First Descent

by Pam Withers

  The dampness gave the forest a distinctive smell, which mixed with Alberto’s and my sweat. No birds chirped in the first rays of light, as if the fog gave them permission to sleep in. There was only the snap of twigs underfoot as we hurried along.

  After an hour of running without pause, I doubled over with nausea and a side cramp. I raised my hand to warn Alberto I needed a moment to recover my breath.

  “Where’s Myriam?” I asked between panting.

  He put his finger to his lips, his eyes darting around.

  “Where’s Myriam?” I repeated in a whisper, suddenly suspicious.

  He stiffened as he stared into the surrounding forest. I rose and twisted my head to look and listen. Is that the faint pad of soldiers’ boots?

  Alberto grabbed my wrist, and we sprinted through the fog now like Olympic runners, my cramp forgotten. I followed his every footstep, as fearful of a fatal foot plant as of being shot in the back.

  Sweat streamed down my face and chest; wind whistled by my ears; my heart pounded like a drum. Once or twice, my water jugs brushed against bushes, making a racket. My ears strained for our pursuers’ footfalls, but what I heard instead was the welcome sound of running water.

  As we reached the falls, I saw her. Crouched in jeans and blouse behind a boulder in the still-dense fog, terror on her face. Her shoulders relaxed for a split second as she saw us, and she handed me my camera as she caught sight of the water jugs in my hand. There was no time to greet her or explain.

  I handed the jugs to Alberto, then sprinted to the right-hand edge of the falls, lay down, and stretched my neck leftward. My heart sank. Fog, nothing but fog. What did I expect? Then a tiny piece of mist moved to give me a peekaboo view of what I sought. A sigh of relief escaped my chest.

  I leapt up and sprinted back to Alberto and Myriam. I ushered them to the point on the cliff just right of the falls. Anchoring Alberto’s rope on a rock, I let it dangle to where it ended, halfway down the cliff face. That would have to do. We stood with our toes just back from the edge, gazing down to where a blanket of fog hid the pool.

  “I’m getting my kayak. I’ll be back in a few minutes,” I instructed Myriam, hoping she’d have time to translate for Alberto. “Climb down to the end of the rope, then toss your jug in, push out from the cliff, and jump – body absolutely straight, toes pointed downward, arms at your side. When you come to the surface, grab the jug – it will help you float. Swim across the pool away from the current, hold on to the rock wall, and wait for me.”

  Myriam’s eyes grew huge. “Jump down there?” She had no way of seeing where she’d be landing.

  I placed one hand on her shoulder and used my other hand to point straight down. “Trust me, Myriam. Please trust me.”

  She was translating for Alberto as I left them. I ran upstream, keeping as close to the river’s edge as I could. My heart climbed into my throat. Will I recognize the overhang? Can I get my kayak to the cliff before the soldiers arrive? What if high water has washed the kayak away, or someone has stolen it?

  I climbed down the bank to where water lapped, certain I had the right place, but saw no kayak hidden in tree roots. I looked upstream and thought I saw it. I was making my way in that direction, trying not to slide into the river, when I was thrown half into the water by an explosion.

  My ears rang; faraway shouts followed. I grabbed a piece of riverbank before the current could snatch me away. Shaking, I registered that a land mine had gone off, but not from my movements. A guerilla must have taken a misstep. Others must be close. I tried to tell myself it couldn’t have been Alberto or Myriam. They’d have jumped by now.

  Three seconds later, I’d traversed the rest of the way upstream to the overhang where I’d left my boat. My nerves were shattered by the land mine. I tugged out the gear in my kayak and stowed the camera and journal back in my waterproof bag, which also held a headlamp, my passport and wallet, a pair of shorts, duct tape, and my space blanket. I buckled that bag and my throw rope to my kayak seat. Then I donned my paddling jacket, life jacket, helmet, and spraydeck and clicked the two halves of my paddle together. Finally, I yanked on the boat until it came free from the tree roots.

  I hesitated. Popping up to level ground and carrying the kayak to the cliff so I could jump off it might put me face-to-face with soldiers. That left only one option. I placed the kayak in the water, climbed in, and snapped my spraydeck around the cockpit. My stomach was tight, my heart banging like it wanted out of my chest. But I had to take the gamble. I plunged my paddle into the water and sped to the lip of the falls. Shouts and belated machine-gun fire filled the air as my kayak and I dropped like a log over the falls, fifty feet through fog-draped air.

  Five minutes earlier, Alberto and Myriam were crouched beside the rope, the plastic jugs loose in their hands. As they peered over the edge of the cliff, they trembled.

  “I can’t do it,” Myriam confessed.

  Alberto nodded, looking about for another way. “There could be rocks where we land.”

  “They might get Rex before he gets back here.”

  “Do you really think he has a plan?” Alberto asked. “He told me his kayak had washed over the falls. And he’s an idiot.”

  She smiled wanly. “Not about rivers.”

  He squeezed her hand. It may have been to reassure himself, but she was conscious only of how good it felt, how right it felt, how calming to have him beside her. He was almost all she had left now. She had chosen the extreme danger of finding him over trying to fit in with her other grandmother’s village. They’d been good to her when she’d stumbled to them for help, the morning after Abuela had died peacefully beside her in the cave. And it had been a relief to reunite with Mamá, Rosita, the twins, and baby Alejandro. But she hadn’t stayed long, and Mamá hadn’t tried to make her.

  Myriam was haunted. She was too frightened to wash clothes in the river. She never joined the women’s conversations while going through the motions of pushing yarn through a loom or lifting pots from the fire. Her embroidery looked like a child’s effort. And when left to look after the twins, she merely clung to them, crying into their hair, until someone relieved her. Nightmares robbed her sleep. Worst of all, long after Mamá had scrubbed her only remaining blouse, she continued to see and smell where Papá’s blood had stained it.

  Finally, she’d said her good-byes and used some of Rex’s pay to persuade a guerilla on sick leave in the village to lead her around the land mines to the outskirts of Alberto’s camp.

  The noise of the falls made it difficult to listen for the soldiers. Will it be too late when Alberto and I spot them? Her heart drummed in her ears. She’d witnessed so much death recently that she should not be afraid of it, she told herself, peering down at the white puffs of mist that clung to whatever was below.

  “You go first,” she finally said.

  Alberto looked like he was going to kiss her. Instead, he held on to his water jug and crawled over the cliff’s edge, clinging to the rope. He half-slid, half-climbed down the rope, peering over fearfully as if trying to determine when he’d come to its end.

  Myriam watched him disappear. She waited a few seconds, then climbed on as he had, shaking, the jug in one hand. The rope burned her hands as she slid down it, but she managed to slow herself before reaching its end. She dropped her jug and used her bare feet to kick out, took a deep breath, and dropped into nothingness. She fell with her body straight as an arrow, toes pointed so she wouldn’t injure her back. Slicing into the water, she felt herself sinking forever, then slowing, then rising. When she broke the surface, gasping, she grabbed for the floating plastic container and used her arms, like she’d seen Rex do, to maneuver herself away from where she’d dropped in – and away from the waterfall.

  Alberto’s head appeared in the mist and he dog-paddled towards her, jug holding him afloat. They moved together across the pool until they could cling to the cliff.

  There, they waited anxiously for the third splash. A land mi
ne’s explosion made them turn in terror, followed by the burst of gunfire. Myriam was not prepared for what happened next. She saw Rex in his kayak drop like a missile from the fog ceiling and plunge into the water at the base of the falls. The kayak disappeared almost entirely, then shot back up like a torpedo and rested for a split second upside down, shuddering in the foamy turbulence. As her hand went to her mouth, she saw a paddle and Rex’s wrist break the water’s surface, and the boat’s occupant roll up. He shook water from his eyes and sprinted out of the current into the calm of their pool.

  As he neared them, Rex executed a broad sweep stroke to come beside them, not unlike a rider whirling his horse around by the reins. “You’re both fine?”

  Myriam shook her head with awe. “We’re okay. How about you?”

  “Okay. Now comes the hard part.”

  Myriam translated his words for Alberto, whose fingers were curled around a bulge in the cliff wall like he had no interest in ever letting go.

  “I’m going to ferry across that current below the falls.”

  “What does ‘ferry’ mean?”

  “Cut across it on the diagonal so it doesn’t wash me downstream immediately.”

  “Oh.”

  “Then I’ll take a good look at what’s around the corner and signal you with a thumb’s-up from the other side of the falls if you’re to follow, okay?”

  Myriam stared dubiously at the jet stream below the misty falls. She ran her eyes along the walls of their pool. Wet, mostly vertical. She looked across the river, past the jet of current. Though the rock walls were mostly hidden by fog, she knew they were just as tall and impossible-looking to climb.

  “After I give you a thumb’s-up, I will disappear around the corner. Wait five minutes. There is a big flat yellowish boulder there. It was underwater the first time I saw it. But because it hasn’t rained for days and the river has dropped, it’s above water now. I will stop there, pull myself up on it, and get ready with the throw rope. You’ll need to catch it as you float near it. Don’t both come at once. Leave five minutes in between the two of you. It’s essential that you catch the rope, understood?”

  Myriam agreed and explained to Alberto, who looked petrified. Both could swim, but not very well, especially in currents among boulders.

  “Back up and throw Alberto the rescue bag now, so he knows how it works,” Myriam suggested. “I’ve done it before,” she reassured Alberto. “It’s not difficult.”

  Rex paddled backwards and tossed the rope to Alberto. Alberto watched it uncoil in the air, nodding as the sack with one end attached landed beside him. He grasped the bag, and Rex pulled on the rope until it was taut between them.

  “I understand,” Alberto said.

  Rex looped the rope back into its sack and buckled the sack back into his kayak. He snapped his spraydeck into place and paddled slowly towards the falls.

  Myriam didn’t like how close he was to the falls, but had to trust he knew what he was doing. Facing the falls, already looking ghostly in the heavy mist, Rex suddenly went into a sprint, like he was trying to paddle right into the heavy cascade. Barely had the front tip of his boat crossed the line of current, however, when the water shot him across the jet stream diagonally, so fast that she drew in her breath.

  Just as abruptly, the pool of water on the far side halted him like power brakes. So that’s what “ferry” means in kayak language, she thought.

  From there, he could survey what was downstream. But half-hidden in the fog, his face was impossible to read. She could only feel her stomach tighten as he raised his thumb, arced downstream, and disappeared at high speed, fully at the mercy of the current. She locked eyes with Alberto.

  “I’ll go first,” he offered, staring at his empty jug.

  Which is worse, going first or being left here alone for five minutes? she wondered.

  Myriam leaned in and kissed him. He looked surprised, and pleased. They waited what seemed like five minutes. Then he dog-paddled across the pool towards the frightening froth of the falls.

  She bit her tongue as the current grabbed him, pulled his head underwater for a second, then washed him out of sight, a head and a jug and a massive amount of water heading for Dead Man’s Canyon.

  She waited and she waited. How long is five minutes? An eternity. What are the soldiers doing high above me? she wondered. Probably making the sign of the cross out of respect for the loss of three people’s lives. The commander, of course, would be cursing for his loss of a prisoner, whom he must have imagined represented money for lots more guns.

  When she could wait no longer, Myriam let her fingers slide off the cold rock wall. She struck out for the current, water jug in hand. She gulped what she hoped wouldn’t be her last breath as she hit the well-defined line between the still pool and the jet stream. Then she felt herself pulled under, ripped from the calm, manhandled by terrifying currents. She didn’t know left from right, up from down. Even when she surfaced, splashes to her face blinded her to the flat yellow boulder she was passing at high speed. But, somehow, she managed to grab the rope that fell across her chest in the monstrous current. She grabbed it with both hands, even as the fingers of one hand stayed curled around the handle of her water jug.

  The rope tightened. Her grip tightened even more. Then her body ploughed upstream, dividing waves as it went.

  Water went up her nose and drenched her face. But not for a second did she lessen her death grip on the rope, her only lifeline to the two men reeling her in.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  I felt my stomach muscles relax. All three of us were standing on the big, flat yellow rock, facing the rock-wall cul-de-sac. Both Alberto and Myriam stood white-faced at the scene in front of us: the river throwing itself at the towering wall as a massive volume of water sloppily attempted to feed itself into a natural rock tunnel. The water fit so tightly into the opening that only a tiny dark arch, the size of a person’s head, remained above water level. It was like viewing a mouse hole at the bottom of a wall, the “floor” being rushing water.

  “We’re not going in there, are we?” Myriam asked, voice quavering.

  “Good thing you didn’t see this section during that heavy rainfall,” I said. “Right before I got kidnapped, the water level was several feet over this rock we’re standing on and higher than the top of that tunnel. There was no airspace identifying the tunnel at all. Just a massive, ugly whirlpool – like what forms when water goes down a bathtub drain.”

  “How long is that tunnel?” Myriam demanded. “And how do you know it’s a tunnel rather than a dead-end cave?”

  “Rivers always find a way to keep moving,” I said. “They’ll carve out what doesn’t give way faster. That current is moving downstream; it has found a way out. What we don’t know is whether we can follow it.”

  “Why did you bring us here if you don’t know?” Myriam asked.

  “Because I know how to find out.”

  She studied me for a minute. “Is this like when you went under the bridge on El Furioso?” she asked. “You plan to turn upside down and hold your breath just before you go under that arch, and then roll up on the other side of the tunnel?”

  “I wish it were that simple,” I replied. “I will need your help now. You’re going to ease me in there on the end of the throw rope, letting it out as far as it will go. I’ll have my headlamp on my helmet. I will find out what’s in there. Hopefully I’ll see light at the end of the tunnel before you haul me back.”

  Myriam’s eyes narrowed as she looked from me to the rope to Alberto. She translated for Alberto, then engaged in a lively debate with him.

  Finally, she turned to me. “It’s better if you put me on the end of the rope. I’m the lightest weight.”

  I opened my mouth to argue, but nothing came out. I could swear the Furioso itself had jumped up to clamp it shut, to slap sense into me. She was right. I had been worried about Alberto and her having the combined muscle to haul me back upstream, against the current.
But I hated to put her at risk. On the other hand, we were all at great risk in a high-stakes game now. The morning mist was thinning, lifting. That meant if any snipers had positioned themselves on the cliffs above, we’d soon be sitting ducks for being picked off. Alberto and I would have the strength to haul her back up to this midriver rock for her report.

  I saw the surprise in Myriam’s eyes when I agreed. But before she could reach for the rope, I pulled the necklace from my paddling jacket pocket and placed it around her neck. As my fingers touched her soft skin, they tingled slightly. But any lingering romantic attraction was gone, dispelled by Abuela.

  Alberto, his wet army fatigues clinging to his skinny body, looked at the necklace, his jaw hanging slightly open. Myriam lifted her watery eyes, then placed her hands over mine in the same manner that Abuela had so many times. “Thank you, cousin,” she said in a choked voice.

  I fashioned a makeshift harness for her out of one end of the rope. I slipped the headband-mounted flashlight around her head. Alberto muttered to her, gave her a quick hug, then signaled that he was ready.

  As Alberto and I held on to the rope, Myriam lowered herself from the rock, her eyes fiery with courage, the necklace glinting at her neckline. Then she floated through the dark mouse hole as we fed the line out gradually. After the tunnel had swallowed her, Alberto and I continued to feed out the rope until our calloused palms ached. My own hand was super-alert for the slightest change in tension. When the rope was fully played out, we sat there like nervous puppeteers. I counted to twenty, then ordered, “Now!”

  Together, Alberto and I hauled and hauled, adrenalin fueling our efforts, like fishermen bringing in a net – an empty net, she was so lightweight.