Page 21 of Echoes of Twilight (Dawn of Alaska #4)

21

T he thought of navigating the next stretch of river made him sick. It wasn’t that Mikhail couldn’t navigate it. It was that he wanted to be in both canoes at once.

“Stay to the right side, where the water is shallowest.” From his position on the riverbank, he pointed toward the far side of the canyon. After about an hour of paddling, they’d pulled out of the river and beached their canoes on a little stretch of sand just south of the canyon, allowing them to study the angry, white rapids crashing between the towering cliffs. Most of the Iskut River lay in a giant, wide valley, with the mountains set back a half mile or so from the shoreline. But not this part.

“Is this where we would have come out had we kept following the gorge we found inland?” Bryony craned her neck toward the narrow strip of water that sliced through hundreds of feet of cold, jagged rock face.

“I can’t be certain without going back and following the gorge, but I believe so, yes. There’s another river that meets this one in the middle of the cliffs, which is part of what makes the rapids so dangerous.”

“So had we followed the gorge, we would have ended up at the top of those cliffs without any canoes to get us back to the mouth of the river?” Dr. Wetherby surveyed the cliffs towering above them.

“Yes. And we still would have needed to traverse the gorge to get back to the canoes.”

“I have to admit, it’s beautiful.” Bryony was studying the canyon so thoroughly, he was certain he’d see a sketch of it in her journal tomorrow.

“Yes, it’s beautiful.” His throat turned dry. “But capsizing in those rapids can be deadly, especially given the freezing temperature.”

Bryony turned and looked at him then, her eyes so serious that Mikhail found himself dropping his gaze.

He’d forgotten just how much he’d told her about Livy. They hadn’t been navigating rapids in a canoe when she died, just trying to cross a river. But the effect of falling into the river was the same either way—hypothermia.

“All right, stick to the right side of the river.” Dr. Wetherby gave a determined nod. “We understand.”

Mikhail wanted to ask if they’d ever done anything like this before. At the beginning of the expedition, the team of botanists would have needed to traverse this stretch of river, but they would have been going upstream, and the canoes would have moved much slower as they fought against the current. Heading downstream carried a greater risk of having a wild current catch the canoe.

“Does anyone have any questions?” He surveyed the group, then stopped when he reached Heath, who would be in charge of steering the second canoe.

Heath’s eyes met his for a brief moment, flat and bored. “Can’t say I’m that concerned. We made it through here just fine on the way in.” He shrugged, then walked back to the canoe.

Mikhail pressed his lips together. Heath had been short and cold with him ever since Richard’s death. It was probably Heath’s way of grieving, but they could all do without the extra tension. The temperature was plummeting faster than he’d expected for the time of year. And if they were going to reach Wrangell before the river froze, he needed everyone working together. Otherwise they’d have to camp in the wilderness for two or possibly three weeks until the river iced over before they could travel on it.

“Don’t let Heath bother you.” Bryony came up to stand beside him, her hair a wild mess of waves that she hadn’t fully brushed that morning. “He’s still processing Richard’s death, but we’ll do what you say and make it through the rapids. I promise.”

“Thank you.” It was a small promise, but for some reason her words warmed a place deep inside him. He opened his mouth to ask how she’d slept last night, if she’d had any nightmares filled with Tlingit warriors.

But Heath’s voice cut through the air. “Bryony! Stop lollygagging and get in the canoe.”

Bryony tore her gaze away from his and headed toward where her brother and Dr. Ottingford were already in the canoe, ready to push off the shore and into the river.

His chest tightened as he watched her climb into the front of the canoe and grab the paddle.

She’s not Livy. She handled herself expertly in the canoe yesterday. She’ll be all right.

But knowing that still didn’t make his chest loosen as he climbed into his own canoe with Dr. Wetherby and pushed off the bank.

The current caught them immediately, trying to tug them forward, into the center of the river. He dug his paddle into the water and fought against the current, keeping to the right side of the river as he’d instructed.

Heath’s canoe bobbed ahead of him, sticking to the eastern shore. The moment it entered the narrow canyon, white-capped waves crashed against the sides. Then the canoe hit its first wave straight on and tilted slightly, but Heath quickly corrected, keeping the canoe on the side of the river where the water was shallowest and the nose pointed downstream.

“Good job!” Mikhail called as his own canoe entered the canyon. “Remember to keep her to the right and her nose straight.”

Heath gave no indication he heard Mikhail over the roar of the river, but the other man slowed the heavily laden canoe so it inched through the turbulent water.

A wave caught Mikhail’s own canoe, splashing Dr. Wetherby at the front. The man groaned but kept paddling.

They slowly worked their way deeper into the canyon. In the center of the river, the water swirled in angry white dips and churning pools. Near the opposite bank, rocks lined the shore, some large enough to stick out above the surface, and others barely concealed by the rushing water.

It only confirmed his hunch that they had taken the best path through the rapids. The far end of the canyon was growing closer and closer. Just a few more minutes, and they’d be through the most dangerous section of the Iskut. The rest of the trip back to Sitka would be easy compared to what they’d already faced.

“Rock!” Bryony’s shout echoed through the canyon.

He peered down the river to see what she was talking about, but the other canoe blocked his view.

Heath started nosing the canoe farther out into the river.

Mikhail didn’t like it, but if there was a rock near the shore, they had no choice.

Once Heath and Bryony moved, he could glimpse the rock for himself. It barely pierced the surface, but the white ridges of water flowing around indicated something large lay beneath.

Thankfully Bryony spotted it. Most people probably would have assumed there was a natural ripple in the water, not danger.

He angled his own canoe to move around it. Though Heath and Bryony were controlling their canoe, it was closer to the center of the river than he’d like, given the current, the weight of the canoe, and how low it sat in the water.

“Come back closer to the...” His words were too late. A wave grabbed the canoe, sending it careening toward a boulder in the middle of the river.

“Paddle backward!” he shouted above the roar of the rapids. “Get control! Don’t let it angle sideways.”

“The current is too strong,” Bryony yelled as the canoe slowly started to drift sideways. “We can’t?—”

A wave surged against the side of the canoe. It happened so fast that there was nothing either Heath or Bryony could do to prevent the canoe from hitting the boulder. The impact didn’t appear to put a hole in the hull, but it sent the canoe spinning violently, the broadside now exposed to the full force of the rapids.

Mikhail gripped his own paddle, his heart hammered against his chest as he sat watching, helpless to do anything other than shout commands.

“Let the water spin your canoe fully around, and then dig your paddles in.”

“You need to straighten out. Get the nose pointed back downstream.”

“Quickly! Before you hit another rock.”

He spoke as fast as he could, his voice growing hoarse as he strained to be heard above the roaring water.

For a fraction of a second, Heath and Bryony almost had it. They nearly got the canoe pointed back toward the right shore and started paddling, but then a wave crashed into the front, soaking Bryony and sending the tip of the canoe spiraling into a large dip in the water.

“No! Look out!” Mikhail called again, sweat beading on his forehead and palms despite the frigid air. But there was still nothing he could do but watch as the tip of the canoe dipped down at the same moment another wave crashed into the front of it, soaking Bryony for a second time.

Except when the wave washed away, the place Bryony had occupied was empty.

He was out of the canoe in a heartbeat, barely taking time to wrench off his thick fur coat and boots before diving into the river.

The frigid water covered him, shocking every nerve in his body. He gasped, giving himself a moment to adjust to the freezing temperature as every muscle temporarily grew still. But he pushed through it, swimming into the current, straight toward the place where Bryony had disappeared.

Heath had taken control of the canoe and was paddling back toward the eastern shore. Dr. Ottingford was paddling as well, and Dr. Wetherby had wedged the other canoe between two rocks, where it appeared stuck but wasn’t in danger of wrecking or capsizing.

But that didn’t tell him where Bryony was.

He straightened, surging out of the water as far as he could, looking for a flash of red hair or a fur parka, for anything that might indicate where the river had carried her.

When he came back down, sinking into the water again, his foot grazed the bottom. The patch of river wasn’t deep. Most stretches of rivers that contained rapids weren’t.

But a person could drown in shallow water just as easily as they could in deep.

Dear God, please don’t let her die. Please help me find her. Please...

“Over there,” Heath shouted, pointing toward the center of the river. “She’s over there!”

Mikhail spun around, and sure enough, there was Bryony, her head barely sticking up out of the raging rapids, her red hair plastered to her face as she tried to tread water despite the weight of the heavy parka threatening to drag her back under.

“Take off your coat!” he shouted, then he dove back into the water, moving against the current and resurfacing near the center of the river. But Bryony had disappeared again.

“Where is she?” he called to the canoes, but the roar of the river tore his words away. He spun back around, ignoring the deadly cold seeping into his body as his eyes searched everywhere for even the smallest sign of Bryony.

There! A flash of red floating on the surface of the water only a few feet away. It was her hair.

He surged forward at the same moment Bryony herself emerged from the water, coughing and sputtering, her eyes panicked. He took one stroke, then two. He kept his head above the water so he didn’t lose her, even when her head started to slip under again.

He gave a third powerful kick, fighting the current trying to tear him sideways. That was all he needed to reach her. He wrapped his arms around her chest and pulled her up, bringing her head fully out of the water.

She coughed and sputtered, clinging wildly to his arms while still trying to tread water on her own.

“Breathe, Bryony. Just breathe.” He tried to keep his voice calm as he tucked her under his arm and swam toward the western shore opposite of where the canoes were. It was closer, and while he hadn’t been able to touch bottom in the center of the river, it quickly grew shallow as they approached the shore. The moment he could place his feet solidly on the bottom while still holding Bryony above the water, he stood and carried her in his arms.

“Th-thank you,” she stuttered, her teeth chattering as he pressed her against his chest. She’d pulled off her parka like he’d instructed, making it easier to stay afloat. But fur could keep a person warm when wet, and now that she was exposed to the air, shivers racked her body.

At least the shallowness of the river allowed him to move easily around the rocks as he carried her out of the canyon.

“I’m a good swimmer. I sw-sw-swear I am,” she stammered. “But my c-coat was so heavy, and b-by the time I got it off the current had pulled me into the middle of the r-river.”

“It’s all right. You’re safe now. No need to explain.”

Her teeth chattered again, then a particularly violent tremor racked her body. “I’m f-f-freezing.”

“I’ll get you warm, I promise.”

Her eyes met his, somber and serious even though they’d reached a sandy patch of beach. She didn’t need to speak for him to know what she was thinking. It was the same thing he couldn’t stop himself from thinking.

The last time he’d carried a woman out of a freezing river, she’d frozen to death afterward.