Breaking Point

thunder.

34
    SAVAGE RUN CANYON PUSHED IN ON THE NARROW RIVER, which pinched the flow of water and speeded it up. Joe looked frantically right and left, looking for a place they could lay up so he could detach from the craft and scout ahead, but there were no banks—only slick vertical walls.
    Ahead, the river narrowed in even more, and Joe couldn’t see beyond a sharp V of rock a hundred yards ahead of them. Beyond the V there was no sign of the river in the distance. Which meant it dropped sharply in elevation.
    “Oh, man,” Butch said.
    Joe tried to climb up the side of the log to get a glimpse of what was in front of them, but when he did he nearly tipped Farkus into the water.
    “Have you ever heard of Middle Fork Falls?” Joe shouted above the growing roar.
    Butch looked over with fear in his eyes. “No.”
    “I haven’t, either,” Joe said. “So maybe it’s just a drop or rapid ahead and not a waterfall.”
    “What should we do?” Butch shouted.
    The river seemed to rise and bunch up with coiled power, as if it were gathering to propel them through the V. The walls on both sides shot by. Joe tentatively dropped his left boot to gauge the depth of the river, but he couldn’t touch bottom.
    “Keep us in the middle and hold on tight,” Joe said. “Shout if it looks like we’re going to hit something.”
    Butch nodded frantically, then turned to face the V as they powered into it.
    Joe shouted into Farkus’s ear:
“Wake up, Dave, and hold on.”
    Farkus raised his head, looked ahead, and screamed.
    —
    T HE FIRST SENSATION as they plummeted through the V was of exploding sunshine and weightlessness. The bow of the log was suspended in the air for a moment, and when Joe glanced up the length of it, he saw not river but treetops. Then it tipped and plunged.
    There was a Middle Fork Falls after all, and the log rode it almost straight down in a twenty-foot drop. Joe could do nothing other than wrap his arms around the trunk and press his face into the slick wood. The momentum of the plunge knocked his legs back until they were parallel with the log itself, and they knifed into a deep pool below—immense silence, again—before floating back to the surface.
    Joe did a quick inventory. Butch Roberson was sputtering and choking on water, but had held on. Farkus was moaning and had slipped over to Joe’s side, so Joe shoved the man back up on top and in balance.
    While he did, Joe almost didn’t notice that the log was once again picking up speed.
    “Jesus—look what’s ahead,” Butch yelled.
    Farkus shouted, “I’m holding on!”
    Joe swung around and could see the river. It was a terrible sight. From where they were until the river finally made a sharp bend to the left a quarter-mile below, it was angry white foam punctuated by rocks. The pitch of the river dropped steadily toward the bend below. Joe could detect no theme to the river, no central current or deeper passage where they could safely avoid the hazards. It was as if the river itself was being fed down a rocky chute.
    Joe swung himself around back into position and got his feet out ahead of him. He craned his head up to look for deeper water—the darker, the deeper—and he judged by the speed they were going they’d be literally on top of navigable water before they could see it. Running the rapids would demand split-second adjustments.
    “I’ll call it out if I can,” Joe said. “If you get thrown off, just lean back in the current and keep your feet out in front of you.”
    “Gotcha,” Butch hollered. “Take us through it, Captain!”
    Joe almost smiled.
    —
    T HEY FLEW DOWN the rapids like a pinball bouncing from post to post, bumper to bumper. Joe called out,
“Left, left, right, left, right-right-right! Left, left, right . . .”
    All senses on high, Joe didn’t think; he saw and reacted and yelled. The nose of the log swung from side to side to avoid rocks, sometimes riding up the side of a boulder for a moment before settling back down in the current. The chutes between the rocks were so narrow he banged his knees and thighs on them as they caromed down, and Joe’s left knee hit a boulder so hard he felt the impact all the way into his hip socket. His left leg was so numb he actually glanced down immediately after the impact to see if it was still attached. It was.
    Halfway down the rapids, Farkus regained consciousness and raised his head. When he saw what they were in the middle of, he shrieked and clung