IN MIDAFTERNOON WE FLOATED INTO CAMP NEAR LOON CREEK. The five people who had gone swimming weren’t sure they wanted to go on. McFetridge had his hands full, trying to convince them how difficult it would be to get them off the river.
I watched from afar, impressed with the way McFetridge was handling the situation, not denigrating the guests’ fears but trying to assuage them, make them seem unreasonable without being unfounded. It must have been hard for him; McFetridge had never been a sensitive guy.
The rafters who had not done the inadvertent swim had set off on a two-and-a-half-mile hike to some hot springs. McFetridge, when he was done wheedling, cajoling, promising, looked up and saw I was there, waiting for him. After a while, he made it over to me, shaking his head, speaking quietly. “I guess now you see why I wanted you in Bonnie’s boat.”
“Because you wanted to see me drown?”
McFetridge had not expected such words to come out of my mouth. “Bonnie’s a damn good rafter,” he said. “Things just got away from her on that one. It happens.”
“She been guiding long?”
He looked as though he was thinking of lying and then changed his mind. “It’s her first time. Although I’d rather the others not know that.”
“She your girlfriend?”
McFetridge hesitated. “I guess. Things are kind of different out here.” He glanced back at the distraught rafters, his excuse for getting away. They were sitting up now, speaking quietly to one another. The man who had been positioned across from me and his wife were leaning forehead to forehead, and every now and then the two of them glanced up. From what I could tell, they were glancing at me. As if I were somehow to blame because they went out of the boat. As if I were at fault for not going out.
The husband seemed to be doing his best to convince his wife of something and she was resisting. In my married experience, it was usually the other way around. But I recognized the dynamics.
“We really should talk, Paul,” I said.
He sighed and cast one more longing look back at the unhappy guests. “If we’re gonna do that,” he said, “I’d rather not do it around camp. Most of the people will be coming back from the hot springs in a little while so they can get ready for dinner. So here’s what I’m thinking. I’ve got to finish up with these folks, take care of them, convince them everything is going to be okay. You head on up there now and I’ll join you as soon as I can. I’ll get the kitchen crew to set aside a couple of plates for us. Okay?”
Can’t talk here. Go 2.5 miles into the wilderness and wait for me there. Got it, George? Sure, Paul, no problem. I just walk straight until night and then turn left, is that it?
TO GET TO the hot spring, I walked along the Salmon on a narrow dirt path that bore the footprints of my colleagues and went up and down little rises and around bends that opened into groves of Douglas firs and lodgepole pines. Most of the way I was accompanied by a pair of yellow-and-red-and-black western tanagers, who constantly zoomed ahead of me and then dashed back as if they were border collies out for a walk. Then I went up a somewhat sharper incline and found myself in a big meadow filled with blue spruce–like bushes that stood about five feet high and were spaced far enough apart to make me feel I was at a Christmas tree farm. And it was then that I first heard the Loon, sounding vaguely like a great wind or crowd noise emanating from a giant stadium, growing louder with each step I took.
The trail bent to the right as I left the Salmon and headed along the tributary and the noise took on a crushing tone as if it were a waterfall. I would have had to raise my voice to be heard, if anybody had been around to hear.
There was a footbridge leading to what looked like a small ranch, which I figured must be some sort of fishermen’s retreat. It had a windsock, indicating an airstrip, but I saw no indication of aircraft. As I passed the bridge my fellow rafters were coming back in the other direction. “Hey, George, you just getting here?” called one. “It’s still a quarter-mile,” shouted another, cupping his mouth. “You’re going to miss cocktails!” cried a third.
I counted them: thirteen. I made fourteen. There were at least four who stayed in camp. Who else was there?
After what seemed to be considerably more than the allotted mileage I had been given, I encountered two more rafters coming up from a steep path that dropped down to the creek. “Right down there, George. You’ll love it.”
At the creek’s edge, someone had built a stone box at least twenty feet long and six feet wide. A pipe projected from the hillside, and a constant stream of hot water flowed into one end of the rectangle. It was a lovely setting, with Loon Creek swirling by, and I had it all to myself.
I wondered if I should get in naked. It was just me and the great outdoors. But of course McFetridge would be along soon and it would be weird, me waiting for him like that, so I kept on my bathing suit. I sat in the hot water and I waited.