The water turned us. I was helpless to stop it. It sucked Nicki through the gap first.
“Will!” she shrieked.
I went through right after her, still clasping her tight.
And still holding that rifle out in my left hand—holding it out to my side now, upstream, making sure it was the last thing to come through the rocks, making sure it was stretched out lengthwise across that narrow gap.
The rifle struck the rocks. And stuck—it was wedged across the small space, unable to pass through.
The AK-47 machine gun was close to three feet long— longer than the gap between the rocks was wide by nearly a foot. I think if we had hit any harder, it would have rattled through—the weapon might even have just shattered, just come apart in my hands. But that first impact of my body on the rocks had slowed us. The gun didn’t hit all that hard. It stayed together, and I had time to maneuver it so it was securely braced against the rocks on both ends. I held the rifle with one hand and kept my other arm wrapped around Nicki—and the rifle held us both in place.
It all happened so fast, it took me a moment before I realized— realized with amazement—that my idea had actually worked. We were held there, just above those final rapids, just above the falls.
Breathless, I looked around to get a sense of our situation.
The water continued to rush over us, to pull at us and sometimes drag us under, but we had stopped moving downstream. In fact, we were in a place where the rocks gave us some shelter from the pounding of the current. As long as I kept hold of the rifle—and Nicki—and as long as the rifle stayed wedged in the rocks, we would be safe.
At least that’s what I thought. Until I saw the crocodile.
It surfaced upstream where the white water began. As I gasped up out of the current, I caught the black flash of its head peeking out above the water. So much for it staying upstream. It was looking straight at us, coming right toward us. There was no question about what it was going to do.
It was an awful moment—awful. Even standing before the firing squad hadn’t felt as bad as this. The firing squad— that was just death, you know. A few seconds of fear, maybe an instant of pain and it would have been over. But to have this creature tear us apart, to have it devour us: to me, that was a nightmare of horror.
The croc took one look at us and disappeared again under the water. It was heading toward the rapid black flow that had just carried us into the rocks. Now the same flow would carry the crocodile to the place where we were trapped.
The beast was now gone from sight—but unfortunately, before it went under, Nicki caught a glimpse of it too.
I had seen her hysterical before. I had heard her crying and pleading as the firing squad forced us to the wall. But this was beyond that. She just went crazy now. She just started screaming. Like the girls in the horror movies, you know: just one deafening, high-pitched shriek after another—wordless shrieks and then my name. She’d get cut off as the river doused her and dragged her under and then she’d bob to the surface again, screaming and screaming.
“Will! Will! Will!”
I held tight to the rifle to stay in place, to stay above water. I swallowed hard. My spit tasted like copper. That was the taste of fear, I realized. I was sick with fear.
But I knew what I had to do.
Nicki was flailing in my arms, twisting and thrashing, trying to escape my grip, trying to get away from the invisible onrushing crocodile. But that was no good. If she’d broken out of my grip, she would have been swept immediately into the rapids and over the falls to her death. I had to use all my strength to hold on to her. But I did. And I forced her around me, forced her up to the rifle.
“Will! No! No!” she screamed as I pressed her up against the wedged rifle.
“Nicki!” I shouted—shouted as loud and forcefully as I could over the rushing noise of the water. I sank under. I pulled myself up. Gasped for air. “Grab hold of it! Grab hold of the gun! Grab hold!”
She wouldn’t stop shrieking. She wouldn’t stop flailing.
“Let go of me! Let go of me! It’s coming! Let go!”
“Take hold of the rifle! I’ll protect you!” I shouted.
Her scream became babbling words interrupted by gulps and gasps.
“You can’t . . . You can’t . . .”
“Grab hold, Nicki!”
Confused—terrified beyond rational thought—she did what I said. She put her hands on the rifle between the rocks. She gripped it.
And I, still holding the rifle myself, let go of her and ducked under the water.
It was hard to fight the current, but my grip on the rifle gave me a little leverage, and I only had to maneuver myself a few inches upstream. Then I splashed to the surface—and now I was in front of the rifle, held in place by it, while Nicki held on to it behind me.
“Will!” she sobbed. “Will!”
The water drove into my face. Gripping the rifle, I fought my way out of it. “Just hold on,” I gasped. “You’ll be all right.”
I wasn’t shouting anymore. I didn’t have the strength—I was too scared. I didn’t even know if she could hear me over the white water. I was staring in the direction I’d last seen the crocodile. I couldn’t see it now, but I knew it was still coming—I knew it was almost there, almost on top of me.
I just hoped it wouldn’t take both of us. I just hoped that one of us would be enough.
I wondered if I would see it before it struck or if it would hit below the surface and just cut me in half before I realized it was there. I wondered how long I would have to live with the agony of being eaten alive before I mercifully died.
Then I stopped wondering. Suspend the imagination, I thought. Don’t worry about anything. Pray about everything instead. It was the only way I could stay in place, the only way I could keep up my courage—what there was of it. Which wasn’t much.
As it turned out, the creature did surface. I saw the enormous bulk of it rise up out of the black flow of water. I saw its huge tail lashing as it propelled itself toward me. I saw the length of its great snout and death in its small, cold, indifferent eyes.
Nicki coughed and gasped and screamed my name one last time.
“Will!”
And I screamed. I couldn’t help it. Tears of terror flying from my eyes, I let out a ragged scream into the face of the crocodile.
“Come on, then!” I told it. “Come on! Come on!”
The river washed over me. I broke out of it and its wash of sound surrounded me. Nicki was screaming. And I was screaming. I couldn’t hear anything else but the river and the screams. I couldn’t think of anything else but the onrushing crocodile.
I never heard the gunshots at all.
All I saw was that something hit the croc’s head and something black and red flew off the place above its right eye and up into the air. I hardly understood what was happening as the beast thrashed enormously only a few yards away from me. The screams stuck in my throat and my heart seized in my chest as the creature’s great tail flew up out of the water. The crocodile rolled over sideways and struck the rock to my left—only about six inches from my arm. The great length and weight of its body was flung away from me, and the river carried it wide of the rocks so that it went rushing past us and down into the rapids. Turning my body full around against the rifle, I saw its limp, massive form carried into the seething turmoil of the falls and out of sight. It was only then I realized that it was already dead.
Nicki went on screaming and gasping, her eyes shut tight, her hands gripping the rifle with all her strength.
Dazed, I held myself above the surface and looked around me. I saw Palmer standing on the shore. He was just now lowering his machine gun from his shoulder. Meredith and Jim were running up to join him.
Of course, I thought.
Of course he had not left us behind. He had known he couldn’t help us while he was in the water. He had crossed over first, saving the others, and then rushed down the bank to take his s
hot at the crocodile, to kill it before it killed me.
I ducked under my rifle and wrapped my arm around Nicki again. I held on to her and held us both in place.
“It’s all right,” I said into her ear between gulps and gasps. “It’s all right, Nicki. It’s gone now. It’s over.”
But it was a long time before she managed to stop screaming.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
It wasn’t easy to get us out of the water. It was a dangerous business in itself. Palmer and Meredith and Jim had to make a human chain to reach us. The river was narrow here—we weren’t that far from shore—but the current was so strong that it was hard for them to bridge the gap without being swept away themselves.
Nicki was part of the problem. I had my arm wrapped securely around her again, holding her in place, but she was so crazy upset, sobbing and weeping and twisting around, that she nearly slipped out of my hold about fifteen times before the others got to us.
Whenever I could get my head above water, I watched, shivering in the rush of the current, as Palmer and Jim and Meredith dragged a fallen tree along the riverbank until it was as close to us as they could get it. Palmer braced himself against the trunk and then he held Meredith by the wrist and Meredith took hold of Jim.
The first time they tried to stretch their way out to us, Jim was taken by surprise by the force of the rapids. It nearly swept him off his feet and carried him away. Luckily, not only was Meredith holding on to his wrist, but he was holding on to hers, and the link between them held. He tried again and got close—but not close enough. Neither Nicki nor I could reach his outstretched hand.
All the while, the river coursed over us, trying its best to knock us free from our precarious perch and carry us off toward the falls.
Jim and Meredith retreated toward shore and tried again, but this time Palmer took the strap off his rifle and Jim brought it with him. When he got out as far as he could, he tossed the strap out to us. He had to do it several times, but the third time I got hold of it. I brought it to Nicki and worked her hand through the loop, then wrapped it around her wrist and told her to hang on.
To be honest, I wasn’t sure she would do it. I wasn’t sure she could do it. She was so shaken, so upset, trembling so badly. But finally, I managed to make myself understood above the noise and through the haze of shock that seemed to have clouded her eyes. She gripped the strap in her hand and Jim pulled her in.
My heart lifted as I held the rifle and watched the others bring Nicki to shore.
They came back for me. Now that they had the system down, it went more quickly. A few minutes and I had hold of the strap myself. I was reluctant to pull my rifle from the gap in the rocks—it had been my only security all this time. But I did it. The river started to carry me off, but Jim pulled me in before it could get me.
Jim and I held on to each other as we slogged the last few feet through the current back to the shore.
The moment I hit dry land, I collapsed down into the mud. I was surprised how weak I was, how exhausted. The fight with the river and with my own fear seemed to have drained every ounce of strength out of me. I couldn’t even get myself to drier land. I just sat in the mud with my knees lifted, my arms draped weakly over them, my head hung down.
Somewhere in the distance I heard Nicki crying and Meredith, as always, murmuring words of comfort to her.
“Oh, it was so awful!” Nicki kept saying. “I want to go home so much!”
“I know,” Meredith kept answering gently. “I know. We all want to.”
After a while, I managed to gather just enough strength to lift my head and look out at the water. From where I was— the blessed safety of dry land—the frothing rapids didn’t look quite as threatening. The rocks didn’t look quite as sharp.
I thought: Did that really just happen? Is any of this really happening?
How was it possible? How was it possible this was happening to me? Didn’t all these gunmen and snakes and rapids and crocodiles understand that I was just sixteen-year-old Will Peterson from Spencer’s Grove, California? I was not supposed to be in situations like this. They were supposed to happen to other people . . . like adventurers . . . or characters in movies maybe . . . people who were used to danger, who were ready for it. Maybe all these killers and beasts and rapids had mistaken me for some more dramatic type of guy!
I heard a footstep near me and turned and saw Meredith coming my way. She had left Nicki sitting farther up the bank, on drier land. Nicki stayed there, sitting in the dirt, her shoulders slumped, her head bowed. Now and then, her body sort of gave a little heave and I could hear her sobbing even above the sound of the water.
Meredith came to me and stood over me. Her shirt and khakis were dark with water and mud, and there were streaks of mud on her cheeks and forehead. She looked tired—I guess we all looked tired—but her pale brown eyes still had that clear, steady gaze.
I raised my head to her. I watched her as she slowly crouched down in front of me until we were eye to eye. Suddenly I wasn’t thinking about the crocodile anymore or the rapids or anything. I was just looking at Meredith as she looked at me. I thought she was going to say something—she looked like she wanted to—but she didn’t. She just reached out and put her hands on my face, one hand on each of my cheeks. I could feel her river-damp and chilly skin through the gritty mud all over me. I could feel my heart beating as she leaned in close to me. Then, very softly, very gently she placed her lips against my dirty forehead. She kissed me there and then drew away. She stood up.
“Come up to the dry land out of the mud,” she said.
And she walked back to Nicki.
For a moment or two, I just went on sitting there. I was trying to hold on to the moment, I guess, to hold on to the feel of her lips on me, her kiss. It wasn’t the kiss I would have had from her, I’ll admit, but it was still a good one. I thought I would’ve faced any number of crocodiles for another.
I looked around in a kind of daze and saw Palmer. Grimy, soaking, unshaven, he was kneeling in the dirt, working his strap back onto his rifle. He winked at me. I smiled.
Slowly, groaning with the effort, I worked my way up out of the mud. I stood and turned my back on the river and looked up the bank into the surrounding trees.
The jungle, I saw, was filled with gunmen.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
I don’t know how many there were: maybe a dozen. They were stationed just within the trees, nearly hidden by the giant fronds and dense leaves all around them. They looked like villagers, like the folks back in Santiago. They had flat, dark brown Indian features. They wore jeans and cotton shirts and some of them had baseball hats. A few wore kerchiefs tied around their necks or foreheads, like the rebels did, only their kerchiefs were blue instead of red. Each of them was holding a rifle in his hand, low by his side.
“Uh . . . ,” I said.
Kneeling over his AK, Palmer glanced up at me questioningly. I gestured with my head toward the jungle.
He looked that way—and he practically jumped to his feet. At first I thought he was going to raise his gun and open fire. Instead, he grinned. The gunman standing closest to us—a very large, very broad-shouldered man—also grinned, his smile white in his red-brown features. He came forward out of the trees. The other men followed him onto the riverbank, toting their rifles with them.
Until that moment Nicki, Meredith, and Jim hadn’t seen the gunmen. They all started in surprise when they did and Nicki moaned, “Oh no!” as if this were the last straw, as if she just couldn’t take any more excitement.
But Palmer and the large gunman were already grasping each other’s hands and slapping each other’s shoulders in a friendly greeting.
“Paolo,” Palmer said.
“Amigo,” said the gunman.
The two of them started talking to each other in rapid Spanish. Palmer laughed. He turned to us, his features unusually bright.
“He says they got word of what happened to us back in Santiago.
They’ve been expecting us.”
“You mean they’re not rebels?” asked Jim.
“Not hardly,” said Palmer with another laugh. “They’re Achil—one of the oldest and purest tribes in the country. I was heading toward their village. It isn’t far. They’ll take us there and give us a ride to Santa Maria.”
Palmer and Paolo talked some more in rapid Spanish. Palmer pointed at the river, then at Nicki, then at me. I guessed he was telling him what had just happened with the rapids and the crocodile and all. Paolo nodded judiciously, looking my way. Then he moved away from Palmer and stepped up to me.
He was even bigger up close. I’d bet he was six-five or so. He towered over me. He looked down at me from his great height and nodded. He spoke in Spanish very quickly. He pointed out at the river—to the place in the rocks where I’d just been stuck. Then he pointed over at Nicki. Finally, he reached out with one enormous fist and pounded me lightly on the heart. It was just a tap, but he was so large it knocked me back half a step. Then he tapped his own heart as well.
“What’s he saying?” I asked Palmer.
“He says you’re the single ugliest little punk of an American he’s ever seen,” Palmer said. “He says they’re thinking of shooting you just to save the women from the misery of having to look at you.”
Meredith gave that laugh—that girlish giggle I’d heard in the temple chamber the night before. “Palmer, stop,” she said.
The big villager gave me a playful slap to the side of the head—which nearly knocked me unconscious—and walked away. He headed into the jungle with the other villagers behind him. Palmer gathered his weapons and Jim got his pack and they followed. Meredith helped Nicki to her feet.
“That isn’t really what he said, Will,” Meredith told me. “He said . . .”