Down River

by Karen Harper

  The moment stretched out between them as, both frowning, they looked deep into each other's eyes while the river roared.

  "We're partners at least for getting out of here safely," he said, then cleared his throat when his voice caught. "And when we get back, we'll look into what really happened to you."

  She started to say something, then just nodded.

  "I'll pack our stuff," he added, taking his Swiss Army knife out of his jeans pocket so he had something to do with his hands rather than touch her again. He rose and moved a few feet away on the ledge. "I'll cut up our extra PFD for your feet."

  "I'm hungry enough that I could eat a piece of a PFD!"

  He tried to grin but he knew it was more a grimace. She was not the only one who felt stiff all over. "We'll have to stick with some of Christine's dried salmon. Not sure what we'll find on the other side of the chasm through the gorge, but there should be some berries to eat and fish to catch, if we get out of here."

  "If?"

  "I can only see so far down the ledge. We'll have to watch our footing, that's all. As a matter of fact, maybe you should go out barefoot, and we'll put these fancy, schmancy Manual designer shoes on you after."

  "Do you mean Manolos?" she asked with a little laugh.

  "Yeah. Just testing your memory."

  He turned away to let her get her clothes on over the body-hugging wet suit she already wore for warmth. He glanced at his waterproof watch and noted it was way past pre-dinner time back at the lodge. Surely they would realize that he and Lisa had not just decided to run away together.

  Spike and Christine were overseeing the search effort. Of course, Spike was trying to order her around, but she wasn't taking any guff from him. Whatever she'd done in the past, she wasn't going to be a doormat for any man.

  Iah, but Spike Jackson was an imposing man. Nearly six and a half feet tall, red-haired and big-shouldered, he seemed larger than life--certainly larger than any Yup'ik man she'd ever known. Yet he had a lanky grace and a boyish manner at times. But when cornered, or upset as he and all of them were now, he turned into a real macho man.

  "Okay, listen up here," he told the guests assembled in the great room of the lodge. "I radioed my sister, Ginger, and she checked the area across the lake where Mitch said they were going. No sign of them. The red two-seat kayak's missing, but sure as hell someone as skilled as Mitch didn't capsize in the lake."

  "I repeat," Graham Bonner put in, "I'll gladly pay for an air search and rescue."

  Christine figured Mr. Bonner was used to being in charge. Still, the Bonners had pitched in to help scour the immediate area of the lodge for Mitch and Lisa. The Bonners were such a handsome couple--trim, silver-haired and blue-eyed. Although they were fish out of water in the Alaskan wilds, she could tell they were used to being in control of all they surveyed.

  "Yes," Ellie Bonner added. "Spike, if we take your plane up, we'll pay for the gas, and I'll go with you to copilot while you use binoculars or vice versa."

  Christine guessed Mrs. Bonner was in her late fifties, a natural beauty aging gracefully, petite and pretty with a cap of hair that contrasted with her sharp, sparkling eyes.

  "Thanks," Spike said, "but thick tree cover around here and the river gorge and mountains make that not a good option for spotting them. Besides, they couldn't have hiked out this fast to the flatter tundra and valley areas where we could see them. Both of his vehicles are still here. They've gotta be around somewhere--maybe took a walk in the woods, skidded into a hole, someone turned an ankle, then 'cause of predators, they thought they had to stick together, something like that. The locals we got coming from Bear Bones know the area and can fan out around the lake. Mitch and Ms. Vaughn must have decided on a different place than where he told Christine he'd beach the kayak so they could talk things out."

  "On a private little picnic?" Christine heard Vanessa whisper to Jonas behind her. "Talk things out, my foot!"

  "Just don't put your foot in your mouth," he muttered back. "You'd better cooperate with all this and look like you mean it."

  Christine didn't let on that she'd heard them. Spike was saying, "Mitch must of just pulled the kayak up on a stretch of beach where we haven't spotted it yet, that's all."

  The sound of vehicle engines and the blast of horns drew them all outside. At least forty people, nearly half the population of the nearby town of Bear Bones, piled out of pickup trucks or SUVs. Some wore backpacks; some carried rifles.

  Christine went back inside quickly. She didn't need their stares right now and even the sight of guns made her uneasy. Her stomach was tied in knots already. Lisa lost was one thing, but she couldn't lose Mitch.

  "Okay," she heard Spike tell everyone in a booming voice from outside, "you all know what Mitch looks like, but the woman he's with--Lisa Vaughn--is about five feet five, blond hair to her shoulders, slender, but athletic-looking, green eyes, real pretty face...."

  Oh yes, Christine thought, a real pretty face all right. Obviously Mitch's ideal, maybe Spike's, too. She saw out the opposite set of lodge windows that Ginger had come back across the lake. She was not putting in at her usual spot but ran the prow of her old motorboat up on the shore farther down. Christine went out to fill her in. The two of them were going to hold the fort in case Mitch or Lisa came back or the sheriff or medical help needed to be summoned from Talkeetna.

  Christine strode the path to the lake landing and hurried down to it.

  "Any news yet?" Ginger asked as she tossed her little anchor on the pebbled shore. Like Spike, she was lanky and redheaded, but with gray eyes and a distant gaze that could really unsettle you. Sometimes she seemed to look past or through you. Even for backcountry Alaska, Ginger Jackson was as eccentric as they came, dressed in a combination of gypsy and frontier-woman clothes.

  Ginger lived mostly hand to mouth. Besides baking for the lodge, she picked up random short-term jobs in Bear Bones and always helped Mitch with ziplining for his guests. Ginger's brother, Spike, loved flying, but Ginger's high-flying thrills came from zipping along on a steel cable through tall Sitka spruce. Christine admired Ginger's independence. She'd turned down an offer of marriage from a guy because he insisted she move into town. Ginger wouldn't accept anything from her big brother but the firewood he cut for her baking and heating stoves for the cold months. She was even scrimping to save money to pay Spike for that, since the price of jet fuel was, literally, sky-high. Yet since Ginger's mail came to the lodge, Christine knew that she received lots of high-end catalogs with all kinds of exotic luxury goods--her "dream mags," she called them.

  "We still don't know anything," Christine called to her, hurrying closer. "It's like they vanished into thin air."

  "Maybe they just had things to settle and said the heck with everyone else. That's what I'd of done. Did Mitch talk about her? I mean, we knew somebody threw somebody over, but I've learned never to hold people's pasts against them."

  Christine wondered if she meant her own past. "No, he didn't talk about her until just before they arrived," she admitted, wishing Mitch had confided more to her. That was another thing she liked about Ginger--live and let live. But she didn't like the way the woman was staring at her, still standing in her boat, hands on her hips, head tilted, almost as if she were accusing her of something. Christine had gone through enough of that.

  "What?" she challenged Ginger.

  "There!" Ginger pointed past her. So she wasn't staring at her after all. "Maybe Mitch didn't put the red kayak I saw here earlier into the lake. See? Someone shoved a kayak up or down here and to or from where? That ridge path above the lake and river?"

  Christine turned and looked, then had to shade her eyes and stand back a bit to see what Ginger was pointing at. She gasped and scrambled up the bank toward the path with Ginger right behind her.

  They looked at the path, then down it to the other side. Strewn there was the food and cooler Lisa had carried as well as the path of what could well be the kayak sliding down toward the
river. A wolverine hunched there, too stubborn to move, bolting down the food, but that wasn't what upset them.

  "Mitch decided to take her white-water kayaking?" Ginger screeched. "Is he nuts? We gotta make folks search the river!"

  "But this food strewn here..." Christine began, then stopped in midsentence. "Or maybe she just set the cooler down here and that wily wolverine opened it after they took off. But I can't believe Mitch would do that."

  The wolverine hustled away as Ginger skidded off the path and looked downriver, shading her eyes with both hands. "No one. Nothing!" she shouted up over the river's roar, but Christine was already running to tell Spike before the searchers set out on a wild-goose chase.

  "Feel your way with your feet, one slow step at a time," Mitch told Lisa as they edged into the cleft in the gorge, both facing the rock. "Don't look down!"

  "I won't!" she vowed, but she already had. About twelve feet below, she had heard and seen white water surging into the bottom of the cleft, then being sucked back out. She could almost feel it washing over her, like when she was in the river, or in her worst nightmares. But Mitch was just behind, talking to her, urging her on.

  Because she could feel the firm rock under her, she was glad she was barefoot, even though she ached all over, including the soles of her feet. Words from her grandma Colleen's favorite Psalm came to her: Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death...

  Mitch had said she should lead the way out because he needed not only to watch where they were going, but watch her. They'd abandoned the kayak. All their other goods were strapped to his back, but he wouldn't let her carry one thing.

  "You're doing great," he said. "We're making good progress."

  "I'm shaking. It makes me feel as if the wall is," she admitted as she tried to find handholds, yet not push away from the rock face so she tipped back. Their yellow brick road out of here was only about two feet wide in places. She knew she had to do this just right, because if he had to make a grab for her, they'd both bounce down into oblivion.

  Finally, finally, the ledge widened, but then it came to nothing.

  "Mitch, dead end."

  "So I see. But we're almost out of the gorge. Just stay very still."

  "I feel like we've already climbed Mount McKinley--Denali, you called it."

  "Don't talk."

  He came very close to her, even putting one foot between hers where she was standing with her legs apart for better balance. He pressed her closer to the rock face. It almost felt as if she were sitting on his lap. She could feel his breath on her temple, stirring her hair. Her heartbeat kicked up even more than it had from fear. In the worst of extremities, why did she let this man who had deserted her and hurt her get to her like this?

  "I see a place just a ways down where we can get onto another ledge to make it out," he said. "I'm going to take this weight off my back and drop our stuff down to the ledge below. Stand very still. I may have to press into you harder."

  She closed her eyes and held her breath. Why a certain memory came to her then, she wasn't sure, but she saw--and felt--Mitch standing behind her on his boat, Sea Dancer, to help her handle her fishing pole when a big fish had hit off Key Biscayne in that warm, sparkling water. It had been a very calm day, no waves, no white water, no turbulence. They had just started dating, and she'd thought he was so perfect then. A combination of GQ magazine handsome and Pro Football Today rugged. Whether in a tuxedo or cutoff jeans, the man reeked of masculinity with his dark hair, square jaw and thick eyebrows over deep-set, coffee-colored eyes. His voice, somehow both refined but rough, sent shivers down her spine. Then they'd landed that big fish together and--

  She felt him drop his pack and heard it hit below.

  "How far down?" she asked, not daring to turn to look.

  "Not too bad. I'm going to lie on my stomach, help you down to our stuff, then scoot down to join you. Here, turn carefully and sit on the ledge. You'll have to look down, just for a sec, so you know what I mean."

  As he held her, she turned and sat. Pressing her back to the rock, she looked down and gasped. The ledge was at least five feet below and only about four feet wide! Although no water churned beneath them now, their escape route had narrowed so much that if they slipped, they'd be wedged in jagged rocks.

  But looking left, she could see that from the lower level, they could work their way down to the valley that spread out below. And the most glorious sunset stretched across the sky, streaks of pink and orange and fuchsia. In blinding colors, it looked almost neon, like in The Wizard of Oz she'd been somehow thinking about--hallucinating--the part where Dorothy lands in Oz. This was the part where the movie went from being black and white to amazing hues.

  "Lisa, you ready?"

  "I better be. I don't see we have a choice. And, at least this time, I'm ready to ride off with you into the sunset."

  The minute that was out of her mouth, she regretted the choice of words, but he only said, "That's one of the treasures of living in Alaska. This time of year, though you can't see the aurora borealis clearly, that kind of sunset will last all night."

  All night. It must be night now, she thought as she somehow found the courage--or sheer desperation--to turn on her stomach and inch her legs and lower torso over the edge while he held on to her. She scraped her thighs, belly, breasts and chin while he slowly dangled her lower. After what seemed an eternity, she stood alone on the ledge, praying silently for his safety, while he scooted closer on his stomach.

  "I said, don't touch me in case I fall," he gritted out, but she pressed her hands to the backs of his thighs, then to his hard buttocks as he came over.

  "On second thought," he said when he finally stood beside her, "that felt great. Maybe you can boost me up there again and--"

  "We're just hiking and camping buddies, remember."

  "And we're going to have the time to talk we've needed."

  "I'd like to say 'water over the dam,' but it isn't, is it? Not with either of us."

  Pressing his lips tight together, he just shook his head, then bent to pick up their gear again. He slung the makeshift pack over one shoulder. "Let's find a good place to rest, and we'll get these shoes taped on you," he said, sounding all business now, just the way he always had in the office or in court when she used to study how controlled he was, how self-assured. Even that had moved her deeply, because she knew the other, passionate side of him, when they were alone--as they were now.

  5

  W

  hen Spike told the search party what Christine had said about the kayak trail from the ridge to the water, many of them rushed to the river. A few went down to look at the exact spot, but most stood on the lawn of the lodge, gazing in the direction Mitch and Lisa must have gone in the two-seat kayak. Some whispered and shook their heads, then turned away, heading back to their trucks. "But why?" Mrs. Bonner asked her husband. "Has Mitchell become such a daredevil in extreme sports here? He seemed all about safety rules and regulations yesterday."

  "Life in Alaska can be an extreme sport," Spike said just loudly enough for Christine and Ginger to hear from his position between the two of them. The Bonners stood directly behind. "But something's weird--really wrong," he added.

  "And I can't believe," Mrs. Bonner went on to her husband, "Lisa would agree to such a thing, not after losing her family that way."

  Despite the fact Christine never would have let on she could overhear, Spike turned to the Bonners and said, "You mean her family drowned in a river?"

  "An accident in the Atlantic--or maybe it was the Caribbean," Mr. Bonner said, frowning at the churning foam.

  "What kind of accident?" Spike pursued, though Christine elbowed him as subtly as she could.

  "Boating, not swimming," Mrs. Bonner said, sounding brusque. "Her mother and her sister drowned. It was a long time ago, but I'm sure it's something one never gets over."

  That was sad about her family, Christine thought, but she couldn't help resenting Lisa Vaug
hn's continued sway over Mitch, her power to still hurt him. Christine had seen it in his eyes and heard it in his voice.

  "I'm going to phone the state troopers," Spike told them. "I'm not sure what they can do if Mitch and Ms. Vaughn are kayaking the rapids, heading for the gorge, but they gotta be informed."

  "Wait!" Mrs. Bonner cried, grabbing for Spike's arm. "I--I was reading online about Alaska before our trip and learned that law enforcement officials are really scarce and have to cover hundreds of miles. Maybe my husband can pull some strings to get some here."

  "Here wouldn't help," Spike told her. "In that river they're long gone--from this area, I mean. But the local police may be able to get the Denali Park Rangers to help with the search way downriver. I'll call the locals and the feds."

  He strode away briskly, with the Bonners following. Christine went, too, leaving Ginger with just a few stragglers to gaze out over the river. Spike muttered, talking aloud to himself as he often did, "They'll have to look for them below the series of falls in case they got around or over them."

  "Falls?" Mr. Bonner said, his voice stern and clear, compared to his wife's sweeter tones. Christine had seen lawyers up close and personal. That's why the guests made her uneasy. She could just imagine Graham Bonner cross-examining someone on the witness stand. "Waterfalls?" he repeated in his clarion voice. "How many, how large?"