Page 25 of My Sister is Going to Kill Me

Fiona wrapped her manicured hands tightly around her paddle. “I worry about a lot of things. Babette Sauvage is not one of them. She’s a force of nature. When she wants to be here, she will be.”

Chapter Twelve

The sun had dipped behind the rim by the time they reached the beach where Big Pete said they’d make camp that evening. There were no tents. No bathrooms. Just a wide expanse of sand and prickly cholla, their brushlike needles glowing in the fading light.

Mandy stumbled out of the raft and looked back across the river. The canyon walls, baked brown at midday by the sun’s glare, now held crystalline veins of deep red and purple. Small signs of life popped out at her: the pink, hooked spines of a barrel cactus, the white throat of a duck, a butterfly flitting serenely across the water, as if it wasn’t in the raging center of a mile-deep gorge.

“Beautiful,” Mandy said.

“I was going to say terrifying,” Liv said.

Mandy ignored her. She was still annoyed by how Liv had shut her down earlier in the raft. It had been a brilliant opportunity for Liv to find out what had happened to Babette, and her sister hadn’t entertained it, not even for a second.

Where was the CEO? Didn’t Liv want to know? Mandy let her eyes drift up the side canyon behind the beach, where the sand gave way to a field of broken shale, like the aftermath of a giant’s tantrum. Three thousand feet of rock towered above them. How was it possible they could run into anyone down here? They were tiny human crumbs in a pocket of the earth. The canyon could close in—just a small pinch of the earth’s crust—and swallow them whole.

But that was part of what made it captivating.

“We need to talk about what happened on the boat,” Liv said.

Mandy wasn’t ready for a sisterly lecture. Not here in this glorious place. She could feel the buzz of the long day ripple through her—the soreness of her calves, the damp mineral scent of river water in her hair, the sun still kissing her forearms.

“Later,” she said.

“Promise?”

Mandy nodded absentmindedly. She turned away from Liv’s sharp voice to smile at the others, holding out a hand to help Lucinda step onto the sand.

“Thank you, dear. I can’t wait to take off these wet shoes.”

“I am so ready for an adaptogen spritz,” Imogen said.

“A chitin mask would be killer,” PK said.

“We should face scrape before applying anything,” Fiona said. “The microzoa in this river can wreak havoc on your—”

Big Pete let out a long, sharp whistle. “The microzoa can wait. First, everyone helps set up camp. Two assembly lines from the supply boat up to the beach.” He unfurled a blue tarp and spread it over the sand. “Gear goes here; kitchen equipment over there, to Thor. Everything must be unloaded before you grab your personal stuff.”

“But it’s medicinal—” PK protested.

Big Pete raised his voice. “The faster we unload, the sooner you can do your thing. Whatever that thing is.”

“What if we have to use the bathroom?” Imogen asked.

“You can pee in the river,” Big Pete said. “Just stay near the bank. For everything else, Katy will set up the groover.” Down by the water, the young guide pulled a bucket and a battered metal box from the supply boat. “She’ll put it over that knoll, behind those rocks, to give you some privacy.”

“We are literally going to shit in a bucket?” Imogen asked.

“Yup,” Big Pete said cheerfully. “There’s chemical powder in the box you can throw on after for the smell.”

“I’ll hold it,” the teenager responded.

“Suit yourself.” Big Pete turned back to the rest of the group. “Half of you to the kitchen line, half of you to the gear line. Once all the dry bags are unloaded, you can open them up and find your luggage. Then you can pick out a campsite and get situated.”

Mandy followed Thor to the top of the kitchen line. Hand over hand, she passed up two folding tables, a propane stove, and a mountain of food. There were frozen slabs of meat, sacks of rice, jugs of olive oil. Even a box full of fresh pineapples. She could feel hunger rising in her stomach, exhaustion falling on her shoulders. She’d been up and moving since three thirty that morning. Finally, she hefted a massive cast-iron Dutch oven, handed it over, and let herself collapse dramatically onto the beach.

“Can we talk now?” Liv’s voice fell down on her from above.

“Shh. I’m making sand angels.” Mandy opened her eyes and looked up at the endless sky. The faraway ridgeline of the South Rim nudged a violet silhouette against the blue. It felt as if they’d tapped into the main artery of the canyon, where color was born.