“You wouldn’t have left me,” Carrie stated with conviction. “You couldn’t have left me.”
Ralf hooted, “Don’t tempt us, darlin’, or you might find yourself without a ride!” Carrie stuck her tongue out at him and drew it in hastily as he made a grab with thumb and forefinger.
This time, Ralf and Steven were the first ones in the raft, the oars being on the opposite side. Before Carrie climbed in, she was drawn up against Gabe’s chest. Putting his mouth close to her ear, in spite of the interested gaze of her two brothers, he whispered, “I would never have left you.” Then he raised his head just enough to stare down into her eyes, very close. There was no smile on his lean, dark face, but deep in his eyes burned a steady glow that soon sparked an answering one in Carrie’s blue eyes. Then he helped her into the boat, his hand holding her quite unnecessarily.
“Hello,” shouted Ralf as they headed off. “It’s Little Dolores Rapid next. Ah, how I remember that little lady with affection!”
This next rapid, too, was fun for Carrie. She was kept laughing helplessly at the three men, who were acting quite like children. Whenever they hit a particularly rocky spot, Ralf would yell out, “Not hard enough!” and Steven and Ralf would steer out of the swift water to the more slow-moving water at the edge of the river and back up the raft to try the spot again, always attempting to hit the water with as much of a splash and as hard as they could. Gabe sat back and cheered them on.
After the rapid, they all sat back and relaxed for a bit. “This is just about the last breather that we’ll have until the Big Hole Canyon, on the other side of the rapids. All of the fun ones are coming up,” Steven informed them. Carrie made a face, and Gabe laughed.
Soon, Ralf pointed out a crumbling shadow that lay in the silence, to the left of the raft. “See that?” Carrie and Gabe turned to look. “That’s Outlaw’s Cave. Legend has it that two brothers robbed a bank in Utah and hid out here for several months. There’s a grave about a half a mile down that’s supposed to be one of the brothers’.”
Steven asked, “Would you like to stop and look around?”
She said sharply, “No. We wouldn’t.” She looked across at Gabe as if to challenge him to say different.
Gabe, looking at her somewhat thoughtfully, said nonchalantly, “Not this time, Steven. Maybe on the next trip.”
Steven shrugged. He didn’t care if they stopped or not because he’d already seen it several times. “Okay by me,” he said. “Here comes the fun stuff, then!”
There was a bend in the river that led south-southwest. As they rounded the bend in the raft, Ralf warned them, “Marble Canyon is coming right up, now. Better slide down into the bottom of the raft.”
Gabe and Carrie complied quickly. In what seemed to Carrie to be a very short time, they were suddenly in the midst of a bucking chaos, characteristic of the western Colorado whitewater rapids. This was quite rough, and it bothered her somewhat. But somehow she couldn’t really get too concerned about the swirling white waters about her, for a world of difference exists between a person in a raft looking out, and a person caught in the clutches of the merciless, dangerous river. It couldn’t touch her where she was.
Steven shouted to Gabe and Carrie, “Stay where you are! There won’t be any calm waters until the Big Hole Canyon, and it’s going to get a hell of a lot rougher soon. Funnel Falls is next.”
There was a short period when the waters of the river were relatively calm, although they flowed very fast, the current being strong. Then, quite suddenly, and quite furiously, the whitewater rapids of Funnel Falls were upon them. Ralf and Steven worked diligently at the oars, each staying in time with the other, and both striving to steer the raft through the most level and safe part of the rapid to keep the raft in balance.
Carrie glanced across at Gabe. He was tensed and poised to keep himself in control of his position as much as possible. She was reminded of a cat trying to keep his paws near the ground so that he can land on his feet and in command. The raft plummeted and a wave, bigger than any yet, came crashing about their heads. Gabe shook his head like a dog surfacing and shouted to her, “Okay?”
She shouted back, “Okay!” He grinned and stuck out his closed fist, thumb upright. She grinned back.
The fierceness of the river slowed and grew once again relatively calm, although very swift. The change was as startling as the first time. Carrie looked about her, an action similar to that of lifting her head from a swimmer’s position. Cliffs were on both sides of the river now, the huge black rocks towering as high as two hundred feet above the river, dwarfing the little raft as it shot down. She felt so insignificant against such majestic greatness, as she often felt when experiencing the bold beauty of the western Colorado and eastern Utah area. As she gazed around, absorbed, Ralf told them both, “Skull Rapid is coming up almost immediately. This is the most dangerous of all the rapids, so be very careful, and stay low.”
Carrie crouched low. “Don’t worry,” she exclaimed nervously. The roar of the rapid was becoming louder and the speed of the raft increased noticeably. “I’m not going to stick my head up past the rim of the sides…” And, with a roar and a crash, the rapid swirled about them.
Carrie might have predicted what happened next. She had imagined such scenes all day, but had kept them to herself, telling herself that she was a nervous little fool. But after all, she could have told them all what was to happen.
The front nose of the boat hit the bucking waves and shot up. Carrie, watching it go farther and farther, suddenly realised it wasn’t going to come down again. Steven, upset out of his seat by the raft’s unbalance, shouted in alarm, “Hey! Look ou—”
The sky above her darkened with the bulk of the overturning raft and she watched with a vague feeling of surprise. Then there was a sickening lurch in her stomach as she hit the water with enough force to knock the air out of her lungs. Black, wet, moving water surrounded her as she sank deeper, deeper, deeper. She had enough sense not to open her mouth or try to draw in air with her aching and oxygen-starved lungs, but instead held her breath as blood painfully pounded in her ears. She struck out frantically with her arms. If she didn’t get air into her hurting lungs quickly, she would pass out. Shooting up, up with the sensation of a passage through a green-tinted coolness, taking what seemed to her as an eternity to reach the top, rushing, rushing…she shot up, broke the surface and gulped deeply at the air, the sweet, life-giving air. As she opened her eyes, panting urgently, she was aware of darkness, an odd sort of darkness that was filled with a rushing, violent, swirling madness.
It was the underside of the overturned raft.
She was quite alone.
She sobbed for breath and tried to grab hold of something stable. She managed to get her fingers into some kind of hold in between the round, inflated side of the raft and its flat floor. The air that she had managed to hit was the trapped air that formed an air pocket in the belly of the little cave. Thinking hard, and trying to form her panic into some semblance of rationality, Carrie began to realise that the safest place for her at the moment would be right where she was. There was enough air for survival, and something to hold on to as the rapid buffeted her about. If she were to try to get outside right at the moment, chances were that she could lose the raft altogether, and then there would be little hope for survival in such a powerful chaos. There was nothing for it. She must stay right where she was.
It was a nightmare; it was madness. Carrie knew nothing of the fate of anyone else. She didn’t have any idea if Gabe was alive, if Ralf and Steven were surviving. She knew nothing except the roaring rage of the whitewater rapid, the bucking and jerking of the raft overhead, and her own precarious position, with no real hold and little air. She was periodically submerged in the icy cold water and, just as insanely, thrown up again by an opposing force. Trying not to gulp at the precious air too greedily, she became aware of small, moaning sobs that she was making as she prayed harder than she had ever prayed before.
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It lasted an eternity, and, crazily, it lasted such a short time. Afterwards, she could not give an accurate account of her little sojourn under the raft. She could only say that once in a while she breathed, and once in a while she couldn’t. All she could think of, trapped as she was in her own private watery hell, was Gabe.
“God,” she gulped, swallowing water, “let him be alive, please. Oh, please!”
The madness was over. All Carrie could feel was the hard and sucking tug of the river’s murderous current as it swept her on, too fast, to the last rapids, the most dangerous rapids of all. She scrambled frantically out, pushing herself under water while holding on to the raft with desperate hands. If she lost the raft, she would drown almost certainly, in spite of her swimming expertise. Something rocked, and the wet rubber slipped from her hands. She raised her head and broke the surface of the water as she quickly began to slide away from the raft.
She gave a gasping cry, reaching hopelessly for the rope that was looped on the outside of the raft, and knowing that it was too far from her seeking fingers. It was in that second that she lost all hope of ever surviving the madness. It was that time that she simply gave up, as she was turned over by the river’s wild tossing.
Then something hard grabbed at her hand that was outstretched towards the raft, bruising her in a painful grip. She was hauled to the raft and pulled up enough so that her head broke water and she gasped for breath.
“Come on, damn it!” The voice was Gabe’s, harsh and urgent. “We’re getting to the next rapid.” He jerked her fast to the raft and she bumped into it from the force of his pull. His hand slapped hers on to the rope on the side of the raft. “Hold on, girl! Get a hold of the rope! Close your fingers around it, grab it, damn you! There, there, now don’t let go, whatever you do, don’t let go…”
The familiar roaring and crashing threw Gabe and Carrie into that insane, whirling world of death. There were times when Carrie just gave up on breathing and concentrated instead on holding her breath for as long as she possibly could. She was thrown under water so frequently, sucked by the vicious and incredibly strong undertow. Then there were times when she had to keep her head craned up high to be able to get a glimpse of any of the treacherous rocks that protruded up out of the water. When she saw them coming straight for her, she kicked up her legs in front of her and contacted jarringly with the slippery rock, then kicked out and away from it.
Once or twice, she failed to get her body twisted around in time, and it was then that Gabe’s long, powerful legs saved her. He would kick out from where he was, just behind her, and turn the raft away from the dangerous stones. Carrie felt the raft jerk suddenly towards them occasionally and hope surged within her. It could be Steven, she surmised, surfacing from another long bout under water. It could be Ralf.
Then her prayers changed. Instead of praying for Gabe’s safety, she began to pray for her brothers’ safety. It never occurred to her how apparently illogical this sequence of prayers was. It never dawned on her just why she would pray for Gabriel before she would think of praying for her own brothers.
The wet madness of the Sock-it-to-me Rapid seemed to last much longer than that of the murderous Skull Rapid. Carrie felt the strain on her tired arms, and the pull of her muscles. She let herself go limp in an effort to conserve what little energy she had left, in order to survive. Then she felt the hard force of the rapid settle into some semblance of order as the last calm before the last rapid came.
“Steven!” Gabe surged up high, kicking his legs in an effort to see over the high sides of the raft. “Steven! Ralf!”
“Ralf!” Carrie started to call out hoarsely too. “Steven, oh God, please!” She didn’t attempt to kick up; she knew she was too weak to make it.
An answering call soared over the top of the raft. “Carrie, is that you?” It was Steven. “Gabe, are you two all right?”
“Yes!” he shouted deeply. “Where’s Ralf?”
“I’m here, too!” Ralf’s shout came. “We’re battered, but okay.”
“Listen,” Gabe called out. “Is there anywhere we can steer the raft so that we can tip it back over before the next rapid? Carrie’s about spent.”
As he spoke, Carrie lifted her head and looked towards the shore they were closest to. High canyon walls lifted straight out of the water. No place here.
“No!” Steven shouted back. “Whatever you do, don’t climb up on the raft. You’ll just slip off again, and you might not be able to get a hold on the raft again. It’s safer in the water! We’ve got to ride it out!”
Carried leaned her head against the side of the raft, too tired to even cry. Another rapid. She didn’t say it aloud, but she wasn’t sure she would make it. Her fingers were very cold and numbing quickly. She couldn’t feel the rope anymore and she wasn’t sure how hard she was holding on. The tendons in her forearms were aching badly, the muscles beginning to cramp with a crippling pain. All she wanted to do was to lay her head down and go to sleep. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, her head started to sink towards the water. She was nearly unaware of it herself.
Gabe reached out and jerked her hard, roughly. The pain made her cry out and she became quite alert. “Carrie!” he hissed. “Wake up, Carrie! Come on, sweetheart, don't quit now, for God’s sake. Damn it, Carrie, the rapid is coming up! Try, girl!”
She felt an awful, sickening panicky feeling as she glimpsed the tumbling water ahead. There was nothing for it—they had to go through it, whether they survived or not. It was as inevitable as death itself.
They crashed into the rapid, the raft tumbling around and about. The worst time was when Gabe and Carrie were suddenly bearing the brunt of the rapid’s force because the raft had been twirled about. It was then that she screamed out in pain, for a particularly high rock was sticking out of the water and she was slammed up against it hard. It seemed to numb her whole back and side and she felt herself begin to let go of the raft, unable to help it. Gabe threw his strong arm around her waist and held her tight against his body until she had recovered enough to try and hold on to the rope once more.
Carrie’s world dissolved into a semi-dark world of swirling water that tried to suck her down and under the raft, the throbbing pain in her back, and the numbing cold. She no longer struggled to keep her head above water, but instead breathed when she could, and floated, holding her breath when she couldn’t. Her lungs were filled with white-hot flashes of pain, and she could no longer feel her hands.
Gabe, looking over when he could, was shocked to see her gradually giving up. The only thing that held her up was her two hands that were fixed in a death grip on the soggy mass of rope. He jerked her to him and held her head up by passing one arm around her and pushing his body up hard behind hers, pinning her to the raft.
After the longest ride of her life, Carrie could feel the hard tug and swell of the water subsiding gradually, and the rough waves soon stopped the bucking action, so familiar to her now. The raft no longer twirled around and about, but instead settled into a somewhat sedate float.
The last of the Westwater rapids was over.
“Carrie, honey,” Gabe spoke in her ear somewhat breathlessly, “are you hurt at all badly? Can you hold on to the raft?”
She gulped gratefully at the air. It was heaven to be able to breathe without fighting. She managed to nod. “I think so,” she was able to gasp out. Her whole right side was a throbbing mass of pain. She couldn’t feel any part of her hands, but she saw them clenched hard on the rope, the knuckles white.
Gabe shouted, “Steven! Ralf! Are you all right?”
The answering shout came quickly. “Yes, we’re okay.” It was Ralf. “We thought we heard Carrie back there.”
“You did. She was slammed against one of the rocks. I think she’s hurt,” Gabe replied, shouting all the time. “Can we get the raft turned over?”
They were floating down in comparative gentleness, but still there were sheer cliffs all about them. Steven swam over to the ot
her side, sending Carrie a worried glance. She was not aware of his presence. All her energy was now concentrated on holding on to the rope, as she had promised Gabe.
Gabe took her hands and forced them off the rope; she couldn’t seem to get them to let go. Then he held her up against him as Ralf and Steven climbed on to the bottom of the raft and, putting their weight together on one side, managed, after rocking it violently, to get it flipped over, sending them both splashing into the water again. Gabe kicked out strongly to get her head above the waves that Steven and Ralf had created.
She was by now semi-conscious and aware only of being held out of the water and passed to someone else with strong arms. She didn’t feel the pain in her side anymore; she didn’t feel anything at all. As Gabe clambered into the boat, she looked at him once, foggily, then quietly passed out.
Chapter Seven
Carrie couldn’t have known that, after travelling down the river the last five miles, she was carried to the pick-up truck by Gabe. She couldn’t have known that, as the small shivering party floated downstream, one after the other, crazily, the oars from the boat floated down after them. Nor did she realise that the trip from Rose Ranch to the Westwater Ranger Station was accomplished in delicious warmth that the pick-up cab, after sitting in the sun for so long, provided. She was quite oblivious to it all.
However, when the pick-up pulled into the rangers’ station, she finally blinked her eyes and looked about her. She was being held by Gabe, her legs curled around and her head resting on his broad shoulder. She had been wrapped in a warm blanket, and her hair had been loosened from its ponytail and was curling around her head in an untamed riot. She was very aware of her aching body when she attempted to move a little, and widely subsided into stillness, relying on Gabe’s support.
“Why, hello, sleepyhead,” Gabe said softly, cocking his head to one side to look into her face. His mouth was smiling wryly, but Carrie, looking into his eyes, saw that they were not smiling at all, but were darkly shadowed.
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