Then the rain struck, a solid mass of black, stinging water. Margo coughed and rolled onto her tummy, pulling the sleeping bag right over her head. Water roared louder than ever down the swollen Limpopo.
I’ll hear that sound in my grave, Margo moaned Why’d we have to arrive in the rainy season? Then, because she was no longer able to hide from her own folly and its cost, Good thing it is or we’d really be in a jam. Rafting out two-hundred-fifty miles still beat walking it. Which they’d have had to do, lugging gear every step of the way, if this had been the dry season.
Oh, Malcolm, I really screwed up …. She had to get back, not just to prove she could scout and survive it, but to apologize to Malcolm for the cruel thing she’d done to him. It was too late to pursue what might have been the most wonderful relationship in her life, but she could at least apologize.
When, at some later, miserable point in the night, water lapped against Margo’s cheek, Margo thought groggily the rain must’ve seeped into her sleeping bag. Then Kynan Rhys Gower appeared in a strobe-flash of lightning, drenched and white-faced. “Margo!” he cried, -pointing toward the nearest edge of the raft. “River!”
The raft was bobbing madly against its moorings.
Huh?
She wriggled free of her sodden sleeping bag. The river had risen swiftly-and rose visibly higher over the next few lightning flashes.
”Koot! Koot, wake up!”
He reacted sluggishly, fighting his way toward consciousness while she shook him. One good look at the rising river brought him to his feet, swearing in Afrikaans.