He had noticed it before, of course—when they went over the map in his
house and when they had first landed. But in the largeness of the country
shown on the map, the massive forest the map showed, the river was a
small thing, and he had negated it.
It wound out the bottom of the lake, the southern end, and headed
southeast down into the lakes below and was lost, and he had not followed
it except to note the name.
The Necktie River.
“Isn’t that a funny name,” his mother had said, and Derek had laughed.
“There are lakes named Eunice, or Bootsock—there are so many lakes and
rivers, the original mapmakers just made up names as they went. The
person drawing the map was probably wearing a tie and thought it would
make a good name. Many of them aren’t named at all—just numbered.”
The Necktie River, Brian saw, led south and down and drew his eyes away
from the lake.
The map was laid out in square five-thousand-meter grids—five-kilometer
squares—and he saw that in some places the river wound back almost on
itself inside the same five thousand square meters. But in other places it
ran straight for a considerable distance and he followed it, through smaller
lakes and what he thought must be swamps, through the darker green
portions that meant heavier forest.
It kept going south to the edge of the map, where it was folded, and he
unfolded the next section and spread it in the sun. He did not know why
the river drew him, pulled at him.
Then, halfway though the second page, he saw it. The river had grown all
along, gotten wider so that it made a respectable blue cut across the map
and where it made a large bend, cutting back nearly straight east, there
was a small circle drawn and the words:
Brannock Trading Post.
Leading away from Brannock’s Post there was a double line heading down
and to the southwest. When he found the symbol for the double line on
the map’s legend he saw that it stood for an improved gravel road.
There would be people there.
Right there, on the map, at Brannock’s Trading Post there would be
people. They wouldn’t have a road or name the place or make it a dot on
the map unless there were people there. A trading post would have
people.
Which, Brian thought, doesn’t mean a thing.
15 He wasn’t at Brannock’s Trading Post. He was here.
Yet he couldn’t take his eyes off the spot on the map. It was there, on the
same map—just there. And he refolded the map so it would show the lake
where they were and the trading post at the same time. He used his fingers
to make a divider and measured it straight down, but it didn’t mean
anything.
Then he remembered that the grids stood for five kilometers each, and
when he counted the numbers of grids between the lake and Brannock’s he
came up with about sixteen squares.
“So how far is that?” he said to Derek. “Five times sixteen—maybe
eighty, eighty-five kilometers.”
But that was straight—in a straight line southeast.
20 The river was nowhere near straight, looping back and forth and actually
flowing slightly north back along itself at one point.
He started counting, measuring the river as it turned through each fivekilometer
square, marking each ten kilometers in the dirt with a line
through it, then the next set of ten. It was involved and took him some
time, but finally he was done.
He counted them.
“One hundred and fifty kilometers,” he said. “One point six kilometers to
a mile. Just under a hundred miles.”
He looked at Derek, who did not move, who made no sign.
25 “There are people just under a hundred miles from here.”
But what good did that do?
“Here it is—I could leave you and try to follow the river out and bring
help back.”
Which, he thought, sounded insane. There were animals. They would
come, and if they thought Derek was dead…. He was defenseless. They
might attack him. Even small things—ants, bugs.
“I can’t leave you.”
30 Brian looked at the map again. It was there, the answer was there.
Brannock’s Trading Post was the answer and the river was the answer, but
he didn’t see how.
He couldn’t leave Derek.
He couldn’t leave Derek….
What if he took Derek with him?
He said it aloud. “What if we went out together?”
35 On the face of it, it sounded like madness. Haul a man in a coma nearly
a hundred miles out of the wilderness on a river.
You could say that, Brian thought, but there was a lot of difference
between saying it and doing it.
How could he?
The river. If he had a boat…or a raft.
If he made a raft and put Derek on the raft, there might be a way he could
make the run1 and take Derek out, get him to the trading post and to help.
40 And even as he said it he knew it was crazy. A hundred miles on a
wilderness river with a raft, hauling a grown man who would be nothing
but dead weight, was impossible.
He would have dropped it, except that he looked up from the map and saw
the truth then; looked up and saw Derek with his eyes half open and not
seeing, awake but not truly living, the minutes of his life moving past and
Brian knew that he really didn’t have any choice.
If he stayed Derek would die of thirst in two, perhaps three days. Well
before the week or ten days that would pass before the pilot came looking
to see what happened.
If he stayed, Derek would die.
If he made the run, took Derek down the river, at least there was a chance.
45 He had no choice.