PRECIPICE (8 page)

“Whatcha doin’ this winter?” she asked a little too loudly, whether due to the clamor of the crowd or the alcohol in her veins Chip couldn’t tell.

They both took a quick step back as one of their drunken fellow guides built up a running start and leapt over the raging fire, his momentum carrying him headlong into some bushes just beyond the fire’s glow.

“Ecuador, I think,” he answered.

“Don’t you ever get tired of that?”

“Not really,” Chip replied. What else would he do? It wasn’t that he lacked ambition; it was just that he’d been chasing rivers for so long that he couldn’t imagine doing anything else. If there was some deeper purpose to his life, he hadn’t found it yet.

“How about you?” he asked. “Florida again?”

“Yeah, I’m the manager this year. They barely let me stay up here this long.”

Chip knew that her Florida job would soon be year-round, and he might never see her again. Her job was turning into a management career instead of a guiding gig, which was part of what had pulled them apart in the first place. She wasn’t his first friend or romantic interest who had moved away from this lifestyle, and he knew with a pang of sadness that she probably wouldn’t be the last. It was the price he paid for the freedom he enjoyed. At times like this, that price could seem high.

“Don’t you ever get tired of that?” he asked teasingly.

She laughed and playfully pushed him away then grabbed him in a fierce but friendly hug.

“Come down and see me some time,” she said earnestly. “I can get you a job down there if you ever want to give it a try.” Her tone left it open ended, still hopeful that he might change his mind. He’d admitted to himself many times over the years that he still had feelings for his cute, spunky coworker. The feelings were especially strong at the end of an entire rafting season through which he’d remained resolutely single; but deep inside, he simply wasn’t ready to walk away from his passion for flowing water.

“Maybe I will,” he replied philosophically, although they both knew that he wouldn’t. They’d covered this ground before.

“I’ll see you next year,” she said with a touch of sadness, and then she walked off into the milling crowd.

He felt totally alone. For the last few years, Daniel had always been there as a buffer against this sort of awkward encounter with Kaitlin, and to help him distract him from his melancholy afterward with auspicious plans for new whitewater adventures. It still didn’t seem real that Daniel was gone.

Chip’s thoughts flittered unbidden back to that horrible day in May, a series of scenes playing out before his mind’s eye in high-def detail. It had happened so quickly and yet taken forever. One minute Daniel had been sitting there in the eddy next to him grinning ear to ear—just two best friends enjoying a warm-weather treat of spring high water on one of their favorite creeks. Chip had peeled out first and dropped into a long, complicated rapid.

As he made the first move, he bumped something unfamiliar that lurked just under the water’s surface. A new log had been washed down by the high water overnight and wedged in the rapid, and Chip was barely able to scoot over it. He knew it was dangerous and how close a call he’d just had. Adrenaline shot through his veins and nearly overcame his focus as he completed the rapid. He wasn’t scared for himself—he had already made it. He had to get to the bottom and signal back up to Daniel.

He avoided a known hazard on the bottom left, finished the rapid, and swung around waving his arms over his head in the danger signal; but he was too late. Daniel was already dropping into the rapid. Chip watched in horror as Daniel hit the log hidden in the top right portion of the rapid and stopped dead, then suddenly vanished under a sieve-pile of rocks that the log was wedged against. The opening in the rocks was big enough for plenty of water to pass through, but not nearly big enough for a person in a kayak. About a foot of the end of Daniel’s bright yellow kayak stuck up at an odd angle, the only visible sign that he was there at all, the flow of the rain-swollen creek pinning him in place.

Chip paused for a pregnant two seconds, hoping that Daniel would somehow flush through. Then he surged into motion. The clock was running. He had a window of only a few minutes in which to rescue and possibly resuscitate his friend.

It was only five paddle strokes to the bank, but it took an eternity. It felt like he was paddling in glue. He fell into the river in his rush to get out of the boat. He lost more precious time swimming out to grab the boat before it washed away with his rescue rope inside. He groped around for the rope then let the river take the kayak as he scrambled up the bank into a dense thicket of rhododendron bushes. It seemed to take forever to make it fifty yards over the rocky, uneven terrain to where the end of Daniel’s kayak marked his location under the water. Chip was sucking air in terse gasps from the exertion, his heart pounding so hard in his ears that it drowned out the roar of the creek. He never let up, never slowed, never paused to catch his breath. If his heart exploded from the exertion, so be it.

When he’d arrived adjacent to where Daniel was pinned, there was a moment of indecision as he wondered if he should jump in to try to reach his friend or throw the rescue rope. Then he opened the rope bag, held the free end, and tossed the other end over the pinned kayak. The rope washed around the kayak and under the log. Chip reeled in the slack until the rope hung on something and then pulled as hard as he could, hoping to pull either the log or the kayak free. Nothing budged. Chip pulled until the rope began tearing skin from the palms of his hands, then he finally let go and dropped dejectedly to a seat on the soggy ground.

It had been at least three minutes since Daniel had gone under—a long time to survive submerged in a creek swollen by warm spring rain. It was impossible to safely swim to the spot without at least one other paddler there for backup—someone would have to hold Chip in place with a rope lest he wash into the other deadly spot farther down the rapid. To jump in now would mean near-certain death. There was nothing more he could do. He could barely see the log through the rushing water even though he knew it was there. There was no way they could have spotted the new hazard, and no way to turn back the clock on the last few minutes to take the horror away. To this day, he had no idea how long he had sat in stunned impotence on the bank, watching the water surge around the end of his best friend’s boat and wondering if there was something more he could have done. Wondering if he should have jumped in to try to save his friend. It was the worst feeling he’d ever experienced.

The jar made its way around the fire to Chip again and he took a long pull this time, trying to clear the memory of Daniel’s death from his mind. It wasn’t just the loss of Daniel or his conversation with Kaitlin that bothered him. Both were symbols of the path he’d chosen, the sacrifices he’d made, the “normal life” things he’d given up, and of the limits this lifestyle put on him even as it kept him free. Since the accident, he had doubts about whether it was worth it any more; but he didn’t know what else to do.

He turned his thoughts back to the plane he was catching to the Northwest in the morning and then to the images of the mysterious waterfall he’d been shown at the Cathedral Café last week. Daniel would want him to go. It was exactly the kind of challenge that had both motivated and defined their friendship for years. As the excitement built in him, it overcame his melancholy. Whitewater was still what he lived for, the only thing he really knew.

He passed the jar to the right. Then he took two steps back, let out a huge whoop, and leapt high over the bonfire’s dancing flames to a roar of accompanying cheers from the crowd.

5

Tuesday, Octobr 18th

A FINE LAYER of tan dust coated everything, dulling the shine of his black ponytail and silk shirt and caking into the pores of his skin, instantly absorbing his sweat. Puffs of it billowed up around the soles of his designer Lucchese crocodile-skin cowboy boots as he strode across the barren ground, shifting his shoulders to settle his tactical horizontal shoulder holster into place. Although it was uncomfortable driving long distances in it, he had paused before getting out of his truck to put on his beautiful silver stainless-finished, wood-gripped custom Springfield version of the Colt .45 which had been a gift from his boss. Not only was wearing it important for appearances, but Héctor had learned in this line of work that you could never entirely trust anyone—even your own guys.
Especially
your own guys.

Despite the humidity blowing in from the Gulf, the dust made him feel dry—a feeling amplified by the hot breeze that wafted away wisps of silt from his boot prints and the tire tracks of his freshly-parked Chevy Avalanche. The dust created an embrace of comfort that soothed him after weeks in the soupy mountains. Heat shimmered off the packed dirt, rising in undulating waves to collide with solar rays that bludgeoned down like a celestial sledgehammer. Héctor felt himself enfolded in the warmth even as he involuntarily cringed from the first wave of stench. You never got used to the smell. The putrid rot of decaying flesh lanced out from inside the large metal barn, stabbing sharply into the top of the back of his palate and upward into his sinuses, making his stomach churn. The rumbling and clanking of an old tractor with a front end loader drowned out the whine of the breeze as it worked behind the building, methodically pushing loads from a mound of tan dirt back into the gaping hole from which it been excavated only yesterday.

He walked through the wide door into the shade of the building, focusing his mind on settling down his stomach while his eyes slowly adjusted to the low light. Hopefully he wouldn’t have to do this many more times. It had been a necessary part of his work until now; but if his plan came to fruition, this carnage would become obsolete. Despite the fact that it had provided him his portal from poverty, he did not relish it. It would soon be a relic from a more barbaric time, a more primitive system. If only his whole country could dream of such advancement.

As his eyes adjusted to the low light, the hazy images resolved into details. The vaulted metal building was a hundred feet long and fifty wide with doors on each end large enough for a bus to drive through—as evidenced by a battered bus which sat to his left, its placard still proclaiming a destination of the border town Reynosa. The process had become much more efficient since they had gotten their own buses and drivers. Just inside the door to the right sat a battered, wood-slat-sided flatbed truck near a Dodge Charger with the markings of the Policia Federal. There was no electricity in the building; the only light came through the doors.

The space was a bustle of activity. In the back of the building, men in camouflage fatigues were standing guard over a group of civilian men who carried bodies from the shade out into the blistering sun to the pit. The dead-eyed porters were caked in a dark crust of dried blood, most of which didn’t seem to be their own from the way they moved. There were more bodies stacked like cords of firewood along the left wall to the rear, still almost a busload. Someone had become overzealous and made the mistake of killing everyone too soon last time, leaving the bodies to rot in the heat. Another camouflaged group was near the bus, removing all of the luggage and emptying it onto a nearby pile of assorted personal belongings, sorting items of value from the chaff. A group of six dirt-smeared women stood just beyond the flatbed truck, their clothing tattered and their cheeks tear-stained. Most stared vacantly, while two quietly sobbed. One man was watching over them with a
cuemo de chivo
, or ‘goat’s horn’—the local slang name for the AK-47 rifle—while another man lectured them. He broke off when he noticed Héctor had arrived and walked over to greet him. The sight of the man’s dark blue federal police tactical suit brought back a flood of memories for Héctor, most of them unpleasant. The same suit had been his daily vestment when he’d worked the highway checkpoints and clashed in city streets with the narcos. He thought it might be safer to wear a shirt with a target painted on the back.

“Buenas tardes, Señor,” the policeman greeted formally, coming to attention in the same manner he had when Héctor had been in uniform with him. These monthly visits served little purpose other than letting this lieutenant know that Héctor was still in charge lest he develop any grandiose ambitions.

“Hola, Manuel. How many?”

“Five women and two men from the last bus. Six women and the five new hit-men from this one.” He indicated the men hauling bodies.

“They fought well?”

“Si. Each of them killed two of the others.”

The system Héctor had pioneered had been evolving for years. Until a few months ago, they had waylaid public buses and selected a few people for abduction. This process had become too cumbersome for the number of ‘soldiers’ they needed in the escalating turf war, so now they had their own buses which picked up passengers—mostly migrants—on their way north from Guatemala or Mexico City. When they reached a point about an hour and a half from the border, they detoured onto the dusty spur road and drove about five bumpy miles into the scrub, out of view of any paved roads. The buses were pulled into the metal barn and the passengers offloaded. Men who looked like they couldn’t fight were shot immediately, as were any women who looked frail. Then the entertainment began for his troops. The remaining captive men were tossed into the pit out back in pairs. Armed with hammers and machetes, they were made to fight and cheered on by the troops who made wagers, usually betting with their share of booty from the luggage on the bus. Prisoners who survived two bouts in the pit would be armed and sent to battle with rival gangs wherever the latest hotspot was. Used as front line troops, almost all of them were killed in the fighting. The women provided more entertainment for the troops, and a few were also selected to be dropped near the border to carry loads over. Those who made it were picked up on the other side and driven back to repeat the process until they were caught or killed.