The River (17 page)

22

He followed me up the trail to the timberline. Petunia was there, sprawled underneath the Winnebago. Traitor. Where had she been when I was careening down the hill for my life? Some guard dog she turned out to be.

Keith opened the back door to the mobile home and thrust me in ahead of him, announcing, “Hey, guys, look what I found!”

Two people looked up and glared. I recognized both of them. One was wearing a Hawaiian shirt and had gray hair pulled into a ponytail. That was Keith’s stepdad and Mrs. Kinyon’s boss, Phil LaMarr. The second guy was Robbie Markle, another kid from school. He was a skate punk, kind of like Keith, but without Keith’s savoir faire. He was short and round through the middle. I always thought of him as Barney Rubble to Keith’s Fred Flintstone.

Phil scowled. “Well well well,” he said. “What are we supposed to do with this?”

Something unsaid passed between Keith and Phil. They were going to kill me, they were just debating how. My mind raced with terror. BADOOMBADOOMBADOOMBADOOM. Then I thought I heard Karen’s voice running through my head.

Look, Ronnie, just look.

Man, this place was disgusting. Aside from the noxious smell there was the orange shag carpet caked with bits of things, cigarette butts, moldy bits of old meals, and used condoms. Somebody had been having sex in this vile place, and unfortunately I had a good idea who.
Gretchen, what have you done
?

Every surface was cluttered. There were filthy pans piled in the sink and on countertops, layers of week-old mac and cheese still in evidence. The only surface that wasn’t completely covered with gunk was a kitchen counter where a hot plate was plugged in. On top of it was a beaker, giving off heat and that awful industrial smell that had polluted the whole Santiam National Forest.

“I thought we might keep her around for a while first,” Keith said, stroking my arm.

“Keith,” Phil rasped. “This isn’t a good idea. This one has people who care about her. They’ll come looking.”

“Gretchen has people who care about her, too. So did Karen,” I said.

Phil didn’t have any reply for that.

Look, Ronnie, just look.There are spaces between them. Silences that can be widened.

The door was behind me, the only person between it and me was Keith, and Keith’s eyes were poofy slits, so his vision couldn’t be good. If I could get him to loosen his grip, I might be able to make it off this mountain.

I stepped down hard on Keith’s foot. He let go of me, briefly. “You bitch!” he yelled, and grabbed me before I’d made it two paces to the door.

“Get her!” Robbie yelled.

Phil opened a drawer in the kitchenette and pulled out a length of rubber tubing.

Keith slammed me headfirst into a table. I saw stars.

“Keep her arm steady!” There were two of them keeping me bent over the table now. Keith over my back and Robbie holding my arm out, tying something tight above the elbow. The circulation below my shoulder stopped. This was how Gretchen got gangrene.

They flipped me over, Keith pressing his whole body against me, even rubbing his crotch against mine. “Shh…,” he kept saying, as if that would make a difference. He was going to help kill me and it excited him. I had no idea a person could be so sick.

“This is the best way to go. You’ll see.”

I arched my back and screamed in raw animal pain.

Boom
! The back door slammed open and there she was. I’d gotten so used to her as a cupcake, I’d forgotten that there was a menacing side to her as well, and this was it. Her lips were curled back into a growl, revealing her pointy canine teeth. She still had on the goofy lampshade but behind it her hackles were high and pointy as porcupine quills.

As we stayed there immobile, my elbow brushed against something bulky on my side. My Bat Utility Belt. The cell was gone, but it was equipped with something else. I just needed a little more wiggle room.

“Petunia!” I screeched. And that did it. She charged for Keith’s calf, sinking her teeth into it and worrying it like a rawhide bone. Keith screamed and let go of me. At the same moment, I brought out the mace and sprayed it on whoever was near. Phil got the most of it, but Robbie got some as well.

I didn’t wait. I ran.

Behind me, I heard Keith yell to Robbie, “Get the gun!”

I didn’t even try to get my footing on the way down the hill. Branches and rocks pulled at me and tripped me. I had to get to the rowboat. My life depended on it. I was spry as a mule deer.

Behind me, I heard the pounding of four paws. Petunia had gotten free and was catching up. Atta girl! I thought. Then there was a loud bang! that stopped me cold.

I whipped my head around in time to see Petunia jump up and sideways in an unnatural way.
Kay-yay! Kay-yay!
I went a few steps to get her but stopped because right behind her was Keith holding a pistol which he was now pointing at me.

Bang! Something whizzed past my head. I ducked and kept going. I had to get away. I was in earshot of the river.
Run, Ronnie, run!
it cried.

I heard shouts coming from all around me. “Over here! This way!”

Then I was at the shore, pulling back the cedar branches. The boat was still there, tied to a stake where I’d left it. I fumbled with the rope, muttering under my breath.
Comeoncomeoncomeon
… but it was no use. My fingers were too wet and I’d tied the knot too tight.

There was crashing through the bushes behind me. He was getting close. So I gave up on the ropes and sprinted downstream. Another option gone.

Run, Ronnie, run!
the river urged.

There was another
bang
! and the whole world exploded.

Some people say that when you get shot you don’t feel it right away. But I did. Something that definitely was not brambles had hit my leg hard and sent waves of pain through my entire body. I cried out and went down fast. I gripped my calf, which was all bloody and felt like it was on fire. But just as bad as the pain was the fear that this wasn’t yet the worst of it—that the worst was chasing me, bloody-eyed, through the undergrowth.

And then the river stopped urging me to run. Maybe I’d lost too much blood and was going into shock, but I thought I could see water splashing up against the banks, and it took the shape of a woman who dissolved into spray then reformed with each splash. A woman who wasn’t crying but was smiling at me, her arms open wide, ready to embrace me.
Come, Veronica. It will be easy. You won’t feel a thing.
And at that moment, surrendering to that embrace didn’t seem like such a bad option, especially if I didn’t go alone.

I now knew what I had to do. Maybe the river would take me, too, and maybe it wouldn’t. I didn’t know. All I knew was that it had its own kind of justice, and that it needed me to extend its reach.

I pulled myself up behind the Douglas fir. The river was behind me, eating at the banks.

And here came Keith running half-blind, carrying a pistol. I didn’t move; didn’t breathe. Everything depended on his not seeing me until it was too late.

He drew nearer. Ten yards. Five. Two. One. I let him get one footfall ahead of me, grabbed him from behind, and pulled us backward into the current.

Whoosh!
La llorona
did her part, sweeping us away as soon as we hit the cold. I let go of Keith and tried to get my head above water. I came up gasping, my lungs making an unnatural sucking sound. And then I went under again. I was above water long enough to see that log floating ahead with all the jagged branches sticking out. There was a scratch and I heard something break, I wasn’t sure if it was part of me or a branch.

I tried to grab hold but the log just rolled with me underneath. I pushed free and tried to surface. I opened my mouth and felt muddy water fill my lungs. I was drowning. But then at the last minute I was able to bob up.
Slam
! I impacted with something that wasn’t moving, something slick. Even as I tried to get a handhold and claw my way up, my legs started to drift to the side. I felt myself slipping down, but with a last effort was able to get my upper body over the rock and stay there.

All around me
la llorona
smiled and leaped and reached out to me with watery hands.

I thought I heard someone calling my name. Ronnie!

I told the river to shut up. It had me already.

Ronnie!

There it was again.

I looked up. There was Tomás standing on the banks, more solid than water. He was wearing his brace but his arm was out of it, so it looked like he had a white scarf draped around his neck, a bad fashion statement.

“Take my hand!” He was grasping a tree branch and leaning out in the current.

“Your collarbone!” I called back.

“Just take it!”
his voice was louder now, more shrieky and urgent. And with that, he let go and leaped in.

“Jesus!” I said. What an idiot. Didn’t he know he could get himself killed like that? I had to get him.

We reached each other halfway between the shore and the boulder. He grabbed my hand and pulled me to him. The two of us rode the current, up and down and up again. When I went under, we both went under.

“This isn’t working!” I yelled the next time we surfaced.

“I’m not letting you go!”

Then we stopped. Had he hit another rock? That couldn’t be it because slowly we began to make progress toward the shore.

I felt someone haul me up and slap me down on the grass. I looked up. I saw everything through a veil of rain but they were all there, muddy and wet, a human chain that didn’t break.
Red rover. Red rover. Send Ronnie on over.
There was Mom and Dad and Ranger Dave, Tiny, Sheriff McGarry, the Brads. And at the front, half submerged but still standing, his eyes darting with panic, was Mr. Armstrong.

One the bank, someone turned me on my side and whacked me on the back over and over again. I spat up what tasted like a gallon of muck.

“She’s been shot. Stanch the bleeding. Call 911.”

Mud and pebbles came trickling from my mouth.

“Other side,” I said. “Look for the rowboat.”

“It’s going to be all right, Ronnie,” I heard someone say. Then: “Get the damn ambulance!”

“Wait!” Evil Brad said, then leaned in close. “What did you say, Ronnie?”

I repeated myself. “Find the rowboat. Up to the timberline.”

I saw a look pass between the Brads. “We’re not going anywhere until the ambulance gets here,” Good Brad said.

I shook my head: no no no. “It’s a mobile home. They can just drive off.”

Dad broke the stare-down. “We’ve got her! Go!”

The Brads sprinted upstream. “They shot Petunia,” I tried to call after, but Tomás hushed me as his mom had hushed him last night. “
Ya, gordita
,” he said, cradling my head in his lap. “
Ya ya ya
.”

I felt someone tie something off my leg just above my knee and there were pinpricks and stars all over—especially in front of my eyes. Off in the distance I thought I heard wailing. But it wasn’t
la llorona
this time—it was sirens.

“Is that for me?”

“I hope so,” Tomás said.

The sirens, instead of growing louder, grew fainter. I felt as though I were going under. Before I blacked out completely I saw something drift past us in the current—could have been a branch, could have been an arm. But it had to have been a branch because nobody moved to pull the arm out.

Mr. Armstrong watched it drift by.

Tomás just gripped me tighter.