Lisa Michaels

Grand Ambition

My son, Glen, and his wife started their voyage in central Utah, on October 20, 1928. They built a boat and planned to follow the Green River south until it became the Colorado, then run that west through the Grand Canyon of Arizona and out to the flats of southern California. This was their honeymoon, a rather strenuous one, by any standard, but she was game. The whole trip was to take seven weeks; they were hoping to set a record for speed. But even if they missed that, Bessie would be the first woman to run the rapids of the Colorado River.

I passed those weeks on tenterhooks. So much time to think. Then, in the middle of November, I got a letter from Glen, posted from a ranch halfway through the Grand Canyon. He said that all was going as planned, and that they expected to pass through the Grand Wash Cliffs by December 2. From there it was a full week of easy drifting to Needles, where they would send a telegram. So when the 9th arrived and there was no news, I packed a knapsack with things I thought might be of use and went directly to the station in Twin Falls. My daughters tried to dissuade me from going. Even Jeanne, the more practical of the two, had to say her piece. But I made it clear I wasn't going to curl up in my rocker and wait for word.

After a full day's travel, the train let me off at a point near the river—a whistle-stop, right about where California, Nevada, and Arizona come together. Nothing but a board deck jutting off into nowhere. I found a track that led toward the water and started walking upstream. It took me two days to find anyone. I came upon several settlements, but when I got closer, I saw they were ghost towns—doors swinging open, roofs full of holes. This had to be the most desolate country I'd ever seen. A big bleached-out valley, nothing but clay and salt flats. The river muddy and wide. No wonder everybody gave up and moved on.

At sundown, on my second day on foot, I found a man in a shack by the bank. He said he hadn't left the river for several weeks, and that no one had come by during that time. My son was never a big talker, but after nearly a month in the canyon, I figured he would have pulled over to speak to just about anybody—you get hungry for companionship after a while. So I knew they hadn't passed that place and must be farther upstream.

That got me nervous—they'd been delayed for a week. I knew they might have lost a few days here and there to bad weather, but this seemed too long. It gave me the sinking feeling that the boat had got loose and left them stranded. I had never seen the Grand Canyon, but I knew from books that it was wild, inhospitable country, what with the dead-end gorges and lack of springs. Still, I couldn't think of anyone who had better odds of managing himself out there than Glen. Like most Idaho boys, he was ranch-bred. Not prone to panic. He could walk thirty, forty miles in a day if he had to. He knew how to gather dew with candle wax and a bit of flour sacking, and he was a crack shot. When he was in high school, I once watched him fell a deer from three hundred yards. That might not sound like much. But at that distance a deer looks like a mouse. And the bullet drops so far you've got to aim for the head to hit the heart.

I had faith he'd weather this out.

Now his wife was another matter. Bessie was new to the outdoors. She was dreamy, accustomed to cities, thin and always bent over a book. When he first brought her home to the ranch, I wasn't sure how it would go. But she surprised me, that summer before they set off. She put her head down and worked. It was like watching a filly that had looked good for nothing but munching dandelions buck up and start taking fence lengths. She had more strength than you'd expect, given her size.

By the time I'd mulled all this over, pacing along the riverbank, it was dark, and the homesteader was kind enough to let me sleep on his floor. He was a humble fellow, eking out a living on the shore, surviving on fish and stunted vegetables watered by bucket in a salty plot. I had once started out with as little, but he was nearly my age—perhaps seventy—and I didn't see things improving for him soon. After he gave me his extra blanket, he asked if I knew what day it was. When I told him it was December 11, he nodded and carved a few marks on the doorjamb. Said he was off by a couple of days, and it didn't matter most of the time, but he liked to celebrate Christmas with the rest of the country.

The next morning, we shared a cup of coffee and said our goodbyes. I was just setting off when he came out of the cabin with a folded handkerchief in his hand. "What's this?" he asked. It was my pocketknife, which I'd left rolled up in the spare blanket. I had hoped he wouldn't find it till I was gone. "You don't owe me nothing," he said, looking offended.

I told him it was a gift, not a payment, and he wasn't supposed to use it until the 25th. Man ought to have something to open on Christmas morning. Still, he tried to hand it back. Finally I told him he'd be doing me a favor if he kept it. I had the feeling I was going to need the help of quite a few strangers before I was through, and I figured what I passed on to one might come back from another. He nodded then, and shook my hand, and when I got to a bend in the river and looked back, he was still there, outside that dismal little shack in the middle of nowhere, watching me leave.

I headed back toward the railway line, turning over scenarios in my mind, keeping the river on my right. Just at sundown, I spotted the cairn I'd left for myself and came out at the tracks. I was prepared to sleep on the platform, but as luck had it, I arrived in time to whistle down the evening train. As soon as the engine chugged east, following the river upstream, I started to feel better. I was headed in their direction. I just had to keep my mind on the task at hand—bettering their odds. Making sure that, if they were holding out somewhere, help went to find them.