Scott Nicholson - The Gorge

“I ought to cut this rope and let you fall.”

“You might need me. What if those things attack while you guys are playing bondage with your ropes?”

“Where’s Castle?”

“I went to get some firewood, figured it would help him get comfortable. And the son of a bitch stole the raft while I was gone. Can you believe that? A fucking federal agent.”

Farrengalli renewed his assault on the slope, his sheer strength and size compensating where Dove had failed. He didn’t want to count on Raintree’s helping hand, as she had. He wasn’t sure how helpful it would be this time around.

“Did he inflate the raft while you were gone?”

Shit. Farrengalli hated being caught in a lie. It had always made him angry, but he also enjoyed the challenge. Honesty was for dumb-asses. Liars were smart, because they had to remember all their lies, whereas smart people only had to remember what really happened.

“Well, he ordered me to pump it up. Wanted the two of us to make a run for it.”

“ Ordered you? Without a gun?” Dove said, her head now poking over the ledge beside Raintree’s. In the growing darkness, he could barely make out the teeth inside her grimace.

“He’s got a badge. What did you want me to do?”

“I thought we decided-oh, screw it.” Raintree tossed down a second line. “Here’s a backup if you need it.”

“Preesh, my man.” Though Farrengalli had no intention of putting his weight on any line that Raintree hadn’t tried first. Besides, eight more feet of busting his balls and he’d be within reach of the ledge. Raintree wouldn’t try anything funny in front of Dove.

He’d slid the carabiner through his belt, the way they’d taught him on the reality show. But it felt a little bit faggy, like some goofy body jewelry or something. Safety was for sissies, anyway. What was the point of looking both ways to cross the street when God was probably dropping a fucking piano on your ass?

Faith, man, that’s the ticket. You got to believe in your own fucking self.

He propelled forward, hand over hand, water squirting from the rope as he gripped it. Dove and Raintree barely had time to move away before he launched himself up and over the rock edge. The ledge was about ten feet wide, with a few scrub pines and patches of moss clinging where dirt had collected over the centuries.

Farrengalli managed to disguise his exertion. “So, you guys going to have a picnic, or should we get our candy asses up sugar mountain?”

“What really happened down there?” Dove said. Chief stood a few feet away, arms folded. One good shove away from a fifty-foot drop. But that could wait for later. Right now, he needed Raintree to help get them to the top. Like he’d needed Bowie at first. And he needed Dove for the photographs, the promise of fame stored on negatives, in the backpack he’d left with Castle along with the words “Guard this with your life.”

“Like I said, he stole the raft.”

“He was wounded and in shock.”

“You know how those Feds are. They’re messed up in the head. All this duty and courage and toughness bullshit.”

“I think we’re the ones getting the bullshit,” Raintree said.

The red bastard’s forearms were pretty big. Farrengalli would have to be careful getting rid of this one. “He had this cockamamie idea that he still could catch the Bama Bomber. Said he owed it to his partner.”

“We’re losing daylight,” Dove said. “We can sort this out later.”

Not a whole lot of daylight left to lose. “All I know is we’re all here and, on this little piece of rock, we’re like deviled eggs on a plate for whenever those bloodsuckers get hungry.”

“Okay,” Raintree said, working on threading the safety line through its anchor. “I’m lead. I’ll go up a little bit, set the lines, and drop one down.”

Dove put a hand on Raintree’s forearm. “Let me go first this time.”

Farrengalli had to choke down a laugh. Touchy-feely P.C. horse crap. And Raintree will have to say “I’m more experienced.”

“Now you’re the one that’s bullshitting. We both saw how your safety anchor wasn’t secure.”

“Remember when you said I’d have to be the leader if anything happened to Bowie?”

Farrengalli’s ears pricked up. Not at this little tidbit of revelation, but because of the banshee wails bouncing off the walls of the gorge a couple of miles downstream.

“It’s getting dark,” Clara shouted over the churning water. She knew she was stating the obvious, just as she knew Ace would ignore the obvious.

Ace, behind her in the aft position, worked the paddle from side to side, splashing her shoulders with each stroke. She no longer felt the chill; her body had passed into a numbness that matched the deadening of her spirit.

The only warm spot was in the center of her belly, where a sick miracle of biology was taking place, cells divided and growing, mass forming.

Maybe she’d name it Wayne. It was boy, she knew. She’d always heard “A woman knows,” and she’d always thought it was bullshit, same as “Jesus loves the little children” and “You can trust the government.” But now that she had a cluster of living cells squirming inside her, she thought it was magic of the highest order. The connection went beyond mere extrasensory perception. She now had a religion, a nest egg, and a deepest fear all rolled into one.

“It’s darkest nigh on before dawn,” Ace said, as if offering up some bit of Biblical wisdom.

“You think that cop is dead?”

“Don’t matter none. He had it coming, sooner or later.”

Somehow, his shooting of the FBI agent was more horrifying than the abortion clinic bombings. She certainly had no special place in her heart for cops, mostly because the guys she’d dated thought of them as The Establishment. She’d never dealt with them much; despite the drugs and the violent boyfriends, she had a clean record. Now, her jacket was pretty crowded, assuming she ever got caught.

She didn’t want to think about how that would affect Wayne Jr.’s future.

“How much farther?” Ace shouted over her shoulder to Bowie, who bent over the front of the raft, body tense as he fended off rocks and guided by the graying plumes of foam. The beam of the flashlight on her helmet cut blue lines across his back, failing to illuminate their path. Clara noticed for the first time that his shirt was ripped. His arms were marked by a series of long, shallow wounds.

“Depends on how much longer you want to live,” the haggard guide said.

“Eternal life is already mine,” Ace said, his voice booming like a tent evangelist’s.

“In that case,” Bowie said, pausing to spear his paddle against an outcropping of rocks, “there’s not much incentive in sticking to calm water.”

“He leadeth me to lay down by still waters,” Ace said, mangling one of the psalms. “Though I walk through the shadow of the valley of evil, I will fear no death.”

Valley of evil. Clara thought the dividing line between good and evil was nearly invisible, and probably depended on which side of the line you were standing. Ace’s angels had already killed people, yet Ace had been spared. So far. Maybe the Lord really was on his side.

But what about Clara, and the formative soul inside her? Would God show the same mercy to them?

The raft lurched, skidding up onto a shelf of rock that must have been lurking inches beneath the surface. A side current skirled against the port side, throwing the three occupants against the inflated bow. Clara clung desperately to the grab loop as Ace lost his balance and plunged forward against Bowie. The tour guide recovered and swung his paddle hard, catching Ace on the back of the neck.