Blake gave each of his clients a fistful of chocolates, tightened his foot straps, took a swig of water, and waited, his left leg shaking nervously, for the sign to move out.
Marshall leaned toward him. “There’s ice all over the river. Stay no more than ten yards behind me. I’m not sure which side of Cedar I’m going to take.”
Blake turned to his crew. “You people ready for the best two hours of your lives?”
They raised their arms and cheered.
“Okay, then, let’s get ready for some major carnage.”
One by one, the six rafts punched through the seething waters at the Confluence, cut diagonally across the swollen, ice-choked crosscurrent, and headed straight for Cedar Ledges.
Blake watched the Hudson pour into the valley from his left and overpower the Indian. For more than a minute, two rivers on a collision course fought for control of his raft.
Blake told his crew to ease up as the Hudson pushed them toward Cedar. Up ahead he saw Marshall, forced to the right to avoid a ten-by-twelve slab of pack ice, enter a narrow, rock-lined channel.
Following his boss into the chute, Blake found himself surrounded by tall pines. Rocks and chunks of ice punctured the current. The sun, pulsing through the trees above his left shoulder, blinded him momentarily. Sighting open water ahead, Blake was anxious to escape the narrow confines of a space that left him almost no room to maneuver.
He never saw the log that struck him in the soft flesh immediately below his right eye. The collision, like a sledgehammer demolishing an over-ripe melon, crushed in his cheek bone, dislodged three molars, and fractured his jaw before sending him into the Hudson. Somersaulting backward, Blake hit the water feet first and disappeared. That’s when his real troubles began.
The current carried him ten yards downstream and then, when his foot snagged something for a second, channeled him toward the back wall of a large undercut cave that the Hudson had been carving out since the Pleistocene.
He was only six feet from light and fresh air, but he might as well have been six miles. The chamber, covered in microscopically thin particles of decaying vegetation, was agate smooth. Because the river was focusing its incalculable energy on this single point, the young guide was, for all practical purposes, a hundred feet underwater.
Blake’s diligence backfired on him that morning. Five days ago, he’d blown a day’s pay on a new life vest. Its thick, rigid panels running from shoulders to hips gave the Hudson a perfect target as it pushed relentlessly against his body. The inexorable pressure enveloped his torso and inch by inch, despite his struggles, shoved him further underwater.
Holding his breath and staring up at the opaque light far above him now, Blake waited to get flushed from the cave. Having run a half-dozen recirculation drills in hydraulics, he knew that rivers could scare the hell out of you, but eventually they released you. Every time he’d done one of these exercises, he’d been told, “Keep your mouth shut and, when your turn comes, swim like hell toward the boil line.”
The river was ruthless that day. It crushed Blake’s eardrums and dislocated his elbow. It ripped off his helmet and split the gaskets of his dry suit, allowing it to fill with ice-cold water. Then it pushed him closer to the gravel-covered bottom and squeezed the air from his lungs.
While a mediocre student, a sweet goof-off really, Blake was a smart, hardworking, and responsible guide. Though raised by neglectful parents in a community crushed by poverty, he didn’t possess two tin cups worth of cynicism, mistrust, or resentment.
The river understood none of this. It did what it was designed to do. It quickly drowned him.
Nash and Carlyle, who were waiting for the rafts ahead of them to clear the chute, pulled up behind Blake’s boat thirty seconds later. “What are you all sitting here for?” Nash asked Blake’s clients.
“Our boat hit something and just stopped,” a young guy said. “When we turned around, our guide was gone.”
Just then Munck, Hernandez, and Betts slid up alongside the two other rafts. “What the hell’s going on?” Betts said.
“Blake’s disappeared.”
“We don’t have time for this bullshit,” Betts said. “Marshall’s waiting for us.”
Carlyle turned to Blake’s crew. “Was everything okay before you entered the chute?”
“He was fine,” the guy said. “We were having a great time.”
“And you could hear him giving directions?” Carlyle said.
“Yes, of course.”
Carlyle stood up in his raft. “He can’t have gone far. Hernandez, quick, walk upstream. If another outfit shows up, tell them no one comes through here until we’ve found our guide.”
“Then what?”
“Flag down a safety boater. Have him run back to the basin and alert the authorities.”
Just then Marshall, who had parked his boat downstream, emerged from the woods. “What’s going on?”
Carlyle grabbed his arm and pulled him aside. “We can’t find Blake.”
“Are you crazy?” Marshall turned to Nash. “What’s he saying?”
“Chris is gone.”
Marshall just stared at them.
Carlyle said, “Keith, go downstream. Look along the shore and in the woods. Alex, move his crew to the other boats and get them away from here.”
Nash returned three minutes later. “I can’t find him anywhere.”
Marshall said, “Come on. This makes no sense.”
“We need Search and Rescue,” Carlyle said. “There’s not much time.”
As snow dropped from overburdened pines, Marshall walked back and forth along the Hudson. “What are we looking for? Tell me now.”
Carlyle said, “Calm down. An EMT squad should be here soon.”
Just then they heard three whistle blasts. Carlyle rushed through the woods and found Betts holding onto Blake’s body. It was wedged between the bank and tree roots that curled down into the river.
Carlyle said, “Quick. Hand me a line.” Stepping carefully across the slick rocks lining the chute, he lowered himself into the current. The water swirled around his thighs, threatening to pull him under. He tied the rope to Blake’s life vest, grabbed the boy under his arms and, inch by inch, heaved
