The valley leveled out and the river widened and meandered back and forth through the trees. We floated in sullen silence for most of the morning amid logs, dead animals, tree branches, and other debris from the storm. For a while we ran alongside a waterlogged chest of drawers with a snake swimming next to it, as if he was herding home a choice garage sale find.
I kept pressing us forward, digging the paddle deep into the water, switching sides and thrusting in again.
“Once you get to the double S… best head to the left bank… we don’t want to be… running rapids.”
After another hour, the slope of the valley dipped and the river paced. I kept paddling to increase our speed. Up ahead the first sharp turn to the left loomed. The current swung us wide to the right bank and pushed the raft sideways; I dug furiously to correct us, but the river had its own mind. We hit an eddy and turned completely around until we faced downstream again. I paddled hard for the middle. The current picked up and the river curved tightly to the right. I made for the far bank, to a group of willows on the river edge. The current turned us backward and swept the raft past the trees. I reached up to paddle hook one of the limbs, but it bent away. The push of water sent us back to the middle of the river. Next came another hard left turn. I thrust deeply to keep us centered so the turn after would sweep us to the far bank. Most of the air in the tent had leaked out and we were sagging low in the water. The current spurred and we went down, then up the first small rapid.
“How you doing, Pops?” I asked. He nodded, closed his eyes, and coughed.
As we came around the curve I drove the paddle into the water with all my strength to achieve the far bank. Two large boulders split that half of the river. We were turned sideways in a line for land but drifting into the path of the rock. I shoved the wood in hard, then again, but the current was too strong. The front of the raft bounced off the rock, spinning us back to the middle.
Pops grunted from the jolt. I backpaddled frantically to point us to shore, then forward as the current pulled us downstream. I made one more stout attempt to exit the main flow, but the river began to bend the other way and we were sucked back to the middle. A hundred yards ahead I could see white water bubbling and spewing into the air. Our pace accelerated and we were drawn into the rapids.
“Hold on, Pops!”
His eyelids flickered and he grabbed the rail of the raft as we careened into the first dip and back up to the top of the water. I ruddered with the paddle as we went down into another dip, up and down again, then up, this time with force. The front of the raft went airborne and came down with a splash. Another large rock loomed, cutting the river in two, eddies swirling on either side. I paddled hard to the left and pushed off it with my bare foot as we careened around the rock and down into a deep trough. We spun sideways at the bottom, then shot up and over, each of us coming off the raft into the air, then splashing back with it. Three more roller-coaster dips and catapults, then one hundred yards of relative calm.
Up ahead was an even larger series of rapids, then more calm followed by empty space where the water charged over the cliff to a jet engine roar—it was the huge waterfall that marked Irish Ridge Trail. We took the first large dip with ease, sliding down and back up the wave with practiced piloting. In the second trough, the raft spun sideways and the tent snagged on a submerged rock. The nylon pulled tight as it caught on one of the crosspieces, and the raft flipped over, dumping Pops and me into the raging river. The current sucked me down deep and scraped me across rocks and the gravel riverbed. I pushed off the bottom and broke the surface just as I rode down a trough and over a wave. I looked upstream and downstream for Pops, but the river was empty.
Suddenly, his blue shirt flashed to the surface as he turned in the water, gasping for air. His good arm reached up in a one-armed backstroke. Blood was pouring from a gash on his scalp. He turned on his stomach, then went under again.
I swam to the place in the water were he went down and dove, feeling frantically for him. I opened my eyes, but the brown offered nothing. I surfaced and spotted him struggling ten feet downstream. I reached him in three quick strokes, grabbed under his arms, and kicked with my legs to keep us both afloat. The overturned raft ran past and I grabbed it with my free arm, pulling Pops’ head out of the water.
The river turned slightly to the right, just enough to give us some swing to the far bank, but I could feel the pull of the current taking us closer to the cliff. I spied three boulders jutting from the water downstream, twenty feet apart and each one a little closer to the bank. I kicked with all my strength to the first rock and made it around to its far side. I pushed off as hard as I could, toward the far bank, and swam with Pops and the raft to the next. The raft hit the middle of the boulder and spun toward the bank. I pushed off again, like a swimmer on the last lap of a world-record race; and again at the third boulder. The force of my legs brought us out of the main current and into the calm water. A tree had fallen into the river, and a pile of limbs had collected in its dam. I kicked into the quiet of the fallen tree, bumping it gently like a broken fighter jet touching runway.
I stood in waist-deep water and pulled Pops to his feet. He was semiconscious, the deep wound in his head streaming blood. I dragged him to the shore and up onto the bank and laid him on a bed of leaves in the shade. Despite the heat, he was shivering as if he had been lost in a blizzard. I went back into the water to the raft and struggled to flip it over. The pack was still tied to a crosspiece. I floated the raft over to the side and labored it up onto the bank. The first aid kit and the poultice were still sealed in plastic. I quickly spread out the pack’s wet contents in the sun to dry and went to Pops.
His lips were gray, his face was bluish white, and his breathing was thin and raspy—whistling from his chest on the in and out. I opened his shirt. The wound was as gray as his lips. The poultice and plastic had washed away, leaving a film of dirty water in the angry tissue. I dried it with a clean shirt and repacked the entry hole with the poultice, then put the last of the root mash back in the bag. I taped plastic and gauze on the exit wound, then put a butterfly bandage on the laceration at his scalp line. One of the bedrolls was reasonably dry, so I wrapped him in it to ward off his chills, then went to the raft to assess the state of our equipment. The stretcher was in good shape; the ties had actually tightened in the water. I cut the knot on the raft logs and untied them from the carrier. I sawed the two end poles on the stretcher to make them even with the first crossbar. Then I hatcheted the other end poles at angles so they would glide over the ground. I removed the frame from the pack and lashed it to the first crosspiece, then tied the pack lengthwise as a prop to keep Pops’ good lung elevated. I put my arms through the shoulder straps and started toward the trail to test the rig. It moved easily across the ground but was heavy on my shoulders even without him.
I laid it next to Pops. He was still shivering from a phantom chill. I left him in the sleeping bag and brought his legs onto the travois, then looped my arms through his and shifted him over. He didn’t stir or make any sound. I quickly laid him on his side and tied him in, wrapping the rope around the edges of the spars and crisscrossing it across his body, trussing him up like a Shawnee infant.
I picked the travois up by the straps and rested the crosspiece on my knee and hooked my right shoulder into the strap, then the left. The frame had a padded belt, which helped balance the load. I tightened it and lifted the frame up to bear the weight on my hips. My legs wobbled; I took a shaky step forward, then another. Each step sent a jolt of pain up through my shins, which were scraped raw from the river bottom. I ignored the pain and bent over for pulling leverage, starting slowly toward the trail like a draft horse, pushing off each deliberate step with Pops’ walking stick. Once at the trail, the going was easier as the travois poles slid across the wet ground. The valley dipped down and the roar from the waterfall took all the forest sounds.
Up ahead the trail forked in three directions. I stood at the confluence of the paths, unsure which was the correct choice. I gently laid my burden down. I could see the beginning of Irish Ridge in the distance, but none of the trails appeared to lead up to it. The path to my left backtracked across the valley. The middle trail seemed to meander along the valley floor, leading nowhere. The path on the right bypassed the end of the ridge and kept going south. Any one of these could be the right trail, but none seemed familiar.
I looked over at Pops, whose breathing was shallow and weak. Panic began to take me. I ran five minutes up the left hand trail, hoping to find the Pancakes or some other known marking. I came back at hiking speed, counting on it to spark a memory. It all seemed new. I did the same up the other two trails but saw nothing to help me decide.
I knelt next to Pops. He had the complexion of a man on a slow creep to death. “Pops, I need your help.” Panic, exhaustion, hunger, stitching my voice. He stirred. “Pops, I need you.” I shook his good arm.
His eyes shot open. “Sarah, are you home, love?” he said in a voice only half his. “I stopped at Riordan’s and got those peaches you like. Sarah… are you home?”
I turned back to the trails, drew my knees up to my chest, and sobbed. Pops’ life was in my hands and I couldn’t even remember the right way home. It was the most hopeless I had ever felt. More helpless than in the car with Josh, his burned and blistered head in my lap. I wrapped my arms around my knees and buried my head in them. My only hope of ever actually having a father figure who cared about me was slipping away. With Buzzy gone, Pops going, and Mom out of her mind, I had no one left. Death would have been a welcome friend. At least in my life before this I had always had Pops.
I always had Pops.
Always had him.
I looked up from my knees and he was there. Standing in the middle of the trail watching me with curiosity and calm. I turned back to Pops, who had fallen unconscious. I was frozen as he moved toward me; three steps forward, then he stopped, lifting his head as if appraising all that was before him.