The Secret Path

by Karen Swan

  Behind it was another one, much larger, a white lace of skittering water spinning out behind it. She was being swept along at a rate that made missing it impossible and within moments the canoe was upon it, the prow propelled onto the hump as the water surged around it. The impact dislodged her from her precarious position astride the bench and she fell back into the hollow, hitting her head on the wooden seat behind. She lay there dazed as for several long moments the boat was stranded on the hummock, rocking erratically as water surged against it on one side and the river continued to rush underneath. She could feel it pushing against the stern of the boat with insistent force, dislodging it centimetre by centimetre, slowly nudging her off . . .

  She cried out as the boat suddenly freed itself from its perch, floating sideways down the fast-rushing river for several metres, gaspingly cold water frothing over the upstream side again, before the canoe corrected itself and the prow swung back to nose through the water.

  But there was no respite. The rocks were dotting the river like miniature islands now and two seconds later, she hit another one. Momentum meant the boat carried over it for a fraction before becoming wedged again, its prow out of the water, the river rushing around her on all sides.

  She looked downriver and, at what she saw there, began screaming. She started hollering, yelling for someone, anyone – Alex! Alex! – to save her. She was screaming not because she wanted to get off this rock in the middle of the river, but because she wanted to stay on it. Because she could see now what had been hidden from sight before – that the rapids up ahead, seemingly shallow rills that might tear the bottom from the boat, actually preceded something far worse – a mist rising like a steam where the river dropped away, out of sight. It just . . . disappeared.

  She could feel the force of the water still pushing against the boat, like hands and winds and wheels beneath it, relentless in its pursuit. It felt personal, merciless, as steadily the canoe began to shift in tiny increments. She looked about her wildly but there was nothing to hold on to, no tree branches to grab . . .

  The rushing river ahead was now a rolling thunder so that even her screams were swallowed up as the canoe came free again. It skirred over the shallow rocks, hitting each one roughly and throwing her about but not stopping, the momentum too great. She tried to sit up but the boat was being tossed about as the water roiled and frothed, its prow caught and spun like a pinball by half-submerged rocks. She was travelling side-on again, water sloshing over the low sides by the gallon and sinking her ever lower. She could hear the boom of the water, see the smooth rock walls along the banks . . . But she couldn’t see ahead, only up.

  The boat hit another boulder, a huge one, the impact slamming her body against the hull, and this time she heard a crack that told her it was all over. Suddenly she was in the water, the boat spinning away from her in two pieces. There was no time to scream. Her hands reached for the sky as she went under, she felt the smooth ancient rocks buried under tonnes of pressure as her body was swept like a rag doll’s over the edge. For a moment she was contained within the body of liquid, almost embryonic, suspended, protected . . .

  Then it dispersed into a million tiny crystals and she felt herself fall.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  It was both endless, and over in moments. The pool below was deep and clear, the debris of the boat pushed under the surface and bobbing up seconds later, several metres downstream. She had landed hard, the breath knocked from her lungs so that she surfaced with a gasp. But her lungs wouldn’t inflate. She was winded, quite literally breathless.

  The spray from the falls made it impossible to see, a hard-falling rain that pounded down on her head, forcing her straight under the water again, her body sinking easily without the buoyancy of full lungs. Even below the surface she could hear the roar, feel the immense power tumbling above her and pushing her down. Her body was heaving and buckling, her lungs screaming to be reinflated and she knew she had to move away somehow, get to anywhere but here. Her limbs were flailing with conflicting instincts – to surface, to breathe – but she somehow co-ordinated herself enough to kick for three, four strokes, out of the way of the central chute.

  Almost immediately, the water became calmer. Calm. She broke through the surface and the air was a slap against her skin like her primal first breath, oxygen filling her lungs as she coughed and wheezed, the spray misting her face. She kicked her way blindly towards the edge, catching hold of a rock and hugging it, sucking in the air in desperate gulps as though she was trying to strip the pigment from the sky. She pulled herself up enough to lie sprawled on her stomach, gasping like a landed fish until gradually she felt her diaphragm relax out of spasm and her body recover. Shock had her in its grip; she was shaking too much to stand, her limbs as weak and trembling as a newborn fawn’s. She hardly dared look back, look up . . . What had just happened? It had all been so fast . . .

  When she saw it, she cried out. She had come over that?

  A drop of twelve, maybe fifteen metres, the water shot out like jets, the immense pressure pushing horizontally before it began to fall. Perhaps that was a mercy – it meant she had missed any rocks at the base.

  She lay there shivering and shaking convulsively, her mind feeling unwieldy and shapeless too, as though she had lost her edges, like the water. But a voice, an instinct, was telling her to get out of this river and get warm. She wasn’t safe yet.

  Hauling herself up with effort, getting her legs out of the cold water and onto her hands and knees, she crawled over the rocks, sobs escaping her as her elbows buckled suddenly or a knee slipped, sending her crashing again, bruising her, dropping her back into the water. Nothing was working properly, her body disconnected from her brain, her limbs shaking violently. It seemed to take an age to cover any distance at all, the clamour of the falls pounding her ears and reminding her of their power, making her quake. She didn’t want to go back in that water again. She couldn’t get wet.

  She was so close to safety, almost at the riverbank but for a narrow channel of water that slipped between the rocks. On any other day, she could have hopped it, a girlish leap with her arms in the air. But today she had almost been killed. Today she had cheated death. There was nothing left in her, adrenaline left her like a rag. She stopped where she was, unable to go any further.

  The voice in her head was telling her she had to get dry but it was an impossible task now, too much to ask. The rock was flattish beneath her, almost like a ledge, soaking up the sun’s heat. Just getting here had depleted her and she lay there, shivering in the sunlight, feeling its warmth steadily seep into her bones as she curled up into a tight ball. She let her head and limbs become heavy, watching the river glide past her at a stately pace, now that the excitement was over.

  She stared impassively back at the falls. The cliffs rose up like a gorge on either side from where she lay, smooth and dark and completely impassable. Already it was impossible to believe she had come over the edge of it. She couldn’t forget that feeling of falling, of her arms and legs flailing as she tore through space, the moment of impact . . . She couldn’t forget the utter terror of thinking that she was going to die. She couldn’t forget that as she waited for oblivion, her last thought had been of her first love.

  The voice was distant, dream-like. Her fingers twitched against the rock, her mind resisting the call back to wakefulness. She wanted to stay under, stay still. There was solidity beneath her. No movement, no rushing. As long as she didn’t stir, she would be safe. Nothing could reach her here—

  ‘Tara!’

  Her eyelids fluttered open, even though she felt pinned down, tethered to a force that was pulling her into the earth. She heard the heavy sound of footsteps running, panting drawing closer, the crash of water. And then her body was being lifted, being held, cradled in warm arms.

  ‘Tara?’ Alex’s voice was torn velvet, his eyes wretched and desperate as he stared down at her, looking for signs of life, of injury. ‘Tell me you’re okay.’


  It was a demand.

  ‘I’m okay,’ she mumbled, staring up at him, unable still to move. She had never felt so heavy. Her entire body felt filled with lead, her limbs stiff in their bent foetal position.

  ‘I can’t believe . . .’ But his voice trailed off as he looked back at the falls. He immediately paled as his heart forgot to beat. She watched his Adam’s apple bob up and down as he swallowed, imagining.

  He looked back at her and she felt like a child. Tiny in her father’s arms. Safe again. She felt a feeling that she hadn’t felt in so many years now as his eyes settled upon hers. It was like a lock turning within her. Or perhaps unlocking. Fundamental bolts and slides moving into position, giving her shape. She felt tears begin to stream from her eyes, silent and endless – fear superseded by relief. Now she was safe.

  His hand smoothed over her face, pressing against her skin, taking a gauge of her warmth. ‘You’re freezing. We need to get you out of those wet clothes.’ He stared at her tears as they raced like raindrops down a window. ‘Christ, I can’t believe . . .’ His voice was hoarse. The apple bobbed again. He cleared his throat. ‘. . . Can you sit up?’

  She could feel his heart pounding against his chest. It sounded like a racehorse’s, one of her father’s winners at Cheltenham. Had he run all the way? How many miles? Had he known these falls were here? Surely he must have done – that was why he’d looked so scared as she’d been swept away. He’d known this was where she would end up. Could he have conceived that she would survive it?

  She couldn’t. The sensation kept ripping through her still, her body falling through space as the body of water broke apart into tiny droplets and just . . . let her go. It wasn’t an unfamiliar feeling, she realized. She felt like she had been falling for a very long time, bracing for the landing and knowing that when she did, she would break apart.

  ‘Come.’ Gently he gathered her up, bringing her to an upright position. ‘We’ve got to dry these clothes while there’s still heat in the day.’

  She felt his fingers against her skin as he unbuttoned her shirt and peeled it off. He did the same with her trousers too, unlacing her boots and pulling off her socks so that she was in only her underwear. Yesterday, Jed. Today, she was the patient.

  ‘You have a guest,’ she heard him murmur and she glanced for long enough to see him detach a leech from her calf. ‘. . . They get in everywhere. It’ll itch for a bit, but don’t worry, I know something for that.’

  She didn’t respond. He quickly unbuttoned his own shirt and pulled it on over her, bending her arms through the armholes, buttoning the buttons; she seemed unable to help herself. ‘There, that’ll keep you covered. Sunburn is the last thing you need right now.’

  ‘I’m okay,’ she mumbled, her voice just a faint shadow, surprising even her.

  ‘No. You’re in shock.’ His hands ran over her head, smoothing her hair as he gazed down at her. She felt little again. He looked back to the falls as if magnetically drawn, his despair silent but tangible, like a dog’s mournful melancholy. She sensed he didn’t know what to do. He looked around them, stiffened suddenly. ‘Hang on . . . Wait there.’

  She wasn’t going anywhere. Where was there to go anyway? They had no provisions, no shelter. She could hear him in the water, his legs wading in long, slow, powerful strides. They receded and then, after an absence, drew near again.

  Something red came into her field of vision. Slowly, she looked up. He was dragging the rucksack – one of them.

  ‘It got caught on that branch!’ he said, his voice infused with an incredulous wonder. She watched on blankly as he took it to the shore and unpacked it. Litres of water spilled onto the stones, staining them dark as slowly, methodically, he began opening everything out and laying it all in the sun.

  Hammock. Tarp. Lines. Stove. Sheathed knife. Collapsible buckets. A few packets of dried noodles. Even the strange package Don Carlos had given her, which she hadn’t had enough time to open, her curiosity going unanswered. He sat on the stones beside the river, next to their worldly belongings, his elbows on his knees as he waited for everything to dry. He watched her in silence. She curled back into her foetal position on the rock – still shivering but less than before, still wearing his shirt – and watched him back. Neither one said a word, her blinks steadily becoming longer, her heart rate slowing. The river had become a tranquil place again, a beauty spot where dragonflies danced and toucans squabbled for fruit in the trees. It was an idyll, a tropical paradise. Nothing bad could ever happen here. It was a beautiful day. The last thing she thought, as her eyes closed again, was that the sun wasn’t even yet at its highest point in the sky.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  They set off when there were still two hours of light left. Alex was sure they could make it. Their morning’s speed-hike, coupled with her runaway ride and his riverside sprint, meant they had covered far more ground than he had anticipated and he was confident they could get to the village before nightfall, even though they were walking at half the speed of the morning leg.

  He kept turning back every few paces to check she was still there, still okay. She saw now, as she followed in his footsteps, that his clothes were torn and ripped in places, that he had some nasty cuts to his forearms, a vivid grass and mud stain along the seat of his trousers as though he’d gone sledging without a sledge. He looked like he’d been in a fight with something a lot bigger and more vicious than him. She wondered again what he’d been through, getting to her.

  Everything had dried now, including her clothes, which were stiff and crackly, and her second sleep had been powerfully restorative, somehow effecting a profound change. Perhaps knowing she was protected, her mind had been able to relax, but when she had woken – under his watchful gaze for a second time today – she found her nervous system had calmed, her strength had returned, her body was responding to cues once more and the fizzing bitterness between them had dissipated. If they weren’t exactly friends, they were no longer enemies either.

  They talked easily as they went, feasting on fruit for lunch – fresh mangoes he harvested from some trees as they walked, some bananas. ‘There’s more bananas in this country than there are stars in the sky,’ he declared, using his belt as a strap to help him shimmy up the tree trunk, the way she’d seen Jed do when she was a little girl.

  ‘You’ve gone native,’ she said, as he climbed down with ease and offered her one.

  ‘No, I always was more feral than civilized,’ he shrugged.

  The statement puzzled her. ‘That’s not true.’

  ‘Sure it is. You just chose not to see it.’

  ‘You weren’t feral,’ she argued. ‘Just because you grew up on farms, it didn’t mean you were—’

  ‘I wasn’t ever going to fit into your world, Tara,’ he said simply. He stared at her with an inscrutable expression, before setting off again and leaving her watching him in confusion.

  They walked like they were strolling in the park, the tense hurry of last night and this morning now replaced by something softer, kinder.

  ‘Don’t lick that,’ he said at one point, pointing out a tiny red frog perched on the underside of a giant palm leaf.

  ‘I hadn’t planned on it. I’ll have you know my frog-licking days are behind me.’

  His laughter rolled through her. He pointed out birds – scarlet macaws of course, but also kiskadees, orioles, woodpeckers; and her favourite, the toucans, who made a wonderful clacking noise as they tried not to bump into trees with their oversized beaks. He identified plants. ‘This one’s called the anaesthetic tree,’ he said, getting out his knife and hacking away a small twig.

  ‘Ah, the famous propofol tree. Yes, I’ve heard of it,’ she quipped drily.

  He shot her a look. ‘Chew on that.’

  She chewed on the twig. With minutes her mouth and tongue were tingling, all taste gone. ‘Huh. Could be handy I guess.’

  ‘It has been. Many times.’ He began walking again.

&n
bsp; ‘For you?’

  ‘Yeah, once or twice.’

  ‘Like when?’ she pressed.

  ‘Well, there was one time I was out looking for some quetzals that we’d heard were nesting here. They usually stay on the Pacific side of the Talamanca mountains.’

  ‘So quetzals are . . . birds, then?’ she clarified. He always had assumed everyone had a PhD in biology.

  ‘Yes, very famous ones,’ she could almost hear him rolling his eyes. ‘Although now sadly nearing extinction. They’re beautiful – dark green wings, scarlet stomach, really long tail feathers and a cute little buzz cut. They’re hard to spot. I’d been out here for three days looking and was just giving up when I had an unfortunate encounter with a protective mother peccary and ran straight into a manchineel tree.’

  He looked back at her to see if she understood the meaning.

  ‘You lost me at buzz cut,’ she shrugged, wearily picking her way over a tree trunk.

  ‘The manchineel tree is known as the Tree of Death.’

  She shrugged up her eyebrows. ‘Are we getting a little dramatic?’

  ‘Their fruit looks like small apples. If eaten, they cause vomiting, fever, ulceration of the throat, haemorrhage of the upper digestive tract, slowing of the heart, coma and death.’

  She nodded. This was her kind of language. ‘Wow. Impressive.’

  ‘Clearly, I didn’t eat the apple. But the bark and leaves are toxic too – they give you lesions, blisters. You shouldn’t even sit under the trees in the rain because the drops carry off the toxic resin.’

  ‘Nasty.’

  ‘Yeah, and I basically ran up to it and gave it a hug.’

  ‘Whilst running from a close relative of the pig?’

  ‘Hey!’ he protested, laughing. ‘I’ll have you know it was a nasty incident! I managed to get some anaesthetic leaves and rub them on quickly, but I’ve still got the scars – look.’ And he took her hand and pressed her fingers against his upper chest and neck.