by Karina Bliss
Using his hunting knife, he finished trimming the twigs off the sapling he’d chosen as a walking stick and eyed it critically. Good enough. Then he stripped to his underwear, shivering as the cold wind goosed his skin.
With quick economy, he rolled his clothes tightly in the polypropylene groundsheet and jammed them inside the rucksack, then put his boots on over his bare feet. Slinging the pack over one shoulder so he could shrug it off if he got swept away, he waded into the river.
The water was so cold it made his toes ache and by the time it swirled around his knees, his feet were numb. Using the stick as a probe, he shuffled across the riverbed at a forty-five-degree angle.
The water rose to mid thigh and lapped at the hem of his boxers, wicking up the silk until, wet, it clung to his ass. Ignoring the discomfort, he focused on finding footholds in the slippery, river stones. The toe of his boot jammed in a crevice. Bracing himself with the stick, he wiggled it free.
Two-thirds of the way across, the stick missed the bottom and disappeared under the fast-flowing water. Frustrated, he looked at the opposite bank, tantalizingly close, then downriver to where the channel narrowed and foamed between glistening rocks. If he had to swim, he needed a bigger margin of error.
The alarm on his watch beeped 12.30 p.m. Dan hesitated.
You won’t be any good to Jo drowned.
“Son of a—” Shuffling his way back to the bank he’d just left he got dressed, frozen hands fumbling with zips and buttons, cursing himself warm. He wouldn’t make it in time, had no bloody hope of making it in time. If Jo didn’t know that, Ross did. He would kill his so-called wingman when he got out of here. Slowly, torturously, painfully.
Hell, he might as well slow down…viciously he reshouldered the pack…take his time, enjoy the goddamn walk.
He broke into a jog.
It took twenty minutes he didn’t have anymore to find the right place to cross. Stripping again, he emptied his water bottle for extra buoyancy and packed it in the rucksack. Then holding it out in front of him, he launched into the water and started kicking.
Halfway across he spotted a telltale ribbon indent snaking across the muddy water ahead of him—an underwater snag. He flattened out, hoping to float over it but the strap of the pack caught, swinging him around and downstream. His grip on the canvas tightened. The strap held, water gushed around the pack as he bobbed in front of it like a human starfish.
A dozen thoughts raced through his mind.
My wedding suit is in there.
Like you have a hope in hell of making it now.
Let go.
Twisting his head with the flow of water he saw there was still a clear run to the bank. His biggest risk in holding on was hypothermia. Every two minutes his body was losing another one degree Celsius. Nine minutes and he’d pass out.
With monumental effort, he hauled himself closer to the pack and, ducking his head, fumbled under the surface trying to find where the broken sapling held the strap. Water poured up his nose. He lifted his head, gasping and coughing. One arm hugging the bobbing pack, he strained with numb fingers for the knife sheathed in the net side pocket, clamping his fingers around it through sheer force of will.
Gritting his chattering teeth, he sawed at the resistant strap. The pack shot toward him, slamming into his face and nose. He almost dropped the knife and grabbed it in a death-grip, rolling the rucksack downstream while he started kicking toward the opposite bank. His legs jerked feebly.
In a last frantic flounder he kicked to where the water eddied and slowed and grabbed a clump of trailing tussock grass. As he staggered onto the muddy bank his legs gave way and he toppled forward. For a moment he lay gasping, then hauled himself up to higher ground.
With violently shaking hands, he wrestled with the pack’s straps and dragged out his dry clothes. It took him fifteen minutes to dress himself, piling everything on—the long johns, the wedding suit, the Swanndri and beanie.
Then, stumbling around like an old man, he gathered driftwood and made a fire, sitting as close as he dared, wrapped in the ground sheet. He choked down another couple of energy bars while he set river stones at the edge of the fire. When they were warm, he stuck them under his armpits and between his thighs, letting the major arteries there carry the heat around his frozen body.
It seemed hours before the tremors stopped and feeling returned to his extremities. Anxiously checking the time, he swore. The face had been cracked during his river swim and was full of water, the hands paralyzed at one o’clock.
He tried to think positively.
At least he was on the right side of the river.
Dousing the fire, he tied a knot in the backpack’s broken strap, then reshouldered it and followed the current, his desperate gaze scanning the surrounding terrain. Within half a kilometer he spotted an old trail marker.
Finally, he had a route out.
* * *
“I had a dress like that once.” Nan leaned over the teacups to finger the material of Jo’s skirt with her good hand.
“This is your wedding dress,” Jo reminded her patiently. “You made it, right down to sewing all these Swarovski crystals on by hand. And when Pops saw you in it, his eyes nearly popped out of his head.”
“Pops?”
“Graham.”
“Graham…yes,” said Rosemary thoughtfully. “But should you be wearing it while we’re planting? It might get dirty.”
When Jo and Ross arrived, she’d been in the garden checking on her seedlings and had come inside for afternoon tea reluctantly. This wasn’t the visit Jo had hoped for.
“Let me show you this special photo album I made you.” Jo moved to sit next to her grandmother on the couch, picking up the album she’d dropped off earlier. She’d chosen the photographs carefully, leaving out any pictures that evoked sadness—Jo’s mother, Pops as an old man shortly before he died.
She’d designed the album solely as a testament to her grandmother’s many achievements—Rosemary hosting a Chronicle fundraiser, Rosemary behind the Thrift shop counter, Rosemary accepting a prize for her preserves, and, Jo’s favorite, Rosemary encouraging Jo through the gate on her first day at school while Jo clung tightly to her grandmother’s hand.
Jo reached for it again now, but Rosemary pulled it free to turn another page.
“I was quite something, wasn’t I?”
“Yes, you were.”
At least she didn’t have to explain Dan’s absence, except to the curious staff. Nan hadn’t remembered she and Dan were visiting, let alone that her granddaughter was getting married within the hour. Polly was on stand-by to bring Nan to the wedding if Jo thought she was up to it, but clearly she wasn’t. Besides, Jo couldn’t be sure there’d be a wedding.
Or even that Dan would still want to marry her.
Stop it. Stop thinking like that. She couldn’t afford to let doubt in now, even for a second. We’ll make it.
Rosemary pushed the album aside and stood. “I need to get back to the garden now.”
Jo had hoped for a much longer visit. Swallowing her disappointment, she also stood. “Absolutely, if that’s what you want.” So they wouldn’t make a connection on her wedding day. She didn’t have to make it this important. It didn’t have to be an omen.
Ross entered the lounge. He’d been outside calling Father O’Malley in case Dan had already shown up at the church. Catching Jo’s eye, he shook his head, then noticed she and Nan were standing. “Your visit’s over already?”
“Nan’s very busy in the garden today,” she said cheerfully. “Nan, this is Ross.” They’d already been introduced but he had been gone ten minutes.
Ross limped forward to shake her hand and Rosemary frowned. “You hurt your leg…you should rest it.”
“That’s what I keep telling him,” said Jo.
“You should listen to Jocelyn,” Unexpectedly Nan turned and gave her a sweet smile. “You’re a good girl,” she said. “A good girl, my darling.”
> Caught by surprise, Jo felt tears start to her eyes. She couldn’t cry, Nan would get upset. Helplessly she looked at Ross.
“I’ve always wanted to grow vegetables,” he said, drawing Rosemary’s gaze. Jo had briefed him on suitable conversational openings. “But I don’t know where to start.”
Nan beamed. “Well, you’ve come the right person.” She sat down again. “First, you need good compost, and I don’t mean that rubbish they sell at garden centers. Jocelyn, come and tell…what’s your name again?… Ross? Jocelyn, come and tell Ross what I’ve taught you about compost.”
The Iceman poured tea and handed around lemon cakes while Jo extolled the virtues of humus and potash, seaweed and worm farms. Nan took her hand and squeezed it approvingly. I can do this, Jo thought with strengthened resolve. We can do this.
“Of course,” she said reflectively, “Ross already has a working knowledge of manure.”
Chapter Twenty-one
Dan leaned his arms on the dash of the ancient Holden ute and hid his exhausted face against them. Through the damp Swanndri he smelled cracked vinyl and dust.
“You wanna call her, mate?” said his rescuer, Hone, an old Maori hunter who’d picked him up on the edge of the ranges. “Tell her you won’t make it? I got a cell you can borrow.”
“Yeah…thanks.”
As Hone pulled over, Dan sat up and took another look at the time on the dashboard clock—2:05 p.m.—then dialed Jo’s cell phone number. But somehow he couldn’t bring himself to push Send.
Hone looked at him sympathetically. “You don’t like disappointing your old lady, eh? But the only way you’ll get there now is if you grow some wings and fly.”
Dan stared at him. Then he dropped the cell, grabbed the old man’s face between his hands and planted a smacking kiss on his tattooed forehead.
“Jeez, mate, you’re back on the market quick.”
“Can I make another call?”
“Sure.”
Dan rang directory and got the number he needed. Then, heart in his mouth, he called Frank McBride. When he hung up, Hone was already driving toward Holyoake.
Taking off his watch, Dan dropped it into his new friend’s lap. “I know it’s broken but it’s all I’ve got. And it will still net a hundred at least.”
Hone returned it. “Nah, mate, happy to help. Besides, it’s not yours to give away is it?”
“Ross won’t need a watch where he’s going.”
Hone gave a wheezy chuckle, but still wouldn’t accept it. “Come back and hunt with me sometime.” He coaxed the shift stick into gear. “I didn’t know Beacon Bay had an airfield.”
“It doesn’t.” The closest lay across the bay in Totara. “Like you said, mate, I have to grow wings.” Leaning forward, Dan scanned the sky. The weather was closing in again. He wasn’t home yet.
He only realized he’d sworn when Hone stepped on the gas.
* * *
Ross snapped his cell shut and turned from the steering wheel to look at Jo. “That was Pat. Very politely asking where the hell we are.”
They’d been parked a couple of miles from the church for thirty minutes, delaying their arrival. After all, Dan was supposed to be with them.
Jo looked out the window at the spire in the distance, heard the bells herald four o’clock—the scheduled start of her wedding.
“What do you want to do?”
She sighed, then straightened her shoulders. “I guess it’s time for an explanation.” Ross started the engine while she packed up the playing cards. “And you owe me twenty bucks,” she added.
Jo hoped that was simply because he was a bad card player and not because he was distracted by the dangers facing Dan.
“Consider it my fee for aiding and abetting, Swannie,” he said.
The church sat isolated on a small headland jutting into the sea, one of those picturesque early colonial buildings featured in tourism campaigns. White clapboard, steep pitched roof, arched, stained-glass windows. The gardens had been planted by early missionaries pining for home and comprised wind-twisted magnolias and camellias and a lawn of crunchy kikuyu grass salt-frosted a permanent maize-yellow.
As they pulled up, Jo saw Herman and Pat hovering on the steps. Tilly, cute and sullen in her flower girl’s dress, stood behind them. Herman had the door open almost before the vehicle stopped. “I told Pat you couldn’t hurry your visit,” he said, then frowned. “Where’s Dan?”
Jo gave him her hand to help her out. “Why don’t I tell everybody at the same time,” she suggested. Gathering her skirt, she started up the steps.
“It’s my fault,” Ross confessed.
“What’s your fault?” said Pat. “What’s going on?”
“Dan’s been delayed,” Jo said calmly. Her gaze clashed with Ross’s. “But he’ll be here.”
His jaw set. “If we haven’t seen or heard from him in half an hour—”
“Okay.” Jo continued up the stairs. She wouldn’t panic yet.
A low hum of conjecture followed her down the aisle but by the time she’d reached the pulpit she could have heard a pin drop. Father O’Malley said anxiously, “Is everything all right, Jocelyn?”
“It’s fine.” She looked around the curious faces of her friends and community and smiled. “I want to thank you all for your patience and reassure you that the groom’s on his way. I arranged to have him helicopter-dropped in the Ureweras overnight so you’ll understand his delay.” Out of the corner of her eye Jo saw Ross put a hand over his face.
Every adult in the congregation stared at her. Only the kids returned her smile. Unconcerned, Merry’s one-year-old, Harry, chewed on a hymnbook.
Herman turned to Ross, bewildered. “Is this a joke?”
“No,” said Ross. “Like I said, this was my fault.”
“It was my idea,” Jo interrupted. “He’ll be here.”
“So you’ve heard from him then?” the priest asked.
“No,” she admitted, “but I don’t think he’ll phone unless he can’t make it.”
“But what if his cell’s flat, or lost or out of range?” called Pat.
“That’s impossible,” said Jo, “since we didn’t give him one. However, I’m sure he’s resourceful enough to borrow one.”
Another stunned silence.
Pat turned to her soon-to-be ex husband. “Aren’t the Ureweras hours from here?”
Herman nodded. “I’ve been hunting there,” he said slowly. “It’s no walk in the park.” Again he turned to Ross. “Was this some kind of stag-night trick?”
“Yes,” said Ross.
“No,” said Jo. “This was something private between Dan and me.”
“Did you two fight?” Father O’Malley asked. “Is that what this is about?”
“No, but it’s a great idea as a future punishment,” she joked.
More stares. It was like being in the paddock again with those unblinking bulls. Jo managed a smile. “Anyway, feel free to talk among yourselves and stretch your legs while we’re waiting.” She stepped down from the pulpit. People started talking in low voices, sending her lots of sidelong glances. Pat approached with a steely glint in her eye. Herman started questioning Ross.
Jo’s cell rang in her beaded white bag. Her fingers trembled as she fumbled with the delicate catch to pick up. “Hello?”
“Don’t start without me, we’re nearly there,” Delwyn said breathlessly. “And, oh, Jo, I’m married! I went to Wayne and told him I wanted him, not the trappings. And he said prove it, so we went to the registry office with our license, only there was a queue and—”
“Delwyn,” Jo interrupted. “Tell me when you get here, okay? I need to keep the line free.” Ending the call, she stood. “My bridesmaid,” she told the congregation. She caught Ross checking his watch. “I still have twenty-two minutes,” she said defiantly.
But Delwyn’s call had shattered her composure, left Jo feeling like she was clinging to a cliff-face by her pearly painted fingernails. She
took a fortifying breath.
But she was still clinging.
* * *
“Low thick cloud up north,” pilot Frank McBride shouted over the Cessna’s engine. “If visibility is as bad as I think it is…”
They’d have to land in Totara. Waiting at the flight door, Dan looked at his new borrowed watch—4:07 p.m.—then at Frank. Glancing over his shoulder, the older man grinned. “I’ll circle a third time,” he yelled.
Frank had set up a tandem parachuting and skydiving operation out of his hometown, Holyoake, on his retirement from the SAS, some twenty-odd years earlier.
Now in his early sixties, the former air trooper still wore his famous handlebar mustache, and the gentle spread of middle age had given him the semblance of a benign walrus.
Parachuting was a basic skill in the SAS but those in air troop took it to the highest level, able to jump at altitudes high enough to freeze Frank’s facial hair, as well as at elevations that even experienced skydivers would consider dangerously low.
Dan hailed from mobility troop, a ground force, and hadn’t thrown himself out of a plane for eighteen months. Frank had stroked his mustache when he heard that, but as Dan pointed out, he wasn’t looking to freefall. A simple static line would do.
What neither of them could control was the weather. The clouds parted only enough for glimpses of land, nothing to help Dan get a visual on the chosen drop zone, the school football field a kilometer from the church.
He was perfectly capable of landing on the rectory lawn but, given he and Frank were civilians now, and Frank had a commercial license to protect, they were sticking to the rules.
And the rules said a drop zone of 100 by 100 meters square, clear of trees, fences, buildings and telephone wires.
Frank’s son, Tom, who was operating the flight door, tapped Dan on the shoulder. “You’re cutting it fine, mate. Think you should phone her?”
Dan shook his head.
Maybe it was crazy, but he believed phoning would be breaking faith with her. Jo believed he’d make it and he believed she’d wait.