Fatal Descent (3 page)

“I’m a PE and health teacher at Marian High School.”

“Ah, that makes sense. You look really fit.”

Finally a smile appeared on Alice’s face, a little smug one. “Thanks.”

Diana leaned in and touched Mandy’s arm. “Both of my girls went to Marian. It’s the only Class A girl’s high school in Nebraska. Very exclusive, and they provide an excellent education. I’m so pleased Alice is working at her alma mater.”

“What do you do to stay in such good shape?” Mandy asked Alice, to draw her out some more.

“I coach the girl’s swimming and lacrosse teams, and I mix it up
with them a lot.” Seemingly tired of the conversation, she looked around. “Does this place have a restroom?”

Rob pointed. “In the back.”

Alice walked off, leaving the last two members of the Anderson family in front of Mandy and Rob, along with Alex. Kendra had come over to introduce herself to Diana and Hal Anderson and had taken them to meet the others.

“This is my sister Amy.” Alex swept a hand toward the young couple next to him. “And her husband, Les Williams.”

Also blond and blue-eyed, Amy was attractive, but in a softer,
more rounded and feminine way than her athletically fit sister
and
brother. When she shook hands, Mandy noticed that, like her mother
and sister, Amy’s fingernails were professionally manicured and
painted with a light pink polish. She wondered if the three women had had a salon day together recently and thought,
why bother?
By the end of the trip most of their nails would be broken and mud-caked. At least, that’s how Mandy’s always came out, so she never bothered with manicures.

While she shook hands with Mandy, Amy said, “I’m the middle child. Les and I live in Omaha, too.”

“What do you do there?” Mandy asked.

“I’m just an old-fashioned housewife,” Amy said timidly and glanced at her husband. “I cook and clean and garden. Les is the breadwinner.”

Amy’s husband looked to be in his mid-thirties, about ten years older than his wife. He had the large, bulky build of a bar bouncer or former football player, but of one who had gone a little soft around the edges. He had a tight grip around his wife’s waist, and his handshake was almost bruising. He eyed Mandy up and down until she shifted uncomfortably under his scrutiny.

“I’m a corporate security officer.” Les said it with almost a swagger,
as if the title should mean something to Mandy and Rob.

“Sounds important,” Rob said.

Good,
Mandy thought. Rob had caught on that this guy expected
some buttering up.

“It is. Mostly hush-hush, too.” Les released his wife and rubbed his hands together. “I’m starving. I hope this place makes a good burger.”

“That’s what they’re known for,” Rob replied. “And their shakes.
They have all kinds of flavors and they’re really thick.”

“Oooo, I’d better stay away from those,” Amy said. “Got to keep my figure for Les.”

Rob swept a hand toward the line in front of the order window. “Go ahead and get whatever you want. Tell them to put it on RM Outdoor Adventures’s tab.”

The Nortons had arrived while Ron and Mandy had been talking to the Andersons, and they were in the food queue along with the others. Mandy looked around. No sign of Tom O’Day yet. Cool was playing it just a little
too
cool.

After they had all gotten food and taken their seats, Rob suggested
they go around the table while they were eating and share their names
and occupations. “And tell us something else about yourself, like your
favorite food.”

This was a common ploy on pre-trip get-togethers for multi-day trips. Mandy would make a mental note of the favorite foods. Then she would make a last-minute run to the local City Market grocery store to buy whichever items she could that would pack well.

Gonzo set a light tone for the sharing by clapping a hand on his chest. “I’m Gonzo Gordon, the best river guide you’ll see this side of the Mississippi, and I’m being modest here. I’m also your quartermaster, in charge of supplies, so if we run out of TP, come beat up on me. And, I’m one of your two climbing guides …”

He raised a questioning eyebrow at Mandy, but she shook her head.
Don’t mention Cool.

“… and my favorite food is—what else?—pizza!” he finished with a bow.

“Where the heck is O’Day?” Mandy whispered to Rob.

“Don’t worry, I’m sure he’ll be here.”

When it was Alex Anderson’s turn to talk, he said, “I’ve got two new favorite foods now. It’s a hard choice between this awesome chocolate shake,” he held up his tall Styrofoam cup, “and the best tater tots I’ve eaten in my life.” In his other hand, he held up a greasy paper tray of Milt’s specialty tater tots that came with every order. He nodded his head toward Rob. “Great choice for dinner tonight.”

Mandy was sure his oldest sister wouldn’t agree, as her tater tots remained untouched. While the introductions continued, Mandy
noticed Alice frowning at the plastic utensils. After sawing away at something in her turkey Cobb salad with her plastic knife, she leaned over to make a disparaging remark to her brother-in-law. Les laughed and nudged his wife to join in.

Just as the last introductions were made, Tom O’Day sauntered up. He wore tight jeans and a pearl-button shirt, opened wide enough to show off some of his chest hair. His damp long hair was tied back with a strip of rawhide. When he brushed past Mandy, she caught the whiff of a strong musky aftershave.

Rob introduced O’Day to the others and asked him to share. While he spoke, Mandy noticed his gaze locking onto each of the female clients at the table. All except for Diana Anderson, who had her hand on her husband, Hal’s, knee, and Amy Williams, who was under the protective arm of her husband, Les.

Rob stood, told Cool to grab some food, then launched in to his pre-trip speech. He reviewed what they had mostly covered both in pre-trip emails and again when the clients had checked in for the trip, but it never hurt to give out directions multiple times.

After taking a few questions, he clapped his hands together. “Okay,
who knows how many rafting guides it takes to screw in a lightbulb?”

Mandy knew this joke. She assumed Kendra, Gonzo, and Cool all did, too, and were wisely keeping their mouths shut.

Rob looked around as a few clients shrugged. “The answer is
eleven. One to screw it in and ten to talk about how big the hole was.” He paused for the chuckles to die down. “We’ll be seeing some
whopper holes on this trip. Now, I don’t want to run you off if you want to socialize some more, but be sure to get a good night’s sleep. We expect you to be at the outfitter building at seven o’clock sharp!”

Prompted by Gonzo, a collective groan went up, mostly in good fun, except for Alice Anderson and Les Williams, who seemed to really mean it.

“Why so damn early?” Les asked.

“We’ve got a full day planned for you,” Rob replied. “We’ll stop for lunch where you can see some petrified wood logs, some of which are still sticking out of the solidified mud sandstone that preserved them, and—”

“I care a lot more about getting a good night’s sleep than seeing a few old logs,” Les said.

“Well I, for one, am looking forward to seeing them.” Alex’s hard stare at Les was a challenge.

“Me, too,” Paul chimed in.

Rob held up a hand. “The petrified forest isn’t the only reason we’re leaving early. We plan to reach the Little Bridge campsite by mid-afternoon, so anyone who wants to can climb to some caves in the cliffs before dinner. It’s seventeen miles downstream. Since we’ll be floating on flatwater the whole way, it’ll take some time to get there.”

Les made a face but remained silent.

Most of the group stood and started to leave, throwing their trash in the diner’s oil barrel trash can on the way out. The Anderson
family all left theirs on the table, however, as if expecting a bus boy to clean up after them. There was no such thing. Kendra jumped up to clear their trash.

Cool O’Day had taken a seat near the gal-pals and was chatting them up while he ate his Cowboy Burger with cheddar and jalapeños
. “You know what would make this burger better? If it was
drowned in marinara sauce and mushrooms.” He patted Mo’s knee. “Like Mo here, I have a hankering for Italian food. Goes good
with cool nights like this.”

Viv leaned in. “Is October a good time to be taking this trip?”

“Hell yes,” Cool replied. “You get bigger water in May, but fall’s for taking it slow, savoring the experience. Know what I mean?” He
waggled his eyebrows suggestively then put a hand on his heart. He
sang a few lines in a deep baritone from a song Mandy didn’t recognize, something about autumn weather turning leaves to flame and spending precious days with you. He ended with a flourish and a bow, obviously begging for applause.

The women all accommodated him, laughing while they clapped. They seemed to enjoy Cool’s attention and weren’t in a hurry to leave
.

After saying goodbye to Paul Norton, Rob put an arm over Mandy’s shoulder and drew her close. “What do you think? We got a good group?”

On most multi-day trips, personality problems cropped up and
had to be smoothed over, and Mandy could see the potential here. But no more than usual, really. No one seemed ready to kill anyone else yet.

“So far, so good,” she said to Rob.

three

We said there warn’t no home like a raft, after all. Other
places do seem so cramped up and smothery, but a raft don’t.
You feel mighty free and easy and comfortable on a raft.

—
mark twain,
adventures of huckleberry finn

Mandy stood outside the
outfitter building the next morning, sipping her second travel
mug of coffee. She hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before, because added to the excitement she felt before embarking on any whitewater rafting trip was the anticipation of a first descent down a river that was new to her. While butterflies battered her stomach, she chaffed her arms and stomped her feet to generate some
warmth.

The eastern sky’s rosy hue portended the sun’s rise in about twenty minutes, and Mandy was anxious to feel its warming rays on her face. The morning air was still a chilly fifty degrees. Once the sun rose, though, the temperature would rapidly climb with it to about seventy-five. Mandy and the other guides had finished prepping and loading the vehicles while wearing fleece jackets and zip-off pants, but they would shed their jackets and lower pant legs soon. As usual, Gonzo wore shorts regardless of the temperature, as he did until winter snows hit the Rockies.

The three gal-pals, Betsy, Viv, and Mo, were the first clients to arrive a few minutes prior to seven. After Mandy greeted them, they sheepishly admitted that they had been up late chatting over a couple of bottles of wine.

With a smile, she replied, “No problem. That’s what vacations are for. You can nap on the river today. Help yourself to some breakfast.” She swept an arm toward the door of the outfitter building,
where she had put out coffee, donuts, and fruit on the counter inside.

The women stumbled into the building to soak up some energizing caffeine and sugar, and Mandy returned her attention to the trip’s small caravan. The vehicles sat with full gas tanks and engines running, so heaters could warm the interiors. The exhaust steam rising around the dark hunks of steel made her think of hunkered-down dinosaurs, with the prehistoric-looking backdrop of Moab’s looming sandstone formations in the background. This
area of the American West was prime dinosaur fossil territory,
after all.

First in line was the large pickup truck piled high with gear and
towing the raft trailer. The two large oar rafts that would carry most
of the gear and few or no passengers were strapped on the bottom, with the two smaller eight-man paddle rafts on top. Most of the clients would ride in those. Besides the climbing aspect, the paddle rafts were another unique feature of their trip. Most outfit
ters just offered oared rafts or even larger motorized rafts called
J-rigs in Cataract Canyon. Mandy and Rob were giving their clients the opportunity to power a small 8-man raft through the rapids rather than just holding on while the guide did all of the work.

The fifteen-passenger van idled behind the pickup truck. All of
their
clients would ride to the river in that, along with Kendra, Gonzo
, and Mandy. Kendra would drive and Gonzo would entertain.
As for Mandy, she wanted the opportunity to size up their clientele some
more on the half-hour drive along the Potash-Lower Colorado River
Scenic Byway to the put-in at the Potash Boat Ramp.

Rob would drive the pickup truck, with Cool O’Day riding, so they could talk about the climbing side trips planned. Last in the lineup was a beat-up old Subaru with three deeply tanned young men inside chowing down on donuts. Rob had hired the out-of-work river guides to drive their vehicles to the Hite Marina on Lake Powell, their takeout point, and leave the keys in the marina office.

By seven fifteen, all but one of their clients had arrived, loaded up on breakfast, and found seats in the van. The missing man was
Paul
Norton. Mandy looked up where he was staying on the roster and
called his motel. Reception buzzed his room, but there was no answer. She had just about decided to send the guys in the Subaru to the motel to roust Paul out of his room when he arrived in his car.

He parked and jogged over to Rob and Mandy. “I’m sorry. I had so much trouble getting to sleep, worrying about Elsa’s reaction to me showing up unannounced, that I slept through the alarm. Thank God I asked for a wake-up call, too, but that came twenty minutes late.”

“No problem.” Rob clamped a hand on Paul’s shoulder. “Remem
ber you’re on vacation now. While you’re stowing your stuff in the back of the truck, I’ll get you some breakfast. How do you take your coffee?”

Looking relieved, Paul answered, “Black will do.” He ran back to his car.

Rob winked at Mandy. “There’s always one.”

She rolled her eyes. While he went inside the building, she helped
Paul secure his dry bag in the back of the truck. Paul climbed into
the van’s only empty seat, next to his daughter, Tina, in the third row.
Elsa Norton, sitting on the other side of Tina, didn’t acknowledge his presence and stared out her window. The Anderson clan filled the last two rows in the back, and the three girlfriends were in the second row.

Once Rob had returned with Paul’s coffee, donut, and banana,
Mandy climbed in the front seat next to Gonzo. Then they were off, heading west, with the rising sun blazing through the rear window. As soon as they were on the way, Gonzo got on his knees, facing the back of the van. He had been reading up on Native American rock art. Since there was a good example along the ride, he was going to brief the clients on it before they stopped to get out and look at the panel.

“On the way to the put-in,” he shouted, “we’re going to see some awesome petroglyphs right on the side of the road, so get your cameras out. Anyone know the difference between petroglyphs and pictographs?”

He waited.

Mandy turned around and saw that Paul Norton’s face had a smug expression, but he wasn’t volunteering what he knew.

When no one piped up, Gonzo explained, “Pictographs were painted on cliff walls with natural paints made from crushed minerals or plants of different colors mixed with a binder made from fats or blood.”

He paused. After Tina Norton wrinkled her nose and issued the “Eew” he was waiting for, he added, “Now that’s one way to suffer for your art! But we’re not going to see pictographs today. We’re going to see petroglyphs. They were chipped into the dark desert patina or rock varnish you find on a lot of the sandstone cliffs, exposing the lighter sandstone underneath. The way to remember the difference is that the root words ‘petro’ and ‘glyph’ mean ‘rock’ and ‘carve’ and ‘picto’ and ‘graph’ mean ‘paint’ and ‘write.’”

Mandy turned around again to make sure everyone was comfortable and could hear. In the back row, the two older Andersons were straining forward, heads cocked. Adding to their difficulty in hearing was the fact that Alice was talking softly, but laughing loudly, to her sister’s husband, Les, sitting next to her in the row in front of her parents.

Mandy put a hand on Gonzo’s arm to stop him. She shouted over the seat back, “Excuse me. Is anyone having trouble hearing Gonzo?”

Diana and Hal nodded and raised their hands.

“Gonzo’s already talking as loudly as he can. Could everyone keep it down so the folks in the back can hear him?”

She waited, and Les stopped laughing and straightened. The van was silent except for Alice, until the woman sensed everyone’s gaze and stopped. She pursed her lips and crossed her arms.

“Thank you,” Mandy said.

Gonzo resumed his spiel, explaining that no one knows the
true
meanings of the various rock art symbols. Anthropological
experts and modern tribes descended from the ancestral Puebloans who created the rock art all have different interpretations.

Before facing forward, Mandy glanced back to see if Diana and Hal were okay. Hal caught her eye and gave her a thumbs-up. Alice’s glowering stare back was unnerving, however, but she remained silent. Mandy returned her gaze to the meandering road in front of her. Sometimes on guided trips she felt like she was a kindergarten teacher or a cat herder.

“There’s always one,” Kendra said in a low whisper.

Mandy nodded. “I’m afraid that’s going to become our mantra for this trip.”

_____

By mid-morning, after the hustle and bustle of loading the rafts, everyone picking which raft they were going to ride in and launching, Mother Nature had worked her magic on Mandy again. The sun’s warmth, the peaceful open surroundings, and the calmly flowing water of the mud-brown Colorado River eased the tension out of her shoulders and put a smile on her face. The towering red sandstone cliffs of Meander Canyon on either side of the river drew her gaze, and her spirits, skyward.

She rested her oars and drank deeply from her water bottle while she watched a peregrine falcon circle overhead in the clear blue expanse. She pointed it out to Elsa and Tina Norton, who had opted to sit in the front of her heavily laden supply raft. That way, they were separated from Paul, who was in one of the nearby paddle rafts being guided by Kendra and Gonzo. The three women watched the hawk spot its prey, swoop down, and disappear behind a willow bush on the shore. Then it rose again with some small creature wriggling in its talons.

“Poor thing.” Tina shielded her eyes from the blazing, late-morn
ing sun as she watched the hawk leave.

“I’m sure there are many more mice or moles where that one came from,” Elsa replied. “And that beautiful bird may have a nest full of hungry babies to feed. It’s survival of the fittest. The strong flourish, and the weak don’t, rightfully so.”

Mandy thought maybe Elsa was no longer referring to the falcon or the mouse, but to someone closer to home. That was confirmed when Tina frowned and glanced at her father in Kendra’s raft just in front of them.

Kendra had positioned him in the rear next to her after watching his feeble paddling strokes. She was talking to him, giving him some pointers. All of the guides would be doing that with the less-experienced paddlers in the next few days, getting them prepared for the big water near the end of the trip.

Looking hopefully at her mother, Tina said, “Those who are weak
in some areas may be strong in others. Everyone should get a chance to prove themselves.”

“I know you’re not talking about that damn mouse anymore,” Elsa said curtly. “I gave your father plenty of chances.” Her freezing glare at him in Kendra’s raft made Mandy shiver involuntarily. “Our marriage is over,” Elsa continued. “I’ve moved on.” She buried her nose in her paperback mystery novel, ending the conversation.

Tina sighed and gave a Mandy a weak smile. She held a romance
novel in her hand but didn’t seem anxious to read it, so Mandy asked her what she did when she wasn’t studying or taking classes. Tina was soon chatting happily about her experiences volunteering at a preschool for underprivileged children.

Listening with one ear, Mandy scanned the other rafts. Rob was
oaring
the other supply raft, with Cool O’Day snoozing in the front. Besides Paul Norton, Kendra had the three female friends in her paddle raft. They seemed to be getting along well with her, asking for pointers and listening to her advice. Being a birdwatcher, Viv had watched the falcon, too, with the binoculars strung around her neck.

Gonzo, in the lead paddle raft, had gotten stuck with all six of the Anderson clan. The parents, Diana and Hal, sat in the back with him. They happily swatted ineffectively at the water with their pad
dles while Gonzo and their son, Alex, took turns giving them advice
and demonstrating. Les Williams had started out with powerful strokes in the front of the raft. But when he realized they were never going to go much faster than the relentlessly slow river current in Meander Canyon, he gave up and rested his paddle in his lap.

His wife, Amy, and sister-in-law, Alice, had yet to show much interest in paddling. Amy was painting her toenails to match her manicure. Mandy had to laugh that someone would think of bringing
nail polish on a whitewater river camping trip.

Alice sat with arms crossed while she quietly scanned the river banks, looking bored. She had only asked Gonzo one question so far, what the piles of foam floating in the river were. Her repulsed expression revealed that she thought they were some kind of pollution or waste.

The guides had used the opportunity to explain that the foam piles were natural phosphates washed off the native yucca plants during rainstorms. Kendra scooped up some on a paddle and let Paul and the three women feel its slimy smoothness between their fingers. Gonzo did the same for the passengers in his raft, but Alice refused to touch it.

“Hey, Paul,” Gonzo shouted to Kendra’s raft. “I noticed you brought
a fishing rod. Catfish love to slurp the bugs that get stuck in those foam
piles. So a good place to throw your line is into a big batch of foam, like the one stuck behind that sandbar.” He pointed and Paul replied with a thumbs-up signal.

“You catch ’em, we’ll fry ’em.” Gonzo shouted and returned the thumbs-up.

Hal asked Gonzo, “You get any trout in the Colorado?”

“At the headwaters, shoot yeah, but not here,” he replied. “Water’s too muddy and doesn’t hold enough oxygen for them. ’Bout all you’ll find in this part of the river is bottom feeders like catfish, chub and carp.”

Hal crossed his arms. “Not very good eating.”

“That’s what cornmeal, onions, and secret spices are for,” Gonzo
replied.

Amy cocked her head. “What secret spices?”

“My special recipe. Can’t tell you what’s in it, because … it’s a secret!”

While Gonzo laughed and the others smiled, Alice gave only a dismissive sniff. After a conversation about campfire recipes started up between Gonzo, Amy, and Diana, Alice yawned and
licked her lips. She turned around and interrupted the conversation to ask Gonzo for a bottle of water. He passed one to her through Alex, and she took it without thanking either of them.