River Run

by Toni Dwiggins

  I got my binoculars and looked where Edgar was looking, east of the confluence, up Shinumo Creek, and I finally glimpsed within the brush a bit of deep orange, and I said, “Desert paintbrush.”

  Now Pete was looking through his high-powered binocs. “We'd better go see.”

  We scrambled back down to the bed of White Creek and followed it to the confluence with the superstar Shinumo. The meeting of the creeks was rowdy with rushing water and lush with vegetation.

  Edgar led the way as we headed east up Shinumo Creek a short distance, and then Edgar called a halt and climbed up the right-hand bank to the thick clump of spiky brush, where the something orange was trapped—visible from our ridge viewpoint, nearly obscured down here at the creek. Edgar untangled the object and came back down to us, holding an orange PFD.

  Justin whistled.

  “May I?” Pete took the vest, and examined it. “A Stohlquist. Universal size, adjustable.” The buckles were closed. Pete opened them, opened the vest, and examined the Coast Guard certification label inside. “Regulation.”

  Same brand, I recalled, as the PFDs on the ghost raft. Same color, I recalled, as one of the vests on the raft.

  “I'll point out the obvious,” I said. “There's a life vest in this canyon. Nowhere near the river.”

  Pete shouted, “Hello!”

  No response. Just a whistle of wind through the canyon.

  “All right,” Pete said, “it's not as strange as it seems. Something tied to your backpack gets caught in the brush and comes off. I lost a rain jacket that way once. It was wet so I lashed it to a D-ring. I didn't realize it was gone until I made camp three hours later.”

  Justin said, “You ever lash a life vest to your backpack?”

  “I have SAR buddies who do. Doing an over-the-edge sweep of a canyon, in case they have to cross the river and check the other side. They'll carry an inflatable pack raft, or hitch a ride on a raft passing on the river.”

  “Do your SAR buddies use Stohlquist vests?”

  “Some do.” Pete took a moment. “But we haven't had any search teams in this area for a good long while.”

  Walter said, “Then how about a recreational backpacker who planned to cross the Colorado?”

  “Possible.”

  I said, “There is another possibility.”

  Pete turned to me. “You mean rafter Schrader.”

  I nodded.

  “With her PFD?”

  I shrugged. “Go back to the panic scenario. Something happens and Schrader flees upcanyon. Here. Disoriented, she gets hot and takes off the vest.” I added, “And yes, I can count. Reid wore his PFD, and there were three unused vests on the raft. That's one too many, if Schrader took hers.”

  “Are you suggesting there was a fifth rafter? Not on the permit list?”

  “Maybe not on Reid's raft. Maybe the fifth rafter came along and initiated the event. And then took off upcanyon. And lost the vest here. And then maybe hiked out.”

  “Lot of maybes,” Pete said.

  Neely said, “You're all overlooking the obvious.”

  We waited.

  “Becca Warren. Reid's niece.” She added, strained, “My cousin's missing girlfriend.”

  Becca, here? I opened my mouth to object, and then closed it.

  Nobody objected.

  Neely said, “Try this. Becca planned that kayaking outing on the Lassen river with Reid. And he stood her up. So she left the gear in place—as we saw—and came back to the Canyon. And found Uncle Reid, or didn't. They argued, or didn't. She went back to work. Ranger headquarters. Maybe her job included paperwork—what job doesn't? So let's say she was going over trip manifests and came across the Reid Lassen party. Now she's doubly pissed. Reid stands her up, and now he's going rafting with his friends. So she decides to follow him, or intercept him, depending on the timing. She left her vest back home, with the kayak. So she borrows one.” Neely pointed to the vest in Pete's hands. “A Stohlquist, not uncommon. Orange, not uncommon.” Neely paused. “You with me?”

  We were with her.

  All but Pete. “How does she just happen to find her way here?”

  “I don't know, Pete, I don't have it all storyboarded yet.” She stared at the PFD in the ranger's hands. “But whoever lost that went somewhere around here.”

  “All right,” Walter said, “it seems we have ourselves a guidepost. I propose we follow Shinumo Creek, upstream. We'll be on the lookout.”

  I nodded. For Becca Warren. Or Megan Schrader. Or an unnamed stranger with an unknown motive.

  Pete attached the PFD to his pack.

  Walter got his geologic map and traced the line of the creek with his finger. “Fortuitously, the creek will take us back up into the Tonto rocks.”

  How about that?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  WE LEFT THE CONFLUENCE and took Shinumo Creek deeper into the neighborhood.

  The creek headed eastward, jogging and kinking, its course controlled by faults. The going was brushy and we had to battle spiky cactus and bayonet plants and intertwining cottonwoods, but the cool rushing water was a balm as we crossed from bank to bank. Within a short while, as the creek bed climbed, we ascended back into the Tapeats. Walter and I took samples. Similar to the ghost raft chips. But not a match.

  The Tapeats walls rose and the canyon narrowed, so that we were once again hiking through a gorge—this time with plenty of sky visible above. I kept watch on Edgar. He was holding his own.

  We were all keeping watch for signs of a disoriented hiker—a hat, sunglasses, a jacket. Something dropped.

  There was nothing.

  And then I spotted an outcrop of granite at the base of the Tapeats. Walter made a noise—he'd spotted it too. We halted. We examined the granite. We shifted focus to the Tapeats wall above the outcrop. I held my breath as I put my lens to the Tapeats. And then I exhaled. Quartz still dominated, but the feldspar ratio appeared higher than any place we'd sampled so far. Walter scooped a handful of rock chips, lensed them, and shot me a smile.

  We'd both done our homework. We'd both learned that the basal zone of the Tapeats reflected the mineralogy of underlying rocks—in particular, feldspar-rich granite.

  Neely caught our smiles. “This it?”

  I said, “Looking good.”

  She gave a thumbs-up. “Okay. Next—where's that Muav we want?”

  I glanced up the high Tapeats walls. Above the Tapeats would be the Bright Angel Shale, and above that, the Muav. I said, “Once we exit this gorge, we'll climb back into it.”

  “Then let's go get it!”

  Walter pointed the way forward through the gorge, up Shinumo Creek.

  We continued, energized, bushwhacking and creek-crossing with a new purpose, and that took us up this gorge until we came to a large chockstone. We had to scramble overland to pass it and drop back into the creek bed. We got scratched and bruised on the scramble. Our energy flagged. But Shinumo Creek now took a serious turn northward, on its course up to the source spring high on the Kaibab rim.

  We were climbing.

  The canyon opened up.

  The Tapeats cliffs grew farther apart, and lower.

  Pete mentioned campsite.

  Yeah, it was getting late. Yeah, one might find a place to pitch a tent somewhere ahead.

  We paused, as Walter checked the map. “Not too far.”

  Neely wiped her dirt-smeared face. “Then let's go, campers.”

  We continued. Dragging. Going on fumes now. And then, at last, we left the Tapeats and came into the upper Tonto Group layers—the green Bright Angel Shale underfoot and on the slopes, and the silvery Muav ledges above the shale.

  Neely gave a half-hearted hoot.

  “I've had it,” Justin said, dropping his pack. Dropping onto a large boulder.

  We all followed suit. Drinking, snacking, slumping in the shade. Shutting our eyes.

  And then I felt Walter nudge my foot and I groaned and rose and the two of us set about sampli
ng the geology. Walter took the shale along the creek bank and I climbed up to the Muav ledge above. The Muav was looking promising. If I'd had the energy, I would have cheered.

  “A little farther,” Walter urged the others. “And then we'll stop for the day.”

  We pushed on to an open area where the brush was tame and the creek ran vigorously and a stunning ledge of Muav beckoned. I called a halt. Neely and Justin and even Pete collapsed onto nearby boulders.

  Edgar rallied, to film. Back on the job.

  Walter and I were just barely on the job.

  We followed our established division of labor—Walter sampling the shale near the creek, me climbing the short distance up to the Muav layer. I donned my safety glasses and chiseled off a few chips and lensed them. One chip, with a good-sized inclusion of yellowish calcareous mudstone, looked very good indeed.

  Edgar came up to film.

  I held out the chip for a closeup.

  Edgar thanked me and then headed back down to join Walter.

  My partner was chiseling an outcrop of greenish shale. I called to him, “How's it look?”

  He grunted.

  Good? Not so good? No way? Or was that simply a weary-to-the-bone grunt?

  Yeah. Me too. I secured the Muav chips in a sample bag. I sat on a ledge and prepared to compare those to the dish of Pendleton's Muav chips, hoping for a match. Or even close. Close would do, right now.

  Walter dropped his hammer and it clunked on the outcrop.

  At least that's what I thought, at first. That clunking chinking sound was the first sound I heard, and then I heard another sound just like it and thought, absurdly, Walter's now dropped his chisel, too? I heard every sound, almost in slow motion, which should have given me enough time to react, but I didn't react, didn't even get to my feet.

  Didn't even turn to look downhill.

  And of course it all happened fast, because the avalanche of rocks that came down from the ridge up above followed a steep descent.

  I knew it was an avalanche of rocks when the first one hit me in the shoulder, and I flinched and yelled and then, finally, tried to get to my feet to get out of the way but there wasn't time and another, sharper-edged, rock hit me in the face, on my jaw, a glancing blow but pain speared and I knelt and wrapped my arms over my head, knocking off my glasses in the process.

  By the time I'd done my duck-and-cover it was over.

  All but the yelling.

  Everybody was yelling.

  In pain and fear I looked down to where Walter had been chiseling that shale outcrop.

  Walter, like me, was on the ground.

  I screamed.

  He looked up at me, his right arm bloody, his face white, his safety glasses askew, and he took off the glasses and got to his feet, to head uphill for me, but then he suddenly changed direction and headed for Edgar.

  Where Edgar'd been filming.

  I saw the others, then—Neely and Justin and Pete running toward Edgar.

  I got to my feet. I stared down at Edgar.

  He lay flat, arms flung to the sides like he'd tried to wave off the avalanche. One leg was bent at an awful angle, and already his khaki hiking pants were turning red at the shin. But his leg didn't matter. What mattered was his head. I had time to see, before my view was blocked by the others gathering around, dropping to their knees. The left side of Edgar's skull was caved in.

  In a daze, I came down the slope and joined the others.

  It was so quiet in our canyon now.

  Pete worked quickly, with a butterfly touch examining Edgar's head, and then he placed two fingers on Edgar's neck, finding the carotid, and he nodded, there was breath, there was life.

  How could there be life? The dent in Edgar's skull was a crater. Had Edgar not been bald, perhaps it would not look so horrific, but on the bare field of Edgar's skull, the imprint of the rock strike was brutal.

  There were a dozen scrapes and they bled but they were nothing.

  There was the slightest rise and fall of Edgar's chest, and that was something.

  Pete put his hands on Edgar's face and did a gentle jaw thrust to maintain the airway and he barked, “Get my radio. In my pack. Call SAR.”

  Justin scrambled up and ran to the packs.

  “Edgar.” Pete was leaning in close. “Edgar. Edgar. Edgar.”

  There was no response, not even the slight rise and fall of Edgar's chest that I'd just seen.

  Neely made a strangled sound.

  And then Pete swiftly moved into position and placed his palms on Edgar's chest and began compressions, up-down up-down up-down, fast fast fast, and he barked at Neely, “You know mouth-to-mouth?”

  She scrambled into place.

  “Get ready,” he barked.

  Neely leaned in and tilted back Edgar's head and lifted his chin and, when Pete paused the compressions and nodded, she pinched Edgar's nose and covered his mouth with hers and blew.

  “Harder!” Pete snapped.

  She blew harder, and Edgar's chest rose.

  Pete called for one more breath and then he resumed his chest pumps, and they continued, thirty compressions and two breaths, the two of them becoming a team, a machine. Relentless.

  I heard, from afar, Justin talking on Pete's radio.

  I tore my attention from the CPR to look at Walter, and he returned my look, anguished.

  I didn't know how long it continued—the chest pumps and mouth-to-mouth—but Pete and Neely kept at it, in rhythm, the thirty-and-two, the thirty-and-two.

  Walter finally whispered, “He's gone.”

  Through the avalanche dust and grit in my eyes, through my tears, I could see that Edgar's chest no longer rose with Neely's breaths.

  Pete sat back.

  He had to pull Neely away from Edgar.

  She collapsed like a ragdoll.

  Pete wrapped his arms around her.

  I gazed down at Edgar, at that gentle and fine man, who I'd known mostly as a dedicated cameraman—as a cinematographer—but not in small part as a friend.

  Walter stood and walked away.

  I saw Justin, standing over by the packs, the radio still in his hand. And then he set the radio down and walked away, just kept walking, going so far that I thought he would disappear down the canyon, but he stopped finally, and put his head in his hands, and howled.

  I WENT TO JOIN WALTER.

  I had to navigate rocks big and small, some previously inhabiting the canyon floor, some having arrived in the avalanche from the Redwall cliff high above.

  Edgar's camera lay broken amongst the rocks.

  Walter was looking up at the ridge, when I joined him.

  I said, “Reid.”

  Walter turned. “No.” Anguish in his voice.

  “You can't believe he'd go this far?”

  Walter didn't answer.

  I said, “Something started that avalanche.”

  “A bighorn.”

  “Somebody.”

  Walter took a long time to answer. “This is rough country. Packing into this country... It's rough going. He has a broken hand. You saw.”

  Yeah, I'd seen it. When we visited him at home. Still bruised and swollen and stiff.

  I said, “John Wesley Powell hiked this country. And he only had one arm.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  “ANYBODY ELSE THIRSTY?” Becca asks.

  She licks her cracked lips and grins at the other four rafters, who are always thirsty. Four hands shoot up. Becca leans over the pontoon and reels in the mesh drinks bag and passes out the cold cans. Sean and Lazlo and Juan take beers. Becca and Molly take lemonades. Molly doesn't drink brewskies while driving the raft. Becca needs to stay stone sober, for the hunt.

  They all raise their drinks in a toast.

  Becca says, “I really owe you guys.” She takes a swallow of the cold sweet liquid.

  She so much owes them. They agreed to let her hitch, back at their lunch stop at the beach downriver from Lee's Ferry. She picked that bea
ch for that reason—a choice lunch stop where she could hitch a ride. The first three groups she approached turned her down. No room, not gonna risk getting caught by river patrol. No problemo. The fourth group said yes. One of their party had cancelled at the last minute and they had space. Karma, or what?

  Two couples, young and fun like her and they got into the spirit of the chase. Follow that raft!

  She'd described Reid's raft, going by his trip permit, and they were on the lookout. He had a day's head start but Becca's group had a motorized raft too and they hauled ass in pursuit. Your uncle ditched you? Wait'll we find his sorry ass!

  And now, three days into the trip, they're all besties. They even exchanged addresses, for after.

  Sean drains his brew and belches and everybody laughs.

  Becca's glad it's Molly driving the raft.

  The sun is hot and the water washing in when they hit Bass Rapid is icy and Molly chooses the best line and they ace that rapid. Shinumo Rapid's coming up and right after that is Hakatai and then Waltenberg and the 'berg is a gnarly rapid.

  Becca can't wait.

  But then she suddenly spots Reid's raft, anchored on river right.

  She yells and Molly pulls over and Juan jumps out to tie off and they're saying, sure you want to get off here? There's nobody around.

  She's sure. She knows it's Reid's raft. She's got the ID. She's got her backpack, and her hiking boots tied to the D-ring. She's actually hiked some of the Shinumo area before, so she's super cool with it. But watching her besties motor away without her—heading for gnarly Waltenberg without her—makes her feel lonely.

  But hey, you're not alone for long on the river. If she needs to hitch again, she'll find somebody. Meanwhile, she's up for a good hike.

  She's up for a good hike...

  The sun dims and the blue sky grays and she suddenly doesn't know the way, doesn't know what she's doing here, doesn't know doesn't know doesn't know...

  Becca cried out. Her mouth was dry and she couldn't swallow and she couldn't taste that sweet lemonade that wetted her dry mouth.

  She swore.

  She was doing it again, time-streaming from here to the party boat, to her besties, to the good times.