“Who said anything about Houston or another woman?” The words she just spoke, the way she spoke them, seemed to push aside the rain and thunder. A fresh wind of realization, pure and light, rose in Cal’s heart. She was yelling at him because she was jealous. Cal felt a dumb grin spread on his face.
“Don’t smile at me, Cal. I can’t bear it.”
“No,” Cal said, softly now. “You don’t understand, Tiff. I thought you were mad at me.”
“I am mad at you!”
“Well, I know, but for the wrong reason. Listen, Tiff, when I was talking about wanting a new life, I wasn’t talking about leaving here.”
Tiffany sat very still. She inclined her head, as if waiting for the rest of his thought, and then she followed Cal’s gaze.
Cal had stopped paddling. He’d seen something onshore.
“Tiff, are those buoys?”
Lightning crackled and illuminated the right shoreline. The canoe seemed to be drifting beside a string of large floating orbs, like calf tanks, Cal thought, but red. Cal had envisioned arriving perpendicular to the line of buoys, not alongside it. Lightning flashed again, and the line of buoys arced out into the center of the river, where they seemed to attach themselves to a rock outcropping. To the outcropping’s left, where the canoe was headed, lay the channel, and beyond the channel rose the high rock face of the peninsula.
“That’s the island?” asked Cal, nodding toward the small outcropping. He had a sinking feeling in his stomach. He didn’t like the thought of being confused by buoys that were supposed to warn him of a killer waterfall. He began looking around for the boys and their raft.
“Cal!” Tiffany pointed toward the far left shore. A post emerged from the shallows, with a slack cable dragging a single buoy that bumped against the rocks. Cal looked back at the rock outcropping, where the line of buoys now clearly clung, snagged because the rope was cut. He started backpaddling furiously.
“Cal?”
“That outcropping is not the island,” he said, nodding at the rock, now twenty yards downstream to their right. “That’s the island!” he said, jerking his head toward the cliff face. Directly ahead of them, the horizon of the falls became clear. Cal could hear the rumble of it now and cursed himself for missing it. He leaned into his paddle strokes. It was too late to make it to the main island, or the mainland. It was either make the outcropping or go over the falls.
Tiffany didn’t need prompting. She knelt in the bottom of the canoe, faced upstream, and dug the water with both hands. It was too late to try to turn the canoe. Their only hope of making the rock was to beat upstream at an angle, try to ferry over to the rock.
Cal pushed and pushed, leaned and sat up, felt his blade thrum with each stroke. They were ten yards off the falls now, and the river thundered more loudly than the sky. The gorge boomed and hummed. This was no small hole in the river.
“Keep paddling!” Cal yelled. He glanced at Tiffany. She wasn’t looking back at the falls. She was all in, digging forward, upstream, for her life.
“Keep paddling!” Cal yelled again, if only to himself. In a moment he’d be able to reach out and touch the outcropping with his paddle. They were that close. He focused on a few more strokes. He pushed down. He sat up. He wrenched the water. He spotted a handhold, a crack in the rock. He dropped his paddle and slapped both hands against the wet rock, curling his fingers into the fissure. Knees hooked inside the stern of the canoe, he felt the force of the river stretch his arms and back. The bow, with Tiffany, pointed itself toward the lip of the falls. The canoe banged against the rock, Cal’s body its only tether. Beneath his armpit, Cal could see Tiffany grasping the gunwales, reaching out toward the rock, jounced by the current.
“Jump!” Cal shouted. The force of the water wracked his joints. His shoulders and torso burned. “Jump now!” he screamed in desperation. He felt his strength fading fast.
The canoe swayed out from the rock when she leapt. The canoe felt lighter, and the current swung its empty hull back into the rock again. Cal looked down to see the empty bow dangling over the void. A sickening feeling came. He couldn’t see her. His own grip was about to fail. He was about to call out when he saw movement, a white and green running shoe scratching its way up to safety. I am going up, he thought. One chance.
Cal dug his fingers into the fissure as deeply as he could. He let his knees unfold, and as soon as he did, the canoe shot out from beneath him, leaving his legs skimming on the black water. Cal was startled by how quickly the canoe rocketed into oblivion. Now he dangled in that same thrum of current, trying to pull himself up onto the rock. He tucked his knees. His hard boot slipped against the wall. His legs plunged back into the current, and he thought for an instant that he’d lose his grip. Pain seared his shoulders. He looked at his hands. He looked at the falls. He had only a few seconds more, he knew, and then he’d have to let go. He lifted his socked foot this time. It gained purchase, enough to help him cling a moment longer.
He rested his forehead against the
