Dead River

Chapter Six



Justin holds my hand on the bus ride down to the river. He likes to trace letters in my palm, secret messages, but this time I’m only getting fragments. First a U, then some other letter, then a K. He looks at me expectantly, but I’m just puzzled.

He does it again. This time I concentrate on it. U O K. You okay?

I smile at him and nod, even though my hands are shaking. For some reason, I can’t stop myself from looking at the Death side of the river. It probably doesn’t look much different from this side, but I can’t get it out of my head. And if I was going to start making up voices in my head, why would my head choose a phrase like What the devil is that? And in the accent of a gruff Australian guy? I never knew my subconscious was that creative.

The bus bumps along, and the blueberry muffin I’d taken nibbles of in the back of the office bumps along with it in my stomach, threatening to make an escape. Hugo is mumbling something about how the zipper on his wet suit is chafing his neck, and meanwhile Angela, looking prettier than I’ve ever seen her, is just staring out the window at the river like it’s a cookie she wants to take a big bite of. Justin is tracing messages on my hand again, but this time all I catch is a V and a U. It doesn’t matter. I know what he’s saying. I turn his palm over and trace LUV U 2 on his.

The bus jostles us along for a few miles and then turns toward the river, down a narrow path that’s more potholes than road. A beefy guy with a crew cut, probably in his mid-twenties, comes down the aisle, finally stopping at the seat in front of us. “Hey, I’m Michael. Your guide,” he says to us, shaking Justin’s hand. “Not that you’ll need a guide.”

“Have you been out there on this release yet?” Justin asks.

Michael exhales. “Oh yeah. Yesterday. It’s going to be a blast. Great time.”

Justin and Angela nod, excited. I look out the window to see rows of equipment lined up in metal cages near a long pier. I guess we’re here, at put-in. Everyone starts funneling off of the bus and for a moment I can’t seem to find my legs, but then I stand and follow Justin and the rest of my group. Someone hands me a paddle and straps a helmet and life jacket on me and we walk out toward the pier. We wait for the other groups of people to load onto their rafts and push off, and then it’s our turn. I can’t believe I’m finally doing this. I step into the raft and it bucks and I look for a seat. A seat belt. Something so I won’t fall out.

“Where do we sit?” I ask Justin.

He pats the edge of the raft.

“But there’s—that’s—impossible,” I stammer. It all looks so precarious, like dangling one’s feet out the window of a high-rise building. And he knows I have no sense of balance. I sometimes fall over walking on level ground. This is just an accident waiting to happen.

Justin knocks on my helmet lightly. “You’ll be fine. I’ll be right behind you.”

I swallow and attempt to sit down on the raft, then straighten again. This can’t be right. I’ll fall out the second the raft moves. “Wait. Where do I put my feet? Do I, um, straddle it?”

Angela laughs and sits like she’s slipping into a comfy recliner. “No. Keep your legs in. Like this.”

I follow her, but I might as well be sitting on a marshmallow. The raft pitches a little, then a lot when Justin sits down. I lurch forward, then dig the heels of my water shoes in and steady myself before I can kiss Michael’s backside. He’s sitting in front of me, so I’m flanked by two burly, manly men. Nothing to worry about, right?

Wrong.

Michael strokes his scruffy goatee and smiles at me. “Virgin?”

“Um, excuse me?”

“First time on the river?”

“Oh, er. Yes,” I say, thinking, Does he even need to ask that?

“Don’t worry. Piece of cake,” he says, but I can’t help feeling that everyone is saying that only because they’re a lot braver than I am. If it’s a piece of cake, why am I wearing a helmet that makes my head look twice its normal size? “Now, my first time as guide. Two years ago. That was a story.”

“Oh really?” I mutter, not wanting to hear, since with my luck it probably has to do with someone’s death or dismemberment. I look over the edge of the raft at the dark water frothing beneath me, and I try to take deep, cleansing breaths. If only my dad could see me now. He’d be so … out of control.

I picture my dad’s face, turning tomato-red under his beard, his eyes bulging as he condemns me to spending the summer at home, grounded. And for what? This totally fun experience? We haven’t even pushed off yet, and I already feel seasick. Maybe Dad was right.

Michael obviously doesn’t sense my lack of enthusiasm in reliving his exciting first days on the river, because he continues on: “Yeah. One of the factories upriver, on the Androscoggin, made clothing forms. You know, mannequins and stuff. It closed down in the 1950s. But two years ago they were demolishing all the factories to make way for some condos. And somehow a bunch of the forms ended up in the river, and during the dam release, with the water churning the way it was, they looked like dead bodies.”

Of course, dead bodies had to be in there somewhere. But it is kind of interesting. I find myself saying “Really?” and wanting to hear more.

“Yeah. Funny thing was, all the guides were jumping in to save them. So we were soaked before we even started. And it’s not fun to spend three hours soaked on this river in early May.” He laughs. “The good thing was, I’ve never had it any worse than that first time.”

Well, that’s a good sign, at least. Surprisingly, I feel a bit of calm trickle over me.

“Okay, Chief,” Justin says from the back. For some reason he calls guys in a position of authority Chief; I guess it’s in preparation for his police job. Either that or he likes to pretend he’s part of an Indian tribe. “We’re all set.”

The calm doesn’t last; my heart buckles in my chest as we push off. For a second I look longingly at the pier, but only for a second, because soon we’re in the middle of the river. No turning back. I grip the paddle in my hand so hard that I’m surprised my fingers don’t make dents in the handle. I’m so stiff, afraid to even breathe because that might throw my balance off.

After a few minutes, I loosen up a little and exhale. I manage to take my eyes off the river ahead for a moment or two to take in the shimmery, light green buds appearing on the trees and enjoy the fresh, clean smell of new spring growth. Actually, it’s not bad. Just coasting, I tell myself. Great scenery. We dip and toss, but only gently. Michael leans his oar over the side and begins paddling, so I do, too, imitating him perfectly. I almost forget that there are rapids up ahead, until Michael calls out, “Spencer Rips is first.”

“Spencer who?” I ask, but then I see it. Peaks of white on the river ahead. At one point, the rushing water seems to disappear into a void, only to show up farther downstream. A waterfall. I want to hide at the center of the raft, but instead, I follow Michael and just brace myself as we dip into the wave. A wall of icy water hits me square in the face and I bite my lip, tasting grit. Angela lets out a shriek—not of fear, knowing her. And I’m right, because two seconds later she shouts, “Awesome!” I swallow, thinking that this is how different my cousin is from me; never in my life could I consider eating dirt to be awesome. I don’t think my paddling does much, but I keep doing it, because everyone else is, and what if it’s all that’s keeping me from an icy swim in the Dead?

A few tense minutes later, the river evens out. I exhale slowly and Michael looks back, smiling. “No sweat, right?”

Justin claps me on the back. “You did it.”

I did it. Yes!

Michael relaxes and says, “So, as I was saying, this job is crazy. That was the first of many, shall we say, interesting excursions on the Dead.”

Now I’m all ears. Almost relaxed, even. “Like what?”

“Well, there were the dudes who insisted on rafting completely naked, except for their helmets and paddling jackets. And the ladies who were part of a reality TV show. They thought it was a sightseeing tour of the river. One of them chipped a nail and all hell broke loose.”

I laugh.

“Yeah. Robert was all like, ‘Put a sock in it and get your arses on the raft.’ And he took out a knife and started waving it at them.”

“Robert?” I ask. “You mean Robert Skiffington? Pat’s uncle?”

“Yeah. He’s crazy. He used to jump into the river in the winter without a wet suit. And after the ride, he’d run around base camp screaming and laughing and peeking in the tents of the female campers.” He laughs. “The Australian outback must have fried his brains, man.”

I stare at him for a second. Something clicks in my mind. “Robert Skiffington was Australian?”

“Well, no. He was born here. But he lived there awhile or something.” He laughs. “Man, I miss him. We keep wondering when he’s coming back.”

Somehow, even though a thin drizzle is still falling, I see the early light of dawn poking through the trees behind the Outfitters office building. I see a wiry man, setting off with hiking boots and a backpack that is half his size slung behind him. I see him stop to gaze out on the river as the shadows of the trees stretch in the new pink-orange light. His eyes mist over. Well, I’m not going to be seeing you, my dear, for a while.

And then, not a moment later,

What the devil is that?

And suddenly I know something, almost as sure as I know my own name. I know that two years ago, Robert Skiffington left with his pack, hiking up toward the Appalachian Trail. I know that he saw a cold white hand protruding from the water in the shadows of the dawn. I know that he said What the devil is that? before sliding down the embankment, his head thudding against a log with a sickly crack as his hand reached for that white limb, only to find the solid, completely inhuman material of a mannequin form, before he faded out of consciousness.

And I know he’s not coming back. Because the truth is, he never left.