Free The River by Mary Jane Beaufrand

least that’s what Ranger Dave tells me.
    That’s what makes it fun, she says. Who knows what we’ll uncover? Maybe there’ll be cave drawings….
    Are there caves over there?
    … or a new kind of dinosaur.
    I know she means dinosaur fossil, but I imagine something huge with big teeth chasing us.
    But Karen’s eyes are sparkling with the possibility of discovery.
    Maybe we’ll find a sasquatch, I suggest.
    That’s the spirit, Clark.
    I’m Lewis, I say. Clark was an idiot.
    Whatever, she says. Let’s go.
    Hold on a sec. Wouldn’t you rather go for apple cake? It’s got caramel frosting.
    Swear to Jesus, Ronnie. For a big kid you’re a real wuss.
    Karen, I say, channeling that stern tone my father uses when he’s unamused. We should be getting back.
    Fine, she concedes. Run home to the East Coast before we even get to the Mississippi. You’re not even Clark.
    But she follows me back.
    As we turn to go, I watch her face for disappointment. But she doesn’t seem disappointed—she seems resolved, and I know that the instant she shakes me off she will cross over, deliberately going farther than before just to prove she can.
    If I’m really concerned for her safety, I will go with her now. We will explore together.
    Instead I lure her inside my gingerbread house with treats. Come, little girl. Come have some candy.
    I know that by tempting her inside I am caging her, and I know what that makes me. She’s right: I’m not even Clark. I’m much worse than that. But I still don’t want to cross. She’ll get over it, I think. She’s too resourceful to sulk.

10

    That afternoon I barely made it to Clark status. I was a horrible frontierswoman, but I forged ahead for Karen, threading my way through tall grass and Himalayan blackberries, eyes on the banks and on the current. I was combing, a slow walk looking for something someone else might have missed. I didn’t find anything unusual—coyote sign (that’s what Ranger Dave would have called it—it was really just paw prints and poop), rabbit sign, a hunk of jasper, a thunderegg, and the occasional spent shell casing. I suppose the shell casings were creepy, but even though I was looking for creepy things, I couldn’t make myself believe that this was worse than what it was: poaching sign. There were plenty of mule deer with velvety ears and mossy antlers around, but hunting season ended in December. Either the casings were two months old or else someone didn’t care about silly little things like hunting licenses.
    Ranger Dave once told me that, since it’s only legal to hunt stags and not does or fawns, at the first sign of chill, stags will separate themselves from their families, so in case they do get blown away, the women and little Bambis will be safe.
    When Ranger Dave first told me that, about the stags wandering off at the first nip in the air to save their families, it broke my heart. But not today. Today there were worse things to be than a lone stag. I’d seen those suckers run. At least they had speed on their side.
    Coyote sign; rabbit sign; shell casings. An empty box of Froot Loops circling a backwater. Nothing exceptional. At least not here. But what was on the other side? Ah… that would be different.
    And yet I didn’t even try to cross the river. I blamed it on my shoes with their flat soles. I’d either have to wear them or take them off. Either way there wasn’t much safety fording those slippery rocks. I’d seen Karen’s scalp. Much as I wanted to help, I didn’t want to be another corpse.
    I doubt I even made it a quarter of a mile, my frontier skills were so wimpy. Every so often I tilted my head to the rain clouds and said, “I’m trying,” as though I were apologizing to a Karen in some heaven in the sky, instead of just around the bend, just out of sight. I told myself that I wasn’t looking for Karen herself—I was looking for Karen sign . I shuddered and looked at the unknown east bank. Even then I knew that if I