Daredevil’s Run

Chapter 8

Alex tucked the phone back in her waterproof duffel bag and zipped it shut. One way or the other, she wouldn’t be needing it again this trip. It was all up to her now.

She straightened and turned to face the others. But it was Matt’s eyes she held on to as she spoke. “Okay, troops, here’s the situation. The road’s closed because of the fire, so the bus can’t get up here to us. Choppers are tied up fighting the fire, so they can’t pick us up either. So…looks like we’re pretty much on our own.”

“No problem,” Sam said. She gave her husband’s hand a squeeze and let it go. “We’ve come this far, we can finish it. How much farther is it?”

“Not that far…but the problem is, the last rapids we run before the take-out below the bridge-”

“Carson Falls,” Matt said, nodding.

Alex glanced at him, then back at Sam, who said, “Yikes. Falls? That sounds like fun.”

Alex hauled in a breath and tried a smile. “It can be, actually. They’re not that high, but it’ll seem like a mile, going over. And it can be tricky. But normally, see, there’d be a few more people to help navigate. I don’t know if I can-”

“We can,” Matt said quietly. “We’ve done it before, Alex. You and me. We can do it again.”

It had been a while since he’d given in to frustration over his lack of mobility, but right then he desperately craved privacy. Privacy with Alex. To be alone with her and do…well, whatever it took to make her see she didn’t have to go it alone. That she was not alone.

But he couldn’t do that, not with his chair strapped on the back of the boat, and nothing but a narrow strip of riverbank among the rocks even if he’d had access to it. And he couldn’t very well ask his brother and Sam to give them a few minutes, not with Cory in pain and barely mobile himself. So he just looked at her as hard as he could and hoped she’d see the confidence and conviction in his eyes.

Dance with me, Alex.

It came back to him suddenly, that evening at The Corral, when he’d had his epiphany about what this river run was all about, what it meant to him and his future. And it seemed to him he must have known somehow that it was all going to come down to this. This moment. This question. Are you gonna dance with me, Alex?

A gust of wind chose that moment to come skirling up the canyon, bringing enough smoke with it to make his eyes water.

Alex held on to her braid with one hand as she looked up at the sky. “Yeah, but the river’s not the only thing we’ve got to worry about.”

Cory cleared his throat and tried to straighten up, grimaced and had to brace his ribs with his good arm in order to speak. “Hey-for what it’s worth, I’ve had my life saved on more than one occasion, and it happens two of the people who’ve done that for me are right here in this boat.” He coughed, grinned and looked first at his wife, then at Matt, and finally at Alex. “If I get a vote, I can’t think of any three people I’d rather trust to get me home safely than the two of them…and you, Alex.”

Sam laughed the way people do when they’re moved and trying not to let on and said, “Well, shoot, Pearse.”

“What about it, Alex?” Again, Matt put everything he had into his smile, his voice, his eyes. “Are we gonna do this?”

What about it, Alex?

And for some reason she was remembering that moment at The Corral, when he’d almost asked her to dance. Except he hadn’t said the words, not really. Had he? And even if he had, she wouldn’t have known what to say. Anyway, she’d hesitated and let the moment go by. And regretted it-she could admit that, now. She’d underestimated him then. What if-

It’s not the same! That was a stupid dance, dammit-this is life and death. If you make the wrong choice this time it’ll cost you a helluva lot more than a Corral burger.

Then…without even realizing she’d made her decision, she was bending over, giving the boat a shove, stepping over the side. “All right, then, let’s do it,” she said tersely.

With Sam and Matt helping, they pushed off from the riverbank and the boat caught the current.

Not much was said. Alex didn’t give her usual speech, reminding everyone of the commands, going over the safety rules. Sam and Matt had already taken up their positions in the bow, one on each side. It was Cory who was in the bottom of the boat, now, wedged in among the backpacks and sleeping bags to cushion him as much as possible. Alex climbed carefully around him to her seat up high on the back and took hold of the oars.

It was deceptively peaceful, at first, drifting on the river past stands of bull pine and sycamore, manzanita and chaparral and cottonwoods, and the great gray boulders scoured smooth and carved into fantastical shapes by rushing waters over uncounted millennia. But above them the sky roiled with billows of windblown smoke, and the sun seemed far away and inconsequential, only a glaring, brassy disk, like an old tarnished coin.

The wind blew stronger and hotter, a thermal wind now, fed by the fire as much as driving it. Ash rained down on the river and the boat and the people in it, and no one spoke of it. No one spoke at all.

I wonder, Alex thought, if they’re all as scared as I am. Are you afraid, Mattie? Or is this just another adventure for you? You used to love to dare the Devil.

At that moment, as if he felt her gaze, he turned his head and smiled at her. His beautiful smile, like the old Mattie. And in a gravelly voice that wouldn’t have been out of place in a biker’s bar, he began to bellow “The River,” the Garth Brooks song that had been running through her own head. She felt a kick under her ribs and a tightness in her throat that kept her from joining Sam and Cory when they chimed in on the chorus, but then the last lines of the second verse flashed into her mind and she had to laugh out loud. Dare to dance… How had he known what she was thinking?

The singers repeated the chorus with lusty enthusiasm, then let it die away. And in the quiet, they heard it-the rushing roaring sound that wasn’t wind.

Sam threw Alex a look that wasn’t quite alarm. “Good Lord-is that the falls I’m hearing?”

“I don’t think so,” said Matt. “Look…”

They all looked where he’d pointed with a tilt of his head, toward the timbered ridge that rose on the right bank of the river, no more than a quarter of a mile away. Sam spoke for all of them when she murmured, “Oh my God.”

Flames were shooting upward along the top of the ridge, tornadoes of fire, twisting, twirling, leaping and roaring like something alive. Like a monster, hungry, voracious…alive. As they watched, a bull pine on the downslope of the ridge exploded in flames. The monster gave a great roar as if in triumph as it devoured that tree and instantly bounded on to the next…and the next. Heading straight for them.

Alex was already down in the boat, tearing through the packed gear. “Here,” she yelled, “grab a sleeping bag. Dip it in the river.” She was putting her words into action, tossing a sleeping bag at Matt, who caught it and unrolled it over the side of the boat. “Get yourself covered. Everybody get down in the boat and cover up. Cover as much of the boat as you can!” She didn’t want to think about what would happen if one burning cinder hit the boat. Going over the falls in an oar boat was one thing; going over in wet suits and life jackets, especially with an injured man…that wasn’t an option she wanted to contemplate.

As she struggled to drag the sodden sleeping bags into the boat and get them wrung out enough to work with, Alex heard a new note above the demonic roaring of the fire-the metallic hum of aircraft engines. And now she could see the helicopter zooming toward them up the valley, its water bag swaying out behind as it banked into the path of the inferno. It dropped its load and swooped away into the distance, where she could see another chopper angling into position. They seemed so tiny, she thought, like sparrows circling the head of a dragon.

The image had barely formed in her mind when the beast let go a blast of fiery breath-searing heat, choking smoke and stinging ash-straight into their path. Fear, blacker and more suffocating than the smoke, enveloped her. Her mind stopped. The oars slipped from her hands as she lunged blindly for the side of the boat.

Then, from somewhere outside the terror, came a sound. A voice. Matt’s voice, yelling.

“Get down! Cover up! And paddle like hell if you can!”

And somehow she was gripping the oars once again, leaning into them with all her might and at the same time trying not to breathe. The boat galloped beneath her, gathering speed. The wet sleeping bag was heavy on her head and shoulders, and peering from under it like a terrified creature hiding beneath a rock, she saw the world disappear in a roiling billowing holocaust of smoke and flame.

“Don’t look!” Matt’s voice, like a raucous note of a blackbird’s call in the midst of a storm. “Keep your eyes on the water! Pull…pull!”

Alex focused on his voice, shut out everything else, listened only to that voice.

Her lungs screamed in agony, desperate for air. Her eyes streamed tears and her throat made whimpering sounds without breath. Oh God oh God don’t let me die like this not like this!

Then…just when she thought she could not make her arms and shoulders go one more pull on the oars, when her muscles seemed on the brink of total rebellion…the noise and heat and smoke were behind her. She could hear sounds again-the clatter of choppers, the rush of the river, grunts of effort, coughs and ragged breathing from the others in the boat. She threw back her head, shook off the wet sleeping bag as she gulped in air, as much as her lungs would hold. The oars went slack, and she slumped over, trembling.

Incredibly, someone-was it Matt? Sam?-began to laugh. Alex tried it, and discovered it felt good. Laughing and sobbing with the sheer joy of being alive, she looked up and found Matt’s eyes, found them gazing back at her, red-rimmed and burning, as if they still held pieces of the fire they’d come through. He wore a black mustache from the smoke and she knew she probably did, too. Yes, they all had them-Sam, holding the paddle with one hand and a death grip on her husband’s life vest with the other; Cory hunched over with one arm braced across his ribs and a grin on his face; and Matt, holding his paddle across his knees like a victorious gladiator.

Gazing at them, Alex felt chastened…humbled. And overwhelmed by a tremendous wave of…something-my God, was it love?-for each of them. Amazing, incredible, wonderful people, these three-they’d come through with flying colors, while she, on the other hand, had come within a breath of losing it. If it hadn’t been for Matt calling her back from the edge of panic…

“Don’t get too comfortable, guys,” Matt yelled in a voice reduced to a frog’s croak by the smoke and fire. “Hear that? That’s the falls. Comin’ up fast. Now listen up-when we get close, you want to make sure to keep the boat pointed straight ahead. Got it? Don’t let her slip sideways, or we’re all goin’ for a swim.”

He half expected Alex to say something, take back the lead, but she didn’t. In fact, she seemed awfully subdued, for Alex. Knowing her the way he did, he was pretty sure she was feeling bad about being scared when they were going through the fire. He knew she’d hate that she had been, because she liked to think of herself as up for anything. But brave as she was, she wasn’t a daredevil, not like he was.

Daredevil. He’d been called that, by Alex, and probably some others, too. So he supposed he must be. He knew he’d never felt so alive-well, not in a long time, anyway. Maybe he did need to skirt the edge of danger, walk the tightrope, meet the challenge in order to feel fully alive.

And if that was so, how had he managed all these years, being only half-alive? More important, how could he go back to being half-alive after this? The river’s roar was music to him. It sang through all his muscles and nerves and bones, and he felt he could dance its dance forever and never get tired.

He looked over his shoulder at Alex, and thought he’d never seen her look more beautiful, with her hair coming loose from its braid and her cheeks streaked with soot and tears. He wanted her to know how happy he was, being here on the river again, with her. He wanted her to be happy, too, having him with her again. But she looked haunted, not happy, and he saw ghosts of the terror that had been in her eyes as they were heading into the fire.

Remembering that, he realized it wasn’t the first time he’d seen that look in her eyes. He’d seen the same fear and panic staring down at him as he lay on his back on a rocky ledge, feeling nothing at all, no pain…nothing, and she, hovering over him, begging him not to die.

He had a sudden bright flash of empathy, or insight, and it struck him that of all things Alex hated most, to be afraid must top the list. Was that why she hadn’t fought for him, argued with him when he’d told her he didn’t want her in his life? Was that why she couldn’t let herself love him? Because to love someone is to know the worst kind of fear?

He looked at her and smiled, his heart sore with wanting to take her hand and tell her it was okay, and not to be afraid. Or, not to be afraid of being afraid, because that was part of being alive, after all. Take my hand, Alex, dance the river with me, like the song says.

He wanted to tell her that, and maybe he’d have a chance to, someday. But right now, there were the last of the rapids yet to run. Carson Falls.

So he nodded at her to tell her he was ready, and picked up his paddle. She nodded back but didn’t smile, and he saw her fingers flex on the handles of her oars. “Okay, let’s do this!” he yelled.

As he twisted to face front again, he felt the river surge under him, felt it in his chest and in his arms, and even in the part of him that no longer had feeling. The river’s music swelled louder, louder, and the banks rushed by in a blur. High on her seat in the back of the boat, he knew Alex was focused on the water ahead, working her oars, calling orders to him and to Sam. He wished he could just stop for a moment and watch her. In his mind’s eye he could see her-cheeks flushed and braid flying, her eyes fierce as a warrior’s, riding headlong into battle, her hard-muscled little body taut as a bow. God, how he loved her.

He wanted to shout it.

Yeah, I love her! Always have…always will. How did I think I could turn my back on that? I love her. Why didn’t I have the guts to fight for it? For us?

As the boat plunged over the falls, he gave a whoop that was part joy, part adrenaline, and maybe there was some sort of promise in there, too. I’m not giving up on us. Hell no. I’m comin’ for you, Alex Penny!

Then they were chest-deep in snowmelt surf and the hydraulics of the river took over, tossed them back toward the sky as if they were no more than leaves, twigs, bits of flotsam. Matt hung on to the tube with one elbow and thrust his paddle high in the air, riding the water like a rodeo cowboy on a bucking bull. He heard yells and whoops from the others in the boat and his heart soared as he recognized one of the voices as Alex’s.

Helluva ride, huh, Alex? One helluva dance…

And just like that, it was over. The river flowed along as if the turbulence had never happened, chuckling to itself as if enjoying a secret joke at their expense. Everyone in the boat was drenched and laughing, slapping high fives-even Cory, with his good arm. And Alex tumbled headlong off her perch and dove straight into Matt’s arms.

It was feeling that drove her. Sheer overabundance of feeling she didn’t know what else to do with. If she’d thought about it, she probably wouldn’t have done it, but at the time it seemed the only possible thing to do. And then his arms came around her-hard around her-and his hands framed her face and wiped the water away, and she did the same to him, both of them laughing and shaking the way they used to after mind-blowing sex. The laughter grew faint and fitful, and she felt his hand grip the back of her head, his fingers push into the loose wet mass of her hair. He looked into her eyes for an instant, then brought her face to his and kissed her.

She gasped a breath and found he’d become a part of it. Her fingers curled in the shoulders of his life vest as she opened her mouth and drank him in. She forgot her anger and humiliation as completely as the river forgets its rapids once past them. His mouth meshed with hers, his body solid beneath her hands-they felt so familiar to her, had been so achingly missed for so long. She felt like an exile finally allowed to come home.

And it was over too quickly. He released her mouth so suddenly her eyes smarted with tears and her lips felt bruised, cold and bereft.

“We’re here, babe-we made it.” His voice was a hoarse and ragged whisper. He gave her head an intense little shake, then let go of her hair and picked up his paddle.

She heard it then: yelling and cheering coming from far off. She lifted her head and through a haze of tears saw the bridge up above, and a line of fire crew vehicles parked all along the road, and the Penny Tours bus was there, too. And up ahead, at the take-out spot, Booker T and half a dozen of her guides and crew-even Tahoe, sporting an arm sling-were waving and cheering, waiting to bring them in.

Sam had her paddle in the air and kept yelling, “My God, we made it, Pearse. I can’t believe we made it.” And Cory was grinning, too, not seeming to mind, now, being injured and in pain.

Aware that Matt was watching her, Alex encompassed them all with the best congratulatory smile she could muster, and concentrated on breathing through the dull ache that had crept in to fill her throat, her chest, her stomach, her whole inside. “Hey, guys, you did it-you ran the Forks of the Kern! Great job!”

And inside her mind was wailing, It’s over. It’s over. It’s over.

The bus was winding cautiously down the mountain road-slower going than usual because of the stream of firefighting vehicles clogging up the road in both directions-when Alex left her customary seat up in front and made her way to the back of the bus, where Matt sat in his chair, locked in place on the lift.

He grinned when he saw her. “Hey-I was wondering when somebody was gonna come back and keep me company.” And his tone was the husky, low-in-the-throat one he used for seduction, the one that once had made pulses start up in all the feminine response outposts in her body.

She gave him a look that warned him she was onto him and in no mood to be wooed. She took the seat nearest the chairlift and said bluntly, “Matthew, we need to talk.”

His eyes darkened and his smile slipped sideways. “Yeah, we do.”

She made an impatient motion with her hand. “Not…that. Not about us.” Then she closed her eyes. “Okay, we do, but not now. That’s not what I meant.” She opened her eyes and let out a breath. “Doesn’t it strike you as strange that so many bad things happened on this run? I mean, we’ve had accidents before, but jeez-it seems like everything that could happen did. So, I’m wondering…why right now?”

“I’m not sure what you’re asking.” But he was looking at her intently, not smiling at all now. “What are you thinking? Thought we agreed the notion that somebody sabotaged-that’s just crazy, Alex.”

She looked away, waited a moment, then brought her eyes back to him. “I didn’t tell you before, but Dave told me the fire was set.”

“What-you mean, on purpose?”

“They’re pretty sure. Think about it-why on earth would anybody set a fire up here? In just the right place for it to spread up the river canyon, where we just happen to be?” She shook her head and looked away again. “I don’t know what to think. But what can I think?” She paused and lowered her voice to a murmur. “How much do you know about your brother? Or Sam? Maybe somebody has something-”

Matt was making frantic gestures to shut up, so she wasn’t all that surprised when Sam spoke from close behind her.

“It’s okay, Matt,” she said as she took the seat across from Alex. “Cory and I have been talking about it, too, actually. Too many things going wrong, it stops being coincidence and becomes…”

“Enemy action,” Cory finished in a croaking voice as he eased carefully into the next seat down. He grinned wryly. “That’s James Bond-from a book, not a movie. So,” he said after a pause, “the question is, which one of us has an enemy who might have taken action?”

They all looked at each other, then shrugged, one by one, and shook their heads. Matt rubbed the back of his neck and muttered, “Hell, I’m just a schoolteacher, man.”

Sam looked at Cory and said softly, “I told you, Pearse. It’s not me, I swear.”

He let out a breath that sounded oddly relieved. “Right.”

“Alex?” Matt was looking at her-they all were.

She reared back, holding up her hands. “Come on, guys.”

“If it was sabotage,” he said quietly, “it would almost have to be somebody with access to the equipment. Wouldn’t it?”

“One of my-” She broke off to stare at him, cold in the pit of her stomach. Then shook her head. “No. No way. We’re like a family. Nobody would do such a thing. Not to me, not to the company.”

Matt shrugged.

Cory nodded.

“So,” Sam said in her down-to-earth way, “coincidence it must be.”

Matt was sitting in his van in the Penny Tours equipment yard. He had the motor running and the air-conditioning on, and he was waiting for Alex to finish up inside so he could catch her on the way to her car. His brother and Sam were in Booker T’s king cab pickup truck on their way to the hospital on the other side of the lake. Matt was supposed to go back to the motel and wait for them, but he had no intention of doing so, not without talking to Alex first.

He watched people come and go through the yard, some with finished tours coming in and unloading, others prepping and loading up for future runs. Sometimes they waved at him, and he’d smile and wave back, but his mind was chewing over the problem of how he was going to convince Alex to come away with him for a while. He couldn’t very well invite her to lunch or dinner, since it was the middle of the afternoon and they were both still stuffed to the gills with the burgers they’d stopped for on the way through town. He didn’t know if she’d be willing to come with him, just to talk, but he felt in his gut that if he could just get her to someplace where they could talk in private…maybe do more than talk…everything would be all right.

He didn’t know how, but…since the alternative wasn’t acceptable, it had to be all right.

He’d waited long enough. He was beginning to consider getting back in his chair and going into the building to look for her, when he saw her coming through the open warehouse door. The blond guide was with her-Eve, that was her name-and watching the two women walk out into the sunshine, Matt had the weirdest feeling. It was a jolt of gut-level animosity that, if it had been a guy walking beside Alex, he’d have had to say it was jealousy.

He dismissed it with a wry snort and a shake of his head, reminding himself he and Eve never had gotten along, even back before his accident. He’d pretty much tolerated the woman because she was a friend of Alex’s, but he never had understood what Alex saw in her. As far as he was concerned, the woman was a real pain in the ass, always getting her feelings hurt about something or other-usually nothing important. Matter of fact, he was kind of surprised to see she was still around. In his experience, people like her were always moving on, figuring all their problems would be solved if they were somewhere else.

But who gave a damn, anyway? All he cared about was Alex. Watching her emerge from the warehouse into the bright sunlight, he felt hungry juices pool at the back of his throat. She may have been a full head shorter than the lanky blond “California girl” beside her, but she’d command any man’s eye first. She was…The word that came to his mind wasn’t beautiful, although to his mind she was. What she was, was…vivid. She’d changed into jeans and a yellow tank top that lit fires in her golden-tan, dark-freckled skin, and with the sun striking red highlights into her dark hair, freshly braided and snaking over one shoulder as she turned to call to someone across the yard, she put him in mind of a painting by that Frenchman whose name he couldn’t recall, the one that painted scenes from the South Pacific. She was warmth and light and life. And so damn hot she sizzled.

He rolled down his window and called to her, and she changed course and headed toward the van. After a little hesitation, Eve did, too, throwing a look his way that told him she wasn’t pleased.

And in that moment, Matt caught a glimpse of something in her face…A flash of something came and went in his memory, like a lightbulb’s little mini-explosion before burning out. Something…about Eve. Something…That look. I’ve seen it before. Something…

But it was gone.

And anyway, who cared? The only woman he gave a damn about was Alex.

“Hey,” he said when she came to his window. She had a wary look, a half smile, as if she hadn’t decided whether she really wanted to be there and might leave in a heartbeat if he said the wrong thing. So he kept it light, and the dimmer half-down on his own smile. “Where are you off to? Were you gonna leave without sayin’ goodbye?”

She gave a defensive half shrug. “I thought you’d already left. Gone back to the motel.”

“Figured I’d wait, see if you wanted to grab a cup of coffee…or something.” He waited, watched her eyes slide away from his, then drop, a flush wash over her cheeks. And he took a chance…let some of what was inside him leak into his voice when he softly added, “It’s been five years, Alex.” You owe me this much. The last part silently, of course, and what he’d really meant was, Us-you owe us, Alex.

He could hear his own heart hammering as he waited, not breathing, for her reply.

She looked at Eve, who promptly looked away into the distance. Pouting, probably. Well, screw her, he thought.

Alex?

“Okay,” she said, “I guess we could do that.” And he started to breathe again. “Eve, I’ll catch you later, okay?”

Eve shrugged and said sullenly, “Yeah. Sure. No problem.”

Alex gave the woman a distracted glance as she made her way back across the yard with arms folded, like someone in a sulk, and when she looked back at Matt he saw doubt in her eyes, and all sorts of other things he wished he hadn’t.

“I have my car,” she said. “I’ll see you at the motel, okay?”

“Sure,” he said, and she nodded and walked away.

He told himself, as he drove out of the yard and onto the highway, that it was okay, because at least she’d agreed to come to him. It would all be okay, he told himself, if they could just…talk. In private.

Yeah, and what will you say to her, dumb-ass? That you were a stupid fool to let her go out of your life? That you love her? Can’t live without her? Want to stay here and make a life with her? Marry her and raise a bunch of little river rats with her?

Yeah, right-you know how she is. You’d scare her so bad you wouldn’t see her for the dust.

What, then? Remind her how good you were the past couple of days, together again on the river? Ask her to take you back, maybe pick up where you left off before the accident? Partners…battling lovers?

Except, even if she was willing, you know that’s not what you want. It wouldn’t be enough for you. Not anymore.

And if that’s all she’s got to give you? What then?

He knew the answer to that, even though it made his belly sore thinking about it.

Pray, man. Pray you’ve got the strength to walk away.