The River - Peter Heller Page 0,65

done then? No logs even to make a raft. He hadn’t thought it through. They would have stood stunned on the narrow beach like castaways and watched a red sun rise on their own deaths.

Fuck. No way to truly reckon the odds, ever. They had been lucky. Was all this lucky?

They slept on the rocks, oblivious of the cold. At least the heat of the burn had dried their clothes and warmed their chilled bones. At the first touch of grainy light they slid the canoe to the water without a word and helped her in and she lay down against the bag and passed out. They shoved off and picked up the paddles. They could see their breath. In the gray dawn the river smoked with tendrils of mist. No wind, the water glass-smooth. No sound but the current frilling the stones of the bank. No bird chatter, no crickets. The river and the burns on either side were very still, the only movement there the tatters of flame worrying the biggest fallen logs. Jack said, “Big, we need fuel. Food. There won’t be any berries for miles is my bet.”

“Do you want to fish?” Thank God they’d broken down the rods and packed them in the bag.

“We’d better.”

“Okay. I’ll aim for the first creek.” Wynn picked up his paddle and put it down again. The boat was still gliding from their first strokes—the silent slip and freedom from land like flight that they both so loved. “That was really close,” he said.

“Yep.”

“I feel relieved,” Wynn said.

“Me, too. I do.”

Wynn opened his mouth to speak, had nothing to say. Jack was half turned on the bow seat, watching him. “I know,” Jack said. Wynn’s face was torn open by the burn and smeared with black and runneled pale where the tears ran. “I know. We did good,” Jack said. “We did.” Jack felt his own tears spring and he turned in the seat and began to paddle.

* * *

It was exhaustion, Jack thought. The tears. Hunger, exposure, exhaustion. How long could they keep this up?

* * *

One good thing: the man would have no cover. Not up here. Had he survived the fire? He’d had maybe a day lead and might have missed it altogether. But then who knew how far down the river the fire ran? For all they knew it went to the delta, the coast. What would stop it? But they had to assume he still lived. In the burn they’d be able to see him way before they got into shotgun range. They still had the rifle, thank God. If the scope hadn’t been knocked too badly they could drift and find him and pick their shot. Not they, Jack. Wynn would still not sanction the long-shot kill. Well, maybe he would now. Jack thought that it didn’t matter—he would hunt and snipe the man the first chance, and as long as Wynn didn’t fuck with him and try to unbalance the boat, he would kill him.

They paddled. The sun rose and burned almost crimson through the smoke that lay over the eastern horizon like a weather front, not even visible as sun until halfway to the zenith, and even then it was a hot red disk that looked more like some molten planet than a star. All along the cut banks were the scribed traces in damp earth where embedded roots had been, blackened and forking lines like some inscrutable calligraphy. The topography revealed was desolate. So much of the country had been covered in lichen and moss sometimes feet thick, and it had all burned away in the night, and the underbrush, the fireweed and willows, all that was left was seared dirt and bedrock, the black spears of trees, sepulchral, and without the woods there was the much longer view, the slight rising and falling of ground in every direction, the humps of eskers mostly bare of stumps, the folds where creeks had run, dry as if boiled off. Not fun, Wynn thought. The earth stripped to its geography did not feel like home.

There was still a handful of power bars in the day box and when Maia woke and sat up Wynn thumbed open the latches and fished out three and they each ate one. They drifted. The sugar in the blood felt almost like a cup of strong coffee and each felt suddenly more awake, alert. They were starving, for sure, Jack thought. He looked up and down