C Box - In Plain Sight

“Yup.”

“Jesus. One of those Keeleys?”

“Yup.”

After a beat, Joe said, “Thanks for coming, Nate.”

“Anytime, partner,” Nate said, sliding his big revolver out of his holster and checking the rounds.

JOE AND NATE passed under the antlered arch with the THUNDERHEAD RANCH sign and plunged down a hill on the slick dirt road.

“There it is,” Nate said, pointing.

The school bus was stalled at the bottom of the hill in the middle of the road. Or what had been the road. Now, though, the river had jumped the dike and water foamed around the bus and into the open bus door.

“It looks empty,” Nate said, straining to see through the wet windshield. The wipers couldn’t work fast enough to keep it clear.

Joe slowed as he approached the bus and stopped short of the water. He jumped out, holding his shotgun. The rear of the bus was twenty feet away, the level of the river halfway up the rear door. The sound of the flooding river was so loud he couldn’t hear himself when he shouted, “There’s nobody on it. They must have gotten out on the other side before the dike blew open!”

Joe visualized a scene in which J. W. Keeley herded the girls through the rising water to the other side, marching them toward the ranch buildings two miles away through the cottonwoods. The vision was so vivid it deadened him for a moment.

He wouldn’t even consider the possibility that they’d all been swept away by the water.

He looked around at the situation. They were helpless.

They couldn’t go around the bus or they’d risk stalling themselves or getting swept away themselves. Joe looked upriver and Nate looked down. There was no place to cross.

“Is there another road in?” Nate asked, shouting at Joe from just a few feet away.

Joe shook his head. All the roads would be flooded, and even worse than this.

He thought about getting to the ranch from the other direction; driving back the way they had come, going through Saddlestring, taking the state highway into the next county and coming back the opposite way. But that highway paralleled the river as well at one point. It would likely be flooded, and it would take hours to get around that way even if it wasn’t.

Joe waded into the water, testing the strength of the current to see if there was any way they could cross. Maybe by shinnying along the side of the bus, using the force of the current to hold him upright against the side of the vehicle, he could get to the other side. He was in it to his knees when something struck him under the surface, a submerged branch or length of wood, and knocked his legs out from under him. He plunged into the icy water on his back, his shotgun flying. The current pulled him quickly under, and gritty water filled his nose and mouth. He could feel swift movement as he was carried downstream. When he opened his eyes he could see only foamy brown, and he didn’t know if he was facing up or down.

Something solid thumped his arm and he reached out for it and grasped it and it stopped him. He pulled hard, and it held-a root-with his other hand. The surface was slick but knotty, and he crawled up it hand over hand, water still in his mouth, trying not to swallow, until his head broke the surface where he spit it out and coughed.

He turned his head to see Nate upstream, fifty feet away, running along the bank in his direction.

Joe righted himself until he could get his feet underneath him. He shinnied up the root until he was out of the water. He hugged the trunk of the old cottonwood like a lover, and stood there gasping for breath.

“That wasn’t a very good idea,” Nate said when he got there.

JOE WAS SHIVERING as they backed the ranch truck out and ground back up the hill.

“There is only one way to get to the ranch,” Joe said, his teeth chattering.

“The river?” Nate said.

“Yup.”

“We’ll die.”

“We might. You want me to drop you off at your house?”

Nate looked over with a face contorted by pure contempt.

“I’ll row,” Joe said. “You bail.”

JOE BACKED THE ranch truck on the side of the garage of his old house and Nate leaped out. It took less than five minutes to hook up the trailer for the fifteen-foot drift boat with the leaky bottom. The boat was filled with standing rainwater, and the motor of the truck strained to tow it onto the highway. Despite losing minutes, Joe stopped so Nate could run and pull the plug on the rear of the boat. They got back on the highway and drove with a stream of rainwater shooting out of the stern of the vessel. Joe wished he had finished patching up the leaks.

“Have you ever taken a boat like this on a river like that ?” Nate asked as they backed the trailer up toward the river at the launch site.

“No.”

“This is technical whitewater,” Nate said, looking out at the foamy white rooster-tails that burst angrily on the surface. Downstream was a series of massive rollers.

“Where are your life vests?”

Joe said, “Back in the garage.”

IT WAS A ROCKET RIDE.

Nate was in the bow of the boat, holding the sides with both hands to steady himself. His job was to warn Joe, who was manning the oars, of oncoming rocks and debris-full-grown trees, cattle, a horse, an old wooden privy-by shouting and pointing. Joe missed most of them, rowing furiously backwards and turning while pointing the bow at the hazard and pulling away from it. They hit a drowned cow so hard that the impact knocked Nate to the side and Joe lost his grip on the oars.

Without Joe steering, the boat spun tightly to the right. Joe scrambled on his hands and knees on the floor of the boat through twelve inches of icy, sloshing water, trying to get back on the oars, when they hit the privy.

The shock sent both Nate and Joe falling to the side, which tipped the boat and allowed gallons of water to flow in.

They were sinking.

Luckily, the river calmed and Joe was able to man the oars again. Straining against both the current and hundreds of pounds of water inside the boat, he kept the oar blades stiff and fully in the water and managed to take the boat to shore. They hit a sandy bank and stopped suddenly.

Joe moaned and sat back on his seat. “This isn’t going well.”

Nate crawled back on his bench and wrung the water out of his ponytail. Joe watched as Nate patted his slicker down, making sure he still had his weapon.

“We need a big rubber raft for this,” Nate said.

“We don’t have one.”

They got out and pushed the side of the boat with as much strength as they had, finally tipping it enough so most of the water flowed back out to the river. With the loss of the weight, the boat bobbed and started to race downstream again. Joe held on to the side, splashing through the water, the boat propelling him downstream, then finally launching himself back in. Nate pulled himself in and fell clumsily to the floor.

Joe pointed the bow downriver, and their speed increased. He could hear a roar ahead, a roar much bigger than what they had just gone through.

“Get ready!” Joe shouted.

Nate reached out for the rope that ran the length of the gunwales and wrapped his wrists through it with two twists.

“Are you sure you want to do that?” Joe asked. “If the boat flips, you may not be able to get out of that rope.”

“Then don’t flip the boat,” Nate called over his shoulder.

Joe could feel their speed pick up. The air filled with spray from the rollers and rapids ahead. They were going so fast now that he doubted he could take the boat to the bank for safety if he wanted to. Which he did.

THE RIVER NARROWED into a foaming chute. What had two days ago been gentle riffles on the surface of the lazy river were now five- and six-foot rollers. On the sides of the river, trees reached out with branches that would skewer them if they got too close.