Chapter 22

September 9, 1999

Flagstaff

When the party hit the beach at Diamond Wash where the crew bus was waiting, the first question they had of Jeff was, "How's Jerry?"

"Not doin' too bad," Jeff said. "They let him out of the hospital a few days ago, but he's your typical boatman; he ain't got no place to go in Flag, so Marjorie and I took him in. Wants to go on the next trip, of course, but don't you dare even think about lettin' him."

"I'll make a point of coming by and seeing him," Al said. "That is a hell of a relief, Jeff."

"Which makes me ask," Jeff said. "How you doin'?"

"Better," Al said, "Lots better. Crystal and Scooter were right."

While the crew bus took the customers up the hill, Scooter, Crystal, Karin, and Al got off to the side for a few minutes to coordinate their story. A lot of what Crystal had discussed wasn't supposed to be public knowledge yet, and it might be a while before it was. Mostly at Crystal's suggestion, they decided that Karin had shown up unannounced to see Crystal and make up her mind about divorcing Pete, and had decided to return to Flag and stay with her daughter once she'd gone to Chicago to take care of business there. Al really wasn't part of the equation at that point, other than just getting to be good friends, nothing more. And really, outside of some ancient history and some of the things it might mean, it was pretty much the truth as far as it went.

Michelle was literally waiting at the door when the truck and the crew bus pulled into the back lot at Canyon Tours. She, of course, knew nothing of what had happened since the phone call from Phantom over a week ago -- and for that matter, knew little of what had happened since Lee's Ferry two and a half weeks ago. She was as surprised as anyone that Crystal's mother showed up out of nowhere, and was going to be around town off and on for a while.

Even the first thing, there was business to discuss. "It's damn lucky that we had Randy along," Al told Michelle flatly. "I offered to pay him as a boatman, but he turned me down. I want you to write up a credit slip for a grand and get it taken off his credit card. Don't say anything to him about it. With any kind of luck when he gets his credit card statement I'll be out on the river."

"Knowing Randy, I don't think he'll let you get away with it," Crystal said, "Unless Nicole is balancing his checkbook by now."

"Be that as it may," Al grinned. "Did you scare up someone to fill in for Jerry?"

"Nailed down," Michelle said. "A guy named Bob; he runs a motor rig for GCR but he's done oar boats some. That's only for two trips, though, he has some place he has to be in November."

"Maybe Jerry will be ready to go by then," Al said. "And maybe we can run it with only four rafts, if we don't have a full load."

"Don't have at this point," Michelle told him. "But if we get about two more sign ups, you can forget about only taking four. But that's up the road a bit; we still have to iron out something for the next trip. Al, there's several things that need your attention topside, and I'd really like to get back on the river."

"Better not just yet," Al counseled. "Those shoulder injuries come back slowly, and I don't want to risk having you re-injure it way the hell down the river. We got lucky on a backup this trip, and we might not be that lucky again."

"But Al," Michelle protested, knowing she'd have to watch her words to not reveal the deception they'd used to get Al on the river. Scooter glanced at her face, and could read it: ... when first you practice to deceive. "My shoulder is fine; I'm not having any trouble with it. And we have a real hassle brewing on quarterly tax reports. I've had a couple nasty letters that the second quarter reports haven't been turned in, and I don't even know what has to be done."

"Tell you the truth," Al sighed, "I don't either, I just used to let Louise do it."

"I wonder," Crystal said thoughtfully.

"Wonder what?" Michelle replied, still trying to figure some way to get on the river for the next trip.

"Mom was a corporate bookkeeper for thirty years. Still is, for that matter, until she gets back to Chicago and files her retirement. She probably doesn't know much about Arizona stuff, but I'll bet she could go through the files and figure it out pretty quick."

"That's a hell of a thought," Al nodded. "A couple other angles spring to mind on that real quick, too. If she's going to be staying here in Flag, it might even be the long-term solution to that problem and a couple others."

"I could go out and get her," Crystal offered. "Maybe she could get a quick look at things and see how big a hassle it's going to be."

"Why don't you?" he said. "If she can get a reading on it tonight, that'll leave everything else pretty open."

"Sure will, Al," she said, heading for the door.

"Michelle," Al said. "I need to bring you up to speed on a couple things. This is gonna be a weird turnaround. Crystal and Karin have something to do down in Phoenix, and they may not be able to finish it tomorrow. I promised I'd go along to help. That means Scooter is going to have to get the groceries and lead the packing. Depending on how things go, she may even have to take the crew out to get rigging. If we do that, I'll have Karin drive Crystal and me up to Lee's. If we get back sooner. she's going to ride out to rig with us. Then when she gets back, Jeff is going to take her back to Phoenix to the airport. That's not all tied down, she could probably hang around a couple days if you need more help with the books."

"But Al," Michelle protested. "There's no reason I can't do this trip. Now that you're getting back in shape, I want to go back to being a boatman."

"Michelle," he said soothingly. "I know you do. But think about something. How did Louise and I handle the office the last few years?"

"You changed off," she sighed. "All right, Al, I get the point. I can change off with you for a while, until you can get someone else to run the office. It's better than sitting here all the time."

"Right, and with your shoulder iffy, that settles that for this trip," Al nodded. "After that, we'll have to see. There may be such a thing that Karin and I will be going on the next trip, it's not settled yet and can't be till we know when she gets back from Chicago. It may take her longer there than we think."

"Al?" Michelle frowned. "You and Crystal's mom... ?"

"We're friends that go back for a while, but none of us ever put the connection together until we got up to Lee's last trip. If Crystal had told me something about her mother we might have figured it out a year ago, but she didn't. She's had some trouble herself, Michelle, and we're sort of trying to carry her over it. Just like you and Jeff and everyone carried me there for a while, and then Karin played a big part in me getting my act back together." He let out a sigh, and a smile. "Now, Michelle, the thought also crosses my mind that Karin may prove to be the long range solution to running the office too, especially with the satellite phones. It's gonna take some time, but we'll work it out."

"Yeah, but ... oh, damn. All right, Al. This trip, anyway."

Once Karin was in the office, taking a quick look at the books with Al and Michelle, Scooter and Crystal headed out on the lot. The work was going ahead on the unloading, cleaning and packing; Crystal was happy to see Norma and Barbie out there pitching in, and made a mental note to talk to Al or Michelle about slipping them some money. She glanced around, to see where Randy was -- she wanted to tell him goodbye before he started back to Spearfish Lake in the morning, and she planned on being on the road for Phoenix early. There was no sign of him, so she headed out to the shed and asked Dan about it.

"Oh, he's out back with the groovers," Dan smiled.

"Damn it, Dan," Crystal grinned. "You didn't!"

"Well, we joked with him out on the river how it was the junior boatman or swamper's job," Dan grinned. "So he just started in on them. I mean, hell, he's into martial arts, I wasn't about to argue with him."

"Especially since you're the next junior boatman," Crystal grinned. "I guess I better go out and help."

Crystal found him out behind the shed. From what she could see, he'd already emptied the rocket boxes, and was busy hosing them out. "You need any help with that?" she asked.

"No, hell, I got it about done," he replied. "Grandad got the idea of having our own portajohns on the job site. Cleaning them may actually be worse, and I did that on the concrete crew two summers. Once you get these hosed out, you swab them down with disinfectant, right?"

"Yeah, it's in the shed," Crystal shook her head, and gave up the idea of telling him to take the hell off. She could see that it was hard for him to give up the idea of being a boatman, and he wanted to hang on as long as he could, the good and the bad. "You get done with that, come find me and I'll get you started on something else."

It was after dark as usual when they finally got done with the cleaning up and buttoning the place up. "Randy," she told him. "Usually the boatmen head over to the Burro for a couple beers to wind up before we take off for the weekend. You're welcome to come along."

"I better not," he sighed. "I'd love to, but it's getting late, and there's a two-hour time differential between here and Spearfish Lake. I'd like to talk to Nicole before she goes to bed."

"Yeah, I suppose," she replied. Together they walked over to the crew bus, got his gear, and carried it over to his pickup.

As he closed the tailgate he turned toward the driver's side and walked right into Crystal's arms. "Had to say goodbye," she said, and took him in her arms. They shared a brief kiss and hug, one between friends who had once been lovers, but were still friends.

"Crystal, thank you," he said. "This whole trip has been wonderful, and I'm glad you let me be a part of it, rather than just riding along."

"We aim to have happy customers," she grinned, then got a little more serious. "Randy?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm sorry it didn't work out with you and me, but maybe it's for the best."

"I've come to think that," he said. "And I'm sorry, too. We had some good days, Crystal."

"That we did," she smiled.

They stared at each other, trying to find words to say what they really meant, but couldn't voice. "Well, have fun," he said finally. "Look, how about a real letter once in a while, no more of this 'Having a wonderful time, wish you were here' stuff, OK? There's nothing left for me to keep from your mother."

"Will do," she said. "I'll probably stop by Spearfish Lake after tripping season anyway. Hey, think about trying to talk Nicole into taking a trip sometime, huh?"