Knifepoint (7 page)

Except he's been killed now.

The Widowmaker took care of that.

When I can't hear the thunder of the rapids anymore, I lift my head and look around. I scan the riverbank for some sign of horses or hikers, but I see none. I guess there wasn't an eleven o'clock ride after all. Or maybe Carrie and Laura are still asleep and the guests are just hanging around the corral, waiting for the wranglers to show up and start their day. Jeez. To think I was so stressed out about having to round up a piddly bunch of horses on my own this morning! It suddenly strikes me as funny, and I laugh.

When I catch sight of a couple of rafts around a bend in the river ahead, I laugh at that too. There are just two, big and blue and full of helmet-clad people squirting water guns at each other in the July sunshine. They're coming onshore so they can enjoy lunch beside the river. Their voices drift toward me on the mellow breeze.

Calmly, as though I haven't just been chased through the woods by a foaming-at-the-mouth madman, as though I haven't just escaped being murdered and chopped into a billion tiny pieces, as though I haven't just gone to hell and back in the freezing waters of the Sawtooth River, I call to them.

“Hey! Hi!”

The group turns toward me. Blue suits and yellow helmets, like some sort of rubberized army. They scan the water, searching to pinpoint the source of my voice, so unexpected.

“Hi!” I say again. I paddle toward them. They stare. I can't figure out what else to say. I can't think of how to start this conversation, how to tell them what I've just been through.

Seeing that I have no life jacket, several men have waded quickly out into the water. I smile at their chivalry, their instinctive desire to keep me safe from the treachery of the cold water.

If only they knew.

One of them reaches out to me with the butt of his paddle. I grab it with my frozen hands and drift in to the shore, comforted by its smooth plastic shaft.

I must look pretty rough, because no one scolds me for being out in the river without a life jacket.

“You're okay now,” says one middle-aged guy who could be my own dad.

He's watching my face carefully. His voice is soothing. “You're here. We've got you. You're okay.” He helps me out of the water, helps me limp up onto the grass where the paddlers were planning to have their lunch.

“Jeez, you're a mess,” says another.

“Why are you out in this river by yourself? Where's your boat?”

They look around at each other, out at the water. Everyone's talking at once, excited and worried and wanting to help. My teeth chatter. I try to smile but I think it ends up being more of a frozen sneer.

A woman brings a blanket and puts it around my shoulders. “Honey, tell us what happened to you,” she says. Her warm voice starts my body shivering.

I chatter and shiver and shake my head, unable to speak. She draws me closer.

Another paddler rubs my back. One of the guides sets about examining my knee through my torn jeans. Another pours me a cup of hot chocolate from a thermos.

I lean against the blanket lady and shake.

“Jill!” A familiar voice cuts through the group's murmuring. I look behind me, toward the path. James is sitting astride his horse, looking both arrogant and worried at the same time. “What the hell? Are you okay? Your horse came running back to the barn with her saddle spun. What's going on?”

Before I can answer him—or swear at him or tell him I quit or laugh at the absurdity of all this help suddenly appearing just moments after I could have really used it—a shout goes up from another of the guides.

“Hey, you guys!”

He's calling from farther up the shore. Our heads all swivel to look.

He's walking quickly down the beach toward the group, holding up something brown for everyone to see. He's young, maybe my age. “Look what washed up just below Hell's Gorge. Is this freaky or what?”

In his hand he holds a leather case.

In his other hand a gleaming knife. He brings it over so everyone can have a good look.

Everyone except me. I don't look at the knife. Why would I? I've seen it enough. I hug the blanket closer.

“Honey,” says the woman who's holding me. She holds my shoulders, her soft brown eyes looking steadily into mine. She kind of looks like my mum. “Why don't you just start at the beginning?”

Do I have enough words for this?

Will I ever?

I take a deep breath and begin to talk.

Alex Van Tol is a freelance writer in Victoria, British Columbia.
Knifepoint
is her first novel. Visit her in the electronic ether at
alexvantol.com
.

orca s
o
undings

978-1-55469-296-5 $9.95 pb
978-1-55469-297-2 $16.95 lib

BRENDAN, CAPTAIN OF THE BASKETBALL
team, has it all—good friends, a beautiful girlfriend and a loving family—until he is diagnosed with leukemia. Terrified and convinced that no one understands what he is going through, Brendan faces chemotherapy alone, until he meets Lark. She is also in treatment, although her condition is much worse, and yet she remains positive and hopeful. Brendan is torn between feeling sorry for himself and the love for life that Lark brings to even the simplest thing. Through Lark, he discovers the strength to go on, to fight for survival and to love.

orca s
o
undings

978-1-55469-332-0 $9.95 pb
978-1-55469-333-7 $16.95 lib

LUCAS AND HIS FATHER ARE NOT CLOSE.

In fact they hardly see each other, which is just fine with Lucas. When he travels to the remote fishing lodge his father manages, Lucas is left once again, this time with a lodge worker, a girl named Sumi. She makes it pretty clear that Lucas is on his own. But she does take him fishing and seems to be warming up to him. Then, in a horrible sequence of misjudgments, Sumi is shot in the foot. With no radio and no phone, Lucas and Sumi are truly alone. Fog rolls over the islands and it's up to Lucas to get Sumi to medical help, a day's journey by boat up the inlet.

o
rca s
o
undings

978-1-55469-364-1 $9.95 pb
978-1-55469-365-8 $16.95 lib

WHEN DANIEL ENTERS A CONVENIENCE
store on a secret mission, he doesn't expect to run into anyone he knows. That would ruin everything. And when Rosie enters the same store to see what her father wants, she's hoping to make a quick getaway with her waiting boyfriend.

All Daniel and Rosie want is to get in and out without any trouble. Neither expects what happens next. A masked man enters the store.

“This is a stickup,” he announces. He has a gun and isn't afraid to use it. When he's ready to leave, he decides to take Rosie hostage.

And then things get complicated…

Titles in the Series

o
rca s
o
undings

Back

Norah McClintock

Bang

Norah McClintock

Battle of the Bands

K.L. Denman

Big Guy

Robin Stevenson

Blue Moon

Marilyn Halvorson

Breathless

Pam Withers

Bull Rider

Marilyn Halvorson

Bull's Eye

Sarah N. Harvey

Cellular

Ellen Schwartz

Charmed

Carrie Mac

Chill

Colin Frizzell

Comeback

Vicki Grant

Crush

Carrie Mac

The Darwin Expedition

Diane Tullson

Dead-End Job

Vicki Grant

Death Wind

William Bell

Down

Norah McClintock

Exit Point

Laura Langston

Exposure

Patricia Murdoch

Fastback Beach

Shirlee Smith Matheson

First Time

Meg Tilly

Grind

Eric Walters

Hannah's Touch

Laura Langston

The Hemingway Tradition

Kristin Butcher

Hit Squad

James Heneghan

Home Invasion

Monique Polak

House Party

Eric Walters

I.D.

Vicki Grant

Impact

James C. Dekker

In the Woods

Robin Stevenson

Jacked

Carrie Mac

Juice

Eric Walters

Kicked Out

Beth Goobie

Knifepoint

Alex Van Tol

Learning to Fly

Paul Yee

Lockdown

Diane Tullson

Masked

Norah McClintock

Middle Row

Sylvia Olsen

My Time as Caz Hazard

Tanya Lloyd Kyi

No More Pranks

Monique Polak

No Problem

Dayle Campbell Gaetz

One More Step

Sheree Fitch

Overdrive

Eric Walters

Pain & Wastings

Carrie Mac

Picture This

Norah McClintock

Plastic

Sarah N. Harvey

Reaction

Lesley Choyce

Refuge Cove

Lesley Choyce

Responsible

Darlene Ryan

Riley Park

Diane Tullson

Rock Star

Adrian Chamberlain

Running the Risk

Lesley Choyce

Saving Grace

Darlene Ryan

Scum

James C. Dekker

Sea Change

Diane Tullson

Snitch

Norah McClintock

Something Girl

Beth Goobie

Spiral

K.L. Denman

Sticks and Stones

Beth Goobie

Stuffed

Eric Walters

Tell

Norah McClintock

Thunderbowl

Lesley Choyce

Tough Trails

Irene Morck

The Trouble with Liberty

Kristin Butcher

Truth

Tanya Lloyd Kyi

Wave Warrior

Lesley Choyce

Who Owns Kelly Paddik?

Beth Goobie

Yellow Line

Sylvia Olsen

Zee's Way

Kristin Butcher

Hit Squad

James Heneghan

Home Invasion

Monique Polak

House Party

Eric Walters

I.D.