Connect the Stars (21 page)

“Okay, but if her dad had let her down like that before,” I said, “why would she have agreed to this plan, the one
we're in the middle of? Why would she ever trust him again?”

Louis shook his head, baffled. “No idea.”

“It doesn't make sense,” said Aaron.

“Kate?” I asked.

Kate shook her head. “I don't know. She'd have to be stupid, and Daphne is a lot of things, but she's not stupid.”

There was a scuffle, and Randolph was on his feet, jabbing his finger at us. “You're the stupid ones!” he said. “Your dads probably—what? Go to your dopey little soccer games? Take you out for ice cream afterward? Sit in the audience at your stupid band concerts to hear you play the stupid flute? Give you high-fives when you ace your special little math tests?”

Randolph's voice was dripping with sarcasm, but he'd actually just given a pretty accurate description of my dad. From the looks on the others' faces, I imagined they were thinking more or less the same thing.

“Tuba, actually,” said Kate.

“You want to know why Daphne would trust him to show up this time, brainiacs?” said Randolph. “Because he's her
dad
. I bet there are even kids out there whose dads left when they were five and never called or wrote and probably don't even know where their kids live, especially because they spend a lot of time in foster care, whenever
their moms decide to be ‘unfit,' but every single time the dumb doorbell rings, the kids think,
I bet that's him
. That's just how it works, morons.”

He turned his back and stomped away, kicking up clouds of dust as he went.

I didn't like Randolph. I wasn't sure I had it in me to ever like him. But right then, I was blindsided by this huge wish that one day, someone would like him. No, it was more than that. I wished someone would love him, all-out love, the way my parents loved me. The wish burned my eyes and tickled my throat, and it took everything I had not to cry on the spot.

After what seemed like a long time, Aaron said tentatively, “You know where Daphne just might be?”

We all nodded, except Randolph, who had found another, much smaller creosote bush fifty yards away, and appeared to be trying to kick it to death. I turned around and pointed to the jagged cleft in the rock face.

“On the other side of that slot canyon, at the edge of the Rio Grande, waiting for her dad,” I said.

“Who forgot to come,” said Louis.

“Or didn't forget,” said Aaron.

“Let's go get her,” said Kate, starting to walk toward our heap of backpacks.

“Wait. We can't leave without Randolph,” said Aaron.

He was right. We couldn't. Kate heaved a sigh and walked back to where we stood.

“I meant let's go get her,” she said wearily, “just as soon as Randolph is finished murdering the local shrubbery.”

“Randolph, the herbicidal maniac. Does he really need to come with us?” said Louis. But before anyone could answer, he shouted, “Hey, Randolph, let's go get Daphne!”

The Desert

NOW THAT WE KNEW DAPHNE had stuck to her plan, all we had to do was hike to the end of the path. No wondering. No wandering. No worrying we'd missed her, or the place she'd gotten lost, or hurt, or whatever had happened to her. Clouds drifted overhead. Our trail led through the remains of an abandoned farm. Not much was left. A rusty windmill. A ramshackle house. A tilting fence. A collapsing barn. And—

“Hey, Aaron!” said Audrey. “A red wheelbarrow!”

It was still in pretty good shape too, propped against a gnarled locust tree. Not a white chicken in sight, though. And of course, no rainwater. This was the desert.

As we left the decrepit farm behind, the trail dropped into a sandy streambed lined with cottonwood trees. It felt like we were walking down a green tunnel. The wind
swirled, ruffling the leaves around us so their silver backs flashed. Dusk began to darken the sky to the west, although it felt too early for nightfall.

I realized we'd done it. We'd solved the puzzle. Audrey, Louis, Kate, and me. Even Randolph, behind us, stomping the occasional cactus pad to keep himself occupied, had helped. Soon we'd have Daphne. We'd have water—and all we'd need to do to drink it would be to drop in a couple of iodine pills.

We'd hike back to camp. Enod and Kevin would bring the sheriff to rescue all of us, and if they didn't, well, I knew we'd figure out what to do about that too. We were the Fearless Four, Plus Randolph.

A blast of wind roiled the cottonwood leaves. They heaved like a green wave. Above us, the sky had dimmed almost to black. One last shaft of sunlight stabbed out of nowhere, and in it, I could see the streambed loop around a half-buried stone in the trail and disappear into the gash in the cliff.

“That,” murmured Louis, his face turning white, “is way deeper than the last one.”

“But at least, if there are any bats,” I said encouragingly, “they're probably gone for the night.”

“I'm not going to let my imagination run away with me,” vowed Louis, strapping on his headlamp. The rest of
us dug ours out of our packs too.

“I haven't
got
a light,” complained Randolph.

“Then stay here,” suggested Audrey.

“No way,” said Randolph. “I'm coming with you! To see Daphne! I'll step where you step.”

“Swell,” muttered Audrey.

I remembered the canyon's name from Jare's map: Gage Cut. Its mouth flared like a trumpet, buffed by ten million years of swirling water, sculpted like the entrance to a spectacular, spooky cathedral. The sand of the streambed sifted a few yards into the gap, and then the floor became polished stone.

“Look,” said Louis, pointing at shapes in the sand. “Daphne's big clodhopper bootprints.”

“How did this place even get here?” wondered Randolph, gazing at the dips, channels, pools, and grooves carved into the floor of the passageway as we hiked.

“Erosion,” Kate said.

“Nuh-uh,” said Randolph smugly. “You've got to have rainwater for that. And it never rains in the desert, stupid.”

Which was all it took. As soon as Randolph finished calling Kate stupid, the first drop hit.

“Oh, no,” I said, slowing to a stop on the trail in the depths of the canyon.

I realized I might actually have done it: killed us all.

In the slit at the top of the canyon, a green streak of lightning snaked across the sky, unlike anything I'd ever seen, as thick as a school bus. By its glare, I checked my watch. Five thirty p.m. It wasn't nighttime at all.

And for us, time ground to a halt. Compared to the storm, engulfing us with astounding speed, we could only move in slow motion.

“Turn around! Go back!” I cried.

Louis and Audrey jostled into each other. Randolph tripped over Audrey and fell to his knees, blocking the way out.

It wasn't nighttime. The sky was just black.

Dusk doesn't fall in the west.

Dusk falls in the east.

That wasn't twilight darkening the sky.

It was a storm cloud larger than any I'd ever seen, so big it had filled the entire horizon, so colossal I hadn't recognized it until now.

“Hurry! Get up!” I cried. “Get up, Randolph! Run!”

The thunder from the lightning bolt dropped into the canyon and hit like a sledgehammer. Audrey reached out to steady herself against the stone wall. Louis dragged Randolph to his feet.

Another bolt of lightning flared, a spiderweb of white
arcs as bright as day. In the flash, I saw all my friends' faces, frozen in astonishment. A hiss sounded, softly at first, like a drop of water in a skillet, growing until it sounded like the roar of a NASA rocket lifting off. Hot, sizzling thunder. And then the rain began. It came in buckets. It came in sheets. It came in cascades down the stone walls.

Like Randolph said. It never rains in the desert.

It pours. And when it pours, more water can fall in one hour than in an entire year. Or in two, or four.

“Get out!” I cried. “Run!”

But it was already too late. I felt it, flowing around my toes—a tongue of water surging down the passageway, sucking at our feet, tugging at our ankles. In seconds it had reached our shins and we could barely stand up in it. This was the first trickle of the flash flood that would soon rage down the canyon.

More lightning, this time an orange bolt striking the rim. When the clap of thunder came, it was like being smacked in the head with a board.

Everything I thought I'd been right about, I'd been wrong about. The map, the trail, the endless baking sheet we'd trekked across that day, everything leading to this spot, drawing all the paths together, ours, Randolph's, Daphne's, the storm's—I hadn't understood it. And
because I hadn't understood it, I'd put us all in harm's way.

The water rose to our knees. It rose to our thighs. And began to rage.

We weren't the Fearless Four, Plus Randolph, in the perfect spot at the perfect time. We were in the most awful spot we could be in. We were going to drown in the desert.

Every bit of rain that had fallen or was falling or was going to fall for twenty miles around, every drop to come out of this storm, was now rushing toward us. The colossal forces that had carved this canyon—billions of gallons of water, tons of gravel and boulders and stones—were all in motion and couldn't be stopped.

Then the water rose another foot. The tempo of the lightning quickened. White, yellow, blue, green. Cracks, explosions, thuds, bangs, crashes, until the noises ran together into a shriek like a fighter jet blasting down Gage Cut over our heads, and the walls and floor around us were lit up like morning. Skeletal ocotillo arms and yucca stalks eddied crazily past us. Fence posts. Rusty windmill blades. We held on to each other for support.

The flood grew stronger. And higher. Up to our waists. All we could do was try to stay on our feet. When the rising water swirled or rippled or crested, I felt it heave me around like a doll. It was a thousand times stronger than any of us. A million. It had carved through fifty feet of
rock. And this was only the beginning. There was much, much more to come. Enough, I was sure, to fill the canyon to the brim, and overflow.

“I hope Daphne made it out the other side before this started!” Audrey cried into the swirling wind.

Lightning. Thunder. Beside me, I saw Kate stagger, and the current swept her away. Audrey stumbled next. I tried to reach her, but the water wrenched her out of my grasp, and she was gone. Randolph cried, “Oh, man!” and disappeared beneath the flood. Louis was the only one strong enough to stand, and the last thing I remember before I lost my footing was the sight of him behind me, terrified, his hands over his ears, fighting the water, and slowly losing. A blue bolt of lightning, the biggest one yet, forked in two and struck both edges of the canyon above him. A thousand tons of stone exploded into rubble and began crashing down the cut straight at Louis.

“Dive, Louis! Dive!” I cried, and then I felt the current tumble me head over heels, and after that, I didn't know which way was up. I didn't know where anybody was. I could only hope Louis had plunged into the flood ahead of the avalanche. I heard a distant noise through the bubbles and the foam . . . somebody calling my name . . . and then all four of my friends and I were lying in a dazed pile, and the floodwater was gone.

“What . . . hap—pened?” cried Kate, climbing to her feet. A rill of storm water trickled past our feet, and the storm still raged above us, but the torrent had subsided.

I looked up the canyon the way we'd come. The rock slide caused by the lightning strike had crashed into Gage Cut and stuffed it shut like a plug.

“The flood is dammed up on the other side of the avalanche!” I cried above the thunder. “For now!” But I knew, as the storm water accumulated, the entire flooded desert would rise against the other side like a flood from the Bible, and blast the whole thing loose like a colossal champagne cork. And we really didn't want to be standing underneath it when that happened.

I heard the stones groaning against one another. Small fountains of floodwater began to spray from the cracks in the bottom.

“What do we do?” cried Kate.

“Run,” I said.

We ran like crazy. We ran like Usain Bolt and Indiana Jones rolled into one. The canyon floor was wet, and slick, and full of flood-scoured holes. We tripped. We bruised our elbows and knees. Randolph split his chin. It began to bleed.

“So what?” He shrugged. “Not the first time.”

We pulled each other back up and kept running.
The rain fell harder and cascaded down the canyon wall in sheets. Behind us, the rock slide shifted as the water pressed harder and harder against its far side, rumbles and moans echoing down the stone corridor between thunderbolts.

Hailstones began rattling down the walls and rolling beneath our feet like marbles.

We stumbled and slid and skidded down in a pile.

And looked up to see the canyon mouth fifteen feet away.

“Hurry,” said Kate, leaping to her feet.

We all felt, along the backs of our necks, that soon the inundation would come crashing down upon us.

We ran out into the open and found ourselves standing on a broad sandbar beside the Rio Grande.

“What are you doing?” demanded Daphne, who stood glaring at us like a bedraggled Siamese cat in a sopping black sweater.

“Daphne!” cried Randolph through the roar of the rain. “You're safe! We came to rescue you!”

“Of course I'm safe, you dolt!” retorted Daphne. “Which means I don't need anybody rescuing me!”

“What do we do now?” panted Audrey, glancing warily at the canyon mouth behind us.

“Get off my sandbar!” snapped Daphne, glancing
upriver, soaked to the skin and furious. I noticed she had a whole campsite set up. She'd been here awhile. “That's what! Leave! My dad's going to be here any second. If he sees you, he's going to be furious! Nobody's supposed to know about our plan!”

The rain still beat down, but it was slowing.

“Your dad's not coming,” said Louis.

Daphne slapped him. Louis quivered, but he kept his eyes on hers. “You have to face it,” he said. Daphne made a fist and drew that back too. But before she could land her punch, we heard the rumble of the flood, the real flood, the whole deluge gathered and towering, thundering down Gage Cut, about to empty from the gap in the cliff a few feet from us. The rock-slide dam had given way. We had a few seconds before it hit. But not much more.

“Run!” I cried. Everybody did. Except, of course, Daphne. She had no idea what kind of calamity was blasting down that canyon. And even if she did, I think she was ready to wait for her dad until doomsday. Literally.

Louis, Audrey, and Kate didn't see her; they sprinted upriver on the sandbar as fast and far as they could go.

But Daphne dug in her heels. Literally.

Randolph dithered back and forth, not knowing whether to try one more time to rescue Daphne or to save himself.

“Go, Randolph!” I shouted.

And I grabbed Daphne, and I carried her. She was bony, thin, and delicate under her soaking clothes, much more fragile than I'd ever have guessed. She tried to slug me, but I had her over my shoulder with her head facing backward, so she only managed to punch my tailbone, which must've hurt her more than it hurt me.

The sandbar stretched far enough to let us run maybe half a football field upstream from the notch in the cliff where the water would burst. It wasn't nearly far enough. I set Daphne down. “You—” she screeched.

The flood exploded out of the canyon, a wall of water as tall as Dolley Madison Middle School, inundating the spot where she'd just been standing in the rain, waiting for her dad. Daphne's anger evaporated. She looked at me with a look I'd never witnessed, not on her face, at least.

The girl who'd seen everything was surprised.

“I'd be dead if you—” she began to say. But now the flood was coming for us. As it crashed into the river, the crest broke, and it began to spread out in a semicircle. The water wall dropped lower and lower, thirty feet, twenty-five feet, twenty. But still awfully high. Still deadly.

“What do we do?” cried Kate.

I tried to think. I thought of Roger Woodward who, when he was seven years old, survived the drop over
Niagara Falls. I though of General John Wesley Powell washing down three miles of the Colorado River at the bottom of the Grand Canyon after he fell out of his boat in 1869. I thought . . . I thought—

And I quit thinking.

“We take the plunge,” I said. “I think it'll be small enough by the time it gets here.” I eyed the surge that still loomed fifteen feet above our heads, and would hit us in seconds.

“Small enough to what?” asked Daphne.

“Surf!” I cried.

“I can't surf!” cried Daphne. “I can't even swim!”