Free Far Country by Karen Malone

“Who else is coming?”
               
“Just about everyone – and all the girls!” Chuck promised with a grin. 
“We’ll have a regular flotilla”
               
“I can’t wait,” Steve muttered darkly as Chuck disappeared from sight,
whistling cheerily down the hall.  He studied the sky dubiously. If it
didn’t clear up soon, it would be one miserable trip!   He started to
check in with NOAA, but then he decided against it. He was going, rain or snow
or tornado! In the meantime, he could at least hope it would clear
up… 
               
Steve checked his watch.  A lot could happen in six hours. It was
possible... 
               
As it turned out, a line of thunderstorms rumbled through the park around
noon.  After an earsplitting half hour the sky cleared and the sun beat
down almost abnormally hot, as if attempting to make up for four days of
drizzle in just three hours.
               
Steve left the Visitor’s Center and returned to his trailer to change, the sun
hot on his neck.  He slipped on his trunks, an old T-shirt and a pair of
holy sneakers that he kept just for tubing, in case he had to wade through any
of the sections. It was doubtful after all the rain, but you never knew.
               
The Dan River was a lazy ribbon of water that wound through the park and passed
through the center of town. One of the small grocery stores, strategically
located at a bend in the river across from the city park, did a booming
business with the tourists, renting out inner tubes and transporting groups to
a drop point four miles upriver.
               
After so much rain there were few tourists interested in tubing, so the manager
was both surprised and  pleased to see the group of young rangers, albeit
a much smaller group than Chuck had claimed were coming, waiting to sign
in.  In minutes they loaded onto the converted school bus and were headed
toward the boat ramp that served as the starting point for the float.
               
Steve, Chuck and Pete had often made the trip down the river.  Sprawling
in a rubber inner tube, traveling no faster than the easy flowing river current
was a pleasant way to relax for a few hours on a day off. But today, looking at
the river as they unloaded their tubes from the back of the bus, Steve was
pretty sure he was not looking forward to the trip.
               
The storms had churned up the red brown mud from the river bottom, making the
water opaque and unpleasant to look at. It was deeper too, several inches
higher than usual. Steve watched a leaf speed by the ramp and disappear in to a
little whirlpool of river trash fifty feet beyond.  This would hardly be
the laidback passage the group was expecting.
               
Jill and Deb, tubes in hand, joined him at the water’s edge and gazed dubiously
at the muddy flow.
               
“This is the ‘cool float’ that y’all claim is so relaxing?” Jill asked
incredulously.
               
“Oh, I guarantee the cool part,” Steve replied. “I don’t know about relaxing
though. She’s running high from all the storms.”
               
Deb looked at Jill and shrugged.  “It’s just water and good clean dirt,
right?”
               
Jill waffled, wrinkling her nose.  “I don’t know, maybe we ought to wait a
day or two for it to settle down…” But even as she spoke the bus rumbled to
life and sped up the dirt road out of sight.  Chuck and Pete walked up and
surveyed the river.
               
“I don’t think I was expecting it to be like this,” Chuck said, frowning in consternation.
               
“I tried to tell you,” Steve said in a martyred tone, “but of course, nobody
listens to the desk jockey.”
               
Chuck rolled his eyes in disgust.  “Yeah, and nobody is listening to you
now, pal.”  He hefted his tube and stepped