Though water was a life-and-death necessity in this heat, he thought he might possibly have managed today without borrowing a canteen, because there was the river to drink from. But along these miles of uninhabited shoreline, more often than not the edge of the Colorado was too abrupt, too steep and sharp-rocked, to let a thirsty man get close enough to drink or scoop up water.
A man who fell in would be lucky to find a place where he could climb out again before the current knocked him against too many rocks. The mean and rugged riverbank was of a piece with the rest of the local landscape.
When Jake had made a few hundred yards downstream he stopped at a bend in the trail. Pausing there, he looked back, to make sure that no one else was crossing the suspension bridge. He had no reason to think that anyone would be interested in where he went, or try to follow him, but just in case…
He could be sure now. No one was following him.
Jake moved on, briskly.
For once he was oblivious to all the giants' handiwork around him. All he could think of were the same questions that had been tormenting him all week: Two Sundays in a row she's been there. If only she's there again. And if only she's still interested…
When the time came to turn off the River Trail it was a matter of scrambling and climbing, finding his own way across rough landscape. There was not even a deer trail to follow here. But Jake had been this way enough times now to have worked out a passable route for himself through the harsh terrain.
An hour and a half after leaving camp he was several miles downstream, moving quickly despite the day's growing heat. Here he was still inside the lower gorge, a thousand feet deep and comparatively narrow. Still its high edges almost totally cut off his view of most of the vaster, deeper rocky wilderness of the upper canyon, and of both distant rims. At irregular intervals side canyons came slicing into the main one from both north and south. Some of these tributary gorges had names: Zoroaster Canyon, Bright Angel Canyon, Travertine Canyon, among others. Most were dry most of the time, but in spring those on the north bank ran with snowmelt from the high North Rim. And the rangers who had been here for years said that summer rains would turn all of them on again. Greenery had established itself along certain of these watercourses, showing that their flow was continuous, fed by springs.
Jake's steps—and his pulse—quickened as he came at last to the familiar mouth of the particular side canyon that he wanted. If this one had a name, he didn't know it. Its entrance was a lovely, inviting place in contrast to the stark, dark, almost eternally shaded rock by which it was surrounded. From a narrow opening the ravine, its floor green with shady vegetation, went curving up into the towering south wall. The stream issuing from this side canyon was only a trickle, up to Jake's ankles when he splashed in, but steady, and felt as cold as the Colorado itself. Here at the entrance the bed of the stream, flowing between natural pillars that Jake's imagination could easily see as carven monsters, offered the only place to walk.
A few yards up the side canyon the footing became easier, and a little trail appeared, paralleling the stream. From here on Jake really had to climb, now and then mounting gigantic stair-steps of tumbled rock. His boots squelched water for a while but the dry heat quickly dried them.
Half an hour after entering the side canyon, Jake was clambering up the last—for a while—of the series of steps. Then, on an interval of almost level ground, he moved forward among cottonwoods and willows. Here the narrow canyon bulged out a little on both sides, having at this point ascended to a softer layer of light-colored rock that Jake had learned was sandstone. Suddenly he stopped in his tracks, letting out a silent sigh of great relief. Fifty yards away he could see and recognize a human figure, that of a young woman who wore jeans and a man's work shirt. Camilla was there, almost exactly where he'd pictured her, waiting for him.
Today she had perched herself on a handy ledge of sandstone, deep within the shadow of the enormous cliff, not far from where the creek came down over a series of ledges that made a waterfall. Even at this distance Jake could see the startling pallor of her skin; he'd mentioned that to her last Sunday, and she'd told him how badly she burned if the direct sun got at her.
Camilla's reddish hair, lovely, long, and curly, stirred in the breeze that today as usual was moving down the side canyon. Even though she was sitting in the shade, dark glasses shielded her eyes, and she had one hand raised to shade them further as she turned her head to look for him—as if, despite the waterfall, she might have heard Jake approaching.
Just as on the last two Sundays—could their first meeting have been only two weeks ago?—she had her easel set up in front of her, and her drawing tools and papers were scattered about on nearby rocks.
Jake waved an arm in greeting, got an answering wave, and moved forward, trotting now despite the heat. Camilla got up from her ledge of rock and came a little distance toward him, stopping just within the shadow of the cliff.
Despite the dark glasses, which pretty effectively concealed her eyes, he thought there was something odd in the way she looked at him today. Maybe it was the angle of her head. Whatever it was caused him a moment of uncertainty, of shyness. He stopped just close enough to Camilla to reach for and clasp her outstretched hands.
"Hello." To Jake's surprise his own voice sounded shy, as if this were the first time he had ever spoken to this girl, or touched her. Last week she'd kissed him for the first time—a single kiss, gentle and quick—as he said goodbye.
"Hello, yourself." Camilla's husky voice was just as he'd remembered it—almost, he thought, with a deep sense of the incongruous, like Mae West's. She was about six inches shorter than Jake, and yeah, she was really built as nicely as he remembered.
She added, with a wistful tone: "I was afraid you weren't going to make it."
"Hell, I'll make it. I always do, when I say I will. I was worried you wouldn't be here."
"And I told you I'd be here." She paused, and with the dark glasses it was hard to tell what she was thinking. "Didn't I?" She paused again. "Aren't you going to kiss me?"
Something was different about Camilla today, as if she'd come to some kind of a decision. The kiss was everything Jake had been imagining, hoping and praying for, for the last week. Ten seconds into it, his right hand moved up for her left breast.
She let him get far enough to discover that under the man's shirt there was nothing on her skin but a little sweat, before she broke off the kiss and pulled away. The rejection was not violent, but it was firm.
"No," she said, in a suddenly uncertain voice.
Jake turned away and looked around. He turned in a complete circle. He had the sudden feeling that every rock in the walls of the narrow canyon, and every plant along the stream, was somehow watching them.
Now he was facing Camilla again. "Why the hell not?" His objection came out rougher-sounding than he'd intended.
She shook her head, making her red hair bounce. "Not yet."
"Then when?"
Camilla said: "Maybe after I know some more about you. Don't you want to know about me? You don't even know my last name."
"I don't care what your last name is. Tell me if you want."
She was quiet. Upset, maybe, though not at him. Still pretty much in control, of herself and of the situation. "You're right, names don't matter. Jake, I mean I have to be sure of you first. I have to be very sure."