CHAPTER 14

True made her way back along the rocky shore to Emmett and Vivian, directing them onto a boulder overlooking the river. From there, they eyed their biggest challenge of the Outlaw, or at least the part of it they could see. The Quartz ran the length of a mile, the narrow canyon walls closing in to form a fast-water flume.

“I’ll be starting hard right, and then we’ll need to merge into the center flow,” True told them. It helped, she had learned, for clients to know what to expect ... even if they promptly forgot it all. “Once we’re in the canyon proper, the water will move hard and fast, and we’ll basically just be along for the ride—oars in the water, of course—until we reach the Wash.”

“What’s the Wash?” Emmett asked, wide-eyed.

True made a circular pattern in the air with one finger. “Have you ever seen gold panning?” When Emmett nodded, she continued. “Imagine you’re a fleck of gold being churned in a pan.” When he blanched, she smiled. “It’s like a funnel water slide ... super fun.”

“Super fun?” Vivian echoed skeptically, with a funny little quirk of one eyebrow, and True arranged her face into her most confident expression as she nodded enthusiastically. “And I bet even more fun in the smoke,” she said, with a wink to Emmett. “No one else can say they’ve done that .”

To Vivian, she added in an undertone, “We got this.”

“Of course we do,” Vivian agreed, though for the first time, True detected a note of hesitation in her tone. Her eyes watered as she peered out onto the challenge that awaited them on the Outlaw, then wrapped Emmett’s Buff more securely around his face to filter out the worst of the smoke. Witnessing this gesture of care sent an answering pang through True, and it took her a moment to identify it as an echo of the maternal instinct displayed countless times by Mel. She wasn’t sure how this startlingly unfamiliar feeling had snuck up on her, but since it threatened to shake the foundation of True’s confidence in flinging the three of them down the flume of the canyon, she shut it down. Confidence was key when tackling Quartz. To get her head back on straight, True reminded herself that the Wus were among the most competent clients she’d guided.

Back in the oar raft, Quartz started out unassuming enough, though the din of the whitewater still out of sight promised otherwise. The canyon walls—lava rock stained in a white stripe at the high-water mark somewhere just over True’s head as she bent into her oars—funneled their raft toward the first of many obstacles: a triangle-shaped boulder that sat in stubborn resistance directly in the middle of the water flow. She pulled hard right, knees bent, perched forward on her bench seat in the center of the oar raft, missing the boulder by a few generous inches.

The water speed picked up on the other side, just as she’d warned the Wus it would, and though both clients kept paddling as promised, the smoke obscured their vision, their paddles hitting the sides of the rock walls with a hollow thump on more than one forward stroke. Each time, this contact sent a tremor of shock through the already fatigued muscles of True’s forearms and biceps as she made up the difference. She set her jaw in resolution— Wonderland Lodge is the goal —and dug into the whitewater again and again, shouting to the Wu family to keep paddling despite the challenges. Always, always keep paddling.

They’d reached the point of no return: the spot where the canyon turned into a full-fledged flume, where no matter what they did, no matter what strategy True implemented, they were one with the river, destined to rush downward on its back. The Outlaw’s spray stung their faces, each wave of whitewater cresting and crashing onto the raft, into Emmett’s lap, onto True’s chest, causing Vivian to sputter and cough as she white-knuckled the handholds at the stern. There was no eddying out now. No pausing to take stock, and certainly no going back. Though this feeling of inevitability was par for the course, it felt otherworldly today to True, disembodied as they were lost in the fog of the smoke, blind to each dip and rapid of the river. She’d never felt so disoriented on the Outlaw, and her gut tightened in more than just the customary rush of adrenaline. For the first time she felt actual fear, compounded by the knowledge that it was far too late now to heed the warning of her earlier slip in confidence.

“Here it comes!” she shouted, sensing the final crescendo of Quartz was upon them. Just ahead, though she couldn’t see it, True knew the Wash spiraled in an angry boil, dropping nearly seven feet in one fell swoop, waiting to deposit their raft into its vicious spiral. She dug deeper into the water than ever with her next stroke, even though her oar, too, hit rock as often as it hit water now. The canyon walls were so close now, True cried, “Duck!” several times as the raft spun and twisted and bumped its walls, bringing its passengers careening toward the jagged lava. Then they spun completely around, like riding an inner tube at a water park, just as True had promised, and she caught her breath and held it as her stomach dropped out from under her and they fell into the whitewater below.

She thought Emmett might have screamed; it was hard to be sure, with the reverberating slap of the raft onto the whitewater and the crash of the rapids. They spun two, three times in quick succession, giving True ample time to absorb the panicked faces of her clients as they clung to the raft ropes, toes digging into the toeholds. And then, almost as quickly as it had gripped them, the Wash spit them out, the raft shooting out the other side. They hit the last “train” of rapids, Emmett now riding the bow like a cowboy hanging onto a bronco as the inflated tubes crashed down two, three, four times. And then they were out, the raft eddying out in a shallow pocket of suddenly calm water.

“Well?” True gasped with a breathless laugh, uncharacteristically giddy now that they were out of it in one piece. “How did you like it?”

She peered into Vivian’s and Emmett’s faces through the haze of the smoke. As with every client, wildfire or no, each wore an expression of awestruck wonder mixed with acute relief. “We did it!” Emmett finally shouted, lifting one hand in triumph. His oar nearly hit his mother in her face.

“We did,” Vivian agreed with a shaky laugh that echoed True’s, and unlike every other time, with every other client, True reached across the middle tube to give her arm a reassuring squeeze.

By the time Wonderland Lodge emerged through the trees on the north side of the river, True’s forearms screamed with every stroke, and the afternoon sun cast the smoky canyon into gloom instead of its usual harsh light. The adrenaline and worry from the adventure of the Wash had long burned off, and the Wus were quiet as they dipped their oars into the water obediently. True gave them the signal to let up and then turned the nose of the oar raft toward the small dock, navigating around the single aluminum Tracker boat the Martin family kept here, looking for a place to tie off.

“Stay put for now,” she told the Wus, stifling a groan as her thighs cramped when she rose from the bench seat to step off the raft onto the floating dock.

Emmett made a low noise of protest. Vivian cleared her throat and said, “Listen, True, why don’t you let me walk up there with you. I’d like to talk to the guy myself.”

True wavered. That ammo box burned a metaphorical hole in her pocket. They had to spend another night out in the elements in order to stay on schedule, and staging a day here would keep them out of the worst of the smoke. They were at the mercy of the Martins’ hospitality, and maybe Vivian’s presence would smooth the way.

“All right,” she decided, and all three of them trudged up the riverbank.

The grounds were quiet as she crossed the lawn, the motion-detector light over the deck snapping on in the gloom as she approached the back door. Henry Martin appeared on the deck in his signature Carhartt coveralls, a halfhearted nod his only acknowledgment of her arrival.

“Hey, Henry,” True called once she was in earshot, forcing a lighthearted cheer to her voice. “Any room at the inn? We’ve had a long day of it.” Hopefully he could identify her through the haze. Though she probably stood a better chance of accommodation if he didn’t. True never sent business his way. She took away from it, really, floating guests right by his near-dilapidated lodge. But there was nothing she could do about this now. “I have two clients here who need to get out of the smoke.”

“We’re fixing to leave while we still got some light left in the day,” he told her flatly. Guess he recognized his least-favorite rafting guide through the thick air after all. “You oughta do the same.”

“Leave?” A quick flip of trepidation made itself known in True’s gut. Did Henry know something she didn’t? She hadn’t had any sat updates from Mel, and last she’d checked her radio, the only evacs had been ordered directly under Flatiron. “Think that’s necessary?” she asked. She tried to sound confident while checking that “bossy” tone he claimed grated so on his nerves.

“Wind is picking up,” Henry said, leaning back on his heels as though to illustrate this point, hands stuffed into the front pockets of his Carhartts. “The other rafting groups, they’ve all come through,” he added, even though he knew full well why True trailed last. “And like them, I’m not waiting around while this thing breathes down our necks.”

True’s mind spun through her options. “You taking the Tracker downriver, then?” It would hold six. Provided the Martins’ guests had already departed of their own accord, there would be room for True and the Wus. The outboard motor would shorten the journey to under an hour, putting them ahead of schedule, but that was better than being behind.

“And get stuck at the coast when they close our road? No thanks. We’ll drive.”

That trepidation turned to lead in True’s stomach. Next to her, Vivian seemed to tense as well. “Does he mean the road where we get picked up at the end?” she asked True.

She nodded, adding a muttered “But it’s fine.” Calling out to Henry, she said, “I haven’t heard anything about anyone closing the river road.” If they cut off access to the narrow, winding logging road that connected Carbon to Temple Bar, she could forget about her Friday handoff altogether. How would Fallows’s contact meet her?

“Just a matter of time,” Henry bellowed back. “Anyone with any sense in their head knows that.”

Would Fallows know it, then? The man was many things, but stupid wasn’t one of them.

Would he anticipate the closure of the road and have his contact planted at Temple early? Maybe True should do the same.

“Last I heard, they’d already ordered Level 3 evacs around Flatiron,” Henry carried on, as True’s mind spun, possibilities and contingencies leaving her dizzy. “Though nothing higher than a Level 2 anywhere around Carbon.”

True grasped at this last bit of intel. “You’re sure?” Please let it be true, for the Bishops’ sake. Sam would make sure the girls got out, if it came to that, she told herself.

“That’s right. Fire’s headed west.”

Vivian filled in the rest for him. “Toward us,” she said, pivoting back toward True. She started to say something else, but Emmett cut her off.

“Do evacs mean evacuations? Does that mean we have to leave?”

They both waited for her answer, and when she couldn’t come up with a damned thing, Vivian gave her a hard look before shouting up to Henry, “So you’re driving out of here today?”

“Damned straight. And you should evac the river, too, lady.”

Vivian spun back to True. “Should we?”

Her tone made it clear that this time she required an answer. “I don’t ... let me think.” A low-grade panic had started to buzz in True’s ears. Fallows had made it abundantly clear to both her and Mel when they took on this nightmare partnership: the ammo box—and the Fallowses’ cash—was not to leave the Outlaw. Ever. But if what Henry was saying was true ...

“You keep going downriver,” Henry bellowed from the deck, finishing True’s thoughts for her, “you’ll be stranded at Temple Bar. No shuttles will be operating in this mess within a day, I can promise you that.” When Vivian didn’t answer, still looking to True instead, he shook a set of car keys in her direction. “You and the kid, you can follow us out in my old Ford. Bring Ms. Truitt, too, far as I care. But don’t let her tell you it’s all hunky-dory ahead. Not your problem if she’d rather string you along than return your deposit fee.”

That was it. Fury surged in True, snapping her back to attention. “Keep your truck,” she shouted, because she couldn’t say Fuck you, Martin , not with Emmett within earshot. “It probably won’t make it a mile anyway.” How dare he imply that she’d put her clients at risk just to save a buck?

She turned and strode back toward the raft, Vivian on her heels, protesting, Emmett behind them and near tears, from the sound of it. By the time they’d reached the river, True was no calmer.

“I would never put you at risk,” she insisted. Too hard. With entirely too much emotion lacing her voice.

Vivian remained silent, because she didn’t have to say a word, did she? True, with all her protestations, was making it abundantly clear. Of course she had put them at risk ... had been doing so since the moment of the lightning strike. She could argue that she had no choice. She could tell herself that the task that carried her down the Outlaw for the Bishops was a current she couldn’t—wouldn’t—fight. But now it had caught up with her; she’d let Vivian down, had lost her trust, and the level of distress this caused True caught her by surprise, just like that odd surge of maternal instinct.

“Do you want me to off-load your bags?” she asked softly. Defeat had taken the wind out of her sails.

Vivian swallowed but stood her ground. “I followed you down here because I want to know your plan, not that blowhard’s.”

True looked up. The betrayal she expected to see on Vivian’s face was there all right, but something lay beneath it, underneath her concern for Emmett’s safety. What, though, True couldn’t quite put a finger on.

“I want my money’s worth out of this trip as much as he thinks you do,” Vivian continued, “but is he right about the shuttles? Will they stop coming?”

The handful of private operations that made a killing off the rafting companies, running shuttle vans back and forth from Carbon to Temple Bar on the very same road the Martins planned to navigate, were a no-nonsense, tough-as-nails crew, all ex-loggers and ballsy college kids not easily scared off. But even they would hang up their car keys if the river road closed and the canyon evacuated.

“Probably,” True admitted. She forced herself to say the right thing. “You and Emmett should leave with the Martins.”

Admitting this left her hollow inside, a sense of aloneness she usually didn’t notice rattling around inside her, making her ache. The disappointment reached deep, but as loath as she was to see them go, getting them stranded would only make everything far worse.

“Leave without you? Why?” Vivian said sharply, a sentiment echoed immediately by Emmett.

“Yeah, why don’t you come, too, True?”

Because my loyalty lies elsewhere. But God help True, this sentiment was feeling less true every hour she knew Vivian and Emmett. “There’s one other option,” she hedged, “but it’s not much better.” She waited for Vivian to nod her approval for her to continue. “We can push for Temple today, together, while the shuttles are still running.”

Arriving three days early would be bad, but surely not as bad as not getting there at all. Never return with the cash, John had told her. He was always being watched. Never bring it around Carbon.

“Isn’t that too far to go in one day?” Vivian asked, her brow knit in a concern True feared she didn’t deserve.

Yes, but what choice did she have? “I can handle it,” she answered, in the direction of the raft. Vivian was getting too good at reading the doubt on True’s face.

“But wait, so it’s still going to be over?” Emmett asked, his shoulders slumping. This touched True. And maybe she was wrong, but Vivian also had a look of disappointment about her, like she, too, was reluctant to cut their time short, prudent or no.

True got on the sat phone, placing a request for a late-evening shuttle pickup. The swing-shift operator at Rapid Shuttle, a college kid she didn’t know as well as the old-timers, confirmed Henry’s prediction. Tonight’s run could be their last for the week.

“Good call, then,” Vivian said, and a swell of gladness rose in True’s gut at earning back at least a portion of the woman’s respect in her leadership skills. I’ll keep working to earn back the rest, she thought, surprising herself again. Could she? And did she really want to? She hadn’t risked making this much effort with a woman since her Paddle, Inc., days with Mel.

And look how that turned out, her brain supplied.

She chastised herself for this thought, wondering when she’d become so bitter. Obviously, her feelings for Mel hadn’t served her, but she had the most meaningful friendships of her life with the Bishops to show for it. But Astor and Annie were not True’s kids, were they, no matter how involved she was in their lives. And Mel wasn’t hers to love, no matter how loyal her devotion. True figured she’d made her peace regarding the former ... Maybe kids just weren’t in the cards. But the latter? Having a front-row seat to something just out of reach had made True feel frustratingly stuck, like when her raft got caught in a tributary stream parallel to, but not in, the flow of the rapids. She’d made it a point not to let it happen again.

Which had her looking at Vivian again, her thoughts stalled in this unfamiliar landscape, as she gathered her oars in her callused hands. The Wus assumed their positions on the oar raft, Emmett moving so reluctantly he lost his favored position next to True to his mother.

“At least you’ll be sleeping in a bed tonight,” True offered with a tight smile, pleased when Vivian didn’t look cheered by this prospect.

“I was just getting used to those squeezy mummy bags,” Emmett contributed.

Back on the water, True’s heavy oar dipped and rose, dipped and rose in a steady rhythm, each slice into the slow-moving Outlaw cutting the flat water in time with the groan of the oars against the oar locks. Vivian napped at the stern, her mood still uncharacteristically low, her crisp white Columbia sun hat set atop her face as a makeshift smoke mask.

Lacking entertainment from the adults, Emmett absently picked through a baggie of trail mix, sorting out varying colors of M&M’s. He lined up a row of them on the outer tube of the raft, the red and blue candy shells contrasting with the yellow of the thick vinyl. With one finger, he moved them along like cars, amusing himself when one slid off the side of the boat into the water.

“Buh-bye, fishy snack,” he called after it, already moving the next M&M “car” up in line.

True stared beyond him at the water. Each rotation of her shoulders sent a burning sensation through her body, and with Wonderland Lodge now at their backs, it was better to focus on the pain than to think about what lay ahead. She wished once again that those damned nerves would settle in her stomach. Instead, they just kept arising with each oar stroke, mixing in a nauseating gut twist with her newfound desire to explore more with Vivian. Even if such a thing was still more of an abstract brain exercise than an actual possibility, it messed with her head.

But it was preferable to thinking about the roll of bills hidden in her steel ammo box under her seat. The parking lot, boat ramp, and pit toilet of Temple Bar—the extent of its nod to civilization—would be empty tonight, in the dark. Arriving so early, she couldn’t hold out much hope that Fallows’s contact would be there to relieve her of the illicit cash that still felt like it might burn a hole in the bottom of the boat. She nearly ran them all aground on an easy-to-read sandbar, trying to decide what the fuck she would do with this week’s contraband delivery.

In her haste to course-correct, the raft jerked sideways, nearly taking Vivian into the water. Shit! She managed to right herself but lost her hat in the process. True turned to catch sight of her bent over the tube, trying to fish it out of the river, where it rapidly sank in a glowing disk of white canvas. Muttering a second curse under her breath, True dug in deep with her right oar, swiveling the nose of the raft 90 degrees before leaning forward and scooping up the soaked hat with the flat side of her oar.

“Thank you, True.” Vivian smiled.

“No problem.” It’s the least I can do, considering you’re currently associating with what can only essentially be called a criminal .

Their fingers touched as True handed back the hat, and Vivian didn’t instantly pull away. But along with inciting a quick trill of attraction through her, the touch made True realize how thoroughly this fire and, even before that, True’s errand for the Fallowses had robbed her of any real chance she had to share something meaningful with her. What happened to running the Outlaw for the sheer joy of making connections that could transcend the water and of introducing the wilderness she loved to new people? What happened to TrueBlue? It was stunning, she thought, how one could lose all sense of pride and purpose in one’s work in just a single season. It left her with more respect for Emmett than ever, she decided, forced into an identity which hadn’t served him. Her momentary disorientation was nothing compared to the incongruity he’d endured in his young life.