In the Heart of the Canyon (33 page)

“Time’s a-wastin’,” said Andy.

They hoisted the stretcher up into the helicopter; Susan followed, and when she was settled in her seat, Andy handed her the baby. He was light as a doll, his mouth a tiny pout between fat round cheeks, and Susan just stared and stared into his funny, angry little face. She was full of questions for Amy—who and when and how and where, for starters—and as she gazed at the baby’s features she couldn’t help wondering who among Amy’s classmates he looked like. She scolded herself because it didn’t matter; besides, it was futile, because what baby really looked like his father an hour after birth? All newborns looked like little Russians to her.

But wonder she would.

And what would happen next? Would Amy want to keep the baby or put him up for adoption? If she kept him, how would she manage her
senior year, with college on the horizon? How would she manage college itself, for that matter? Susan thought with a twinge of guilt about some of the plans she’d had for herself, once Amy left home—training for a marathon, for example, or taking Spanish. If Amy kept the baby—well, Susan imagined herself doing a lot of babysitting.

And finally, all those unanswerable questions. Was love a factor, or had this been a simple hookup? Had Susan failed to pass along some fundamental biological facts? And still: How could she herself have missed all the flashing lights? Fool!

The helicopter motor started up, drowning out any chance for conversation. Andy climbed up and buckled himself into his seat. With a slight jolt, the helicopter lifted straight up into the sky. Amy strained to look down but winced as she did so and lay back as they swung up over the canyon rim and headed east. Susan cradled the baby to her chest and peered down. The view was already panoramic, a vast branching tableau of tan and pink and dusty green, with a tiny silver ribbon weaving in and out. It was just like what the Grand Canyon was supposed to look like, and nothing like what it really was, down on the river.

“See Lava?” the pilot shouted over his shoulder, pointing to a fingernail of white.

Amy now managed to hoist herself on her elbows to look down. Instinctively Susan threw out her arm to guard her daughter. It was sudden and unnecessary—and wouldn’t have been effective anyway—and it reminded her of her own mother years ago, throwing her arm across the front seat when braking quickly, to keep Susan from flying through the windshield.

Just then the baby’s face broke, and he began to yawl. Susan jiggled him a little. Amy looked on, her eyes flat and expressionless. The baby continued to cry.

Then Amy reached out and stroked the baby’s cheek, almost as much out of curiosity as anything else. He scowled in her direction, and without giving it much thought, she slipped the tip of her little finger into his mouth, and he grew quiet; and Susan glimpsed in Amy’s face something that she, Susan, had forgotten: the sudden, wondrous awareness of one’s innate maternal magic.

Emboldened by this, Susan leaned forward and tucked a strand of hair behind Amy’s ear. And just as boldly, Amy gazed back without flinching.

Below, on the beach, everyone stood in a daze as the helicopter lifted off. Some, like Jill, felt the emotion finally hit them, like delayed thunder. Others recounted to one another their small roles in the birth sequence—Dixie giving Amy her blue sarong, for instance, when she started shivering; Evelyn recording every single contraction in her notebook.

Only the two boys seemed eager to put it behind them. They were glad to see the fat girl go, because it meant they could finally get back on the river again, and find the dog.

P
ost-Lava Night was usually a time for celebration. The guides were glad to have made it safely through; the passengers felt as though they’d been initiated into a new club; and everyone had an intense need to keep recounting the run—the V-wave, the whirlpools, the bailing and sloshing and screaming and slipping and lurching about in between. Often it was a time to dress up; Abo had packed an entire duffel bag of costumes, including a hula skirt and a horned Viking hat, and Dixie had a collection of nail polishes, which she’d planned on setting out for a toenail-painting contest. Oh, things could get jolly after Lava, with songs and skits and the presentation of goofy awards, and people stumbled off to bed feeling like true river runners.

But tonight, the Post-Lava party never materialized. JT had decided to camp there below Lava, since they’d already unloaded half their gear. The bucket of margaritas was well received (Mark declined, though he filled a mug for Jill); but mostly they were still too overwhelmed by the events of the afternoon to celebrate. At times, some of them wondered if they’d imagined the birth; but then they would look around, and Amy and Susan’s absence would erase their doubts. Jill and Peter, who’d served as coaches, both agreed they felt a little cheated—they’d worked so hard alongside Amy that they felt personally vested in this new family, and now they had nothing to show for it.

“I just wanted to hold him a little more,” said Jill wistfully. “He was so tiny!”

“I thought he was dead,” Peter declared. “Are all babies that gray?”

Then, of course, there was the matter of the dog. Sam and Matthew refused to give up hope that he would come loping over the rocks, tail wagging, panting, in a scene straight out of a Disney movie. They were
certain he’d survived the swim, and no one really wanted to convince them otherwise.

“They shouldn’t get their hopes up, though,” JT told Mark. “I think he would have shown up by now if he came ashore in this area. My guess—my hope—is that he got carried farther downstream. He had his life jacket on good and tight. With some luck, we’ll find him downstream tomorrow.”

The fact that he hadn’t seen the dog go overboard disturbed JT greatly. As an experienced guide, he prided himself on knowing where each and every member of his party was at all times—especially when they were on the water itself. But he’d been so focused on Amy going overboard and then getting his boat safely through Lava, that he hadn’t even noticed the dog was gone until they’d pulled onto shore.

“What are the chances?” Jill asked. “Be honest.”

“I don’t know,” he said.

Jill nodded somberly. “I just want to be prepared,” she said. “I just want to know what we might be dealing with if he doesn’t show up. The boys haven’t had anyone or anything die on them before, and I want to be able to say the right thing.”

Mark drew her close. “We don’t need to cross that bridge.”

Everyone just felt so
off
. Mitchell and Lena quarreled publicly over who had lost the eco-shampoo, and Ruth and Lloyd retired to their tent for a nap that went on for so long that JT eventually went and rustled the front flap. Oh dear
god
, he thought, then realized he couldn’t finish the thought. Fortunately, Ruth peeked out and groggily confessed that it was the margaritas, and JT, who usually didn’t let himself worry too much about his guests’ alcohol consumption, felt like scolding them as though they were Sam and Matthew.
You’re on medications! You’re old and thin and fragile! What were you thinking?

For dinner there was Thai food, and Abo got a little slapdash with the recipe and added a big dollop of peanut butter to the green beans, which caused Lena’s throat to start itching. JT was angry at Abo, not just for being careless, but because now he had to figure out whether they should give Lena the EpiPen; she was over there coughing, and
the Benadryl didn’t seem to be working, and Mitchell was going to blow, just blow; but then Mitchell came walking up, the light from his headlamp jittering in the dark.

“I gave her the EpiPen,” he told them. “She threw up, and she’s breathing better. She says her throat doesn’t hurt anymore. I’ll stay up with her tonight,” he told JT. “She’ll be fine.”

“I’m really sorry this happened,” Abo said.

Mitchell shrugged. “We all make mistakes. I’ve certainly made my share.”

JT was so surprised to hear this that he couldn’t come up with a gracious response.

“I gotta say,” Mitchell went on, “I was so impressed this afternoon, watching you guys deal with Amy and all.”

“We just called for help,” said JT. “The paramedics did everything else.”

“But the real hero is Amy, isn’t she?” Mitchell said. “I have to hand it to the girl. She really rose to the occasion. Not that she had a choice. But what a trooper. Seventeen years old. I just hope it doesn’t get in the way of her college plans.”

“Are you going to put this in your book, Mitchell?” Dixie asked.

“No,” said Mitchell. “Nobody would believe it. Well, I’m going to go sit with Lena. But I really think she’s going to be okay.”

JT watched Mitchell walk off into the darkness. He thought to himself that if they’d given out awards that night, Mitchell certainly would have earned the award for Most Changed Passenger. Because to go from someone who refused to follow directions and insisted on scaring the shit out of everyone and threatened to sue the guides when things didn’t go his way—to go from that to someone who could lift the iron chains off the Trip Leader’s shoulders at the end of a really difficult day didn’t count for nothing, down here in the ditch.

They quickly washed the dishes and stowed away the kitchen supplies. JT retired to his boat and laid out his sleeping bag. He didn’t want to let himself think about the fact that the dog wasn’t there at his feet, but he couldn’t help it. Were the boys hoping for too much? Was
he? Because he had to admit that a part of him expected to find the dog tomorrow, alive and well. He knew it was a piss-ass thought and hated himself for having it, but there it was.

He unclipped his sandals, dipped his washcloth into the water, and washed his feet. He got out the tube of cream and unscrewed the cap and squeezed out a dollop and rubbed it in between his toes. He could be thankful that he hadn’t gotten the foot fungus on this trip, at least. He could be thankful that the stomach flu hadn’t ripped through camp. He could be thankful that he’d had ten good days with a dog who came out of nowhere.

He had a lot of things to be thankful for, but none of them helped him go to sleep that night.

The next day JT took Mitchell and the boys in his boat so they could all scour the shoreline for signs of the dog—a flash of green, maybe, or a red bandanna in the bushes.

Sam and Matthew rode up front, sitting high on the tubes with their legs dangling over the side. The water was calm, and they did not need to hold on to anything. They weren’t wearing their hats, and from the back they looked like twins, with their skinny arms poking out of their life jackets, their baggy swim trunks ballooning out below.

There were several false sightings, and the boys’ hopes soared, then plummeted.

“We’ll find him,” said Mitchell after the third time. “I’m sure we’ll find him.”

Sam whipped around to face JT and Mitchell. “How do you know?” he demanded. “Why should I believe you? You’re the one who let go of him.”

“Sam,” cautioned JT.

“You didn’t like this dog from the start! You wanted to leave him on the beach where we found him! I heard you say that! You’ve been trying to get rid of him the whole trip!”

“Come on, Sam,” JT warned.

“Sam’s right, though,” said Matthew, and something in his voice served as a further reminder that they were brothers; that despite the
fact that they had been arguing since the day Sam was born, they were, fundamentally, on the same cosmic side of all the things that really mattered. And when it came to a dog and the possibility that some grown man might be responsible for its demise, they were going to stick together.

“Lava was a wild ride,” JT reminded them. “I wouldn’t go blaming Mitchell for losing the dog.”

“But the boys are right,” said Mitchell. “I did lose him. He was my responsibility, and I let go. But I didn’t mean to. I really didn’t mean to.”

The boys turned to face downstream again, without answering.

“I really didn’t,” Mitchell told JT.

“I know you didn’t, Mitchell.”

“But I want them to believe me.”

“They will at some point,” said JT. “Maybe just not right now.”

There were a few moments of silence as Mitchell shuffled around in the back of the boat. When JT glanced back, Mitchell was ruminating over his unopened journal.

“How’d you get to be so patient, JT?” he asked. “Were you born that way?”

“Hundred and twenty-five trips, I guess.”

“How do you get to be a guide, anyway?”

“You interested?”

“Only when I’m feeling adventurous. But I wish I’d done this trip when I was a little younger, you know? Before the old body started breaking down.”

“You’re never too old to start something new,” said JT.

“What about you? You going to keep on doing this the rest of your life?”

JT grinned. “Med school, I’m thinking. Obstetrics.”

Both men were silent, remembering the strange events of the previous day.

“I gotta hand it to her,” Mitchell said. “She came through with flying colors.”

JT didn’t want to get into a man-to-man evaluation of Amy’s labor
and delivery. He glanced at Mitchells notebook. “What are you going to name this book, anyway?”

“Haven’t a clue,” said Mitchell.

For the next half hour they floated. The boys kept an optimistic conversation going, convincing each other of the dogs safety. He was wearing his life jacket; he knew how to swim; he knew how to take care of himself in the desert. QED: he would show up at the campsite tonight.

JT didn’t want to say anything, but he grew less and less hopeful as the morning wore on. Even with a life jacket, the dog would have been sucked down immediately and remained underwater for who knows how long. In any case, it wouldn’t take much time for an animal that size to drown.

He felt it his duty to start preparing the boys, but they were busy concocting elaborate theories about the dog’s tracking abilities. They factored in upstream and downstream winds, the need for shade and rest; Matthew, who was good at math, calculated that based on the speed of the water, and depending on where they set up camp, the dog should arrive sometime between five and six o’clock tonight.