Wondering how to stop them, how to keep them from being carried down stream and into the whirlpool, Kelly looked wildly around. Spotting the two boulders on the other side of the stream, she realized what she had to do.
Picking up a broken branch the size of a baseball bat, she quickly tied the rope to its center point. No time to test the strength of the knot. No time to aim. She threw the stick like a spear up and over the boulders, praying it would wedge between the two rocks. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see that Buzz and Eddie were being swept toward her at an astounding speed. She tugged hard on the rope, closed her eyes in a silent prayer when it held.
There was no time to think, only time to act. Kelly quickly fed the rope until it lay in a bright yellow line across the raging surface of the water.
“Grab onto the rope!” she shouted.
She didn’t have to say it twice. Having seen the rope, Buzz raised one of his arms straight up out of the water. The other arm was wrapped around the small, dark-haired form of her son. An instant later, the rope caught him at his armpit. The rope jerked taut, stopping Buzz and Eddie dead in the water. Kelly let out a yelp when the rope held. But her newfound relief turned quickly to horror when the furious current swept over them with such force that it sent a rooster tail of water spraying two feet into the air.
Knowing Buzz couldn’t hold on for long with only one arm, she quickly tied her end of the rope onto the base of a stump, grabbed onto the rope and waded out as far as she dared. The current swirled with dangerous power around her ankles. “Hold on!” she cried.
She had no idea how Buzz managed, but with Eddie wrapped in one arm, he used the other to work his way along the rope until he was close enough to the bank to get his feet under him. Gripping the rope so hard her nails cut into her palms, Kelly waded deeper into the swift current, and held out one arm to her son.
“Eddie! Sweetheart. Come to me. Come to Mommy.”
As if with the last of his strength, Buzz shoved the boy toward her. Not daring to let go of the rope just yet, she wrapped one arm around him. “I’ve got you, sweetheart.”
“Mommy,” he cried. “Mommy.”
Emotion ripped through her at the sound of his sweet voice. That tiny voice she loved with every cell in her body. “Honey, are you okay?”
“I-I’m c-cold.”
“Are you hurt, sweetheart? Does anything hurt?”
“My knee hurts.” He started to cry. “And I’m scared.”
Closing her eyes, she put her hands on his face and kissed his forehead. His pink cheeks. His wet eyes. The top of his very wet head. “Don’t be scared, honey. Everything’s okay. You’re safe now.” She wanted to say more, wanted to reassure him, but her throat locked up tight as a drum.
Kelly didn’t remember picking him up and carrying him over the sandbar near the rocky shore. She didn’t remember crying his name over and over again as she laid him down on a bed of pine needles at the base of the cliff. When he looked up at her with the sweet eyes she had feared she would never again look into, all the bottled emotions inside her fractured. Hugging him to her breast as tightly as she dared, she bowed her head long enough to thank God, and then she wept.
Buzz lay face-down on the rocky sandbar for what seemed like a long time. Water soaked his clothes, the cold seeming to sink through his skin and go all the way to his bones. Rocks dug uncomfortably into his face and stomach and thighs, but he didn’t move. His back ached as if he’d been run over by a bulldozer, but he didn’t have the energy even to groan, so he just lay there and tried not to think about what had almost happened—or how damn lucky they were to be alive.
Over the roar of the water, he was vaguely aware of Kelly crying. Of the little boy crying. The sound of their voices—the fact that they were alive—made him smile. It didn’t matter that he felt like death warmed over. Or that he didn’t have the slightest idea how close the fire was. Or how the holy hell they were going to get back to the campground. All that mattered at the moment was that they were alive.
“Buzz? Are you okay?”
He raised his head and looked at Kelly. “Peachy,” he growled.
Blinking back tears, smiling tremulously and cradling her son—their son—in her arms, she mouthed the words “thank you.”
Several minutes passed before he was able to drag himself to his knees, then get unsteadily to his feet. His boots sloshed when he crossed the sandbar to where Kelly and her son—his son—were huddled against the base of the cliff. Buzz looked down at them, felt something vital shift, then freefall in his chest. The quick rise of emotions, the need to protect what was his stunned him.