Rapid Descent. Gwen Hunter

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      Blinking hard, Nell wiped her nose and stood. Silently, she touched the shoulder of the kayaker who had brought the boat in. It was Harvey, one of the guides who had made the trip up from the Pigeon to help in the search. His beard was beaded with river water, his hazel-gray eyes not meeting hers. His shoulder was cold through the dry suit he wore.

      “Thank you for bringing Joe’s boat in, Harvey.”

      He shook his head, staring across the river. “Shouldn’t ’a happened,” he mumbled.

      Nell laughed, a bleep of pain that she quickly smothered in the crook of her elbow, covering her mouth and chin. Her hand tightened on his arm as Joe’s image fluttered in her grief. “No. It shouldn’t have. If I’d seen the strainer in time, Joe wouldn’t be hurt somewhere on the river. He’d be here right now.”

      Harvey slanted his eyes at her, his expression guarded and grieving. Nell stepped back. Realized that he believed Joe was dead. He believed it completely. In his mind there was no hope for Joe. None at all.

      Nell dropped her hand as if his touch burned her.

      Picking up his boat and equipment as if the forty-pound kayak weighed nothing, Harvey walked off. Horrified, Nell watched him walk away.

      His helmet beneath one elbow, paddle to the side, Mike approached and hugged her, seeming not to notice her unyielding body or the tremors that coursed through her. He said, “We’re going back out soon as we can get up to the confluence put-in. We’ve got enough time to do a good search above and along the shores of the Long Pool. I’ll drive your RV and you ride with Claire.”

      A freckled, redheaded reporter jammed a microphone beneath Mike’s chin. “Are you Jedi Mike?” he asked, youthful exuberance in his tone.

      Another reporter, a petite brunette, shoved a mic in close as well and said, “Do you think the missing kayaker is still alive?”

      Claire pulled Nell away from the gathering throng of cameras and reporters. It was obvious that this new group didn’t know who Nell was. Not yet. The bob-haired reporter from the morning, Bailey something, was not with this crew.

      A third reporter elbowed past them and jogged to Mike, asking, “What are the feelings of the searchers? Are you any closer to finding the missing man?”

      Contempt on his face, Mike picked up Joe’s boat and angled away, leaving the path open for Nell and Claire to escape. He caught Nell’s eyes and jerked his head at Claire’s car, a clear order to get inside. Turning to the water, he shouted, “Elton! Let’s get the boats loaded up. Daylight’s wasting.”

      Walking backward, Nell saw the first reporter pivot in front of Mike, blocking his way. “Can you tell us what’s going on, out on the water?” the guy asked. “Have you seen any evidence of the missing boater?”

      Mike rounded on the hapless reporters and fixed them all with a furious glare. “We’re busting our humps, is what’s going on out on the river. Why don’t you get your lazy asses out there and help the hikers instead of getting in the way and asking damn-fool questions?” The reporters seemed to skitter into a group, as if seeking safety in numbers from the irate man.

      Elton stepped in and softly said, “Maybe I can help?” The reporters ganged up around him and threw questions at him fast and furiously while Mike and the other searchers and onlookers loaded up the boats. Still walking backward, Nell watched as Mike loaded Joe’s boat with the others and tied it down with twine in a complicated naval knot. She wanted the boat with her. But she knew Mike would take care of it.

      Nell slid into the passenger seat, and Claire started the little red car, pulling out while they were still buckling their seat belts. Silent, they drove from the takeout. Claire shot her a glance once the car reached the secondary road and said, “You’re still mad at me for getting that reporter to come by this morning, aren’t you?”

      Nell sighed and rubbed the bruised spot on her temple. It wasn’t as painful as it had been, the headache kept at bay by constant use of Tylenol and ibuprofen. “Not mad, Claire. It’s just that I’ve seen reporters on a bad SAR. I know how they get. They’ll give me until tomorrow before the innuendos turn into bald accusations.” She laid her head against the molded headrest.

      “They’re gonna accuse you of killing Joe and dumping him in the river. That what you’re saying?”

      Nell laughed, the tone desolate. “Yeah, Mama. That’s what I’m saying.”

      As if Nell’s use of the word Mama had been a shock to her, Claire fell silent and concentrated on driving. If Nell’d had the energy, she’d have worried about the look of concentration on her mother’s face. It always presaged trouble ahead or guilt for something already done.

      

      The radio squelched all afternoon, comments and orders and reports passed up and down the river. The hikers were in constant communication with the kayakers, checking around each boulder, inspecting downed trees with limbs in water and roots on land. In the current, the most experienced rescue volunteers checked out eddies that looked wrong. Eddies that might have been caused by a body in the water.

      Mike and his paddlers stabilized the Ranger raft with ropes attached to trees onshore, securing it over the zigzag current at the base of the Long Pool. Held in place, they dragged the bottom with a grappling hook, trying to snag whatever was down there, affecting the current. Nell, sitting in the RV, was so tense her stomach was in knots, a hot pain just below her breastbone. The thought of food still made her sick to the stomach and she turned down the offer of a bowl of soup from her mother and hot dogs from the rescue squad’s family members who kept the hospitality wagon open and running.

      By 6:00 p.m., the searchers had checked every rock and bit of shoreline upstream of the Long Pool and around it. Every strainer had been pulled from the river. Every eddy that looked wrong had been dredged. All were caused by trees or rocks that had shifted. Not by a body. They had methodically searched every possible location for Joe. And for his body.

      The shorelines farther downstream, in the deepest part of the canyon, would take another twelve hours or more to search as thoroughly. The call came over the radio to head in. It was impossible to make it back upstream. Most of the kayakers had brought overnight gear, but it wasn’t with them on the river where they could camp overnight; they had to make it to the takeout or the next support site at the O & W Bridge by sunset, get carted back to their gear and set up camp before total dark. They had less than two hours.

      

      Nell waited for the searchers at the put-in of the confluence of Clear Creek and the New River, sitting in the passenger chair of the RV cab, which Mike had brought in before he hit the water again. She watched the activity between the cracks of the closed RV curtains, kneading her fingers in anxiety.

      The put-in here, midway down the gorge, was a rough, unsophisticated version of the Burnt Mill Bridge put-in. It sported a bumpy, one-lane road that curled midway down from the plateau at the top, to the footpath that led the rest of the way down to the river. The so-called camping area was a gravel loop of the road. No picnic tables. No Port-a-Potties. Nothing but a ring of trees and several fire pits. The walk to the river was a steep, winding, downhill path on loose gravel, sandstone rock and trail-hard dirt.

      The press vans came and went, but only one or two reporters and cameramen took the long walk down to the water for footage. The auxiliary rescue squad showed up about six and parked their СКАЧАТЬ