And then I couldn’t breathe. But it wasn’t because I was drowning. It was because someone was holding me around the neck really tight.
“Relax girl, I gotcha.” Matt was in the water next to me. And he was swimming toward the eddy with all his might — with one hand.
I pulled his arm away from my neck a little. “I thought I killed you with my paddle.”
He didn’t say anything until later, after we were both safely on shore. “Your paddle? Is that what knocked me out of the raft?”
“I’m not sure, but something pulled it out of my hand.” I stretched out my right hand and cringed when I saw the blown-up looking thing. I still couldn’t feel it either.
Mom ran over, picked me up, and carried me over to a beach chair. She wrapped some towels around me and rubbed my arms and back to warm me up. Fawn ran over with a sports drink, but I didn’t feel like drinking it.
“Where’s Dad and Brady?” I couldn’t think of a time when I wanted to have my whole family together more than right then.
“They went to pick Rusty’s dad up from the airport,” Mom said. Then she started to cry — which Mom hardly ever does. “I was afraid I was going to have to tell them that we lost you.”
“Nah,” Matt said. “I wasn’t going to let that happen. Are you okay, Riley? Besides your hand, I mean.” He rested my hand in his and lightly pressed on the huge knob that had grown on the back of it.
“Owwww.”
“Sorry. I’m afraid our next stop is the ER.”
“For both of you.” Fawn pointed to a huge gash on Matt’s right knee.
Great. More hospitals.
Matt put pressure on the knee with a towel and shook his head. “I got this from rock number two. But I still can’t figure out what hit me and pulled me out of the raft. I’m sure it wasn’t a paddle. But whatever it was caused these.”
He pointed to a bunch of little welts on his face and upper body.
Fawn inspected them from close up. “They look like rope burns.”
“Hey,” I said, “I saw something strange looking in the water, just before my paddle flew out of my hands. It looked like branches, but it could have been a rope.”
Mom went into cop mode. “What would a rope be doing in the river?”
“Maybe a rope swing came loose from one of the trees,” Fawn said.
“But we would have ridden right over it,” Matt said. “No, whatever it was, I got caught up in it.”
“Like a net.” Mom said. “Maybe you ran into a fisherman.”
“Fishing for what?” I asked. “A whale?”
“Something even bigger. Revenge, maybe?” Mom raised her eyebrows and looked at Fawn.
Fawn shook her head. “No! Nobody knows where we are. You said yourself that we were probably out of danger.”
“Yes, I did say probably. Nothing’s for sure yet.”
Matt put an arm around Fawn. “So you think this was intentional? Someone actually tried to hurt us out there?”
“Maybe,” Mom said. She looked up into the mountains. “And if that’s the case, they could be watching us. We need to pack up and get out of here right now.”
I groaned a little. My hand was starting to warm up, and with that came some pretty sharp pain.
“Hey! Riley Mae Hart! You never told me you were a stunt woman!” Flip came jog-limping down the hill from the photography lookout. Rusty dragged behind him, carrying most of the equipment. “I got some gnarly shots of Matt doing the backward flip off the raft and then you — not to be outdone — cranking out that awesome cannonball off the Get-Out-Now. I can’t wait to check out the frame-by-frame!”
Rusty dropped the equipment and kneeled down next to my chair. “Are you okay? That looked terrifying.”
I showed her my hand. She grabbed her stomach and made a horrible face.
Flip saw it too. “Oh no. You weren’t supposed to get hurt. I’m sorry, kiddo.” He looked up and saw Matt’s knee, which was bleeding pretty good. “And you — I thought you were made of steel.”
Matt laughed. “It’s not as bad as it looks. A couple of stitches and I’ll be ready to go again.”
“Flip, did you say you had frame-by-frame shots?” Mom was frantically folding up chairs and towels. Chuck, who had driven down to meet us at the pull-out, offered to carry me over to the car. “I’ll get you to the doc right quick, and we’ll get that hand fixed up good as new.”
“Just don’t go too quick,” I said. “And I could use another Samantha Special.”
“Sure thing, little darlin’. You’ve been through more bumps on this trip than a bull-ridin’ cowboy. Maybe you should join the rodeo. You’re tougher ’n nails, from what I can gather.”
The rodeo. That might be interesting. I could imagine wearing some sparkly Riley Mae cowboy boots and laying in a hospital bed with a matching neck collar.
But for now, it would probably be a cast or something on my right hand.