A Grave Tree (9 page)

The canyon walls were too high for him to make out the geography or any key landmarks. All that was visible above them was a narrow expanse of bleak sky. The walls were tight, sheer and confining. There were no beaches or areas of calm water where they might pull off momentarily to rest, or where they might find Caleb. He tried to analyze where they were based on the twists and turns in the river, but the wild thrusts and shifts of the boat happened too quickly for him to make sense of it, and even though he was not really here, he found the whole experience terrifyingly confining and claustrophobic.

Again and again it seemed like the poor, dizzy rowboat would be dashed against the cliffs and shattered, but even as it veered toward the looming rocks, and Mark prepared for the end of the boat (and Abbey and Ian), something would right it, and it would continue on down the river on its perilous course.

He was starting to feel sick to his stomach, and he tried to pull back to the tree and the others—if not to tell Sylvain where they were, to at least tell them that Abbey and Ian were alive, although perhaps not for long. But he seemed stuck firmly in place in the rowboat, as if the threads that tied him to his body (he hoped there were threads… what if there weren’t and he was destined to spend the rest of his life in this disembodied state?) seemed to have been severed.

All of a sudden, the canyon walls narrowed even further, until all that lay before them was a tiny gap only a few feet wider than the boat, beyond which the frothing water dropped off and vanished.

A waterfall. Theater Falls.

Mark knew with a sickening sense of dread where they were now. The falls were only about six feet high, but he closed his eyes and clenched his teeth. How real or unreal was his presence, bound to this boat like a figurehead? Could he experience pain or death?

The water sucked them into the gap, and for a second, the boat was airborne, and Abbey’s scream echoed in Mark’s ears. Then they dropped bow-first into the foaming water below. The boat landed hard and spun around so that that it was now flying down the river backward. Abbey and Ian had been tossed from their seats, and both struggled to regain their grips, while Mark found himself staring back at the falls.

The narrow gap and falls marked the entrance into a widening of the river. The canyon walls formed almost a circular shell around them, like a natural amphitheater—for which Theater Falls had gotten its name—with shelves and ledges occupied by birds and plants. The water slowed and spread, becoming darker and more languorous as it filled the wider space.

And there, on a ledge in the canyon wall about eight meters away, just past the falls, lay a bedraggled Caleb, a giant red goose egg on his temple.

They had passed right by him.

Mark whipped his head around. Abbey and Ian had turned so they were facing downstream. Clearly they hadn’t seen Caleb, and Caleb, leaning against the rock face, appeared to have his eyes closed.

“Hey!” Mark yelled. Nobody seemed to hear him. “Hey!” he tried again. “Caleb!” Still, nobody responded. The boat continued to drift away from Caleb, toward the center of the amphitheater. In just twenty-five more meters, the canyon walls would narrow again. The boat would pick up speed, and any chance they had to stop and retrieve Caleb would be lost.

Desperate, Mark yelled even louder, trying to pound the sides of the scow with nonexistent hands, while the boat almost lazily (compared to its previous rate of movement) continued on its trajectory downstream.

Mark turned his head back to Abbey and Ian. They both sat facing away from him and Caleb, rubbing bruises, their eyes on the stern as if they were preparing for the next onslaught of current. Abbey held her left arm against her chest like a broken wing. The oars had apparently been lost, and the boat now sat empty of everything other than its two soaked occupants and several ominous-looking inches of water in the bottom.

Turn around, turn around, turn around
, Mark thought desperately.
Turn around.
He tried to propel his thoughts into Abbey’s head, but he almost subtly felt pushback, like some unseen current in the air, like she was blocking him out. He shifted his attention to Ian and repeated his thoughts.
Turn around
.

Ian stuck his hands into the water and started flapping them around. “We gotta get this boat turned around,” he said. “If we go down stern first, we’re dead. Paddle with your hands.”

“I think my wrist is broken,” Abbey said, her voice wan and almost dead-sounding.

Turn around
, Mark thought again, shoving his words with as much force as he could to the other end of the boat.

To his surprise, Abbey thrust her right hand into the water and started helping Ian. The boat began to slowly turn, just as it began to inch forward more rapidly, collected again by the current that would take them out of the amphitheater. Caleb was now almost twelve meters away.

Then Abbey saw Caleb and let out a guttural cry. “Stop the boat! Caleb!” Her words echoed through the round cavern.

Caleb’s body shifted and his eyes fluttered open. He saw the boat, but he moved slowly to rouse himself, his limbs clearly stiff and pained.

Ian started paddling more frantically, and Abbey added her single-armed effort, but the boat, now firmly nestled in the current, started to pick up speed in the other direction, slipping farther away from Caleb. Mark’s head felt like it was spinning. He had no idea what to do to help. He stared back at Caleb, who had risen unsteadily to his feet, holding himself up against the canyon wall, a trickle of blood creeping down the side of his face.

Shouts erupted all around Mark, and the sound of barking penetrated the air. The wind shifted and became warmer and drier. The dogs were back. He whirled all about. Abbey still paddled furiously, but Ian had put one hand on the gunwale and stood up. Neither of them was screaming. Then who was yelling, and where were the dogs?

Abruptly, Mark was back on the cliff by the Madrona. One of the dogs was locked in combat with Sylvain, while the other—hadn’t it fallen off a cliff earlier?—circled around Russell and Jake, its lip peeled back and teeth exposed

The acute pain in Abbey’s wrist kept piercing her thoughts and her focus. They had to get to Caleb, but her paddling efforts were making no difference whatsoever, and the water in the bottom of the boat had reached ankle depth. It was leaking. Already it sat deeper in the river, the extra weight dragging it further beneath the surface.

The boat rocked suddenly and Abbey turned to see Ian leap off the side into the water. He surged up out of the icy rapids, gasping, and clutched the side of the boat.

“I’m going to try to kick us out of the current,” he said. “It’s our only hope.”

Abbey nodded mutely. She was in too much pain to do much herself.

Ian kicked hard. The current rippled beneath the water in this section of river. It was weaker due to the greater width of the river, but it still bubbled and swirled beneath them, carrying the boat away from Caleb.

The Bernoulli Principle: Due to the conservation of mass, where the river widens, the velocity of the water decreases, and the pressure increases.
Abbey shook her head, furious with herself. This was no time for her stupid brainiac mindspeak.

“Your pack,” Ian called. “Do you have anything in your pack you could use as a rudder?”

Her pack. It was still on her back. She shrugged it off, wincing as it grazed her wrist. Passing out would be very unhelpful right now. She undid the zipper with her right hand and dug inside. Earlier, she had found a scattering of mining supplies in Sylvain’s office—a pickaxe, Geiger counter, and the like—and had picked out a small shovel to bring with her; she’d been hoping to get some soil samples in either Caleb’s or Simon’s future to better understand the microbiology and geology of the futures.

She plunged the shovel into the water and turned it to port like she would a rudder, deflecting the water and creating a force that would turn the boat, as she had done so many times while sailing at science camp last year. She tried to avoid thinking about brainiac things like the inertia forces at the bow and stern, and the drift angle of the boat.

The boat turned, and with Ian’s renewed kicking efforts it started to move out of the current and toward Caleb. But it was still no good. At best, Ian was holding their position. At worst, they were still moving downstream centimeter by centimeter. Abbey placed the shovel in her left hand, ground her teeth together at the searing shot of pain, and dug frantically in her pack. She’d also packed a roll of twine. If she could get it to Caleb, maybe he could hold them in place, or even pull them to him. Or he could swim to them. If he was strong enough. Right now he looked like a drowned rooster crossed with a dishrag.

“Keep kicking!” she yelled at Ian. “Hold us still while I throw this twine to Caleb.” She pulled the shovel back into the boat, and to her chagrin, the bow immediately swung right back into the current. Almost delirious with agony, she tied the end of the twine around the bench of the rowboat and rose unsteadily to her feet.

How did she think she could do this? She was no athlete. Some people would even suggest she threw like a girl, as sexist and incorrect as she thought that phrase was. She should get Ian back in the boat to throw the twine, but he was the only thing preventing them from sliding back into the current and down the river.

Caleb, seeing what she was planning, pushed himself into a more stable position and had his arms extended as if to catch. Abbey reviewed the physics of throwing a ball. Without air friction, a launch parabola of forty-five degrees would yield the largest distance because her energy would be applied equally to the horizontal and vertical movement. The twine was small and wrapped tight, so she could largely ignore air friction. Major leaguers routinely threw over one hundred meters. Surely she could throw twenty. If she missed, she would have to pull the ball back in and rewind it. But the twine would be looser then, and the ball bigger and soaking wet. It would be harder and harder to get it to Caleb with each miss.

In short: she couldn’t miss.

Abbey closed her eyes. She considered all the countless thought experiments that had been undertaken in science, where people’s thoughts somehow influenced reality. If there was ever a time to believe in them, now was that time.
Believe.
That was the name of the boat.

She pulled her right arm back and launched the ball of twine into the air, putting every bit of thought energy she had into hitting the target.

She watched it arc over the water. It was a good throw—for her—but as it flew through the air, even she could see that it was going to fall short. She was about to yank it back, but Caleb took a flying leap off the ledge, his arms outstretched, and just managed to clutch the end of the twine before he splashed into the water.

“Pull me in!” he called. “Quick, before you pick up too much speed!”

Ian tried to hold the boat in place while she tugged in foot after foot of twine. Caleb kicked in the direction of the boat, but got caught in a faster section of current and started to pass them. Seeing this, Ian pulled himself back into the boat and added his effort to Abbey’s. The dark walls of the canyon were narrowing again, and both the boat and Caleb were picking up speed.

After a terrible few moments, Ian grasped Caleb by the armpits and Caleb was able to hoist himself into their decrepit, and probably sinking, vessel. Abbey fell back onto the bench in relief. Caleb was alive. Unfortunately she had a bad feeling that she should add “for now” to the end of that thought.

A few seconds later, the boat launched out of the amphitheater into the next stretch of rapids.

The boat had at least twelve centimeters of water in the bottom now, and with Caleb’s added weight it sat very low in the water. They would be sitting ducks for submerged rocks. Fortunately, this expanse of white roiling water was the last stretch of serious current before the Moon River exited the canyon, divided, and arrived on the Coventry Plateau. There it widened out and slowed for good, and they would be able to pull ashore.

“Give me that shovel and go to the front,” Ian ordered Abbey. “We’re almost to the Salisbury tributary and we can’t miss the turn.” He eyed the rippling water in the bottom of the boat. “You’d better start bailing.”

Abbey crawled to the front of the boat as it bucked and leaned in the rapids. Caleb hunched next to the bow seat shivering violently, his body jerking with great heaves. Abbey wrapped her good arm around him and pulled him close, her body not much drier or warmer than his.

“Okay, that was a little too close to death for my liking,” Caleb said.

We’re not out of the water yet
, Abbey thought. She emptied the contents of her water bottle and started bailing.

*****

Mark swung around wildly, scanning the cliff for the clawed woman, but she wasn’t in sight. Sylvain and the dog rolled over and over, a tangle of long limbs and fur, the dog’s enraged face all teeth and gums snapping at Sylvain’s skin. The other dog seemed to be having difficulty deciding whether to go after Russell or Jake; it oscillated between the two with bared teeth and crazed growls.

Mark almost wished he were back in the boat. It would be safer—although he realized with a shudder that one of the dogs could then potentially rip his body apart while his head was somewhere else. He’d probably still feel the pain if that occurred.

“We need to close our eyes. To make them go away,” he said, slamming his own eyes shut. But the barks and growls didn’t vanish as he’d hoped they would. He pressed his lids even harder into the rims of his eyes. “We need to close our eyes,” he insisted.

“I think it’s too late,” Sylvain grunted. His voice, and the snarls of the dog, were now alarmingly close. “They’re already pretty observed. I’m not sure if we can unobserve them.”

The feel of movement, fur, and warmth on Mark’s leg sent his heart into wheezes of panic and forced him to open his eyes. With a furious thrust, Sylvain managed to toss the dog off and leap to his feet, snatching up a stick as came up. The dog came at him again, and he feinted with the stick, his grey hair flying. “Where are Abbey and Caleb? Are they both still alive?”