"Sid. What are you doing?"
Sid heard Ryan, but he didn't look up. His face was touching the rock, and he felt sure if he moved, he would fall. "I don't think I can make it."
Ryan sounded angry. "What d'ya mean? You were doing fine a minute ago."
Sid didn't feel like telling Ryan the truth, that looking down had scared him. Ryan didn't seem in the mood for that. Besides, Ryan was already at the top. He'd made it. Ryan was angry because he wanted to leave, and Sid was holding him up. Would Ryan be happier if Sid fell? At least then he'd be free to go.
"Get your butt away from the rock." Ryan's voice wasn't angry anymore. It sounded sympathetic. "You can't climb like that."
Sid didn't move.
Ryan continued talking. His voice was patient and comforting. "Sid. You need to relax. That rock surprised me too. I almost jumped off the ledge."
That helped. The image of Ryan jumping in the river at the sound of the rock, made him laugh. "I'm a little freaked out here," he admitted.
"Take a couple slow deep breaths. Relax."
Sid did as he was told, and it helped. He had been too scared to breathe. "Now, let your butt go out a little, get some leverage."
Slowly, Sid stopped hugging the rock.
"That's it! Okay, now try to imagine you're practicing on a rock that's only a foot in the air."
It was an old climbing trick, a trick that had helped Sid before. Sometimes when a climber is stuck high on a rock, pretending the rock was only a practice rock, and not very high, made it easier to relax and climb when you were nervous. Sid however, used a variation of the trick. He instead imagined that the ground had risen behind him as he climbed, and that if he wanted, he could always just step off the rock, and rest. The trick had worked for him in the past. He had never tried it before while a flood was tearing boulders right out of the rock wall, but he did his best to put those thoughts out of his mind.
"Okay, now pull yourself up and down a couple times. Get a feeling for the handholds you got," Ryan ordered.
Sid did just that, and was surprised to feel that his arms still had a little strength left in them. Not as much as he wished, but more than he expected. He pulled up again, and took inventory on the knee. It had stiffened even more. He wondered how much more it could take.
"All right, you ready?"
Sid looked up this time. Ryan peered down at him from the rocks above, smiling. The sight made Sid relax even more. "Yeah, I guess so. Let's do it."
Ryan pointed at a ledge just out of Sid's reach. "Okay, that's your next handhold. You're going to need to push up with your left foot to get that high."
Sid put the rogue Colorado River out of his mind. He did the same for the memory of the cliff next to him breaking off and falling. He concentrated only on the ledge above. He stuck his butt out farther then pushed up, pulling at the same time with his hands. It worked. He slid his left hand up to the ridge and grabbed. The handhold was solid.
"Yeah! Good job." Ryan was clapping above him.
Once Sid climbed past the tricky part, the rest of the climb was uneventful. A few minutes later Sid was standing on the ledge next to Ryan. A part of him wanted to reach out and hug his friend, like a brother. After all, he would not have made it without the encouragement. But hugging his friend was unthinkable.
Sid looked out over the Colorado River. In his whole life, he'd never seen anything like it. He estimated it to be almost a half a mile across. And the level had probably risen four or five hundred feet. It was moving faster than a man could run, more like a bicyclist, maybe even faster than that. The water wasn't just flowing straight either, it churned and swirled like Sid had never seen before. The thought of falling in made him shiver. Even if he had a life jacket, which he did not, the river could easily pull him under and drag him along the bottom, propelling him up or down at its leisure. The thought reminded Sid of a guy, a SCUBA diver named Nelson, who he met in college. Nelson claimed that he and some other guys used to drift dive, wearing full SCUBA gear, down some river around Jackson Hole, Wyoming. And this river wasn't just a scenic tour either; it had rapids and white water. Anyway, Nelson used to say that only divers who could equalize their ears real fast could do it, because in one spot, the river pulled the divers down from the surface to eighty feet in a couple seconds, which would rupture ear drums if they weren't equalized. After that, he said it was like the center of a tornado, perfectly calm. However, seconds later, the river yanked the divers back up to the surface and back down the river. Sid wasn't sure if that story was true or not. But when he saw the swirling whirlpools and eddies, he remembered it. He thought it gave him a better perspective, as if from the victims point-of-view of what it would be like to be pulled under.
"Let's go." Sid said, but when he turned Ryan was already headed along the ridge.
A few minutes later they reached Tanner. An incredible feeling of relief washed over Sid. Back when he was hanging on the cliff, he would not have bet a dollar on making it. But here he was, and if the knee let go now, no big deal. Worst case they could send a mule down for him. Standing on the trail, they rested, looking down at where it disappeared in the swollen river. For a moment Sid thought he heard voices, but the Colorado River had become noisy as it grew. There were the constant sounds of water moving past the cliffs, and sporadic sounds of rocks rolling underwater, rock slides on the banks, and boulders breaking loose. The new noises came as the river carved into hillside it hadn't been able to reach for millions of years.
For the last hour, back when his life was in jeopardy, Sid saw the new river as something to be afraid of, but looking down on it from Tanner, it was different. It was spectacular, unbelievable, and breathtaking. Watching it on TV would not do it justice. Standing on the banks, he could feel it.
Sid heard the voices again and this time distinctively heard the words 'over there'. Ryan must have heard them too, because he cocked his head at the same time. Sid saw their heads first, but as the group crested the knoll, they became totally visible. Obviously, they were rafters not hikers. The men wore swim trunks, and the women bathing suits. One of the women still wore a life jacket. Another woman wore a green and white striped bikini.
A man pointed at Sid and Ryan. "Hang on!" He jogged toward them.
"Do you know where the trail out of here is?" The man asked, pointing up out of the canyon.
Ryan pointed at his feet. "We're standing on it."
The man looked down at the worn trail where Sid and Ryan stood. He turned toward the rest of his group, who had just reached the trail. "Thank God, we made it."
Another loud explosion rocked the canyon, making the group instinctively duck. Sid looked back where they had just come and saw another huge section of the cliff fall into the water and send waves across the river. Then just as quickly, while the sound still echoed through the canyon, the river swallowed the rock.
The rafters must have already seen boulders breaking off and fall in the river, because the man picked right up where he left off. "So how far up is it?" He pointed up the trail. "How long will it take?"