A fallen tree—its crown submerged and its trunk slanting up to where it was snapped in two and still rooted into the bank—stretched over and into the river. Branches protruded outward like spears aimed straight at his head and torso. He was on a trajectory that would take him past it without a problem, though, and didn’t worry until the current started sucking him toward the tree. He frowned, fighting against it, but the pull was incredible. With all his strength and speed, he fought to paddle away from it.
The water’s strength was greater than his own. It was too much.
“Argh!” Pete yelled.
Patrick couldn’t spare a glance to see why his brother was yelling. All his attention and all his fight were focused on the tree and the weird gravitational pull it was exerting. Around him, the water looked like soup through a blender. He was down to fractions of a second before he was impaled on a tree limb. Should I ditch? If he did, the current could suck him under and surely drown him. Should I lay down in the belly of the canoe? It might be his best bet, but it was no guarantee. A branch could still skewer him through the side of the canoe, or the tree could sweep the canoe over and dump him in. Strainer, he thought, remembering the name of this type of obstacle, right when it didn’t matter.
No. He would ride it out and try to stay as much in control as he could, until the last second. He strained against the water, biting down on his lower lip and tasting blood. The tree reached out for him with long, lethal fingers.
Then the back end of the canoe sunk, and the front wandered to the right, bringing him broadside to the tree. Great. Now the tree can poke it all full of holes. Me, too. He was paddling across the current now, but without making any progress, and he had the uneasy feeling the backend of his canoe was sinking lower than the front. The sharp tip of a branch was inches away from his temple. At water level, two boulders were breaking the surface a foot in front of him, just out of his reach. If he could get to them, he could stick his paddle in and use it as a lever, to shove his canoe away and hopefully out of the tree’s grip.
He sprint-paddled on his downriver side, ignoring the fatigue burning through his shoulders. He was maintaining his distance from the branches, and his canoe was inching forward, toward the rocks. Closer. Closer. Almost close enough. He didn’t dare stop paddling until he was certain he was in position. Closer. Closer.
Now.
With a lightning quick move, he jammed his paddle into the slot between the boulders. The wood chattered between the rocks with the energy of the powerful current. But it gave him the control he was hoping for. Now he was able to hold his canoe off the tree with much less effort. But what he really wanted to do was to propel himself back into the center of the stream. He held himself there for a moment while he caught his breath. Pete shouted something to him as he passed by.
“I’m okay,” Patrick yelled back.
He had no idea if his brother understood him, but it didn’t matter anyway. Pete was already downstream and there was no turning back for him. Patrick was on his own.
When he was breathing more normally, he knew it was time. He positioned both hands low on the handle of the paddle and pulled. It was harder to lever the canoe than he’d expected. Sweat beaded on his forehead even as the river doused him with a continuous mist and an occasional splash of the bone-chilling water. Muscles already pushed to their limit protested, but Patrick believed in the superior strength of his brain. Mind over matter. He willed his arms to do his bidding. PULL, he shouted to them. PULL.
When the canoe broke free of the sink hole, it shot forward almost like a slingshot. The paddle wasn’t quite as lucky.
SNAP.
The wood cracked in two, right at the base of the handle. Fine. Patrick hit his knees in the floor. I’ll use the spare. But even as he searched, he knew it was futile. He’d only taken one paddle from Bert before he left. He was, quite literally, up a river without a paddle. There was nothing in the floorboard to use as a rudder, only the coil of rope for their mission. And what had looked like the end of the rapids felt a lot longer now that he was at the mercy of the water.
And then, suddenly and magically, the water calmed. Where there had been a raging beast, there was now a languorous kitten. Patrick floated up to his brother’s canoe. He was shaking all over, but he was alive. Pete caught the side of Patrick’s canoe and held it beside his as they continued drifting downriver. A few sprinkles of raindrops fell on his head and arms. Patrick looked up. The sky was dark and angry. A gust of wind whipped the surface of the water and chilled Patrick’s wet body. Their canoes sped up.
“What happened to you back there?” Pete asked.
Patrick grinned. “Got stuck in a hole, and nearly impaled in a strainer.”
Pete shook his head. “Whatever that means. Where’s your paddle?”
“In two pieces back there. It’s all right, though.” Patrick tossed the coil of rope, letting out a little line. It landed in Pete’s canoe, and his brother scrambled forward and picked it up. He saluted Patrick.
Patrick said, “I think we’d better hike around those rapids with the group in the morning. They’re too much.”
Pete laughed. “For sure.”
He gave Patrick’s canoe a push toward the riverbank. Then he paddled toward the opposite shore as the coil unwound itself and followed him from the floor of Patrick’s canoe.
Patrick tied the other end of the rope around his torso. He stuck his right arm in the water and splayed out his fingers. As a crude rudder, it was better than nothing. His canoe veered toward the bank. He ended up further downriver than Pete, but not by too much. When he was fully beached, he dragged the canoe out of the water, emptied it, and stashed it in the bushes. Then he ran back up the riverbank, keeping pace with Pete on the opposite bank and taking care not to catch the rope on any rocks. He stopped when they’d reached the faster section of water. There, Patrick looked across the river. Pete was tying his end of the rope to a tree. He finished and gave Patrick a thumbs up. Patrick pulled the line tight, eying its height above the water. He selected a stout aspen almost on the bank and tied the rope low on its trunk, compensating for a slight rise in elevation from the river. The rope sagged in the middle, which he hoped would make it the right height to snare their targets. In the twilight, it was practically invisible. But was it invisible enough? Was it low enough? Would it even work?
It would. It had to. But he wasn’t going to be sticking around to confirm it.
He waved at Pete, who waved in return. He pointed east up the river. Pete nodded. Then Patrick went back for his canoe, hoisted it over his head, and began to run. The ankle wasn’t feeling any better, and he knew he was limping even though he fought against it. The weight of the canoe and its length sent it knocking into tree branches every few steps, which put a lot of torque on it, too. He had no choice. And it wasn’t like he had a bone sticking out of it. Just a sprain.
He hadn’t gone fifteen yards when he had a soul-crushing thought. What if the clothesline caught the Hilliards and not the prospectors? For a moment, his steps faltered. But the Hilliards had said they’d meet the Flints upriver from the rapids an hour after dawn. Not below the rapids at dusk.
He had to trust them at their word.
Still, he prayed as he sped back up. Please God. Don’t let our rope hurt an innocent person.
After nearly ten minutes, he was even with the strainer tree that had nearly done him in. Not this time, he thought. Not this time. He gave its trunk a kick as he passed by. While he was slowed down, he saw two canoes, one coming down the river right after the other, barreling through the roughest stretch of water. His heart leapt when he recognized the men in the canoes. Les and Winthropp were in the first one, with Les in front. Diego was in the front of the second, and Booger was in the back. Booger. They’d found him. Patrick wasn’t a murderer, he was a healer. But he couldn’t help wishing he’d done more permanent damage to the man when he had the chance.
He set his canoe down and ducked beh
ind a rock to hide and watch.
The first canoe was bearing down on the rope. Patrick couldn’t help it. He stood up from his hiding place, holding his breath as he watched the action.
The rope caught Les and swept him backwards. The canoe jerked sideways. Les went over the side. The line hit Winthropp next. He followed Les into the water a second later. Their canoe continued down the river without them. Diego and Booger were so close behind them that they didn’t have time to react. The rope hit both of them. One of the men shouted before they both disappeared into the white water. Two heads popped out of the water. Canoe number two careened downstream with no one to paddle it.
Patrick wanted to whoop, but he didn’t dare.
His elated feeling was quickly replaced by unease. He ignored the powerful urge he felt to go to their aid. The Hippocratic Oath required that physicians do no harm. He’d gone beyond doing no harm and caused quite a bit of it. The men might have broken their necks. They might be paralyzed, or unconscious and drowning at that moment. The physician side of him felt like he should attempt a rescue. The husband and father side of him disagreed violently with the physician. Besides, he told the physician side, there are plenty of other people who need my help. The Hilliards, possibly. His son. His father, daughter, and niece. The rest of his family.
So why was he still frozen in place, staring at the water, waiting for the rest of the prospectors to surface?
A sense of calm stole over him. What would the Tukudika have done? This land was theirs, after all. And he knew the answer from all that he had read about them, as well as in his heart, where he felt a kinship to them and their land.
They would have retreated. Lived to fight another day. Protected themselves and their families. But, they respected life and weren’t known as blood thirsty. So, first, they would have gone back to cut the line so no one else could get hurt.
So that is what he would do. He started running downriver, and he didn’t stop until he’d slashed the rope. As soon as he’d done it, an immense weight lifted from him. He put his knife back in his pocket and set off, back to his canoe and his family.
Chapter Thirty-six: Endure
South of the Tukudika River, Bridger-Teton National Forest, Wyoming
Friday, June 24, 1977, 7:00 p.m.
Perry
Perry tried to have a good attitude about most things. But as he trudged up the steep incline from the Tukudika, the road was still nowhere in sight, even though it felt like they’d been hiking forever. His socks had soaked up water like sponges, and now his wet boots were too tight. The blood had run out of his arms, and it felt like they were being stabbed with a billion needles. The sky had turned dark. Dark like the time there’d been a tornado near his house back in Texas. Raindrops were starting to fall on the canoe. Not many, but enough to drive him crazy. And everything hurt his head. The canoe, every sound, every movement, even breathing. His own breathing, his mother’s, everyone’s he could hear. And the kids just could not be quiet. They’d probably get murdered because anyone who wanted to find a group this noisy wouldn’t have a lick of trouble.
Yeah, he decided, it was okay to have a bad attitude this once. Even a really bad one. Because this trip was getting worse by the second.
His dad was back in front, where he always liked to be. Dad and Uncle Pete had caught up with the group about an hour into the hike. Annie had left the rock piles so they could find their way, and they’d slobbered all over her. So much praise for that simple little thing. Meanwhile, even though he felt like dog poop, Perry was carrying one end of a heavy canoe.
Not fair. Not fair at all.
His dad and Uncle Pete were pretty cagey about how their clothesline plan had worked, other than to say it went as good as they could have hoped. So even though everyone was relieved they were back, they were also on edge. They’d been hoping for a home run. That his dad and Uncle Pete would come back and say everything would be okay now. Bad guys weren’t after them anymore.
They didn’t.
Perry’s breaths were coming in short pants. He readjusted his hands on the sides of the canoe and his arms quivered. His Aunt Vera was balancing the front of the canoe on her head, but it had hurt so bad when he tried that he was having to hold it in the air. His arms were quivering from tiredness, and that stabbing feeling that he’d decided was more jellyfish stings than needles.
A jolt jarred his arms. Aunt Vera lost her grip with one hand and the canoe crashed onto his head.
“Ow.” His vision tunneled and bile rose in his throat. It wasn’t the first time Aunt Vera had bumped into a tree. There was nothing he could do to help her navigate, since all he could see was the back of her head and the ground in front of his feet. It was like someone was squeezing his head over and over with a giant pair of pliers, and that every step he took was the pound of a mallet to the back of his skull. He couldn’t get away from the pain. It was as if his head was immobilized in a vise. He owed an apology to every block of wood he’d ever worked on in his dad’s tool shed.
“I can’t hold on,” he said.
“No!” Aunt Vera said. “Don’t drop it. If you need a rest, we should get Pete to take it from us and set it down.”
I need a rest. But Perry didn’t say it. Not with his dad listening. He’d rather eat a handful of live grasshoppers than admit weakness in front of his dad. Mind over matter, he thought. Then, out of nowhere, a picture flashed in his mind of his fist punching his dad’s mouth. Right in the kisser, as his dad would say. Perry was horrified. His dad was his hero. Why would he want to punch his dad? He banished the image. Mind over matter, he told himself again. Then it started to rain. Not just little sprinkles every now and then like it had been doing. Bigger ones, falling faster and faster and faster, the sound of every drop hitting the hull of his canoe a new knife in his skull. It didn’t help that the group was carrying the canoes through the forest where there was no trail. The perfect combination of dust and rain made the pinecones slippery, and the rocks were even more slick because of moss and lichen.
He just kept moving forward, dizzy, hurting, and nauseated.
“Stop it!” Stan hollered.
Perry heard the sound of flesh on flesh.
“He hit me!” Danny yelled.
His cousin’s voice hurt Perry’s ears like someone had stuck a hot branding iron in them.
Aunt Vera said, “Annie, I’m carrying a canoe. Make them stop.”
“Why do you always make me do everything?” Annie was walking right beside Perry, and he saw her roll her eyes. She was starting to sound like Trish.
“Annie Oakley, no backtalk. Help Vera.” Uncle Pete sounded stern.
“Gotta love stepdaughters,” Vera muttered.
Perry’s dad paused to eye the line of hikers. They all kept going, filing past him. Perry’s mom and Brian were right in front of him and Aunt Vera. His mom stopped, so everyone behind her stopped, too.
Perry’s dad said, “Susanne, you’re holding everyone else up. What’s the problem?” He sounded irritated.
She looked mad enough to spit. Perry had never actually seen her spit when she was mad, but she’d been saying it since he was little, so he knew what it looked like. “Can’t we leave the canoes here and pick them up in the morning?”
His dad waved his hand around. “Where? There are no trees.”
It was true. The trees had disappeared, and Perry wasn’t even sure when it had happened. Now there were none to be seen anywhere near them. Just sagebrush, rocks, and mud. The thought of sagebrush brought rattlesnakes to his mind. His dad said they liked to hide under it. Were there any up here in the mountains? He would have to watch where he put his feet, just in case.
“Well, my foot is killing me,” his mom snapped. “I think I have a blister.”
“I’ll take care of it when we make camp.” Perry’s dad inserted himself into the hiking lineup in front of Perry and Aunt Vera.
“When will that be?” Gramma Lana had stopped beside Perry.
He thought she was probably the prettiest grandmother in the world. She hardly even looked like a grandmother, usually. More like a model. But not now. Now, she looked older and more tired.
His mom and Brian started forward again, and the rest of them followed. Perry’s dad twisted his ankle on a rock, and he started limping worse.
“We haven’t even crossed the road, and I want to get on the other side before we camp.”
Bert collapsed on a rock and started crying. “I’m tired.”
Barry plopped down beside him. “I’m hungry. Can we have something to eat?”
“Hold up,” Uncle Pete said. He was behind Perry. “Maybe we can leave the canoes and come back for them later after we find a spot. That way we can help everyone get to camp where they can rest.”
“And eat,” Barry reminded him.
“And eat.”
“And I have to go to the bathroom,” Danny said.
Perry’s dad set his canoe down. “Good idea, Pete.”
At least his dad and Uncle Pete weren’t mad at each other anymore. It seemed like everybody else was, though. Not like fist-fight-mad. Just a little bit irritated. On edge. The two men lined up their canoes, then helped with the others while Gramma Lana took Danny into the forest, which she called “the men’s room.”
Perry sat down. He was so sleepy. Maybe he could just close his eyes for a second. He must have fallen asleep, because when he opened them, Danny and his grandmother were back, and his dad was ordering everyone into a line. Perry stood, trying to shake off his fog. For a minute, he had trouble remembering what they were doing and where they were. Then it came back to him. Hiking to camp on the other side of the road. Because they were canoeing back to town. To get Perry to the doctor. Yeah, that’s it. At first, he’d thought his dad was being overly protective when he’d insisted on getting Perry back to Jackson to be checked out. But now he was beginning to think his dad was right. Perry didn’t feel so hot. The sooner he got there, the better.
Scapegoat: A Patrick Flint Novel Page 19