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Back 3 a.m.
Chapters (67)
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  67. 3:46 a.m.

It is already twenty yards ahead of me when I realize it is a canoe.

I turn around.

Another canoe zips past.

The freezing water whips at my face.

Two kayaks are headed downstream. Both blue. They pass by fifty feet to my left.

Another kayak. Red. Upside down. Headed right for us.

I reach my hand out and grab for it, but my fingers are frozen and my hand slides off. I might as well be trying to pick up a toothpick with boxing gloves.

I watch as the red kayak races ahead, around a bend, and out of sight.

Shit.

I turn around and my eyes open wide.

The mother lode. The rest of the fleet is a hundred yards away and coming fast. The whole section of riverbank must have collapsed into the water.

I reach for a blue kayak. I get my arm over. The kayak flips, throwing me off. I roll in the white water.

I kick back to the surface.

Eight more float by, none within ten feet.

Then they are gone. All of them.

No.

No.

No.

My right leg starts to cramp. I can barely keep us above water.

Meow.

I look over my shoulder.

A lone canoe.

Green.

Headed right for us.

Put on the river, just for us.

Our salvation.

I grit my teeth.

Fifty feet.

Forty.

Thirty.

Twenty.

Ten.

Five.

Two.

I kick hard, and lunge for the side. I get my right arm over, then my left. I drop Lassie inside. The canoe rocks under my weight. I try and pull myself up. I can’t. My body is frozen.

My left arm slips off.

If I let go with my right arm, I’m dead.

I think of Ingrid.

I think of the baby growing in her womb.

I throw my left arm back over. The canoe rocks under my full weight and I rock with it, then with the momentum headed in the opposite direction, I grit my teeth and push myself up with a grunt. I get my stomach up on the side. Lean forward. Then flop inside the boat.

I crawl to Lassie and wrap my hand around his collar.

I lay there gasping for several minutes.

I pull my watch to my face.

The digits swim in front of me.

I squint.

3:37 a.m.

It’s been sixteen minutes since the quake.

It takes everything I have left to push myself to my knees. If I stay down I will die from hypothermia. I need to keep moving. I need to get us to shore in the next twenty-three minutes. I need to get us off the river.

Halfway to my feet, I crumble.

I have nothing left.

:05

June 22nd

Sunrise 3:07 a.m.

Somewhere in Alaska

I wake up gasping. I am underwater again. Drowning. Fighting for breath. It takes a long minute to calm my breathing, then another long minute for reality to hit. The earthquake. The bridge. The river. The canoe.