froze. Her eyes glued to the patch of red. Red, hard plastic. Molded and rounded. Pressed between a rock and the base of the canyon wall.
She didn’t remember ferrying across to the boat. Didn’t think or breathe or hope. Until her small boat bumped into the patch of red. It was a kayak. Swamped. Upside down.
She touched it with a cold hand. Knowing. Knowing it was Joe’s boat before she even turned it. One hand holding her paddle, one hand free, she slid fingers along the curve of hull, underwater, to the open cockpit. There was no skirt over it. No body inside, dead and drowned. She braced the hand gripping her paddle against the boulder and wrenched with her free hand to turn the boat up over her bow, hip-snapping to stay upright. Filled with water, the flooded boat was graceless, weighing easily four hundred pounds.
It rolled through the swirling river current like a dead animal. Upright. It was Joe’s boat. Battered and beaten. New scratches and a hard dent in the point of the prow. But no Joe. No Joe.
No Joe.
She screamed his name, the sound lost in the continuous roar. Screamed and screamed, the name echoing with the water. Screamed until her throat was raw and only scratchy sobs came from it. Shudders trembled through her as she searched the rocks nearby for any sight of him. Fear and hope raged through her. She looked for a man holding a paddle high, waving to attract attention. Looked for rocks piled in an X. Driftwood in a rescue emergency position, tied in an X. Looked for a body. Looked for Joe standing on a rock, patting the top of his head in the “I’m okay” signal. There was nothing.
No sign of Joe beyond the battered boat. No indication that Joe had ever been here.
The small rational part of her knew that he hadn’t been there. He had come out of his boat upstream somewhere. Hope believed—knew—that he had swum to a rock and climbed up high. She had missed his emergency signal. Had missed sight of him. And now he was behind her, alone and injured. Surely injured. Hope tumbled with despair.
Or perhaps he had come out of the boat just upstream, and had swum the Hole. Perhaps he was yet below her. Needing help.
Her fingers slid along the kayak as if petting it, numb with cold. The red of the boat filled her vision, obscuring the image of anything, everything else.
Blind with the bloody color of the boat, acting on instinct alone, by touch and feel, Nell popped her skirt and pulled out rescue supplies, rope and flex, and secured the boat to a slender rock upthrust in the river. The water-filled boat bobbled in the current.
Watching the boat, the roar of water seeped into her consciousness. The color of red bled away.
She had to get to the next takeout. Had to get help. Get a search party started. She had to get help for Joe. Leaving the boat tethered to the rock, Nell resecured her skirt. It took her three tries to get the skirt over the cockpit hole. Exhausted, she pushed into the current, heading for the takeout at the O & W Railway Bridge.
If she didn’t get help there, then she would push on to the final takeout, Leatherwood Ford Bridge, at the Bandy Creek Campground. Leatherwood and Bandy Creek were smack in the middle of a national park, the Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area. If she saw no one on the way to ask for help, at least there would be qualified people at Leatherwood. Boaters, hikers, park service officers. Help in abundance for Joe.
She had covered three miles of rapids. There were three more miles to go.
Nell read the water and moved into it, an automaton.
She didn’t think during the run, seeing it only as a series of still-shots. The water slamming upward in a column of spray. An altar of rocks seven stones high. A dangerous curl of water that wanted to pull her down. Buzzards pulling at a fish, its bones pale and thin. The glare of setting sun on the top of an oak. The image of a dead hemlock, branches feathered as if reaching for help. The feel of the rigid boat encasing her. The cold of the water on her chest and arms. The wet shirts holding little heat, leaching her meager body warmth away. Her paddle blade, entering the water in a clean stroke. The sight of an osprey overhead, wings extended. The inhuman beauty of the gorge, a palette of fall foliage against the sepia browns and muted grays of sandstone and granite walls. The rush of foam across her yellow and orange boat. Black, water-wet stone. Rushing water everywhere, a deafening roar. No Joe. No Joe.
No Joe.
The O & W bridge came into view at last, and Nell’s eyes swept the spaces where boaters would often rest after the long stretch of rapids. The takeout was empty, the water so high the sandy beach drowned beneath it. There were no hikers climbing to the trestle. No hikers walking along the bridge. No beached boats or rafts. No smell or sign of campfire. But just in case someone was there and not visible from the water, Nell boofed her boat atop a rock and unskirted. On trembling legs, she rock-walked to land and made her way up the steep hillside and concrete platform to the stairs the park kept in good repair.
At the top of the sixty-foot climb, breathless, she surveyed the bridge and nearby camping area. The O & W railroad no longer ran, and its rails and ties had long been removed, leaving a nearly level, winding, one-lane gravel road that traveled along the gorge. Hikers and horse lovers and vehicles used it, but not today. There was only a scattering of dry horse manure to indicate anyone had been through in days.
Nell cupped her hands, found her breath and shouted. “Anyone here? Help!” She listened, hearing only the roar of water. Using the height, she scanned the rocks below for signs of anyone, but mostly for Joe. She saw no one. She was alone.
Fighting tears, she retraced her steps down to the river rock and pulled her body back into her boat.
Shoulders burning, muscles stretching painfully across her spine and ribs, Nell seal-launched off the rock, into the water, and paddled past the bridge. Took the last of the big IIIs. She was a machine, unfeeling, unthinking. Her paddle blades moved with eerie regularity, in and out of the water, side to side. Heading for help.
By the time Nell crossed under the bridge at the Bandy Creek Campground and cut the placid water to the Leatherwood takeout, the sun was setting. The river looked black and still, no longer a hungry predator. No longer interested in pulling her down. Bored with her. Moving on to other concerns, other prey.
Shivering uncontrollably, teeth chattering, she beached the boat, the hull skidding across the sand and pebbles with a harsh swear of sound. She smelled campfires. Saw lights far up in the hills near RVs and tents. Caught a whiff of grilling steak. At first she saw no one, and then, as the wind changed direction, she smelled a campfire close by—the heady scent of cooking beef and burning hickory riding along the breeze. She tried to call out, but her throat made only a faint croak of sound. Pain scratched along with the broken note.
Sitting in her boat on the beach, cold, so exhausted she could hardly move, it took Nell two tries to unskirt herself. She had to twist and roll to her side. Push herself from the cockpit to the sand. Wriggling one hip and then the other from the opening. Breathing hard, she lay on solid ground, her feet still tangled in the boat with her dislodged supplies.
She kicked her way free and made it to her knees, then her feet. Drunkenly, she moved through the dusk upwind, following the scent to the day-picnic area and parking lot.
The campfire was a brazier attached to the side of a beat-up RV. The scent of marijuana and beer rode the air now, tangled with the smell of burgers.
Laughter. Music. A guitar. She stumbled into the camp. Three men and two women. Images of them standing, turning, open mouths round in
