The Anomaly(13)

“Shut it, you tool.”



Eventually we got in the damned boat, which was big enough that the process didn’t feel especially perilous or result in someone falling amusingly into the water. Once we’d worked out where and how we were going to sit, Pierre and Ken and I clambered back out again. Naturally when we started heading downriver we’d be doing most of the shooting so it looked like I was on a solitary quest, but audiences are savvy enough these days to realize the guy who yaks to the camera can’t also be pointing the thing, and Ken felt there was an argument for letting it be seen that a team of people were involved—on the grounds it made the expedition seem more of a big deal, not just me screwing around in a canoe for my own amusement.

So the others got to work fastening ropes that had already been fastened once, and taking off their life jackets and then putting them back on again, while Pierre lined up a shot that situated this activity tastefully to one side of frame while focusing on a wide angle across the river, me standing on the beach in the foreground. Ken lofted the boom mike and nodded at me to start talking.

“We’re not the first to go looking for Kincaid’s cavern,” I said in my most thoughtful voice. “Something that strange, that game-changing…there have been other attempts. All unsuccessful. Kincaid’s account is quite specific in some regards, frustratingly vague in others. And perhaps not accidentally so. One of the first things he’s quoted as saying is—and these are his exact words—‘I would impress that the cavern is nearly inaccessible.’ He goes on to state that ‘the entrance is 1,486 feet down the sheer canyon wall.’”

I half turned to indicate the canyon wall on the other side of the river, and Pierre neatly shifted angle to reinforce this, slowly tilting back to show the mile-plus of rock face dwarfing us. “Then he says it’s on government land. And then adds that anybody found there will be prosecuted for trespass. Bear in mind this article was published back when just getting to the canyon was a feat of endurance. There were no roads or trains or air-conditioned cars. To then track down a hidden cavern halfway up a vertical rock face, along mile after mile of canyon? Forget it. That’s what Kincaid’s saying, and that—to me—is extremely interesting. Because to me it suggests that these explorers knew what they’d come upon was of extraordinary importance. And that suggests to me that this thing is real. And out there to be found.”

I left a beat of silence, so it’d be easy to cut at that point, then gestured to Dylan. “I’d like to introduce you to Dylan,” I said. “He’s experienced on these waters, and he’s going to be our guide for this part of the expedition.”

Dylan strode over, squaring his shoulders to look even more butch. “Hey.”

“The spot I’ve asked you to head for—have you had anybody ask to go there before?”

He shook his head. “Nah. It’s a new one on me, to be—”

“Great,” I said. “Can’t wait to get started. But before we do, I’ve got to ask something that I know a lot of our viewers will be keen to know.”

“Fire away.”

“What’s the precise water displacement of the raft, in cubic inches?”

He blinked at me. “What?”

“Or centimeters, if that’s easier.”

“I don’t…know.”

I laughed. “And who cares, right? But something we really should be aware of, as we set off—that first European voyage down this section of the Colorado River. What year was it?”

“Um,” he said.

I let the pause settle deep, and stood looking at him, an expression of immense serenity on my face.

After five very long seconds of this, Pierre sighed and ostentatiously stopped filming.

“It was May 24 through August 30, 1869,” I said. “John Wesley Powell. No biggie. Might be a nice fact to share with your next group of tourists, though, right? What with re-creating part of Powell’s landmark journey being…your actual job?”

Dylan coughed. “Can I try another question?”

“No,” Ken said curtly. “We need to get on the water. And we’re a one-take style of operation, mate. Something that Nolan nails time after time.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t worry,” I said, clapping Dylan on the shoulder and smiling kindly. “You’ll get used to it. Probably.”

He slunk off toward the boat. Pierre discreetly gave me a fist bump, and Ken winked.

Let it be known that I can wave my own penis around, should the need arise.





Chapter

8



One of the things I like about my so-called job is that it makes me do things I normally wouldn’t. Most writers (and even ex-writers) are lazy asses, physically at least. Sure, there are exceptions, like Hemingway, who’d leave the house to shoot something or get macho on a big fish, but I’ll bet even he was far happier back at home propping up the bar or on the porch communing with his cats in short, declarative sentences.

As discussed with Gemma, I somehow hadn’t gotten around to visiting the Grand Canyon before. And now I was not only here, but cruising along the Colorado River more than a mile below the rest of the world, wearing a life jacket and periodically rowing and generally doing the thing. We sat in three rows, Ken and I at the back like a pair of schoolboys. I could tell that Dylan felt the team wasn’t taking the process seriously enough, but he was still sufficiently cowed by the filming incident that he didn’t seem inclined to give anyone grief. Yet.