ARIEL DROVE TOWARD THE visitors’ center to find out what in the world was going on. We didn’t get that far. The park ranger had jumped in his truck and raced to the campground where the big Chinooks had landed. He was already engaged in what looked like dead-serious conversation with an army officer. Behind them, three dozen soldiers were already at work unloading the helicopters.
We waited fifteen minutes before Ariel got her chance to speak with the park ranger. They knew each other by name; they were old friends. The ranger hadn’t known the helicopters were coming. The army had chosen Rio Grande Village as a forward base for some kind of operation in Mexico that they weren’t authorized to discuss, except to say it was in cooperation with the Mexican government and military. The ranger had been told to close the entrance and notify campers to leave ASAP.
“Can we still launch a river trip?” Ariel asked the ranger.
The answer was yes, as long as we did it “expeditiously.”
“What about the store?” was Ariel’s next question. “Is the store still open?”
“You might run over there real quick. My guess is, it won’t be for long.”
We piled back in the truck like our hair was on fire and raced for the store. What with a number of far-flung stops we’d made that morning to pick up the donations for Boquillas, the one-man grocery in Terlingua had closed for lunch hour before we got there. “No problem,” Rio had said. “We’ll shop in Rio Grande Village. They can use the business.”
Those fifteen minutes we had just lost waiting to talk to the park ranger turned around and bit us. The parking lot in front of the store was plumb empty as we drove in. A sign on the door, hastily scrawled with a black marker, read, CLOSED INDEFINITELY.
Hmmm . . . , I thought.
We looked down the road that led out of Rio Grande Village. Dust was still hanging in the air from a vehicle leaving in a hurry.
“Just missed him,” Ariel said. “This summer has been a disaster for the concessionaires in the park. I guess he was thrilled to have an excuse to shut down. We could head home, boys, and try again tomorrow.”
“We could,” Rio allowed, “but the army wouldn’t let us back in. Our only shot at dropping your donations and floating Boquillas Canyon is if we launch this afternoon. We’ve got enough groceries in the truck. It’s not like we’re going to starve.”
The groceries Rio was alluding to were the sum total of the canned goods and boxed food, spices, cooking oil, and so on that he had at home. To keep the grocery bill down, he brought it all along. “What do you think, Dylan? Think we can get by?”
I allowed that I figured we could. I felt a lot better when Ariel said we could have the emergency food stowed behind the front seat of her truck, which turned out to be three cans of Spam, three cans of tuna, and a twelve-pack of energy bars. A lot of the locals carried emergency rations, I learned, not so much for themselves as for the illegal crossers they sometimes encountered on the back roads.
“I brought some fishing gear along,” Rio added. “I’d say we’re good to go.”
Ariel put her truck in gear and we headed for the put-in. There’s nothing like nearly having something snatched away to make you want it all the more.
On our left, soldiers were unloading fuel drums out of the big Chinooks. Other soldiers were erecting sleeping tents. A much bigger tent was also going up—a mess hall, maybe? Ariel backed her truck close to the river at the launch site, a bulldozed cut in the riverbank.
Ariel retreated to the shade of a cottonwood as Rio and I fell to unloading the truck. We began by undoing the canoe’s tie-downs and sliding it down from the carry racks. We tumbled the raft out of the back of the bed and rolled it aside. I couldn’t help eyeing the raft like it was a rogue elephant. Since forever I had pictured Rio and me in canoes, paddling the Rio Grande side by side. I said as much that morning, back at the ghost town, when we were loading up.
“If we were only out for a few days, that would be the way to go,” my cousin agreed. “But for ten days, that’s different. If it really gets to raining, the river could get too big for a canoe to handle.”
“How likely is that?” I insisted.
“You never know,” he answered with a shrug. “Safety first. It’s what my dad would do. He’s seen it happen.”
“If it did happen, we would both continue on in the raft?”
“Yep. Stash the canoe and come back for it later.”
Eyeballing the so-called river as we pumped up the raft, I had my doubts as to how far we would get before Rio had to jump out and drag it.
Once everything was off the truck, Ariel drove back to the visitors’ center to get us a river permit to fill out.
Rio and I were putting the rowing frame together when a couple of soldiers headed our way. They were dressed in desert camo and were carrying automatic weapons. I was afraid they were going to put the kibosh on our trip.
The one with four stripes did the talking. The other, with two stripes, was along for the ride like me. The sergeant’s mission was to find out how soon we could vacate the premises. Rio assured him we would be on the river shortly. “Good,” the sergeant said. “How long will you boys be out?”
“Ten days—how come?”
“There’s a possibility that the Big Bend is in for a major weather event within that time frame.”
Rio’s eyebrows knitted doubtfully. “Are you positive, sir? I checked the ten-day forecast yesterday, and it wasn’t calling for a major weather event.”
“That forecast might be subject to change. There’s a hurricane by the name of Dolly entering the Gulf of Mexico later today. This morning it was brushing the tip of the Yucatán. The computer models show landfall three days from now, most likely on the East Texas coast or western Louisiana. Here’s a heads-up for you: There’s a one in ten chance of Dolly coming ashore in the Brownsville area, at the mouth of the Rio Grande.”
“One in ten, that’s not very likely.”
“If she does, and she happens to follow the river upstream, we might see some heavy precipitation.”
“Thanks for the heads-up. One more thing . . . Can you tell us anything about your mission, Sergeant? Why your unit’s Black Hawks flew into Mexico?”
“Sorry, I’m not authorized.”
“Mexico is having a big battle with the drug cartels, and they needed our help?”
The faint suggestion of a smile crossed the sergeant’s lips. “Have a good trip,” he said in parting.
“Think we might make the acquaintance of Dolly?” I asked Rio as we watched them go.
“We’re in the eleventh year of a drought. I’d almost like to see a tropical storm come our way.”
We went back to rigging the raft. By the time Ariel returned with the permit we had it fully rigged, with our trip gear stowed either in the rowing compartment or in the back. The stuff for Boquillas we piled haphazardly in the front. Across the river, the forested crest of the Sierra del Carmen was turning dark. Rio said there was a good chance we were in for a thunderstorm this very day.
Rio sat down and filled out the permit with our names and addresses, description of boats, and itinerary. The Park Service managed the use of the river in the park and the “wild and scenic” corridor below. I was relieved that someone besides Ariel was going to know what we were up to in case we went missing.
It was time to say good-bye. We made sure we were in sync with Ariel about our rendezvous. We were going to spend nine nights on the river. At noon on the tenth day she would meet us at a place called Dryden Crossing at the end of a remote ranch road.
“You guys sure enough look like desert river rats,” Ariel said. And we did, with our sunglasses and wide-brimmed straw hats, our river knives deployed heart-high on our life jackets, our arms and legs protected with super-light long sleeves and trousers. Our feet were clad with sneakers rather than river flops on account of the hostile terrain.
We thanked Ariel for everything she had done for us. “Take care of each other, you guys,” she said, all misty-eyed, and gave us big hugs. We promised we would.
Rio waded into the river, hopped aboard the raft, and took the oars. I waded out with the canoe and stepped inside. I reached for the paddle and took my first stroke. “Good-bye, good luck!” Ariel called as we headed around the bend.