Leaving Blythe River: A Novel (17 page)

“Dad!” he called out.

“Noah!” Marcus called after.

They rode around a bend, and a small mountain lake came into view. It looked green, probably because it was shallow and had grass or some other kind of vegetation on its bottom. It also looked blue and white, because it was glassy-calm on this windless morning and reflected the sky.

Sam reined his big gelding to a halt, and the horses and mules bunched up behind him and then stopped.

“Let’s take a quick break here,” Sam called.

Ethan was happy to dismount. Partly because he wanted to get his hat out of the saddlebag, to keep the sun out of his eyes and help with the gathering heat. Partly because he was already sore from contact with the saddle’s hard seat. His stomach felt painfully empty, but he had no food in his saddlebags. Sam had told him not to worry about food. Sam had also asked if he’d had a good breakfast, and warned that they’d be riding straight through to lunch.

Ethan swung down and looked around for Rufus. When he didn’t see him, he cupped his hands and called the dog’s name, and Rufus came trotting to him from around the bend in the trail. Ethan grabbed the dog’s collar so he couldn’t get too close to Rebar.

Jone and Sam led their horses into the shallow water of the lake and took the reins over their necks, holding them loosely so the animals could drink their fill. They both wore cowboy boots with their jeans legs tucked inside. Because of the boots they could wade that far without getting their feet wet. Ethan looked down at his own athletic shoes.

He looked up to see Marcus wade in with the pony, wearing high-top hiking boots. He stayed in water too shallow to go over the tops of his boots, and encouraged the pony to go a step or two farther.

Ethan put Rufus in a sit-stay and rummaged around in the saddlebags until he found his hat, hoping someone would offer to water Dora for him when their own mount had drunk his fill.

“Let her drink some water, boy,” Sam called. “That’s a long march up that mountain.”

“But my feet’ll get wet,” he said, wishing as he heard it that he hadn’t sounded so pathetic.

Sam laughed a short bark. “Everybody’s feet’ll get wet. We’ll be riding through the Blythe River in less than two hours.”

Ethan tried to imagine the depth of a river that would get your feet wet while you were mounted. Not that he didn’t know there were deeper rivers in the world, but . . . didn’t that make it dangerous to cross?

“How deep is this river we’re about to wade through?” Ethan asked, leading Dora out into the shallow edge of the lake. The water felt shockingly cold as it filled his shoes and soaked his socks and the cuffs of his jeans. The mule dropped her head and sucked water gratefully.

“We’re not wading it. We’re swimming it.”

“Um. Maybe I should have told you I’m not that strong a swimmer.”

“The mule does the swimming.”

“Oh,” Ethan said. And decided not to ask any more questions. Even though he had many swirling around in his head.

“Hey!”

Ethan heard a sudden shout, followed immediately by a big splash. Water sloshed high up onto his calves. He looked over to see Marcus pulling up to his knees in the shallow water, fully drenched. He’d dropped the pony’s reins, but Sam ducked in and grabbed them before the mildly spooked Appy decided to go elsewhere on his own.

“You did that on purpose!” Marcus bellowed, pointing at Sam.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Sam said. “I did no such thing. My horse pushed me with his nose and I just bumped into you, that’s all.”

“Like hell!” Marcus shouted. “What is your problem with me, man? What is your problem in general?”

“You’re making a big deal out of nothing,” Sam said. “It’s already hot. We’ll be dousing ourselves in lakes and streams a dozen times today just to stay comfortable. Look,” he added, and dove forward and down until he flattened out on his stomach and disappeared in the shallow water, still holding both horses’ reins. His hat floated.

He jumped up, dripping and mud covered, and grabbed up the hat.

Marcus only grunted unhappily, took the reins of his pony back, and led him to dry ground.

“Okay,” Sam said. “We’re burning daylight. Let’s ride on. Anybody want an energy bar?”

“I do!” Ethan shot out.

He tried to walk closer to Sam, to lead Dora closer, but Rebar stood in the way. Ethan looked around for Rufus, who was standing chest deep in the lake and lapping his fill.

Sam tossed him the bar. He missed it.

“I have a question,” Ethan said, leading his mule to the energy bar and snatching it up. “That trail we just came up. If my dad took that trail on his run . . . I was thinking . . . it was still snowy that day. It was just before the weather took that big turn. If there was snow and ice on that really steep, narrow section, wouldn’t it be easy to slip off it? I was just wondering if we should be looking . . . you know . . . where a person would land. If they slipped off that trail.”

He watched Sam and Jone exchange a look. Something solemn traveled between them, like sad news over a telephone line.

“Here’s the thing,” Sam said. “Slip off that trail, you land in the valley. Five hundred to two thousand feet below. Depending on how far along you were and how high the trail’d climbed. So let’s say on the way back we do that. We’ll come back through that valley and ride all along the far edge where a person might land. You know why I say on the way back, right?”

“’Cause we’re so far past it now?”

“No,” Sam said. As if he’d much rather have avoided saying it. “Because the first places we want to look are the places you might find a person alive.”

“Oh,” Ethan said.

He tore into his energy bar anyway, just to calm the hunger pangs.

They mounted up and rode on. With nothing more said.

Well. Nothing other than “Dad!”

And “Noah!”

“Ow,” Ethan said, still perched on Dora’s hard saddle. He’d been in the process of lifting off his baseball cap, and had accidentally touched the top of one ear.

They’d stopped for lunch on the near side of the Blythe River. It was a snaking, twisty track of fast water. Not whitewater, exactly, but it really moved along. It seemed to have no banks, probably because it was swollen with snowmelt. Ethan could peer into the clear water of its edge and see the rocks on the bottom.

He did not look forward to crossing it on a swimming mule. The longer their lunch break, the happier Ethan figured he would be.

“Ow, what?” Sam asked. “Saddle sore?”

“Maybe,” Ethan said. “But I was actually talking about my ears.”

He swung down off Dora, stiffly. It made him want to say “ow” again, but this time he held it in. Clenched the sound in his throat. It felt strange to stand with his feet on the ground. It felt unsteady. Ethan would have sworn he could feel the solid earth swaying like a walking mule.

Sam came close and gently grabbed onto Ethan’s shirt collar, pulling Ethan even closer.

“You got yourself the beginnings of a nasty sunburn on the tops of your ears, boy. And the back of your neck.”

“Oh,” Ethan said, instinctively touching the back of his neck. It hurt.

“Should’ve worn a hat with a full brim,” Sam said.

“Now you tell me.”

“I told you to bring sunscreen, though,” Sam said.

“Yeah, that’s true. You did. But I didn’t have any. Or I couldn’t find it, anyway. I think my dad must’ve taken it.”

“Did you bring a bandana?” Sam asked.

“No. You didn’t tell me to bring a bandana.”

“Then you might be destined to finish this adventure with a pair of underwear sticking out of the back of your hat.”

“I got a spare bandana,” Jone said.

She was squatting under a scrubby tree, lighting the burner on a camp stove. Marcus had gone as far away from the rest of the group as possible. He was watering the horses and mules two at a time in the river, starting with Rio, his Appaloosa pony, and Jone’s chestnut horse. Rufus was also drinking his fill at the water’s edge.

“Thanks,” Ethan called to Jone.

Then he headed over there to get it. It seemed like a simple enough proposition. All he had to do was move his feet and walk to her. But his legs had other ideas. The muscles from his calves right up through his butt felt rubbery and weak. And the skin and muscles that covered the bones he’d been sitting on—the bones that had nearly made contact with that hard saddle—fairly screamed with pain on every step.

He could barely hobble.

Ethan heard laughter and looked up to see Sam chuckling at him. He looked at Marcus, who was watching over his shoulder and also smirking. Then he looked at Jone, who was taking everything in but not laughing.

Ethan stopped hobbling.

“What’s so funny?” he asked.

“Little bit saddle sore?” Sam asked in return. He had taken the packs off Rebar’s back, spread them out on the ground, and was sorting through the contents of one in the scrubby dirt.

It brought up a flare of anger in Ethan. Much to his surprise.

“And why exactly is that funny? When you see somebody in pain, that’s a joke to you? Why? When I see somebody in pain, I feel sorry for them.”

“You’re being too sensitive,” Sam called back.

“I don’t think he is,” Jone said. “I’m with the kid. I have no idea why somebody hurting is supposed to be funny. Like those stupid TV shows with home video of guys getting hit where it hurts. Why does that even pass for humor? It’s a male thing, if you ask me. Women don’t tend to laugh so much at pain. It’s not in our nature.”

Marcus spoke up for the first time in hours.

“So does that make Ethan female?” he called over from the edge of the river.

Jone raised her voice. Honed it into a sharp bark that startled everybody, Ethan included.

“Why don’t you just shut the hell up and leave the kid alone? Both of you.” She allowed a silence to radiate for a moment. Then she added, “No, it makes him the one in pain. It’s never funny for the one in pain.”

Sam handed her a gray plastic filter bottle of water from the river, and Jone squeezed the water through the filter into a light cooking pot. It took time. It obviously involved a lot of pressure, and the water came through in a thin stream.

As Ethan watched, he carefully covered the ground between them.

“Sit here in the shade, honey,” she said without looking up. “Then before we go I’ll get you that bandana. I’ll show you how to put it on so your hat holds it down. It’ll cover your ears and neck.”

“Thanks,” he said, and tried to lower himself to the ground.

It wasn’t easy.

He ended up mostly falling into a sitting position, which hurt a lot. But he stifled any vocal reaction to his pain. And if Sam and Marcus had any comments, they stifled those as well.

Rufus padded over to join him, and Ethan hooked one arm around the dog’s neck and looked up and around.

The radically spiked towers, the ones Ethan hadn’t seen from home, were still packed white with snow. The contrast between the snow and the navy sky behind them seemed shocking to Ethan. It almost burned his eyes.

Ethan looked in the other direction to see the sky nearly black. The clouds looked dense, heavy. Threatening. Fast moving. The air felt heavy and damp, muggy with heat, and a lazy wind had begun to push them from one side. The dark side.

“We got some weather blowing in,” Jone said, as if reading his mind. Or simply following his gaze.

“I hope we don’t get any lightning,” Ethan said, remembering the feeling that gathered in his chest as he listened to the tale of Marcus racing down the mountain. Counting.

“We’re not on a peak or a ridge. I’d say our best bet is to stay down here in the valley and ride it out. Move on when things look clearer.”

The idea of not climbing back into a saddle sounded good to Ethan. Even if there was lightning involved.