"I don't know. Have you ever delivered a baby, Lloyd?"

"On the reservation, I delivered a set of twins. But I might be a little rusty," he said.

"Don't be rusty, Lloyd," JT told him.

"Don't sue me," Lloyd replied.

And JT marveled at the human brain, that it could become so entangled with the plaquey ropes of Alzheimer's, yet still find a clear line to a quick, snappy retort.

By now a makeshift trauma station was taking shape on the beach. Using stakes and rope and a triangular nylon tarp, Dixie and Evelyn and the boys had constructed an open-air tent that provided both shade and ventilation. Mitch.e.l.l had lugged one of the five-gallon water jugs over and set it in the shade, and Evelyn, in between helping Dixie with the tarp, had managed to find the unopened twelve-pack of cotton bandannas that she'd stashed in the bottom of her overnight bag.

In the meantime, another party had pulled in, and a motley crowd had gathered outside the tarp area-young strappy guides, lizard-skinned oldsters, throngs of pa.s.sengers in their clownish rubber-toed sandals. And the kayakers, all of them. Unless there was a doctor, JT didn't really want an audience, so he designated Mitch.e.l.l to shoo everyone away.

"Tell them if we need any help, we'll ask for it." He was annoyed, even though he knew he had no reason to be. Anyone would be curious; anyone would want to help.

"What should I say?" said Mitch.e.l.l.

Do you tell a crowd of strangers that a seventeen-year-old girl who didn't even know she was pregnant was going into labor? This question had never arisen before.

"Find out if there's a doctor," he told Mitch.e.l.l.

Mitch.e.l.l marched out into the sunshine and cupped his hands around his mouth. "Is there an obstetrician in the house?"

JT groaned inwardly.

"Well, now they know," Peter said.

There had been several times during the course of this trip that JT would have said that he was nearing the end of his rope. Back at Phantom, watching Blender get swept beneath the footbridge. Or two nights ago at Upset, when Mitch.e.l.l and the dog went somersaulting down the hill.

Now it seemed that the rope had no end, that it was just a long series of knots and tangles, a kind of Jacobs ladder into a bottomless hole. It had no meaning, being at the end of one's rope; you were either on it or off; nothing much mattered, except keeping everyone alive. And he flashed on Mac once again, because Mac was one of those people who could always find another rope to grab, when all else failed.

They had once made such a good pair, JT thought. And he felt a sudden stab of grief, to think that his marriage hadn't worked, that all his years on the river had pa.s.sed without the one sweet love of his life by his side.

But obviously he couldn't focus on Mac right now. Sitting back on his heels, he took a long drink of water from his Tropicana jug. At the same time, Susan returned with Amy's water bottle. She hovered near the circle of people, not sure of herself. JT moved aside to make room for her.

Lloyd was in the process of taking Amy's pulse. "One hundred and ten," he called over his shoulder.

"Somebody write that down," said JT.

Evelyn promptly recorded the number in her journal, and Amy began making little rocking movements with her hips.

"Here we go again," Lloyd announced.

"Note the time," JT told Evelyn.

Susan held one hand, Jill the other, while Peter, who was stationed by her feet, gripped her ankles.

"Breathe, Amy," warned Jill. "Remember how I told you? Breathe before it starts to hurt. Deep breath in, long breath out. You can do it."

"It already hurts!" Amy groaned.

"You can do it," said Jill. "Come on. Deep breath in. That's a girl. You can do it."

Amy managed a deep breath in but couldn't control her exhalation, and she exploded in a loud, ragged scream.

"Try it again!" Jill exclaimed. "Deep breath! Follow me!" and she wheezed in a long, noisy breath to demonstrate. Susan looked on, paralyzed. Amy ground her heels into the sand.

Then it was over.

"Two minutes," Evelyn announced.

"Honey," Lloyd said, bending over Amy. "You're going to be okay. We're going to take good care of you and your baby. Are you hoping for a boy or a girl?"

Amy's eyes darted about in terror.

"I know, I know," Lloyd said. "You don't care as long as it's healthy. Don't you worry," he a.s.sured her; "we'll take good care of you."

JT decided that the best thing to do with Lloyd was to go along with him. "Lloyd's right," he told Amy. "You'll be fine. All you gotta do is breathe. Just like Jill showed you."

Just then Mitch.e.l.l ducked under the tarp, out of breath. "I found a doctor!"

JT almost leapt up. He strode out into the sunlight to find himself face-to-face with a man wearing wraparound sungla.s.ses and a ten-day beard.

"This is Don," said Mitch.e.l.l.

JT gripped Don's hand. "What kind of a doctor?"

"GI," said Don. "And I'm only a resident. I don't know if I can really help."

"You can definitely help," said JT. Same quadrant of the human body, he thought. Good enough for me right now.

"Are you sure she's in labor?"

"Yep."

"How many months pregnant?"

"We don't know. She's only seventeen," JT said. "Until an hour ago, she didn't know she was pregnant."

"How far dilated?"

Dilation! JT hadn't thought of that. And his mind envisioned Mac's k.n.o.bby knees poking up out of the sheet and the doctor down between her legs, sticking his arm up to her throat.

"n.o.body's checked that," said JT. "Move aside, folks!" he said, ducking back under the tarp. "Don's here. Don's a doctor."

Lloyd finished blowing his nose into an old bandanna. He wadded it up and stuffed it back into his pocket for the next century.

"Lloyd's a doctor too," JT told Don.

"And what's the girl's name?" Don asked.

"Amy."

"h.e.l.lo, Amy," said Don. He knelt close and moved a strand of hair off her forehead. "I'm Don."

Amy simply stared back.

"Amy," said Don, "do you mind if I feel your stomach?"

Amy shook her head. Don placed his hand on the wide pale swell of her stomach. His face remained solemn as he felt around, pressing gently. JT imagined him looking up with a surprised frown, saying, Why, this girl isn't pregnant! This girl just has to lose a little weight! Why, this girl isn't pregnant! This girl just has to lose a little weight!

"Your a.s.sessment?" Lloyd inquired.

Don sat back. "I can't really tell a lot. I did a rotation in obstetrics two years ago, so whatever I know is based on that. I can't say exactly how many weeks along she is, but obviously she's pretty far. And I'm guessing the baby's head down. Which is good," he told Amy. "You want your baby to be head down."

Amy's expression didn't register this. He might just as well have told her of a new mathematical proof.

"But what I'd like to do is see if I can figure out how far dilated you are," he went on.

Again, Amy's face remained blank.

"When you're in labor, your cervix dilates," Don said. "Do you know what your cervix is?" He explained it in clinical terms, then told her to think of an upside-down pear. "And where the stem would be, that's the cervix. Anyway, it has to stretch so that the baby can come out. That stretching part is called dilation."

Amy flicked a bug off her leg.

"The more you're dilated, the closer the baby is to being born. And the less you're dilated-well, it means you have some more time."

"Time! Oh, please," Susan whispered.

"You might want to explain how you check for dilation," Jill suggested.

"Oh! Well, to tell how dilated you are," Don said, "I would have to do an internal exam. And what that means is, I'd have everyone clear out, and I'd insert a few fingers into the birth ca.n.a.l and measure your cervix."

At this point he paused. Amy's face still held no expression, and he looked from person to person, as though waiting for another prompt. Jill leaned forward and cleared her throat.

"Amy," she said, smoothing the girls hair, "this is something we need to find out. It might be a little uncomfortable, but it's nothing you can't deal with. Not compared to these contractions, anyway."

"Who gives," Amy murmured, without opening her eyes.

"She's right," Susan said. "We have to find out."

"Shut up, Mom," said Amy.

Susan sat back. Without a word, she stood up and walked out of the tent.

"Let's clear out," JT told the small group that remained. "Let's give Amy and Don some privacy. Lloyd, how about if you go check on Ruth? Make sure she's drinking enough. I don't want her getting dehydrated."

"Certainly," Lloyd said.

"Peter, go see what the boys are up to."

"Yessir," said Peter.

JT felt happy to be able to delegate jobs again. But as he shook the tingles out of his legs, he saw Lloyd out in the sun, smoothing the corners of his mouth. He walked over to the old man.

"Check on Ruth?" he prompted.

Lloyd took his hat off, ran his fingers through his hair, and put his hat back on again. JT pointed to the lunch table, where Ruth was busily rearranging the remains of deli meats into something that would look palatable to those who had not yet eaten.

"Oh yes," said Lloyd, trudging toward the table.

"Lloyd," said JT.

Lloyd stopped and turned, squinting.

"I'll bet you were a great doctor," said JT.

Lloyd shrugged. "I did my job."

44.

Day Eleven Below Lava It was the timing that made it so bad, Susan told herself. That plus the context, being on the river and learning your daughter was, oh, in active labor. Whatever the reason, when Susan heard Amy tell her to shut up, she felt like she'd been stabbed.

Well, it wasn't the nicest thing for her to say, said the Mother b.i.t.c.h.

Oh, it was rude; definitely it was rude. But the thing was, Amy was always telling her to shut up, and usually it didn't bother her in the least. When Susan complimented her on a new T-shirt, for instance, or tried to commiserate about the stress of taking five AP cla.s.ses. Shut up, Mom Shut up, Mom. Susan always saw it as an affectionate warning that she was laying it on a little thick; and while she didn't like to admit it, sometimes it made her feel like part of a privileged club.

But not today. Today the three little words sent a jolt through her heart, so swift and damaging that she had to flee the tent.

She felt not only rejected by her daughter but humiliated and incompetent as well. What kind of mother didn't know her daughter was pregnant? Didn't she notice Amy gaining weight? Didn't she notice they weren't going through tampons at the regular rate? Didn't she wonder why Amy was throwing up before school?

Why, she hadn't even wondered if Amy was having s.e.x! And what kind of mother didn't wonder about that nowadays, with all the news reports, all the magazine articles about hooking up and STDs and middle-school girls giving b.l.o.w. .j.o.bs in the school bathrooms? What kind of mother didn't at least speculate?

Susan, that's who. And why? Because Amy was fat. Fat girls didn't have boyfriends and didn't have s.e.x.

It made her want to throw herself into the river, to think she'd fallen for such a stereotype.

Oh, stop it now, said the Mother b.i.t.c.h. It's not like she has cancer It's not like she has cancer.

Susan knew that. She also knew that this was not the time to beat herself up for her mistakes or to cower from a few sharp words-not with Amy about to give birth under a makeshift tent at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. But she couldn't stop hurting. All the other times, Shut up Shut up meant meant Oh mom, you dork you Oh mom, you dork you. Today, it meant Go away. I truly hate you. I don't want your help. Ever Go away. I truly hate you. I don't want your help. Ever.

"Susan?"