Whatever plan Preach may have had for the rest of the evening campfire activities went out the window, as if there was a window to throw it out of in the first place. The two testimonies on the same day took a lot out of everyone, and while there were some individual discussions, the general consensus of opinion was to wind up things early.

Somewhere in there Sarah had agreed to join Nanci, sleeping on the raft, and they weren’t alone in that idea; Kevin was on the raft next to them, so in spite of the fact that Nanci felt desperately tired, the three of them wound up talking for a while.

“I’m sorry, Sarah,” Nanci said. “I never had an inkling of all of that you talked about tonight, but it gives me a lot better idea of who you are, and why you’ve been the way you’ve been.”

“I’m sorry I felt like I had to cover it up,” she replied, “but it’s very hard to talk about, just like you must find it hard to talk about what your life was like before you came to the Grand Canyon. Tonight was the first time I’ve ever said much of anything about it to anyone but my mother and father, and I don’t think I would have been able to do it if I hadn’t had your example to follow.”

“It wasn’t easy for me, either,” Nanci told her. “Up there at Havasu Creek is the only place I’ve ever been able to tell the story, and it’s another reason why it’s such a special place to me. But I can see why you felt like you needed to keep the story bottled up inside you.”

“Maybe it’s better that you hauled it out into the open,” Kevin suggested. “Keeping something like that bottled up is just going to eat at you. When you have it out in the open and you have friends you can share it with, it takes out some of the pain.”

“Yes,” Sarah shook her head. “But I never had any friends until Nanci came along, and I guess I was like her in that I didn’t want to burden a friend with my troubles. My parents knew about it and we could, uh, talk about it without having to talk about it, if you know what I mean. We all knew what we were talking about even if we didn’t say it. They were there, they knew why I had the problem. It’s been hard to not have them in my life, but they felt their mission was more important, I guess.”

“I’ve only heard a little bit about that,” Kevin said. “They must be very dedicated to their mission.”

“It’s all they’ve dreamed about since we had to leave the country,” Sarah shook her head. “I think they’re out of their minds, but it’s what they want to do.”

“Unlike the escape,” Nanci said, “I’ve heard about this part of the story before. Look, you two. I didn’t get much sleep last night and I’m very tired. I’m going to lie down and see if I can get some catching up done. If the two of you want to sit up and talk, it’s fine with me, but I’m going to tune out.”

“I wouldn’t mind talking about it, if you’d like to, Sarah,” Kevin said, “but maybe it would be a good idea if you were to come over to my raft. We can get down and in, and keep our voices down so we don’t disturb Nanci.”

“You know, Kevin, that sounds like a good idea. I really am wound up a little bit about it and would welcome talking it out with you.”

“Just keep it down, you two,” Nanci replied as she unzipped her sleeping bag. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

As usual it was barely light in the eastern sky when Nanci awoke.

She felt a little on the strange side, because she hadn’t gotten very used to sleeping on her raft this year, even though she’d gotten used to sleeping in strange and sometimes uncomfortable circumstances in the Canyon. She unzipped her sleeping bag and sat up before she realized what was wrong: Sarah wasn’t with her.

For the last month and a half they’d slept within a few feet of each other, and now as awareness slowly came over her Nanci remembered that Sarah had planned to sleep next to her on the raft that night, but she was nowhere to be seen.

But then she remembered Sarah and Kevin sitting quietly on the next raft the night before, talking softly, usually too softly to be heard. Nanci quickly grabbed her river clothes, pulled her sweat shirt on over her tankini top and her jeans over her legs, then got up to pull her pants up and glanced over at Kevin’s raft. There the two of them were, sound asleep, obviously close together, but just as obviously with the two sleeping bags not zipped together. Nanci thought she had to have been pretty far out of it for Sarah to not bother her when she got her sleeping bag and pad, and also figured that the two of them must have found lots to talk about, maybe even after they got into their sleeping bags.

I sure hope they enjoyed themselves, she thought as she sat on the raft tube to pull on her socks and river shoes. She started to wake them up, but thought better of it at the last instant; if they had gone late, they would probably appreciate an extra few minutes of sleep.

Five days later they were at Diamond Creek, loading the trailer and the bus for the trip back to Flagstaff. The last days of the trip had gone well, with one minor exception that no one but Nanci seemed to note. The next to last night out, Brett and one of the single women on the trip had gone on a long hike together, no one but the two of them. She had every idea of what that meant, Christian trip or not.

Other than that one incident, the rest of the trip was memorable. Sarah didn’t have much more to say about what had happened when she and her family escaped Rwanda, but no one pressed her on it. Nanci’s testimony, though, appeared to reach a lot of people, and she drew several lessons out of it around the campfires and in the teachings the rest of the way down the river.

The trip ended, as always, with a steak dinner a few miles above Diamond Creek, and there were several new friendships that had been made on the river. Though Nanci knew that she most likely would never see any of those new friends again, she was sure she’d made an impact on their lives – and they had made an impact on her, as well.

The ride back to Flagstaff from Diamond Creek Wash was as long and dull as usual. Most of the White Team was on the Canyon Tours bus and finding good places to catch up on their naps hardly before the charter bus with the customers was out of sight, and Nanci was among them. As she settled in, she noticed that Kevin and Sarah were sharing the same seat, not that it was surprising; they’d spent a lot of time together in the last days on the river. They seemed to be building a pretty good friendship, and Nanci was glad for her friend – she needed to have close friends besides her.

Crystal was aboard the bus, of course. She almost always made the trips to Lee’s Ferry and Diamond Creek or South Cove with the bus to give her a few more hours with her husband, and she had Bucky with her in a baby carrier, of course – that much was normal, too. Angie was in one of the front seats or standing on the steps of the bus as well, talking with Dan; they always seemed to find things to talk about.

Nanci had a good, solid nap as they rode up the highway; only when the bus slowed and got onto the city streets of Flagstaff did the subtle change in motion bring her to something approaching wakefulness. She was halfway awake and looking to get down to the unloading and maintenance that would have to be done before she could go over to Al and her mother’s place so she could have the shower she’d been looking forward to for days.

The bus pulling the trailer loaded with rafts finally came to a stop in front of the shop. Home at last, Nanci thought as Dan opened the doors and people started pulling themselves together to get off; she hardly noticed the heavy-set man waiting for them to arrive.

Angie got off the bus first; she had been standing on the steps. Preach and Crystal, who was carrying Bucky, followed her. Kevin was next, and then Sarah, with Nanci behind her.

Sarah was no more than off the bus when the man grabbed her arm, yanked her to the side, and pushed her back up against the bus. There was a whack as he hit her in the face. “You should know better than to try to hide from me, you little slut!” he yelled loud enough for everyone on the bus to hear him.

Oh, crap! Nanci thought. That has to be Abraham Bowman! How did he manage to follow us here?

“You were promised to me by your parents!” Bowman yelled. “I’m not going to allow you to run away from me again!”

Nanci tried to move to get between Bowman and Sarah, but didn’t get the chance; out of the corner of her eye she noticed that Crystal had handed the baby carrier to Angie, grabbed Bowman by the arm and spun him around to face her. “You leave her alone,” Crystal said ominously.

“You stay out of this, bitch,” Bowman snarled. “This is between me and Sarah. She’s to be mine, not out in the wilderness with a bunch of heathens!”

“Look, you idiot,” Crystal said, even more threateningly, “What Sarah does is her business. She’s an adult, and you’re the one trespassing on private property. Now, you have three choices. You can walk out of here, you can crawl out of here, or you can be carried out of here.”

“I don’t have to put up with shit like that from anyone, especially from a woman. If I leave Sarah is going with me. Now get your hand off me,” he yelled, taking a swing at Crystal the best he could with his free hand.

What happened next was almost too quick to follow; Crystal had a karate black belt, and had been working out at a dojo in town to get back into shape after Bucky’s birth. In something less than five seconds Bowman was on the ground, with a couple of bones at awkward angles, bruised and bleeding, struggling and crying out in pain.

He wasn’t the only one howling; Bucky was making a fuss as well. “Somebody call the cops,” Crystal ordered flatly, then took her son from the baby carrier Angie was holding, held him up against her shoulder, and murmured, “There, there, Bucky boy. It’s all right, Mommy took care of the mean old man.”

Nanci looked up, worried about Sarah, to discover that her friend was sitting on the steps of the bus, while Kevin opened the first aid kit usually carried next to the driver. “That’s Bowman, huh?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Sarah sighed.

“He doesn’t look like a hippopotamus to me,” Nanci grinned. “More like a walrus.”

“They don’t have walruses in Africa,” Sarah said. “I guess he must have found out we were here somehow.”

“She’s mine!” Bowman cried from the ground. “She’s supposed to belong to me. Her parents said so!”

“Look, you damn fool,” Crystal said with a voice not any less threatening than before, despite the fact that she was holding Bucky in her arms. “Sarah is her own person and she doesn’t belong to anyone. She especially doesn’t belong to you. Now, you stay down there on the ground and be quiet, because if you try to get up and I have to hand Bucky off to someone else again, you’re really going to be hurting!”

“But her parents gave her to . . . oof!” he said as Crystal’s hiking boot connected with his ribs.

“Like I said, if I have to put my baby down again, you’re going to be the one to feel the pain,” Crystal sneered.

“Crystal, do you think I ought to take a look at him?” Preach asked.

“Naw, I haven’t hurt him that bad, at least not yet. Save your EMT stuff for Sarah.”

“Fine with me,” he said, turning to Sarah, who Kevin was already looking after. “Any problems there, Kevin?” he asked.

“She’s going to bruise a little but I don’t see any bleeders,” Kevin replied. “I’m sorry, Sarah. That happened so fast there wasn’t time for me to do anything, but I’m sure glad Crystal decided to brush up on her karate to get back into shape after she had Bucky.”

“I am, too,” Preach said. “I learned a long time ago that it’s not a good idea to tangle with her. You’d better put some topical antibiotic on it. Sarah, you’ll be all right, but you probably ought to have Nanci or Karin find you a little makeup to cover that bruise before we meet the next batch of customers.”

“You can’t do this to me!” Bowman howled. “I’m a minister.”

Crystal was turning to hand Bucky to Angie again when Brett stepped up. “The lady done told you to be quiet,” he said in a voice that reeked of John Wayne, or better, Gary Cooper. “You ain’t no minister, you’re a sack of horse shit. Now you settle the hell down or I’ll have to deal with you, and you ain’t gonna like it if I do.” It was pretty close to the longest speech anyone had ever heard him make.

A city police car showed up within a couple of minutes. “We got a problem here, folks?” the policeman said.

“I want that woman arrested!” Bowman yelled from the ground, where both Brett and Crystal were keeping a close eye on him. “She hit me for no reason at all, and then she kicked me!”

“Is that what happened?” the cop said, recognizing bluster when he saw it.

“I hit him,” Crystal admitted. “But only after he hurt Sarah over there on the steps to the bus, and then took a swing at me. I will press charges, and I’m pretty sure she will, too.”

The cop turned to Sarah. “That true, miss?” he asked.

“You bet. He’s been stalking me for months. I’ve tried to avoid him, but I guess I didn’t this time. I’m more than ready to press charges on him.”

“Add trespassing to that,” Crystal said. “This is private property.”

“It’s not like that at all,” Bowman protested. “That woman made an unprovoked attack on me! I’m a minister, and you ought to believe me.”

The cop turned and bent over. “Look, loudmouth,” he said. “You may or may not be a minister, but I’ll see you a minister and raise you one. Reverend Whittaker, did this joker take a swing at this lady before your wife had to put him down?”

“Sure did,” Preach grinned.

He turned to Nanci. “Reverend Chladek, is that how you saw it?”

“Yes, and what Sarah said about him stalking her is true, too.”

“Then I guess I’d better be taking him on a trip downtown,” the cop said, reaching for his handcuffs. “Reverend Chladek, are you going to be preaching at our church this weekend?”

“I don’t know, I haven’t had the chance to talk to Reverend Miller yet.”

It took Brett and Kevin’s help for the cop to get Bowman into the cage in the back of the patrol car. He was protesting every inch of the way, claiming to be a minister so they couldn’t do this to him, interspersed with claims that Sarah was his and she had to do what he said. He was still making a racket in the patrol car after the cop closed the door and turned to the Canyon Tours people standing around. “I know the judge is out of town,” he said. “So whatever else happens, he ought to be on ice until Monday. It’s not my decision to make, but I’ll recommend a seventy-two hour psychiatric hold on him, too.”

“How about a seventy-two year psychiatric hold?” Sarah said. “My folks used to know him and I met him a couple of times when I was younger. He was pretty bad then, but he’s a lot worse now.”

“I’m afraid it doesn’t work like that, ma’am,” he replied. “Not saying that it shouldn’t be that way, but it’s not the way it is. I’m afraid I’m going to have to have you all file statements. We can either get it out of the way now or you can come down to the station in the morning.”

“Let’s do it now and get it out of the way,” Preach suggested. “Coming down to the station tomorrow is going to come out of our days off, not that anyone here will complain.”

“Fine with me, but let me take him in and book him,” the cop said. “I don’t want him bleeding in the back of the car any more than necessary. It’s a pain in the tail to clean up blood with all the bio-hazard stuff we have to deal with, and I suppose they’ll have to have a paramedic come down and look at him.”

“Be our guest,” Preach said. “We’ve still got to unload and get stuff done before we can take off.”

“I could meet you at the Burro,” the policeman offered.

“I’m afraid I have to tell you that this crew isn’t much for hanging around the Burro,” Preach grinned. “But we’ll be here for a couple of hours anyway.”

“Yeah, let’s get it done so it’s over with,” Angie sighed. “Sarah, with that bruise you’re getting you probably shouldn’t be the one to show Herbie how to clean the rocket boxes, so I’ll do it. The sooner that’s done, the sooner it’ll be over with, too.”

Three hours later, the White Team was sitting around on chairs and lounges in Preach and Crystal’s back yard, after having long-awaited showers and in clean clothes. Al and Karin had joined them. All the statements had been taken, and their friendly policeman said that Bowman wasn’t happy about being in jail, but tough luck.

Under the circumstances, no one had been very anxious to go out for dinner, so Al had sprung for a stack of pizzas and some containers of drinks, which were now a pile of trash sitting on a nearby table. “Sarah, I’m sorry,” Al said. “He came into the office the other day looking for you. I had no idea of who he was or the problems you were having with him, so I told him you’d be off the river today. I thought he was just passing through, so I probably said more than I should have.”

“It’s all right, Al,” she said. “You didn’t know. I’m just glad Crystal was with us.”

“I really hated to do that,” Crystal said, “but sometimes it has to be done. I’ve only had to get into a deal like that once since that former boyfriend of Nanci’s took a swing at her in front of me back in Chicago, and boy, that was a long time ago.”

“Yeah, it was,” Nanci sighed. “Another lifetime, and no fooling on that.”

“So what happens now?” Sarah shook her head. “Nanci helped me to avoid him back at Christmas, then on spring break, and then here up until now. Al, you’ve been very nice to me, but I don’t want to have to run away again.”

“I can’t say,” Al shrugged. “I can say that you’ll be on the river again, or close to it, before he goes in front of the judge, so whatever else happens you’re safe for another two weeks. I know who he is now, and if he’s hanging around the shop when you guys come off the river next time, I’ll have a couple of cops there waiting. If not that, some friends of mine will be there. I will make sure you’re protected, whatever happens.”

“Thank you, Al,” she sighed. “But now, I don’t think I’ll be able to go back to Hickory Run, knowing that he’ll know to look for me there.”

“The best thing I can tell you is to not get the cart too far in front of the horse,” he advised. “In fact, I’d be willing to bet a penny or two that he’s going to be downtown for the next few months, so all you can do is wait and see. How did that joker get so hung up on you, anyway?”

“I don’t know,” she sighed. “I’m sure my parents are involved somehow. They’re supposed to be big friends with him, and they kept pressing me to get involved with him, which shows what part of their bodies they have their heads stuck up. I never liked him, even when I was a little girl, so I have no idea of what they saw in him. I’ll tell you what, I would never come near a man like that on a bet. You saw how he thinks a woman is supposed to be treated.”

“Yeah, that’s pretty clear,” Kevin spoke up. “Look, Sarah, I’m with Al. I’ll do what I have to do to see that you’re protected. There’s no reason you ought to have to put up with someone like that, no matter what your parents think.”

“I really hate to say it, because my parents used to mean a lot to me, but they lost my respect when they started pushing that Bowman jerk at me last winter,” she shrugged. “I can’t believe they would abandon me to someone like that, but I guess they think they know better. That proves just how much they know. I hate to lose my parents, but if they’re going to do something like that I guess I’m better off without them.”

“Have you heard anything from your parents since they left for Africa?” Preach asked.

“No, not a word,” Sarah sighed. “In fact, Nanci and I never actually heard that they left. She talked to the lay leader of the church in Huntington, and he told her that they’d left. I haven’t heard a word since, no letter, not even a voicemail on my phone. So I’ve been abandoned, and I know it.”

“So, if you don’t feel you can go back to Hickory Run, what are you going to do?” Kevin asked.

“I don’t know, Kevin. I truly don’t. I guess it’s like Al says, I’m going to have to wait and see. If Nanci goes back to Hickory Run I may not be able to go with her, and I have no other place I can go.”

“That’s not true,” Al said. “Look, if you can’t come up with something else, you wouldn’t be the first girl around this patio we’ve taken in who had no place to go. We can always use swampers on the fall trips, and once the season ends I can probably find something else for you to do.”

“But Al, I can’t ask that of you. I’m not Nanci, I’m not related to you or anything.”

“Nanci wasn’t related to me when I took her down the river the first time, although she was only a few days away from it,” Al smiled. “And I was actually referring to Angie, and not to Nanci anyway. Sarah, you have proved to me that you’re a good and honest person and a hard worker. I think that’s worth my extending a hand, or maybe making a few phone calls, but you are not in a position where you have no place to go if things turn sour on you.”

None of the members of the White Team ever took their cell phones down to Lee’s Ferry with them, mostly because they knew there was no place they would be able to use them for the next two weeks. But Crystal took hers, just in case she had to get in touch with the office for some reason before the team got on the river again.

She was sitting in the shade, with Bucky in his baby carrier, listening to the orientation and quietly wishing that she were giving it like she’d done for years before she’d had to leave the river to work in the office and become a mother. Preach was just finishing up the general orientation when her cell phone rang. It was always an irritation since her mind was elsewhere, but she knew it might be important so she answered it. It proved to be her father, and he had some welcome news for her.

It wasn’t a good idea to interrupt the orientation, but in the confusion as customers repacked their gear into the dry bags, she called Preach, Nanci, Kevin, and Sarah over. They all gathered in a small group in the shade as she said, “Dad called a few minutes ago. Sarah, Bowman got bound over for trial. He tried to pull that ‘I’m a minister’ stuff on the judge, but he didn’t buy it. He got bond set at thirty big ones.”

“So does that mean he’s out of jail?” Sarah asked with a worried expression; the makeup she was wearing covered most of the bruising on her face, but not all of it.

“Naw,” Crystal grinned. “He’s broke. I mean, he’s destitute. Well, he appears to have a few hundred bucks, but that’s all, and Dad says he lives in some rental place at wherever it is he’s studying Chinese. He doesn’t own anything a bail bondsman would take for collateral except his car, which is a piece of junk. Dad said he said he doesn’t know anyone who he could ask either, except maybe for your parents.”

“I sincerely doubt if they could raise the money either, even if they weren’t in Rwanda,” she grinned.

“Something like that,” Crystal smiled, “and if he sits in the Coconino County slammer too long he’s not even going to have the car after Al had it towed to the county impound lot Friday. They charge a storage fee, I’m told. Sarah, nothing is certain in this life, but Dad is pretty sure that Bowman is going to have three hots and a cot at the jail until he goes to trial. So you’re safe for now, but I’ll plan on making sure he’s still a guest of the county before I pick you up in two weeks. If he’s out, which I doubt, we’ll make other arrangements.”

“Crystal,” she sighed, “I’m very relieved to hear that.”

“Sarah, it’s like Dad said up in our back yard Thursday. You’re part of Canyon Tours now, and we take care of each other, so don’t you forget it.”

This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.