At first, Dim thought the rain was a good thing.
When time came to clear camp, however, and follow the waterway north in search of the main river, which would lead them back to Cuckoo Camp, they were still waiting for the rain to stop.
Some five hours later, he frowned from his little nook underneath some low-hanging banana palms-The downpour seemed relentless.
When the rain kept on a full ten hours later, pelting them in furious, relentless sheets, the anxiety turned to panic- They should be heading toward higher ground!
He popped up from under his banana palm and looked around. His tourists had crammed three each into the hammocks, and they weren't supposed to do that; the hammocks held two people only, and they weren't all that great at keeping the water out.
He could barely see, but he knew that the high ground had shrunk. The river had risen during the night at a bewildering speed. Even though they had placed the hammocks on a rise in the riverbed, it wasn't nearly high enough.
Dim's face suddenly darkened: He had made a big mistake! - With this rain they'd all be swallowed up in no time!
He had to rouse them immediately, but, oh, what was the English word that meant too much water?
"Waters, waters!" he shouted, "too much waters!"
"Tell us about it," someone groaned from the first hammock.
"Do turn it off now," someone asked as if Dim were some weather god.
"We goes higher, higher now!"
They grumbled like lazy dogs. Nobody was getting up, nobody was moving! Dim sloshed ten meters over to the other hammock, the water now up to his ankles.
"Waters too much! We leave now!"
"We're all soaked in here!"
"I'm starving!"
Nobody understood that it was better to be alive and soaked, alive and starving.
'Oh, what's the word for 'suddenly, too much water'?'
He looked upwards and the assailing rain stung his face like a thousand angry bees. His visibility was so bad he couldn't see his feet ... Of course, he couldn't see his feet-The water was up past his ankles now!
When Dim got back to the first hammock, all that remained was a black sea of churning water. They were gone-The hammock had been swept off with the river's current!
Oh, this was bad - Angry water everywhere!
He collapsed in a worn heap, but then jumped up again, as if shocked by a cattle prod, and snatched what supplies he could.
Wading back to the second hammock, he tore it open and stuck his face inside like an insane devil.
"Is it flooding?" Pete asked.
Flooding! - Yes, that was the word! "Yes, flooding, flooding, flooding, you go high now or you drown!"
"Why didn't you say so?"
The last Dim saw of Pete, Pinky Bell and Windy, they were finally scrambling for higher ground. He had no time to help them-he had to find the others!
He waded up to his knees into the furious waters, his vision still shrouded by the torrent, though sometimes it eased and he could see farther. He heard a scream down river, and if he used his bowler hat to shield his eyes from the deluge, he could see something bobbing in the current.
With the water swirling around his knees, Dim took out his flattened life vest from the plastic bag of supplies and began blowing furiously into the valve. Inflating it was going to take forever, and the tourists were his responsibility. But he gave it ten good blows, secured the cap and jumped into the berserk floodwater.
Flooding! Flooding! - Why hadn't he considered these flashfloods? - Because it just seemed too early for rainy season. Dim kicked in the water, though he didn't know what was going on-he was spinning, getting his bearing, trying for control, but that was impossible. He didn't have as much air in the vest as he wanted, but it would have to do ...
He saw no one, and he could see that the flood had risen well over the riverbanks.
"Cuckoo campers!" he shouted, though he knew they couldn't hear him.
He hoped the others had the sense to climb higher, but he couldn't think about them now-He had to find the other three. Who were they? The fat American girl-she should be easy to spot. The other two were smaller-the cute Canadian girl and the dark-skinned English boy with the penis palang ...
He found himself in a faster current. He worried that he may have overshot everybody, but he kept going. He had no choice...
A flash of blue or green canvas snagged on something below-Puso's backpack, maybe, flapping and sinking...
No heads or bodies in the water. But even if he saw them, he probably wouldn't be able to swim over to them. He may not even be able to stop!
He kept going. Muscles on fire, just staying on the surface. Then he slowed, and things started to pass him-branches mostly, nothing man-made. Dim knew each second meant his tourists were most likely closer to death.
The rain continued to fall hard, stinging his arms and shoulders. He looked in every direction, deaf, nearly blind. The rain was so loud! He hoped he wouldn't lose his hat-that would be a disaster!
He was so tired! - He'd have to kick toward shore, hope nothing crashed into him. His heart raced, his lungs nearly clogged, he floated on grit. He knew the rivers were well capable of swelling up to ten meters in a single day. But that was rainy season, still months away.
Something dark and ominous loomed in front of him ...
"Cuckoo campers?"
A grove of treetops. Dim tried skirting the claw-like branches, but ended up ricocheting into them. Scratches, bleeding now... twirling in all directions like those whirling dervish priests in the magazines, like the silver balls bouncing like crazy inside the arcade machines.
Dim looked up-He was under canopy again and his vision improved; the overhanging foliage held up a lot of the downpour.
Something enormous off to the side, a giant tree floating slowly with the current. Dead roots on one end looked like talons; scraggly branches on the other end clawed in all directions. If it floated anywhere near him, he'd be gored, crushed into wet powder ...
But something stuck to the massive trunk-two things, actually, the size and shape of his mother's round, ceramic pots ...
His tourists were clinging to that enormous tree trunk!
"Cuckoo campers!" But they couldn't hear him.
Dim had to get nearer; he had to catch them, but he'd never be able to go faster than the current. He paddled like an insane person in his efforts to reach the big tree. Rain blocked his view but he knew his tourists couldn't be far ahead. Arms flaming in pain, he kept at it-strong, steady strokes.
Something big and dark appeared five meters ahead. He was gaining on it. The tangled root system threatened to puncture holes in him if he attempted to mount the tree from that side. Adjusting the angle, he bypassed the roots. Digging deep and fast in the water, he came alongside the figures, which didn't look like pots anymore ...
The Canadian girl on top of the English boy, kissing him! They were fooling around in the middle of a flood! - 'What is going on?'
Breathing heavily, Dim tillered up to the tree. "Cuckoo campers! This no time for the love-love!"
He was so tired he could barely get the English words out, and he hung there, gripping the notches in the log for support, draped off the tree like some discarded sarong as it sped along with the current.
The Nini girl, one arm crooked in a branch, the other around Puso, looked like a doused squirrel, and neither had life jackets. "I'm giving him artificial respiration. He won't come to!"
Dim understood: the Canadian girl was trying to save the boy's life! He re-gripped the robust tree trunk and tried to climb, but that merely forced the tree to roll, nearly sending both tourists into the water. His semi-bulbous life jacket was a problem, too-it wouldn't let him shimmy up the tree.
"Stop it!" Nini barked down at him. She looked like a cat sprayed with a garden hose. And she, too, looked ready to give up and just slip into the water.
Dim swung down the trunk to a better position in the middle of the tree. He felt like an orangutan swinging on a vine, but he found better notches there, and he climbed up without rolling anybody into the water.
When he reached Puso, he crawled carefully around and then began his own version of CPR, aware of the boy's blue-ish skin tone. He kept pressing and breathing-all the things he learned at the water safety course in Bario. Between breaths, he kept an eye on the Canadian girl, who looked pretty woozy herself, making sure she held on and remained conscious.
Press, press, press, press, breathe. He'd rather be kissing Nini, not Puso, but he tried not to give that much thought. It was only an old dummy he had practiced on, but he kept the rhythm going, pushing his palms against the boy's sternum.
Fingers on his jugular vein brought more bad news.
Rain continued to pelt them as they floated along nearly blind in the torrent, and Dim considered this was probably the strangest situation he had ever found himself in-hurtling along the river on top of a tree!
But wait! - This was like his life ... Yes! Dim's life was just like this tree-plunging, going who-knows-where, rudderless, futureless, fatherless...
"Brain death occurs at seven minutes!" Nini shouted.
That got him back to work.
Catching more of the current, the mammoth tree went into a slow spin. Now they were facing backwards with a view of mostly the snarled up roots and branches.
"Let me try something." Nini shouldered her way in as Dim's pressing and breathing increased in urgency...
But things weren't good, and Dim shook his head at Nini-The flood waters had won ... They had lost him.
The little Canadian girl then did the craziest, most wondrous thing Dim had ever seen in his life... Nini reached down between the boys legs and gave Puso's crotch a good tug...
... And Puso exploded-a geyser of water shot out from his insides. He gasped, unable to catch air, coughed and gurgled as more water bubbled out both sides of his mouth.
Holding his chin up, head back, nose clamped, Dim blew air into his lungs.
Puso lay on his side, coughing atop the enormous trunk, and it began to roll ...
Dim scrambled to the other side as a counter balance. Then the tree came slowly around, tangled roots pulling them all parallel with the current. If it hit something submerged, they'd all be propelled into the air, just like Moonch from the boat, or like those crazy cliff divers ...
Still on his side, he coughed non-stop, with Nini next to him, wheezing and shivering. And Dim worked as human ballast-scrambling from side to side depending on the wobble of the tree, pushing himself beyond endurance and pain.
Now, with every nerve screaming in agony, adrenalin spent, having demanded every last ounce of strength, he felt his entire body tingle from the strain-If the tree rolled or swerved, if Puso or Nini tumbled off, he wouldn't have the strength to do much.
Balancing on the edge of consciousness, he grew dizzy, willing himself to stay awake ...
"What's that?" Nini shouted. Directly in their path, a few seconds ahead, more treetops filled the horizon. Nothing could prevent them from slamming into the thick branches and dangling vines ahead.
They scraped something beneath the surface, and the jolt threw everyone forward. Dim reached for his tourists, but only succeeded in catching the waistline of Nini's shorts, and Puso bounced along the trunk behind them, tossing everybody into the water.
The tree then did an extraordinary thing - It jackknifed, the back end ascending vertically like something arisen from the dead, high above, threatening to squash them when it fell ...
Towering over them, it pirouetted as if doing some kind of strange forest dance. When it came crashing down, it sent all three of them into frenzied underwater summersaults.
Dim didn't know which way was up; churned-up muddy water eliminated all visibility. With one hand still on what he hoped was one of his tourists, Dim thrashed around for anything to hold, groping and kicking in all directions ...
Some gnarled, spiny, hairy thing scratched against his face. Spinning around, he hooked it with a finger, then a hand and followed the vine up.
Bursting from the water, Dim filled his lungs. Nini, next to him, did the same.
Puso was gone. He could be anywhere, pinned under the tree, washed away in the wave, tangled in the roots.
Something grabbed Dim's foot, then his leg... Puso popped up next to them, looking at Dim as if sickened by something, "Were you kissing me?"
"We boths kissing you."
Puso scowled at Dim, smiled warmly at Nini, then scowled back at Dim, trying to make sense of it, like someone too stupid to understand a significant event.
"Who touched my... you know?"
His 'you-know'? ... Dim looked at Nini, who suddenly found great interest in the floating foliage all around them.
"I gots to tell you..." Dim started.
"It wasn't really kissing," Puso said, slowly working it out.
"What?" Nini turned back to Dim, pressing, "Tell us what?"
"Rainy Season ... It begin early."
They didn't seem to appreciate the warning, so Dim hit them with even more urgent news, "I lost my hat." They'd surely sympathize with that.
Puso looked at Dim's hand, which was still coiled around one of Nini's belt loops, and then snarled like an angry mammal.
"Get your hand off my girlfriend's butt."
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