Wicked River

by Jenny Milchman

  That seemed to get the searcher’s attention. He paused in his examination, the next question he’d been preparing aborted on his tongue.

  “Please!” Natalie’s head felt like a centrifuge, her thoughts spinning. “We’ve got to hurry! My husband is seriously hurt!”

  “Okay, Mrs. Larson, I understand,” he said.

  “You do?” It was more of a demand, a challenge, than a question. How could anyone possibly understand the bizarreness of this situation?

  The man turned, one deliberate rotation of his body. “Yes, Mrs. Larson, I do, and I’m going to need you to calm down.” He fished in his pack, coming out with a bottle of spring water, which he uncapped and gave to Natalie. Only after he’d watched her drink, did the searcher ask, “Can you describe the nature of your husband’s injury?”

  Natalie felt the water hit her stomach coldly. “I can tell you, but isn’t it enough for now that he’s wounded? I mean, the first part you have to deal with is the traps.”

  This hadn’t occurred to her till now. If Natalie and Doug hadn’t made it safely out of camp themselves, after living there and knowing Kurt’s practices, how were rescue workers supposed to make it in?

  The searcher continued to regard her oddly.

  If she couldn’t make this comprehensible—get the searcher to see what she was saying—then he wouldn’t be equipped to find Doug. Nobody who hadn’t visited Kurt’s camp, seen the way he had militarized his land, could understand what invading it would require. Natalie backtracked, her insides roiling as she recounted all that had happened to the two of them, forming it into a narrative that at least to her ears made sense.

  The searcher studied the ground for what seemed like a long time, then unclipped a radio from his hip. He depressed a button and spoke. “This is Steve, do you copy?”

  “This is Brad,” came a voice through the static. “Copy.”

  Crackling over the airwaves was duplicated inside Natalie, her nerve endings jangling, keeping her from standing still.

  The searcher named Steve prevented her from walking off with one firm hand, before speaking into his radio again. “I’ve crossed the river an eighth of a mile from where we last triangulated. Wife found alive, in stable condition. Copy that?”

  “Wife alive,” the one named Brad burst out. “Copy.”

  “You’d better come fast,” Steve said. “Copy?”

  “Copy and on my way,” Brad replied, briskness detectable in his tone even through the thready sound. “Over.”

  Natalie neither heard nor saw the approach of the second searcher. Brad appeared beside her and Steve as if he’d been dropped there.

  He was dressed just like Steve, minus the cap, although Brad looked to be younger by decades. He greeted Natalie with an expression of joy. “I’m very happy to see you, Mrs. Larson.”

  Natalie tried to smile.

  Brad turned to Steve, who talked swiftly, repeating what Natalie had told him. Then Steve raised somebody else on his radio—a policeman, from the sound of it—and gave the same report again. Steve and Brad both began talking—the logistics of getting a badly injured man out of terrain both impenetrable and dangerous—while the voice on the other end kept silent.

  The dialogue proceeded after that at such a machine-gun-fire pace that it was difficult for Natalie to keep up. Without realizing it, she had grown chilled, her body quaking so hard that her teeth rattled. It must’ve finally started to rain—the sky opening with a whimper, not a bang, faint rainfall versus any thunderous clashing of clouds—for when Natalie sank into a crouch, the ground was sopping wet and the world had grown fizzy with moisture. She looked down to see her skin dappled by drops, and felt water sluicing her face. She wrapped glistening arms around slick knees while thoughts swam through her head like fish too fast to grab.

  Steve and Brad had donned waterproof hats. They seemed to register her condition at the same time and snapped into action. Brad pulled a crinkly silver blanket from his pack, Natalie giggling because those packs were like circus cars, items spilling out in endless succession. Neither man appeared to find her reaction strange, merely regarded her with a look of close scrutiny while winding the space-age blanket around her body. Brad whisked out a small tarp—provoking renewed mirth in Natalie—and sat her down upon it. He helped her sip hot, sweet liquid from a metal bottle and gave her a piece of jerky to gnaw on.

  The direness of the situation had clearly become apparent, however, because the second Natalie had been seen to, both men resumed their conversation via radio.

  Options were raised and discarded. Thick leaf cover and no place for a helo—helicopter?—to touch down. The bumpy jouncing of an ATV. Hours of hiking over tricky terrain, trying to hold an emergency evacuation gurney steady. Both searchers shook their heads, clamping off muffled swears and frustrated breaths, before conferring with the policeman again.

  Natalie felt a noose tightening around her neck. She couldn’t have come this far only to lose Doug in the end. She whimpered and Brad leaned over, readjusting the silvery wrap. Natalie grasped his wrist, using it to pull herself to standing. The space blanket fell off her and onto the ground.

  Brad’s focus returned to his companion.

  The air grew less hazy, the rain letting up, and Natalie suddenly thought to display her map. Snapping the sheet of paper into view, she whispered, “There’s a lake.”

  The men continued talking, near misses and dead ends as they explored ways to access Kurt’s camp.

  “There’s a lake!” Natalie said louder. She stabbed at the spot on the map.

  They looked at her.

  Natalie nodded, fast and urgent. “A sizable one. With a direct route between it and the area where we were staying. No traps. I’ll just have to find the right path.”

  Chapter Seventy

  Natalie’s solution was relayed to the cop by radio.

  “Raise Jim Huggins at the Boat & Fishery,” came his crackling command. “See how soon he can get his float plane into the air.”

  “Copy that,” said Steve.

  “You and I will meet due east of trail marker twelve,” said the policeman. “That way we’ll both be making headway toward this camp, cutting a line off the triangle.”

  “Copy, and on my way,” Steve said.

  Taking a last look at his own map, Steve jogged off into the woods.

  Natalie turned to follow. They couldn’t get separated—Steve still wasn’t remotely prepared for what lay up ahead.

  From behind, Brad touched her gently on the arm. “This way, Mrs. Larson.”

  Although warmer and drier now, Natalie was still experiencing a few lingering shreds of disorientation. The woods spun, leaves making kaleidoscopic patterns against the sky. “What do you mean?” she asked. “We have to go get my husband.”

  Brad looked away from her, down at the ground.

  Natalie frowned, tracking his gaze. Ferns and other plant life stood upright, no longer bowed by burdens of moisture. Puddles were soaking into the saturated earth.

  “Come on,” Natalie urged. “We have to hurry.”

  “Ma’am,” Brad said awkwardly, “we would never let a subject back into a situation like the one you described. Our best searchers—not to mention law enforcement officials—are going to get your husband.”

  Brad began to walk in the opposite direction from the one his partner had taken, but Natalie planted her feet. “Then your friend is going to die,” she said.

  Brad’s foot paused in the midst of rising.

  “Or get seriously hurt,” Natalie amended. “That policeman he’s supposed to meet up with too. I already told you how my husband wound up in his condition. The land your friend’s headed toward is so rigged with traps, it’s impossible to avoid one.”

  Brad had appeared to be considering her words, but now shook his head. “When people have been through
frightening experiences, their recollections are often cloudy. Uncertain.” He sounded as if he were reciting from a book. How victims behave after rescue. As if to prove the point, Brad gave her a rote smile. “The men going to rescue your husband are professionals. They have skills to handle any terrain they encounter.”

  “Not this terrain,” Natalie said.

  Brad gave her the same distant smile, then set his sights on a swath of trees that appeared to lead to a clearing. He tried to turn them both, one hand planted firmly on her shoulder.

  He doesn’t believe me, Natalie realized, struggling to keep herself from being led. He thinks I’m exaggerating, or maybe delusional with shock.

  If she let the rising hysteria she felt overtake her—like water in a capsized boat—Brad would never change his mind. Natalie had to stay calm, somehow convince this person who thought himself prepared for every eventuality that a completely outlandish situation was all too real.

  “Brad?” she said. “I know that you and your partner are experts…trained in SAR. But the land Steve is heading into isn’t like anything either of you has ever seen before. Whatever Steve tries to look out for will be a fraction of what he might actually face.”

  Her words sounded dramatic and overblown, even to her own ears, and she could see Brad coming to the same conclusion.

  Natalie went on, grasping for an explanation that might make sense. “It’s like when U.S. soldiers were sent to Vietnam. They weren’t prepared for the jungle over there, or the way the Vietcong knew how to fight. Do you remember that—reading about it maybe?” He looked so young. Too bad Steve hadn’t been the one to stay with her. He seemed to have a military background, which would render this more comprehensible.

  Brad continued to regard her, the look on his face less certain.

  “But I’ve been living under those conditions,” Natalie went on, quelling a frantic note in her tone. “My husband too. Who’s injured now, unable to walk, maybe permanently.” A sob crawled up her throat, and she choked it back. “I got out safely,” Natalie went on. Thanks to Doug, although she didn’t distract matters with the fact of her husband’s self-sacrifice, the way he had spared her from that spike. “And if we hurry—if we move fast enough to catch up—I can make sure that your friend does too.”

  Brad’s face finally reflected the fear that Natalie had been suppressing. He depressed a button on his radio, and she could make out Steve’s voice, asking for status.

  “Have you come across the chief?” Brad said, ignoring the request.

  Nothing but static and crackling over the airwaves—Steve must have traveled some distance already—before a few faint words came through. “I can’t raise him.” White noise overtook whatever Steve said next, then nothing could be heard at all.

  Brad replaced his radio on his hip, his expression eerily calm. He began to stuff gear back into his pack, still clearly following some protocol. Even in extreme situations, don’t leave behind an item that may turn out later to be essential. Brad yanked the zipper up with a high, screeching whine before squaring the pack on his shoulders. He paused to skid a finger across Natalie’s map.

  “This way?” he asked, and she nodded.

  Brad grabbed her hand, and they ran.

  Chapter Seventy-One

  Kurt returned to camp with Doug cradled in his bare arms and laid him down on a mat. Doug’s skin looked glossy and pale; his eyes were shut. The state inspired in Kurt a form of frustration he hadn’t felt since Terry had ceased talking, or even looking at him. All other practical reasons for her death notwithstanding, in the end Kurt had been driven to strangle Terry simply to try to provoke some sort of response.

  It was important to keep Doug warm. Kurt cinched the sleeping bag around him. Before rising from the floor, he felt around toward the bottom of the bag for the spot where Doug’s foot had been bisected by the whittled wooden dowel. Kurt gave the flesh a vicious squeeze through the puffy material. Not to hurt Doug, just to jar him into consciousness. He nearly wept when the man didn’t so much as stir.

  Kurt had rudimentary knowledge of first aid, but an injury this grave would be beyond him—at least when he was in such a hurry. He had to go and get Natalie. Now. With any luck, the map would remain a funhouse mirror to her unseeing eyes, and she’d be stumbling around in circles, leaving obvious signs for Kurt to follow.

  But he couldn’t count on it.

  He paused to elevate Doug’s feet and slip between his lips the Advil he had withheld from Natalie after suturing her cut. The relief offered by the pills as they dissolved, scant though it would be, might be sufficient to return Doug to consciousness.

  Kurt hoped so anyway.

  He wanted Doug awake when Kurt came back with his wife.

  • • •

  Kurt slapped at branches as he strode through the woods. Leaves threatened to slice his face, and he angrily knocked them from their stems. He hadn’t outfitted himself for this walk, a beginner’s error the likes of which Kurt hadn’t made since he’d first begun to fashion a life in the wilderness after his compatriots abandoned him. He could do without water and sustenance—fifteen miles was but a stroll around the block for him now—but his machete would’ve come in handy for breaking trail.

  It wasn’t like him to have rushed off unprepared. Overtaken, in a sense, by emotion rather than rationality. He was sad, Kurt realized, mentally examining the feeling, tasting its salty tang. Already mourning the loss that was to come.

  He was going to have to kill Natalie. Not because she had excited his ire or caused in him any particular passion. Kurt didn’t miss Natalie, nor feel anger at her for escaping. No, he was going to do away with her for one simple, bloodless reason.

  She knew how to get in and out of Kurt’s camp.

  One of these days, the map she had surely taken—Kurt hadn’t found it on Doug’s person when he’d wrapped him in the sleeping bag, nor in either hut—would begin to make sense to her, and then she would know how to leave, the only person besides himself who did.

  Natalie was going to join Terry in the pyramid of stones Kurt had constructed. His smokehouse. He stopped amidst a thatch of brambly branches to ponder. Observing Natalie’s reunion with Doug would provide blistering fulfillment to Kurt. He could do away with her immediately afterward, certain that he had borne witness to a set of emotions as complex as any she would experience in her foreshortened life, like imbibing one sip of the finest aged wine.

  Kurt pushed off through the woods again, anticipation heady on his tongue. After some time, a branch whipped his face and he tore at it, severing the wood from the tree and splitting it over his knee with one savage blow. The thinning flora should’ve alerted him. He had made it all the way to Turtle Ridge, unaware of the miles passing, or the amount of time he had spent striding along, lost in his imaginings. Only now did he register how close to the trail’s outlet he had come.

  With no sign of Natalie.

  Kurt lifted his head to the yellow-green sky. It had started to rain, and he hadn’t even noticed. His body was soaked, clothes wrapped around him like strips of plaster. Kurt let out a howl that startled nearby creatures seeking cover from the downpour into a scurry of motion.

  “Natalie!” Kurt screamed. “Where are you?”

  He began to race forward, eyes fixed on the ground, hunting any hint of human passage. But his raptor’s gaze couldn’t make out a thing; the rain had concealed whatever traces there might’ve been. Natalie had gotten away.

  She would bring back help, send rescuers to his camp. Thoughts swirled in the basin of Kurt’s mind. He could stand to forsake his homestead, start over again from scratch, surviving a winter without shelter or supplies. He had done that before. But what Kurt couldn’t imagine abandoning was Doug. Forego the pleasure of observing his crippled captive adapt to life as a widower in the wilderness? That would be like turning down a breath of sweet oxygen
while drowning.

  Even if Natalie did return with assistance, wouldn’t Kurt’s traps make short work of any rescuers? Could he risk going back? Or should he take flight now, run for his freedom?

  His eyes seized on a muddy track to his left.

  There was a set of footprints sunk into the moist earth of the trail. Then came a trampled-on stand of brush and the end of a twig made jagged by the stumble or near-fall of someone unfamiliar with the hazards of this terrain.

  The print didn’t come from the type of shoe that Natalie wore; this one belonged to a not particularly good boot. But that was all right.

  Only one thing could’ve quieted the frenzied debate erupting inside Kurt.

  The promise of someone novel and new to bring to his camp.

  Chapter Seventy-Two

  The two hiker girls were envious of Mia’s water pouch, which they called a Hydro, and which apparently had a bunch of features their older versions didn’t. Mia didn’t see how anything with a straw attached could get very advanced, but she didn’t bother asking. She didn’t want to give the girls time to have second (or third or fourth) thoughts about taking her to Turtle Ridge.

  Rain was starting to fall when they got there, what would’ve been a light, sweet rain in the city, but one that even Mia knew would feel icy and damp once she’d hiked enough miles in it. The girls gave her an extra waterproof poncho when they saw she didn’t have one. Mia tugged the triangle of nylon over her head, fearful that this oversight on her part would set off alarm bells. But both girls seemed eager enough to head out on their own vision quest or whatever that they took only a few seconds to trade quick hugs and goodbyes with her.

  By the time she was a few hundred yards along the trail, Mia had already begun to rethink her plan. Or her lack of one. Sure, doing this amounted to something gratifyingly bigger than the non-secret Mark Harden had told her about the canoe. But what if Mia got herself lost, in addition to Aunt Nat and Uncle Doug?