by Ike Hamill
Lisa stood up and grabbed her pack. She found a stick that was dry enough to burn. With one end blackened, she searched around for a decent outcropping of rock. Their little beach was just downriver of a vein of rock that cut through the river. In a couple of places, there were overhangs that might protect from rain. Lisa found one of these and used the charcoal from her stick to write, “HERE,” several times.
“That’s great,” Tim said as he cast his line again. “But where is here?”
“Good question.”
Coiling string, Ashley came back out from the bushes. Her pack looked full. Penny started to wade out into the water until Tim warned her back. He jerked on the pole and reeled in fast. His hook rose to the surface, empty again.
“I don’t know if there are any fish in here,” he said. He started to move back toward the shore. “I thought I felt nibbles, but maybe it was just the current.”
Ashley sat on the sand near the tent and began to sort through the food that she had gathered into her bag.
“There has to be a plant or tree in the jungle that’s emitting some kind of mind-altering chemical,” Ashley said.
Lisa finished marking her rock and went to help Ashley sort the food.
“Did you feel it again?” Lisa asked.
“Yes. As soon as I went back into the forest, I could feel my brain get cloudy again. Penny seemed okay, but I wandered for a bit before I could think clearly enough to remember what I was doing.”
“I’m glad you used the string then. We’ll have to be diligent about that,” Lisa said.
Tim joined them on the beach.
“Can we be sure we have our wits about us now?” he asked.
“No,” Ashley said. “Not completely sure, no. It’s good to know that the sun is still traveling across the sky, and the river is flowing west. Those are the things that are important, right? The mission is back on track.”
“Maybe,” Lisa said.
Ashley shrugged. “You’re right. We predicted that we would come up on a brackish river, and this water is fresh. So, you’re right, we might be back on track. Maybe this a tributary to the bigger river. Maybe there are falls that stop the saltwater from getting this far upstream.”
“If so, we need to be careful,” Tim said.
“That’s always true,” Lisa said. She stood up and moved to the pile of wood that was left from the raft construction. She dug a shallow pit in the sand and arranged a fire. Ashley had discovered a type of root that was very filling once it was roasted. It tasted like potatoes. Plus, they would need a fire to boil some water to refill their canteens.
“I mean that we should only travel during the day, even if it seems like the river is calm. I would hate to get swept over the falls some night,” Tim said.
“I thought that was understood,” Lisa said.
“Oh,” Tim said.
Lisa relit her smudge stick first and then used that to catch the dry tinder that she had collected. Half of the pile obediently took the flame. The other half required more coaxing. She nearly dropped her stick at the mechanical groaning sound from Ashley. Looking up, Lisa sighed out her relief—it was just the sound of the hand crank on the emergency radio that Ashley carried.
“What?” Ashley said when she noticed everyone looking at her.
Even Penny was staring with her head tilted.
“I figured we should keep checking.”
“Smart,” Lisa said.
For an hour after sunset, Lisa didn’t want to go to sleep. The stars above were entrancing. She didn’t know how much she had missed them until they were suddenly overhead again. Tim and Ashley argued for a while about whether or not they could determine their location from the sky.
“Once the moon comes up, we will know the time,” Tim said.
Ashley shook her head. “Not precisely enough. We don’t know how tall those hills are. Also, we don’t know the exact date. The charts are useless without knowing the date and time. A compass is critical as well. We’re better off estimating based on the imagery.”
“We don’t even know if the imagery is correct, or if it’s a coincidence that we found the river.”
“Could you two zip it?” Lisa asked. “I’m trying to enjoy looking at them.”
For a few minutes, they did. Then, they went right back to arguing. Despite the beauty of the night sky, it was the arguing that drove Lisa into the tent.
Their raft was buoyant enough, but it was also unstable. If a person shifted their weight, or Penny went to the edge to drink from the river, the whole thing tipped and then rocked. Tim and Ashley carried long poles so they could push their way around obstacles and into the main channel. Whenever they spotted ridges of rocks cutting down from the terrain, they knew that the river would widen into shallow rapids. More than once the raft caught on protruding rocks and they all had to pile off in order to maneuver the raft back into deeper water.
The sun overtook them. It climbed the sky behind them as they floated west. In the heat of the day they discussed putting up the rain fly from one of the tents so they would have some shade.
“We should have stayed up last night to look at the moon,” Tim said. “By the phase we would know the approximate date.”
Ashley nodded. Lisa thought it was possible that Ashley agreed. Lisa thought it was also possible that Ashley was too hot to argue.
“We gotta get that cover up before we roast,” Lisa said.
They poled the raft over into some shade so they could work on the project. Lisa and Ashley worked on the cover while Tim cut down a few tall trees to add to the bottom. He made outriggers, hoping that they would settle down some of the instability.
“It’s just going to be harder to navigate the smaller passages,” Ashley said.
“They’re removable,” Tim argued.
When they pushed off again the world was draped in a purple haze. The sunlight filtering through the fly put a strange hue on everything. Flashing off the ripples of the river, the sun seemed just as strong as it had been.
“Fish!” Ashley shouted.
Penny barked at the sudden sound. Ashley pointed over the side.
“Good to know,” Tim said. He was hunched over, wiping sweat from his brow.
When they reached the next set of rapids, Lisa was almost glad for the distraction. It was more difficult with the outriggers, but they decided to keep them attached until it was absolutely necessary to dismantle them. The ride was so much smoother with them on, all of the extra lifting seemed worth it.
Back on the raft, the river swept north and then took a hard bend back to the left. Ashley paged through her images, trying to guess where they were.
“This could be it,” she said. “You know, we have to stop before sunset if I’m going to do any foraging.”
“We have plenty of food,” Tim said.
“We need to stay stocked up,” Ashley said. “From the trees that we can see here, everything is changing rapidly. What if we get into an area where we can’t find anything to eat?”
“I’m sure you’ll feed us more grass and twigs, like before,” Lisa said. They liked to complain about the food that Ashley found. It was keeping them alive, but most of it wasn’t very appetizing.
Her feelings seemed hurt—Ashley didn’t reply. After a minute of sulking, she found the fishing pole and cast it upstream.
“We’re making good time, I think,” Tim said.
There was a rumble of thunder in the distance. The four of them, even Penny, seemed to stop breathing while they looked to the south and listened. Without a word, Ashley pointed west. There were clouds on the horizon—big ones—towering clouds ready to dump a bunch of rain.
“Should we be worried?” Tim asked.
“About what? We’re wet half the time anyway,” Lisa said.
“Rains. Floods. We’re on a river, remember?”
“Oh,” Lisa said.
Everyone was quiet again. Another roll of thunder came through the air. It seemed to ev
en shake the rain fly above them.
“It seems like it’s still a long ways off,” Ashley said. “If we see the river start to rise precipitously, we should do something. I don’t see any signs of flood on the banks. This place gives every appearance of a rainforest, but you would think that a rainforest would actually get rain every now and then. I think it only rained once on our whole hike.”
Tim exhaled with a realization. They turned to him.
“We’re not going back.”
“Why do you say that?” Ashley asked.
“We’re on the river. It was too difficult to hike through the jungle on the banks of either side. We don’t have a way to propel ourselves back upstream. We’re never going back.”
“We can make it,” Ashley said.
They both looked to Lisa. She didn’t know why they expected her to be the tie-breaker in this war between pessimism and optimism. Perhaps because there were three of them, they always looked to the third whenever there was any difference in opinion.
“Honestly, that day when we woke up confused, I thought you had made the decision to keep going even though you knew we wouldn’t make it back,” Lisa said to Ashley.
“I never thought, really, that…” Ashley started. She swallowed and shrugged.
The raft started to turn as one of the outriggers hit a protruding rock. It was time to use the poles again.
Ashley and Tim moved to opposite sides of the raft.
The river water looked dark ahead.
Chapter 30: Corinna
“Wait,” she whispered to Jackson. He was ready to rush in.
“If she sniffs us out here, she’ll go quiet and then we’ll be lucky to find her.”
“More than likely, she left already. Before you go stomping through there, let me get a look at the tracks so I can see which direction she has gone,” Corinna said.
She couldn’t really see his face—it was lost in shadow—but she knew that he was frowning at her with his skeptical look.
“It can take a dozen trips to move a litter of pups,” Corinna said. “We’ll be able to see the tracks.”
“You’re assuming a lot,” he said, but he stood aside and let her lead the way.
Turning on her red flashlight, Corinna advanced. She new they had the right place when she saw the footprints leading under the awning. Small ones, probably belonging to Janelle, were the most clear. They ducked under the awning and crept forward.
For a moment, she heard the sound of the nursing dogs. It was rhythmic and random, like a gentle rain failing. One of the pups made a tiny sound of frustration. Corinna put her hand over the light and listened, trying to get a sense of which direction the sound was coming from.
Jackson’s arm pointed toward the left corner.
The sound stopped.
Corinna held her breath, trying to hold perfectly still. Against her hand, the light’s red glow gave her only a passing idea of the shape of the room. Jackson’s arm rose, until it was pointing at the ceiling.
She was about to ask him what he was pointing at when he whispered, “Up there.”
His words were answered with a growl from above.
Corinna took her hand away from the light, letting it shine as bright as it would. It was barely enough light to see the suspended ceiling above. Most of the light came back at her, reflected in two red eyes.
The growl intensified into an open-mouthed threat. The dog’s shoulders hunched. It was getting ready to pounce down from its perch. With its height advantage, they wouldn’t be able to fend it off effectively. Someone was going to get bitten. Corinna tried to scramble backwards, out of the building, but Jackson was in her way. While she tried to move back, he was standing tall, moving toward the dog. His shape blocked her red flashlight and Corinna couldn’t see the mother dog.
“Come on!” Jackson said. He wasn’t talking to Corinna. He wanted the dog to attack. Corinna began to shift to the side so she could offer him help from the flank once he got attacked.
Her light moved around Jackson in time for her to see the dog come down. There was something strange about its descent.
“No!” Jackson shouted as the dog’s teeth clamped on his arm. With his free hand, he had grabbed the scruff of the dog’s neck and was trying to pull her back. He was having no luck. The dog was thrashing herself back and forth with her teeth clamped on Jackson’s arm. She wasn’t enormous—that was the only thing that saved Jackson from being pulled off balance.
Corinna went in fast and snatched one of mother’s back paws. Immediately, the dog dislodged from biting Jackson and tried to spin on Corinna. As Corinna backed away from the teeth, she snatched the dog’s other paw, and held her up like a wheelbarrow. With each thrash, Corinna took a step backwards to stay out of the dog’s bite range.
Jackson used the opportunity.
The light spun and flailed in Corinna’s hand, but Jackson still managed to lasso the dog’s neck with his rope. The mother dog panicked. She jerked so hard that she sprang up into the air. Corinna wouldn’t have believe the strength if she hadn’t felt it, pulling the paws right out of her grip. Only the noose around her neck kept the dog from escape. Jackson held onto the end of the leash with both hands as the dog twisted and thrashed, trying to get away.
Corinna put her light to full power and all the details of the room emerged.
Still growling, the dog bit at the rope.
Jackson slipped a nylon muzzle over the leash and slid it down fast. It worked perfectly. In a moment, he had the mother in a headlock and he was slipping on a collar and attached the muzzle.
Huffing, growling, and snarling, the dog was immobilized.
“Simple,” Jackson said with a smile.
“You’re bleeding,” Corinna said.
“It’s just a scratch.”
It was easiest to carry the plastic crate on her shoulder. Corinna knew her neck would be stiff the next day, but better that than a sore back. She carried the puppies and Jackson carried the mother.
The headlights of Mike’s truck came on as soon as they rounded the corner.
“How did it go?” Brad called.
“Peachy,” Corinna said.
Mike got out to help them load the hostages.
“I’m covered in blood, drool, and milk,” Jackson said. He was holding the mother dog against his chest. When he tried to walk her on the leash, she pulled so hard that she sounded like she was going to strangle herself.
“Yeah, well, my shoulder is soaked in puppy piss,” Corinna said.
“Put them inside the cab,” Brad said. “Just in case.”
Mike eyed him for a second and then opened the rear door of the truck.
“Get in,” Mike said. “I can hose it out tomorrow.”
As soon as the crate of puppies touched down, they started to squeak and mewl for their mother. Corinna closed the truck door and opened the top of the sack that kept the puppies in the crate. They were all crawling over each other to get out until they saw her face looking down. Then, they all went quiet again. Wide-eyed, they looked up at her like she was a monster, getting ready to grind their bones for bread.
Corinna smiled.
Jackson put the mother on the floor and straddled her with his legs. She was still trying to chew her way out of the muzzle. She stopped for a moment when Corinna opened the sack enough for her to see the pups. When Jackson tried to pet her head, she jerked back, growling. The smell of fresh urine took over the interior of the truck.
“Great,” Mike said.
He turned the truck around.
“We headed back, or do we have anything more to do here?” Mike asked.
Brad spun in his seat.
“What about the dogs? Anything unusual?” Brad asked.
“She bit me, but she didn’t really bite me,” Jackson said. He had slid the sleeve of his jacket up enough to reveal his arm. There was some blood, and a couple of punctures. It could have—maybe should have—been much worse. Only one or two of the tee
th had punctured deep enough to draw blood.
“So maybe half tame,” Mike said over his shoulder. “One of Helen’s strays.”
“She needs some manners,” Jackson said, shaking his head. He waggled a finger at the muzzled dog, who was hunkered down now that the truck was moving. “We heard her nursing when we came in, and the next second she was up on a perch, ready to drop down.”
“Two dogs!” Corinna said. “Maybe this isn’t the mother, just another dog in the pack. The mother escaped while this one was attacking from above.”
“You’re forgetting the milk all over his shirt,” Brad said, pointing.
“Don’t the other females sometimes nurse?” Corinna asked.
Nobody had an answer.
Chapter 31: Robby
Robby woke up on the edge of the bed. The sun was shining right into his eyes. He squinted against it and stood up slowly so he wouldn’t jostle Janelle. She was sprawled diagonally. Robby picked up his bag and slipped out the room, shutting the door behind himself.
He got cleaned up and changed in the bathroom. The water didn’t get particularly hot, but it was serviceable. While he brushed his teeth, Robby glanced up at the lights and wondered how many people the apartment building could accommodate. When the water pressured surged, the lights dimmed. The power was limited.
The living room was quiet except for the sputter of the coffee maker. Even after all these years, Robby couldn’t get used to the smell. Everyone told him that if he could get ahold of fresh coffee beans, he would learn to love it. All they had was the freeze dried stuff that Romie had hoarded. To Robby, it tasted like stale dirt.
He glanced around for Romie before he realized that she had set the timer on the coffee maker. She was probably counting on the terrible aroma as her alarm clock.
Robby went out to the balcony.
The morning was humid. There was a light fog over the trees that hadn’t burned off yet. In the distance, he saw the edge of the horse pasture. The grass was neat and tidy inside the white fence. The horses kept it carefully mowed.