In the Heart of the Canyon - By Elisabeth Hyde Page 0,44

she didn’t overdramatize. “I really wish you’d relax,” she went on. “I’m trying to have this cool family vacation, and you’re kind of throwing a damper on things by worrying about every this, that, and the other.”

“You completely misunderstood what I was saying.”

“What were you saying?”

Mark shook his head and looked downriver.

Jill put her hands on her hips. “What were you saying, Mark?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Do you have to do this? Here? Now? Did we not just swim in the most beautiful place on earth?”

Mark said something about clear mountain lakes.

“Never mind,” said Jill. “I’m going to enjoy the trip my way, and you can enjoy the trip your way.”

“Well, I just hope we all make it off in one piece,” Mark said, climbing into the paddle boat.

Jill stayed behind on the beach for a moment, taking long slow breaths. Then she walked over to Abo, who was coiling his rope. “My arms are kind of tired,” she told him. “I think I might take a break from paddling, if it’s okay. Maybe ride in one of the oar boats.”

“Sure, babe,” said Abo.

It was late in the afternoon when they pulled into camp for the night. The beach was long and flat and stretched far upriver. People had their routines down by now, and they unloaded the boat and set up their campsites quickly.

JT appreciated their independence at this particular point, but he was still troubled. Ruth’s leg had looked worse this morning than it had the day before; twice last night, he’d dreamt of helicopter evacuations. At breakfast, she was limping; at the Little Colorado, she did not go with the group but simply settled herself in a pool with her leg elevated on a dry ledge. She asked Lloyd to stay with her, but he refused.

“No sirree Bob,” he said, traipsing off after the others. “I’m going to enjoy myself today.”

Also, JT had overheard everything between Mark and Jill back at the Little Colorado. He had watched his share of marriages disintegrate during these trips; the canyon could strip the veneer off a marriage, make placid people restless, suddenly aware of imperfections. Just as you could fall in love at the drop of a hat, so too you could fall out of love. He hoped this wasn’t going to happen with Mark and Jill.

In any case, it was not a time for worries, or clefts. They were just above Hance Rapid, entry point to the Inner Gorge, the Land of the Giants, where the walls would narrow in again and they would lose a billion years in geological time as they traveled down into the Vishnu Schist. This was the oldest, blackest rock you would ever see. This was where the river got serious, and unforgiving, where the walls closed in before you could say good-bye to the sky, where a flip meant a long swim before somebody might haul you out of the water. JT had seen real ghosts in this section of the river, ghosts in the water and ghosts in the rock, which was all there was, fundamentally, rock and water—and current. Always the current.

Some people loved this section, and some people were spooked by it. It depended on a lot of things: the weather, the flow, the people you were with. JT couldn’t make any predictions with this group. It could go either way.

July 8 Day Five

Warm blue waterfalls

Turquoise waterfalls

Warm water

Mineral baths:

I bathe myself search for the deepest pool

To bathe my limbs

In these magical waters

Upstream

The hobbits

Bilbo Baggins grinds his turquoise gemstones

Stirring them into the headwaters

Clouding the water

So that when I immerse myself

There is no

thing but blue.

DAY SIX

River Miles 76–93

The Upper Granite Gorge

22

Day Six, Morning

Miles 76–89

The next day got off to a questionable start when the paddle boat flipped in Hance—this after a thorough scout above the rapid, with everyone climbing to a good lookout point and the guides gravely studying the hydraulics below, noting each rock, each hole, each pourover. Ultimately they decided on a left run, and JT ran it nice and clean and waited below. It was Abo who got into trouble. Piece of cake, Abo had been thinking, but while he was angling the paddle boat across the river to make that left run, a yellow jacket landed on his knee, and Abo, being allergic to bees, took one second to flick it away, one critical moment when he slackened the outward twist he’d been exerting on his paddle, allowing the boat to rotate five, maybe ten degrees to the right. That