We rode another five hours that afternoon, following Gordon Creek down its long drainage, an experience I endured by focusing on the breathtaking scenery and the idea of an ice-cold river ahead rather than on my aching glutes and thighs. When we finally reached the point where Gordon Creek met the South Fork of the Flathead, we saw three wall tents in the aspens.
It was almost eight. We’d been in the saddle for eleven and a half hours. I immediately got off Toby, tied him to an aspen tree, and waddled toward the bank, where I took off my hiking boots and pants, put on my Chaco sandals, waded out into the cold river, and sat down in frigid water up to my rib cage.
“Oh, that feels good,” I said, moaning. “Oh my God, that feels good.”
Sampson took several pictures of me sitting out there holding a tin cup containing a couple shots of Jack Daniel’s, which frankly did wonders. When I finally climbed out, my legs were comfortably numb.
Bauer smiled at me and said, “Where’s your lover?”
I looked at him, puzzled. “Uh, Washington, DC?”
“No,” the outfitter said. “Your weapon. The shotgun.”
“It’s still with our gear.”
“I want that shotgun and your bear gas where you can reach them at all times.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Do I look like I’m kidding, Dr. Cross?”
“Message heard loud and clear.”
After dressing, I went and found the scabbard with the shotgun and carried the ten-gauge around with me with the bear gas in a holster on my hip. Sampson had his rifle less than five feet away as we helped Bauer pump up our raft and load the things we would not use that night.
We had twenty minutes of good light left when we finished. There were fish jumping in the river. John got out a fly rod.
“I didn’t know you fly-fished,” I said.
“I haven’t yet,” he said. “But I read a book and watched some YouTube videos. And look where we are. It would almost be a crime if I didn’t at least try.”
With Bauer’s help, John got the reel and rod rigged correctly and followed the outfitter’s instructions on how to cast. Sampson’s attempts were more like thrashing the water, but he was as happy as I’d ever seen him when he quit and we went up near the fire where Harden, the hired hand, was grilling steaks.
“Everything you imagined?” I asked John.
Sampson grinned. “And then some. Totally cut off. No cell phones. No satellite phones. Just us and nature, Alex. And you know what? I will never forget that ride in here as long as I live.”
“I have a feeling you’ll never forget this entire trip as long as you live.”
Chapter
81
We heard a bull elk bugle at dawn, an otherworldly sound that seemed to float through the trees and across the sky only to be joined by the howling of wolves in the distance. While I got a cup of coffee, Sampson went back down by the river to try his hand at casting again.
Ten minutes later, as I chatted with Bauer and his wrangler, who were already packing for their long ride back out, John returned with his line hopelessly tangled.
“How am I supposed to fix this?” he asked.
“Cut the leader off above that rat’s nest,” Bauer said. “Put a new leader on and a new fly, and you’ll be good to go. Oh, and count on this happening at least four or five times before you get the hang of it.”
“People actually get the hang of it?”
“They do, and the South Fork’s a great river for beginners. The fish are not selective at all. Just get a fly on the water with the leader upstream and they’ll smash it. In the meantime, you should finish breakfast and get the rest of your stuff into your dry bags. I want to be rolling west in an hour after watching you safely start downriver.”
Bauer and the wrangler were riding out, with Pork Chop in front, an hour and ten minutes later. We were already on our raft, floating downstream through an area known as Grand Prairie with Sampson on the oars and me up front looking for boulders. We traveled along a single channel through a long, broad sage flat with scattered spruce and aspen groves. To either side of the river, mountains towered and loomed.
The sun at that altitude was intense even early in the day. It beat down on us, hotter and hotter as an hour went by and then two. We reached an area where the river broke up into multiple channels that braided back and forth across one another. In several of those places, the water was too low, so we had to get out and drag the raft.
Thankfully, these events were all short-lived, and by midmorning we were both relaxing into the rhythm of floating through God’s country, seeing bald eagles, a herd of mule deer, and a black bear sow and her cubs running across a far hillside.