Chapter 57

June 15 - July 15 2001

Team Three's Summer - 2

Just from the way the schedules matched up, Jim got in a day ahead of Scooter, just like he'd gotten in a day behind last trip. Scooter was looking forward to her day and a couple nights with him -- they were rigging Saturday. The only problem was that this would be the last time they'd have a chance to be together until toward the end of August, and then it depended on how the boatman pickup and scheduling worked. That meant there was a chance it could be freaking November before they saw each other again. They usually had trouble getting swampers in the fall, but maybe he might be able to do that again -- but it would be on Team 2, and they were unlikely to run with two swampers, since Nanci most likely would stay running. So, she had no choice but to work hard at what they were doing.

Jim was waiting when they got off the bus back at the office, and he pitched in pretty hard with the unloading and cleaning to help her get out of there earlier. As always, they headed out to the highway for dinner, then back to the house. This time he'd had a day to shower in a motel, so she had dibs on the shower, although he joined her after she'd had a chance to get cleaned up a little. Soon the hot water ran out and they turned to other bare-skin activities they liked better than taking a cold shower.

Other than a couple hours to do a laundry run and a little shopping, they pretty well stayed around the house all day -- they didn't even go to the Burro. Neither of them could guess much further ahead about the fall and winter than they had been able to the trip before, and they agreed they'd just have to see what happened. They did manage to work out that, if it became November before they saw each other again, they'd spend at least some time together; if he could work as a boatman through the fall, that might include the Felicity Ann, but it wasn't a done deal.

Nevertheless, after Scooter had helped the baloney boaters load gear and food on Saturday morning, she put him in the Dodge and drove him up to Lee's Ferry behind the semis with the S-rigs, just to spend a few more hours with him. She hung around and helped them rig, but started for Flagstaff before dusk as she had to be down to the Canyon Tours office at six for her own trip. There were hot tears in her eyes as she kissed him goodbye just before she got in the Dodge, hating to have to go but knowing she had to do it.

Jim and the motor rigs would be gone by the time she got back to Lee's in the afternoon -- they had a four-day trip to the helicopter pickup at Whitmore Wash, and then the hard run with the side tubes rolled up to Pearce Ferry. Fast trips like that could be a real hassle, and they never got to know the passengers very well. The next time she got off on break, he'd be running the only oar trip he'd get to take for the summer, twelve days to Diamond Wash instead of the eighteen days that Canyon Tours usually took, so that was pushing pretty hard, too.

The next day she was up early getting groceries, packing, and loading. The whole crew was there, plus some of the usual extra hands like Karin and Michelle; Kelly was there helping, too; there was a very long kiss before Jerry got on the crew bus and Scooter told Jeff to be about it.

Rigging could have gone better. Even though they were practiced, Jerry was testy, and that made things ouchy because Scooter was a little ouchy herself, and probably for the same reason -- the break that was too goddamn short. Both of them had a few more beers than normal up at the bar in Marble Canyon, and the rest of the crew did it a little more stiffly than normal too. There were several heads doing the final loading and rigging the next morning, and the trip leader and assistant trip leader's heads were a little larger than most. Things were getting back together when Scooter lit her cigar as she saw the customer bus come down the hill.

It was hot now, fucking hot, second week of July hot, swimsuit and lots of sunscreen hot. There were a few things that mitigated the heat; there were thunderstorms around most days. They were rarely hit directly and were grateful when they were; rain suits were just not being used. They got hit once while they were visiting Redwall Cavern, a dry place to sit out the storm, but on a day so hot that being rained on would have been welcome. The thunderstorms made side canyons treacherous, for they could flash flood from a storm that was so far away they might not even know it was going on. Scooter made a point of telling the story of Norma down at Shinumo Creek and then at Diamond Wash, just to make the point that those things were dangerous; as a result, Scooter waved off several potentially good hikes without mentioning the possibility. Occasionally, she wondered how Norma was doing on Team 1, and when thunderstorms were in the area wished she were with them instead.

The river was still the coldest thing around; Scooter passed along some stories that Crystal told of going to sauna when she'd been training dogs up at Josh and Tiffany's a few years ago, cutting a hole in the ice, roasting, and then going out to jump into the freezing water. Roasting in the sun on the rafts and jumping in the Colorado wasn't that much different, only a matter of degrees and not all that many of them. She got to tease Duane that those days weren't going to be very far off for him; the day would come that the roasting heat down in the bottom of the Canyon would seem welcome indeed -- it could be as much as a hundred and fifty degrees cooler!

Duane reported that he called Josh and Tiffany every break just to see how things were coming. They were in their new house, the new dog barn was up and seemed to be working out well, and their old house trailer had been moved over near the barn for the dog handler to live in. Duane wouldn't have Crystal's experience of having to live in a pickup camper sitting on cement blocks in thirty and forty below weather. Right at the moment, that didn't sound like such a bad deal after all.

It was almost pleasantly cool the morning they started down Upper Granite Gorge, cool enough that Scooter suggested people might like to take rain suits with them in their daybags even if they didn't want to wear them in anything but the rapids and maybe not there after the day warmed up some. The night before, she'd suggested trying for a very early start, so they could take their time, and then have a long lunch in the tamarisks at Phantom Ranch, then run down river to one of a couple small but shady-side spots she knew.

That sounded like a pretty good deal to everyone, so they got up and around fairly decently -- they'd been on the river five days now, so they pretty well had gotten the bugs shaken out. This really was a pretty good group although the heat sometimes made people irritable. They pulled out while the sun was still low; Scooter actually pulled on her rain jacket for Unkar, but took it off immediately afterward and left it off for Nevills. When they pulled into Hance, she suggested that everyone wear at least their jackets, not because they needed the protection from the wet, but the flying water could sometimes feel pretty hard on bare skin. After looking at the rapids they were facing, just about everyone agreed, and afterwards those who hadn't said she had a point. Of course, the rain jackets were off almost before the boatmen pulled themselves together enough to head for Sockdolager. This time, Scooter didn't say anything about rain jackets but everybody pulled them on anyway. Grapevine was somewhat less wild, and by now it was getting hot enough that the rain jackets seemed like portable saunas, so Scooter decided to go in her swimsuit, and felt cooled by the time they flushed out the bottom.

By now, they were drawing close to Phantom; the rock formations in the Vishnu Schist were stunning as always, but Scooter was more thinking about the shade of the tamarisks and a cold soda or two when she pulled under the Kaibab Bridge, around the last little bend and pointed the raft toward the rocky beach at Phantom. At first she didn't notice the figure sitting in the shade of a tamarisk near the shore, but when he stood up all she could do was gasp, "Jim! What are you doing here?"

"You don't have to run up to the message box," he told her, "I brought one."

"What the hell is this?" she said as he grabbed the painter and dragged the raft up on shore.

"In a second, let me help the others," he said as he headed for the next raft, Andy's. Scooter was shaking her head; she knew this was an off-day for him -- had he walked down seven miles in the heat, and planning to walk back up seven, just so he could say hello and have lunch with her? It seemed unbelievable, but the only possible explanation, a way to hack a week off the long wait she'd have before she could see him again.

She piled out of the raft and followed him down the shoreline, until he got to Jerry who had been running sweep. "Jim," she said. "What's this all about?"

"You got a little crew shakeup," he said. "Duane, get over here, you need to hear this too."

A few seconds later Duane had joined them, asking, "What's up, Jim?"

"Duane, you and Jerry are headed topside. Dan had a seizure, not sure what it's all about. Preach is an EMT and was able to stabilize him. Crystal got on the satphone and called for a chopper. They flew him out."

"Damn," Jerry said, "He thought they had it under control."

"What do you mean, Jerry?" Scooter asked.

"He had a brain tumor in high school, he told me once. He had chemo for a while and the doctors said they thought they'd licked it. But this spring, he just didn't strike me as being as well as last spring. Of course, I couldn't get the dumbass to see a doctor."

"Well, shit," Scooter shook her head. "Hell of a thing. So what happened?"

"They were a couple days above Havasu Creek. Michelle made a mad dash over there and hiked down to meet them, they had their best swamper running a gear boat, and Crystal said they were shuttling it through the harder rapids, like you guys did with Randy that time. At this point, they don't know if Dan is gonna be able to run again or not, although they think he's getting better now. Karin is almost certain it won't be this year, so Duane, you're going to wait till Team 2 gets off the river and you're the new assistant trip leader."