Killer Summer

79

The river had appeared languid, even tranquil, from the raft, like a single sheet of molten gray glass sliding past the dramatic landscape. In the water, it revealed its power and speed. Its cold paralyzing Kevin’s lungs, its unrelenting energy flinging him headlong downstream, the river revealed his attempts at swimming as perilously slight and ineffective. He pulled and kicked against the deceptively strong current while attempting to keep an eye on his destination, some tumbled rocks at the base of a gap in the rock face oiled by a small silver waterfall.

Kevin swam with all his strength. There was no time to think. He swam for his life.

Taking a breath midcrawl, Kevin managed to lift his head above the coils of current. The cowboy, who’d let Kevin go first, was caught in the river’s main current heading straight for the Widow Maker.

Kevin put his head down and took several powerful strokes toward the waterfall. He was in the slack water between the two opposing forces of the counterclockwise current. If he could catch the current ahead of the waterfall, which was where he was headed, and swim strongly enough to punch through it, it might deliver him exactly where he wanted. He’d swum hard and had chosen a good line.

A flicker of optimism charged him.

Just another few yards… I’ll be home free.

One last look back convinced him John was in serious trouble. He was heading into the Widow Maker where he’d be slammed up against the rock face and held there by the force of the current.

Separated by a mere twenty yards and yet with entirely different circumstances, he and John caught sight of each other.

“Go!” John hollered.

In that instant, no more than a split second between strokes, Kevin changed direction.

He pulled himself through slack water at the eye of the eddy, his strokes sure and confident, heading for a point in front of the cowboy. He arrived in a matter of seconds.

“Fool,” John bubbled.

The cowboy’s energy was spent. Kevin grabbed him and tried to kick, but John was sodden deadweight. The two of them picked up speed, rushing headlong toward the boiling white water at the base of the cliff. Kevin steered for shore, dragging John behind him, but it was no use. The river owned them.

The two opposing forces of the eddy, one upstream, one downstream, met at the Widow Maker, now only yards away. Kevin had started them out by swimming for shore. Only now did he see his mistake.

“You’ve got to work with it, not against it. Understand?” the cowboy had told him.

Kevin lurched back, kicking wildly away from shore.

“What the hell?” asked the cowboy.

“It was your idea!”

“Shore!” John called out.

“No! Hold on!”

Kevin pulled at the water with his one free hand and kicked his weary legs as hard as he could. Finally, the cowboy feebly contributed to the effort. Together, they managed to move to the left of the rock wall as the powerful push of the river drew them ever closer to it.

“We’re going to hit,” Kevin said. “Hold your breath!”

He felt the ferocious tug, the phenomenal power, of the current. It was as if they were being sucked down a drain. They were fully immersed in a wild, boiling froth.

Kevin’s lungs burned, his chest felt like it might burst. Then he felt the change: the current was no longer pushing them downstream but was briefly neutral. For the moment, they didn’t have to fight it, they could rest.

And then, while fully submerged, as if snagged by a hook, they were wrenched farther to their left, and jettisoned upriver. Their heads surfaced and they gasped for air.

Kevin continued to swim hard. The cowboy kicked, finding renewed strength. But the current was their friend now. It moved them upriver, nearly to where they’d jumped from the raft, now long gone. Kevin changed course, pulling John across the slack water and joining the downstream current. With one final pull, he delivered them to the broken rocks at the base of the waterfall. Here, the current turned neutral again.

They clutched the rocks, found their footing and staggered toward shallow water.

Kevin now sat in knee-deep water. John dragged himself up next to him. His large, callused hand reached out for Kevin and slapped him on the cheek. Once, twice, three times.

The cowboy was nodding and smiling, his false teeth having fallen out in the struggle, leaving a hockey player’s mouth grinning back at Kevin.