4

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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.

5

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IDON’T KNOW IF THE WORD “ELOPE” IS STILL IN USE. YOU DON’T hear it much anymore. But that is what I convinced Marion to do. She had friends, relatives, even co-workers she wanted to invite. I had my mother. I told Marion that it would be more fun, more romantic, just to run off.

We went to the Berkshires, stayed at the Red Lion Inn in Stockbridge, which was fun but not particularly romantic. We saw the Boston Symphony at Tanglewood, saw the Alvin Ailey dance troupe at Jacob’s Pillow, saw an obscure Tennessee Williams play at Williamstown. I talked her into renting bicycles with me, but her idea of riding was to stop at every art gallery and antiques shop, and so that did not work out particularly well.

We returned home and she did not leave her job. She was supposed to leave, but she had not yet secured anything on the Cape and there was a big project her firm had going, a class action, and they needed her. We moved into the house in Centerville, but she kept her apartment in Boston. It would just be for a little while, she said. A month or two. Three at the most.

Three grew into six, and six into a year. They gave her a big raise, she said. They promised she wouldn’t have to work weekends.

Okay, I said, and a year grew into two before she told me she wasn’t coming down anymore.

6

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IT MAY HAVE BEEN 6:00 WHEN I GOT TO THE HOT SPRING. IT definitely was closer to seven when I heard McFetridge, walking in river sandals, step down the path. He was carrying something over his shoulder that looked like a small canvas mailbag. He looked at me, looked at the creek, and placed the bag carefully on the ground. Something inside it clinked metallically as though two heavy objects had bumped against each other. He took off his T-shirt and sandals and stepped into the box in his rafting shorts.

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

“How those people doing?”

“They’re going to stay.”

“Good. You handled them well.”

He cut me a quick look to see if I was serious. Then he glanced around as if he had never been in this place before. “Pretty nice, huh?”

“Awesome.”

He laughed. “Wicked awesome. You’re beginning to talk like a Cape Codder.”