Rock Bottom (Em Hansen Mysteries) Page 5

  Brendan rolled onto his back and stared up at the cliffs. He had previously sounded trenchant, but now that he’d let down his guard a bit, he seemed a bit more interested.

  I said, “Next you get the Hermit Formation, that dark red slope up there at the base of that buffy-colored cliff. The Hermit was deposited by rivers flowing off a mountain range, so as we follow the sequence we’re moving from the open ocean onto the land and then going inland. Above that, the buffy-colored cliff is the Coconino Sandstone. It’s all sand dunes. This tells us that at this location, during the period of time when the sediments in these rocks were being deposited, the land was rising relative to the oceans. It went from a full ocean environment to a high, dry land environment.”

  “How do you know they’re sand dunes?” Brendan asked.

  “McKee wanted to know that, too, so he went to White Sands National Monument in New Mexico and cut open a modern sand dune to see how it looked inside. He got the military to do it using one of their D9 Caterpillar tractors.”

  “Cool!”

  “Yes, it was. And what did he find inside? The sand that blew downwind from the crest of the dune had left thin layers as it slid down the slip face, called ‘cross-beds.’ Other kinds of sedimentary structures have cross-beds, too, but the kind that builds up on the leeward sides of sand dunes is steeper than those you get underwater where a river moves sand along its bed or dumps it out to sea along the front of a delta. The cross-beds in sand dunes are especially big and they curve at the bottom because as the wind blows over the crest of the dune it whips into a vortex and reworks the sand at the toe. If you climbed up that cliff and looked at the Coconino Sandstone, you’d find cross-beds that look exactly like the ones McKee studied at White Sands.”

  Brendan was squinting at me, a look that said, Prove it to me.

  I said, “He also found the footprints of lizards up there in the Coconino, the kind that walked only on land, so that was another clue, but the footprints always went up the dune slip faces in the rock and never down.”

  Fritz smiled. “So somewhere out there when the Coconino was being formed there were a whole lot of lizards perched on top of sand dunes trying to get down, eh?”

  I laughed. “McKee wanted to figure out that riddle, too, so he went out and found a chuckwalla lizard and had it march up and down a modern sand dune, and you know what? The chuckwalla made nice orderly tracks going uphill, but when it turned around and went down, it set off avalanches in the dune slip face that obliterated its tracks.”

  Brendan said, “So its uphill tracks were still there, but its downhill tracks were erased.”

  “Exactly. But McKee had another problem with his modern lizard: The chuckwalla liked it fine on that nice hot sand and didn’t want to move, so you know what he did? He put the lizard on the dune, then stood there creating shade on it until it cooled off and decided to move into the sun.”

  Brendan laughed. I was getting somewhere.

  “And how old are these rocks?” Fritz asked.

  I said, “The Redwall is Mississippian time, about three hundred forty million years old, and the younger strata, through the Coconino, were deposited from the early Pennsylvanian Period to the early Permian Period, a span from approximately three hundred fifteen to two hundred seventy-five million years ago.”

  “Three hundred forty million years,” said Fritz softly. “That’s hard to imagine.”

  Brendan suddenly frowned. His tone took on the ring of a preacher as he said something that sounded like a quotation, “And the waters returned from off the earth continually: and after the end of the hundred and fifty days the waters were abated.”

  I stared at the lad, wondering what I had just heard.

  Brendan’s gaze flickered toward me and away, and in the instant of connection he stiffened ever so slightly pulling his shoulders up around his ears as if for protection. I felt him withdraw, as if he were no longer on the raft with me and his father in this beautiful place in nature.

  I looked from son to father and back again, wondering if I had said something wrong.

  Notes of Gerald Weber, Chief Ranger

  RE: Human remains found at Whitmore Wash

  April 18

  Flew to helo pad opposite Whitmore Canyon to examine body of white male discovered there earlier this morning. River Ranger Seth Farnsworth met flight and transported to beach just above Whitmore Rapid to avoid contaminating scene with rotor wash.

  Corpse was located in shallows adjacent to beach just above Whitmore Rapid. Photographed scene in detail.

  Body lay on its back. Body showed no postmortem bloat and little decay, but face and belly etc. had been attacked by vultures. Gross examination of corpse yielded scrapes and bruises but not cause of death.

  Searched pockets. All were empty. Collected fingerprints to send FBI for ID. Placed body bag next to it and rolled it into bag.

  Preliminary matching of missing persons suggests that this is the man reported missing from Ledges Campsite, but agree with Ranger Farnsworth that corpse did not lodge in eddies upriver as expected and therefore its presence here is suspect. Therefore called helicopter to beach, loaded body for transport to Mohave County coroner to determine cause of death.

  APRIL 3: VASEY’S PARADISE AND OTHER SURPRISES

  We stopped for lunch on our third day at a campsite called South Canyon, near Stanton’s Cave, again on river right. Most campsites in that part of the canyon are on the right, or west side of the river, because the left bank is part of the Navajo Reservation. Arizona is a patchwork of public lands of varying descriptions. We could land briefly during the day as needed on reservation lands, but not hike out to the rim above and not make camp. I say respect is a good thing; I wouldn’t want anyone pitching a tent on my front yard without at least asking.

  Stanton’s Cave was named after a railroad surveyor who for some reason took his survey party down the river in 1889 and 1890. I wonder what that was like. They didn’t have rubber rafts, and as far as wood goes, I’ll bet Wink’s beat-up dory would look like a floating palace next to what they used.

  While Brendan stood at water’s edge kicking sand into the river, I took my lunch to the place where his father sat watching him while he ate his sandwich. “What gives?” I whispered. “I haven’t had a moment alone with you, without Brendan in earshot. What’s going on with him?”

  “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  “Yeah, you do. You nudged me into talking to him about geology yesterday, and when you got me to say something about the age of the rocks he curled up like a hedgehog and started spouting Bible verses.”

  Fritz stared at the ground, his sandwich forgotten. “He has a good memory for such things.”

  “Help me here, Fritz! I don’t want to upset the kid! Has someone put the munch on him about biblical reckonings of time or something?”

  “Well, his mother…” He stuffed his quickly mummifying sandwich into his mouth and chewed, hard.

  Suddenly the whole scenario hit me like a brick: Early in our relationship, when Fritz had told me that the former Mrs. Calder had been a bit on the religious side, I had cheerfully assumed that meant she was Catholic or something. But Catholics didn’t spout verses from the Book of Genesis. They might have jailed Galileo for the heresy of saying that Planet Earth wasn’t the center of the solar system, but that was clear back in 1633; they’d long since eased their ways over the worst of their intellectual speed bumps, leaving medieval thought in the Middle Ages. “So you don’t just mean that your ex goes to church a lot,” I said. “You’re saying that she’s making a thing out of it, and that she’s taking Brendan with her.”

  Fritz’s face crumpled with misery, but he said nothing. Sometimes the biggest, strongest men do not have a clue what to say or do.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked.

  Fritz leaned forward and put his hands over his face. “I didn’t realize how bad it had gotten until just recently,” he said. “And I—I just sort of
hoped it was a passing thing.”

  I turned and watched the force of concentration with which Brendan was kicking at the ground on which he stood. His mother had remarried and had moved away, taking the boy with her. It had taken some doing to get her to let him come on this trip. Fritz had campaigned long and hard, and had finally agreed to give up more than a commensurate portion of Brendan’s summer visitation time in exchange for this extended spring-break time with him. It always sickened me to see a failed marriage continue its battle on the shared ground of parenting, but there was almost nothing I could do here but offer my best and overall, keep my nose clean. But did that now mean that I couldn’t teach the kid about what I did for a living?

  As I gazed at the pudgy curve of his shoulders, Brendan quit kicking at the sand and left the beach and waded into the river. The cold, opaque waters swirled higher and higher, taking from our sight now his ankles, now his calves, and finally his knees and thighs, much as his soul was disappearing into the turbulent world of adolescence.

  *

  A little farther downriver we came to Vasey’s Paradise, a spring-fed oasis on the right bank of the river. There, in the middle of the desert, waters trickling down from the heights of the Kaibab Plateau far uphill to the west, concentrated together at a particularly porous stratum in the Redwall Limestone, and spilled down the face of the rock. Groundwater had trickled along fractures and through cavities, opening them up into an extensive cave system, and here at the foot of the cliff the water made a short run as a happy little creek, then tumbled into the river. The wet red cliffs hung with intense greenery.

  I took Brendan for a walk along the path, admiring cattails and a rich growth of scarlet monkey flowers against bright green leaves. A survey party from the national park was there. We struck up a conversation with their botanist, a tall, fair-haired woman named Susanne McCoy. She had twinkly eyes and an easy smile and quickly took a shine to Brendan. “Are you interested in botany?” she asked him.

  “I’m on independent studies from my school so I can take the whole month off and go rafting,” he said importantly, “so yes, I’m interested in everything about this place!” He reached a finger out toward a shiny green vine.

  Susanne prevented him from touching it by gently taking his hand in hers. “Watch out for that one,” she said. “That’s our old pal poison ivy. Here, step over this way and get a look at this little sweetheart, this maidenhair fern. I love that, don’t you?”

  Brendan smiled at her like he wanted her to sit down so he could play kitten and curl up in her lap.

  “What work are you doing here?” I asked, making a mental note of her gentle way of protecting him in the hope that I could be a better guardian.

  “We maintain a database on the riparian plants to see how these little ecosystems are faring,” she said.

  “Is global warming an issue?” asked Brendan.

  The botanist lavished another smile on him, her bright blue eyes disappearing into creases etched by happiness. “We’re watching for that impact, but we’re also studying some influences here that are more local, such as water levels. Before the Glen Canyon Dam was put in, the river level varied a whole lot more. Spring runoff shot floods high up the walls and brought a renewal of sediment. The beaches at the campsites were much larger, and there wasn’t any tamarisk along the banks,” she said, referring to the thick belt of skinny trees that raised great sprays of scalelike leaves into the desert air forming a hedge along the riverbank wherever it found an inch of soil to drive a root. “It isn’t even from this continent, and it didn’t get to Grand Canyon until the 1920s and ’30s.”

  “Then where did it come from?” Brendan asked.

  “It’s native to the eastern hemisphere,” she replied. “It was brought to North America in the nineteenth century to stabilize soils, and it does do that, but it has become very invasive, disrupting the structure and stability of our native plant communities and degrading native wildlife habitat. It competes with native plant species, makes the soils salty, soaks up limited sources of moisture, concentrates salts in the soils and increases the frequency and intensity of fires. We have to cut the tammies and apply herbicide to them so that these more delicate plants can survive.”

  “How can you hope to pull it all out?” Brendan asked. “There’s so much of it!”

  “There’s a huge volunteer effort to rout it out, so far mostly in the side canyons. In other areas in the Southwest a beetle has been introduced that’s got a huge appetite for it, and that may come, but for now we’re trying stoop labor.”

  Brendan said, “Are there any endangered species here? I mean, this little ecosystem is so … little.”

  “Yes, there are.” Susanne bent to examine the stream bank. “I’m looking for … Yes, here’s the little darling.” She held aside a leaf so we could admire a small spiraling shell.

  “It’s a snail,” Brendan said doubtfully.

  “Yes, the endangered Kanab ambersnail. It thrives here, but see how isolated it is? And as you so rightly obseved, in so small a territory.”

  Through Susanne’s eyes Brendan and I were beginning to see the delicacy of the canyon, a tenderness that lay in stark contrast to the bulwarks of rock and brash expanse of desert sky.

  Susanne took us farther up the short trail and pointed out a bank of watercress. “And do you like orchids?” she asked. “There’s a lovely big one here if I can find it, Epipactis gigantea—though I don’t suppose it will be blooming just now.”

  “Orchids?” asked Brendan, incredulous.

  “Why, yes, orchids are one of the largest and most diverse plant families in the world. Arizona is home to twenty-six orchid species. Ten species occur in the park, and three can be found in the Inner Canyon, always down near the river, as you can imagine.”

  Brendan beamed at her, imagining.

  I could hear Mungo rattling his oars. “Time to make miles, river rats!” he roared.

  “Sorry,” I said. “We have to leave.”

  “I’ve greatly enjoyed what you’ve shown us,” said Brendan, offering her a little bow.

  “I’m sure we’ll meet again,” she said. “We’ll be working our way down the river as part of this survey.”

  “Now!” Mungo bellowed.

  “Coming!” I said, and we were off.

  We rowed only another mile before making a stop at Redwall Cavern, a broad, arching recess in the otherwise unrelenting face of the limestone. Here the river had cut deep under the cliff wall, creating a spectacularly wide arch and a deep bank of sand that begged us to land. No camping was permitted here, but one could land during the day and gallop across the shaded beach.

  We all beached our craft and ran up the sand, hooting for an echo, flopping this way and that, like a bunch of golden retrievers looking for sticks to fetch. Someone produced a Frisbee and tossed it; others ran out to catch it, purposefully crashing into each other. Wink leaped at the Frisbee as it sailed past but he missed it. An odd glint of anxiety flashed across his face. He turned abruptly toward Brendan, grabbed his arm, said loudly, “I’ll show you some judo!” and gave the boy’s arm a hard twist.

  With horror, I watched as Brendan crumpled to his knees, neck arched backward in pain. “Stop!” he shrieked.

  I closed on the scene quickly and without thinking bellowed, “Let him go!” in the most commanding voice I could muster.

  Wink said, “Aw, we’re just horsing around.”

  “You are horsing around. Brendan is telling you to stop. Let him go!”

  Wink released the boy’s arm as if tossing away a rag. His face tightened with frustration, and as he turned to face me, his eyes narrowed ever so slightly.

  Brendan folded the offended arm across his belly and began to rub it, pulling into a sulk.

  I stepped between man and boy and glared, wondering where Fritz was. Had he seen any of this? I glanced around just in time to see the elegant, athletic splendor of my husband’s body arch as he leaped to catch the Frisbee
at the far end of the cavern. Had I embarrassed the lad by stepping in? What did a mother do at times like these?

  Ignoring me, Brendan gave Wink an evil look and slunk away. I trailed along behind the boy at a respectful distance, wishing I felt confident enough to put an arm around him. Instinct told me that a thirteen-year-old boy who’d just had his dignity impugned by a show-off nitwit needed his space. When it became clear that he was trending in the general direction of his father, I veered off his track.

  I found Jerry and Danielle sprawled on the beach, enjoying its dry warmth.

  “You look like you’re doing much better,” Jerry said.

  “Who, me?” I asked, joining them on the smooth, soft sand.

  “Yeah, you,” she told me. “At the launch, you looked as nervous as I was the first time we ran this river. I’m so afraid of water that I couldn’t stick my head under a shower to wash my hair. Don almost didn’t get me to come along, but he was bringing most of our family, and I didn’t want to miss the fun of being with our kids and grandkids, so I swallowed my fear and climbed onto the highest part of the raft behind the oarsman, just like you did. I tell you, by the end of that first day I was down in the bow leaning into the suds with the best of them!”