Whitewater Rendezvous

and I thought you should know. That’s all. I’m sorry.”

There was a soft click and then a dial tone. Megan had listened to that dull drone for several long seconds, frozen with shock. She’d been on the phone for fi ve minutes or less. That was all it took for her whole life to change.

O

Megan lay on her back on a smooth rock the size and shape of a sports car, her eyes closed, while a short distance away, her fi ve friends and the two guides prepared to get underway.

Seven kayaks and one large raft were lined up along the shore of the Odakonya at a place where the river was wide and shallow and fl at, meandering through a long valley of muskeg and low, scrubby spruce trees. The pilot had landed in the middle of the river, the fat front tires of the plane bouncing them along on a wide gravel sandbar.

The weather could not have been more perfect for the start of their adventure: seventy-four degrees with a light breeze. In every direction, the awesome spectacle of snowy peaks starkly outlined against the deep blue cloudless sky behind.

They were all in high spirits and anxious to get underway. Everyone but Megan, who had puked her coffee and toast into her airsickness bag in the Twin Otter on the way over. The turbulence in the little plane had exacerbated a stomach already in upheaval over memories of the past.

“Are you feeling any better?”

She hadn’t heard anyone approach. She was glad it was Sally and not Chaz. “Yes, a bit. Are we all ready to go?”

“Pretty much, but we’re not on a schedule. If you’d like to spend more time here so your stomach can settle…”

“No, I’m all right.” She sat up slowly. “I don’t want to hold everyone up.” The raft was loaded, all the gear tied in, and everyone was putting on their spray skirts and PFDs. Chaz was looking right at her from the water’s edge, forty feet away.

“Will you help me with my spray skirt?” she asked Sally as she pushed off the rock and headed toward the group.

“Sure.” Sally followed her to her boat and got her situated, and soon they were on the river.

They settled into a lazy pace, rarely paddling, enjoying the view

• 71 •

KIM BALDWIN

and letting the gentle current sweep them along. Megan kept to the rear, about as far away as she could be from Chaz.

It wasn’t long before they got their fi rst glimpse of some of the wildlife they’d been promised. A bald eagle, following the course of the Odakonya, soared low over their kayaks, looking for fi sh, allowing them all a close-up view of his magnifi cent white head and tail.

Megan and most of the other clients had been talking in low voices until then, remarking on the scenery and telling stories of past vacations, but the eagle stunned them into silence. Then they could hear that the air was alive with subtle but constant bird songs—juncos and myrtle warblers, gray-cheeked thrushes and tree sparrows.

Megan spotted a couple of Arctic ground squirrels playing tag on the bank, a muskrat swimming next to the shoreline, and several hawks, fl ying so high she had no hope of identifying them. She drifted very near a male rock ptarmigan, starkly contrasted in its winter plumage against the brown grass alongshore. They stay white to distract predators fromthe nest, she’d read. The females turn brown. She was excited to be able to identify so many animals that she’d never seen before. It was an eminently satisfying use of her considerable research.

A bit farther on, Chaz, in the lead, slowed her kayak until all the others were grouped up and able to see her. Then she pointed her paddle blade at one of the nearest mountains—its base rose from the tundra a half mile away.

Megan couldn’t decipher for the longest time what she was pointing at. She had excellent eyesight, but she didn’t see them until one of the Dall rams took off on a run up the steep slope. Then she could see them all, a scattering of white sheep among the gray and tan granite rock behind. Specks at this distance. How the hell did she seethem?

They stopped for sandwiches and chips at a spot on the river where a wide gravel bar offered a perfect parking spot for the kayaks and a chance to stretch their legs. Most sat atop their decks, but Pat and Linda sat side by side, leaning up against their boats.

“What’s that?” Elise asked, pointing to a fl ash of movement in the clear emerald water.

Elise had, Megan noticed, managed to park her kayak right next to Chaz’s, and had been fl irting openly with the guide all through lunch.

She asked Chaz what every single bird and plant and animal and tree

• 72 •

Дата добавления: 2015-11-14