The rope was knotted to a rusty steel eye embedded in the concrete.
Hanging onto the rope as if it were the reins of a bucking bronco, she straightened up. She drew Batty’s knife from the scabbard at her hip and slashed through the taut rope. The instant it gave way, she was thrown backward. She grabbed the gunwale and managed to stay on her knees.
Trying to sheath the knife, she missed its scabbard and poked her hip bone. ‘Damn it!’ She dropped the knife into the puddle by her knee, then clutched the anchor with both hands. She lifted it, twisted sideways, and dropped it over the side. It thumped the water and flung up a cold geyser.
Good show, she told herself. She wondered if any of the others had witnessed her exploit, but decided it didn’t matter. The anchor was gone. She’d accomplished something that should help to keep them afloat. At least for a while.
Still on her knees, she leaned forward until the edge of the seat pushed against her ribs. She reached out with both arms, and hung on.
All she could see was darkness and pouring rain and leaping, churning waves capped with froth.
Are we even going in the right direction?
As the boat plummeted, she shut her eyes and mouth. The edge of the seat jammed her chest. Water flew into her face. Then the boat started to rise, so she blinked and squinted.
A flash of lightning streaked down through the clouds ahead. In its stark glare, she glimpsed something on the surface of the lake.
A thrill surged through her.
‘The raft!’ she yelled through a crash of thunder.
Doubting that anyone had heard her, she pushed away from the seat, turned around, and sat in the sloshing swamp at the bottom of the boat. She felt the knife under her rump.
Good. Wouldn’t want to lose it.
Cora was still rowing like a madwoman.
Cupping her hands to her mouth, Abilene shouted, ‘The diving raft! Dead ahead! ’
Cora glanced around.
Abilene gave her a thumbs up, and yelled, ‘Almost there! Fifty, sixty feet!’
Nodding, Cora turned away.
Abilene rolled a bit, reached down, and pulled the knife out from under her.
She realized she was grinning.
We’re gonna make it!
Another wave came down, washing over her back, but she didn’t mind. She reached under the side of her skirt and plucked the scabbard out. Carefully, her jerking hands guided the blade into the leather slot. She slid the blade home, leaned against the port side of the pitching boat and pushed the sheathed knife down the waistband at her hip.
Only then did she realize she was sitting in water up to her belly.
If it’s this high here…
She pushed herself onto the seat. Cora still pulled at the oars, but the boat resembled a kid’s wading pool, water nearly to its brim. Finley and Vivian were both on their knees, wildly hurling away handsful while more water splashed in over the sides.
Abilene twisted around. No lightning at the moment, but she could see the diving raft through the downpour.
Twenty feet away? Thirty?
She turned back to Cora. ‘We aren’t gonna make it!’
Cora kept straining at the oars as if she hadn’t heard.
She knew they were all capable of swimming such a short distance, even in such rough water. But if it came to that, they’d lose the shotgun and ax.
She tugged her shoes off. Reaching down behind the seat, she pulled the anchor rope. She found its end, drew it around her waist, and knotted it. ‘Hang in!’ she shouted, then threw herself overboard.
She plunged head first into the lake, thrashed to the surface and trod water for a moment to get her bearings. She was beside the boat, close to its bow. Turning, she spotted the raft. She swam for it. The waves shoved her upward, dropped her, tipped her from side to side. Then the slack of the rope gave out.
The line tugged at her waist, pressed into her groin. She felt as if she’d been yanked to a dead halt. But she kept on jabbing out her arms and drawing them back, kept on kicking in spite of the taut rope wedged between her legs.
She raised her head. The near end of the raft appeared to be no more than ten or twelve feet away.
She switched to the breast stroke and saw the distance close a bit.
The boat seemed to be moving along sluggishly behind her.
She watched the raft as she struggled toward it. The platform was high out of the water, pitching about on the churning lake. She supposed it must be anchored to the bottom with chains. The corner on the right was higher than the lefthand one, tipped upward somewhat because of the sunken oil drum kitty-corner from it.
Attached to the right side of the raft was a wooden ladder.
Abilene swam for it, towing the boat.
The boat seemed to be moving along better, now, the rope no longer straining at her waist or digging into her groin.
She swam alongside the raft, reached out and grabbed a rung of the ladder.
Clinging to it, she looked back. Cora still sat in its center, tugging at the oars. Only the gunwales remained above the water line, and every wave flung more water into the nearly submerged craft.
Finley and Vivian weren’t aboard.
They were stretched out side by side behind the boat, holding onto its stem, kicking.
They’d been pushing it along while Abilene towed it by the rope.
Glancing over her shoulder, Cora shouted, ‘Tie it up!’
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
BELMORE GIRLS
‘To us,’ Cora toasted.
‘Hear hear,’ said the others. They clinked their champagne glasses and drank.
It was a warm June evening three days after graduation. It was to be their last night together in their rented apartment on Spring Street.
Tomorrow, Abilene and Harris would be heading north to Portland where they intended to share an apartment while she embarked on her graduate studies in English literature. Helen would be going home to Coos Bay, where she planned to stay with her parents through the summer. Cora and Tony would embark for Denver to pursue teaching credentials. Vivian and Finley would be travelling together to Los Angeles, Vivian to seek out jobs as an actress and model, Finley to study filmmaking at the Institute for Creative Cinema which had accepted her application on the strength of her ‘Mess Hall’ videotape.
As Abilene sipped her champagne, she felt a lump in her throat. She was glad to be moving on, excited by what lay ahead. But God, she would miss her friends.
‘We’ve got to stay in touch,’ she said.
