Her boat went over the ledge. She boofed, wrenching up her legs and the bow of the kayak, paddling hard against the diagonal curler. In this huge flow the curler was a tube of water that tried to spin her sideways. She hit the bottom of the drop in a spray that drenched over her with icy water, burying the boat. She jerked her thighs up again, out of the tube, sliding to the surface. Instantly she maneuvered around rocks, through holes, paddling and coughing, her eyes blinded by spray. Another hole tried to drag her back and she leaned hard over the bow, using a variety of strokes, on instinct to keep the boat pointing downstream and moving forward. Rocks dodged up in front of her, invisible until the last instant, evil spirits from the deep, intent on her destruction.
A downed tree blocked the space between two boulders, creating a strainer dead ahead. Nell had a staggering vision of the strainer that had trapped her. Branches brown with death, interlaced, dragging in the water. She shoved the memory away and swept hard left, rotating her torso, guiding the boat obliquely against the current. The right side of the kayak slammed into the rock face and instantly the bow of the boat swirled around the pivot point. The boat shot hard river-right, right into another hole. At the last of her endurance, Nell gave a series of hard forward strokes and draw strokes. Pulled the Pyrahna into an eddy leading river-right. She compensated, braced and glided into still water.
She was coughing violently, fighting to paddle straight, to find the shore. The river bottom rose up, long and shallow, to a bank, and she thrust hard twice, to send the boat up the shore, beaching it firmly. Popping the skirt, she rolled the boat to the side and shimmied out. She lay on the rock-and-sand beach, coughing, the raw, wet sounds louder than the water.
Long minutes passed. Nell lay still, letting her body recover. Her head pounded, dizzy with the exertion. Her clothes were drenched to the skin and shivers shook her hard, even with the rashguard and polyester shirt she was wearing. At least she wasn’t wearing cotton. There was an old saying, Kotton Killz; the water-absorbing natural fiber would have left her dangerously hypothermic already. As it was, she deeply regretted the loss of the dry suit to keep her dry and warm.
She was sure her fever was higher. Did being wet and chilled to the bone counter the fever? She didn’t know, couldn’t remember if she ever knew.
Every muscle in her body ached. Every breath ached. Every heartbeat, cough, sigh, swallow and pulse of blood ached. The sun came out from behind a cloud and found her, bathing her in faint heat. She spread her fingers into the light. Shifted slightly until her legs were in the sun. Slowly, some of the pain began to seep away.
Without warning, Nell fell asleep.
When she woke, it was to a whirling world and a fleeting loss of memory, a disorienting series of sun-washed seconds, during which pain pulsed through her with the beat of her heart. Her eyes focused. She recognized the pattern of rocks in front of her nose. Gingerly, she rotated to face the sky, the helmet kinking her neck at an uncomfortable angle. Nausea roiled in her like gnarly water.
She was sick. Flu or pneumonia, or both. Could you have both? Shoving with her elbows, Nell rolled over and struggled upright to survey the landscape around her. She had survived the El. She was on the shore of the Long Pool. Tossed by the current, she was river-right, a convenience term used by river sports enthusiasts. In a world with boundaries composed only by the movement of water, right and left were always determined when facing downstream, so that river-right and river-left always meant the same thing. She looked around. No Joe. No emergency X on a shore. No beached boat, bright red in the sunlight.
On the far side of the pool was another level shoreline, longer and deeper than this one. That was where the emergency access trail was, arduous and steep. On this side of the pool there was an old railroad bed, stripped of wood and rails, a path now used by horseback riders and hikers and the occasional four-wheel-drive park rangers’ vehicle. It was possible that she could make it up to the gravel one-lane road and hike out. But it would take hours, longer than it would take to run the river.
She might get lucky and come across horseback riders who would give her a ride out. Or she could trudge for miles.
She studied the landscape. There was no sign of campers or hikers. No horse smell. Nell looked at her watch, gauging how much daylight she had left. She twisted to her feet with a groan that echoed over the rush of water.
She could ferry across to the other side of the pool. It wasn’t even hard to do in the Long Pool, the current was so slight. But the trail out on that side of the river was a strenuous climb, hard uphill to a jut of land called the Honey Creek Overlook. Then another hard, miles-long walk on secondary roads to Burnt Mill Bridge, the input where she and Joe had started out. Again, she might get lucky and meet another hiker. Or she might not.
Nell lifted a leg and waggled her foot. She was in thin-soled river shoes, not hiking boots. She was hurt. Had all the breath of a…a dying moose, as Joe would say. Yeah. Hiking was out. Paddling was faster.
On the other hand, if she stayed on the water, she had to face the half mile of the Rions Eddy, followed by the steepest gradient of the trip, a drop of forty feet per mile with almost continuous class IIIs, including Jake’s Hole, where the river took a 180-degree turn between cliffs of 300 to 400 feet. The Narrows. And her paddling wasn’t exactly up to par. Nell looked at the sky, checking the weather. It was clear. The sun was warm. She had dried out considerably. She scanned the far shore again, hoping to see a hiker, signs of a campfire, anything. The hills and forest were quiet and empty.
She looked back at the water. A little more than three miles ahead was the old O & W Railway trestle bridge. There might be boaters taking a break there. Or campers. Or she might spot help before she even got there. But that meant she had to paddle the energy-draining, challenging water…She was between the devil and a deep blue crapid.
The deciding factor was Joe. If she stayed on the river, she might find him and be able to help. If she took the trail, another twelve to eighteen hours would pass before help would hit the water. So. Decision made. The river it was.
But she had to stay alert. If Joe had been standing on a rock in the middle of the river, waving his paddle and beating a drum, she might—might—have seen him in the last half mile. But she wouldn’t bet on it.
Nell knelt at her boat and pulled out the last Backpacker meal. She should have heated it with the other batch. Stupid. For now, she opened the packet and poured a bit of water into it. In an hour or so, she might be able to eat it. Instead of a real meal, she ate more trail mix, finishing off half the bag while she stretched. She should have started out with a good stretch before she hit the water. Stupid again. She hadn’t been thinking. She touched the bruised knot over her temple. It was marginally less painful. The cold, which was debilitating in every other way, had been good for the bruise.
Standing on the bank of the Long Pool, Nell pulled against muscles that were stiff and bruised, and wished for a bottle of Tylenol or ibuprofen. Of course, if she were wishing for something, it would be smarter to wish for Joe to appear, his red Pyrahna Riot play-boat cutting through the still water. But Joe didn’t materialize, and neither did a bottle of painkillers.
Feeling a bit better, she drank ten ounces of water and climbed back into her boat, strong enough this time to put the skirt on without huffing. She had to hurry. Time was passing fast. Sundown was three hours away. She had no intention of spending another night on the river.
She looked around one last time. Evidence of high water was everywhere. Strainers were piled at the shorelines, stacked against rocks in jagged knives of detritus. The water snarled and growled like a wild animal. Nature howling at the moon. Hungry.
Shoving off into the Long Pool, Nell paddled through still water, angling downstream, watching the current to the side. The eddy line was a diagonal ripple at an angle she didn’t remember from her