PRECIPICE Read Online Free Page B

working today; and drinking was one of the only pastimes available in rural West Virginia on days when there was no work. The SEALs had been up to the challenge, but you would never know they’d won the party last night by the way they paddled today.
    Chip cracked his beer open as Harris walked over and toasted him. They fist bumped with their other hands as they gulped their beers, splashing the cool barley juice sloppily down their chins to mingle with the river water that still coated them. They weren’t that different in build, although Harris was about two inches taller at just over six feet and a couple years older having passed thirty. Both were lean and hardened from heavy physical activity, but Harris’ hair was dark while Chip’s was bleached sandy from a full season of river sun. Both were scruffy, neither having shaved for the past four days. Their faces could not have conveyed their divergent lifestyles better. Chip’s features held a round, jovial softness, while Harris had a seriousness to his chiseled chin and cheek bones that conveyed the might of a primordial war god.
    Harris’ dark eyes were twinkling with the buzz from the day on the river, but he was guarded in his expression, never wanting to brag openly about his accomplishments. Plus, he wasn’t yet sure of just how much he’d accomplished. The river had been crowded on Friday and the weekend; they had passed hundreds of other rafters and kayakers each day despite even the torrential downpour they had paddled through on Sunday. It had been like a whole new river today, the floodwater morphing it from a fun jaunt into what felt like a very serious, life-or-death situation. They hadn’t seen another soul out there today, either.
    “That was some serious shit,” Chip said evenly, watching Harris finally release the stress of the day to break into a chuckle and a wide smile, “I think you boys are ready for Africa.”
    The other three whooped and raised their beers in a toast, grateful to finally be assured that they had done something exceptional. They had developed a tremendous respect for this young whitewater virtuoso, who all weekend had acted like nothing they were doing was out of the ordinary in any way. Not many people could run with SEALs—especially in water—and although they would never let him know it, this kid had been lighting them up all weekend long. He was like some kind of duck—totally at home in the water and looking like nothing ever fazed him out there. While they had been furiously paddling and swimming, he seemed to move effortlessly through the river’s chaos with perfect, almost meditative economy of motion.
    They had developed a bond over the last few days, Chip telling them river stories of his adventures exploring Central and South America, and them telling him hints and bits of their days on the SEAL teams, flirting with the line of things that were never supposed to be spoken of. All had lost friends in action—Chip on rivers and the others in places and ways so far out of the realm of common experience that Chip couldn’t fully imagine it. If not for a family rafting trip when he was twelve, though, Chip didn’t think it was that far fetched that he might have wound up with these guys, looking for a similar level of challenge along a more disciplined path. Still, at his current stage in life he thought piloting adventure tourists down rivers sounded like a better job than killing people in far-off hostile lands. He’d save his adventuring for unexplored foreign rivers.
    Ten minutes later the beers were finished, dry clothes were put on, and the kayak, raft, and gear were loaded. They piled into the SUV for forty-five minutes of winding roads back to Chip’s tattered ’97 Tacoma, still parked at the top of the river.
    “So you paddle shit that big all the time?” Roberts asked Chip. At six-foot-two and a burly two-fifty, Roberts was the largest member of the crew. Due to his bulk, he had been the most