Fatal Descent

by Beth Groundwater

  Cool went slack and blinked. His eyes stayed open, but they seemed unfocused.

  Mandy released her lock hold but kept her other hand on his mouth. “Again, but don’t kill him, just knock him out.”

  Gonzo whacked Cool again. Finally, Cool’s eyelids fluttered closed.

  “What’s taking so long?” Les yelled. “Cool?”

  Mandy nodded at Gonzo.

  “I knocked Cool out when we were fighting,” Gonzo yelled back. “I have to drag him back.”

  “God damn it,” Alice shouted at Les. “What a cluster fuck this is. How do we get out of this?”

  “Don’t panic, damn it,” Les replied. “We’ll tie up the guides and think.”

  “Go,” Mandy whispered. She helped Gonzo push Cool down off the sand shelf.

  “Back in the tent,” Alice shouted again, and Mandy guessed one of the clients had poked a head out.

  Gonzo slid his hands under Cool’s armpits and clasped them across his chest, then started dragging him back to camp.

  “What’s going on, Alice?” Diana yelled from her tent.

  “Shut up, Mother,” was the terse reply, followed by, “Shit, shit, shit.”

  Mandy crept along behind Cool’s legs, keeping Gonzo’s bulk between her and camp so she wouldn’t be seen in case the moon came out from behind the cloud. When they reached Paul’s tent, she slipped behind it. Gonzo went on alone.

  A minute later, she heard Alice say, “About time, asshole. Dump him there and come over here.”

  Mandy peeked out from around Paul’s tent. The moon was out again, its light flooding the camp. Alice held both guns, one in each hand. One was trained on Gonzo and the other on Kendra, who had her hands raised in the air. Les was working behind Rob’s back, holding some lengths of rope. Mandy realized he was tying Rob’s hands.

  Gonzo moved next to Kendra, so Alice had to turn and face away from Mandy to keep her guns trained on the two of them.

  Smart thinking, Gonzo.

  “After you finish with Rob, tie up Gonzo,” Alice said to Les. To Gonzo she said, “Stop there and hold your hands up, just like your dumb-ass girlfriend.”

  Gonzo stiffened but wisely kept his mouth shut. He raised his hands over his head.

  “What the hell are you doing, Alice?” Hal shouted.

  “Get back in your tent and stay there,” Alice yelled back, “or so help me God, I’ll shoot someone.”

  “No!” Diana shrieked between wracking sobs.

  “Who’s there?” Paul whispered from inside his tent.

  Surprised, Mandy jerked back behind the tent.

  “Shhh. Keep quiet. It’s me, Mandy,” she replied in a whisper through the tent wall.

  “Thank God. What’s going on?”

  “Alice, Les, and Cool plotted to kill Alex and Amy so Alice can inherit her father’s estate. We guides found out and tried to overpower them, but Alice has two guns on the others now. She doesn’t know I’m here, though.”

  She heard shuffling in the tent. “I’m getting dressed,” Paul whispered. “How can I help?”

  Mandy did some quick thinking. If they were going to act, they had to act fast, before Rob, Gonzo, and Kendra were all tied up and Les got one of the guns from Alice.

  Or before Alice decided to start shooting.

  “I swear it’d be easier to just shoot them,” Alice said, presumably to Les, confirming Mandy’s thought.

  “No, wait,” Les said, “We’ll figure something out.”

  “Hurry the fuck up, then!”

  “Alice is losing it.” Mandy blew out an anxious breath, trying to calm her roiling stomach. “This is a long shot,” she whispered to Paul, “but maybe we can get the jump on her before Les finishes tying up the others—or before she decides to start killing more people. It’s risky, and she might shoot us before we can get to her.”

  “We have to take that chance,” Paul said.

  Mandy shook her head. “No, I have to do this solo. You’re not involved in this. I can’t ask you to risk your life.”

  “If she’s not stopped,” Paul said quietly, “she might kill everyone—me, Tina, and Elsa included. I am involved, and I am helping you.” He started to slowly unzip the tent door.

  “Hands behind your back,” Les said.

  “He’s tying up Gonzo,” Mandy whispered to Paul. “We’ve got to move now.”

  She said it as much to galvanize herself as Paul. Her breath came in short gasps, and her palms were slick with nervous sweat. While Paul slid quietly out of his tent, she wiped her hands on her pants. “You go for the gun in her left hand, and I’ll grab the one in her right.”

  “Let me see where everyone is.” Paul crouched next to her behind the tent and peeked around the edge. He gave a nod, then glanced back at Mandy, his eyes black in the moonlight. “Ready?”

  He held up a fist, and Mandy bumped it with her own. “Ready.”

  To die?

  Paul leapt up and Mandy followed. They charged straight for Alice. To Mandy, their footsteps sounded like elephant stomps.

  This isn’t going to work, she thought, as Alice jerked and turned toward them.

  Paul sprang toward Alice, reaching for her left arm.

  A surprise burst of speed in Mandy’s legs powered her forward. She flew at Alice just as the woman’s face appeared, grim and twisted with raw anger. Mandy zeroed in on the gun in Alice’s right hand.

  Get that!

  Paul hit Alice first. They both grunted and Alice stumbled back.

  Mandy slammed into Alice’s right arm. While the three of them fell, she groped for the gun and yanked it out of Alice’s hand. She rolled away and came up on her knees, gun in her grasp.

  Bang!

  Shrieks came from the tents.

  At first, Mandy thought the gun in her hand had fired, but no, it hadn’t. She hadn’t felt anything.

  Then Kendra leapt on Alice’s chest, pinning her right arm under a knee. She started fighting with the maddened and kicking woman along with Paul.

  Had Paul been shot?

  “Paul! Are you okay?” Mandy looked for Alice’s left arm. It was under Paul. Both of his hands were under him, too. He seemed to be struggling with Alice for the gun.

  “I’m fine,” he said between clenched teeth.

  Mandy crawled over to Alice’s head and shoved the gun in her face. “Stop! Now!”

  Alice’s eyes were unfocused, hazed with anger. She continued to fight and roll against Kendra and Paul.

  Mandy didn’t want to risk shooting Kendra or Paul, so she turned the gun in her hand and whacked Alice in the head with it. Finally Alice stilled.

  Diana screamed again, and Mandy realized she must have come out of her tent and seen her whack Alice. She prayed that Alice’s parents would stay out of this fight.

  Grunts and yells told Mandy that Gonzo and Rob were fighting with Les behind her. She turned to see if she needed to help them, thinking both of them had their hands tied. Gonzo’s hadn’t been yet, however, so he was beating on Les’s prone body with his fists, while Rob stood beside Les and rammed kicks into his side.

  “Stop,” Les said, his voice muffled by the sand. “I give.”

  Mandy turned back to Alice.

  “Got it!” Paul rolled off Alice’s arm and held up the other handgun triumphantly.

  Then Mandy saw the bloom of dark blood on his shirt.

  seventeen

  The highest good is like water. Water gives life to ten thousand

  things and does not strive. It flows in places that men reject.

  —the tao te ching

  Mandy leaned back on her haunches and surveyed her bandaging handiwork on Paul Norton’s side by the light of her headlamp. He had only been grazed when the gun in Alice’s hand went off while they were struggling. That didn’t st
op Tina from crying hysterically, though, when she emerged from her tent and her flashlight illuminated the blood on her father’s torso.

  Elsa had comforted both her daughter and ex-husband while Mandy ran for the first-aid kit and patched up Paul’s wound. When the frightened women friends piled out of their tent, full of curious questions, Mandy directed them to Rob so she could focus on taking care of Paul. Diana and Hal were with Rob, too. Diana sobbed while Hal held her and demanded answers from Rob, who tried to answer them while tying up the captives.

  While Mandy worked, she explained to the Nortons what had happened. With horrified expressions on their faces, they listened to her story of how Les had tried to kill both Amy and her in Big Drop Two and her harrowing journey in the dark to camp.

  “The outer layer of gauze is still white, so I think the bleeding has stopped,” Mandy said to Paul after she finished her story. “You should lie still for a while longer, though.”

  He lifted his head to peer at the bandage. “Thanks. But I’m cold. I need to get out of this wind.” A shiver coursed through him.

  “Of course,” Mandy said. The night breeze lifted her hair, and she tucked it behind her ears. Now that the adrenaline was wearing off, she, too, was feeling chilled. She chafed her arms to warm them inside her fleece jacket.

  “Tina, go get his sleeping bag,” Elsa directed. After Tina took off running, she removed her fleece jacket and draped it over Paul. “Can’t have our hero catching cold.”

  Paul smiled up at her. “Thanks.”

  With a smile of her own, Mandy turned away to pack up the first-aid kit.

  “Don’t be getting any romantic ideas, now,” Elsa said. “The divorce is still final.”

  “I’m not,” he replied. “It’s just that I’ve never heard you call me a hero before.”

  “You took a huge risk to save all of our lives. I didn’t know you had it in you.” Mandy glanced back at them in time to see Elsa grin and give his shoulder a pat. “I’ll be looking at you with different eyes now.”

  “So maybe we can be friends instead of enemies?” Paul’s voice held a hopeful note.

  Elsa nodded.

  Tina returned at a trot with her father’s sleeping bag. Elsa and Mandy helped her unzip it and lay it next to Paul, so he could roll into it. Then Elsa zipped it closed and bent down to kiss Paul on the cheek. “Thank you, friend.”

  Tina clapped her hands with glee. “So you two have finally made up?”

  Paul gave her a chiding stare. “We’ve agreed to be friends, Tina, nothing more.”

  Tina looked from her father to her mother, then heaved a sigh. “That’s a lot better than the sniping I’ve had to put up with until now. I guess I’ll take what I can get.”

  Paul lifted a hand out of his sleeping bag to take her hand, and Elsa put an arm around Tina’s shoulders. “You’re still our daughter, honey,” Paul said. “We both love you.”

  “And that will never change,” Elsa added.

  Mandy picked up the first-aid kit and stood, stifling a groan as various aching body parts made themselves known. “Well, since Paul’s in such good hands, I’ll check on the others. Take a look at his bandage in about ten or fifteen minutes. If he hasn’t bled through, you can help him move—slowly—into a tent.” She glanced at her watch, pressing the button to make its face glow. “It’s one thirty in the morning. You may want to try to get some sleep.”

  Viv, Betsy, and Mo approached and each gave Mandy a hug and words of thanks and praise. Though they had obviously heard the story from Rob, they still buzzed with questions for Mandy. She answered a couple, then said she needed to check everyone who had been in the fight for injuries. With a promise to answer any more questions they had in the morning, Mandy suggested the three girlfriends return to their tent.

  “If you think we’re going to go back to sleep, you’re sadly mistaken,” Viv said, “but we’ll get out of your way.” She pulled Betsy and Mo with her toward their tent.

  Mandy walked over to where Rob and Gonzo were standing guard. They aimed their headlamps and the two handguns at Les and Alice, who sat on the sand with arms bound behind their backs and duct tape wrapped around their ankles. Cool lay on his back beside them, being similarly trussed up by Kendra, but with his hands tied in front.

  Kendra cut the duct tape wrapped around his ankles from the roll and stood. She flipped the roll into the air and caught it. “We ran out of rope, so I used this,” she said. “As they say, ‘One only needs two tools in life: WD-40 to make things go, and duct tape to make them stop.’ I’d say these three are well-stopped.”

  “Ha ha,” Alice said with a sneer. “Gloat all you want, but don’t expect anyone to laugh at your lame jokes.”

  Mandy knelt beside Cool and shone her headlamp on his face. His gaze tracked her movements, which was a good sign. He probably had a concussion from being knocked out, but it seemed to be a minor one—both eyes were dilated the same amount. “How’s your head?”

  “Got a mother of a headache,” he answered.

  “Dizzy?”

  “Only when I sit up.”

  Mandy nodded and stood. “We’ll keep checking on you through the night, and I’ll let the cops know you’ve got a head wound.”

  “Fuck,” Cool whispered and closed his eyes. Mandy could imagine that he was picturing his dream of spending his days free climbing and living off his cool million flushing down the drain.

  “Anyone bleeding?” Mandy asked the others.

  Rob and Gonzo shook their heads, and Gonzo said, “Battered, bruised, and scratched, but not bloodied.”

  “I checked Les and Alice when I tied them up,” Kendra said. “No blood on them.”

  “What’s that, then?” Mandy pointed at a maroon stain on Kendra’s hand.

  Kendra gazed at her hand in surprise and turned it over, then looked at her other hand. “Well, I’ll be damned, there’s a cut here. Never felt it.”

  Mandy cleaned the cut with an alcohol wipe, making Kendra wince, then bandaged it.

  “How about you, mi querida?” Rob looked her over, concern wrinkling his brow.

  “Gonzo summed it up about right. I’m okay.” Not really. She was dog-tired, almost dizzy on her feet with fatigue, and she didn’t think there was a single place on her that wasn’t bruised or scratched. But she wasn’t going to reveal any of that to their prisoners.

  She felt a hand on her arm and turned. Bundled up in a fleece jacket and sweatpants, Diana Anderson looked at her with sorrowful, pleading eyes, dried tears staining her cheeks. “Where’s Amy?” she asked tentatively, as if afraid to hear the answer.

  Mandy put a comforting hand on top of Diana’s. “She’s on a beach upriver and has a space blanket and a fire to keep her warm.”

  Diana’s shoulders drooped with relief. She leaned back against Hal, who was standing behind her. “Thank God.”

  “Amy’s injured, though,” Mandy added. “She’s got a broken leg, which I put in a splint. She’s in pain, but otherwise she’s okay.”

  Hal embraced his wife from behind with shaking hands. He nodded at Mandy. “Thanks for taking such good care of her. Can someone go back up the canyon to rescue her now?”

  “It’s too dangerous in the dark,” Mandy said. “I barely made it here alive. And we’ve got our hands full guarding these three. As soon as the launch comes to collect us, and I can get my hands on a working radio, I’ll make sure a powerboat gets sent to pick her up.”

  “Damn it!” Alice kicked Les with her bound feet. “You can’t do anything right, can you?”

  “Hell,” he grumbled. “You screwed it up the first time.”

  That caught Mandy’s attention. “First time?”

  Les sneered at Alice. “It wasn’t Kendra’s fault that her raft tipped. Alice and I maneuvered that quite well. But then she didn’t finish the job.”

>   Kendra gasped while Mandy’s mind whirled back to her rescue of Alice and Amy in Rapid Fifteen. Alice hadn’t helped her sister grab onto the raft when Amy seemed to be having extra difficulty grabbing on. Mandy couldn’t see what was going on under the murky water. Maybe Alice had actually been kicking Amy away from the raft.

  “I was having enough trouble keeping my own head above water,” Alice spat back to Les, “to make sure hers was below. I’d like to see you try to do that in the middle of a Class IV rapid.”

  Mandy glanced at Rob, who along with her was listening intently to the two bickering murderers. Were Alice and Les really that stupid, or were they just so mad at each other—and the fact that their whole scheme had failed—that they didn’t realize they were digging their own graves? She wasn’t about to say anything that would make them stop and think. She still had questions, though. Which one of them had killed Alex, and why had they gone after Elsa?

  “Rob explained some of what happened to us,” Hal said to Mandy, interrupting her thoughts. “But Diana and I are still trying to understand.” He and Diana turned to look at Alice, disbelief and shock in their gaze.

  Alice and Les’s words had degenerated into flinging insults at each other, so Mandy decided it was okay to stop paying attention to them. “I’ll tell you what I know,” she said to Diana and Hal, “but it may take a while, so we’d better sit down.”

  She pulled the older Andersons over to some camp chairs a few feet away and righted two that had been knocked down. After they had all taken seats, she explained what she had managed to put together. Alice and Les were having an affair and wanted the whole inheritance from Hal’s death to themselves. When Alex had suggested the remote trip through Cataract Canyon, Alice and Les saw their chance. They hatched a plan to work together to kill her brother and sister and make their deaths look like accidents.

  Diana shook her head. “I can’t believe this. Alice wouldn’t kill her own flesh and blood. What proof do you have?”

  Mandy waved Kendra over. “Go get Les’s camera bag and bring it here.”

  Kendra trotted over to Les and Cool’s mangled tent and searched through the contents by the light of her headlamp until she found a small dry bag. She brought it back and gave it to Mandy. “This one has his name on it.”