Nanci and Sarah spent a lot of time the next few days surfing and lying around on the beach trying to warm up after a lot of time in the water. It was clear that they were not going to become expert surfers in a week, but the conditions were not terribly challenging, so they had a lot of fun.

Most days either Buddha or Giselle spent some time working with them, occasionally trying to help them overcome bad habits, but the two women spent a lot of time out on the water by themselves, or with other surfers around. They spent time lying on the beach warming up afterward, sometimes in their wetsuits, but some days they’d peel them off at least partly and let the sun warm their bikini-clad skins directly.

They also spent a lot of time talking with some of the people hanging around the beach. Most of them were surfers who also wanted to spend some time on shore warming up, and sometimes there were discussions around the picnic table in front of Buddha and Giselle’s store. There was a certain amount of boy-girl stuff, but the word soon got around that while the two were actually divinity students, they were pretty cool too, so sometimes the discussions got very interesting. At least when things got metaphysical Sarah could hold her own, and that helped matters a lot. The bottom line, though, was that they showed at least a few people that it wasn’t necessary to be a stuck-up prig to be a divinity student, so Nanci felt that the discussions clearly hadn’t been a total waste of time. There were a few people they talked to who showed signs of listening to the Word sooner or later so that much was a net gain.

One afternoon they decided to have a little fun, so took Sarah’s cell phone – charged up, for once – down to the beach with them, and had one of the bystanders take several pictures of them holding their surfboards while wearing their wetsuits. It might have been a touch on the evil side, but Sarah sent one of the photos to her parents’ phone, along with the text message, “Surfing is a lot more fun than a date with Abe Bowman.” Both of them felt that making it a bikini shot might have been pushing things a little too far, but they felt they got their message across.

Buddha and Giselle were also a lot of fun. Nanci knew from prior experience that Buddha knew a lot about Eastern religions so he could come into a discussion from a very unexpected angle, and often set them to thinking. That led to some very roundabout conversations that easily equaled anything that could be found in the lounge at Mrs. Keller’s place.

It was a sad time when the last day came and they had to pack up their gear. It turned out that they didn’t have to ship everything back to Flagstaff, because Crystal and Preach were planning on coming down there in a couple of weeks, and since the gear was already there they might as well use it. That meant that Nanci and Sarah only had to take a few extra things, like swimsuits, back to Hickory Run with them although there was obviously little chance they’d be wearing them around the seminary. Even the wetsuits stayed in Florida; Buddha agreed to watch over everything until Crystal and Preach arrived, and said it was a shame the four of them couldn’t be there at the same time.

They stayed as late as they dared on Saturday getting in a final session on the waves, and then they had to change back into regular clothes, get into the Camry, and start back north. They had pretty much the same plan as they used coming down: drive as late as they could manage, get a few hours sleep in a quiet spot somewhere, and then finish up the next day.

As it turned out Sarah did the majority of the driving, except after dark or when they were near big cities; she was getting more practiced and comfortable with driving, and Nanci wasn’t quite as nervous any more when her friend was driving the Camry.

Once again, it worked out pretty well; it was the middle of Sunday afternoon when they pulled into the parking lot at Mrs. Keller’s Place. “That was a pretty good spring break,” Sarah smiled as she shut off the car, “and we didn’t even have a beer.”

“That is pretty traditional with spring break, isn’t it?” Nanci laughed. “I guess that makes us non-traditional students.”

“Did you ever drink beer?”

“I drank a lot of it in my bad days before I became a Christian,” Nanci admitted. “Since then, well, I had a beer, I think it was three summers ago.”

“Nanci!” Sarah smiled when she said it, though.

“It was on a river trip,” Nanci shrugged. “Right in the heat of the summer, a real hot day, and we got back from a hike just about roasted. I grabbed the first can I could get my hands on, opened it without looking at the can when I was talking to someone else, and had half of it down before I realized it was a beer.”

“So what did you do then?”

“I drank the other half,” Nanci smiled. “We don’t take things on the river to waste them, and besides, it was liquid, it was cold, I needed the hydration, and I really didn’t care right then.”

“You sure have a different perspective on the world sometimes, you know.”

“Running the river will do that to you. Well, here we are, so I guess it’s time to get back to the grind. Two months from now I’ll be on the river, and it’s going to be a long two months.”

“Yes, our first year is winding down, isn’t it?”

They got out of the car, grabbed their bags and went into the boardinghouse, to find Mrs. Ellison waiting for them. “Wow,” she said. “You look like you had a good vacation.”

“It was pretty good,” Nanci told her. “A week in Florida was what we needed.”

“I don’t suppose you did the usual spring break thing?” the older woman smiled.

“No, we went to a place a friend of my family owns. We spent most of the time surfing, lying on the beach, and not doing much of anything useful except unwind a little.”

“Well, it looks like it did you some good. You look very tan.”

“Only our faces and hands,” Nanci shrugged. “We were wearing wetsuits most of the time. So has anything interesting been happening around here?”

“Not very much. It’s been quiet with most everyone gone. Sarah, you did have a visitor. He came by a couple of times looking for you, but I told him you were in Florida.”

Nanci could see Sarah’s good mood deflate instantly. “Who was it?” she asked.

“He didn’t give me his name,” Mrs. Ellison said.

“Was he heavy-set, in his forties, going bald, and had breath like a hippopotamus?”

“I can’t say hippopotamus, but I’ve smelled sweeter breath, that’s for sure. He left a note for you. Let me go get it.”

“Yeah, I guess I’d better see it,” Sarah said with a notable lack of enthusiasm.

“Abe Bowman,” Nanci nodded. It wasn’t a question, either.

“It couldn’t be anyone else. I guess he didn’t get the message that we weren’t going to be here.”

“Or didn’t believe it.”

“Same difference.”

Mrs. Ellison was back in a moment with the note, sealed in an envelope with Sarah’s name on it. She handed it to Sarah, whose hands were shaking as she tore the envelope open. In a moment, tears were running down her face. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Ellison,” she said. “I guess this tells me I won’t be able to work for you here next summer.”

“It may be just as well,” Mrs. Ellison said. “I don’t really have that much for you to do anyway, but it might have been enough to tide you over.”

Sarah handed the note to Nanci. It was brief:

Sarah, you have been promised to me, so don’t think you can run away and hide from me forever. I have to go back to California, but I will see you when I return after my semester ends. Do not think that you can run away from me this time. You will have to learn to accept your destiny and your father’s wishes.

It was signed, “Reverend Abraham Bowman.”

“What a crock,” Nanci said. She didn’t need to mention what she thought the crock was filled with; it was obvious. “He apparently thinks he owns you.”

“Yes,” Sarah said. “Nanci, what do I do now?”

“Good question,” Nanci said. “Maybe we better go upstairs and talk about it in private.”

“I think so,” Sarah replied disconsolately.

A couple of minutes later they were sitting in Sarah’s room, their bags dropped carelessly on the floor. Amazingly enough, Sarah had pulled herself together; she was still clearly upset and angry, but was at least somewhat rational. “That ruins everything,” she said. “I can’t stay here where he can find me, and I don’t have any idea where I could go. I sure would like to know where he gets the idea that he owns me. It had to come from my parents.”

“The note said ‘you have been promised to me.’” Nanci shook her head. “I don’t know who else would have made that promise. After all, look who promised that you’d be here at Christmas, and then this week? It sure wasn’t you.”

“It had to have been them,” she sighed. “I don’t even know if they’ve left for Africa again yet, or what. I wouldn’t be surprised if they have, so they must have done it because they wanted to be sure I was kept under someone’s control.”

“I’d say that’s about as good a guess as any,” Nanci sighed. “Look, let me call them. Maybe I can find out if they’re still in the country, and then maybe we can get to the bottom of this.”

“I can’t think of anything else to do,” Sarah sighed. “Not that talking to them has done any good so far. I mean, you’ve told them and I’ve told them that I don’t want to have anything to do with him.”

Nanci pulled out her cell phone and dialed the number, which Sarah had to give to her. The phone rang several times, then went to a generic voicemail prompt. “No luck,” she said after a minute. “That could mean anything.”

“They’re probably gone,” Sarah shook her head. “I knew they wanted to get out of here as soon as they could, and they’ve had enough time to do it.”

“Do you know anyone in the Huntington church who you could ask if they’re still in the parsonage?”

“I can think of a couple people,” Sarah replied. “But maybe you’d better talk to them. I don’t . . . I don’t want anyone to know I’m as upset as I am.”

“Good thinking.”

It took a few minutes, but Nanci was soon able to talk with someone who told them that the Lackamps had moved out of the parsonage back at the first of the week, and as far as they knew they were on their way to Africa, if not there already.

“That pretty well says it,” Sarah concluded. “They abandoned me again, not that I expected any different, and they’re trying to dump me on that jerk Bowman because they think it means they care about me. They didn’t even send me a note or leave me a voicemail. Well, the hell with them, too.”

Once again, the use of that word in that context revealed just how seriously Sarah felt about her parents, and right at the moment Nanci pretty much agreed with her.

Things were silent for a minute or more, each of them lost in their own thoughts. “Nanci,” Sarah said finally, “I know I’ve asked an awful lot of you already, but is there any way you could take me to Arizona with you when classes are out?”

“I could do it,” Nanci said. “But Sarah, you’re going to have to remember that things aren’t going to be what they were at Christmas. Just about as soon as I get there I’m going to be out on the river. I’ll be out on each trip for two weeks or more, and then I’ll only be back for a few days. I don’t know if I’d want to ask Al or Crystal to have you stay with them for that long. You’d have to have a job or something, but they might be able to find something for you if I ask.”

“That sounds like about the best idea I’ve heard so far. Maybe there would be a place to stay.”

“Some of the trip leaders have a house they share; they call it the Girls’ House, and that might be a possibility, but I couldn’t speak for them. The only one of them you met was Barbie Tompkins, at the Christmas party. The others were in Costa Rica.”

“I don’t think I remember her.”

“About my height, about your weight, sandy hair?”

“I may have talked with her but I can’t recall clearly.”

Nanci sat back and thought about it for a moment. “It might not work,” she said finally. “I mean, I think my family would be able to keep an eye on you but I don’t think we want to ask too much of them. It is the busy time of the year for them. When we were there at Christmas it was the slow time, and they had time to mess around. I can tell you that things get real busy in the summer.”

“I can see how that would be a problem,” Sarah said. “And what would happen if Bowman happens to find out where I am?”

“Good question,” Nanci said. “The only thing I can think of is that we’ll have to be pretty careful about covering your tracks. The heck of it is that anyone who knows us is going to know where I am, and that means that they’ll suspect that you’re with me, or somewhere around me. And I’ll be on the river . . .” Her words trailed off as a new thought came to her, and she threw it around in her mind. It offered possibilities . . .

“Nanci?” Sarah said after several moments of silence.

“I’ve got an idea,” she said finally. “I think you can handle it, and if I can pull the right strings it would mean that you would be with me.”

“You mean on the river with you? Nanci, there’s no way I could row one of those rafts! And those rapids! I’d be terrified!”

“No, there’s no way you could learn to run one of the rafts this summer,” Nanci said. “It took me a year, and it was a full season, not just the summer. And at that, I was pretty green when Al put me at the oars for my first trip as a boatman. As for running the rapids, yes, that’s a little scary, but I’ve been down the river thirty-five times and I’ve never had a spill. I’ve gotten wet, sure, but it’s really not as bad as it looks. That poster in my room, well, the photographer asked me to make it look spectacular and I did. And besides, when it comes to terrified, weren’t you terrified to go surfing?”

“Well, yes. But it turned out to be fun. I would never have believed it until I did it.”

“Same thing here, Sarah. The exact same thing. Now granted, there are still some rapids that I’m a little scared of, and Al says that’s good. He says that when I’m not scared of them it’s time to quit. But that doesn’t mean I can’t do them. It’s the same thing as surfing a wave.”

“Then what are you talking about?”

“You’ve heard me talking about swampers, haven’t you?”

“Yes, but I never quite understood what you meant.”

“Basically, a swamper is a helper. They help with the cooking, loading rafts, and other dirty jobs. At Canyon Tours, being a swamper is the first step toward being a boatman, and it’s how most boatmen get the job. They start out rowing a little during easy times, and then get more and more experience as they go on. It’s what I did. I was a swamper for a year before I became a boatman, and really, I should have been one longer. I only got the job as quickly as I did because Al was really hard up for boatmen at the time.”

“Nanci, is being a swamper something I could do?”

“I have no doubt you could handle it. It’s not that hard, but it does get grubby at times. But actually, you get paid pretty well for it. Not as much as a boatman makes, of course, but it’s not bad, either, and your food and a place to stay are covered. Now, granted, the place to stay is a sleeping bag on a sand bar somewhere, but that’s how we all do it.”

“You know, that might be a possibility.”

“Look, Sarah, I need to tell you the truth. The pay’s not bad, but it’s a heck of a lot of work. We live pretty rough. You’re up before everybody else, do a lot of scut work, and stay up later than everyone else. You get dirty and it’s hotter than you can imagine, especially in July and August. There are things that you just can’t be a shrinking violet about. Worst of all, it’s addictive. It’s like no place else on earth. And Sarah?”

“Yes?”

“I think it could do you more good than anything else I can think of.”

“You think so?”

“Yes, I do. There are things you need to learn that you can learn there probably better than you could anywhere else, and I’d be there to help teach you.”

“It sounds good, but I don’t know anything about what I’d be doing.”

“I didn’t either when I started,” Nanci smiled. “And in a couple of ways, you’re in a better place to get started than I was.”

“Nanci, in the last few months you’ve gotten me to do a lot of things I’d never even considered doing, and every one of them has worked out a lot better than I expected. I’ll take your word on this. You scare me a lot sometimes, but I’m beginning to realize I needed to be scared.”

“You’re up for it then?”

“Yes.”

“Then all I need to do is sell it to Al.”

Nanci pulled out her cell phone and touched an autodial button. The phone rang a couple times, and then Nanci’s mother said, “Canyon Tours, may we help you?” On the weekends they had the calls forwarded to their house, and the practice had helped them sell a lot of trips over the years.

“Hi, Mom, it’s Nanci,” she said. “Is Al around?”

“He’s watching some auto race on TV if he hasn’t fallen asleep. Let me go get him.”

In a moment Al was on the phone, and he was clearly yawning. Apparently the race wasn’t that exciting. “Hi, Nanci,” he said. “What’s up?”

“Al, when I talked to Crystal the other day, she said you were having trouble finding a swamper for the White Team.”

“Yeah, it’s starting to be a pain in the neck. We need to have a kid whose act is pretty well together, and we haven’t turned one up yet. Preach and I talked to one the other day we thought might do all right, but he’s a little too potty-mouthed for the White Team and hasn’t been to church since about the age of six. He’d do all right on one of the others, but you know we have to be pretty careful with that team because of the Christian trips.”

“I agree. We haven’t had a decent swamper on the White team since you moved Mark Kayleigh up to boatman. But that doesn’t matter, because I think I have a swamper for you Al, and she’d be perfect for the White Team.”

“Someone you know?”

“You know her, too. I’m talking about Sarah.”

“Sarah?”

“Yes. I’ve talked to her about what’s involved, and she seems interested. She’s a little slow to get up the gumption to do something the first time, but once she gets past it she does wonderfully. Plus, she’d be a real asset to the Christian trips.”

“Yeah, she would be at that. Does she have any useful experience? I mean, she didn’t strike me as an outdoor girl. Camping, canoeing, anything like that?”

“Some, but not much. Camping and surfing, mostly. We just got back from Buddha’s, and he thinks she did great. You could call him up and talk to him if you wanted. Al, she has more experience at that kind of thing than I did when you took me down the river the first time. Not a lot more, but more.”

“Well, maybe,” he said. “What brought this on?”

“Her folks have left for Africa like we told you about back at Christmas, and she has literally no place to go this summer. Look, Al, I’ll be honest. Sarah is a little shy, but I think spending a summer as a swamper would do her a ton of good. I think she needs some of that Canyon magic to work on her. Maybe not as much as it did for me, but I was starting from a lot farther back than she would be. And I honestly think that when she gets her feet under her she’d do a bang-up job.”

“Is she there?”

“Yes, I’ll pass the phone over to her.”

Nanci handed the phone over, thinking that if she couldn’t talk Al into the idea, she might have a fall-back idea. Michelle MacRae, a former boatman, worked for her parents in a gift shop at the South Rim – she and Sarah had been in their place back at Christmas – and they were always looking for good, reliable summer help. There was a bunkhouse for summer employees, so that would help. But she’d pretty well talked herself into the Canyon Tours idea; a summer as a swamper would be just about the best thing that could happen to Sarah.

All Nanci could do was to sit back as Sarah talked with Al. She said “Yes” and “I think so” a couple of times, and once, “Nanci thinks I can.”

But finally she said, “Thank you, Al. I’ll do the best job I can for you. I’ll be coming out with Nanci in May.”

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