chapter 22
A Beginner's Guide To Time Travel...
22
The current picked up as the gorge narrowed. Huge rocks lined the way, the water crashing against them and sending up plumes of water like smoke. The walls of the river canyon rose up as the river made its hurried descent, the current picking up and buffeting us up against the rocks. I climbed off the floor of the raft and sat on one of the pontoons, wrapping my right hand through the ropes holding the tents in place.
“Get us over to the shore!” Ricky said, sounding anxious.
“The current’s too strong. I can’t control it,” Whit said.
“There’s a waterfall up ahead,” Ricky said, and jumped up to push on the steering paddle.
“How do you know?” I asked him above the river’s roar.
“We’ve been here before,” Jimmy said, shouting above the rush of water.
“I’ve been here with you before,” Ricky added, looking at Whit.
“I’ve never been here before, and I’d certainly know if I was here with you.”
“I’ll explain once we get to the shore,” Ricky said.
“You won’t need to,” Jen said. “Not if we don’t get to the shore.”
Jarel jumped up to help, and the three of them pressed all of their weight against the oar. The raft refused to budge; instead, it caught an undertow which sucked the back end of the raft below the water line. The sudden dip made the front end of the raft rise up out of the water. I jumped down, thinking I could bail the water out with my hands. I could feel the rocks underneath us as we slipped over them. Jaleen handed me one of the large cooking pots, and together the two of us were able to get most of the water out and under control.
That’s when we heard the crack and both of us looked up to see Whit and Ricky hanging on to the broken oar, which had tangled itself in a group of submerged rocks and snapped in half. Jarel lost his balance and fell into the rushing water. Whit ran to the front of the boat, reaching for him, but it was too late, and Jaleen screamed as her brother was swept away, heading for the waterfall.
I stood on the small platform where the steering oar had been; I could hear the distant roar of water. There was a cloud of mist where the river dropped off, and I didn’t know if it was the waterfall Ricky mentioned earlier, or more rapids. Neither prospect was very promising. Going down the river without the oar was bad enough, but going over a waterfall seemed worse. I jumped off the platform and ran to the pontoon just as a large wave washed over the raft.
I reached out for Jaleen and wrapped a section of rope around her wrist.
“Jarel!” she cried out.
“He’s gone, and you will be too if you don’t hold on. We don’t need you falling out as well,” I said, and she nodded, looking back at Whit. “Tie yourselves to something,” I said.
“I remember what happened the last time I was here,” Jimmy said.
“You weren’t with us, the last time,” Jen said.
“Exactly my point!”
He raised his hand and pointed it at the air in front of him. In that moment there were sparks, and then a bright light as a small tear in the fabric of the air in front of us grew. Jimmy stood up and started to walk toward it. Jen jumped up with him. At first, I thought she was trying to stop him; I was wrong. She stepped out over the end of the pontoon and fell into the hole in the air.
The hole closed tight and we were left looking at each other, wondering what just happened.
“He left!” I screamed at Ricky. “They both left! What the fuck was that! What’re we supposed to do now?”
“Hang on!” Ricky said, and I could see, rather than feel, the front end of the raft going over the waterfall. I could also feel myself falling, and then being pulled by the rope I’d tied to myself to.
I hit the water and felt myself being pulled back by the rope. The raft flipped over top of me and I came up for air underneath it, the sound of water hitting the bottom of the raft and sounding like thunder. I could feel the weight of the water pushing the raft under, catching the back end and pushing me out into the middle of a shallow stream where I was able to find some footing and walk the upside down raft away from the waterfall.
I didn’t know who’d survived the trip over the falls, and stood up, trying to push the raft over. It was too heavy, so I gave up and crawled out from underneath. I could hear Ricky on the farther shore calling me, and turned to see him standing about ten feet above me on a small knot of large rocks.
“Did you see anyone else?” I asked.
“I saw Jarel floating out from under the waterfall. I’m pretty sure it’s safe to say he didn’t make it.”
“What about the other two?”
“I don’t know. I’m pretty sure they made it. I saw them making their way to the shore.”
“Where did your brother and Red Sonya go?” I asked, and for some strange reason looked down at the bracelet on my wrist. It was gone.
“I lost it!” I said.
“What?"
“The bracelet! She’s gonna be pissed when she finds out I don’t have it. I must’ve lost it going over the falls.”
“We lost a lot more than that,” Ricky said, nodding at the raft.
“What do you mean?”
“That thing was full of supplies. There can’t be too much in it.”
“Great. There go my clothes,” I said.
“Your clothes?” he laughed. “We just lost everything we need to survive out here, and your one concern is your clothes?”
“Okay, maybe my priorities are a little fucked up right now, but that doesn’t make me a bad person,” I said. “I didn’t sign up for this—whatever this is.”
“Well, at least you still have your gun,” he said.
“A lot of good that’s going to do with no ammo,” I said.
“How many bullets do you have left?”
“Maybe eight?” I said. I took the gun out of my holster and ejected the clip. I counted the bullets and told him.
“Seven,” he echoed.
“Hey, it’s seven more than the bad guys have,” I said. “And speaking of bad guys, who are those guys? They looked like something out of Conan.”
“I don’t know too much about them, except that Whit calls them Slavers, which, I guess, pretty well explains what they are.”
“Slavers? What the hell is this place?” I said, grabbing a length of rope and pulling the raft behind me. I walked toward him. He climbed down off the rocks and jumped down into knee high water.
“Did you know she was pregnant?” I said. “I mean, you seem to know more about them, than they know about you.”
He shook his head, reached out for the rope and began pulling the raft toward the shore. I got out of the water as quick as I could. I had to sit down and take my shoes off so I could drain the water out. I wanted to take off the fur jacket Jaleen gave me, thinking maybe I could wring it dry, but I wasn’t prepared to walk around bare-chested at the moment.
A shadow crossed over me and I looked up, my hand already on my Glock.
“Did we lose everything?” Whit asked. “Where’s Jarel?”
“I lost him when the raft flipped,” I said. “Where did you end up?”
“The current caught me. We both ended up around the bend. We were lucky, there’re more rapids down there.”
“Well, maybe he’ll show up,” I said, feeling uneasy even as I said it.
“He’d better,” Jaleen said.
“When is the baby coming?” I said, not knowing what else to say.
All I knew was that I didn’t want to be here when it came. I didn’t fancy playing midwife. I was there when my sister was born, when I was a kid, and seeing it put me off ever wanting to have kids. It wasn’t the beautiful scene people always say it is when they describe having given birth to their children. My poor mother swore, and grunted, cried out in pain and frustration—she even shit herself she was pushing so hard—and I thought to myself when I got older, how they don’t tell you those things in high school.
Having babies is not for me, I thought.
“You should wring that out,” she said to me as she walked passed.
Whit soon had a fire going, and I squatted down beside it, trying to keep warm. Whit was standing on the riverbank, looking at the tumbling water. There was a pack jammed into the rocks, away from the water—which meant it wasn’t wet—which was a good thing, I thought. I thought the only way he’d be able to reach it would be to climb down from above. I wondered if he had enough rope.
“You don’t want to be climbing those rocks without lashing yourself to something,” I said.
He turned to look at me.
“I can see what you’re looking at. Those rocks are gonna be wet, and slimy. Slug-slimy my Daddy used to call it. You have to get to it from above. Do you have enough rope?”
“I have what I used for the tents.”
“And how much is that?”
“Six lengths.”
“How long is a length?”
“Ten paces.”
I nodded. That would be more than enough. I looked up at the trees lining the riverside. He could tie the one end up top, the other around himself, and then climb down and retrieve the pack.
“Do you know which one it is?” I asked. “Wasn’t there two of them?”
We all climbed up the side of the hill. It was hard, painstaking, I could feel the muscles in my legs burning. Whit and Jaleen had little trouble with the climb, while Ricky was wheezing before we reached the half-way point.
When we finally reached the top, Whit and Jaleen were sitting on two large boulders, waiting. Whit was making a loop on one end of the rope and quickly wrapping it around himself. He’d already decided where he was going to secure the rope before climbing down the face of the waterfall. He made his way to the edge of the cliff face and peered over. He slipped once or twice on his way there, and Jaleen called out to him, her hands to her mouth, her body rigid.
He let out as much of the line as he could, letting it spill around his feet as he got down on his knees and looked over the edge again.
“There’s more than just the one pack,” he said. “One of the tents is there, too.”
“What else can you see?” Jaleen asked.
“That’s about it. The tent’s not in good shape. It’s only the house. There’re no leads, or poles. It’s not much of a tent. Do you still want it?”
“Yes!” she said. She looked at me and shook her head. “I don’t understand how he’d think we can’t use it. He can make poles. We’re in a forest.”
Whit somehow managed to get everything up with one trip. The pack was heavy. It was wet, and loaded with old pots and pans that should’ve been tossed out years ago. I thought I would’ve rather had the pack with the bedding, until Jaleen made her famous rabbit stew.
As Whit made his final climb up the cliff face we heard him cry out. The rope went tight.We ran to the edge of the cliff and saw him. He’d fallen ten feet, if not more, and was hanging, trying to regain his footing. Ricky pulled the rope up, straining with the effort as Whit somehow managed to get a foothold and climb up the rest of the way. His left forearm was bleeding from two puncture wounds.
“What happened?” I said, helping him up the last three feet. He fell into the water, rolling over onto his back, holding his arm. He was squeezing it above the wound.
“Snake,” he said.
