The man shouted, “Gina!”
The child behind them screamed. She threw herself toward her mother. JJ caught her and wrestled her into the floor of the raft, paddles flying. Orson took a blow to his kidney. Dropped a knee into the floor beside Robert, shoving the other man over. The father, Jim, thrust his daughter down with one hand. Screaming his wife’s name, the man tried to stand, to search down the rapid. The boat plunged over the drop and the man nearly went over.
Orson banged the man’s knee with the T-grip of his paddle. “Sit down,” he yelled. “Hold on to your kid. We’ll find her.” Reluctantly, Jim sat, repositioning his feet under the thwart in front of him. Mike shifted his paddle, altering the direction of the raft into the lee of a rock at the bottom of Lost Guide, where the current backed up. He blew his whistle, three piercing beats. The signal was repeated from downstream and Orson saw heads start to turn. Someone downstream would rig safety lines or be ready to throw rescue lines to a swimmer.
The reality was, Gina would have to swim the rapid. Even experienced guides didn’t care to swim a class IV. Orson didn’t know if there were undercut rocks or sieves—narrow grooves between huge rocks that sucked water and debris in and let out only water—that might trap her. He didn’t know about holes that might suck her in and hold her under, rolling her over like a washing machine until she drowned, letting her go only when the river was ready to release its kill.
Orson turned back around and searched for signs of the woman. Gina. Robert pointed with his paddle. “River-right. Eyes on her,” he shouted. Orson spotted the woman clinging to a rock across the river from them, her Rocking River vest blue and red against the stone gray. Robert and Jim did a high five, touching paddle tips. All the other rafts ahead of them were clearing the river. The raft was downstream of her. The woman was clearly terrified, white faced, her mouth turn down in fear. Crap. She wasn’t letting go of the rock. She wasn’t going to swim.
Mike shouted over the nearby roar of white water, “We’ll portage the boat back upstream, secure the raft to a tree onshore, and set up a Z-drag. From shore, we’ll let out line and let the water carry the raft to her. Understood?” They all nodded.
“Paddle hard all,” Mike shouted, “and we’ll eddy out.” Orson and Jim dug in. Orson’s breath was harsh, audible over the river’s voice as he used muscles he hadn’t worked in months.
The river was a beast, clawing at them from below. Then the Ranger raft bumped a rock onshore, cutting off some of the river’s voice.
They scrambled out. Above them on the interstate, trucks rumbled by, competing with the river for loudest voice. “Okay. Everybody lifts. Let’s go,” Mike said, making a path along the water’s edge
As portages went, with four adults and two kids carrying a heavy-as-hell raft across a narrow, stony track on sloping ground, moving fast to rescue a swimmer, in a misting cold rain, it wasn’t bad. The crew had to pass the raft over a pile of rock, skidding the boat’s underside across the top, and Orson, who was in front, had the pleasure of holding the boat’s balanced weight until they all got around. He really had to get in shape.
Suddenly, Mike said, “All stop.” They stopped and set the raft on the uneven ground. Orson, his heart hammering from exertion, craned around a rock to spot Gina, still on her boulder. Mike handed Robert two biners, a pulley wheel and a throw rope, and pointed from him to a tree. “Pulley Z-drag,” he said. “That one.”
Robert raced to the tree, tied off the rope and set up a pulley. He laced the rope through it, then around another tree, wrapping a bit of flex into a circle around the lines and passing one of the lines back through it, creating a Z-shaped lever system called a Z-drag. It wasn’t a complicated system for a mountain climber or a rafter, but the average Joe off the street would have no idea how to set one up. Orson would have had to think about it a bit himself. Robert set it up as if it was second nature to him. Glancing from Robert to Mike, he caught a flash of satisfaction on the guide’s face.
“You set this up,” Orson said softly.
Mike shifted his attention to Orson and back to JJ’s uncle. “Nope. Stop thinking like a cop. But it says a lot, don’t it?” Using biners, he attached one end of the rescue rope to another. Orson watched and worked to catch his breath as Mike tied the rescue rope to the raft and played out some of the line. The spatter of rain increased, the malicious sky spitting at them.
Robert set up with his back against a rock and one leg against another tree, the pulley Z-drag system between his hands and the trees he was using to secure the rope. He let out a bit of line and called out, “Ready when you are.”
“JJ,” Mike said, “you and Beverly stay onshore.”
“No way,” JJ said. “I want to help.”
“Not on this one. You have to protect Bev. But you can both sit on this rock and watch. Go.” Mike swatted him on the butt with his paddle.
JJ’s face twisted in that stubborn expression Orson had come to recognize as characteristic, but he walked to the rock Robert was using as a brace and started to climb. From the top, he shot a look of retribution at Mike as he helped Beverly up. Orson couldn’t help his grin. Up high, Beverly shivered with wet and cold and JJ put his arm around her. It was cute, but Orson knew better than to let the kid see his amusement.
Mike nodded at Robert but spoke to the others as he tossed all but three paddles to the ground. “We’ll ferry across current to the rock. I’ll try to bump us next to her, against the rock. I’ll hold our place in the current. Orson, you or Jim pull Gina in, whoever is closer to her. Kneel on the boat side, grab the shoulders of her vest, turn her to face the boat and fall back into the boat, pulling her in with you,” he instructed. It was rescue 101, and he had gone over it in his safety speech, but repeating it grounded them all in what was about to happen.
“If the current takes us left or right of the rock, we may have to work it. But we don’t want one of you going in, or Gina dropping from the rock and having to swim the rest of the Lost Guide into the pool below, scared as she is. It would be better to have Robert pull us back upstream and try again.
“Robert?” The man looked at him. “If for some reason you can’t see us, I’ll blow one short note per foot of extra line we need.” Robert nodded, looking oddly competent. “And if we need to go back upstream, I’ll blow long notes for each line foot. When we have her, I’ll blow one very long blast.”
Mike pointed with his paddle at the boat. “Get her on the river.”
The three men lifted the boat by the straps and walked from shore. The raft rested atop the water, rocking gently, held in place by the rope Robert controlled, the current flying by underneath. The three paddlers climbed in and set their feet to secure their positions.
“Okay,” Mike said. “Let’s do it.” He nodded at Robert and the lithe man released rope, muscles bunching beneath his river clothes. When did Robert get muscles? He had looked so doughy in a suit with piss-wet slacks.
The Ranger slid into the current. The surface of the river was foamy and dark, ringed with falling rain. “Paddle hard all,” Mike shouted. They dug in. Orson’s back and shoulder muscles were burning like fire.
The river growled louder as they pulled from shore, sounding angry. The current shifted, suddenly helpful, dragging them into the center. “Jim, you paddle,” Mike shouted. “Orson, I think we’ll be river-left of the rock when we hit. You get Gina. Jim, I want you in the middle of the boat to paddle.”
Orson set his paddle in the bottom of the boat, out of the way. He shook out his shoulders, ready to lift Gina by the straps of her PFD. Jim crawled over the thwart, into the bow of the boat where he could paddle either side with a simple shift of balance.
With Mike’s paddle as a rudder, the raft eased more river-left, centering on the rock Gina clung to, the river beating against her legs. The current caught the raft and spun it again and Mike compensated, his face tight with concentration. Orson glanced to his left and right, reading the water. Unpredictable, squirrelly. This wasn’t going to be easy.
Onshore, Robert eased out line a few inches at a time. The river raced beneath them, tugging hard, pushing them, slapping them around.
Brilliant light exploded overhead, half blinding Orson. An instant boom shook the raft. They all ducked hard. The sky opened up in torrents. Lightning hit again, this time on the ridge near the interstate, white light shocking. Wind swirled along the river’s course, pushing the boat around in a half circle. Rain beat into the Ranger, pelting their skin, stinging like nettles. A third lightning bolt stuck. Hit a tree river-left. The trunk exploded. Bark blasted into the air. A tree limb shot into the water. Visibility dropped to a few feet.
They had just left a man and two kids onshore. Under trees. In a lightning storm. It would have been safer in the boat on the water.
Icy rain hammered them. Orson’s skin tightened into hard pebbles of stress and cold.
“Ready!” Mike shouted over the maelstrom, his voice tinny beneath the bellow of the storm. Lightning struck again, and Orson felt the tingle through his body, the electric current carried through the water current.
Orson spotted the blue and red vest. Gina was only about six feet in front of them. Either she had slipped or the water was rising. Her fingers were a bloodless white, curling into the river stone. Orson glanced back to shore. Robert was invisible through the pounding rain. He would have no idea how much rope they needed.
Mike blew five quick blasts on his whistle. A moment later the boat began to move again. One foot closer. Two.
Orson stretched out his arms and leaned out over the water as if he could will himself closer. “Hang on, Gina!” shouted, his voice lost in the rapid and the storm. Orson thought she might have screamed back, into the teeth of the cutting rain.
The boat moved another foot. Another. They were close enough to see blood trailing, watery and thin, across Gina’s right hand. Jim paddled hard, arm muscles straining under his wet T-shirt, his fingers digging into the handle.
Mike blasted another note on his whistle, sharp and quick. The current caught them, spinning them in a half circle. The rope went slack and the boat lunged forward. The spin intensified, reversed, and hit Gina’s body square on. Orson and Jim were thrown against each other. There was no traction and they scrambled in the bottom of the boat. The raft rose and fell. Trapping Gina between boat bottom and granite.
Mike was beside them in the bottom of the raft. “All lean in hard right!” he shouted.
Orson had no idea which way was the stern or the bow. He followed Mike’s example, leaning far over the side of the raft, Jim beside him, so close their feet were intertwined.
The raft eased back off the rock and settled uneasily on the river surface. Not bothering to turn her to face him, Mike reached hard and grabbed Gina’s vest. He fell back, into the bottom of the raft. Gina landed on top of him. Even over the storm, Orson heard Mike’s grunt as she landed.
Orson found a paddle. Mike swiveled upright and took his seat up high in the stern. Jim and Gina held each other in the bottom of the raft, rain plastering hair and clothes to their bodies. Mike blew one long, echoing burst on the whistle. A second passed, and slack line sent them spinning past the rock.
This time Mike dug in with his paddle-rudder and Orson provided power, paddling hard. They took the Lost Guide rapid in a series of fast drops. The shore came into sight. Moments later, they were beached, just downstream of where they had beached before.
With unsteady fingers, Mike released the tie on the boat. Orson stepped ashore on quivering legs and tied the raft off to a small tree. Mike blew the “all safe” on his whistle and pulled a Ziploc bag containing a radio and a cell phone. From downstream came his long note, repeated several times, barely heard over the storm and the Pigeon.
The cell phone rang just as the storm opened up overhead. Clients rushed into the shop. Melissa hit the brew button on the coffee machine and started working the crowd, hawking T-shirts, coffee, colas and the sweets in the rack behind the register. All to make a profit, of course. Nell answered the phone, talking fast while ringing up two tees and a halter top. “Rocking River. Take a rocking good trip down the Pigeon. This is Nell. Can I help you?”
“Mike here,” his static-filled voice said. “We lost a customer on Lost Guide and did a rock rescue.” The connection broke up for a moment and then Nell heard “—all’s well. JJ’s fine. But this storm—bad.” Static took his voice away again, and then she heard “—soon as we can see more’n ten feet in front of us, we’re—ing in with all speed.”
Thunder rumbled in the background of the phone. A moment later the sound rolled over the shop, rattling the walls. Her hand clenched on the cell. “River’s rising fast,” he said. “The radios you make us—useless in a storm and the resc—I needed my hands free and the whistle worked—head back—visibility improves.”
“I’ll watch for you,” Nell said.
The connection broke. Lightning shattered the sky overhead. Her baby was out in the maelstrom.
When the storm blew over, leaving only a patter of raindrops and patches of blue sky overhead, the crew pushed back into the river from the relatively still water of Bomb’s Lake, where they had taken shelter, and headed downstream. Though the water level was higher, the Pigeon seemed calmer now, almost serene. The current lifted them gently over rocks and dropped them into troughs. JJ and Bev were shouting back and forth about river monsters and magic wands and lightning.
They quickly caught up with the other Rocking River rafts, the guides shouting insults and encouragement to one another. From his perch, Mike took a bow for the successful rescue, and Gina called out, “My hero,” pointing to the guide.
“Yeah, yeah! Be sure to tip him,” Hamp shouted. The crews all laughed, the sound of relief and release echoing along the river as they headed into the final rapids of the Upper Pigeon River.