The work I did on the Logans’ garage door has borne fruit. There are people searching for me, but they’re searching upriver. Far upriver. Or maybe not. Maybe those were hunting dogs. It is hunting season; it would make sense.
I don’t know and I wish did. I have one foot in my boat. Either I get in and keep going in hopes of finding a road, or I start the trek back toward the baying hounds, hoping to find rescuers.
There’s no good answer.
Ultimately, I decide on the boat. Hiking upriver would be difficult, maybe even impossible. The boat is relatively easy, and I’ve found a source of food on the river. I get in and push off, praying that a highway is around the next bend.
I’ve heard the faint baying of hounds one more time, but that was a while ago. After that, a rifle shot, but that came from another direction. Even so, the sound of hunters makes me doubt my search-and-rescue idea. Ever since the gunshot it has been nothing but the sounds of the forest, the sounds of the water. Very slow, very shallow water. I have to use my raft pole to keep my boat moving forward. Going downriver feels like a mistake. An enormous mistake. But would it be an even bigger one to abandon course and go back?
My arms get tired as I use my raft pole again and again, pushing away from boulders and back into the current. Up ahead there’s a sharp turn in the river. On the other side of that hairpin corner I want to see a bridge. A nice, clean, fancy bridge. The kind that big highways have. I want that bridge so bad, I think I can will it into existence.
It takes a thousand years to get to that bend. Slow, shallow, bumping, barely moving water holds me back, but every minute is spent envisioning that bridge. Willing it to be there. I can see the spans, the angle of it, the color of the concrete, the shadows cut by the sun.
Reaching the turn in the river, I hear something. It might be traffic.
Once around the corner I see it’s not traffic. It’s white water.
Before I can map a plan, I’m in the rapids. Ice water slaps me across the face. I sputter to clear my mouth, attempt to wipe the water from my eyes. As soon as I’m clear, I’m slapped again. My boat turns sideways, then backward. I’m going down blind. I remember my stick and shove off from a boulder hard. Both shoulders scream. Twisting back to sideways now. Just as I get a glimpse of where I’m going, I slam against a rock. The back of my head hits granite. My concussion flares.
“No!” I say to no one but the river, but all the same, I say it. This damn river isn’t going to be what beats me, not after facing down a serial killer on his own ground.
I push against another rock. My boat spins. I hit another rock, steadying myself. Now that I’m facing forward again, I put my stick across my lap, ready to push off left or right. Looking down the gauntlet of the river, I map a course. There’s a channel of smoother white water down the center. Two quick moves with my stick gets me there. A second of peace lets me get to my knees. Now I can use my weight to keep balance.
Riding this river feels like sitting on a bucking two-year-old horse. When a young horse explodes, there’s always a second where you don’t know what the hell is going on, but then you find the rhythm of it. There’s no time to be scared, there’s only time to react. That’s what I do, down the white water. React. Push, push, shift, push, shift, shift. My weight and my raft pole, that’s all I’ve got. I’m starting to get a handle on how to do this when a strange sound begins to thrum overhead.
It’s loud, mechanical, not from nature.
Thrum. Thrum. Thrum.
I can’t look away from the river, so I only catch a glimpse. A helicopter. Headed upriver, toward the baying hounds. In less than a second it’s gone.
A boulder rises up out of nowhere. No time to think about the helicopter. No time to think I’m wearing a camouflage hat and jacket. No time to think I’m invisible against the pattern of dark green water, white rapids, and boulders. No time to think that this river is taking me a million miles away from help. No time to think that no matter how hard I try to do right, all I make are mistakes.
There’s no time to think these things, but I think them anyway. I’m riding the wild, bucking river, but it’s my animal brain guiding my body. The real me is floating away, with the helicopter, up into the sky.
The river quiets for a minute. Not so quiet as to be safe, but it’s not nearly as treacherous. I catch my breath. Wipe water from my face. Rest.
I think the rapids are over.
They’re not.
I come around yet another bend, and there’s a damn-near waterfall waiting for me.
“Oh shit.” It almost strikes me as funny. I sound resigned, weary, like someone irritated by spilled milk. But this isn’t spilled milk. This is quite possibly my death.