Lindsay Buroker - Torrent

We dropped our chitchat for the hike to the motorcycles, each of us scanning the path ahead and the surrounding trees, watching for movement. Fresh tire prints dented the earth between the rounded rocks that dotted the riverbed. Tracking them was easy; following the men after they dismounted would be more challenging, especially since we wouldn’t want to get close enough to be seen.

After ten minutes of walking, a glint in the brush caught my eye. I pointed, and we found the black bikes hidden there. I wondered if the riders had known someone was following them, or if they’d simply taken a precaution.

“This is as far as I can track them.” Simon waved his phone-we’d caught up with the little dot that represented the device he’d glued in one of the tailpipes.

Given that my reception had disappeared a while back, I wondered if he’d been guessing a little as to their location in the end. Or maybe his app simply required less juice than a web browser. We hunted around for a moment, our faces toward the dusty earth.

“Found their prints.” I pointed to the ground and led the way. With brush clogging the riverbanks, there wasn’t much chance of the riders leaving the bed, but I kept my eyes open for the possibility anyway. Other than the footprints, the pair traveled lightly over the earth. I didn’t notice any broken branches or snapped twigs such as one expected in the wake of large animals and careless humans.

As we continued down the dry riverbed, I grew more conscious of the passing of time. I checked the clock on my phone often. My willingness to be out here was predicated on the monster’s history of nocturnal attacks. For all that I wanted to solve some of the mysteries around Eleriss and Jakatra, I wasn’t willing to die to do so.

“What’s that?” Temi whispered, pointing ahead.

Something dark lay between some rocks. I crept forward, pausing to note the fresh cup of a boot in the dust, then stopped. A bunch of weeds had been cut back, revealing a hole in a stretch of granite, its edges worn smooth. The sound of rushing water drifted up from within.

“Our underground river,” I said.

Simon peered into the hole. About two feet in diameter, it would be an unpleasant space to crawl into. I doubted the cold water waiting at the bottom would be pleasant either. The sun was still out, but it had moved behind the trees, and I didn’t fancy the idea of air-drying my clothing. Arizona or not, it was October, and we were five thousand feet above sea level.

I tried to pick up the tracks on the other side of the hole, but the earth there didn’t hold any footprints. I circled the area in case the riders had climbed out of the wash. Nothing.

“Why do I have a feeling they went down there?” Temi asked.

Simon looked to me.

“Because… I think they have.” Shaking my head, I returned to the hole. “How could they know if there’s air to breathe down there? You can’t tell from here. The water might fill the entire space.”

“A river should be low at this time of year,” Simon said.

“Maybe so, but I don’t relish the idea of plopping down there and seeing where the flow takes me.”

“It could be a trap too,” Temi said. “If they knew we were following them and wanted to… get rid of us, they could lead us to believe they’d gone down there when all they’d truly done was hidden their tracks and continued on.”

“That’s true. I’ve only tracked animals.” And not that many of them, I admitted to myself. “They don’t do things like sweeping branches across the sand to rub out their prints.”

Simon dug into his pack and pulled out a flashlight. He flopped onto his belly and peered into the hole.

“Still,” I added, “I didn’t get the impression that they wanted to do us any harm. The chatty one warned me to leave town.”

“This hole looks like it opens up before it hits the water,” Simon said. “Though I don’t know if there’s anywhere to walk on the sides.”

“Perhaps if we had some rope, we could lower him down,” Temi said.

“Me?” Simon drew back and knelt by the edge. “I didn’t volunteer for that.”

“Oh, you were volunteered,” I said. “We even voted on it while you were hanging over the side there. Due to our superior numbers, we easily obtained the majority.”

He pointed the flashlight at me. “We are going to have a discussion about voting procedures soon.”

“Of course,” I said. “In the meantime, why don’t you get out our rope alternative and see what kind of harness you can fashion for yourself?”

“Fine, but if there are any tarantulas down there, we’re switching places.”

“That’s fair,” I said.

As Simon dug into his pack again, Temi pointed at my bullwhip and said, “Can’t we use that like a rope? It might be long enough to lower someone down.”

“And risk having it drop into the water and float away? I took a special class so I could make it myself. It’s priceless.”

“Note, she’s perfectly willing to let me drop in the water and float away,” Simon said.

“Well, I didn’t make you by hand in a special class.”

Simon pulled out his trusty roll of duct tape. “Rope alternative, coming up.”

In an impressively short time, he’d braided strips of tape into a twenty-foot length and had fashioned the equivalent of a rappelling seat for himself. He found a sturdy stump to tie the end around, then handed the loose coils to us. He stuck the flashlight into his belt and crouched beside the hole, placing his hands on either side.

“Lower me down, ladies.”

Temi and I gripped the “rope,” and I took a wide-legged stance, ready to lean back to help with the weight while she found a bolder to brace herself against. Sometime I’d have to ask her if she wore a knee brace, which would account for the limp, or if she favored the leg because it hurt to put weight on. It’d be a drag either way.

“Ready when you are,” I told Simon.

He lowered himself, using his legs to slow his descent. At first, there was no pull on the rope, but his head dropped below the hole, and he must have run out of rock to brace himself against, for we soon had his full body weight.

“Should we start lowering you?” I asked, not sure if he’d hear me in my normal tone of voice, but not willing to shout in case the riders lurked nearby. Temi’s observation that this might be a trap hadn’t left my mind.

A couple of quick tugs came in response.

“Guess that’s a yes,” I said.

We let our rope slide a foot, then a foot more. When we didn’t receive any more feedback, we kept going. I wished I’d taken a closer look inside so I’d have an idea as to the depth, but it couldn’t be more than ten feet to the water. All right, maybe fifteen, I decided as more and more rope played through our hands.

Something jerked at the end of the line, and my gut lurched.

“Simon?” I asked, forcing my voice to stay low, though I wanted to shout.

Words floated up. I couldn’t decipher anything except a few curses followed by, “Cold!”

“He must have let himself drop into the river,” I said, not certain Temi had heard. She was farther away from the hole than I was.

“There’s probably not a bank or anything to stand on,” she said.

A couple more tugs came, and I let out a little more line, but it grew slack. He must be standing on the bottom. I knelt beside the edge of the hole. I couldn’t see Simon but a flashlight beam was waving back and forth down there.

“Anything promising?” I asked.

Simon stepped-no, waded -into view beneath the hole. Water lapped about his waist. “As far as I can tell, there are no tarantulas.”