Authors: Amanda Carpenter
“And so would Gabe.”
“You underestimate him, I think,” was all Emma had to say. She left the room after a bit, and Carrie finished the preparations for the trip in peace.
Later, she stood by Gabe as they waited for Steven and Ralf to finish looking over the raft that was in the back of one of the Metcalfe trucks. Gabe had a pair of faded, cut-off jeans. Long, muscled legs were planted squarely on the ground, covered with a light sprinkling of dark, fine hairs, and deeply tanned, just like his chest, which was broad and bare.
Carrie’s eyes followed the direction that Gabe was looking in, and saw Steven vault out of the truck and come loping towards them. “Just about ready,” he stated, grinning broadly. “Is lunch packed?”
“Emma’s finishing it now,” she told him.
“Good.” He looked at Gabe. “When we’re all set, just stick behind the truck. The roads should be fairly good.”
“All right.”
Carrie smiled to herself as she rode by Gabe on the way to Westwater, her brothers’ favourite rafting spot. Gabe had indeed called her afterwards, just as he had promised. And he had taken her out to eat, just as he had promised. And after that, he had either called her, or had taken her out almost every evening since. Carrie began to look forward to his calls and, once in a while, when he didn’t call her, she would call him. Gabe always sounded delighted to hear her voice, and this made her certain he felt exactly what she felt: namely, a great desire to be with him as much as possible, whenever possible. Her thoughts were interrupted.
“Now, tell me all about Westwater,” Gabe requested quietly, negotiating a turn quickly in order to stay right behind the other truck.
“Basically, Westwater Canyon is a popular spot for rafting. Experience, though, is necessary, because the whitewater rapids are very quick and sometimes dangerous,” said Carrie, racking her memory for more information. “Steven has told you that much, I’m sure. The launch point for the rafts is four and a half miles from the Colorado-Utah state line—west, of course, in Utah. We’ll be rafting about seventeen river miles to Rose Ranch, where we’ll be leaving one of the trucks. The water is just a bit past its yearly peak right now. It peaks all throughout late May and early June. This isn’t reliable information, though, because the river flow varies from day to day, let alone from year to year…
“There’s a difficult rapid in particular, and it’s called Skull Rapid. On a rating of one to ten—ten being the most dangerous—Skull Rapid has a rating of nine. Sound fun? We’ll be going right through it.” Carrie shuddered as she spoke. “Actually, the first part is supposed to be very mild, as rapids go. It’s the last four rapids that are the worst: Funnel Falls, Skull Rapid, Sock-it-to-me Rapid, and Last Chance Rapid. The rest should be pretty easy.”
“So I guess it’s a good thing we all can swim very well.” Gabe chuckled.
“Something like that,” she snorted. “It really isn’t something to joke about, though, because people have drowned in that river before.”
“This is bothering you, isn’t it?” he asked instantly. “We won’t go, if you like. I probably should never have let Steven talk me into it to begin with, and we’ll tell them when we get there.”
“No, no, no,” she said, impatient with herself. “They planned the whole trip, just for you and me. We should go, at least for that. I think I’ll like it anyway. I’m just having an attack of nerves, that’s all.”
He sighed, glancing at her earnest face. “Do you get queasy?”
“Oh, no. It doesn’t affect me that much,” she assured him with more confidence than she felt.
The rocky desert rolled into hills on their way to the Westwater Ranger Station. At one place, Steven turned off onto a gravel road and Gabe turned quickly after. “It’s a good thing Steven talked me out of bringing the Merc,” was his only comment.
Carrie winced at the thought of the sharp little rocks wrecking the gleaming dark blue sides of Gabe’s car. “I’m surprised Steve remembered to say anything. He’s so absentminded, I would have thought that he’d forget.”
When they reached the ranger station, Carrie stayed near the car while Steven and Ralf entered the building to get their passage cleared. Gabe strolled over to look at the calm appearance of the Colorado river. He stared down into the water until she faced him.
“Last chance, honey.” He squinted up at the sky as he spoke. “I believe the question now is ’to go or not to go’. What’ll it be?”
“Oh, I’ll definitely go,” she told him blandly. “After all, if you can stand it, then so can I.”
At this impudent remark, Gabe laughed and grabbed her arms, twisting then behind her back. She shrieked as he began to propel her towards the water, some three yards away. “You should have realized I’d get you for that. After all, I’m a male and definitely superior,” he teased. Carrie tried to lunge away, but he hauled her back up against his chest. She immediately started to tickle him with her fingers, her hands being crushed behind her. “Hey! Cut that out, Carrie. Damn—I can’t stand being tickled—ouch!”
“Need any help?” asked Ralf from behind both of them. Gabe let go of Carrie’s arms and they both turned, laughing, to Steven and Ralf.
“Well, the raft is out of the back of the pick-up,” said Steven. “Gabe, I thought you and I could both drive to Rose Ranch and drop off the truck, and then come back here in the other one so that we’ll have a way to get back here after the trip. In the meantime, Carrie and Ralf here can be pumping up the raft. Is that all right with you?”
“Sure,” Gabe readily replied.
“All right. We best be going, then, so we can hurry back and get started.” Steven turned to Carrie and Ralf. “See you. Try not to fight too much until we get back.”
“Fight?” Ralf and Carrie cried out simultaneously.
Ralf continued indignantly, “We never fight!”
Soon after Gabe and Steven left, Carrie and Ralf were arguing pleasantly as they struggled to get the raft inflated with a portable hand pump. In about half an hour, the dirty white pick-up that Gabe was driving slid to a halt and Carrie, who had been reclining in the inflated raft, scrambled out to join the others.
“Everything ready?” Gabe asked her, smiling. She clicked her tongue at him reprovingly.
“What else did you expect?” she retorted.
“If everything is ready, then let’s get going,” Steven put in. Gabe, Steven and Ralf pushed the raft into the water and held it steady while Carrie climbed into it. Then Ralf followed, then Gabe, Steven being the last. Gabe and Carrie sat near the back end of the raft as it headed smoothly out, and Steven and Ralf were at the other end, each with a paddle and both facing the other two.
“Can I do anything?” asked Carrie, although she knew the answer was probably no.
“Just sit back and enjoy yourself,” Ralf told her. Steven and he were rowing slowly and leisurely in time with each other. “This isn’t going to be rough at all for a while, and when it does get rough, hold on tight. Steven and I are the only ones in a position to steer and the only ones with experience. You two can relax.”
The flow of the water was soothing and she was able to relax like Ralf had told her. The Colorado sun was scorching hot and she had to resist the desire to loosen up her lifejacket. As an experienced swimmer, she knew the importance of each of the four jackets the small boating party wore. If, by any chance, one of the party were to go overboard, especially in rapidly moving water, the lifejackets might be the only factor between life and death.
Carrie trailed her hands over the side of the raft as she idly listened to the men’s talk. Gabe asked her brother about their ranch work and they in turn asked him about his business life.
Steven, taking a quick and comprehensive glance at Gable, lounging as he was quite close to Carrie with tanned and muscular legs stretched to the limit of the tiny boat, asked diffidently, “What do you do for a hobby, Gabe? What are you, thirty-five, thirty-six? You look very fit.”
“Thirty-five,” Gabe said nonchalantly. “I run, for one thing. I like to make a practice of running at least three miles a day, if possible, which usually it isn’t. I’m lucky to get three miles four days a week. And I also like to hike, bike, play tennis, swim and ride horses. Which reminds me,” he turned his head to look at Carrie mockingly, “when are we going to play that tennis match you promised me?”
Carrie sighed. “We’ll play, we’ll play. I promised, didn’t I?” She told Ralf, “Gabe thinks I’m trying to get out of it because I don’t want to lose.”
Ralf chuckled. “I can understand that. If you play like you did a couple of years ago, I’d try to get out of it too, if I were you!”
Carrie sank down gloomily. “I don’t get no respect!”
“Hold on,” Steven called out. “Look over to your left, Gabe and Carrie. See over there? That’s the ruins of the Miner’s Cabin. It was worked in the early 1900s by gold miners and again in the depression. A little farther down are the sluice boxes they used.”
Carrie bent back a little so that Gabe, who was on the right of her, could see the structure too. Logs were latched together into the form of a doorway that was in the middle of a rough, stone-constructed cabin. The back portion of the little building was the incline of the slope, into which the cabin was built. Carrie stared as they floated by. An eerie silence hung over the place, empty and desolate. She tried to hide her shudder. She never could abide ruins; there were too many ghosts and dead memories.
Gabe saw her shudder, however, and leaned over to whisper quietly, “Cold?”
“Oh, no,” she replied quickly. She tried to laugh it off, and was surprised at how natural she sounded. “Just someone walking over my grave, I think.” Gabe didn’t reply to this, but instead looked at Carrie steadily for a moment before looking away. She glimpsed something in his warm eyes that seemed like understanding, but she wasn’t sure.
“First rapid coming up in about four hundred yards!” Steven exclaimed happily. Carrie rolled her eyes. “Now, get off the sides of the raft and sit in the bottom.”
“You aren’t going to get me to do anything else, buster!” Carrie retorted, somewhat grimly. She looked about. “What, no safety-belts? Where do we hold on to, for heaven’s sake?
Gabe laughed, and Ralf, chuckling, said patiently, “Hold on to the sides, little one. You’ll be all right.”
“You could always hold on to me, you know,” Gabe leaned over to whisper in her ear. Carrie’s head snapped back and she saw that his eyes were brimming over with amusement.
Her eyebrows lifted. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
The raft began to rock a bit. Steven said over the increasing roar of the water, “This is just about the mildest, Carrie. You don’t have to worry until later.”
““Okay, so just let me know when to be worried!” she retorted. The water was choppy, the raft bucked a little. Carrie experienced the sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach that she associated with the feeling roller coasters gave her, but this was in no way uniform like a coaster would be. The raft would shoot up, its nose in the air, then slap down, down very fast to hit the water with a splashing jolt. Of course, when they hit the water, it would spray up and soak everyone, especially Steven and Ralf, who were alternately whooping and grinning at every crest. Carrie found it was not at all alarming to have nothing except the sides to hold on to. The path of the raft did seem very tame.
In a surprisingly short time, it was over. The next several river miles were relatively smooth, and Carrie and Gabe climbed back up to perch on the inflated sides of the raft once more. This river calm lasted approximately three and a half miles and well into the Little Hole Canyon. Carrie spied a stream to the left that ran into the river up ahead and Steven shouted, “Hey! Little Dolores River, we forgot all about that!”
Carrie shot Gabe an apprehensive look. The bronze of his chest shone through the parts of the jacket that didn’t cover him, and his muscular arms looked bulky, reassuringly strong.
Steven, catching Carrie’s wariness, said soothingly, “Little Dolores isn’t what you think. She’s just a bit of a stream, that’s all. If you want, we can pull over to the side and hike a couple of hundred yards to a small waterfall there with a natural pool. It’s a perfect natural slide and swimming hole!”
“Now, that sounds like fun!” she exclaimed. A minute of quick discussion had everyone agreeing that a stop at Little Dolores was a must for a first-rate trip down the Westwater rapids.
Their stay at the delightful little waterfall was short, maybe around fifteen minutes or so, but everyone had sufficient time to slide down the waterfall into the glistening little pool that lay beneath it. Then, greatly refreshed, they headed back to the boat and sat down to some slightly squashed but nevertheless delicious sandwiches, washed down with cool water from a canteen that was dangled in the water to stay cold.
It was amazing to Carrie just how hungry she really was. She managed to gulp down two thick sandwiches when her usual limit was one. Gabe and her brothers easily polished off three apiece while she watched them with wide eyes. The brief break was what she later remembered as her favourite part of the whole trip. The sun as it beat down on her head when she reclined in a resting position was beautifully warm. Her stomach was pleasantly full and she started to doze a little. And the whole time, Gabe was very close by, sometimes settled so near that his hard thigh would brush hers, or his arm would casually find its way to drape on her shoulders.
A shadow fell on her face and something nudged her foot. Carrie sighed contentedly and said, “What?”
“Time to go, sleepyhead,” Gabe’s voice sounded above her. She opened one eye and glared at him balefully, then shut it again. Something nudged her foot harder. “Come on now, or we’ll leave you here alone.”
Carrie’s eyes flew open at this to find a large, powerful hand held out within grasping distance. She took it with one of her own and suddenly found herself standing.
“Glad you decided to come after all.” He chuckled. It would have been a long wait for you to trek the whole way.” Gabe’s crisp dark hair fell across his forehead, already drying.
“You wouldn’t have left me,” Carrie stated with conviction. “You couldn’t have left me.”