by Melissa Good
Dar swiveled so she was facing forward and had her legs out, with her sandals bumping them off rocks slick with algae as they moved quickly downstream. She kept one arm around Kerry and Kerry had taken hold of the back of her jacket.
“This is going to be a mess,” Dar said.
“Mm.” Kerry wiped the hair out of her eyes. “But it’s not as bad as I thought it might be if we tipped over,” she admitted.
“It’s gonna get worse if they can’t catch that raft,” Dar said. “We’re gonna have to walk out of here.”
“Or just float.” Kerry took a breath as they went between two sets of rocks and a wash of water swamped them as they whirled in a circle then came out the other side. “Pppffpfpbut.”
PJ and Sally both waved at them. “Hey, catch up to us guys!” PJ called out. “Let’s stick together!”
Rich joined them and just past Kerry saw Don and Marcia in a clump that included Amy and Todd. “Better the kids.” She nudged Dar. “I can only imagine what crap is coming out of his mouth.” She pointed at Todd, who was in fact flapping his jaws.
Dar pulled them in a circle then shoved off an underground rock as they neared the small group and joined them. “That wasn’t fun,” she said, as they fit into the circle of floaters.
“No, it wasn’t,” Rich said, in a serious tone. “We could have really gotten hurt. I think Janet head counted everyone though.”
“So, what happens now?” PJ asked. “I mean...like, to us?”
They swirled through a gap in the rocks and went in a circle as the water level increased again. “Janet caught up to Doug,” Rich said, after they could hear again. “So, they’ll paddle down and get the raft. I’m sure it’ll catch up on something.”
“What if it gets wrecked?” PJ said. She lifted her foot up out of the water and looked at it. “Not looking forward to hiking.”
Everyone looked at each other a little awkwardly. “Let’s wait to see what the situation is.” Dar finally concluded. “Maybe we’ll get lucky.”
Kerry had been looking up at the sky. “Let’s hope they don’t get bit by our vacation curse.” She muttered low enough for just Dar to hear her. “At least there aren’t any pirates on the river.”
Dar eyed her.
“We hope.”
KERRY WAS COLD. Despite the sun lighting the surface of the river she felt shivers in her core.
They were close to the bend now, though, and she hoped to see something that would let them at least take a break and get out of the water. She could see that PJ, and Sally were also looking uncomfortable. “Brr,” she said, giving them a wry look.
“Yeah,” Rich said. “Hope we can catch a break out of here soon. Slot canyon or something.”
Janet and Doug had disappeared around the bend about ten minutes previously and just as Kerry was about to comment on that she felt a warm pressure against her back and glanced aside to where Dar had just pulled her closer.
Dar winked at her.
Now, how did Dar do that? Kerry studied her partner who was still watching the river with some interest, seemingly at ease in the rush of the water. “You really are part marine mammal, aren’t you?”
Dar chuckled.
“What’s that?” PJ asked.
“Dar is warm,” Kerry said, simply. “I have no idea on earth how she manages that, but even when we dive in the ocean she never gets cold.”
“Really?” Rich asked.
Dar extended a hand to him and watched his eyes widen as he reached over to touch it. They had used a rope to link them all together using their jacket clips. “Probably because I’ve spent time in the water since birth, pretty much.” She shrugged off the anomaly.
“Nice. Kind of like a seal,” Rich said. “Right?”
Both Dar and Kerry laughed. “Your dad would agree,” Kerry said. “Oh, hey I can see...oh.” She made a face as the rest of them turned. “Wow.”
“Crap,” Dar said.
They were halfway through the bend and they could see the raft ahead, tilted up and caught on two large rocks where water was gushing in all directions. The gear containers were cracked and many were open, tops hanging with bags and supplies dangling.
“Oh boy,” Rich said. “That sure doesn’t look good.”
“No, it doesn’t,” Sally said.
The kayak was tied off nearby, and Janet and Doug were climbing carefully over the rocks toward the craft, while several of the crew had just finished running a rope across the open cataracts and were waving at the oncoming floaters.
“Grab the rope!” Doug yelled at them, seeing the approach. “Grab it and hang on! We’ll get a tow on you!”
Two of the crew were working to set a lower rope and one leaped across from one rock to another and slipped, falling hard and then tumbling into the water.
Dar was the closest to the top rope and she reached up to grab it as Rich lunged to do the same next to her. The surge of the water nearly ripped the line out of her hand but she got her other one up to take hold and tensed her body as it came up out of the water.
The rest of the group tried to help, but the current grabbed them and it was just Dar and Rich for a minute until one of the crewmen, Toby, got hold of Rich’s jacket and snapped a climbing ring to it and to the rope to take the pressure off.
Another crew member was hand over handing down the line to where Dar was grimly hanging on. A moment later he had her hooked in. “See if you can pull over!”
Dar ducked to the other side of the line and pulled as hard as she could, allowing the crewman to move past her and get a ring into the jacket straps on Kerry’s jacket.
That gave her a moment to just hang there, half in and half out of the water, and watch as two of the crew fought to pull the man who had fallen in back to the rocks. She felt the surge of the water against her legs and knew a new sense of respect for it.
Kerry was next to Dar, one foot braced against the rocks, her hands holding the rope. “Holy crap.”
“Watch out!” Sally suddenly yelled. “Doug!”
Doug scrambled across the rocks as a clump of the passengers rushed toward the rope. Don was trying to get into position to grab it. His wife was hanging on to the straps with a frightened look on her face and one hand clasped with Amy’s, who looked equally scared.
Todd reached out as they got to the rocks and grabbed a hold on them, curling his fingertips into some cracks and shoving one big foot out to hold them in place. His shoe slipped on the algae after a second and he twisted around as Don grabbed the rope.
They all slammed against the rocks but Todd kept his grip, his jaw smacking the stone as the muscles stood out under his wet shirt. Amy let out a shout and reached for him, as Toby lunged and got hold of Don’s vest.
Doug had a large carabiner snapped to the rope and he released his hands off it to grab Don’s arm. He reached down to snap a hook around the straps as Todd’s swinging on the rope pulled him off the rocks and he plunged into the water up to his waist.
Toby turned around and pulled another carabiner from his belt and snapped it onto Todd’s vest just as the crew member being hauled in reached them. The crew member braced himself against the rocks to catch his breath. Toby got the rope from his hands and squirmed across the rocks to a fallen trunk lodged midstream to tie it off.
“Okay start working your way to the shore!” Doug yelled. “Use the lower rope!” He gave a tug on it as Toby yelled something the wind ripped past them. “C’mon! Hurry before the rest of them get here. We need space to catch them!”
Don was the closest and he turned to help Marcia get to the rope, and they started to inch their way toward the shore. Todd reluctantly released the rock and rubbed the visible bump on his jaw, before he grabbed the straps on Amy’s jacket and pulled her up behind him.
Toby grabbed PJ around the waist with one arm. “Got you. Take it slow.”
Rich and Sally were right behind him, with Dar and Kerry waiting to bring up the rear. They fought their way throug
h the white water toward the shore, just past the upended raft.
BY THE TIME they got to the shore Kerry was shivering again. She was glad to slide off the last rock and climb up the short slope into the small crevice. She gratefully put her back against the sun-warmed stone. “Ugh.”
Her legs shook a little. The water had been ferocious and the rest of the passengers looked equally shaken. Even Todd was hunkered down on a small ledge, his eyes a little wide. Amy sat next to him, hugging herself.
Rich’s feisty enthusiasm was absent. He sat down on the ground on the other side of Dar, with Sally and her sister next to him. Both Don and Marcia looked exhausted.
“Don’t want to have to do that again,” Don said. “Didn’t mind the floating that much, but those rocks were slippery.”
Marcia dabbed at scrape on her leg. “I’m so tired!”
Dar leaned on the stone next to Kerry, ankles crossed, and arms folded, a serious expression on her face. She watched the crew try to right the raft, and from this angle the damage to it was far more obvious.
The supports between the pontoons had been ruptured, and most of the gear boxes were bent. Some had lost their tops as the raft had tumbled end over end in the water in a motion it wasn’t designed to deal with. The mechanics of the craft seemed intact, but it was hard to say how salvageable it was.
Not good.
Kerry folded her arms and leaned against Dar’s shoulder. “Y’know”“”
“I know,” Dar responded with a little grimace. She pointed briefly at something. “That was the box the phone was in.” It was shattered, and hanging loose, very obviously empty.
Kerry sighed. “Of course it was. The only way it wouldn’t have gotten munched with us around is if there’d been a puppy in there with it.”
Dar chuckled wryly.
Janet came over to them wringing her hands together a little. “Okay, folks,” she said. “We’ve obviously gotten into a little pickle here.”
Todd looked up. “A little?”
“Well, we collected everyone. No one got lost, and there were only a few scuffs and bruises, so yeah.” Janet looked a touch truculent. “Just a little pickle because this is the wild, and it could have been a lot worse.”
“You could have croaked,” Rich said, “so, shut the fuck up.”
Todd just rolled his eyes.
The crew behind her was dragging everything they’d salvaged up onto the shore, sorting it out in piles. Dar spotted their own bags, but kept quiet since there were only six duffels there.
“Anyway,” Janet said. “We’re going to see what we need to do to continue our trip, and try to make you all as comfortable as possible.” She eyed them seriously. “So, I’d like you to just relax and rest. There’s a track back into a hollow behind us but I’d really appreciate it if you’d stay here. Just let us get things sorted out.”
“Can we help?” Don asked.
“No.” Janet’s tone was definite. “I appreciate the offer, but just please, stay here.” She put both hands out, palms outward. Then she turned and went back to where Doug was coiling up some ropes.
Don lifted his hands and put them on his knees. “How about a game of cards?”
“Might as well.” Sally hunkered herself around to face him and pulled over her day bag that she’d strapped around her waist. “I think I’ve got my deck here.”
Kerry unstrapped her own day bag. It held her camera in its case, and had banged her raw through the water. She dug inside and removed a granola bar. “Want half?”
Dar eyed it dubiously.
“C’mon. It’s the one with cranberries in it.” She opened the bar, broke it in half, and handed a portion over. She bit into hers and watched the crew fasten ropes to parts of the raft in a bid, she figured, to turn it upright.
She heard a faint scraping behind her and glanced back to see Todd move on down the wall, away from the water.
Amy watched him for a minute and then she came over to where the cards were starting to be shuffled and sat down on a flat rock near Sally. “I’m in.”
Kerry looked back at Dar, who was licking a bit of granola off her thumb, and suppressed a smile.
“What?” Dar said, seeing the attention.
“Nothing.” Kerry indicated a small shelf across from where they were standing that was bathed in sunlight. “Let’s do what the lady said and chill.”
“Or warm.” Dar agreeably joined her and they sat down next to each other, the breeze riffling the drying fabric on their bodies. “Y’know,” she said, after a pause.
“You’d rather be doing something to help,” Kerry supplied in a mild tone. “Yeah me too.
The crew assembled on the shore and they left off their chat to watch as they all took hold of the ropes connected to the raft and started to pull them taut, in a staggered motion. “Okay, when it comes up, front line get out of the way!” Doug yelled.
Janet was just finished dragging all the recovered gear up higher on the beach and now she scrambled up to get between the crew and her tour group, watching in both directions with her hands half lifted. “Everyone please stay well back!” She lifted her voice so it would carry.
“I’m glad we don’t do this for a living,” Kerry commented, as the crew started pulling in earnest, their water shoes sliding on the algae slick rocks near the water. “It’s hard work.”
“Ours is too, sometimes.”
Kerry took a breath to disagree, then memories surfaced of both her and Dar in sweat and grime and a desperate slide across the floor of a grungy Wall Street back office and subsided, with a wry shrug. “Eh. Sometimes.” She glanced aside as she sensed Dar moving and saw her body stiffen as she shaded her eyes to look at the raft. “What?”
Dar moved quickly toward the raft. “Hold it!”
Janet intercepted her. “Ms. Roberts, please.” She threw her arms out to physically block Dar from advancing.
Dar pointed. “If they let that come over the engine’s going to smack on that rock.”
“No, it isn’t,” Janet said. “Please go back and sit down!”
Dar measured again with her eyes. “It is.”
“Please, get back.” Janet sounded more than a little frustrated. “Just let us do our jobs. Get back!”
Kerry watched, knowing the body language, and knowing Dar like she knew her own heart. She also knew what was going to happen next, because Dar was who she was, and there was no changing that part of her.
“No I won’t,” Dar said and pushed past. “Doug!” She let out a bellow. “DOUG! Hold it!”
Now Kerry got up and bolted, because she saw Janet go to make a grab for Dar. “Whoa whoa whoa.” She got hold of Janet’s arm. “Don’t do that.” She planted her feet and arrested Janet’s forward motion, jerking the woman off balance.
Doug heard his name and paused. He half turned, but the team kept pulling so he quickly turned back around, and at that moment the raft reached the halfway point and started down amidst a flurry of yells and warnings. “Not now!” He yelled at her. “Get away! Get back!”
Dar cursed internally. Too late. The raft was too far gone for the crew to stop its motion and she skidded to a halt as she realized it, making both Janet and Kerry collide with her as they hauled up a second too late.
The big craft rolled over and off the rocks. It slammed down onto the ground with a crunching thump of the hard rubber hitting and a scream of metal as the engine crunched down onto a clump of boulders.
“Shit.” Janet tore herself loose from Kerry’s grip and ran over to where the crew gathered hastily round the raft to inspect the damage. A few of them went chasing off after the gear that had been flung off when it hit.
Kerry joined Dar, and Rich came running over, with Sally and a few others right behind him.
“Holy crap, what happened?” Rich said, shading his eyes. “What did they do? What’s wrong?”
“What morons,” Todd said. “Snapped the freaking engine in half.” He glanced at Dar. “You saw
it was going to happen? That what the yelling was?”
Dar sighed. “I did,” she said. “Just not in time.”
“They’re done,” Todd said. “Full refund for everyone. What a bunch of idiots.” He turned and wandered back over to the wall, flexing his hands.
“What does that mean?” Marcia asked.
The crew huddled around the raft and now five or six of them took hold and lifted the back end up off the shore, while Doug squirmed under it to inspect the outboard engine he used to control the craft.
“Mean’s he’s got no way to drive that thing,” Don said. “Gotta agree with the kid, much as I don’t like to. That was a bonehead move. They should have listened to you, Dar.”
Kerry sighed. “If I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard someone say that I could buy this canyon.” She took hold of Dar’s elbow. “C’mon, no point in all the I told ya sos.”
“They didn’t really have time,” Dar said. “It was already tipping.”
Don shook his head. “Shoulda planned that move better. Don’t know what they’re going to do now. They can’t take the raft down the rest of the river like that.”
Marcia frowned. “Oh, dear.”
Janet had part of the crew around her and she was giving directions. The rest of them were carefully lowering the raft to the ground after Doug emerged from under it. He stood up and looked over at Dar, then lifted his hands and said something to Janet, who nodded glumly.
“We’re screwed,” Rich said. “What the hell? I thought these guys were pros. That was bush league.”
Dar folded her arms but remained silent, her expression somber.
“Yeah,” Kerry finally said. “If Dar could see it from this angle, they should have probably checked huh?”
The ring of crew broke apart and started pulling open the gear. Janet visibly squared her shoulders and started toward the clump of watching passengers.
“Here comes the bad news,” Sally said. “Poor Janet.”