by Zoe Chant
Her mind wandered, and not for the first time. It was the same old problem again. The rain might have kept her away from the condors, but staying cooped up in the tent meant Jamie had had a lot of time to think.
The first few days after Mark had left, the main thing she had thought was You idiot! You let him get away!
So much for strong resolve.
She had dealt with that by keeping herself busy. It worked about as well as it had done back at the center, but at least it meant she got a lot of stuff done. She spent as much time as she could watching the condors, taking photographs and noting down their behavior. Once she was back in civilization she would put together a media release and photo blog about the mated pair to promote the conservation center’s work, in addition to the more official study logs.
On the days when the birds stubbornly refused to do anything more exciting than plop down on the egg and not move for hours on end, she went for walks around the river and surrounding hillside. The condors weren’t the only interesting creatures out in the mountains—Jamie saw hundreds of other birds, lazy lizards basking in the sun, even a glimpse of a bobcat family playing in the undergrowth.
That last one had reminded her of what she’d said to Mark about wildlife in the mountains. And then the rain had started, and she’d run out of things to distract her from thinking about him.
It was all so confusing. That wildfire lust that had hit her at the wedding, the moment she laid eyes on him—it had been incredible, but also terrifying. As though something inside her had made a decision and not waited for her conscious self to give an opinion. Her entire self, body and soul, were urging her to be with him—not just there in the forest, but forever.
It had been the hardest thing in the world to push away that bone-deep urge and make Mark leave. But being apart from him was no easier.
She still wanted him. She knew that if she ever saw him again, no matter where that was—here on the mountain, or back in the city—no force on Earth could stop her from ripping his clothes off.
That was her body talking, and that strange, deep urge inside her. But the longer she was cooped up inside the tent, forced to think about what had happened, the more her mind began to agree with her body.
Yes, it was strange. And a little terrifying. But it had also been incredible. He had touched her like she was the most precious thing in the world. He had been gentle when she wanted him to be gentle, and hard when she needed him to be hard.
And when she had asked for time, he had given it to her.
Jamie had made up her mind. She might have sent him away once, but when he came back down that mountain, she was going to make sure he knew she was his.
CRACK-OOM!
Jamie jumped, jerking away from the tent flap. Had that been thunder? She hadn’t seen any lightning. And it had sounded too close to be thunder.
Another huge crashing sound rolled through the forest, and Jamie jumped to her feet. She was out of the tent in a second, struggling into her waterproof coat.
She was right. It was too close to be thunder. Which could only mean one thing.
Something had fallen in the forest. Something had creaked, groaned, crashed, and splashed—into the river.
Jamie ran, slipping on the wet ground. The stand of old-growth pines appeared in her mind. And below them, the dead tree that had fallen down into the river.
Please don’t let what I think just happened be true, she begged desperately.
Sure, none of those trees were tall enough to reach the cliff on the other side of the river if they fell. But the trees above the cliff…
How could she not have thought of this earlier? The condors were young adults, only just mated. They’d made their nest in a convenient cliff in an inconvenient location, because they didn’t know any better. A tree could slip down the cliff and scrape away the nesting site as easily as she would squish a mosquito.
Jamie didn’t even stop to think what she was going to do when she got to the river. She just ran.
Lungs burning, she skidded down the scrubby bank where she had first met Mark. Running down beside the river probably wasn’t the smartest idea after this much rain, but if she tried to get down to the water from the lookout, she would break her neck on the steep slope. This was the only easy access for a good mile. She would just have to risk it.
Besides, she thought, glancing sideways. The river doesn’t look that bad. It can’t have been raining further up in the mountains as much as it has been here.
Skidding on wet stones, Jamie made her way to the beach-like cove opposite the condors’ nest. Her boots splashed as she leaned against the fallen tree and tried to get her breath back.
Oh, shit.
She had been right.
A huge tree had crashed down over the river, taking half the cliff with it. The rain must have waterlogged the cliff and weakened it enough that the whole thing collapsed, she thought numbly.
There was no sign of the condor nest. Where it had been, a broken branch hung cracked across the rock face.
Jamie swallowed back a sob. Five years of her life—and one rainstorm had destroyed it all. What was she going to tell her boss? Her colleagues?
A flutter like a ragged black flag caught her attention. She squinted through the rain. There it was again—two great black wings, camouflaged against the dark leaves of the fallen tree. Jamie blinked water out of her eyes, barely daring to hope…
The river was wide here, maybe thirty feet across. Jamie had good eyesight, but she didn’t want the distance and her own hopes to make her see anything that wasn’t there. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and looked again.
Black wings. A flash of a pinkish-orange head, then another. Coco and Louis were still alive.
Jamie heaved a sigh of relief. The two adult birds were safe. But why weren’t they moving?
A creaking, crunching groooaaaan cut through the air. Jamie watched on in dismay as the tree slipped further down the cliff. The water below boiled as smaller branches broke off and plummeted into it. But the condors still didn’t move.
“Fly away, you stupid birds!” Jamie screamed. “What are you doing? Get the hell out of there!”
Then she saw it. Crouched under its parents, barely able to keep its footing on the slippery, sodden branch.
The chick had hatched, after all.
It was so tiny, an ungainly, defenseless scrap of a thing. It could only be a few days old. Its little tufts of downy feathers were flattened against its skin by the rain. If it didn’t drown when the tree slid all the way into the water, it would freeze.
The sight of it took Jamie back to her first day working at the conservation center. Coco and Louis had been nestlings then, part of the first cohort of chicks the center planned to raise to adulthood for release into the wild. They had been ugly, featherless, scrappy things too, but with the care of the center’s staff, they had grown bigger day by day, plump and healthy beneath first their juvenile down and then their glossy adult plumage.
And now their first offspring was going to die.
“No,” she cried, her voice half a sob. Tears stung her eyes and she rubbed them away. “I won’t let that happen.”
She unlaced her boots first. They would only weigh her down. Then her jacket joined the boots on the ground.
It might be waterproof, but there was no way it would work where she was going.
Jamie took a deep breath and rubbed her hands together. The rain was cool, not cold—but the river would be. She picked what she knew was the shallowest path across the water, and stepped in.
The first step was like walking into an ice bath. The second was like opening the freezer on an already cold day. But by the time she was halfway across, she barely felt the cold.
That was bad, she knew. But she pushed the thought away, reminding herself that she would only be in the water for a few minutes, and that her tent was warm, and dry, and stocked with her sleeping bag and emergency heat-packs. She was fine. S
he could do this.
The water was shallow here, shallow enough that she could keep her footing all the way across. She strode through the rushing water, feeling it pull at her legs as though it was a living creature that wanted to drag her down.
When she reached the fallen tree she grabbed at it like it was a life ring. She heaved herself up, feeling the trunk shift, and then settle under her weight.
Good. If she could just get to the birds and off again without the tree moving any more, everything would be fine.
Jamie chose her handholds carefully. This wasn’t like climbing the lookout tree, with rope and anchors to catch her if she slipped. If she lost her grip here, the only thing that would catch her when she fell was the hungry river below.
“Hey, birdies,” she said as she climbed ever closer to the two glowering condors. She made sure to keep her voice soft and smooth, and not to make any sudden movements. “Remember me? Of course you don’t. You’ve never seen me before, that’s the whole point of raising you for release. You just saw Mommy Puppet. Well, I guess I’m Grandma Puppet now, and believe me, it may look like I’m trying to steal your baby, but … Shit!”
The tree suddenly sagged beneath her with a wet crackling noise. Jamie felt her feet dip into cold water. She licked her lips, adrenaline flooding through her system. “Come on, you ugly mugs, piss off so I can save your baby!”
She flapped her arm at the condors and shouted, trying to scare them off. But they clung grimly on, reluctant even now to abandon their helpless nestling.
Jamie heard a roaring in her ears. “Goddamn move!” she yelled one last time. Then something made her turn around.
The roaring hadn’t just been in her ears.
Behind her, the rocky beach with the dead tree had disappeared under rushing gray water. The sound in her ears was the roar of the river, swelling with half a week’s rain.
Jamie’s whole body went cold with terror. It wasn’t the tree falling she had to worry about; it was the river rushing up to meet her.
She had to move, now.
“Come on, come on,” she hissed, hauling herself up towards the three birds. She kept her eyes fixed on the chick. The parents were adjusting their footing, holding on to the slippery bark, but the nestling was too young and too weak to manage that. Jamie reach out and scooped it up just as it began to topple off the side of the branch.
“Skraaaark!”
“Oh, God dammit!” Jamie curled over the nestling, keeping her face out of reach of the parents’ sharp beaks and claws. They might be carrion-eaters, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t attack a living creature. It just meant their beaks were strong enough to crack through bone. Jamie gritted her teeth as something scraped down the back of her neck.
“You’ll thank me for this later, you bastards!” she cried, inching back down the tree.
Something was wrong. She was already knee-deep, then thigh-deep, in water, but she couldn’t feel the bottom. Surely the river hadn’t risen that much?
Holding the chick firmly to her chest, Jamie lowered herself further into the river. Each time she moved down she stretched her foot out, probing for the solid river-stones she knew should be there. Each time her foot found nothing but water and she scrambled for a foothold on the sunken tree.
“Oh, God. Oh, God, what have I done?”
Images flashed through Jamie’s mind. If the river took her, she knew the chances were slim anyone would find her body. Her workplace knew where she was, and some of her friends, but no one would raise the alarm until she failed to come home on time.
She would disappear, and it could be weeks before anyone knew. Longer before they figured out what had happened.
Except Mark. Mark, who had promised to come back to her. Would he head straight out of the forest, planning to see her back in town, or pass by her camp and find it abandoned? He would probably check the lookout, to see if she was there. And when he saw the ravaged cliff, the broken tree and the empty nest—would he guess?
Jamie bit the inside of her cheek. Concentrate! she told herself. You can’t just give up. There’s got to be a way out of this.
She looked up. There was still at least twelve feet of tree above her, wedged against the cliff. If she could climb back up, wrap herself around a branch … The rain couldn’t last forever. The flood would recede.
Maybe even before she died of hypothermia.
You can do this, she told herself. Come on. Don’t give up now. Don’t leave Mark to come back to an empty campsite.
Jamie braced her feet against their underwater holds. Back up it is—and please don’t kill me before I make it out of the water, guys.
With the chick still nestled carefully against her chest, Jamie took a deep breath and pushed up. Under the water, invisible in the roiling, muddy gray, something knocked against her legs, pushing them off the tree. Jamie frantically grabbed at a branch with her one free hand. The raging current swept her legs away from her, stretching her body out between the tree and certain death.
Under her chin, something gave a piteous peep. The chick. She was still holding on to it, but with the river rushing over her it was soaked, its head barely above water. She grunted and held it higher up.
Just above her handhold on the tree, a tangle of leaves and broken twigs formed a pitiful shelf, only inches above the water level.
It was hopeless. She knew that even as she started moving, dragging herself painfully forward against the power of the swollen river. Her whole arm screamed with the effort.
Even if she managed it, the parent condors might not be able to move their chick to higher ground. Worse, they might stay with the nestling, and all three would be swept away.
“Just one more inch…” Jamie grunted, and thrust the sodden scrap of life away from her.
She just had time to see the chick tumble and fall on the leafy ledge before a wave struck her and pushed her underwater.
* * *
MARK
Mark skidded on the muddy trail and swore. After three weeks on four legs, getting used to only having two—and wearing shoes—was a pain in the ass. But he couldn’t shift back now. He’d already passed three groups of hikers on the trail, all driven back by the bad weather. Seeing a bear carrying a backpack down the mountain would only add to their problems.
The rain had hit two weeks after he left Jamie, a constant, heavy battering cascade that started deep in the mountains and crept down to the foothills. He had tried to wait it out, at least long enough so he could honestly tell himself he’d given Jamie enough time to think things over. After all, as a bear he wasn’t too worried by the rain. His coat was thick enough to keep him warm, and the bad weather kept the human hikers from moving around too much or being able to see too far when they did venture out, which reduced the risk of him being seen.
A week of rain was really more than enough, though. Even for a bear. And, he reasoned hopefully, if he was sick of the rain, surely Jamie would be too. Either she would have already headed out of the mountains, or she would be more than ready to go. And if she asked why he’d come back her way, he could say he wanted to return her sandal. He still had it in his pack, after all, and…
A horrible thought struck him. He shucked off his pack and rummaged through it, throwing his own gear to the side. At last he found what he was looking for, and groaned.
He did still have her sandal in his pack. The bottom of his pack.
Mark lifted the delicate, strappy silver sandal in one hand. It was looking, to put it mildly, a bit the worse for wear.
He gulped. Okay. Maybe he wouldn’t bring up the shoe thing. Maybe he should avoid her on the way back, and find her back at the conservation center later in the season.
No. Even the thought of leaving the mountains without checking on Jamie sent a shiver of unhappiness down his spine. He would go past her camp, and if she was still there, they could walk out together.
Mark was fairly certain they would be able to manage that without too much
trouble. The rush of desire sparked by the discovery of their mate bond—and concentrated by their immediate separation—surely must have calmed down enough by now that getting out of the rain would be more of a priority than throwing themselves at each other. Surely.
He told himself that three weeks was good enough. Even if Jamie hadn’t managed to figure out how she felt, he would at least be able to talk to her. If she needed more time he would get her number and go on his way, knowing at least that she wasn’t lost to him forever.
And if she’d decided she didn’t want him…
He shook his head. That was her decision to make. He’d respect it—and find another mountain for his vacations. One where he wouldn’t bother her, and his family wouldn’t bother him.
His heart ached at the thought of Jamie rejecting him. But he knew that if she did, then leaving her and never looking back was the right thing to do. Stay too close, and … Well. He couldn’t think of anything worse than knowing Jamie was nearby and not being able to hold her; of being able to feel her presence, know how she was feeling…
Fear. Dread. Terror.
Mark almost dropped the sandal as strange emotions flooded through him. Confusion and then horror flooded through him as he realized what was happening.
He was almost back at Jamie’s campsite. Those feelings—that terror—was hers.
Mark broke into a flat run. He flung his pack to the side of the trail. It would only slow him down. He had to get to her as fast as possible. Unthinking, he crushed the sandal in his hand.
The trail turned ahead, but Mark sprinted straight ahead, ignoring the markers. He knew exactly where he needed to go. His bear was up and roaring, pointing him towards his mate.
Past the campsite. He didn’t even spare it a glance. Past the riverbank where he laid eyes on her for the first time since the wedding.
The lookout tree. Had she fallen? Was she hurt?
No. Past the lookout.
Mark came to a dead halt, staring out across the river. His heart clenched at the scene in front of him.
