water instead of my mother, but I can forgive him. I guess that’s like starting over, but I think it’s more important to continue.”

  Skye squeezed my arm again and pulled me in a little closer.

  “Speaking of Nash,” said Wyatt. “I should probably get some water to give him some more pain meds. Don’t want any of that pain coming back if we can keep it at bay.”

  The daylight was swallowed up in the
rain, but there still existed a half-light through the pine trees that allowed for slight visibility beyond our location. I noticed this as Wyatt stepped outside the tent. But he didn’t zip up the door, and I felt the cold sweep into the tent and stay, the wind whipping over my already chilly, goose-pimpled skin.

  “Close the door, will you?”

  I couldn’t see Wyatt’s eyes, but I saw his shoulders stiffen, and then we all heard his muttering turn into a moan and that moan turn into a scream that included many foul words. The exact words were muddled by the gargantuan drops of rain, but his tone was unmistakable.

  My relationship with God was, at best, murky, and at worst, lost in some black hole beyond the reaches of the multiverse and all the theoretical physics and quantum mechanics my mother had studied. But that didn’t mean I didn’t still wonder about the timing of grand moments that seemed to awaken me to what I had and what I hadn’t previously taken note of having. Like the rightness of having friends with me on this river trip where everything seemed to be wrong except for the group sharing all the wrongness with me.

  Wyatt started moving frantically, and we sat up and looked past the small lip that curled from the bottom of the tent. Water was beginning to meet the threshold and spill into our tent, near the door. Wyatt stared at his feet as the water, filled with pine needles, rose to his ankles.

  We were all so startled that, for a moment, nobody moved. Not until Skye got up and started cursing. Shelby and I followed him out of the tent.

  Shelby stood with her hands over her ears and her eyes shut and started counting. None of us knew why. Then she jumped in the air and screamed as loud as anything I’d ever heard. Wyatt tried to get close, but she started swinging her arms until she reached twenty. Then, she stopped screaming and looked at us.

  “I have to allow the freak-out if I’m going to get in that raft again. It’s time to move. I’m not dying in hell.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “Indie, help me with Nash,” said Wyatt. “Shelby, Skye, pull the raft in using the climbing rope. Untie and collect the rope and hold the raft until we get there. Leave everything else. Put on your PFDs. Go. Now!”

  Wyatt grabbed my arm and pulled me around Nash’s side. The rising water had already pooled around Nash’s body inside the tent. I leaned down and felt the soaked tent conform to my back as we both bent to pick up his limp body. We were moving too quickly for him to do anything more than groan and try to shift his weight off his leg.

  I was thankful for the lightness of his body, relatively speaking. Nash was as thin as wallpaper and lanky and not much to carry, but it was still difficult because of the rapidly rising water. When we reached the raft, it was up to our knees.

  Skye was already in the raft, and Shelby was standing with a loop in her hand, waiting for us.

  “Grab him!” Wyatt yelled.

  Skye helped take Nash’s upper body, and Shelby climbed into the raft to help situate him into place. By the time I saw Wyatt roll himself into the raft, the water was closer to his waist than to his knees.

  The storm was still dumping on us, like something biblical. The water rising in straight lines from the ripples on the surface was harrowing. The river had already exceeded its banks to the point that the river line was still noticeable, but it was so wide, I was unsure where to go.

  The water had changed from a dark gray to a burnt orange. Debris floated by, and I saw a log as big as my trailer wash by us like it was weightless, humming along with such force that it took no care for any obstacle. I saw a smashed cooler float by, open and empty. As we hurtled forward, I saw an empty PFD, and my stomach turned. Who was without their vest? What company spilled? How many were lost in that orange, rising tide of water?

  “We can’t stay on the water. We need to get out of here. Scan the walls for any ledges. High ground. High ground!” Wyatt shouted.

  I was focusing on the paddles, on keeping us from hitting any debris. Large fir trees and twisted pines rushed by, and I thought I heard in the distance a roar above and beyond the scream of water. We couldn’t see the walls very well, so I knew I had to get us closer to the edge of the canyon before whatever it was I was hearing hit us.

  And I knew we didn’t have much time.

  A clock ticked in my mind as I counted the trees passing us. I realized that our tents and our gear had probably washed away, lost in the churning water that was carrying giant boulders beneath us—boulders that hadn’t moved in eons. I wondered about those prehistoric eggs and what dinosaurs had been freed from their burial in the map etched by the river over centuries.

  “There!” Skye shouted, pointing, and I switched my control hand and pressed it against the flow to turn the raft eastward.

  A plateau stuck out into the water like an arm, curling back into the wall, the color of Martian sand lit by some dying, red sun.

  “Get the gear ready, Skye,” said Wyatt. “I think the river is at its high point, but if not, we can’t afford to lose anybody. We’ll hold at that lip and see if we can place any climbing gear.”

  We had to shout to be heard above the rain and the great, heaving, panting beast of river upon whose back we were riding, the scales of the animal folding over one another in large pieces. Waves built foundations of massive buildings and then crumbled in an instant.

  “How will we get Nash out?” I said.

  “Z-pulley crevasse rescue,” said Wyatt. “Maybe a drop loop assist.”

  “What does that mean?” said Shelby.

  “That maybe we can do it,” said Wyatt.

  “Do we have the gear for that?” said Skye. “I haven’t climbed since I lost my leg. I don’t think we can manage with his weight, Wyatt. I hate this thing!” Skye started punching his prosthetic, and the skin on his knuckles tore open.

  I saw tears in his eyes. Or was that just the rainwater?

  “Dammit, Skye, I know you can climb,” said Wyatt.

  “I used to climb,” he said. “Now I just tie knots and sit. I’m useless.”

  “Well, Nash lives or dies depending on your decision,” said Wyatt. “So don’t take too long to make up your mind.”

  Skye rubbed his hand against his thigh.

  “I know you can do this, Skye,” Wyatt said again.

  “We could lash the oars together and tie him down to that. Would that work?” I asked.

  “He needs to use his other leg and arm. If he can’t help himself, we can’t make it up that wall,” said Wyatt.

  We were twenty yards from the outcropping Skye had spotted. It was noticeable, even in the half-light of dusk, because of the way the dark rocks near the edge reached out into the canyon like dirty fingers on an otherwise clean hand, a hand that connected to that red-armed plateau. The rock surrounding the plateau looked like bright, sheer limestone; it set the ledge in relief.

  The ledge was a couple feet from the boat, and I did what I could to hold the raft as close to it as possible. Wyatt climbed out and pulled himself up. He yelled to Skye for the rope and a cam with a quickdraw attached. Skye threw him the gear, and we sat in an eddy that seemed to rise like a blister with every passing second. But it lifted us up enough that we could step out onto the plateau with more confidence.

  “Put on a harness!” Wyatt yelled. “Hurry up!”

  Somehow, Wyatt found an opening for the climbing cam, and the cam opened up in the wall and held, like a muscle flexing behind the stone. He clipped the rope in, tied it around his body, and leaned over the edge to help the rest of us up to a rim above the plateau, more than two feet above the rising water.

  The roar of water I’d heard earlier seemed to be increasing, and I doubted any of us would make it out of that spot, no matter the rope, the cams, the quickdraws, the oars or the PFDs or the raft or anything. But that didn’t stop me from trying.

  Another raft slid onto the plateau as if arriving from som
e other world. The five people in it jumped out and ran to the wall. They all looked to be in their thirties or older, and each one had on a PFD and was panting heavily. I assumed the man with the bandana on his head was the guide by the way his face contorted into a frown. He held the raft next to him by the guide rope and stood with his back to the wall.

  “Do you have enough equipment to get us all out?” he said.

  “We have the gear, but I don’t know how much time we have,” said Skye.

  “We’ll get everyone out. Help us clip this guy in and get him into a position where he can get himself up the wall,” said Wyatt.

  Skye handed me the second harness and told me to put it on and strap down. I moved as quickly as possible. Skye tied a rope around Nash, and Wyatt pulled on Shelby’s PFD and rolled her closer to the wall.

  There was not enough room on the ledge for all of us, so the other company stood near the wall on the plateau, the water up to their knees. Maybe it was a trick of my eyes, but it seemed like the water wasn’t rising as fast as it had before.

  “Hurry!” said Wyatt.

  “Shut up! I am!” said Skye.

  Nash tried to lift his body to make it easier for Skye to get the rope around him, but the movement made him scream in pain. The wind blew everybody’s hair into their faces, and I could barely see Nash’s face beneath the white mop of his beard.

  Skye had tied the rope around Nash’s waist and through his legs multiple times, knotting it near his belly button. Skye then handed me the other side of the climbing rope and released the loop he’d tied into. Wyatt reached down to help move me closer to Shelby, creating enough room for one of the other company to stand on the ledge.

  “Get the Z-pulley ready!” Skye shouted to Wyatt, and I leaned over to help Skye.

  Skye tied into the anchor and clipped his carabiner into the line to create two alpine loops for me and Shelby. He put a carabiner on Shelby’s PFD and clipped her in along with Wyatt. Had we more time, I would have gladly switched places with Wyatt and given him the harness. Nash’s leg was too mangled to get a harness on him, and we were praying the rope would hold.