Departures (23 page)

“And now!” Mountain Bob yelled.

Sierra dug her paddle into the water and gave it all she had. The raft flexed its way over the bumpy river current and bounced into a large boulder. Mountain Bob pushed off from the boulder and yelled for them to keep paddling.

The nose of the raft lifted into the air. Underneath her feet Sierra could feel the smooth boulders they were jetting over. She stopped paddling and held on to her seat for dear life. Jana screamed as they came down, nose first, into a loud, whirling pocket of white water. The splash doused them all, filling the bottom of the raft with water.

They all paddled as the raft spun around twice before Mountain Bob had them headed in the right direction. As soon as he did, he hollered for them to paddle out toward the middle of the river.

“Great job,” Mountain Bob praised them all as they floated into calmer waters.

That rousing venture paralleled what Sierra’s emotions had been doing the past few days—tossing her up and down and dousing her good.

Mountain Bob began to call out directions again. He wanted the guys on the left to paddle, and he wanted Jana to grab the bail bucket and bail out the bottom of the raft in the front.

“What about me?” Sierra asked.

“You? You sit for the moment.”

Sierra made another mental note that while going down the river of her life, at times she would be still while everyone else was busy with what they were instructed to do. That didn’t mean she was being left out, but that rather, for that place and time, she was supposed to sit.

“Okay,” Mountain Bob called out, “now everyone, including Sierra, paddle—except for Jana. Keep bailing, Jana. Our biggest rapid is just ahead.”

This time they could see the white water before they hit it. Boulders were on either side and one was straight ahead.

“Guys on the left, when I give the word, you dig into it, because
we have to get to the right of the boulder as soon as we hit the white stuff. You ready?” Mountain Bob asked.

Sierra could feel her heart pounding. For the first rapid she hadn’t known what to expect. But now that she had experienced the sensation of their raft seemingly spinning out of control and being lifted by the powerful water, she had more respect for what they were about to paddle into.

She bit her lower lip and silently prayed. They hit the white water before they felt anything sensational, but as soon as the raft was all the way into the fray, the frantic water’s noise was so loud they could barely hear Mountain Bob’s instructions.

Sierra thought she heard him tell Jana to stop bailing, but Jana obviously didn’t hear him. When she should have been paddling, she was scooping up water and holding the bucket by the handle over the raft’s side.

At that moment, the raft veered to the right. The bucket instantly filled with the rush of water coming at them. Jana screamed, but instead of letting go of the now full and heavy bucket, she held on to it with both hands as the raft tipped to the right. While Sierra watched, powerless to do anything, Jana went over the side, still holding on to the bucket.

ierra screamed and rose to her feet.

“Sit down!” Bob bellowed. “Keep paddling!”

In a minute and a half of furious paddling, they had steered the raft past the dangerous boulder, out of the white water, and to the side of the lake where the water rippled quietly over tiny, well-worn pebbles.

“Where is she?” Gregg yelled, standing up and calling out behind the raft. “Jana! Jana!”

“I’ll go in and get her!” Danny announced, throwing down his paddle.

“No, wait!” Bob told them. He stood and pulled out a bullhorn and a rope from a box in the back of the raft.

“Jana!” Tim and Gregg called at the same time.

Sierra spotted Jana clinging to a shelf that jutted out on the big boulder in the middle of the river. “There she is! Jana!”

Mountain Bob stood and yelled at Jana through the bullhorn. It was the same instructions he had given them at the beginning of their float—what to do in case of an emergency. Sierra wondered if Jana had been paying attention then, or if it was like when they were on the airplane and the emergency instructions seemed more useful as joke material than as actual warnings.

“Let go, Jana!” Bob yelled at her. “Float on your back and keep your feet in front of you with your toes up.”

They could hear Jana screaming that the water was cold.

“Let go, Jana!” Mountain Bob yelled, repeating the instructions.

Sierra’s heart was pounding. “Come on, Jana!” she yelled with Bob. “Let go!”

The others began to yell the same instruction until they saw Jana release her grip and begin her float toward them on her back, with her toes up.

It took only a few seconds before she floated right to the raft. They all began to talk at once, cheering and reaching to help her climb in.

Shivering and still shook up, Jana slumped onto the seat next to Sierra, which Gregg had vacated when he had moved up next to Tim. Everyone pelted Jana with questions until she finally managed to say, “I lost the bucket.”

They all laughed, and Gregg said, “You almost kicked the bucket is more like it.”

“Why did you hold on to the bucket?” Danny asked.

“I thought that was my job.”

“I don’t think she heard you,” Sierra said, turning to Mountain Bob. “When you told her to put down the bucket and start to paddle.”

“I guess not,” Bob said. “Glad you’re okay, Jana.”

“I’m okay,” she said, still shivering.

“We’ll get you out in the sun, and you’ll warm up nicely,” Mountain Bob said. “We only have one more rapid, and that one is about fifteen minutes down the river. You have a fairly easy float between here and there.”

Sierra liked the sound of floating in the sun for the next fifteen minutes.

“I hope you guys all saw in this situation the importance of listening to instructions and following them. If anyone else goes over, remember to get on your back, keep your toes up, and let the river take you downstream. Let your life vest carry you. That’s what you put it on for.”

As the river took them into a sunny stretch of calm water, Jana seemed to catch her breath. Sierra put her arm around Jana’s shoulders. “You okay?”

Jana nodded. Water still dripped from the ends of her dark eyelashes.

“That must have been pretty scary.”

“It happened so fast,” Jana said.

The two friends leaned close and talked quietly while the others leisurely paddled. Danny was stretched out along the side of the raft, soaking up some sun.

“Do you want to lay across the bench so you can get the sun all over you?” Sierra asked.

“Where will you sit?”

“I’ll just squish up front with the guys.” Sierra carefully moved off the bench so Jana could stretch out.

“We can stop for a while if you guys want to,” Mountain Bob said. “Up ahead on the left is a nice sunny cove.”

“That sounds great,” Sierra said, answering for all of them. She balanced on the edge of the raft as Bob directed them into the cove.

Sierra thought the water looked as if the sun had poured out all its
summer riches into the liquid blue, like a bagful of gold coins that now glittered with each swish of the paddles.

“This is beautiful,” she murmured.

“It sure is,” Tim agreed, casting a shy smile at her. He looked up at Bob and said, “We can go swimming here, right?”

Mountain Bob nodded. “It’s the best place on the river to swim. The water is much warmer, and see those high rocks over there? The water is about twenty feet deep. Safe enough for jumping. But everyone hear me on this: jump feetfirst only; no diving!”

“Got it,” Gregg said. “Do you want me to get out and pull the raft up on shore?”

“This is shallow enough,” Bob said. “How about if everybody gets out here, and I’ll park this buggy.”

The moment Sierra’s feet went into the shallow water, she felt even more sympathetic toward Jana. If this was the warm water, Jana must have been freezing back in the white water. Tim waded into the water and, without warning, stretched out and began to swim toward the jumping rock.

“Isn’t it cold?” Sierra called to him.

“Not once you get all the way in,” Tim called, turning to float on his back. “It’s nice. Are you going to come jump?”

“Sure,” Sierra said. “Do you want to come, Jana?”

“No way. I want to get warm.” She had made a smooth place on the pebble beach to stretch out in the sun and waved Sierra to go on without her.

“I’m coming,” Gregg said.

“Me too,” Danny said, making the biggest splash when he went all
the way into the still cove water. “Yee-haa!” Danny hollered as he surfaced. “That’ll clear your sinuses.”

Gregg went in with much less noise and splash. He followed Danny and Tim around the corner with strong, steady strokes.

Sierra was having a hard time working up the nerve to dip into the cool water.

“Are you going in?” Jana asked her.

“I’m talking myself into it,” Sierra said.

“You know,” Mountain Bob said as he tethered the raft and was about to stretch out in the sun on the middle bench, which was the longest. “You can walk to the jumping rock. See that trail over there? It’ll take you right to the top. First jump is always the best when you’re dry going in. And remember, feet first.”

“Okay,” Sierra agreed. “If you hear a shriek loud enough to start a landslide, that will be me.”

“Try to keep it down,” Bob said, stretching out. “Some of us around here will be sleeping, right, Jana?”

“Quiet,” Jana teased. “I’m trying to sleep.”

Sierra took off on the trail. She was glad to see that Jana was joking with Bob. Sierra took it as a good indicator that Jana was feeling better.

At the end of the trail, Sierra could look down on the guys, who were just emerging from the water and climbing up the rock. She was tempted to stay in her fairly hidden spot above them and listen to what they said. But they weren’t talking; they were jumping.

Tim went first, quietly jumping into the water and coming up with a wide-eyed expression that showed just how brisk the water was.

Gregg went next, clowning by plugging his nose as he jumped. Danny was last. He hesitated, started to get in position, then stopped. Sierra knew how he felt.

As Gregg climbed out of the water, he called up to Danny, taunting him to jump. When Gregg looked at Danny, he noticed Sierra standing there.

“How did you get up there?” he yelled.

“There’s a trail,” Sierra said.

“Are you going to jump, or are you out for a stroll?” Gregg taunted.

“I’m going to jump,” Sierra said, edging her way down. Her wet tennis shoe caught on some foliage, and she nearly slipped but managed to correct her balance and remain standing.

Danny applauded and yelled out, “Make way for the Queen of Coordination.”

“Hey, be nice. I’ve come to offer you some moral support.”

“You really going in?” Danny asked when she joined him on top of the jumping rock.

“Yes, of course I am. But you first.”

“Oh no,” Danny said, his smile swelling with overdone charm. “My mama always taught me to let ladies go first.”

“Well, these are modern times, Danny boy. Women and men supposedly have equal rights,” Sierra said, smiling back. “So you have the right to go first.”

“How about we jump together?” Danny suggested. He offered Sierra his large hand.

Sierra placed her hand in his. It felt sweaty. She wondered how sweaty hers was.

“On the count of three,” Danny said.

“And it has to really be three,” Sierra said. “None of this two and a half stuff or pulling back at the last minute.”

“Right. I hate that too.”

“Okay, then on the count of three,” Sierra said.

They shouted in unison, “One, two, three!” With hands tightly clasped, Sierra and Danny leaped into the air.