White Water

Step by step, inch by inch we descend into the next chamber where Lou is waiting. I have turned my light on to better identify hand holds. Chris keeps looking down and it is screwing up his descent.
"HEY... you stepped on my fingers, asshole."
"Sorry, man, I can't see what you are doing."
"You don't need to, just keep a good hold with your hands and your other foot, and then let me guide your foot to the next spot."
"Yeah, that sounds easy to you."
"Just do it."

From the looks of the light coming from below us, Lou is pacing. We have spent way too much time in these caverns. We have given any advantage we might have had to the Yanomami by entering that first cave. They know the caverns, they know where we are, and the only reason we aren't head to head with them right now is because we took the path not taken. As if on cue with my thoughts, Chris whispers something down to me.

"What?" I say a little to loud.
"I hear someone coming." Chris whispers back to me.
Now the light from below shines up the hole, "What... what is happening?"
"Chris hears something."
Lou throws his hand up over his light and then repositions it to shine in his chamber.
"Hurry the fuck up. It has to be the Yanomami."
"You think? I thought it might be the Mary Kay girl or something."
"Just hurry up."

Chris tries to move faster. I too can hear the sounds of the natives in the chamber above. It will only be a matter of moments before they discover we aren't in the entrance cave or the offering chamber.
"Come on... come on Chris." Lou forces a whisper up the hole.
I hear the slide on the good Kimber as Lou checks to see if he has one in the chamber. A nervous habit of his.

Then there is a sudden cry of alarm above us as we are discovered by one of them. He calls to the others and both Chris and I release our grip on the side of the vertical chamber. We drop about ten feet to the hard rock of the cavern floor below and stay on our feet. Lou has the Kimber at the ready and puts his light back up front. He takes a quick look up the hole and takes a shot. Nothing.

The three of us make a run for the river twenty feet away and we leap in feet first. As we do this the first of about a dozen Yanomami come down the hole, a leg breaking jump for any of us. They don't seem to have sustained any injury. We turn in the river as the current rushes us away from their growing numbers. Spears clack to the ground on the rocky back of this flow, a few splashes from the more accurately thrown projectiles. Then, outside of the reach of our headlamps, splashes from the braver of their warriors that have taken up the chase.

We spin in the current, trying to see what is coming. Lou is in the lead, his headlamp reaching into the blackness to show the frothing white water of the underground rapids we are approaching.

It is a thrashing we take. In and out of the surge, our only mark that we are above the flow is the rapid intake of breath that we take when we are clear. We are bounced off of the sides of this underground canyon, spun this way and that. All of a sudden a suffocating darkness surrounds us. Lou's and my headlamp are disabled by the underground rapids and we are now in total darkness.

I am thrown from side to side, tumbled like a semi-precious gemstone, gasping for breath when I feel the cool air of the caverns, sealing up when I feel the surge cover my face as I am taken down by the current. I feel Chris bump by me and then I surface for a quick gulp of air in the pitch black of the chamber. The current is strong. I have never river rafted before, but from what I have seen on the Discovery Channel this has got to be a number four on the rapids scale.

In the violence of it all I consider that this might be it... the end. The finale of one hell of a run. I am hanging my hopes on blind faith in Lou's decision to make the leap into this flow. That he knows something that we cannot see. It is this faith, like the faith one keeps in death, that keeps me waiting for what comes next. I take my final breath not knowing if I am the only one left alive. The hell of this black tunnel becomes like a long, black crypt as the stone walls and ceiling close in around us and we are no longer sensing the air above. Just this vein of liquid death we are riding into eternity. It is now that I see, or think I see, light at the end of the proverbial tunnel.

The flash of sunlight is blinding. There is only a second or two of morning sun, the heat of it like an answered prayer. Never before had air smelled sweeter, the warmth of this light like being held to the bossom of Mother Nature herself. I hear choking, coughing both behind and in front of me and fight to adjust my eyes. This registers as a good thing. We are alive. But there is no time to celebrate before we feel the end of the rapids and... the falls.
Lou calls out a warning... more of a yell of sorts that is totally indistinguishable over the roar of the coming waterfall. We have enough time to tense up for the unknown. Then we are in the open air, the water falling beside us, under us.

I don't know what height of fall kills a man, or how it kills a man. All I know is that I am counting as I fall. Funny that this is what I do with my chance before I die, counting from one to six. When I finally hit the pool below, I am at the mercy of the human condition. I just have to wait to find out if I am alive or dead.

Once again we are under water. But this time it is different. There is brilliant light surrounding us even thirty feet under this sapphire blue pool. There is a timeless moment in which I marvel at this light, at the beauty of this pool, at the fact that I am still alive. Then, with a waining sense about me I realize one way that a fall of this nature can kill you. I have been thrown with great force thirty feet below the surface of the water, the air in my body being squeezed out with the increasing pressure.

There is a scramble of energy that has my arms and legs clawing through the depths toward the mirror sheen of the surface. I burst from its hold on me like a surfacing nuclear sub from beneath a Japanese fishing boat, taking in air as I rise out of the water. I can sense the splashes of our pursuers as they hit the water behind me. I reach out for the bank and see that both Lou and Antonelli are sprawled on the wet rocks at the base of the pool.

"Jesus, we made it." I call out, not caring about the Yanomami in the water behind me. Just caring that my friends are safe.
"That was one hell of a ride, boys."
Nothing.
I pull up next to Chris, who is on his back with his eyes open. I haul myself out, rolling over and propping up on my elbows. It is now that I can see the falls coming out of the side of the mountain. It must be at least eighty feet up, a column of water shooting like a firehose out of the blackness of the caverns.
Lou coughs and chokes a gallon of water out of his lungs.
Chris, on the other hand, is not moving.

"Hey big boy... " I give him a shove. He chokes with a start and rolls quickly on his side, coughing up a froth of river water. Lou struggles to his feet and manages to pull the pack off his back. Somehow the Kimber he had tucked in the small of his back has made the trip. He looks to both sides of the bank and then sets the pack down and quickly fishes through it. A moment later he finds what he is looking for and in a single motion releases the clip and slaps a new one in as the empty falls into the open pack.

The first shot is just over my head. I don't even have time to protest as the round hits home in the first Yanomami to reach us. Lou changes position and then fires twice more, killing two more natives that have made their way up the bank.

He drops the weapon back down to his side and scans the opposite shore. There the bodies of the other three Yanomami that had taken up the chase are floating in the water at the shoreline.

"We need to get off this shoreline. We're just sitting ducks out here."
Lou hefts the pack on his shoulders. We have lost the MP5's. There is nothing in the pack to use in our defense except one percussion grenade and three more clips for the Kimber.

We hike up off the rocks and head for the treeline. Just before we dissappear into the triple terrace jungle I am stopped in my tracks by a shrill whistle, the rise and fall of it a familiar sound. I turn and try to separate echo from the source. Once again the whistle, like a boatswain's call. I scan the top of the mountainside and see the waving arms... it is Jerry and Ollie. They are a hundred and fifty feet above us.

Somehow, with nothing but dumb luck as our guide, we have been spit out of the mountain in their vicinity. Fortunately they were alerted by the gunfire just below their position. As Lou and Chris step up to my side, we watch as they try to signal us. Lou drops the pack off his back and pulls out the field glasses.
"They are motioning toward the... " He looks up at he sun, then down at the shadows of the trees up from the shoreline, "East."
"The airstrip?"
Lou continues to watch them throught the field glasses. Jerry must be able to tell because now he is not waving, but making some kind of hand signals.
"He is telling us that the airstrip is to the east."
"Is that all?"
"No... " He pauses while he takes in the next part of the message. "The natives are massing to the north." He watches a moment longer and then drops the field glasses down.
"We need to get moving, now."