You Can't Catch Me(72)

When we get her down to the lake, the light is murky as the sun sets, and there’s a kind of steam coming off the water as the colder air meets it. It’s the perfect cover for what we’re doing, thank God, even assuming there’s anyone around. But the lake is bare. The pattern I’ve noticed over the last week is the same: people pack up shop around five and then stay close to their campsites. In fact, the only thing I’ve seen more than a couple hundred feet from the tents after dark was a moose.

I felt sick the entire time we were working and was glad I’d only had a couple of sips of beer, but as soon as we’re back, JJ picks up the trail mix I’d offered Jessie earlier and eats it quickly, washing it down with one of the remaining beers.

“How can you eat?” I ask.

“You should too. We have a long paddle ahead.”

“Can’t.”

“Suit yourself.”

When she’s finished, we clean up the camp, returning everything we brought to my backpack and JJ’s. I add Jessie’s phone wrapped in a plastic bag along with her wallet and ID to mine. Unlocking her phone had been the worst task. Jessie’s hand felt cold, though that was probably my imagination. But we need that phone unlocked to change the password, and now it works with my fingerprint. Everything in it is mine.

We each do a last survey of the campsite. The fire has died way down, but JJ insists on dumping the remaining beer on it to put it out, and when that isn’t enough, we fill and dump our canteens time and again until it’s all runny ash.

“The last thing we need,” JJ says, “is to start a forest fire.”

“We’ve done enough damage today.”

We carry Jessie’s paddleboard to the water. JJ takes her own ankle leash and attaches it to Jessie’s board as a tow rope. I hold the board steady while she climbs on, then help her push off with Jessie trailing behind. She needs to paddle slow and steady, so Jessie doesn’t roll off her board too early, and the rocks help with that, keeping her firmly in place.

I get on my own board and paddle softly behind JJ. I wish I’d brought headlamps, but we’d have to keep them off, anyway. The moon’s not out yet, but it will be soon. We have maybe thirty minutes to get this done.

JJ keeps a steady rhythm, and the water’s still flat, easing our path, though I feel a trickle of a breeze on my neck. That’s all we need, for a storm to start up. The weather can change in an instant in these mountains. Just last week, eight people had been blasted off the Grand Teton by unexpected lightning. That mountain is behind us, looming large and sharp. I’ve marveled every morning at the view, but now it seems sinister.

“We should do it here,” JJ says.

We’re still closer to the beach we just left than the beach we’re going to, but already my arms are killing me. “You sure?”

“Yeah. Wouldn’t want to risk getting any closer.”

“All right.”

I paddle up to her so we can raft up. Jessie’s bobbing behind us, almost peaceful under the tarp. Until I notice the stain seeping through, dark red, almost black. Ugh. I thought these things were supposed to be waterproof.

“What do we do?” I ask.

“Push her off gently, I think. Let’s not make a splash.”

I pull on the ankle leash to bring the board in between ours. The moon is rising. We have to do this now. The board is between us. “I think we should tilt it.”

“Toward you or me?”

“You. Okay?”

She nods and leans her weight on her side of Jessie’s board, while I lift with all my might. It doesn’t budge at all at first, but then slowly, slowly, it rises, and she starts to slide off. I heave even harder to bring the board up as JJ pushes down, and then she’s off the board and into the water. The body floats there for a moment and I despair that we’ve fucked it up, but then the tarp takes on water, and I guess Jessie does, too, and she starts to sink slowly beneath the glacial water in a rush of bubbles.

“We return thee to the earth from whence all things came,” I find myself saying, an old incantation the kids used to chant in imitation of Todd when our pet mouse or cat would die, and we’d sneak away to bury it. “Find peace there, and know that ye will be remembered.”

The moon has risen like a flashlight on our sins by the time we get back to shore. I can barely paddle, and I’ve gotten down on my knees to make the strokes shorter because I’m so woozy from lack of food and everything else that’s happened today that I’m worried I might fall off.

I realize I was half-asleep when my board scrapes against rocks.

We’ve made it. We’re here.

JJ hops into the water, her prosthetic arm held high. “Come help me.”

I follow her command again. She motions what she wants me to do—clean off Jessie’s paddleboard. I reach down and scoop up handfuls of sand and rocks and sluice the board. There’s a small dark stain near where her head was resting that’s visible in the moonlight. Nausea overtakes me again, but we can’t stop now, so I renew my scrubbing until the stain is gone and the board looks like it did before any of this happened.

“What should we do with the boards?” I ask, speaking low.

“Bring them back to camp, then return them to the rental place tomorrow.”

“Okay.”