I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
Jess had pursed her lips, which she did when she was thinking hard, and said, “How about flood? I thought it was supposed to be flood.” She was nine then, sharp as a tack. He’d never imagined that in a few short years he might have to choose between freeze and burn.
They pulled over at a slab of bedrock close-backed by trees. No choice. The granite sloped to the river in two overlapping shelves. Jack hopped out and trotted to the edge of the woods while Wynn held the canoe against the bank. Jack came back, said, “There’s thick moss. We’ll put her in the tent tonight.”
“No fire?”
“I dunno. Sucked last night. I don’t wanna give Dickhead a target again.”
Wynn looked around at the leaning forest, the straight stretch of river, which had darkened and silvered like a black mirror. “Okay.” Then he said, “What if it hits tonight?”
Jack didn’t say anything. What was there to say? They could launch the canoe. They could wrap her in the sleeping bags and the emergency blanket and tent fly and themselves in their Gore-Tex raingear and douse everyone with water from the three-quart pot and paddle through it and pray. The water on the nylon would freeze tonight, he was sure of it. It didn’t seem like a good plan.
“Do you wanna climb a tree and look?”
Jack didn’t answer. He looked around them. His mouth was dry and for the first time he coughed. From the smoke. He’d studied the map that afternoon when they were drifting, catching their breath, and he knew that the country around them was flat. He could climb a tree, but he knew that unless he was on some rise, he would not see past the forest on the far bank. He might see thickening smoke but nothing else.
He said, “What’s the point, Big? We—I—won’t see past those trees. What can we do anyway? Tonight?”
“We could keep going.”
“And navigate the rapids by sound?”
“We’ve done it before.” Which was true. They’d taken a western river trip last summer and paddled out of the Gates of Lodore on the Green in the dark. Through Split Mountain Canyon. It was a rush and it was hair-raising.
“That was in kayaks. That’s way different.”
Wynn climbed out of the canoe and they both hauled it onto the bedrock. On some other night maybe, even a week before, they might have been more careful with the hull. Wynn might have winced at the grating of tiny pebbles as they dragged the boat up with the woman in it, but now he didn’t. She jerked back and then forward against the dry bag like a child being hauled in a toboggan, and remarkably she sat up and looked around her.
“It’s smoky,” she croaked. Jack and Wynn glanced at each other. Her eyes were open. The swelling along the blades of her cheek was almost gone. She looked…like a normal person—disarrayed, half the hair loosed from her braid, dark circles of deep fatigue under her eyes, but blinking and alert.
“Are you in pain?” Wynn said.
She shook her head. “A little.”
“Where?”
“Here.” She motioned to the side of her head where he had sewed the gash. “And here.” She touched her stomach.
“Sharp or dull?” He didn’t know why he asked her that. He wasn’t a doctor, what could he do with the information?
“Dull.” She touched her head. “Sharp.” She touched her stomach. Well, okay. Probably not an infection in the cut on her head—that would be sharp, wouldn’t it? And who knew what in her gut.
“Do you have to pee?”
“God, yes.”
They helped her stand. They held her while she stepped onto the rock. “I can walk,” she said. She took a couple of tentative steps, swayed, held out an arm and Wynn grabbed it. She breathed and tried again, asked to be released, and they watched her walk uncertainly to the trees. They stood there. Neither knew what to do now. Should they screw the tactical worries and make camp? Make a fire? So they could roast the little caribou calf and all sleep comfortably? Two in the tent and one by the fire? And pray that whatever was coming held off until daylight, until they could maybe paddle through it, paddle the whitewater? Or pray that the thing never came at all, that it somehow died out or turned south, that the hardest rain of the summer would sweep in tonight? Fat chance. It was coming.
She came back. Slowly, a little drunk with weakness, but she came.
“Okay?” Wynn said. He couldn’t hide his anxiety. “Thirsty?”
It took her a second to locate him. She was like a very old person, trying to keep all the parts together while she executed a simple task. Her eyes swept past him once and came back and settled on his face, like a frightened searchlight.
“Okay,” she said. “I have blood in my stool.” If they felt paralyzed standing there, her words did not help. Neither knew what to say. She sat down gingerly on a low ledge of the bedrock. She looked at the boys.
“I’m not dead,” she said. “I don’t think I am.”
Jack set his cap back and rubbed his eyes and cheeks with the back of his hand. “Well,” he said.
“We’re going to get you out and to a hospital,” Wynn said. It sounded lame. To him. Her lips quivered into a smile.
“Thank you,” she said. That was it. That was all she seemed able to muster. Given the last few days, it seemed like a lot. Jack went to the canoe and pulled out the water bottle, which was half full, and took it to her, and she drank gratefully, eyes closed. He squatted beside her and when she opened them she found his face and let her eyes rove over it. They were jade-green with flecks of gold—or Kevlar. What Jack thought. And he saw them darken exactly as if a cloud shadow had passed over. Or the shadow of a huge bird. “Where’s Pierre?” she said.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The question was flat but tinged with concern or fear. Jack was less startled by the question than by her composure.
“Downstream,” he said. Which was the simplest answer. She nodded, grimaced.
“Data,” she murmured.
“What?” Jack said.
“Does he have my data?”
Jack’s jaw may have dropped. Wynn hovered over them like La Tree and felt again like he was in a weird dream.
“Data?” Jack said.
She lifted her right hand in an attempt to wave it away. For a moment they all held still, as in some incredulous tableau. Jack said, “Did he do this to you?” It was the question he’d wanted to ask for three days and he wasn’t going to delay it while she lost consciousness again. He wanted Wynn to hear the answer.
Her brow furrowed. As if she were trying to remember. Really? Jack thought. Are you kidding? We’re not going to get a straight answer?
“We were arguing,” she said. “That morning with the thick fog and wind, I remember that.”
“Yeah?” Wynn said, eager, from somewhere above.
“I was really mad. He was going back on his promise. That it was my trip.” She looked from one to the other vaguely. Her voice was weak. Jack was afraid she would pass out. He put a hand on her good shoulder.
“Okay, your trip. What do you mean?”
“My study,” she said. The words were faint. Uh-oh. But she was just straining to remember. It looked like it was causing her physical pain. “He would be my research assistant this time and it was my study.”
“Okaaay,” Jack said. “And?”
“And I was so mad. Wouldn’t you be?” Jack felt lost at sea. He saw tears trickle from the corners of her eyes. At least she was cogent. Remarkably. She was like one of those coma patients you read about who wake up after months and start talking about their vacation plans.
“Yeah, sure,” he said. “Then what?”
“I turned around and walked away. Fuck him, right?”
“Right. Fuck him.”
“And he grabbed my arm really hard and spun me back.”
Okay, the dislocation. They were getting somewhere.
“It was violent. It really hurt. I think he dislocated my shoulder.”
“He did,” Wynn said. She looked up at him as if seeing him for the first time.