into the pool, but the river was too fast and he didn’t have the strength.
He sucked in a lungful of air as the river drew him under. Now he was going down the river without any protection and he was only halfway through this group of rapids. If he made it through them, he would have nothing but rushing river for a few hundred yards. He’d be able to grab onto the overhanging branches by the riverbank. Then he was in it again, swimming and dodging, holding his breath, lungs bursting, adrenaline flowing. His body took over, it was all reflex now. His experience and memory of the river, its twists, turns, rocks and hazards, all buried in the subconscious that took over. Sheriff Earl Lawson was only along for the ride, the animal within was running the show.
He was an eel, sliding through a narrow passage, then he was a great fish, powerfully swimming toward the next opening in the rocks where he became an eel again. A few times his animal judgment was off and he’d scrape along a rock as he struggled through a slim opening, and once he smashed into a smooth shaped boulder his animal self didn’t remember. But he managed to keep his breath, despite the crash, and then he was through it, floating down the rushing river, headed for the next group of rapids.
He fought the pulling river as he pulled in air and he swam toward the side. The next group of rapids would be the last. If he didn’t make it this time he was history. He knew it and the animal within knew it. Just as he thought it was all over he saw an overhanging branch within his reach. He gave it his last and his best effort as he thrust his arms out of the water and grabbed onto it.
He didn’t know how long he’d been hanging onto the branch, a few seconds or a few minutes, but he had to do something. His arms were straining, he was still in the water from the waist down, and the river was sapping what little strength he had left. He tried to pull himself up and he managed to almost chin himself, holding his eyes level with the branch, knees in the river, stomach muscles screaming as he struggled to get out of the water, but he couldn’t do it and he sagged back down. He didn’t have the energy or the strength left to pull himself up onto the branch.
The water was rushing around him, dragging him, tugging on him, calling him. He was holding on, breathing like a machine, in and out, taking in vital oxygen for one last try, and then it dawned on him that he’d never be able to pull himself up on that branch, but it wasn’t the only way out, there was another way, a simpler way. All he had to do was inch his hands along the branch toward the riverbank.
The wet cold cut through to the bone, the driving river was pulling at his heavy legs, his arms were screaming, his hands aching and his fingers were numb. He was about used up. He was fighting just to hold on. He was afraid if he let a hand go he’d fall back in the river, but he knew that if he didn’t move quickly he’d fall back in anyway, and the river would finish him, so he slid first one hand, then the next toward the riverbank.
It was slow going, but he was making progress. He was getting out of the river. Then he couldn’t move anymore, something was holding him back. He started to panic, but fought it away. Then he realized what it was. His feet had hit bottom. He was safe. He’d made it. Soloed halfway through the rapids, with a dead body for a raft.
He stumbled out of the water, grabbing onto the tree’s root system for support. He was out of the water. Now he only had a twenty foot embankment to claw his way up. He thought about Maria. He thought about the money. And he thought about climbing that cliff. Not so high. Not so hard.
He wormed his way around the tree and started to climb, digging his damaged hands into the soft earth, pulling on small branches, clutching onto small stones, grabbing any and every purchase he could. He moved slowly and deliberately. He didn’t want to fall back into the river.
Chapter Five
“ You want to hang around or do you want to get out of here?” Broxton asked, coming up behind Maria. His voice cracked with the words. He sounded like a little boy fighting tears, and her heart went out to him.
“ The quicker I’m gone, the better, but I’m the senior flight attendant. I should stay till they release us.” She regretted the words as soon as they’d left her lips, but she really couldn’t leave. Her life had been split between Earl and the airline and the airline had been the better half. Still Broxton was a man in pain and after their experience on the plane she felt a certain kinship with him. She wished there was something she could do.
“ I understand,” Broxton said, with sagging shoulders.
He was looking down, at the floor, and she imagined that he was feeling twice rejected. She wanted to fold her arms around him and hug him into her like she would a lost child. She wanted to tell him everything was going to be all right. There were other women out there, she wanted to say, and someday soon he’d meet one and then the heartache would be gone. Instead she said, “I’m ready to go, if you are. I just have to make a quick phone call.” She had to call Earl, but she shivered with the thought that it wasn’t going to be the kind of call he was expecting.
“ But you said.”
“ I think the airline can probably get by without me right now. They probably won’t even notice I’m gone,” she said.
“ I have baggage, but I imagine I can get it tomorrow or the next day,” he said. Then he followed her toward the phones.
“ I’m sorry about your girl.” They were at the phones.
“ Thanks,” he said. He turned and faced her for a second with mist covered eyes. The pain there was real and it looked like it cut deep.
“ I’ll make the call from the hotel,” she said. Earl could wait. “Are you going to be okay?” she asked as they made their way to the street.
“ Sure,” he said. Then he raised his hand for a taxi.
A rusty Toyota pulled up to the curb. The car was fifteen years old, but the tires were new. “You want a taxi?” the driver said. His rich baritone and dark ebony skin conspired to hide his age, but the gray hair and wrinkled hands gave it away. He was old and he reminded Maria of her own father.
“ Yes, to the Hilton Hotel,” Broxton said.
“ I’m your man,” the driver said with a smile in his voice.
He opened his door and started to step out of the car, but she stopped him, saying, “That’s okay, we don’t have any baggage.”
“ Makes it easy on these old bones,” he said. Broxton opened the front door and put his carry-on bag on the front seat. Maria unclipped her small bag from the trolley and laid it next to his. Then they climbed into the back.
“ Dependable Ted, at your service.” The driver turned and handed her a card. “You need a taxi, anytime, day or night, you call me, hear? I’m dependable, like my name, the name on the card, Dependable Ted.”
“ I’ll be sure to do that.” Maria handed his card to Broxton.
“ Now you sit back and enjoy the ride. I might not be the fastest taxi in Trinidad, but I’m the most dependable.” Broxton laughed for a second, then he turned glum. On the plane he seemed bulldog-strong, now he was puppy-dog meek. She needed to get his mind off that girl.
“ Very lush here,” she said, making conversation as the taxi started winding its way along the access road, heading for the highway that would take them into Port of Spain, about a half hour away.
“ Your first time in the tropics?” Broxton asked her.
“ This is my third flight out of Miami, she said, so I guess you could say I’m new to the tropics, if you don’t count Texas. You?” He chuckled and she took that as a positive sign.
“ I spent a year in Mexico,” he said, slipping the driver’s card into his shirt pocket.
“ Looking for drug smugglers?” she asked.
“ Hardly. All I do is process the paperwork. The most exciting thing that ever happens to me is when the computer crashes. Even that scares me.”
“ Then why did they pick you to protect the prime minister?”
“ Because of who my future father-in-law is, or rather who I thought my father-in-law was going to be.”
“ I can’t believe that,” she said with a smile in her voice.
“ It’s true,” he said. “I’m sort of like an analyst. They give me the data and I try to put it all together in my
