Page 35 - the NOISE January 2015

THE
GHOSTS
OF DANDY
CROSSING
Chapter 1 Part 1
SEPTEMBER 1ST 1962 – Dandy Crossing by Katie Lee
J“Where is that woman anyway?”
ason squinted against the early morn- down to the ferry, sun glaring off the wind- ing sun. He spoke loud enough to shield. Dernit! Can’t see who’s inside. Now why startle himself and send a multitude of the deuce did I climb all the way up here when she
CONTINUED FROM 21
started and a few seconds later dust curled up over the cliffff from Windy’s passing. Using the glasses he checked the willow branch he’d stuck at the water’s edge about dawn. Hmmm, water’s up to the fork... still rising. We’ll have a lively run down to the Rincon if this keeps up— over 2500 second feet.
So far... I’ve been wrong... sure hope it stays that way.
Sunlight munched its way into the ragged outline of Jason’s shade, swallowing his reverie. He secured his hat, pulled his heels against his butt and rose in one easy motion; six foot one, of slender build, straight and supple as bamboo, surefooted, hard muscled and suntanned—to the collar and wrists—from there under, pale as flour. He stretched, jabbed his thumbs into the small of his back and braced backward. Today, his 54 years felt like 40. It was a clear, bright, warm, autumn day, with a random breeze to tickle the sweat on his forehead.
Step is due on the mail plane at noon... guess I’d better start for the landing strip... we can load up and get on the river tonight... won’t matter if we camp a couple miles downriver, just so we get where nobody can catch us. He climbed down the cliff using some Moki steps chipped ten centuries ago by some rock crawler intent upon a shortcut to the river—erosion had barely left room for his fingertips, let alone the toes of his boots. Reaching the last step, he leaped from the wall and rammed his boot heels into the soft sandy slope beside the road.
Heheadedupriverforthestrip. Windy’llcome down from the store when he hears the mail plane, then Step and I can get a ride back to the landing... he’ll want a beer... maybe Windy’ll bring him one, but I doubt it, not that thoughtful.
He was nearing the strip when he heard the plane. It came on the downwind leg, made its turn and dropped lower, but still seemed high to Jason who’d flown in here many times him- self. Coming over the runway, it stayed a good forty feet from the ground. The pilot opened the door of the Cessna and kicked out the mail- bag, teetered his wings, and gained altitude.
The jettisoned bag bombed a rabbit brush on landing, sending the feathery seeds skyward in a dusty cloud. Jason’s pessimism also took wing.
| Katie Lee is an Arizona native who became a Hollywood starlet, then a folk singer, then an author
and activist who along with Edward Abbey, challenged the Reclamation
Bureau’s plan to dam Glen Canyon, now Lake Powell. KatyDoodit.com
possibilities clicking through the turnstile of his mind.
could arrive any minute? Fine welcome after al- For a man who did considerable sitting, there
She’s pert’near always on schedule, Step’s the one we mostly have to wait for. He looked up- river. Sand in large clumps gave to the river’s tugging and fell from the banks and bars with soft slaps. To a riverman the sound spoke one word: Rising.
He looked downriver. Silt laden water frothed over rocks at the head of Trachyte Creek, send- ing small pink plumes into the air beneath a gage station cable stretched bank to bank. From the left side where he stood on a sand- stone ledge one hundred feet above the water, he watched the end of the ferry swing out into the downstream current and thought he’d bet- ter tell Windy, the Ferryman, that Annabell was starting to pull at her cables. He felt uneasy for the old girl with her bridge pontoons, oil drums and planks.
Uneasy for some other things as well.
Standing back, he reached for his binoculars and searched the horizon for a dust plume. Pushing the straw hat farther back on his head, he sat down on the shaded stones and leaned against the cool wall of an ancient ruin.
Yesterday, he’d driven to Dandy with the crew to pick up his boats from a Cataract run, and in- stead of returning home to Blanding he’d elect- ed to wait for Shan and Step at the river. The three of them were to leave later that afternoon on their annual river trip through Glen Canyon. Step had written that he’d be flying in on the mail plane—due around noon. Shan was driv- ing in from San Francisco. Hope she didn’t try to call me after I left home... no phones here but the store—to—ferry Peanut Can. Removing his hat, he looked up and caught a jet’s snowy track drawn boldly across the blue Southwestern sky. He followed the chalk marks eastward to the horizon, a canyon, and the road snaking out of it toward the river...
A dust plume!
Jason grabbed his binoculars and focused on the road. It was Windy Short’s truck bouncing
most a year! wasn’t equal time to think quietly on subjects He watched the truck reach the landing, of his own choosing. Fifteen years as an oars-
saw Windy get out alone, walk down to the man down the rapids of the Colorado, through outboard, untie the bow rope, hop in, pull Grand Canyon, down the Green, San Juan,
the motor cord and swing the tiller in a series Salmon, Snake and Yampa rivers, doesn’t leave of smoothly linked motions. The boat floated a man much cogitating time—most is taken up
gently up the eddy; when it hit the fast current answering questions and catering to the com- its little tail dug down and spewed a frothy red forts and whims of paying passengers. It was V out the stern. It drew a graceful arc upstream, good, looking down at the river now and seeing and like a rocket slowly burning out, landed on no one there. All summer the wild, wary and what was left of the sandbar below the ferry. adventurous had ‘run the Glen’ in their rubber Windy inspected the landing, got on the ferry, rafts, aluminum boats, fiberglass and fold-boats, cranked up the old Chevy engine and started kayaks, and yes, even inner tubes, air mattresses, back, leaving the outboard beached. Bradley log rafts and pontoons. Here at Dandy Crossing must have called from the gaging station to they loaded supplies and disappeared into the warn him. The left bank was out of the main (to them) unknown. Windy says a thousand took current now and holding, so Annabell’s bulki- off from the landing this season—that means ness would rest easier there. Through the bin- about a hundred—glad I spent my time on the oculars he saw Windy jump ashore and sight Grand and San Juan runs... guess I don’t care for Jason’s boat, the Tickaboo, bedroll and gear this part any more, without Step and Shan.
beyond the willows; saw him look around, up- Three years ago, and quite unexpectedly, Glen stream, then down, like watching a movie he’d Canyon had become a new, almost magical
seen a hundred times—Now he’s going to turn world for Jason. His two dear friends, Shan and around and look across river... now he’ll look up Step, had made it so by showing him the can- here but he won’t see me... now he’ll put his hands yon through their eyes. Before it had only been up to his mouth... a job, guiding others through a canyon he’d had
“Jaaayson!” no time to absorb because of his responsibility He chuckled, reached for his hat and stood, to his passengers. Learning Shan’s songs, Step’s waving it in a slow arc above his head. “Up here, photograph techniques, and their reverence
Windy,” the man hollered in return, but a twisty for the splendor of Glen Canyon, had brought canyon breeze garbled his words beyond deci- a bleary, everyday experience into sharp, pleas-
phering. ing, minute to minute focus. On these trips: no Now Jason knew why he’d climbed to the babysitting the 15 to 25 passengers, no hurt ruin. He didn’t want to talk to anyone. He had feelings to salve, no complaints to address. A things to think about, alone. Windy talked too chance to do as he pleased! If a jarring thought much, usually about the wrong subjects, and al- occurred, it sifted through their togetherness most always at the wrong times—didn’t mean and was diluted to nonsense by the river. Best
anything by it, of course, did it to keep away the of all, at the end of each day, Shan would take silence he claimed to love so much. His wife out her guitar and sing all his favorite songs. It
had left him, and with nobody around to jabber was hard to contain the joy he felt being a part at, he hardly let his tongue rest a minute when of this threesome; easy to fear the magic might there was. fade. Apprehension at the start of each trip
churned his stomach—someone would detain Jason stepped away from the edge and sat, him, or it wouldn’t be as heartwarming as last
again, with his back against the ruin. The truck time.
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