When Is a Man by Aaron Shepard Page B

They reached the edge of the bench, which dropped off steeply. A well-worn goat trail led down the slope. Below them, the river roiled and surged between narrow channels of boulders, each the size of a small car, breaking the current into pockets of white froth where the water turned back on itself, all noise and chaos. Compared with this, the stretch of river running past his camp was as placid as a pond.
    â€œThe Flumes,” Jory said proudly.
    â€œAre you for real?”
    Jory was already halfway down, negotiating the trail with ease. Skidding on his heels, Paul followed him down to a rocky beach beside a narrow strip of relatively calm water sheltered from the rapids.
    â€œThere’s no way you paddle this,” Paul said.
    â€œFucking rights we do. Some big holes, stoppers, and some pour-overs. You go through that chute”—Jory pointed out a spot between boulders—“and play in those waves for a while, then shoot downstream.”
    â€œYou’ve done this a lot?”
    â€œOh, fuck yeah,” said the young man. He hesitated. “Well, Cordell usually takes us through the tricky spots. He’s our guide.”
    Paul shuddered and shook his head emphatically. “You know, I’m the only guy up here and I really, really don’t want to see a body floating past my camp. They already fished one out of the river last week.”
    Jory snorted. He was stretching his arms above his head, limbering his wrists by turning them in circles. “Heard about that. Probably some douchebag looking to rip off someone’s patch o’ weed.”
    â€œHe was an old man.”
    Jory edged the front of the kayak into the water and lowered himself into the seat. “See you back at camp.” He laughed again as he dug one end of the paddle into the gravel. “You don’t have to watch if you don’t want to.”
    â€œThat’s why I brought you,” Paul said. Jory pushed off, pointing the kayak’s nose upstream. He tucked in with a few hard paddles until he hit the main current. Just as quickly, he spun to face downstream and slipped between the largest of the boulders.
    For a split second he vanished, then shot over the ridge and into the waves. The kayak wrenched around, and then the front end plunged straight down in a pirouette. Jory arched his body until his head touched the back of the kayak, and the boat popped out and then surfed across the length of the wave. Every time the river threatened to topple the small craft, Jory would thrust his paddle down, lean in toward the ridge and vortex of the stopper, and launch back into the waves. He could have been a bit of spray, a droplet of dyed water, the way he crested and spun and cartwheeled, airborne. Paul shifted from foot to foot, and his hands and shoulders flexed and flinched at each of Jory’s twists and spirals. He felt sick with how useless he would be if anything went wrong.
    He paced the shore, angling for a better view, but there was no imagining the rapids from Jory’s perspective. Certain features of the river obviously required specific techniques—the way a bouldering problem or parkour route was solved by a particular sequence of moves. In those sports, your body worked directly with static things, a type of conversation between your limbs and a climbing hold or structure. Kayaking looked far more complex and dynamic. The river was always moving and changing, dangerously influenced by things hidden below the surface. Within the deafening pandemonium, a frenetic dialogue was taking place between water, rock, and gravity, which produced currents and forces that spoke to the kayak with their pummelling and pulling, their suctions and expulsions. And these wordless signals reverberated through the fibreglass shell and into the paddler, who reacted. Or if he had some mastery—and Jory did—he could accomplish more than basic survival, just getting through the rapids. He could