| 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 25
In the last days of the trip there was a little special sadness among the crew, although they tried to keep it from the passengers. They all knew from experience that sometimes Canyon Tours crews stayed stable over the course of the season; other times they changed wildly as boatmen came and went. Although they’d lost Michelle and gained Andy after the first trip of the season, and a couple of trial swampers had come for single trips and then gone, the core of the crew had stayed the same since that first launch.
Now, with this trip, it was coming to an end, and over the last few days on the river they could feel some oncoming sadness at parting. Terry would be heading back to be a sophomore at Crocker College outside of Los Angeles, Andy would be off to work on his master’s at New Mexico State, and Erika would be going back as a sophomore to Black Mesa College down near Phoenix. When they got off the river this trip, their season would be over, and all three of them said at one time or another they’d rather be staying on the river. As everyone had expected, Barbie had decided to put returning to college off for another semester, although she was giving some thought to taking some spring classes at Northern Arizona State.
Since Canyon Tours depended heavily on college students as summer boatmen, this was happening across all the crews, and it always happened heavily at this time of year. Duane knew that back in Flagstaff Al was scratching hard to find someone to fill out the crews for the next trip, and there was a good chance that both he and Karin would be among those on the river. He also knew the situation would ease in the next few weeks as the motor-rig companies shut down for the season; they didn’t operate in the fall, and there were often boatmen who were willing to run an extra trip or two on the Canyon Tours oar boats. But it was catch as catch can; sometimes the motor-rig pickup boatmen were pretty good with an oar boat, and sometimes they weren’t.
In any case, it was clear that he, Barbie, and Brett would have a couple of strange boatmen joining them on the crew for the next trip, and that they probably wouldn’t even have a swamper at all. It was something of a shame, because they’d developed a close crew who all knew each other’s strengths and weaknesses very well, and they had worked out a degree of cooperation where each would do at a given time. That would all be lost. It was in little things, mostly; for instance, Erika had proved to have a real talent at flipping pancakes, so when pancakes were on the menu for breakfast everyone else knew to stay out of her way and let her do what she could do best.
At least all three of them said they planned on being back another year. Andy would be back, that much was sure; he faced several years of work to get his doctorate. Both Terry and Erika ought to have more summers remaining. The two of them had gotten to be pretty good friends over the course of the last several months, although Duane still couldn’t tell if it had gotten further than that. However, over the course of this trip there had been several discussions that it wasn’t all that far between Phoenix and Los Angeles, so it seemed likely that there would be some visiting back and forth over the winter. It’ll be interesting, Duane thought, to see what happens next spring.
Finally, the day came for the last slow float from Granite Springs down to Diamond Creek. While there was some sadness that the crew was being broken up, Duane had happier things to look forward to.
As Duane had expected, Michelle was waiting for him at Diamond Creek. Though it had been a shorter trip than normal, it had seemed longer, and it was with real relief that he saw her standing there in her normal jeans and T-shirt, her long blonde hair blowing in the breeze that came up the Canyon. Once he got the raft up on shore, he wasted little time in running up to her, throwing his arms around her, and giving her a big kiss. “Everything OK?” he asked as it ended.
“Yeah, no problems,” she said. “Your dad and Vicky got back home all right. How did the trip go?”
“No problems,” he said. That would have to be good enough for now; his ruminations and doubts didn’t need to be spoken in front of the customers or the crew. “Other than the fact that it was about the longest two weeks I can ever remember.”
“In case you’re wondering, it has been for me, too,” she smiled. “I’m glad you’re back. I thought I missed you before, but I really missed you this time.”
“Me, too,” he replied. “At least we’ve got a couple of days to catch up. You wouldn’t believe how bad I’ve been needing it.”
“Probably about as bad as I have,” she sighed. “God, it’s been tough not being out on the river this year, but it’s been even worse to have you there without me.”
They could have gone on like that for quite a while, but both of them knew that there was work to do. The customers had to have their gear unloaded, and there was, as always, time for a last goodbye before the old brown bus started up the hill. About as soon as the customers left, the crew turned to on unloading the rafts and loading the trailer and truck; they had it down to a near science by now, and they were pretty close to being ready to go as soon as Jeff got back with the bus.
Soon, they were headed up the hill; as usually happened, Duane and Michelle shared a seat in the back, cuddling up against each other. “Two more trips,” Duane said softly in her ear over the noise of the bus, “then a long break, and one more trip, and the season is over with. For once, I don’t think I’m going to miss it. At least we’ll be together for a while.”
“Yeah, I think we need it,” she said. “I was counting the days, and that first couple was hard, Duane. Was it hard for you?”
“We missed Badger the first night out and had to stay at Soap Creek. That’s probably just as well, since I was just about ready to say the hell with it and hike out if we’d been at Badger,” he said. “But Barbie got on my case a little, and I managed to stick it out. It went a little better after that, but there wasn’t a night that went by that I didn’t miss you.”
“Me, either,” she smiled. “Duane, I dreamed about you every night.”
“Me too,” he said. “One night, the first night out, it was real vivid.” He went on to tell the story of the virginal wedding night dream that had seemed so real.
“Funny,” she grinned. “I had a dream sort of like that the first night you were gone. It played out just a little differently but it was pretty much the same. I guess we really were on the same wave length, or something.”
“Yeah, we sort of had our wedding night like that,” he agreed. “In a way it was too bad it didn’t happen that way. It might have been fun.”
“Well, we could sort of do that sometime,” she grinned, her eyes sparkling. “I don’t have a nightie like that, but I suppose I could get one somewhere, and we could role play it. I think it would be fun. I’d love to be a blushing nervous virgin bride for you, Duane.”
“Yeah, I can see how it would be fun,” he laughed. “Maybe we ought to save that for sometime special, like when we’re on our honeymoon, or our first anniversary, or something.”
“It might not work for our first anniversary,” she shrugged, a little sadly. “There’s a good chance you could be out on the river.”
“Yeah, and there’s maybe an equally good chance I might not be, too,” he said. “That’s something we have to talk about, even though we don’t have to make a decision about it right away.”
“You were making sounds like that before,” she shook her head. “Are you sure you want to do it?”
“No, I’m not sure,” he said. “But I got to thinking about it out on the river, and I may not have any choice. That’s why we need to talk about it. I didn’t put anything on paper; it’s all in my head. To be real simple about it, being a trip leader or a boatman has been a pretty good deal for us, right?”
“Well, yeah. We’ve been making pretty good money and even been able to save some.”
“And thank goodness for that,” he said. “The problem is that it’s a pretty good deal since we don’t have to pay rent or buy food, at least most of the time for part of the year, so it’s no great trick to slide through the rest of the year. It’s not going to be anywhere near as good a deal if we’re trying to support a family on one boatman’s income, even if you add in something for working part time for Al and part time for your folks. It’s better than some minimum-wage job, like being a clerk in a convenience store or something, but it’s going to make things a lot tighter for us, in comparison to some other things I could be doing.”
“Like what?”
“Like I don’t know, I haven’t been looking, but I’m going to start doing that once the season is over with. I mean, I think we can get along for a while on the way things are going now, especially if I get a temporary job off season. But even if I do, it’s going to be a reach, and it’s going to be hard to give you and the baby the things that you need, and that I’d like to give you.”
“You’ve been thinking about this a lot, haven’t you?”
“Yeah, I have. Like I said, there are some things we can do to make things go a little easier for a while. Like, you can still work for your folks for a while, and I suspect you’ll be able to continue a bit after the baby comes, though it gets a little more difficult. We can get along fairly easily as long as we’re living with your folks, but I don’t think I want to sponge off them longer than I have to.”
“They’ve said it would be fine if we stay with them till after the baby comes.”
“Well, yeah, and I appreciate that, but I don’t think we want to wear out our welcome, either. We can probably stretch it out over the winter if we have to, and I go back on the river next spring. That means we can probably stretch it for a year after the end of this season, or thereabouts. But after that, I think we’d damn well better be getting out of your folks’ house and into a place of our own, and I’d be a hell of a lot happier if we could do it sooner than that.”
She let out a long sigh. “You’re right, of course, Duane. We really shouldn’t sponge off my folks any longer than we have to, and I’d like it if we could be in a place of our own. But if I’m going to continue working for them, part time or full time, it makes a lot of sense if we could be in the village, rather than living down in Flag or Williams or somewhere. It’d really be a pain in the butt to have to drive to the village from Flag every day. While I like Flagstaff and I like hanging around there, commuting like that just wouldn’t work in the long run. I suppose I could take the baby up and stay with the folks for a few days while you’re on the river, but that sort of defeats the idea of our having our own place, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah, pretty much,” he agreed. “And to make it worse, I don’t know how much work you’d be able to do for Al.”
“We haven’t really talked about it,” she said. “But I’m getting the feeling that Crystal is going to be running the turnarounds next year. Al wants her topside to learn some of the ins and outs of running the place, so what I’m doing fits in pretty well with that. That’s OK, I’ve been doing it this year because it needs to be done and is something to do as opposed to nothing to do, but I don’t think I want to make a habit of it if I’m not able to be out on the river very much. Right at the moment, I can’t see much chance of being out on the river before next fall, and then after that only as sort of as a part time fill-in after the college kids go back. I can probably leave the baby with Mom or somebody for a half trip, maybe a full trip, but I don’t want to make a habit of that, either.”
“Right, that’s exactly what I’ve been thinking,” he nodded. “We can probably make something like that work for a year or two if we have to. But however it works out I don’t think we can make it work in the long run, unless maybe next spring you can find a job in Flag that wouldn’t require you to run back and forth so we could get a place down there.”
“Yeah, except for the fact that if I have to work, I’d rather it was with my folks. I kind of like that job. Besides, I don’t know how much longer they’re going to want to stay as active as they’ve been, and there have been hints that they’d like me to be managing the place for them in the next few years. It’s sort of the thing that Crystal has been lined up with at Canyon Tours, except that it’s not as far along. In time it would turn into a pretty good job and be worth the effort.”
“So there we are, between a rock and a hard spot,” he shrugged. “Unless there was some way we could get into a place in the village.”
“It’s not going to happen soon,” she said flatly. “There aren’t very many places available for lease to concession employees, and there’s a pretty long waiting list; I told you that. Now, that’s not saying Dad might not be able to pull one of his strings, but a part of me doesn’t want to crowd in line ahead of someone who’s been waiting for years. At least if we’re staying with Dad and Mom, we get around that.”
“Right,” he conceded. “But like I said, there’s a limit to how far we want to put them out, and I think it would be best in the long run if we had a place of our own. About the only thing I can think of is to get on the waiting list and hope it doesn’t take us too long.”
“We can do that, I guess,” she sighed, without showing any hope. “Hell, we might even get lucky, you never know. There are a few other places outside the park, not many, and they wouldn’t be cheap. I guess all we can do is look around and ask Dad to see if he can come up with something.”
“It’s going to take something like that if I’m going to stay on the river for Canyon Tours,” he replied flatly. “It’s not a got-to now, and it’s not even a got-to for next year, but it’s something we’re going to have to take into consideration. Now, you have to add to that the fact that I’m not sure how bad I want to stay on the river, which means being away from you and the kid while I’m on a trip. I’ll do it if I have to, that’s something Barbie set me straight on, but I don’t want to.”
“How’s that?” she asked.
He gave her a thumbnail version of the rant that Barbie had laid on him at Soap Creek the first night of the trip, about her father being in the Navy and out on an aircraft carrier somewhere seemingly every time she really needed him. “That struck home to me, Michelle. I really want to be a part of my child’s life, not a distant presence who shows up every now and then. I suspect that the new schedule next year is going to take some of the sting out of it and I’m damn glad. We’ve managed to make it through this summer on the short breaks and the long trips, but it was only because we had to. I’ll be damned if I want to have to do it that way another year.”
“Yeah,” she sighed. “At least I’ll be seeing a little more of you if it works out you’re on the river another year. Maybe we’ll be able to come up with some way to make it work out for the best for us.”
It was always a long ride on the old bus from Diamond Creek back to the shop in Flagstaff, and everyone was glad to have it over with. There were still a couple hours’ work that had to be done before they could take off for the weekend, but at least they knew there would be an end to it.
Al hadn’t come to this pickup – he only did about half the time – but he was waiting for them when they got off the bus. “So,” he said, “did you all have a good trip?”
“Not the best, not the worst,” Duane said. “But the way it came down, I wouldn’t be lying if I said that this two week trip was a lot longer than most of the three-week trips I’ve taken.”
“Yeah, I should have been a little more creative on that,” he conceded. “There was no reason we couldn’t have made that a half trip and had you walk in at Phantom or something, but I guess I got wrapped up in other problems. Sorry about that, Duane. I wasn’t thinking.”
“No harm, no foul,” Duane replied, knowing he was stretching the blanket a good bit to say it. Even a few days with Michelle following the wedding would have been far preferable to the heartache and depression that had followed the wedding and dogged him the first part of the trip. But it was in the past now, and there was no point in making a big deal out of it. “So how are we for crew for the next trip?”
“It’s still a mess,” Al admitted. “Right at the moment I haven’t got anyone but Karin I can send with you. She’s not going to mind taking the trip, but I’m still looking for a fifth boatman. As soon as the motor-rig outfits shut down for the season I shouldn’t have problems coming up with warm bodies, but right now it’s so tight it squeaks.”
“It seems like it’s always that way around this time of the year,” Duane observed.
“Yeah, but this year it seems worse, and I don’t know why,” Al shrugged. “I don’t know if Michelle told you, but we even kicked around the idea of her taking a half trip. Even a week would simplify things.”
“She told me,” Duane replied. “It’s one of those things we probably could get away with, and I sure would like to have her even for a half trip, but I don’t think it’s wise.”
“Neither did we,” Al admitted. He turned to the rest of the crew standing around and asked, “In years past, sometimes we’ve been able to get people to delay going back to school for a week to help out, and right at this point a week can make a big difference. Could any of you people do that?”
“Afraid not, Al,” Andy piped up. “You’ve been pretty good to me, and I really appreciate it, but grad school isn’t like regular college, and if I start out late I’ll be way behind the eight-ball right from the beginning. In fact, I really need to be pounding the pavement tonight so I can get set up before classes start. It’s going to be tight as it is.”
“Yeah,” Terry added. “It’s going to be pretty much the same thing for me. I’ve got some classes tough enough that I don’t want to have to be a week and a couple days late getting started on them. I can put off leaving till morning, but I can’t stretch it much longer than that.”
“Well, so much for that great idea,” Al said. “Well, hell, I’ll come up with something even if I have to go myself, but you aren’t the only team that’s getting torn up by people heading back to class, and I need to work something out for them, too.”
There was silence for a moment, and then Erika spoke up. “Al, I don’t know if it’s out of line for me to say this, but we’re on a trimester down at Black Mesa, and I don’t have anything the first trimester that I couldn’t put off. I could stay on through the fall, but it wouldn’t be worth it to me to do it as a swamper. I don’t know if you’re ready for me to be a boatman, but it’d be worth enough more money to me that I’d be willing to consider it, not just for this trip but for the rest of the season.”
“That’s a thought,” Al said. “Duane, what do you think? It’s going to be your lap where the soup could spill.”
Duane thought for a moment, then replied slowly, “Erika has been coming along pretty well. We’ve been giving her a lot of time at the sticks, and she’s run all the big ones at the sticks three or four times this season, usually with me or with Barbie. Erika, I hope you don’t mind my saying it, but I think that while you’re going to make a great boatman, you’re still a little green. I wouldn’t mind it if you could have some more seasoning, but Al, if this is a pinch, I think it would work.”
“Barbie,” Al said, “what do you think?”
“I’m pretty much with Duane on that one,” Barbie replied. “On the other hand, while I know you don’t like running gear boats unless you have to, this would be the perfect situation to do it.”
“Yeah, you have a point there,” Al agreed. “Usually I don’t like to do it because it’s an insurance issue, but Erika would be insurance qualified so it wouldn’t matter quite as much. Erika, what do you think? Running a gear boat is a hell of a lot of work since you don’t have anyone to spell you on the long flats. On the other hand, this is a long trip, so there won’t be quite as much distance to run each day.”
“I get paid as a boatman, right?” Erika asked.
“Right, you’ll have a raft,” Al smiled, knowing he had her now. “We’ll see how this trip goes, and then maybe do it the regular way the trip after it.”
“Fine with me, Al,” she said. “That’s assuming my folks don’t blow so high when they find out about me dumping college that Sedona is declared a disaster area.”
“Sounds good to me,” he smiled. “Square it with them, and you’re a Canyon Tours boatman.”
Just to make life interesting, it was another double turnaround weekend, this time with the Blue Team launching the next day. Michelle had done what she could to get them ready to go, and they were already pretty well packed. Still, it had been clear from the moment the wedding date was set that she was going to have to blow up a lot of Saturday to get the Blue Team on the river, and then get the Gold Team ready to launch on Monday. That was kind of a bummer, since it meant the job was going to rip a big hole right out of the middle of Duane’s all-too-brief time off the river.
Two days later the Gold Team reassembled in the shop well before dawn. The sky was getting a little bit light, and there was plenty of yawning. As had become habit, Al showed up with coffee and doughnuts. As soon as they got the fresh food packed where it was supposed to go, the crew headed for Lee’s Ferry again, this time with Duane and Michelle riding with Al and Karin in his car for the familiar trip up to the boat ramp.
It had been an intense weekend; Michelle and Duane slept in the back seat for most of the drive to Lee’s and didn’t wake up until they realized Al and Karin were getting out of the car.
In a way, it was almost the normal crew; only Terry and Andy were missing, and Karin was the only new member, but setting up was a little different and some gear had to be switched from their normal spots to fill out the load on Erika’s raft. “So,” Duane asked her once they’d gotten completed with the rig, and were waiting for the customer bus to show up, “Does it feel any different?”
“It does, and it doesn’t,” Erika said. “I suspect when I get out on the river it’s going to seem a little different than it does now.”
“You know,” Michelle pointed out. “It’s not the junior swamper who gets to empty the rocket boxes, it’s the junior crew member. Guess what, Erika?”
“I know,” Erika shook her head. “But if I’m a boatman next year, someone else is going to get the job, at least most of the time. At least this time I’m going to get paid better for doing it.”
“There’s that much compensation, anyway,” Duane nodded.
“I wish Terry was here,” Erika said. “He’s got to be a little jealous of me. I mean, he’s probably sitting on his dead butt in some dull class right now, and I’m out here on the river again.”
“I’ll bet he wishes he was with you,” Michelle grinned. “But sometimes it doesn’t work out that way. Ask me, I know. I’ve spent most of the damn season finding out just how hard it is.”
Finally the five rafts were heading out on the river again. It was much the same as normal, except for the fact that this time there were two long kisses on the shore before the rafts pulled out, instead of one.
It was mostly a pleasant trip. The heavy heat of summer had broken now, and while the days were often warm they usually weren’t stultifying. Some mornings jackets made their appearance for the initial leg of the trip, although not very often; it was still considerably warmer than it had been in May, but people were used to the heat now.
If they had to have a crew change, at least it brought Karin to them. Though she was close to thirty years older than the rest of the crew, she was a pleasant person, rather low-key, and always appreciative of the time she got to spend on the river. Her maturity and good nature were welcome. She was not as physically strong as most of the other crew members, but had both finesse and endurance to make up for it, and she wasn’t the type of person to complain.
It escaped no one’s attention that when they got back to Flagstaff Karin was going to be making an informal independent report to Al on how the trip went – a report that could go a long way to determining the future for both Barbie and Erika. Fortunately, everything went smoothly, and there weren’t any incidents to report, or even incidents that would make for good stories down at the Burro.
Six days after they launched they came to Phantom Ranch, and Duane made the normal hike up to the ranger station to call Al topside. Al reported that things were going well and that he seemed to be getting a handle on the boatman problem, although it would be good to have Karin back when this trip was over with. Then, as had also been his habit, Duane called Michelle up at the gift store; everything seemed normal with her, as well. She missed him and was counting the days until the Gold Team hit the take out again.
Farther on down the river they caught a couple of gray, soppy days, but eventually the skies cleared. Finally, right on schedule, they floated up to the landing at Diamond Creek, where both Al and Michelle were waiting for their boatmen to get off the river.
At least this time Duane and Michelle had a long break, and the only team that needed turnaround was the Gold Team, so they managed to have some quality time together without rushing it as much. Almost as good, they managed to have some quality time with Michelle’s folks.
Really, nothing new had been worked out since the last trip, when there had barely been time to talk. Pat reported that he was keeping his ears open for the possibility of a place for them in Grand Canyon Village, but sometimes these things took time, and he didn’t really expect any prospects would turn up much before winter set in, if then. Once again, there was no point in getting started on making any other kind of arrangements before the season ended, and it wasn’t far off, now.
Michelle and Duane spent part of the day Sunday buying the perishable food and boxing it up for the next trip, along with the other packing that had to be done, so at least they wouldn’t have to get up quite so early on Monday morning. Still, it was awfully early when they got in the Mustang and headed down to Flagstaff for the next to the last trip of the season.
Karin wouldn’t be going with them this time; they’d suspected that from the beginning, but hadn’t known who would replace her until they’d come off the river Thursday evening, when Al told them that Jerry Palmer was going along on this run.
Jerry was several years older than Duane and had been a Canyon Tours boatman and assistant trip leader – in fact, he was the guy Duane had replaced when he’d been promoted to assistant trip leader several years before. Jerry had the problem of a wife topside who didn’t want him down on the river any more than necessary, and he’d moved over to motor rigs where the trips were shorter and the breaks were longer. He wasn’t terribly happy about the move, and the pay hadn’t been an increase over what he’d been making at Canyon Tours, but at least his wife let him out of the house once or twice a year to make an oar trip. Duane knew the story – Jerry had been quite snappy on the river for a while until Al had been able to work out a trade to get him over to GCR. That didn’t matter, since Jerry was a good and competent rafter, and he brought the potential of some different stories than the ones they’d been trading back and forth all season.
It was a coolish but brilliant day when the Gold Team started down the river on their eighth trip that season. The only real difference this time, other than Jerry replacing Karin, was that this time Erika was taking passengers with her, rather than running a gear boat. Presumably Karin had given a good report to Al about her. On the previous trip Erika had done well with the heavily loaded raft, although sometimes they had to slow down a little to let her keep up. Still, she hadn’t complained about it and seemed to be happy to have been out on the river with a raft of her own. What’s more, Al said that she could look forward to having a raft when next season rolled around, so assuming there was a swamper on the first trip next year, her next run might be the end of cleaning rocket boxes for her.
Sometimes trips clicked, and sometimes they didn’t. This one did. For no reason anyone on the crew could figure out this may have been the happiest trip of the season. It was a good group of customers, and that helped a lot; they all were laid back and willing to work together to have a good time. Several of them had made the run with Canyon Tours before and had announced that they’d wanted to do a fall trip when the heat wasn’t quite as intense, so many of the customers already knowing what to do may have contributed to it.
Good trips, Jerry commented at one point, were the ones that didn’t have many stories coming out of them, just a good feeling. Once again, there weren’t many stories coming out of this trip, and this time when they floated up to Diamond Creek most of the people on the crew were truly sorry to see it over with – even Duane, a little bit. This one was hard to give up.
