2
Within a few minutes, the raincloud that briefly settled over us in response to Allie’s question evaporates.
There’s excited chatter as everyone empties the cage of our belongings and hefts the bulky rafts down from the trailer.
The passenger rafts are bright orange, about fourteen feet long, with thick rubber pontoons stamped with the words IDAHO RAPIDS UNLIMITED.
The two gear rafts that hold the essentials for our trip are smaller, maybe ten feet long, in eye-searing electric green and decals that promise ADVENTURE STARTS HERE.
As we work to get our gear sorted at the shallow put-in, I can’t help glancing over at Allie, my curiosity still piqued.
Pretty much everybody has heard of the infamous Camas Creek disaster; fifteen people died, after all.
Parker watched a documentary about it when we booked the trip, and he gave me the Cliffs Notes about the tragedy.
The few details I learned about the story shocked me at the time, but they don’t bother me much anymore.
Because the truth is that Camas Creek happened a long time ago. And unfortunately, it’s just one drop in the bucket of human suffering. So while the others were gasping at the mention of Kellen Stroop, all I could think was, Awful things happen to good people every day.
People drown, get stabbed, fall down wells, get mesothelioma from asbestos, go through the windshields of cars, get shot in shopping malls, and gasp out their last breaths in new and horrifying ways every single day.
Human beings die, and the world keeps spinning, the sun keeps shining, and eager middle-aged women keep splashing into rivers like this to “find themselves” in the wilderness, mostly heedless of the fact that fifteen people were murdered in this canyon seven years ago. Life just goes on.
“Okay, everybody listen up!” Macy says, wiping beads of sweat from her brow as we push the last loaded raft into the shallow water.
“Phew, we’re ready to get splashing, yeah?
But first, we need to talk about safety.
” She points to River Jesus, who’s waist-deep beside one of the gear rafts now heaped with supplies for our trip, looking like an advertisement for a hipster cologne that would definitely be patchouli-forward.
Josh nods at Macy, then lets himself fall backward into the lazy, swirling current where his faded orange life jacket pops him back to the surface. We each have our own vest—some much brighter and newer than others, but all smelling slightly of mildew.
Josh lounges in the water, waiting until all eyes are on him.
“If you ever come out of the raft during a rapid or otherwise, you’re gonna want to assume the ‘Idaho Easy Chair’ position, okay?
” He leans back into the river to demonstrate how his Chaco-clad feet are positioned in front of him, just breaking the surface.
“Float on your back, like this, with your legs downriver, toes pointed up,” he says, then swims around to the far side of the raft, where the water is deeper.
Gracie, who is sitting at the back of the raft by the oars, leans over the side and grabs the lapels of his life jacket.
“If you fall out, get to the side of the boat as quickly as you can,” she says.
“Keep an eye out for ‘holes,’ where there’s a slight drop followed by an area of churning whitewater.
That recirculating current will trap you. ”
She makes eye contact with each person, then adds, “And whatever you do, never try to stand up in the current. Two years ago, a rafter on the Lower Garnet tried to walk out of a rapid. His foot got wedged between rocks, and the current pushed him face-down. It’s called ‘foot entrapment.’” Her voice hardens.
“I know we’re all here to have fun, but this rule is serious and I need you to remember it, okay?
He drowned in two feet of water. The river doesn’t care how strong you are,” she adds, and I wonder if she was there—if she saw it happen.
But then she’s smiling again, pointing back at Josh.
“When you reach the side of the raft, someone will pop you back into the boat like this.” She pushes Josh’s shoulders down into the water, then hefts him into the raft in one swift motion.
When he falls on top of her in a sloshing heap, everybody titters.
“Okay now, load up, ya filthy animals!” Macy hoots. “Gracie will take half of you in her raft, and I’ll take the other half. River Jesus and Flip-Flop will guide the gear boats down this first stretch. Because they’re both big, strong boys.”
She winks at Josh, who grins, and I get the feeling it’s another jab at the new guy. I wonder if he knows he’s being hazed. This is definitely summer camp.
Finally loaded, we set out into the swift current, plastic paddles held at the T-grips like we’ve been instructed.
“Hey, I don’t think I caught your name,” says the woman next to me—Deborah, if the block-lettering on her orange ball cap means anything.
“Kaia,” I tell her, then flick my eyes to the top of her head. “Deborah, I take it?”
She lets out a barking laugh and nudges the woman to her right, who flaunts a matching gray pixie cut. “My sister found it at a thrift store last year. It’s dumb, but everybody remembers my name now.”
“If I ever found a Kaia hat, I’d die of shock,” I tell her. “Somebody once asked me if it was short for ‘cayenne pepper.’”
“Oh, that’s a hoot!” Deborah laughs harder than the joke deserves, but the crinkles in her eyes are genuine, and I decide I like her.
“All right, row together, ladies!” Macy calls from the back of our boat as we approach the first rapid. It’s little more than a frothing dip in the otherwise calm river.
Deborah nudges me again. “So, Miss Kaia, are you here by yourself, or …?”
“Yep, just me,” I confirm with a smile, shrugging.
As I lift my paddle to row again, she says, “Well, I think that’s great. Seeing all these solo-traveling women nowadays makes me happy. Jerry never let me go on adventures by myself, and he wouldn’t go anywhere with me either! All he wanted to do was watch the game and sit on his ass.”
“Divorced?” I guess, eager to keep the focus on her.
“Yep. And no regrets. I’ve been single for twenty-two years now, baby.
” She grins, unashamed. “But I got my girls from him.” She beams with pride.
“Both engineers—women in STEM! They gifted me and my baby sister this ridiculously expensive trip.” She gestures to the woman beside her.
“This is Beth. First time either of us has been west of the Mississippi.”
In addition to the matching haircut, Beth has the same Roman nose and natural laugh lines that Deborah does.
Beth waves and says, “She’s been talking about this river for years. Top of the bucket list.”
Deborah’s eyes sweep across the canyon with something like reverence.
I follow her gaze. It’s impossible not to be awestruck by the majesty of the towering rock walls, whittled away over millions of years.
“Worth it,” Deborah murmurs, then glances back at me.
“You’re lucky, you must have a good one at home. ”
It takes a second for me to realize she’s eyeing the wedding band I still wear on my left hand.
My heart sinks even as I grin at Deborah. I force myself to laugh along with everyone else as we hit the tiny rapid head-on, popping the front of the raft upward.
Home. The word pulses at the back of my mind. All I want to do is go home, comes the next thought.
Tears press at the back of my eyes.
I swipe them away and row harder, trying to focus on the glittering veins of quartz in the cliffs, the riffles downstream where tiny fish surface, the smell of warm pine sap.
There’s no point thinking about home. I don’t really have a home anymore anyway.
Just an empty apartment that hasn’t been vacuumed in months and a dead succulent someone gave me at the funeral.
Even my boxer, Bambi, has been staying next door for the past month.
My neighbor actually takes her on walks every morning, and has a little girl who reads Bambi books at night.
That apartment isn’t home, though.
Home is Parker.
We’d made plans to raft down the Garnet River when we turned thirty.
Since our birthdays were only a month apart, we always planned a big getaway to celebrate.
And this was going to be the biggest yet.
Because the Garnet River had been a bucket-list dream for us both.
An adrenaline junkie’s dream, his. And a nature lover’s dream, mine.
The Bureau of Land Management allowed each rafting outfitter just twelve trip permits annually between June and August—all determined years in advance through a lottery system.
The waiting list was always about a mile long.
We paid the deposit and booked the trip the year we turned twenty-six. We made payments to secure our spots every year that followed.
And then, at age twenty-eight, Parker had his last adventure.
He’d gone to explore a cave system in Utah with two of his best friends—a bachelor’s trip for one of the guys who was getting married the following month.
The cave—called “Cookie Dough,” for its clay-heavy walls—sounded silly enough for me to think it was tame.
I spent that whole carefree weekend watching Love Is Blind in my pajamas, with Bambi stretched out across my lap.
It was the bachelor who called me, frantic, at ten-thirty on Saturday night, as I was washing my face before bed.
The men had decided to explore a less-traveled section of Cookie Dough that had openings so narrow you had to wriggle through with your arms at your sides.
Parker had gone first, of course. Always the explorer.
For half an hour after he got stuck, nobody worried much.
They were sure he’d be able to get himself out.
They laughed while Parker cracked jokes and rolled onto his side, clay and rock crumbling around him.
His friends crawled into the narrow opening behind him, pulling, trying to help him find a way to wriggle back through the tight space.
Then Parker told them he was having a hard time breathing, with his head and chest angled downward.
That was when one friend hurried back through the cave by himself as fast as he could, while the other stayed behind with Parker.
That friend called 9-1-1, then me, as soon as he had service.
It took an hour for EMTs to reach the cave mouth in the remote desert. When the emergency responders were unsuccessful in extricating Parker, they started to drill. All while I drove the three hundred miles to Utah through the night, my heart in my throat.
By the time I arrived, the EMTs had just reached him, and were lowering a microphone down into the hole that ran parallel to the main cave shaft.
When I heard his raspy laugh and an “Oh, thank god,” sweet relief flooded my body. He was going to be okay. Everything was going to be okay.
I think about that moment every day. How stupid I was.
How I’ll never be that naive person again.
I force the memory away, blinking into the sparkling surface of the river as it widens and smooths out ahead.
Then I look across the raft in time to see Allie—the librarian in the Crime Junkies hat—side-eye Macy.
Nudging the woman beside her, Allie says, “Hey, did anybody else watch that Lifemark movie about Camas Creek? Blood in the Water? This river is so much narrower than I was expecting. I bet they didn’t even film it in Idaho—”
“All forward!” Macy interrupts, before anyone can reply to Allie. There isn’t a rapid in sight. “Give me three left, ladies! Yes! That’s it!”
Allie exchanges a glance with the woman next to her and rolls her eyes, obediently digging in with her paddle.
Despite the churn in my gut, I bite my lip to hide a smile. Allie might be making the guides uncomfortable, but she’s only making me curious. And without Google out here to satisfy that kind of curiosity, I hope she’ll keep asking questions.
There’s nothing like somebody else’s tragedy to take your mind off your own.
I draw in a steadying breath, resolving to at least try to be present and enjoy myself.
Just be here. That’s what Parker would say if he were beside me in this raft.
He’d sense that I was getting lost in my head, and point out the midge flies skipping across the water like acrobats, or the pair of ravens hopping playfully from rock to rock along the canyon wall.
He’d talk about the lighting, how water’s reflection and shadow of the cliffs made everything dramatic and unforgettable.
He made everything unforgettable.
Be here, I tell myself. At this point, I truly can’t be anywhere else. There’s no going back now, unless I insist Macy somehow row us all upstream, only to drive me ten hours back along that maze of dirt roads.
A crazy bubble of laughter works its way up my throat as the reality of what I’ve gotten myself into settles on my shoulders. For better or for worse, I’m locked into this raft with Allie, Deborah, Beth, and all the other strangers for the next five days.
Be here. It’s the least I can do.
Because he can’t.