The voice became more persistent. “I said, step this way, please.”
Carlyle crossed the road and walked toward the cruiser.
“Do not approach me. Go to your vehicle and wait for my instructions.”
Three minutes later, Caleb Pierce appeared next to Carlyle’s truck. He was wearing a crisp green uniform, tinted aviator glasses, and a thick Sam Browne belt holding a Maglite, a Glock, and pepper spray. “May I ask what in hell you were doing just now, sir?”
“Caleb, what’s going on?”
Pierce placed his left hand on the roof of Carlyle’s truck. “Do you realize that if someone had hit a patch of ice a minute ago, the paramedics would have had to peel you off the guard rail?”
“You can’t be serious?”
Ignoring Carlyle, Pierce stared at the notes in his booking log. “State records say that you committed a serious moving violation some time ago.”
“They keep records going back ten years?” Carlyle’s violation, a four-point speeding charge, had been his first traffic stop ever.
“Just hand over your license and registration, please.”
Carlyle pulled both documents from his wallet.
“I thought we’d seen the last of you yesterday,” Pierce said. He handed Carlyle’s license and registration back through the open window. “These roads can be treacherous. You’ll want to be more careful next time you leave Albany.” He turned and walked back to his patrol car.
As Carlyle pulled onto the road, he looked back and saw Pierce entering the details of their encounter into the State Motor Vehicle Complaint Data Base.
When Carlyle drove into the parking lot of the Silver River Outfitters twenty minutes later, he saw Burton shouting orders to his crew. Carlyle left his truck and the two men shook hands. “I just ran into Pierce,” Carlyle said.
“So, you finally met the Dentist.”
“The Dentist?”
Burton said that ten months ago, Pierce, on DUI patrol, had arrested Michael Shillings, a married father of two little girls. “Shillings mouthed off, and Pierce used his baton to remove the guy’s front teeth.”
“He’s a piece of work all right.” Carlyle pulled his gear from his truck. “Thanks for letting me ride with your outfit today.”
“If Mussolini had a hundred bucks, I’d sell him a ticket. I told Molly you’ll be with Jesse Simmons. Go inside and see her.”
Carlyle entered a small A-frame, crossed a screened front porch, and walked up to a desk covered in river rescue videos and outdoor magazines. “I’d like to sign up for the trip,” he said to the middle-aged woman standing in front of him.
“Could have fooled me, sweetheart,” Molly Carson said. “I thought you were on your way to a photo shoot.”
The woman had some tough miles on her. Years of smoking unfiltered cigarettes had creased her face. There was a portable oxygen tank somewhere in her future.
“Stay around after the trip,” Carson said. “I’d like to show my old man what purdy looks like.”
She was five foot eight and a bit under a hundred and ten. Her tight jeans, wool shirt, and pile vest were tattered. Carlyle guessed ex-fashion model, Midwest born, fed up with New York City, living on twenty acres planted with alfalfa and high-quality weed.
Carlyle laughed. “Sorry, I’m spoken for, ma’am.”
“Course you are. I haven’t had the pick of the litter for years.” She handed Carlyle a registration form. “Done this before?”
“Years ago. I brought my own gear.”
“Good for you. We get rookies wearing cotton and fancy new mesh sandals. They get cold real quick. Twenty minutes into the trip, their nuts are so small you can hardly see ‘em.”
Carlyle laughed. “No problem for me there.”
Carson pushed a generic one-page release of liability form across the desk. “Sign here. This tells your family and your goddamn lawyer that we warned you this was a life-threatening activity and you were too dumb to take it seriously.”
Carlyle signed the waiver form and handed it back. “Where do I find Jesse Simmons?”
“Outside somewhere. Find the guy who looks like he was put together by a backhoe. If he’s red in the face and swearing like he stepped on a nail, that’s him.”
“Sounds like a real sweetheart.”
“Do not get that man angry. He means well, but he’s got more rough edges than a young bull on his way to the knife. You mind my asking why you’re riding with Simmons?”
“I’m told he’s the best guide you’ve got.”
“He’ll keep you safe, but he’s no Gandhi, that’s for sure. Now get the hell out of here. I’ve got a bunch of flatlanders coming in any second.”
Carlyle walked outside and saw twenty or thirty clients milling around the front yard. Silent, clutching their gear, a few looked like they’d just learned the Hudson was filled with barracuda. The rest, guys in their twenties, were swearing, telling filthy stories, or terrorizing their more timid companions. When Carlyle had worked up here, he’d watch these people, all mouth and no guts, freak out once they hit the gorge. Everyone, he’d learned after a year or two, is gutsy in the abstract.
Carlyle spotted Simmons immediately. He was medium height, not an ounce of it fat. He carried three flares, a river knife strapped to his right thigh, a string of carabineers, a rescue belt containing seventy-five feet of high-tensile rope, a diver’s watch, a high-definition whistle, several prussic loops, and z-drag equipment.
Three men and three women, their eyes fixed on the ground, stood silently around him.
Carlyle walked up to Simmons. “Got room for one more in your boat today? I’m Burton’s guest.”
“You’re late.” Simmons turned his back on Carlyle and addressed his crew. “This isn’t some Disney World ride. There’s no guarantee you’ll come back with all your fuckin’ teeth in the right place. But if you do exactly what I tell you, I may be able to keep you safe today.”
An hour after they dropped their raft into the Indian, Simmons’s belligerence, which had been designed to drive the timid ones back to the bus, quickly vanished. Using both precise paddle strokes and brute force, he waltzed his boat around obstacles that
