In The Heart Of The Canyon Part 7

"What do you do if I say 'right turn'?"

"Paddle backward!"

"Okay then," said Abo, his voice dropping to its storytelling calm, as though this rapid were nothing much to worry about. "Let's go forward."

And they ran that last rapid of the day as experts, with Abo's serenity infecting them all-even the boat itself-as they glided as one unit straight down the middle of the rapid, right through the petticoat, a neat slice of a run, with only her knees taking an inconsequential splash.

That night there was music. After the dishes were washed, after JT rebandaged Ruth's leg and found the hydrocortisone for Lena's eczema and the Tylenol for Mark's headache and a couple of Ace bandages for the swelling in Amy's ankles-after all this, Dixie brought out her guitar. Somehow she'd gone off and bathed without anyone noticing; her hair was combed straight back in wet ridges, and she'd tied her sarong around her hips. Now, with the light beginning to fade, she knelt in the sand and began tuning and plucking. Her repertoire was sixties folk-good sing-along music for all ages, she'd found in her five short years as a guide.

Tentatively people joined in. Mark, it turned out, had a fine baritone, coupled with a strong memory; he could think of songs and lyrics when everyone else drew a blank. Susan hummed. On the other side of the circle, Amy hugged her knees. Hot air continued to fan them from the cliffs above, and soon the moon rose above the rim, was.h.i.+ng them in its clear white light.

Perhaps it was the opening chords of an old Kingston Trio song that inspired Lloyd; maybe it was simply the seduction of moonlight. In any case, he stood up and held out his hand to Ruth. Mistaking his intent, she told him she didn't want to go to bed yet, but he persisted, and finally she rose stiff-legged to follow him to an open s.p.a.ce in the sand, where he slipped his hand around the small of her back and drew her close, a lanky old man supporting a wobbly old woman, and together they shuffled in the sand to the soft strums of Dixie's guitar.

July 5 Day Two

It's the end of the second day. I WAS going to write that things were a little better today, but then Mom went and flashed everyone. OMG!!!!! We're going through like a ton of rapids and everybody's getting soaked, and because Mom is so f.u.c.king skinny she gets cold so Abo tells her to take her wet clothes off and put on some dry ones. So Mom takes off her s.h.i.+rt-fine-but then she goes and takes her bathing suit top off too! Right in front of everyone! Please don't ever let me see my mother's b.o.o.bs again! Ever!

Okay, relax. Gotta admit, it's pretty amazing down here. I had no idea. I thought it would just be a muddy river surrounded by boring cliffs. I thought it would be way too hot. I thought I would hate the rapids.

Well, it is hot, and we are surrounded by cliffs, but the water isn't muddy. It's cold and green and the cliffs are all pink and orange, with flowers growing right out of them. The rapids are awesome. Today I got to be in the paddle boat, and we did the Roaring Twenties, and it was like one right after the other. We got totally soaked, and now that's all I want to do, run rapids.

So ... we're keeping the dog for now. The guy from Wyoming HATES dogs. He says it's because his wife has allergies, but I saw her patting the dog when he wasn't looking and she wasn't like falling down dead or anything. So I don't know what his problem is. The dog is way cute. He fell in the river today so we named him Blender. When he gets wet, his hair gets matted and hangs in his eyes. At some point when Mom's had enough wine, I'm going to ask her if we can take him home.

Most of the people aren't as bad as I thought. There's a family from Salt Lake, and the mom gave me some really good cream for my hands because it is so dry down here my skin is turning into leather. Not gonna lie, the boys are obnoxious, even though I took the time to teach them some card tricks last night, and what gets me is they think they own the dog. The dad is nice but spends all his time either pumping water or scolding the boys.

There's this sweet old couple. They're like ninety. They've been down the river tons of times before, and she got tripped by the dog today and really tore up her leg and chipped a tooth. She's a painter, and he used to be some kind of doctor, and they smile at each other all the time in the cutest way, though I wish he'd use a Kleenex once in a while.

Then there's this kind of weird woman who teaches at Harvard apparently and is always trying to help but always gets in the way, but no one wants to make her feel bad so they don't say anything. Like this morning she wanted to help JT load his boat and he said, oh, just join the fire line with the rest of the folks, and she said no, I'm really interested in how you arrange things, can't I help you in the boat? So he says okay, and then she trips and spills JT's coffee all over his seat. JT has a LOT of patience.

(She's kind of FAT but not as FAT as me.)

Then there's this guy Mitch.e.l.l. Mitch.e.l.l thinks he is a really Big Deal because he knows all about some guy who came down the river in a rowboat back in the 1800s. His wife is a teacher, and she needs to learn a little self-a.s.sertion if you ask me because Mitch.e.l.l is always bossing her around. And he's always taking pictures too! Like when we pulled into camp and everyone was supposed to help unload the boat-well, there's Mitch.e.l.l, taking pictures. (He took a picture of Ruth at breakfast, and Ruth said, and I quote, "I don't take kindly to being photographed before noon, Mitch.e.l.l." Go Ruth.) When he isn't taking pictures, he's bragging about all the other adventure trips he's taken. Like he's climbed Mount Everest. Okay. So?

Finally there's this guy Peter. He wears big baggy swim trunks and a Cincinnati Reds baseball hat, and the back of his neck is already sunburned. Why didn't he read the packing list and bring a bigger hat? Before tonight I thought he was a p.r.i.c.k. But then he came and sat with me and Mom at dinner. So maybe he's not such a p.r.i.c.k. Can't really tell.

The guides are pretty cool. JT doesn't talk much but he's always got this kind of half smile on his face. Abo is the paddle captain. Definitely hot. Then there's this woman Dixie-I want her body, I want her hair, I want her laugh, and she'll just hang her b.u.t.t off the boat and pee in the water with everyone looking!!!!! I could never do that!

Even if I wasn't FAT.

DAY THREE.

River Miles 3047 Fence Fault to Saddle Canyon

15.

Day Three Miles 3039 JT had hoped for an early start the next morning, but Ruth's bandage had come loose in the night, and her wound was still raw and weeping. JT and Dixie washed it with boiled water, while Ruth looked on, grouchy that she was requiring so much attention. had hoped for an early start the next morning, but Ruth's bandage had come loose in the night, and her wound was still raw and weeping. JT and Dixie washed it with boiled water, while Ruth looked on, grouchy that she was requiring so much attention.

"You have other things to do!" she exclaimed. "Let me take care of this! It's just a cut!"

Just a cut? He wished. Ruth's skin was thin, mottled with spidery veins. Wearing medical exam gloves, he dabbed on antibiotic ointment, spreading it all over the cut and up and down her leg. Dixie placed a large square of sterile gauze on it, JT taped it in place, and then they wrapped Ruth's entire lower leg first in stretchy gauze and finally in an Ace bandage.

"We've only got four squares of this gauze left, you know," Dixie said.

"How many rolls of stretchy gauze?"

"Six."

"s.h.i.+t. Well, ration it. I want you to wear your rain pants today," JT told Ruth as he helped her up, "so that it stays dry."

"Oh fine," sighed Ruth.

"Can you put your weight on it?"

"Of course I can!"

JT and Dixie both waited, watching. Ruth planted her foot in the sand and bore her weight upon it. She looked at them triumphantly. "You see? It's fine."

It was nine o'clock before they finally glided out into the current. JT found his line of bubbles and let the river carry them along. They were in the shade, and the air was cool. For the next hour, they floated through quiet water, three tiny boats dwarfed by terra-cotta walls. Lush greenery cascaded down the cliffs in places. Sometimes the canyon walls were bleached and striated; other times they were deep red and streaked with black. Sometimes the rim was visible; other times it vanished as the cliffs folded in upon them.

Midmorning they stopped briefly at Redwall Cavern, a vast, clamsh.e.l.l amphitheater cutting into the cliff. As they disembarked, Mitch.e.l.l was quick to inform them that back in 1869, John Wesley Powell had estimated it would hold fifty thousand people. ("An exaggeration, of course," he conceded.) Some walked and some ran the long stretch of sheltered beach, and they all hallooed back into the throat. Everyone took pictures.

JT, however, didn't want to linger; another rafting party was pulling in, and far upriver, the tiny lineup of kayakers was rounding the bend. "I say we do the dam site," he told Abo and Dixie. "Maybe it'll be less crowded."

And so they loaded up and headed out into the deep green river again, flanked by vertical walls formed by an ancient seabed. JT had the three boats stay close together so he could brief them on the history of the plan to dam the Grand Canyon-how in the 1960s, the Bureau of Reclamation had gone so far as to drill a tunnel straight into the canyon wall at Mile 39.

"But fortunately the dam didn't happen," he said, "thanks to some heavy-duty ads by the Sierra Club."

"David Brower, to be more accurate," Mitch.e.l.l noted.

"Who's that?" Susan asked Jill, not wanting to publicize her lack of knowledge. But Mitch.e.l.l overheard.

"Are you kidding? President of the Sierra Club? The man who sacrificed Glen Canyon? Though he was very contrite about it," Mitch.e.l.l said.

"He was indeed," said JT, catching Abo's eye.

"Said it was his biggest regret," Mitch.e.l.l continued. "I met David Brower once. Fairly intelligent guy. Look-is that it?"

Far up on the left, a miniature debris fan spilled out of a darkened cavity in the cliff.

"Hope no ones claustrophobic," Mitch.e.l.l joked.

They headed toward sh.o.r.e, and JT found himself wondering if he should simply let Mitch.e.l.l take over this side excursion, since he knew so much about it. But his stubborn streak prevailed, and so, as they disembarked from the boats, he heard himself giving orders-telling Abo to stay at the boats with Ruth and Lloyd, reminding everyone else to clip their life jackets to something stable.

"Can the dog come?" Sam asked.

JT didn't see a problem with this. "Here," and he tossed Sam a short length of rope. "Make a leash."

In single file they hiked up a path and headed into the tunnel, gingerly stepping over rocks and puddles and groping each other for balance. As it grew darker they slowed to a shuffle, their murmurs and laughter echoing off the dank walls. It smelled wet and tinny. They rounded a corner, and the last glint of daylight vanished; now there was just JT's flashlight at the head of the line, bobbing in the darkness. The air was cool. Water dripped, unseen. Evelyn stumbled. Mitch.e.l.l steadied her.

"Thank you," Evelyn whispered.

"Why are we whispering?" whispered Peter.

Eventually JT stopped, and people gathered around as he beamed his flashlight up and pointed out the air shaft.

"Can everyone see?"

"Excuse me," said Mitch.e.l.l, "excuse me," and he squeezed through the group to crouch and aim his camera straight up. ("Sure hope you'll send me a copy of that," Peter said.) The flash went off, startling everyone-including the dog, who wrenched free from Sam's grasp and trotted back the way they'd come. By the time JT shone his flashlight in that direction, the dog had vanished.

"Oh, well," said JT. "Not a big deal. But maybe we should all head back."

"No, wait! Turn your flashlight off!" said Mitch.e.l.l.

So JT took the time to switch off his flashlight, to give them a sense of total darkness. The air seemed inexplicably warmer, and with hushed murmurs they craned their necks this way and that.

"Okay," said JT, "party's over. Let's get back before Ruth and Lloyd drink up all the beer."

For some reason it seemed much shorter going out. The air warmed with each step, and there was the strange sensation of traveling from one time period to the next. Mitch.e.l.l informed them that the Ebola virus originated in bat caves. JT told them this wasn't a bat cave. Mitch.e.l.l said you never knew about these things but hey, he wasn't concerned. Eventually they turned a corner, and a circle of light appeared.

And with it, the unmistakable smell of skunk.

It rolled over them, thick and pungent, cloaking them in a toxic cloud. There were groans and cries, then pus.h.i.+ng and shoving as they all spilled out into the hot white light. And there was the dog, lying on the path with his nose between his paws.

"You're s.h.i.+ttin' me," said JT.

Abo came running up the hillside.

"I couldn't stop him!" he said breathlessly. "We were watching the skunk from the boat, we could just barely see it in the bushes and n.o.body was moving and Ruth was getting some great pictures and then the d.a.m.n dog comes running and barking down the hill!"

"Sam, stop!" Jill said sharply.

Sam knelt in the gravel, ten feet from the dog.

JT scratched the back of his neck. He didn't know what to say. He stared at the dog. He put his hands on his hips.

"Got tomato juice?" asked Peter.

"You d.a.m.n dog," JT said. "You G.o.dd.a.m.n dog."

They had to break into the lower reaches of the drop box to find the case of V8. One by one, JT popped open the cans and poured the juice into a bailing bucket, and with Abo holding the dog's head and Peter grasping his hind end, JT doused the dog and ma.s.saged the V8 into his fur.

"I don't think I've ever seen an animal look so absolutely pitiful," Mitch.e.l.l observed.

The bath did nothing for the stink, and JT silently chided himself. Of course the dog would get spooked by the camera! Of course he would bolt! If he, JT, had thought to leave the dog with Abo in the first place, this never would have happened.

So much for thinking he could convince one of the motor trips to run the dog down to Phantom.

The delay held them up enough so that they were still at the dam site when the kayakers pulled in. Not surprisingly, they had a lot of questions about the dog, and JT wasn't really in the mood to engage in a lengthy explanation. But the arrival of the kayakers presented an opportunity, for JT happened to notice that their youngest member, a girl of ten or eleven, was busting out of her life jacket.

"I've got something that might be a little more comfortable," he said. "And yours might fit the dog a little better than the one he has. If you're not attached to it, that is."

The girl had indeed outgrown her life jacket, both physically and emotionally, it being bright green with dancing purple frogs. She wanted very much to trade-in fact, she wanted to take a picture of the dog wearing her old life jacket, but JT wasn't going to put any any life jacket on the dog until the dog had had a more thorough wash. He clipped it to the boat. life jacket on the dog until the dog had had a more thorough wash. He clipped it to the boat.

"Call the warehouse when you get out," he told the man with the white beard. "I'll mail this one back to you, if you want. What's your name again?"

"Bud. How's the tunnel?"

JT grinned. "Dark."

As the kayakers straggled up the path to the tunnel, JT had a duplicitous thought. What if they simply rowed off without the dog? The kayakers seemed a good bunch; they'd find some way to fit him in their mule boat, and he, JT, could just play catch-me-if-you-can the rest of the trip.

Would that he could be so devious. Besides, Sam had in the meantime found a small towel with which to rub the dog dry, and he was paying special attention to his ears and the straggly beard; and it didn't take much imagination for JT to know that Sam would never, ever let him get away with it.