The Camp (10 page)

He walked in a slight straddle and was moving the group along when he dislodged a log off the bottom with the paddle, lost his balance and fell back. Like dominos, all eight of the others fell back as well.

The water was only knee-deep, which made it funny, and the instructor sitting on the shore made them start again, once he stopped laughing.

By the end of the day, they were all glad to be wearing both drysuits and PFDs.

When they passed Amy’s cabin, the lights were off. When they had changed and showered, there was still no sign of the fifteen-year-old. Thinking she might have gotten a table, they walked through the restaurant.

Claire waited at a table while Rye walked into the main lobby. He found Amy talking to one of the employees although she saw him first and called out.

“Ron, this is my Uncle Rye. He’s taking the river rescue training course. Ron is the great grandson of Lucas, the man who built the lodge.”

Ron looked to be about fifteen or sixteen, stood nearly six feet, and was well muscled.

“Pleased to met you, sir.”

Rye was a little taken aback. He always felt his age when someone called him ‘sir,’ though he was pleased at the boy’s manners.

“Ron was just telling me about Agness and how it’s just a short walk down the road.”

As if suddenly remembering the time, Amy took Rye by the hand. “We’d better get going. I’ll bet Aunt Claire’s wondering where we are.” Rye gave her a knowing smile. “Right you are. Any longer and she’ll have security out looking for us. She’s waiting in the restaurant.”

At the last minute, Amy turned and gave Ron a wave. “It was good talking to you. Maybe I’ll see you tomorrow.”

He waved back. “I hope so.”

Chapter Fifteen

Rye stood on the shore watching Claire as she climbed from the raft to the outcropping just above the hole. He turned to the instructor. “I don’t like it.”
 

Larry Gill stepped around in front of Rye so he could look him in the eye. “She’s wearing a drysuit and her PFD. The ropes tie into metal rings stitched into the leather girdle she has around her waist. The ropes will keep her from being sucked into the hole. If either rope plays out or come loose, we’ll reel her in with the other.”

“Category Five. I just don’t feel good about this.”

Gill moved around until he was standing shoulder to shoulder with Rye. “All she has to do is stay there until they find her and do a bag throw. That will be a third rope.”

“Can you get me onto that rock?”

Gill just shook his head. “What would you do? Jump in after her?”

Rye turned and looked at the instructor. “Absolutely.”

Gill shook his head in wonderment. “Look at this.” He waded out until the water was knee-deep, then squatted down. “The effect of the Category Five hole is much like this.” He began to whirl his hand around, not like a whirlpool, but like a Ferris Wheel. “It drags you down, then brings you to the top, usually not far enough to get any air. Around and around before at some point, it will spit you out, that is, if you relax and let it take you to the bottom, where you get into what we call the escape current.” Rye was watching intently. “If anything happened and you jumped in, we’d probably lose both of you.”

He stood and unclipped a pair of binoculars from his belt and handed them to Rye. “Take a look, follow the ropes. They wrap around a tree and are maintained by three men.” He watched Rye for a minute. “If you still want, it’s not too late. I can get you out there before the exercise begins.”

Rye handed back the binoculars. “Yeah, get me out there.”

Claire was slowly lowered into the water. She was supposed to be suspended in the water up to her waist, just to where the ropes were attached. Having been lowered down to her chest, she frantically waved until she had their attention and they raised her up.

She’d hit a log or something with her foot. Not hard, but enough to hurt.

She cupped her hands around her mouth. “Something’s down there.” She pointed down with both hands.
 

All hope of being heard was lost when a surge of water slammed against her upper back and shoulders and washed over her head. The surge, combined with her body weight, put a strain on the rings where the ropes attached.
 

She tried yelling again but it seemed that either they had lowered her further or the water was rising. It was up to her chest again.

What the hell was going on? She looked to shore but when she’d dropped, she’d lost her line of sight with the men on the rope. There was supposed to be someone keeping an eye on her during the entire exercise, a spotter.

There it was again. It banged into her ankle. She remembered her training. ‘Never kick at unseen objects—you could injure your foot.’ She tried to trap it between her feet and was looking intently into the water at a dark shadow when something struck her helmet.
 

The ropes wouldn’t allow her to turn around, so she twisted her head to look back over her shoulder at the outcropping. Her heart leapt when she saw Rye squatting on the rock. Then she dropped again and the water was at her chin.

Hundreds of gallons of water were now surging at her neck and chin. Cupping her hands around her mouth, she shouted over and over. “I’m in trouble.” She could feel tentacles of panic climbing up her chest and she had already swallowed a couple mouthfuls of water.

Rye couldn’t hear her plea, but he could see that she was near panic by the way she flailed her hands. He cursed himself for not bringing a rope.

Claire pushed down against the dark object that nearly surfaced inches from her chest. With the next surge of water, the object submerged, but something about it seemed startlingly familiar.

When she turned to look behind her, she could feel the cords in her neck pull. Another hundred gallons of water slammed into her and she wheeled around facing down river. One of the rings had come loose.

Rye watched in horror as she was thrashed at the end of one rope. If he could only get her out of the water and up onto the rocks.

She saw the dark object first and in a heart-stopping moment she realized it was a head. Then it rose up and came straight at her. Her efforts to swat it away increased her back and forth motion and she double wrapped the rope around her arm because if the other ring disengaged, she would end up in an endlessly spinning cycle.

Now each new wave of water hit her high on the chest and rolled over her head. Every breath was a gasp and included some water.

Where was the spotter and where was Rye? Her mind was racing and she was becoming hypothermic. If she was going to do something, it would have to be now.
 

Slowly, hand over hand, she began to reel herself across the hole.
 

There it was again—the full body this time. It slammed into her like so much driftwood and she lost her grip on the rope. What she really didn’t want was for the ring on her harness to take any more stress. This time, though, the corpse snagged on the rope. Both hands driving, pushing like twin paddle wheels, she forced herself backward against the current until she could kick the body. But she hit it in the stomach, making the head and shoulders lurch at her. In that second, she recognized the face of Ed Thomas. Adrenaline flooded her system and she was kicking over and over until the corpse was torn free from the rope and pulled under by the current.

Heart pounding, she felt a hand on her shoulder and shuddered. Then something soft against her ear and
 
she watched for a terror filled moment as a hand came out of the water, holding a knife, and cut the rope.

“Take a deep breath we’re going to the bottom.”

She wanted to turn around, wanted to hug the big guy. But what was he doing?

On shore, Gill was jumping up and down, screaming into a two-way. “Get a raft down to hole number three—STAT! Rope and kayaks right now!” Then he threw the radio onto coils of rope, sprinted up river, and dove in. He’d always been a powerful swimmer, but this would be the swim of his life. He caught the main flow at first, and then had to push past a boulder sieve that came out ten feet into the river and directly in his path. When he skirted the strainer tree, he had to flip onto his back to negotiate the school of rocks that crossed some fast moving shallows. Finally, gasping and wheezing, he surged to his feet and sloshed to shore.

He ran following the shoreline, skirting brush, climbing over boulders, and jumping over logs. Where the hell was the spotter? What happened to the men on the rope? What were they thinking?

When he came to the clearing where Claire’s rope came out of the water, he found it tied around a tree, no one in sight. Rushing forward he grabbed the rope but his heart sank. It was limp.

He untied it and clambered onto the outcropping. They were gone—both of them were gone. “Rye.” He paused and scanned the hole. “Claire.” Desperate, he threw one end of the rope into the water and, as if fishing with a hand line, pulled and dragged it back and forth. But no one grabbed on.

Rye removed his Personal Flotation Device and, ignoring her flailing resistance, tore Claire’s off, too, pulling her under.

It was a clear day and the water reflected the blue sky, as Rye and Claire were hammered deeper into the hole.

To eliminate any buoyancy, Rye had removed his drysuit, even though he knew that he would only have a matter of minutes before hypothermia would kick in.
 

He held Claire tight to his chest and willed them to the bottom. Their only hope was to break out of the recirculation wash and into the escape current that would spit them out.

Already, Claire had gone limp and his fingers felt stiff. He could feel his body shift gears as a first shiver ran through his core. He knew this was the body’s way of creating heat, the body’s last resort. His arms felt like lead and he knew he wouldn’t be able to hold onto her much longer.

When she was torn from his grip, his lungs were already burning. With the greatest effort, he lifted his head but she was already out of sight. His body went limp and the only feeling he had was of bouncing along the bottom of the hole.

Gill reeled the rope in, coiling it at his feet. All he could do now was hope the bottom current would kick the bodies out and they wouldn’t have to drag the hole with chain and hook.
 

Suddenly, he dropped the rope and jumped to his feet. Somebody was bobbing to the surface. Then his heart broke. There was no movement. He couldn’t determine if it was Rye or Claire, though it didn’t matter any longer.
 

He made his way down to the shore and walked along the water’s edge, trying to get a better look. Something caught his eye and he turned halfheartedly—it was the second body. But this one was splashing and coughing and gagging.

He dove into the eddy where it would end up and swam aggressively to meet it—her, Claire—at the edge of the churning water.

“Claire, Claire. It’s Larry Gill.”

No response, except a kick and gasp as she flailed in the water. He executed a surface dive and came up behind her. In one move, he caught her chin in the bend of his elbow.

“Claire, you’re alright. Claire, relax.” By the time he dragged her to shore, she was vomiting up water. She fell to her side, unable to hold herself up, and continued to void her lungs of water.
 

He knew she was too weak to go anywhere and turned back to the river. Couldn’t be. He stopped, trying to understand what he was looking at. There were two bodies again and he thought he detected movement in one.

Driven by a surge of adrenaline, he plunged back into the eddy and stroked to the larger body. It was Rye. Something was wrong.
 

It took all his strength to pull the big man out of the water and he fell to his knees with the exertion. Rye was convulsing. Then it donned on him: He wasn’t wearing his drysuit and PFD. Gill knew he was looking at the last stages of hypothermia. He had to find something to cover him with to bring up his temperature—anything. But there was nothing. All the equipment was on the other side of the river. He looked over at Claire. Her color was returning.

“Claire, snap out of it. Listen to me. We will lose Rye unless we can warm him up.”

He didn’t wait for a reply or reaction, but instead lifted her up until she was standing. Pushing and pulling, he half-dragged her next to her husband then helped her to lay on top of him. Instinctively, she wrapped her arms around him and slowly, as the reality of what was happening sank in, began to rub.

Gill rolled the two over and pushed up against Rye’s opposite side, rubbing his limbs furiously.

Slowly—very slowly—the shivering stopped. Gill could see that these two would survive. Now he had to see after the third victim.

Chapter Sixteen

The sky was blue and a warm breeze caressed her face as she dozed.

“Hey there.” Amy was jolted awake by a gentle voice and rolled over to see who was talking.

“Oh, Ron.” She stretched and rolled up into a sitting position with her back against the sunny side of the cabin.

“I didn’t mean to wake you, but I’ve got a couple hours off and thought if you still wanted…”

He didn’t get a chance to finish.

“I’d love to go into town.”

He extended a hand, but she stood up without taking it. Brushing off her bottom, she looked over at him. “Shouldn’t you be in school?”

He tried not to stare as she swatted away some dirt and loose grass from the seat of her pants. “I graduated last year. What’s your excuse?”

She marched out onto the dirt road that passed in front of the cabins. “Which way?”

 
He turned his back on the lodge and took a couple steps, then stopped to wait for her. “It’s about three miles round trip.”

As she walked to catch up, she realized that she’d forgotten to leave a note at the front desk for her aunt and uncle—or her father, in case he showed up early.

He watched her approach. “Should I be on the look out for a truant officer?”

She remembered her father telling her not to give too much information to someone she didn’t know well. “I’m on a short vacation with my father and his two best friends.”