14. Silas
FOURTEEN
SILAS
Rowan refuses to tell me where we’re going, but when we’re approaching Riverside Outfitters, I know this isn’t going to be a chill hiking day.
We’re greeted by a guy who seems to be either hypercaffeinated or the human version of the Energizer bunny.
“Rowan. Dude! I thought I had to fake my death and put up a notice just to see you at my funeral.”
“Not that he’s being dramatic about it, or anything.
” The words come from a tall guy walking past us carrying a load of wetsuits.
He stops, places a kiss on the first guy’s head, and then turns to us.
“Good to see you, Rowan. And you must be Silas,” he says, turning to me.
“I’m Huxley, but everyone calls me Hux. This little dude here is Chris. ”
The shorter guy must be the Chris from Riverside Outfitters who Tess mentioned.
I don’t know what I expected exactly from the man who proposed a phallic gourd competition at a community festival, but someone who might blow away if the wind gets too high was not it.
He greeted Rowan like they’ve known each other for years, and I’m not going to deny it makes me a little jealous. I know Rowan has other friends, but I’ve never met anyone who’s this friendly.
“Silas,” he says, extending his hand. “We finally meet. Rowan talks about you constantly.”
“Nothing good, I hope,” I say.
“Mostly good,” Chris says. “The rest is entertaining.”
Rowan grins beside me, entirely unrepentant.
The store is exactly what you’d expect from a place called Riverside Outfitters. It’s all organized chaos, with every surface occupied by equipment in various states of preparation. The smell of neoprene, river water, and coffee somehow tracks.
The wall behind the checkout counter is covered in photographs of people in rafts, faces caught mid-rapids, with expressions ranging from exhilaration to what can only be described as regret.
I scan them quickly and find Rowan in three of them.
There are also photos of people climbing, cycling through some kind of forest, and skydiving.
All of a sudden, my interest in today’s activities rises. I’m not an adrenaline junkie, but I can’t remember the last time Rowan and I did any kind of radical sport. This couldn’t have come at a more perfect time, because I need to burn some energy.
“Hux will take you out today,” Chris says, handing us each a wetsuit. “He’ll run you through the briefing on the water. It’s a full day, so you’ll have lunch on the river.” To me, he asks, “First time?”
“First time what?”
“White water rafting,” Rowan says, with the biggest grin. Excitement radiates from him like he’s going to burst if we don’t get moving.
“It’s my first time,” I confess, “but I’ve always wanted to do it.”
“You’ll be fine,” Chris says. “You seem like you’re in great shape, and Hux will look after you.”
Chris runs through what the day will involve while Hux stares at Chris as if this is the first time he’s hearing this information.
Hux is tall, broad, with the kind of outdoors tan that shows he’d wilt like a sad flower if he had to have an office job.
Intro spiel over, we load into an old van, and Hux takes us out of Pine Ridge.
Other than when he introduced himself earlier, he seems the quiet type.
Rowan talks for the three of us, mostly telling me about other times he’s done this same tour with Hux.
Apparently, Chris doesn’t like being in water, but he’s an expert climber.
He and Chris balance tour days with managing the store.
When we get to base camp, we change into our wetsuits. As Rowan does his suit up, I think about the version of his life I’ve been missing.
I’ve been avoiding this for years, not knowing how much I missed by trying to protect my heart and stay away from Vaughn.
“Ready?” Rowan asks.
“Do we leave our stuff here?”
“Yes. Chris will meet us at our destination.”
We practice the commands in the calm water near the bank. Forward, back, hold on. The raft responds differently than I expected, but I get used to it quickly.
Hux watches me do this, giving me a thumbs-up when he’s satisfied I’m not going to drown us all.
“Hope you’re ready. Water looks good out there today. Should be fun.”
Rowan rubs his hands together. “Man, I can’t wait. Let’s go.”
The first rapid announces itself as a sound before I see it. There’s a low, building roar before Hux calls out commands. We paddle when the raft hits the white water, and the world becomes noise and spray and physical demand on my whole body and leaves no room for anything else.
The calm stretches between rapids are longer than I expected.
It occurs to me I haven’t thought about Vaughn since we unloaded the van—the longest I’ve gone without thinking about him in five days.
This is, I realize, probably why Rowan suggested this particular activity. My best friend is not subtle.
“When are you coming back?” he asks, paddling idly.
“Back where?”
“Colorado,” he says, like it should be obvious to me.
“I’m here now,” I say.
“You’re here for a few weeks,” he says. “That’s not the same thing, and you know it.”
I admire the river ahead. The mountains on either side, the water green and clear in the calm, the sound of the next rapid already beginning in the distance.
“My life is complicated,” I say.
“All forward!” Hux calls, and the world becomes noise again.
“How’s work?” I ask in the next calm stretch.
Rowan gives me a look. “You know I can’t talk about it.”
“Generally,” I say. “Not specifically.”
“Generally, it’s fine,” he says. “Generally, I’m doing something I believe in, something that matters, and I’m good at it. Although … I’d rather be doing it somewhere that isn’t a four-hour round trip from my dad.”
“Pine Ridge doesn’t have an FBI field office.”
“No,” he laughs. “It doesn’t.”
We paddle in silence for a moment. Hux points out a bighorn sheep picking its way along a ledge above the riverbank.
“Are you seeing anyone?” Rowan asks.
“Are you?”
“I asked first,” he says. “And yes, I date. I go on dates. I have been on multiple dates in the last year like a person who is participating in human society. You?”
“I’ve been busy,” I say.
“You’re always busy,” he says. “I haven’t heard about you being with anyone in years, Silas. Are you celibate? Is that what’s happening? Have you taken some kind of vow?”
I laugh, because this is the most Rowan question ever. “I’m not celibate.”
“Then what?”
“Meeting people isn’t a priority,” I say. “My schedule … it’s not easy to maintain anything when you’re traveling constantly.”
“You travel too much.”
“I know.”
“You need a base,” he says.
“I have a base. It’s Atlanta.”
“Living somewhere just because of the airport isn’t the same as having a home.”
My mind fills with images of a farmhouse kitchen with herbs on the windowsill, my new wooden bear on a shelf, and a coffeepot that’s always full when I come downstairs.
“Yeah,” I say. “Maybe.”
The next rapid takes us before he can push it further.
Lunch is on a flat rock beside the river.
The sun is warm enough that we’ve peeled back the tops of our wetsuits.
Hux produces food from a dry bag; it’s surprisingly tasty.
We eat and watch the river while Rowan tells me a story about Mrs. Collins, his next-door neighbor, who keeps wanting to set him up with her friend’s granddaughter.
I tell him about the zucchini I’ve been trying to grow in a container on my rooftop for eight months, and he laughs until he has to put down his sandwich.
“A zucchini in a container,” he says.
“Yep.”
“On a rooftop.”
“It’s a good rooftop,” I protest. “It has plenty of light and the perfect amount of shade.”
“Silas.” He stares at me. “You know who else talks about zucchini?”
I don’t need him to say it to know what the answer is.
“My dad,” he says. “My dad talks about zucchini. You’re as nerdy about farming as my dad, and you’re thirty-five years old.”
“You’re thirty,” I say. “That’s not that much younger.”
“It’s five years,” he says. “And I can say that not once in my adult life have I ever thought seriously about zucchini.”
“You’re missing out.”
He shakes his head, still laughing, and finishes his drink. I’ve missed this easy back-and-forth between us so much.
We dance with more rapids after lunch, following the river’s lead as it throws our raft one way and the other. In the sections of calm, we’re quiet too, admiring the stunning scenery around us.
When we arrive at the pull-out, Hux’s van and trailer are waiting for us. Rowan must see the question on my face because he tells me that Hux uses a company to move the van for him.
The three of us carry the raft up the bank and load it onto the trailer, and by the time we’re done, my whole body is feeling the unusual level of exercise and my face is tight from the sun and the spray.
A moment later, Chris shows up in Rowan’s car.
“We made a different arrangement today. Usually it’s a bigger group, but I wanted it to be just us,” Rowan explains. “Chris will drive back in the van with Hux, and we’re camping for the night. My tent is in the car already.”
Chris exits the car and throws the keys at Rowan. “I left you with sandwiches, drinks, snacks, and a thermos of coffee.”
“Thanks, man.”
We change out of the wetsuits and put them in the back of Hux’s van before he and Chris drive off.
“You always camp after rafting?” I ask, following Rowan to the car.
“If I can. It depends on the arrangements. If Chris can bring my car, I’ll do it; if he can’t, I go back with the group.”
We drive ten minutes to a parking lot where Rowan and I unload the gear from the back of his car.
The hike to the camping spot is short but steep, the trail climbing through the pine forest before opening onto a ridge with a view that stops me mid-step.
The valley spreads below us. Mountains are ranged on three sides, and a small cluster of lights and rooftops reflect the gold of the early evening down below.
“Let’s see how good you are at surviving the wilderness,” Rowan jokes, but then he proceeds to show me the fancy tent that goes up in a single move, like magic, and the blow-up mattresses and the blankets he brought.
We build a small fire and sit with the food Chris packed.
“I want to move here,” Rowan says.
“Now?”
“Not now,” he says. “Not yet. But one day.” He’s clutching his coffee cup, his expression filled with decisiveness.
“I love my work, and I’m nowhere near ready to give it up.
But I don’t want to be a career agent. I want to leave my mark on something and then …
before Dad gets too old, I want to be closer to him. Maybe become a sheriff.”
“I think your dad would like that.”
“I know.”
We sit with the fire for a moment. Below us, more house lights in the valley turn on as the evening deepens.
“What about you?” Rowan asks. “What are your plans?”
I fix my attention on the coffee cup in my hands, gathering the nerve to say it.
“I quit my job.” There must be something about the air up here or the stars in the sky. Or maybe I’m finding that I miss too many things too often.
Rowan is unmoving beside me.
“When?” he finally asks.
“Recently,” I say. “It’s been coming for a while.”
“Is that why you’re in Pine Ridge?”
“No,” I say. “I’m just … wrapping up a job.” I take a sip of coffee. “After Warsaw, I was curious about your dad’s farm. The work he’s doing. I wanted to see it.”
“You know what’s funny?” Rowan finally asks.
“What?”
“You’ve been curious about my dad’s farm for years,” he says. “But you’ve never visited before.”
“Yeah,” I say. “I know.”
Sparks shoot into the air when the flames in our campfire hit a knot of pine sap.
“So that zucchini didn’t make it.” he says.
“No, it didn’t make it.”
He nods solemnly. “Tragic.”
“It was.”
“You should try again,” he says. “Somewhere with more space.”
Something tells me he’s not talking about the zucchini.
“Maybe.”
The stars are out fully now, the Colorado sky putting on its best show. Without light pollution, the Milky Way is clearly visible across the dark expanse. I sit back on the camping chair and look at galaxy as the fire crackles between us and the cold settles in properly.
We stay by the fire until the cold wins, then we get into the tent. I lie in my sleeping bag and stare at the fabric above me, listening to Rowan’s breathing even out into sleep.
Vaughn is alone at the farm tonight. I reach for my phone.
No messages.
I put it back and close my eyes and tell myself he’s fine.
He’s fine.