The island they stood on was twenty yards wide. To his right, the lip of the falls stretched several hundred feet from the island to the mainland, its whitewater interrupted by an outcropping of rock. The falls fell about fifty feet. Tongues of whitewater lashed upward and outward, all of them boiling at the bottom before surging downriver. From the left side of the island spilled a second channel through a series of sieves and logjams. Downstream of the convergence, the water remained white and thunderous. Lightning flashed, and Fish saw a stretch of river the length and width of a football field, marked by vertical cliffs on either side, with two or three craggy islands dividing explosive currents. The water seemed to fight itself. It tumbled into pits. It bellowed. It hissed and leapt. It beat against the faces of the islands in giant, upswept pillows of water. Downstream of the islands, the entire river disappeared again, presumably over another falls, sprays of water rising into the lightning.
Fish’s knees trembled up on that peak. And he knew it wasn’t only because he was wet and cold. The rapids spoke of something great and terrible, a storm of water that had churned for ages. The boys sat silently for a few minutes more, then walked in silence back to the rope and raft, wiping water from their faces. When Bread first asked for the barlow knife, Fish assumed his friend wanted to shave some bark or make a feather stick for a fire. Cutting the buoy rope was beyond reason. Bread’s pretense in doing so, that some possibility still existed downstream, was infuriating to behold.
“Would you just knock it off?” said Fish.
Bread looked up from his work. He stood knee-deep in the eddy of a small ledge, atop which Fish perched on his heels. Lightning illuminated the sky, and the barlow knife in Bread’s hand flashed as white as the gun in his belt. The rainwater plastered his shirt to his chest and stomach. Thunder filled the air with noise. Now that he knew to listen for it, Fish could more easily discern the low thrum of the rapids beneath the pops of thunder.
Bread challenged him. “Why don’t you knock off doing nothing? I’m trying to get us moving.”
“Bread, we can’t get through that!” Fish had pulled his shirttail up over his head. It didn’t matter that the rain ran down his back and into his shoes. At least the hood kept it out of his eyes.
“Yes we can. I cut through about an inch of it already. This rope is like wood. But it cuts.”
“Rope? You think I’m talking about rope! Bread, did you see the same rapids I saw? We’re done. Don’t you get it?”
“I’m not done,” said Bread, and he turned back to his work, sawing and sawing the massive braid with the small knife.
This was suicide. Fish jumped from the rock and splashed in the water. The rocks under his feet were round and smooth, the size of melons. Even here, the river ran fast enough to polish the stones, suck the silt off the river bottom. It was unthinkable, the power of the river past those falls. Fish waded forward and grabbed Bread’s shoulder.
Bread whipped around, anger in his eyes, and shook his shoulder free. Fish couldn’t tell if Bread meant to brandish the knife when he spoke, but it was in his hand when he waved it.
“Don’t you try to stop me, Fish. You hear me? Don’t you try to stop me!”
“Bread, you can’t run these rapids. You’ll die!”
“All you’ve wanted to do from the beginning of this is give up. Don’t lie, Fish. You’ve been running scared this whole time. And now you want to run away again.”
Fish fumed. “The way I see it, I’m only out here because of you!”
Bread stopped sawing, clenched his fists. “You killed him, Fish! And we’re out here because of you!”
Rain fell between them, shot the river full of holes.
Fish felt spite rise up in the shame. It ran thick from his tongue. “I saved your life.”
Bread shot back, “You ruined my life!” His chest heaved. As wet as he was, tears were in his eyes. “He’s dead! And there’s nowhere else for me to go, Fish!” Bread’s eyes flared. He clenched his jaw and looked out at the water. When he spoke again it was filled with a malice nearly too dark to hear in the storm. “But what would you know about it, your perfect life with your mom and your dad. You never been alone for a day.”
“You’re running scared too, Bread.”
Bread shook his head in disgust, looked downriver at the falls.
“That’s the difference between us, Fish. You run away. I’m running forward. And you, and this rope, and those rapids, none of it’s going to stop me. I’m going, Fish.”
“Toward what? Look at the river. There is no forward.” Fish watched Bread’s puffed-up chest, his tiny knife, and hated the strength he saw there, the tenacity. If Fish knew what to say to wound him, he would. Out here in this miserable forest, knee-deep in river water, hungry and wet and cold as he’d ever been, Fish wanted to ruin him and silence him.
“I’m sticking with the plan, Fish. I’m making it to the armory. I’m finding your dad.”
Raindrops fell in sheets. Lightning lit them like sparks. Astonishment dawned in Fish’s mind. Bread didn’t know. He really didn’t know. And this was Fish’s opportunity to crush the life out of Bread, to stop this whole game. Once spoken, there would be nothing left to do, for both of them, but lie down and die. Fish’s teeth clenched. Rainwater dripped from his eyes and nose. The words rose up in him like bile, bitter, and sweet to be free of.
Fish looked Bread right in his eyes.
“My dad is dead,” he said.
The pounding of the falls coursed through the river bottom, the rocks and pebbles, the bones and silence beneath
