More than anything, Kathleen had wanted to hear him apologize, to see him groveling at her feet, begging for forgiveness. Now that she heard the remorse in his voice, she admitted her own blame. “I wasn’t playing fair.”
“I threw the rule book away when I met you, Kathleen Haley. From now on, we make up our own rules as we go along. Is that fair enough?”
The gentleness of his smile and the earnestness in his eyes were too hard to resist, and Kathleen agreed eagerly, “Yes, Erik. Yes.”
Surreptitiously, he mimed a kiss, and she blushed, lowering her eyes briefly before raising them once again to the warm directness of his.
A few miles beyond the town of Jasper, the driver turned right and wound the recalcitrant bus down a dirt road that eventually led to the banks of the Buffalo River.
Eons ago, the river had gouged a deep canyon out of the Ozarks. At many places along the Buffalo, cliffs rose out of its banks and towered over the swift-running water. Gray stone walls, clothed with vines, hung over the river and were reminiscent of the Hanging Gardens of ancient Babylon. The Buffalo was popular throughout that part of the country for canoeing, fishing and other water sports.
Kathleen had been coming to this particular spot for years, and had seen it grow from a playground known only to locals to a thriving tourist attraction. During each of the two-week sessions of the camp, she brought the children for one day’s fun on the white water rapids. Inner tubes were rented from a nearby store. The sporting tuber climbed up the rocky hill along the bank until he had gained the area above the smooth rocks over which the water boiled. Then, sitting in his inner tube, he rode it over the rocks and let the swift current carry him about a half-mile down the river where the rushing water finally calmed enough for one to stand up.
It was quite an adventure, but since the water was never more than three or four feet deep, it was safe. Nevertheless, Kathleen was ever watchful. Today Mike Simpson’s group and another one, under the supervision of a female counselor named Patsy, came along, making the number of children close to forty.
Erik spent the first hour after their arrival with his camera, climbing the rocky ledges with the children, recording the anticipation in their faces and voices, then catching their elated expressions as they rode down the white, roiling water. When he had all he needed, he returned his equipment to the bus for safety and then stripped down to bathing trunks.
His physique was perfect, his skin without blemish. He splashed, played, hollered and thoroughly enjoyed himself with the children, who vied jealously for his attention.
After a picnic lunch, the counselors and Erik insisted that the children rest a half-hour before going back into the water.
It was about two o’clock when Mike Simpson pulled himself out of the river and plopped his inner tube on the rocky shoal. “Hey, Kathleen, we haven’t had a head count since lunch. Think we should?”
“Yes,” she agreed. Everyone had been having so much fun that she hadn’t thought about it. At Erik’s insistence, and much to the campers’ delight, she had ridden the rapids a few times herself. Now she, Erik, Mike and Patsy began ticking off names and heads bobbing in the water.
“Someone’s missing,” she mused aloud, not quite ready to panic.
“Some of them are still up there above the rapids,” Erik said reassuringly.
But the minutes went by, and though they counted again and again, they always came up one short.
“Jaimie!” exclaimed Kathleen. “Where’s Jaimie?” She looked about her frantically, as though willing him to appear. “Has anyone seen him?”
“Let’s not jump to conclusions,” Mike said. “I’ll ask around and see if anyone has seen him.”
“I’ll do the same,” Patsy offered.
“Don’t alarm the other kids,” Kathleen cautioned. “Keep it low-keyed.”
“Yeah, sure.” Mike jogged away.
Erik said, “I’ll go up into the woods on the opposite bank. You look around here.”
“Thank you. Erik…” She placed her hand on his arm.
“I know,” he said with uncanny understanding. “We’ll find him.”
She walked to the concession stand and asked about for Jaimie. Nobody had seen him. She went into the store where the inner tubes were rented. The owner hadn’t seen Jaimie, but someone had brought in a tube they had found in the river tangled up in some low-hanging branches. Fear gripped Kathleen’s heart. Had Jaimie been sucked into the swift river and washed downstream before he could regain his footing? He was so small. Not athletic. He could swim, but not very well.
The thoughts that raced through her mind were out of her worst nightmares. Jaimie! her mind screamed. No! She ran back to the river, hoping against hope that Mike’s search had produced the lost child. But his face was as grim as Patsy’s when she rejoined them at the riverbank.
“Kathleen, what should we do?” Mike asked. For the first time since she’d met him, his open, optimistic face was showing signs of stress.
“We should call the police. The forest rangers.” She spoke with more calmness than she felt.
Just then, Patsy said excitedly, “There they are!”
Kathleen followed the direction of her pointing finger and whirled around to see Erik and Jaimie climbing down one of the steep cliffs on the opposite side of the river. “Thank you, God,” she prayed as they waded into the river and made their way across.