The remains

Chapter 71

A gray dawn erupted over Mount Desolation as we moved fast through the forest. We took no chances. By the time we made it to the stream bank, we hit the water running. Franny held onto me, wrapped his arms around me, keeping both our heads and shoulders just barely above water, feet kicking beneath him against the current.

As I held onto him with all the strength I had left in me, Franny pumped and pumped. But the drag of the storm-driven white water was too powerful, too relentless. Almost immediately it began to drag us downstream. I didn’t care. I wanted to drown. Still I held on, my arms wrapped around his shoulders and neck, fingernails digging into his skin. But how I managed to hang onto him without being swept away I did not know.

The frigid, white water was a shock to my body.

But I didn’t scream.

We were pulled under. But I didn’t panic, even when I swallowed water into my lungs. The water pulled us down. It poured over our heads. It filled our mouths. Until suddenly we reemerged gasping for breath, the water flowing out of our nostrils and mouths like blood from stab wounds.

I knew that if the stream were any wider, it would have consumed us entirely.

But the stream was not wide. I knew that without the heavy rain, the stream would not run full with heavy white water. But now it ran swift and heavy because of the torrential rains. Despite its pull, momentum was on our side. As the opposite bank approached, we swam and kicked. The cold water injected new life into our veins. It washed away the blood and the dirt that came from the devil’s basement.

When Franny reached out with his free hand and located a handhold along the opposite bank, I knew for sure we would survive. Pulling me in toward him, he wrenched my forearm from off his neck. At the same time, I was able to locate a thick tree root that stuck out of the bank. I gripped the root with both hands while my legs and feet continued their downstream trek, twisting my body sideways until parallel with the bank.

Now side by side in the stream, holding to the bank, I somehow managed a breath. With drenched bodies and faces, we gazed at one another for the briefest of moments before thrusting our bodies up and out of the fast water onto the safety of the solid earth.