Rapid Descent - Gwen Hunter

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Dicey class IIs. It was impossible to hike farther. Nell headed back to camp, picking her way with care. Her breath felt easier, her chest pain was less. She could do this. She had to do this.

      Back at the camp, Nell broke down the emergency X signaling for help. She tucked four lengths of flex into her pockets and scattered the branches.

      Gathering up the last of her equipment, Nell strapped it on or tucked it in, wrapping the sleeping bags in their waterproof protection and forcing them into the stern. She stepped into the kayak-cockpit skirt and pulled it to her waist, her breath tight and painful. She couldn’t hear the soft wheeze of her lungs over the roar of the water, but she could feel it.

      She added a bit more kindling to the fire and checked the temperature of the Backpacker. It was hot enough to eat, though not hot enough to be tasty. Of course, no amount of cooking could truly make a dehydrated meal tasty. She scooped up the rice and bits of chicken with a camp spork. Energy flooded her with each bite and she felt better instantly. Joe had chosen the Santa Fe chicken and rice, her favorite. Dinner suitable for a belated river honeymoon. Grimly, she smiled as she ate, sitting close to the fire and absorbing the warmth.

      Nell washed the cup and spork and tucked them into place in the kayak. It was much more full than usual, with Joe’s sleeping bag, some of the equipment between her thighs instead of in the bow or stern. Using the empty water bottle, she carried enough river water up to douse the fire, first kneeling and drawing into herself a last bit of heat and warmth. When she could bear to, knowing that this meant she wouldn’t be warm or safe for hours, she upended the bottle. The water gurgled and sizzled the fire out. She stirred the ashes, pushing the half-burned kindling into the mud. She had never added any of the bigger logs, and left the pile of deadwood and the ring of stones for the next camper.

      As ready as she could be, Nell slipped on her damaged PFD, zipping the vest up the side and yanking tightly on the remaining straps. Each action sent shock waves of pain through her. She pushed the agony aside. There would be time for pain later. Much later.

      She settled her helmet on her head, careful of the egg-shaped bruise, though there was no way to avoid it entirely. If the helmet shifted, she’d hurt, so she pulled the chinstrap more snugly than usual. Satisfied, she dragged the kayak to the shore, which angled down to the water. Before her was the Big South Fork of the Cumberland River and the pristine pool at the base of the Double Falls, but boulders bigger than cars blocked her view. From the sound of the rapids, she better be ready.

      Every river has a scent, and the iron-tang of the Cumberland and of deep, rich earth and sap-heavy trees lining the banks and up the gorge walls filled her nostrils. A blue heron stood on the far shore, watching. Bending against the pain of her chest and the thrumming in her head, Nell wriggled into the white-water kayak, placing her feet against the bulkhead, wedging her hips in tight and snuggling her knees past the thigh pads.

      She drank the last drop of water from the second bottle and tucked it inside the kayak body with the others. She made sure that everything was in place and secure, properly balanced, as the slightest weight shift affected the roll and pitch of the nimble little boat. She shoved the supply bag with its precious water and food between and under her thighs, and clipped it securely to the bottom of the boat.

      She rolled the curled hem of the kayak skirt around the back of the cockpit hole, easing it into place with cold, shaking fingers. When the back and sides were secure, she took a breath for strength, leaned forward with her elbows at her sides, using her body for leverage, and folded the front of the skirt over the front rim, the skirt and the boat’s emergency releases both in easy reach. It left her winded and aching and it was all she could manage—not a pretty entrance, but sufficient. And the repairs in the skirt held. She was watertight, at least for a while.

      With a deep breath that banged around in her head and chest like a gong, Nell took her paddle in her right hand and shoved off with her left, sliding down the shore. Leaning back in a seal launch, she lifted her lower body and the bow as the kayak hit the water. Pain thrummed in her head and along her sides. Icy river splashed over her, the rashguard shirt providing some protection but not enough, water soaking through to her polyester sweatshirt as she braced right and left. With a directional sweep of the paddle, she guided the boat to the center of the small pool. The sound of whitewater was both behind and ahead, an enormous roar. Boulders and steep, tree-covered terrain rose all around her, forbidding and austere. It would have been beautiful if she hadn’t been sick. If Joe weren’t missing.

      She swept with the paddle in the first half of a 360-degree turn, facing upstream, the Double Falls now ahead, with its rushing cheat visible. With another stroke that pulled her chest muscles into a short, tight spasm, she completed the turn. When she could breathe again, she checked the banks.

      On the shoreline, what little there was of it, debris was piled against rocks. The scant foliage lay bent and low where it had been pressed down by rushing water, all evidence of the high water that caused the near disaster Joe had written about. She back-stroked gently to hold her place along the shore.

      She located the current by the eddy line, a faint ripple of water. With quick, sure, forward strokes, Nell moved upstream, across the eddy at an angle, and leaned downstream. A single stroke and brace brought her into the current. It seized her boat and jerked her forward.

      Ahead was the Washing Machine, a turbulent drop between two house-size boulders. The rapid was a class II, usually easy. Then came the El, a deceptive-looking, gnarly class IV. Though the rehydrated meal she had eaten sat uneasily on her stomach, she was glad of the energy it provided. She knew she would need every calorie before the day was over.

      Nell positioned her kayak for the Washing Machine. Her heart pounded with erratic fear that, until now, had never owned a place in her life. She studied the shoreline rocks. No sign of Joe.

      He should have been back by now. He wasn’t. There was nothing on this earth that would have kept Joe away from her. That meant that he was in trouble. And there was no one to help him but her.

      She paddled forward with smooth strokes, into the churning water.

      3

      Nell shot between the two rocks and bounced down the Washing Machine, her Pyrahna bounding along the wave trains. Each time the boat rebounded, the jarring baited her lungs, teasing at the need to cough. Her ribs lifted and lowered with each breath, every paddle stroke burning with pain. She had raced through less than half the train of rapids when the coughing started. By the time she was through them, she was coughing steadily, her chest muscles tortured. The wounds on both hands had broken open. Even in the cold, her grip on the paddle was slick with blood. Still no sign of Joe.

      The El roared up ahead. There was no time to reconsider.

      Hands white and aching, her lungs on fire, Nell lined up for the El, paddling hard, spearing the water with forward strokes, glancing right and left for Joe. Nothing. No sign. The current grabbed the boat and yanked her forward. She was slightly off center, river-right.

      The fifty-yard approach to the El was through squirrelly water, a boater term meaning that the water danced in unexpected ways, throwing the kayak up and down, requiring her to lean hard left and right, rocking up with hips and thighs and feet with each stroke, bracing the paddle against the water to maintain boat stability.

      Her breath was tight, the air cold and filled with river spray. Nell fought to relax, knowing that tension in a paddle stroke could change both her direction and speed, resulting in the kayak turtling over. If she flipped, weak as she was, she might not make the required Eskimo roll back upright. And a wet exit from the boat—pulling the skirt loose and swimming to the surface—might be deadly with water this big and this cold. Nell had never run the South Fork with water this high. She pushed that thought down deep and away.

      The rock ledge of the El, with its swirling plunge, appeared, the water flow making it into a monstrous curl and drop. Her boat dipped into the hole just in front of the ledge. She dug in with steady forward strokes, pushing the boat toward the drop-off, her breath tight and painful, moving without her usual fluidity. The backward-moving water sucked the boat back upstream. She bobbed and paddled, leaning

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