Down River

by Karen Harper

  "Yeah, well, people change and need help sometimes, and if you, of all people, haven't figured that out by now, I'll have to tell Graham you'll make a lousy lawyer in general, let alone a senior partner--or marital partner. You've had crisis points yourself and gotten help along the way, but evidently you can't accept the same for someone else."

  "Oh, now we're to the nitty-gritty, aren't we? Back in your element, the man of clever words--talk about an attack!" She found herself flinging gestures despite how her arms ached. That was a nervous habit she'd worked hard to conquer, yet he was making her regress--in so many ways. She spit out the wad of birch bark she'd been babying, because it did help the pain, but it was keeping her from enunciating clearly. Most lawyers knew better than to tangle verbally with Mitchell Braxton, but she was determined to finally tell him off.

  "You have no right," she rushed on, "to blame my childhood trauma for making me sound like someone who was so devastated that she can't give love or understand someone else's problems. Your childhood wasn't as hard as mine, but you've never gotten over being overshadowed by an older brother you thought your parents loved more! Well, that's nothing compared to what I've been through, but I've risen above it, so--"

  "So, did someone really push you in the river?" he interrupted. He leaned back slightly on his heels, gazing down at her from his height as if he were about to pass sentence on her. "Or was that just a crazy whim of yours to get attention, sympathy from the Bonners maybe, or to make me feel bad--then, of course, it went awry, and you really did slip in. You told me once that foaming water fascinates as well as scares you. You underestimated the power of the current, didn't you? You could have killed us both. I rest my case."

  "Your case is flimsy--worse than ridiculous! You think I'd so much as get near that raging river after what happened to my family? You're the one who's crazy, not me!"

  "Evidently true, since I risked my life to come after you and am still stupid enough to care about y--Oh, hell, forget it. But you'd better be damn sure you don't get back to the lodge and start accusing someone of shoving you in or start playing detective when this could easily be all your own fault!"

  He cut himself off, yanked the pack back into his arms, turned and started away, taking huge strides. She stood there for a moment, stunned. Her own fault...her own fault. Those words, that fear--maybe that truth--swam through her brain. What he'd said was true, partly. She had felt guilt over her childhood losses--not just survivor's guilt, but the guilt that maybe pulling away from her mother, instead of trying to hold her on the railing, on the deck, might have been the jolt that sent her loved ones overboard to their deaths.

  So could she be punishing herself again by intentionally falling in, maybe even by throwing herself in the river? No, surely not, surely not.

  Mitch had stopped and was looking back at her. "We're wasting time and strength, attorney Vaughn," he threw back over his shoulder as he started away again. "I suggest you follow in my footsteps here, though. If the Bonners ask me, I'll have to tell them you're too unstable to follow in my footsteps at the firm."

  So maybe the Bonners were relying on him to help choose the next senior partner. Maybe she was unstable, but what about his picking up stakes and leaving all he'd ever worked for in Fort Lauderdale?

  She wanted to scream that at him, but she was out of breath and had to hustle to keep up. That other Mitch, she had to admit, was not this Mitch who lived in Alaska. And she was indeed crazy to turn him against her, at least until she could get back to the Bonners and explain what had happened. But what had happened? They would all think she was demented if she accused someone of a premeditated, attempted homicide on the Wild River, with her as the intended victim.

  They didn't speak for a long time, not until they finally arrived at the spot Mitch knew they'd find the braided river. He was still fuming. He supposed she was, too, and he was trying to convince himself that he didn't care.

  "Damn." He summed it up when he saw their fording place.

  "Oh, no," she agreed.

  All along where the narrow riverbed finally widened to four shallow, snaking streams surrounded by gravel banks, huge brown bears, both in and out of the water, fished for salmon. Fourteen of the beasts ranged up and down the best crossing spots.

  "I've never seen so many at once," he told her.

  "It's a far cry from the serene, calm lake with the beavers. Violent but still awesome. So--real."

  "Some of those are unusually massive, up to twelve hundred pounds, I'd guess. They're taking on fat to survive during the winter hibernation. It's an absolute feeding frenzy."

  "They're beautiful in a scary way, so bulky with that huge muscle mass over their shoulders, and they're not just brown. Some look almost blond and some black, at least where they're wet. That icy water doesn't seem to bother them a bit," Lisa said.

  Mitch saw she edged closer to him as they watched two bears rear up on their back legs to argue over fishing territory. She shuddered, yet her gaze on the fighting bears didn't waver. He was tempted to put his arm around her, but he just pressed his shoulder into hers to steady her.

  "The bear version of fast food," she said, her voice not trembling when he'd expected that. "Takeout but not eat-at-home."

  He almost smiled at her clever comments and the fact she seemed to look to him for protection, even at this distance from the big beasts. They watched in silence as razor-sharp claws speared the egg-laden fish heading upstream to spawn. Sharp teeth tore them apart, flaying the rich, red meat on the spot. The bears immediately devoured them, except for the big sow who was feeding two cubs.

  Mitch finally said in a normal voice, "At least they don't seem to hear or smell us. With cubs present, you just never know how touchy and aggressive they can be."

  "Like people," she said. "We really don't know some people like we think we do."

  He thought about Jonas and Vanessa again, then his mind skipped to Ellie and Graham. He still couldn't get his mind around the fact that any of them would have pushed her, and no one else had opportunity but Christine and maybe Ginger. But there was no motive.

  They both gaped at the bloody mess littering the banks where the bears heaved the fish remains before snatching their next prey. Occasionally, when one got too close to the other's territory, there was growling, shoving and swatting before they lumbered back to their task of gorging themselves.

  "So much for trying to cross here," she whispered as they stayed hunkered down behind a rock. "Could we try it a bit upstream, even if it's deeper?"

  "You're sounding brave all of a sudden. No, we can't take that chance. When you get back home to peaceful Fort Lauderdale, you can regale your friends with the fact that brown bears are called grizzlies outside Alaska, and that any bear anywhere always has the absolute right of way."

  "Maybe that airplane will come back--or others."

  "Bears or not, if the plane returns, it would be tough to land here even with pontoons. They'd need to send a chopper with a basket." He heaved a huge sigh. He saw her reach out to touch him, maybe even to try to comfort him, but then draw back. He cleared his throat, willing himself not to just pull her into his arms. "We're going to have to go downriver a bit farther where there's another way to get across," he said.

  "But I can see beyond where the valley narrows, and it turns to one river again. Deeper with more rapids. Get across how?"

  He turned to look in her eyes for the first time in hours. The mark of a good lawyer was to be inquisitive, to leave no stone unturned, plan ahead, no surprises. But he dare not tell her the truth until they got there and it was too late for her to turn back, or she'd balk for sure.

  Why did this stubborn woman exert such a pull on him? Again, as at other points on this journey, he felt a surge of desire for her. He was impressed with her resilience after all she'd been through. But there was no one worse for him in this life he'd chosen and desired, so why did he still want her? He might as well propose to Christine Tanaka, take a chance on h
er despite her past. At least she loved this life and place the way he did, and was tough enough to flourish here. Yet soft city-girl Lisa, as banged up and scared as she still must be, managed to look back at him unflinchingly.

  "I got us this far," he said, "so I'm asking you to trust me. Take it or leave it."

  She bit her lower lip, then said, "I have to, of course."

  "I don't want to hear 'I have to.' I want to hear 'I do.' You know what I mean--that you really do trust me to get us out of this."

  "All right, to get us back to civilization, I do trust you. But you know what this scene reminds me of? And it's not some TV show. In a way it reminds me of what we call civilization."

  "Wall Street devouring people's lives? Lawyers or businesspeople?" he asked.

  "That's scary if we're starting to think alike. Yes, people doing anything to protect their profits and desires at any cost to others. Frankly, the bears remind me of some of Carlisle, Bonner and Associates' clients."

  "Or fellow lawyers desperate enough to push a rival into a roaring river?"

  Before she could answer, he said, "Come on, partner, we've got to push on." He patted her shoulder, hefted his pack and turned away from this dead end where he'd hoped to cross the river.

  The moment Spike's plane landed, Christine and Ginger, followed by their guests, ran out on the floating boat dock to meet it. Christine had gripped her hands together so hard that her fingers had gone numb.

  "Any sign of them?" Mr. Bonner called out before she could ask.

  "Nothing!" Spike answered as he helped Mrs. Bonner climb down from the cockpit to the dock. He usually tied the plane at the other end of the lake, closer to Ginger's place.

  "But then," Christine said, "that could be a good sign."

  "Right," Spike agreed and threw his arm around her shoulders. No one said what they must all be thinking--no bodies or wrecked kayak, at least. She leaned into Spike. If any good came out of this, it was that she and Spike seemed to be more of a team. He'd always been wary of her, almost tiptoed around her, and she knew why.

  Like most people in these parts, he knew her past. She prayed that wouldn't come back to haunt her if there was some sort of investigation here. After all, she'd probably been the last person to see both Lisa and Mitch alive. Iah! No, she would not think that way. Even if Lisa was a greenhorn around here, Mitch wasn't. But if Lisa's loss ended up harming Mitch, Christine would never get over it.

  Her chin quivered and she almost burst into tears, when she'd vowed never to cry again after she'd been acquitted. That old, heavy weight of guilt sat hard on her heart again.

  "What are we going to do?" Vanessa asked. "Should we fly home, or just wait around for--"

  "No one should go anywhere yet," Jonas piped up. "We'll find them--local law enforcement or the national park guys will, at least."

  "No, of course, we stay right here," Mr. Bonner said. "We have four full days left in our stay anyway. We've left capable staff behind. We do what we can and hope and pray for the best. Mitch was a great attorney. I just hope he's as good at what he does now. And Lisa's resilient and determined, however much she'd be out of out her element in these wilds."

  Spike said, "We'll go back up again as soon as I refuel and get someone to feed my dogs. They're all out on lead lines without enough water to tide them over this long."

  "I'll do it," Christine offered, surprising herself as she'd blurted that out.

  "Better let Ginger, so you can still host the lodge guests," Spike said, giving her shoulders a little squeeze before he let her go. "But thanks for saying so when I know a dozen big hungry huskies aren't your thing."

  "But they are yours so that's okay," she said, looking up at him. She felt a blush starting, though her tawny skin probably wouldn't give her away. Even with everyone looking on, even in these dire straights, she and Spike Jackson seemed to have a common cause that went beyond the lodge, even beyond finding Mitch and Lisa Vaughn. That bond certainly wasn't the dogs. Her husband, Clay, had kept snarling, half-hungry dogs, and any group of huskies still set her teeth on edge. No, their other common cause in this potential tragedy was taking care of each other.

  Lisa could not get the sight of the bear-eating-fish carnage out of her mind. The river was both life and death to those determined salmon. And it could have been death to her, but--with Mitch's help--she had survived.

  And those bears! At first the voracious bloodlust had horrified her, but she had swiftly accepted it as--if not beautiful--part of this beautiful, raw land. Survival. The basic elements of life. And yet in the midst of all that potential violence, there was a mother feeding her cubs, teaching them what they needed to know to flourish here in this land of stark contrasts and stunning sights.

  Now she and Mitch sat on boulders at the edge of the beaver-made lake about a half mile from the river, but distant from the beavers themselves.

  "It looks pretty deep here," she said, gazing into the lovely lake the beaver village had created. She was eager to keep the conversation on anything but their past. She shouldn't have argued with Mitch since she had to rely on him to get out of this wilderness.

  "Yeah. Lots of pond vegetation down there makes that green, wavy look."

  "I think I'm going to wash my face and hands here. The water's not as cold as--well, nothing I've ever been near was that cold."

  She took off her denim jacket and rolled up her wet suit sleeves, then rinsed her face and hands in the sun-warmed water. She blinked beads of it off her lashes, then stared down into the green water at her own face, slightly distorted in the wavering reflection. Something shifted beneath the surface. It reminded her of her childhood nightmare, one her psychiatrist had helped her to handle. Her mother's face, more and more like her own as she grew up, was staring at her through a watery barrier, calling her, beckoning....

  A burst of bubbles pulled her from her reverie. Bubbles from fish? Had a beaver come over? The silvery beads were in the shape of a question mark. She dangled her hands in the water, swishing the bubbles and nightmares into oblivion, staring into the swirls she made.

  If she was sure she'd been pushed in the river, the question was by whom and why? A few motives were obvious--Jonas and Vanessa wanted the same fat fish she did from the river of ambition, but would they go so far as to push her in? The idea of the Bonners testing her was too far-fetched. She didn't dare to ask Mitch about his relationship to Christine, so her thoughts kept swirling, fading in and out.

  Besides, she needed Mitch's help out here, despite the fact the so-called Alaskan frontier didn't scare her half as much as she'd expected. Once she was out of the river, that is. Even those bears flaying and gobbling down live fish--she accepted it. The howling of the wolves had a certain lonely, austere loveliness--at least that's the way she recalled it now. The beaver village was fascinating and the sunset stunning. Despite her agonizing over what she faced back at the lodge, she could almost--almost--have enjoyed at least parts of this adventure.

  Perhaps this vast, awesome land helped to put things in perspective. Out here, her troubles back in so-called civilization didn't seem so all-consuming. The chance for her to be granted the senior partnership at Carlisle, Bonner & Associates might now be, sadly, gone with the wind, at least endangered, she admitted silently. But, if she had to, surely she could find another law firm at home and make her new colleagues a sort of family as the Bonners had been to her. Yes, she'd get busy as a beaver once again and make a new life, she tried to assure herself. She was learning to be a strong, independent woman, whether in the fun-in-the-sun southeast or here in the northwest Land of the Midnight Sun.

  Maybe she should tell Mitch just that, since he'd said he was going to tell Graham she shouldn't be the one chosen--

  Huge and horrible, the monster rose from the lake. It emerged just four feet from her with massive, bloody horns and the face of a furry ogre, snorting--

  Screaming, she vaulted backward, flinging water as the thing came closer, looming larger. Sh
e threw herself into Mitch's arms and held tight with her heart slamming against her ribs.

  "Moose, Lisa!" he said, picking her up. "It's a bull moose just coming up from where he's been eating those underwater veggies I mentioned. He's not dangerous unless you're another bull moose. He's just--magnificent."

  "Oh! Yes. Of course. But his red horns--"

  "Antlers. That stuff is the velvet he's shedding off his rack this time of year. Man, almost five feet across. That big boy's almost nine feet tall at the shoulders--wow! His antlers will be all bone so he can fight other bulls for the choice mates in the rutting season coming up," he said and bounced her once in his arms, as if to convey some secret, extra message.

  "It--it just startled me. I don't know what I thought," she admitted as he put her down.

  After staring at them, still chewing his cud, the big bull sauntered sideways in the lake, snorted and submerged again in a circle of bubbles.

  "We're not getting much of a rest," Mitch said. She wasn't sure, but he looked as if he was trying not to laugh. Thank heavens, she hadn't been preaching to him what she'd been thinking about her independence and growing self-confidence here.

  "I'm sorry I jumped on you," she said as she dried her hands on the outside of her jacket before slipping back into it.

  "Just now or earlier?"

  "You know what I mean."

  "I think we could use some solid food, and those bears back there gave me an idea. I could probably catch a salmon with the corkscrew on my Swiss Army knife. Sorry we don't have a bottle of Pouilly-Fuisse to go with it. We've got to use this four-pound stove I've been carting around for something."

  And so, by quickly moving on in topic and place, he seemed to give her at least the remnants of her dignity back, Lisa realized. He wasn't such a barbarian after all. And now that she'd been back with him a while, she was starting to remember even more things about him. His instincts had always been to protect her, to coddle and spoil her even--that is, before his big, out-of-the-blue bombshell to move her to Alaska.