What the Other Three Don't Know Read online

  Instead, I thought of my bed back home and the wood-burning stove radiating heat. I loved the distinct pops I’d hear in the middle of the night, a sappy knot exploding in the enclosed flames. Sometimes when I couldn’t sleep, I would wander out to put more wood on the stove and see Grandpa asleep on the couch next to it, an old Louis L’Amour novel or a dog-eared fishing magazine resting on his chest. I’d often see piles of tightly tied flies—something Grandpa did to pass the time when he was tired. I’d sit next to him and borrow some of his blanket and snuggle with Bury and watch the flames flicker.

  “Supposed to be pretty wet, being on the water and all,” Grandpa said.

  “What an astute observation.”

  “Just like your mother. Obnoxious as a braying donkey.”

  I worried about Grandpa more than he knew. He was my last anchor in the wall, and I was getting tired of climbing.

  “Any other advice?” I asked.

  “Nope.”

  I’d recently come to cherish the idea that I was living someone else’s life, in someone else’s skin, and that my true life was whole and healthy and filled with laughter and light and somewhere far away from this one. I didn’t want to be a burden to Grandpa—he’d already raised his kids. He shouldn’t have to do it again.

  The car ticked in the morning cool. Grandpa hummed and stared out into the valley, two shocks of white hair jutting out over his large ears, with nothing but baldness beneath the 1920s newsboy cap he insisted on wearing. His white push-broom mustache and his languid language gave him a country softness, but he’d knock you over soon as invite you to dinner. I knew that. But the world tilted differently around Aldo Lutz. He acted like the heavy stuff in life was just something caught in the wind, just passing by, and only the happy stuff stuck around and settled in.

  Me? I was often tight, taut, like a fishing line snagged.

  I hadn’t asked Grandpa to make the eight-hour drive to Riggins, Idaho, where my fellow journalism students would set in late and raft for a short time on the Snake River before setting up our first camp. I told him he could stay home and I’d go on the school shuttle with the rest of my group—whoever they were—but he insisted. He kept saying he was helping me follow “doctor’s orders.” To tell you the truth, he was good people.

  We passed old ranches with their rusty plowshares and tattered hackamores hanging from old rakes and knotty tree limbs. Giant tractors sighed in the distance, their turning and harvesting a sound beyond my reach. Cattle sat in the morning sunlight. We passed the angler shop, the farmers market, the Knotty Pine, the Victor Post, and the Grand Teton Brewery. We passed a herd of elk grazing and watched as giant birds tucked their wings and dipped into the fields for breakfast.

  In the distance, I saw an osprey crouched in a tall aspen, light playing off her hunched feathers. Trucks were pulling drift boats toward water—off to fish, those boats. It was reaching the peak of fly-fishing season. Many of the fly-fishing guides would sell their soul to have the season be year-round.

  Each town is like a river, currents fighting for the path. The water is always trying to change direction, to overflow, to run onto new ground. But some banks are too high. Some rivers move too fast. Some rivers dry up. And some rivers run because that’s all they’ve ever done.

  Four hours later, after a couple bathroom stops and more than one gas-station-snack run, we stopped by the river to let Bury stretch his unwieldy body. Grandpa leaned against the hearse, popped some sunflower seeds in his mouth, and began chewing. He’d been trying to cut back on tobacco and needed something to occupy his time and his mouth. Spoiler: it usually wasn’t words.

  “Well.”

  He said that sometimes, as if to state that everything was okay, or that life was moving along as he expected, or to let me know he was willing to talk, even if it was just to say one word.

  “Wish I had my fishing pole,” I said.

  “It’s called a rod. If you can’t call it a rod, you shouldn’t fish, and you shouldn’t talk about fishing.”

  I let him know I was just teasing, but he didn’t change his look.

  “I don’t know if I can do this, Grandpa,” I said.

  He looked at me and spit shells onto the ground. “Have you forgotten everything, or are you just messing with an old man again? What do we say when we hook a fish?”

  “Hand that rod to God.”

  “That’s right. Hand that rod to God. Let that hookset work its magic.” He put another handful of seeds in his mouth and shifted them into one side. “What do we say once we’ve got that thing on the line?”

  “Let it run.”

  “And what does that mean?”

  “I’m not a child, Grandpa. I remember.”

  “And what does that mean?”

  He had this habit of repeating himself when I didn’t offer the answer he was looking for, kind of like some of our teachers did at Teton High. It was annoying.

  “You let the fish run before yanking the barb and reminding it that it cannot leave your line. You let it dive and roam as you slowly bring it in. You keep the rod up and let line out if you need to. You can’t rush a big fish.”

  “You can’t rush a big fish. Damn straight. If you let it run, you can keep it hooked all day until it’s so tired it has no choice but to give in to your will.”

  “Right.”

  “The catch is fun. But you have to remember the release.”

  I kicked rocks at my feet and whistled to Bury. He turned his massive head toward me, and I tossed a stick his way. He sniffed it and rolled it with his nose and then sauntered closer to the water for a drink.

  “That’s the easiest part.”

  “That’s the hardest part,” he said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know what I mean. If you don’t, you don’t. I think you’ll learn it soon enough.”

  Grandpa always seemed to leave out too much, and he didn’t bother feeling bad about leaving so many questions floating around. He was able to suspend multiple things in the air, not worrying where they might fall or about which one to catch first. But he knew I was smart enough to get it, eventually. I wasn’t so sure, but he seemed to think I’d find a way.

  “Let’s get you to the canyon. Call that mammoth of yours to the car.”

  The next four hours passed in relative silence. I worked on crosswords—Will Shortz, the New York Times crossword puzzle master, was my hero and secret crush—and Grandpa put on some Johnny Cash and kept singing “How high is the water, Momma?”

  When we finally arrived, I was ready to go back to sleep or turn around or take off into the trees with Bury and never return.

  Why had I agreed to this? I’d been asking myself that for weeks leading up to the Summer Scoop trip. But now it was here and so was I. What was I supposed to do—turn my back on the river that knew more about me than most people?

  Grandpa killed the ignition, and I stared at the Hells Whitewater Tours van parked fifty yards away.

  “Why am I doing this?”

  “Because you’re like your mother.”

  “I guess.”

  “It’s time you did as the doctor ordered and faced the river. I can’t do it for you. Nobody can.”

  I looked out the window as a bird tipped from the top of a tree and dove into tall grass. Spotted a late lunch, no doubt.

  “You also said this was your way of getting out of Tetonia for a while, as I recall. You said this trip might provide you with an article that would punch you a ticket elsewhere.”

  “Can you still come with me—wherever I end up?” I asked.

  “We’ve got a year to decide. But, yes, that’s the beauty of our home. It’s mobile.”

  “You’re worse than Mom,” I said.

  “Bad jokes become us. Don’t forget your roots.”

  The school shut
tle had already arrived and now crawled out of the parking lot, leaving three of my classmates in a puff of exhaust. I recognized them, but I didn’t get out of the car. That would give the journey an actual beginning, and I wasn’t ready.

  “Do you think she’ll be there?” I asked quietly. “I mean, do you think she’ll be with me? Whatever. It’s a stupid question.”

  “There are lots of stupid questions, but that’s not one of them.”

  I leaned over and hugged Grandpa, then kissed Bury on the mouth and wiped away the slobber from his massive tongue pancaking my face.

  “See you two in a week.”

  I sighed, got out, and closed the car door, my duffel bag at my feet. I waved to Grandpa. Bury’s giant face fogged up the window, reanimating the words Dead Inside. I felt that way, like grief had cored me and run away with the pit. Leaving Bury and Grandpa was something I hadn’t done since Mom died. It felt impossible.

  I wondered what other impossible things I would face. I had to be at least half-mad to run the same stretch of river that took my mother. I wondered why I was willing to go on this trip.

  I wondered what it would take to save me.

  I wished I could stay home and take Bury on a walk and watch my favorite show. But it was time to face the curse, to face the river, to face my past. And I needed a story. The river was running a path through my mind, through my life, and I needed to start risking things again.

  I sat on my duffel fifty yards from the others, waiting to see if they’d leave without me. I wondered if they’d notice me. I didn’t want to walk over to them. If I didn’t move from that spot, maybe Grandpa would turn around and realize he was asking too much of me, that my doctor was asking too much of me.

  I opened my crossword book and looked at 34 down: a four-letter word for “friend.” I felt my guts sink. I didn’t have any of those in my life. The trees cut up the sunlight and threw laddered shadows onto the asphalt in front of me. Maybe I would find something beyond a partial friend—something lasting, something stable.

  I wrote “mate” for 34 down. But it felt wrong. How was I to know I should have filled in the empty spaces with Skye, Wyatt, and Shelby?

  TWO

  I snatched a penny off the ground and turned it over and over in my fingers. Mom sometimes talked at home about the first law of probability—that one chance event has no effect on the next chance event and its result.

  But what were the odds that this particular coin would end up at my feet on this particular day? That coin had been traveling my way for seventeen years, and I was about to flip it, and it was going to give me either heads or tails. I’d had far too many tails in my life, I decided, so I wedged the edge of the coin in a gap in the cracked asphalt and decided that if it was going to fall, it wasn’t going to be my hand that pushed it one way or the other. But God has a sense of humor, and as I stood up and started toward the van, the coin fell.

  Heads or tails? I couldn’t say.

  What I could say: not much. I didn’t have word one for the motley group of people standing in front of me at the guide station in Riggins, Idaho.

  A tall, lean boy rested against the van, holding a climbing rope and tying knots in it. Untying. Tying. His face was bright and craggy, covered in seams from the sun, like the crimps on a climbing route. His cheeks sunk into dimples, and he watched me from the corner of his eye. He had curly, oak-colored hair, and skin the color of the light-brown rocks in Moab and Arches. I knew him by reputation. Skye Ellis was big news—a star athlete, scholarships, the works—but I hadn’t seen him in over a year. Nobody had. And I didn’t really care to see anybody in that moment.

  “So, what’s up with you?” he said.

  I didn’t know how to respond. I dropped my duffel next to the Hells Whitewater Tours van Mrs. Wixom had listed in the itinerary and adjusted my ponytail. Light spilled onto his face, and his black eyes reflected the afternoon sun.

  I had some options of things I could tell him:

  1.Existential dread. What is life but question after question? Why even try?

  2.Early onset bunions.

  3.The dry cleaners keep starching my shirts, even though I tell them not to.

  4.I’m judgmental as a defense mechanism, because I’m insecure.

  5.I don’t let people close to me for fear they will hurt me, and I’ve already dealt with that kind of thing enough for the rest of my life.

  6.I ate brussels sprouts as a kid.

  7.A lot.

  I didn’t go with any of those options.

  “Nothing,” I said.

  “We all have something,” he said, pointing to his metal prosthetic leg.

  I was surprised I hadn’t noticed it right away, but brushed it aside, reminding myself I had other things to worry about.

  “I guess,” I said.

  “Right. That’s what they both said as well.”

  He pointed to where Wyatt Isom sat on a rock, sharpening a large blade. Wyatt had long, dirty-blond hair in a bun and a full face of soft features. He had on cargo shorts and a shirt that said “I’m a Prepper” with a World War I–style gas mask printed on it.

  Beyond Wyatt was a girl adjusting her hair in the afternoon light, standing in front of an alder and talking to her phone. I didn’t know her, but I knew of her. Shelby Trumane rolled with the popular girls and always seemed to be too busy for anybody or anything. She had a big mouth and beautiful features. She had one of those ridiculous selfie sticks and kept pausing, repositioning, and rerecording some spiel about something I couldn’t quite hear. Whatever it was, it sounded like she was annoyed.

  Spoiler: she spoke with the status quo tone of her group—annoyed.

  “I’m guessing you’re in Wixom’s class?” I said to her.

  “Obviously. Our driver ran into the bathroom. We’re just waiting on him. And you. Last one here, and all,” said Shelby.

  “Sorry for the inconvenience.”

  “I don’t mind waiting for beautiful things,” Skye said, lifting my duffel into the van.

  “You’re pretty forward.”

  “Better than backward,” he said.

  I couldn’t stop the heat or the red that rose to my face when he said “beautiful.” I wasn’t used to hearing that word applied to me. Maybe when talking to Grandpa about the scales on a fish or the way a horse’s muscles flex during a full sprint or the way the Teton Mountains go purple in the right light. Maybe when shopping or admiring a painting in the Trailside Gallery in Jackson with Mom. Maybe then I could understand the word beautiful. But not when it was said about me.

  I didn’t know how to respond, so I decided to call him out on his language. “Things?”

  “Sorry,” he said. “People.”

  “I’m not people. I’m Indie.”

  “I’m Skye, with an e,” he said, touching his prosthetic leg.

  “Hi, Skye with an e.”

  “I know who you are,” he said.

  “And I know who you are. But do either of us really know one another?”

  “Sure,” he said.

  “It’s a small school, but that doesn’t mean we know much beyond what we’ve heard. Where have you been, anyway?”

  “Right. It doesn’t matter.”

  “What?” I said.

  “The e thing. I don’t know why I said that.”

  His voice was deep, like it belonged in one of those old movies set in wartime where masses of people gathered around the radio to hear the news of the latest bombing raids or advances at the front.

  “Because it does matter. Spelling matters. One letter matters. It’s the difference between ‘hell’ and ‘hello.’ Between ‘slaughter’ and ‘laughter.’ And as for the beautiful thing, you must mean her.”

  I pointed at Shelby, who put her phone in her pocket and then telescoped the selfie stick into a ti
ny rod that she slipped into her backpack.

  “What?” she said, stepping next to us by the van.

  “He said you’re beautiful,” I said.

  Skye gave me the “Really?” look.

  “Thanks, Skye.” She smiled as if everyone told her she was beautiful. “I’m Shelby,” she said at me. Not to me, because she had pulled her phone out again and was scrolling through it.

  “Thanks for that,” Skye said to me. “I bet she needs more material for her Insta Story on eating gluten free or whatever it is she’s recording.”

  “I’m building a social media following,” she said, without looking up from her phone.

  I turned to Skye. “Weren’t you, like, the star soccer player? What happened?”

  “Where have you been?” said Shelby. “He lost his leg in a car accident over a year ago. The entire school knows.”

  “Apparently not,” I said. “As I am part of the entirety and I didn’t know.”

  I already hated Shelby. And Skye was annoyingly forward, even if he was complimentary. They both acted like they were used to people waiting for them and tending to their every need, so I decided to make them work for it. I wasn’t at that river for them, anyway.

  “I’ll tell you the whole story on the river,” he said. “Short version is that I was homeschooled this last year. Took some time to recover and learn how to use this stupid new leg.”

  He seemed pretty nonchalant about it, which surprised me. I didn’t respond, as part of my new plan to avoid conversation and move on to the river without worrying about the extra baggage, or people, or anything really.

  Our driver walked out of the station and adjusted his sunglasses. He had on Chacos, cargo shorts, and a Petzl tank top. An American flag bandana was tied around his neck.

  “You must be Indiana,” he said.

  “Indie.”

  He checked his clipboard.

  “That’s all of us. Let’s load up the van and get moving. The guide will be waiting at the drop-in point.”

  “You’re not the guide?” I said.

  “Nope, I’m just the driver. I won’t be guiding until I pass training. This is my first summer rafting or doing much of anything outdoorsy really,” he said. “The company opened up a year ago and was willing to take a chance on me.”