Wild River

T
he longest day of my life began with my brother, Tanner, yelling, “Wake up, Ryan. You just won a free trip.”

I opened one eye and looked at the clock. Ten minutes to six. “It’s the middle of the night,” I said, and pulled the pillow over my head.

Tanner laughed and yanked off my blankets. “Come on. We want to get an early start. Breakfast in five minutes.”

I kept the pillow on my head. “Go away.”

Tanner grabbed my feet and dragged me to the edge of the bed. “Let’s go, Ryan. This will be great.”

I pushed away the pillow. “What’s going on, Tanner?”

He flashed his big happy smile. “Brady has to work today. We got everything packed last night, and then his boss called him this morning. So I talked to Mom and Dad. And you get to come with me, little bro. Fishing, kayaking, camping. What could be better than that?”

“Lots of things,” I said. “Like sleeping.” But Tanner wasn’t listening. He was already pulling a sweatshirt out of my dresser.

“You need warm clothes for tonight. It gets cold up there after the sun goes down.” He yanked open another drawer and grabbed some jeans. “I’ll stick these in the dry bag. Put on your swim-suit and a T-shirt. And wear your old tennies.”

“Come on, Tanner,” I said. “You can find somebody else. I’m no good at that stuff.”

He flashed that smile again and headed for the door. “You’ll do fine. Wait and see. You’ll love it.”

That was Tanner, my big brother. He got what he wanted. Always. He wasn’t mean or bossy. He just made up his mind, and that was it. If you told him no, he didn’t listen.

Mom let Tanner drive our van that morning. She was nervous about it. Tanner had only had his license for two months. But he told Mom he needed the practice. And he gave her that puppy-dog smile of his. So she said yes.

The trip to our drop-off point took more than two hours. And it seemed like two weeks. I tried to sleep, but it was hopeless. The roads were terrible—full of potholes and sharp turns. And Mom kept nagging Tanner, telling him to slow down or watch out for something. I got sick of it, and I wasn’t even the one driving. But Tanner never quit smiling.

When we finally stopped, I was feeling rotten. I climbed out of the van and headed down the bank. The Boulder River didn’t look big enough to be called a river. It was only about twenty feet across.

I scooped up a handful of water. It was like holding ice cubes. I dumped the water and rubbed my wet hand on my face. That woke me up.

Tanner came down and stood beside me. “We lucked out, Ryan,” he said. “We really lucked out.”

“Yeah, sure,” I said.

“I’m serious,” he said. “We lucked out.”

“We’re lucky I didn’t puke in the van. All those stupid turns. What else?”

Tanner looked over his shoulder. “I’ll tell you later. I don’t want Mom to get worried.”

I dipped my fingers in the water and flicked a few drops into his face. “Cold enough for you?”

Tanner laughed. “No problem. We’re fishing, not swimming.”

We went up the bank to the van. Mom had the tailgate open. She was shaking her head. “So much stuff.”

“Just the right amount,” Tanner said. “Brady and I made a checklist. Everything we need and not one thing more.” He laughed. “Except for extra marshmallows. Brady figures you can never have too many marshmallows.”

I wished Brady were there to eat them. I’d spent three years in Cub Scouts. That was enough outdoor stuff for me. I didn’t like it, and I wasn’t good at it. The last time Dad had taken me fishing, I’d ended up with a fishhook in my neck.

In no time Tanner had our gear laid out next to the river. He unrolled the yellow kayak. It looked like a giant balloon. Ten feet of flat plastic. I’d been kayaking with the Scouts, but I’d never been in a kayak like that.

I stood in the sun and bounced up and down to keep warm. It was one of our usual California summer days. Later on, it would be hot. But right then I needed the sweatshirt that was buried in the big rubber dry bag.

Tanner hauled out something that looked like a big bicycle pump. First he pumped up the floor
of the kayak. Then he did each side. “Three sections,” he told me. “Even if we spring a leak, we won’t sink.”

“We’d better not spring a leak,” I said.

He flashed that same old smile. “We won’t. But I have some patches in my pocket just in case.” He was wearing shorts with big pockets. And every pocket was full.

Mom walked back and forth. “Tanner, do you have your cell?”

Tanner laughed. “We’re up in the mountains, Mom. Cell phones don’t work around here.”

Mom reached into her purse for her phone. She fiddled with it for a minute, then put it away. “I didn’t know you wouldn’t have a phone.”

“We have to rough it,” Tanner said. “We can’t even call and order a pizza.”

Mom looked down at the river. “You boys be careful today.”

Tanner kept pumping. “Come on, Mom. Brady and I did this last year. Nothing to it.”

Mom shook her head. “Still, I can’t help worrying a little.”

“I know, Mom,” Tanner said. “We’re worried about you too. How will you and Dad get along without us tonight? With us gone, you’ll probably stay up all night playing Ryan’s video games. Or watching the monster movies on Channel Ten.” He gave her that big smile of his.

Mom broke out laughing. “Smart aleck.”

Tanner’s big puppy-dog smile—it always made people smile back. They couldn’t help it. The girls in his high school called him Smiley, and they were crazy about him.

Everybody liked Tanner. With good reason. He was always friendly, always kidding around. He was good at everything—school, sports, you name it. He was even a hero, with a medal from the mayor. Last spring he’d carried an old man out of a burning house.

Me? I was just Tanner’s little brother. That was what everybody called me. And they always
sounded a little surprised. Tanner and I didn’t look much like brothers. I was four years younger. Half his size. I didn’t smile as much. I wasn’t that good at sports or anything else. And I sure wasn’t a hero.

I was the only person who ever got mad at Tanner. He was always trying to help me. Even if I didn’t want help. He thought I needed more exercise, more sports. And less video games and less time on the computer. I knew what I liked and what I didn’t like. But Tanner was sure I’d be happier his way.

It was hard to stay mad at Tanner, though. He thought he was being good to me. Like that morning. He was excited about the fishing trip. So he thought I would be too. No matter what I said.

When it was pumped up, the yellow kayak looked like a giant pool toy. The sides were round and fat, like huge sausages. The front and back were pointed, with a thick sheet of plastic stretched across the top. That made a nice covered spot for
my legs and feet. Except Tanner was jamming the dry bag into that space.

“Where do my feet go?” I asked.

“Lots of room, Ryan,” Tanner said. “Just slide your feet on each side.”

We carried the yellow kayak to the edge of the water. Tanner got out our paddles. They were aluminum with plastic blades on both ends. He fixed mine so that it was exactly my height. Then he tossed me a life vest.

“You wear that the whole time,” Mom said. “You too, Tanner.”

Tanner put on his life vest. Then he held the kayak while I climbed in. The kayak tipped a little. I sat down fast and jammed my feet into place, one on each side of the bag.

Right behind me was a plastic sack full of fishing gear and a coil of white rope.

“What’s the rope for?” I asked.

“For the bear bag,” Tanner said.

“What?”

“The bear bag. For tonight, when we’re camping. We’ll throw the rope over a tree limb and haul our food up high so the bears can’t reach it.”

“Wait a minute,” I said. “You didn’t say anything about bears.”

Tanner laughed. “Don’t worry, Ryan. We’ll never see a bear. We won’t be that lucky.”

I hoped he was right.

Before Tanner got into the kayak, Mom wanted to go over things with him one more time. Dad would pick us up at some bridge tomorrow after-noon. “Two o’clock”, Tanner said. “Dad knows all about it.” But Mom wrote everything down just the same.

Tanner handed me both paddles. Then he pushed the kayak into the water and climbed in. The kayak tipped to one side, then the other.

“Be careful!” I yelled.

Tanner plopped down, and his feet rammed into my back. “We’re fine,” he said. He took his paddle from me. “Just sit there for a minute. I’ll get us started.” The kayak moved out to the
middle of the river. The current caught it and carried us along.

Mom shouted, “Good-bye!” and “Have a good time!” and “Be careful!” I waved my paddle but didn’t look back.

“She’s a little nervous,” Tanner said. “She thinks this is a bad idea.”

“Why’d she let us go, then?”

Tanner laughed. “She didn’t want to. You should have heard her. But I told her I’d watch out for you.”

“What about Dad?”

“He was no problem. I’ve done the trip before. And he likes the idea of you getting out and doing stuff.” Tanner nudged me with his foot. “So here you are, Ryan, you lucky rat.”

“Goody goody,” I said.

“Just wait. By tomorrow afternoon you’ll be begging me to take you again.”

“You want to make a little bet on that?”

Tanner used his paddle to drip some water on my head. “Come on, Ryan. Give it a chance. Real
live action for a change, not some game. It’s about ten o’clock right now. Twenty-eight hours till we meet Dad. That’s not very long. What do you say? For twenty-eight hours, no moaning, no worrying. Just kick back and have some fun.”

“Moan, moan,” I said. But I decided to try.

We didn’t have to paddle hard. The current did most of the work. But there were lots of big rocks in the river, and we had to stay away from them.

I was a little scared at first. We kept missing boulders by inches. Sometimes just scraping them. I figured we’d hit one sooner or later.

Then it happened. We slid past one big boulder, and I saw another one right ahead of us. “Look out!” I yelled.

The kayak smacked the boulder hard and bounced to the right. We were sideways for a second, but then we were headed downstream again. No problem at all. I was amazed.