First Descent

by Pam Withers

  Slowly, noiselessly, I eased myself from my uncomfortable perch. Crouched, almost tiptoeing, I worked my way down to my boat and breathed a sigh of relief to find it and my paddle undisturbed. I pulled on my helmet and paddling jacket, running my hand over the bulge of the necklace. I double-checked that I’d stowed the rescue bag in my boat before I carried my kayak silently to the river. My camera! It was in Myriam’s pocket. Maybe, if she ever forgave me, she’d e-mail me the photos I’d taken.

  I stepped into my kayak, affixed my spraydeck, and searched the shore for soldiers pointing guns at me. None. Then, taking a deep breath to steady my nerves, I peeled away into the welcome embrace of the current.

  The rapids. Concentrate on the rapids. No rescue-rope helper meant nailing every single move, and never, ever missing a roll. In a way, I was thankful for the demanding water, the peals of thunder, and the distraction of the rain. They obliterated any other thought or emotion.

  Gramps and his expedition party did this section in much less maneuverable kayaks, I told myself. Skirting a large boulder, I found myself in a minefield of exploding waves, keeper holes, and rocks waiting to bash me. Wham! A wave tossed me against a boulder, but with a flick of my hips and a well-planted brace, I stayed upright, using the new boat angle to power to a safer route on the left. Heart stuck in my throat, I thrashed my way through churning white, searching for a route like a lab mouse in a maze. The rapids’ constant roar deafened me.

  One rapid followed another, with a barely defined pause in between. I’d have given anything to see Myriam waiting for me at those calm breaks, concern on her face, rescue bag in hand. Instead, I ploughed right through them to the next monstrous set.

  Water slapped me in the face at regular intervals, blinding me as I stayed in marginal control. In the third rapid, determined to catch an eddy to inspect what was coming up, I spun too fast into a behind-rock surge that rammed my bow against stone. As my boat and body reverberated from the collision, I tried to brace in what felt like lava lifting from a volcano under me. My attempted brace failed. I was over, the water dragging my kayak and me upside down out of the troubled eddy.

  I reached, positioned my paddle, and rolled up. Gasping, I saw a huge boulder in front of me and tried to turn too late. Over again. Rocks banged against my helmet and clawed the length of my life jacket in a shallow section. With my face plastered against the deck of my kayak, I stretched my arm out and rolled again. This time I had no time to shake water out of my eyes before a five-foot wave lifted me. Its trough stalled me, and the next wave picked me up, windmilling me end-over-end like giant watery hands delighted to discover a plaything.

  When I had another chance to roll, I found myself in one of the first quiet pools I’d met since launching an hour before. Breathing heavily, I clung to a root that hung from the rock wall beside the pool, staring back upstream at a rapid I’d have considered portaging if I’d had the luxury of examining it first.

  I’m still alive, I reminded myself. I’m still in my boat. And once I get to the waterfall and find a way down into Dead Man’s Canyon, I’ll be safer. From capture, at least. Rapids, I can deal with. As for being the potential object of target practice, that’s something I can’t do anything about!

  I kept on paddling, rapid after wicked rapid, adrenalin spewing from my weary body. How many rapids until the falls? How long till dark? I had to get to the falls and find a way down to the canyon.

  To my relief, the next rapid was Class III, a welcome reprieve after what I’d been through. But as I wound through it, taking no chances with my chosen line, I had the eerie feeling of being watched. Once, when the only safe route took my kayak close to the right shore, I thought I caught a movement there. Then I spotted a turquoise bird Myriam had told me was a “honey creeper” perched on a tree branch, watching. Just a bird, I told myself. Anyway, the paramilitaries are on the left shore, right? No one lived along the right shore, Myriam had informed me. “Never, ever land there,” she’d added. “Too many land mines and guerillas trying to protect themselves from paramilitary attack.”

  Great, just what I need. Paramilitary soldiers on my left. Guerillas and land mines on my right. Killer rapids in between.

  I was hungry, thirsty, and in desperate need of relieving myself, but I took only micro-breaks for gulps of water and ignored my bladder’s growing pressure. My feet had long since fallen asleep. My upper body felt like I’d abruptly doubled the weights in a gym workout.

  Finally, I came to a rapid with a suspicious-looking horizon line at its far end. I eyed a cloud of mist hovering over that line. Though I could barely hear the rumble of the falls, my instincts told me I was about to tackle the last rapid before they loomed. Should I get out now and walk along the right shore? No. Don’t want to get blown to smithereens.

  I grabbed a midriver eddy that allowed me to scout the last rapid over my shoulder as my boat faced upstream. This time, I wasn’t just looking for a conservative path through a long, complicated obstacle course; I was also looking for a surefire getting-out spot before the plunge. The left bank offered no such possibility. Almost twenty-four hours of hard rain had raised the river such that eddies were disappearing. The right bank was high and overhung, but a decent-sized eddy presented itself beneath an overhanging cliff that featured a canopy of roots. I plotted a route to that eddy, figuring I might even be able to lift and stash my kayak in the tangle of roots above it, a tangle that formed a sort of “cage” beneath the overhang’s ceiling of dirt. That would put the boat out of sight from above, and make it pretty tough to spot from the left bank, too.

  I took my time memorizing the moves between where I lingered and the target eddy. “Zero tolerance for error,” I muttered. I ran the rapid mentally like it was the do-or-die section of an Olympic slalom racecourse. I drummed my fingers on my bow, then touched the pocket containing the necklace. I took deep breaths. Gotta do it now, Rex.

  Down the center of the rapid I went and cut left. So far, so good. The noise of the falls grew. Time to U-turn around that nasty whirlpool. Go! Go! Farther left, yes left! Harder! Pull, pull, pull.

  Sweat squeezed from my skin as my bow spun too low into the eddy. The strong current tried to suck my stern out of it. I dug my paddle in hard and put every ounce of strength towards pulling myself up into it. When I realized I was losing the battle, that I was about to be sucked backwards over the lip of the falls, I took one hand off my paddle and grasped in desperation for a root hanging from the dirt bank. It didn’t break off in my hand. Breathing heavily, hardly daring to hope, I let my paddle clatter onto my deck as I clenched that root with both hands and began to pull on it. I willed it to hold the weight of my body and kayak as I struggled to ease myself upstream into the calm piece of water over which the root was anchored.

  Slowly, the tug-of-war got me halfway into the eddy, where I grabbed another root and finally pulled myself clear of the downstream drag. Shaking, I freed one hand to pop my spraydeck off, then stood, knees wobbling, in the kayak. Rain-soaked dirt never smelled better as I leaned against the tall bank and found a foothold, keeping my kayak captive with the other foot. As soon as I’d gained reliable handholds on the bank, I lifted my kayak with my remaining foot and shoved it and my paddle into the overhead tangle of roots that formed a sort of “luggage rack” below the overhanging cliff. My efforts had me sweating so heavily that I felt a need to shed my life jacket and paddling jacket, too. I shoved them and my helmet into the kayak, knowing I’d return for them in a minute – as soon as I figured out how to get around the falls. I opened the waterproof bag in my kayak long enough to grab Gramps’ plastic-wrapped journal. If I read it while gazing at the falls, I’d know which portions were truthful.

  Looking up, I saw a vision of Gramps standing on the bank. “You almost missed the eddy, you idiot. Got lucky the root was there.”

  “I knew you’d make it,” a vision of Myriam countered, smiling and giving me a thumbs-up. “Good job, cousin.”

  My hear
t caught on her words. If only she were real right now.

  Like a rain-drenched rabbit emerging from a burrow, I raised my head slowly above the overhang and looked left and right to ensure no one was around. My hair dripped water into my eyes as I scrambled up to pee. Feeling much better for that, I crammed the journal into my wetsuit trousers and crawled along the bank within a foot of its edge to avoid land mines. Wet grass cushioned my palms and knees.

  I could taste the waterfall’s spray now. The falls pulsed enough to make the ground beneath me tremble like the floor at a rock concert. I was deafened and drawn by its powerful, throaty roar and veil of fine spray. Pretty soon, it was impossible to distinguish rain from spray. I crawled to the ledge that extended to the right of the falling water, my eyes scanning for a glimpse of the canyon’s start below. I stopped, dropped to my stomach, and reached ahead to clutch the ledge a dozen feet to the right of the pounding pour-over. Trembling, I thrust my head past the ledge and stared down into the gathering gloom.

  No rocks or logs were piled up at the bottom of the falls, but that didn’t mean it was runnable. Safer, I thought, was to hurl my kayak from the very spot where I was now lying – well to the right of the falls – then jump in after it. We’d both land safely in the deep, dark pool directly below. It looked clean and rockfree.

  To test that theory, I wrestled a nearby log that was roughly the weight of my kayak and shoved it over the cliff’s edge, taking pains not to fall in after it. I waited as it hit the water, counting as it bounced back to the surface. Deep and clean. I even spotted a crevice in the wall over the pool that I might be able to spend the night in. Pushing another log into the river directly above the falls, I watched and counted as it reappeared in the froth below. The time and way the log reappeared indicated that the falls, fifty feet as Myriam had described, were runnable.

  But what is beyond the pool? I could see only the rain-washed, horseshoe-shaped sheer rock wall that dropped fifty feet to form the pool beneath me. It ran from where my hands clutched it to the right in a semicircle, until it stopped directly across from me, on the other side of the pool. The far end of the horseshoe stuck out into the current. A headlong rush of water from the falls curled around its toe, beckoning me, daring me to ride it. I ruled out walking along the cliff around the pool. It would be dark before I could get back to the boat. The land-mine threat discouraged me, and who knows whether soldiers might be lurking around here?

  I realized I should retreat: fetch my kayak, get it and me down there, not attempt to scout further. But the Furioso was trying to tell me something. It was urging me to shuffle to my left on my stomach, closer to the deafening falls, for a view beyond the pool. There was urgency, even desperation in the falls’ voice. I had to obey.

  I inched left, towards the steep cascade. I inched and inched, getting more spray-soaked by the minute, until I was at dire risk of falling in; my left pinkie dangled over the hurtling water. Still the wall on the farside of the pool blocked my view, but only barely. I stretched my neck left and spotted a yellowish shadow in the river. Lurking just downstream of the toe, it looked like a flat boulder a foot beneath the river’s swift current. I arched my neck one final, treacherous inch. What I witnessed made my breath whoosh out of me and my stomach feel like it was free-falling over the lip of the falls.

  I screamed and pounded the wet ledge with my fists, shaking my head and filling the foggy air with my fury and frustration. Strong arms grabbed me and pulled me back, back, back, away from the ledge … away from the devastating sight I’d barely glimpsed.

  Just beyond the pool, beyond the yellow underwater rock, behind the tall wall, the entire Furioso River turned into a giant, deadly whirlpool, seething and spinning in front of a cul-de-sac. I knew exactly what that meant: Somewhere below the surface of the whirlpool, the entire river writhed like a python and dove underground. It was sucked into a massive natural-rock tunnel, leaving nothing but spatters of itself on the cul-de-sac’s skyscraper-high rock walls. Out of sight, the mighty Furioso bulged sinuously into a black hole, converting itself into every kayaker’s worst nightmare: an underground river.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Icy terror shot through my veins. The shock of what I’d just seen was instantly displaced by searing pain where someone’s rubber boots connected hard with my ribs. At first I tried to fight them off, but soon found myself curling into a ball. Even before they yanked a course piece of rope around my hands to tie them tightly behind my back, I felt fear and despair descend.

  When they rolled me onto my back, I found myself staring at Alberto’s cold eyes. Beside him stood a square-shouldered man in a black beret.

  “Where’s your kayak?” Alberto demanded in Spanish.

  “Lost,” I managed to choke out as I jerked my head towards the falls.

  He smiled listlessly and mumbled something to his commander, who patted him on the back. My heart still clenched, I watched Alberto fall back into a lineup of look-alike soldiers, way too many of them young kids. Even in my unnerved state, I took in how belts held their fatigues on their skinny bodies, guns hung proudly on their shoulders, rubber boots and berets bobbed as they marched me into the darkening forest. Pain jerked through me as a gun’s muzzle jabbed into my back to hurry me along. My heart sank with the sun and I shivered as, dressed in nothing but neoprene shorts and boots, I walked in a half-stupor in the middle of Alberto’s unit.

  The first wave of panic slowly loosened its hold on me, and I turned to look at Alberto. He returned my stare with passive, sunken eyes. Something is different about him, I thought. Even in the shadows, I took in his slumped shoulders and sallow face. He marched with a lethargy I’d never seen in him before. So being a guerilla isn’t all he dreamed it would be … but maybe he’ll be rewarded for my capture, I thought bitterly.

  An hour later, it was pitch-black except for the dim, bouncing beams of flashlight that a few members of the troop switched on. No one spoke a word to me, not even when I asked for a drink of water. I marched with my head tilted back to collect raindrops on my tongue. Now and again someone called out in a low voice, and a hidden voice in the surrounding woods responded.

  I was all but stumbling with exhaustion when the procession slowed, then halted. Ahead I could see two campfires burning, despite the rain. The crackle of their logs reached my ears. The orange glow silhouetted a huddle of soldiers around them and the edges of tents, tarps, and huts.

  A group from the campfire surged forward with flashlights and spoke to the commander in rapid-fire voices, like they were informing him of something. A bunch of soldiers turned towards Alberto. I heard Alberto give a throaty cry of distress. A flashlight flicked over him just in time for me to see him sink to his knees as if in shock. The commander turned my way, barked a command, jabbed Alberto, and pulled him to his feet.

  Someone spun me around and shone a flashlight on a wooden hut not much larger than a two-seater outhouse. They pushed me in and shoved the door closed before I’d even fully moved from the door frame. I heard a padlock click into place. Whirling around, I felt for the door latch, wanting to cry out. But what’s the use?

  “Agua?” I asked through the door. “Water?”

  I put my arms out to feel around, fighting against the numbness and dejection taking over my body. A sliver pricked my right index finger as I slid it along the rough plank walls. A metal basin slid noisily across the dirt floor as my foot ran into it. I crouched down slowly and felt for the object. Enamel-covered bowl. Smelled like urine. I set it back down and continued shuffling around the space. I tried not to picture poisonous spiders scurrying about, or poisonous snakes hiding in the rafters. I could hear nothing but the rain pounding on the corrugated tin roof above me.

  I was waiting for my knee to hit a mattress or bedsprings, but no such luck. By the time I’d done three rotations of my hut, I’d determined it had no furniture. Nothing on the walls. Just the bowl and a musty-smelling blanket thrown in a corner. I sat down, leaned against t
he wall, wrapped the blanket around me, and stared into the blackness.

  Throat parched and stomach rumbling, I shivered and shivered until finally, somehow, I fell into a fitful sleep. I dreamed that the men of Myriam’s village washed over the waterfall and were sucked into the abyss, despite my frantic efforts to save them. I was left swirling in the whirlpool, endlessly circling. In my dream, Myriam’s necklace was around my neck, tightening slowly, ever so slowly – choking me even as I clawed at it.

  Dim daylight filtered in between the wall boards when a soldier unlocked the door long enough to shove a big jug of water, a tin cup, and a tin plate of lukewarm rice and beans at me. I crawled to them, clutched the five-gallon jug by its two big handles, and lifted it straight to my lips. I drank and drank, trying not to let even one precious drop escape. How long do they expect the jug to last me? I wondered. I set it down and spotted a plastic spoon sticking out in the center of the beans. I ate until not a single bean or kernel of rice remained.

  The commander, flanked by two soldiers, let himself in somewhere around midday. The door shut on a curtain of gray rain and wet forest behind them. He barked questions at me in Spanish. I tried shaking my head, but it didn’t produce any English words from him. “Speak Spanish!” he ordered.

  Slowly, painfully, we began to communicate. I understood the words “mother” and “father,” and when he waved a pencil and pad of paper at me, I knew he wanted Mom’s and Gramps’ contact information. My spirits sank.