He left the barn and walked toward the garden. Beth was bent over a row of irises, their tall, elegant stalks and stunning violet-blue petals still wet from last night’s rain.
“I’m home.”
She stood up. “You surprised me.” She was wearing the wide-brimmed straw sun hat he’d bought her in Venice two years ago, one of his long-sleeved cotton shirts, light gray slacks, and a pair of brown, open-toed garden shoes.
“How long have you been out here?” he said.
“A couple of hours, at least. I love it this time of the morning. Quiet and cool. The birds are going nuts and I can’t think about anything but how I’m going to capture all this on canvas.”
Carlyle wrapped his arms around her shoulders. “Sorry I called so late. It was chaos at the lodge until the press and the police left. Then I had to stop and see the Marshalls.”
“It was all over the news. Let’s go inside.” She scooped up a trowel and pruning shears, put them in a wicker basket, and walked beside him toward the house.
“I thought you were done risking your life.”
“Marshall was hurt. They needed someone to lead them out of the gorge. End of story.”
“But did you have to help the police capture Sutcliffe?”
“There would have been a massacre if I’d let a SWAT team storm his cabin.”
“You wanted to save lives. I can understand that part of it. But it’s what you’ve always done -- put yourself in danger just to prove that you’re not afraid of anything.”
“I can’t promise it’ll never happen again.” He stood up and went to the stove. “On the way down here, I realized I needed to ask you something.”
“I know what you’re going to say. Adrian’s gone.”
“For good?”
“Yes.”
“I asked you when all this began not to let him near us.”
“He was only around for a couple of hours at a time.”
“What was he doing here?”
She stood in front of him and looked him in the eyes. “You were a hundred miles away in the mountains, hours from the nearest phone, while a madman was terrorizing this region. I was afraid to be alone. Maybe I was doing the same thing you were in the gorge, facing my fears at last.”
“Of being attacked again?”
“Of strangers, dark streets, long hallways, and unfamiliar surroundings.
Sunlight flooded the kitchen. Carlyle stood up and lowered the south-facing shades. “You ever think about going somewhere to escape this heat? Maybe getting a place in the mountains?”
“I won’t sell this house.”
“I wasn’t suggesting that.”
“Then how would we buy something up north?”
Carlyle sat down. “Marshall’s father is fed up with supporting that rafting company. They asked me if I was interested in buying it.”
“Buying what exactly?”
“Their entire operation on the Hudson. The rafts, the outfitter’s license, all the equipment.”
“Why would Ryan give it all up?”
“The deaths of Saunders and Blake have ruined that life for him.”
“What did you say?”
“That I had to see if you’d be willing to move up there for three or four months every year.”
“Where would we live?”
“The lodge has a five-room apartment on the third floor. It has a large glassed-in room facing north that would be perfect for a studio. There’s a huge kitchen and a garden out back.”
“What about my work?”
“There’s a gallery in town that would go crazy if they could sell your stuff.”
Beth stared at the trees surrounding their house. “You’re going to run boats through the gorge again, aren’t you?”
“No. I’ll leave that to the young guys who need to prove how tough they are.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“You can trust me on this one,” Carlyle said.
Acknowledgements
I am grateful for the assistance of the staff of the following organizations: the Library at the Adirondack Experience: The Museum on Blue Mountain Lake, the Adirondack Research Room at the Saranac Lake Free Library, and the University at Albany Library.
This work would not have been completed without the assistance of many individuals: Robert D. Hare whose work on psychopaths and criminal behavior was most helpful; Louise Cowley, Chris Noël, Laurie Alberts, Ellen Lesser, and Robin Hemley of the Vermont College of Fine Arts for their friendship and unfailing encouragement; the guides at the Nantahala Outdoor Center and at Idaho River Journeys who taught me how to row an oar rig: Bob Wolfe who pulled me from Mile-Long Rapid in April, 2000; Drs. Barbara Kapuscinska and Peter Kelly who explained the physiology of drowning; Annie Stoltie, Editor of Adirondack Life, who gave me permission to quote from Kathryn E. O’Brien’s article, “The Saga of Sam Pasco”; my intrepid editor Peter Gelfan who read many drafts of this novel; and the staff at Bublish.com who shepherded this manuscript into print.
I cannot adequately portray the enormous debt I owe my wife, Iris Berger, who shared more Class V rafting trips than she ever bargained for.
About the Author
Ronald Berger has a PhD in British history from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an MFA degree in creative writing from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. He is the author of The Most Necessary Luxuries: The Mercers’ Company of Coventry, 1550-1680 (Penn State University Press, 1993). He was a licensed whitewater raft guide on the Hudson River from 1992 to 1997. The Gorge is his first novel. He and his wife live in upstate New York.
