Chapter 52

April 28 - 29, 2001
The Wedding Trip - 2

While most everyone but the crew was still asleep, Scooter and Crystal got their heads together in the early morning half-light. "If we're going to make this a qualifier for Randy, we're going to have to get him and Nicole out of Duane's raft," Crystal said. "And, I want to run with Nanci and Mom, at least today."

"Guess we can do it," Scooter said from behind the roar of the big propane burner that was heating wash water. "How's about you take Noah, and I'll take Randy and Nicole? I'll keep getting Nicole on the sticks some."

"Yeah, that seemed to work pretty well yesterday," Crystal agreed.

"How's it coming with our other problem?" she asked.

"To early to tell," Crystal sighed. "She and Noah went a little late last night; I don't know what they talked about." She let out a sigh. "Just between us, Scooter, she was considering suicide, and might have done it if we'd thrown her out on her ass. After she and Noah wrapped up, she said she'd been driving across New Mexico at midnight the night before last, and figured there was a fifty-fifty chance she'd be dead by now. She said she was even looking forward to it a little."

"Maybe this will work," Scooter said. "She seemed to be pretty helpful last night."

"Too soon to tell," Crystal shook her head. "But I want you to know I spent some time wondering which would be better, the Redlite or suicide."

"I'd take the first."

"Me, too," Crystal sighed. "But damn, it's a pisser of a choice, isn't it?"

One of the things that really amazed her was that as late at Nanci had gone the night before, she was up right with the rest of the crew, well before dawn. From what Scooter could see, she was trying to pitch in and make herself useful. The night before, Scooter had publicly designated her as the junior swamper of the trip, and had Andy show Trey and her how to set up the rocket box and handwash station -- it would be their job for the rest of the trip. It wasn't dumping on her, any more than it was on Trey; someone had to do it.

Nanci had no outdoor experience whatsoever; that night had been her first in a sleeping bag, she told the crew as they were getting around. It was really pretty exciting, she bubbled the next morning. It was much too early to say if she was taking hold, but Karin and Crystal both said that it was nice to see her taking a little responsibility, whether it stuck or not.

With everybody pitching in, they were on the river in good order. Scooter put Randy on the oars right away; the rapids in the next few miles weren't ones he'd done before. Scooter plopped down on the gear pile next to Nicole, and glanced down the river at the motor-rig site. As they got closer, it was clear that they were still making breakfast, and might be an hour or two before they got on the river. She saw Jim out working at the stove; he looked up and waved, and she waved back. "Jeez, we got going early," Randy commented.

"We got around pretty well," Scooter said. "Most everybody here has done it some, and everybody got around and pitched in." It wasn't that surprising; after all, this group was heavily outdoor people. Tiffany and Josh did outdoor tours of their own, dogsledding in winter and sea kayaking in the summer, and others were oriented to it.

"Yeah," Randy said, looking down at where North Canyon Rapids was approaching, "I don't remember it going that well last time. I don't really have a clear memory of this rapids. What's the deal on it? Straight down the middle?"

"On the tongue," Scooter told him. "Then try to get to the river right side of the wave train. Pretty straightforward. Not as bad as Badger, yesterday, about like Soap Creek."

Scooter wasn't concerned about Randy; she knew he could run a raft, and had done a lot of white water elsewhere. Just letting her mind drift back, she remembered when she'd first met him; he and Crystal had just gotten off a run of Nantahala Falls, right in front of NOC; she'd been standing outside, smoking a cigar, watching the two of them run. Who would have believed then that any of them would be here now?

She shook her head; this wasn't the time to be woolgathering. While she wasn't particularly worried about Randy, she was concerned about Nicole. Remembering back to how shaken she'd been at Badger yesterday, it looked like she'd made a fair amount of progress at learning to handle this -- or at least in covering up how scared she was. She was still obviously nervous as they bounced down through North Canyon Rapids, with Randy taking the raft down the edge of the wave train in an effort to ease the ride. He overdid that part of it a little, got caught in the eddy, and spun the raft around, with Nicole obviously alarmed.

"Got a little far over the eddy line," Randy said complacently, working the oars to continue the boat's spin as he pulled it back into the current, the right move. The raft bucked up and down a couple more times, nowhere near as bad, and then they were just bobbing up and down, as he tried to keep it in the fast water.

"Yeah," Scooter said complacently. "That one's a little tricky. Randy, I know you were trying to keep it as smooth as possible for Nicole, but I think you overdid it."

"Sorry about that," he said. "You OK, Nicole?"

"I think so," she said dubiously. "Was that the worst we're going to see today?"

"No, we've got several others about like that in the next six miles," Scooter told her. "Actually, that one ... well, it's a little longer than the others. They're mostly over more quickly. Then, that'll be the worst we'll see for a couple days."

"That'll be good," Nicole said, obviously fighting to stay calm.

"Nicole, if you want, we can stop at any of them and you can walk around them," Scooter told her, not revealing how much of Nicole's problem she knew about.

"No," Nicole said, taking a deep breath and trying to get a grip on herself. "Let's just get it over with."

They rode on down the river, deep between walls rising high above them on either side. Soon, they came to 21 Mile Rapids -- about as much drop as the last one, but in a shorter distance. It was a quick and brief thrill ride before they were back on placid waters. The worst was 24 Mile Rapids, a rough ride, but a thrilling one.

Almost at once they were at 24-1/2 Mile Rapids. Like the rapids earlier that day, they didn't get out to scout them ahead of time. It wasn't quite as wild a ride as 24 Mile, but it was still hairy enough to see what the river in the Canyon was all about. Almost before they could catch their breath, they were at 25 Mile Rapids -- not quite as difficult as the two that went before. There was one more about as bad a mile ahead, Cave Spring, and they ran that one without any difficulty, either. Shortly after that, they found a little beach and pulled in for a leg-stretch. "OK, Nicole," Scooter smiled, "That's the hard stuff for today. Want to row?"

"Yes," Nicole sighed, "Doing something will be welcome."

Soon they were back on the water. Another hour or so passed, an easy hour of drifting on the current, watching the scenery high overhead. They were deep into the Canyon now, the walls towering almost vertically to either side, narrowing the blue of the sky to a narrow slot. Finally, a wide side canyon opened to river right, and Scooter had Nicole nose it into shore. Just downstream of the landing, they could see the irregular hole of a cave mouth, and beyond, the sparkle of rushing water and a spray of vegetation so green it almost hurt the eye after all the barren rock they'd been seeing -- Vasey's Paradise.

This stop was for an early lunch. The boatmen and swampers soon set up two metal tables from the rafts; cold cuts were liberated from coolers, and flatbread and chips made their appearance. They were standing there eating when the motor rigs passed them. They didn't stop, but hovered in front of Vasey's Paradise on motor power so the customers could look it over and take some pictures. She waved at Jim again, but they didn't get close enough to talk. She knew that the motor rigs usually made a long stop shortly downstream, and she planned to as well, so there might yet be a chance to see him.

Shortly afterward, the six rafts were back on the river. They swept near to Vasey's Paradise -- the river was fast there, and there was no stopping like the motor rigs had done. They weren't on the river long; in only a mile or two they swept around a bend and saw a huge horizontal slot in the Redwall in front of them. "Redwall Cavern," Scooter told them. "We're going to pull in there, too."

Soon, the rafts were pulled up on the sandy shore next to the motor rigs; there were no good places to tie off, so the boatmen had to use sand stakes to hold the boats. Up in the sandy shore of the huge cavern, passengers from the motor rigs were exploring and throwing frisbees around; Jim, the Grand Canyon Rafters trip leader, and a couple of swampers were lolling around the back of the raft, watching as she talked to the Canyon Tours group.

"We usually like to make a long stop here," Scooter said. "It is kind of a neat place. Powell said this amphitheater could seat 50,000 people. I figure he was overestimating by a factor of ten, and I wouldn't want to see that many people here, anyway. But the acoustics are pretty incredible. One of the other rafting companies does one trip a year where they bring a string quartet along, and this is a favorite stop. We don't have a string quartet, but I thought this might be an interesting place to hear Myleigh do her stuff. Andy, you'll have to get Brown Bess out." She turned to the motor-rig crew a few feet away. "You guys might like to stick around for this. This is going to be a treat to remember."

"What's this all about?" Jim asked.

"Just a little off-the-cuff concert," Scooter grinned. "By one of the world's leading jazz harpists."

"Cool," Joe, the trip leader said. "I picked up an album of jazz harp last month. It was called Harp Strings. It was awful damn good."

"She's the woman who did it," Scooter grinned. "Myleigh Harris. You know Crystal Chladek, right?"

"Yeah, sure," both said.

"She was her college roommate," Scooter grinned.

"No shit?" Joe grinned. He stood up, put his fingers in his mouth, and gave a shrill whistle to get the attention of his party. "Hey, folks!" he yelled. "Free concert! Check it out! We'll stick around for it."

"How long you figuring on staying?" Jim asked.

"Maybe an hour, I don't know," Scooter grinned. "We're probably not going to run a whole lot farther today."

"I'd like to make it to Nankoweap," Joe said. "But we can run a little late if we have to. I think I'll wander up for the concert. Jim, you want to stay with the boats?"

"Yeah, I can," he said. "We ought to hear it pretty well from here."

A couple minutes later, Scooter was lying back in one of the boatman's seats on the motor rig, just talking with Jim. Finally she'd gotten her chance to be alone with him, the last chance she'd have before next weekend -- but she still hadn't made up her mind what she was going to say, so they talked about nothing much in particular.

There was a pretty good crowd clustered around Myleigh, back up in the cool shadows of Redwall Cavern, about the most unusual concert hall imaginable, lit only by the reflections of the sunlit, colorful rock across the river. The concert got going pretty good; yet another group arrived in the middle, and soon there were over twenty rafts pulled up on the shore of Redwall Cavern, parked tube to tube along the sand. Scooter had seen some crowds here, but never one this big. It had been a heck of a show for an off-the-cuff idea she'd had, and she expected she'd be hearing about it for a while when the raft guides got together in the Burro later.

The show ran longer than planned, but Scooter couldn't bring herself to ask Myleigh to wind it up. Finally, Myleigh brought it to a close. "Thank you," she said warmly as the haunting notes died away into the silence of Marble Canyon. "You've been a wonderful audience, here in Redwall Cavern today. Now, I imagine the trip leaders have more of this wonderful Canyon to show us, so I suppose we should going."

It wasn't going to be much longer now, Scooter thought. Now or never. At the last instant, an idea hit her. "Hey, Jim," she said quietly, so that no one but the two of them could hear. "You're still living out of your car trunk and staying at a motel between trips, aren't you?"

"Yeah," he replied. "I'm not in Flag enough to make it worth getting a place."

"Tell you what," she smiled. "Karin is moving out of our place, and next weekend Crystal will still be on the river. Why don't you save some bucks and stay at our place? There's an empty bed."

"Might as well," he smiled. Scooter couldn't tell if he'd gotten the hint or not, but it didn't matter -- she still didn't have to commit one way or another. "You have any idea when you're going to be in?"

"No idea, we're doing that Bass Trail walkout," Scooter smiled. "Tell you what, come by our office. If I'm not there, wait. If we get in early, I'll come by yours. We'll make it work."