As soon as he entered the rapid, Carlyle spotted Sayers’s raft. It was upside down, impaled on a piece of rebar that had been driven like a harpoon clean through the boat’s floor. The guide and his six-person crew, waves breaking over their heads, were clinging to the chicken line as the current did its best to sweep them down into Harris.
Carlyle had done half a dozen river-rescue courses, but never alongside raw, untested recruits. He knew that with no place to anchor midstream, he’d have only one chance to save Sayers’s people. “All back! We don’t want to crash into them.”
His boat pulled up alongside the disabled craft. He reached over, slid a rescue line through a d-ring, and pulled his raft close. “Grab their life vests at the shoulder, lean back, and pull them out one at a time. Make sure no one slips under our raft. I can’t hold on much longer.”
When there were six people sitting on thwarts in the middle of his raft, Carlyle turned toward Sayers. “It looks like there’s another piece of iron just thirty yards downstream. We’ve got to turn hard left as soon as I cast off. Grab the spare paddle and let’s get out of here.”
Carlyle’s boat, its gunnels now only four inches above the river, cut across the current and began following the shoreline toward the trestle at the bottom of the rapid.
Ten minutes after he entered Harris Rift, Carlyle roared into an eddy at the mouth of the Boreas and found Sutcliffe’s boat parked twenty yards upstream of the abandoned railroad trestle.
Betts yelled, “What the hell is going on?”
Carlyle looked over at Nash. “How’s Marshall?”
“He’ll make it,” Nash said. “Just answer Betts.”
Carlyle pulled his boat close to Sutcliffe’s raft. “Where’s your guide?”
A ranger sitting front left said, “When we got here, he jumped out and ran into the woods at the top of the slope. A minute later we heard an engine fire up. It sounded like an ATV.”
“What’s your name?” Carlyle said.
“Jason Williams, sir.”
“Jason. You afraid of heights?”
“No, sir. I manage a skydiving club when I’m not doing stuff like this. I’ve got a couple hundred jumps in my book.”
“Great. Run up to the trestle, cross it, and make your way back to the top of the rapid. If any other boats show up, tell them to run the left side of Harris, the same one we just did. You got that?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Say everywhere else is booby-trapped. Someone will come get you in an hour.”
Williams jumped from Sutcliffe’s raft, scrambled up the slope, and made his way to the middle of the bridge. “You would not believe the view!” he shouted. “I can see the gorge and the mountains north of here. There’s still snow on them!”
Carlyle shouted, “Forget the scenery! Just get going.” Carlyle pointed to the people in Sutcliffe’s boat. “I want all of you to move to our other rafts.”
Betts said, “Wait a minute. How’d you know Harris would be booby-trapped?”
“I’ll explain after we put Marshall in an ambulance at North River. Sutcliffe could be planning something else.”
“Sutcliffe? He’s the asshole responsible for all this?”
“It’s him, all right. Now get going, but stay away from Bus Stop. We can’t do that to Marshall.”
Carlyle shoved his boat into the current and let the Hudson, now a relentless dark green surge, push them downstream. Worried about another attack, the four guides kept their rafts no more than twenty feet apart. The six rangers in Carlyle’s boat sat grim and silent, staring at the woods and the abandoned railroad track as they rushed south through the valley. Thirty minutes later, when a chopper appeared over the beach at North River, Carlyle said, “You can relax. We’re out of danger now.”
Betts stood up in his boat. “There’s police cruisers, ambulances, and cops with shotguns all over the put-in.” Yellow tape kept a fifty-person crowd, mostly media, far from shore.
Caleb Pierce, careful to avoid the mud, made his way down the bank as Carlyle’s raft hit gravel.
“How’d you hear what happened?” Carlyle said.
Pierce grabbed the front of Carlyle’s raft. “That ranger, Williams, he had a cell phone. He made it sound like a war was going on out there.”
“He tell you anything else?”
“Only that Sutcliffe ran out on them.”
The rangers unloaded their gear, thanked Carlyle, and marched up to the road.
“Have they found him?” Carlyle said.
“We’ve got a dozen patrol cars searching a twenty-mile radius around the gorge,” Pierce said. “That doesn’t include the units stationed at Wevertown and Warrensburg. But nothing yet.”
When the ambulance carrying Marshall had left, Bognor walked down the embankment and over to Carlyle. “How did you flush him out?”
Carlyle told Bognor about Sutcliffe’s refusal to take the usual path through Harris. “He was clever enough to follow Marshall into the first trap, but he knew where to duck. When he abandoned his raft and crew for a getaway vehicle, that clinched it.”
“I can’t wait to get my hands on him,” Pierce said.
Bognor turned to Pierce. “Give us a minute, would you?”
Bognor led Carlyle fifty yards up the road, away from the media, to where his cruiser was parked. The two men leaned against the vehicle, facing the river.
“Ric,” Bognor said, “I know you’ve had a tough day, but I’ve got some bad news.”
Carlyle slammed his fist into his own chest. “Is she okay?”
“She? Who?”
Carlyle let out a breath. “Sorry. I was worried about my wife. What, then?”
“They found Wells this morning.”
“Found him? Where?”
“At the base of Mitchum Rock. He died trying to save an ice climber who’d been stranded overnight on a ledge. I’m really sorry.”
Carlyle rested his hands on the cruiser. “He wanted to come with us today. I told him to stay with Search and Rescue.”
“Come on, you’re not responsible for his death.”
“I can’t believe it. We were together just yesterday. Where is he?”
“They’re taking his
