another chute. It was fast, very fast, suddenly a smoother ride than any of Spike's musher sleds on sleek snow with his huskies barking. He imagined he heard them now, heard voices in the roar of the current, heard a woman's screams, but it was all in his head.
After the second twist of the gorge, he saw her again, pinned against a busher--a fallen tree--caught like a salmon in a Yup'ik fish wheel. Danger! Bushers were deadly, because they could trap a kayak or smash its thin plastic hull to bits.
But he had to risk it and go after her. Maybe they could climb out onto the tree, make it to the rock ledge. Was she moving? She'd have to be hypothermic by now, but could it be even worse? The power of the water pinning her there must be brutal.
He tried to edge in next to her, but the kayak corkscrewed and the current capsized him. Praying he wouldn't hit his head on the trunk or a submerged rock, he held his breath as he went under. The frigid slap of water shocked him, and made him fear for Lisa even more.
"Eskimo roll!" He heard his uncle's voice, clear and crisp. "Paddle thrust, body twist! Up! Over and up!"
He fought to keep from panicking. His lack of helmet could kill him, too. Upside down, with his body submerged but buoyed by his PFD, he lifted his paddle above the water with both hands out, then swept his torso and paddle while he snapped his hips up. The rotation worked, though the thrust of the current slammed the kayak sideways against the tree trunk again, jarring his teeth as he shook his head and upper body like a dog to get the water off. The entire craft shuddered.
He sucked in a huge breath. Despite the warmth of the air and sun, he felt as if he was rolling in snow. Five feet away from him, Lisa lay sprawled, unmoving, draped over the tree trunk like a drenched rag doll, apparently not breathing as the water crested in white plumes over and around her back. At least it had stopped her before the rest of the sharp turns and then the series of small falls a couple of miles beyond. And, thank God, she was upright with her shoulders and head out of the water.
He tried to brace himself with the paddle to get close enough to at least touch her, pull her down into the kayak or get them both out onto the tree. But when he took another stroke, the washing-machine effect of the churning river flipped him back under again.
Christine Tanaka occasionally glanced out the kitchen window of the lodge, but she kept cutting smoked salmon strips with her small, sharp ula. She was readying plates of appetizers for their guests from Mitch's old law firm--his job in his past life, as he liked to put it.
"Iah, don't say it that way!" she'd told him more than once. "It sounds like you're a ghost come back from the dead!"
But really, Mitch could do no wrong in Christine's eyes, including the fact he mispronounced her name in her Yup'ik tribal language when he called her Cu'paq. It was a tough language for a kass'aq, with its clacking sounds deep in the throat. But it always sounded like Mitch was saying Cupid, that little winged spirit who zinged arrows into people to make them fall in love. She knew too much about that and how dangerous it could be. But the thing with Mitch was he honored her people and was trying hard to become an Alaskan. She loved him for that and for so much more.
She jumped at the deep voice behind her and turned off the Yup'ik radio broadcast she often listened to in the summer when she worked, just to hear the language of her kin. One long, beaded earring snagged in her thick, shoulder-length hair, and she tugged it free.
It was Jonas Grant, the tall, African-American lawyer here with the Bonners. He was one of the attorneys vying for the senior partner position that used to belong to Mitch.
"Mind if I come into your kitchen?" he asked, holding the swinging door ajar. "Tell you the truth, I'm starved, and Mitch told us to see you if that was the case. All this fresh air or my jet lag's making me hungry."
She was surprised she hadn't heard him come in because she had sharp ears and usually