The Carrier (The Carrier Series Book 1)
Read The Carrier (The Carrier Series Book 1) Online
Authors: Diana Ryan
The Carrier
Diana Ryan
Text Copyright © 2015
Diana
Riechers
Cover Image Copyright ©
2015 Hannah Christian Hess
All rights reserved.
No part of this book
may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means
including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission
of the publisher or author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote
short excerpts in a review.
This book is a work of
fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the
author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual
persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
To my wonderful parents who instilled in
me the virtues of hard work, pursuing your dreams, and believing in yourself.
Arthur Gardner sat with his newlywed wife at
the round kitchen table in their modest cabin. She was pregnant with their
first child and was beginning to show a baby bump under her light blue kitchen
apron. A large man in every extent of the word, Arthur spent his days tending
cattle and growing corn on his thirty acres, but also caring deeply for his
wife.
“Pass the corn please, Edna, dear.” Arthur
reached out for the bowl, but just as Edna was about to pass it, a strange
sound rang out and a loud boom shook the house. Edna dropped the bowl of corn
and the china smashed on the wooden table.
“What in the Sam Hill was that?” Arthur craned
his neck to look out the kitchen window, his eyes widening when he saw a bright
blue glow coming from the cornfield.
“Holy Mary.
The
sky is falling,” Edna whispered under her breath as she quickly made the sign
of the cross.
Arthur sprang up, grabbed the rifle from the
nail by the door, and instructed his wife to take cover under the stairs. Edna
rushed over to the tiny space, squeezing herself in. He dashed out the back
door and walked briskly toward the glow in the field. It couldn’t be fire—he
didn’t see any smoke, and besides, the glimmer was blue.
Arthur pulled his gun up to his shoulder,
cocked it, and cautiously approached the curious light. But when he got close
enough to really see the source, he let his rifle fall to the ground and knelt
down in the field. A large divot had been scooped out of the dirt, and inside
the soil bowl was a luminous blue rock. It wasn’t on fire. It was simply
glowing, and although it was odd, it seemed to be no threat to Arthur or his
wife.
The blue rock was the size of a small cat
coiled up. Curiously, Arthur looked up and saw nothing but a dark black sky and
a few shining stars scattered about. He walked to the barn and returned to the
object with a brown woolen blanket. Arthur thoughtfully covered the rock and
then returned inside to tend to his wife.
Arthur slept little that night and dreamt of
strange beings descending from the sky. In the morning he went out to the site
of the glowing blue rock and carefully lifted the blanket to peek underneath.
The rock was still sitting safely in its dirt nest, but the rock’s light had
diminished considerably and now simply looked like a shiny, very smooth blue
gem. Arthur put on his barn gloves and picked up the rock. As he turned it in
his hand, he decided it was extraordinarily beautiful and Arthur was sure it
must be very valuable.
Edna was waiting quietly at the kitchen table
for her husband to return from the field. She was immediately enthralled by the
blue orb and insisted that Arthur build a glass box to display the object on
the pie safe in the dining room.
There it sat for many years until it was passed
down through the generations of the Gardner family. It became an object of
wonder to some, and a possession of value to others, but everyone who handled
it knew it contained the mysteries of faraway places.
One
The sound of my amplified voice bounced off
tall stone walls and echoed down the swift river channel. I stood on the roof
platform of the tour boat, facing a crowd of forty people, many of whom were
not paying any attention to me.
“The
Kilbourn
Dam was
a source of controversy when it was built in 1908,” I announced. “Henry
Hamilton Bennett, known for his innovative photography of Wisconsin Dells, knew
that constructing the dam on the Wisconsin River would raise the water level
twenty feet. This would drastically cover much of the gorgeous, rocky scenery,
and it would be forever lost to the deep, dark, swirling waters.”
As the tour boat turned with the bend in the
river, my cheek felt the soft light of the sun rising over the pine trees to
the east.
The first tour of the day was always my
favorite. Nature was waking up all around me, and there were usually only the
most pleasant of tourists on my tour boat: elderly couples, nature hippies, and
inquisitive, middle-aged people with very well behaved children. These were the
kind of tourists that wore fanny packs and took detailed notes on little yellow
legal pads throughout the tour.
As the day went on, the quality of tourists
usually took a considerable and steep dive, right up to the last boat of the
day (lovingly called “The Owl” by boat employees), which was populated with
obnoxious, out-of-control children, tourists who didn’t speak a lick of
English, and families who had spent the entire day at Noah’s Ark
Waterpark
and were crabby, tired, and burnt to a crisp.
None of the people from this dysfunctional group seemed to listen to a word I
said.
“H.H. Bennett opposed the building of the power
dam and he fought his battle until 1908 when he died. The dam was completed in
1909, and just as Bennett predicted, miles upon miles of the most beautiful
rock formations you’ve ever seen were flooded and still remain underwater
today.”
Wisconsin Dells, located forty-five minutes
north of the capital of Wisconsin, has been a tourist town for more than one
hundred and fifty years. With an off-season population of just over seven
thousand people, every summer the town comes to life with visitors,
brimming
the tiny city’s capacity to almost ten times that
in three months.
Tour guides were one of the most sought-after
summer jobs by the local kids because in a few months you could easily make
enough dough to pay tuition at a state college and didn’t have to work your
butt off doing it. The Dells Boat Tours hired fifteen or so female tour guides
and just as many male drivers each summer. They were paired up in teams to work
as a crew upon a boat assigned to them for three months.
Sometimes that got pretty interesting. My first
driver, Justin, was amazingly hot and had just turned twenty-one. I was
fifteen. We had nothing in common, so I spent most of the summer staring at his
perfectly curved ass while he drove the boat in silence.
Actually, it wasn’t interesting at all.
Now I worked with Jack, who was once my middle
school health teacher. A bit weird, perhaps, but since I became a college
student, we got along comfortably, and I truly enjoyed working as a team with
him.
Jack, a guy of average height and slightly
overweight build, had buttery-blonde hair cut short and a kind, round face. He
was in his mid-thirties and recently divorced, and although he didn’t talk too
much about it, I could tell he was genuinely hurt from whatever had happened.
His bright green eyes always seemed so lonely. I tried to be a good friend to
him and, thankfully, our difference in age didn’t seem to stand in the way too
much. Luckily he could carry on a conversation, because his ass wasn’t
something to stare at.
I climbed down the ladder built into the front
of the
General Bailey
, our trusty tour boat. The
Bailey
was one
out of four in a fleet of very large and very blue tour boats housed at the
docks on the Lower Dells of the Wisconsin River. To Jack and me, the
Bailey
was our favorite, although we never could quite put our finger on why.
I paused for a second, standing on the bow of
the boat to take in a few
lungfuls
of the warm summer
breeze and to gaze at the inexplicably beautiful scenery that surrounded me. I
happily exhaled—five summers and I still couldn’t get enough.
I left the bow and took the next four broad
stairs into the lower level of the boat. Jack had placed a bendable pirate
figure on my chair and had formed its hands and legs into a pose only Michael
Jackson would make.
“Nice,” I said, and moved the pirate to a place
of honor on the dash above the dials and steering wheel. I turned to the black
iPod on the counter and switched on the background music for my next song. I
sang out “Following the River,” a gentle ballad written specifically for the
boat tours. My voice filled the empty shorelines and bounced off the rocky
walls.
I used to be a non-singing Upper Dells
guide for a few years until my boss, Darren, came to see his family friend
perform in the Dells High School spring musical, and guess who was also singing
her heart out? He came up to me after the curtain closed and offered me a job
as a singing tour guide on the Lower Dells for the next summer.
My pretty song ended and I switched off the
iPod as the tourists applauded their gratitude for me. I continued with my tour
commentary: “One hundred years ago people flocked by the
trainful
to take a spectacular two-decked, paddle wheel tour boat upriver and view
scenery more beautiful than anything from their wildest dreams.”
Out of the corner of my eye I could see Jack
using the bendable pirate to try to make me laugh. It was clinging for life to
the spokes of the steering wheel, dancing around the dashboard, and then hiding
behind the throttles. It was Jack’s mission each day to try to make me laugh so
hard that I couldn’t continue with my tour. So far, he had not succeeded.
Continuing with my commentary, I pointed out
the window with the classic two-finger tour guide point. “Tens of thousands of
years ago, glacial
meltwater
swiftly charged through
this area, creating the river channel and carving some really interesting rock
formations.” One of the kids in the front row gave an awfully loud yawn. Not
typical for the coveted first-tour passenger group. His mother nudged him in
the ribs with her elbow.
Jack decided to wake that kid up and get some
wind blowing through his hair, so he shoved the throttles forward and cruised
through the brown river channel into the Rocky Island Region—a part of the
river where sandstone islands, literally the size of houses, were sporadically
deposited in the channel by Mother Nature herself. Pilots were trained to
maneuver the boats between the islands to impress the tourists by traveling
within inches of the huge rock islands.
Once last season Jack had been still
hungover
from a night at the bar, and I had feared a scene
from
Titanic
might be in our near future. I held my eyes closed tight as
we made it through the channel, just barely, and then Jack turned to me and
said, “I think I’m still drunk.” Grumpy and not impressed, I was able to steer
the boat back to the docks, and then I forced him to down a large cup of coffee
and nap it off on the back deck of the
Bailey
between trips.
I glanced behind me and saw that the bendable pirate
was now doing the splits on Jack’s head. I wondered what the tourists on the
bottom deck were thinking about their comedic captain. One look around,
however, revealed that the passengers inhabiting the chairs on the bottom deck
were all busy in their own worlds: a middle-aged couple looking out the window,
teenagers staring into each other’s eyes, and a young couple trying to calm a
crying baby.
I went on with my tour while observing my
distracted audience. “Native Americans who lived in this area many years ago
played a part in naming the river. They called the river ‘
Meskousing
,
’
which translates roughly into ‘river of rock.’
Over time, the
name transformed into the French word, ‘
Ouisconsin
,’
most likely influenced by French traders and explorers.
These explorers
also coined the term ‘
Dalles
,’ which means
flat layers of rock. The two words appropriately merged together to eventually
form the American spelling of Wisconsin Dells.”
Thirty minutes later we arrived back at the
huge blue metal dock, and I jumped the four-foot gap like a riverboat ninja
with the stern line in my hands. I pulled the back end of the boat with all my
might until it matched up with the cleat on the dock. This looks more
impressive than it really is, and I usually make a big show of pulling in the
boat, especially if there are passengers sitting on the stern bench watching my
every move. I quickly whipped out my half-loop knot over the cleat, and Jack
switched off the engine. “All ashore who’s going
ashore!
”
I yelled at the tourists—they loved hearing
all that
boat lingo. These, the loveliest of passengers, stepped off one at a time, some
handing me tips, and almost all giving me compliments on my singing.
Once all the passengers had disembarked,
Jack and I hung out on the back deck. It was one of the first days we’d worked
together this summer, so we spent most of the time chatting about the last
school year. I had recently finished up my first year studying to be a teacher
at the University of Wisconsin–Stevens Point and had many stories to share of
my first college experience.
The
truth was that last year was a little rough academically, but I wasn’t ready to
get into all that quite yet.
It would come out in time, I was sure.
Jack listened and said a little about his past year teaching health to hormonal
middle
schoolers
.
Soon enough, our break was over, and it was
time for our next tour. Crews on the Lower Dells give an average of seven
tours
a day, and we had only knocked out one so far. I
prepared to load up our next group of passengers when I spied Darren walking
down the dock several hundred feet away with someone by his side. His
mysterious guest also wore the boat uniform—navy blue cargo shorts and a white
short-sleeved button-down shirt with epaulets on the shoulders. It was not the
best apparel for a summer tan. My co-worker Rachel, who had the body of a
Hawaiian Tropic’s model, would regularly wear a bright orange bikini under her
boat uniform and strip down to her swim wear, lounge out of the back deck of
her tour boat, and catch some rays between trips. We all knew why she made more
money in tips than the rest of us, but we didn’t dare use her skin-baring
technique.
As they got closer, I noticed that the young
man walking next to Darren looked about my age, and the minute I looked at his
face, I felt my chest constrict, like someone was squeezing my lungs with their
bare hands. I took a sharp intake of breath and stared at the dock, trying to
pull myself together, but I was well aware that the guy was getting closer.
I dared to look up again. Most of his face had
soft, handsome features, but his nose had an adorable sharp edge to it. Gelled,
dark hair with trendy sideburns capped off his slim, average-height figure. He
had a cute, broad smile on his face, complete with dreamy dimples, and he was
staring right at me. I tried to look away but couldn’t peel my eyes off the
spot where he was walking. He was one of the most gorgeous men I had ever seen.
Darren finally approached the end of the dock
where Jack and I were loading our passengers. “Good morning, Ava, Jack. We’ve
hired a new ticket agent, Nolan Hill, and I want him to ride along with you for
a trip. You’ve
gotta
know the product you’re selling,
right?” Darren barked out a laugh that only a big burly boss would give. Jack
gave a laugh, too, which I was sure was purely politeness.
Wait! This handsome guy is riding along with us
this trip?
Suddenly the job that I had had no problem
performing a million times before seemed impossible to complete. I panicked
inside as those hands on my lungs squeezed tighter. I couldn’t find a word to
reply to my boss or his guest. Jack caught my eye, spied my terror, and, like a
good friend, jumped in to cover for me.
Jack stuck out his hand to give a hearty
handshake.
“Hey, Nolan.
Welcome to DBT, and aboard the
General Bailey
. You can sit up front with us. Follow me.” He turned off
the dock, entered the back deck, and then descended the stairs to the bottom
area.
Nolan’s delightful face lit up and he said,
“Hi, Ava. It’s really nice to meet you.” He paused and smiled a bright, flirty
smile, and then leaned in closer so that only I could hear his quiet voice. He
raised his eyebrows somewhat suggestively. “Are you really going to sing?
Darren told me there are singing tour guides on the Lower Dells.”
I opened my mouth to acknowledge him, but
nothing came out, so he smiled one more time and then turned and followed the
same path Jack took.
I let out the breath I had been holding. What
did he just do to me?
Come back! I’ll coax some words out somehow!
