River Run

by Toni Dwiggins

  “A refinement, if you will,” Walter said. “Perhaps three of the rafters went off hiking, in which case they wouldn't have worn their vests. And the fourth stayed behind, put on the vest, and so on.”

  “The party splits up. The argument. Of some sort.”

  “Of some sort.”

  I said, “Whatever the scenario, with a PFD that fourth rafter would have a chance in the river, right?”

  Pete nodded. “People have survived a swim for miles. Wearing flotation.”

  “And if they're not...”

  “Not very far.” He added, grimly, “Bodies can travel pretty far, because they're submerged down where the current runs faster. Not all bodies turn up.”

  I shivered, although the temperature was in the high seventies—not hot, down in the gorge of the Grand Canyon, where in summer the days get hot and hotter. Glad it was mid-April, not July. Shivering, at the thought of taking a swim in the Colorado, where the water runs cold. And submerged bodies travel fast.

  “Pete,” Walter said, “does that trip permit say where they planned to camp?”

  “The rafters don't know until they scout for sites. The permit just lists days allowed on the river. Today would have been their fourth.”

  “Assuming it takes X number of days to travel X number of river miles, wouldn't that give a general idea where they last stopped? And that would give a general search area.”

  “To an extent. But some parties stop for several nights. Others push ahead as fast as they can.”

  Walter nodded. “Then we'd best get back to work.”

  The ranger climbed aboard and moved to have a closer look at the gear boxes.

  Walter bent to the bow line.

  I got a specimen dish from my field kit and dumped in the chips, in order to examine them. There were a dozen or so. I began with an eyeball analysis.

  Color: dark brown.

  Size: 30 to 60 millimeters.

  Shape: irregular, mostly subangular.

  Texture: medium-grained.

  What we had looked to be fragments from a rock face. The chips appeared weathered, but not highly abraded by the elements. They hadn't been rounded into pebbles by a trip through the river. They'd likely been found near their parent rock.

  I got out my hand lens for a magnified look.

  Primary mineral: quartz.

  Accessory minerals: mainly feldspar.

  Grain size: about 1.5 millimeters.

  Quick and dirty field ID: sandstone.

  Further analysis would have to await our return to Grand Canyon Village where we'd set up a mini-lab. I straightened, stretching my back. I looked at Walter. He was peering at the braided bow line through his hand lens. I said, “Anything helpful?”

  “Bit of silt.” He grunted. “Probable, river wash.”

  I knew that grunt—he was not impressed.

  Pete left the gear boxes to come sit beside me, giving a slight bounce to the pontoon. He looked at the chips in the specimen dish. “Tapeats.”

  I stared at the ranger. “You think so?”

  “I've seen a lot of that rock.”

  Okay then. A ranger would know the Canyon rocks, and would recognize this particular sandstone. Tapeats Sandstone was one of the iconic rock layers, so I'd read. I hadn't yet seen it up close in the field. “Thanks for the ID.”

  “No problem—rangers love the Tapeats. It's ledgy, easy to hike.”

  “So you'd know where it crops out at river level?” I had a geologic map back at the lab. But I had a knowledgeable ranger beside me.

  He nodded. “At river level. And as overhanging ridges. And up on the high rims.”

  I understood. The river dropped over two thousand feet in its course through the canyon, downcutting deeper and deeper into the rock layers.

  “Up there, for instance.” He pointed at an overhanging ledge above the dark schist.

  I looked. I could attempt that unclimbable cliff to get a sample. Or, I could hunt for some detritus on the beach below the cliff.

  I said, ““How about upriver from here?”

  “For long stretches.” He frowned.

  “Yeah, we need to narrow the neighborhood.”

  “Can you?”

  That was the rub. “What we want is some unique inclusion—say, an unusual mineral or a telling fossil that could point to a particular Tapeats location.”

  “But there's no inclusions?”

  “Not visible with a hand lens.”

  The ranger said, “Shit.”

  Yeah. “Hopefully we get lucky when we do the microscopic and chemical analysis.”

  “When will you know?”

  “Tonight.” That was a precipitous promise, but Pete's team needed to narrow their hunt for the rafters. “We'll work it as late as need be.” Until our eyes cross.

  Pete rose. “Meanwhile, I'll tell my chopper to do a sweep over the Tapeats stretches.”

  He jumped off the raft, onto the beach, and was again on his radio.

  I turned back to the chips. I closed the specimen dish and was reaching for the field kit when I heard the sound. Felt it, really—the low-pitched resonance at the edge of perception.

  Walter cocked an ear.

  Pete looked to the sky.

  And then as the sound grew, I said, raising my voice, “Your chopper nearby?”

  The ranger didn't hear me. And then it was too late to answer because the noise swelled, drowning out the river's rumble. I felt the resonance in the bones of my skull.

  I followed Walter off the raft, joining Pete on the beach. I tipped back my head and watched the lumbering form with its spinning blades appear, stark against blue sky. The chopper was coming in high. And then it suddenly dipped its nose and dove for the river, with some crazy-ass skillful flying.

  And then I noticed the color. Pete's SAR helicopter—the one that had delivered us, that had left to do a sweep of the canyon, that Pete had presumably just directed toward upriver Tapeats—was white with black lettering.

  This bird was yellow.

  “Who's that?” Pete shouted.

  I suddenly thought I knew.

  CHAPTER THREE

  WE WATCHED THE YELLOW bird approach.

  The pilot skimmed the river, threading between rock walls, and then rotated to target the spot on the beach where the SAR chopper had landed us an hour ago. We ducked our heads to guard against blowing sand and covered our ears against the throaty roar of the engine.

  The skids touched sand and then, mercifully, the engine shut down.

  I could now read the purple lettering on the yellow door: HGP.

  Hawthorne Group Productions.

  Yup. I'd known that HGP had its own helicopter. But what was it doing here? I looked to Walter, who shot me a no-idea look of his own. We turned back to the chopper.

  The pilot was visible through the front window: ninety percent ball cap and bushy ponytail, slouching against the headrest.

  And now the helicopter door opened and a woman appeared—Neely Hawthorne, the 'H' in HGP. She ducked through the door, uncoiling, wiry, landing on the beach like a cat.

  Walter nudged me, and we started forward. Pete remained in place, behind us.

  Neely strode across the sand, waving.

  She wore what she always wore, always being the two days I'd known her: fitted jeans and a bright yellow tee-shirt with the blocky purple letters HGP. She wore the garish uniform well. She was thin and tall and looked studiously unstylish, which on her appeared stylish. Vintage-look sunglasses. No ball cap. I'd been expecting an HGP ball cap from the get-go. Instead she wore a no-worry short haircut, wild black curls just barely tamed. My own curly brown hair was cut shortish, just above the shoulders, waves doing as they would. I wouldn't mind a cut like Neely's.

  The next passenger disembarked. Edgar Easton was a big bearish man who'd made me feel extremely comfortable for the past two days, although he often wielded a camera. He'd brought one now, toting his big gear bag. He wore the jeans and tee-shirt
uniform, comfortably baggy. Bald, freckled, already sunburned, he wisely used the crew ball cap. He gave us a thumbs-up. That was pure Edgar—everything is copacetic and if you don't think so, he'll do whatever he can to reassure you.

  And then the last of the crew exited, superstar journalist Justin Brice. He stepped onto the sand and glanced around, unhurried.

  Neely yelled over her shoulder, “You're on my dime, Justin!”

  He gave her a little bow and fell in behind Edgar.

  There was no HGP uniform for Justin—he wore a white safari-style shirt, sleeves rolled, and black pleated chinos. It was his look, on-camera and off. He had a lean compact build and angular face and pale blue eyes. In the video clips I'd seen, those eyes seemed to soften or sharpen in accordance with the story beats. They were shaded now with black-framed sunglasses that gave him a studious air. His hair was blond and he wore it short with the front flipped up like a standing wave.

  Neely reached Walter first, gave him a hug, pivoted to me, gave me a hug, and when Edgar and Justin drew up, she led the HGP crew across the sand toward Pete.

  Walter and I trailed.

  “I'm Neely Hawthorne,” she greeted the ranger, “and these are my associates Justin Brice and Edgar Easton.”

  “I know who you are,” Pete said. “You need to know who I am. Peter Molina, head of NPS Search and Rescue.”

  “Excellent!” Neely stuck out her hand.

  Pete gave it the briefest shake.

  “We just heard about this.” Neely nodded at the abandoned raft. “We'd love to get you on camera.”

  “I'm afraid not.”

  “No? We're doing a documentary on the Colorado River. Elevator pitch—it's in trouble and we're telling its story.”

  “I know about the documentary.”

  “Then why not give us a moment of your time?”

  “Your documentary is fine. This search, my time, has nothing to do with it.”

  “On the contrary,” Neely said, “your search—lost rafters!—would personalize the river. Put our viewers onto it. Make them care.”

  “It would be exploitation.”

  The filmmaker gave a glance to her cameraman, but before she could ask, Edgar shook his head. No filming without permission of the subject—I'd experienced that, Edgar's polite request before filming me and Walter setting up our lab.

  The filmmaker glanced at her star, who just shrugged. Justin Brice had some clout in this project, and I wondered about his opinion of this unscripted detour. The documentary's working title was Lost River—the Colorado being the country's most endangered river—and the script was serious stuff. That's where Walter and I came in. We were here to talk geologic backbone—the force of the rock and the force of the river in tension, tectonics uplifts the land and water erodes it. Neely's journalist would talk threats, what's killing the river. HGP was a lean crew, in part because Neely was working on a presentation tape to attract the major studio support she was after.

  Lost River. Not Lost Rafters.

  Justin spoke. “Drama, Ranger Molina.” The journalist had a practiced voice, and he pitched it low. “Our director wants drama.”

  “Down boy,” Neely said. She turned to Pete. “Drama, with respect.”

  “You've had your say. Now you need to take your leave.” Pete nodded at the helicopter. “This is a restricted area.”

  She said, “Martin gave us the go-ahead.”

  The ranger stiffened, taken aback.

  I wasn't all that surprised. Martin Atherton was Superintendent of Grand Canyon National Park. Neely had mentioned in passing that he was a friend of a friend, that he admired Justin's work, that he would do what he could to enable the project. Film crews, I was coming to understand, attracted ongoing perks.

  Pete said, “Martin didn't notify me.”

  She threw the ranger a rueful smile. “My bad. I told him I'd explain.”

  Neely would do well in front of a camera, I thought, as well as directing behind it.

  “My geologists!” she said, turning to us. “Martin told me you were here. Looking at some rocks on the raft.”

  I nodded.

  She winked. “On my dime?”

  Walter said, “This is a favor to Martin. It won't interfere with our work for you.”

  “Tell you what. We do a little filming here, my dime stretches. It's all good.” She gestured to Edgar, miming filming.

  “Stop right there,” Pete said.

  Edgar said, “Neely, we're not copacetic here.”

  She put up her hands. “I don't want to cause an incident. Ranger Molina, I'd sure love your cooperation. Cassie, Walter—you too. I want everybody happy.”

  Walter caught my eye. Was it copacetic?

  In a word, no. We follow a protocol—we don't share our work with a non-essential audience. But I could already sense Walter's hesitation. He had history with the Hawthornes. Neely's great-grandfather was director on an old television series called Dogtown. Her father was a kid who got full run of the set. As did Walter—a kid then himself—whose own parents worked on the show. Walter's father had been production manager and his mother script supervisor. Walter and Dan Hawthorne had bonded, as only kids playing on a make-believe mining camp could bond. They kept in touch over the years, and when Dan's daughter Neely was launching her first big project, looking for a geologist consultant, her dad put her in touch with Walter. And the old Hawthorne chemistry re-ignited.

  I felt for Walter, torn between protocol and show biz.

  Walter cleared his throat. “What can it hurt?”

  And that was that.

  Walter and I were full partners, equals, but for the fact that I had learned my stuff as a kid working in his lab, and later as apprentice, and still later after I earned my graduate degrees as junior partner. And then, in time, I became full partner but that didn't erase history. Walter would always be, in some sense, a mentor to me. Always, the backbone of my life.

  We were here because of his relationship to Dan Hawthorne, his commitment to Dan's daughter. Loyalty—Walter's strong suit. The Superintendent had given HGP the go-ahead. If I argued, I'd put Walter in a hard spot. Rock, hard place.

  I nodded to my partner.

  Neely gave me one of her winning smiles. She'd been sharing them for two days, along with her stash of Belgian chocolate. When Walter and I joined the project she'd welcomed a 'sister on the crew,' instant female solidarity. I didn't yet feel I fit in—the three of them had been working together for months. But I felt the pull. Neely's orbit was intoxicating.

  Neely appealed to the ranger. “What do you say? It'll be a brief segment. And I promise not to film anything you don't want me filming.”

  After a long moment Pete said, “Just don't interfere.”

  “You got it.” She turned to Walter and me. “Do whatever you were going to do.”

  Walter clapped me on the shoulder, and we boarded the raft.

  Neely said to Edgar, “Roll camera.”

  Edgar got closeups of the unused PFDs, got footage of me packing up my field kit, of Walter bagging the bulky bow line in a plastic garbage bag, of the two of us doing a final check of the raft for mineral grains.

  He was doing a wide-angle shot of the eddy when there came a screeching sound from the far end of the beach and everyone turned to look that way.

  It was some kind of animal. A bird. A coyote.

  No, it was no animal.

  This sound resolved into a series of sharp whistles.

  Walter said, “What's that?”

  “That's my pilot,” Neely said.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “YOUR PILOT KNOWS THE use of a whistle in the Canyon?” Ranger Molina eyed Neely. “For emergencies.”

  “Of course,” she said.

  Pete grabbed his pack. The two of them set off down the beach, neither taking the lead, nor ceding it. Edgar followed, toting the camera bag.

  Justin said, to us, “It just gets better and better, doesn't it?” He sauntered off, fol
lowing his crew.

  Walter looked at me. “Shall we?”

  Like there was even a question. I put up a hand. “Hang on.” I knelt to open my pack and rummaged to find the first-aid kit, just in case. And then the two of us set off down the beach.

  Ahead, Justin was circling around the helicopter to reach the far end of the sand. The others had already disappeared from sight.

  By the time we reached the chopper, and circled it, Justin as well had disappeared.

  Here, the beach thinned at a thick stand of ferny tamarisk trees. To our left was the river and to our right the beach cliffed out. It appeared to be a dead end. But of course, it couldn't be.

  We plunged into the tamarisks, threading our way through the trees and underlying bushes, and then broke through the forest onto another beach. A hint of a beach, a small patch of sand, rockier than the beach we'd left behind. At the river was another eddy, a small one. It was clogged with floating debris, mostly broken branches and leaves.

  We heard a murmuring of voices.

  There was nobody in sight on this mini-beach, although the sand was hacked up by footprints. We looked toward the cliff face, which was similarly hacked up by crevices and jumbles of boulders.

  Up ahead, a slice of the cliff jutted out like an elbow.

  We headed that way.

  The voices got louder.

  “Hey,” Walter called.

  Neely peeked around the elbow. “We've got a live one.” And then she disappeared.

  I said, “That's terrific,” and Walter said, “Indeed,” and we hurried ahead.

  En route, I scanned the area, from eddy to beach to cliff to the elbow behind which the others must be gathered, where they'd found a survivor. And I was thinking, if we're talking one of our rafters, which we must be, then what did that say? Survived a trip downriver, got caught in this little eddy, crawled up the little beach, up there behind the elbow of the cliff.

  Which explained how the survivor had been missed by the search chopper.

  We heard a shout. “Give him some space.” It was Pete's voice, urgent.

  Walter and I rounded the elbow of rock to find a small alcove scooped into the cliff face, with a jutting overhang above.