10. Chapter Ten
Chapter Ten
Turner
They awoke before the sun. Neither of them had truly been able to sleep, knowing Ty was still out there, likely injured and freezing and needing their help, but Turner had at least gotten Ena to rest, and thawed her out near a roaring fire.
When it became clear that dawn wasn’t too far off, they both got up silently and readied the horses.
They’d fetched Ty’s exhausted horse before setting up camp last night—Ty would need it when they found him again—and now Turner tethered it to the back of his own so it would stay with the group, and then they took off downriver once more.
They covered as much ground as quickly as they could, and before long passed the spot they had stopped at yesterday, then kept going.
Turner kept his eyes trained on both sides of the river, looking for any sign that Ty had emerged and sought shelter—footprints, drag marks, broken sticks.
He had no supplies, so wouldn’t be able to start a fire, but maybe he’d found a place sheltered from the cold, night air to hunker down in until morning.
They looked well into the afternoon, covering more miles in a few hours than they had the entire previous day. Ena refused to stop and rest at all, but around midday, Turner forced some food into her hands, which she consented to eat while riding.
They continued the rest of the evening, stopping only when the darkness forced them to, and they spent a second night awake, huddled by the fire, both of them too afraid to sleep.
Unspoken between them was the growing panic that every hour, every minute that went by without any sign of him, the more danger he was in.
They woke again the next day, bleary-eyed, and continued searching. They zigzagged in and out of the forest this time to see if he’d emerged and sought shelter in the trees, then returned close to the riverbank for any sign he’d been there.
Around midday on their second day of searching, the river’s path took a treacherous turn, narrowing as it reached another tight mountain pass and becoming more rocky and rapid-filled. Ena was several lengths ahead, scouting downriver, when Turner heard her call.
“Turner!” Her voice was hoarse from calling over and over for Ty, but he still heard the distress in it and spurred the horses into motion to catch up with her.
When he arrived, he instantly saw why she was worried. The river had funneled into a narrow chasm between two mountains which plummeted down a fifty-foot drop into a canyon filled with sharp rocks at the bottom.
They both stared down at it, watching the whitecapped water froth and churn with enough force to crush a grown man, and Turner’s stomach dropped.
Because he knew in an instant: that fall was a deadly one. If Ty hadn’t gotten out of the water on his own, there was a very good chance that fall would have severely hurt, if not killed him. There was little chance he’d survived it unharmed.
“Maybe he got out already,” Ena said, looking down at the water. “The horse was able to swim out. Maybe if we double back, we’ll find something we missed.”
Turner nodded, but inside, he knew what Ena was clearly afraid to admit. They’d already been searching thoroughly the whole river’s length and found nothing—there was a good chance Ty had gone down into this canyon.
“He definitely could have swum out under ordinary circumstances, but not if he was unconscious. Didn’t you say you saw him unconscious?” Turner asked, even though he already knew the answer.
“I think so, but I’m not positive,” Ena said, terrified uncertainty palpable in her voice. “I only saw him for half a second.”
“So there’s a chance he did go down here,” Turner admitted reluctantly.
They both knew what the other was thinking.
If there was even a chance that Ty had gone down there, then they needed to check, but they couldn’t easily search the narrow canyon without putting their own lives in danger.
There were rocky ledges all along the canyon walls that one could climb, but it would be risky.
But could they afford not to even try? There were a hundred places down there in the depths where Ty could be stuck, or trapped.
He hated to say it, he hated to even think it, but even if all they found was a body, they had to know. He had to know. There was no way he could abandon his friend here, and he knew Ena wouldn’t either.
“Okay, here’s what I think we should do,” Turner said decisively. “You’ll tie a rope on that tree there,” he said, pointing to a sturdy-looking pine nearby, “then you’ll lower me down in the canyon.”
“Turner—no. You can’t go down there,” Ena protested.
“Ena, I have to. You can’t do it, and Ty could easily be down there, in Iblis knows what state. It’s our only option. I can climb along the edge of the canyon. There are enough ledges for me to hop across. I’ll keep searching until the river emerges again.”
“That could be miles,” Ena said. “You can’t stay down there indefinitely.”
“Okay,” Turner said, contemplating a different plan. “You’re right. Give me two hours, I’ll go as far as I can, and come back if I get stuck, but at least…at least we’ll know what’s down there.”
Ena seemed unsure, like she was hesitant to lose him too. “Turner, I don’t know. What if something happens to you too?”
“There’s no other alternative. Can you live with not knowing?”
Ena stared down into the canyon, her face exhausted and cut with worry. “No, you’re right. I can’t,” she said, her voice broken with grief. “Search for as long as you can, but please, for the love of Gaia, Turner, be careful.”
Turner nodded, meeting her steel-blue gaze.
Together, they prepped him for the descent, tying their sturdiest rope around his waist and thighs to form a harness, and leveraging the rope across two sturdy trees so Ena could lower him down safely.
Before long, he was standing at the edge of the canyon, ready to descend, when Ena grasped his shoulder, turning him back around.
“Find him, Turner. Please,” she said, her voice cracking with emotion.
Her body felt small and cold in his hands, both of them so saturated with grief and worry for Ty that they’d barely had a second to take stock of themselves or each other.
He squeezed her into him tightly, hugging his friend, both of them drawing strength from one another. “No matter what happens to me, you keep going. Okay, Ena? Find Ty’s mother, find the Omnis worshippers. And keep going.”
Ena paused, not moving or speaking, until eventually, she nodded wordlessly into his shoulder. He released her, and she went to take her place by the tree, ready to feed him the line as he went down.
Nodding to her once he was in position with the rope taut, he took a step backwards into the canyon. Slowly, slowly, he lowered himself into the narrow rocky passage, the waterfall thundering beside him—spraying him and drenching him in icy-cold water within seconds.
The rope seemed to hold, thank fucking Iblis, so he felt less afraid after a few minutes, going steadily down to the nearest ledge. It was covered in snow and rocky debris, but it was sturdy enough when his feet hit it, and he let out a sigh of relief.
“I’m down!” he called as loudly as he could.
He felt the rope go slack as Ena released it, and he disentangled himself from his harness.
His clothes were soaked and his hands freezing from the water already, but he ignored it and took stock of his surroundings.
The water churned menacingly below him. One wrong move and he’d slip into it himself and become as lost as Ty.
He had to keep his shit together.
He crab-walked along the edge, sidestepping and leaping from one plateau to the next.
Occasionally, he had to find hand and foot holds in the rock wall of the canyon and climb to bridge the gap, but the surface was bumpy enough that it wasn’t too hard to find them and hold on.
He kept an eye out for holes, caves, or eddies in which Ty could be hiding—maybe hurt, maybe too cold to swim or climb out, but alive—but he saw no sign of him.
Before long, the low light of the afternoon started to dim the canyon, but he kept going.
It had probably been more than two hours and he needed to head back, but he couldn’t go back to Ena without any sign of him.
Without some indication of whether Ty had fallen down here or not. Whether he was alive or not.
At some point, the ledges stopped as the canyon got steeper and dropped again, and Turner had nowhere to go. No spot to climb to—not safely without a rope to lower him more.
A wave of grief hit him, nearly causing his knees to buckle as he realized: this was it. This was the end. He couldn’t go any further.
Iblis, had Ty come down here? Where in the fuck was he? Had he emerged above and they just hadn’t found him? Had he made it out of here somehow?
Turner felt a wave of hopelessness rise up in him so profoundly he could barely stand it.
“FUCK!” he screamed into the depths of the canyon, his voice echoing through it. “Ty, where are you?!” he screamed again, his voice breaking with the forceful strain of his grief.
Tears welled up in his eyes, and he loathed the next thought that came to his head. He wanted to reject it, push it away and rage. It was so abhorrent to him, he could barely even think it, but it came to him all the same.
Ty was gone.
There was nowhere else to search. They could double back to where they’d crossed—and they would. Absolutely. There could have been something, some sign of him they’d missed. They’d do that.
But if they still didn’t find him…what would they do then?
***
Turner made his way back the way he’d come, moving automatically—one step after another. He was vaguely aware of the fact that he was exhausted, but the ache in his muscles felt like nothing compared to the ache in his chest—the devastation he felt at what he had to tell Ena.