Chapter 60

September 15 - 28, 2001

Team Two's Autumn - 2

Crystal, Scooter, Jim, and Michelle found a quiet spot to gather around the rafts at Horn Creek, while Kevin and Nanci were part of a group that was doing a round-robin reading aloud from the newspapers Michelle brought with her. "You left Jeff watching the office, right?" Scooter asked; she knew that both Al and Karin were on Team 1, a week ahead of them, because a pickup boatman had bombed out at the last minute. It would be Karin's first full-length run as a boatman.

"Him and Marjorie," Michelle reported. "There just wasn't anything else to do, and I figured I'd have to hike back up with the Osborne's, but I hoped Preach would do it."

"He's the best person, all right," Scooter nodded. Over the summer, Team 2 had taken on a somewhat-religious touch she wasn't altogether sure she liked, but today she wasn't complaining. "Let's see, it's roughly three thousand miles across the country; we're about five hundred from LA, and it's not straight. Twenty-five hundred miles at least, maybe more, one way. I doubt very much that he's going to meet us at Havasu."

"It's a long shot," Michelle agreed. "Then you have to add to it that it's a long day's hike down. When I hiked down to replace Dan, Jeff dropped me off before dawn, I hustled every inch of the way, and it still was getting pretty late when I got there."

"I'm not going to hold my breath," Crystal said thoughtfully. "I just hope he doesn't kill himself trying to do it. You might as well figure on going the whole way."

"I'll tell you what, most days I'd just about kill to get out of the office and hike down to Phantom, but I was so damn sure that what I was carrying wasn't only bad news but real bad news that it wasn't easy to come."

"I will tell you what," Scooter said, a little bitterly. "I'm starting to get a little gun shy about Phantom. They ought to rename it Bad News Gulch. Louise that time, then Jerry falling, then this summer Dan, and now this. If bad news comes in threes, I wonder what else we're going to find out there this year."

"There is a bright spot," Michelle nodded. "I'll be away from the damn TV set for ten days. That was turning into a real downer. The same stuff, over and over again. I got so sick of it that it wasn't funny."

"I remember my first trip," Scooter sighed. "I was rowing Al's raft when this customer looks up and said, 'Three contrails, I guess that means no nuclear war, and if there was I'm just as glad I don't know about it."

"Yeah, this is a dream world," Crystal agreed philosophically. "Unfortunately, once in a while the real world reaches all the way down here. Maybe when we run Crystal, it'll get our minds back here where they belong."

The mood of the group turned back upward in the next couple days, although it never regained the mellowness they'd known above Phantom. In spite of the fact that there were three people left on the crew that ranged from dead-serious to moderately so about their religion, mostly they tried to not let it get overt in front of the customers. This time, though, Scooter took to asking Kevin for a prayer before dinner -- moderately nondenominational, mostly asking for solace for the Osbornes and safety for Preach.

To no one's great surprise, Preach wasn't waiting for them at the mouth of Havasu Creek, and they didn't hold up waiting for him. Nor were they particularly surprised to see him waiting with Jeff and Jimmie when they drifted into Diamond Creek Wash several days later. "I got the Osbornes home all right," he told the group. "They're doing as well as can be expected under the circumstances, and there's lots of people doing worse. Please keep them in your prayers."

As Jeff drove the customers up the hill, the crew let loading go to gather around Preach as he told them the long version of the story. The Bright Angel Trail is up all the way from the river, and while the Osbornes were in good shape, they weren't power hikers. Preach figured they'd be long after dark reaching the rim. Then the daily mule train coming up from Phantom Ranch caught up with them, and Preach explained what happened to the leader. Without discussion, two men slid off their mules and offered their saddles to the Osbornes. As it was, with a little switching around, everybody on the trip, including the leader, walked part of the way while they rode. "While there may have been thousands of deaths," he commented, "There have been millions of acts of kindness across the country that have helped to balance things off a little."

They got up to the rim just a little behind the mule train's normal schedule, walked over to Pat and Rachel's gift store, explained what was happening, then took off for Flagstaff. They changed over to Preach's more comfortable Buick and started east.

For more than two days they drove, day and night. Mostly Preach did the driving, but Mr. Osborne filled in a couple times so he could grab a nap, and once they all corked off in a truck stop for a couple hours. Almost three days after they'd first heard the news, they pulled into the Osborne home in Windsor Locks, to find the remainder of the family waiting -- they'd called home to let people know they were on their way. Yes, it was a time of sorrow, but the Osbornes had been having a 2500-mile memorial service, eulogy, and therapy session with Preach, and they'd pulled themselves together a lot. Preach sort of allowed as how he had to be getting back to the Canyon -- he actually had no intent more than going to the nearest box store, getting some clean clothes, since he hadn't brought a thing with him and was still wearing the clothes he'd been wearing in the raft, then finding a motel to be able to sleep around the clock. The Osbornes and their friends and relatives weren't going to let him get away that easily. So, he slept around the clock in their spare room, and someone washed his clothes. He woke up, to discover that someone had taken up a collection to cover his expenses. He told the Osbornes thanks, but donate it to some relief fund to help people who needed it more. He had some discussions with the Osborne family, their minister, and others, offered prayers and best wishes, then got in the car and started back west, with the invitation to drop by again if he was in the area.

A ways up the road he stopped for gas. There was a map of the country in the convenience store, and he spent a minute looking at it. When they'd come east, they'd taken I-40 to Oklahoma City, then I-44 and I-70 on into Pennsylvania. Eyeballing the map, Preach realized that the route took them a little north of the direct route between Oklahoma City and Pennsylvania. However, if he'd take I-81 back to I-40 near Knoxville, it'd be just a little bit farther -- and take him pretty close to Chattanooga. He could get a few things out of his storage locker that would be useful in the fall, like heavier clothes -- and clean ones -- and he could stop by Glen Hill Road First Baptist Church and see Pastor Jordan. He was already aware that there was no chance to catch the trip at the mouth of Havasu Creek, so it was an easy decision to make.

He took his time, made a night stop in Roanoke -- which, he remembered, was Scooter's home town -- and early Friday afternoon drove into Glen Hill, more with the intent of saying hello and spending an hour catching up. It didn't work that way of course -- while many people had been shocked by September 11, this was the first that someone from the church knew someone who had been directly affected, and Pastor Jordan got the idea that perhaps Noah would like to do the Sunday sermon. Preach thought about it for a moment, and said that he'd gotten into the habit of giving small teachings on Sunday in the Canyon, and he usually just spoke what the Lord put on his mind, rather than preparing something. He wasn't willing to prepare a sermon, but he'd give a Canyon-style teaching.

Thus it was that Preach gave the sermon at the main service on Sunday morning, not wearing a suit and tie -- which he had available, sitting in the storage locker -- but wearing the cutoff blue jeans and Canyon Tours T-shirt he'd been wearing when they'd pulled into Phantom a few days before. It was not the first sermon that Preach had given at Glen Hill, but everyone told him it was easily the best. He talked for just a couple minutes about his new life, the beauty and adventure of the Canyon, the wonderful feeling of peace of being in the midst of the Lord's creation. Then, he told the story of pulling into Phantom just a week before, and the Osbornes, the random acts of kindness ever since, how the Lord had used the incident to remind us of the brotherhood of man. His leave-taking of Glen Hill had been a little quick, and he explained that he'd felt the leading of the Lord to change his life -- and now he understood why. He hadn't left the ministry, he'd just moved to a new one, in the grandest cathedral of all.

That night, at the youth group meeting, he again talked about his new life in the Grand Canyon. It wasn't about the Osbornes this time, they weren't even mentioned, but about the beauty and adventure amongst the majesty, and how it was perfectly possible to have a life like that and still be a Christian and serve God at the same time. It was pretty off the cuff, but Preach was a good speaker, and could keep the kids' interest. That gave Pastor Jordan an idea. It was a good talk for being off the cuff. There was a speaker's bureau that had people traveling around to various churches giving inspirational talks. Did Noah think he'd like to look into that for something to do in the off season?

Preach thought it might be an idea, but he had to be heading on back to the Canyon. Perhaps Pastor Jordan could bounce the idea off the speaker's bureau and see what they thought; he'd call back at the end of the week. Preach got back on the road Monday and got back to Flagstaff in time to help with the de-rigging and loading at Diamond Creek.

"I spent a lot of the way back thinking about what I'd said off the top of my head in the sermon last Sunday," he summarized. "In spite of the leading that I felt strongly to leave Glen Hill and come here, I've felt a little guilty about leaving the ministry. But if I hadn't, there wouldn't have been an EMT present when Dan had his seizure, and I wouldn't have been at Phantom to console the Osbornes and help them home. So now, more than ever, I think that this is the place I'm supposed to be."

As they pretty well had expected, it was a little awkward around the house when they were on break, with Crystal and Nanci in separate beds in the one bedroom, and Scooter and Jim stuffed snugly into a 3/4 bed in the other. No longer could they have the run-of-the-house noisy and active lovemaking they'd enjoyed earlier in the year, but they knew that was going to happen. There were only two trips and one break left in the season, and then things would have to be worked out. This was mitigated by the fact that both couples would be on the Felicity Ann through most of January and expected to be gone somewhere separately much of the rest of the time. Several riverbank discussions had led to the conclusion that for this winter they'd try to get along for the sake of the convenience of having the house next summer.

Fairly early Friday morning, Scooter, Crystal, and Nanci piled into Jim's car, which was in a good deal better condition than the Dodge, and drove over to Kevin's house to pick up Kevin and Preach. They drove out to a truck stop near the Interstate that they favored for breakfast, and had a pretty good one. Say what you might about the mixed texture of the team, they were all good friends and as close on the river as they were off. After breakfast, one of the few things they had to do on Friday was pick up their checks, and around midmorning they pulled into the office to do it.

They no more than walked into the office when they heard Al say, "Yeah, he just walked in, just a second." He put the phone on hold and said, "Preach, it's for you, it's that Jordan guy you used to work for."