Nanci was right that the tenor and tone of the first Christian trip was considerably different than the preceding two trips. While most of the unloading, rigging, and orientation at Lee’s Ferry were much the same as before, the introductions weren’t, for this time no one tried to downplay the crew’s religious convictions. Preach introduced himself as “Reverend Noah Whittaker,” although he told the customers he still preferred to be called “Preach.” He introduced Nanci as “Reverend Chladek,” but he also said that she usually responded better to being called “Nanci,” and said that she would be his assistant spiritual leader for the trip. Sarah’s status as a Hickory Run divinity student was also noted, as was Kevin’s status as a Methodist lay leader, and even Angie’s attending the Flagstaff John Wesley Fellowship.

Brett, of course, stayed about as inscrutable as ever.

There were big group prayers when getting under way right from the beginning, starting before they got on the river at Lee’s Ferry, led mostly by Reverend Whittaker or Reverend Chladek, but occasionally by Sarah or others. There were teachings given by one or the other every day, usually a short one before they got on the river in the morning, and a somewhat longer one at lunch. While there were campfires every evening as usual with the river stories and lore, they were also teachings as well, with Preach or Nanci usually casually relating a point tied in with the Canyon and taking off into a more religious direction than normal. There were songs, too, but this time they were familiar and common hymns that most everyone knew, rather than the usual eclectic collection of camp favorites and old cowboy songs.

Some of the evening teachings were fascinating. Neither of the reverends on the trip liked to sound like hard cases because they weren’t, but they liked to provoke thoughtful discussion. Preach often had thoughts about seeing God’s creation in the wilderness He had made, or taking the time to pray, because here in this place He had made it might be possible to hear Him better. Preach had a couple of different variations of lessons based on Jesus going out into the wilderness to seek God and pray, and sometimes related how Native Americans had gone out into the wilderness to seek visions. Nanci had a version of one of those, her story of how she had hiked down into the Canyon to seek guidance about her own future.

Sarah often listened to Preach and wished that he had decided to seek a career as the pastor of a church, because he could be very inspirational and interesting, but he was a little evasive about why he had chosen to not do so. As time went on, Sarah herself was on occasion asked to lead a teaching; as a relative newcomer to the Canyon she brought a different viewpoint that occasionally contrasted with Preach’s and Nanci’s ideas, which often led to more interesting discussions.

To someone not of a religious bent it might have seemed pretty oppressive, which is why they didn’t go into those topics very much normally, but these customers were different and appreciated the discussions, often coming up with interesting points of their own. Sometimes there would be a handful of people sitting around the last few coals of a campfire, long after the crew had gone to bed, quietly discussing insights they had while going down the Canyon.

With the exceptions of the hikes being limited for the sake of time, in other respects it was very much like a normal river trip, although the discussions in the rafts were often of different natures. They stopped at most of the regular places, and did most of the regular things, and as far as anyone on the crew could tell, while this group of customers may have had a somewhat different view of the world than others, they enjoyed themselves just as much.

But some things didn’t change. As always, they stopped above Crystal Rapids the day after they passed Phantom Ranch, to scout the place out. It looked as intimidating as always – a long, steep, powerful, and dangerous rapids. It was treacherous and powerful at any water level. The night before, as they’d been sitting around the evening campfire above Granite, Preach had told them some stories about Crystal.

“It’s most likely that we’ll find it pretty tame, at least in comparison to what Al, the guy who owns Canyon Tours, found when he ran this place back in 1983 when the water was at record highs,” Preach told them. “It was running at something like four or five times the level we’re likely to find tomorrow. The story he tells, and I’ve heard him tell it more than once, is that he got spun around, lost an oar, and almost flipped before he got down to the bottom. That was in the days before they had self-bailing rafts like we have now, so he had a raft loaded with water and was barely able to get the raft up to shore. He had to run it solo, since the water was so high the Park Service wouldn’t allow passengers to ride along.”

Preach went on to explain that Crystal was the newest major rapids in the ever-changing Canyon. It had been formed as recently as 1966, when a huge storm dropped a major debris flow down the side canyon, turning what had been a small, barely noticeable rapids into a huge monster.

“In one respect, it’s not that bad,” Nanci told the customers. “It’s been years since we’ve had a washout of a Canyon Tours raft there, but if you do find yourself swimming, get your feet downstream and ride it out. My mother swam through Crystal Rapids a few years ago just to see what it’s like. Now, ignoring the fact that she’s in her fifties and had a hole right straight through her head, she’s not a strong swimmer, and she said she had a ball with it. Unless something really goofy happens you won’t have to swim it, but we ought to have some fun with it tomorrow anyway.”

“Nanci’s right,” Preach said. “In the old days, before the modern rafts came along, they would have portaged the thing. While it wouldn’t have been the easiest of the rapids in the Canyon to portage, it wouldn’t have been as bad as some.”

“It’s kind of a legend of the Canyon,” Nanci added. “My mother named my sister for this rapids. Crystal was a boatman and a trip leader until recently, and she always said she didn’t like her name because it made it harder to swear at that thing.”

In spite of the tales, and the assurances that everything would be all right, everyone seemed a little nervous to stand there and actually have to look at the thing. “Well, there’s not a whole lot we can do but do it,” Preach said finally. “Let’s get back down to the rafts, have a quick prayer, then saddle up and ride.”

Needless to say, there were some nerves and expressions of anxiety as people clambered back aboard the rafts. This one, they wouldn’t run as a group.

Preach took the first raft down through the rapids, as the rest of them watched. He went first so he could wait below the rapids if anyone else had a spill, he could be there to rescue them, snag the drifting raft, or whatever else might be needed. He made a good run, but it was clear in the rafts watching from above that he had a rough ride.

One by one the other rafts made their runs. Nanci was the last one to go, just as things worked out. Sarah was riding with her, rather than with Kevin as she often did. “All right, folks,” Nanci said, “I shouldn’t have to say that this is a real hang-on, down-and-in, pick-the-drag-bags-up run. Check one more time that there aren’t any loose ropes or straps that you might get entangled in if we do spill. But we’re not going to spill.”

“You hope,” one of the women aboard the raft said.

“‘Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil,’” Nanci quoted the Psalm. “Just remember that. Everybody ready? All right, let’s get this over with.”

Sarah gave the nose of the raft a push to get it off the beach, then scrambled aboard and got down low in the raft. While she’d been waiting on the scouting, she’d stripped down to her tankini, as had Nanci. They’d put their clothes in their day bags, so they would have something dry to put on afterwards. Most of the customers aboard the raft were in swimsuits as well, having taken the hint despite the strong sunlight overhead.

Nanci backed the raft hard to get it away from the bank – rowing with her back to the middle of the stream, the reverse of the normal way they did things, because she needed the extra power for the few strokes needed to get them in the current. The best run of Crystal was down the right side of the river, slipping past a huge hole in the center of the stream, and that was what Nanci was aiming for. Once she was in about the right place, she spun the raft with the oars, and pointed it toward the right side of the tongue of smooth water heading down into the maelstrom, facing into the cauldron.

“All right!” she yelled to her customers. “Here we go!”

The trick was to catch the edge of the hole without getting sucked into it, and Nanci caught it perfectly. That didn’t keep the ride from being a rough and rearing one, pointed high at the blue desert sky one second and down at the muddy water the next. A wall of water crashed through the raft once, then again. To the passengers it must have seemed like the raft was bucking forever, but Nanci knew from many runs down this rapids that it couldn’t have been more than about a minute, although she wasn’t paying attention in detail. All she was aware of was that she’d made it past the big hole, and that all she needed to do was to keep the raft going straight as they plunged down the remainder.

In a way, it was over all too soon. It wasn’t long before Nanci drifted her raft up to the cluster of Canyon Tours rafts that waited below; everyone had made it, and made it safely, although everybody was thoroughly soaked. “See?” Preach said. “We told you we’d make it. Is everybody all right?”

Most everyone was, although there were still a few high heart rates. “All right,” he said. “What we’re going to do is to drift downstream here a little ways, to a beach where we usually stop to wring out after we’ve run Crystal. It’ll also be a good place for lunch. We’ll see some rapids over the rest of the day, but they’ll be tiddlers compared to that one. From here on out we’ll see rapids almost every day, and some of them will be on the bad side, but with one exception we’ve run the worst batch of them, and that’s several days away.”

It was probably half an hour before they pulled into a small beach at a place the Canyon Tours crew called “Baseball Man,” after an ancient Indian rock art painting in a niche well above the stream. Sometimes, if they were running a little ahead of schedule they led a short but mildly difficult hike up to the thing, but considering the fact that they had to cut something to make the schedule, this time they gave it a pass.

“This is kind of a special place to those of us at Canyon Tours,” Preach explained as they ate their lunch. “There’s a little water pocket up above the rock art, and that’s where Nanci’s mom and Al got married a few years ago. I was the one who performed the ceremony, which is why I came to the Canyon in the first place. I guess I got hooked on the place at the same time I got hooked on Crystal, and that’s why I’m here today. I’m perfectly satisfied with it, and I think God did pretty well by me with that one.”

Sarah had heard several versions of the story, but she knew to keep her mouth shut about it, mostly because she knew there was more to it than that. She also knew that this group wouldn’t be interested in the details, mostly because of the fact that Karin had been divorced at the time and some of these people didn’t care very much for that. It was a story that Nanci had told her the previous fall, and while everyone from Canyon Tours knew about it, it wasn’t exactly something for public consumption among the customers, either.

She looked around for Nanci, but she was nowhere to be seen. Sarah wondered about that a little bit, but realized that Nanci must have gone up to the water pocket by her herself, probably to pray.

Right from the beginning of the season, Sarah had been aware that Nanci usually took off by herself for a while each day, to go somewhere private to pray and contemplate. Sometimes it was early in the morning while the coffee was brewing and breakfast was making; occasionally it was at a rest stop or a short hike, and sometimes it was in the evening while dinner was under way, or before or after the campfire. It really wasn’t a big deal because Sarah did it herself, and the rest of the crew usually sought a few minutes alone for the same reason. It was no different on this trip.

But on this trip something was a little different. Once they were below the big rapids of Upper Granite Gorge, Sarah slowly became aware that Nanci was getting a little morose and out of sorts. It was no big thing, but she was less contemplative and thoughtful than normal for her, and it seemed as if she spent more time off by herself praying and was a little less friendly than usual. It didn’t seem to be enough to be any big thing, and Sarah figured she was just going through a bad spot she didn’t want to talk about, so decided to not say anything about it.

One of the reasons that the Christian trips always were on the Friday-start schedule was that it would give the crew two Sundays on the river. The first Sunday was on the upper river, usually within a few miles of Redwall Cavern. Preach gave a somewhat simplified Sunday service, and they got on the river later than usual. There was no taking the day off, because they had a firm schedule to meet the pickup at Diamond Creek Wash, but they usually had a shorter than normal day’s run, and a better meal than usual at whatever campsite they wound up at that night.

The Saturday night before the second Sunday of this trip they were far down the river, only a few days from the trip being over. As usual, the group had needed a few days to pull together and become a team, but they had long since reached that point; there was more laughter now, and things somehow seemed to get accomplished more easily.

As people gathered around for the campfire that evening, Preach had an announcement. “Along in this part of the trip,” he told everyone, “it’s easy to lose track of what day it is. In fact, there is a logbook that trip leaders have to fill out every day, and I’m told it’s less to record things like the events of the trip, where we stopped, and any incidents than it is to just remind the trip leader of what day it is.

“Now with that much said,” he went on, “I feel I need to let you know that tomorrow is Sunday. We’re going to handle Sunday services tomorrow a little differently than we did last Sunday. We’re going to get up and get going about like we normally do, and we’ll have a brief prayer and lesson before we get going, like always. But rather than having a major service here, we’re going to stop at a very special spot for one of the crew members, Reverend Chladek, and she’s going to give the service there. Most of us on the crew have heard what she has to say before, and I think you’ll find it very inspirational. I know I always have, and I’ve heard her give it several times now. After that wraps up, we’ll have lunch and do a short hike afterwards, and then we’ll run on down the river until we stop for the night.”

With that, Preach bailed off into the program for the evening, which started out with a little local natural history, but soon drifted off into other areas, with a lot of audience participation, something Preach always liked to encourage, especially on this trip. It was an interesting discussion, and Sarah only slowly began to realize that Nanci wasn’t taking part in the proceedings. In fact, she was staying well back from the group, and wasn’t saying much of anything.

That seemed strange to Sarah; she usually was the one who helped Preach guide the discussion where he wanted it to go, and she knew that the two of them worked out the general direction they wanted to take before things got started.

Perhaps that was the reason the evening’s campfire activities broke up a little earlier than normal. By now, Sarah was beginning to realize that something was really wrong with her friend, and had no idea what to do about it. She looked around for Nanci afterwards, but didn’t find her until she went up to where their night gear had been laid out before dark, to find Nanci sitting on her sleeping bag, not saying anything, and obviously not praying, either.

“Nanci,” she said, “Is something wrong?”

“I’m afraid there is,” Nanci said soberly. “Sarah, please don’t be disappointed in me.”

“Why would I be disappointed in you?”

“I didn’t tell Preach, but I would have liked to have skipped doing the service tomorrow,” Nanci told her. “He’s come to expect it of me, and I guess I’ll have to do it, but I’d really rather not.”

“Why not, Nanci?” Sarah replied hoping to be a little supportive.

“Because I’m going to have to say some things that you may not like, and that you may not even comprehend,” Nanci replied. “Sarah, I know we’ve become very good friends in the last few months, and we’ve been through a lot. I know you’ve come to depend on me a lot in that time and I think you’re better for it. I’m just afraid that after I say what I have to say tomorrow, you won’t want to be friends with me any more, and if that happens I’m more worried for you than I am for me. I know what I am and I can live with it, but I don’t know if you can.”

“Nanci, can it actually be that bad?”

“Yes it can, Sarah. I’m afraid I may have allowed you to build up some illusions about me, and that tomorrow they’re going to be shattered. If we still have a friendship after that it will be fine with me, but I’m afraid we may not have that friendship.”

“Nanci, you make this sound pretty terrible.”

“It is pretty terrible,” Nanci sighed. “But it’s something I’ve had to learn to live with whether I like it or not. I just hope you’ll be able to live with it, too.”

“I don’t understand,” Sarah shook her head. “Can you tell me about it?”

“No, not now, I think. I’m in a down enough mood about it already, and I don’t want to make it worse. Let’s . . . let’s not talk about it right now. You’ll find out soon enough. In fact, we both will. Why don’t you get some sleep? I’m going to go down to the river, walk a ways downstream, and be by myself to pray. I don’t know how long I’m going to be.”

“Nanci, is this something I can help you with?”

“Not now. Ask me tomorrow night if you still want to talk to me at all.”

She got to her feet and started down toward the riverbank. Sarah thought about following her, but realized that whatever it was that was bothering her friend it had to be pretty serious, and maybe she did need some time alone to pray. For that matter, she realized she needed some time to pray herself, to lift her friend up in her troubles, and to ease her mind. There wasn’t a great deal of room at the campsite, but they were a little ways away from the rest of the crew, so she decided that where she was at was about as good a place as she was likely to find. She got down on her knees, and while she was quiet, she had a lot on her mind that she needed to put into God’s hands, and not all of it was about Nanci.

Eventually she felt like she’d said about all she had to say to the Lord, and perhaps had repeated herself a little too much. She still didn’t have a clue of why Nanci could be so troubled, but the fact that her friend seemed so deeply concerned for her was troubling of itself. After she was done she waited for Nanci to return from wherever she’d gone, but she still hadn’t returned when Sarah finally decided that she’d better get some sleep – tomorrow was beginning to look like it was going to be a long day.

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