In the Heart of the Canyon - By Elisabeth Hyde Page 0,109

was still no sign of the dog. They pulled into a camp with a large open beach, and their attention was briefly diverted when Evelyn went off downriver in search of a more isolated site for her last night and came running back, hollering that she had seen a four-foot rattlesnake coiled in the sand; and everybody wanted to see it, which JT didn’t recommend, but they all trooped off anyway to see the beast, cameras in hand, and came back shaken up enough to move their sleeping mats in toward the center of the clearing for the night.

Over dinner they managed to focus on JT’s tales of past mishaps, blunders, and pranks. They all laughed. But during cleanup, when the dog would have been scrounging for scraps, they missed him as though they’d raised him from puppyhood, and they grieved at the thought that they might never know just exactly what had happened to him, on the river.

“Because he might show up in the night,” Sam explained to his father, after Mark asked him why he was keeping his headlamp turned on, even as it lay on the sand.

“Of course,” said Mark.

“Dad?”

“What’s that?”

“If somebody else picked him up, they’d take him to a shelter somewhere after their trip, right? They wouldn’t just keep him?”

Mark said he guessed that any good-souled person would do that.

“So we might find him when we get back to Flagstaff?”

“We might. I don’t want you to get your hopes up, though.”

“I won’t, Dad. Can I leave my light on?”

“Sure,” said Mark, and when he bent down to kiss his son good night, Sam wrapped his arms around his neck and didn’t let go for a long time.

“I hate to give him false hopes,” Jill said when Mark came to lie down beside her.

“What would you tell him?”

Jill thought for a moment, then sighed. “I guess I’d tell him the same thing.” She felt across the sand for Mark’s hand and laced her fingers with his. “But I’d try not to feed things.”

“I don’t think I have,” said Mark.

“No. I don’t think you have, either. You’re pretty sensitive to nuance.”

“You think?”

“Yes, I do,” she whispered.

“Thanks,” he whispered back. “You know, I really do think he’s alive.”

“Keep thinking that, then,” she said, squeezing his hand.

Before going to bed, Peter walked down to Dixie’s boat.

“Hey, Peter,” she said as she restacked gear. “What’s up?”

Peter stayed on the sand.

“Everything all right?”

“Oh sure,” he said.

“Do you need something?”

“No. I just wanted to say thank you.”

“Don’t mention it,” she said cheerfully. “It’s been quite the trip, hasn’t it?”

“I don’t mean it like that, although thanks for that too,” Peter said. “What I mean is, well, maybe you noticed and maybe you didn’t, but I’ve had a crush on you the whole trip. I think you’re one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever known. And you’re a river guide! I was a goner as soon as JT introduced you to us all, back up at Lee’s Ferry.”

Dixie sat down.

“But I’m not telling you this for the reason you might think. I know you have a boyfriend down in Tucson. I know we’re going to say goodbye tomorrow, and I’ll probably never see you again. But I just wanted to say thank you, for letting me be in love with you for two weeks.”

Dixie fingered the twisted wire horse at her throat.

“That’s all,” said Peter.

Down on his boat, JT settled himself on his sleeping mat. The air was still, and the moon, now in its last quarter, bathed the river in its pearly light. Tomorrow they would row the last few miles to the takeout at Diamond Creek. They would unload the boats; there would be a bus and a truck and a big lunch spread waiting for them. After lunch the guides would load up the truck, and the passengers would file into the bus—

And that would be it. Trip over. Finito.

JT laced his fingers beneath his head. Ordinarily he was always looking forward to the next trip: a few days off, then the mass load-up again, a new list of passengers, introductions, and lessons about the basics of life on the river. Ordinarily he didn’t let himself get too sentimental at Diamond Creek, knowing the river would always be there, knowing that he would always be back.

But a large part of him was feeling way too fragile on this trip. He was afraid to say good-bye to these people, for reasons he couldn’t explain. In the middle of the night,