James Axler – Cold Asylum

The raw power of the Antelope as it surged along the valley astonished him. For a fraction of a moment Ryan recalled one of his earliest times with the Trader. Not far from Four Corners some renegade jolt peddlers had set up a gaudy in the White House ruins at the bottom of the sacred Canyon de Chelly, and Trader had been paid by the Navaho to go down and scour them out.

It had been an easy job. “Swatting a few flies away” had been Trader’s description. But it meant descending the steep bluff opposite the shell of the Anasazi buildings and wading the river, all done on a moonless night.

Okie had been scouting for War Wag One and reported the river wasn’t too deep and not too fast.

Ryan had been in charge of the cleansing party and had gone first. He could still remember his shock at the relentless gripping power of that river that had very nearly taken him by surprise, off balance, and dumped him on his ass.

That memory flashed past as he hit the Antelope in a clumsy, facedown dive.

Icy water gushed up his nose and into his open mouth, making him choke and splutter.

The next minute or two was a tumbling, helpless montage of mental and physical confusion. Something struck him a crunching blow in the small of the back, just above the kidneys. In odd moments his head was above water and his eye was open, but he perceived only a blurred, darkening world.

He had no hope of seeing Doc, or even knowing where he might be.

All Ryan could do was to kick and push himself with the current, figuring that this might be his only chance of catching up with the old-timer.

His right arm wedged between two boulders, stopping him up with such a wrench that he feared his shoulder might have been dislocated. But he freed himself.

A large fish, scales glittering like a thousand rainbows, forced its way up the stream, passing Ryan as he rested a moment in a quiet stretch of the Antelope, before another spinning rapid greeted him.

The water buffeted and boiled, making him lose all sense of direction and time. He might have been in the river for fifteen seconds or fifteen minutes, traveled a mere quarter mile or five miles.

He experienced a drop, so deep that Ryan became disorientated, not even knowing which was air and which was the grinding cold of the river bottom.

His outstretched hand touched wet cloth.

The one-eyed man kicked with all his might, erupting out of the river like Neptune from the ocean, shaking water from his eye and looking all around.

He noticed something white, like torn linen.

Ryan vanished again.

A breaking voice, screaming out over the remorseless thunder of the Antelope, caught his attention. He saw Dean, perched on a jutting rock, finger pointing to his left.

Ryan looked again, spotting the patch of white, able to see now that it was Doc Tanner’s hair.

Plunging for it, arm at full stretch, he felt the brush of clothing against his fingers again. Snatching it, losing, holding once more.

Ryan found himself pushed up against a large wall of sheer rock, as slick as ice. He managed to brace his boots and power away, keeping hold of Doc’s coat, heaving him out of the main flood of the Antelope toward the quieter shallows.

It was as though a deafening noise had been suddenly made still.

There was a gentle slope of gray boulders, with Dean and Krysty to help him. He saw the anxious face of J.B., who furiously wiped spray from his spectacles as he peered down from the bank to see if all was well.

Ryan lay on his back, his feet still trailing in the gentle water, fighting for breath, becoming conscious of the numerous bruises and scratches that he’d suffered during the rescue.

“How is he?” he panted, sitting up to see the worrying sight of Doc, arms spread, face like ivory, with a livid bruise across his right cheek, lying quite motionless alongside him. Krysty kneeled by him, reaching into his open mouth and pulling out sand and strands of weed, making sure his tongue was free of the air passage.