River Run by Toni Dwiggins

Author:Toni Dwiggins [Dwiggins, Toni]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: female protagonist, forensic mystery, series, Climate Fiction, Women's Adventure
Publisher: Toni Dwiggins
Published: 2019-04-09T22:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

“STEP AWAY FROM THE edge,” Ranger Pete Molina said.

I looked down—at my boots in the foreground, and beyond that, at the sheer drop into the depths.

Yeah, I remembered, there's a lot of ways to come to grief in the Grand Canyon. Even when you're nowhere near a river raft. But the rock ledge upon which I stood was a balcony, flat and solid and thick, jutting out with confidence. And the view below and beyond was jaw-dropping.

Still, I took a step back.

So did the others.

The view was only slightly less jaw-dropping.

Neely tapped Edgar's shoulder, and he continued to film. Justin gave a wolf whistle, in admiration.

Walter linked his arm in mine, anchoring us both.

I was glad to be out in the field again. We'd spent the past two days in the lab, doing deep analysis of our rock samples, piecing together the various clues that pointed to a place on the geologic map, that led us to this plateau hanging off the Grand Canyon's North Rim.

“Got a poem, for the view?” I asked my poetry-loving partner.

“The view is the poem.”

True, that. Powell Plateau gave a panorama of the depths and buttes and towers and razorback ridges, all glazed in reds and oranges by the morning sun. A few wind-blown clouds sent shadows moving across the rock, momentarily darkening colors to gray and purple, and the rock seemed to ripple as the colors changed. My eyes darted, trying to find an anchor point down there. I thought of the plateau's namesake, John Wesley Powell, who had visited here while exploring the great unknown. I pictured the one-armed geologist standing here, taking in the lay of the land.

I took in the lay of the land, to the east, down below Powell's plateau. That's where we were headed, down to the large swathe of land called the Shinumo Amphitheater.

I tried to picture Reid Lassen standing here, taking in the lay of the land. Had he? And what had he planned to do with it?

A gust of wind rattled me and I shivered. Up here at the North Rim the temp was in the mid-fifties, unlike the mid-sixties at the South Rim, one thousand feet lower, and notably unlike the temperature five thousand feet below us at the Colorado River where it was in the high seventies, flirting with the eighties.

“Shall we?” Walter said. There was an edge to his voice, an urgency to get on with it. He was a man on a mission, fueled by the vision of a dish of olives in Reid Lassen's geodesic dome. Those olives, to Walter, symbolized his college days with Reid, and now had morphed to symbolize his growing fear that something was very wrong with the story of Reid Lassen. Those olives left a bad taste in Walter's mouth.

Edgar said, “Look! A bighorn!”

I looked. It was rough country down there. The walls of the wide amphitheater were greatly dissected, trenching the area with numerous side gorges. Finally I glimpsed the big sheep on a rocky ridge, all tawny hide and curving horns flashing in the sun.

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