What the Other Three Don't Know

by Spencer Hyde

  “You scared the crap out of me,” she said.

  “I don’t see a colostomy bag.”

  “Gross.”

  “Not even a catheter,” I said.

  “Just glad we have a real bathroom here instead of that stupid groover. They must trust us to go by ourselves.”

  “Speaking of going,” I said, “how long do you think they are going to keep us here?”

  Shelby shifted in the bed and pressed the button that lifted the entire upper half slowly to a sitting position with a humming whir.

  “Long enough,” she said.

  “So profound. Have you checked on the others?”

  “Seriously? I just woke up.”

  “Just checking. Got a TV remote?” I asked.

  “Slow down. I’m still headachy.”

  “Your head is the only reason we’re safe,” I said.

  “What?”

  “Well, it’s not like we had any reflectors on our vests, right?”

  “So?”

  “So that spotlight had to hit something.”

  Shelby smiled and punched me in the arm.

  I hopped off her bed and back into the wheelchair. I called for the nurse to help me find the other rooms that my friends were in.

  When we got to the next room, I wheeled in as the nurse walked to a desk to talk with a couple other nurses, probably to tell them how awful I was as a patient.

  I wheeled past the curtain hanging halfway to the floor and saw Skye and Wyatt on the couch covered in a couple blankets. Nash had his own bed, his leg and arm both wrapped, an IV dripping into his arm.

  “Shelby and I got our own suites. How’d you guys end up on the couch?”

  “Are you feeling okay, Indie?” said Nash.

  “I’m fine.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Nash has been asking about you. He’s nothing if not concerned,” said Skye.

  I saw a couple half-eaten meals on small tables. From the angle of the sun, I assumed it was past noon, but I was unsure how long I’d been out.

  “This was my fault, team,” Nash said.

  “Pretty sure it wasn’t,” said Wyatt, turning up the volume on the TV burbling overhead.

  A talking head appeared, of course. She was beautiful and had massive teeth and huge eyes and was overly expressive. She was perfect for TV—and probably great at charades, too. That was my first thought, anyway. But all my other thoughts, from second to seventieth, followed her reporting as different images from Hells Canyon flitted across the screen.

  Twenty-seven dead. Six were students visiting from various schools. Two of those had worked for Jet Boat River Tours to earn some summer cash for school. Abbey Outdoor Pursuits lost ten people to the flood. Edmund Hillary Adventures lost seven. There were three family members staying in a cabin just one mile from our last camp—they were gone. The cabin itself had been washed away completely. There were still four missing, according to the reporter, though apparently four of the five people tied to the tree had made it out alive. We watched recorded coverage of their helicopter rescue.

  Images of a boulder-choked region of the canyon reappeared, showing massive logs that had been swept into walls and splintered by the force of impact. The Sheep Creek Cabin site was shown multiple times, empty, soaked and torn and shot through with mud and covered with a field of newly placed, newly left boulders. The newscaster cut between reporters wearing slickers and numerous interviews. Every channel seemed to have another meteorological expert, local outfitter, or dam engineer talking into a microphone.

  The concrete gravity dam on the Idaho–Oregon border had burst because of the sheer strength of the downpour. Footage of the aftermath was shown on a loop—massive slabs of concrete slotted against one another or pressed up into felled pines, their mangled rebar insides reaching into the open sky. Giant cuts of the rock tilted sideways in heavy, wet mud.

  The river had dropped considerably, but it would take years before the total weight of the slide, of the break, could be adequately measured. Sections of road near the dam had been washed away completely, asphalt crumbling into the clay beneath street level. Yellow police tape crisscrossed each scene like some crude version of graveyard markers. Helicopters whirred overhead, thwumping high and dropping rescue workers and ropes into the canyon.

  One woman had been pulled from a tree five miles beyond where we climbed out, which turned out to be ten miles beyond the Sheep Creek Cabin site where we had planned to stop. I wondered if she was the other rafter from the group we climbed out with, the one who fell into the water after we lost the one to the log. How much was underwater by the time we climbed out?

  The weather service had received reports of shifting systems too late in the game. Had they known earlier, we would have been pulled by rescue teams on the second day of the trip. But even knowing about the storm wouldn’t have prepared them for the dam break. “Intermittent showers were reported in some cities along the canyon,” the newscasters kept repeating. “But never thunderstorms.”

  The water rose 0.8 cubic meters per second, according to a hydrologist with the US Army Corps of Engineers in Washington. The engineer explained that meant more than two hundred gallons of water rose in that river per second—an amount that multiplied exponentially when the dam burst.

  It was a disaster of epic proportions. It demonstrated starkly to all of us a river’s strength and how it can move and what it can take. But also the strength of people, and what they can survive.

  The flood hadn’t descended as a massive wall, which allowed some groups, like ours, to clamber onto ledges or outcroppings or even into trees, said one reporter. Many, unsure if the water would continue to rise, swam to banks and attempted to climb out. Most didn’t make it.

  Twenty-seven dead. The number repeated in my mind as I rested my hand on the cool curve of the wheelchair and pivoted to see the faces of the others, which were glued to the screen above. I hadn’t heard or noticed that Shelby had walked in and was now standing behind me.

  “Unreal,” she said.

  “Exactly,” said Wyatt.

  “Glad you guys know how to climb. We’re lucky,” said Nash. “If not for you, we’d all be goners. I didn’t help that.”

  He looked up at the TV screen, his eyes full. He looked so much weaker under the artificial lighting of the hospital room. His tanned arms looked frail, his face sunken and tired. We were probably going against all orders by being in the room with him, or even out of our own beds.

  “You didn’t cause that,” I said, pointing at the screen above our heads.

  A disaster that had garnered national attention, and probably would for weeks. For months. As I stared at the figures on the screen, I thought about how we all start out life with a pocketful of coins and we determine how those are spent. I’d been flipping mine into the river, into boxes of memory, neat packages of an edited past, into a blue-dark pit of shame and grief and anger and hatred and resentment, when I should have been investing them in new friends.

  I thought of that coin I’d wedged into the asphalt before joining the group that first day. I understood, now, after our hellacious canyon trip, that those investments would continue to offer returns, to fill up the bank, to make my pockets overflow for the rest of my life.

  The nurse came in to wheel me back to my room. I hugged my friends, one by one, until I felt that things were getting a bit too chummy, a bit too sentimental for my liking.

  “Meet in Shelbs’s room when you can,” said Skye in a whisper.

  I nodded and was about to leave, but when I saw Nash, I hesitated.

  “It’s over. We did it. We ran the river,” I said.

  “Or it ran us,” he said, smiling.

  “Mom would be proud of you,” I said. “She always did like you.”

  He waved his good arm in a modest “get o
ut of here” gesture.

  “And I think I know why, now. And I want you to know that, well, it’s okay,” I said.

  “It’s okay?”

  “Yeah. It’s okay. I meant it on the river. I mean it now.”

  “Thank you, Indie.” Nash shifted in his bed and tried to adjust his arm with little success. “You’re a lot like your mom. Stubborn, smart, and lots of grit. Thanks for not giving up on me.”

  “Don’t give up on yourself.”

  “I’ll try not to,” he said.

  “You should move back, you know,” I said. “Home.”

  “I know,” he said, picking at the IV in his arm. “I just couldn’t stand looking up the hill to Tetonia and knowing I’d taken her from you.”

  “Everyone wants forgiveness of some sort, but everyone refuses to believe in mercy,” I said.

  “What’s that?”

  “Something Grandpa always says.” I watched as an accordion of starlings expanded and retracted outside the hospital window.

  “Thank you, Indiana,” he said, his eyes full.

  “For what? I’m talking about both of us,” I said. “Because I needed your forgiveness just as much. I know that now.”

  “You always had it,” he said. “Anyway, I’m just glad I got to be your guide.”

  I imagined some Hallmark film, where the girl hears such a comment and says “Or was I your guide?” and then they both break down and sob and go through photo albums together. But it wasn’t like that, because that’s not real life.

  “Heading back after this?” I asked.

  “Might go to Henry’s and drop a line with some old friends while I’m close by. See if I can’t fish with only one arm.”

  “Browns are hungry. Make sure if you get a rainbow that you let it run.”

  “I always do,” he said.

  Let it run. Let the fish run. When you hook a fish, you let it run and feel free before yanking the barb and reminding it that it cannot leave your line. It then knows its place. Small amounts of freedom make it so it won’t yank too hard and rip off the hook. Letting the fish run allows for a slower but more sure catch. When those rainbows dive, you got to let them think they’re in charge before you hand that rod to God.

  I walked out of Nash’s room, and I found myself floating, almost. Forgiveness was offered and accepted, and I was now the other self, a carefree person without a chip on her shoulder, without a wedge in her heart, without a rip in her chute. I was floating back down to earth instead of plummeting into a river of grief.

  All rivers change direction and cut through rocks—rocks with raindrops etched into them from the beginning of time, rocks as old as humankind. There are no set limits on how a river runs, or where, or why, or when it will cut through those ancient rocks, where words have been hiding since the world first turned. Those words will break free at some point, and they will remind us that life is a way of loving, not a set of rules.

  The nurse wheeled me out of Nash’s room despite my hearty protests. I shouted to the others that I would meet them later in Shelbs’s room. When I got to my room, the nurse said I had to stay put for a half hour so the doctor could clear me. I stared out the window while I waited, catching a slight shimmer from the Snake River in the distance.

  I would never go to Hells Canyon again, I knew that much, but I was still happy to see the river, to live near a stretch of river that I knew as well as Bury’s face in the morning light that peeked through our shabby trailer curtains. I could name every turn and hollow of that river, every tree and dip. I could probably give the exact number of rocks rollicking around the bottom of the Snake River if I had to.

  “That’s a good sign,” said Skye.

  I turned and saw him standing in my doorway.

  “What?”

  “The cattle out there. They’re standing. That means the water’s fishy and the fish are biting. If the cattle are lying down, it means the fish aren’t going to bite.”

  “Fishermen and their superstitions,” I said. “Speaking of, I notice you haven’t been touching your leg as much today.”

  He touched his prosthetic reflexively, his face turning red. “It’s become sort of a safety net thing. I do it when I’m anxious.”

  “Why are you anxious?”

  “I told you on the river,” he said.

  “I don’t remember.”

  “It’s because I don’t really know what to do with my life now. Well, I didn’t. I’ve only ever known soccer, and now that’s gone. I keep worrying about who I used to be and feeling anxious about who I’m supposed to be now. Stupid, I know.”

  “Not stupid. And? You said didn’t, right?”

  “Right. I really want to guide like my dad. Fly-fishing. It’s what I love.”

  “Your dad will be okay with that?” I asked.

  “Who cares?”

  “You’re right,” I said.

  “It’s what I want to do. I just didn’t know it until I was without soccer and only had a fly-rod in my hand and nobody to tell me what to do or how to do it. I didn’t know what I needed until we dropped into hell. Take that for a Sunday sermon, amirite?”

  Skye walked in and sat down next to me in the sunlight I was soaking up.

  “Makes me wonder what secrets my mom was keeping,” I said, slouching back into the uncomfortable, hospital-grade couch and staring out the window at the cattle near the river. “Or Grandpa. Hell, everybody. We all think we have to carry the weight alone, too.”

  “I lied to you,” said Skye, staring out the window.

  I turned to face him. “What?”

  “The alert I got when I was driving? I told everyone it was just a text.”

  “What was it?” I asked.

  “You’ll think I’m a nerd,” he said.

  “I sure hope so.”

  “It was an alert from Science Daily. I’ve been interested in stuff like that since your mom’s class.”

  “So what was it? No way you forgot that alert.”

  “Never.”

  “And?”

  “It was an article about why space is so dark,” said Skye.

  “Okay. I’m listening,” I said.

  “We only see light in space when it hits an object and bounces off it.”

  I stared at the light hitting the cattle, the shadows at their feet, the darkness around them.

  “That’s so cool,” I said. “Life is always dark until we bounce off each other.”

  “Light?”

  “Life. I said life. It takes other people. That’s the only way to be seen.”

  Wyatt walked in with Shelby, and they both sat next to Skye, so close that Skye winced and stood up.

  “Sure. Have a seat.”

  “Thanks, man,” said Wyatt, smiling.

  “I’m trying to not say that anymore,” said Skye.

  “You can still say it. But you and I will know it’s for ironic purposes only,” Wyatt said.

  “Fair enough,” said Skye.

  “You think you’re ready for your big coming-out party?” Wyatt said, pointing at Skye’s prosthetic. We all smiled and looked at Wyatt, who had a too-big grin on his face, smiling at the kernel of his own corny humor. A homophone I knew they’d appreciate some other time.

  “I’ll be okay. You ready for yours? I imagine coming out won’t be easy.”

  “Staying out is even more difficult. But I’m going to bring down the house, man,” said Wyatt. “Just you watch.”

  “Now you’re talking,” said Skye.

  “I’ve been talking this whole time,” said Wyatt.

  “You both talk a lot,” said Shelby.

  I guess we all meet that second person who is inside of us, eventually. I wondered how I was like Skye and Wyatt and Shelby. They all lived with a duality, and it made sense that
they could live their lives as more than one thing. We all had secrets that needed extra hands to carry, lives that needed that river run, darkness that needed light, weight that needed lightness.

  It felt odd to feel like myself again, there in that moment with those three people. I mean, I almost didn’t recognize the spunk that reappeared in me after the river, after I met Skye and Wyatt and Shelby. It’s like I had ignored my personality for so long after my mom died that it was packing up and getting ready to leave, to trot off, for good. I was lucky it hadn’t gotten too far before these friends helped me beckon it back with corny jokes and hearse puns with Grandpa.

  I heard a nurse complaining in the hallway about how dogs were not allowed in the hospital, but Bury was on me before Grandpa could finish arguing. He shouted something about how he’d take care of it, and then walked in, hat in hand, eyes full. He looked tired as well, worn, tattered, his sweatshirt a threadbare version of what once had probably offered a good deal of warmth.

  “Lucky as the day is long,” he said, almost swallowing the last half of the sentence in tears.

  “Grandpa,” I said.

  I hugged him and felt his body slacken and his chest heave as he worked to hold back the tears. Bury leapt onto me again, her massive paws covering my chest, and started licking my face. I fell to the ground and rolled around with her and hugged her so tight she squirmed to get free.

  “I missed you, Bury.”

  Grandpa laughed. “Wish I got half the greeting that dog gets. You’re not allowed to leave Tetonia again. Not until you’re forty-five.”

  “Arbitrary pick. Why forty-five?”

  “I don’t know. Just gives me a lot of time with you and fewer worries.”

  “If I can’t leave Tetonia, we won’t have groceries.”

  “We’ll live off the land. I have a few rifles.”

  “Black powder?”

  “Your jokes about my age get worse and worse, Indie. I hope she wasn’t this unkind on the river,” he said to my friends.

  Wyatt, Skye, and Shelby just smiled.

  Grandpa laughed as I stood up and stuck his hat back on his head.