Chapter 9
They moved like a pack of wolves, the pace somewhere just south of a trot, spread out in a rough line in the aspen forest. Henry was by far the oldest man, sixty-three that past spring, still fit and light on his feet but definitely the anchor, the one who held the rest of them back from an even quicker pace. He was in the center of the line, and the wings moved forward ahead of him, Henry at the point of the inverted V. It was late afternoon, and they had been moving at this pace for most of the day. Henry knew that they were pushing him, as he would have pushed them fifteen years ago, and felt the bright, hard edge of hatred and envy of their youth, their pushiness, fueling his legs.
He hated Garney the least, because he was the heaviest and the slowest of the younger men. Although they might leave Henry to pick his way through the woods and catch up with them at nightfall, Darius would not leave two men behind. Two men could form a temporary bond when left behind, forming a group within the group. And two men could, if they were so inclined, find a kindred soul, swell their ranks to include a third: a majority. Those were the kinds of situations Darius would avoid in his own team, exploit in others.
Don’t give him too much credit, Henry thought, arming sweat off his brow as he plodded onward. He’s tired, too.
He could see Darius out on the far-left wing, wending his way through the big white trunks of the aspens. He seemed tired but not exhausted, which was how Henry was starting to assess his own condition. Garney was positioned between them, his shirt completely soaked with sweat. To Henry’s right, Weasel slipped through the woods, a thin and ugly little man who Henry distrusted more than anyone besides Darius, and maybe more than Darius. On the right edge was Billy, effortless as he moved through the aspen and hazel brush. Billy was a relation, a nephew once removed, the son of Woolsy Martineau. Woolsy had died in a snowbank outside his cabin in his thirty-second year, when Billy was just a pup. He had stashed a bottle of whiskey outside, to hide it from Tammy, Billy’s mother, and after an argument he had slammed the door shut behind him, gone outside, and drank half the bottle in one long, furious pull. It had been twenty-five degrees below zero that night, and the whiskey the same temperature. His esophagus had frozen instantly and he went into cardiac arrest, clutching the bottle as he died, ten feet from his angry wife and the two-year-old son who slept in his homemade bed.
They were all armed, and Henry was no exception. He carried his Winchester Model 94 30-30 caliber in a leather sling on his back, and in the bottom of his waxed canvas backpack he had a small Walther .38 caliber semiautomatic, the bullets in the factory box wrapped inside an old cotton shirt. The shirt was in turn sealed inside two plastic baggies. He had a knife and a hatchet and his mess kit and a bedroll, and nothing in his pack or on his person made any noise at all. Except for his breath, which was turning into a pant.
Garney, despite Darius’s objections, was armed only with his Mathews compound bow, the six carbon arrows with expandable broadheads secured in the hunting quiver attached to the bow’s frame. Weasel and Billy were armed with moose hunting rifles, and Henry knew what that could do to a man, had seen it once on a hunt near the Burned Lakes, a strange country where wildfire had scorched the thin earth atop the bedrock decades ago. The fire had moved through the region hot and fast, and many of the pines still stood, baked into statues, the branches burned to stubs, the trunks sooty and hard. The soil had been burned so thoroughly that nothing could grow, not trees nor shrubs nor even the ubiquitous purple fireweed. The moose loved it because there was a certain type of grass that flourished along the water’s edge, where the fire had not touched. Henry’s group had gone in after the tracks of a young bull, lost it on the burned and flinty ground, and split up. Late that evening, one of Henry’s hunting partners had mistaken his other friend for a moose and shot him as he moved through the black trees. The hole was the size of a dime going in, and on the far side there was no hole, just the absent half of a rib cage, the shattered ribs curving around the pink mass of jellied lungs. They left the man there, cooling among the blackened pines, and reported him lost in the great wilderness, and there was no search party and they never hunted there again.
Now Henry wished they were headed to the haunted landscape of the Burned Lakes, or to the great unnamed morass of swamp downstream, anywhere but their current destination. Its name came through his mind and he was tempted to mouth it, to feel it on his lips. He had been there before, and Darius had used the previous trip as the basis for his request for Henry to accompany them. Henry had agreed because there was something in Darius’s dark brown eyes, a hint of fear. The fear had intrigued Henry. Darius’s men were the Okitchawa, yesterday’s warriors, and they fancied themselves sacred protectors of the wilderness. Or some damn thing. They did have a tendency to make visitors feel unwelcome, that much was true. Perhaps the other things they had claimed (or that other people had claimed of them) were true as well. They were hard men, and Henry counted himself amongst that classification and yet he disliked them and distanced himself from them, not only because of their youth but because of their inability to reason, to see the larger picture. They were still caught in the youthful daydream that they knew enough, within a day or two, about every situation to be able to take immediate and just action. They saw Henry and the others around Highbanks as listless observers, timid and powerless to stop the trespasses, whether it was the constant intrusions of the loggers from the Crown or hunters from the States. More recently it had been an increased focus on what was below the ground, with more planes overhead and more surveyors in the woods every year.
The Okitchawa, and Darius in particular, were adamant that their ancestors would never have allowed these encroachments, that they would have protected the resources of the land for their people at all costs. So they took the role of protectors upon themselves, and if they got scent of an outsider, they followed the trail to its bloody end. Must have got lost in the woods was the explanation most people gave for the missing outsiders, and they remained truly lost. No bodies had been recovered, even after several massive manhunts.
“This place gives us life,” Darius had said, speaking at the First Dance ceremony the year before, right after several surveyors had disappeared into the green, yawning maw of the wilderness. “If we don’t keep it clean, if we don’t remember the sacrifices of the old ones, we pollute our own souls.” He said nothing else, and he didn’t have to.
The Okitchawa were right, in a way, Henry supposed. But life was different now, and just because there had been old ways of doing things didn’t mean they were the right ways.
So why come here? he asked himself. He did not like the encroachments either, but he felt no desire to spill blood.
And the answer came to him, in a single word:
Asiskiwiw. A fearful place, to be sure. But also a place where someone like himself might find the connection he had sought for so long, something that had nothing to do with resources, or intruders. It was, he supposed, a pilgrimage.
He came to a stop, readjusting his rifle strap. On either side of him the other men were paused, sucking in the midmorning breeze on the top of a rise. Garney had his head back, hands on his wide hips, little rolls bunched up at the base of his neck. Weasel hacked and coughed and lit a cigarette, pausing first to rip the filter from the end. Darius, on the left, breathed more easily, as did Billy on the right. Henry felt his calf muscles bunching and tightening, the electrical quiver of muscles used far beyond their normal range. He pulled the leather bota from his pack and drank deeply of the lukewarm water, squirting it down the back of his throat.
“Better save your water, old man,” Garney said.
Henry pulled the bota back, letting the water wash over his face. He shook himself to clear his eyes and then turned to Garney. “Braids are at the bottom of the hill. You can refill there.”
Garney peered downward, where the more open aspen forest gave way to a tangled mass of alder brush, purple-skinned branches with dark green leaves. “I don’t see anything.”
“There are none so blind,” Henry said, “as those who will not listen.”
“Huh?”
“Ears,” Henry said, tapping the side of his head. “Quit panting so much and listen.”
Below them came the burbling sound of running water. They began picking their way through the alders. The mosquitoes were thick, but did not form the constant swarms of June or July; they were beginning to die off. Everywhere around him Henry saw the signs of autumn, the yellowing patches of big leaf aster on the forest floor, the fading of the alder leaves. He could even smell it in the air, the slow funk of a season’s decay bubbling up around his boots. It was his least favorite time of the year, the transition between the richness of the summer and the cool, clear days of autumn.
They converged, funneling into a single line along the lone game trail, and emerged from the thicket. The river in front of them was big and fast and complex. Swollen by the summer rains, it had carved a dozen paths through the silty river bottom, some of them little more than rivulets, others faster and deeper. Willows had sprouted on the numerous islands, thickly clumped, none taller than a man. Henry looked upstream, then downstream. The braided river channels twined and connected and diverged as far as the eye could see, the brown water carving into the edges of the silt. There would be other places to cross, Henry knew, but it would mean traversing an immense swamp on both sides of the river.
Weasel hawked a glob of phlegm into the running water at their feet and watched it speed downstream. “How we getting through this shit?”
“One step at a time,” Darius said. He was scanning the horizon on the far side of the river, the skyline featureless except for trees and a few lower clouds. “Check your backpacks, fill your skins. We’ll wipe the guns down when we get across.”
“How deep is it?” Billy asked. He was looking at the turbid water, which gave no indication of what lay beneath the surface.
“Dunno.” Henry pulled a coil of rope from his pack and spread the loops out with his fingers, looking for kinks. “The Braids change every year.”
“I don’t swim too good.” Billy was still studying the river, chewing on his lower lip, sweat running down the sides of his face.
Henry grunted. He had known the Martineaus for decades and he had known Billy for all his life, had seen his name appear on the honor rolls, disappearing from those thinly-populated ranks between his sophomore and junior year of high school, only to return on the A honor roll his senior year. Henry had been in the audience when Billy had delivered a halting but powerful salutatorian address, had been there to wish him farewell when he drove off to Regina to play football and study economics, or perhaps engineering. That Billy had been bright and committed and often unsure of himself, and Henry had liked him quite a lot. This new Billy, the one who had fallen in with the Okitchawa, the one who smiled all the time and seemed to have no cares in the world, the slick one, the cool Billy, Billy-Dawg, disgusted Henry. It was as though Billy had decided if he couldn’t be a college boy he was going to be a thug, no middle ground. Leave all those good and justifiable worries behind him, be confident in what he had and where he was going. Like all the damned rest of them.
“What are you thinking about?” Billy asked.
“People,” Henry replied, tying the end of the rope into a loop and passing the length back through it to form a noose. “People who worry about the wrong things.”
“People?” Garney said. “You should be thinking about how we get across this river, old man.”
Let me guess, Henry thought. You don’t swim too good, neither.
“Here’s the deal,” Henry said, noticing that he had their full attention, even Weasel’s. “Everybody needs a wading stick. Try to get one with a fork on the bottom. It’ll keep it from slipping on any rocks below the surface. Then I’m going to give one end of the rope to Garney, tie the other end onto my waist, and go to that island.” He pointed to a long crescent-shaped pile of silt on the far side of one of the main channels, covered with willows. “We’ll avoid the smaller islands, the ones without bushes. They’re liable to break apart if we climb on them, turn into quicksand. Understand?”
Four impassive sets of brown eyes looked back at him. Henry went on. “Once I make it across, the next guy—Weasel, he’s the smallest—follows, holding on to the rope. He helps me hold the rope while the next guy goes across. We work smallest to largest in case somebody gets swept away. If you slip, or start going under, just hold on to the rope. We’ll pull you in.”
“That the plan?” Garney asked. “What about the next guy, the one after the idiot that just got swept downstream? He goes across without a rope?”
“Yes,” Darius replied. “Just like Henry is planning to do, except he doesn’t whine about it.” He fixed Garney with his gaze. “Go cut your stick.”
Garney mumbled something and turned away. Darius called out to him and Garney turned around, his knife in his hand.
“Cut one for me and Henry while you’re at it.” He held Garney with his gaze. “You have a problem with that?”
Garney turned away without comment, and a moment later the air was filled with dull thuds as they hacked at the small birch trees that lined the river. Darius watched them for a bit, then turned back to Henry, looking at him through those low-hanging eyelids, the look of a boxer who had been hit too much.
“Elsie said you should come with us. Your old girlfriend. Did you know that?”
Henry shrugged. Elsie had been almost fifty years old, quite a bit older than Henry, when they had dated. Still, she was accommodating to almost any favor he requested, as long as he repaid her in turn. It was not long after they went their different ways that she had shacked up with some trapper for a couple winters and, if rumor was true, suffered a series of miscarriages that had turned her from a middle-aged woman into her current state in a few short years. Yet she had not changed much since then; it was as though she had taken her next thirty years of aging in one big swallow.
“Elsie told me,” Darius said, “you went into this forest once, looking for a vision.”
“I have gone into the woods many times,” Henry said. “For many reasons.”
“Don’t play games,” Darius said, rubbing at the pink scar in his eyebrow. “I’ll leave your carcass out here for the ravens to pick apart.”
“I’m not playing any games.” He hated the whiny, almost subservient tone of his voice. Darius was one of the few people he had ever met who genuinely scared him, and not just because Darius was stronger and faster than Henry. When Darius said things, like how he would leave Henry’s body out here as carrion, he meant every word. Despite whatever help Henry might be able to provide, Darius would not hesitate to gut him, or anyone else, if he was provoked. In another place in the world, Henry was certain Darius would either be in prison or a mental hospital.
“She said you had no visions.”
“I did not.”
“Elsie spoke highly of you,” Darius said.
“We were friends once.”
“I’m not talking about when you used to fuck her,” Darius said. “She said you would help me see, once we got to Asiskiwiw.”
From the riverbank someone gave a muted curse, and they turned to watch Garney kick at a birch sapling, sending it to the ground. “The valley has been quiet for many years,” Henry said, “and the stories were old when I was a child. There may be nothing there.”
“You don’t believe that. I see it in your scared old man’s face.”
Henry shrugged. “When I went, I saw nothing.”
It was true. For five days he had fasted on the top of the ridge overlooking Asiskiwiw, trying to block out all physical sensation—the dew soaking into his knees, the bugs trundling across his body, the rustling of the breeze, and the animals in the forest at his back. Deeper and deeper, all thought gone. But he had seen nothing with his eyes closed, and when he opened his eyes there was just a long, barren valley filled with odd rock formations, marked by a sluggish river at the bottom. In the mornings, the bluffs on the far side of the valley would catch the rising sun, and he would take some time to explore the rock faces with his eyes, tracing the lichen-crusted precipices, the narrow hogback ridge that cut down the middle of the bluffs. That was all he had seen.
And as for what he had heard, in the end he decided it was nothing, just auditory hallucinations, his mind seeking to fill in the void caused by his absence from other human beings. There were whispers, soft and cajoling, a warm voice filled with laughter, always deep in the night, asking and suggesting, never commanding, inviting him down to the softer ground at the bottom of the valley. For it was there he would find his vision, the voice promised; it was there where Henry Redsky would at last join the ranks of maskihkîwiyiniwiw, of those who saw.
“What are you thinking about?”
Henry waved at a hovering mosquito, then gestured in front of him, at the dark clouds that had started to form on the western horizon. “The river,” he said. “It’s not getting any lower. Let’s get moving.”
* * *
The river bottom was silt, the fine sediment giving way under his boots as he labored out into the middle of the first channel. It was better walking than the slime-covered rocks on the Big Glutton, which only required a minor misstep to send you sprawling into the muscular current. Still, he had to keep his feet moving to keep from sinking in, and the water was cold, even after the atypically warm summer. The current was fast, and though it only reached his waist, by midstream his progress was painfully slow. Before each step, he dug his wading stick into the crumbly bottom, wedged his boot against it, and put his next foot out a step. The rope dragged in the current, threatening to pull him downstream.
Finally, he slogged out of the first channel and onto the island. He pushed aside the screen of willows and crossed to the far side to survey the rest of the river. The other braids were narrower, with the exception of the final channel, which ran along the far bank. Instead of frothing and foaming like the other river segments, it was smooth and fast, marked only by swirling boils.
He backtracked, picking up the slack in the rope, and studied the men on the other side.
“Come on,” he shouted.
Weasel stepped into the river, pausing for a moment when the cold water hit him, then started across.
Weasel was a small man, not much larger than a teenage boy, and he didn’t know how to wade in a current. He turned sideways, facing upstream and keeping both hands on the rope, taking the brunt of the force of the current on his body. He was panting by the time he made it across, and did not release the rope until both of his feet were on the silty bank of the island. Billy crossed next, and after a moment’s discussion, Garney transferred his end of the rope to Darius and splashed across the river. After Garney was on the bank, Darius slipped the end of the rope around his waist and waded into the river. Henry gathered up the loose rope in big coils as Darius splashed up to join them.
Darius pushed through the willows and started wading across the next channel. The water never rose above Darius’s knees, and the rest of the men exchanged quick glances and followed Darius, using the wading sticks, as Henry had. They crossed the next several braids easily. The last island was shaped like a teardrop, filled bank to bank with a dense mat of willows. They paused, catching their breath for the final crossing. Henry knelt for a second to examine some bear tracks pressed into the silt. The big rear paw prints were almost humanoid, over ten inches long. A large bear. It had wandered the edge of the island and then crossed back to where they had just come from, looking for god knew what. Beyond them, the last channel surged past, the boils breaking and swirling on the surface.
“Go ahead,” Henry said, waving an arm.
Darius studied the current. “This one might be trouble.”
“Yes,” Henry said. The river had not been nearly this high the last time he had been here. It was almost at spring levels, and nobody crossed the Braids before July or after September. The bear tracks affected him a little too, as they always did. The bear was no danger to them, and he was not scared of being attacked. But it had been here recently, and in all likelihood it had known they were there for some time, watching them with its pig eyes, scenting them with its great wet muzzle.
“Can we cross this?” Billy asked.
“Give me the rope,” Henry said. “We’ll need it on this one. Tighten down your slings and packs. We might get a little wet.”
The channel rushed along the far bank for as far as the eye could see. Much of the power of the river was diffused in the rest of the braids, but the main artery was here. The far bank was steep, leveling off several feet up at a grassy swale ringed by large paper birches. It looked like a park, or some foreign land, and Henry tried to imagine standing there on the high ground, in the grass, with the river behind them.
“Wait a sec,” Garney said. “The guy who goes first, it seems bad, but he’s got the rope around him. The other guys can pull him back in.”
“Yes,” Henry said.
Garney turned to the others. “The last guy, he’s tied up too. But the other guys, they lose their hold on the rope, they don’t got nothing.”
Darius stepped up close to Garney. “Spit it out.” His voice was cold. “What do you want?”
“I’m just saying, maybe we should figure out a different way.”
“Listen,” Henry said. “I’ll go in whatever order you guys want me to. But somebody has to make it across first with the rope. They might have to swim for it.”
He was looking at Darius when he spoke, and the others were looking at him, too. Darius didn’t look particularly concerned, just impatient, but Henry noticed that his eyes kept flitting to the river, just like everyone else’s were. He’s going to volunteer to go first, Henry thought. He can’t swim worth a shit, but he’s got to prove he’s the big man, the leader of the Okitchawa, the great—
“Henry’s the best swimmer,” Darius said. “He goes first. Garney goes last.”
Henry stepped into the river. The water was up to his waist before he had gone ten steps, and now he could feel the stones under his boots, coated with summer slime. He moved carefully, wedging his boots against the sides of the rocks. The water seemed colder in this channel, making his breath short. It crept up his ribs, and he felt his body wanting to lift. He was going to have to swim for it and was bracing himself for the full immersion in the cold water when he bumped into something hard and rounded. He prodded it with his wading stick, feeling out the contours as the river tugged and pulled at him.
It was a big log, submerged crossways in the current. He could not see it in the silty water, but it was only several feet down, probably a massive pine that had been carried here from the old forests to the northeast. Now that he knew it was there, he could see a long line of boils on the surface marking its location, the displaced water flowing under and over the log all the way to the far bank. He scraped his wading stick along the top of the log. It still had bark on it, and would not be nearly as slippery as the bottom.
Moving very slowly, he climbed onto the log and straightened. The river only came to mid-thigh, and although the current was still pushing against him, the force was much less. He prodded some more with the wading stick, delineating the rounded edges of the log, and took a step forward. The log was steady under his feet. He took another step, his heels digging into the bark. It had started to sprinkle rain, and the river surface dimpled around him.
Don’t rush, he thought. Be an old man and shuffle.
It was very hard to do, because the bank was growing closer and closer, and he knew that it would only take six or seven big strides to reach it. But he moved slowly, and the log held firm, and in a minute he stepped onto the steep, crumbling bank. He held up a hand for Weasel to wait, then scrambled up the bank and looped the rope around a large birch. When he was done, the rope hung down loosely like a suspension cable just upstream of the series of boils, almost directly over the submerged log.
Weasel went under twice before he reached the log, the little man sputtering and blowing. Even when he was under, his hands were moving, pulling him along the rope. Weasel finally clawed his way back onto the log, shook his head to clear the water from his eyes, and nearly ran across the log to the far side. Billy went next, his normally sinuous movement made jerky and uncertain by his fear. His progress was more thoughtful than Weasel’s, and it took him five solid minutes to make the crossing. Darius crossed easily, and Henry could tell he had been studying those who had gone before, avoiding the areas where others had slipped. He did not clutch the rope as Billy and Weasel had, instead running his hand along it, ready to use it if needed but not relying on it.
Just like he’s using me, Henry thought. He had already decided they would take another route on the return trip, a longer but easier path. There would be no need to hurry on the way home, and there would be little argument from the others.
Darius stepped onto the bank. On the far side of the channel, Garney wrapped two loops of rope around his waist. He waded into the river, jaw clenched.
Henry was already mapping the rest of the trip to Asiskiwiw, less than a half day’s journey once they crossed the river. There had been the remnants of a path when he had ventured there decades earlier, not much more than a game trail, marked by ancient blazes on some of the oldest pines. At several junctures, there were small piles of stones stacked on top of each other, the ages-old marker that could mean anything, from a simple trail marker to a warning to stay away. The trail was likely to have completely grown over by now, but the land itself would point the way; Resurrection Valley was marked by the high bluffs to the north, and the river that drained it could always be traced upstream. That was easier said than done, for the river only resembled a true stream for a short stretch before it spread out into a swampy morass.
He was still thinking about the path to the valley when Garney, who had just gained the log—and who looked like he was finally convinced he might make the crossing—fell. He went down in one movement, no teetering or attempt to regain his balance, his feet just swept from under him. He plunged into the river on the upstream side of the log and disappeared. A large section of waterlogged bark surfaced downstream, rolling over in the current and sinking once again.
A piece of bark came off under his feet, Henry thought. Shit. The effect would be like a banana peel.
The back of Garney’s head appeared a second later, his face down and just inches above the surface, the cords in his neck quivering as he struggled to keep his mouth and nose above the water. Henry and Billy yanked in the slack, pausing when they felt resistance, then pulling again. Garney’s head dipped down and they heard him scream something into the water, just inches from his mouth.
“He’s stuck,” Henry said, pressing the coil of rope into Billy’s chest. “Keep this tight.”
He jumped into the river, on the upstream side of the log, and splashed toward Garney. He could feel nubs of limbs, broken off by the log’s rolling journey down the river, banging against his feet. The water swarmed over him, up to his waist, then his ribs, shoving him against the log. The tangle of limbs grew as he approached Garney, and Henry could feel other debris lodged against them, a rat’s nest of waterlogged sticks, the force of the river wedging them ever tighter against the log.
Garney was sucking in great breaths of air, his entire body straining with effort to keep his face above the rushing water. Henry stepped through the mess of large broken-off limbs under the water, then leaned down to shout over the sound of the river.
“Where are you caught?”
Garney took a deep breath and coughed out something Henry couldn’t hear. He repeated the question, and this time he could make out enough of the word to understand; his ankle was wedged under the log.
Henry dove. The river current filled his ears with its frantic and swarming music. He followed Garney’s leg down to where it disappeared under the slick black mass of the log. There was little light, and the water was so turbid that he could not see anything, so he let his hands see for him, tracing the contours of the ankle and the branch that had entrapped it. His hands found the culprit, a small tree that had been caught against the larger pine log. It was forked, and when Garney had fallen his foot had slipped into the open V. The force of the river was pushing his leg under the bigger log, pulling Garney with it.
Henry pushed himself back up. Garney was being pulled closer to the water, his breath now bubbling against the surface. Several veins had broken on his neck from the effort of keeping his head above water, and Henry knew he only had a minute left, perhaps seconds. He dove down again, ignoring Garney’s grasping hands.
Henry grasped the forked sapling and pulled back. A stream of bubbles swirled out of his mouth as he pulled, his adrenaline-soaked muscles working to pull the sapling up and away, the current fighting him every inch. After a few seconds he released his hold and surfaced again.
“Help me!” he yelled at the cluster of men on the bank. “I need someone to help me!”
Weasel looked at Henry stupidly, then turned to Darius, whose eyes were narrowed in a strange, hateful expression. Then Billy jumped into the river and started splashing toward him. The sound of Garney’s breathing had grown muted, and when Henry looked down he saw that Garney’s mouth was underwater: He was relegated to breathing through his nostrils.
“We only have time for one more try,” Henry said. “I pull back, you yank his ankle free.”
They went under in unison, and Henry took the tree in his hands and planted his feet against the trunk of the log. He straightened, and the forked sapling pulled back again those same scant inches. He felt Billy heaving on Garney’s ankle next to him. Garney’s leg remained wedged, and Billy let go of it and joined Henry, pulling the forked tree back, two inches, three inches, a full foot. The tree slid back, and the dark, frantic presence of Garney slashed toward the surface. Henry let go of the tree and clawed after him
Garney and Billy were already almost to the shore. Henry waded after them, the tangle of limbs and debris under his feet like clutching hands. He stumbled onto the shore, and Darius reached down and hauled him onto dry land.
He lay there hacking. To his side Garney and Billy were retching out the sour river water. Henry felt as though there was no strength left in any part of him—just enough juice to clear his lungs and power his still-hammering heart. Also to process the sound of the river, which did not sound animate or threatening or lovely. It just sounded like a river that had almost killed them.
After a while he pushed himself onto one elbow. The rain was coming down harder now, a cool late summer shower. “I know another way across when we come home,” he said. “If anyone is interested.”
Weasel and Garney looked at him. Henry had always liked to tease when things were very serious, and even though they weren’t getting it, didn’t appreciate that he was trying to lighten the mood, he liked the look in their eyes, serious, washed clean of the confidence—and the contempt—he’d seen there earlier.
There was silence for a long time. Eventually Garney sat up, then reached down to help Billy do the same.
“We should take it easy for the rest of the day,” Darius offered.
There was no response. When Billy answered Henry realized that he had been waiting for him to speak; they all had been waiting for Billy. “No,” he said. He was dripping wet and still breathing hard, the rain running down his face. “Let’s finish this.”