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branch of the tree.
    Climbing hand over hand along the slippery limb, she gained a hold on the trunk. Her soaked clothes tugged at her as if unseen hands pulled her toward the bottom. After a few unsuccessful, exhausting attempts, she pulled her body on top of the bucking trunk. Not far beyond her, Brady struggled to pull himself further out of the water. His packs hung down his back and added unnecessary weight.

    “Drop your packs!” The falls pounded her ears with its throaty roar.

    He looked back over his shoulder, and his eyes widened at the sight of her. His shouted answer was lost in the overwhelming cacophony of the coming disaster.

    They both crawled along the thick trunk until their hands touched. For once she wasn’t disturbed by the touch of a man. Despite the icy water, his fingers felt warm against her nearly numb fingers.

    “Did you fall in?”
    ONE GOOD WOMAN SUSAN KELLEY 11

    She read his lips more than heard the words. She shook her head and gripped his hand tighter. For some reason, her coming death didn’t frighten her. She didn’t want Brady to die with her, but it was a comfort that she wouldn’t die alone as she’d always feared. Soon all her nightmares would end. Her soul deep shame, the hate and the anger that marked her existence would all be gone. Hopefully their deaths would be quick and relatively painless.

    “You fool!” Brady screamed. “Why did you dive in? Why?”

    The walls of the cliffs rushed by and her entire body vibrated with the noise. She wrapped both her hands around Brady’s left hand and looked into his eyes. The sun shone on them like a perverse joke of nature and lit his eyes to the same color as the sky. She read sadness and regret there and felt them in the way he squeezed her hands. He looked forward then, and she followed his gaze with hers. The water frothed with wild, brown waves. Not far ahead the world dropped away. She could see nothing but sky and then a momentary glimpse of the sea far ahead and below them.

    The tree shot out into nothingness and hung there for a breathless moment. It plunged downward and she couldn’t resist looking down at the waiting maelstrom. Somehow Brady pushed away from the dropping tree and pulled her with him so they seemed to fly free. They hit with an explosive jolt and then she knew nothing.
    ONE GOOD WOMAN SUSAN KELLEY 12

Chapter Two
    Brady kept his head above water until his feet touched the muddy bottom not far from the riverbank. Pain assured he remained conscious. Every part of his body hurt though none as bad his head and the blazing agony in his left shoulder.

    Now that he no longer needed to swim, he switched his grasp on Cara’s wrist to his right hand. It gave him little relief as the current slapped against his left arm. He didn’t feel the grating of broken bones against one another, but at the least his shoulder was dislocated. The jolt of landing while holding too tightly to Cara had torn the joint apart. She’d lost consciousness when they struck the boiling bottom of the falls. He worried how badly she was hurt but he could do nothing for her until they reached land.

    That either of them lived was a miracle. That she had leaped into the water in some foolhardy attempt to save him confounded him. Why?

    He dragged her over the slippery mud. After a few steps the ground changed into a rough mixture of sand and short, wiry tufts of grass.

    It hurt to lift his head, but he looked around. Sand and grass stretched alongside the river until it joined the sea in a clash of brown liquid with blue. Up the river toward the falls, the sandy lowland gave way to stands of brush and then a forest fronting the cliffs. He saw nothing moving except the white gulls diving and hunting in the waves of the sea.

    He let go of Cara’s wrist and her arm dropped lifelessly to her side. His head spun and he took a few deep breaths to calm his stomach. With the little grace he could manage, he dropped to his knees by her