From Chapter Five of Pearls in the Mountains

The second morning waking with Mary was much more delightful. My head felt clear. The world was starting to lighten up, dark blue and dim. Mary made the perfect little spoon, and I was content to breathe off her shoulder and lay there wrapped around her. We each adjusted for the most skin contact. And warmth under those thick, very heavy blankets with the cool, moist air outside. Heaven. The dew was dropping, condensing on every surface. I love waking like that, tucking your head and pillows into the covers, shrinking from the wet edges. I hadn’t put a tarp above us. This is what I wanted. We snoozed and cuddled while I drifted in and out of dreams and rooms and conversations.
It wasn’t a heavy dew, and it was actually still much warmer than normal. Mary got up about an hour after I did. I love waking alone, in the quiet, so slowly. I had even penciled some thoughts. It is nice meditative time. I was ready for her company when she got up, and we had coffee that I brewed with the reishi tea. She liked it like that a lot. I had brought up the breakfast food and we talked while making huge frittatas with guinea eggs.
“What’s the plan today?” she asked.
“Oh, we’ll hang out here for a few hours. We can load half our gear after breakfast and load the other half after it has dried. We have a pretty run ahead us.” She smiled.
“So is this every day for you? Like this?”
“No, this is today like this. Tomorrow is a work day. Every day is different. It’s more enjoyable with you here, you know? Half of me is ready to go row that raft, but the other half of me could just stay with you, here. This place is different now.”
‘How is that?” she asked.
“I have a history here, but now I have a new experience, our experience, and it will tower up as high as any other I’ve had in this spot. I’ll never be able to look at it the same.” Mary wanted to row the raft around the pool there at Jaws before we did anything else, so after we ate I untied the raft and climbed in. Mary pushed us off. She wanted to drift down for a different view of the beaches, sand bars, and rock piles she had explored. She wanted to row across the current to the other side and walk. She wanted to park on that rock again in the middle and drink another beer, far too early in the morning. She wanted to make love in the raft, swaying in the river. She was carving canyons into me. Canyons. Cutting deeper than any gorge I had ever run.
“Tell me a story you have here.”
“Geeze,” I said, “there are so many.”
“Just tell me the first one that pops into your head.”
“OK.” I studied for a moment on where to begin. There was a pretty clear story in my head. “I’ve taken a lot of trips down this river, but for two years there was a couple that I took down a lot and this was their favorite spot.”
“Why is that?”
“The surfing,” I answered. “Lucas and Sadie. I met Lucas when I answered an ad for someone needing a carpenter. He was looking for someone to help him build his house, and he didn’t know anything about building. He was in I.T. and had his own small business. We hit it off the moment we met. He was blasting Grateful Dead from his Subaru when I pulled up. Working Man’s Dead, actually, and he was singing along to Dire Wolf.” Mary pushed me, laughing. “What?” I asked. “It’s a great band.”
“Hippie.”
“Whatever. I bet you know that song by heart. I bet your parents played it for you in the cradle.”
“What?!” she exclaimed. “Dire Wolf? In the cradle? ‘Don’t murder me, I begged her…’ You don’t play that to a baby!” I was about to roll off the rock laughing.
“You would have liked him too. We got pretty tight while building that house, and eventually I invited him and his daughter, Sadie, on a rafting trip with me.”
“Are they still in Boone?” she asked.
“No, they’re both dead now. We never quite finished the house…”
“Oh God. What happened?”
“Well, that’s like your river glass. I can only tell you what I know. The real story underneath everything is a mystery.” We got back to our campsite and found that the dogs had run off for another adventure. It was so steep there that they couldn’t have gone very far. They were having enough fun to ignore my calls for them. The first commercial trips would probably be coming down soon. I would be happy if we could get behind them while staying on my schedule. We got the boogie board out and some warmer gear, clothing that would keep us warm while we were in the water. Mary made a few trips down from the top, hauling stuff to be packed into the raft. I lay out the damp bedding and other things that still had dew on them, then helped her with the rest of the gear. She helped me top off the raft with some extra air and then we started strapping the gear in. It was a lot, I admit. Even if there was no tent. I left the smaller air mattress out. Mary was struggling with the larger mattress above me, trying to get the queen sized mattress into its carrying bag, which is an impossible job. She cursed a little. I heard her.
She climbed down the ledges and took the bottom one in one jump. “I thought you were telling me a story,” she said.
“I’m glad you were the one dealing with that mattress. It hurts my feelings. All three of them.”
“No shit!” she exclaimed, “I guess I get to hurt your feelings too. I quit. It’s still laying up there.”
I laughed. “Right on.” Mary smiled at me and sat down. Waiting. “We got the house dried in, and Lucas gave me a pretty big bonus. It was fair, but unexpected, and it put me on my back foot a little. He did a lot of things like that. Just a ton of integrity. Before I knew it, I was inviting him and Sadie on a rafting trip. I think rivers are magic, so it was a big deal to me, but I also had some reservations…I didn’t like Sadie that much. He turned me down though, so we didn’t go.”
“Why didn’t you like her?” Mary asked.
“I thought she was a really dark girl, and very negative. She never smiled. At least, I didn’t ever see her smiling in those days. Not that she was around much. She was the exact opposite of her father. Anyway, I was sure the feeling was mutual. She was out of school, but not in college. She didn’t work, and I didn’t know what she did with her time. When she was around, we just avoided each other. I wasn’t keen on bringing the queen of negativity with me on a private trip. Not on my day off.
“Sometimes Lucas brought his guitar to the building site and would play it on lunch breaks. We had to get a helper for several stages of the building process. Mike. He was an ‘old Tennessee boy’ as he would tell you. I don’t think he needed to work, but he was always ‘helping’ someone, and he always made sure you knew it. Mike and I had known each other for a number of years. He could play any musical instrument you put in front of him, and he was very, very good. Flat picking was his favorite. Mike and Lucas got along instantly. Lucas even went back home on Mike’s first day. Just to get his guitar. It was like watching two kids in a playground. We sometimes had very long lunch breaks.”
“Do you play any instruments?”
“Naw, but I like to listen. We were sitting out on the new deck one day. The handrails weren’t up yet. Lucas had a clear view of what people call the profile. Grandfather Mountain, looking from the north, looks just like an old bearded man staring up at the sky. There is another profile inside those rocks, looking from the South, that looks even more like a grandfather. I can’t remember which one gave it the name now.
“Here, let’s get changed.” We started putting on the river gear. Spring water on the Nolichucky is cold water. I had a wet suit for Mary to wear. I put on an old military surplus, wool sweater and lay a couple of nylon spray jackets out for us. “Sometimes I wondered if Mike wasn’t also a barber, or if he hung out at barber shops every day. He had that look.”
Mary laughed lightly. “What look is that?” she asked.
“The checkerboard player look. Volunteer firemen. Deacons. The really real good ol’ boy club.”
“Religious?”
“Snake handler.”
“Wow…”
“Yeah, his church was on that news show a long time ago. Anyway, he had a mandolin this day and was plucking it lightly while we sat around. I was soaking in the view of Grandfather Mountain. I was always soaking in that mountain. Mike could sing beautifully and ever so softly when he wanted to. It kinda made the song he was playing seem more lonely. Then he shifted gears and went the opposite direction. He started picking the strings hard and insanely fast, launching into an old folk gospel song. It was something happy about Jesus. You’d stomp your feet too. I almost stomped my last piece of cornbread. ‘Oh bonus,’ I thought, picking it up. Lucas gave a loud hoot and joined in.
“It didn’t take them long to work it out and within moments it was sounding tight and imbued with their contagious enthusiasm. They were giggling like kids. And playing hard. When Mike smiled like that, his eyes would squint to the point of disappearing. Lucas’ eyes got like that too after we snuck off for our bowl breaks. It was all squinty eyes on that bright, sunny deck.
“‘Sadie!’ Lucas yelled. She happened to be there that day, but was off lurking in some shadows somewhere. ‘Sadie!’ They kept playing, having fun with some improv, and I heard her voice from around the side. ‘This is Sadie’s favorite gospel song!’ Lucas was beaming. She stepped up on the deck, standing between us all. ‘Sing it for us, honey!’ And at that I spit my cornbread out. Out of my nose. Out of my mouth. Eyes huge and then immediately embarrassed. And watering. The thought of that bitter, hateful looking young woman singing this bubbly song was too much for me. She froze, staring at me, hurt. And without a word she ran off and the music stopped.”
“Jesus, Joe!” Mary said.
“I know. I know. I was devastated. Something about the way she ran off like that… She was suddenly very vulnerable. Sensitive. She was fragile. I was seeing it for the first time. Mike just sat there and stared at me. I had never seen that man so disappointed. ‘Joe…’ he said so softly. ‘You better go apologize or I’m gonna wrap this mandolin around your head.’ He was right. I had hurt her and needed to go apologize. I stood up, but Lucas waved me down.
“‘Leave her alone. She’ll need time before anyone can talk to her. She’ll just be in a rage right now.’
“‘I’m sorry, Lucas. I didn’t mean to hurt anyone’s feelings.’
“‘I know. Accidents happen.’ He looked so disappointed. And tired? That was the first time I saw Lucas look like that. It was like he was exhausted. ‘I know you two don’t like each other much. I want you to like each other, but there is something going on, and this may be partly my fault.’ I didn’t understand. ‘I’ll be back,’ he said and then he went around the house. Mike just sat there, condemning me with his stern stare, shaking his head slowly.
“‘Oh son…’ was all he said.”
“You should be whipped,” Mary said, scolding me.
“Oh, I know. I didn’t just hurt her. I hurt Lucas and Mike too. It even hurts you now. That’s the thing about words and actions – the effects are unpredictable. He came back a short while later. Sadie’s car sped down the driveway. ‘My god, she’s hot right now. She turns her sadness into anger. Rage, actually. But she always comes back down. I asked her if I could tell you our secret, because I think it is her decision to make, to be perfectly fair, and she said that I could. So…I know that she is quiet and reclusive and that she is angry and she carries around a lot of bitterness. But I see her as being very fragile. Sadie is adopted, and she had a really rough past.’ Mike’s small plastic lunch cooler flew through the air and bounced off my shoulder. The lid came off and popped me in the ear.
“ ‘God’s telling you that it’s time to get right!’ Mike was standing over me, pointing down. My ear was on fire with pain.
“‘God, Mike! I get it! Damn!’
“‘Well you know you deserve it you…you…ass. That pretty girl should have a chance to sing without some jerk like you that doesn’t even play judgin’ her.’ Pretty? My God, his eyes. He stood there for another moment, glaring, and then from a couple of steps back, leaned down and in a different tone said, ‘Dude, are ya alright? I didn’t mean for that lid to hit ya in the ear. You’re not gonna beat me up now, are ya?’ We all started laughing then as the tension popped.
“‘I thought Sadie was from your marriage,’” I said to Lucas.
“‘No, I adopted her after the marriage.’ He wouldn’t go into any more detail. He just wanted to explain that sometimes she wanted to join in, but that her distancing, which she did for protection, damaged a lot of situations. He explained that she didn’t have any friends. It was just her and him. And sometimes her rage. ‘There is a firestorm in that girl. And she’s fragile. I worry about her.’ He sat down and took a deep breath.
“‘I wanted to go rafting with you when you invited us. I thought it was a great idea, but Sadie wouldn’t have it. Not with you.’ I started to feel about an inch tall. ‘So we booked a trip with a river company that you don’t work with, and then I prayed we wouldn’t see you out there. I felt terrible. I couldn’t tell you, but after thinking about it, I had to have this trip. For Sadie.’
“‘Wow…’ I really didn’t know what to say.
“‘Man, she loved it. I’ve never seen her happier. Maybe it’s in her blood or something. Talk to her tomorrow. Invite us on another river trip. I’m sure she will give in and go. You guys may never be friends, but at least you can be friendly. There is a lot more to her than there seems to be on the surface. She is as deep as the ocean.’”
I stood up then and pulled Mary up, handing her the boogie board, and I started climbing down into the river. “I want to hear more of the story,” she said.
“I’m telling it. This is part of it. Come on out.” The rock we climbed out to was about thigh deep in the river, irregular, and very slick. We had to move slowly and carefully with the current along the bank rushing upstream around our legs, throwing us off balance.
“Why do I have the boogie board?” she asked.
“Because climbing out here is harder with it. You might as well go ahead and get used to it.” We were pretty comical, and laughing at ourselves. I pointed out the water moving upstream and explained how it would carry me into the hole. I showed her the small tongue that you have to kick through to get past. I explained that if she could get her weight ahead of the hump, it would be easier. I showed her how to hold the board and explained that she needed to keep the upstream edge up, to lean into the pillow, downstream. I told her that she already knew everything she needed to know about this. That it used the same principles as skiing or flying, or surfing on the ocean. “It’s still pretty beefy now. When you want out, you just dip the front edge into the tongue and it will submarine you right out.”
“What if I fall off?”
“No problem,” I said, “it’ll just spit you out.”
“Are you lying? I don’t want to look like that raft yesterday.” I dropped my head, smiling.
“Yes, a little.”
“What?!”
“Look, it’s beefy. It might hold you in a surf for a little bit, but it will spit you out. It’s not a keeper. Not now. You can trust me.”
“Trust you?! You just lied to me!”
I smiled and took the board, held it against my chest, and then dove out diagonally, upstream. There was no kicking or hand paddling required today. She pulled you right in, eagerly. Almost too eagerly. She wanted to play today. And it was powerful. Edgy for surfing a flimsy boogie board. And absolutely the most fun a person could ever have. I was in for a long surf. Demonstrating, of course.
I got back to Mary. “What about Sadie?” she asked, stalling. I handed her the board, placing it against her chest and I strapped the lanyard to her wrist.
“The next part I can’t tell, Mary. You have to feel it.” I held her face and kissed her long and tenderly.
“What was that for?”
“Because after this, you might never be the same.” I smiled. Her eyes widened, but she couldn’t smile. I knew her anticipation. The thrill and the apprehension. The fear and reluctance. The knowing that you can’t go back. And other feelings that you only get at the edge of a threshold. She jumped. Her first surf was not impressive. The hole pulled her right to the middle and she let herself get turned sideways. The river rolled her and she let go of the board and started recirculating. Arms and legs everywhere. Weird contortions that make you grimace. The board went back in three times, and she did too before the hole spit her out. Nice little spanking. When her head popped up, I threw my rescue rope and it spooled out across her shoulder. Thank God for good throws. She grabbed it and held on and I quickly pulled her to the side.
“What was that?” she asked.
“You got sideways and leaned upstream.”
“No, not that. I think I have that figured out.” Wow. Hot. “Right there,” she pointed.
“Ah yeah, the eddy line.”
“You didn’t say anything about that. It pulled me under as I went through.”
“Yeah, it does that. I didn’t say anything because there was no need in worrying you about some other complication, but when you hit the eddy line, your body gets sucked down into little whirlpools. You just have to swim through them.”
“No shit. Any river lesson there?”
“Umm…it gets scarier before it gets safer?”
“I don’t hear any bells,” she said.
“How about roll with it?”
“I like it. What do you mean?” she asked.
“When you get in it, just roll in the direction it wants to roll you. And stick your arms into the eddy as you roll, like you are trying to roll on top of it.”
“Oh, OK.”
“That makes sense?” I asked.
“No, not at all. I just wanted you to feel better.” I slapped her delicious, wet ass and she went in for another surf. And then another. And another. She was a natural. And she had one of the most fun moments of her life. For two hours. Exhausting fun.
While we played – while Mary played – the commercial trips came down. The guides took their rafts into Jaws for some pretty nice surfs. Charlie was on one of the trips. It was an unusually warm, sunny, late morning. Every raft on the river pulled in. Customers wandered the rocks, played with the dogs, and got some surfing instructions from their guides. And from Mary. A lot of people had that moment that day…our board got passed around a lot. Kayakers showed up as well, and Jaws became what you expect on a normal, sunny, Spring day – a social scene.
It was after the last trip that Mary and I peeled out. Once we got to the next Class III there was no one else to see in any direction. “When would be a good time to get my camera out?” Mary asked before the next rapid.
“It’s waterproof, right?” I asked.
“It’s water resistant, but I don’t know if it would survive a swim.”
“Go ahead and get it out. Take videos if you want. We’re just going to do some dervishes down here.” I was excited. When she is really talking to me, and when I can really hear, beautiful things happen on the Nolichucky with an oar frame. Things you can’t describe. Things you wouldn’t anticipate. It’s a dance, and that is all I can say about it, because I disappear.
The Nolichucky has long pools between each rapid. We had finished Quarter Mile, which is fairly technical. I break it down into pieces by hopping from one eddy to another. Some people like that. Uncanny control. It aggravates others though, who feel that it should be run in one continuous effort, but I always felt that it was too pushy for me to make so many sharp turns and be confident of clean lines. So…dervishes. Like a leaf on the water.
“How do you think that girl did yesterday?” Mary asked.
“The first year guide?”
“Charlie said she was a second year guide.” Mary corrected me.
“One season on the Frenchy doesn’t mean anything here. She is a much more friendly, playful river than this one. Even at flood levels. The Noli can be mean sometimes. Bitchy. I only heard about the one flip yesterday. No one mentioned anything today about the way the rest of the trip went. That means there were no more flips. No pins. She probably did just fine.”
“What if they just forgot to bring it up?”
I laughed. “Sure! Not bring up carnage. Trust me, if she flipped anywhere else or pinned badly, if anyone had, we would have heard about it this morning. Guides love to talk about carnage.”
“Do you think she will be a good guide?”
I smiled. Mary kept me smiling. “That girl knows she’s small, Mary. She knew it before she got here. Her size isn’t her biggest obstacle. She can’t guide like me. She never will…she’s half my size. But I can’t guide like a man that is six inches taller than me, with a much longer reach and an extra fifty pounds of muscle. We have other obstacles more significant than our physical limitations. Besides, eventually the water gets big enough that no amount of size matters. I’ve always found that I can depend on women like her then, when it’s flooding. They already know what to do in situations bigger than they are. A lot of men don’t. And they haven’t developed such boat control. It depends on her expectations, whether or not she makes a good guide. It depends on which demons she’s chasing and which ones she’s running from.”
“Chasing demons. I like it. Some we run from, and some we chase after.”
“What does that mean to you?” I asked.
She was quiet for a moment and then, “Out here right now with you, it feels like agreements.”
“I like that, Mary. Agreements.”
“So I take it that Sadie accepted your invitation.”
“She made it easy on me. Didn’t even look up. Just said, ‘Sure. Ask Dad.’ When the weekend finally got to us, I was grateful for the opportunity to take her rafting. Anything to make it up to her. Fix things between me and Lucas…I really valued our friendship…like I said, I was grateful.”
“And surfing fixed all of that?”
“Honestly, by the time we got to the river, and actually on the water, I didn’t think… I felt like there would always be a riff or a wedge between us. The more I talked, the worse it seemed. Finally, we pushed off from the bank and I gave up. I just quit talking. Figured I’d get through the day somehow and see where I needed to go from there.”
“Ouch,” Mary said, “I never thought about those situations. Guiding like that must be tough.”
“We started into Entrance and Sadie turned around and asked me if they were going to paddle or not. I couldn’t tell if she was aggravated. I didn’t want to even call strokes at that point so I was just pushing us down, letting the river and raft work with each other. We were paddle rafting – like the other rafts you’ve seen out here. I had left my frame at home so I was sitting in the stern, driving the raft like it was an over-sized canoe. It was just the three of us that day and the raft was very light. I told her that they didn’t have to paddle unless they wanted to. ‘I want to feel it,’ she said. ‘With my eyes closed.’ I told her that she could do that. Then she surprised me and stood up in the front of the raft, leaning forward grasping the chicken strap. We got to the next one, On the Rocks, and Sadie asked me if it was the first class IV. I said yes, she remembered well. She asked me if they had to paddle through that one, or if I could put us through by myself again. I told her that I could get us through, and exchanged looks with Lucas. His eyes were glassy, Mary. He loved Sadie more than anything in the world and it was so clear with him. Everything was always crystal clear with Lucas. On the way out, we turned right, in front of Blood and Guts, and the water is real squirrelly there. We stalled between Blood and Guts and D Rock. One of those moments where I disappear. A little river magic happened and we slipped into the center of the narrow drop. Sometimes I don’t make it to the center. And I heard her giggle! I think it must have been the first time I had ever heard her laugh. Then we stopped at Jaws and I got the boogie board out. She was a natural, carving back and forth in her first tries. Smiling from ear to ear. I had never seen her smile. She was pretty…like Mike had said. She was totally different to me.”
“I can imagine.”
“Nothing in the world, nothing in nature, embraces you more completely than a whitewater river. Her hugs are thorough,” I said. Mary smiled at me. “Sadie was different with the river. Like me. Like you. Something seemed to become complete. At least out here…on the water. Lucas and I went back to being tight after that. We became best friends, and I have never loved a man more. Over the next two years, the more I saw, the more I admired him. When I wasn’t building their house, I was out here rafting, and most of the time, they were too. Lucas thought it was the best therapy Sadie had ever experienced. The way she touched things out here, it was like she was peeling away layers of herself with every discovery. I’ve seen a lot of river magic. Sadie’s conversation with the river was the most impressive of them all.”
It was a gorgeous trip. It continued to stay warm, and the forecast was for it to remain that way for quite some time. It’s rare to have warm temperatures and Spring water flows out there. It worried me. It could be another drought year. If we didn’t get back to daily rain showers the bottom would drop out and the river would be dried up by July. We stopped at Twin Eddies for a picnic and some more surfing. We were back in Tennessee at that point, the hills around us growing shorter and shorter, spreading out. As you make certain turns through those long shoals, you get clear views of the deep part of the gorge that you came through, Flat Top on one side and Rich Mountain on the other like guardians, and they can be several versions of breathtaking. Further down the river is a campground and a couple of outfitters, tucked beautifully into the mountains along the river’s longest pool. We stopped for a bit to freshen up and chat with whoever was on the porch, and then took the last short leg to Sammy’s where I tied up the raft.