10
Macy is the one who addresses the women finishing their coffee around the fire. “Morning, everybody. I have a quick question,” she begins nonchalantly. “Has anybody seen the satellite phone?” She’s quick to add, “It’s not a huge deal if you did, we just want to find it before we—”
“Hold on,” Allie interjects. “The satellite phone is missing? Are you being serious right now?” Her eyes shift to Josh. “Please tell me this is a joke.”
Macy gives her a stern look, shaking her head. “Like I said, it’s not a big deal if someone got scared last night and wanted to keep the phone near them, but—”
“Shit. Shit, oh my god, no,” Allie interrupts again, grabbing Nikki’s arm. Both women look horrified.
When nobody else seems equally appalled, Nikki tells us, “Look, remember the Camas Creek murders? When all that shit went down, nobody could figure out why the guides didn’t call for help with their satellite phone. The rafting outfitter insisted they’d packed it with the gear because—”
“Hey, knock it off,” Josh booms. “Enough about fucking Camas Creek.”
Allie recoils as if she’s been slapped.
Nobody speaks for a few seconds.
“Sorry,” Josh says, looking from Allie to Nikki. “I didn’t mean to snap at you. It’s just … no more talk about Camas Creek right now, okay?” He makes a little bowing motion with his hands. “Forgive?”
When Nikki and Allie give him unconvincing half-smiles, he draws a deep breath. “So, I’m gonna ask you guys again. Does anybody have the phone? You for real aren’t in trouble if you do.”
More strained silence. Women exchange glances around the circle, some of them actually looking underneath their chairs as if the phone might be hidden there. But nobody fesses up.
The uneasy stalemate stretches until Bryan speaks up.
“Look, I’m sure it’s here somewhere. We just need to do a quick search of all the boats and tents before we can take off, okay?
So everyone enjoy another cup of coffee, and we’ll be on the river in no time.
” He looks to the other guides for confirmation of this plan.
It’s the first time Bryan has stepped up to take the lead on anything, and I can’t help feeling a flicker of pride. “That sounds smart,” I say, pretending my vote matters. Maybe it’ll keep the two men from tearing into each other again.
Gracie and Macy nod in agreement.
“Should we help you search?” Pam offers, rising from her chair. She’s already ready for the day, dressed in a long-sleeve pink Under Armour swim shirt and matching athletic pants.
Macy pastes on a bright smile. “Nah,” she says firmly but gently. “It’s fine. You all relax, okay? We won’t be long. Then we’ll get this party started—braving the Devil’s Stairs!”
The guides fan out, with Macy directing the search. “Josh and Bryan, look through the rafts again, will you? Me and Gracie will search the tents and dry bags.”
Pam reluctantly takes her seat again, reaching for a shimmery gold bottle at her feet. “Guess I have time to put on my sunscreen. No sense getting burned while we’re sitting here.”
I drop into an empty camp chair by the fire, which is little more than a heap of glowing coals now. My breakfast has gone cold. I stab at the quiche anyway.
Sunlight streams over the canyon rim, painting the far bank in gold. It looks like a postcard—shimmering rock, new sunlight, the river shining. But everything feels off.
Allie and Nikki are exchanging whispers. Deborah casts a look at the guides’ retreating backs before leaning toward the two women and hissing, “Is what you said about Camas Creek true? They never found the satellite phone?”
A woman wearing a green baseball cap lifts her hands in a STOP motion. “Nah. No more of that, ladies. All it’s gonna do is freak us out more.”
Allie purses her lips and shrugs. “You don’t have to talk about it, but we’re going to,” she says tersely, nodding toward Nikki.
Another woman with stubby blonde pigtails and a red bandanna around her neck shushes the woman wearing the green ballcap.
“Well, I want to know. If they can’t find that phone, we don’t have any way to call for help if something goes wrong.
What if somebody falls out of the raft and gets injured?
What if we need to call in Life Flight? This is serious, and I want to hear what Allie has to say. ”
All eyes shift in Allie’s direction. She draws her knees to her chest. The eager, chatty energy she had yesterday has dimmed into something darker.
“Well, yeah, it’s all true,” she confesses.
“They never recovered a satellite phone in the Camas Creek search, but no one knows whether the guides forgot it, or whether somebody got rid of it. My guess is the second option.” Allie looks around.
“All I know is if we don’t find our phone, I will not be sleeping tonight. And none of you should, either.”
“Yeah,” Nikki pipes up. “If somebody intentionally took it, falling out of a raft is not my main concern right now.”
The woman with the green baseball hat makes a shocked “Oh” sound.
While Allie and Nikki walk away from the group, whispering, the noises from last night keep looping in my head. Should I tell the others what I told the guides? Part of me wants to, but everyone’s already wound so tight.
No, I decide. There’s no sense pouring gasoline on this particular bonfire.
It’s definitely unsettling that someone might have intentionally taken our lifeline to the outside world, but I’m starting to wonder whether it’s actually Allie or Nikki who hid it.
For all I know, they’re planning a podcast episode or article called, “My Harrowing Near-Miss on Camas Creek.”
So I keep quiet while the search drags on.
Two hours crawl by. Dry bags are dumped out, gear boats torn apart, tents turned inside out—twice. Sweat glues my pajama pants to my legs as the sun climbs higher overhead, and I wonder if any of us will have the energy for the Devil’s Stairs after all this.
When I shade my face with the hood of my sweatshirt, Pam offers me her bottle of sunscreen. “Want some? You’re going to burn.”
I take it gratefully. “Sure, thanks.”
She nods, her hands smoothing out the smears of white on her arms. “You bet. No sense getting sunburned on top of everything else,” she adds in a matter-of-fact voice I find deeply reassuring. I remember she’s a vet and find myself imagining her with Bambi. I’d trust Pam with my dog any day.
Suddenly, Macy’s voice bellows, “Listen up! You can all head back to your tents and change now. We’re going to go ahead and break camp.
” She pauses, her tone turning professional.
“We weren’t able to locate the satellite phone.
But I can assure you that I’ve been on countless stretches of the Garnet River more than fifty times over the past three summers, and we’ve only had to use the Sat phone once on the lower stretch—when a teenager did a backflip out of the raft and landed on a rock. And he was fine!”
My chest goes tight. The story is somewhat reassuring, but it also reminds me how far we are from anything—seventy-five miles of river between us and the nearest road, the nearest cell tower, the nearest anything. There’s no way out of here but downstream.
“But … who do you think took the phone?” Deborah asks.
All four guides force smiles, but there’s no mistaking that they’re even more rattled than they were before. Allie and Nikki stare at them, stone-faced and silent.
“Nobody took it,” Josh responds, finally. “We’re pretty sure we accidentally left it behind, actually. I really apologize, but these things happen.”
As he says those words, I catch Macy’s eyes shooting daggers into mine. It’s almost threatening. And I get the message. Do not say anything about the noises you heard last night.
I drop my gaze. The phone was there yesterday—Bryan and Gracie both said so. Someone opened the dry box and took it, on purpose.
After a moment, I nod at Macy to show I understand. But I can’t stop myself from asking the question burning in my throat, even though it’ll make me look like an idiot. “We can’t go back, somehow … for a new satellite phone?”
Everyone looks up at the towering canyon walls and the river pulsing just one direction—downstream. “Not unless you packed a helicopter,” Josh says, but there’s no sarcasm in his voice.
Nikki and Allie give each other matching smug but aghast I-knew-it looks. Even with my suspicions about them gnawing at me, I have to admit that Allie is probably right. Without a way to contact the outside world, all of us are alone out here in a way we didn’t sign up for.
I swipe at the sweat crawling down my neck and head for my tent with the others. There’s no emergency, I tell myself.
Not yet.