It made the tiniest popping sound when she fell. We were dragging the canoes onto the riverbed, stumbling across the smooth rocks. She broke her fall with one hand, and something in the way she moved made us stop. She didn’t cry or scream, just took one hand in the other and waited.
Her wrist is broken, D said. He was our guide on this four day excursion. Kaia looked down at Ella, at me, then back at her friend. We’d been on the river a day and a night, and no one was enjoying it. Even less now.
D finished binding Ella’s wrist and gestured to me and Kaia.
Two options, he said. We go back downstream, wait for the next group. That’s three days.
Three days? Kaia shook her head in disbelief.
Or, I sprint to the pick-up, get her to the Ranger station, then the hospital. That’s one day, maybe faster.
That’s not even a choice, I said.
That’s not all, he looked at us. I gotta travel light. Put all our gear in your boat. You two have to follow on your own. You can’t go back with all that weight, the rapids from yesterday will sink you.