River Marked (Mercy Thompson #6)(24)

I shifted to human. "Hey," I called. "You in the boat. Are you okay?"

The man's voice didn't alter. He hadn't registered my words at all.

"I think I'll have better luck reaching him from the river side," I told Adam. "That boat's still floating. If he's as badly hurt as all the blood I'm smelling makes me think he is, it'll be easier if we're not trying to drag him through the underbrush anyway."

The nearest bit of clear riverbank was about thirty feet downstream. The sun long gone, the water was icy. I stumbled on a big rock on the river bottom and made a splash when I fell. I made some noise, too--frigid water on nice warm skin when I'm not expecting it tends to make me squeak. The man in the boat screamed--from the hoarseness of his voice, it wasn't the first time he'd screamed tonight. "It's all right," I said, regaining my feet. "You're safe."

He quit screaming, but I don't think it was because he'd understood me. Sometimes fear is too big for that--so much of your being is focused on survival that anything else falls to the side. I've been there a couple of times.

The rocks under my feet were sharp, but once I was waist-deep, my weight didn't press me down on them quite so hard. If I'd been headed downstream instead of upstream, I could have swum instead. Adam paced back and forth unhappily on the river's edge.

The trees hung over the river, and the shore curved back under them. Finding a path through the debris that had collected in the small backwater along with the boat forced me to wade in through a bunch of underwater plants I didn't see until I was in the middle of them.

My eyesight is pretty darn good at night, but the river was an impenetrable black veil, and anything below the surface was hidden. I hated not seeing. Who really knew what was in the Columbia?

Something brushed against my leg with a little more force than the rest of the weeds, and I let out an involuntary yip. Adam, invisible on the other side of the tree, whined.

"Sorry, sorry," I told him. "I'm fine. Just caught my leg on one of those clumps of plants. I can't see a damned thing under the water, and that and this guy reeking of fear has me all hopped up. Sorry."

The stupid plant was persistent. It clung to my calf as I approached the boat, resisting my halfhearted attempts to shake it loose. The tendency of some water plants to wrap around arms and legs of unsuspecting swimmers is one of the leading causes of drowning. However, I reminded myself, I had my feet on the river bottom, so this one was only an irritant. Nothing to panic about.

I forgot about the plant as soon as I grabbed the side of the boat and got down to business. My eyes just barely cleared the side of the boat, so I couldn't get a good look at the wounded man.

"It's okay," I told him. "We'll get you out of this."

I gave an experimental tug on the boat, but I was now up to my chest in the water, and the current threatened to push me off my feet. When I pulled on the boat, it was I who moved.

I shifted my grip, moving nearer to the bow. If I pulled the boat the way it was designed to move instead of sideways, it should require a lot less effort. As a last resort, I could climb in and use the motor--but the tree limbs were only a few inches above the gunnel, and I didn't really want to scrape myself up getting in the boat.

I heard something and jerked my head up. Four small heads poked out of the river about a dozen yards from the boat. Otters.

Great, that was just great. Just what the night needed.

"Otters," I told Adam, my teeth beginning to chatter with the effect of the water. "If I start screaming, it's because the otters have come to get me."

He growled, a low, menacing sound, and the four heads disappeared. It wasn't as reassuring as it might have been. But there were no sharp teeth fastened on any of my parts that were underwater, not yet anyway. The only thing grabbing me was the damned weed, which was still wrapped pretty tightly around my ankle.

I had a friend who swam once with sea otters just off the California coast. She said it was an unbelievable experience. They apparently were regular comrades to the pers in the area, playful and cute. They played a little rough--pers who swam with them regularly often had to replace their quarter-inch neoprene ping suits because otter teeth and claws are sharp--but most of the pers counted it worth the price.

River otters are smaller and even cuter than their oceangoing cousins. They also have the sweet temperament of a badger with a hangover. It wouldn't have worried me much--I have sharp teeth when I want them, too. But right now I was in their environment and not mine.

I couldn't see them. Worse for me, I couldn't smell them or hear them, either. I could wait around for them to attack, or I could get the heck out of the river.

I got a good grip on the nose of the boat and managed to persuade it to move out a little. Five or six feet more, and I'd have it out where the river current would push it the way I wanted it to go.

The man in the boat began thrashing. It took me a second to realize he wasn't just panicking--he'd gone for the pull on the engine. As the sudden roar of the engine broke the night, I grabbed onto the boat as hard as I could and let my feet leave the river bottom.

The boat lurched forward, and the weed around my ankle tightened painfully, and for a second I felt as though--But no weed is that tough, and the boat jerked me out of its hold and drove about fifteen feet downstream before I pulled myself into the boat. By that time he'd collapsed again, and his hand fell off the tiller just as I grabbed it.