“So, I can swim,” Kevin said.
“The currents, boy, are wicked. A couple died there about ten years back. It’s nothing to mess with.”
“But if we made it, if we could do it, we could follow them. Catch them.”
“They won’t leave any climbing gear behind, count on it.”
He barked more instructions.
Kevin saw the bend in the river looming before them, maybe half a mile downstream. White water foamed at the base of the rock wall where the eddy pounded into it.
“What those fellas apparently don’t know, or didn’t think about, is that there’s a zip line-a chair-that crosses the river about three-quarters of a mile upstream. It’s how we provision the ranch. We keep an ATV hid on the east side to cover the twelve miles to the nearest road. We could cross at the chair, head upriver, and cut back across at a similar line three miles up. We’d be back on their side of the river then. We’d have a shot at them. At the girl.”
“We’ve got to do it.”
The sheer rock face at the turn grew closer. Kevin realized there would be little time for more discussion or planning. The river was dictating their moves.
“We have the one chance,” the cowboy said, “and the currents are mean. Once we’re out of this raft, that’s it. We make the shore or we’re thrown back into the river without the raft.”
“Then we can’t let it wrap,” Kevin said. “If we miss the shore, we have to have at least a chance of catching back up to the raft.”
“Dump the cooler,” the cowboy said.
Kevin did as he was told. The cowboy maneuvered the raft expertly, holding to the center of the river. He simultaneously tied a line to the cooler’s handle and knotted it tightly.
“The cooler floats,” the cowboy explained. “But it can also fill up with water and act as a kind of anchor, maybe slowing the raft down and giving us a chance to catch it. But I gotta tell you, with no vests, no helmets, this is not to be taken lightly.”
“We can’t leave her,” Kevin said.
“There’s a fine line between nobility and insanity, son. Don’t let your balls speak for your brain. This is no video game. If the eddy wins, we lose. And that eddy has won more often than not.”
“I get it.”
“Water’s cold enough to steal your breath. You gotta be ready for that. You gotta swim harder than you know how. Got that? The eddy curls counterclockwise toward the rock, then back upstream. You fight it, you lose. The trick is for us to start high, to make it to the far current and let it carry us to the base of the falls. You fight that current, you’ll tire out. You’ve got to work with it, not against it. Understand?”
He threw the cooler overboard. The raft lurched, and Kevin nearly went over the side.
“If we’re doing this, it’s now or never,” said the cowboy, pulling off his boots and slipping out of his jacket. “Strip down, boy. You want to be as light as you can get.”
Kevin pulled off his sweatshirt but left his sneakers on.
“If you end up in the river,” John said, “you’ll want your feet aiming downstream-”
“And your hands covering your head,” Kevin completed.
In the glow coming from the sky, he saw fear in the old guy’s face for the first time.
“You don’t have to do this,” Kevin added, “I can do this by myself.”
“I’m in no mood for four days on the river,” John said, working the paddle to steer the raft closer to a current. “Okay… You first… Go!”
Kevin hesitated, judging the distance, marking the location of the small waterfall in his mind’s eye.
“GO!” the cowboy repeated.
Kevin swung his feet over the side of the raft and slid down the rubbery fabric into the cold river water.
78
The water was icy cold. Walt was in up to his knees, wading across a small tributary that fed the Middle Fork, leading his gelding by the reins, the creek bottom too uneven to risk riding across.
“How far?” he called ahead.
“The ranch is one-point-two miles due west,” Brandon answered. “It’s closer to three miles, if we turn south and head for the put-in.”
“Keep it down!” his father called out.
“Shut up,” Walt called back to him. “We’re working this out.”
His father had been acting the taciturn, grumpy old man all night, preferring to ride ahead and keep to himself, believing, no doubt, that riding ahead meant he was the leader. He hadn’t been out in the field for nearly twenty years. Walt could understand it if his father were reliving the manhunt for D. B. Cooper, which had both defined him and limited his advancement at the Bureau. He’d gone on to do great things, was considered a leading expert on counterterrorism, but bringing home Cooper and the money would have turned him into a legend. He’d been churning inside over it for thirty years. He’d been taking it out on his family the whole time.
Garman continued his overflights of the ranch, at an altitude and in a flight pattern that kept him invisible from the ground. But soon the rising sun would catch the plane. There was time for only a few more passes.
Walt had made several calls to Kevin’s phone, left three messages. Then Garman had flown in a pattern that allowed Kevin’s phone to be logged on to the repeater for a full fifteen minutes. That, in turn, let the GPS track the cell phone. The coordinates placed it at Mitchum’s Ranch.
Garman was continuing to make calls to Kevin’s phone each time he flew over the ranch. Kevin had not answered any of the calls. And he hadn’t returned any of Walt’s messages.
The good news was, they had confirmation of the cell phone’s location. The bad news was, that information would be impossible to keep from the FBI. Mitchum’s Ranch would be the target of an aerial-and-ground assault by noon.
They had as few as three hours and maybe as many as six to locate and rescue Kevin ahead of an FBI Special Forces intervention that Jerry was convinced would result in a body count.
Brandon had discovered an unnamed dotted line on the map crossing the river near Mitchum’s Creek that intrigued Walt but would require a detour to investigate. Jerry openly objected to any delay. He was currently trailing the pack horse and favored making for the upriver put-in and floating down to Mitchum’s Ranch. Their arguing had continued for the past forty-five minutes, ever since Brandon’s discovery. A call to the office hadn’t helped. No one could find out what the line on the map indicated.
“There are no power lines in a wilderness area,” Jerry reasoned. “The dotted line could mean anything. A dam? A culvert? Whatever it is, it’s not worth the delay to find out.”
Now on the far side of the creek, Jerry remounted his horse and, taking the pack horse’s lead rope, headed due west.
“Dad!” Walt called out after him.
Jerry spun around in his saddle.
“There’s no time to play hunches. We know we can float in. We go with the given.”
“It’s on the map for a reason,” Walt said. “Going onto the river will cost us an extra two hours.”
“No. The waste of time is heading for a dotted line that doesn’t mean anything, doesn’t get you anywhere. Kevin doesn’t have time for this.”
His father couldn’t handle the raft alone and all three men knew it.
“Okay. You and Brandon will get the float gear to the put-in. We have radios. I’ll ride ahead and see what I can see. We’ll stay in touch.”
“We’re not waiting for you,” Jerry said. He turned and rode off.