Wild River (3 page)

I
watched the log get bigger and bigger. The kayak raced down the chute, heading straight for that jagged end. I dropped my paddle and tried to grab the slick, fat sides of the kayak. My fingers slid across the wet plastic.

At the last second the kayak veered away from the log. The idea flashed through my mind that a miracle was happening: we were going to miss the log.

Then I felt a hard jolt. Suddenly I was flying through the air. Somehow that didn’t seem right. What was I doing in the air? Nothing made sense. It seemed like a dream.

But then I smacked the water headfirst and went under. That brought me out of the dream in a hurry.

The cold took my breath away. My nose and mouth filled with water. My eyes were open, but all I could see was bubbles. I started waving my arms and kicking. My head popped out of the water, and I sucked in air. Lots of air.

I looked around and realized that I was floating downstream. The life vest was holding me up. I kicked and paddled toward the shore. Then I shoved my feet down and stood up. The water was only waist deep.

I turned and looked back. Tanner was about ten feet behind me. He was floating with his arms out in front of him. But his face was in the water. And he wasn’t moving.

I stood and looked at him for a second. I was
too shocked to do anything else. None of it seemed real.

Then I rushed toward Tanner. I had to do two things: get his face out of the water and drag him to shore. But I wasn’t thinking straight. So I tried to do both at the same time. I grabbed his hair and lifted up his head; then I caught hold of an arm and tried to pull him along. I stumbled around, but I managed to move him into shallower water. It was slow going, and I had trouble keeping his head up.

Finally my brain started working again. The answer was so simple: I had to get him on his back.

I lifted his arm and hauled him across my knee. I grabbed his other shoulder and pulled as hard as I could. On the third try, I got him flipped over. Then I grabbed both of his arms and hauled him toward shore. I had to stop when the water was a few inches deep. Tanner’s feet were dragging, and he was just too heavy.

I let go of his arms and knelt down by him. I held his head and got my first real look at his face.

What I saw scared me. His eyes were closed and his mouth was hanging open. He had a big purple spot on his forehead. Blood was oozing out of it.

I was afraid he was dead. He sure looked dead.

Right away I thought about doing mouth-to-mouth. Except I wasn’t sure how to start. We’d been shown how to do it in Cub Scouts. But all the guys were joking around that night. Laughing about doing mouth-to-mouth with girls. I remembered the Scout leader getting mad at us, but that was about all I could remember.

Then Tanner coughed and started to throw up. Maybe that sounds disgusting. But right then it was beautiful. Tanner was alive. And breathing.

I held Tanner’s head until he quit coughing. Then I used all my strength to drag him a little closer to shore, an inch or two at a time. I had to stop when we were in ankle-deep water. That was as far as I could go. The shoreline was all rocks. I couldn’t lift Tanner. And even if I could have dragged him, those rocks would have torn him up. He didn’t even have on a shirt.

I moved him around, one arm or one leg at a time. Soon he was flat on his back with his arms stretched out. Right then, I remembered one thing from the Cub Scouts lesson: I turned his face to the side, in case he got sick again.

I unfastened my life vest and threw it onto the shore. Then I pulled off my T-shirt and used it to wipe away the blood on his forehead.

It was terrible to look at that twisted face. Eyes shut. Mouth hanging open. It didn’t look like Tanner’s face at all. Just a bloody, scary mask.

His breathing was steady. But he was lying there in about three inches of that freezing water.

I had to do something. I couldn’t leave him there. Maybe I could haul him across those rocks. Maybe. Even if it was hard on him.

I looked upstream for the first time. Our kayak was still stuck in the chute. Water was pouring over it. The log had gone through one side and was holding it there. The back of the kayak had flipped across the front. It looked kind of like a crooked hamburger bun.

Somewhere around there was our dry bag. I’d have to find it. I thought first about getting Tanner’s sweatshirt. But then I realized that we had sleeping bags in there. That would be better. I could get one and put it under Tanner. I could slide him easier that way. And he wouldn’t get so beaten up by the rocks.

I started upstream, looking for the dry bag. Tanner’s life jacket was floating in the shallow water. I grabbed it and put it under his head. At least that got his head out of the water.

“Hang on, Tanner,” I said. “I’ll be right back.” I hoped he could hear me, even though he wasn’t conscious.

Below the chute was a deep pool. I waded toward it, staying out of the current. I kept looking into the pool, trying to spot that black dry bag. I hoped it had come flying out, the way I had.

My paddle was floating on the edge of the pool. I grabbed it and threw it to shore. The only other thing I saw was the coil of bear rope. It was sitting on the rocks at the bottom of the pool.

Moving closer, I could see what had happened. The log was right in the middle of the chute. One end was buried in the mud at the bottom of the pool. The other end was sticking through the kayak, holding it there, about a foot above the pool. Like a marshmallow on a fork. The back of the kayak was on top of the rest. The pumped-up side was bent in the middle to make two fat layers.

After looking everywhere else, I figured the dry bag was still in the kayak. It had been jammed so tightly into that front space that it must have stayed there. With the back end of the kayak flopped over the front, I couldn’t see the bag. But I was sure it was there.

I looked back at Tanner, then dove into the water and swam straight toward the kayak. After a few strokes, I was in the main current. I dug in, kicking hard and moving my arms as fast as I could. For a minute I was moving upstream, getting closer to the kayak. But then I was just holding steady, swimming as hard as I could and not getting any closer.

I knew it was useless. The current was too strong. But I kept swimming for another minute. I hated to give up. But I finally turned sideways and let the current carry me toward shallow water.

I was mad. Wiped out by the river. I was sure it was going “Heh-heh-heh.”

I glanced over at Tanner. He hadn’t moved. I didn’t know how long he could last in that water. Suddenly I remembered a video game I’d played. One of those stranded-on-a-desert-island games. In the game, if you stayed wet too long, your body temperature dropped. There was even a little thermometer on the screen. And if you didn’t get warm quickly enough, you died.

I had to get that dry bag. I waded upstream as far as I could go. Then I held onto rocks and worked my way toward the chute. Soon the water was up to my chest.

Once I got to the edge of the chute, I was stuck. Water was roaring down. The spray was hitting my face. That kayak sandwich was still about three feet away and a foot above my head.

I climbed up the slippery rock as far as I could. My knees were still in the water. Then I made a leap for the kayak. I got my hand between the layers, but I couldn’t hold on. My fingers slid over the plastic, and I was swept downstream.

I could almost hear the “Heh-heh-heh.”

But this wasn’t a video game. In those games, if you made a mistake and got killed, it was no big deal. You just started a new game.

I swam to the side. After checking on Tanner, I started upstream again. I didn’t want to think about video games and being killed, but I couldn’t help it. I’d never been in danger before. Video games were as close as I’d come.

Those games seemed silly right then. Battling aliens, fighting off pirates, crossing rivers full of alligators … But then I stopped walking and looked around. Maybe the games were silly, but I had learned one thing from playing them: if you tried something and it didn’t work, you didn’t keep doing it. You did something else.

I’d tried to grab the pumped-up part of the
kayak, and it was too fat. Nothing to hang on to. It didn’t make sense to try again.

This time I’d go for the log. Maybe I could grab that and work my way up.

I climbed the rock again. My legs were shaking, but I stopped and checked the log. I figured out exactly where to jump and what to grab. Then I took in a big breath and sprang into the air. I hit the blast of water and reached out for the log. My fingers raked across it, then slid into the water. I tried to grab something with my other hand, but it was too late. I was already being swept downstream.

That was it. I was beaten.

I tried not to think about video games or anything else while I waded back to where Tanner was lying. He was still breathing all right, but his skin looked blue. Probably from the cold.

I was feeling the cold too. My arms were shaking, and my teeth were chattering.

It didn’t make sense to go back upstream again. I couldn’t get the dry bag. So I’d have to pull
Tanner out of the water without any help. There was nothing else to do.

I pulled. Again and again. I lifted and pulled. Raised his shoulder and pulled. Moved his leg to the side and pulled.

After all that, I had moved him about two inches.

I wanted to scream. I had to get him out of the water. But how?

I
was stuck. No matter how hard I tried, I wasn’t strong enough to drag Tanner out of that freezing water. But I couldn’t leave him there.

The only idea I’d had was to slide him along with the sleeping bag. But it was in the dry bag. Which was in the kayak. Which was hanging off the end of the log.

For a second I thought about making another leap at the kayak. But I knew better. I’d end up
not being able to hang on. And I’d get swept downstream again.

It was the old video game business. There was no point in making the same mistake over and over. I had to try something else. Anything else.

And suddenly I thought of a new way. If I couldn’t get at the kayak from the side, maybe I could do it from above. I could climb to the top of the chute. Then I could slide down and grab the kayak.

Maybe.

And maybe I’d go flying right by.

Then I remembered a video game I’d played a long time ago. In that game, my man had to find a rope to get down a cliff.

I had a rope. At the bottom of the pool. I could use that to lower myself.

I almost jumped into the water right away, but then I stopped myself. I had to move fast—but I had to move smart, too.

I ran along the edge of the water, then waded in. Back to the edge of the chute. The rope was about
fifteen feet downstream. I took a long breath and dove. I swam hard until my hand touched bottom. Then the current carried me, and I grabbed the coil as I went by.

Once I had the rope in my hand, I felt better. I knew it wasn’t a big deal—I was barely started. But I’d made a plan, followed it, and gotten what I needed. Everything seemed possible now.

I paddled out of the current, stood up, and hurried back upstream. “Hang on, Tanner,” I shouted. “It won’t be long now.”

I kept looking at that kayak, stuck there in the chute with water roaring over it. The pumped-up side, bent over itself, looked like swollen yellow lips. I’d have to get between those lips to get the dry bag.

I could come down the rope and reach in from the side. But I’d be holding on to the rope with one hand. With all that water roaring over me.

Then I got a new idea: what if I popped those big balloon lips?

I almost smiled as I ran back toward Tanner. I had another plan.

All I needed was a knife.

I knelt down by Tanner and reached into one of his front pockets. “All right, Tanner. Where’s your knife?” I dug into a pocket and pulled out a cloth and some little plastic boxes.

“Come on, Tanner. Where is it?” My fingers touched something metal. I grabbed it and pulled. It was his shiny pliers. I started to throw them onto the shore, then stopped. They were special fishing pliers. They had a knife blade built into one handle.

“I know you’ve got a better knife,” I said. “But I just need to make one hole.” I picked up the coil of rope and headed for the boulders.

Right away I needed my hands to climb. I stuck my head through the coil of rope—a fat necklace. The pliers were a bigger problem. I didn’t have any pockets, and they were too heavy to carry in my teeth. So I jammed them into one of my soggy sneakers.

The climbing wasn’t hard. But it took too long. Like everything else.

At the top of the chute, I looked around. I needed a tree to tie my rope to. The closest tree was on the other side of the river, so I’d have to go upstream and cross over. But then I looked at the boulder beside me. It was two feet across. Who needed a tree?

I uncoiled the rope and dragged one end around the boulder. I had learned some knots in Cub Scouts, but the only one I remembered was the granny knot. I did three of them, then yanked on the rope to be sure it would hold. And it did.