The Speed of Falling Objects

by Nancy Richardson Fischer

  The rain starts all at once. It’s like the sky is filled with buckets dumping directly on our heads. Our fire is instantly doused. The roof of the quickly built shelter pours water, then caves in. It’s hard to see my hand stretched a few feet in front of me.

  Jupiter asks, “Are we going to wait it out?”

  “It’ll be miserable either way,” Cougar says. “Just stay close together. It’d be easy to get separated from the group today.”

  We gather our stuff and follow my dad. The ground slopes slightly downward. No one talks. My feet squish in my boots. The terrain is slick and it’s hard to see the dips and roots. Gus trips, falls to his knees, winces. A black thorn sticks out of his shin. I help him up then pull it out, wishing I had something to clean the puncture. As the wind gains force, despite the heat, we’re all shivering.

  The hours crawl by. We cross a narrow stream but it just ends in a swampy hollow. It’s so frustrating. If we could get above the canopy it’d be so easy to find a large river. But we’re operating blind and increasingly exhausted. I roll the top of my shorts. They used to fit, but I’ve lost at least five pounds, and now, waterlogged, they droop from my hips.

  “I need a break,” Jupiter calls out.

  Cougar stops beneath a kapok tree and we huddle in a concave space formed by its roots.

  “This blows.” Jupiter kicks at a stick. A five-inch-long scorpion scuttles from beneath it, pincers grasping for the enemy.

  “Black scorpion,” Cougar says, nudging it with the tip of his boot. The scorpion’s tail, segmented with a stinger at the end, strikes his sole several times.

  Gus asks, “Are they poisonous?”

  “All scorpions have venom. The sting hurts like hell and can cause a bad fever in humans, but the venom is usually only dangerous to their prey. Ever heard the parable about the scorpion and the frog?” Cougar asks.

  “Nope,” I say at the same time Gus and Jupiter say, “Yes.”

  Cougar needs an audience of only one. He says, “A frog and a scorpion are at the edge of the river. The scorpion can’t swim so he asks the frog for a ride across. The frog says, ‘No way, if I let you on my back, you’ll sting me.’ The scorpion replies, ‘Not gonna happen. If I sting you, you’ll die and I’ll drown.’ Makes sense, so the frog agrees. They get halfway across the river, the scorpion stings the frog, and as they’re both slipping under the water, the frog asks, ‘Why?’ The scorpion replies, ‘Couldn’t help it, it’s my nature.’”

  I think this is as close to an explanation or apology as I’ll ever get from my father. Gus puts an arm around me. The sheer impossibility of that simple act of compassion hits hard. Someone like him doesn’t happen to a girl like me. But if everything I thought about myself is a lie?

  What Would Danny Do?

  I lean into Gus. The scorpion skitters by my boot. It looks like a cross between a miniature lobster and a spider. A week ago I would’ve run from it.

  Cougar tips his head to the side, listening. “Hear that?”

  I strain. All I hear is the pounding rain.

  “Come on.” He leads us back into the storm.

  A few minutes later I hear the sound of water throbbing like a bass guitar. My dad whacks at a mass of hanging vines. In a single breath, we’re standing at the edge of a hill that’s so steep it’s almost vertical. A few hundred feet below us, a river bashes through the rain forest. Water overflows its banks as it rapidly rises from the downpour. Debris is swept into the torrent, trees and rocks torn free from the slope below by the powerful surge of water.

  I’ve never gone rafting. There was a class trip to the lower White Salmon River last year but my mom decided it was too risky. Trix said there wasn’t even any white water. Total yawn. What I’m looking at now would not be a bore—it looks like boiling chocolate milk. If one of us fell into that, we’d either drown after getting pinned beneath a tree, or have our heads cracked open by a rock. My faith that we’re going to get out of the Amazon flags. We’ve finally found a big river and it’s not navigable.

  “We’ll have to go downstream,” Cougar says, “follow it until the terrain flattens.”

  I start to ask if we’re ever going to get out of this freaking place, but the soaked earth beneath Jupiter’s feet disintegrates. Before he can yell he’s tumbling down the hillside. As I watch him cartwheel, my throat clamps shut. Part of me wants to race after him, the other part is desperate to back away. Sharp needles of adrenaline jab into my skin as Jupiter tries to grab for rocks or roots. The slope is so steep that few trees have survived and the ground beneath him is slick mud that speeds his plunge toward the river.

  “Step back,” Cougar warns.

  “We have to—” The wet ground shifts. I topple forward, momentarily airborne, then I’m sliding face-first down the hill, stomach flipping, pulse sprinting. I rocket toward the water, hands clutching for purchase but finding none. Debris tears into my skin. I see Jupiter below me. He grasps a scraggly bush, almost stops, but momentum tears him free. A heartbeat later he plunges into the water. His head surfaces once, then he’s gone. I hurtle toward a lone tree, terror coiling around my body like a snake.

  “Grab it,” Gus shouts.

  Somehow I hook the rain-slicked trunk with one arm. My right shoulder feels like it might explode but I don’t let go as my legs pendulum beneath me.

  “Hang on,” Gus yells.

  His voice is hard to hear above the torrential storm. My breath comes in tatters and my heart is a balloon about to burst. “I can’t! I’m going to fall!”

  “Cougar is getting a vine. We’ll pull you up.”

  Ribbons of pain unfurl along the arm holding my body’s weight. I try to dig my toes into the mud and find a gnarled root for my right foot to balance on. I could slip off any second. I’m pressed against crumbling earth where poisonous things burrow. I tense for a sting or fangs. Something lands above and a little to the left. I cringe then squint in the pounding rain. It’s a thick liana. Cautiously, I lift my free arm. The vine is at least a foot above my head.

  “Grab it,” Cougar roars.

  “I can’t reach!”

  “It’s the longest I could find. You’ll have to.”

  He’s crazy. The makeshift rope is slick. My hands are shaking, wet. If I let go of the tree, somehow manage to reach it, I’ll instantly slide off, fall the rest of the way to the river. My entire body vibrates with dread, skin tightens, ribs protest under pressure as they cave inward...

  “Danger!” Gus shouts above the cacophony of rain and river. “You can do this!”

  I tentatively lift my left foot, searching for another root. My toe hits something. It’s the point of a small rock. This is insane. I can’t put all my weight on it while simultaneously pushing off the tree. I’m not that coordinated! My right hand is almost numb because the tree is pressed into the crook of my elbow, my own weight cutting off circulation.

  I shout, “Will the vine hold?”

  “Seriously?” Cougar roars. “Grab it before that tree goes!”

  Gus yells, “Use what you breathed in!”

  Deer, bird, rabbit, cat, snake, Sean... I launch and push at the same time, feel the rock give way in the moment my hands close on the vine. Before I can slip, I dig the toes of my hiking boots into the sludge. Cougar and Gus pull. It takes every bit of strength to hang on to the vine, push against anything that gives traction. When my feet slip, leaving me dangling in the air, muscles quivering, I summon the sparrow. When my hands start to lose their strength, I’m a cat with sharp claws. A bright yellow gecko scurries across my thigh. I kick into the mud, keep climbing. I’m a red-and-black snake-lizard-rabbit-eagle-Pigeon...

  My torso hits the edge of the hill. Cougar and Gus haul me to safety. We crawl along the mud to more solid ground, lie on our backs, chests heaving. The battering rain cleanses bodies painted brown with mud. Jupiter was terrified.
“Could he still be alive?”

  Cougar shakes his head. “He’s gone.”

  There are purple circles beneath my dad’s eyes. His hair is plastered to his skull, skin pale beneath a faded tan. He looks so run-down. “Jupiter might’ve been able to grab a branch, pull himself out of the river?”

  Cougar says, “The rocks and trees tore Jupiter apart.”

  I crawl back toward the edge, stop several feet shy and peer down. The rising water attacks massive trees, slender palms and ground cover. Their shallow roots betray them. The river sweeps even the mightiest away, slamming them against boulders where they split from the force and current. My body hurts like it’s been repeatedly kicked. Jupiter. Tears mingling with the rain, I return to Gus and my dad.

  Gus’s face is bone white. “Danny, you almost died, too.”

  “But I didn’t.”

  My dad hugs me really hard. When I hug him back, there’s a monumental shift. I’m the one providing comfort. The idea that Cougar might actually love me in his own way is confusing. His love doesn’t meet a standard definition. Does that make it less real? I break away, not ready to give him any part of me. “Maybe Jupiter—”

  Cougar shakes me hard enough to make my head snap. “No arguments. We are going to follow this flooded river. Wherever it gets calm, we’ll cut down bamboo, build a raft, float until we find an indigenous settlement or a plane spots us.” He stands, one hand pressed to his left side. “Let’s get moving.”

  I reach to help Gus up, but he gives a little shake of his head. Then I see it—bristled legs creeping onto his neck. The spider’s gray-black body is covered with tiny white dots, articulated legs at least six inches long, mouth bloodred. It freezes, like it knows we’re watching.

  “Dad?”

  “Dammit! Enough about Jupiter!”

  “It’s Gus.”

  Cougar turns, cocks his head to one side. “Wandering spider.”

  Gus, his body midcrouch, whispers, “Will it wander away?”

  “That’d be nice, but probably not. They’re hunters, especially toward dusk. Don’t move.” Cougar draws back his machete, like a bat, and swings. The blade hooks the spider under its belly, flicks it into the air and over the ravine. There’s a dribble of red on Gus’s neck where the tip of the machete cut him.

  Gus asks, “Was it venomous?”

  “The most venomous spider in the world.” Cougar shoulders his backpack. “Its bite causes loss of muscle control, shortness of breath, violent headaches and death unless you get antivenom fast. Never seen one in the wild before. Cool.”

  Cool? When I hug Gus, I can feel his body trembling. “You’re okay.”

  “None of this is okay,” Gus says. He shakes his head like he’s clearing it. “Screw the Amazon. Let’s go find Jupiter.”

  Cougar throws up his hands. “This is not an adventure flick with a happy ending. It’s real life. Real survival. I cared about Jupiter, too. Known him longer than both of you. Hell, I know his mother. But we have to move on. We’re alive. Jupiter is dead.”

  Gus squints in the torrential rain. “I am completely fucking aware that this isn’t a movie! But you don’t know for sure Jupiter is dead.” He grabs the machete, slashes at the tangle of vines and brush. “We’re going to find him. Then we’re going to build a freaking raft and get out of this place because that water below us is a river, not a channel that’s going to dry up. It’ll lead to air conditioning, a soft bed and food that won’t give me the runs. If I never see another spider again—”

  “Or a snake, a grub or monster-size leeches,” I add, following Gus. I’m not ready to give up on Jupiter, either. We make our way downhill, climbing over trees, around brush, slip in the mud, duck under fallen trunks, soaking wet, half-blinded by sheets of water. I scan the river whenever I have a clear view. Where are you, Jupiter?

  Cougar follows. “It’ll be dark soon,” he says. “Danny. Listen to me. We need to stop, make a hasty shelter, eat what’s left of our fruit and get through the night.”

  “No. Jupiter might still be alive, alone in the forest, hurt, struggling. We search until dark. If you don’t want to help, then when Gus gets tired, I’ll cut trail.”

  “Holy shit! I see him,” Gus shouts.

  We peer down a shallow hillside. A tree is wedged across the river, branches stabbing below the surface. Jupiter is wedged between the trunk and a limb, faceup, arms thrashing as he tries to free himself. Dropping to my butt, I slide down the hill...

  31

  “You can’t go in there,” Cougar says.

  “We have to.” I put one foot in the river. The current instantly sweeps it away. Cougar grabs under my arms, drags me back to land. Jupiter sees us. His face contorts as he screams for help.

  Gus says, “I’ll go.” He finds a vine, pulls it to the edge of the river.

  Cougar tears the liana out of Gus’s hands. “He’s a dead man.”

  Jupiter gasps for air before a wave crashes into him. He struggles to breathe before another hits. “Dad, we have to help him!”

  “It’s not gonna happen. If we go in, we’ll die, too.”

  “So we just watch him drown?” I demand.

  Cougar’s eyes narrow to slits. “Grow up, Danny. One death is better than four.”

  My father comes into complete focus. “So this is the real you? A coward when the camera is off?” He glares but I don’t look away.

  Handing Gus his backpack, Cougar ties the vine around his waist. Gus and I hold it as he wades into the water, upriver from Jupiter. Two steps and the bottom drops away. He’s swimming as hard as he can but still getting dragged toward the fallen tree. He bashes into Jupiter, then somehow manages to haul himself up, wrapping his legs around the trunk. If the river tears the tree free, they’re both dead.

  My dad leans forward, suspended above Jupiter’s face. I can’t hear what they’re saying over the rain and booming river. Palms, bushes, rocks hurtle past and get pushed under the tree that’s trapping Jupiter, then they pop out on the other side. The river makes a right-hand bend, then hairpins back toward the side where Gus and I stand. The larger pieces of flotsam and jetsam are carried toward the shallows at the edge of a bank about fifteen feet below us. A few get snagged in the mud. I count twenty-five seconds before the trapped debris is torn free and the powerful current sweeps it away.

  Cougar looks back at us. He points at a massive tree limb rushing toward Jupiter, then at the bend in the river below us. A tremor passes through me. We were making the same calculation. Cougar shouts at us. I can’t hear but read his lips: LET GO.

  “Drop the vine,” I say.

  “But if—”

  I tear the liana from Gus’s hands. Cougar unties the vine, drops it, then stands on the slick trunk, somehow keeping his balance as it sways beneath him. He raises his arms, then jumps down on the lower limb that pins Jupiter. It cracks. They both immediately get sucked under the trunk.

  Gus and I race downstream. We peer into the muddy water, desperate to see my dad’s head, Jupiter’s body, any sign that they’re not pinned beneath the tree. They could be caught in an underwater whirlpool. They might have been knocked unconscious by a boulder. Probability and common sense say they’re drowning, dying or dead right now.

  A palm pinwheels by, sucked beneath the water, then popping free. It doesn’t get carried to where we stand at the bank of the river, instead disappearing, then reemerging on the other side, sixty feet downriver. There’s no guarantee my dad and Jupiter will surface near us. My stomach burns like it’s filled with acid. There’s no guarantee they’ll surface at all.

  Cougar did it because I called him a coward. If he—

  “There!” Gus shouts.

  I catch the flash of bodies wrapped around each other. The two men bob up, get pulled under, then surface again. Gus runs into the shallows, fighting to keep his balance, and gra
bs Cougar’s arm as he spins by. I somehow get the other one. Fireworks explode in my lower back as I use every bit of strength to break the current’s hold and help Gus haul Cougar and Jupiter, who is wrapped around my dad like a snake, in.

  We don’t stop pulling until we’re on solid ground, then lie on our backs, gasping, choking as the rain continues to batter down. “Too bad you didn’t get that on film,” Cougar wheezes. “It’s the most kick-ass thing I’ve ever done.” He staggers to his feet. “We need to get to higher ground. The river is still rising.”

  When I sit up, dizziness rocks me. That was a huge expenditure of energy with too few calories. Taking a deep breath, I stand. Gus struggles to his feet. Jupiter is still on his back. I ask, “You good?” He points to his right leg. There’s a glint of jagged bone where his femur snapped and tore through his skin. My heart takes a swan dive. How is he not screaming in agony?

  Cougar grimaces. “That is a game changer.”

  Jupiter clenches his eyes shut, pain carving deep grooves in his face. “You’re going to...have to...leave me.”

  Gus says, “No way.”

  Cougar squeezes Gus’s shoulder. “He can’t travel with a broken femur. We’ll have to bring back help.”

  My dad’s tone tells me that he’s already given up on Jupiter. No. “Duct tape.”

  “Danny,” Cougar snaps, “duct tape can’t solve everything.”

  Gus digs the tape out of Cougar’s backpack. “What else?”

  “Bamboo and a liana, for now.” I tear strips of tape and keep the gummy side down so it’ll stay sticky in the downpour. My dad hesitates, then finds a piece of bamboo. “Put it under his leg.” Jupiter moans as Cougar slides it into place. I wrap the tape under Jupiter’s thigh and knee, then around the bamboo. “This is just so we can get you away from the river without doing more damage. Then we’ll set your leg.”

  “This is freaking idiotic. Moving him will just make it worse,” Cougar says. “And what do you know about setting an open fracture?”