Willing Hostage (27 page)

“There isn't any oil shale on the Yampa.”

“No, but the beauty here and on the Flat Tops will be robbed by shale.” He massaged her neck and shoulders and she began to relax.

“There are other places like this but precious few left for a whole country. Have you seen what we've done to the Appalachians?” His hands moved up under her blouse. “All along the eastern slope of the Rockies there's a heavy population center hard pressed for water—”

“All I've seen is water since I got to Colorado.”

“But this is an unusual year. And shale will bring whole new populations to the western slop. Those people will need water, too. Shale will take most of it just for processing.” His weight moved over onto her buttocks and his hands worked down her back till her skin tingled.

She remembered Mr. Blum from across the street in Chicago. He'd raved about the bleeding-heart conservationist sissies in her mother's kitchen. What would Mr. Blum think of Mr. Wyndham?

“Think of canyons like this one, Leah”—he unhooked her bra—“filled with the debris from shale. Shale is mostly debris, you know, and dumping it into canyons is the best experts have found to do with it because it expands to—”

“I wish they'd do it right now. Then I could climb up out of here.”

The warm hands left her back and he moved away.

Leah rolled over and sat up. She told the naked man who hunkered next to the fire about the bull elk she'd seen while waiting to turn herself in to the CIA and again experienced a sense of unreality. How strange to be sitting in a cavern talking of elk to a man who looked like an aborigine with his unruly mop of hair and exposed muscles.

He added wood to the flames. “You imagined it. No elk would get that close to a pack of dogs and a helicopter.”

“Well, this one did. And … he was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. His antlers were like trees and had a mosslike coating. He was enormous and his eyes were … watery and soft even with the terror in them. I wish you could have seen him … because there aren't words to tell you … and—”

“And all he asks is a place to live. Is that too much? To live outside the freedom of a zoo? Is it?”

“No. I want him to live”—they were suddenly back together on her sleeping bag—“but people need jobs, too. In Walden—”

“Other forms of energy produce jobs without taking so much clean air or water. That elk belongs to all of us, Leah. But most of all to himself.”

Rain fell like a fourth wall to close them in with the fire. The shallow cavern filled with the smell of wood smoke. Goodyear, who looked as if he'd just been rescued from a clothes dryer, crawled onto their crowded bed and stared at them with amazement.

Glade had her half-undressed when a human voice outside yelled, “Up here! This way.”

Chapter Thirty-two

Glade jumped into his jeans, ran through a stream of profanity worthy of Mr. Blum, and zipped his fly with one hand while reaching for his revolver with the other.

If he wasn't trying to wake up, he was pretty fast on his feet, Leah thought, putting herself back together in a rush.

The man who ran into the cavern stopped with one foot still in the air when he saw them and the revolver. “Oh.”

“You startled us.” Glade tried to smile.

“I'm sorry. I didn't know anybody else was at the Hole.” He stood dripping and confused. “I've got a party coming up to get out of the rain, but we'll set up tents below.” He took a step backward.

“No, that's all right. I just brought this for target practice and”—the revolver disappeared—“and you startled us,” Glade repeated lamely. “There's plenty of room and it's bad out there.”

The intruder still looked nervous and glanced over his shoulder as voices sounded on the trail. “Well, if we can share your fire, you can share our dinner. I'm Dave Randolf.…”

“Glade Wyndham.” The two men shook hands through the smoke of the fire. “And this is Leah.”

“How do you do, Mrs. Wyndham.” Dave Randolf looked blessedly normal.

The cavern was suddenly crowded with people. Bleary-eyed with exhaustion, smoke, and suddenly doused desire, she managed to count fourteen, fifteen with Dave. Almost half of them were women and they all stood barely out of the rain staring at Leah and Glade as if they'd just discovered gate-crashers at a party. One expression on fifteen faces.…

Some of the men carried rocks, others Styrofoam coolers. One woman balanced three heads of lettuce and several others had round packages wrapped in aluminum foil. The gals wore floppy, dripping hats. Purses hung from their wrists.

“Won't you come in?” Leah said, trying desperately to adjust from Neanderthal back to civilization.

Dave Randolf made embarrassed introductions, while his party dripped the floor to mud. “We were going to barbecue dinner here and wait out the storm.”

“Sounds good.” Glade found a shirt to cover his gallbladder scar.

Leah ran her fingers through her hair and realized her bra was still un-hooked under her blouse.

“But if you—”

“No. That's fine. You're welcome. We just got off the river ourselves.” Glade gestured toward the fire and the women moved to it as if they were one to comb out wet hair and apply lipstick while the men dug a pit in the cavern floor, heaped it with wood and rocks, and started another fire. Literally everyone chewed gum.

The ladies left Leah the space of her sleeping bag and regarded her with suspicion. Two Styrofoam coolers yielded pop-top cans of Dr. Pepper.

The level of suspicion in the crowded cavern hit the scarlet-for-danger point when Leah refused the Dr. Pepper and tipped the bottle of Maalox. She felt as if she'd just passed through a time warp.

Glade sat beside her with his pop can and smiled at the circle. “Medicine. My … wife has an ulcer and she went in the drink at Little Joe.”

The assembly went silent, even to the last man at the pit, and suspicion turned to sympathy. One of the women moved to Leah's sleeping bag. “Did you really? It must have been awful.”

“Is that where you got the bump on your nose and your head? I thought we'd all die there.…”

“Will you be all right?”

“How did you ever get out of that alive?”

Leah smiled at the general din and had another slug of Maalox. Soon everyone was retelling the hazards and their fears of the Yampa River.

“Mormons,” Glade whispered in her ear. He raised his can of Dr. Pepper. “Otherwise this would be Coke or Coors.”

The afternoon wore on and about wore Leah out. Pop-top rings littered the cavern floor.

“It's high time you spent a weekend at home with me, says I. (The kids don't even know what he looks like.) ‘No,' says the river rat, ‘you need to get away. Let me take you on a float trip.' Float!”

“Rayleen, I was down this river three weeks ago and got a sunburn. I can't help the weather,” Dave said.

“Shut up, I'm not talking to you. So I had my hair done, bought two new pairs of slacks and … well, look at me!” Rayleen was plump and pretty even with her ruined hair. “‘Bring your swim suit,' says he, ‘and get a tan while floating through the wonders of the canyon. See the wild animals on shore.' You know what I've seen? Exactly one dead sheep—domestic.”

“Yeah, I wanted to take the kids and go to Disneyland.”

“And I wanted to go see my folks.”

“What kind of a line did you get, Leah?”

“You wouldn't believe me if I told you.”

The pit began to give off delicious odors. Leah slept sitting up, for brief intervals.

“I didn't see your boat down on the beach.” Dave sat beside Glade.

“I moved it up behind some trees. Didn't want it washed away. The river's so wild.”

“I know. I'm worried about getting this herd out safely. Most of them have never run a river. Did you notice that there aren't any commercial trippers out? This time of year they're usually thick.”

“I noticed that. What does it mean?” Glade's exhaustion began to show in the straining sound of his throat.

“It means the patrol has closed the river and we didn't get the word. It's probably sitting home in my mailbox right now. Yours, too.”

Couples argued. Glade grinned into his Dr. Pepper. Leah longed for peace and rest. Somebody broke out a bag of peanuts and soon shells were added to the pop-top rings on the floor.

“Do you have any children?” the woman who sat next to Leah asked.

“No, we're not … I mean we don't.”

“I'm Cindy.” Cindy had short frosted hair that would have been cute if the Yampa hadn't been at it. Now she looked like an aging bedraggled pixy. “How long have you been married?”

Leah tried to focus. “Glade, how long have we been married?”

“Ahhh … three days.”

“Hey, they're newlyweds!”

“No wonder we startled you,” Dave said and seemed to relax a little.

Rayleen jumped to her feet as Goodyear emerged from behind the dwindling stack of fire wood. “What is
that
?”

“It's just our cat.”

“That's a cat? You're taking a cat down the river?”

“See? I told you it was a stupid thing to do,” Leah said to Glade, trying to sound married.

Goodyear had licked the plush pile of his fur back to order and apparently felt himself presentable.

Eventually the pit yielded whole cooked chickens, corn-bread, and baked potatoes. Rayleen moved around with a bowl of tossed salad.

“For your ulcer.” Dave handed her a paper cup of milk. He offered a long prayer thanking God for the food and permitting them to stay alive on the Yampa, while Leah's mouth watered agony.

“To a long happy marriage,” Cindy toasted with milk.

“I don't believe this,” Leah whispered to Glade.

Before they finished, the rain stopped and they carried their paper plates outside to watch the sun come out.

Leah forgot to eat. The Mormon couples stopped their arguments.

Hundreds of narrow waterfalls cascaded off high canyon rims. Sun lit rainbows in the spray of each one, clear, bright reds and lavenders and pinks and so many.… The sound of the brilliant dancing water almost drowned out the river below.

Sandy cliff walls that Leah had seen only through dreary rain came alive with sparkle. The heavy green of pine contrasted wherever possible. And the air had a freshness that gave Leah the tingles. “Now this, this I could say grace for,” she thought.

“What does this remind you of?” Dave asked with a sigh.

“Reminds me that my dishwasher's on the fritz at home,” Rayleen answered.

Waterfalls and rainbows lasted only minutes and then vanished without trace. Leah wondered if she'd really seen them.

“Okay, let's all clean up the cave and leave these honeymooners alone,” Dave said finally. “We'll set up camp below for the night.”

Paper plates and cups made the fire roar. Rayleen disappeared with a sack of litter and Dave stopped on his way out. “There were two guys asking about a man and a woman this morning before we left Deer Lodge Park.” He looked from Glade to Leah uneasily. “They described you two.”

“What did they look like?” Glade described Brian and Charlie.

“No. They weren't like that. They looked … unhealthy somehow. They kept poking around an old pickup down in the trees. They weren't dressed like river boaters or tourists. They're hard to remember … one had a lot of hair with some gray in it. The other had his combed back and he had a bigger nose. I can see them but I can't … their eyes looked.…” Dave sighed and shook his head.

“Looked like what?” Leah flopped onto her sleeping bag.

“Their eyes looked … familiar … I don't know.…” He glanced at Glade. “Just thought I'd mention it.” He left quickly.

“He's talking about the goons we saw in the restaurant.” Leah stared at the fire.

“I know.” Glade brought out the revolver and a bottle of oil and a rag. “I know.”

Leah stepped out of the green outhouse and squinted at morning sunlight reflecting off the sandstone wall across the river. She hugged the torn jacket around her, wishing the sun would hurry to the bottom of the canyon.

The trash barrels spilled over in the wake of the Mormons. Goodyear's tail waved on top of one as he upended in trash.

“Listen, fatso, you're heavy enough.” She pulled the tail and the cat connected to it emerged with claws extended.

Leah carried him down to the beach while he finished off a piece of bacon.

The Mormons sat on two boats with giant pontoon wiener-like tubes on each side, a long oar at each end, pieces of wood lashed between for floors already awash, and piles of gear roped in the center. No wonder they could carry all that food.

Floppy hats and heads bowed over bright orange life jackets as Dave finished a prayer, shouting over the incessant noise of the Yampa. “And, Lord, please safeguard us from the hazards of the river and guide us in safety through Warm Springs. Amen.”

“Hi, Leah.” Rayleen's smile was cold. “What is Warm Springs?” she asked her husband.

“Just look at the sunshine Good day. Be thankful for sun,” he answered.

The boats bobbed at their tethers like broncos at a rodeo.

“Good luck,” Dave said to Leah. “Watch out for suck holes.”

The men on shore cast off from the heavy poles in the sand and waded out knee-deep in water to jump onto the pontoons.

The river carried the fifteen Mormons and the last of civilization from her life with a speed that made Leah wince.

“Think we'll ever get back to the United States of America, kitty?” She carried him up the trail to the campground and turned to watch sun light the excited Yampa River, turn its spray to millions of shimmering crystals.

In the cavern Glade Wyndham slept like a baby on his stomach. “Hey, the CIA, FBI, and the entire goon squad are coming up the path with machine guns raised.” She dropped the cat on Glade's head. “James Bond, where are you when I need you?”