Halfway down Indian Head Rapids, he shouted, “We’ve got to go around these fucking boulders, people, not bounce off them!”
Simmons never became the least bit pleasant that day. “Pay attention now,” he growled just above Guide’s Hole. When the crew got lazy a few minutes later, he said, “You will follow my instructions or you will die, goddammit.”
Carlyle knew that the river had climbed to five feet this morning, a foot higher than it had been last week. Almost three thousand cubic feet of water per second was now rushing toward the gorge. Waves erupted all around the raft as it hurled down the Indian. By the time they got to the Narrows, with a dozen tributaries disgorging snowmelt into the canyon, Burton’s clients would have a month’s worth of stories that wouldn’t need to be exaggerated.
Carlyle, meanwhile, kept a close eye on Simmons while scanning ahead for unfamiliar hazards and anything that seemed out of place.
Freezing spray, the kind that turns exposed flesh white, filled the air and made Carlyle’s lungs seize up. The river’s numbing cold penetrated his dry suit and all three layers of wool, pile, and polypro underneath. He couldn’t imagine what the others in their boat, who wore only cotton gloves and thin wetsuits, were feeling.
When they stopped to rest for a minute, Carlyle noticed that Simmons wasn’t wearing neoprene gloves. “Aren’t you cold?”
Simmons stared at his hands. “Nah, not really.”
“Your fingers are white.”
“They always look that way after a manicure.”
Carlyle knew you had to be a bit crazy to do this kind of work. Most guides, especially those who had thought they were too talented to be carpenters or roofers, began their careers in macho mode. But once they’d seen teeth lying around their boats like spilled Chiclets, even the most belligerent guides settled into the arduous task of learning this demanding profession.
Simmons resumed his Captain America act as soon as they hit the river again. “Pay attention, now. I get docked ten bucks every time a client drowns.” A couple of minutes later, he said, “If you paddle like pansies, I’ll spank you.” Although Carlyle didn’t like Simmons’s attitude, he understood that it had a single purpose: to keep his inexperienced clients reasonably dry and out of danger.
For six or seven minutes—an eternity for those who’d never been down a river like this one—the boat careened down through Gooley Steps, a chaotic landscape of boulders and backwashing waves.
After they punched through the strong current where the Hudson joined the Indian, Carlyle asked Simmons to take a break just above Cedar Ledges and let him get out for a few minutes.
Simmons smirked. “You got a weak bladder?”
“What did Burton tell you about cooperating with me?”
Simmons slewed the raft toward the right side of the river. “Let’s take five, ladies.”
Carlyle stepped out onto the bank, ducked under the yellow DEC tape and, watching for anything out of the ordinary, slowly walked downstream toward the spot where Blake had died. When he reached it, he looked for the log he’d come to examine but couldn’t find it. He glanced around. Was he in the wrong place? The rocks, the sloping forest floor—this was the only place along the chute it could have been. But where was the log?
He studied the ground where he had last seen it. Clumps of snow fallen from trees obscured any tracks or drag marks that might have been there. When he brushed away a patch of snow, he found a thick layer of dead leaves still there. He turned and, for a good two minutes, studied the forested hillside.
He then walked down to where they had pulled Blake out, found nothing new, and headed back to the raft.
It took Simmons and his crew thirty minutes to go from Cedar Ledges to Entrance Rapid. When they reached the gorge itself, Simmons said, “Two hundred yards downstream, there’s an Everest-sized boulder on your left. Don’t ask me what happens if we hit it. Immediately after that, you’ll see six huge waves in front of you. Let me do the thinking. Just keep your heads down and paddle like this is the fucking Zambezi and the river is filled with snakes.”
As they entered the Narrows, Carlyle, his eyes fixed on Simmons, knew he was watching a performer at the top of his game. Simmons was like one of those stocky, thick-fingered Russian pianists, both self-confident and agile, bull-rushing his way through a Brahms piano concerto. He sat on the edge of the back tube, his upper body arched out over the water, perilously close to thrashing waves, the weight of his entire body secured to the raft by a narrow foot strap. Every time the boat threatened to drop into a hydraulic, he plunged his guide paddle a bit deeper into the agitated whitewater surrounding their raft.
After their sprint through Carter’s Rapid—another four minutes of neck-snapping maneuvers—Simmons, breathing heavily, pointed his boat toward an eddy on the river’s right side.
This rest stop couldn’t possibly revive the clients, thought Carlyle. The thermometer on his jacket read forty-nine degrees. Snow falling from the trees settled on his helmet and shoulders. His feet were sitting in ice-cold water that sloshed back and forth across the bottom of the raft. The crew, aware they still had over an hour until this ordeal ended, must be wondering how much longer they could endure these conditions.
Simmons ran the final two miles of the gorge without mishap. Because it was too dangerous to approach Greyhound today, they skirted the two-foot trench and let the current push them slowly south, past a deserted garnet mine, derelict cabins, and an abandoned railroad trestle running over the river, while Simmons explained to his clients why this region had, as he said, “fallen into the shitter.”
In the past ten days, two of Marshall’s better
