Rock Bottom (Em Hansen Mysteries) Read online

  I jumped up and charged down to the raft to get the spare life vest so I could chance swimming out to grab the runaway, but as I dug underneath our tarp to the place where Fritz had stowed our spare, I realized that it wasn’t there. While I dithered around trying to figure out what had become of our spare, Gary McClanahan clipped on his own vest, pulled on his spray skirt, hopped into his kayak, and set forth to retrieve my errant vest, which hadn’t gotten all that far.

  “You’re my hero,” I said, as he returned.

  “Pleased to assist,” Gary said. “You maybe got a beer for your hero?”

  A small peanut gallery had now gathered on the beach. “What was it doing loose?” asked Nancy, as usual cutting to the pith of the matter.

  “I laid it on the beach while I was carrying gear up to our tent site,” I said. “And yeah, I know better. But there isn’t any wind, so I figured I didn’t have to secure it right away.”

  Brendan said, “I saw a raven pecking at it.”

  “Why would a raven be interested in my life vest?”

  Gary said, “Looks like it was after that granola bar wrapper in your vest pocket.”

  “But the wrapper’s empty.”

  “Doesn’t matter, it’s shiny. Those birds will peck at anything that’s shiny.”

  Brendan said, “He fussed that thing clear into the water.”

  Sure enough, there was a little tear in the nylon mesh of the pocket, and a matching hole in what was left of the wrapper.

  “Cheeky little bastards,” said Mungo.

  Just like Wink, I thought. Picking at shiny things with nothing in them.

  Brendan took the dripping-wet life vest out of my hands, said, “I’ll tie it up with ours by the tent,” and headed up the slope.

  I followed him, looking for Fritz, whom I found lying on his camp mat inside the tent. I said, “Our spare life vest is missing.”

  He opened one eye. “That’s all we need. I suppose we’ll lose our deposit on the rental.”

  I crawled into the tent, lay down next to him, and ran a hand through his hair. “I have a theory about this,” I said.

  Fritz squeezed his eyes shut. “Em, I do not wish to hear it. I just want to get that piece of shit dory down this river and get everyone remaining in my care out of here alive, do you understand?”

  I reeled back. It wasn’t like Fritz to curse. I blurted, “But I think Wink is still alive.”

  Fritz rolled up onto his side, putting his back to me. After a while, he said, “I’m not sure which I’d like less, losing a trip member or having one out there someplace playing games. Either way, I’m stuck towing that damned dory down Lava Falls.”

  “Tomorrow.”

  “Yes.”

  This was a new Fritz. I knew him as a man of courage, the man who had flown fast jets by night over hostile territory, but now, for the first time in our acquaintance, he seemed truly scared.

  APRIL 19: LAVA FALLS

  We were late launching on the morning of April 19 because Fritz had the dory up on the beach at Cove Canyon trying to patch the leaks. “Why are you doing this?” I asked him. “I like Brendan’s idea of making a bonfire. We could use it to send smoke signals to the gods of bad juju, and maybe they’d get off our back.”

  “I told the Park Service I’d get this thing to Diamond Creek and I will,” he muttered and shot more caulking into a gash big enough to run his hand through.

  When we did at last get onto the river, the dory did seem to ride a bit higher for a mile or so, and Fritz didn’t have to row quite as hard, but still his mood did not lift. I wanted to spit. Even though he was no longer with us, Wink Oberley was managing to screw with our enjoyment of the river.

  Two miles out from Cove Canyon a motorized Park Service raft with two women on board appeared from upriver, sped up to us, and slowed as it came alongside. I recognized botanist Susanne McCoy in the bow and, standing at the controls, Maryann Eliasson, the ranger who had checked us in at Lees Ferry. She called, “Are you the Calder party?”

  “Yes,” said Fritz. “I’m Fritz Calder. How can I help you?”

  “Oh. Uh, well, I’m just checking on you, actually. I hear you’ve had some trouble.”

  Fritz nodded grimly.

  “Well, sorry to hear it,” said Maryann. She nodded toward the dory. “It looks like it’s taken on some water.”

  Fritz again nodded. “We’re managing okay. Thanks for checking.”

  Maryann was a little thing, not much over five foot two, and her chubby little life vest added a cuteness to her muscular, authoritative stance. She seemed to tarry a bit, staring at Fritz a moment longer than was quite necessary.

  Yes, he is gorgeous, I wanted to tell her. Feast with your eyes, dear, but don’t sit down at the table, because that chair is taken.

  “See you at the falls, then,” she said and opened up her throttle.

  Another mile and a half downriver we came upon a plug of dark rock that stuck up out of the river about fifty feet, taller than it was wide. “Brendan, look,” I said. “It’s Vulcan’s Anvil. It’s what we call a volcanic neck, the rock that cooled slowly inside the throat of a dying volcano. For the next eighty-five miles, we’ll be seeing volcanic features. They’re extremely young, geologically speaking, all under a million years. Recent argon-argon dating studies say that this neck is about six hundred thousand years old, but that’s three times older than the earliest fossils of what we consider modern humans.”

  Brendan lifted his sunglasses and stared at me.

  I smiled back at him. “I’ve made a decision, Brendan. You’re a smart kid, so you’ll make your own mind up about things one way or another. I know your mother’s Bible says that God created everything in six days a little over six thousand years ago, and in my own way I do respect her decision to believe whatever makes the best sense to her, but we are in the United States of America. Half of my ancestors came here because an almighty being back in England was dictating to them who and what and how they should worship and threatening them with all manner of persecution if they presumed for a moment to question what the king believed. Almost four hundred years have passed since those ancestors climbed into leaky ships and sailed across an ocean to a place they’d never been just so they could think their own thoughts, and when we declared our independence and rights over two hundred years ago we wrote it down in ink that we meant to keep things clean by separating church and state. Now I find myself in a nation that’s starting to have the same kind of squabbles all over again, and what does that tell me? That humans are always going to disagree on things that matter deeply to them. So I’ve decided that the best I can do for you is answer your questions as honestly and completely as I can and trust that as you grow up and prosper and outlive all of us disagreeing adults, you will make your own personal peace with these ambiguities.”

  Brendan thought about that for a moment. “End of speech?” he asked.

  “End of speech.”

  “Cool,” said Brendan.

  All too quickly, we arrived at the top of Lava Falls. Everyone pulled off to the right bank, tying up next to Ranger Eliasson’s motorized raft, and we got out to scout it and listen to its thunder. A jumble of broken-up hunks of basalt formed a talus slope, but decades of boatmen had beaten a pathway through it leading up to an aerie from which we could assess the coming challenge. A hundred yards farther along the trail I could see the ranger and the botanist, taking a good, long look.

  We joined them, and I stared out across the crash of water that was rushing past us. Here was the last truly big rapid and, by most accounts, the meanest of the bunch, the size 10 that set the top of the scale for all other rapids on this river.

  Mungo folded his arms across his life vest. “There’s the Cheese Grater,” he said, scowling at an immense rock that stood up right in the middle of the biggest waves. “I wrapped a raft around that monster the first time I came through here, and I can tell you it was one unholy mess getting that boat out of there.” />
  I felt slightly sick. I turned to Fritz. “How ’bout I hike down to the bottom of the trail and photograph everyone as they come through?” I said. “It looks like there’s plenty of room down there below Cheese Grater to pull over and pick me up.”

  Fritz seemed to melt with relief. “Are you sure? I’d hate to have you miss anything…”

  “I’ll see you at the bottom, I said.”

  Ranger Eliasson turned to Fritz. “I am truly sorry that you’re having to clean up after that … person,” she said.

  “Thank you for the sympathy, Ranger Eliasson.”

  “Please call me Maryann. So how are you going to get it down there?”

  “To be honest, I’m more than a little bit concerned. I really have no idea how it’s going to handle. It took on so much water in Dubendorff that Wink couldn’t control it, and he hit a rock. Hell, the thing seems to go looking for rocks now. None of us know how to row it with any authority, so we’re not going to try to row it through the suds, but it’s like the wrong kind of sea anchor. I’m really concerned that if we try to tow it through, or let it precede our raft on a line, we’re going to have a serious problem.”

  Maryann said, “Why don’t you let me sneak it around to the left there? I’ve got more control with a motor. I’ll tie it with a quick-release knot and let it run out ahead of me, and if it goes out of control I’ll have Susanne here release the line. Then if it stacks up on Cheese Grater or winds up in an eddy below too bashed up to float, it’s not your problem.”

  Susanne added, “It can become one of the famous wrecks that dot this canyon, and maybe make a little compost for a nice growth of poison ivy.”

  Fritz smiled for the first time in days. “This all sounds great, but really, I couldn’t ask you to—”

  “You’re not asking, we’re offering. Come on, Susanne,” said Maryann and trotted down the path toward the boats, where she produced a massive auxiliary pump and got to work on the dory.

  Fritz followed after her and wrested the pump from her hands. In a blink the two were bent to the task together in very tight quarters, and I felt a twinge of jealousy, mixed in with gratefulness that this tiny woman was bringing a much-needed solution to Fritz’s dilemma.

  Turning my back on the scene, I headed on downriver toward the eddies below, searching for a good vantage point from which to watch Wave Slut crash its way into eternity.

  The Cheese Grater was beautiful, in a dark and sinister way. Uncounted tons of rushing water had carved flutes that gave the rock a nasty serrated edge that faced into the current, and the steep drop and massive hydraulics of the rapid seemed bent on hurling all comers straight into it. I could see no elegant V pointing toward the safe route through chaos, only a narrow chute and a long, steep spill-off.

  Suddenly Gary, Olaf, and Lloyd shot down through the gigantic waves in their kayaks, disappearing and reappearing through the dancing jets of spume, their paddles flying with the effort to stay upright. Only Gary stayed right side up the entire time; Olaf flipped but recovered quickly, and Lloyd rolled over twice. All three eddied out across the river from me to await the rafts.

  Mungo was the next to line up on the rapid, with Molly and Glenda in the bow. There was a major drop just below the pour-off. They had to sneak around to river right and then pull hard to make it to the left of the Cheese Grater. They pitched and bucked with the rapid drops and wallowed over the waves.

  Hakatai appeared next, pulling at the oars of Don and Jerry’s raft while the couple crouched in the bow grinning like schoolchildren.

  Dell and Nancy came next. After almost spinning a circle between the first drop-off and the Cheese Grater, Dell managed to pull left and sneak around the hungry rock.

  Fritz and Brendan came last of our group. Here was a man in his element, charging into the fray with his beloved son cheering and pumping an arm in delight. The raft bucked and settled, spun, and bolted forward as Fritz suddenly threw back his head and howled at the fun he was having, and Ranger Eliasson had made it possible. I decided that she was my new best friend.

  All eyes swung upriver again to watch the ranger’s descent. She brought her raft broadside toward the lip and stood with hands on hips, assessing the lay of the water. The botanist was in the bow, left hand on a safety strap, right hand gripping the release line that ran to the dory. As the sticken craft slid sickeningly down into the first waves it wallowed and shuddered and filled to its gunwales in no time flat. Maryann was seated at the helm now, the controls to the engine in her right hand, holding on with her left. The dory lurched forward, spun, and hit Cheese Grater hard. The water had it in its fist now and ground it miserably along the side of the massive rock.

  Maryann shot her raft around the combined hazard of the dory and the rock then deftly dodged below, yanking the imperiled boat out of the rut of water that held it. Her face fierce with concentration, she towed the boat down out of the rapid and into the eddy below, where Fritz waited with Brendan.

  “You were amazing!” I yelled, as I came along the edge of the river toward the ranger’s raft. “That was some incredible rope work! I grew up herding cattle, and it was just like you were working a bull!”

  Maryann offered me a demure smile. “Another way to do it would have been to tow the dory behind me and charge through the rapid as fast as my engine would take me,” she said, “but I prefer finesse. And I’ve been told to put safety first.” She beached her raft, climbed out, and examined the damage to the side of the dory. In a low voice, she added, “And this was for all the women you’ve abused, you sorry son of a bitch!”

  I wanted to hug her. I said, “I enjoyed watching it hit that rock myself. Having that man on this trip has been a very long walk in exceedingly tight shoes.”

  She nodded curtly to cover her embarrassment and swiftly got about pumping water out of the dory. To Fritz, she said, “I hope this doesn’t make it even tougher to get this hulk down to Diamond Creek.”

  As he took the tow line from her hands. Fritz awarded her a serene smile.

  Deciding to ignore this exchange among warriors, I climbed quietly on board our raft. Fritz rowed us back out into the stream, and we immediately shot down through the final riffles of Lava Falls and out into the thalweg.

  Maryann idled her raft alongside ours. “How far are you headed tonight?” she called over the water.

  “Whitmore Wash,” he replied. “It’s another eight miles, but we’ve got to make up for lost time.”

  Maryann said, “Then I’ll continue to tow the dory. I’m going that way myself, and I’ll put it on the beach for you.”

  “I won’t try to talk you out of that,” Fritz said.

  I was glad that several yards of water separated our rafts. Otherwise, he might just have hugged her.

  Diary of Holly Ann St. Denis

  April 19

  Dear God,

  Things haven’t been right in the five days since we came off the river. At first Mom was all happy because she could have a real shower and get all prettied up. We came home here to our house in Las Vegas and had a real party with pedicures and everything. She even let me put some color on my toenails, not just the clear stuff, though I didn’t tell her that I was sorry to see my river feet change to town feet. She seemed all happy, running around the house singing, even some of the rowdy songs she sang in the days before she accepted Your Son as her personal savior and married into the church.

  Then things began to change. She was awake a lot in the night and said she had to go to the church office and the bank and get some things straightened out, and one morning she was out somewhere when I woke up. She talked about taking a trip and how I should pack some favorite clothes, but then all of a sudden her mood turned very strange, sort of a mixture of worried and angry. I wonder if it’s because she has to deal so much with “Uncle” Terry, who likes to tell her he knows better than she does what to do with church donations because he was “Daddy” Amos’s right-hand man. They had a big fight, really ye
lling, and I hid in my room and put my hands over my ears so I couldn’t hear.

  Then “Uncle” came over yesterday and said a ranger from the Grand Canyon was trying to get hold of her but she shouldn’t call him back because the church didn’t need that kind of publicity. He said he’d told the ranger that she was unavailable for comment, but if the ranger found his way to her door she should refuse to answer any of his questions and that went for me, too. He was downright mean to Mom, looking at her all nasty. He grabbed her arm in a way that scared me and hauled her off into the kitchen to talk where I couldn’t hear them. After that Mom got worse and worse.

  Today Mom has gotten so bad she’s like she was before she found Your Son Jesus. She won’t get out of bed and won’t open the curtains. Dear Heavenly Father, I miss the Colorado River. I really liked living out of doors, and the river guides made nice food and I got to play my guitar for You under Your Heavens. Mom seemed happy enough on the river, at least when her feet didn’t hurt, and I felt so close to You there, and now things are all going wrong. I wish we could be back there now.

  APRIL 19: WHITMORE

  The canyon opens out wider toward the west, and The cliffs that hug the river channel are lower and festooned with dark basalt flows. Basalts form oddly brittle rock, cooling into hexagonal pillars that can be knocked over like matchsticks by flowing water. As we rowed along, I told Brendan about the evidence that eruptions of these basalts had at times overwhelmed the river, creating short-lived dams that backed the waters up into temporary lakes.

  After many hours’ travel through a red and gray landscape of deepening desert, with cacti appearing more and more frequently along the widening slopes, we came around a bend to Whitmore Wash, a side canyon that opened to a wide delta at river level. Its gravels were decked heavily with tamarisks, forming a grove that obscured the campsites from us until we were right on the beach. As we pulled up, a strange thing happened: A great big man lumbered out of the thicket and started yelling at us. He wore an orange plastic rain poncho and had a knitted ski mask pulled down over his face, and great sprigs of tamarisk spouted from the top of it. “You can’t camp here!” he roared, in a booming low voice. “No camping! This space is reserved!” He waved his arms, shaking additional stalks of brush over his head in threat, and stumbled even closer, limping heavily.