The River

by Peter Heller

  Wynn returned and handed the man the full bottle and resumed the stooping tree pose. Jack said, “He’s about to tell us.”

  Wynn said, “Maybe we should ask his name. What’s your name?”

  “Pierre.”

  “See? French,” Jack murmured.

  “Not French,” said the man.

  Wynn stared at his buddy. The man needed aid and succor—why was he being a hardass?

  “Tell us,” Jack said.

  The man seemed to draw back. He was looking at them as if they had just asked for his wallet. In unison, out of some unspoken courtesy, they both took a step backward. Pierre kept his hand on the strap of the gun and blew out a long breath. “We were camped,” he said. “On the east shore. Not sure—a few miles down the lake. It got cold. And then late the fog came in. We’d never seen that. Before all the wind.” He began talking fast, in some kind of panic. “She said she had to go, you know—”

  “We know,” Jack said, and Wynn glanced at him, puzzled. He was never this impatient.

  The man sucked at the water bottle. He wiped his eyes with his forearm. “She unzipped the tent and went out into the fog and I never saw her again.”

  Wynn started forward. “What?” he said.

  “I never saw her again. There was a berm behind the camp. I figured she went behind it. She took a flashlight. I found the light but I never saw her. I looked for hours, calling and calling, but it was useless in the dark.” His words ran fast, then jumbled into each other.

  “And?” Jack said.

  “I searched all day today and nothing.” His head hung and he looked at his feet and his mouth began to quiver.

  “Jesus,” Wynn said. “Were there any tracks? Any sign?”

  The man hung his head and shook it.

  “No sign of a bear? There are plenty of black bear.”

  The man shook his head. “There was another canoe,” he said. “Two men. We kept seeing them at a distance. I don’t know…”

  “Yeah, we met them,” Wynn said. “The two drunks. They were kind of creepy.”

  Jack was watching the man. He pushed his cap back and rubbed his forehead. He was trying to make sense of it. He said, “The night the fog came in. You mean the night before the morning of the fog or the night after?”

  The man’s head came up. Tears streamed on his sunburned cheeks and dripped off his lightly bearded chin. They fell to the dark stones and blackened them with drops like rain.

  “What does it matter?” Wynn said.

  “I can’t think,” the man said. “She’s gone. Maia’s gone!” It was almost a howl, of rage and grief. It rose over the rush of the falls and echoed off the wall of trees. It did not have the pure longing of a loon but it was just as loud.

  Wynn put his hand on the man’s shoulder. “Just sit for a second—we’ve gotta think.”

  “There’s nothing to think about,” the man shot back. He wiped his face on his sleeve. “We’ve got to get to the village.”

  “Do you have a satellite phone?” Wynn said.

  “No.”

  “Were you two gonna get picked up on the lake?”

  “No.”

  “You were planning to paddle down to Wapahk?”

  “Yes.”

  “So no one’s coming?”

  “No.”

  “Even if we sprinted to the village—that’d take ten days. At least.”

  The man’s eyes glassed over again. It looked like he was drifting back into shock. Wynn breathed and tamped down a rising desperation. He turned to Jack. Jack was watching the man, puzzled. Wynn shivered.

  “We’re gonna go look,” Wynn whispered. Not soft enough that the man didn’t hear, and Pierre started forward as if burned.

  “What?” he said.

  “Jack and I are going to portage back to the lake and go look for her. The currrent’s too strong to paddle back up, so we’ll carry the canoe.”

  “We are?” Jack said. He looked at his buddy with a burnished admiration.

  Wynn straightened. “If we don’t, who else will?”

  “Hell yeah,” Jack said. He pulled down his cap brim. “That’s exactly what we’re gonna do.”

  “You can’t do that,” the man said. “It’s upstream. Probably a couple of miles. There’s no trail.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Jack said. “We’re young and strong.” He said it like a warning.

  * * *

  Jack held his arm straight out and lifted it to the partially obscured sun. He cupped his hand and counted down hand’s-widths to the treetops across the river. Each finger was fifteen minutes, the hand held out without the thumb an hour. His father had taught it to him. “We’ve got over four hours of daylight,” he said. The man stared at him.

  “What does she look like?” Jack said.

  The man blinked. He couldn’t digest what was going on. He said, “Look like? She’s—I don’t know. My height. Long brown hair. Greenish eyes. I mean, Christ, if there’s a woman alone—”

  “Hold on,” Jack said. “Stay put.” He glanced at Wynn. “Can you keep him company?” He trotted down the trail toward the cabin. When he came back five minutes later he was carrying their fleece sweaters and raincoats, the day pack with survival gear, and a half-full dry bag with shoulder straps. Also their life vests, along with the spare. Slung over his shoulder was the Savage .308.

  * * *

  “Bring the fishing rods and your water bottle,” Jack said to Wynn.

  “The rods? Are we gonna fish?”

  Jack shot a look at his friend. “What if we get caught out?”

  “Okay,” Wynn said. “Good thinking.” He went to the canoe and lifted out the rods. Jack began stuffing the dry pack with the survival box and the extra clothes, the spare life vest. He rolled the seal top and clipped it. “You take this,” he said to Wynn and handed him the pack. “I’ll take the canoe first.”

  Wynn had seen his buddy go into command mode a few times, but it had always been in an emergency—when one of their NOLS teams was caught in a lightning storm on a ridge above treeline; when late-winter weather had blown in on the Dolores and a raft had flipped just before dusk. Was this an emergency? Definitely. The man had lost his wife. So if Jack seemed brusque, there was a reason.

  The man, Pierre, was watching them. It was as if he couldn’t keep up with everything that was happening. Wynn supposed he was in shock. The man pushed himself up off the rock ledge. “Hey,” he said. He winced as he weighted his right leg. “You better take this.” He limped to his boat and opened a small clear waterproof bag clipped to a thwart. He pulled out a walkie-talkie handset. It was a Midland 36-Mile with a camo pattern. Jack recognized it; it was the same model he and his dad used at home, riding and hunting. In rough country it didn’t go thirty-six miles but it was usually good for fifteen. The man handed it to Wynn. He said, “Maybe you could…tell me…” Wynn grimaced. It looked like the man would break down again. But he didn’t. “Maybe you could keep me posted,” he said. “It should have a full charge.”

  “Yeah, sure.” Wynn clipped the handset to his belt. He hoisted the dry pack, picked up the fishing rods. Jack was clipping their life vests around the two seats. As long as there was one on each end they wouldn’t unbalance the canoe. He put his arms through the extra one for padding. Jack squatted and lifted and heaved the upturned canoe onto his shoulders. Piece of cake. The nineteen-footer was made of ultralight Kevlar and weighed forty-seven pounds. He could carry it all day. He nodded at Wynn, Let’s go, and didn’t look back at the man but began walking easily to the top of the beach.

  * * *

  They moved fast at the beginning. The going was easier than they’d thought. Jack had remembered to snap the map case to the bow and he had double-checked the distance: just over a mile and a half. Nothing on the topo but the hump
of the moraine. They pushed themselves.

  At the speed they were walking they could get to the lake in less than an hour. It was easy going at first, open under the mixed woods along the shore, the underbrush light in the shade of the old trees, only a few spots where Jack had to drop the canoe and drag it through a thicket of willows or spruce limbs. He got scratched up, but who cared. Where they could, they swung out into the open along the riverbank. The willows and alders were denser here, but Jack thought how it was the same as the creeks back home: the animals clearly preferred the river’s edge. A good game trail cut through most of it. They saw bear scat crumbled with the seeds of berries, and moose tracks bedded into the deeper moss. The pack was heavier than Wynn thought it should be, but compared to many packs he’d carried it was featherweight. Then they got to the tail of the moraine and they had to hump over it. It was steep and in places eroded to rock and Jack climbed slowly, swinging the bow between branches, threading trees, and stepping up hard to shove the upside-down boat through the limbs of the firs. Wynn could hear him breathing, but they didn’t speak. Wynn wondered if it was like this for the biggest moose every day, trying to maneuver the broad antlers through mixed timber. At the steepest spots he put a hand on the swinging stern and spotted it, helping guide and push the swaying boat where he could, but the third or fourth time it unbalanced Jack as he stepped up on a root and he cursed hard and almost toppled.

  “Jesus, Wynn, cut it out! I got this.”

  “Sorry.”

  Jack never spoke to him so sharply.

  The other side had a more gentle slope, and where the moss and stones were wet Jack edged down sideways, and then they were on a grassy beach at the shore of the lake. The fleets of cloud had thickened rank on rank and it was now an almost unbroken overcast to the far horizon. It was a long lake, maybe nine miles. The water was slate-gray under a northerly wind and the waves pushed away to the farthest shore. Nothing on the water, nothing moving along the relentless wall of woods. No sign of a bird. It was desolate and leaden.

  Paddling south would be easy with the wind at their backs. If the wind kept up and they got into a longer reach, the paddle back north would be a bitch. Every wave would spray up into their faces and lap the gunwales. Jack squatted and Wynn helped him flip the boat to the beach. They tugged off their sweaters and Jack unkinked his back. It felt like they’d almost run the distance. They should have: the sun was a third of the way to the trees.

  Wynn handed his friend the water bottle and Jack squeezed it and drank the whole thing. “Thanks.”

  Wynn walked to the water and refilled it and drank. He thought how here, in the lee of the trees, the water was almost slick with calm, how the waves didn’t start for over a hundred yards out. Jack seemed ornery and edgy. Well. There was a lot to be edgy about, he guessed. He filled the bottle again and walked back.

  “Something bad happened,” Jack said.

  “Whadda you mean?”

  “I don’t know what I mean.”

  “Well, there’s a woman missing. Up here. That’s bad. Really bad.” Wynn offered the bottle again and Jack held up a hand. Wynn said, “He’s certainly rattled. He just lost his wife. Also, he’s injured. I should’ve taken a look at it.” Why hadn’t he? “When were we going to tell him about the fire? God,” Wynn said. “Gimme a chew.” Jack handed him the tin. Wynn said, “I’ve been thinking about those two dickheads on the island.”

  “Me, too.”

  “That trolling motor was heavy. They can haul ass. Way faster than paddling. I guess they could have caught up to them.”

  “Yeah.” Jack said it, but he wasn’t sure what he meant. He wasn’t sure of anything. He turned to Wynn. “Let’s get the fuck out of here before we get caught out.” He meant caught out by nightfall. They shoved the boat in the water and picked up the paddles and lay in along the eastern shore.

  * * *

  They paddled hard, and with the wind they were at their previous camp in less than an hour. They could see their fire ring. Jack was in the stern, steering. He brought them in close. They paddled by it and surfed the small waves downwind. A wave would pick them up and tip them forward and they’d gather speed and it would pass under; in the trough they’d wallow and it felt like they’d stopped dead but they hadn’t. They paddled another half mile of thick woods to another tributary creek; they could see it running shallow through the sandbanks of its own deposits and over the cobbles of the beach. A berm like a dune covered in fireweed lay behind it.

  “It’s near here,” Jack said. “Where we heard them. This feels like it could have been the camp.”

  Wynn shrugged. “Okay.” Jack steered them to the shore and Wynn hopped out in the shallows and pulled the bow of the boat onto gravel. They walked inland. High on the beach there was another fire pit, remnants of char, who knew how old. They glanced at each other. Jack lifted his chin and called: “Anybody here? Hey! Hey!”

  Wynn bent to the sand between stones and picked up a hairclip, a blue metal barrette. He held it up. “No telling when, right?”

  Jack didn’t answer. He called again. Nothing. They walked south over the cobbles of the shore until they hit the creek. There were no other signs. Wynn called now, then Jack, and their shouts were carried away on the wind. They waded across the stream and lifted their voices, but when they got to a spur of dense woods their cries hit the wall of trees and died. The forest absorbed them. Nobody would make camp in the woods when there was an open beach and a creek nearby. They turned around.

  After they crossed the stream again, they stood at a loss, looking out over the choppy water. Whatever they were going to do now, they’d better get after it: the sun had dropped and the whitecaps flecked more brightly in the long light of late afternoon and the air had chilled. Instinctively they moved inland toward the trees backing the beach and separated, each taking a different line. They’d search this spot that had at one time been someone’s camp, and then they’d hop back in the boat and head a little farther down the shore.

  “Jack!” Wynn yelled, and he was running. Wynn had been a hockey star at Putney. For such a lanky tree he could haul ass. He was running up the beach, angling for the berm, and Jack saw what he was aiming for. The tall fireweed at the top of the rise was moving. It shook and stopped and moved again.

  CHAPTER SIX

  A person crawled in the weeds. A woman on her right side, stretching and bunching like a broken caterpillar. She had lost blood. Her head was oozing over the left temple. Her face was a mask. The blood had dried and cracked. She crawled in the tall pink flowers and her rain jacket was open and her down vest was soaked in dried blood and covered in bits of dirt and moss. The blood was almost black and the fireweed blossoms trembled against it. Her eyes were half open and swollen and her mouth worked but uttered no sound. Wynn’s first thought was, Jesus, a bear. She surprised a bear in the fog. He got to her first and his hands went right to her head. She jerked and writhed away. A whimper came from her throat and she tried to curl up. One arm went to protect her face.

  Wynn had a hand on her shoulder and he was talking fast, saying, “Whoa, whoa! You’re okay, you’re okay! We’ve got you now, you’re all right, please don’t move, don’t, hold still, hold still.” The struggling subsided and she lay curled. “I’m Wynn, this is Jack. We’re here to get you out of here.” Wynn put his hands gently to her head and neck and kept talking, and it took a minute for the words to register, but she began to emit what sounded like sobs and her arm relaxed. Wynn glanced at Jack. He said softly, “Hey, we’re gonna roll you over, make sure your back’s okay. We’re gonna get you out of here.” It seemed to him she was listening. Her body went limp and he nodded to Jack and Jack went to her hips, and Wynn nodded again. “Ready?” “Yep.” “Okay, three, two, one…” And they rolled her. Ever so gently they turned her together full on her back and laid her on the sandy loam at the top of the berm.

&nb
sp; She was covered and stained with dirt and lichen. Her mouth was working. “Okay, hold still.” Jack got his sweater off and Wynn pillowed it under the hollow of her neck. “Water bottle,” he said to Jack. Jack ran. Wynn reached a hand to the side of her throat and pressed gently. Thready pulse and fast. Shock. Hypothermia. Lucky she survived the night. He reached for his clip knife and thumbed it open and cut into his left sleeve at the elbow. He slashed it as best he could and ripped it free. When Jack came back with the bottle he doused the sleeve and began patting away the oozing blood at the side of her head. And then she began to moan. The boys glanced at each other and Wynn said, “Clean that up very gently.”

  He reached for his belt and lifted the handset and keyed the mike, and said, “Pierre? Pierre? We found her! She’s alive but—” and she moved, lurched beneath them, and then he heard Jack hiss, “Fuck!” and Wynn felt the sting of his backhand and the walkie-talkie went flying onto the stones below.

  * * *

  Stunned. He turned to Jack, who still had a hand on her head, trying to calm her. But Jack was looking at the walkie-talkie shattered on the rocks. As if he himself couldn’t believe he had knocked it there.

  “Sorry,” Jack muttered. “Fuck.”

  “What?” Wynn blinked. “What was that? I was just telling him—”

  Jack held up a hand. He was shaking his head as if to clear it. “We don’t know, but now he does.”

  “We don’t know what?” Wynn said.

  “What if he did this, Big? What if it was him who tried to kill her?” Jack was trying to keep his voice low. Wynn stared. Jack said, “I’ve been thinking about it the whole way back here. While we were carrying up, paddling. Pierre said he lost her the night the fog came in. Bullshit.”

  Wynn looked over his shoulder back at the woods as if someone might be listening. “What?”