The Last Bastion [Book 5]

by K. W. Callahan

  She locked onto her target with her eyes, gauging the speed with which he was approaching. The young man looked exhausted. Marta could tell that he was wearing a lifejacket, and she wondered if he would have been able to keep himself above the water otherwise.

  She waited several more seconds until the young man was about ten feet from the deck. Then she crooked back her left arm in which she held the bunched up fishing net, loosened her grip on the coiled rope that she held in her right hand, and hurled the net forward. She allowed the coiled rope attached to the net’s end to uncoil as the net splayed out into the air over the river. The net unfurled as it flew, its weighted edges pulling it out and down, landing it just feet from the struggling swimmer.

  “Grab it!” Marta yelled as loudly as she could.

  She knew the young man wouldn’t have much time before the weights on the net pulled it down under the water and out of reach.

  She watched as the swimmer made a grab, missing the net as it sank. But with another effort, he caught the end of the rope to which the net was attached.

  As soon as Marta felt the rope pull taut against her, she began reeling it back in toward the dock. She knew she had to handle this process carefully. There was still another swimmer fast approaching who needed her help. She had to haul in the first swimmer fast enough to help the second, but not so fast that he lost his grip or the rope broke.

  It was a difficult balancing act, but one that Marta managed, getting the young man over to the deck edge. But then Marta realized her next dilemma. With the gap between the base of the dock and the water, there was nowhere for the young man to grab hold of to hoist himself up. And while Marta was strong, there was no way she could haul the young man up by herself.

  “Loosen grip on rope, but don’t let go,” she instructed the young man dangling in the current below her. “I’ll pull up net and you climb that.”

  The young man seemed to understand, and he released his grip just enough that Marta could haul the rest of the rope in and get the net up so that it was hanging over the edge of the deck. His loosened grip also allowed the current to pull him toward the end of the deck. There, Marta finally had pulled enough of the rope in to allow him to grab hold of the net’s lower portion.

  Marta prayed the net would hold. She hadn’t woven it for this sort of weight or work, but it was the only shot she had to save the young man. With amazing rapidity, she wrapped the end of the rope around several of the deck rails to provide extra leverage. Then she stood on the remaining length of rope, and leaned as far over the deck rail as she dared, an outstretched arm extended to what she could now see was a teenage boy below her.

  Between the net that he was able to climb, and Marta’s arm pulling at the back of his shirt, the young man was up and over the railing just in time for Marta to see the next person in the water to go floating past her.

  “Swim!” she yelled at the person who she could see was a slightly older, yet still young man.

  As fast as she’d ever done anything, Marta unwrapped the net’s attached rope from around the railing and grabbed its end in one hand. She felt like a crewmember on some sailing vessel, working frantically to batten down the hatches against a raging storm. She gathered the somewhat torn netting in the other hand, and with all her might, hurled it downriver from the end of the deck, hoping she had the distance both with her throw as well as with the length of rope to reach the swimmer.

  The guy was thrashing against the current with gusto, doing everything in his being to battle the river’s force. But his efforts were doing little, and he kept floating farther and farther away from Marta’s position at the end of the deck.

  She felt the end of the rope pull against her as the net reached its limit. She stretched the arm holding the end of the rope as far as she could out over the end of the deck to extend her throw by just another foot or two. The end of the net landed just to the right of the thrashing man, splashing him in the face and causing him to cough and sputter. But he managed to get a hand on the net’s edge before it sank beneath the murky current.

  Marta spent the next minute getting the young man hauled up to the dock. She was tired after already having landed his counterpart. By the time she had this second young man up to the dock edge, the first had managed to gather himself enough to assist her. Between the two of them, they managed to get the second sopping young man up onto the deck as well.

  He sprawled, soaking wet and completely exhausted, on the wet deck.

  “You tend to him,” Marta instructed the first young man as she turned to deal with the occupants of the canoe and kayak who had almost made their way up to the deck.

  Marta gathered the remains of her net, which had taken quite a beating, as she went. Along the way, she pulled a pocketknife from her back pocket, pausing only a moment to open it and cut the rope free from the net. As she reached the other side of the deck where the two boats were fast approaching, she dropped the net portion while retaining the rope. She then quickly coiled the rope, hurling its coiled portion out over the water. In an amazingly accurate throw, honed by all the fishing she’d been doing, she landed it right beside the front of the kayak.

  Caroline grabbed the end of the rope.

  “Tie it to boat!” Marta instructed as she ran her end of the rope between two of the vertical deck rail supports.

  Marta waited until Caroline had a good hold on the rope, since Caroline had nowhere to tie the rope off to on the kayak. Then she pulled the slack up through the rail supports, eventually drawing the kayak in closer until it floated just feet from the deck’s base. With the remainder of the rope re-gathered, Marta wrapped it twice around two of the vertical deck rails to cinch it tight. Then she threw the other end of the line to the canoe in which Charla and Christine had picked up young Justin Justak.

  The canoe was just starting to be swept past Marta’s position on the deck. Charla caught the rope and immediately tied it to one of the metal bars supporting her seat in the canoe. Marta then hauled the canoe in to the base of the deck where she tied off the rope.

  By this point, the Franko boys, who Marta had initially pulled from the river, had gathered their wits enough to be of use. They had come to hover near Marta, unsure of exactly how to be of assistance.

  “Bring net,” she instructed the adolescents in her deeply toned Polish accent. Her tone grew deeper, her accent more pronounced, during pressure situations.

  The boys did as instructed, helping Marta use the net to assist occupants from their boats and onto the deck. During the process, there were calls back and forth between the Blenders regarding the whereabouts of others.

  “Where’s Wendell?!” Charla called.

  “Has anyone seen Michael?!” Caroline added.

  “What about my mom and dad?!” Justin literally cried.

  “We’ve got to go back out and search for them!” Patrick insisted from his position still in the rear of the kayak.

  “You’ll never make it back alone,” Charla called from her position on the deck where she was helping others out of the canoe. “Quick! Someone give me a paddle! I’ll go back out with you.”

  “The current’s too strong,” Ms. Mary said, sopping wet and shivering from her dunking in the river and ride back clinging to the kayak.

  “We’ll make it,” Patrick called back forcefully. “I think that if we stay out of the main current and kind of skirt the shoreline, we ought to be able to paddle back if we don’t go too far. And if we can’t, we’ll walk back from wherever we land. But we have to look. It’s Dad, and Wendell, and the Justaks out there. We can’t just leave them.”

  “I’m coming with you!” Charla said. “Help me get back down,” she told those around her on the deck as they finished helping Christine up from the canoe.

  They quickly draped Marta’s fishing net back over the deck edge, allowing Charla to descend and carefully climb into the kayak, a feat that any circus performer would have been proud of. Then Caroline handed her a paddle, Ma
rta cut the rope holding them to the dock, and off they went.

  The others stood feeling helpless, shivering and in shock after what had just transpired as they watched the kayak make its way downriver.

  Then Marta said, “Come, I start fire. You need warmth. I have dry clothes.”

  She led the group inside the roadhouse where they began the drying, warming, and redressing process.

  CHAPTER 6

  As soon as Wendell hit the water, an array of thoughts flew through his mind, but only one of them stuck. Was this how it ended?

  After a lifetime of fear regarding a potential water-related demise, would the horrifying possibility be brought to fruition?

  He felt himself sink below the water. But an instant later, his head hardly submerged, he bobbed back above the surface.

  The water swirled around him. In a flash, he caught a glimpse of the kayak farther downriver. He thought he saw the canoe with Charla in it too, which made him feel good. At least his wife was safe – for the moment. And he saw the fishing boat, just yards away, now overturned and pinned, half submerged, against the fallen tree. The only other person he saw was Ms. Mary. She was clinging to one side of the overturned fishing boat. But in the brief instant he watched, her hands slipped away from its wet bottom where they could find no handhold. And as she slid down farther into the water, she was there one minute, gone the next as she was sucked beneath the boat and disappeared from view.

  Wendell frantically looked around him for anything to grab hold of or someone who could help him. It was then that he felt his back hit something hard in the water. He wasn’t sure what it was but it stopped his progress downriver. His lifejacket being pushed up around his neck made it difficult for him to turn his head. He felt his legs being pulled back behind him while his torso remained held in place.

  From the corner of his eye, Wendell caught a glimpse of the tree they’d hit in the fishing boat and realized that this must be what was holding him stationary. But as his legs continued to be sucked by the current under the tree’s trunk, his torso and head, kept afloat by the lifejacket, were pushed forward and down. His face was shoved into the water. Due to the surprise and swiftness of the move, he’d only been able to take a partial breath. His fear, paired with the coldness of the water, didn’t help with his lack of oxygen. He felt himself shoved down farther under water and then he was moving again.

  A few seconds later, still underwater, he banged into hard obstacles that he figured were tree branches. He jounced, pinball-like, against one and then another. Then his lifejacket brought him back to the surface on the other side of the felled tree’s trunk. There, he found himself pinned against a large limb in a confusing cage of tree branches and garbage. He frantically began to search for a way out, but then he wondered if this was the best move. If he stayed put, he was safe, at least for the moment. If he found a way out, he’d once again be at the whim of the river. Maybe his chances were better being trapped in the tree. But then what? No help was coming. He’d be stuck there until he succumbed to the cold and died from hypothermia or drowned.

  What was better? A quick death by drowning or a slow death succumbing to the elements?

  Neither option was good, but he had to decide. If he stayed put, there was likely no way out of his predicament. If he got out, at least there’d be a chance. Maybe he’d eventually be swept to shore or somehow otherwise be able to make his way to safety.

  He released his grip on the limb he clung to and made for a slight gap in the debris-cluttered maze of twigs, limbs, garbage, and leaves gathered within the tree. The water swirled around him. He wondered if this was how a sock felt inside a washing machine. Just before he let go of the last limb that would release him back into the river’s main flow he saw something moving in the water ahead of him. At first, he thought it was just more garbage. But then, he realized it was a body – a moving body.

  It was Michael. He was stretched out on his back, floating in the water. His right ankle appeared to have become wedged in a crook of the tree. The location of his pinned foot, paired with the force of the current was apparently making it impossible for him to reach forward far enough to extract his leg from the jam. Occasionally, even with his lifejacket, the strength of the current forced his torso down far enough so that his head was pushed under. He would resurface from such dunkings, spluttering and gasping for breath, which made his struggles against the current to free himself even more difficult.

  “Hold on, Michael!” Wendell called, making his way over to where Michael’s foot was caught.

  Wendell held himself in place against the current using one of the two branches that formed the crotch in which Michael’s ankle was jammed. It took some work, but eventually, Wendell realized that locking his legs around the branch onto which he held would provide him with some leverage. Using that leverage, he managed to pry Michael’s foot loose. But as soon as Michael was freed, he was floating downriver, once again leaving Wendell alone in his predicament as he held forlornly onto the tree branch.

  With the shock of the situation wearing off, Wendell began to feel the cold creeping in. He thought back to those long summer days when his mother had forced him to take swim lessons at the local park district pool. He had hated her for it then, but he felt a debt of gratitude for her efforts now. He only wished he’d kept up on his lessons.

  Wendell took a deep breath and let go of the tree. He began a half splash, half stroke swim toward a sort of dock structure he could now see on the nearest riverbank. There were people on the dock. And he hoped that if nothing else, his attempts might at least make him more visible to someone in a position to help. But as the current swept him swiftly along, he realized that he would come nowhere close to reaching the structure.

  As he continued to struggle toward shore, a struggle that appeared increasingly hopeless, downriver from him about 100 yards away, he saw another felled tree protruding from the shore. Unlike the tree that had sunk the fishing boat, this tree was still attached to the shore by its root system. And as he floated nearer, it not only appeared that he would be able to reach this tree, but that an overturned vehicle had become lodged near its center. This formed a good obstacle to shoot for in his approach, and Wendell aimed to pull himself toward it with his flailing strokes.

  As he approached, he saw something atop the vehicle. A moment later, he realized that the something wasn’t a something at all – it was a someone. It was Michael.

  The sight of his friend further invigorated Wendell’s efforts at centering his progress with the overturned vehicle upon which Michael had pulled himself. And his struggles were not in vain. He managed to get himself in line with the tree-entangled car, just a little to its left. But that slight misalignment was all it took to be caught in the eddying water swirling around the front of the car.

  “Grab hold of something and hang on tight!” Michael instructed as Wendell approached.

  But it was no use. Wendell’s hands were freezing and cramping up from the cold. And his grip slid and slipped away as he grappled unsuccessfully to find a handhold somewhere on the vehicle’s undercarriage. Finally, he managed to lock his exhausted arms around the car’s right rear tire, but his hold lasted only a few second before his arms were ripped free by the current.

  Wendell felt himself float free from the car and begin being swept around its end. He tried again to grab something, anything, but failed. His hands and arms wouldn’t work right. And just as he was about to give up all hope and allow the river to take him, he felt something yank at him. It snagged him from behind, grabbing him roughly by the scruff of his lifejacket. It hauled him roughly back through the water and up onto the overturned car.

  Wendell glanced back to see Michael pulling him to safety.

  “Thanks for your help back there,” Michael said as he helped Wendell get situation on the overturned vehicle.

  The car was rocking gently back and forth in the current where it’d come to rest against the tree that held it in pl
ace.

  “Thanks for your help here,” Wendell said after taking a moment to catch his breath.

  Michael nodded. “Sure. The question is, now what?”

  “I don’t know,” Wendell shook his head.

  “You see how many of the others made it?”

  “I saw the kayak and the other canoe. And someone was on that dock thing that overlooks the river back there. It looked like they were throwing a line out to someone in the water, but I couldn’t see who it was.”

  Michael nodded. “I just hope everyone’s okay,” he said almost more to himself than to Wendell.

  “Think we can use this tree to get back to shore?” Wendell looked around them at the giant felled maple tree.

  “Don’t know if we’ll have to. Look,” Michael pointed up the river.

  Wendell was shivering so violently from a combination of cold and adrenaline that he almost slipped back into the river as he turned to look. But for as miserable as his situation had been since falling from the fishing boat, his world was suddenly flipped right-side-up again when he saw Charla approaching in the kayak. He didn’t care so much that he was going to be rescued as he did that his wife was safe after the calamity that had befallen their group.

  Ten minutes later, the two men had been ferried to shore and they were trudging their way back upriver to where the remainder of the Blenders awaited.

  * * *

  After it soon became apparent that Josh and Julia Justak were missing, and no one had seen them after their canoe had overturned, a search was immediately mounted. While everyone was exhausted after their evacuation of the island and their harrowing trip downriver, they knew that time was of the essence.

  The next hour was spent searching for the Justaks. With each passing minute, the search grew in urgency. The Blenders realized just how cold the river was and how quickly it could take its toll on anyone stranded in it. But with each passing minute, hope for finding the Justaks in good health also faded.