| Wes Boyd's Spearfish Lake Tales Contemporary Mainstream Books and Serials Online |
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| Wes Boyd's Spearfish Lake Tales Contemporary Mainstream Books and Serials Online |
Chapter 15
“It sure seems strange to see Crystal thinking about topside stuff like that,” Michelle remarked as Duane drove the Mustang up the highway toward Grand Canyon Village.
“It’s not like she hasn’t known the day was coming,” Duane observed. “I’ve heard her talk about it for years, and it always seemed like she was dreading it.”
“I guess her day has come,” Michelle replied. “I don’t want to guess how things will go this winter, but six will get you two that if she and Preach don’t take off on a big trip someplace, they’ll be talking about buying a house or something. The next thing you know they’ll be talking about kids.”
“Yeah, and that will just increase the responsibilities and keep her topside. I guess I’m just as glad Al is talking about developing a new trip leader or two, because I think he’s going to be needing one pretty soon. The way Preach talked last month, I don’t think he’s going to be up for running many trips while she’s on topside duty.”
“Right,” she nodded soberly. “I can’t see it, either. It wouldn’t surprise me if in a couple years they’re only running two or three trips a year each. I wonder how Preach is getting along on the river without her.”
“I didn’t think to ask,” Duane admitted. “He would have checked in from Phantom last Sunday, but he might not have said much. You’ll find out all about it when you run with them next trip, though.”
“I sure wish I was going to be running with you,” she shook her head. “Something tells me that trip isn’t going to be a lot of fun. At least it’s not a church trip.”
“There is that,” he agreed. “I mean, we’d survive, but still . . . “
“I suppose,” she said. “I have to say, though, I sure like the idea of not having to do the groceries on turnaround every trip.”
“Maybe it’ll work out, but it’s going to take someone really riding herd on it to make it work. I’m not sure how it’ll go if Crystal isn’t around to ramrod it.”
“I guess we’ll just have to wait and see,” she sighed. “Like I guess we’re going to see what happens with Preach and that little church, wherever it is. Boy, if he decides he has to stay topside I can just see him getting sucked right straight into that one.”
“I can, too,” he nodded. “And that could wind up causing issues for them, too. Fortunately, it’s not our problem. It’s something they’re just going to have to work out for themselves.”
“Yeah, but you hate to see a friend getting dragged down like that. I mean, we all knew it was coming, but like she said, the reality bites. The next thing you know she’ll be just like Randy, wishing she was out on the river, except for the fact that she’s got to work, and take care of a family, and be domestic.”
“I guess that’s the price she’s going to have to pay to take over the company. I mean, if it’s going to stay in the family. Like, look at Randy. He could have been a river bum if he wanted to be, but it would have meant giving up a lot. At least that’s an issue we don’t have.”
The drive out to Grand Canyon Village was as long as ever – a little longer, if anything, since the heavy visitation season at the South Rim had arrived and the roads had more traffic than three weeks before. It would only get worse as the summer progressed. The day was winding down before Duane parked the Mustang at Pat and Rachel’s house. It turned out that both of them were still at the store, so Duane and Michelle carried their gear inside.
The first thing on their list of things to do was to get a shower – both of them felt grubby after almost three weeks on the river. The last time they’d had something that even sort of resembled a bath was when they’d gone swimming in the mouth of Havasu Creek, where a little soap had been used mostly as a lick and a promise. That had been almost a week before, and each of them was a little surprised that they could stand to be around the other one. But the house had a good water heater, and with Pat and Rachel gone they took the opportunity of showering together, and not only so they could wash each other’s back. That led directly to bed, do not pass go and do not collect $200, since it had been almost a week for that too – a long time for a couple who enjoyed sex as much as they did.
Eventually that wound down, not that they were tired of it by any means, but they realized they had a few other things to get done, too, starting with an assault on their dirty laundry. While Duane loaded the washing machine with some of the contents of their dirty clothes bags, Michelle called over to the store to confirm that it was going to be an hour or so until her folks got home, and that there was spaghetti sauce in the refrigerator. She promised to get dinner going for the four of them. “Hey, Duane,” she said after she hung up the phone. “We’ve got half an hour to kill. Want to kill it in bed?”
“Stupid, stupid question,” he grinned. “Let’s go!”
They did manage to drag themselves out to the kitchen in time to have dinner ready when Pat and Rachel arrived from the store, looking a bit frazzled. “Long day?” Michelle asked after the greetings.
“No shit,” Pat said. “Two of our summer helpers quit already, and we had to can another one for sticky fingers. There’s nothing much we can do but fight our way through and hope we can pick up someone.”
“Maybe I could help out,” Michelle offered. “I’m going to be staying topside for a week.” She explained the business of taking a short trip with the White Team, which would give her several days off.
“It really would be appreciated,” her father said. “I’m hoping we can pick up a couple warm bodies in the next week or so, and that would help tide us over. So how was the trip?”
“Pretty routine,” she reported. “No real problems, except that I had some kind of a stomach bug for a few days, and I feel like I spent half the trip hanging over the side tube of the raft barfing my guts out.”
“Anything serious?” Rachel asked.
“No, I’m over it now, I think. At least I haven’t had any problems in several days. Other than that, the group was a little uptight the first few days, but they got over it. I’ve had a lot worse trips.”
“Well, it’ll be good to see you for a few days,” her mother said. “Even if it means we don’t have Duane around to harass.”
“No harassment involved, I like hanging out with you guys,” Duane grinned, “especially since I get hot showers and an indoor toilet as part of the deal.”
“See, civilization does have its benefits once in a while,” Rachel grinned. “I’ll admit I wouldn’t mind getting back out on the river sometime, but it always seems too busy in the summer. We haven’t managed in several years, and the last one was a partial trip.”
“You ought to work out some way to come along with us sometime,” Michelle said. “Maybe the last fall trip when things have slowed down a little.”
“Could be, but we’re going to need some reliable help if we’re going to do it, and right now that doesn’t look like it’s in the cards,” Pat protested. “The falls are actually worse, since we don’t have the summer help. But maybe sometime. You never know.”
“Yeah, maybe sometime,” she shrugged. “Dinner is about ready. There’s just about time for you to have a drink, if you’d like one.”
The break went quickly. Duane and Michelle didn’t do much Friday except sleep late, at least for them, and spend some time in bed not sleeping. They didn’t see much of Pat and Rachel, who were putting in long hours at the store, but they dropped in there for a while just to touch base with them. It was a well-deserved day off, and they hadn’t had one like it in months – there had been just too much to do.
Saturday was a little more organized. Even though it was a busy day, Pat and Rachel managed to find someone halfway reliable to watch the store for a few hours so that Mike and Alana could come up from Phoenix with their two kids to get in a little family time. Neither Duane nor Michelle had seen them since back around October, so that meant that there was some news to catch up on.
Duane thought Mike and Alana were all right, if a bit on the straight side. He really didn’t know the couple very well, although they gotten along reasonably well on the rare occasions they’d spent time together in the past. This time went fine too, though Michelle’s brother and sister-in-law were all wrapped up in the work and home and kids treadmill, so they seemed a little foreign to him.
It turned out that Mike had passed the examination for sergeant, although seniority was going to get involved in the actual promotion, so it might be a while before he actually got the rank and the extra pay. He was thinking of attempting a transfer into a detective position, but that was still up in the air. Alana was doing bookkeeping work in some office somewhere – Duane wasn’t real clear about the details – but her job, plus the irregular hours of Mike’s job, made taking care of the kids something of a hassle.
The kids were . . . well, they were kids, still young, but both of them in school now, which had made life quite a bit simpler for Mike and Alana the last year. It was going to get more complicated again in another week, when school let out for the summer, but it was clear to Duane that having the kids in school had come as a welcome relief. The kids were reasonably well behaved, but they had a short attention span and were a little noisy as could be expected. Somehow, Duane doubted that the two of them would grow up to be river rats like their aunt and prospective uncle.
Because of Pat and Rachel’s work schedule at the store and Mike’s next duty shift, their visitors couldn’t stay late, so Mike and Alana and the kids were headed back to Phoenix late in the afternoon, and Pat and Rachel headed back to the store within minutes afterward. That was fine with Duane and Michelle, for it meant that they got to spend a few more hours alone with each other. Part of that was used in bed, of course; it was a little more imperative since they weren’t going to be seeing each other for almost three weeks. But part of the time was spent packing Duane’s gear for the next three weeks too – a little differently than they had been used to, since there were a few items they normally shared while out on the river.
Eventually the store closed for the night; Duane and Michelle had a light supper waiting for Pat and Rachel when they returned. It wasn’t long before they were back in bed, this time to sleep since they had to get going early in the morning. Over the course of the weekend they’d worked out that Michelle would head back down to Flagstaff with Duane early in the morning and help with the groceries and packing for the trip, which still had to be done the old way. Then, she’d follow the group up to Lee’s Ferry and spend one last night with him, wave goodbye to him in the morning, and then drive directly back to Grand Canyon Village where she could help out her parents for a few days to give them a breather.
They had to get up early on Sunday, river time for them. They’d set the timer on the coffee pot, so they had big cups of fresh coffee to keep them going on the drive into Flagstaff, even though it wasn’t as strong as river coffee and lacked the familiar grounds.
They found Crystal waiting for them at the office; she’d decided to get up early to help them out with the groceries and the packing, help that would be appreciated. The rest of the crew had joined them, except for Andy, who they didn’t expect until late in the day after Pat had driven him over from the South Rim. Getting the groceries and packing them for the trip was a chore that they’d done many times before, so it was familiar, although doing it early on Sunday mornings had been a fairly recent innovation that gave the crew a little more free time over breaks.
Finally, after a fast-food lunch about noon, they were ready to hit the road. It was strange in that Duane decided to ride with Michelle in the Mustang, rather than on the crew bus, but he figured he might as well take advantage of the opportunity, since the car rode a lot better than the bus. And besides, he’d be alone with her for a couple more hours that way.
“You know,” he said as she followed the crew bus and the truck and trailer loaded with rafts, “if this business of someone else getting the groceries works out, then I don’t see any reason why we should have to come in on Sunday for a Monday launch at all. There’s no reason we couldn’t just get started early and get it done on Monday.”
“It might work if it’s not the first trip of a season with a new crew,” she replied. “But if you unload the rafts and something’s screwed up, your goose is cooked. Years ago we had some kids carve up a raft with knives while it was sitting on the trailer, and no one discovered it until we got to Lee’s. It was a hell of a hassle to get back down to Flag and get a spare raft, then get it back up to Lee’s and get it rigged.”
“Well, there’s that,” he admitted. “But what’s to keep us from taking a spare raft and critical gear items up to Lee’s on every trip? I mean, most of the time it would just sit on the trailer, but we would have a complete re-rig if it was needed.”
“Dunno,” she shrugged. “Maybe I’ll bounce the idea off Al or Crystal and see what they think. An extra day off on these short breaks would be real welcome.”
It took them a while to get to Lee’s Ferry, but it always did. Once they arrived, they found a spot on the launch ramp and started unloading. It was a lot more work than loading the rafts onto the trailer down at Diamond Creek had been, since the food boxes and coolers were a lot heavier. But they’d done it before, and this wasn’t their first rig of the season, so it went more quickly.
Just about the time they had things almost complete, Pat showed up with Andy, who had hiked up the trail from Phantom Ranch earlier in the day. “Sorry I’m a little late,” Pat said, “but I figured that I might as well give Andy a shot at the shower and the washing machine while he had the chance.”
“No big deal,” Duane shrugged. “Andy, good to see you again. It’s been a while, guy.”
“Yeah, it has,” Andy agreed. “It’s good to not be dealing with the motor rigs anymore. That stuff gets old after a while. You rush down the Canyon so fast you never really get to know the customers.”
“Sorry you had to do a burnaround like this, but I guess it had to be done,” Duane said. “Just so you know, Barbie is going to be the assistant trip leader this time, and Michelle is going to stay topside and then do a short trip with the White Team.”
“Yeah, I heard about that,” Andy replied. “Sorry I couldn’t be here to help you rig.”
“Again, no big deal. It’s not like you haven’t done it before.”
As usually happened, the crew went over to the bar in Marble Canyon Lodge for dinner and a few drinks; Jimmie, the truck driver, stayed with the rafts as always to keep an eye on them until the crew returned. When they got back he and Jeff took off for Flagstaff with the crew bus, the truck, and the trailer. Barbie took over the job of keeping an eye on the rafts; she would sleep there while the rest of the crew hiked a short distance away to unroll their Paco pads and sleeping bags for the night.
Duane and Michelle were a little ways away from the rest of the crew, just for a little bit of privacy. Once again, they cuddled together and whispered to each other before going to sleep. “God, Duane,” she said. “This is hard. Do you realize that this is going to be the longest we’ve been apart since we’ve been together?”
“I realize that all too well,” he agreed. “Up till now the longest time we’ve been separated is when I did the Iditarod last spring. I guess that was OK, but I sure don’t want to make a habit of this shit.”
“Me either. Duane, I love you, and I don’t know how I’m going to get along without you. I always thought of myself as being pretty independent and not needing a regular guy very much, but you’ve sure changed that since I came to see you up in Spearfish Lake that time.”
“Yeah, it’s happened with me, too. I always thought you were some wild will-o’-the-wisp or something, but damn, you’ve grown on me. This is going to be tough, and it’s a lot harder than I thought it would be.”
“I guess we have to put up with it,” she sighed. “Oh, hell, it’s only two and a half weeks and then we’ll be out on the river together again. You know what I really want to do right now, don’t you?”
“Probably about the same thing I want to do,” he whispered back. “But I think we’re a little too close to the others, and there’s no point in being blatant about it.”
“I know, but it doesn’t keep me from wishing. Oh, well, it’s only two and a half weeks.”
“Two and a half weeks,” he said. “Then things will be back to normal.”
There just wasn’t more to say after that. They held each other close, and presently Duane noticed from her regular shallow breathing that she had fallen asleep. Still, he kept his love in his arms. At least for tonight, all was right with his world.
Dawn came early. It may have been habit, but they were up with the birds, and had the coffee boiler going, and the grill busy making breakfast. There were still a few things that needed doing before the customer bus came in. None of the chores were very big – the waiting around in the morning mostly left them some reserve time to deal with any last-minute problems that came up. Duane and Michelle were up with the rest of them; his gear was loaded onto his raft, while hers was in the back seat of the Mustang.
Michelle took the lead on making breakfast while Duane had a brief meeting with the crew, mostly to go over a few things that needed to be done differently than the last trip. He remembered his mental note to talk to Barbie about campsite selection, and figured this was as good a time as any, so he passed along a few of his thoughts, which some of the other crew picked up on. That kept him busy enough that he wasn’t paying much attention to Michelle, until he noticed her drop the spatula onto the grill where she had some bacon frying, and make a fast run to the river’s edge, where she bent over and vomited violently. Oh, shit, he thought as he broke off from the crew and went over to her, to show his support if nothing else.
“Michelle,” he said when he got there. “Are you all right?”
“I thought so,” she said. “Then all of a sudden the smell of that bacon got to me and I had to hurl, and I mean right now.”
“I thought you were over that bug you had the last trip.”
“I thought so too,” she said. “I haven’t had any problems since Lava, after all. I don’t know where the hell this came from.”
“Erika,” he yelled. “Go finish with breakfast. We’ll be along.”
It was a couple minutes before Michelle apparently felt good enough to get away from the river. “I think we better go somewhere and sit down,” he suggested.
“Yeah, maybe,” she replied, looking more than a little peaked. His raft was only a few feet away, so they wandered toward it and sat down on the side tube. “Michelle,” he said flatly, “I don’t like this. Something has got to be wrong.”
“I’m beginning to think so,” she said. “Shit, I don’t hurl, you know that. I’ve blown my cookies more in the last couple weeks than I have in the rest of my life combined.”
“I know you’re not going to like the idea,” he said, “but you need to think about seeing a doctor.”
“You might be right. I mean, I feel a lot better now than I did a few minutes ago, but this is starting to really suck. This one was even worse than the last time.”
“Yeah, for me too. And this time you weren’t being thrown around in a raft, either.”
“The goddamn bacon, that did it,” she replied. “Shit, that was worse than running Lava.”
Duane just held onto her lightly. It was clear to him now that something was wrong, though he had no idea of what it could be. This was getting ridiculous, but he had no idea of what more he could do than that, especially this close to launch time. “Like I said, I’d feel better if you saw a doctor,” he reiterated.
“I’ll be all right, Duane. It’s just that I must not be over that bug after all.”
“Yeah, but I’ll feel better about it,” he said. “Please, do it for me. I’m going to be worried about you out on the river enough as it is.”
“All right, I’ll think about it,” she promised. “But I still don’t think it’s anything serious.”
They sat together for another few minutes, with him trying to show his concern for her and with her trying to reassure him it was nothing to worry about. Eventually Erika called “breakfast” and they headed over for pancakes and eggs and bacon. As far as Duane could tell, it wasn’t causing Michelle any problem, but still . . . something wasn’t right, and he knew it. Of all the damn times for something like this to happen!
Everything seemed normal for the rest of the morning. Eventually the customer bus pulled in, and they went through the normal routine of getting the customers checked in, their gear loaded, and the initial orientation.
Soon, there was nothing left to do but go. Michelle helped shove each of the rafts onto the water, then stood by as they started down the Canyon. When she got to his raft, she reached over the bow tube so she and Duane could have a long and serious kiss, customers looking on or not. “Bye, Icewater,” she whispered finally. “See you in two and a half weeks.”
“Bye, Alien,” Duane whispered back. “I gotta go. Take care of yourself.” He kissed her again, briefly this time, then got onto his seat on the drybox and took the oars in his hands while she gave the raft a shove to get it afloat. Duane was busy with the raft, but he grabbed a look back over his shoulder to see her standing there waving them off, an unhappy expression on her face.
