Adventure trips through the Grand Canyon began at a landing called Lee’s Ferry below the Utah border in northern Arizona. Everything below Lee’s Ferry was referenced by distance from that starting point. The notorious Lava Falls at Mile 179 came on the sixth day and had been a thread of conversation sewn by Macc among the campers all week. The river narrowed there and fed into a thirty-five foot drop. Macc said Lava was the largest navigable falls in North America.
Some of the other boatmen didn’t risk taking riders through the Lava rapids. They put them ashore upstream and from there the passengers walked around the falls and met the raft downstream. Not Macc. He drifted down near the falls to give everyone a sobering preview of the churning waters they had in store before he turned back upstream a hundred yards to begin his approach.
When the raft entered the falls, the rushing water arced over the bow and sucked the boat straight down into a black vortex. It was more than Warfield expected and he wondered if he would ever breathe air again. As soon as the chance came to gulp a breath, the boat went back under the relentless slamming and receding and plunging and backing of the fifty-five-degree water. It felt to Warfield like it lasted for five minutes and he didn’t think the boat would survive it. Finally past the rapids, Macc brought the raft about so everyone could see what they had lived through. Or to thank God, Warfield decided. It was a ride to remember.
On the final morning they devoured another lumberjack breakfast and floated the few last miles to a sandy beach where helicopters waited to take the campers to a nearby airstrip for a plane ride back to Lee’s Ferry. New friends had been made and some exchanged contact information. After everyone was lifted out, Macc and Warfield took the raft downriver a few miles to a landing where they loaded the raft onto a waiting truck for a ride back to the adventure company’s headquarters to be restocked for its next trip. Macc had a few days off and drove Warfield back to Flagstaff.
They ate Mexican at Carlos’s the night before Warfield was to return to Washington. Next morning Warfield awoke before the alarm, looked at the red numbers on the clock and decided to get up anyway. He trimmed the beard as short as he could with scissors and shaved the rest. When he was done, he watched the razor stubble swirl down the drain and knew this dark period in his life washed away with it. He looked at himself in the mirror and ran a hand across his new face. He had a good feeling about himself. About life. It had been a while.
At the airport Macc and Warfield looked at each other for a moment with mutual appreciation. “Owe you one, Macc.”
Fleming watched as Warfield walked through the gate at Washington National. As he drew closer she saw the spark in his eyes, the old purposefulness in his stride. The crooked smile that always told her things were all right. They held each other for a long time, and she was glad because it gave her time to dry her tears before he could see them. He was back.
PART THREE
Fumio Yoshida
CHAPTER 12
Fumio Yoshida exited the elevator in the lobby of the Civil Aviation Bureau and stalked through Reception, checked his wrist watch with the atomic wall clock and headed to his office without so much as a glance at his employees. Most kept their heads down as he passed by their work area but Mrs. Nakamura, his long-time administrative assistant, signaled him to say that Minister Saito had called for Yoshida twice while he was out.
Yoshida nodded and went to his own office, sat down at his desk and swiveled around to his window that overlooked Tokyo’s Narita Airport, less than a mile away. The queue of planes waited in turn for takeoff and when a 747 with its signature hump taxied to the end of the runway Yoshida stood up and moved closer to the window. His look softened as the 747 began its takeoff roll, and he turned away only after the plane was airborne.
He checked his voicemail messages and after listening to the one from his superior a second time he sat for a moment with his arms folded on top of his polished wood desk, barren except for the white legal pad centered in front of him as usual. It wasn’t often that the Japan Minister of Transport called — the routine reports and executive meetings Yoshida hated so much were sufficient to cover everything — and when he did, it wasn’t to tell him how good a job he was doing or talk about baseball.
Minister Saito worked nonstop and expected Yoshida and his other vice-ministers to do the same. Weekdays, weekends, evenings, holidays and lunch hours were all the same to Saito if there was unfinished work. Fumio Yoshida handled his own responsibilities but his priorities were different than Saito’s. And there was never any conversation between them that didn’t involve Ministry of Transport business.
He dialed the Minister. “Yoshida returning your call.”
“Hai! Yoshida. Must meet immediately. My office, ten minutes.”
Yoshida’s heart picked up a beat. This was no time for Saito to start asking questions. His mind raced. Maybe someone under him had noticed something unusual and planted a seed with Saito. No way could it be related to his job performance. Gold plaques annually proclaiming Yoshida’s Civil Aviation Bureau the best division of the Ministry of Transport lined the walls. The government auditors sent not only their glowing official report to Saito every year, but often attached personal notes of praise for Yoshida’s precision operation. Yoshida knew his employees liked the recognition and he also knew that a substantial number of the same eleven-thousand-nine-hundred-sixty-four workers in the CAB hated his guts, but that mattered little to him. What mattered at the moment was the reason for Saito’s call.
Following the stiff manner in which he and his boss always spoke, Yoshida said, “I have commitments today, Minister. Perhaps tomorrow morning?”
“Rearrange commitments!” Saito said in his usual staccato speaking style.
Yoshida spoke humbly. “To do so would reflect poorly on the Ministry. However, I am at your command.”
The Minister of Transport took a deep breath. “No, then. Eight tomorrow morning.”
“Hai!” Then, as if an afterthought Fumio Yoshida said, “If you wish to tell me the matter we are going to discuss I will be well-prepared when we meet.”
“Hangar 23 refurbishment costs!” Yoshida heard Saito flipping through the pages of the cost report that was ever-present on his desk. “Also, the security. Much money has been spent on refurbishment and security, Yoshida. I did not authorize budget overruns!”
Yoshida, his heart speeding up, looked toward the airport again. He could make out Hangar 23 at the far left end. “You will be satisfied with my explanation, Minister.”
When Fumio Yoshida arrived at his home that evening his younger brother padded across the small house to greet him, like he had done for as long as Fumio could remember. Jotaro’s wide smile and childish giggles that belied his age meant he was ready to play. He loved the water and reveled in his brother’s attention so much that Fumio Yoshida rarely allowed anything to stand in the way of their time together. But today he wished he could. His mind was far too occupied by tomorrow’s meeting with Minister Saito to downshift into the ritual at the bath house.
On the walk back home with Jotaro after an hour at the Tomodachi Sento, Fumio Yoshida found himself a little less tense than at any time since his conversation with Saito. The water was refreshing and he’d even splashed around in the bath with Jotaro. The air was less humid than usual for mid-summer in Tokyo and the neighborhood residents, most of them Fumio’s generation, sat on porches or in their small yards and took advantage of the pleasant evening air. Hydrangeas, morning glories, and the ever-present camellias filled garden plots that covered much of the lots they occupied. There were few children in Yoshida’s neighborhood these days, as most younger people settled in newer developments where the homes had baths and other modern comforts. Bath houses were hard to find there but in areas like Yoshida’s the sentos still facilitated a tradition indispensable to the older Japanese.