In the Heart of the Canyon (24 page)

“Oh goodness,” said JT. “I wouldn’t go that far.”

“Don’t test me,” said Mitchell.

Afterward, Evelyn made her way down to the boats and hovered about until the guides looked up.

“I’m not second-guessing you,” she said, “but peroxide is no longer the disinfectant of choice. You should use Betadine.”

“Oh. Okay,” said JT. “Thank you, Evelyn.”

Evelyn turned and toiled back up the slope.

“She’s a good lady,” said Abo. “Even if she is a fuddy-duddy.”

“She is,” said JT.

Dixie leaned back and closed her eyes. “JT?”

“What’s that?”

“Have you ever wished for any of your trips to be over?”

“Are you counting the days, Dixie?”

“Nope,” said Dixie. “But I’m glad I’m not the Trip Leader right now.”

I
t was a tense dinner that night. Mitchell went off and ate by himself; Lena, having received a testy rebuke when she tried to follow him, stayed with the group for once and got a stern lecture from both Jill and Susan that she really didn’t need to take Mitchells bullying for the next thirty years.

“I wouldn’t call him a bully,” said Lena.

“Somewhat overbearing?” prompted Evelyn, and Lena didn’t correct her, and Evelyn felt good, for being definitive. Their site was narrow and hugged the cliff, and they all sat together in a long line, looking down upon the river, glassy and dark. Evelyn scooched closer to Jill.

“Mitchell has a hard time with groups,” said Lena.

“You don’t need to make excuses,” said Susan.

“And he’s wanted to do this stretch of the trip for so long,” Lena went on. “The city council wants him to give a slide show at the library, after he’s finished Powell’s journey. And he knows someone who used to work for
National Geographic
too. He might do a story for them. That’s a long shot,” she added.

Far below, a lone kayaker glided silently down the center of the river. They waved. She waved back.

“Still,” said Jill. “A little common courtesy goes a long way.”

“I would never argue with that,” said Lena. “But you people don’t know Mitchell the way I do. You’ve known him for eight days. I’ve known him for thirty years.

“He can act like a boor,” she said, “but he’s not a boor at heart.”

Peter for his part could deal with the fact that he wasn’t going to get any blow jobs on this trip, but he didn’t think he had it in him to tolerate four more days of Mitchell.

He dished himself a plate of food and walked over to join Amy and didn’t even offer a lead-in sentence. “I’m thinking in the middle of the night,” he said, sawing at his steak. “We stuff a sock in his mouth. We tie his hands. We drag him down to the river and give him the old midnight heave-ho.”

“Better if we could make it look like he fell,” said Amy.

“Because it’s me or him,” Peter went on. “One of us has got to go.”

“I’ll bet my mother will help,” said Amy. “She’s strong.”

“I don’t care if I even have to go to jail,” said Peter. “I am so sick of this guy making himself the center of attention. What, you’re not eating?”

“Not hungry,” said Amy.

“This isn’t the time to try and lose weight.”

“Thank you, Dr. Atkins.” She reached over and took the piece of meat he’d just cut. “Happy now?”

“Maybe we should put some of this steak in his sleeping bag,” said Peter. “Let the dog do the rest of the work.”

“Find a scorpion and put it in his hat,” Amy suggested.

“Or hot sauce in his coffee.”

They watched Mitchell take a picture of Dixie bending over one of the kitchen boxes, in an unflattering pose. “I swear, if that guy takes one more picture of me,” said Peter.

Amy sat up.

“What?”

“Oh, my, god,” said Amy.

“Tell me!”

“This is so perfect.”

“What’s so perfect?”

“I have
the
best idea.” And she proceeded, then, to tell him about the idea that had just popped into her head. Peter thought at first it was too simplistic, that it wouldn’t be mean enough and nobody would pick up on the nuances; but as she gave him one example
after another, he marveled at the girls ingenuity. Ten days ago he’d assumed she was merely somebody to tolerate. Now he was filled with admiration.

“You can be really mean when you want,” he told her.

“I’m in high school,” she reminded him.

A
nd so the next day, Peter and Amy set about taking lots and lots of pictures—of everyone, but especially of Mitchell. It was, as Amy maintained, all innocent stuff. Mitchell stirring up the grounds in the coffee. Mitchell with his hand up his shorts, adjusting things. Peter took a close-up of Mitchells well-marked guidebook. Amy caught him as he slipped while getting into the paddle boat, and then she took another shot of him sitting straight-backed in front, ready to go when everyone else was still getting settled.

She would look at that picture next winter and hear his voice clear as day, wondering out loud what was taking everyone so long.

For his part, JT counted his blessings when they managed to get the boats loaded without anyone falling down the steep slope of Upset Hotel. There were basically two big days left, Havasu Creek today and Lava Falls tomorrow, and if he could get through them with no mishap, he might not look back on this trip as a giant migraine.

Jill would always look back on Havasu as The Day Sam Jumped Off a Cliff and Saved Her Marriage.

Everything she’d heard about Havasu Creek was true. Turquoise waters and tropical flowers spilling out of glistening rocks—it was, as Mitchell had promised, a paradise, and as she made her way through thickets of wild grape, as she waded across the stream under the shade of giant cottonwoods, she felt like she’d stepped into the ancient botanical gardens of a long-gone culture.

“You want me to wait?” Mark asked politely, once she started to fall behind, and just as politely, she told him to go on ahead. The last thing
she wanted was Mark lingering, keeping her company just so he wouldn’t look like a shithead for abandoning her.

She was, admittedly, still angry with him. They’d said as little as possible to one another after their fight above Granite; and her lingering grumpiness now had as much to do with the fact that everyone had witnessed her outburst as with the substance of the fight itself. Everything was so public, down here on the river!

In any case, she ended up hiking by herself that afternoon, a quarter of a mile or so behind everyone else. Eventually she caught up with them at Beaver Falls, where the creek opened up to a series of broad waterfalls, each cascading into a succession of deep green pools. A jungle of vines drooped over the banks, and the air smelled of cloves and oranges.

“You feeling okay?” JT asked. “Drinking enough?”

She liked the way he was always checking on them. She felt taken care of, watched over; she felt safe.

“You’re such a parent,” she told him.

“Well,” he said, allowing his half smile, “I guess I try.”

She’d planned on swimming but suddenly found herself chilled. Out in one of the green pools, Mark and the boys ducked and swam and splashed one another. Jill watched them without envy; they were doing what a father and his two sons ought to be doing on a trip like this. It was good for them to horse around. She found herself thinking back on all their family squabbles, the stupid everyday things—which kind of pizza, how many videos, who called shotgun, where all the money went, why did you wait until the night before the assignment was due?—and it all seemed ludicrous now. How could any of it matter?

And as for their fight over Sam yielding his seat to Evelyn: What was wrong with a father trying to instill a sense of grace and generosity in his son?

But she was still mad. What an odd, fickle day, she thought.

When it was time to head back, JT led them along an alternate route, one that followed the narrows of the creek itself, which meant wading up to their hips and clutching the underside of great overhanging
boulders to guide themselves along. Once through the narrows, they all scrambled up onto a small ledge to dry out and congratulate one another on their maneuverings.

“Hey, Mitchell,” said Peter. And he took a picture of Mitchell hoisting himself up from below, grimacing with effort.

Jill squeezed into a sliver of sunshine to warm up. Mark came up close.

“How come you didn’t swim?” he asked.

“I was cold.”

“The water was warm.”

“Not warm enough for me,” she said meanly.

Mark rubbed her arms briskly, and she tolerated it. But in truth she wanted to go back to the boats. All this luxurious greenery was overwhelming her. She wanted rocks, river, sky. And some of Susan’s wine, frankly.

“Where’s JT going?” Mark asked.

Dixie chuckled. “Up to his ledge.”

Jill looked up to see JT squeezing through a narrow slot. Then he vanished.

“What ledge?” she asked, for she saw no ledge from which anyone could jump.

Dixie pointed.

The reason Jill wasn’t seeing any ledge was because she was looking only halfway up the cliff. She looked further, and then, squinting from the sun, she saw JT’s silhouette appear on a tiny lip of rock far above them. Jill was lousy at estimating distances, but she would have guessed this to be a hundred feet up.

“He’s going to
jump?”

“Every trip, rain or shine,” Dixie said. “He calls it Continuing Education.”

Matthew, cold by now, came up and huddled against her. She put her arms around him. She hadn’t held him close in a long time and now noticed that his bones were lumpy and knobby at the joints. She wondered if this was normal for a teenage boy.

She kissed his head. “Where’s Sam?”

But before Matthew could respond, Peter gave a low whistle. “Wow,” he said. “Way to go, Sam,” and Jill and Mark both looked up to see their second-born son poised on the lip of JT’s ledge.

Jill’s legs went wobbly, and at the same time she had the sensation of biting on metal. Her eyes dropped to the pool below. Maybe a hundred feet was an exaggeration, but still: the pool was small. There was no room for error.

“Yikes,” said Susan, joining her.

“Is Sam actually going to jump?” inquired Evelyn.

“Lucky Sam,” said Amy. “I’d jump too, if I weren’t so fat.”

“Oh, honey!”

“Shut up, Mom,” said Amy.

“Whoa
that’s high,” said Mitchell.

Jill wished they would keep their comments to themselves, because she knew what they were hinting at.
Are you actually going to let him jump?
Which infuriated her. Whose business was it anyway if Sam jumped?

“What do you think?” Mark asked in a low voice.

It shocked her that he wasn’t automatically vetoing the idea. Mr. Safe. Mr. Cautious. Mr. Always Wear a Helmet. She looked up again. In the dappled sunlight JT was standing right behind Sam. He’d placed his hands on Sam’s shoulders, and now he bent down so that his face was level with Sam’s as he pointed to landmarks below.

“Hey, Sam!” Mark shouted, and when he had the boy’s attention, he held out his hands in a questioning gesture. Sam made a small indeterminable movement in response.
Yes, I’m going to jump. No, you can’t stop me
.

And Jill recalled a time long ago, senior year in high school it must have been, upstate New York, a sunny afternoon at a gorge. She watched her friends jump, one by one. And when she finally jumped, she felt her limbs go loose. She saw the blurred stone cliffs, bodies sunbathing on the ledges below, the sparkle of sunlight filtering through fat green leaves; and then she felt the hard, cold smack of the water. Her legs stung, and she swallowed a lot of water, and after she hauled herself up onto the warm rocks, she discovered a large plum-colored
bruise on her thigh. But the thrill was palpable and lasted long into the night—the thrill of a reasonable, sensible girl living dangerously for one short moment on a warm spring afternoon.