Fatal Descent Read Online Free PDF Page B

in a hurry to leave .
    After saying goodbye to Paul Norton, Rob put an arm over Mandy’s shoulder and drew her close. “What do you think? We got a good group?”
    On most multi-day trips, personality problems cropped up and had to be smoothed over, and Mandy could see the potential here. But no more than usual, really. No one seemed ready to kill anyone else yet.
    “So far, so good,” she said to Rob.

three
    We said there warn’t no home like a raft, after all. Other
places do seem so cramped up and smothery, but a raft don’t.
You feel mighty free and easy and comfortable on a raft.
    — mark twain, adventures of huckleberry finn
    Mandy stood outside the outfitter building the next morning, sipping her second travel mug of coffee. She hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before, because added to the excitement she felt before embarking on any whitewater rafting trip was the anticipation of a first descent down a river that was new to her. While butterflies battered her stomach, she chaffed her arms and stomped her feet to generate some warmth.
    The eastern sky’s rosy hue portended the sun’s rise in about twenty minutes, and Mandy was anxious to feel its warming rays on her face. The morning air was still a chilly fifty degrees. Once the sun rose, though, the temperature would rapidly climb with it to about seventy-five. Mandy and the other guides had finished prepping and loading the vehicles while wearing fleece jackets and zip-off pants, but they would shed their jackets and lower pant legs soon. As usual, Gonzo wore shorts regardless of the temperature, as he did until winter snows hit the Rockies.
    The three gal-pals, Betsy, Viv, and Mo, were the first clients to arrive a few minutes prior to seven. After Mandy greeted them, they sheepishly admitted that they had been up late chatting over a couple of bottles of wine.
    With a smile, she replied, “No problem. That’s what vacations are for. You can nap on the river today. Help yourself to some breakfast.” She swept an arm toward the door of the outfitter building, where she had put out coffee, donuts, and fruit on the counter inside.
    The women stumbled into the building to soak up some energizing caffeine and sugar, and Mandy returned her attention to the trip’s small caravan. The vehicles sat with full gas tanks and engines running, so heaters could warm the interiors. The exhaust steam rising around the dark hunks of steel made her think of hunkered-down dinosaurs, with the prehistoric-looking backdrop of Moab’s looming sandstone formations in the background. This area of the American West was prime dinosaur fossil territory, after all.
    First in line was the large pickup truck piled high with gear and towing the raft trailer. The two large oar rafts that would carry most of the gear and few or no passengers were strapped on the bottom, with the two smaller eight-man paddle rafts on top. Most of the clients would ride in those. Besides the climbing aspect, the paddle rafts were another unique feature of their trip. Most outfit ters just offered oared rafts or even larger motorized rafts called J-rigs in Cataract Canyon. Mandy and Rob were giving their clients the opportunity to power a small 8-man raft through the rapids rather than just holding on while the guide did all of the work.
    The fifteen-passenger van idled behind the pickup truck. All of their clients would ride to the river in that, along with Kendra, Gonzo , and Mandy. Kendra would drive and Gonzo would entertain. As for Mandy, she wanted the opportunity to size up their clientele some more on the half-hour drive along the Potash-Lower Colorado River Scenic Byway to the put-in at the Potash Boat Ramp.
    Rob would drive the pickup truck, with Cool O’Day riding, so they could talk about the climbing side trips planned. Last in the lineup was a beat-up old Subaru with three deeply tanned young men inside chowing down on donuts. Rob had hired the out-of-work river guides to drive their