| 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 24
As it turned out they were only a little late leaving Lee’s Ferry, nothing to be concerned about, although there was a poignant moment right at the beginning when Duane and Michelle had a long kiss as the other rafts started their float down the river. If Michelle hadn’t said anything about it, the rest of the rafts might have reached Badger by the time they broke apart. Still, it was hard for Duane to break off the kiss, clamber onto the raft and leave her behind. It affected her, too; there were tears in her eyes as she pushed them off into the river. He gave the oars a few desultory strokes, still watching her as they drifted away. She was still watching when they rounded a bend and went out of sight.
Duane had by now taken a few minutes to change into his normal river clothes. “Sorry about the little delay there, folks,” he said to the customers on his raft.
“Jeez,” one of the men on the raft said. “I don’t think I could manage to do something like that. I mean, head out for a two-week river trip without your bride six hours after you got married.”
“Well, we were sort of pushed into it by circumstances,” Duane shrugged. “But that doesn’t mean it sucks any less.”
As had been done the last several trips, Barbie was leading the trip for practical purposes, and Duane was more or less of a mood to just let her lead. She had shown that she was capable of it, and his mind really wasn’t on the trip very much, anyway. Right about now he was capable of pulling up to shore and leaving the river once and for all – but not quite. It was his job, after all, his livelihood, the way he’d earn the money for his wife and child to live on in the months to come. As much as he hated the idea, first things had to come first. This is what he had to do.
They made the normal stop at Cathedral Wash for the lunch and orientation session. Once again, Duane just let Barbie handle it, with some help from Andy. His mind was not on the river yet, and in a corner of his mind he wondered when he’d get back in gear.
Not long after leaving Cathedral Wash they floated under Navajo Bridge. Duane could look high up and see three kilted figures with some others standing on the bridge looking down. They waved to him, and he waved back, but it didn’t make things hurt any less.
Leaving a little late meant that they lost the chance to get their normal hoped-for site at Badger – both the camps were already full when they reached the place. There was no choice but to press on, and that might have been a blessing, he thought – it still would have been too easy to say the hell with everything and walk out from Badger. When they reached Soap Creek, the first good campsite after Badger, they were a little too far downriver for that to be an option.
About once a year they got pushed into the camp at Soap Creek, not that it was a bad site by any means. Like most rapids in the Canyon, it was formed of the rocks and debris from the outwash during a flash flood from the side canyon above. The boatmen all knew that in the distant past Soap Creek had been a lot more challenging, and had been routinely portaged in the early days of running the river; in fact, it was the last rapids on the river to have been run successfully, as late as 1923. Sometime not long after that another flash flood had come along and tamed the rapids significantly; now it was more or less midrange, nothing to write home about.
Realizing the need to get his mind back on the trip, Duane pitched in to help Barbie with the camp orientation; then, since he was at least a little familiar with the place volunteered to lead a short hike up Soap Creek Wash before dinner. It didn’t take very long, and dinner was still in the final phases of preparation when they returned. Shadows were creeping down into the Canyon now as the sun began to make its exit from this day of days.
As always, the campfire the first night out was partly orientation session, and Barbie did a good job of leading it. She included a long and detailed description of the wedding and the reception for the benefit of the customers; everyone hearing about it agreed that it must have been one hell of a wedding, and the boatmen who had been there agreed that it had.
The fire wrapped up a little early, and people began to head for bed. Duane made some preparations to do the same thing, but decided that he didn’t really want to go to bed right then. He wandered over to his raft, got a beer out of the drag bag, and just sat down on the seat, sipping at it slowly, for once wishing the hell he wasn’t there. His mind was up in Grand Canyon Village, where he knew his body ought to be.
All of a sudden he felt the raft move slightly. He glanced up, to see Barbie sitting on the side tube. “Got another one of those?” she asked.
“Yeah, there’s some more down in the drag bag,” he said, the disappointment of the afternoon evident in his voice.
He saw her dig around in the drag bag, pull out a can, then sit back on the side tube and open it. They sat there for a while in silence before she said, “Duane, that was one hell of a wedding.”
“Yeah,” he said, “I wish the hell I felt as good about it right now as I did this morning.”
“Shit happens,” she said. “You knew it was going to be this way, after all.”
“Yeah, but knowing it and having to face up to it are two different things.” He shook his head. “Look, Barbie, I know you came over here to tell me to get my head out of my ass and into this trip, and I promise I will tomorrow, but right now about all I can do is sit here and wish things weren’t the way they are.”
“That’s not really why I came over here,” she said, then temporized for a moment and added, “Well, yeah, I guess it is, a little. I’m sure that if Michelle were here, that’s what she’d be telling you to do.”
“No doubt about it,” he sighed. “The hell of it is, Barbie, is that today it really got made clear to me that I need to be thinking about whether this is what I’m supposed to be doing at all.”
“You mean, the rafting? Leading trips?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Don’t get me wrong, but when I came here it was really neat, and I guess I thought about like Crystal does, that this is what I’m supposed to be doing. Michelle always believed that, but she’s the one who’s been sitting topside for the last several trips while I’m down here. I can’t help but wonder if those days are ended, if what I’m supposed to be doing is to be up there with her, rather than down here. Now, it’s beginning to look like even Crystal is going to be topside more than she makes it down here, and though it’s clear she doesn’t like the idea, I’m beginning to think she’s come to terms with it.”
“I’m beginning to think you’re right,” she agreed softly. “I mean, about Crystal. She may manage to make it down here some, like Al does, but even I can see that in another year or two she won’t be leading trips much anymore. Maybe once in a while in the fall when it’s hard to get boatmen, but her life is going to be topside.”
“Yeah,” he said after thinking about it. “I don’t know if you know it, but Michelle and I had dinner with Crystal and Preach last night, and they’re thinking about dumping that big trip they’ve been planning and putting the money toward a down payment on a house. They’re to the point where they have to make a decision, and I’ll bet on the house.”
“I didn’t get a chance to talk to Crystal, but it wouldn’t surprise me either.”
“At least she and Preach are facing up to reality,” he sighed. “The reality for them doesn’t involve being on the river, at least not very much. Right at the moment, I don’t have much other reality. I mean, here I am, on my wedding night for fuck’s sake, and my beautiful bride is going to be sleeping alone in bed while I’m going to be sleeping alone down here. I don’t care, it makes me think that something’s wrong.”
“Like I said, you knew it was going to happen that way.”
“It doesn’t mean that I like it, or that it’s right,” he said angrily. “The purple hell of it is that this is what I’m going to have to do. Like it or not, I have a family now, and it’s growing, so I have to do what I can to provide for them. Michelle is making a little money working for her folks and for Al, and that’s all right, I guess. But the income to support us over the winter, and to pay the cost for the baby being born, has to come from me being down here on the river. I have to be here instead of being where I really feel I ought to be, which is with my family.”
“Duane,” she said, a little more forcefully. “You’re not the first guy to spend time away from his family in order to provide for them. From before I was born, my dad was gone more than he was around, and I always missed him when he was gone, but he was doing what he had to do to support Mom and us.”
“I didn’t know that,” he said. “I don’t remember you mentioning him very often.”
“Well, I’m not much of one to talk about them since they have a different vision of what they want me to be than I do. I mean, Mom especially has visions of me being a nice little suburban mom who produces oodles and gobs of grandchildren for her to spoil. It ain’t gonna happen, at least not soon. Maybe someday, but I’ve got a few more wild oats to sow, and I’ve got the time to do it. But the fact remains that when Mom got pregnant both she and Dad were still in high school, and they had me not long after they graduated. Dad couldn’t buy a job right then, so he joined the Navy. He wound up getting into a specialty that they’re shorthanded on at sea, so he spends more than half his damn life riding around on some goddamn aircraft carrier, somewhere south of the Persian Gulf as often as not. Duane, all the time I was growing up he’d have given a hell of a lot to be able to spend two or three days with us out of every two or three weeks, but it could never happen. He’d be home for four or five months, and the next damn thing you know he’d be back out at sea for eighteen months or two years straight. All the times in my life when I really wanted him there, because I wanted him to be proud of me, he was out in the Persian Gulf or some goddamn place. I know it wasn’t his fault and he was trying to do the right thing, but it hurt to have him gone.”
“Like I said, I didn’t know that.”
“So like I said, I don’t talk about it much. He’s making sounds about hanging it up after thirty, which is still a few years off, and I sometimes wonder how he and Mom are going to get along after being apart so much of the time. By then, it’s going to be too goddamn late for him to be around for me, unless I manage to hold off on getting married until after he retires. But the point is, Duane, that even with tonight you’ve got it pretty damn soft in comparison to him.”
“Yeah, I suppose you’re right,” he conceded. “And maybe when the sun comes up again I’ll feel better about it, but tonight it hurts like hell. At least I have the option of saying the hell with this life, I can go do something better where I can sleep in bed with my wife every night, like I ought to be in bed with her right now. I’m pretty well committed to finishing up the season, but I’ll tell you, Barbie, there’s going to be a lot of reassessment going on before I run my first trip next spring.”
“That’s your decision, and it’s one you and Michelle have to make for yourselves. I can’t make it for you. But right now, you’re going to have to do what has to be done. If it works out that you can provide for Michelle and your kid better if you’ve got some job topside, and you can still live with yourself, fine, go for it. But it’s not going to kill you to keep right on doing what you’re doing right now, either. I wish the hell now I’d gone to Al and begged him to come on this trip so you could stay behind and have your wedding night and your honeymoon, but I had my head up my ass on that and I didn’t. My bad. Remember, it’s only going to be two weeks, and you can manage that. It’s not that damn much longer till the season is over with, and then you’ve got months to sit back and reassess all you want.”
“You’re right, Barbie,” he said after a moment. “And I guess I do have my head up my ass tonight, and I promise I’ll have it on the river tomorrow. But damn it, this is not what I dreamed my wedding night would be like.”
“Bummer, isn’t it?” she grinned. “Duane, I’ll do what I can to help you get through this, but I promise, I’m not going to be a stand-in for Michelle tonight.”
“Bummer,” he grinned back. “That’s an idea I hadn’t considered, but now that you mention it, it might have some merit.”
“Not going to happen,” she repeated. “Michelle told me you were going to be eating your gut tonight, so I figured I’d better at least say something. But let me tell you this: I doubt she’s eating her gut much less than you are.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right at that,” he said, upending his beer can and draining it. “At least we’re probably both equally miserable.”
“Probably so,” she smiled. “And with that, I’m going to head off to bed, and alone, mind you.”
“Yeah, I probably ought to turn in myself,” he agreed.
Duane thought about going up to someplace around the kitchen like he usually did to unroll his Paco Pad and sleeping bag, but he was on his raft now and occasionally slept there, so it was no big deal for him to just do it there. He laid there for a while staring up at the stars in the sky over the darkened Canyon, and it took him a while to get to sleep.
Michelle came to him in his dreams that night, in a situation that could have never been, could never be. In his dream, it was their wedding night; both of them were nervous virgins, in a swanky hotel room somewhere, unbelievably luxurious, maybe Las Vegas, maybe somewhere else, he didn’t know. She came to him swathed in yards upon yards of filmy, lacy white linen, so much that it was hard to find her under all the material. She was infinitely shy about letting him see her nude body, and he never really did. In spite of being anxious to couple with her, to consummate their wedding, he found he could barely function. She admitted to being scared about what was to happen, scared of the pain that was to come, anxious about how it would feel when he penetrated her, at once wanting it to happen yet at the same time wanting to put the moment of truth off as long as possible.
In his dream, they’d been very virginal all through their courtship, and they had barely touched, cuddled, or caressed. When it came down to being in bed together everything was so timorous and awkward between them that it seemed as if it took hours before they even began to dare to do the deed. She was shaking in outright fear as he lifted that nightie up to her waist, leaving her pristine and previously unseen body exposed to him, and she was crying as he moved to enter her.
When he tried to recover the dream in the half light of morning, as the boatmen began to stir and get going on their chores, he couldn’t remember if he and his newfound virginal wife had actually made love, or if they’d chickened out, or what. But still, it was a vision of what might have been had things worked out a little differently, or a lot differently as the case may have been. In any case, he was happy it hadn’t turned out that way. In the predawn light beneath a lightening sky much like he remembered from the day before he gave thanks that it hadn’t worked out that way, romantic vision though it might have been.
He lay there savoring the memory of the dream for a moment, remembering how beautiful the nervous virgin Michelle had been in the yards and yards of translucent going on transparent fabric that showed only a hint of her body underneath it. It would have been a sight to see.
Well shit, he thought. Guess I’d better get up and get the day going.
A few minutes later he was up with the others, getting things going for breakfast. “Hey, Duane,” Barbie said. “You feeling any better today?”
“Yeah, I think so,” he said. “I may be able to make it through this trip after all. I suppose it’s time we lit off the burner and get the customers stirring.”
The trip was a short one, only fourteen days, the second and last the Gold Team would be making this summer. They were still in the intense heat of the summer, although maybe a little past the peak, with cooler days clearly lying ahead. In fact, partway through the trip a cold front came through, spawning huge thunderstorms and dropping the daily high temperature down a good twenty degrees, to the point where sometimes it seemed almost chilly out on the river. It came as a huge relief to the crew who had suffered day after day for several trips in the intense heat.
Much like the trip before, Duane was the butt of a lot of teasing and newlywed jokes, which he tried to take graciously. Still, his mind often turned up to Michelle, up on the South Rim, wondering what she was doing, wondering if she was thinking about him, wondering if she could imagine what life was going to be like with him, and with their new baby.
On a previous break Michelle had made the suggestion of “Hance” for the name of the baby, if it was a boy. On this trip, they wound up having to stay at the campsite at the head of that rapids again, the place where Michelle’s morning sickness had first become evident, the first warning that their lives were headed for a change they had not contemplated. Late on the afternoon they pulled in to camp there this trip, Duane got away from the group for a while, climbed up on the canyon wall a ways for a good view of the rapids, and just took it in.
Hance was still the rapids that intimidated him the most in his mind. He knew he could run it successfully since he’d done it many times before, but for some reason it looked as tough, or even tougher, than it was. The way the rock formations slanted it looked a good deal steeper than it actually was, and the illusion probably added to his impression of it.
“Hance” probably would be a good name for the baby, at least if it was a boy, he thought. If nothing else, the impending fatherhood intimidated him more than the rapids did. The rapids were at least a known factor in his mind, but fatherhood – well, he wasn’t sure how he was going to handle it. It seemed like a hell of a responsibility, sometimes more than he thought he was capable of handling. Yet, he was going to be that father in a few months, much like he was going to have to run the rapids again in the morning.
Yes, fatherhood was going to be tough, just like running the rapids. Yet, he could see that there was going to be a joy to it, too; maybe not the same kind of joy that he felt when he got to the bottom of the rapids knowing that he’d made it successfully. There was going to be a lot of responsibility on his part to do a good job of raising the kid, to at least measure up to the job his father had done in raising him. The chances were good that he wouldn’t be stuck with the kind of problem that his father had faced, and for that he was grateful, but if something unforeseen happened, about all he could do was accept what had happened and try to do the best he could. If push came to shove, his father had blazed the trail for him; all he could do was to do the best he could to follow it.
It might take twenty years, most likely even more, before he’d be able to stand back and judge how good a job he’d done, much like his father must have done up on Yavapai Point a few days before. Duane felt like he’d passed the test, even though the real test was yet to come. When looked at from that viewpoint, Hance seemed like a good name indeed; he’d have to tell Michelle that when he saw her again, still over a week in the future.
Duane looked down on the raging rapids one last time, then got to his feet and started back down to camp. It was time to be getting started on dinner, and he felt like he should pull his weight. That was part of his life on the river, after all; and he realized that it would be part of his life with his family. He took one last look at the river and said softly to himself, “Well, Hance, if you become a boatman, you’ll be the third generation to run this thing. You’re just going to have to learn how to swear at it anyway.”
