3 #2
Macy grins. “Fight Night is only the best part of guide training. All the guides face off. We stack rafts two high on the river, then climb up on top of them and try to push each other over the edge.” She giggles.
“We made the new guy wear his dumb flip-flops, of course. You should’ve seen how mad he got when he fell into the water!
Cussing us out, saying it wasn’t a fair fight and that everyone else should’ve had to wear their shoes, too.
” She shrugs and pulls her ponytail tight.
“All that fussing got him groover duty for the rest of the summer.”
“Y’all have your own language out here. What the heck is a groover?” asks Deborah’s sister, Beth.
“Oh, you’re all gonna get to know the groover really well over the next five days,” Macy says teasingly.
“That’s what we call the portable trip toilet.
If you sit on it for too long, it’ll leave grooves on your butt cheeks.
And after a week of twenty people doing their business, emptying that thing at the sanitation center is always a real pleasure, lemme tell ya. ”
Deborah and Beth exchange matching expressions of disgust. Macy just smiles and swivels the guide oars, angling us toward a stretch of white sand peeking above the river’s surface, where Josh is landing the first gear boat in the fading light.
“Are we already done rafting for the day?” Deborah complains, even though Macy has already explained that the first day is a short one. It’s dark enough that I can barely make out the faces of the women in the second passenger raft. The water is shiny as obsidian in the dusk.
“Yes—unless you wanna go over the Devil’s Stairs in the dark,” Macy says.
“I sure don’t. It’s a Class Four right now, but earlier in the season you’ve gotta portage it—get out and carry the raft down the trail.
” She points downriver to the rocky, inky canyon.
I can’t see much from here, but I can hear it—a dull roar that grows louder with each sweep of my paddle.
Macy goes on: “Besides, the next camping spot isn’t until—”
“Camas Creek?” Allie supplies eagerly.
Macy’s eyes flash sideways to Allie. “Yeah, Camas Creek. It isn’t for another thirty miles downriver, and it’s all canyon walls until then.
So trust me, you’re gonna be begging to stop by this time tomorrow,” she promises.
“We’ll be hitting ten Class-Four rapids and around twenty Class Threes.
So after you get your fill of campfire cobbler and cliff jumping tonight, you’re going to want to rest up! ”
As if on cue, a howl comes from near the sandbar, followed by a loud splash.
Both passenger rafts erupt with cheers. “Riv-er Je-sus!” chant the women as Josh pops to the surface.
He raises his arms high in victory, shaking droplets of water from his long hair and beard.
He has the cocky grin of a guy who’s clearly never on groover duty—and is fully aware that nearly every middle-aged woman on this river would like to jump his bones.
I keep quiet, already as weary of the fawning and the “River Jesus” routine as I am the hazing.
“Get your asses up to that ledge!” Josh calls, gesturing to the rocky outcropping directly above him while he breast-strokes back toward shore. “It’s the only shower you’re gonna get for a hundred miles!”
Another volley of cheers rises from both boats as the women scramble onto the beach and start up the short path leading to the ledge.
While the guides make a plan for dinner and tent duties, I quietly slip away to the far edge of the beach.
It’s been a long day, and as my legs adjust to solid ground again, I realize how bone-tired I am.
It’s been a while since my muscles ached like this, and I like it.
But I’m happy for a break from the water, and I’ve never been one for heights.
The idea of curling up in a sleeping bag with a full belly sounds like just the ticket.
As I watch the women scramble up the cliff, some of them arm in arm, a pang of longing hits me.
Maybe it’s loneliness. I try to remember the last time I spent quality time with anybody.
In the months after Parker died, I stubbornly avoided even my most persistent friends.
It didn’t feel like there was room for them in my heart, with my grief taking up so much space.
Sometimes it feels like I died in that cave, too.
Anymore, my only real companion is my boxer, Bambi.
I wonder how she’s doing with the neighbor, and it occurs to me that maybe I should ask the woman over for a glass of wine when I get home, as a thank-you.
In the year since she moved in, I’ve hardly spoken to her, beyond apologizing for the state of the yard and asking if she could pet sit.
At the other end of the tiny beach, Josh, Macy, and Gracie set up camp, while poor Bryan lugs a box on wheels toward the bushes. As he struggles with the contraption, I realize it can only be the groover.
Restless, I wander to the edge of the sand, following a short trail behind the rocky outcropping where the others splash and dive.
As I make my way down the darkening path, the smell of sage and pine pitch gives way to the faint sulfur smell of hot springs.
Bats swoop overhead, their wings cutting silent arcs across the dusky sky.
This must be the portage route in springtime, when the water’s too high to descend the Devil’s Stairs.
Even now, in the middle of July, the rapids rumble ominously from behind the rocks.
I’m not afraid of the dark. Not even when I come around the bend and the boulders part to reveal the rabid foam of Devil’s Stairs, white against the dark canyon walls.
The churning waves cascade just like a staircase through the narrow pass, the water swelling and dipping into the abyss, on and on as far as I can see.
If someone fell into that whitewater, they wouldn’t come out the other side alive.
But I can’t deny that part of me is drawn to the terrifying churn. And I can’t help but wonder, would it really be so bad if that powerful rapid carried me away?
The thought feels almost peaceful.
As I watch wave after wave cycle through troughs and crests, I realize that I haven’t really been scared of anything since Parker died. The worst has already happened.
So what’s left to be afraid of?