69
The air isn’t merely humid, it’s soaking wet with spray so thick that the bugs have given up and gone home. The quickening current hauls our unpowered dinghy pell-mell.
I yank the outboard’s starter. My ribs shriek again, but the motor fires right up.
By the time I get the dinghy’s nose pointed upstream, the guttering flames of Noah’s yacht expose the waterfall.
The riverbed drops a yard amidst rounded crags and spars of exposed bedrock, tumbling towards another drop. Beyond those short rapids, the ground ends in an irregular curve. The sky beyond is picking up faint haze of pink from the approaching sunrise. Even through the waterfall’s mist, I can see that beyond the waterfall is a whole lot of absolutely nothing.
“We have a winch,” Bradley says in my ear. “Stay on the river if y
