“How cold are you?” Charlotte asked. “Not that I can do much about it.”
“I’m numb.”
“Me, too.”
“Is it any better with that wet blanket on, or should I take it off?
“Leave it on,” Justin said. “At least the rain doesn’t hit my arm so hard.”
Later, Justin felt Charlotte getting up. The rain had slackened a little.
“Charlotte?” he called.
“I’m right here. I need to keep an eye on the river.”
He could hear her walking closer.
“If it gets much higher, we may have to try to move again.”
“Oh, no,” Justin groaned. “Is it getting close to the top of the bluff?”
“It has about another foot to go. It’s not raining quite as hard as it was. Maybe we’ll be lucky.”
She sat down again, and scooted next to him.
“I’m so tired,” she said. “Don’t let me go to sleep. I’ve got to keep watching the water. I’m just going to close my eyes for a minute.”
* * * *
Justin awoke shivering. He felt water lapping around his legs and back.
“Charlotte,” he said. “Wake up. We’re sitting in water. The river must be out of its banks.”
Charlotte looked around her as though she didn’t know where she was. Then she jumped to her feet. An occasional flash of lightning revealed water pooling around them, lapping against their legs.
“Okay, we’ve got to look for higher ground,” Charlotte said.
She looked so small and helpless standing there that Justin felt tears forming behind his eyes. After all the struggling, they were still going to drown. It wasn’t fair. She had tried so hard. Charlotte struggled to lift him with her arm around his back. He tried to help her, but he was so cold his whole body felt numb.
“We need to look for a better place when the next flash of lightning comes,” she said. As she spoke, a jagged flash lit up the western sky. There was a low, bare hill just a few yards away.
“Come on. We can get up there and look around for some place higher.”
The water was just above their ankles. Slogging through it toward the hill, Justin’s shoes sank deep in the mud, threatening to pull off with every step. Charlotte held onto his left arm, supporting as much of his weight as she could. She dragged the wet saddle blanket behind her through the water. When lightning flashed, the light reflected off the water, making it hard to tell where the water stopped and land started. Rain continued to fall in undulating sheets, beating on their backs and heads without mercy. Step by step, Charlotte dragged Justin up the small hill. Beyond it, there was more water. Together they sank to the ground. Charlotte turned so Justin could lean against her back. She draped the blanket over their heads. Justin cradled his broken arm in his lap. In the flashes he saw blood smeared all over his soaked T-shirt.
“We’ll move again in a little while,” Charlotte said, her voice hinting at her level of exhaustion.
“Okay,” Justin said. “I hope Lee hurries.”
“He will,” Charlotte said. “He knows we need help fast.”
The warmth of Charlotte’s back against his penetrated his sopping clothes, but his feet and hands were still freezing. Wrapping his arms around his body helped a little. He knew that it couldn’t be much below seventy degrees, but the chilly rain defeated any possibility of getting warm.
“Charlotte?”
“What?”
“Why do you think Lee came after us? He hates me. After all those crazy things he’s done, he’d be the last person I’d expect to help us when we’re in trouble.”
“What crazy things?”
“You know...the giraffes, and the toilet paper, and releasing the emergency brake on the bus.”
“You think Lee did those things?”
“Well, I saw him walking up to the giraffe, and who else would be crazy enough to do that other stuff?”
“Justin,” Charlotte said, as though she was talking to an imbecile, “Lee had nothing to do with the toilet paper or the bus brake.”
“How do you know that?” Justin asked.
“Because Casey did it.”
“You saw Casey release the brake on the bus?”
“Yeah. When James got so scared at the top of the zip line, I just happened to turn around and see her getting off the bus. Just after that, it started to roll.”
Justin was silent for a few moments, taking this in.
“She’s in my cabin, Justin. I woke up when she came back in on the morning the toilet paper got thrown all over the camp. I thought she had just gotten up to go to the bathroom until I saw all that toilet paper. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that she was the one who did it. She sure didn’t say anything about it that morning. If she hadn’t done it, wouldn’t she have raised a big ruckus about it when she got back to the cabin?”
“I guess so,” Justin said. He couldn’t quite get his mind to wrap around the idea that it was Casey behind the incidents. But he remembered that she had been the one to point the finger at Lee on both occasions, and she had been loud and insistent about it.
“Why didn’t you say something to Coach Cox or Mrs. Farr?”
“Because I think life is easier if I just keep my mouth shut. I’m not a social crusader or anything. And I didn’t really have any proof, just circumstantial evidence as they say on the cop shows.”
The rain was slowing down again, and the worst of the lightning had moved off to the east. Justin had no idea what time it was. He wanted to lie down and close his eyes again, but he knew that they both needed to stay awake. If someone came looking for them in the dark, they would need to be alert and ready to yell for help. He was just so tired.
The next time Justin woke up, the rain had stopped. He was lying on the ground with the blanket over him. A rock was digging into his back, and he turned slightly to ease the ache. The slight movement made his arm throb. He thought he felt Charlotte next to him and knew he should see if she was awake, but he was so tired. He didn’t think he was lying in water. His eyes closed again.
“Are you still with me, Justin?” It was Charlotte. “I think it’s almost morning. The sky seems lighter. I thought Lee would get back for us by now. Hope he’s not lost or swept away by the flood.”
Heavy mist drifted around them, but the water that had driven them up the hill seemed to be receding a little. Justin tried to sit up. His head whirled, but he used his left arm to lever himself into a sitting position. Charlotte looked at him and laughed.
“You’re a sight to behold,” she said. “You’ve even got mud in your hair.”
“You don’t look like you just stepped out of a fashion magazine yourself,” Justin said groggily. Her wet jeans and T-shirt clung to her, showing the outline of her bra, and her hair, darkened by water, hung in lank curls down her back.
“Let’s look at your arm,” she said, squatting down beside him.
“You look. I don’t think I’m up to it.”
She moved the wet blanket out of the way and unwrapped the cinch that she had coiled around his arm last night. The once white cotton strands were pink where they came in contact with his arm. Justin looked away. The sky was getting brighter in the east. He tried to remember what time the sun rose. About six-thirty, he thought. Now that it was getting light, a search party would surely come looking for them soon. He flinched as Charlotte lifted his arm to look at the underside.
“It’s not bleeding as much as it was,” she said. “I’m going to wrap it up again.”
“Has it got a cut or something?” Justin asked.
“Actually, I think a piece of bone is sticking out through the skin,” Charlotte said almost apologetically. “I don’t think there’s anything I can do about it until we get you to a hospital.”
“God,” Justin said. “I wish you hadn’t told me that.”
Chapter Eight
No welcome sunlight appeared as the next hour crept by. Justin stared
at the fog, trying to see through the gray curtain that seemed to get thicker as each minute passed, but no rescuers appeared. For a moment he thought he heard something, but although he listened intently, the sound didn’t come again. The river’s deafening roar drowned out most sounds.
“I’m going to walk over to the edge of the water, wherever that is,” Charlotte said. “It must have gone down some in the night.”
“Okay,” Justin said. “I’ll just wait right here.”
Charlotte disappeared into the thick fog almost immediately. Before she’d been gone a minute, Justin wished he had gone with her. If she got lost in the fog, he’d never be able to find her again. He had just begun to worry when she reappeared.
“Didn’t have to go far,” she said. “The edge of the water is just a few yards away. I don’t think it’s rising anymore though.”
“I hope not,” Justin said. “In this fog, we wouldn’t know which way to go to get to higher ground.”
“Last night I saw some trees...” Charlotte began. The whump, whump, whump of a helicopter in the distance interrupted her.
“Hear that?” she asked peering at the sky. The fog had spread an impenetrable gray blanket over everything.
“They’re not going to see us in this miserable weather,” Justin said. “I don’t think they could hear us either.”
“Over here! Over here!” Charlotte screamed, waving her arms over her head as if to clear away the fog above them. The sound of the helicopter came near and then continued up the river. Justin rested his forehead on his knees. Charlotte sat down next to him and laid her hand on his arm.
“Don’t give up, Justin,” she said. “They’ll be back.”
A dejected silence settled over them. Justin was getting thirsty. In the midst of the downpour last night, he hadn’t thought he would ever want to see water again, but now the thought of a bottle of water made him realize how desperate he was for a drink.
“How well do you know Lee?” he asked, trying to keep his mind off his thirst. “What he did yesterday just doesn’t fit with the guy I’ve been around.”
“I hardly know him at all. He lives down the street from me, but he keeps to himself. His parents travel all the time. I’ve heard my mom say that if Family Services knew how often his parents leave him alone, they’d have some explaining to do. Sometimes he’s at home by himself for days. My mom says his mother’s Korean, not that that has anything to do with it.”
“Maybe that’s why he’s mad all the time, because his parents leave him home by himself a lot,” Justin said.
“Maybe. I’ve heard he gets teased at school, mostly by the jocks. You know the group.”
“Yeah,” Justin admitted. “Last night he was like a different person from the guy I sat next to on the bus.”
“I’m not sure either one of us would have gotten out of that river alive without him. He pulled me up on the bank before he went after you. I was so busy puking, I wouldn’t have been much help.”
They stared at the fog for a while in silence. Distant thunder rumbled in the west again. Justin began to shiver. He wasn’t sure he could make it through another thunderstorm. He felt hot and flushed, then cold, and taking a deep breath made his chest hurt with a vengeance.
“Why do you think Casey threw toilet paper all over everything and let the brake off on the bus?” Justin asked. Silence gave him too much time to think about what might happen if another storm kept the searchers from looking for them.
“I couldn’t begin to guess. I despise people like Casey.”
“What do you mean?”
Charlotte thought for a while. “She’s one of those people who feel good about themselves when they trash someone. I think it’s a power thing. She’s cruel, especially to other girls. In Phys. Ed. class, I’ve seen her torment girls who have some defect, or something she sees as a defect. She delights in making them cry.”
“Has she ever made you cry?” Justin asked.
“Once.” Charlotte turned to look at him. He noticed her eyes were a serious gray-green. “She won’t ever make me cry again.”
Justin opened his mouth to ask what had happened when Charlotte let out a blood-chilling shriek and began to scramble backward.
“Snake! Look out! There’s a snake!”
A thick black snake froze a few inches from Justin’s outstretched feet. Its forked tongue tasted the air. Justin’s dad had pointed out a snake like that to him once, a water moccasin. Justin sat very still. The snake, surprised by all the commotion, turned and disappeared back in the direction from which it had come. Very slowly, Justin let his breath out.
“It’s gone,” he said, turning to look for Charlotte. She was standing behind him with her hands clasped to her mouth.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m just really scared of snakes...and spiders.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Justin said, stretching out on the ground again. His chest hurt too much to sit up any longer. He closed his eyes and heard voices in his head.
“There they are,” one of the voices said. Horses snorted, and more voices called excitedly. A gun went off. He opened his eyes to find Lee leaning over him.
“Are you all right, man?” Lee asked.
* * * *
Justin wondered if he had slipped into a dream. He looked up and saw Ty and Coach Cox climbing down from their horses. Dave was with them, holding a pistol. He pointed it into the air and fired another shot. Coach Cox bent over Justin and moved the wet saddle blanket.
“Am I ever glad to see you two,” Coach Cox said. “Lee told us he thought you had broken your arm. Let me have a look at it.”
Charlotte stood off to the side, watching. Her face was blank.
Dave squatted down beside Justin.
“Are you okay, partner?” he asked. “Help will be here in a few minutes. I shot off a couple of flares so the helicopter can find us in the fog.”
The whump...whump...whump of the helicopter sounded in the distance again. Dave pulled out a walkie-talkie and spoke into it.
“That’s the Medivac helicopter,” Coach Cox said. “As soon as they find a safe place to land, the paramedics will be here, and you’ll both be on your way to the hospital.”
“I don’t need to go to the hospital,” Charlotte said. “I’m fine. I just need some dry clothes.”
As though the clouds were listening in, it started to rain again. Coach Cox shrugged out of his slicker and laid it on top of Justin. Someone else wrapped a slicker around Charlotte’s thin shoulders. Justin thought he heard more voices in the distance.
“Over here,” Dave yelled, waving his arms in the air.
Three uniformed paramedics carrying a stretcher splashed through the water and hurried toward them.
“Hi,” Justin said weakly.
One of them was already wrapping a blood pressure cuff around his left arm. Another was positioning his broken arm across his body. Moving the arm caused knives of pain to rush up to his shoulder.
“Let’s move, folks,” one of them said. “That storm is almost on us.”
As gently as possible, they lifted Justin onto the stretcher and strapped him down. Laying the yellow slicker over him again, they lifted the stretcher and splashed toward the helicopter. Dave and Coach Cox followed with Charlotte. Even the slight jiggling of the stretcher as they carried him through the shallow water made pain slice through Justin’s arm and chest. He closed his eyes and clenched his teeth to keep from screaming. Coach Cox’s face loomed above him as the helicopter’s door slid open.
“Your parents are at the ranch, Justin. We called them last night when the trail ride came back without you. Charlotte’s mom is coming, too. I’ll have them meet you at the hospital in Kerrville.”
He turned to Charlotte as Justin was lifted onboard the helicopter.
“I want you to go with him and get checked out, too. You were out in the storm for a long time. I’m proud of you for having the courage to stay with Justin until help came.”
“I had to,” Charlotte said quietly as she climbed aboard.
“Why were you screaming?” Coach Cox asked, almost as an afterthought.
“I...uh...I saw a snake. I’m really scared of snakes.”
“I guess that’s a good thing for the rest of us. That screaming was what led us to you in the fog.”
The rotors started to turn, and Justin heard no more until they set down at the hospital.
* * * *
Justin’s parents looked exhausted when they found him in the Emergency Room. Tears streaked his mother’s face
“We drove most of the night not knowing whether they would find you alive,” Justin’s dad told him. Struggling to hide his emotions, he held Justin’s good hand and wiped the mud from his hair with some hospital towels.
“All the way down here I kept telling myself that you knew enough about surviving in the outdoors to take care of yourself.”
The tears that had threatened for so long slid down Justin’s face.
“Dad,” he sobbed, “I should have been able to stop her. I...I wanted to keep her from going over the bluff... but...but I was too late. I wanted to save her...to...to be a hero. Some hero I turned out to be.”
“It’s all right,” Justin’s dad murmured, squeezing his hand. “You did stop her, son. She’s alive, and so are you.”
“I don’t think I would have survived if Lee and Charlotte hadn’t been there,” Justin said. “Lee pulled both of us out of the river. And Charlotte...”
“Save the stories for a little while,” a doctor interrupted. “We need to take you up to surgery and repair the fracture to your right arm. You’ll have lots of time to fill everyone in on the details later.” He beckoned Justin’s parents into the hall.
Justin shivered under the pile of blankets. When he arrived, the Emergency Room doctor had cut away his wet clothes and wrapped him in warm blankets. A portable x-ray machine appeared within moments and took x-rays of his arm and chest while nurses checked his temperature and inserted an IV in the back of his wrist.
Speak of the Tiger Page 7
