Chapter 41

August 10 - September 21, 2000

Grand Canyon, 2000: Early Fall Trips

Though Team 3 had been pretty stable the last two trips, Crystal and Scooter knew from the beginning that it wouldn't be next time; most of the summer help on all three teams would have to be back in school by the time the next trip would end.

Before they got started unloading and cleaning back in the Canyon Tours back lot, right after they'd got done telling Al and Karin about how Norma's weather sense had saved their butts, twice, they worked out a lot of it.

"I don't know if Michelle told you," Al said. "But she had a cute idea of how to handle the crew reassignments. Her basic idea was sound, but the people changed a little, so while we've got everybody here, let's get this ironed out. Glenn, you have to be heading back right away, right? Any chance you could hang around an extra week?"

"I'm afraid not," he replied. "When it was clear that I was going to be getting off this early I scheduled a mission retreat. In fact, I'm going to have to hustle out of here, since it starts Saturday."

"Well, nuts," Al said. "No big deal, then. What I was going to have you do was go on the next trip, and then have you exchange at Phantom with someone from Team 1 that'll walk down from the rim. I guess if you can't do it, I could go."

"Al," Crystal spoke up. "You don't need to go. I think Norma is up for being promoted to boatmen, and doing it now would put her a leg up on seniority. That might be important another year."

"You think she's ready?"

"No doubt," Scooter nodded. "She's going to make a great boatman, and I think we owe her more than a little."

"I do too," Al agreed. "Norma, are you going to be up for an extra week?"

"Sure thing, Al. I'll just need to make a couple phone calls to change some appointments."

"Well, congratulations, then. You're a Canyon Tours boatman," he smiled. "You can figure on having a raft when you come back next spring, too."

"Looking forward to it, Al," she smiled. "I won't be able to work anything but summers, but I should be available for the next few."

"Uh, Al?" Ben stuck his hand up. "I don't know how to say this, but I'll say that I'll work all fall if you need me to, or run down to Phantom next trip, or whatever. But given a choice I'd like to take off this fall. I've, uh, got something else I'd like to do if I can."

Al furrowed his brow for a moment. "I think we can make it work," he said after a moment. "But this is the first I've heard of it." Scooter glanced at Crystal; it was the first either of them had heard about it, too.

"I only seriously got to thinking about it the last break," he said. "I've been flipping it over in my mind all the last trip."

"How about if I put it this way? Whether I'm going to have boatmen enough depends on one guy on Team 1, and I won't know till this time next week. How about if we leave it that if someone hikes down to Phantom to relieve you, you can take off, and if I can't work it out, you finish the trip and I'll find someone to take over for you after that?"

"That works just fine for me, Al," he said softly. "I hate to put this to you like that, and I'd have liked to run it past you on the last break but you weren't here. If you get into a pinch this fall, I might be available for a half trip or a trip, too."

"It works for me," Al told him. "Mostly because we're in better shape for fall boatmen than we usually are. Unless something else happens, we shouldn't have to run any pickup boatmen at all." He turned to Scooter and Crystal. "I can't tell you yet who'll meet you down at Phantom. Given a choice, Michelle will be one of them, and the other will most likely be Mike or Jerry, but I won't know about that until they get off the river. Is that about it?"

"Al, while I have the chance," Duane said. "I'd like to talk to you, and it doesn't have to be right now. It doesn't have to affect this fall, but it might. I can leave the decision on it up to you."

"Sure, if you want we can head into the office and talk. The rest of you might as well get started unloading so you can get yourselves on over to the Burro."

It wasn't until Saturday morning before getting groceries that Crystal and Scooter got the chance to talk to Al. While they were waiting for others to show up, he asked them, "Did you two put that deal in Duane's head?"

"What deal, Al?" Crystal asked.

"The crazy kid wants to go to OLTA this fall, take a couple courses. Now who do we know around here that are OLTA graduates?"

"Oh, that deal," Crystal said. "Actually, he came to us about it, the trip before last. He was making sounds about wanting to take Wilderness First Responder, maybe a leadership course. We're going to have WFRs on each team next season, Dave, Scooter and me, but the more the better, in my opinion."

"I couldn't agree more," Al smiled. "In fact, I'll go one stepfurther. That's something Randy taught me after that deal with Jerry last fall, but it took a while to gel. We've been lucky as hell, but given a choice, I'd like to have an EMT on each trip. So, I told Duane that I'd go halvesies with him on the EMT course at Northern Arizona next spring. Mike from Team 1 was making sounds about it the last time I talked to him, too."

"That's great, Al!" Crystal said. "How about a third one?"

"That's still a little up in the air," he said, "And we may not be able to do it all at once. I want to run it past Kevin and Carl on Team 2, but I don't want to subsidize someone unless they're pretty well planning on being around a couple seasons. But hell, you don't know, you never do. Did you hear about that deal with Carl and Kevin?"

"No, what's that?" Crystal asked. She hadn't seen Carl since spring, but had kept up on how he was doing, mostly because she had been the one responsible for recruiting him. From all reports, he'd done well.

"Well, I thought I had Carl for a full-season boatman, but it turns out not. He's decided he wants to try college again, but at Northern Arizona, this time. I think Barbie may have had something to do with that, I don't know. So, we may have him turn into a summer boatman on us, but I think we'll have him around for a while. That was going to leave me short a boatman for the fall, but then Kevin came to me at the same time and told me he's sick of school; he wants to take a semester off and run this fall. He'll probably be going back in the spring, that's still up in the air. Like I said, you don't know; you never do. What's this deal with Ben, anyway?"

"He hadn't said a word to us," Crystal told him. "But earlier in the season we had a girl from Phoenix on the trip. They got friendly, although if they got out into the bushes I never got a whiff of it. But every break since he's blown out of here as soon as we're done with the unloading, and if we see him on Saturday at all, she's with him. So, I don't think it takes a lot of figuring out."

"Six will get you two he's looking for a straight job so he can be with her more," Al nodded. "Spouses have been the ruin of a lot more boatmen than booze ever was." He shrugged and went on, "And I was thinking about him as an assistant trip leader next season, too."

"Not that it will likely mean anything, but I'd be reluctant," Scooter said. "Ben is OK, he's a good boatman, but he's shy and tentative with people skills, not what I think of as a leader."

"Second the motion," Crystal said. "In fact, given a choice I'd put Duane at the head of the list. He's not hurting for skills, and he's looking for training that will make him more valuable to us. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that if he gets another year or two's experience, he's next in line for trip leader after Scooter."

"That's if he's still around when the time comes," Scooter added. "We explained to him that it may be a while before a trip leader spot opens up. But assistant? If you leave Michelle out of it, unless there's someone on another team I don't know about, I'd say he's at the head of that list, too."

"That's possible," Al nodded. "There might be a seniority problem there, though. Realistically, I've pretty well got to take a hard look at Dan or Jerry first."

"Jerry would probably do all right," Scooter said thoughtfully. "Dan is a nice enough guy even though we don't always get along, but I think he'd be weak as an assistant."

"True," Al said. "And there's also the possibility they may not be long for this river, either. I mean, nothing has been said but I get the impression Dan's getting a little tired of it. On top of that, Jerry has been sniffing around some gal here in Flag this summer; so again, you don't know until you shove off from Lee's. We're gonna be losing some people to graduation this year, but as far as I know all the second-year swampers will be back with boats next spring, so there's that much to the good, anyway. We might be a little tight in the spring, especially if we have a couple kids in that EMT course. Summer looks pretty reasonable, and it's too early to even guess about fall."

A couple days later they were again at Lee's, starting down the river for the seventh time of the year. Except for the absence of Glenn, Team 3 was little different, although it was a little strange to see Norma at the sticks without another boatman aboard. Even Wade and Hannah had agreed to ride along for a week and hike out at Phantom; they were heading to college and couldn't do the whole trip, but Crystal figured that swampers for a week beat no swampers at all.

It was still pretty warm, although not quite as blistering as it had been the last couple trips. A couple days out they were passed by a pair of motor rigs, Jim driving one of them. He didn't have much time to stop, but they learned that he'd done another oar trip, and his season would be winding down soon. There wasn't time for much more than the reminder that Crystal and Scooter still owed him a beer, but they'd pay him off in the fall sometime, maybe.