11
By the time we break down and pack up camp, prepare and load the boats, and paddle out toward the frothing mouth of the Devil’s Stairs, we’re five hours past our planned launch time of nine a.m.
Instead of Macy, Josh guides our raft today, steering the oars at the rear. “We’ll pull some wraps from the cooler for lunch and eat right here on the water—if we survive this rapid,” he jokes.
If Josh expects laughter, he doesn’t get it. Maybe he’s just parroting the usual patter, like a Disney Jungle Cruise ride operator—but after this morning’s search for the missing satellite phone, the joke feels more ominous than funny.
“Isn’t that your job, River Jesus?” Pam deadpans as she adjusts the strap on her Ray-Bans. “Keeping all of us alive? If I fall out, I expect you to walk on water and rescue me.”
This joke draws a few laughs, and I smile at Pam, grateful for the humor.
Because I’m pretty sure things are about to get tense all over again.
The river is narrowing quickly, the entrance to Devil’s Stairs opening before us.
Right away, I can tell the waves are higher than they looked from the portage trail last night.
We’ll be the first raft to traverse the rapid, followed by Bryan’s passenger raft, then Macy and Gracie in the two neon-green gear boats.
I glance over my shoulder and see that everyone in Bryan’s boat—including him—looks stiff and on edge. After seeing his rafting skills yesterday, I’m secretly grateful to be paired with Josh.
“Oh Lord,” Deborah calls out as the first stair-step swells, yanking us forward.
“Okay, ladies,” Josh booms, “Do not stop rowing when we hit the first wave, or we will flip. All right, all right!”
Everyone on the right side of the raft springs into action.
“All forward, now! Give me everything you got!” Then, as the boat drifts sideways, he shouts, “Keep us straight, Deborah and Kaia! Follow their lead, everybody!”
In the lead position opposite me at the front of the raft, Deborah bears forward and sinks her paddle into the current with all her might, her grunting louder than the roaring water.
I double over too, sweeping my paddle in and out of the water to match her pace.
The others follow suit and we row like our lives depend on it.
Because judging by the immense height of the waves, our lives actually might.
My heart skips wildly as the nose of the raft launches skyward. We’re propelled forward by another wave rushing in from the side, only to slam abruptly into the trough. A wall of water sprays over the nose of the boat, soaking everything and nearly pushing me over the edge into the whitewater.
I wedge my wet tennis shoes harder into the sidewall, managing to keep my position and continue rowing, determined not to stop even though the next wave is rising up to send us airborne again.
“Woo hoo!” Josh crows. “That’s right, ladies! Row, row, give me all left now!”
We obey. The raft bucks like an angry bull, the momentum of the current impossibly fast, whirling, unstoppable, unpredictable, as we cascade down the flight of whitewater that is the Devil’s Stairs.
“Last wave! Really dig,” Josh calls. “Deborah, Kaia—do not let us hit this motherfucker sideways!”
“My arms are on fire!” Deborah screams, but she’s laughing.
There’s so much water splashing into my eyes that I can barely see.
My messy bun has come mostly undone and is plastered across my forehead.
My arms burn, my lungs are screaming with exhaustion, and my heart is pumping like I’ve sprinted a mile.
But I realize with an incredible rush that it feels good—damn good. Even the pain. I feel … well, alive.
As the raft sails out of the last wave and eases onto a stretch of smoother water, we all erupt in cheers. “Hell yeah!” cries the woman with the blonde pigtails and red bandanna, and she offers me a high-five.
I grin and slap her palm, then turn to watch the raft behind us come careening down the Devil’s Stairs. Watching it from the other side of the rapid is every bit as incredible.
“Don’t flip, Flip-Flop,” Josh calls out, motioning for us to join in as he repeats the words in a sing-song voice. “Don’t flip, Flip-Flop!”
A few of the women join in half-heartedly, but the chanting dies down as Bryan’s raft makes it safely down the rapids without flipping, cruising toward us as the gear boats enter the staircase behind them.
The women in Bryan’s boat raise their paddles and start splashing toward us, bruising for a water fight.
“Hey! Do not splash me unless you want your river wraps to have soggy tortillas!” Macy calls as she glides our way.
She pulls alongside our rafts that bob in the calm water, then begins to unpack coolers and ready the yellow jugs of potable water.
“Your choices are ham, turkey, or whatever this ‘vegan cheese’ crap is!” she says, dangling a baggie in the air.
After lunch, the rest of the afternoon passes in a water-and-adrenaline-soaked blur. Even Allie and Nikki seem to forget about the missing satellite phone for a while, laughing and smiling with the rest of us as we pull the rafts to the shallows for a brief rest and bathroom break.
For the most part, everyone pees in the river.
But a few people’s river wraps haven’t settled very well after the tumult of the Devil’s Stairs.
Bryan doesn’t try to hide his irritation as he lugs the groover onto the rocks at the base of the cliffs, struggling to pitch a privacy tent that keeps tipping over.
Deborah and I watch from our side-by-side seats at the front of the raft.
“Oh Lord, I can smell it from here,” she mutters, eyeing the poor souls lining up on the narrow strip of sand behind the groover.
Then she lowers her voice. “I don’t know about you, but when I read ‘glamping’ on the website description, I did not think this would be the bathroom situation. ”
“It’s rustic, at best,” I agree, laughing. “I guess I didn’t even think about how that would work.”
“Glad I went with ham instead of turkey,” Pam murmurs, shaking her head. “Seems like the lunches are a little rustic, too.”
I nod, hoping that’s the last we’ll see of the “river wraps.” I slipped mine into the trash bag after a couple of bites, feeling sure I was eating yesterday’s cheese that had fallen from the cooler into the dirt.
When it becomes clear that the slow-moving groover line is bound to take a while, Deborah, Pam, Imani, and I decide to cool off in the calm water near shore, wading in the shallows.
“My husband and I got food poisoning on our honeymoon,” Pam says, glancing in the direction of the groover. “It was this ultra-posh resort, and we spent the whole trip taking turns in the bathroom.”
Imani giggles, smoothing her headscarf. “That’s nothing. Try two toddlers in a tent—after your husband lets them eat five s’mores each. It was like The Exorcist in there.”
We all laugh. But my chest aches with longing at the easy way they talk about their loved ones—their husbands, their children.
“I have nothing to add to this conversation, thank the Lord,” Deborah says. “You got a story, Kaia?”
I rack my brain, but the only story I come up with isn’t mine—it’s Parker’s.
I hesitate, then give in. “My husband convinced me to go to a ‘hot wings’ festival a few years ago. He walked right up to the tasting table and started with the ‘Ghost-Pepper Ring of Fire,’ thinking the name was funny. And then … well, let’s just say they didn’t have nearly enough port-a-potties for a hot-wings festival. ”
“Oh Lord,” Deborah crows. “He’s a brave one!”
“Yeah, he was,” I say carefully, watching the late afternoon sunlight glimmer on the water.
That one word in past tense is enough to stifle any follow-up questions. But after a minute, Deborah reaches over and squeezes my hand. “I’m sorry, hon.”
I nod, turning away. I feel exposed, somehow. “I’m going to dry off,” I say, then trudge through the thigh-deep water and climb back into the raft.
For a few minutes, I’m the only one in the big orange vessel. I lean back in the sunshine, admiring the cloudless, perfect sky between the towering canyon walls.
Two hawks—or eagles, it’s hard to tell at this distance—arc lazily through the slice of stunning blue above me. I follow their flight path, mesmerized by their grace, and gently chiding myself for the threadbare hope that blossoms in my chest.
They aren’t Parker. I know better than that. But there’s no escaping the memory of the last thing he said to me before his rasping voice on the walkie-talkie went quiet.
The time had come to say our goodbyes. There was nothing else to be done. The EMTs, police, and friends had stepped away into the darkness, giving us as much privacy as they could.
“I’m so sorry,” he kept saying, over and over, his voice sounding strange and strangled and incredibly far away, even though he was only thirty feet beneath me.
“You have nothing to be sorry for,” I told him.
“I love you, Parker. I love you so much.” I kept repeating those words, trying desperately to ease the pain I heard in his voice.
But the truth was, I could already feel the rage bleeding into my grief, like poison.
Why did he have to go into this fucking cave?
Why couldn’t we get him out, when I could still hear his voice?
How could he leave me alone when I loved him so much?
Parker went silent for so long, I thought he was finally gone. I couldn’t even hear his labored breathing anymore.
I laid my face, covered with snot and tears, on the ground. A wail rose up in my throat.
That was when he whispered, “Hey. I’m gonna come back to you as a hawk, okay?”
It surprised me so much, my wail popped like a soap bubble. I’d actually laughed then, between my exhausted sobs. It was a very un-Parker-like thing to say.
Parker was a realist—like me. We didn’t believe in anything woo-woo or spiritual, like karma or astrology or reincarnation or reiki or destiny, or even God.
We just believed in each other. Parker was my magic.
My nod from the universe. And despite our no-nonsense pragmatism, we’d always used the word “soulmate” for each other, whispered like a secret.
“A hawk?” I’d asked him, closing my eyes so I wouldn’t see the industrial drilling equipment, the ripped-open earth, the glare of emergency vehicle lights flooding the barren desert.
“Yeah,” he’d whispered, sounding the way he did when he was about to drift off to sleep in bed beside me. “That way … I can find you. That way you’ll know I’m there. If I come back as a worm or something … it’d be pretty damn difficult.”
“Okay, smart thinking,” I’d said, stifling my cries, pulling my knees to my chest in the dirt and clutching the microphone while my heart shattered into a million pieces. I didn’t believe him for a second, but knew then that I’d never, ever stop looking skyward.
I’d listened for a reply, waiting for him to say something else. Anything else.
But there was nothing more. He was gone.
The police and paramedics tried to warn me not to look when they finally pulled Parker out of that cave five hours later. But I couldn’t help rushing to his side. I couldn’t be anywhere else.
When I saw his puffy, mottled face, I barely recognized him.
He’d essentially drowned on dry land from the pressure on his lungs and head, which had turned him into a bloated, warped version of himself.
His blue eyes were swollen shut, the dark blond stubble peppering his jawline caked in mud.
His hair was dirty, matted and wild, and his fingers bloody. He’d fought like hell. And he’d lost.
I’ve seen plenty of hawks since that moment, circling over rivers, diving to catch a gopher in the hills near our apartment, perched on a telephone wire on the highway.
I watch every one of them carefully, despite myself.
None of them ever seems to notice me. They’re just birds.
The two majestic birds circling across the canyon now are no exception. After a minute, they disappear beyond the far canyon ledge, flying so close together they look like each other’s shadow against the sky.
Once everyone has finished with the groover, Bryan lugs the now-full toilet back to the gear rafts, looking like he hates his life.
I wonder, briefly, if I hate mine—and if I’ll ever love it again.
But before my thoughts get carried away, the other women settle into the rafts and we push out into the current once again.
“We’re already at Marble Creek,” Josh announces, pointing to the rapids ahead.
“We’ve been making pretty damn good time for a late start.
If we can keep up this pace, we’ll get to Camas Creek in about three hours, just after sunset.
” He grins as Bryan’s raft, which has taken the lead, drops into the upcoming Class-Three stretch of whitewater.
“Here we go!” Josh calls. “Everybody send up a prayer for Flip-Flop!”
If Bryan hears him, he doesn’t turn around. And after a few seconds, Bryan’s raft disappears around the bend in front of us.
“Give me all forward, now!” Josh howls, and I sync my paddle with Deborah’s as we hit the first wave head-on. We sail to the right, bouncing along the froth and directly into the next trough.
Josh pumps a fist in the air. “Nice, team! Now all—”
“Shit!” someone wails from the gear raft behind us, barely louder than the roar of the rapids.
I whip my head around at the same time everyone else does—just in time to see two enormous, yellow plastic jugs—our only potable water—toppling down the gear stack on Macy’s raft, heading toward the whitewater.