DOWNRIVER ENCOUNTERS

We pulled off the river on the Oregon bank and schlepped our gear off the rafts for a lunchtime treat. By the time the guides had set up the buffet, our palates were ready for anything. I wanted some meat. There is a curious feeling one gets after strenuous exertion. The table before me was laden with glorious food that back in the city would have seemed humdrum and bland. There were three brown baguettes, crispy chips (tortilla and regular for the traditional traveler), a few bagels, lox, cream cheese, sandwich materials, and mounds of apples and bananas.

I took my peanut butter and jelly sandwich to the top of a boulder and conversed with my dad, Rodney and Bob. As I looked across the river to Idaho, I thought, life is good. Across the river, it was one hour later. Here I was on time, there I was too late. And that is a good thing, because I was about to see the show.

Stretch’s friends had rushed through the line and eaten quickly. Disregarding all childhood warnings by any of their mothers, all of them immediately dove into the river, laughing and wrestling. Moment by moment I watched it unfold:

Stretch sits on the bank, coolly calculating. He takes the last bite of a triple-decker sandwich laden with ham and cheese, mustard dripping off his yellow teeth. At the base of his folding chair is a red plastic gas can with the following inscription on both sides: XXX–Stretch’s Mix. He grabs it, pops off the lid, and pours a wash of brown God-knows-what down his gullet. I figure he had taken a little bit from everything in his family’s hoard of hooch. He wipes his mouth with his sleeve, reaches up, and pulls off his hat to reveal his bright orange hair. It’s playtime.

Stretch laughs at his friends as they romp in the 68-degree water. It’s 105 out; time for a swim. He walks up and down the bank, looking for something. The rocks increase in size as he approaches the river, and he spots one lying among the variations of granite, limestone, and sandstone. Stretch bends down and picks up a chunk of rock sixteen inches in diameter–a good fifty pounds, a small boulder really–with no effort. Lifting it into the crook of one arm, he bends over and one-hands another rock of equal size into his other crook like a skilled wide receiver. He turns and walks toward the river, arms akimbo. An inverted anchor with eyeballs.

Stretch goosesteps into the water, stones not slowing him for a moment. His body slides into the water straight up, like a shark’s fin, until all seven-plus feet are submerged. It doesn’t look like he stops to take a breath. What an unholy, yet hilarious, sight to see a man successfully pull off a reverse Jesus. Though Jesus walked on water, in Hells Canyon, beneath the Seven Devils Mountains, men sink straight to the bottom. Stretch is used to being under the earth, so why should water frighten him?

No sign of Stretch; it has been a minute at least. Either he knows how to breathe water, or the Snake has claimed his life. A floating friend treading water twenty feet from shore suddenly screams and disappears under the current. His head bobs up, then Stretch’s, and the entirety of our group shares a raucous guffaw. Stretch breathes in and laughs. We finish lunch and continue downriver. Later, when the river is still, we hop off the raft and float with nothing more than our life jackets to keep us buoyant. We look and feel like drifting leaves, our ebullient orange preservers clothing us in out-of-season manufactured autumnal glow.

After the serene floating, we rafted some of the biggest whitewater you’ve ever seen. The kind where the white foam of the river breaks against the sharp, jutting rocks, splitting the tranquil water. Our actual river time was split between rowing down the smooth river, pulling over to determine a rapid’s navigability, then, once we were ready, going through with all our might, never once giving thought to the consequences of shoving our fragile boat between the boulders.

We came to one rapid affectionately called the Green Room, where a sinkhole in the riverbed and two giant rocks created a wonderful thrill. The water gained tremendous speed as it curved around the rock formations, and then headed into a deep well of water. We hit it at full speed, hoping our velocity would carry us through.

I was only in the Green Room for two seconds, maybe, but I saw. At the bottom of the depression, I had green water on all sides of me, at least six feet above my head. I was in a bowl of terror. It was great. I got a glimpse of what the Israelites must have felt like crossing the Red Sea. Then time slowed. I looked up and saw an eagle, maybe a large hawk, floating through the breeze with no effort. I had stopped rowing too and was letting nature guide me, my fate given up in sacrifice to the greater good. In sacrifice of living, truly living; a reveling in something that was bigger than me. This wouldn’t be the only time. In that instant, with the icy water splashing and soaking me, I remembered the deer.