Chapter Two From Pearls in the Mountains

Chapter Two

My head was splitting when I woke up a few hours later, still before dawn. I don’t drink often anymore. I tossed down a glass of water and put some more on the stove to boil for coffee while I took the dogs out. We weren’t out long, and when I came in the water on the stove wasn’t quite there yet. I put a filter in the pour-over and set it on my mug. And then I couldn’t find the coffee. What the hell? I almost panicked. We were nowhere close to any remedy. Eventually I remembered that I had put it in a bag that was with the river gear. In the locker. I had wanted to make sure that I didn’t forget to take it down the river. I was able to exhale. “And one scoop of coffee. There.” The water boiled, and I quickly made a fresh, steaming mug and stepped back outside, leaving the dogs curled up on the bed with Mary. It looked like we were in a lot of trouble.
It was daylight when I returned to the RV and woke Mary. “It’s too early! This is not sexy.” What did she just say???
“Yeah, I know, but people will start coming in soon, and there’s something you have to see.”
“What?” She wasn’t moving.
“Listen,” I said. We sat quietly and listened. Ellie was making her contented morning grumbles. Mary lay there still. The water on the stove was singing as it came closer to boiling, the pot sorta groaning and cracking. And then behind that, and constant, was clearly the sound of the river outside. I love that sound. And I love these moments…taking them apart to see all the different details and layers. I love watching realization. I watched Mary’s eyes, waiting. There it was. They shot up to look at me. Awake. “That’s a different sound, right?!” I laughed. She sat up straight to look out the windows, but the solar panels were still down.
“I wanna see it! Is it flooding? It sounds huge!” She was out of bed, beautifully naked, starting first one direction, then turning around, walking the other, trying to remember where her clothes were and how much she needed to have on. I poured the coffee for us as she bolted out the door, still putting her jacket on. The dogs looked content to stay right where they were, but I left the bus door open for them anyway. When I caught up to her, Mary was standing at the put-in. “Where is the stick you put in to mark the level?” She was stammering in disbelief.
“Hell, where’s the fire ring?” I asked. She just pointed vaguely out towards the river, in shock, and muttered. The spot where we made love was very under water. I put her coffee mug into her hands.
“What the fuck? How did this happen?” she asked after a few moments.
“It isn’t unusual this time of the year. If the conditions are right, even a small amount of rain in the right spot can make it flash.”
“Is this a flash flood?”
“Technically, yes. And it’s still rising. Rising rapidly. I put a stick in the sand when I first let the dogs out this morning, and that stick is gone too.”
She started to look sick. “So, what happened?” she asked, still trying to get a grasp.
“This is the water from that storm Sammy mentioned last night. From the radar, it looked like it dumped several inches in a thirty minute period along the side and in the valley of one of those mountains upstream. This morning, after seeing this, I jumped online and checked the radar and the gauges up the Toe and the Cane. There was a spike on there from midnight last night that went straight through the roof, so it makes sense that it is down here now and still rising. But that was all I got. Something is wrong with the gauges and they won’t update anymore.”
“Can we still go rafting? Is it too dangerous?” I took her back to the bus so that we could change into some hiking clothes. We grabbed our cameras too. I figured we should hike down the tracks to have a look at what we were up against. We could talk about our options out there where it made sense. We left the dogs because they are impossible around railroad trestles. Crossing the river on a trestle is a treat, and illegal Mary said, as she read the no trespassing notice from the railroad company. The river makes a sharp turn below the crossing and then begins dropping, accelerating towards the first rapids around the bend. Even this far up river the waves were impressive. When the waters are at this level, I begin to think the river looks like the ocean in a hurricane. At the other end of the trestle we stepped off into the trees, and carefully climbed out to where we could see the first rapid below. It wasn’t good. There was a river-wide hydraulic at the bottom that would stop a freight train. It was terrible and frothy. Mean. Angry.

We walked further down the tracks, the river to our right. It flowed swiftly through deep pools bordered by large, ancient, weathered rock, and then a short distance downstream it terminated into a broad horizon line, mists and leaping water peering up from beyond. You could hear it get louder with every footstep. Finally we stood above it. “We’re definitely not rafting this one!” she yelled above the roar. It was a mess – a large, bone-crushing, frothy, ground vibrating mess of whitewater, with two particularly nasty hydraulics. Make that three… Mary had her camera out. I pointed out that this rapid was actually easy to run at these water levels, because the entire right side had opened up, enough water coming up over the garden of boulders to allow us to raft over them safely and easily. I told her that as the water level dropped this rapid could actually get worse for us, because there was a point where there was no longer enough water for us to skirt it on the right, but that it would still be a serious issue on the left…the only place left to go. We walked a short distance further downstream to where I wanted us to stop and camp. We were definitely going to have to skirt Jaws at this level, I could see that.

“This is where I want to camp. On those rocks across the river. Up there. Under the big pines. The view there is to die for. I’ve never camped here, but I’ve always wanted to. We usually go way downstream – half the way or further – and then set up our campsites. So you have to start relatively early. But here, we aren’t even a mile downstream from the put-in. That only takes a few minutes to raft, so we literally have all day. Here is what I’m thinking: most likely the water will drop pretty fast as the day goes on.” She was taking pictures. It was beautiful. The morning’s fog still lingered, held into the gorge as if trapped by the rocks of her craggy insides, while the sun began to roast holes into the thinning, brightening veil. “Tomorrow we will have all day to break camp and raft the other eight-ish miles to Sammy’s. We could easily be there by three o’clock, even if we took our time.”
“So is it too dangerous to run?”
“No, it’s not that. This isn’t Class VI, if that is what you’re thinking, but it is high enough that running solo is irresponsible. No other boats or crews for safety. It’s fun and totally doable right now, but the water will be much cleaner and more manageable in just a few short hours, I’m sure. That first rapid can surprise you if your raft is light. The last time I rowed by myself at this level, I tried to hit the right side of the hole at the bottom, but the water down the right side was more shallow than it looked. I drug my right tube on a rock, which slowed me down and turned the boat too much. Put me right out in the middle. Stalled.”
“You flipped?”
“No, but it was sketchy. I don’t know when I lost one of the oars, but it was a surprisingly long surf. The sides were coming up pretty high. She stayed down though.”
“What did you do?”
I laughed a little. “You don’t get to do anything when you surf an oar frame like that. You draw the oars in and cross them. Then you lay down over them, grabbing the raft and frame, and you hold on as tight as you can, pinning the oars under you while the raft gets tossed around in the hole. That’s it. As the sides go back in and hit the tongue, the ends of the oars grab all that water and try to pry you off the boat, but you have to keep those things under control, because if you drop them, or let them get loose, the river can beat you to death with them. I lost one somehow that day. I just can’t remember exactly how. See.”
“How did you get out?” she asked.
“She spanked me for a little while to let me know how disrespectful I was being…”
“Spanked you?” Mary looked at me skeptically.
“Yeah, I have this theory, but anyway the river spit me out eventually.”
“Were the dogs with you?”
“Oh no, not on that trip!” I said. Mary studied the ground for a moment.
“Are you pretty sure it will drop?” She looked worried. I laughed at her. “Stop,” she said. Should we cancel the trip? I don’t want to swim that!”
“Me neither!” I kept laughing. “Yeah, I can’t guarantee anything, but it ought to drop to a nice, juicy level by this afternoon. It might stay too high for us to surf like I promised, but that just means a bigger rafting trip. You win either way.”
“Are you lying?” she asked with a warning in her voice. A threat?
“No!” I laughed. “Let’s go have breakfast and then take an easy biking trip. Keep to our schedule.” She slipped in quickly to embrace me, her cold hand sliding under my shirt, tracing some of the scratches she left on me the night before. Her eyes became lusty and satisfied for a moment. There is an animal swirled into the goddess in that woman.
“What if you’re wrong though? Will we cancel the trip if it doesn’t go down?” she asked.
“No.”
“Are you lying?”
“No.”
“I don’t like beards.” She smiled.
“You lie!” I whispered.

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