Wicked River

by Jenny Milchman

  “Nat?” Doug said.

  He was looking at her from the driver’s seat. She hadn’t even noticed him shift into Park. She felt embarrassed somehow, drawn in so instantly by a land to which both of them were mere visitors. She pointed to a café with a pretty blue awning, letting out a grateful groan. “Caffeine.”

  It was already lunchtime. The home-cooking place Doug had found on Yelp wound up being shuttered—literally: a hand-lettered sign hanging askew on the slats that barricaded the window sadly deeming the place closed for business—and they had left too early this morning for the inn to be serving coffee.

  Doug glanced at the dashboard clock before turning off the engine. “How about I brew you a pot over our campfire tonight?” he suggested. “You know how good coffee tastes made outdoors. And we’ve still got an hour to our put-in. We’ll need to make some miles on the water today if we want to stick to our route.”

  “Doug.” Natalie heaved a sigh. “This is starting to sound more like training camp than a honeymoon.”

  Her husband spotted something outside the window then, and Natalie followed his gaze. A guy about their age was just opening the door of the structure that housed Off Road Adventures, which stood a few doors away from the coffee shop. He emerged onto the porch and took a look up and down the street.

  Doug was staring at the guy, but just as Natalie started to voice another protest—something along the lines of not realizing she’d married the coffee Nazi—her husband reached over and unlatched her belt. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s meet with this dude, then I’ll buy you the biggest grande they sell up here.”

  “Up here, it’s probably still called a large,” Natalie said, cheered, and followed her husband to Off Road Adventures.

  • • •

  Fortified an hour later by not just coffee but lunch as well—the café turned out to have a full menu in addition to cups with comfortingly pretentious names for its sizes—Natalie felt imbued by a sense of promise, ready to head to their put-in on Gossamer Lake. The spot seemed prettily, even aptly, named, considering that Natalie and Doug had just come from the frills and flowers of a wedding.

  It wasn’t just the dark roast or the pleasantness of the town causing Natalie’s mood to rise. The guide had comforted her as well. He fit the part of wilderness outfitter as if created for it: river rat with a touch of hipster Brooklyn. He had short blond dreads caught in a ponytail and what appeared to be permanently tanned skin, plus a closely cropped beard that seemed to glisten with damp. The wings of a tattoo—it might’ve been an eagle, or a hawk—sprouted from beneath the collar of his worn tee, and he wore shoes Natalie had seen advertised in outdoors magazines, the kind that fit the feet like second skins. Even his name, which Doug had stumbled over at first, worked. Forrest.

  Natalie had sent her husband a daggered look. Don’t you dare make a joke.

  Forrest picked up on Natalie’s nervousness right away, suggesting they all take a walk away from the shop to sit on the banks of the sunny lake.

  “On a scale of one to ten, all the trips Off Road puts together,” Forrest had said, grinning at Natalie across a stretch of glowing green grass, “the one we set up for you has a difficulty level of, say, one point five.” He gestured to the flat sheet of sun-dappled water to their right. “We teach folks to paddle out there on Lake Nancy. That’d be a one.”

  Natalie let her eyes travel in the same direction. “We’re awfully far north,” she said. “It feels like we’re in another country.”

  “You’re in Franklin County, deep in the Adirondack Park,” Forrest said. “The land within the Blue Line covers six million acres.”

  Natalie looked at him blankly.

  “The Blue Line,” Forrest repeated. “The boundary around the biggest protected region in the lower forty-eight. Five national parks could fit inside.”

  Natalie nodded. “So, um, do you ever go along on trips? Instead of just laying them out, I mean?”

  Forrest exchanged a look with Doug that Natalie didn’t have to work hard to interpret. Something about how frustratingly adorable women could be. It made her want to punch the two of them—not playfully either—and remark, Oh, but we take your inflated Match.com profiles and game day superstitions very seriously.

  “Sure,” Forrest said at last. “That’s probably 75 percent of what we do.” He looked at Doug again. “But not usually for honeymooners.”

  Natalie felt Doug’s hand on hers. “Come on, honey,” he said. “Solitude, remember? We haven’t had enough of that lately, with all the wedding planning and your new job. And a one point five?” He glanced at the guide. “I’m almost tempted to ask for more rapids.”

  Forrest chuckled and got to his feet. Natalie rose too. Doug had accomplished his purpose, although she would’ve bet that her husband didn’t have any idea how he had done it, what he’d said that had worked. But Natalie’s worry had been flushed away by one single word. Honey. Doug had never called her that before. Nat—the shortening of her name, its diminutive—was as far as he’d go. And for Natalie, terms of endearment carried the distant, warm echo of memory, whether real or assembled. The vague, idealized sense Natalie had was of a mother who used sweet words, bought toys, filled the house with delicious scents. Certainly there were none of those things after she died.

  Forrest handed Doug a yellow pouch with the jagged cliff logo for Off Road Adventures on it. Inside was a sealed ziplock bag containing two thick folds of paper, zigzagged all over with lines, unintelligible symbols standing out here and there. Natalie blinked under the bright warmth of the sun, trying to make sense of the maps, but failed.

  “Just for backup,” Forrest explained, picking up on her worry again. “If your GPS happens to die out there, it’s no problem. Sometimes analog gets the job done even better.”

  Real, paper maps seemed like relics from an ancient world to Natalie, but Doug tucked the ziplock back into its pouch agreeably enough. “That’s it?”

  “Assuming you stuck to that list we emailed you,” Forrest said.

  Doug ticked items off on his fingers. “I packed neutralizers for the iodine. Even if we never need them.”

  “Better safe than sorry,” Forrest agreed. “And remember, in case of emergency, there are a couple of resupplies along your route. I marked them on the map. You’ll never be more than a two-day paddle from shelter and other people.”

  Doug nodded.

  “You should be in good shape,” Forrest said, and Doug nodded again. “I think that we are.”

  The guide clapped a hand on Doug’s shoulder, reaching the other out to Natalie for a polite shake. But when Natalie offered her own in return, he grasped it harder than she’d expected, and held on.

  “Something you’re gonna learn out there,” he said.

  Natalie sensed Doug’s gaze resting on her from behind.

  “There’s a beauty to what you’re doing,” Forrest said. “Something I could never explain from here.” He glanced at the blue arc of sky overhead. “In the end, everyone paddles their own river. Now. Go paddle yours.”

  Chapter Seven

  “Everyone paddles their own river?” Natalie chortled as she seated herself in the car beside Doug.

  He glanced at her and smiled, but distractedly.

  “Come on,” Natalie said, still boisterous. She traced a finger along Doug’s cheek while he pulled away from the curb. “You know what we should do now?” Another laugh escaped her. “Go paddle ours.”

  He patted the pouch, which he’d placed on the console between them. “Want to put that in the glove for now?” he said. “I’ll transfer it to my pack when we arrive.”

  “Doug,” Natalie complained as she complied with his instruction. “Why are you not laughing about our guide’s Zen and the art of honeymooning?” She reached out to stroke her husband’s face again, the smoothly shaved line of his jaw.

&n
bsp; He caught her hand, but the action seemed less about touching her in return than putting an abrupt halt to Natalie’s caress. She pulled free, hurt.

  Doug checked the map on his phone before making a turn. “Sorry,” he said. “Maybe I’m having a few start-up nerves myself. I’ll feel better once we’re on our way.”

  “Honey?” Natalie said, trying on the term. It felt like syrup on her tongue, viscous and warm.

  Doug rotated the wheel.

  “I’m actually starting to look forward to this trip,” she went on. “Being alone out there, time just to talk and be together.”

  “I’m glad—”

  “But it’s not going to work if we’re tense,” Natalie went on. “I mean, the wilderness—all that space—will just magnify tensions, right?”

  Doug kept both hands steady on the wheel. The road curved and he swung with it, both their bodies leaning. Then he made a sudden, sharper turn, onto a sandy shoulder beneath a skyline of pine trees. He looked at Natalie.

  She stared back.

  “I want this to be fun,” Doug said. He stroked the line of her sleeve, the hairs on her upper arm standing antenna-straight in response. “No, I want it to be more than fun.”

  Natalie looked at him questioningly.

  “It’s the start of our lives together,” Doug explained, his voice throaty. “Nothing can go wrong. It has to be perfect.”

  Natalie shook her head once, hard. “That can’t be,” she said, and he aimed a similar questioning look back. “Real life isn’t perfect. Of all people, we both know that. This trip just has to be the two of us, coming together. Like we’re going to do forever.”

  Doug stared out the windshield, sunlight glinting off the glass. “You’re right. Of course you’re right.” He unlocked his seat belt and lifted himself in the seat. “And don’t think I don’t realize that you’ve told me the same thing before.”

  “Just once or twice,” Natalie said dryly, eyeing Doug to gauge his response. Things felt charged between them. She wasn’t sure how he’d take being teased right now.

  Instead of answering, Doug leaned over Natalie, catching her lower lip between his own, and drawing her into his arms in the cramped space. They kissed so deeply that Natalie lost her breath. Doug’s mouth scattered kisses on her throat, then her chest as he gave her room for air.

  “I thought you were worried…” Natalie said when she could speak. “About getting on our way—”

  Doug nosed her shirt up, exposing the skin on her stomach to the warm glow of sun in the car. “I’m not worried about anything anymore,” he said, and dipped his tongue into the crevice of her belly button before traveling lower.

  He made her wet for him, and she climaxed with a cry so sharp, it startled a bird outside the car into flight.

  • • •

  When Natalie and Doug arrived, Mark and Brett were standing at the edge of Gossamer Lake, water lapping their bare feet. The put-in spot deserved its picturesque name. Tendrils of mist rose from the surface of the lake, otherworldly and beautiful. Natalie and Doug wrestled the canoe down from the top of the car and placed it on the shore. Then they unloaded their packs and slid them as far into the bow and the stern as they could go, protecting them from splashes.

  Because they’d gotten on the road so early, it was still only five minutes past one. Most of the day still lay ahead, not to mention the rest of the trip to come. Natalie felt a tingle of excitement.

  Doug took out a small amount of emergency cash, then stashed their cell phones and wallets in the glove compartment, twisting the lock with a seldom-used key. “Feels weird,” he remarked, looking at Natalie through the triangle of space made by the open car door. “When was the last time you didn’t have a phone on you?”

  It did seem strange. They were shedding the accoutrements of their everyday lives, as if by getting married they had become completely new people. But their phones would be of no use on this trip. They were safer stowed in the car.

  For a moment, Natalie was struck by the same feeling about all of it—not only their possessions, but their jobs, their apartment, the bars and restaurants in which they spent so many hours. They all seemed meaningless suddenly, as if she and Doug had everything they needed right here and were leaving nothing of value behind.

  Doug checked the trunk one last time, then called out, “I guess that’s it.”

  Mark and Brett had taken a last quick dunk. They came walking up from the lake, shaking water out of their hair, wringing their swimsuits to dry them.

  “Great spot,” Mark said. “Really sets everything right, being up here.” He sent Doug a look, veiled and secretive, as if referencing a private joke between them.

  Natalie glanced away, recalling the interlude she and Doug had just shared in the car. Who knew what he’d told his friends, the jokes they had made about outdoor sex.

  Doug handed the car keys over. “Leave ’em on the right front tire, okay?” He pulled the canoe toward the water, dragging it along the sand with a soft shushing sound.

  “Thanks, guys,” Natalie said. New day, new marriage, new chance to be close to her husband’s best friends. “For everything.”

  Mark and Brett aimed smiles at her, then Mark stooped down for what felt like a totally normal hug, as if the strangeness had never taken place—no sleazy men in a car, or conflict with the groom. Brett deposited his own embrace once Mark released her. Guys were great at acting like nothing had happened, and in this case, Natalie figured she could learn from the approach.

  She settled herself inside the boat and picked up her paddle.

  “Need a push?” Mark asked, leaning over.

  “I got this,” Doug replied, and shoved the boat into the water, wading in a few feet before hopping inside and getting seated.

  His paddle broke the even surface of the lake with hardly a ripple.

  Mark and Brett waved at them, and then they were off.

  Chapter Eight

  Kurt heard the noise at noontime, sun shining down directly from above, the one way he had to set the clock of his day. The sound came from the creek, which ran close to camp. At its most roaring, the creek nearly became a river, but summer tended to lessen its flow.

  For a second Kurt froze, uncertain what to do. He’d been preparing for this moment ever since he’d had to sacrifice the strapping female hiker—a year or so ago, as best he could judge by the passing of the seasons. In the intervening time, Kurt had put all but the finishing touches on his structures and had organized his scant supplies. Yet with opportunity finally facing him, he felt unprepared, and young, boyish, like a kid who never thought his mother would give permission, or even hear what he had asked.

  Kurt cocked his head to listen. Silence was a rarity in the woods; even now, in the thick middle of a warm summer’s day, branches soughed in an oppressive wind, and the nearby creek moved along slowly at a disconsolate trickle.

  Standing still, Kurt tried to tease out whatever had alerted him.

  Something heavy and deliberate, its rhythmic, recurring pattern suggesting human involvement. Two lengths of wood being banged together? Thwocking, repetitive knocks, but not light, like a woodpecker would make.

  Backpackers in bear country were told to make noise, clang pots. But a solo hiker might not have two pots. This one was clapping sticks instead, imagining himself to be warding off bears, when in reality he had no idea who was about to greet him.

  Kurt followed the sounds, his heart leaping as joyfully as the water when the creek was running at its highest. Already starting to build an impression of the man he would soon encounter: cautious, rule-bound. It had to be a man—the pieces of wood must be formidable in size for their sound to carry.

  Kurt entered an ivory grove of birches, limbs scattered like bones across the forest floor. The hiker moving fast, amputating branches? Or gathering firewood for later? Th
ere was no need. Kurt had a woodpile that would keep them both warm.

  The clocking noises grew louder, wood against wood, as Kurt moved toward the water’s edge, a cry of hello perched on his lips. After that would come the suggestion that the hiker join him for a night’s protection from the elements. Overhead, the sun had suddenly vanished and the sky looked thunderous, laden with rain clouds. His invitation should be welcome.

  Kurt broke through a final scrim of branches.

  His call of greeting withered like a spent balloon. Disappointment rained down on him as he finally spotted the cause of the sound.

  Kurt strode into the shallow water, impervious to the strike of stones against his flesh. They bruised his feet as he kicked them aside: smooth, egg-shaped pebbles as well as bigger, roughly surfaced rocks.

  Two branches had fallen into the stream and gotten stuck between rocks. The recent dry spell had exposed their top halves, while the lower parts were still submerged. The force of the water, even running low, was sufficient to bring the sticks into contact, over and over again.

  Kurt let out a bellow of nameless, faceless rage. He needed names; he needed faces. Only fellowship would enable him to survive this exile.

  Leaning over, he heaved the limbs free, like tearing two arms out of their sockets, splinters of wood daggering his fists.

  Chapter Nine

  When Mia and her mother got back to the apartment the day after Aunt Nat’s wedding, Mia’s father was waiting for them inside. Mia’s mom put a hand to her chest. “Oh,” she said. “I didn’t expect you.”

  Mia’s father apologized. “Maybe I should give you back my set of keys.”

  “Don’t be silly,” Mia’s mom said. “I should’ve called when we left the inn so we could make plans for the day.”