Jen's Legacy.

She dropped her lifejacket and sat back against the rock, taking out her cellphone. Turning it on, she saw that there was no signal, no matter which way she turned, or where she walked in their limited space.

“Save your battery. There are two places along the river where there is a possible connection and we are at least two days away from the first of those.” He’d told her that too. “The rest of it is a communications shadow, especially down between these canyon walls.”

When he wasn’t looking at her she snapped his photograph.

“When can I expect to get out? Or at least get to where I can get a signal to let others know?”

He repeated what he'd already told her.

“Your friends will be out in two or three days; we might be a week. How long it takes us to walk out depends on the heat and the weather, and if the really bad weather holds off for a while longer. Unless they meet up with a park ranger in the area they patrol.”

“I’ll be missed. They’ll look.”

“Yes, they will, but that’s still some time away from getting started." He told her the rest of it that she hadn’t considered.

“They don’t know that you were rescued. No one does. They know where you went overboard, but that represents only a starting point for a search. By the time they start searching, you could be anywhere between there and… a long way downriver.” He left what was obvious, unsaid. She’d also be dead.

He didn’t like to think of someone so young, dying: the tragedy of the ages, and it was still too close to him, grabbing at his heart and squeezing it, and kicking the wind out of his body every time he thought about it.

“They might try and get a chopper to fly the river, but they can’t easily stop anywhere to drop off or pick up, except up on the rim. Even if they did see you.

“If you want to be seen, then I advise you to take off your lifejacket and swirl it in a big circle. They might see it. You know enough not to shout, I hope, like those mindless Hollywood idiots in the movies do.”

She wasn’t ready to give up yet. “They will get a search party out for me, so why not wait here and build a big fire?” She would still try to persuade him of that. “They must know approximately where I am.”

He smiled and shook his head. “Approximately, is about it. You could stay here and wait, but that’s taking a bigger risk than walking out with me, and there’s not a lot of fuel for a signal fire.”

She persisted.

“How is it a bigger risk?” Her eyes flashed angrily, at the obvious truth of everything he said, but she was not angry with him; angry at herself that she hadn’t thought of all of those caveats and difficulties.

He would have to be patient and justify everything he was telling her. It was the same old, male-female communication problem. She wouldn’t hear what he was really saying until she was ready to listen to it, and he couldn’t interpret her frustrated responses.

She would regard him as stubborn and resistant to anything she suggested, to the point of pig-headedness, and she was questioning him, not wanting to believe; but all she had to do was listen and evaluate what he was saying for herself, and may then throw in some better idea, except she didn't have any.

He would try to explain it to her as he saw it and let her make up her own mind. He would abide by what she decided to do after he’d laid out the various options for her as best he could. The one option he would not consider was to leave her here alone with most of his supplies and his sleeping bag, and go on by himself to get help. He could get injured, and then where would she be? She couldn't climb out of this place by herself.

He couldn’t leave her alone. The weather could change fast, and there might be no rescue for even longer than she expected, or there could be a sudden rush of water that could raise the water two or three feet overnight from rainstorms that occasionally wended their way across the landscape, but you wouldn’t know about those, down here, until they hit you.

They should stay together, for safety’s sake. She would be unlikely to survive on her own.

“Okay. Let’s examine the different options, whether we stay here, or get up top, and walk out.”

She could at least listen to him. He’d said, ‘we’, again.

He planned on letting her decide, and would stay with her? She hadn’t expected that. He didn’t have to stay with her, but she began to feel comforted that he wouldn’t just leave her, although she still wasn’t sure about his intentions for her. She’d listen to what he had to say.

He took a deep breath.

“Let’s say we stay here and wait.” She waited for the rest of it.

“You fell out of the raft at the beginning of Harper’s rapids almost three hours ago. The search party will know you are somewhere between here, and several miles downriver from here by now, and that you are either in the river or on the bank somewhere. Each hour that goes by, opens up a few more miles of river to search. By the time they get started in a couple of days, to four days; depending,”—it would always be uncertain— “they will have a couple-of-hundred miles or more of river to search, as well as the side canyons, in case you survived and thought to walk out along one of those. The more time that goes by, the greater the likelihood that they will be looking for a body.”

She was startled to hear that, but she shouldn’t have been.

“Sorry to be so blunt, but another few minutes in that river and that’s what you would have been.”

She was pale, knowing the truth of that for herself. There was no way she’d willingly go back into that water. The best thing that had happened to her had been meeting up with him, yet here she was, being difficult and questioning everything he suggested. At least, with him, she now stood a chance of surviving. She should listen and let him decide.

He continued.

“Let’s assume you got out of the river and hadn’t met me. They"--he referred to a rescue party-- "will assume you are alone.”

He was going to lay out the worst case for her, of course.

“You’d have no food, no shelter, no way of making a fire"--he ticked them off on his fingers-- "and it gets very cold at night, up top or down here. Even someone with survival training would find it difficult after that soaking you got, and suffering from hypothermia, which you were close to. To be blunt, you would not survive. They will assume that they are going to be searching for a body.”

Bang! Straight between the eyes!

“Rationally, they will assume you were dead, long before they find out you are missing.” Her heart almost stopped.

He painted a bleak picture, even for her.

She was dead!

“By the time they get a search party going, you could be anywhere between here, to here.” He showed her the extent of river. “As the crow flies, that’s…. already close to a hundred miles, and in terms of the river length, that’s at least twice that distance.”

Everything he said made sense. Everyone would assume she was dead!

“The rafts stop for the night, but they would have to assume that you would not.”

Of course not. Bodies didn’t stop for the night to rest.

Everything he said was true. She was lost, helpless, and alone.

He switched to a better scenario. “In contrast, in three days, we can cover a lot of ground up there, and we would be accomplishing something worthwhile, rather than sitting around and waiting, with nothing to do and growing more and more impatient; wondering…."

He stirred the fire and added some more of the branches he’d broken over that rock.

She was no longer prepared to argue with him. How could she? She was dead.

“We could stay here if you want to, and hope they find us at the beginning of the search, but that would mean waiting… maybe three days. Maybe more.”

She could see that he wouldn’t be comfortable waiting.

He looked at her.

“If you want to stay, I’ll stay here with you and risk them finding us, but you need to recognize where we are; at the bottom of a very deep canyon, mere specks on the river’s course.”

He smiled at her, knowing how she was receiving it. “If we do something for ourselves rather than just sitting around, at least we would be accomplishing something. No matter what we decide to do, it will not be easy.”

She didn’t like to hear any of this, but everything he said made sense. She would be stuck with him no matter what she decided, but maybe not, and it might not be so bad to be stuck with him. He had done nothing but help her so far, despite.... She wouldn't think of that.

“You don’t have to stay with me.”

He looked at her as though she’d just said something incredibly stupid, which she knew she had.

“Actually, Claire”—that was the first time he'd used her name, and it felt good to be able to say it to a living human being that he could see and touch and talk to—“I do have to stay with you.”

It was an iron-clad contractual obligation, even though there had been no such contract discussed.

She knew that too. He wouldn’t leave her, and she was glad of that.

“The second I saw you fall into the river, those dice had already been cast. It says so, in the first law governing Waifs and Strays.” She didn’t understand what the hell he was talking about. She was neither a waif or a stray?

She wouldn't argue.

“When I pulled you out of the river, I took on total responsibility for you, whether you like it or not (whether he liked it or not, more likely), and I couldn’t walk away and leave you; not ever, not in the state you are in, and you’re not out of the woods yet. There is no easy way out of this place without taking to the river again or climbing out, and you’re not equipped for either of those. I am equipped for the latter.”

She didn’t like either of those thoughts, and there was no way she would willingly go back into that water again. She would be one hundred percent dependent upon him for everything. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. He hadn’t turned into a frog yet, nor a Mr. Hyde.

“I can’t leave you anywhere, but in a place where I know you will be safe. I owe you and your parents that comfort. I’m sure they’ll worry about you when they hear you’re missing.”

He added to it. “Not only can I not leave you here, but I also can’t force you to go with me—I imagine I’d have a helluva fight on my hands if I tried that, so if you are determined to stay, then so must I.”

It depended on her? She began to believe him. He was becoming better all of the time.

But he was also right. They couldn’t stay here.

He looked at her. “So, now that we’ve got those little difficulties out of the way, can I take it that you are prepared to consider going forward with me?”

She nodded, giving up resisting. Everything he’d said, made sense.

“Then let’s hope it turns out to be the right decision. With so many variables it’s hard to know, but in my experience it’s usually better to be doing something, rather than sitting around waiting for others to do the expected thing for you.”

The sun had gone out of sight as they'd talked.

“It’s too late to do anything tonight, so we’ll set out in the morning.”