Питер Геллер - The River

Jack believed in luck. The turning of a card that sent a life in one direction or another. The slip of a single hoof on stone, the sound of two voices in the mist. He believed in it as much as he believed in any other thing, like loyalty or hard work. And sometimes the places that happenstance sent you weren’t as vague as a direction, sometimes they were as steel-cast and unforgiving as a set of rails. And sometimes the only way to jump the rails and set a new course was to have a wreck. Right now they needed speed. And he felt some comfort in the rifle propped at his feet; they might need that, too.

They quartered into the light wind and made good time. They paddled into the mouth of the outlet and felt the acceleration of the current. They entered the broad right-turning bend and hugged the right shore. Then they came around a ledge of bedrock and they saw the flat horizon line of the falls and beyond it the tops of the trees below, and there was the take-out beach and the tributary and the gap in the willows that was the path of their portage and there was nothing for it but to paddle in. Jack turned on the seat, said, “You got this?”

The current was not too fast and Wynn said, “Sure,” and Jack put his paddle behind him and picked up the gun.

No sign of a boat. Not on the beach nor in the shade of the trail. They paddled in and hauled out on the shore and Jack said to the woman that they would just be a minute, they were going to take a look, she’d be fine, and she blinked. It was like a semaphore: OK. Jack picked up the rifle and they trotted down the trail.

They could see in the mud that he’d dragged his boat. Maybe he’d hauled it to their campsite on the bluff in front of the cabin. His canoe was polyethylene, the heavy plasticlike material of the synthetic Old Towns; dragging it in the mud and over smooth rocks wouldn’t hurt it at all.

They hustled down the now trodden path and burst into the clearing. And stopped dead. It took a second to register: where the pile of gear had been at the edge of the cliff was a scattering of debris, freeze-dried foil packs torn and littered over the grass, two of the blue plastic barrels clawed open and spilled, the other two barrels…gone. The ones with their clothes and cooking gear, tarps, pans, warm dry pants and jackets, wetsuits—vanished.

Jack swore. Wynn said, “Bear. Jesus.”

Jack didn’t say another word. He walked to the exploded food barrels, kicked a lid over with the toe of his boot. It was scratched and mangled. He squatted, tipped up the barrel: empty. Same with the other. Macaroni was scattered in the weeds, the Ziploc torn. The gear had been six feet from the edge of the rock ledge overlooking the falls. Too close maybe. Whatever it was had evidently kicked the two nonfood barrels over the edge. One of the lids lay in the sun. It was scored and gouged.

Neither of them said a word. The implications were dawning: that they had ten days at least of river to go and no food save the two days’ worth in their emergency box; that they had an extra person, injured, and no extra warm clothes. Even the wetsuits and the spray skirt that kept water out of the boat were gone. Wynn whistled, a long, downward-sliding exhalation. After a minute he said, “Guess we shouldn’t leave food alone in bear country.”

Jack straightened and let his eyes wander over the clearing. Then he walked it, zigzagging among the wreckage.

Wynn said, “What are you thinking, Cap?”

“Gimme a minute.”

Wynn did. He watched Jack turning the scene over in his mind. Finally Jack said, “I didn’t see any bear tracks.”

Wynn said, “It’s dry out here in the sun. Just rock and scrub.”

“Yeah, but even when there’s not a bedded print you’ll see scrapings where they’re getting purchase. I don’t know.” Jack picked up a lid. “You ever seen a cooler torn open by a bear?”

“No.”

“I have.”

Wynn walked over. He felt like he was sleepwalking. None of this made sense. “Look,” Jack said and knelt, and Wynn knelt beside him. “When a bear tears open a container, to him it isn’t no different than a tree. He’s been tearing open trees for a million years. A plastic cooler, some poor sonofabitch’s car with peanut butter in the trunk—it’s all the same to him. His claws dig in somewhere and rip up or down, the way he claws up a root or down on a termite nest or a honeycomb. The claw marks make a continuous line. Look.” Jack had the two black plastic barrel lids in his hand. He fitted one, then the other on the mangled top of the barrel and turned them slowly until the one snugged down tight. “The claw marks, if that’s what they are, don’t line up.”

“You think it’s something else?”

“Or someone.”

“Whoa.” Wynn sucked in his breath. It had taken him a while, longer than usual, to follow Jack’s train of thought. He said, “You think Pierre tried to kill his wife. Like you said. And then threw all our shit in the river because we got on the radio and told him we found her alive.”

Jack shrugged.

“That’s crazy, Cap. Jesus. Out here that’d be like attempted murder. I mean tossing someone’s provisions.”

Jack turned. Wynn had never seen him look so agitated. Not when he’d decked the man in the bar; not when one of their English profs had said that western ranchers acted tough and independent but were actually on the teat of all sorts of government subsidies.

“It’s a death sentence,” Jack said. “Or meant to be.”

Wynn didn’t say anything. He fingered through a few of the empty food packages and said, “I think he’s scared of us. He seemed panicked. The way he kept his hand on the gun. He thought we kidnapped and killed his wife in the fog. Like some Deliverance shit. He’s not sure, anyway. Or maybe when we didn’t come back last night he panicked and took off for help, like he wanted us all to do.” Wynn shuddered. “This was a bear. When I imagine a camp torn apart by a bear, it looks just like this.” He stood, huffed. “Cap, how many trip accounts did we read where a bear came into camp? It makes sense. Pierre had already made the portage and packed up all his stuff in his boat below and he was waiting for us. Then when the bear tore through camp, he just jumped in his canoe to escape. Figuring we’ll follow right after.” He rubbed his eyes. “I keep thinking the Texans or whatever they are could have hurt her. I dunno.”

“Well, okay,” Jack said. One of the things he loved about his buddy was that he cut everyone yards of slack. “All we’ve got to do is ask her. What the fuck happened. But if Pierre did this to her and us, we better be frigging glad he’s got a shotgun and we’ve got a rifle.”

Wynn thought about that. If the man did want them dead, with a shotgun and buckshot he’d have to get within fifty or sixty yards. To be sure. With a scoped rifle, if he was good, he could pick them off from a quarter mile.

They trotted back up to the beach and the canoe. They couldn’t ask her, because her eyes were closed again and her pulse was thready and she’d drifted back into shock.

They made a fire by the canoe, right on the cobbles of the portage beach. And they wrapped her in the sleeping bags again and heated rocks and warmed her up. They elevated her legs and when she stirred they got her to sip some warm sweet water. It was touch and go; that’s what Wynn thought. If she survived the next few days it would be…what? A miracle? No, but the odds didn’t seem good. If she was going to survive, the next few days would be critical. They needed to keep her in fluids and calories, and more than anything she needed rest. That was the quandary.