and exchanged it for one of the PFDs in the front seat. He jammed the backpack into the well. He needed the neoprene wet suit he saw there, but no time, no time. He realized he had no helmet—hadn’t put one in for a simple paddle across the lake. He was breaking the rules he’d laid out for safety, but this was life and death—Lisa’s, and maybe his, too. “Be stupid and a kayak can be your coffin,” he’d told more than one group of guests.
He felt a jab of anger at Lisa for being in the river, for getting them into this nightmare, when he’d thought things in his life were going so well. So well, that is, except that for the week he had to be near the woman who loved her career and her sunny spot on the planet more than she had loved him.
He shoved off, stabbing the river with deep strokes, fighting for control and balance so he wouldn’t shoot past her. He prayed he could get over to her and somehow get her on board without rolling them both under. “Don’t let go! Don’t let go!” he shouted, though he figured the roar of the water would keep her from hearing him.
He squinted through sun and spray to locate her by her orange PFD again, and, in that instant, saw her swept away, flailing in the foam.
2
Lisa tried to cling to the next rock she saw, even claw her way atop it, but the water pinned her against it. She couldn’t breathe. Should she let go? Try to find a flatter rock to hold?
But the choice was not hers, caught in the cold current, being twisted and turned. Her shins scraped boulders on the riverbed; she pulled her legs up and arms in for warmth, for safety, but found neither. She saw bloodred salmon streak past her in the foam, going the other way. How could they fight this water? she wondered. It might be easier going deep down.
Deep down, deeper … Mommy and Jani had gone deeper, so deep. The wet, white arms of water and death had taken them away. It would be easier that way, to let it all go, let everything go.
Lisa tried to swim for the riverbank, but each time she neared a handhold, the river snatched her away. She knew enough to try to point her feet downstream, but she couldn’t control that. When her numb legs bobbed up, she saw the water had ripped off her shoes.
She was doomed. Dead. Smashed by violent fists of water … her lungs burning to get a breath. Icy water surged up her nose into her sinuses. Get your head up! Take another breath! Hold the air in!
How had she fallen in? The water had looked so beautiful, even alluring. Did something trip her? Surely no one had pushed her. Had Mother and Jani pulled her in to be with them at last? Was this just her memories turning to a drowning, screaming nightmare again?
No, this was not some awful dream where she could will herself to wake up. She had to fight. To live. Dear Lord, help me. Help me be safe and warm.
But the force was brutal, banging her through waves like giant fists, slamming into rocks. Like a leaf going down a storm sewer … lost at sea. Her mother had lost her mind, Grandma said, postpartum depression or some sort of mental aberration made her kill herself. Daddy’s desertion of the family might have caused it, too. That’s what a psychiatrist had told her once.
Mother, I didn’t know. I was only a child. I knew you were sad, but if I had known you were desperate, I could have helped you. At least I could have saved Jani for Grandma to raise along with me…. Someone once said you loved me, so you wanted to take me with you. But it’s wrong to kill someone who hasn’t had a chance to live ….
But should she have drowned, too? Why had Lisa lived when Mother and Jani died? She was haunted by a thought she’d told no one, not even her psychiatrist. When she’d yanked back so hard from her mother’s grasp, did that send her over? If she had not pulled back, maybe there was a split second where her mother would have changed her mind. In that last moment, had she sent them into the wild, white water?
So confused, so dizzy, so caught in a spin of water, of fears …
Whispers, loud ones, roared all around her, wet and cold in her ears. Stop it! Stop the memories! This was real. She had to find a place to get out. If only she’d told Mitch she was sorry. Not sorry she didn’t go with him, but that she still cared, still wanted him in some sort of angry way, but now all she wanted was out of this forceful, freezing water. Fingers going numb, so cold. Keep your head. Keep your courage. Don’t let go! She heard a voice in her head and heart shouting, “Don’t let go!”
Mitch was getting panicky. Because Lisa was in the river and his kayak was on top of it, she was moving away from him faster and faster. And she had a head start.
At times he lost sight of the flash of orange that was his best chance of tracking her in the foaming rapids. On river right, he passed a big boulder, fighting hard not to be smashed into it. Unfortunately, he was in a wide, flat-water kayak best used on the lake, not the narrower white-water craft designed for mobility. It took much more strength and skill to maneuver this craft in white water. Yet, heedless of humps and holes and the danger of submerged rocks, he dug his paddle in faster, faster, trying to catch up.
Trying to catch up—the story of his life. He’d been raised in the shadow of an older brother who was brilliant, Superman, his parents’ all in all. There was no mountain too high, no challenge too big for Brad Braxton. Eagle Scout. High school student body president. University of Miami Gators swim team, All-American. Couldn’t try out for the Olympics because he was a Rhodes Scholar. Now a thoracic surgeon in Miami, with a gorgeous wife and two kids. Unreal expectations to keep up with … keep up with.
This was unreal. Could not be happening. How in hell had Lisa fallen in? No way to call for help. Cell phones didn’t work in the Talkeetnas, and he needed both hands on the paddle. The snowmelt had the river up to at least a Category III with four-foot waves and a rocking roll with worse ahead in the tight turns of Hairpin Gorge. His friend Spike had told him that the old prospectors had called that part of the Wild River the Turn Back Gorge, but there was no way he could turn back now, even if he lost her.
Using the paddle, he braced himself away from another rock, then righted the kayak when it was yanked into a pivot point. Off to the races again, squinting through the spume, hoping to see that slash of orange. She had to be here somewhere, unless she’d been trapped in a snag or sieve underwater.
In the first twist of Hairpin Gorge, narrow, gray haystacks of constricted water piled up into standing waves on both sides of the bow. He saw the path through it was chaos. Lisa would never survive.
The crash of the water almost deafened him. He pointed the kayak toward the chute and plunged into it. He glimpsed red king salmon struggling to go the other way. He fought a force he felt he’d never conquer, but sometimes a narrow ribbon of white water was faster than other places in the river. He was chilled and sopped down to where the spray skirt gripped his waist. He braced his knees against the inside of the craft, working the foot rudders, praying he wouldn’t capsize. When Uncle John had taught him kayaking years ago on his summer vacations, he’d joked it was really an underwater sport. He’d taught Mitch the Eskimo roll, but it would be a life-and-death combat roll if he flipped today.
Lisa knew she’d be dead already if she hadn’t been wearing her PFD. To keep her arms and legs from being banged by rocks both above and below the surface, again she fought to wrap herself into a ball, knees pulled up, arms around them. But when the water rolled her head under, she had to let go to right herself. She tried to kick and paddle but she still got tossed aside and around out of control.
She saw the taller walls of the gorge ahead. The first turn into it nearly finished her. She held her breath until she thought her lungs would burst. For one wild moment the sun was in her eyes. She tried to think of hot days on the beach, the South Florida sun beating down on her, not the weight of all this water. She might suffocate before she’d drown.
On the next turn, she knew she had to make one last grab for something along the bank or she’d black out. She had to drag herself out of this water, hang on. Back at the lodge, Mitch would miss her, maybe figure out what happened. But what had happened to get her in this killer river?
She