It was quiet in the predawn hours. From the far side of the highway, Randy could hear the crash of the surf, and he figured on being out on it as soon as it was light enough to see. It was always a good way to greet the dawn, and he didn't get the chance to do it very often. It was still and quiet, and he found himself entranced by the flicker of flame from the alcohol stove as it sat on the picnic table, heating water for coffee. He was a little surprised that he was the only one up; the winter days were short.

Though he was lost in the stillness, he soon realized that he wasn't the only one up; he saw Trey crawling out of his tent, pull his jacket out after him and put it on while heading for the tumbledown outhouse out by the swamp. Since Trey was the only person he'd ever met who knew Myleigh down at Marienthal, Randy had a few questions he wanted to ask him, alone. This might be a good time, perhaps the best time, maybe the only chance. "Hey, Trey," he said in a loud whisper. "You want some coffee?"

"Sure, be glad to," he whispered in reply. "Back in a minute."

"Fine, I'll get some more water boiling."

In a couple minutes, Trey was sitting over on the other side of the table. "Sorry I faded out on you last night," he said. "I was getting tired."

"And you probably felt a little like the outsider," Randy said, understanding him perfectly. "It's happened to me on occasion, too."

"Yeah, but they're really a neat bunch of people. Just as friendly as hell, but a lot of it went over my head."

"If it's any consolation, some of it went over mine. It was just about as bad for Nicole, too. She only knows Crystal out of that gang. Instant coffee OK?"

"Sure, I don't mind," Trey smiled. "It's got to beat that stuff they put in MREs."

"You know, I've always enjoyed getting up early down here and watching the sun rise over the ocean," Randy said, opening a jar and spooning coffee into a couple of mugs. "But it's really strange to be with that crowd and be the first one up. Usually they get up early enough to wake up the roosters."

"You were going pretty good when I crashed, so you must have gone pretty late," Trey replied.

"Yeah, that may have something to do with it," Randy smiled, handing him a mug. "Here, this should be all right. I can dose it up if it's too weak."

"Smells good," Trey said, taking a small sip, more to test the temperature than anything else, Randy could tell. His own tasted pretty good, considering.

"Let me tell you, you get out with that gang in the summer, you don't get instant coffee," Randy laughed, keeping it down. He didn't want to wake anyone up, after all. "They take this big damn granite-ware pot, fill it with water, toss in a pound can of coffee, and boil it over this big noisy damn propane burner until you can float a horseshoe in it. They give you a sieve when you pour it, and it does strain out some of the grounds, but damn it'll wake you up in a hurry. That's assuming the roar of the propane burner hasn't already done the job."

"This trip just gets weirder and weirder," Trey laughed. "I mean, I figured I was going to be down here with surfers, fine. English lit PhDs, you don't really expect 'em, but fine. Professional musicians, fine . . ."

"But then add in a bunch of Grand Canyon raft guides," Randy finished the thought for him. "By then, it starts getting weird." This was going fine, he thought. He didn't want to hit Trey with the questions he wanted to ask right up front; best to get him loosened up a little first. If it involved telling some stories, so be it.

"It is getting on down toward the last thing I expected," Trey grinned. "I mean Al and Crystal and Scooter look the part, but Karin just doesn't strike me like that."

"Kind of surprised me, too," Randy explained, thinking that a lot had changed since he'd first come here five years ago. He'd met Karin for the first time early on that same trip. God, it seemed like forever! "But then, she's still learning the trade. Back when I first knew her, she was a suburban housewife, working as a corporate bookkeeper. Always business suits, high heels, like that. Well, she'd dress down to slacks and a blouse at home. Now, jeans and a T-shirt is normal. That really surprised me, and I even was kind of around the edges when it happened."

"I kind of got the impression that you'd run rafts in the Grand Canyon, too, sometimes."

"Not really," Randy said. "Oh, if things had gone differently, it would have been tempting, but it didn't work out that way. I did run the river once. I was on the oars most of the way except for the Roaring Twenties and the stuff around Hance and Sockdolager and like that. It's quite an experience. Looks like we're going to do it again this spring. Nicole and Myleigh have never been down, but I think they'll like it."

"Got that impression," Trey said. "Look, I don't want to sound snoopy, but what was that deal about Al and Karin finally getting married? Everybody seemed to know what the deal was but me, and I didn't want to sound stupid."

"You were talking weird, that takes the prize," Randy laughed. "It's really pretty simple. Weird, but simple. Karin ran the Canyon with Al back in the seventies, and they had a big Canyon romance. They never thought it would work out, so Karin figured it was time in her life to turn straight. She flew back home, hooked up with Pete, this guy she knew, and married him, all in a whirlwind romance. The thing is, she didn't know she was already pregnant with Crystal."

"Yeah," Trey smiled in the light of the fire from the stove. "That could complicate things."

"Karin kept the secret until a year ago last fall," Randy went on. "Well, Pete got grumpy as he got older -- I won't go into the details -- and basically drove Crystal out of the house back while I was still in college, so she started roaming. Her summer job in college had been a raft guide up on the Ocoee in Tennessee, and she knew rafts. After a while, she hit the Canyon, and wound up working for Al at Canyon Tours."

"And she didn't know he was her father?"

"Right," Randy smiled. "I told you it was weird. Anyway, a year ago last fall Crystal invited me to run with her. I drove out to Flag, and went out to Lee's on the crew bus, sort of as a swamper, even though I was paying. We got everything rigged, and here Karin steps off the customer bus. Seems she'd finally had her fill of Pete, who'd also pretty much run Crystal's brother out of the house by then, too. She decided she wanted to reconnect with Crystal, so she signed up for a trip. And there sat Al. Believe me, Trey, you think you and Myleigh showing up here was a coincidence, that wasn't even a warm-up."

Trey took a sip of his coffee. "And the romance got going again?"

"Yeah, but it wasn't that simple," Randy went on. "Al got married not long after Karin ran with him back in the seventies, and his wife had died earlier in that same summer Karin and I ran with them. He was still pretty wiped out." He sighed for a second. Knowing Al now, it was hard to remember just how bummed he'd been. It had been his first trip since Louise's death; Crystal and Scooter had basically told him to get his ass back in the Canyon where it belonged -- it could heal him if anything could. But Trey didn't need to know that; Randy wasn't really supposed to know but Crystal had let it slip one time. "Trey, what happened next went on right under my damn nose. You get out in a group like that and it's hard to keep secrets, but I never even got a whiff of what was going on. We got down to the last night before we hit the take out at Diamond Creek when Crystal told me that Karin had come clean with her and Al, and that there was a new romance going on." He let out another sigh. "It's a lot more complicated than that, and I don't know some of the details, anyway. It took a while for Karin to get her divorce settled, but yeah, Crystal's mom and dad are getting married next spring. Canyon wedding too, way the hell down in the heart of Upper Granite Gorge." He paused for a second, wondering if he should say this. Oh, hell, revealing a confidence might loosen Trey up. "Nobody's ever told me, but putting two and two together tells me it had to have been the place where they got laid the first time."

"Hell of a place for a wedding," Trey smiled.

"Oh, it's quite a place," Randy said. "I've been there. Let me tell you Trey, if you ever get the chance, take the trip, and these are the best people to do it with. It isn't cheap, but you'll spending the best two and a half weeks of your life. It is absolutely the most awesome damn place on earth."

"Myleigh's going, too, right?"

"Yeah, she and I are going to do the music," Randy laughed. "Celtic harp and bass guitar, that's going to be a duet for you. We worked on it some last week, and it actually sounds pretty good."

"How'd you wind up playing bass guitar?" Trey asked curiously, "Or, was that just something that sort of happened?"

Randy laughed. "Well I thought it was something that just sort of happened, and it took a while to remember that it's not often that things 'just sort of happen' when Jennifer and Blake are involved."

"Sounds to me like another story," Trey laughed.

"Oh, I used to play with Myleigh back when I was at NMU," Randy said. "That was a regular guitar, not the bass. Just fooling around, but she was so much better than me it wasn't funny. Still is. Anyway, I went home that summer, and Blake and Jennifer live just up the street. I knew Blake pretty good from some other stuff we do, so one day I asked him if he could help me out with the guitar." He took another sip of coffee, and went on, "Blake is a damn good teacher, and I picked it up pretty good. Well a couple years later, along in the winter the construction business got pretty slow, and I got pretty bored sitting at home alone with nothing to do but go work out with Blake and the gang. I happened to mention it to him one time. He said, 'Why don't you come over tomorrow and we'll dink around with some guitars in the basement?' Anything sounded good at the time so I went over the next day, and he stuck this bass guitar in my hand. Before you know it, he and Jennifer and I were down there, wailing away with Pipeline, which has a great bass guitar solo on lead. It kind of got me hooked, and I spent quite a bit of time playing with them the next couple months."

"That must have been fun, especially with someone like them."

"Oh, yeah, it was. You have to understand, Jennifer was my babysitter when I was real little. We lived right up the street, not the same place she and Blake live now, so I have a hard time thinking of her as Jenny Easton. Which is fine with her, that's how she wants it. Anyway, like I said, Blake is a pretty good teacher. I'm told Jennifer couldn't do much more than strum a guitar when she met him, and now you can make the argument that she's about the best female picker in the business."

"She's pretty damn good, that's for sure."

"She is," Randy agreed. "Anyway, I didn't quite realize that something else was going on, that she wanted to set up her own band, mostly a bunch of locals who could serve as a studio band, but play the odd date, maybe. They'd played with Shovelhead for years, just for fun, then Myleigh, after I introduced her, at least when she could get there, and Bob once in a while. Bob is damn good, a natural musician, but he doesn't live close by and is real busy on his job, so he can't get up to play with us very often. Blake usually played bass guitar when Bob was there but lead or rhythm when he wasn't. That was getting to be a pain in the butt, so they decided they needed another bass guitar. I got volunteered without realizing it. They added the band teacher at the high school for percussion on some of the cuts of Back Porch, but Blake did some of them and the keyboard. That's pretty much the story of the Boreal String Band, and I didn't even know we were a band or had a name until Back Porch came out with the name on the label."

"I think it sounds pretty darn good," he said. "I saw that Great Performances show, and that was a lot of fun." He shook his head. "That was something. In class the Friday before that, Dr. Harris -- uh, Myleigh -- told us to watch the thing, and she said it in a way that we all figured it was an assignment. Hell, I figured Macbeth or something. Then, when Jenny Easton came on, I figured she'd gotten the schedule wrong. I just about shit when I saw her in the middle of the band. Hell, I didn't know she even played the radio, if you know what I mean."

Couldn't ask for a better opening, Randy thought. Hell, I thought it was going to be hard. Keep it easy, now. "You don't really know her that well, then?"

"Not really," Trey explained. "Look, Randy, were you ever in the Army?"

"Never. I've seen a few war films, and one of my best friends is a retired master sergeant. Jennifer's dad, in fact."

"Well, it's like this. There's officers, there's troops, and they're not supposed to be friendly with each other. At Marienthal, Myleigh is an officer and I'm a troop. Maybe everybody doesn't quite look at it that way, but after four years in the Army, that's how I think. That's why I have trouble not calling her 'Dr. Harris.' It's sort of like calling a lieutenant 'Bob' instead of 'Sir.' It just isn't done. Try it and you get your butt chewed."

Randy nodded. "Yeah, I think I see," he said. "Myleigh told Nicole and me that you'd sat and listened to her talk about her feelings the night after the concert."

"It was just that once," Trey told him, looking a little uncomfortable. OK, there were limits, Randy realized. "That was really quite an evening. Look, I'm a theater arts minor, and I sort of volunteered to be her stage manager without telling her. You know, handle the lights, the sound. We were expecting maybe twenty people, maybe thirty, and it was just going to be a real informal deal in the chamber music room. Then all these damn people showed up! It turned out Dr. Hamilton, the college president, had heard about it and spread it all over campus. Myleigh was pretty uptight, but Randy, she went out there and knocked 'em dead. Look, I don't want to take anything away from you and Jennifer and the band, but they could have taped that show for Great Performances, and it was all done off the cuff."

"Laid 'em right out, huh?" Randy grinned. It was getting lighter now; he could see Trey smile in the dawning light, not just the light of the little cook stove.

"I never saw anything like it," Trey reported. "Like I said, I'm a theater arts minor. I've been around performances, even been around some pretty good concerts, but damn, that just rocked. Anyway, it was wild, and I guess she was a little hyper after it was over with. She wasn't expecting anything like the reaction she got, and while she felt pretty good about it, she was a little puzzled about what it meant for her. She and I got to talking about it and wound up over a beer and a pizza."

"I kinda know how that feels," Randy snickered for a moment. Yeah, Trey was pushing the limits. Myleigh had probably asked him to keep the conversation confidential, and Randy wasn't going to push that confidence. Best to get away from it a little, he thought. "We never actually have gotten around to giving a live, uncontrolled concert with the band, but back last fall the local high school only had seven girls go out for girls' basketball, all younger ones at that, but they had the best coach I've ever seen. They kicked butt all season long. The local sportswriter wrote a column calling them 'The Magnificent Seven.' So, when they headed off to the state quarterfinals, they had a pep rally. Jennifer and Blake and Shovelhead and I took every amp and speaker in Jennifer's place that wasn't bolted down. Let me tell you, that's a bunch of stuff. Of course, The Magnificent Seven has got that great bass guitar lead. I was really wailing, and we just about took the roof off the gym. Then the crowd just about took the roof off after that. I was kind of hoping they would, Clark Construction probably would have gotten the contract to rebuild it. It makes you feel pretty good, to reach people that much."

"She said it could get pretty addictive," Trey commented obliquely.

"I imagine it could," Randy agreed, stopping to think for a second. Trey certainly wasn't a close friend of Myleigh, maybe not even a friend, but an acquaintance she could be friendly with. It wasn't what he'd hoped, but it was something. It was a foot in the door, and maybe if they could share some good times down here, it might push the door open a little more. From what he knew of Trey, he was OK, although he really didn't know very much about him. He did seem like a decent enough guy; he was polite, and pretty self-disciplined, obviously. And, he apparently had a lot of respect for Myleigh. That counted for a lot in his book. He knew he couldn't do much that was overt, but he could be friendly with Trey down here and hope that Myleigh would get the message that he thought Trey could be a friend. That was about all he could do, though. Well, there was one thing . . .

"Look, I know I'm probably stepping out of line to say this, but I've known Myleigh a long time," he continued, weighing his words carefully. He wasn't trying to set them up, after all, just trying to help develop someone Myleigh could feel at ease with down in Marienthal. Trey was a senior and wouldn't be around that much longer, but if he'd read Myleigh correctly back up in Spearfish Lake, that was more than she had now. "I probably know her better than anyone but Crystal, and maybe even better in a few ways. Myleigh is a very strong person and can be very hard headed. But she can also be a very fragile person, and it's usually hard to tell when she's near the limits. She's too good at covering up how she really feels, and she's not one to ask for help if she thinks she can handle something herself. I really appreciate your helping her out the other night. I know you don't know her very well, but if you could help her out again some time when she needs it, well, I'd appreciate it, too."

"You didn't have to ask," Trey said. "I'd do it anyway."

"Amazing woman, isn't she?"

Trey shook his head. "Most amazing I've ever met," he agreed.

Randy nodded his head. "Me, too," he sighed. "And the list includes Nicole and Jennifer."

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