The Gorge

CHAPTER TWO

The thrill is gone.

B.B. King sang it as a bluesy lament about lost love. Bowie Whitlock applied the sentiment equally to his dead wife, his profession, and his unfortunate and unwanted habit of drawing the next breath. The breaths were coming a bit short now, and he wondered if his legendary endurance had faded a little with time, rust, and indifference.

A mile deep in the Unegama Wilderness Area and he already felt used up, a wet nurse with a dry tit who had a half-dozen snapping, hungry mouths to feed. The real journey still lay ahead, all thirteen miles of it, not counting the half-day hike to the launch point. Wednesday had broken at forty degrees and died at seventy, Indian summer in the mountains. All of them would be sweating by the time they reached their campsite at the headwaters.

The thrill is gone and still you walk. Alone.

Bowie was in the lead, and the group had fallen into a single-file march, though the trail was several feet wide. This part of the trail was clearly marked, with little change in elevation, and there was no practical need for Bowie to take point. He’d done it as a psychological tactic, wanting the group to know who was in charge.

Even if the trip went smoothly, a time would inevitably come for quick decisions. Probably not of the life-and-death variety, despite Farrengalli’s blowhard attitude and big chin, but the remote heart of the wilderness was no place to debate the pecking order. Farrengalli had fallen to the rear of the group, probably fantasizing about all the Vietnam War movies he’d watched.

ProVentures’ patsies, Bowie had taken to calling the members of the group. Like him, they each had a reason for being there, mostly having to do with a mixture of moxie, money, and a little bit of madness. Vincent Farrengalli, a loudmouthed Italian from the Bronx, had immediately set Bowie’s pulse two degrees above where it needed to be. Farrengalli was trouble, mostly because he was the least qualified to be on the trip. ProVentures and Back2Nature Magazine wanted him for his dark looks and brashness, which amounted to handsome publicity whether the trip was a success or failure.

Bowie gave an extra tug on his belt. He’d poked a third notch in the leather during the summer, a tribute to the two hundred daily sit-ups and his vegetarian diet. Obsessive routine served him well. One more rep, one more step. Prevented him from thinking, dwelling, remembering. Memory was a thing to be obliterated at any cost, be it through pain, pride, or the simple joy of loathing the jackasses who had hired him.

At least those jackasses paid well. If Bowie survived this gig, he’d be set for a few more years of solitude. Attitude was everything, and a little mystique helped with the hype. Bowie had a reputation, all right, though he only cared when the bean counters made a big deal of it. He knew he was on the downhill slide and soon reputation would be all he had left. But that was just as well. The thrill, after all, was gone for good.

Nothing left but the next step, the next rep.

The next breath.

For perennial Tour Du France champion Lance Armstrong, it had been all about the bike. For Bowie, it was all about the boots. He’d logged two thousand miles in the personally designed Timberlands that hugged his feet like twin sets of spooning lovers. In the group orientation meeting, Bowie had advised everyone to buy either a waterproof boot or else apply waterproofing themselves. He’d even recommended SealSkinz socks, though he wasn’t getting any sponsorship kickbacks from the company. But he didn’t think anyone had followed his advice. They’d probably survive, but he wouldn’t mind if they were visited with blisters, bunions, athlete’s foot fungus, and the odd hangnail thrown in for good measure.

“Yo, how much farther?” said someone a couple of places back. Bowie had to slow his breathing and divert his cynical musings to come up with the name.

Initials.

Something with initials.

Rhymes with “hay.”

Okay.

A-okay.

Okay McKay.

C.A. McKay, the golden boy, the next Lance Armstrong. Finished sixth at the Giro del Capo, fourth at the Stazio Criterium, and, with Armstrong’s retirement, was expected to soon move to the head of the United States bicycling class. Bowie suspected that if the sponsors had decided on a mountain bike expedition instead of a white-water trip, McKay would be point and Bowie would be watching the sun and moon track the big sky above his cabin near the Missouri Breaks in Montana. Bowie almost wished he were in that remote and personal world, lost in thought, except he knew thoughts would lead to that dark hole, a place his mind sought as persistently as a tongue probed a lost tooth.

Biker boy.

C.A. “Okay” McKay.

The type of catchy name you need.

Nabbed the latest cover of Cycling News, gets laid more than George Clooney, but on this trip, he’s middle of the pack. I’m first.

“A mile and a half,” Bowie said. The distance to the Unegama headwaters where they would make camp was more like a mile and two thousand feet, but he wasn’t sure his fellow travelers would appreciate the distinction. And he didn’t want to waste breath explaining. Truth be told (not that he’d ever admit the truth-no use changing old habits now), his lungs were working a bit harder than expected.

“Mile and half,” McKay passed along, so much louder than necessary in the hush of the forest that Bowie suspected he, too, was sucking for oxygen. “With wheels, I could do that in ten minutes.”

“Well, next time get your bike company to put up the money, and we’ll do it the easy way,” Bowie said. “This time we’re doing it the ProVentures way.”

“The best way,” said the man behind Bowie and in front of McKay. Bowie had forgotten the man’s name. All Bowie knew was his checks were signed by the outdoor adventure company, which had been started by two stoners with a love for the great outdoors, but now mostly employed computer geeks and business majors. The two founding stoners had made their fortune on a sleeping bag with a “most excellent” logo, one designed to appeal to daybreak rollers, High Noon huffers, teatime puffers, and midnight tokers. The logo featured an infamous five-fingered plant in bold green beneath a jagged red slash. “Just Say Maybe,” read that original logo. Over the years, as the rebel teen customers became soft in the belly and no longer lit up before board meetings, the ProVentures logo had transformed first to a five-branched green tree, then an upended peace sign; then the red slash went away, and for the last five years the company was widely recognized for its slanted P logo with a lesser-green image of the globe behind it.

“The best way,” Bowie parroted without looking back. Point never looked back, unless there was an emergency.

“The ProVentures way,” the company man said, almost as if a cheer were expected.

“Pro-fuckin’- Vent ures,” Farrengalli shouted from the rear. “You guys fucking rock.”

Fuckin’ A, Bowie thought. The dude’s going to say “Fuckin’ A” any second now, because he watched Apocalypse Now ten times.

“It’s only natural,” the company man said, spouting the slogan the company had adopted after the stock split four ways.

“O-o-o-o-o-nly FUCKIN’ NATURALLLLL!!!!! ” Farrengalli bellowed in a voice that drowned out the first few whistling birds and scuffling ground animals Bowie had heard since the start of the hike. He wanted to tell the greaseball to eat a dirty root. Because the quiet had been nice. Almost too nice.

Every point walks alone.

In the quiet, they look for things to confess.

They look for things right in front of their faces.

The Unegawa Wilderness Area compared neither in size nor reputation to some of the Midwestern regions that had been preserved by early and optimistic Congresses. But this forest appealed to Bowie. It was old, diverse, and strange. The hardwoods rose up to the sun, the evergreens crowded the waterways, and a thousand low-growth species sprouted from the black loam of the ancient hills. This was an ancient world, a secret world, no matter how many feet had marked these trails.

He’d memorized the maps, because such mental exercise took his mind from the dark hole. He’d been raised in the region, and had cut his teeth as a white-water guide on the lower stretch of the river. The mid-level kayakers hit the Unegama on the lower three miles, where the few challenging rapids were broken by gentle and scenic runs and the river emptied out on a lake. Bowie had even led a few advanced runs on the middle stretch, but he’d known of few paddlers crazy or suicidal enough to try the upper waters.

“Natural,” muttered the man behind Bowie. Travis Lane, the ProVentures rep.

Natural. It’s only natural. The company’s successful slogan had contributed to the inevitable gutting of the word. Nothing was natural these days. Nature itself was a commodity, bought and sold by power companies. Air reduced to profit.

Breathe.

Bowie hated his lungs. They were two hot bricks. He could have hiked this trail without a second thought eight years ago. Now, second thoughts were all he had.

And thoughts of the woman in the group, who should never have taken the assignment. For personal reasons. Very personal reasons.

Breathe, step, breathe.

“Only natural,” Bowie said under his breath, which was the only way he could say it at the moment.

Farrengalli opened his loud mouth from the curve of the trail. “Hey, Okay, how’s the view?”

“Looks like the fucking natural woods to me,” McKay said. That drew a laugh from the whole group, with the exception of Bowie. He sucked a snicker back up into his nose.

“It’s only fuckin’ NAAAAAAAtural,” Farrengalli rumbled, startling a raven that had been watching the group from the high perch of a sycamore. It took wing, and Bowie saw the bird framed briefly against the sinking sun before it disappeared over the treetops.

The low clouds were bruised and troubled. The forecast had called for clear skies, but the escarpment and the altitude led to unpredictable weather in the wilderness area. If conditions turned wet, they’d be doing a lot more hiking than rafting. The Unegama was treacherous in the best of times. At its worst, it could drink a man like a tornado swallowed a gnat.

“Hey, Bowie, how’s the view from up there?” Farrengalli bellowed.

Bowie wished the clouds would collide long enough to piss on the jerk’s parade.