Chapter 8

May 14-27, 1999

Grand Canyon Trip 2, 1999

As the days passed, it became clear to Scooter that the style, the temper of the trip was a little different than the previous trip, too; they didn't do as much heavy hiking. Louise talked about the Canyon a lot, like Al did. Scooter had heard some of those speeches before, and realized that some were close to standard, but there seemed to be a lot more sitting around reminiscing, telling stories of the old days, and after thirty years Louise had a lot of them.

Even though she was still not over whatever bug she'd come down with, she enjoyed passing along some of the information about the Canyon and tales of the good old days. What made it even more special was that she seemed to have a story about every place they stopped. Often they were funny, or tales of some of the memorable characters she'd gotten to know over the years, sometimes well-known politicians or actors and the like.

About a week down the river from Nankoweap, they camped one night at a place called Backeddy, near Deer Creek Falls. Both Scooter and Crystal had gone along with Andrea and Debby on at least part of the falls hike, doing some artistic poses that were clearly intended to show feminine strength, not feminine sexuality. There were several sessions, usually brief, to take advantage of natural backdrops. It was kind of fun, and in time they began to understand that Andrea and Debby meant what they said. Crystal consented one time to a topless shot, once she understood what Debby was trying to do. Scooter did a few other topless shots and up at the falls earlier that day had even done a nude, although only from the backside; if she understood correctly what Andrea was trying to accomplish with it, it might be pretty good.

By this point it was pretty well known among the party that Andrea and Debby were being each other's nude models, and they knew that Crystal and Scooter were also doing a little modeling, although at least putatively non-nude. It seemed clear that these two photographer/models were going to be part of the stock of stories that would be told around Canyon Tours trips for years to come.

The camp at Backeddy was a particularly nice one, fairly open with a nice view. As on most nice nights, a small bundle of wood was taken from one of the rafts and used for a small fire in a metal fire pan. The fire often burned down quickly, but it set a nice tone, and the stories often went on well after the last ember had winked out.

"I suppose you have some special story about something that happened here," one of the customers said to Louise as they were settling in.

"Oh, yes," Louise grinned. "It was here that I found out why one of the more memorable characters I've met on this river was one of the more memorable ones."

"Sounds like a good one," the customer laughed.

"Oh, yes, it was something I really wasn't expecting," Louise laughed with him. "It was only a couple years ago, the first trip of the season. Like happens on a lot of trips, we had a couple customers ride out from Flagstaff on the crew bus with us, like Andrea and Debby did this trip. This one was a little different in that Al and I had to drive out to the Flagstaff airport and pick up the people who had flown in on a twin-engine plane, a Cessna 310 I found out later. The customers proved to be a really gorgeous gal in her late twenties, really striking. I mean, you looked at her and she looked like pure money on the hoof. She had with her a guy who looked like he'd just stepped out of an old Marlboro commercial, all rough-cut and handsome. The guy called the older guy flying the plane 'General, ' and I thought that was interesting. Anyway it turned out that this gal owned the Cessna, although she usually chartered it out, and this retired general was her chief pilot. We found out a little later that her little air charter business was only a sideline, she was actually a project manager for some R&D firm down in Phoenix, and had a couple other things going. The guy, Will, was several years younger than her, and is a sergeant in the Air Force, although he grew up on a cattle ranch in Nevada. We soon got to calling him 'Cowboy, ' and he sounded just like one.

"Anyway, we got up to Lee's, and this gal -- her name was Jennlynn -- told us that Cowboy was just a friend, but I happened to notice that they were 'just friends' to the point they zipped their sleeping bags together every night, if you know what I mean. But, they were both real nice people, friendly, not making any kind of a fuss, and always ready to pitch in when there was something to be done.

"Although Jennlynn and Cowboy were awful cool, it wasn't the best group I'd ever had on the river. There were a couple guys who were on vacation from their wives and liked to talk a lot of trash, and there was a husband and a wife who had to try to pick a fight with everyone else when they weren't fighting with each other. So, we get down here and we're sitting around the fire like we are now, and one of the mouthy guys made some tough-guy-sounding remark about the legal cathouses over in Nevada, and asked Cowboy if he'd ever checked them out. He said that he had, and Audrey, the woman fighting with her husband, lit into him right now, about how immoral it was and how prostitutes had to be the scum of the earth. When she finally shut up for an instant Jennlynn told her that she was talking out her ass, and asked if she'd ever even talked to a prostitute. Audrey got all huffy that someone would talk back to her, and said she wouldn't stoop so low. Then Jennlynn said in a voice that I thought could have frozen the river, "Then let me correct you. You're talking to one now."

"This gal was a hooker?" one of the customers asked.

"Well, I didn't believe it, either," Louise shook her head. "I thought they were going to be drawing knives on each other any second. Audrey said she didn't believe it, she thought Jennlynn was like she said, a Ph.D., a design engineer, and a pilot who owned her charter outfit. Jennlynn said, 'I'm all of that, but I wouldn't have been any of it if I hadn't turned out at the Mustang Ranch years ago.' It turned out that was how she worked her way through college, and she stayed with it on a part-time basis after that. I mean, some people knit, some people play golf, what's the difference? Well, Audrey just about shit a brick, and she asked Cowboy what he thought about that. Cowboy said it was her decision and it wasn't his place to worry about it; she'd been working in houses long before he met her. And then he said that his grandmother managed the house where Jennlynn worked, the Redlite Ranch over the other side of Las Vegas. It turned out his mom had met his dad when she'd been working with his gramma at a house up north some place, and his sister was working at the Redlite right then. Just a family tradition, you know."

There was a circle of laughter around the fire, before Louise went on. "Well, that shut Audrey up, when I didn't think there was anything that could do that. The two guys who had been so obnoxious didn't say much the rest of the trip, either, since they'd been talking out their ass, and they couldn't face up to people who walked the walk, not just talked the talk. It turned out that Jennlynn was worth several million bucks, and she guessed she'd grossed half a million as a prostitute over the years. I still didn't know whether to believe it, but last winter Al was talking to a guy who goes over there once in a while, and he said that not only was it all true, but last summer Jennlynn paid cash for a million-dollar Learjet. She charters it out most of the time, but every couple weeks she flies it into the Redlite for a weekend of her hobby. She's now known as 'Learjet Jenn, the fastest woman in the state of Nevada', and I'm told that she may be the most expensive woman in the state, too."

"This hooker flies her own Learjet?" Scooter shook her head. "You're right, that's a pretty unique character, all right."

"One of the nicest people you'd ever want to meet, and one of the smartest," Louise smiled. "I'm sure that in over thirty years I must have taken some other Nevada hookers down this river, but Jennlynn is the only one who's ever admitted it."

There was an awkward silence for a second. "It's all true," Andrea said conversationally. "Jennlynn is one cool lady, although she says that she's a first class bitch on her day job, and the Redlite is where she goes to be nice."

"Will and his grandmother, Shirley, are pretty nice, too," Debby added.

"You know them?" Louise asked quizzically.

"Louise," Andrea smiled, "You're up to three now who have admitted it. We were both working at the Redlite the day Jennlynn flew her Learjet in there the first time."