part five

     The ground under my butt is hard and cold and the pointy rocks hurt.... but I just sit there anyway, my emotional body and my physical body well on the way to exhaustion. It starts to rain again. Shana has been spelling out our new plan. Get shelter, start a fire, dry our pathetically insufficient clothes out, find drinkable water, pool our snacks and get ready for the night. Tomorrow we will flag down a commercial trip and try to catch our wayward rafts.

     A quarter mile back up stream is a pretty big overhang that diverts the rain. Firewood is readily available, there is a stack of driftwood under the huge logs that runs parallel to the canyon wall in our new 'dusty-but-dry' camp. It has been deposited here by an ancient flash flood.  I have distinct eye contact with my friends, as we slowly, deliberately discuss an emergency exit should the river raise up this far. I am reminded of the earthquake and fire drills of my elementary school years.

     Soon a fire is crackling and people are hanging there soppy clothes on the rocks that protrude from the wall. The rain is coming down in rivulets, we gingerly place our water bottles under them and wait expectantly for the gritty liquid they will yield. It is dark. I am cold, we are all cold. Some of us have only bikini tops. Any extra shirts and pants are distributed.  The food is pooled, beef jerky, oranges, two cookies, a few power bars, some seaweed and dried papaya spears. We start claiming sleeping spots. The ground is not level and there are only small patches that are not rocks.

     Luckily the youngest crew member brought his knife with its one and a half inch blade. Cedar somehow finds the energy to clean the mighty trout.  He slaps it down on the log, her body muddy from the still flooding creek. How shall we cook her? Cut her up into steaks and skew them with marshmallow sticks? Someone comes up with a piece of tinfoil their sandwich had been wrapped in. After the rain has rinsed her clean she is wrapped up tight with her head and tail exposed and thrown onto the red coals. Oh how wondrous the aroma, how glorious the taste. Each of us gets a fork full.... yes Matt has come up with a FORK from his backpack. It is a meal I will not soon forget.

     Exhausted I rub an indention into the dirt with my cheek and shoulder and fade away into shivery sleep.  I wake to the smoldering embers and notice a few others are stirring. We build up the fire and sit around bullshitting quietly. Shawnee asks Matt what time it is, for he is the only one with a time piece.  A hefty time piece at that, the one he bought to assist him with his EMT endeavors.  He looks down and slowly, silently shakes his head. "Eleven thirty."  Shawnee lets out a soft squeal "This is going to be the longest night of my life".  Its crazy.... I thought it was predawn, I had hoped it was predawn. I am pretty over it, the relentless cold, the warmth seeping ground, but my mind doesn't stray far from the moment, from the now, and the only thing I want is right now is sleep. I cuddle a warm stone from near the fire and drift off again.

     The next thing I know my eyes shoot open and my head is full of sound.... BIG sound. People shouting, running, tripping over my inert body. "Run!" But there is something bigger, something louder, like a freight-train's roar filling the canyon, bearing down on us. Oh god, its another flash flood! I grab my shoes and join the mad rush up the trail to our 'higher ground' emergency spot.

     Here we are again, sitting on the cold, hard ground with the pointy, hurtful rocks ... watching the creek turn into a turmoil of churning foam. In the moonlight I see the thick water climb steadily up the opposite wall, one rock crack after another is covered. It rises for over two hours and then plateaus off. It does not recede for another few hours, and then only slightly. We huddle together on a 'not-so-big' ledge. Elijah spreads over a few laps soaking up all the warmth he can absorb.  Oh man, when is this night going to end. My head hurts.