River Run

by Toni Dwiggins

  I thought of the first-aid kit in his pack—were there EpiPens in there?—but it didn't matter because the pack had gone into the river.

  “Get help,” I yelled. The pain in my leg was traveling, rising, coming in waves.

  The last I saw of Pete, the ranger was still working to close those buckles on his PFD.

  And then I rolled across the pontoon into the river and all I saw for a moment was murky green as my face hit the water, and then I saw white foam as my vest popped me up like a cork. I gasped from the cold. Wes sounded in my head—nose and toes to the sky—and I automatically got into rescue position, floating feet-first toward the rapid.

  The pain in my leg seemed to lessen and for a moment I blessed the frigid Colorado. But then I began to shiver.

  Swim.

  Walter.

  I flipped over and stroked wildly to face downriver, fanning my arms and kicking my legs and getting slapped in the face by the riffles of the upcoming rapid.

  The cold slap did it. Focused me. Do the job.

  Orient yourself. I oriented. With a half-glance behind me I saw the bow of the raft, dropping back. Looking ahead, blinking away river water, I saw Reid's red vest and blue cast, he was halfway through the rapid, and I didn't give a shit if he was alive or dead, scorpion-stung or not, because the man I cared about was right behind him, was freestyling that rapid.

  I managed my own serviceable crawl. I found my line. I heard Pete's voice in my head, nasty rocks, and I answered, I got this.

  Gonna catch up to my partner.

  I felt the little rock in my pocket, the rock Pete gave me, the rock that was going to help nail Reid Lassen.

  And I swam.

  The river got choppier, bumped up, leapt up, and there were spumes of white water ahead forever, and now I wasn't swimming so surely. I lost my line. The current turned on me, edging me sideways, wanting to take me down, ambushing me with some crazy hydraulic that tugged and tugged and then I realized it was me hydraulicking, it was me kicking like hell the wrong way. Kicking like hell with my left leg. Because my scorpion-stung right leg was numb as a log.

  Was useless.

  I stopped kicking.

  I was at the mercy of the river.

  Up ahead, like the fin of a shark, a rock broke the surface. I was heading for it as surely as I'd ever headed for a fine-looking rock that came within my purview. I was even thinking Vishnu Schist, identifying it as hard-hard-hard crystalline basement rock. I was going to wrap myself around a sharp river rock. Tears came. I wasn't going to reach Walter. I wasn't going to get my own damned self out of this mess. I was crying so hard I couldn't see the rock anymore, couldn't even try to avoid it.

  I wasn't crying. I was underwater. Then above. Then down again.

  Not tears in my eyes.

  Foam.

  I gasped. I'd opened my mouth—to do what? scream? come on—and now I was choking on river water.

  I spat. Vomited schist-tasting river water. Took in clean air.

  For just a moment I glimpsed Walter and Reid ahead, the two of them merged, one vest snugged up against the other, and that was good and fine because if Walter was saving Reid that meant Walter was in no need of being saved, himself.

  And then I hit the river rock.

  It sliced my right arm. Blood came, before the pain. Blood feathered the white foam. And then pain washed away the thought of the blood. And then the cold water deadened the pain.

  For minutes, it seemed, the water held me against the fin of rock. It felt as if the entire Colorado River was pasting me to the schist.

  What now, Wes?

  He'd never said.

  Kick.

  I still had a working left leg and I kicked and it was the kicking or it was the squirrelly current or it was my PFD tugging me in the right direction, but suddenly I was free.

  I was spun around, flipped onto my back again, the river putting me again in rescue position as if it wanted to help now. I fought back, kicking with my left leg, swimming with both arms, more rubber than muscle, one arm still trailing blood, and as I fought my way I caught a glimpse of the raft behind me. It bounced in the rapid, flailing, and I got a sudden view of Quillen still gamely crouched on his seat, driving that raft. And damned if he didn't get it back into its rapid-running line.

  Which gave me a view of the rest of boatman territory. Of the passenger area. Of the deck. Pete was nowhere in sight. On the floor? Stung, numbed, laid out.

  Only one river runner in view.

  And then I was facing fully forward, coming to the tail of the rapid.

  I refocused. Do the job. The job is ahead. Walter and Reid are ahead.

  Walter and Reid were over near river right, Reid thrashing.

  Holy shit, they were into an eddy.

  No.

  Reid was being spat out. Expelled. No help for him.

  Walter tried to go after Reid, but the eddy took Walter. Cradling him, gently circulating him toward shore, toward a tiny sliver of white, a beach, a haven, and I was enormously grateful but that didn't stop me kicking left-legged for that eddy. For Walter.

  The river wouldn't allow it.

  I twisted to look backward as long as I could, as the current took me forward.

  Walter was nearly at the shore side of the circulating eddy.

  I shouted.

  He heard. A miracle. He seemed to sit higher in the water, head and shoulders almost coming out of the river, some kind of curling-up movement. His mouth opened, shouting back at me, but I couldn't hear over the growl of the river. I could read his body language, though. What the hell you doing in the river? He jerked his thumb shoreward, frantic, like a hitchhiker flagging a ride.

  I was hurting and numbed and chilled and terribly focused. I could probably follow his instructions. I could get myself to shore, maybe to that golden strip of sand I glimpsed ahead, where the river bent. I could get out of the river's grip before the next rapid. Wherever that was. Because there is always a next rapid.

  I managed to wave back at Walter, before the current demanded my attention, and so I faced downriver and resumed my swim.

  Ahead, there was the red vest and limp form of Reid Lassen.

  I guessed I had a job to do.

  I SWAM.

  The river was with me, a straight stretch with a few riffles but no rapids, the current behaving, and it took me in no time to Reid. His arms and legs were limp and I didn't know if he was dead or alive, and I didn't care, but I grabbed his vest shoulder strap with one hand and paddled with the other. Wes guided me through it. Ahead, on river right, was that beach I'd glimpsed. I held Reid's vest in a death grip, unsure if he'd regain consciousness and start fighting again. Unsure if I could wrangle him, with my deadened leg dragging and cut arm throbbing and exhaustion draining me, fogging my mind. I gripped him like Wes would have. Like Pete would have. Careful of his casted right arm because rescuers are mindful of such things. So close I could see the skunk line of white in his granitic-gray hair. It took all my remaining will, being so close to evil, not to snatch my hand away and swim back out to the cleansing current.

  We caught the eddy and it took us toward the golden sand.

  As we circulated to shore, I looked back into the heart of the river and saw our raft riding the current, straight and true, although there was no boatman at the tiller. I saw a flash of yellow in the water near the bow and recognized it as Quillen's vest. Quillen floated alongside the pontoon, left arm looped in the rigging rope. He twisted, looking our way. He gave a weak nod.

  And then time seemed to jump and Reid and I were ashore.

  We lay on the sand, Reid unconscious but breathing, me depleted. My stung leg started spasming. I lifted my head, the only movement I was capable of consciously making, and I watched the raft disappear around the bend ahead, Quillen still hanging on.

  There will be another eddy, I told myself. There is always another eddy.

  MOMENTS LATER—MINUTES later?—something else caught my eye in th
e river.

  A blue PFD, unbuckled, riding the current all on its own.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  I UNZIPPED MY JACKET and wiped my forehead.

  Zipped up my jacket again.

  The room was not hot. Not cold. The problem was me—I was still getting cold sweats. There was still numbness in my right foot and calf, two days after getting stung. And there was a weird metallic taste in my mouth that no food or drink could wash away. After-effect of the sting, I'd learned.

  Walter, sitting beside me, was utterly silent. He had escaped getting stung but he couldn't escape the shock of the river. Bruises and cuts. And Reid. Walter brooded over that relationship, which had sent him into the water like a throwbag.

  The outside door opened and Dave Quillen entered the Medical Examiner's office, spotted us, and came over to take a facing seat. Expression stoic. No sweats. He'd explained—after the river—that when the scorpions had emerged in boatman territory, one had gotten into his shoe. And eventually, stung him. He'd felt a pinprick. And then the pain. And that told him it was time to go into the river. He'd ridden the rigging rope until the raft was caught in an eddy.

  He said, now, “How are you doing?”

  Walter said, “I'm fine.”

  I nodded. Me too. I'd recover. I said, “How about you, Dave?”

  Quillen took a long moment. “When I was in the river, I wanted to let go of the raft. I had this...this sense of impending doom.”

  I stared.

  “It's a symptom. I didn't know that at the time. I know it now, but I still get that dark feeling. Off and on.”

  I shuddered. “Nightmarish.”

  “That too.” Quillen folded his arms. “I'm a Southwest native so I've seen those things before but damned if I ever got stung. Damned if I want to do it again. They're Arizona Bark Scorpions, the most venomous in the country. The local paper runs articles on them. Thanks to the drought and hotter temperatures, they're thriving—reproducing more and surviving longer. It sure seems like there's more than ever. I see them outdoors, sometimes indoors. I saw them climbing the damn drapes once.” He expelled a breath. “On our raft, I saw them climbing the damn tie-down straps. Maybe that's how they got aboard, climbing our bow line. We disturbed their nests.”

  Had we done that? Laid the line across the rocky beach. Stomped around on the rocks. Then went for a long hike, and when we returned, the disturbed scorpions had found a refuge aboard our raft?

  I shivered. I unzipped my jacket again.

  Footsteps sounded and the Medical Examiner tech Steve appeared from the hallway that led back to the exam room. “Any of you want to see the deceased?”

  Quillen stood. “I'll need to. I understand the cause of death is head trauma. Any chance of finding sting marks?”

  “Not likely,” Steve said, “even if you saw her right away. Now, the lady's decomp is pretty well advanced.”

  I spared a somber thought for rafter Megan Schrader. We'd both taken a trip through the river. But I spared no sympathy. She was surely complicit in the schemes of Reid Lassen. Complicit in evil.

  I'd spent a good deal of time over the past couple of days, thinking about the Lassen party rafting trip. Revising my scenario. Had they, also, disturbed scorpion nests, stomping around the rocky beach? And then they went for their long hike and returned to a raft infested with scorpions. Just like we did. Only we'd been more careful, or luckier, stowing our gear—we hadn't disturbed the scorpions right away. We'd been luckier, for a few minutes. I figured Reid's party hadn't even made it onto the river—the three vests clipped to the rigging straps said as much. So, they're aboard, preparing to launch, stomping around, stowing gear. Disturbing the scorpions. But they haven't yet donned their vests. Except for Reid. Reid the line-guy gets his vest on first, dropping the Tapeats baggie in the process, or just setting it down. And then he goes to untie the line, then re-boards the raft. And by then, the scorpions start to swarm. Megan and Sam and Frank get stung, and they go into the river to wash off the things. Reid gets stung, and he flings down the bow line, and goes into the river to wash off the things. And the raft is adrift. And Reid is the only one wearing a PFD. Reid is the only survivor.

  His fishing buddies, his accomplices, are not so fortunate. Hembry and Pendleton drown. Schrader makes it to shore, maybe catches an eddy. Like I did. Unlike me, she wasn't wearing a vest so her river run was rough. And then she starts hiking, nearly incapacitated. And then her luck runs out.

  Ranger Molina's search team had found her body yesterday, up a little canyon, in a brushy ravine. A no-name little defile in the hills that flanked the river. Not too far from where Reid and I washed up on that golden beach.

  Steve came over to Walter. “Just the contents of the pocket, right?”

  Walter cleared his throat. “Right.”

  Steve handed over the padded envelope.

  Quillen and I watched as Walter opened it and withdrew the zipper baggie that came from rafter Schrader's pocket. The bag held several rock chips. Walter extracted one and held it in his palm. We looked closely. And we nodded.

  “Well?” Quillen asked.

  “Bright Angel Shale, with inclusions of halite,” Walter said.

  “Thank you.”

  “We'll need to confirm back at the lab,” I added. Put these chips under the comparison scope, side by side with the rock Pete had collected, down in the cavern. We would do a scrupulous job. Do justice to Pete's gift. Do right by the ranger who always did a 'righteous job'—as the devastated SAR member had put it, before mounting a search downriver. She was an emergency medicine tech, and she said the symptoms sounded like a severe allergic reaction to the scorpion stings. She doubted he'd been stung before. She sure as hell had never heard about scorpions swarming a raft. Otherwise, it would be procedure to inspect vests stowed aboard. Hell, inspect gear boxes and duffels and floor mats too. But she'd never heard of such a thing.

  I said, to Quillen, “Thanks go to Pete, for the comparison specimen.”

  Walter replaced Schrader's shale in the zipper bag, and the baggie in the envelope for safekeeping, and then shook Steve's extended hand.

  Again, I spotted that tattooed word on the tech's inner forearm. Vita.

  Latin for life.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  VISITING HOURS.

  The room was the same, at Flagstaff Medical Center, still that cheery yellow decor and sober monitoring equipment, but it seemed an eon had passed since we were last here.

  Walter sat in a molded-plastic chair at the end of the rail-edged bed.

  I stood alongside Reid.

  Three days ago, he'd seemed half-dead on the little beach at the river. Now, he was propped against the bed's inclined back. He was needled and IVed and oxygenated. His face bore several new scrapes. His right hand had been broken again—despite the protective cast—on that sharp fin of Vishnu Schist, the same rock that sliced my arm. This break was more serious, judging by the new red cast that stretched from his hand to above the elbow. The hand, where it showed, was swollen and discolored. There was a bandage on his chest, just below the collarbone. Evidently he'd been stung there, twice. The skin was infected, where he'd ripped at it.

  Reid tipped his head to look to the back of the room, where Quillen sat. The investigation, as Quillen had explained, was still at the assessment stage. He was here, primarily, to listen.

  I reclaimed Reid's attention, setting two specimen dishes on the swivel tray that bridged him.

  He looked. “You brought props. Show and tell?”

  I showed. And I told: the lab match between rafter Schrader's zipper-bag chips and the rock Pete had taken from Becca's cavern, Bright Angel Shale with halite inclusions, one and all.

  Reid said, “Nice work.”

  The pulse pounded in my ears. My throat constricted. I worked to get the words out. “Ranger Molina pitched in.”

  For a moment it looked as though Reid would dare to sympathize, but he didn't. He said, “I can explain.
”

  “Oh yes?” Explain, justify, clarify, excuse. Evade. I waited for it.

  Reid pushed the tray on its swivel arm aside, so that he had a line of direct sight to Walter. “I left something out when I explained about that field trip Harvey and I took to Bolivia. He told me he'd made a great find, in the Shinumo. He promised to show me when we returned. He didn't say what it was. He played coy. You remember that about him, don't you Walter? How he liked to play coy. And then wow us.”

  Walter did not reply.

  Reid hesitated, and then continued. “After I returned, after a period of grief and guilt, I followed up. Harvey would have wanted that. I did as you later did, Walter. I found Harvey's digitized field notes. You and I always were on the same page, weren't we?”

  I moved the tray back into place, bridging Reid. “That page is dust.”

  Reid focused again on me. “You speak for him?”

  “No.”

  It took Reid longer than it should to process that.

  He tried again to catch Walter's eye. “I didn't tell you about Harvey's find because I'd already hurt you. Letting you think I'd died. I didn't want to make it worse.”

  Walter did not reply.

  “Move along,” I said to Reid. “Explain the rest.”

  “To you?”

  “To the room.”

  “All right, the rest.” Reid lifted his palms. The right palm, where it showed, was eggplant-purple. “It took me awhile but I found Harvey's breakthrough site. Wow, in spades. But hear this. I had nothing to do with those explosives—you can take that up with Gary Phipps, if he's located. All I did was pay homage. I collected those Tonto rocks a couple of years ago when I found Harvey's site. I brought them along on the fishing trip with my buddies. We didn't hike into the Shinumo. We stayed on the water. We stopped somewhere downriver from that damnable place I stopped with you all. All I did was show those rocks and tell a story to my friends.”