Leaving Blythe River: A Novel Read online

  It was still predawn and not completely light when Sam and Marcus came riding back. Marcus looked about thirty, with shaggy hair that extended well into the collar of his shirt, and a pretty-boy face. He rode a horse that looked a little too small for him. He wasn’t a big guy, maybe five nine or five ten and wiry thin, but the horse—a light-gray Appaloosa with spots—looked more like a big pony. He was built heavy and solid, though. Ethan figured it was okay. Ethan figured Sam wouldn’t have put Marcus on the pony-horse if it wasn’t okay.

  Sam’s horse was a big bay. Huge, really. Almost as though he had a little bit of draft horse mixed in.

  The two rode into the yard several dozen feet apart, not looking at each other or speaking.

  “Well, come on,” Sam said. “On your feet, everybody. We’re behind schedule.”

  Jone stood. “Don’t you have to repack that mule?”

  “Nah,” Sam said. “I gave Marcus saddlebags with some extra stuff.”

  “Did you apologize to him? For not being very neighborly about accepting his offer to come along?”

  Sam glanced over at Marcus but said nothing. Then he looked away. Down at his own saddle horn. Ethan took it as a “no.”

  Jone walked over to Sam’s big bay and said a few words. Ethan couldn’t hear most of them, but he thought he made out the word “dog.” He trotted over to be closer to the life-altering conversation.

  “I don’t see what it’ll hurt,” Sam said. “Might hurt the dog. Won’t hurt us any. He’ll just have to buck up and learn as he goes. Get in shape as he goes. He’s young, right?”

  “I don’t know,” Jone said, and turned to Ethan. She seemed surprised to find him so close. “How old is your dog?”

  For one shameful moment, Ethan was tempted to lie. To say Rufus was ten. Or twelve. But his mouth opened and out came the truth.

  “He’s two and a half.”

  “Aw, hell,” Sam said. “He’s a dog. He’ll be fine. Just keep him away from Rebar when we’re in camp, Ethan. On the trail Rebar’ll be focused on his work. But don’t let those two mix it up during the breaks. Now come on, guys. We’re burning daylight.”

  It seemed strange to Ethan that anybody would feel as though he was burning through something that had yet to arrive.

  He ran to the house to let Rufus out.

  “You pack dog food?” Sam called after him.

  “Oh. No. I forgot.”

  “Grab a bag of dry. Enough for three days at least. And more than you’d normally feed him. You can put it in Dora’s saddlebags.”

  His team was mounted and halfway to the road, as if they planned to ride away without him. Dora stood near the porch, her reins in the dirt.

  Ethan grabbed his backpack and began stuffing the plastic bag of kibble inside.

  “No, leave the pack,” Sam called. “Put everything in the saddlebags.”

  While he did, his team milled slowly toward the road. It made Ethan feel panicky and desperate.

  The saddlebags were a sun-faded blue nylon, with zippers that had obviously been crudely replaced, and a tear that had been stitched by hand. Ethan quickly filled them with kibble, socks and underwear, toothbrush and comb. Then he straightened up to see the rest of the team sitting their horses in the road.

  “Well, come on,” Sam said. “What’re you waiting for?”

  Ethan wondered how many times that day he would find himself in this situation. Called upon, even hurried, to do something he did not know how to do.

  “I have no idea how to get up on this . . . ,” he shouted, “. . . mule,” he said more quietly.

  It was Jone who rode back into the yard. She was on a tall, lanky chestnut horse who looked like a relative of the crazy yearlings, with a white blaze on its face.

  Jone stopped the chestnut horse close to Ethan.

  “Gather up the reins,” she said.

  She didn’t sound like she was in a hurry, or pressuring him, so Ethan breathed for what felt like the first time in a long time.

  He picked up Dora’s reins from the dirt.

  “Now loop them over her head.”

  Ethan followed the direction.

  “Now get a good hold on them with your left hand. Right in front of the saddle. And take a piece of her mane with them in that same hand. That way you won’t accidentally yank on her mouth while you’re swinging up.”

  Oh dear God, Ethan thought. I’m really doing this. I’m really going. Meanwhile he felt his hand grip the reins and a clump of Dora’s mane.

  “Now put your left foot up in the stirrup.”

  He did. It wasn’t too hard a reach, because Dora was stocky but not tall.

  “Now grab hold of the saddle horn with your right hand. And don’t hesitate. Just swing up there. Commit to it and get it done. Swing your leg over in one big movement.”

  Ethan paused briefly for something like a tiny prayer. Even though he never prayed, and wasn’t sure he believed in anything that would or could listen. It was a defining moment, and he knew it. If Jone had to get down and push up on his butt to get him up into that saddle, it would be an enormous humiliation. It would only prove to everyone, himself included, that he had no business doing this.

  He closed his eyes and swung. And landed neatly, and not too hard, on the saddle on Dora’s back. He pulled a muscle up through his right leg, one buttock, and his lower back. But damn it, he was up there. He opened his eyes again. The ground looked pretty far down considering she was a small mule. He fumbled to get his foot into the other stirrup by feel.

  “Good,” Jone said. “Now come on.”

  Then they were under way. Riding off toward the mountains. And it was too late to change his mind. It was all just happening, and it was too late.

  Ethan had been worried about revisiting the pass where he’d encountered the bear. Worried what kind of reaction would be created by the fear triggered in that location.

  He needn’t have.

  He should have worried about a whole different set of issues.

  Sam steered the team to the left at a trail intersection, shortly after entering the wilderness. The trail led sharply uphill, gaining maybe two thousand feet, narrowing as it rose.

  About halfway up it, Ethan could see the valleys below, but he quickly learned not to look down.

  The sky was a dramatic blue now, with clouds that looked too white and dense and three-dimensional to be real. Like another set of mountains in the sky. Now and then the horses and mules had to step over—or wade through—streams of water running down onto the trail and then pitching over the cliff into the valley. The narrower the trail got, the more the water fell on them like rain as they rode through. The sound of small waterfalls seemed to follow them along.

  Ethan looked up ahead to see Sam riding lead, in front of Marcus, with binoculars in one hand, scanning the rocks and trails and crannies below, tugging Rebar along behind the big bay. Ethan turned and looked back to see Jone riding behind him, also searching with binoculars.

  It made Ethan feel useless. Because he wasn’t even searching through binoculars. He was just along for the ride. He looked past Jone for Rufus, comforted to see the dog still following behind.

  “Wouldn’t the searchers have seen him if he could be seen from this trail?” he asked Jone.

  “Yeah. Probably. We’re grabbing at straws here, in case you didn’t know. Hoping he might’ve dragged himself out to a more visible location since then, or that he maybe can be seen by horseback but not by plane. I don’t know what else to tell you, kid. We’re just doing what we can.”

  Ethan faced forward again, still careful not to look over the edge of the cliff. “Dad!” he called out. Big volume.

  “Noah!” Sam called.

  They’d developed a rhythm to it. Ethan would start, then one other member of the team would follow. Like an echo, but with one obvious difference. And not always the same team member every time. It wasn’t any rotation they’d discussed in advance. It just seemed to work itself out.
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  Nobody figured Noah was about to call back, exactly. But there was no reason not to try. If nothing else it would serve as fair warning for the bears.

  “Why did you decide to come?” he asked Marcus. Partly because he didn’t know Marcus at all, and figured he would be more comfortable if he did. Partly because it was better than focusing on the drop-off.

  For a time, no answer. Dora was tramping along with her nose nearly up against the tail of the Appaloosa, who didn’t seem to mind or even notice.

  Then Marcus turned his head.

  “Who, me?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You don’t want me here, either?”

  “No! I do! Definitely. I was just thinking it was nice of you. You don’t know me or my dad. It was nice of you to offer to come. I was only wondering what made you decide.”

  “Let’s see,” he said over his shoulder. As if there were just so many reasons to sort through. Also as if he weren’t enthusiastic about any of them. “I did move here to do stuff like this. I had this settlement. Some money from a legal settlement when I lived in L.A. I figured it was enough to keep me someplace for a couple of years. I asked myself what I really wanted to do. Where I wanted to be. I always wanted to be a serious outdoor person. A mountain man. But I’ve been here for seven months. And I’ve only been up these trails twice. Seems like a waste. That’s what Jone said, anyway. That I only had just so much time I could afford to live here. And that it was a shame to waste it.”

  Then Marcus looked forward again.

  Ethan looked up to the crest of the trail and worried briefly about what was on the other side. A flat expanse of trail would be nice. But Ethan didn’t think it was realistic to expect it.

  Marcus’s pony-horse slowed going through a stream, and Dora didn’t. She bumped the Appy in the tail with her nose, and this time he minded. This time he jumped.

  “Keep that mule back,” Marcus said. “Will ya?”

  “Sorry,” Ethan said.

  They rode on in silence. Ethan felt compelled to break it.

  “Was it the bears?”

  He had to speak up to be heard over the waterfalls, and the distance he had been asked to keep from Marcus’s Appaloosa pony.

  “Was what the bears?” Marcus asked over his shoulder.

  “Is that why you only came up here twice?”

  “No,” Marcus said. “I brought bear spray. I never saw one. I didn’t think too much about bears.”

  Then Marcus said no more, and Ethan wasn’t sure if he should press the issue. He wanted to know if Marcus had been afraid. If he was still afraid. If Ethan was not the only one on this search team who felt overwhelmed by the danger of what they were attempting. But most people didn’t readily admit to being afraid, he figured, and it probably wasn’t a welcome question to ask.

  “Dad!” he called again.

  “Noah!” This time Jone echoed it.

  Just below the crest of the trail, just as Ethan was sure the conversation was over, Marcus turned his head and spoke again.

  “The first time I came out here, it hailed. Big hail. Like the size of . . . well, I almost said walnuts, but that would be exaggerating. More like macadamia nuts. Doesn’t sound like much, but they come down hard. And they hurt. I was in that valley with all the lakes. The sky had been solid blue when I left. Not a cloud in the sky. Then the weather just turned on a dime. There were no trees, no rock overhangs. All I could do was crouch down and cover my head. I put my pack over my head and neck, but the hail kept hitting my hands, and it really stung. Then when the hail finally stopped, it was sheeting rain and a big wind came up. The temperature dropped maybe twenty degrees. I had this jacket I thought was waterproof but I guess it was only water resistant. It soaked through to my skin, and I was shaking, and I thought I’d be hypothermic before I could get myself home.

  “Second time I came out here I got up on the big pass and this dry lightning started, and it was heading right for me. I was running to get down off the pass, get someplace less exposed. I was counting the seconds between the thunder and the lightning, and it was getting shorter, and then there was nothing to count. I could feel my hair stand up. That’s not a good sign.”

  A long silence. Sam and his bay gelding had almost reached the crest of the trail, Sam still scanning with his binoculars. Ethan could feel poor Dora puffing for breath underneath him. He wanted to stop and give her a rest, but he couldn’t stop unless everybody else did.

  He looked around again for Rufus, who was dutifully bringing up the rear.

  “It’s not that I thought it would always be rain or hail or lightning,” Marcus said. “I know there are lots of nice days in the mountains. It just reminds you who’s in charge. You know? Nature is not what you might call predictable. And it’s not forgiving. It doesn’t care about us. The lightning is gonna go where it wants to go whether you’re about to get fried by it or not. The wilderness just has this way of reminding you that you’re powerless. And that what you want doesn’t matter. We always think we’re so smart and strong, but nature always gets the last laugh.”

  Then Dora crested the high point of the trail, and Ethan looked ahead to see . . . not what he had hoped for. More, higher mountains. A trail that flattened out for maybe a hundred feet, if that, then rose again. Even more extreme drop-offs.

  I don’t feel smart and strong, he thought. He wondered if that would save him from the hard lessons. Probably not. Probably nature didn’t care about your confidence level, either.

  He thought of his father, running up here day after day. Thought of the look on Sam’s face when Ethan had tried to describe his father’s running regimen. “That’s pretty extreme,” Sam had said. Or words to that effect.

  Now that he was seeing the place with his own eyes, Ethan understood for the first time how extreme it really was.

  He wondered how much of a lesson the wilderness had taught Noah Underwood. How much of a last laugh nature had enjoyed at his father’s expense.

  “Dad!” he called out.

  “Noah!” Marcus called after.

  They rode around a bend, and a small mountain lake came into view. It looked green, probably because it was shallow and had grass or some other kind of vegetation on its bottom. It also looked blue and white, because it was glassy-calm on this windless morning and reflected the sky.

  Sam reined his big gelding to a halt, and the horses and mules bunched up behind him and then stopped.

  “Let’s take a quick break here,” Sam called.

  Ethan was happy to dismount. Partly because he wanted to get his hat out of the saddlebag, to keep the sun out of his eyes and help with the gathering heat. Partly because he was already sore from contact with the saddle’s hard seat. His stomach felt painfully empty, but he had no food in his saddlebags. Sam had told him not to worry about food. Sam had also asked if he’d had a good breakfast, and warned that they’d be riding straight through to lunch.

  Ethan swung down and looked around for Rufus. When he didn’t see him, he cupped his hands and called the dog’s name, and Rufus came trotting to him from around the bend in the trail. Ethan grabbed the dog’s collar so he couldn’t get too close to Rebar.

  Jone and Sam led their horses into the shallow water of the lake and took the reins over their necks, holding them loosely so the animals could drink their fill. They both wore cowboy boots with their jeans legs tucked inside. Because of the boots they could wade that far without getting their feet wet. Ethan looked down at his own athletic shoes.

  He looked up to see Marcus wade in with the pony, wearing high-top hiking boots. He stayed in water too shallow to go over the tops of his boots, and encouraged the pony to go a step or two farther.

  Ethan put Rufus in a sit-stay and rummaged around in the saddlebags until he found his hat, hoping someone would offer to water Dora for him when their own mount had drunk his fill.

  “Let her drink some water, boy,” Sam called. “That’s a long march up that mountain.”
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br />   “But my feet’ll get wet,” he said, wishing as he heard it that he hadn’t sounded so pathetic.

  Sam laughed a short bark. “Everybody’s feet’ll get wet. We’ll be riding through the Blythe River in less than two hours.”

  Ethan tried to imagine the depth of a river that would get your feet wet while you were mounted. Not that he didn’t know there were deeper rivers in the world, but . . . didn’t that make it dangerous to cross?

  “How deep is this river we’re about to wade through?” Ethan asked, leading Dora out into the shallow edge of the lake. The water felt shockingly cold as it filled his shoes and soaked his socks and the cuffs of his jeans. The mule dropped her head and sucked water gratefully.

  “We’re not wading it. We’re swimming it.”

  “Um. Maybe I should have told you I’m not that strong a swimmer.”

  “The mule does the swimming.”

  “Oh,” Ethan said. And decided not to ask any more questions. Even though he had many swirling around in his head.

  “Hey!”

  Ethan heard a sudden shout, followed immediately by a big splash. Water sloshed high up onto his calves. He looked over to see Marcus pulling up to his knees in the shallow water, fully drenched. He’d dropped the pony’s reins, but Sam ducked in and grabbed them before the mildly spooked Appy decided to go elsewhere on his own.

  “You did that on purpose!” Marcus bellowed, pointing at Sam.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Sam said. “I did no such thing. My horse pushed me with his nose and I just bumped into you, that’s all.”

  “Like hell!” Marcus shouted. “What is your problem with me, man? What is your problem in general?”

  “You’re making a big deal out of nothing,” Sam said. “It’s already hot. We’ll be dousing ourselves in lakes and streams a dozen times today just to stay comfortable. Look,” he added, and dove forward and down until he flattened out on his stomach and disappeared in the shallow water, still holding both horses’ reins. His hat floated.

  He jumped up, dripping and mud covered, and grabbed up the hat.