“Bess!” Nancy screamed into the cold spray, hardly feeling it sting her face. “Answer me! Bess! Where are you?”
Chapter Eight
Paula leaned on the oars. “Hang on!” she shouted. “We’re going over!” And with that the raft poised for a nosedive over the edge of the falls.
The bow hit the water at the foot of the falls with an enormous splash that drenched everyone, dived down, and came up again, riding the crest of a wave. Paula dug in deep with the oars, and in a moment they were out of the worst of the swirling current. They were carried fifty yards below the falls before they could beach the raft on a jutting sandbar.
Everybody abandoned the raft and dashed back upstream. In the gorge, the evening shadows were already falling, but Nancy could see heads bobbing in the frothing Water. Linda was clinging desperately to a large rock, Ralph keeping a firm hand around her waist. Max supported Sammy as he swam toward them, towing her. And she could see George’s dark head in the water, about twenty feet out, one arm waving frantically. But where was Bess?
“There she is!” Ned shouted as Bess’s head emerged from the water. “George has her.” He dived into the water.
“Hurry, Ned!” Nancy cried. “She’s going down again!”
With powerful strokes, Ned swam toward George and Bess, catching Bess just as she slipped out of George’s grasp and disappeared again under the white water. He towed her back to the bank, George just ahead of him.
Nancy and George bent over their friend’s limp form as Ned pulled her up on the sand. “Bess! Are you all right?”
Nancy rolled her over on her stomach and lifted her up by the middle. The water emptied out of her. After a minute, Bess spluttered and sat up. “I—I’m okay,” she said, shaking the water out of her hair. “What happened?”
“Capsize,” Tod said grimly. He had thrown a line to Ralph and Linda, and the two of them were now safely on the bank, holding on to each other. Mike was salvaging some of their gear from the water. Paula and Max had clambered back under the falls to detach the raft from a jagged rock.
Tod turned back to Nancy, scowling darkly. He began to coil the line in his hands. “You saw what happened,” he said. “Max let the raft get broadside to the current and dumped everybody. Just like the last time.”
“Last time?” Nancy said sharply.
“Yeah, when the two guys drowned.”
Bess looked up, her eyes wide. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying it was Max’s fault just like last year’s capsize,” Tod replied. “Max was the rafter I was talking about earlier. His raft got hung up last year and flipped. Everybody fell out—that’s how Max got his scar. Only last year there wasn’t another raft standing by, and two people drowned.” Tod shook his head angrily and slung the coil of rope over his shoulder. “That’s why Mike traded places with George. He wouldn’t ride with Max on this part of the trip. Once you lose your nerve at a dangerous spot like this, it’s tough to get it back.”
“Does Paula know about what happened last year?” Nancy asked, her mind shifting quickly into detective gear.
“Yeah, she knows,” Tod said bitterly. “Everybody on the river knows. None of the other rafting companies will hire Max now—she shouldn’t have either.”
“How many other people on this trip know?” Nancy asked.
Tod shrugged. “Mike. And Paula. I guess that’s it. Why?”
“No reason.” Nancy stood up. Could the anonymous caller have known about Max’s past—and wanted to warn her? But why had she been the one to get the call?
“We’ve got a problem, gang,” Paula announced soberly when she and Max returned. Mike and Tod had built a roaring fire beside the remaining raft, and everybody was gathered around it, trying to dry off. They shivered in the cool evening breeze that funneled up through the gorge.
“A problem?” Ned asked.
“Yeah,” Paula replied, shrugging into her roomy red-and-black plaid jacket. “The raft got pretty badly beaten up by the water. It’s ripped in a half-dozen places—totally beyond repair.”