He went around the room, turning off all the lights except for the one between the beds. Then he turned the covers down on Caitlin’s bed before going back to the window.
A few minutes passed, and the bathroom door opened. He didn’t turn around. Her reflection, dim in the reduced glow of the single light, came out wearing a short slip. She hung her clothes on hangers and came up behind him again.
When she spoke, he could feel her soft breath melting the frost on his nape. “Thanks for turning down the covers.”
Her lips gently touched his cheek. “Good night, John.”
He murmured a good night and watched her reflection walk to the bed.
How many months had it taken him to be able to think about her without feeling the wrenching pain in his gut? How many times had he wanted to look her up and convince her to leave Scott? Even now, the moment she walked into the Gleaning Cube, he had to restrain himself from rushing to meet her. What was it about her that affected him like no other woman in his entire life? He’d had lovers, more than a few, but none had ever made him want to give everything else up, just to be with them.
He stood alone, staring out at the pounding surf, thinking back a dozen years and about all the might-have-beens.
***
The thunderous roar of water against rock filled John Blalock with anticipation. His pulse quickened, and an uneasy smile creased his stubble-darkened face. Sitting in the bow, he gripped the nylon safety line and watched as their yellow and black Domar raft neared the tongue of Crystal Rapids. At flow rates greater than 40,000 cubic feet per second, the Crystal was the most dangerous rapid on the Colorado.
The pair of rafts drifted between great cliffs along a river whose surface danced from a barrage of raindrops. Like the others, John wore a sturdy life vest over his tee shirt and shorts. His feet were partially covered by well-worn sandals.
Glen Phillips, the leader of their little expedition, adjusted the oars in the locks. This was Glen’s third trip down the Canyon, but only he and Steward Phillips, John’s roommate who manned the oars in the second raft, had ever traveled the Canyon before.
Leaning back, John stared upwards into the warm rain at steep canyon walls topped by a barely visible strip of rain-filled sky. Here and there, pink veins of Zoroaster Granite shot through the massive cliffs of gray schist that rose jaggedly from the water. A thousand feet up, the gray altered to ledgy layers of Tapeats Sandstone, which in turn was topped by four thousand feet of Paleozoic cliffs. The Canyon was a marvel of nature, a place of almost unimagined beauty.
Even the Canyon’s beauty couldn’t keep John’s thoughts off the Crystal.
A chuckle came from his left.
Caitlin Maxwell’s raven hair hung from beneath a Colorado Cellars Winery cap and draped across the back of her orange life vest. She was nearly as tall as John’s own five foot ten inches and her skin was tanned two shades darker. Her large blue eyes were cheerful, and she showed a wide stretch of perfect teeth as she smiled.
She leaned close so she wouldn’t be overheard. “Hey, cheer up. It can’t be as bad as Glen’s making out. He’s been through it before.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure, at least not under these conditions. Did you ever read Michael Ghiglieri’s book `Canyon’?”
She shook her head.
“He’s a professional guide. His book describes a run down the Canyon. He put a lot of pages into detailing Crystal’s dangers.”
John pointed downriver toward the rapids. “You see, the only relatively safe path is to hit it hard on the right side. But if we get off the right edge of the tongue, we’ll be in trouble because that feeds into New Wave. From there, the tongue cuts left into the Slate Creek diagonal then rollercoasters into Crystal Hole.
“Still, the greatest dangers of Crystal are below the Hole if we get flipped. Besides the hypothermia, there’s the chance of getting trapped under the boat and drowned. Beneath the Hole is a submerged island of boulders called the Bone Yard. If you fall in, don’t forget, keep your feet up and pointed downstream. Stay high in the water and wait for a calm section to try for shore.”
He lowered his arm. Caitlin stared at him for a moment, and then she laughed and put her right hand on his bare leg. “Don’t worry so much, John. Life’s too short; you have to enjoy what you find.”
Her touch sent a shiver through him. Why did she have to be engaged? It would have been better had he never met her. Anything would be preferable to watch her marry someone else. Damn, but his timing was bad. Three months. If only he’d met her three months ago. It would have been enough time to convince her she should drop Scott and marry him instead. Three, no two months, perhaps even one month, but there was no way to convince her in so short a time. Now only a week remained before the end of the trip at Diamond Creek, a dozen miles upriver from Lake Mead.
Lake Mead.
Where her fiancé waited.
Damn him anyway. If Scott hadn’t broken his leg in a rock climbing accident, he would be on this trip, and John would be home; warm, dry, and working on his doctoral dissertation.
As they accelerated into the rapids, the cacophony of water clashing with stone grew until it drowned out normal conversation.
In running rapids, entrance is everything. Either you’re lined up properly for the safest possible run,
