She stayed hunched over, hoping some of the rocks and shrubs in the flat area around camp would hide her if Gale looked over. His back was still to her as he led Tilda to their latrine area; she could hear him whistling that grating sunshine song. Imogen needed to get farther up the creek as fast as she could, to gain the protection of Boucher’s rugged walls. Her mind was racing faster than her legs, faster than her heart. If Gale couldn’t hear her scrambling over rocks, he could probably detect her heartbeat, as subtle as a fighter plane breaking the sky, rolling out fat scars of thunder.
A whimper escaped her throat. She wanted to cry. She wanted to huddle into a ball and roll away. Too many emotions were surging through her and she didn’t know where to put them. But there wasn’t time to cry.
She ran. How much time did she have?
Even if it took less than fifteen minutes to dash down to the river, Gale would know she’d run off within five—maybe slightly more if Tilda couldn’t easily relieve herself. He wouldn’t know, at first, which direction she’d gone. Maybe he’d assume she’d booked it back to Hermit—Tilda’s plan, and the only area he was personally familiar with. Or maybe Beck would feed him misinformation, tell him she’d fled up the Boucher Trail to the rim. (No one fled up the Boucher Trail; it was even worse than Hermit.)
A part of her was tempted to turn back. It might’ve been a decent backup option if Tilda hadn’t already tried running off, but now they knew too much about Gale. Fuck. If only there’d been time to weigh the pros and cons of their various strategies. Getting Gale in a pissed-off frenzy was not a good idea. And they’d nearly reached a point of mutual trust, or so it seemed to her. This could be a disaster—unless Beck was right, and Gale was only biding his time until he was ready to dispose of them. Still, she didn’t want to put Beck and Tilda in even more peril. If she failed now, he’d never trust them again.
As her breath grew more ragged a squeal slipped through, but she wouldn’t wail, wouldn’t scream: if it echoed off the walls Gale might find her.
Her only hope was that a commercial rafting excursion would come by in good time—and good time meant within minutes of her reaching the river. She wasn’t sure if the smaller, private groups carried satellite phones, but she expected—as obviously Beck did—that the commercial outfits would. Without satellite phones they’d have no way to call for help if something happened to one of their tourists, and they couldn’t risk a week or more on the water with no way to summon assistance. She tried to remember how often they’d come by yesterday. At least twice, but she hadn’t bothered to notice if it was on any kind of schedule.
Panic and desperation drove her. She kept expecting to hear footfalls coming up behind her, slipping on gravelly rocks as he chased her down, but so far she was alone. Ahead of her, the rapids grew louder. The roar built, a dramatic crescendo, as she reached her destination. Panting, she gripped her knees and tried to catch her breath.
Throughout most of the Grand Canyon sheer cliffs came straight down into the river and the Canyon continued its process of majestic erosion, gaining incremental depth. Riverbanks existed only where a creek flowed out of an inner canyon and joined the Colorado. Imogen took a moment to get her bearings. It looked different under the current circumstances, no longer the place the trio had come for respite. Now she surveyed places to hide, to stay out of sight if—when—Gale came crashing down the creek.
There was a cluster of trees growing some distance from the river’s edge, but Imogen feared they were too far away: the rafters would slip past before she could run down and wave them over. She had a couple hundred feet of walkable land on either side of the creek-river intersection. On the far side, the strand was narrow and she didn’t see any hiding places, with the ancient wall of schist so close to the water. Maybe there was an outcropping there big enough to hide her, but she couldn’t be sure without crossing the creek.
Desperate, the clock ticking, she looked for something closer. There were stands of tamarisk. The invasive shrubs had wispy trunks and leafy, frondlike branches. They grew in clusters in the river’s wet soil and Imogen didn’t care that they threatened the native ecology, they were the best option she had. She scurried over, found a promising, dense clump, and hunkered down. Here she was, hiding in a bush for the second time in her life, hoping a gunman wouldn’t spot her.
Her pulse pounded in her temples and the river thumped in her ears. There was still no human movement behind her, just the swaying of the river-fed plants and the gushing creek.
“Come on, come on,” she prayed, her eyes glued to the curve where a fleet of rafters might appear. Her throat felt raw. She took a sip of water. And waited.
Beck was being optimistic, sending her with water in case she succeeded in evading Gale and was on her own for a while. Even while they were separated, Beck was looking out for her, though Imogen couldn’t shake the horrible, clawing feeling that Beck was being naïve, that she’d misjudged—and that she and Tilda might pay a steep price for it. Imogen would never recover if something happened to Beck as a result of her own inability to win a damn argument.
It didn’t take long before her thigh muscles started to tremble, so she abandoned her squat—better for leaping into action—and sat on the slightly damp ground. The roiling water was mesmerizing, a repetitive wash of fluid movement and white noise. It was easy to fall under its tranquilizing spell. But she couldn’t.
What else? There had to be something she, or they, hadn’t thought of yet. Some other way to signal to people, some other way to handle Gale, some other type of weapon they could make.
Suddenly inspired, she patted at the left hip pocket of her cargo shorts. It was there—her tiny memo pad and the half pencil. Frantically, she scribbled a note. That long-ago morning when their parents still hadn’t made it to Hermit, she and Beck had deliberated hiking back to the small ranger station. They’d known it was just a locked shed, but they’d considered writing a message and leaving it on the door. Now, Imogen would leave a note behind, and if Gale found her too soon, another backpacker or rafter might discover it.
We’ve been kidnapped. Gale shot Texas trooper. At Boucher maybe heading west. Rebekah and Imogen Blum, Tilda Jimenez. Help!
Checking that the coast was clear, she darted out of her hiding place to get closer to the river’s edge. She quickly assembled a cairn of four palm-sized rocks and slid her note between two of them. Cairns were typically made by rangers or seasoned hikers to help mark a trail; she hoped someone would notice the little rock tower and investigate. Her task accomplished, she dashed back to the tamarisk and resumed waiting. Waiting. Waiting.
How often did the rafts go by? It no longer seemed like such a brilliant idea to come out to a remote place in the off-season. The one time they needed people and they’d set an itinerary that almost guaranteed they wouldn’t see any.
“Come on, come on, please, please.” She stood long enough to scan Boucher Creek: still no signs of pursuit. What had Beck done to keep Gale from coming after her? The river chugged along, hurrying in an indifferent way.
She gasped. A raft was coming. And another. Oh my god, this might really work! She jumped out of the tamarisk and raced to the edge of the river. Waved her arms.
“Here! Over here!”
It wasn’t quite what she’d been hoping for—two rafts towing kayaks, a small noncommercial excursion—but it was something. The sight of people practically made her burst: with tears, with hope. She could already see herself in a near future, reuniting with Beck and Tilda, victorious.
“Hey! We need help!” She waved and jumped.
The rafters concentrated on rowing hard through the rapids to keep their inflatable boats driving down the channel they’d chosen.
One took a second to wave a greeting.
She didn’t want a greeting. She thrust her arms in the air, fingers spread wide, and screamed, “Help! Please! Help!”
Another waved. The roaring water carried them—grinning and oblivious—swiftly past.
“Help…!”
And then they were tiny specks, rushing on downstream.
“Come back!” No. No no no. She pivoted upstream—maybe more were coming. “Please, please…”
This was another reason why she needed a commercial operation: raft after raft—enough of a parade that someone would figure out she wasn’t jumping up and down and waving both arms because of an exuberant desire to say “Hi!” Amateur idiots. Even without a satellite phone, eight outdoorsy men and women could have provided some solid backup for handling Gale.
She couldn’t hold it in any longer. With hiccupping sobs, she wept.
How had she failed? She might have toyed with the possibility that—Beck was right—she was a ghost, visible only to those who fervently believed in her existence. But two of the rafters had waved, they’d seen her—but they’d been incapable of imagining a grotesque scenario in the midst of this beauty. She and Beck had thought like that once too. Now they knew. Monsters roamed everywhere.
Tears streaming down her face, she retreated to her leafy hideaway, trying to recall what she’d once learned about the rules of the river. Rafters left from Lees Ferry at least one hour apart. But then what? After days on the Colorado, did everyone still follow the rules? Camp where they were supposed to? Keep their distance from other parties?
Would she have to wait at least an hour before more rafters might go by?