The Cutthroat Cannibals by Craig Sargent

Author:Craig Sargent [SARGENT, CRAIG]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780446566414
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2009-09-25T14:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER

Twelve

THEN they were in hell. A wet hell at that. For the huge tire raft was suddenly spinning around, rising ten, fifteen feet in the air and then crashing down again like a surfboard caught in the undertow. When Stone’s head emerged from their first submarine dive and he came up coughing, he looked around to see if Cracking Elk were still on for the ride. He saw the Indian at the far end of the raft, his legs wrapped tight around a tire. The brave was grabbing hold of an arrow that was imbedded in his shoulder. With an absolutely expressionless face he ripped the arrow out and threw it into the swirling waters. His head turned forward and up just in time to catch Stone’s gaze. He let a smirk ripple across his upper lip as if to say, see how tough the Indian is, white man, a hell of a lot tougher than you are, asshole.

But Stone wasn’t arguing, he was just trying to hang on for dear fucking life. He had gone white-water rafting once when about sixteen. But this was different. Aside from the fact that the rafting trip had been for fun and they had all been decked out in heavy life jackets and helmets, the waters had been nothing like this. What had been billed as a “rough water” adventure was like a bathtub compared to the towering waves, the eddies and whirlpools sucking down whole trees into their dark innards.

Stone gripped his legs as hard as he could, as Cracking Elk had done, around a tire beneath him. The raft suddenly rose a good twenty feet in the air, so that Stone could see the whole river ahead for nearly a mile, and then slammed back down into foaming waters like a whale dropped from the sky. Stone could barely hang on even using every bit of his strength. He could feel his whole backbone shake as if it was in a blender, and felt his teeth slam together and threaten to shatter like glass. The pressures on the rising and falling raft were incredible—they must be hitting three and four g’s.

The tires strained and pulled at the half-rotted ropes that held them loosely together. Already some of the strands were unraveling, and several of the tires on one end were starting to slap hard a few feet out from the rest of the raft. The thing wasn’t going to last a hell of a long time. Not in these waters. After the fourth toss, Stone glanced around just behind him, fearing the worst, but the damned dog was still there, as tenacious as ever, its own legs wrapped around a smaller tire like an octopus trying to strangle a pig. The ride went on unabated for nearly ten minutes as they shot down the river. Stone could see the granite mountains towering on each side of him, spinning around him, making him dizzy. The sun was risen fully now so he could see more clearly.

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