I clung to the edge of a log with my fingernails, praying for the lightning and thunder to stop, praying that nothing would devour us. Brilliant white light struck water perhaps ten yards away, leaving an acrid odor. In that moment, the night was brighter than day. The thunder left me trembling. I curled up as tightly as I could and closed my eyes, hands over my ears. Lightning flashed outside my eyelids for what seemed like hours.
This was our most defenseless night yet. At least when we’d slept in the tree we were above the channel. Now we were at water level, there to be taken by any curious or hungry creature. If I could catch them I would eat them. Why shouldn’t they eat me?
Eventually, the lightning and thunder moved off, leaving only a drizzle. I peeked out from the plastic. Two glints of light, like cat’s eyes, stared at me from a few yards away. Were they moving closer? I stifled a scream.
I clutched Fitz’s arm around me. He hadn’t said anything in a while. Again, I peered into the darkness at the mysterious glints. Would rain keep animals from hunting? Probably not. They were the survivors. We were their prey.
“Fitz, are you sleeping?” I blurted out, unable to hold back any longer.
“Hell no.”
I was relieved not to be alone with my thoughts.
“These damn mosquitoes!” Fitz groaned. “And all this balancing on logs—shit—I’m not a ballerina.”
I smiled inwardly at his image. I tried to give him a gift in return. “If it’s any consolation to you, I took ballet, and I don’t think it’s helping all that much.”
“Humph.”
“These mosquitoes are unbearable, but it’s the caimans and the lightning that I’m most scared of,” I said.
“I know. If it happens at least it’ll be fast.”
“I can’t believe you’re saying that.”
“What can we do about it? We have to stop thinking about what we can’t change.”
He was right. We had to try to sleep with half an eye open. Just like the wild animals around us.
I don’t think I slept at all.
FEBRUARY 26
Eighth day trapped
I was grateful when morning broke. It had been a worthless night. The channel was much wider here. Surely this meant we were closing in on the Madre? Between the width and the stronger current, I wondered if we had the strength to get out at all.
For breakfast, we drank a few ounces of filthy water after waiting for the iodine to temper the bacteria.
Fitz pulled out the last of our food, a half teaspoon each of sugar. “This is it,” he said, shaking the final grains into my palm before his.
The pit of my stomach lurched. We’d been so disciplined over the past week to ration our meager food. The remaining grains of sugar offered only a few calories. They wouldn’t save us. Momentary sweetness left us with nothing at all. It felt like a dark tunnel had opened beneath us and we were falling fast.
Fitz studied the empty plastic for stray grains. How could I not love a guy who would hand me the last of something when he wanted it so much himself? We both looked longingly at what wasn’t there.
—
We had more than a hundred yards to swim to reach the next visible cluster of logs. The closest log in the group was a tall post, with another leaning against it at a forty-five-degree angle.
“Oh brother, this is going to be hard,” I murmured while gazing at the small whitecaps flowing toward us.
“We can do it,” Fitz replied.
“We’re way beyond the tree we slept in,” I added.
Fitz nodded. “It’s going to be tough because we’re closer to the Madre, but if we get lucky with the weather I think we’ll reach it today.”
I’d never feared the power of the weather before, but now I knew it could either help us to survive, or kill us. “We better get going.” I pointed to the gray cumulous clouds rolling above our heads. “It could turn nasty.”
We swam out together, each straddling a safety log. One hundred yards was a long way off. I sidestroked, then laid my stomach on the wood when I got tired, clinging clumsily to it with one arm while doing the breaststroke with my other. The log bucked out from under me. I grabbed it. I couldn’t propel forward very quickly, though the frog kick did help.
Fitz followed behind, shortness of breath slowing him down. I turned often to track him. His head bobbed in and out of shadows on the channel. On land I was used to trying to keep up with his long, loping gait. Now I was the one ahead. Each stroke was a struggle for both of us.
We’d swum practically nonstop all day yesterday.
Fitz caught up as we neared an upside-down tree trunk with a branch forking off, like a children’s slide, flattening out as it reached horizontally across the water. We could use it to take a break!
The current ran stronger around the trunk. We swam our hardest for the last ten yards, making no progress, gasping for breath. I thought of Becky’s determination. It had worked yesterday.
I reached for the horizontal branch at the same time as Fitz. We heaved ourselves onto it, but the branch snapped and broke from the post. The crack was loud as I fell backward under the dark water. Clinging to my log, I flailed my free arm and clawed toward the light. I kicked hard against something, caught my foot for a second, then yanked it away and rose to the top. Shaking water from my eyes, I tried to get my bearings. The post was thirty yards away, now thirty-five. As I searched for Fitz I saw I’d lost perhaps one third of the distance we’d swum this morning.
I started to swim hard but couldn’t move. I’d expended every ounce of physical and psychological fuel in me. The current beckoned like a siren: “Don’t resist. Follow me.”
Fitz saw that I needed help and started toward me. “Come on, come on, Hol. Don’t give up!”
“No, don’t,” I screamed. “Keep going!”
He looked as if he wasn’t sure.
“I’m coming.” I did the sidestroke until my lungs burned, my mind fixed on a vision of Becky swimming ahead of me.
When I finally reached Fitz, we swam toward the reeds. Our fingers clutched at the tall stalks, but they tore off in our hands.
Chapter 24
Quickmud
Our logs were like sails dragging us back downriver. I searched frantically for something to grab and hold. Please don’t let us lose all we’ve gained, I prayed, not daring to think of the Pink Palace. I never wanted to see her again.
Flailing the water with one arm and kicking my legs, I reached for another clump of grasses.
This time the blades of grass didn’t break. I hung on, panting, as Fitz swam up behind me, his contorted face reflecting how I felt inside.
Waves splashed into my mouth. “We’ve got to find somewhere…” I coughed, spitting out water. “I don’t know how much longer I can hold on.”
Fitz took one hand off the grasses to wrap around my shoulder, but he was immediately yanked by the current.
“Please, both hands!” I cried. Craning my neck, I pointed to thick brush along the tree line. “There must be a branch we can rest on over there.”
Fitz was breathing hard. He could barely nod.
“If we could just find a gap in that brush,” I gasped, “there might be calmer water on the other side.” We scanned for an opening.
“Is that a space?” Fitz stared toward a dark area in the midst of the trees.
“Yes! Come on.”
As we swam through the gap, dense brush gave way to open space with ropes of lianas hanging over our heads from the high canopy. Shafts of light illuminated patches of the water’s surface, where shifting shadows moved between the tree trunks spaced a few feet apart. Silence reigned but for a bird cry once in a while. A strange, awesome beauty countered my rising trepidation.
Branches shook above me, sending fronds spinning into the water. I swam cautiously as thick muck swirled around my legs. Something was bumping me, brushing against my skin. Fear fluttered in my chest. Probably just weeds, I thought. Don’t panic. Fitz w
as right next to me.
“It’s creepy in here,” I whispered. “The water’s so black I can’t see a thing. At least it’s a rest from that current.”
We lay on our half-submerged logs, barely having to push ourselves forward. The swimming became easier the deeper in we went. My breath steadied. Fitz was breathing more easily, too.
Our safety logs buoyed us past tall trees, their trunks resembling smooth columns. None of them offered low limbs for us to rest on, but we could float here for a while. All we wanted was to pull ourselves out of the water. I finally spotted a tree ahead with a fat, low branch.
“Fitz, look!” My voice practically danced as I swam toward it, anticipating the relief of its support.
I was within a few feet of the tree when mud, the consistency of clay, enveloped my left calf. I was unable to see below the black surface, but I felt the slime reaching higher up my leg. I kicked hard, frantic to free it, but my leg sank deeper, taking my thigh and hip with it. The mud was like molasses. I stopped kicking, recalling how every move I’d made in the Connecticut bog had taken me farther under until only my head was visible. I felt like a fly stuck to flypaper. How could I get out this time? If Fitz got close enough to throw me his rope belt, he’d be trapped, too. I had to keep my arms and right leg from touching the dense sediment. If I could just ride high on the water, I might stop sinking.
Fitz was twenty feet behind me.
“Don’t come any closer,” I warned. “It’s sucking me down.”
“What is?” he yelled, speeding up his pace.
“Mud…like quicksand. I can’t get out!”
“I’m coming!” Fitz started toward me.
“No, don’t! We’ll both be sucked under.”
Fitz’s legs were so long he’d be caught in the bog before he even got near me. He knew about my experience in the Connecticut bog. Shock flooded his eyes.
“Stay back,” I said firmly. “I can do it.”
My throat was so dry I could hardly swallow. The mud was like an underwater creature, its mouth clamped to my leg. I squirmed a little and it devoured my hip, then my waist. It was hard to lie still, even with the safety log, but now I worried that it, too, would sink. I glanced up at the lianas. Too high to grasp. Realizing that only one leg and part of my left side was trapped, I wondered if I could slowly frog kick my right leg and breaststroke my right arm while carrying my log with my left arm. I’d have to keep them close to the surface so they wouldn’t get engulfed in the mud, too. If I then turned slowly around toward Fitz, I might be able to maneuver my left leg and hip free.
Concentrating on twisting my torso toward him, I fought the instinct to kick my trapped leg. Hugging my log, I made wide strokes with my right arm, frog kicking near the surface with my right leg. At first I seemed to be splashing in place, but my left leg loosened a little. I powered ahead then felt my hip and thigh burst away from the mud. I threw myself forward, and my stomach skidded above the mud as my leg came free.
“I’m out!” I heaved a sigh.
Fitz’s face relaxed a little. “Thank God.”
We both swam toward the patches of light that pointed our way back to the channel.
—
It took us a while to find a hole in the tangle of trees where the sun was peeking into the darkness. Through it we stared at the sweeping channel before us. Wind kicked up small whitecaps. I’d been desperate to get out of the quickmud, but did I have the stamina to swim against the current again? The water inside the tree line was calm, like a cradle.
“Can we rest until the wind dies down?” I panted.
“We can’t just stay here, clinging to these logs. We’re vulnerable. We need to keep going.”
“The current looks worse than before we came in here.”
“But we’re rested now. We couldn’t even talk before,” Fitz urged.
“I’m not that rested. I can hardly move!” I could feel my face flushing.
I looked at Fitz and he looked at me. “You’re right. That mud was terrifying.” He looked away. His fingers were shriveled from being so long in the water. “Listen,” he said, looking squarely at me again, “we can rest in here as much as you need.”
I swallowed hard. “It’s just I know it’s going to be worse out there. I wish we were salmon!”
The twitch of a smile crossed Fitz’s lean face. He reached out and pushed a strand of wet hair off my cheek. “You always say the river could be right around the bend. The stronger current means we must be getting close.”
Our legs splayed out behind us, but I could still feel muck just below my stomach. I wanted to tell him that we were going to have a whole life ahead of us. Instead, I touched his shoulder and whispered: “I’ll try.”
Fitz started out first. I took a deep breath then followed. My left arm around the log, I stroked with my right. Low waves slapped my face, as if displeased by my audacity. The merciless current pushed against me. No food, no sleep, no energy, nothing but wishing kept me afloat.
I needed my dad’s tenacity now. As a boy he’d fought polio, then in his thirties contracted tuberculosis in North Africa during World War II. He’d spent his first eight years of marriage, and seven years of my childhood, in and out of hospitals. Knocked down but never out, he’d kept going. So had my mother, always by his side. I kept swimming. Survival, I realized, isn’t a choice; it’s instinct.
Chapter 25
Rant
The churning channel was at least a quarter-mile wide, so we tried to keep to the side of the current to avoid spinning backward. As it was, we could barely advance. Where trees and bushes disappeared behind large reeds, we had no choice but to swim along the grasses, some of which were so sharp we couldn’t cling to them.
The wind kicked small waves against my face; an undercurrent yanked me backward. Fear of quickmud kept us from venturing into the reeds or trees to rest. I thought of Becky. She would have continued swimming until her heart gave out.
Fitz was slightly behind me now, breathing so hard I thought he might pass out. There was still no land, nor logs. I noticed the veins of leaves, every limb shaking in the wind, and heard every sound from some unknown bird, but I couldn’t make headway, no matter how hard I stroked. The distance between my nose and the choppy water at my lips was the distance between life and death. I glanced back at Fitz. He was fifteen feet behind, unable to keep up.
A veil of weeping leaves hung low into the waves up ahead with something pale gray beyond. “Logjam!” I blurted to Fitz.
Reaching the logs, I pulled myself up as Fitz panted forward.
He grabbed my hand. “This is murder,” he coughed as he climbed the logs, his ribs protruding through his wet shirt.
I leaned over, trying to catch my breath.
“It’s…crazy.” He was wheezing now as he sat down. Algae and mud coated his arms, shirt, jeans, and feet. He stared at the channel for a few minutes but didn’t seem to see it.
Then, amazingly, as his breath became steady he thrust his head back, body taut. “How dare you!” he yelled up to the sky, shaking his fist at the clouds. “We haven’t done anything to you! What the hell are you doing?”
My mouth fell open. I imagined a bolt of lightning slashing through the sky. God would pulverize us.
“We can’t do this anymore,” Fitz raged. “The river isn’t around the bend, is it? Damn you! Damn you!” he cried, eyes flashing.
He was losing all control. I put my hand on his arm. “Fitz, honey…”
But he didn’t hear me. He was like a train without brakes. “What are you out to prove? You’ve made your point. You could help us if you wanted to!” His face became flame red. “Why won’t you help us? What have we ever done to you? We’re good people. What is it you want? Jesus Christ!”
“Baby…darling.” I shook his arm.
Fitz turned to me, his eyes brimming tears. “We can’t stay in this current. It’s too strong. We can’t go under the brush because of the quickmud. What are we suppose
d to do, Hol?”
Before I could say anything, he glared up at the sky again.
“You tell us what you want!” he yelled. “Why did I make it through ’Nam, wounded twice? Why didn’t that shell explode in my foxhole on Thanksgiving? Why did I survive the coma with spinal meningitis? I was out for three days. They gave me the last rites! What was the point of it all?”
“Fitz, Fitz…please.” I rubbed his arm, trying to get his attention. The wind flattened my hair across my cheek and tore at his curls.
Defeat settled in Fitz’s eyes. “Everyone told us it was safe to go down this damn river. They knew we had no experience. What is the meaning of going through everything if we’re just going to die now? Why didn’t God let me die before?” Tears spilled onto his face.
It frightened me to see him so distraught.
Fitz dropped his head into his hands and began to sob. “What’s the matter with him? He could get us out of here. Why is he punishing us?”
I moved closer and put my arms around Fitz. His body gave in to me as his rage subsided.
“We’ll be okay, Fitz. Really, we’ll be okay.”
I wasn’t sure that we would be, but I was afraid, aware that one of us needed to stay strong.
Fitz was shivering all over. “We can’t do this anymore. We have to go back.” He was silent for a few moments then he raised his head. “We’ll find food near the raft. We know there are fish because we’ve seen them jumping.”
I was relieved to hear his confidence, but I didn’t want to turn back. Is this really God’s plan after all our struggles? The current was so angry now that the waves were breaking over each other. I felt sure we had to be close to the river, that if we kept trying we’d make it out.
My husband was at his breaking point. So this was it. We were giving up. I couldn’t believe we’d swum so far just to go back now. Hot tears cascaded down my cheeks as I wept for all the hours we’d spent trying, only to see our hopes shattered once again.
“You’re right,” I said. “We need to focus on finding food.” I nudged Fitz to look at me. “Let’s go. Floating back will be easy.”
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