RiverTime [NOOK Book]

As a solution to vexing personal problems, death by misadventure had a certain grim economy, Casey allowed. An icy wave crashed over the side of the inflatable river raft she rode, hurling a tree branch into her side. Its rough bark scraped the skin from her ribs. She yelped in pain and choked on the river water that poured down her throat. Coughing violently, she snatched a gulp of air and scrabbled to regain her hold on the half-submerged cargo ropes only seconds before another wave shoved her under.

A few long, lung-convulsing seconds later, the raft broke the surface like a breaching whale and began to spin, half in the air and half on the water. It slammed into a boulder, tipped, and jumped forward, bucking and kicking. The wild tossing flipped Casey's legs this way and that, banging them painfully against the metal food lockers, threatening to wrench the ropes out of her hands. She gritted her teeth and hugged the ropes closer to her chest, trying to wedge her battered body between the raft bottom and the cargo hold.

After what felt like an eternity, the raft gave up speed and slid behind the leading edge of the flash flood. Casey lifted her head, praying for flat, empty water. She saw instead, dead ahead, a mass of spiky basalt columns thrusting up toward the sky, bisecting the river with beautiful and deadly precision. To the right, the river cut through a narrow channel, deep and fast. To the left, it spilled into a wider course, slower but peppered with tumbled-down boulders. She scarcely knew which to hope for.

The raft crashed against the rock columns and stuck. It began to shimmy with the pounding rhythm of the river. Casey stared with barely contained panic as the prow slowly lifted and folded toward her. Pinned against the boulder, going neither right nor left, pummeled by the relentless water—if the craft didn't shift, it would soon capsize. She took a deep breath and scrabbled hand-over-hand onto the mound of cargo lashed down in the middle of the raft. Only acute awareness that doing nothing at all would be fatal gave her the will to drop the ropes and dive for the prow with every bit of punch she could muster.

It was enough. Her weight shifted the raft so it slid to the left, away from the rocks. Like a pinball, it bounced from boulder to boulder until it fetched up against a large one. The river boiled under it, lifting one side. Casey regained her grip on the ropes. The raft scooted toward the riverbank, teetered on its edge for a second, and fell flat with a loud slap.

In the sudden, eerie silence, Casey jerked her head up and noisily sucked air into her lungs. The raft rocked in the current, gently sloshing water back and forth over her legs. The world seemed split—an unnatural stillness inside the boat overlaid by the growling roar of the river outside.

She waited for another onslaught, but seconds stretched into minutes and nothing changed. She raised herself from her belly to her knees and relinquished her death grip on the cargo ropes to push dripping strands of hair out of her eyes.

The raft was grounded on a sandbar behind a spill of enormous boulders that extended from the slopes of the canyon into the river. Beyond the sandbar was a short stretch of flat water, and then beautiful, lovely, wonderful dry land.

Her hands were stiff, formed into claws by her grip on the ropes. She slowly straightened her fingers. The rope burns across her palms were hot but not bloody. Gloves. Next time, she'd wear gloves.