Lava Falls Page 26

  They didn’t set up tents that night. The women lay on their ground cloths and sleeping bags under the glaring stars, wrapped by the hot sky. They talked about that boomeranging commercial flight, followed by the fleets of fighter jets, speculating about what it all could mean.

  “Maybe nothing,” Laurie said. “Don’t make assumptions.”

  “Nobody’s making assumptions,” Paige said. “Your generation lives with blinders on. Did you see the planes? Did you see their behavior? Do you need to read it in the New York Times to know it happened?”

  “Honey,” Marylou said.

  “Wake up,” Paige said.

  “My deepest regret,” Maeve said after a long silence, “is the way my belief in humanity has shriveled rather than swelled. I want to believe that people are good, that compassion will triumph, but that isn’t what I’ve seen recently.”

  “What are you talking about?” Laurie said, fear palpable in her words.

  “Give it time,” Marylou said. “People are good. All of you, for example. This is just a bad stretch.”

  “True,” Maeve said. “You’re right. I love all of you.”

  Paige, who lay next to Maeve, reached over and took her hand. For a brief period, while Maeve was married to her grandpa, this woman had been her grandma, sort of. A stand-in grandma. Maybe for a year.

  “We got this,” Paige said. Maeve squeezed the kid’s hand, a splash of unexpected happiness soothing her. She knew Paige intended the “we” to mean “young people.” Yes, they probably did have this. She squeezed Paige’s hand again and said, “Thank you.”

  Kara and Josie had carried their sleeping kits a long way off, but this was the desert, on a still night, and despite the rumble of the Diamond Creek Rapid not far downstream, the rest of the women could hear them. The faint sound of their lovemaking irritated Laurie, embarrassed Marylou, filled Paige with longing, and made Maeve smile.

  “Happiness is not an entitlement,” Maeve said into the hot air. “It’s an experience. A rare one. So when it’s bestowed, pay attention, ride the wave.”

  Laurie pressed her spine against the ground, made herself not comment on the annoying observation, and wondered whether Howard would have slept with her if she’d made a blatant move. Probably not. She offended herself with such speculation. As if she were desperate. As if she would want a man who wanted someone thirty years younger. She cried softly, thinking she had no business being a therapist, masquerading as an expert on happiness.

  No one came for them the next day, either. In the early afternoon, even though it was blazing hot, the women, everyone except for Brynn, wandered up the rocky creek bed that doubled as a road, looking and listening for a truck. Paige held her mom’s hand. Kara and Josie walked solemnly side by side, their shoulders bumping, breathing in unison. Laurie silently wept as she walked. The further they got from the river, the more intense the apocalyptic stillness.

  Their reconnaissance mission didn’t last long and they rushed back to the cold flow of the river where they sat in the sand, under bushes, and waited. One hour. Four hours. They carried on more long speculative conversations. They began to wonder if they were on their own.

  Throughout the last thirty-six hours, Brynn had been polite but separate. She joined the women for meals but retreated quickly to her own remote patch of shade once the meal ended. She obsessed about the absence of Howard’s truck, which they’d left here at Diamond Creek before being shuttled to the put-in. Had he taken the time to deflate and load the boat? Or had he just put a foot on the rubber hull and shoved it downstream, creating another ghost boat? She tried to ignore the women staring at her from down the beach.

  “We need to know your story,” Marylou said that evening when they gathered for dinner, which would be chips and one melon, shared seven ways, plus two bags of cookies. They were nearly out of food.

  Everyone understood the need in Marylou’s question. Alone in the desert, with diminishing hope of rescue, they were morphing into a new kind of community, a tribe. A mysterious member could be their downfall.

  To everyone’s surprise, Brynn nodded, acquiescing.

  “I work for a coalition of organizations, including the Havasupai, Hualapai, and Navajo tribes. Along with some environmental groups I won’t name. I’m undercover, gathering information on what the Schmidt brothers have planned. They own most of the potential and working uranium mines in Arizona. We need to know exactly which sites they hope to exploit next, with a focus on saving the Grand Canyon.”

  Laurie didn’t believe her. Maeve grunted her approval. Kara experienced that frisson of clarity she often felt the first moments on a fire. Paige nodded slowly. Josie said, “Wow.”

  Marylou asked, “Howard works with you?”

  “Howard works for the uranium mining lobby.”

  The women were stunned.

  “He is a geology professor,” Laurie said. “You can’t fake a thing like that.”

  Brynn gave Laurie a sympathetic look. “Yeah, you’re right, Howard is a geology professor. And his knowledge of this geology is invaluable to the Schmidt brothers. Who write him large checks. And who don’t give a rip about the purity of the water, the health of the nearby people, or the preservation of sacred sites and archeology.”

  “I don’t believe you,” Laurie said.

  “Laurie,” Marylou said.

  “He didn’t lie to you.” Brynn’s voice carried a surprising amount of compassion. “I think he truly loves the Grand Canyon. He probably tells himself that the uranium lobby somehow serves science. People find ways to justify their greed. Without implicating themselves. All the time. People aren’t rational.”

  “That’s so cynical,” Laurie said.

  “I’d say sinister, not cynical,” Maeve said.

  “Is this true?” Marylou asked, looking up and around, as if she were asking the ravens and cacti, or the river itself.

  Maeve said, “If rivers are the blood of a continent, then America is bleeding out.”

  “Mom,” Paige said, “of course it’s true.”

  Josie walked to the river’s edge. She dipped in her hand, poured icy water over the back of her neck, like a self-baptism. She crouched there, looking upstream and downstream.

  Kara needed more clarification. “You really married him?”

  Brynn groaned, sounding as if she were nearly vomiting. “What a fiasco. Yeah, I did. My cohorts thought it’d give me more room to play, and it did. It flattered him deeply, which in turn made him trust me. Opened doors. Literal ones. Like to his files.” Brynn laughed and then shuddered. “I’d planned a fake justice of the peace, fake papers. We had it all set up with contacts helping, playing the parts. Then he surprised me with a weekend trip to Hawaii.” She groaned again. “He called it a pre-honeymoon. And when we got there, boom, he’d arranged everything. A real wedding. I could have backed out. Said hell no. Blown my cover. But you know—” Tough, fiery Brynn actually teared up. “I thought, fuck it. I’d find a way out of the marriage later. Small potatoes compared to what the uranium miners are doing. Poisoning the water. Raping our country. So yeah, I didn’t blow my cover and I married the dude.”

  Paige nearly melted with admiration. “Thank you,” she said.

  Brynn looked surprised.

  “I mean it,” Paige said.

  “Yeah, well, you can only imagine.”

  Paige could imagine. Fucking that old guy for information. For love of country. As a patriotic act. Wow. Wow. And wow.

  “You used him.” Laurie didn’t know why she continued to defend Howard, but it was wrong to manipulate someone like that.

  “For crying out loud,” Maeve said to Laurie.

  “That’s exactly what I did,” Brynn said, meeting Laurie’s hot gaze. “Howard knows all of the miners’ plans, practical and political. I was hired to extract that information from the man just as he was hired to help extract uranium from the Earth. A fair trade.”

  “We don’t know she’s telling the truth!�
�� Laurie cried out.

  “Yeah, we do,” Josie said from the water’s edge. “We definitely do.”

  “Did you get the information you were seeking?” Marylou asked.

  “Oh yeah.” Brynn breathed deeply. “I got a boatload of intel.”

  “So where do you think he went?” Kara asked.

  In the granular light of dusk, yet another fleet of fighter jets tore open the sky, interrupting everything, including their conversation and the streams of their individual thoughts. Fear swarmed in. The women lay down for the night, but no one slept. They all watched the moon rise in the very early morning, its light throwing all the cacti and stones in sharp relief.

  Brynn spent the night at a distance from the women, regretting having told them everything at dinner. She’d made so many mistakes. Losing her cool with Howard, blowing her cover. Then losing Howard altogether. Unburdening herself to these women. It was as if, in those moments, she hadn’t believed they would survive, make it out of here. She’d blabbed. Lost control of the narrative in a way she’d never done before. She had so many people depending on her, and she’d messed up.

  And yet the truth sometimes moved with the force of a river. You couldn’t dam it. The flow of gravity always won eventually. She’d told them the truth because they might not make it out alive. They deserved to know.

  Moments before sunrise, Brynn heard the faint crunch of big tires on the rocky dry riverbed. It could be anyone, including someone hostile, like a representative of the Schmidt brothers. She had no idea where Howard had gone. He could have made a phone call. In fact, that would have been his best move.

  But here was the thing: he did love her. Maybe love was too strong a word. What was it that an older man felt for a pretty younger woman? A deep gratitude laced with a heavy dose of nostalgia? His greed for her, whatever fueled it, was unmistakable. She now banked on his hurt feelings delaying him from figuring out his most rational move. That could even be him driving back here.

  Brynn rolled onto her side and looked over at the tribe of women lying stoically on their sleeping pads in the pinking light of dawn. They were lovely women really, entirely innocent. But a liability. They knew everything now because of her big mouth. They were potentially a burden, too. She might be able to save herself, but if she did figure her own way out to safety, could she really leave them to perish? Assuming no one did come for them. Assuming the worst case scenario with the fleets of fighter jets.

  Still, was she supposed to lose everything, including possibly her own life, for this group of strangers? If that wasn’t Howard returning, if he’d gone ahead and alerted his bosses, she was a sitting duck. She should try to disappear into the desert right now, run and find cover, hide, and leave them to deal with the Schmidts’ men. They likely wouldn’t get hurt. They were innocent bystanders. Maybe they’d even get delivered to safety.

  That would be her most rational move.

  No. She had no time to run and certainly no time to convince the women to keep her a secret. And even if she did run, the goons would find her. Easily. Quickly. Her wits were always her best defense. Brynn got up and washed her face in the river. She found someone’s water bottle and guzzled a long drink.

  Daylight seemed to attack their camp as the crunching of rubber on rock grew louder. Now she could see a cloud of dust hurtling their way. The sound aroused the motley crew of women, and they all got to their feet, eyes swollen with heat and sleeplessness and fear. They looked at her, as if she were supposed to supply answers. Fuck this, she thought. I should run. Where though? Miles of desert, just rock and sand, surrounded her. She could throw herself into the river, wash downstream. It was actually a pretty ingenious idea. A speedy escape, and no one would think of her on the river without a boat. She didn’t though. She stood facing the storm of dust coming their way until she could make out a big pickup truck, an ancient colorless Chevy, jouncing toward them. The driver slammed on the brakes, and the pickup skidded in the parking area, making a forty-five degree spin. Laughter emanated from the truck’s cab.

  The driver jumped out first, still laughing, and batted at the dusty air around his face. The middle-aged Navajo man was short and stocky with thick black hair, parted neatly on the right, and he wore fresh blue jeans and a clean white T-shirt.

  “Lionel! Oh thank god,” Brynn breathed. She ran to the man and hugged him tightly.

  Backing up from her intensity and looking around, he asked, “Where’s Howard?”

  “Ah, man. I’ve fucked up. He’s gone.”

  “Gone?”

  An older woman wearing a red baseball cap over her short gray hair, a loose pale green shift, and clear plastic sandals, and a young man wearing a Black Lives Matter T-shirt and a long glossy ponytail, both also Navajo, emerged from the truck cab. Brynn cried, “Oh, Charlene! Ross!” She hugged them, too.

  “What do you mean ‘gone’?” Charlene asked.

  “Wait,” Brynn said. “Why are you here? I’m so glad to see you, I can’t even tell you, but how did you know?” Tears streamed down her sunburned cheeks.

  “Major shit is hitting the fan,” Lionel said. “We didn’t want to leave you in his hands. We decided to intercept. So where is he?”

  “Can you get us out of here?” Laurie shouted, startling everyone. She surged forward and took hold of the older man’s arm. “Our outfitter was supposed to come a day and a half ago. Do you know Raymond?”

  Lionel stepped out of Laurie’s grip and briefly closed his eyes, as if summoning patience. Ross pulled the elastic off his ponytail, shook out his hair, and then tied it back up again, using the gesture to cover his glancing assessment of the clustered, obviously terrified white women standing to the side. Charlene nodded at them and held up a hand that said wait.

  Marylou pulled Laurie back.

  “So where is he?” Ross asked Brynn again.

  They all listened to her quick account of Lava Falls, how they capsized and how that unraveled her cool, how she lost her temper completely, basically telling Howard who she really was. She told about his early departure the next morning. “I’m so sorry,” Brynn finished. “I fucked up.”

  “Can’t say I’m disappointed I won’t get a chance to meet the bastard,” Ross said.

  “Thing is,” Brynn said, “we don’t know what he’s doing, who he’s calling.”

  “We may have to find him and kill him,” Charlene said.

  The two men cracked up.

  Laurie, Marylou, and Paige all gasped.

  Charlene walked to the water’s edge, kicked off her plastic sandals and waded in, said, “Ahhhh.” Then she turned and grinned at her two companions.

  “She’s joking,” Ross explained to the shocked women.

  “In any case,” Charlene said, “a white man on the lam is the least of our problems now.” She tossed her red cap on the beach, bent over, and dunked her head in the river, then stood and shook out droplets.

  Brynn shoved aside concern about her own safety, thoughts of what the Schmidt brothers might do to her once Howard confessed. Then she had an insight. There was a chance, a decent chance, he wouldn’t confess. He’d been a complete idiot in allowing her access to everything, in inadvertently leaking so much intel. His pride would likely keep him from telling them anything about her at all! Then, too, he would lose his lucrative gig if they learned how badly he’d fucked up. Ha! These realizations made Brynn feel almost cocky.

  “So what the hell is going on out here?” she asked, waving at the sky.

  “Hop in.” Lionel held open the passenger door to the Chevy. “We’ll tell you everything as we get out of here.”

  “Hey!” Laurie shouted again, her vocal cords strained with fear. “What about us?”

  “Excuse me,” Marylou said, wanting to counter Laurie’s stridency with a calm, perhaps more effective voice, but she stalled out with the two words.

  Lionel, truck keys in his fist, half-turned toward them. “You contract with someone to fetch you?”


  “Yes, but—”

  “Raymond, right?”

  “Yes!”

  “He’s a good man. If he said he’d be here, he’ll be here.”

  “But he was supposed to be here a day and a half ago.”

  “Not good,” Charlene said, walking back up the beach toward the truck.

  “That’s Hualapai for you,” Lionel said, and the three Navajo laughed.

  “Lionel,” Brynn said. “They saved my life.”

  Charlene squinted at the group of women for a long moment before asking, “Where you ladies headed?”

  “We have flights out of Flagstaff,” Marylou answered. “Later today.”

  “Probably not anymore,” Ross said.

  “Hop in the back of the truck, ladies.”

  “Charlene, no,” Ross said. “That’s a lot of extra mouths to feed. We can’t—”

  Charlene reached up and yanked on the young man’s ponytail. “What’s wrong with you?” She gave him a shove in the direction of the truck cab door, then jerked her head toward the tailgate, and the women quickly climbed in, tumbling onto the hot metal of the truck bed. Lionel waited for them to all to board, giving a hand to Maeve. She smiled at him and said, “Thank you, sir,” as if he were doing something as frivolous as helping her into a roller coaster car.

  “Where’re we going?” Paige asked.

  Marylou had no idea where they were going or what they’d be called upon to do once they got there, so she couldn’t answer her daughter. But her heart was filled with the intensity of the canyon: sheets of green water punctuated by stupendous sprays of whitewater; hoarse caws of ravens and melodies of wrens; hot blue sky and hotter red rock. For now, these would have to sustain her. It’s possible they could sustain her for a lifetime.

  Paige sat next to her mom. Her future had busted wide open. There wasn’t a single known. It was terrifying. Also exciting. Paige knew she was joining something bigger than she could imagine, perhaps the heart and soul of the resistance, and yeah, she was glad.