Page 18 of Smoke Season

True set her sights on Wonderland Lodge, twelve more miles ahead, nestled in the pines along the northern bank of the Outlaw River. She bit her lip in thought, fretting about asking for sanctuary there from the Martins, who’d owned Wonderland longer than True’d been alive. She doubted she’d receive their hospitality.

“Too long in the backcountry with no one but their dogs for company,” she usually joked to her clients.

Typically, True and her party camped on the riverbank just past the Martins’ property instead. Chances were good they’d be asked to do so again, no matter that the smoke now seemed here to stay in the river canyon.

But first things first. Lying between the Wonderland of Wonderland Lodge and True’s current position on the river near Osprey Creek wasQuartz Canyon, 1.3 miles of tight, twisting turns through the narrow rocky channel of the Outlaw’s most famous slot canyon carved out a millennia ago by the last ice age.

“Picture the log flume ride at Six Flags,” she told Emmett, “then double the width of the slide, and multiply the strength of the current by about ... oh, a hundred.”

Usually, she enjoyed the look of wide-eyed trepidation this description earned her; she got to build up the anticipation, rev up the adrenaline, then distribute a generous number of high fives upon her clients’ successful passage of the lengthy flume. Today, however, she was white-knuckling it as much as the Wus; more so, probably. Knowing what lay ahead sent a prickle of seldom-felt fear down her spine. Navigating Quartz was hard enough without the cover of smoke clouding her vision. She shuddered with a sudden chill.

She looked up from her oars to see Vivian studying her as they rowed across the flats following Osprey Creek. “What is it?” she asked, her pretty face arranged into a frown of concern.

True weighed her options—pretend everything was rosy, or come clean? She needed to continue to maintain what authority she’d earned from Vivian, but could use her muscle soon, it couldn’t be denied. “It’s not just the technical challenge of Quartz Canyon that makes it a Class IV,” she admitted after a beat. She glanced at Emmett, at the bow. He had leaned far forward onto his stomach, out of earshot, fingers trailing in the foam. “It’s the length of the rapids that gets to you. They just go on and on ... over a mile of paddling—serious paddling—and we’ll need to push hard from start to finish. There are obstacles to avoid at every turn; remember the boulder at Cougar?” Vivian nodded. “Imagine one of those every few meters, in a flume a quarter of the width we enjoyed at Cougar.”

“But you do it every trip,” Vivian pointed out. She didn’t add,Right?But True heard it.

“Right,” she supplied. “But we usually do it with more preparation, including plenty of scouting on foot before our attempt, not tomention visibility on the water.” And ample rest. She didn’t like the idea of heading into Quartz with her arms fatigued from rowing. They’d already pushed eight miles today, and had ten more to go before they even reached this biggest challenge of the Outlaw. By the time True heard the roar of Quartz, she knew her muscles would feel like Jell-O.

“I can help,” Vivian promised, and while True might have been tempted to chalk up her offer to untested earnestness, there was a confidence on the woman’s face that True was getting accustomed to. Who was discounting whom now? True wouldn’t bethatwoman. Not in a million years.

“Thank you,” she said, and Vivian literally rolled up the sleeves of her sun shirt. A moment later, her sleek black hair had been secured in a neat ponytail, and she’d pulled a trucker ballcap onto her head.Hoo boy,True thought.Thatlook would definitely turn the heads of her fellow rafting guides, kid or no kid.

So True looked away. Ever since her realization about the Outsider and Mel, she was cognizant of her tendency to see things that just weren’t there. What if this, too, was a mirage?

They ate a quick, unceremonious lunch on the small sandbar that split the river at Blackberry Bar, four miles out from Quartz Canyon. When she bent to haul their table and chairs out of the raft, Vivian laid an unexpected hand on True’s arm. For the second time today, not that True was counting.Careful,she thought again.

“Save yourself the trouble,” Vivian told her.Spare your energy,she heard. And as much as True hated seeming weak in front of a client, she was glad Vivian had absorbed her message earlier. She pulled out some beach towels, and they ate picnic-style in the gravelly sand amid the milk thistle and river weed, enjoying their cold cuts and hummus with organic rice crackers and homemade cookies with a generous side of ash.

Afterward, Emmett explored the shoreline while Vivian helped True pack up the cooler. The Yeti once again secured with tie-downs, the two of them sat on the sun-warmed rubber tube of the oar raftwatching him pick his way between the rocks, stopping every few feet to crouch down into an eddy or under a boulder, peering at what lay underneath or within.

“He’s still just a child,” Vivian said softly. Almost to herself.

True watched Emmett’s progress downriver, his white rash guard almost glowing in the hazy air. “I’ve got eyes on him,” she said, realizing belatedly that wasn’t the takeaway Vivian had intended.

“I had to buy him that sun shirt just before the trip,” she said, still watching her child. “His old one was too tight. He insists that all his clothing be loose these days. Gets almost panicked about it if anything is too form-fitting.” She was quiet for a moment, then added, so softly True had to strain to hear, “Emily.”

True shifted her gaze from downriver to Vivian, a question on her face.

“That was her—is his—deadname.” The final two words dropped from Vivian’s lips with heavy finality, like bullets into a chamber.

“Emily,” True echoed softly, sensing that Vivian needed to hear it aloud one more time.

“Am I a terrible person for missing her?” Pain lay transparent on Vivian’s face now, fragile as a sheet of glass.

“Of course not.”

Vivian exhaled long and low, as if she’d been holding her breath for the entirety of this quiet conversation. Perhaps she had been. “I love who Emmett is, I really do. I see how he has blossomed, has come into his own. God, before? He was dying inside, True. I can see that now, and I’m so glad—desperately glad—that he’s found his way to becoming who he’s meant to be. What is it you call it, on the river? A self-rescue. That’s what Emmett is doing. But sometimes”—she looked up at True earnestly—“just sometimes, I mourn my daughter.”

True nodded. “Of course you do.” She thought again of her fierce love for Astor and Annie and mentally attempted to parse their identities as human beings from their birth-assigned gender, like peeling back shiny packaging to reveal what was really inside. It was harder toconceptualize than she might have expected. “I’m thinking of the goddaughters I mentioned,” she told Vivian. “It’s not the same,” she added swiftly, “but I think I can understand. I do.”

Vivian nodded. “Tell me more about them.”

True didn’t usually get personal with river clients, so it surprised her when she blurted, “Annie has tetralogy of Fallot. It’s a heart condition. A serious one.”

But she’d forgotten, momentarily, Vivian’s medical training. “Very serious,” she said with a frown. “How are you all doing with it?”

That small thoughtfulness—including True in this sentiment—touched upon something lying dormant in her she hadn’t even known sought comfort. As interwoven into the Bishops’ lives as she’d been from the start of their family, True had always felt like a rogue thread, an interesting side pattern at best, a snag at worst. But comfort was something she and the Bishops had in short supply these days, and she’d take it where she could get it. True thought of all the bills that piled up with absolutely no hope of repayment, of the shadows that lined the soft skin under Mel’s eyes so often now, the look of tight worry always tugging at Sam’s mouth.

---