"I would have if you hadn't made everybody go at the same time!"
"We've done it that way for years, son."
"But I got kicked in the head!"
"I know."
"I was just treading water until the group passed me!"
"I'm sure you were, but we had to pull you out, so-"
" You did NOT have to pull me out! I told you I didn't need any help!"
"Then why did you grab the life preserver?"
"I didn't know it was gonna keep me from passin'!"
The lifeguard looked down at the fuming, scrawny redhead and sighed. "You didn't pass," he said.
"Let me take it again."
"Next test ain't 'til Friday."
"You just don't wanna wait another ten minutes for me to swim out there and back."
The lifeguard sucked something out of his teeth, unfolded his arms from across his chest and slapped his thighs. "Maybe if you take your shirt off, you'd float better. I'll see you at nine tomorrow morning for swim lessons." He turned and walked towards the dirt trail that lead back up to the campsites.
Dallas stood on the pier in his blue T-shirt and black swim trunks, dripping and trying desperately to think of something witty, smart-assed and brilliant to toss at the man's back. Nothing came and, soon, Dallas was alone on the lake. He turned and looked out to the dock about twenty yards out - a tiny square of wood slats on anchored styrofoam; like a raft that didn't move. That wouldn't have been a tough swim for him any day. But when that lifeguard, Brian, had blown the whistle, forty-five Boy Scouts had dived in and raced to the dock - after being expressly told beforehand that this was NOT a race. The bigger boys had quickly outdistanced the smaller ones and as the group literally swam over top of him, Dallas had been kicked and beaten down into the water. Remaining calm, he had let them pass over and then come back up. He had realized then, that the group would be racing back over him shortly, so he swam forward a little and then went under again, of his own volition, to let them pass over. When he came up, there was a life preserver nearby. He had yelled to the lifeguard out on the dock that he didn't need it, but the lifeguard kept saying "Take it! Take it!" So he had.
After all the other Scouts were out of the water, he was allowed to swim back to the pier. There, Brian dutifully informed him that, not only would he not get his swimming merit badge, he was being required to sign up for swimming as one of his three mandatory camp classes. Dallas had protested that he'd learned how to swim years ago, but Brian didn't care. He had a sing along to go to or something.
Dallas grabbed his shoes from out of the grass next to the pier and used his socks to dry his feet before putting them on. He was just about to start up the hill when his tent-mate appeared, slowly making his way back from the Trading Post with a canned soda in each hand. The hike between the tents, at the top of the mountain, and the Trading Post, at the bottom, was a long one. So, if a guy went for a soda, he bought two, because he'd drink one on the way back up.
Taylor Wilson's knees seemed to buckle in from the weight they were carrying as he shuffled up the road. His face was red from either strain or sunburn and he had soaked his Troop 64 uniform shirt with sweat just from the trip down the mountain. It clung to his jostling, swaying bulk as he dragged his feet to a halt. He cracked open a Cheerwine and chugged half of it, stopping only because he had to catch his breath. A few huffs of fresh, Georgia mountain air and a toe-curling belch gave Taylor the fuel he needed to speak again.
"How'd the swim test go?"
Dallas turned and walked up the road.
"What?" Taylor asked, shuffling to catch up. He couldn't let his only friend in the whole camp get away.
The other members of Troop 64 had all grown up together in the big houses around the downtown district and their troop leader, Mr. Oldsen, knew all of their parents from way back. These boys had been in scouts since childhood and considered it their own private club. They didn't even speak to "the new kids" if they could help it.
Back in March, Dallas had seen a commercial for the Scouts and been hooked on the idea of adventure and brotherhood. Taylor's mom had decided that her son desperately needed exercise at about the same time. They always shared a bus seat on field trips, sat next to each other in meetings and, here at camp, they were tentmates. If they wound up at the same high school in the fall, they'd probably eat lunch together.
"That bites," Taylor said, sitting on the old log at the Rest Stop, a point halfway up the trail between the Trading Post and the camp sites. Dallas stood near him and scanned the road. When he was sure nobody was coming, he peeled off his soaked T-shirt, making sure Taylor didn't catch sight of the little red heart tattooed on his left shoulder.
"Yeah, it does," he agreed, wringing the shirt out. A little mud puddle formed at his feet and ran back down the trail towards the lake.
Camp Will Huskins was beginning to suck pretty hard, in Dallas' opinion. Not only was it looking more like school, with classes and a cafeteria, but the instructors were obviously morons who had no interest in whether a scout could DO something already. They were going to teach you how anyway.
"At least it will be an easy merit badge," Taylor offered, eyeing his next soda.
"It'll be boring," Dallas said.
"Maybe he'll let you change classes, tomorrow."
Dallas doubted that. He got the feeling that the guy would never in his life admit to making a mistake. He'd go right through with the lesson - an hour a day for the next four days - and completely ignore the fact that his student already knew what he was doing. So much for adventure.
The scuffing of shoes turned the boys' attention to a scout from another troop making his way back from the Trading Post. Dallas slipped his damp shirt back on and stood aside to let the boy pass. In silence, the boy did so, nodding his thanks and breathing heavy from the uphill hike. He was just a bit taller and wider than Dallas- probably an athlete if his leanness wasn't caused by starvation- and, so, he blocked Dallas' view of Taylor for a moment. The boy's uniform proclaimed him a member of Troop 182 and sported a myriad of patches and several medals that Dallas had never seen before-the kind of things scouts get from businesses for organizing food drives and other real scout type stuff. Troop 64 was doing good just to call the meeting to order.
When Taylor came back into view, a wicked grin was stretched across his face. Dallas looked at him curiously, waiting for the boy from 182 to be out of earshot before he asked Taylor what was so funny. Taylor, however, spoke to the boy's back.
"Hey, man," he said.
The boy stopped and turned politely, inclining his head in question.
"You a PUSSY, man," Taylor said.
The boy's politeness disappeared into confusion. It was followed by annoyance and then, after taking a good look at Taylor, ire. He started towards the rotund scout, but Taylor's eyes flicked over to Dallas.
Dallas' eyes were wide, his mouth was open. He was staring at Taylor. When the other scout looked at him, he only looked back, still confused and shocked over the brazen attempt to inspire violence.
The other scout counted two to one odds and, eyeballing Taylor, turned and silently walked away.
"What the hell was that for?" Dallas asked.
"He's a pussy," Taylor said, cracking open his second Cheerwine.
"Do you know him or something?" Dallas asked, rephrasing the same question.
"No, but look at him."
Dallas stood silently for a moment. "You think if that boy had decided to jump on you, that I would've helped you?"
"He couldn't beat two to one."
"It wouldn' BE two to one, Taylor. YOU tried to pick a fight with that boy, not me."
"But you would'a helped me."
"No, I wouldn't, Taylor. I'm not gonna defend you against somebody YOU started a fight with by callin' him names. What were you thinkin'?"
Taylor looked genuinely hurt. "Well, I thought I had a fellow troop member here. We're supposed to stick together."
This was true, but skewed.
"Just don't do that again," Dallas said. He began the second half of the hike back up to the tents. Taylor moved (relatively) quickly to catch up.
* * * * *
It was this same boy and five other guys from his troop that Dallas and Taylor found themselves pitted against in the rafting race the next day.
Like the swimming test, the rafting race wasn't SUPPOSED to be a race. But, two boats full of boys starting from the same place at the same time, GOING to the same place will invariably awaken the primal instinct in homo erectus male for a proverbial pissing contest. Add to that the fact that the boy Taylor had reffered to as a "pussy" had obviously informed his equally large and athletic troop members of the exchange, and the breeze blowing down the Uckachoy River carried much more than the scents of hot pine and honeysuckle. It sparked and crackled, raising the peach fuzz on the young necks of Troop 64, with what Dallas could only think to call:
"Nuclear Testosterone." His words almost echoed over the calm of the lake, where the two teams sat in their rafts, staring at each other. In the back of Troop 64's boat, Brian, the lifeguard, laughed as he stuffed a map of the river into the hip pocket of his shorts. He was to be their Captain, using his oar as a rudder and calling out the steering commands "All Forward", "All reverse", "Left forward, right back."
The Eagle Scout/ councilor in the other boat was a long- haired (was that even allowed in Scouts?) bearded, no- shirt wearin', yet, somehow, extremely popular guy who was known only as Ketchup. He was the guy whose name got yelled out by all the other cool scouts whenever he stood up to speak at a gathering.
"Ketchuuuuuuuuuuuup!"
With Brian's "All Forward" command, Troop 64 set off first. The trip off the lake and into the river would force them to keep a single-file rank through a narrow, shallow channel for a bit, but once they hit the river, despite the Camp Supervisor's warnings and Ketchup's whispered tale of a drowned "Troop Oh- ninety-nine" at Cougar Rock Falls, the all-day ride down the rapids promised to be a grueling competition. Even though that is precisely what it wasn't.
Brian called the boat to a halt just before they got sucked into the Uckachoy's current.
"Anybody got ta' piss, now's the time. We ain't stoppin' for almost two hours to let you get out and swim. And, even then, fellas, please be considerate and make sure nobody's downstream of you when you do." The life guard eyed Dallas. "And keep your lifejackets on. You hear me, Red?"
Dallas nodded without looking at him. Brian had been calling him Red all morning at swim lessons. Dallas wanted to call him "Black", but that would have sounded dumb. He had hoped that the rafting class would provide some relief, but Brian was in charge of this one, too. What happened to the other five or six counsilors they got introduced to on the first day?
Troop 182 pulled up alongside Troop 64. Dallas noted that the "Pussy" was just outside oar's range of Taylor. Taylor, undoubtedly, was aware of this as as well, as he retied his shoes and pretended not to notice the daggers being stared into his back. Dallas saw the subtle nodding among the boys of 182 as they all decided to do something. He flicked his chin towards them to get Taylor to look, but Taylor wasn't fast enough. The oars dipped into the creek and slung cool, muddy water all over the big Boy Scout and Troop 64 in general.
"All forward!" Ketchup shouted. Troop 182 dipped their oars again, but this time, launched themselves into the river current and were out of range before Troop 64 could mount a counter- attack.
"What are you girls waitin' for!?" Brian yelled, wiping mud off his face. "All forward!"
And the race was on.
The Uckachoy began as a creek high in the Appalachian Mountains of South Carolina and wound it's way slowly southwest into Georgia. At a particular fork still relatively high in the mountains, part of the Uckachoy flowed into the headwaters of the Savannah river and ran non-stop into the ocean. The other part took a more roundabout path to sea level, crawling through the rocky gullies and diving down Cougar Rock Falls (a two hundred and thirty foot cliff, according to Ketchup) to get to the foothills. There, it's pace would slow, most of it would seep into the ground and some of it, eventually, would meet up with the Savannah closer to the ocean. Between the Savannah fork and Cougar Rock Falls was the landing they would pull over to at the end of the trip.
Taylor had argued that scouts would never be allowed to come so close to danger. Dallas had to agree, but did so silently, as Taylor had brought this up in front of the entire camp at the nightly bonfire immediately after Ketchup had told his story. So, Ketchup, too, had reasons to dislike the slothful scout and, by association, his tentmate.
Troop 182 and Ketchup kept the lead for the first hour. For the most part, the water was dead calm. Brian assured them this would all change in the second hour and ordered them to keep All Forward until otherwise instructed. Even when the water was placid and 182 was coasting through it, 64 paddled hard. But 182's scouts were just plain bigger, and their lead was easily maintained with a few quick, powerful strokes.
Once into the rapids, however, Troop 182's power- paddling had an adverse effect. They would overshoot the "sweet spots" that would carry them between the rocks that caused the rapids. As a result, they were constantly facing the wrong way and having to back paddle to un-lodge themselves. Troop 64, tiring from the steady All-Forward, managed to pull ahead and were the first to arrive at "The Swimmin' Hole", where they collapsed into the water and let their life jackets keep them afloat.
The Swimmin' Hole was a calm inlet off the the side of the river. The current was far weaker here than out on the river, so rafters could rest without worrying about being swept away. The bank rose seven or eight feet on the right to reach the asphalt road that led up to Camp Will Huskins. Several boys were trying to climb the steep embankment to do cannonballs when 182 coasted into the water, bumping Taylor with their raft.
"Look out for that Buoy Scout!" Ketchup called. 182 laughed in unison, like henchmen, then flopped into the water. Taylor barely had time to swim out of their way before they spread out.
Dallas and Taylor had both taken this opportunity to relieve themselves and, guessing that 182 would do the same, they quickly swam back over to their boat. Dallas cut through the water like a fish.
"One day of swimmin' lessons and you already got it," Brian said. "Damn, I'm good."
"I learned that apple- picker stroke when I was eight," Dallas said.
"Why don't you take that shirt off?" Brain asked by way of retort. "You DID bring suntan lotion, didn't you?"
He had, but he wasn't about to take his shirt off and expose his tattoo. He'd even worn red to mask the coloring. "No."
"You know, the Boy Scout motto is 'Be Prepared," Red."
The high- pitched groan of a struggling engine crawled up the mountain and dove into the inlet. The scouts waited patiently for whatever vehicle was climbing the mountain to pass them, so they could size up any new scouts. Eyes up, heads back and mouths open, they watched as a white, nondescript bus rumbled past them. It was full of chattering Girl Scouts who all ran to the windows when the boys came into view.
"Girl Scouts?" Ketchup asked no one in particular. "They turned too early."
Brian nodded. The bus disappeared behind some trees. Everyone looked at each other for a moment. "Pussy" flipped off Taylor and Dallas when they glanced at him. The brakes on the bus squealed, then hissed.
"Ah, shit," Ketchup said, rubbing his tanned chest. "They musta seen me."
The Girls Scouts could be heard squealing "Here! Stop! Here!" as the bus backed into view and, indeed, stopped on the girls' mark. The boys all waited patiently as the bus doors folded back and the driver emerged into the afternoon sun.
She was frazzled from the drive up the mountain in a hot bus full of chatty girls, but a few stray hairs escaping her long brown ponytail didn't stop every one of the boys' mouths from dropping open. They'd never seen a Girl Scout uniform fit like that. Most or maybe all of them had never seen a body like that inside one. She was in her late teens, maybe early twenties. Her tanned legs disclosed no nicks, cuts or anything short of perfection between her thighs and the hiking boots that covered her ankles. She was curvy, tanned, athletic, and no makeup attempted to hide the freckles underlining her brown eyes as they turned gold in the sunlight. A light sheen of sweat on her face and neck sparkled, lending her a jewel-like quality that stunned all of the boys and irked all the girls.
Ketchup and Brian dove head- first into the water and headed for the bank. The Girl Scout leader parted pink rose petal lips in a smile and crossed her arms under blessedly large breasts as the two Eagle Scouts half- emerged from the water and simultaneously greeted her.
"HHeeyy."
"Hey," she said back. "I knew I'd taken a wrong turn when we passed the landing, but how do we get to Martha Mayfield from here?"
Brian tut- tutted. "A girl scout that can't read a map... ought to... strip you of your merit badge for that one."
The girl ignored him. "So can I get there this way? Or do I have to back all the way down to the boat landing? Or turn around at Will Huskins...?"
"What's your name?" Ketchup asked, holding onto a tree and leaning back to flex his abs at her.
She sighed, resigning herself to the fact that she'd have to endure this to get her information. Dallas, floating next to his boat, felt a little sorry for her, but more sorry for himself, that he wasn't Brian and Ketchup's age.
"Kayla," she said with a smirk. Most of the boys grabbed their chests in imitation of a heart attack. Some pretended to faint into the water. Dallas laughed at them and at the girl scouts voicing their displeasure at the display. "Pussy" from 182 yelled out "I love you, Kayla!" and hid behind his raft, laughing with his friends.
"I love you, too, Little Boy!" she said back, an edge of irritation creeping into her voice. "Pussy's" friends laughed at him and dunked him. Kayla, however, was looking at Dallas, like he was the one who'd said it.
"Yeah" said Brian, suddenly all- business after being ignored the first time. "Turn around at Will Huskin. Meet me at the lower landing in about two hours and I'll show you how to get there."
"You mean 'we' will show her how to get there," Ketchup said.
"I mean me, fool." And with that, Brian jumped back into the water and headed for Troop 64's raft.
"One eighty two!" Ketchup yelled as he, too, dove into the water. There was a mad scramble for rafts and oars amid splashing water as the teams split up again and prepared to hustle through the rest of the rapids. Dallas and two other boys strained to pull Taylor into the boat.
"You gonna sink us, Big 'un!" Brian said, positioning the raft. "All forward, Sixty Four! All Forward!"
The Girl Scouts were cheering as the boys launched themselves back out into the river. Troop 64 was ahead at that point, enjoying the adrenaline shock of the girls' cheers at their backs. The bus chewed it's way into first gear and continued up the mountain.
*****
Dallas' stomach lurched as the raft tipped nose-first over a small waterfall. They'd hit the river again before the back of the boat had gone over, but for a second, Dallas had thought he might actually fall out. Brian was pushing them hard through the rapids, calling "Right Forward, Left Back! Left Forward, Right Back!" to make the raft fishtail and keep 182 from slipping past them. Ketchup's team pursued doggedly, though. They were only a split second behind. Ketchup and Brian seemed to be having a ball with ths competition, but the scouts - both troops- were tiring quickly.
Troop 182 took advantage of a wide passage through the rocky river and pulled up alongside Troop 64.
"Class Fives ahead!" Ketchup called out with a laugh. Dallas looked back at Brian for confirmation. There were no class fives on the map they'd been shown. These were the most dangerous rapids and certainly not for first-time rafters.
"Eyes front, Red, or we'll never get there!" Dallas faced forward again, suddenly very afraid. If there were no Class Fives on the map they'd been shown, just where were they?
Taylor saw Dallas dig his feet under the seat in front of him and against the side of the raft.
"They can't take us into class fives," he said in the same tone with which he'd renounced Ketchup's Cougar Rock Falls story. "They're just class threes or something and they're tryin' to scare us."
Taylor suddenly flew out of the boat. Behind him, "Pussy" was leaning out of his boat, supported by his friends and hauling himself back up after having yanked Taylor into the river. Ketchup was telling them to get back in.
"Man overboard!" Brian shouted as the boat picked up speed and began pulling away from Taylor almost immediately. Dallas flung himself to the other side of the boat and stuck out his hand. Taylor was already too far behind for that. Dallas stuck his oar out and Taylor grabbed the paddle just as Brian shouted: "Brace, Red! Everybody lay back!"
Ketchup's boat had gotten to the "sweet spot" of this particular rapid, leaving Troop 64 to go over a waterfall taller than a man. Seeing this, Taylor planted his feet on a rock at the top of the waterfall and nearly pulled Dallas out of the boat. Brian wrapped one arm around Dallas' life jacket and held him as the boat pitched forward over the waterfall and crashed nose- first into the water below, dumping the scouts and flipping over. Taylor lost his hold on Dallas' paddle and toppled into the mess of arms, legs and lifejackets below.
All of the Scouts were puffing and spitting river water as the current carried them all away from the overturned raft. Dallas coughed up water just as Taylor appeared next to him.
"Get the boat!" Dallas yelled. Taylor grabbed one of the ropes along the side and pulled down on it, flipping it over. Several oars appeared from underneath and began to drift down stream. Dallas reached for one as Taylor was yanked underwater, replaced suddenly with a few bubbles. A moment passed as Dallas waited for Taylor's lifejacket to bring him back up, but there was no sign of him. Dallas shoved his recovered oar underwater and felt hands grab hold of it.
He remembered when some local paramedics had come to talk to Troop 64 about CPR. One of them had mentioned never letting a drowning man touch you or grab you, because they'll use you as a ladder, which is what Taylor was doing to the oar now. Only, when he broke the surface, gasping for air, it wasn't Taylor, but Brian who continued climbing over Dallas and onto the rock. Dallas held on as best he could but Brian, in a panic, kicked him into the base of the waterfall, sending the oar downstream in the process.
It was quite difficult, against the echoing roar of the water, for Dallas to focus his efforts toward anything besides getting out, but as soon as he went under he spotted Taylor. He was being held under by the water crashing down the fall, rolling over in place and flailing his arms. Dallas, against the advice of the paramedics, reached into the undertow, grabbed his lifejacket and hauled him into the current. Taylor immediately began climbing him and Dallas let him, sinking purposefully as he had done in the swim test. The current grabbed them both with sudden force and Dallas waited only seconds before swimming back up, a few yards behind the gasping Taylor.
Ahead of them, Troop 64's raft floated empty and 182 was trying to catch it as well as any scouts that drifted close. Ketchup had managed to wedge them between two rocks in the center of the river, right before a snarling mass of river foam and rock, but the boat was full. Scouts were already clinging to the sides and daisy chaining to each other. Brian zipped past him suddenly, the tips of his sneakers visible out in front of him.
"Keep your feet in front!" he yelled. "Aim for the boat!"
Taylor shreiked up ahead as he struck a rock and rolled forward over it, propelled by the current. He made a desperate grab for Troop 64's boat, but missed and floated toward the right bank of the river, way out of reach of Ketchup's boat. Brian managed to latch onto Troop 64's raft and crawl in. He watched as Taylor disappeared into the class fives ahead.
Dallas was in good position to grab onto Troop 64's boat, but he didn't. Taylor may have only been his friend by default, but "a friend is a friend" his dad had said once. They were troop members and tent mates on top of that, so Dallas could hardly see crawling into the boat and leaving Taylor to face the rapids alone. Unlike the scene at the Rest Stop, this wasn't Taylor's fault.
Dallas made eye contact with the confused lifeguard as he, too, plunged into the rocky froth. He hoped Troop 64 wouldn't be too far behind.
A few butt-scrapes seemed to be the worst of things as long as he kept his toes out of the water in front of him. Taylor appeared every now and then up ahead, but he was flopping like a fish and his lifejacket was coming undone. Suddenly, the current spun Dallas around and slammed him hard into a rock, shoulder first. Dallas screamed and water rushed into his mouth, choking him. His left arm began tingling and wouldn't move like he wanted it to as he tried to regain his floating-with-toes-out-front position. His head rapped sharply against stone suddenly. The impact spun him around and, through a haze of pain and unsteadiness, he managed to recognize that he was facing the right way and that Taylor was just ahead of him. Then, everything slowed down. The current was still strong, but seemed to have lost interest in bashing Boy Scouts around. Taylor was slumped in his half-open life jacket, unconcious and bleeding from somewhere behind his right ear. Dallas watched, a thundering headache forming at the back of his head, as Taylor slipped slowly out of his lifejacket and down into the water.
He tried to dive after him, but his lifejacket kept him too close to the surface. With his arm still sore and various other injuries beginning to make themselves known, Dallas wasn't strong enough to fight his buoyancy and dive. He quickly and clumsily undid his life jacket and submerged.
Taylor wasn't very far down. Dallas grabbed him by a big, round arm with both hands and kicked like crazy. It was slow going. Taylor was rising, but Dallas was running out of air. He closed his eyes and concentrated on kicking and keeping his grip. Kicking and keeping his grip... that was all. If he could just do both of those, he'd get Taylor out and everything would be fine.
With a shocking lack of substance, crisp, clean Georgia air enveloped Dallas' face, rushed into his lungs and allowed him to lay back and haul Taylor onto him. Keeping one arm around the big scout's chest (or, around most of it), he was able to force his injured arm into apple-picker strokes and head for the river bank. They had drifted quite a ways from the rapids, though, and the current was picking up again as a branch of the river joined the branch they were on.
Dallas figured it out then. The class fives hadn't been on the map because they weren't supposed to go that way. Ketchup and Brian, in an effort to get to Kayla, had taken a shortcut. That "branch" over there was the main river, where the rapids never went above Class Three. He looked back up the Class Fives and saw no sign of either Scout Troop. Not even a lost oar. Their lifejackets had drifted downriver of them and were barely visible as two orange fishing corks in the distance. Dallas wondered how far it was to the landing, then thought that it probably didn't matter. He didn't think he could keep Taylor up much longer.
Into the roar of water creeped a familiar rumble and from around a corner, up on the bank, the Girl Scout bus appeared. It drove straight for the river and stopped on a low, sandy area right at the water. Just off to the side was the bus that had dropped off the Boy Scouts upriver. This was the landing!
Dallas stretched and stroked and kicked for it, but was only going backwards, with Taylor wrapped in his arm. He could see Kayla behind the wheel as she watched the two boys "playing" in the water. He stared hard at her as he struggled for shore and hope spurred him when he saw her features register the truth. Her mouth and eyes flew open as the girls began crowding the front of the bus, anxious to get off. Several of them saw Dallas' predicament as well.
Hope, however, was not enough to pull Dallas to shore and the current inexorably dragged him further away. He slapped the water in vain as he gave up paddling and began trying to figure out how to use Taylor as a floatation device. He rounded another bend in the river and wondered if Kayla and the handful of girl Scouts racing along the riverbank had any real chance of catching him.
Dallas concentrated now on keeping his feet in front of him, even if his toes would never break the surface with Taylor weighing him down. The Uckachoy was becoming swollen and the red dirt and mud banks gave way to bare tree roots that long ago lost the soil they were clinging to. Dallas found himself desperately wishing for a big rock to spring up so he could crash into it and stop, but rocks were scarce past the landing and the current was speeding up.
Taylor sputtered suddenly and began flailing.
"Stop! Calm down, Taylor!" Dallas yelled in his ear.
"Wh-where are we?" the big boy asked, looking around, but making no move to get off Dallas. "Where's my life jacket!?"
"Swim! We're headed for Cougar Rock Falls!" Dallas let go of Taylor, hoping that would goad him into paddling. It did. The two of them swam directly for shore as the river hurtled them ever farther and faster. Their progress to the bank was terribly slow. They could hear female voices yelling, telling them to keep swimming. After a few moments, Dallas heard Taylor call his name.
"Dallas, I'm dizzy..." he said. He was paddling mechanically and slowing down. Dallas launched himself at the boy before he got sucked back out to the middle of the river. He grabbed Taylor just as he noticed a tree that had fallen from the riverbank, it's support eroded.
"Keep paddling!" Dallas wheezed. Breathing was becoming too involved of a process do try to swim while doing it and his head was absolutely throbbing from that whack on the rock. Taylor feebly put his arms out and his face down in the water as they crashed into the branches and lodged there. Dallas held on to a branch with his good arm and rolled Taylor over with the other one. The big guy was out again. Suddenly, the tree shook. Dallas looked up to see Kayla balancing sure-footedly on the trunk, making her way out to them.
"Hang on," she kept saying between deep breaths. "Hang on..." She quickly worked her way down among the branches and reached for Taylor.
"Can you push him up?" she asked. Dallas tried hauling the boy up by the armpit, but Kayla still had to stoop way down to grab him. She pulled him up slowly and slapped him hard. "Hey!"
Taylor's head lolled, but his eyes fluttered open. Kayla very calmly explained to him that he would have to make his way back up the tree. Taylor seemed only too happy to have something solid under him and slowly made his way towards the cheering Girl Scouts on the bank. Kayla turned to Dallas and reached out a hand for him just as the branch he was hanging on to broke and he was once again swept downriver.
"SHIT!" Kayla yelled as Dallas went under. He managed to hang onto his branch and, as he careened towards the next bend in the river, he hoped he could use it like a spear to stab into the riverbank and hold himself there.
He realized with horror that ahead of him was not a bend, but a drop. As he neared it, he could see the mountains give way in the distance to foothills and the foothills turn to flat land far, far off. And to his right, jutting out from the bank that lay just yards from his fingertips, was an outcropping of stone, the underside of which had been slowly worn away by the current. From the right angle, it supposedly looked like a mountain lion, or cougar, leaping out over the water. The image fit very well with the niche in the outermost end of the rock that looked like an open, snarling mouth. It was into this niche that Dallas jammed his piece of broken tree branch and held on with both hands as his legs were swept out from under him and into the open air above Cougar Rock Falls.
He came down in the water just short of the drop. He was still holding onto his branch, face up against the underside of the rock. The water grabbed him around his shoulders and firmly insisted that he join it in a grand descent down the mountain. Dallas pulled on the branch, barely keeping his upper torso out out of the water, but making no progress backwards or up onto the rock. The trip down the river had worn him out. All he could do was hold on. A sick, wet CRACK sounded from the branch and Dallas screamed.
The branch held, though. Not wanting to risk a second cracking, he switched his hands one at a time to the niche itself, comforted slightly by the actual stone. The water pressed relentlessly at his back, though. It tugged at his shorts and pulled both of his shoes off, firing them over the edge. His arms ached and they began twitching involuntarily as the river eroded the last of his strength, just as it had eroded Cougar Rock.
Dallas focused on his grip. He focused on calming down his twitching nerves and muscles. All his strength had to go into his grip. He tried to take deep breaths, but panic and exhaustion pumped him like a bellows. Surely they were still looking for him. Surely, Kayla had run off the fallen tree and managed to keep pace with him all the way down the river. He leaned his head straight back and could see the bank, but there was no one on it. Surely he wasn't going to go over...
For the first time ever, Dallas thought he was going to die. He'd imagined he was going to die before, in those brief instances of fear where instinct tells you you're in mortal danger, but right now, he was looking at the last of his life with certainty and an odd sort of clarity. Not a sudden unexpectedness, like when he almost got hit by a car crossing the street or something. This was going to be something he recognized as the end all the way down.
He was sad all of a sudden. Dying meant he'd never see his home or Mama ever again. No more visits from his dad between coast-to-coast runs. No more going for walks just to sneak peeks at Tina's tattoo parlor.
Tina's face floated in his mind for a moment, blue eyeshadow around serious eyes.
"You're brave, Dallas," she had said once. Dallas began to cry. He wasn't brave. He was scared to death.
If Mama were here, she'd fix things. If she somehow appeared in front of him, floating up the waterfall to carry him to safety, he wouldn't be at all surprised or even skeptical. He'd just be forever grateful that she had.
The water continued to weaken his grip on the stone, though. No amount of concentration could stop his arms from convulsing now. No Mama. No help. No way around it.
Maybe, he thought, if he could concentrate on the view on the way down, he'd never even know it when he hit. He could just occupy his mind with how far he could see and not think about falling.
His left arm's injury finally won out. The arm shook violently and flopped into the water. Dallas gritted his teeth, trying to squeeze the rock with his right hand and found himself twisting to his left. He tried to flop back around to see the view, but his body's weight wrenched his hand free. He passed under Cougar Rock and over the waterfall face down.
His shirt seemed to hang on the rock, though, and as it passed over his head, something stubborn in Dallas reached his good arm up to grab it. He didn't want to die half naked. What would Mama say about his tattoo? He clung to his red T-shirt and felt his legs kick out over nothing. His stomach rose into his chest.
This is what falling feels like, he thought. This is how it feels to die. Then, he realized he wasn't falling. He was looking up through the stretched fabric of his shirt at a pair of tanned hands, holding onto it.
Kayla leaned over and grabbed another fistful of his shirt with one hand and his skinny arm with the other. She pulled him up onto Cougar Rock and set him down roughly on his hands and knees, his wet shirt clinging up around his neck.
"Nice... tattoo..." she said before she collapsed next to him, taking great lungfuls of air and spitting into the water so she wouldn't have to close her mouth to swallow. Dallas' breath didn't come so easily as he tried to stand. He was sobbing and really wished he could stop, with Kayla here and all, but his beaten body ignored him; prefering to drop to the stone and cry, instead.
He had died, in his mind. He had done everything he could to avoid it and, when it was inevitable, he'd made his peace and accepted it. Now, that acceptance poured from his eyes and nose onto Cougar Rock. It wailed it's way back up the river to the Girls Scouts still making their way to the falls and the Boy Scouts just reaching the landing. It shook from his exhausted muscles and dropped into the Uckachoy, to be thrown over the waterfall and carried away by the Savannah River many miles below.
* * * * *
Friday was bright and hot, as were most of the southern summer days Dallas had lived through. The lake water felt especially good in the swelter, so Dallas took his time swimming out to the floating dock. Only three other scouts were in the water with him this time and the guy on the pier blowing the whistle was the camp supervisor, Mr. Landrum, not Brian. He and Ketchup had been promptly dismissed from the camp upon the group's return to the top of the mountain three days ago. Brian's getting fired didn't bother anybody, but it seemed the whole camp resented Dallas for not thinking of some way to keep Ketchup out of it.
It was Brian who had gone into the class fives first. It was Brian who dragged Taylor into the waterfall so he could pull himself out. It was Brian's idea for everyone to hike overland back to the class threes to cover their asses. Brian had concocted the story that Dallas and Taylor had jumped out of the boat. Ketchup, according to Troop 182 and most of Troop 64, had done nothing wrong.
Mr. Landrum disagreed. Ketchup was the only one in a position to oppose Brian and he did not. He was just as guilty of nearly killing Dallas and Taylor as Brian was. He was not what the Boy Scouts of America wanted their young men to emulate. He was a follower, not a leader.
Dallas, on the other hand was to be awarded a Life- Saving merit badge (the Swimming merit badge was required to be earned first, though) as well as a Boy Scout Medal of Honor for saving Taylor. Taylor had planned on taking this swimming test with Dallas, but he was recovering from a concussion in some hospital he'd been driven to in that Girl Scout bus. Dallas imagined there were worse ways to go to the hospital.
He, himself had a nasty yellow-green bruise on his left shoulder and the camp medic had to shave his head stitch up the back. Beyond that, a fistful of aspirin and a day of rest and he was fine.
He submerged about halfway to the dock and didn't come up until he was right at it. Mr. Oldsen, Troop 64's leader, was standing there and he relaxed at the sight of him.
"Boy, you gonna give me a heart attack. Will you please stay on top of the water?" He was taking a personal interest in Dallas' well-being after the two hour reaming Mama had given him over the phone Tuesday night. When he'd finally gotten on the phone, Dallas had managed to talk her into not coming to get him, as he was okay and it would make him look like a total mama's boy. She'd said he WAS his mama's boy. He'd asked her PLEASE not to come, but to promise to be waiting for him when they got home. That, she'd said, was a deal as long as he brought that Girl Scout who'd saved him.
Kayla. She'd be busy with her girls at Camp Martha Mayfield by now. She was getting the Girl Scouts Medal of Honor for saving Dallas.
As he swam back up to the pier, he thought that a joint ceremony in front of both camps would have been cool. He and Kayla, decked out in their Scouting uniforms (she looking especially angelic in hers)... but that was not to be. The last thing the adults wanted was a lot of attention around this incident. Maybe they'd meet again at a jamboree or something somewhere. Maybe she'd remember his tattoo and want to see it again.
As he climbed up onto the pier, he wondered if she'd told anybody about it.
"Great, Dallas," Mr. Landrum said with a good-buddy smile. "See you at the bonfire tonight."
Dallas was wringing out his blue T-shirt (third time he'd worn it this week) as he walked into the Rest Stop, halfway back up from the Trading Post. He paused when he realized he was surrounded by Troop 182. "Pussy" stood right in front of him. Maybe he would wind up fighting because of Taylor's mouth, after all. By himself, it seemed.
"Pussy" lurched forward like he'd been kicked and quickly got to the point.
"Tell your friend I hope he gets better," he said with obvious misgivings. "Even if he is a fat fuck."
One of the older scouts whacked "Pussy" in the back of the head and said to Dallas "You should also tell him that this gentleman's name is Mathew and to please refer to him as such in the future."
"You tell Mathew to keep his hands to hisself and we got a deal," Dallas said, wondering if they were all going to take turns beating him up now. Mathew had only managed to stay at camp and in Scouts altogether after the camp decided that pulling somebody out of the boat was actually a normal activity in rafting. It just had major consequences because they were going into class five rapids, which they shouldn't have been.
Dallas had argued that point, but the adults seemed to just want to put the issue to rest. He hadn't seen anyone from Troop 182 for three days until now, as they all stood silently around him. Dallas waited, his stomach tightening.
There was no fighting, though. The eldest scout simply said "Deal" and one by one, Troop 182 turned and began walking back up the trail. Dallas let them get a good head start before he followed.
He wished his troop stuck together like that.
DF 3/01
