Heat Wave (14 page)

“The other year,” Nikki says between handfuls of granola, “a family was here, just like this. Dad turned his back for a second to get out food and the kids got too close to the shore. The wave swept them out. Bless him, he swam right in the waves after them and got them.”

“They made it out?” I ask.

“Eventually,” Logan says. “They couldn’t get back to shore. See the cliff right there? Around the corner is a small cave. He shoved his kids in there. Saved their lives. Hung onto the edge of the rock walls. The rescue boats came but it took a while—it’s six miles to the nearest harbor. And there’s no signal or reception out here so someone has to run back on the trail all the way to Ke’e Beach to get help. When the boats came, it was too rough and dangerous for them. Finally, two firefighters on one of the boats decided to swim for them. Took forty-five minutes for each person to be rescued. Fucking miracle. And that wasn’t a case of being negligent. It just happened. But those folks over there,” he says, pointing at the people by the water. “Are pushing their luck.” He looks at his watch. “And we might be too. Five more minutes. I thought I heard thunder a few moments ago. Wind is picking up.”

All of us look up to the mountain ranges behind us and the dark clouds that are swooping darker through the valleys. The wind is steadier now, colder and wet.

I finish my bar and dried mangos and slide my shoes on, hypnotized by the violent waves down by the shore, when I hear Logan mutter, “Shit.”

“What?” Daniel asks.

I look over at Logan. He’s staring off at the area where the stream runs across the beach before it’s swallowed up by the ocean. “It’s changed,” he says. “The stream is running brown.”

Just then, someone in the distance yells, “It’s rising, it’s rising, everyone out!” While someone else yells. “Flash flood!”

“Fuck,” Nikki swears as we all quickly get to our feet.

“What’s happening? Flash flood?” I ask with wide eyes.

Logan nods. “We have to hurry. Grab your stuff, we’re running.”

Oh my god. I pick up the backpack and hurry after them as we scamper over the rocks heading back to the stream.

There’s a backlog of people there at the stream’s edge on both sides. The stream is barely recognizable. It’s no longer clear, but brown and growing and seems to be getting higher and wider right in front of my eyes. The rocks people were crossing over earlier are nearly submerged, and people are still trying to cross over them.

“What happens if we can’t cross?” I ask Logan.

“We’re stuck here overnight. Might have to be helicoptered out.”

“Hey they have a rope,” Daniel says pointing to a guy who has tied a long rope around one tree and now is crossing the rocks with it. “He’ll tie it on the other side. You can cross by hanging on.”

“I don’t know,” Logan says warily and just as he does so, the sky opens up and rain starts to fall. “We have to go now if we’re going to go.”

“I’m going,” Daniel says. “Otherwise there’s no bartender for tonight and I’m not giving up the tips.” He makes his way to the swollen banks and grabs onto the rope after the guy has safely used it to cross the water. The rocks are now totally submerged and the water looks to be at least three feet high and moving faster and faster.

“Me too,” Nikki says, going after Daniel.

Logan looks at me. “Get on my back. It will at least save your phone.”

I look down at the stream. Everyone is steadily crossing using the rope. No one is getting a piggy-back ride.

“I’ll keep it in my hat,” I tell him and I quickly take out my phone and slide it in under my baseball cap.

He stares at me, the rain dripping down his face. A few beats pass and I can’t figure out what he’s deciding. Then he nods, once. “Okay. You’re going first, I’ll be behind you.”

“Hurry up!” Daniel yells at us. He’s made it to the other side and is helping Nikki out of the water.

And I’m trying to hurry. I get to the edge and then it’s like I freeze. I can’t see the bottom of the stream, it’s just this swirling, brown, depthless water that’s rushing past me, and even though there’s another woman in front of me using the rope, the water is already at her waist.

You can do it, hold onto the rope, keep your eyes on Daniel, and go
, I tell myself.

I grab the rope with shaky hands. It’s thin and slippery and nowhere near as sturdy as I thought. If anything, it’s loosened, creating a dangerous slack.

I look behind me at Logan. He picks up the rope, holding it taught, staring right into me. I can barely tear my eyes away from him to look at the rest of the people on our side of the shore. There’s about a dozen of us and they’re all waiting for me to hurry my fucking ass up and cross.

I take in a deep breath and start walking. The rocks are way more slippery, even though I’m crossing in my sneakers now and not my bare feet, and the current isn’t helping. I can literally feel it pulling at my legs, trying to drag me downstream, and every step I take is a struggle to keep going.

I’m going slow. I know I am. I can’t help it. I’m in the middle of the stream and now the water is at my chest and I’m starting to get that cold panic around my heart, the idea that I might not make it. The rope is starting move away from my fingertips, my arms are tired.

Daniel and Nikki’s faces, as well as the crowd behind them are out of focus, but I’m staring at them with all I have, afraid to look away. Nikki gestures with her hands for me to keep going.

And then someone behind me yells. “Hurry the fuck up, the rest of us have to make it!”

Fuck. That’s all it takes to jar me. I try and hurry but my leg goes to the side, to a hole, and I start falling into the stream, no ground beneath my left foot.

“Veronica!” I hear Logan yell, and then my fingers can’t hold on and I’m slipping.

It happens in a second.

I fall in with a splash. The water holds me, pulls me down, it’s up to my neck, I’m swept away in a dizzying circle, the world around me swirling into a blur as I’m rushed downstream in a cold whirlpool.

I’m going to die.

My back slams against a rock and I try and turn around to grab onto it, but my hands slip and then I’m bounced around again, the water rising over my head. I forget about my phone, forget about looking like a fool, I forget about everything except the fact that I’m going to die, swept out to sea.

I go over the edge of the waterfall and slam into a pool below, my body slapping into the rocks at the bottom before I’m raised above it by the current and pulled away again. I try and keep my head above the water but all I hear is the current in my ears, the pounding of my heart, all I see is brown water and bubbles and blue sky, until I’m turned around again and I see the pounding waves. The ocean is another drop away, waiting for me. Once I go over the edge of this pool and I’m swept out there, I know I won’t have it in me to fight. The waves will obliterate me.

But I have some strength left now.

As my side hits another rock, I reach out and grab it, using my legs to push off through the current until both arms are over the rock and I’m hugging it close to me, holding onto it for dear life as the current tries to rip me away.

“Help,” I try to yell but my voice is so weak, buried by the roaring waves and white water.

But I think I can hear something else above it. A muffled voice. A panicked voice.

Logan’s voice.

“Veronica!” he yells, and at that moment I realize how silly I’ve been to be mad at him for never calling me Ronnie. How dumb and trivial that was, how dumb and trivial everything was, my whole feud with him over Juliet. What was their business was their business, not mine. I’m going to die now and nothing else really mattered all this time.

“Veronica!” he yells again, closer now, and I manage to raise my head and see him scrambling over the rocks near the edge. I want to yell at him, to tell him to stay where he is, that he’ll be swept away too but I can’t. I can barely hold on.

He’s in the water now, the water rushing against his chest, but he’s strong and he’s solid and he’s immovable. His eyes are laced with a fear I’ve never seen before on him, that I’ve never seen on anyone. I feel like we’re both facing death head on.

“Hold on, just a few more seconds,” he says, his voice deep and commanding, yet shaking all the same.

He comes closer. Just feet away. He can almost grab me.

I start to slip. I have no strength left to grip.

“No!” he yells. “I’m not losing you, too! Hold on.”

I can’t.

I can’t.

I let go.

Just as he reaches out for me.

His hand wraps around my elbow, and with a roar of strength he pulls me toward him and out of the whirling pool and into the side stream.

“Hold onto me,” he says as his arm slips around my waist in a vice-like grip. My own arms are weak and shaking but he’s got me. He moves through the water, the stream rushing over my mouth at times until I’m spitting it out and then suddenly the water slackens. It’s at my chest, at my waist, at my thighs, and now Logan is dragging me onto the rocks on the side of the stream where it meets the beach.

He’s breathing hard, leaning over me. The rain falls into my eyes until I blink it away.

“Are you hurt?” he asks, running his hand over my head.

I close my eyes, not sure whether to say yes or no. I don’t know. I just want to breath, want to find my breath again, get that assurance that I’m alive.

There’s a rustling beside us and I’m aware of muffled, panicked voices.

“Someone’s running to get help.”

“Is she alive?”

“Anything broken?”

“Can the helicopters land in this wind?”

“That was a close call, that was such a close call.”

“I’m so sorry I yelled.”

I can’t pick out the voices, I know they all belong to the dozen people stuck here on this side. I know that none of them dared to cross after what happened to me.

“Give us a minute, please,” Logan says to them. I feel his hand on my forehead, touching it gently. “Veronica. Someone is going to get rescue. If the helicopters can make it, they’ll come get you out. They’ll take you the hospital.”

I shake my head softly. “No,” I croak. “I think I’m…I’m fine. Just bruised.”

“Regardless,” Logan says, “you need to be checked out. You could have a concussion.” He pauses, his fingers trailing down my cheek. “Dammit. Dammit, I thought I fucking lost you. I am so sorry.”

His voice sounds so broken, so unlike him, that I open my eyes and peer up at him.

“Don’t be sorry,” I tell him. “I’m the one who wanted to come on the hike. And I did it because I wanted to annoy you. Seems like it worked.”

He’s not smiling. “I shouldn’t have let you cross. I saw the water levels, I saw the current, I should have stopped you.”

“I would have gone anyway,” I tell him. “You like the stubborn girls.”

He frowns at me for a moment, his gaze intensifying. Then he nods, licking his lips. “I do. I do like the stubborn girls.”

I was joking. It was a bad joke. But now he’s answering me seriously.

“Anyway,” I say, unsure how to go on. I’m shaking over what happened, my body torn by the thrill of being alive and the fright of almost dying.

“Anyway,” Logan says. He lets out a soft breath of air. “If the rescue team can’t get us, we’ll be stuck here overnight. Believe it or not, it happens all the time.”

I swallow hard at the thought. I just want to go back to the hotel. Even a hospital bed wouldn’t be that bad. After all that just happened, the last place I want to be is here, overnight in the wet, soggy, and endlessly dangerous wilderness.

“If it comes to that, I’ll make us a shelter. If someone here was doing the whole trail, they might be able to lend us a tent. There’s a real sense of camaraderie here when this kind of thing happens. We’ll be okay. I’ve got food in my backpack. It’s a bit wet but it will dry out.” He pauses. “The worst is over. I’ll take care of you.”

I’m not sure that the worst is over. But the fact that he said he’ll take care of me, that’s warming my chest, easing the shivers that have been rocking through my body ever since he pulled me ashore.

Eventually I find the strength to sit up, then stand up. With Logan’s arm on me at all times, he leads me back over to the crowd. Everyone is super friendly and concerned and preparing for a night at the beach. The stream is still raging, even higher than it was earlier, which means that the rains won’t let up for a while and there’s no way we could cross it on our own until tomorrow.

The hikers on the other side of the water are almost all gone except for Nikki and Daniel. When they see me alive and on my own two feet, they literally jump up and down, hugging each other, before they turn and head back on the trail to go back to the hotel and tell everyone what happened.

It’s not long after they leave that a couple of rescue workers and a lifeguard from Ke’e appear on the other side, but with the water still raging, they can’t cross. There’s a lot of yelling back and forth over the stream as they tell us that we have to stay put. The helicopters are having trouble in the weather and none of the zodiacs can brave the surf. Unless the wind and rain ease up before nightfall, we have to prepare for a long night.