Free PRECIPICE by Leland Davis Page A

get you a job down there if you ever want to give it a try.” Her tone left it open ended, still hopeful that he might change his mind. He’d admitted to himself many times over the years that he still had feelings for his cute, spunky coworker. The feelings were especially strong at the end of an entire rafting season through which he’d remained resolutely single; but deep inside, he simply wasn’t ready to walk away from his passion for flowing water.
    “Maybe I will,” he replied philosophically, although they both knew that he wouldn’t. They’d covered this ground before.
    “I’ll see you next year,” she said with a touch of sadness, and then she walked off into the milling crowd.
    He felt totally alone. For the last few years, Daniel had always been there as a buffer against this sort of awkward encounter with Kaitlin, and to help him distract him from his melancholy afterward with auspicious plans for new whitewater adventures. It still didn’t seem real that Daniel was gone.
    Chip’s thoughts flittered unbidden back to that horrible day in May, a series of scenes playing out before his mind’s eye in high-def detail. It had happened so quickly and yet taken forever. One minute Daniel had been sitting there in the eddy next to him grinning ear to ear—just two best friends enjoying a warm-weather treat of spring high water on one of their favorite creeks. Chip had peeled out first and dropped into a long, complicated rapid.
    As he made the first move, he bumped something unfamiliar that lurked just under the water’s surface. A new log had been washed down by the high water overnight and wedged in the rapid, and Chip was barely able to scoot over it. He knew it was dangerous and how close a call he’d just had. Adrenaline shot through his veins and nearly overcame his focus as he completed the rapid. He wasn’t scared for himself—he had already made it. He had to get to the bottom and signal back up to Daniel.
    He avoided a known hazard on the bottom left, finished the rapid, and swung around waving his arms over his head in the danger signal; but he was too late. Daniel was already dropping into the rapid. Chip watched in horror as Daniel hit the log hidden in the top right portion of the rapid and stopped dead, then suddenly vanished under a sieve-pile of rocks that the log was wedged against. The opening in the rocks was big enough for plenty of water to pass through, but not nearly big enough for a person in a kayak. About a foot of the end of Daniel’s bright yellow kayak stuck up at an odd angle, the only visible sign that he was there at all, the flow of the rain-swollen creek pinning him in place.
    Chip paused for a pregnant two seconds, hoping that Daniel would somehow flush through. Then he surged into motion. The clock was running. He had a window of only a few minutes in which to rescue and possibly resuscitate his friend.
    It was only five paddle strokes to the bank, but it took an eternity. It felt like he was paddling in glue. He fell into the river in his rush to get out of the boat. He lost more precious time swimming out to grab the boat before it washed away with his rescue rope inside. He groped around for the rope then let the river take the kayak as he scrambled up the bank into a dense thicket of rhododendron bushes. It seemed to take forever to make it fifty yards over the rocky, uneven terrain to where the end of Daniel’s kayak marked his location under the water. Chip was sucking air in terse gasps from the exertion, his heart pounding so hard in his ears that it drowned out the roar of the creek. He never let up, never slowed, never paused to catch his breath. If his heart exploded from the exertion, so be it.
    When he’d arrived adjacent to where Daniel was pinned, there was a moment of indecision as he wondered if he should jump in to try to reach his friend or throw the rescue rope. Then he opened the rope bag, held the free end, and tossed the other end over the