Country life
Dignity in death
Leanda de Lisle
Violent deaths seemed to punctuate our time in America. The first took place far away, but then, unfortunately, they began to occur closer to hand. We were in California when John Kennedy, his wife and sister-in-law were killed. The tone of the televised news reports was matter of fact, save for when we were shown the headlines in the British tabloid press, with their talk of curses.
At my cousin's wedding in Idaho the fol- lowing week, those who had known John- John said he had been a nice chap, but had made a foolish mistake. Others expressed irritation about the money and attention lavished on his accident. It had been a banal end to a banal life, in their view. The same could not be said of the death of the botanist decapitated in California's Yosemite National Park a few days after the Kennedy crash.
Yosemite is a place of silver mountains, brilliant green valleys and 3,000-year-old trees bigger than any other living thing on earth. However it is a wilderness with a suburban touch. Besides botanists, the park is full of tourists walking on tarmac paths. A few months ago several of their number had fallen victim to the same killer as the headless botanist — or so it was suspected. But fly posters warned instead of the rather longed for dangers of hungry bears and mountain lions.
I found our American hosts a phlegmatic People — brave too. If there was to be any real danger during our holiday I feared it would come with white-water rafting in Idaho. And it did, although not in the way I expected. Idaho is vast, beautiful and empty. Truly the Wild West. We fell in love with Stanley, a town of 70 souls where the main drag is a dirt road called the Ace of Dia- monds. There was great food, and we stayed in fantastically comfortable log cabins. The float trip we took on the Salmon River proved exhilarating rather than terri- fying, and I was thrilled when, staying in Sun Valley later in the week, I was offered the opportunity to return. My cousin and bride of one day wanted to take a party of guests for an afternoon's white-water raft- ing and the trip began much as our first had. Our group, which included my 11- year-old son, Christian, were taken to the river by bus and there the jolly, middle- aged lady driver helped us into our life- jackets. We set off with our three rafts in the charge of three young men aged perhaps 20 whom I kept referring to as ghillies because they were so like the boys who took me fishing and stalking in Scotland last year.
As we reached the third rapid, screaming with excitement, we waved up at my aunts whom we saw standing alongside the bus, parked at the top of the cliff to watch us pass. Nobody waved back. Then to our con- fusion we spotted a red pick-up truck upside down in the water. The cabin of the truck was smashed flat and two empty boats bobbed beside it. The vehicle had just driven off the cliff and my poor aunts thought it had landed on our boats. In fact, it must have been carrying them.
The driver and his brother had jumped out of the truck before it hit the water God knows how. But the truck had also hit our bus driver on its way over the edge and she lay dying a few feet above the river. The boat boys gave her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. I was told that once you start CPR, as they call in, you are obliged to continue until the medical teams arrive. We were in the middle of nowhere and the ambulance took some time to arrive, but I don't think the woman had lived for very long.
The boys then took us down the river to where we had been due to stop for a barbe- cue. A woman who had prepared the food with the dead bus driver for the past four years was told what had happened and there was an agonised cry before she was led away. The boat boys insisted we ate as there was no transport to take us back to Stanley and they made conversation as best they could. Meanwhile my son slipped qui- etly up to his cousin's new wife and said he was sorry that such a terrible thing should have happened on her honeymoon. I saw no outward sign of emotion until I watched her wiping away some tears.
We are often told that Americans have a peculiar horror of death. They certainly try to avoid unnecessary, premature ends, which seems entirely sensible. But I was struck by their dignity in the face of sudden death. So unlike the displays we had here following a certain car accident in Paris.
Petronella Wyatt is away.
Undieground.
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