Wicked River

by Jenny Milchman

  Except that her husband would never go for this scenario. It would feel like an admission of failure, if not for their whole marriage, then certainly for its adventurous start. Best to squelch the idea before it could take hold in her mind.

  As they continued paddling, though—the sun moving steadily across the sky, Natalie and Doug’s arms stroking back and forth with the unending repetitiveness of pump jacks—the idea kept tickling at the corners of her mind. Finally, she spoke up. “Doug?”

  She twisted to face him in the canoe, and immediately wished that she hadn’t.

  Doug was paddling one-handed, staring down at the map with an expression she’d never seen on his face before. Fierce and dark and desperate.

  “What?” he said in a voice that matched.

  She opened her mouth to respond, but couldn’t.

  “We’re not lost,” Doug told her, leveling out his tone. “I swear. We’re fine.”

  “Okay,” Natalie replied, so softly that she wondered if he could hear. She began to paddle again, applying more force to spare Doug some of the labor as he continued to study the map. “Okay, that’s good, I’m glad.”

  The river grew suddenly deeper, its current picking up strength, a dark, eely mass of moving water that carried the canoe along.

  • • •

  They were still at it three hours later.

  Natalie shifted uncomfortably against the rigid bar at the helm of the canoe. She was ready to stop for the day, and it was only mid-afternoon.

  In back, Doug suddenly began stroking harder, pulling the canoe through the water at a fast clip. The boat skimmed along, hardly making contact with the surface, as Natalie fought to keep up. She was panting by the end—although end seemed a strange concept out here in this vast expanse of land, as if there were some invisible finish line—while Doug paddled furiously, water coming off the blade of his paddle in veils. The canoe slid across a final stretch of water, entering the reaches of an ivory forest.

  The sight was breathtaking, nearly enough so to restore Natalie’s spirits.

  Doug let out an audible breath and called, “Paddle over to the bank, Nat. Let’s take a breather.”

  Once they had pulled the canoe safely out of the water, Doug took a walk around before collapsing on the ground and letting out another exhalation.

  Natalie gazed down at him.

  “Beautiful, huh?” Doug said. “I’ve been waiting for this spot the whole trip.”

  A strange, satisfied smile crossed his face, vanishing so rapidly that Natalie wondered if she’d imagined it. She took a look around and felt pretty awestruck herself. Golden-green birch leaves shivered on their limbs, while the stalks of the trees shone like tusks in the sunlight. It looked as if moonbeams had planted themselves in the earth.

  “Nat?” Doug ventured as she positioned herself beside him on the ground. She laid her head on his chest, feeling a bristly new growth of beard along his jaw. “I’ve been thinking about something.”

  Natalie lifted herself on one elbow, examining her husband’s face.

  “Look,” Doug said, his voice gathering strength. He got up and went back to the canoe, returning with the ziplock bag. He unfolded the map and spread it out for her. “You were right about the navigating. It’s harder than it looks.”

  Natalie’s chest cavity went cold. She was as blind as some underground creature out here, and if Doug was having trouble—

  He settled the pad of his thumb on a wavering line, speaking with growing confidence. “But there’s a trail here, see? Just a mile or so from where we are right now. A real, marked trail. We can pick it up and hike out in two days’ time.”

  “Hike out?” Natalie said, disbelieving. Her voice blasted through the sun-haloed woods, and she took a furtive look around, convinced somebody might be there to hear.

  “Don’t you see?” Doug returned calmly. “This is a good spot to cut our losses. The birch forest was a real pinnacle of the trip. We can enjoy the area for the night, then hike out at first light. Maybe we’ll even make it in less than two days.”

  Natalie sputtered. “But—what about our canoe?”

  “That’s the thing,” Doug went on. “If we continue paddling, then we have to finish our trip as planned. I’ve gotten us this far, but what if I can’t stick to the route? Waterways are harder to navigate than land. All the portages—if we can’t find the right spot to reenter, we could be in real trouble.”

  “Well, then how about the resupplies?” Natalie asked. “Forrest said we would never be more than a two-day paddle from help.”

  “Same problem,” Doug said, speaking patiently. “I’d have to locate them by water. And since we’re not more than a two-day hike out, I don’t see what paddling buys us. It seems riskier to me than a marked trail.”

  The woods were changing under the force of her husband’s words. Natalie saw a different sort of forest closing in—not the idyllic shade of this spot, nor the places where they’d made love and frolicked and paddled. But barbed branches, trees with claws. And no discernible means of escape.

  “We haven’t seen one other person this whole time,” Doug continued. “And it’s not like anybody who might happen along would want to steal a canoe. Once we get out, we’ll let the Forest Rangers know we had to abandon ship. Literally.” Doug’s face broke into a grin. “I bet they can truck out our canoe or paddle it back for us.”

  “I guess that could work,” Natalie said. It was something very like what she’d been wishing would happen earlier that morning.

  “I’m just trying to err on the side of caution, honey,” Doug said.

  There it was again. That magic word, slippery and unctuous, which could make her go along with almost any idea.

  “Okay,” she said at last. “As long as you don’t feel like we’re giving up. You know, on your dream trip or the perfect honeymoon or something.”

  “I don’t feel like we’ve given up on anything,” Doug told her. “In fact, I think only better times lie ahead for us from here.” He bent to kiss her forehead, a chaste peck more suited to people celebrating their golden anniversary than newlyweds. “Let’s get the canoe up on higher ground. We want to find that trailhead, make camp before nightfall.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Men died from gold fever, traipsing through jungles, getting bitten by disease-carrying bugs, or mauled by bigger creatures, in search of filthy lucre. While other men committed suicide or murder when love proved evasive. Still others fought duels in order to protect their honor, or that of a family member.

  Kurt cared nothing for wealth or passion or principle. But as he searched for the source of the smoke from the campfire, he understood all those men and what it was like to be driven by an obsession so fierce that death paled in comparison.

  Smoke could be smelled from some distance, depending upon the conditions. But after walking half a day in the direction he deemed likely to have been where the fire was lit, Kurt’s initial fervor was replaced by a sick, rolling feeling of defeat. He hadn’t found one sign of human penetration, still less the ashen remains of a blaze or a smoke-charred ring of rocks. Had desperation and loneliness led him to mistake an accidental combustion—a small and fleeting forest fire, say—for one that was man-made?

  Man-made. What a pleasing pairing of words. What an urgent, desperate need Kurt possessed to find something out here made by somebody besides himself.

  Back at camp, he grew increasingly frantic, climbing trees to unsafe heights so as to gaze toward the point where he’d scented the fire, scouring the land beneath the dense canopy of leaves for any sign of trespass or occupation.

  By then it was evening, an impossible time to spot smoke. Sparks died out too soon to be seen; the builder of the fire would have to be within twenty feet of Kurt. Every passing minute while he waited for dawn to break was like a bite taken out of his skin. When
the first glow of light illuminated the sky, he could stand it no longer. He headed out of camp, hunting the highest tree he could find. Upon coming to a particularly towering monster, he scaled it, then crawled out along a topmost branch to where the foliage grew more sparsely.

  Not so much as a flicker of ash from another fire. It was as if whoever had lit the first one had vanished into thin air along with the smoke from his blaze.

  Kurt squinted, feeling the limb he knelt upon dip beneath his weight but ignoring the danger, intent only on trying to spy a rise of flame off in the distance. Just a faint whisper of smoke would satisfy him. He sniffed so deeply that he felt his nostrils flare. Clean, green air and nothing more, yet his throat felt as raw as if he’d indeed breathed in blistering, toxic smoke.

  Then he realized what had irritated his throat. Kurt was screaming aloud, and had been for some time. Shouting for the lighter of the campfire, or bellowing at him in abject rage, either one of which was sure to scare off anybody in the area.

  Kurt slid backward along the branch, his heart gonging so hard he thought it would cause him to fall. When he reached the juncture of the tree where he could begin his descent, he had to pause and wrap his arms around the trunk. The sheer force of his desire felt like it might timber this behemoth, his bare hands sufficient to pull the tree’s roots out of the ground.

  And from this vantage point, Kurt glimpsed something in line with where he thought that fire must’ve blazed, though closer to his current position. Alive with want, clinging to the tree, he leaned out to get a better view.

  He lost hold of the trunk. Kurt had time to envision his deadly plummet to the ground, now, when he had discovered a way back to the camper. His arms flailed as he fought to fling them around the trunk. Hoary bark scraped his face. Then he was clutching the tree again, safe and steady and still.

  As cruel a foe as nature could be, so did she occasionally bestow great bounty, mercies upon her inhabitants. Her topographical features presented barriers for those who tried to invade her, but opportunities for those who sought to live in concert with her.

  Like Kurt.

  Assuming the builder of the fire remained in this area, the wilderness had just delivered an excellent means of rounding him up.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Natalie and Doug crouched beside the canoe, sorting through the contents of their packs. They’d be able to carry less weight on their backs than could go in a boat, plus the rest of the trip would only be two days now, not four. They could get away with halving their food supply and cutting down on clothes.

  “No more swims,” Natalie remarked with a note of sadness, tossing her bathing suit into the canoe along with two T-shirts and a pair of shorts. Not her favorites at least. This wasn’t the kind of honeymoon for which you packed the cute results of a shopping spree. She went to top off their water bottles by the river’s edge.

  Doug stayed back, assembling the essential items that he’d offered to pack out. First aid kit, knife, matches, rain gear, tent. They chose to forego the comforts of camp pillows and sleeping pads, and also left behind the tarp. Doug took the UV wand from her, securing it in an outer pocket along with its replacement battery. Despite the last-minute change of plans, he was outfitting them properly, taking time to be prepared. That moment in the canoe, when he’d seemed like someone else entirely, had vaporized, returning to Natalie the husband she knew.

  Doug added his own pared-down bundle of clothes to their stash, while Natalie went to wrap her arms around him, giving him a smile.

  “Come on,” Doug said, extricating himself and taking a shifting look around. “Let’s get going.”

  They each hoisted a pack and shouldered into it, clipping the chest strap for extra support. Doug indicated a spot on the map, Natalie leaning over and fighting to see what he so clearly did. At last she gave up, and Doug pointed through the woods, indicating the direction they had to take in 3-D.

  They flipped the canoe over, a count of one-two-three that Doug rushed, so the boat dropped to the ground lopsided, till Natalie let go and it settled into its new position.

  Doug took a step into a thicket of trees, their white boughs and trunks like ghostly apparitions around him, while Natalie gave the canoe’s sleek underside a final pat of goodbye.

  The hike took over two hours, the terrain tricky and difficult enough that Natalie wondered if they were up for the challenge of the remainder. The bulk of the distance lay ahead of them, although it should get easier once they were walking on a trail. Still, this was an utterly untrammeled landscape, nothing like the places where they had camped before. Undergrowth as sharp as wires, trees packed together like arrows in a quiver. Doug appeared to make progress somewhat more easily, but they were both struggling.

  The sun was low enough in the sky when they finally spotted a blue metal tag on a tree, indicating their arrival at the trail, that attempting further miles seemed incautious. Natalie fixed dinner while Doug pitched the tent and laid their sleeping bags inside, interlocking them with a high whine of zipper that was by now as familiar a sound as the sirens and horns playing all night long on the streets outside their apartment.

  Doug crawled out of the tent, and she displayed the meal she’d made: sticks of jerky tucked into the last of their bread, dehydrated berries plumped back up with water and placed on squares of chocolate.

  Doug eyed the spread with distaste. “Hold on, I have a contribution.”

  Natalie raised her eyebrows, mouth already full.

  Doug strode over to his pack and poked around inside, coming out with a flask.

  “Bulleit?” Natalie cried, delighted. “You’ve been packing that this whole time?”

  “A wedding toast,” Doug agreed.

  “But why did you wait till now to bring it out?” Natalie protested, thinking of that first night on the island, other romantic moments along the way.

  “Just seemed like the right time,” Doug said. “And, you know, otherwise we’d either have to carry out the weight for the next two days, or leave it behind.”

  Natalie nodded agreeably before settling herself on the ground. She tore off a hunk of bread and jerky with her teeth, and reached for the bottle. Her husband’s answer didn’t feel quite satisfying—would a full flask versus an empty really add appreciably to the load in his pack?—but she realized she didn’t care. They were getting out of here tomorrow, and thanks to the whiskey, had a fun evening ahead. “Well, I’m glad you waited,” she said. “We can fortify ourselves before our trek.”

  Doug grinned at her. “There’s the Mrs. Larson I first met in a bar drinking Bulleit over rocks,” he said, accepting the bottle she handed back.

  It was one of those summer nights that seemed to hold off forever. The sun remained stubbornly in the sky, casting shadows, turning bushes into man-sized humps, while Natalie and Doug drained the bottle of its amber contents. She kept sending him off to check on noises she found suspicious, unlike anything they’d heard on the river. Still, despite nerves, every bite of their meal got eaten—and a thing of crackers besides—before Natalie thought to stop them.

  “We have to make sure we have enough for the next two days,” she said, a statement that struck them both as funny at the same time. Their laughter shook and echoed through the woods. Tree branches swayed overhead, seeking, reaching.

  “Come here, you,” Doug said, making a grab for Natalie that felt sexier for its awkwardness. The forest finally grew silent, just the brush of their lips, intertwining tongues, and an undulating moan Natalie lost all control of.

  “Doug,” she whispered urgently. “Let’s go in the tent.”

  She felt exposed in these woods as she hadn’t in other equally vast stretches. The host of different sounds to get used to: scuffing, clangs, things Natalie knew couldn’t really be there, and indeed never materialized when Doug jogged off amicably enough in search of their source. No
netheless, she wanted a lid of fabric above her, walls all around, when her husband delved deep inside her body, taking it for his own.

  Natalie began to head for the tent on all fours, triggering another bark of laughter from Doug at her clumsy crawl, which caused her to swivel around.

  “Shh!” she hissed, and then she was laughing too, flat on the ground without quite knowing how she’d gotten there. It was a puzzle she forgot once Doug joined her, sliding his hands beneath her shirt, and freeing her breasts from their bra. He cupped them, not anything like gently, and Natalie groaned with unguarded pleasure, thrashing her head back and forth on a mat of leaves.

  In this new position, something caught her eye. A flash of color—artificial, neon bright—from a distant section of forest, as low down as she.

  “Doug?” she said, stopping his tantalizing, near-violent touch. “What is that?”

  They got up, tripping a bit, unsteady on their feet, and made their way through the trees. Their path meandered at first, a halting succession of steps during which the swath of color vanished, slipped out of focus, causing them to blink and stop in place in order to bring it into sight again.

  “There,” Natalie said, and pointed, one finger indicating a wavering line.

  Doug pushed in front of her, shoving branches back roughly enough to snap them. After a second or two, his footfalls came to a halt and he screamed.

  It was a high, catlike noise, utterly unsuited to her strong, commanding husband. Not the sloppy sound of a drunk—this was a voice shrill with shock and overlaid with an emotion Natalie couldn’t quite pinpoint. Despair?

  She went cold all over, as if the river on which they’d been traveling had followed them here, a trickling trail, and forced Natalie to plunge back in.

  Did you think you could leave me? the river asked. You can’t get off the water just like that, just because you decide to.

  “Doug!” she shouted back. “What is it, honey? What’s wrong?”

  Her husband had remained in place while Natalie continued stumbling forward, so at that moment she saw for herself.