Aurora Fox's Arc

Chapter 3 of 5

Aurora waded to the floating mat where Sam had tied off the otter. Her lily-pad vest sagged against her ribs. Water had crept into the seams and pushed each pad flat. The pole felt heavier every step. When she planted it beside Sam, her back paws slid on something soft under the water. "Ground's going," she said. Sam glanced down. "Mire patch. Don't lift your feet." She froze. The mud around her boots was already past her ankles. The vest, meant to hold her up, hung waterlogged and useless. She tried to shift her weight to the pole. The pole sank an inch, then another. Brown water climbed her shin. "Sam." "I see it." He crouched on the mat and studied the reeds around her. "Roots to your left. Two steps. Don't jump. Slide." Aurora looked left. A knot of cypress roots broke the surface a body-length away. Between her and the roots sat green scum, lily pads, and a bed of soft mud that had already taken half her boots. She slid her left paw out. The mud sucked at it. She dragged it forward one hand-width. Her right paw sank deeper to match. "Faster," Sam said. "Not bigger. Faster." She worked her paws in short pulls. The vest bunched at her throat. Water reached her knees. The pole tilted. She let it fall flat across the mud in front of her and leaned her weight onto it. The pole spread her across the surface instead of down into it. "Good," Sam said. "Keep coming." He pulled the coiled rope from his left overall pocket, shook out a loop, and tossed the end past her shoulder. It slapped the water beside her ear. She caught it in her teeth, then her paw, and cinched it under her arms over the ruined vest. Sam braced against a cypress knee and hauled. The mud gave up her right paw with a wet pop. Her left followed. He pulled her chest-first across the pole and onto the root knot. She lay on the wood, breathing hard, mud to her belly fur. Sam cut the vest off her with the knife from his right pocket. He dropped it in the water. The lily pads drifted apart. "Boots too," he said. "They're holding water." She unlaced them and kicked them off. Her paws were bare on the wet root. "I can't cross barefoot," she said. "Not miles of this." Sam looked at the sky, then at the otter still tied to the cypress knee. He shook his head. "We don't cross today. We get the otter to the trapper's shack. You dry out there. Tomorrow I take you to the basin." Aurora closed her paw around the rope at her chest. The map was still folded in her vest pocket, sinking somewhere behind her. She had Sam. She had one more night to wait.