20C Sunny

In seconds he was swept past and beyond the crash site and was now in a struggle to stay away from the canyon walls.

  After the first fifteen minutes his confidence grew, the water was cold, but kicking and steering his unusual craft kept his mind busy and the blood coursing through his veins; then as he rounded a bend the dynamics of the river abruptly changed.  The granite walls remained but the river widened and shallowed; gone was the relatively silent smooth current, in its place a turbulent hell of white water; boulders jutted out of the water without pattern, other boulders were hidden beneath the surface only evidenced by waves of surging water over and around their surfaces. He plunged straight into the roiling boiling waters, powerless to do anything but hang on and to try and avoid being smashed and broken.  Four times his flimsy ‘wings’ bounced off rocks that protruded, twice he scraped his hips and legs across those that didn’t!  His vision was blurred from tears of pain and the cold spray when as he cleared one huge boulder he hit another full on with the leading edge of the cushions; his hands were mashed back into the fabric and he was flipped up and over, his numbed hands loosing their grip.  The cushions released of his dragging weight quickly accelerated then were dragged short as the tether rope attached to his belt snapped taut.  He reached for the rope but his hands, numb and bleeding wouldn’t close tight enough to allow him to pull the cushions back together.

  He floated on kicking and following behind the bobbing ‘wings’ then suddenly he was through the maelstrom, the granite walls closed once more and the river once again became silent and deep.  Once more he tried to close the short gap to the cushions and this time succeeded.  He worked his way back into the ‘V’ of the wings and rested, just floating along.  Suddenly he realized he had been shivering violently for several minutes, he realized the cold water was taking its toll and now he had a second enemy to contend with.  He struggled further up onto the ‘wings’ then started to slowly kick his feet and paddled with his arms.  He drifted on and on.

  He came to another bend and as he approached it his heart sank, he realized he was much weaker, his hands were still numb, he didn’t know if he could go through the same ordeal again and survive.  Then he mumbled, “What the hell, I don’t have any choice, I’ll just make damn sure I don’t collide with any more of those big buggars”.

  Noise increased as he approached the bend signaling the approach of more rapids.  He rounded the bend and there indeed was another stretch of white water but it appeared to be only a few hundred yards long, beyond it appeared that the river widened even more and he thought he could see a stretch of beach or a bar.

  He and his craft sailed into the surge, the glimpse he had caught of beach rock sent a surge of adrenalin through his body and with increased vigor he avoided contact and within a few minutes found himself bumping along on a wide shallow river bed.

  He maneuvered himself to the right side of the river, he didn’t know whether it was east west or south, but he knew that the direction he had to travel would be from that side. 

  Finally he was in shallow water, the current barely tugging, he tried to stand and walk but was too tired, too cold and too stiff.  He rolled off the cushions and crawled out onto a gently rising sand and gravel beach.  He continued crawling for several yards, he raised up to look around, granite cliffs were some distance away and then suddenly he realized that not only was it not raining at all, the sky wasn’t overcast, there was broken cloud and sun rays could be seen shining on the distant cliffs.

  He rolled over to a sitting position, laboriously he stripped his clothes off, he opened the pack and took out Fred’s clothes, they were as wet as the ones he had just removed.  He slowly rang out as much water as he could and slowly redressed himself.  He spread out the remaining clothes and then finding a spot almost bare of rock lay back and fell a sleep in seconds.