Wicked River

by Jenny Milchman

Natalie got to her feet. The sodden garment she’d just taken off fell to the dusty ground, and she snatched it up again, stuffing it into her pack. She glanced down at the GPS, verifying her location. Looking at the land she was actually occupying didn’t feel good enough, as if the device did more than orient, but rooted her in space.

  Natalie walked forward, trying to spot Doug.

  The woods appeared empty, and they felt empty too. The wind had died down as abruptly as it’d arrived, and the stillness was so complete that not even an insect buzzed.

  No sign of her husband among the trees.

  Chapter Eleven

  Kurt’s belly was full of berries and wild onions and tough, stringy meat, his body made strong by the capture of the game, and by the hauling and building required to finally complete the structure in which he would pass his third winter.

  But Kurt was weaker and hungrier than he’d ever been in his life.

  Mentally weaker and hungrier.

  The vicious season arrived early here, and though it was still some months off, judging by the foliage and abundance of wildlife, Kurt knew that if he died this time, it wouldn’t be because he lacked sustenance or shelter. Solitude would be what felled him.

  The woods bore personalities, unless Kurt in his lonesomeness had created them. He didn’t think so, though. They felt too real. One side the woods displayed was threatening, a cacophonous din of rustling leaves and branches whipping in the wind, cawing birds and clawing feet, and the evil chuckle of the creek. While the second, seen less often, was a cold parent. Oppressive in her silence: a shrouding cloak of quiet so thick that Kurt sometimes screamed aloud just to break it, mauling his eardrums to get at the cotton padding he was sure must be filling them, blocking out the sweet song of voices he craved.

  He was going mad. Sometimes he saw faces in the ruts and lines of tree bark. He wondered what would happen if he spoke to them, whether they might answer back.

  Kurt hadn’t spied a trace of a human being in so long that he was becoming inhuman himself. Nearly four full seasons since the businesslike hiker had refused to stay in his camp. The water-lodged sticks Kurt had mistaken for the presence of a visitor the other day didn’t count, even though he had dragged them back to camp, carving crude faces into the wood until their sight offended him. Such paltry impersonations of the real thing, their only indications of emotion those that Kurt was able to deliver with the tip of his blade. He’d burned them in last night’s fire.

  With the tasks of daily life whittled down to a manageable load, Kurt lacked sufficient diversion to occupy himself. Boredom combined with isolation posed the worst pain he’d ever experienced.

  One day, though, a different sort of pain presented itself, saving him from the brink of suicide—or worse, living out an untold number of years, demented and gibbering, alone in the forest.

  He got injured.

  Kurt had been stomping around the woods in wider and wider radii, in search of a flash of color that might signal a piece of clothing or a tent. Even a dried-up footprint would offer a morsel on which he could nibble, despite carrying with it the proof that he had been too late, missed his chance yet again. How deep was the imprint of the foot? Did it signify a heavyset man, or a lighter sprite? What did the footwear’s sole reveal—an experienced trekker in good boots or an unprepared novice in sneakers?

  So intent was Kurt on his aim that he failed to notice the hole an animal had dug, over which a burden of leaves had fallen, concealing its depths.

  Kurt pitched forward, only just able to pull his leg free in time. Before he did, he heard the phantom snap of a bone, felt the cold, pure pain of it. Bathed in sweat at the imagined horror of what a break would mean out here, he lowered himself, panting, to the ground and let his heart rate settle.

  He had strained something, but there was no significant damage, and as he limped back to camp, Kurt favored the ankle to hasten its healing. He couldn’t be hobbling around now, or even less than at his strongest and most able, for a possibility had suddenly occurred to him.

  Why couldn’t he ensnare bigger prey than the chipmunks whose flesh he routinely chewed?

  Human prey.

  What if a perforation similar to the one into which he had just stumbled wasn’t haphazardly dug by an animal, but deliberately placed? So that if a backpacker did chance to come by, he might break a bone and be stuck here, incapacitated?

  A thru-hiker might be knowledgeable enough about wilderness first aid to take measures to go on, of course.

  In which case, could a hole of the kind Kurt was envisioning be deepened, widened, made to catch a target and keep it there?

  And to up the chances of successful capture, could Kurt plant more obvious obstacles, minor impediments left just visible enough that a trekker would steer clear of them, unaware that he was being guided toward an ambush, and wind up exactly where Kurt wanted him?

  Tripwire fashioned out of vines, strung between trees and wrapped with thorns for good measure, sharp enough to slice an Achilles tendon. Skull-clobbering rocks perched on branches and set to fall at the slightest disturbance.

  The whole of these woods could become a trap.

  Chapter Twelve

  Natalie’s teeth chattered, and she felt cold despite the dry clothes she’d put on. Abandoning her pack beside their canoe, she held on to the GPS and darted up the path Doug had forged, calling out loudly enough that her cries split the silence of the woods.

  No response.

  The sky dimmed up ahead. Were they losing daylight already?

  Worst-case scenarios started to spark in Natalie’s head. There was a cliff, and Doug had fallen off. A bear had attacked him, even though black bears were fairly amicable and fat with food this time of year. Her husband had tripped and hit his head. Suddenly, the woods seemed freighted with horrors. Natalie didn’t know if she could haul the canoe all that way back to the lake on her own. How would she go for help?

  She squared her hands on her hips and forced herself to breathe, turning around beneath the umbrella of leaves and considering. The GPS didn’t show any sort of mountain. It wasn’t detailed enough to display every feature of the terrain, but what she saw looked manageable, and there had to be a logical explanation for Doug’s absence. Strong, young people didn’t just up and die.

  They do, something young and weak whimpered inside Natalie. All the time.

  Not Doug, sure and capable as he was. Anybody but him.

  She licked her lips nervously and was shocked to taste salt. Not sweat. Tears. “Doug!” she shouted, her voice higher and more hysterical than she would’ve liked.

  She heard stamping in some brush to her left and swiveled on the uneven ground. Her ankle buckled, and she nearly went down. Something that big had to be a bear—and how nuts had she been to think of bears as friendly?

  Then the top of a human head appeared—that was Doug’s dark hair, wasn’t it, stirred up by the rising wind?—and Natalie realized that despite the assistance of the device, she’d been looking in the wrong direction.

  Her knees went limp with relief. She couldn’t believe she’d let a little nature and solitude get to her like that.

  Doug skidded to a halt in a clot of leaves beside her. “You’re not going to believe this,” he said, snatching her hand.

  He didn’t seem to notice she’d been scared, and Natalie saw no reason to tell him. Doug already worried that she was ill-equipped for this journey.

  They walked forward until the trees parted, then mounted a slope that indeed looked over the banks of a river. Minuscule motions hinted at the power beneath the water’s long, flat back. A whorl on the surface. How fast a twig was pulled downstream.

  “Believe what?” Natalie asked.

  Doug pointed, a glower forming on his face.

  Ahead in the distance, but traveling fast, was an elephant herd of storm clouds.r />
  Natalie released a sigh, a stream of pent-up breath.

  They had talked about the weather when they were planning this trip, of course. Even Doug had to admit that as idyllic as pancakes might smell sizzling over an open fire, little was as miserable as camping in the rain. They had selected their wedding date predicated on an outdoors honeymoon. June might be the most popular month for brides, but it was black fly season in the Adirondacks. By August, the nights would be getting cold. July was the best month. Aside from the occasional freakish hailstorm, all you had to watch out for were thundershowers. You might avoid rain altogether if you got lucky.

  We did not get lucky.

  Her thought suddenly seemed to apply to more than a temporary spell of bad weather, as if the broad, all-encompassing sky would never lighten.

  “We’re going to have to pitch our tent under a downpour,” Doug said. His voice was glum, and he looked as disappointed as a child.

  Doug’s certainty and competence came at a cost, Natalie realized. He shielded his soft spots, the weaker aspects of himself. Suddenly, her new husband seemed to contain as much below the surface as this river did beneath its own. Natalie felt as if she’d made her personal subterranean depths far more visible. Doug knew Natalie’s deepest sources and vestiges of pain. But where did Doug’s lie?

  “It’ll be okay,” she told him softly. “For better or worse, richer or poorer, in sunshine and in rain. Isn’t that how the vows go?”

  Doug seemed to rally then. “Neither snow nor sleet… Wait, that’s something else,” he said, bracing his shoulders and giving her a grin. “Come on, let’s go back and get the canoe. Maybe we can beat the storm.”

  Trees bowed over hunchbacked, their branches like long, dangling arms, as Natalie and Doug entered the water. The current took their canoe, swift and sure, while stone-colored clouds slid by overhead. The light overhanging the land began to change; the storm holding off, at least for now. Natalie let green beneficence bathe her as she probed the depths of the river with her paddle.

  The boat started to speed along, as if hardly even touching the surface. Minute splashes, like watery hiccups, were the only audible sound. Natalie and Doug stroked together, more in unison than they had been since setting off.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Doug pitched the tent on a sandy hump of land just big enough for a patch of forest and a fortress-like ledge of rock. The tent they used was the one Doug had had forever, a battered orange and gray affair, roughly pentagonal in shape, with an entrance you crawled through in order to straighten up inside. At five foot five, Natalie could stand nearly upright; a shade over six feet meant that Doug had to stoop. Still, there was plenty of space for their sleeping bags—slick new ones that zipped together—and packs.

  Natalie set about gathering wood, which she assembled in a ring of rocks on the shore. She started with brush and twigs for kindling, then constructed a tepee of thicker sticks and logs, the shape Doug had demonstrated to catch fire quickest. Ministering to the flicker of flame while hunting items in their food sack, Natalie had assembled the trappings of their first meal by the time Doug emerged on hands and knees from the tent.

  “Hey, I think it missed us,” he said, gesturing to the sky.

  Natalie smiled, glad to see her husband’s mood restored.

  Doug slapped at a mosquito. “All that paddling works up an appetite.”

  Natalie held up the block of cheese she’d unwrapped and a baggie of noodles.

  Doug pantomimed gusto. His skin was glowing, tanned from their day in the sun, and he’d traded clothes for swim trunks, revealing his broad chest and planks of muscle on his stomach. Natalie felt a low churning in her belly that had nothing to do with hunger. Desire, pure and simple, heated by the sinking sun.

  Small waves from the river licked at the shore. Natalie got to her feet, the tasks necessary for the coming night vanishing from consciousness as she started to pull off her grimy, day-worn garments.

  Doug’s gaze traveled over her, an almost physical force. He scooped Natalie into his arms and headed for the water.

  “Bath for two, Mrs. Larson?” he asked, his voice husky and deep.

  “Sounds blissful,” she murmured. “I never want to leave.”

  Doug bent over to deposit a kiss on her lips. “Have I finally made a nature lover out of you?”

  Natalie felt herself relax in his hold. “Well, I don’t know about moving to a desert island. But that town was pretty nice.”

  Doug grinned. “We’d probably run out of restaurants pretty quick on this island.”

  Natalie laughed.

  Then Doug set her back down on the ground. “Damn.”

  She looked up at the sky, then all around. “What’s wrong?”

  Doug strode back in the direction of the fire. He crouched, hastily rewrapping the block of cheese and shoving food into the sack. “Why don’t we just invite the bears?”

  Natalie groaned. “I’ll try to remember we’re not in Kansas anymore. Although this is an island.” When Doug didn’t reply, she added, “I guess bears swim.”

  Doug got down on his belly and blew into the blaze. The flames shot higher, bits of orange flying into the twilight. “Nice job with the fire,” he said. “Another log, and I’ll bet we can keep this baby burning while we—”

  “Doug…” Natalie groaned again.

  He got to his feet. “Am I overdoing the Boy Scout?”

  “Oh, believe me,” Natalie said, walking toward him. “I love your Boy Scout.”

  For a second, Doug remained focused on the shooting sparks. Then he reached for her hand and began steering Natalie toward the water. A chill took hold, and as they cast their gazes skyward, it became clear why the temperature had dropped.

  Clouds lay like a black canopy across the heavens. In the Adirondacks, the weather was as changeable as a teenage girl’s moods. A loud crack split the silence, unleashing a drenching rain. The downpour soaked them, rendering Natalie’s underwear sheer against her body, and dousing the flames Doug had just coaxed to soaring.

  “Oh no—” Natalie cried before it struck her that her husband was laughing.

  “Fool me once,” he spluttered, shaking rain from his hair like a dog.

  Dripping, Natalie started to smile.

  Doug snatched her hand. “Come on!” he yelled, and they ran for the tent.

  Rain made a battering shadow as they crawled inside, flecking Natalie’s near-naked form. Watery damp enclosed them, sealed out by their tiny shelter.

  Natalie ringed Doug’s neck with her arms. “I love you.”

  “I love you too, Nat,” he said, voice rough with desire and eyes hooded by wanting. “I always have.”

  But he didn’t strip off his wet clothes, nor rid Natalie of the last items she wore. She let go, suddenly self-conscious, her skin stippled with goose bumps.

  “Is something wrong?” she asked.

  Doug’s gaze was fixed on the mesh panel that allowed them to see out.

  “Doug?”

  Rain continued to pound, while lightning hurled itself across the sky and thunder lashed, lassoing the planet. Doug reached for Natalie, pulling her so close that it seemed he was trying to pull her right through him, then entered her without laying her down. Natalie gasped, immediately starting to shudder against him.

  Doug bore down, waiting for her climax to subside before beginning to move inside her. It felt as if the whole world was shaking them back and forth in its fist, although at a certain point the motion might have been no more than their bodies rocking against each other, over and over in fierce pursuit of the same glorious goal, which each one signaled with a shout of sheer and spontaneous release.

  • • •

  Natalie woke in the night to blistering moonlight. The skies had cleared, and everything was as bright as noonday. Doug lay prone on his st
omach, both hands fisted, as if he’d been taken unawares by sleep, forced into it rather than indulging in a well-deserved rest. Natalie snaked as soundlessly as she could from the tent, before rising and padding, barefoot and nude, to the edge of the river.

  She waded into a perfect cylindrical pool.

  The trees lifted their arms blackly against the sky, draping leafy shadows as she started a slow, easy breaststroke into deeper water.

  She had grown overheated in their sleeping bags, which were rated for three seasons, and lying as she and Doug had been, so close and intertwined. The frigid water felt delicious upon her. Natalie stopped swimming to see if she could touch bottom, but her legs dangled freely in the current.

  She treaded water, gazing back at their island. Their. She’d come to think of this place possessively already. It would be difficult to paddle on when morning came, even though Doug had assured her that even greater natural wonders and more majestic scenery lay ahead. Still, Natalie couldn’t help feeling as if nobody else had a right to tarry here besides the two of them. Had any other couple ever come together in the way that they had before sleep stole in, experienced such heights of passion riding out a storm that in the end felt perfectly timed, delivered like Mother Earth’s own wedding present?

  Natalie swam back toward land, covering just enough distance that her feet could find purchase atop a pair of slippery rocks. Then she threw back her head and rinsed her hair in the clear, pure water, droplets cascading over her shoulders and down her spine.

  A ways off on shore, there was a hint of movement, and then a sharp crack.

  Natalie’s heart began to throb; she felt it cast waves through the water, turning the entire river into one giant, beaten drum. She started swimming as fast as she could for the shoreline, aware that when she got there, she was going to have to emerge with no clothes on. But that didn’t matter; she had to get out of the water, this circular, glistening target into which her body was thrust like a dart.

  She kept her gaze focused on land. The tiny island appeared motionless, untouched save for their tent and still-smoldering fire.