Wet Desert: Tracking Down a Terrorist on the Color

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Exhaust from so many boats in close proximity made it hard to breathe. Since the line wasn't moving at all, Greg shut off the engine. Many of the other boats followed. Within minutes of stopping, other boats filled in behind them until Julie could barely see water. Although they drifted slowly downstream, Julie was sure walking would have been faster.

They heard a radio squawk in an old red boat that had pulled up next to them. Julie and Greg's boat did not have a radio. There had been one in the houseboat, but they never used it because it did not work when they were in the canyons.

Greg motioned to a bearded man in the red boat. "What's happening on the radio?"

The bearded man with tattoos on both arms took a swig from a can of Coors. By the glazed look in his eyes, it wasn't his first. A woman stood up next to him, and although she didn't have a beer in her hand, she had the same lazy look in her eyes as the bearded man.

The man motioned downstream. "The Castle Rock Pass is officially closed. The water's already too low to get through to Wahweap".

Julie didn't like the sound of what she heard. Wahweap was the largest of the three primary marinas, and the only one on the south end of the lake for fifty miles. It was where the Crawford's car and boat trailer was parked.

"What does that mean?" Julie asked her husband.

"Well, it's bad, but we knew that would happen. It means if we want to go back to Wahweap, we have to go all the way around Antelope Island, right past the dam," He grimaced. "what's left of it."

Julie shivered at the thought. Wahweap Marina was not built on the edge of the river, but on a large bay named Wahweap Bay that branched off of the river. To travel up lake from Wahweap, boaters avoided the main channel, instead taking a shortcut through a shallow gap next to Castle Rock Butte into Warm Creek Bay. Whenever the water in Lake Powell dropped low enough, Castle Rock became impassable, and everyone was forced to go the long way, an additional twenty miles down the windy main river channel, around Antelope Island, and then back into Wahweap Bay. The entrance to Wahweap Bay was only a mile from the Glen Canyon Dam.

Greg had told her that in the early days, while the lake was still filling, the only possible route was the long way around Antelope. But after the lake filled and flooded between the two bays, a shortcut was born, and Antelope Peninsula became Antelope Island, and all traffic immediately diverted, leaving the main river channel and the backside of Antelope largely unused. Exceptions occurred in the late summers of dry years, when the water dropped low enough to force everyone around again. In these years, the park service sometimes dredged Castle Rock Channel to delay the inevitable detour as long as possible.

Although Julie was concerned about the time that would be lost on the detour, the danger of passing so close to the dam was her main concern.

She questioned her husband. "Won't that be dangerous? Aren't you afraid we'll get sucked over the dam if we get that close?"

Greg nodded. "Yeah, sure." He turned back to the bearded guy. "How fast is the water moving down there, aren't they afraid some of these boats are going to go over the dam?"

The man motioned with his beer can. "Well, first of all, the rangers ain't sayin nothin on the radio. I'm getting my info from other boaters. But yeah, for a while they were making all the houseboats divert into Warm Springs Bay. Course nobody wanted to just wait in the bay till they got grounded, so it sounds like they stormed the ranger boats or something, cause now the rangers aren't tryin to stop em no more."

Paul stood up on the bow. "Did you hear whether any boats went over the dam?"

He shrugged. "Nah, I ain't heard of any. Course I imagine that they wouldn't be talkin on the radio much if they was getting sucked over the dam." The guy chuckled at his own humor.

Greg seemed perplexed. "So you say that for all practical purposes, the radio is silent from the rangers?"

The bearded man motioned with his beer again, causing some to spill out. "This morning, they was all over the radio, telling folks the dam broke, but to stay put, ya know, not rush back to the marinas. But every time they said to stay put, about a million people would try to talk to 'em at once. You couldn't understand nothin. Everybody wanted to know when they'd get rescued and everything. Finally, I bet most started worryin how they was going to get their boats up seven hundred feet up sheer rock onto their trailers to go home. They figured the rangers didn't have a plan for that yet. And they was right. You sit around too long and your boat is gonna be high and dry. Then if ya ever get out alive, you're gonna hafta hike fifty miles back to visit your boat next year. Cause if you don't move it now, it'll be there forever, and the Indians'll be painting teepees and deer on the side of it."

Julie grimaced at the comment.

He continued and motioned around at the mass of boats with his beer can. "Just like me, all these people said to hell with the rangers. If ya want to get out a this bathtub before it drains, ya gotta get out now, while the gettin's good."

Julie noticed that while he had been talking, his red boat had been creeping forward in relation to the Mastercraft, and another boat was sliding forward to replace it. Ironically, Julie had a knack for always picking the wrong line at the grocery store, the bank, or even on the freeway, but why did it have to happen here? At this rate, it could take over an hour to get around the bend, and then how many more bends would there be beyond this one?

Somebody from another boat asked the bearded man a question that Julie couldn't hear and he walked to the other side of his boat to answer. Julie glanced back at the people in the boat that replaced him. The guy driving the new boat tipped a blue hat stenciled with the letters 'BYU.'

"Where you guys from?" he asked.

Greg pointed at Paul. "They're from Southern California." He pointed at himself and Julie. "And we're from Phoenix." He pointed to Max and Darlene. "And they're from Las Vegas. How about you?"

The man didn't have to answer for Julie to know they were from Utah. The friendly looking guy's t-shirt was also stenciled with 'BYU.' A very petite wife, who's skin looked so white and pasty that it was obvious she never got out in the sun, sat in the other front seat, and five kids, including a couple of teenagers, were sitting on a pile of bags and suitcases stacked in the back of the boat. The teen-agers were unusually clean-cut with no goofy hair, tattoos, or piercings.

The man pointed north. "We're from Provo, just south of Salt Lake. We come down here every year for a week. At least we used too. Doesn't sound like we'll be back next year."

"You guys have a houseboat?" Paul asked.

"Had one. It's grounded upstream in one of the canyons. We came back from water-skiing and found it sitting on some rocks. We tried to pull it back in the water with the boat and a water ski rope. All we accomplished was to break the rope. How about you guys?"

Greg explained. "We were headed back from Hole in the Rock this morning, when we figured out something was wrong. We had to get gas at Dangling Rope, and then we had to hike a couple miles up the canyon to find our houseboat. We were trying to get some stuff out of it when it slid down the hill and broke to pieces. We're a little bit worried about the deposit."

"Thank heavens for insurance." The man grinned.

Julie wondered if the Utah man was an insurance salesman.

Paul continued. "We just hope it's covered. This is one sequence of events we didn't count on when we signed the waiver."

As they talked to the Utah man, she noticed that they were drifting ahead of him. Maybe they picked the right line after all.

5:45 p.m. - Grand Canyon, Arizona

David and Afram were positioned on the front of the raft. Both had coils of rope in their hands.

"Get Ready!" said Keller.

Since they had been unsuccessful at beaching the raft, the plan was for David and Afram to try to jump onto the beach and pull the boat in by the ropes. It had been Afram's idea. Keller had initially resisted, but had finally caved when they missed two more potential landing spots.

"Right side paddle. Left side paddle," Keller yelled, as he tried to position the raft close enough to the shore for them to jump.

"We're down two paddlers," Sam complained. "and our arms are dead."

David looked back at Sam. It was unusual to hear him complain, but his face looked pale and sweat ran down his forehead. Becky looked even worse.

"Get ready." Keller said. "Paddle! Come on."

David could see the transition from rocks to sand up ahead. It looked like they might be close enough this time. He adjusted the rope in his hands and re-checked the bottom fastener on his life jacket, just in case.

"Okay, everybody paddle hard. Let's get em as close as possible," Keller encouraged.

David watched the sand approach, faster than he wanted.

"Ready…" Keller called out. "Set…"

David put his foot up on the edge of the rubber boat, ready to jump.

"GO!"

David thought he was ready, but Afram jumped an instant before, which jostled the boat just enough to make David's foot slip on the slick rubber. The result was a pitiful head first plunge off the front of the raft which immediately ran over him. The cold water shocked him, and he resisted the impulse to gasp for air. When he popped up, he was under the raft and rammed his head into the bottom. However, while he was under the raft his feet found sand. It was shallow. He let the boat pass over him and he tried to stand, but the current was too strong. He pushed toward shore with his feet. He saw that Afram was up on the shore now, trying to pull the rope. Everyone in the raft was looking at Afram.