Splash. The roar of the waterfalls echoed loud and deafening, moving the river into a frenzy. The spray covered everything in a thin sheet of liquid- reflecting the death before their eyes. Clear, pure water raced itself over polished and smooth rocks with seemingly no end to it. Where did it come from? Where did it go?  The mud and grass mingled in a sludge surrounding the riverbed.

They knew one misstep would send an unwary traveler into the freezing water. Yet it was this river they needed to cross, with their horses and companies, riding rickety old watercraft with cracks and leaks in the bottom.
And there was no way around. They had to go right through.

Tense faces and sharp eyes, alert to every bump and swaying of their boats, stood watchful on top of their loads. Once they were across it would be fine. Once they were across, they could relax and rest again. But now, with death all around, they could not, because to relax here was to die.

And so it was that she stood alert on the bow of her rickety old boat, with the worry lines deepening on her forehead- and the memories of past hurts fresh in her mind. Great Uncle Sam, he'd been drowned in a river. And Billy almost went the same way last spring. Rivers were nice- the slow and lazy ones- but not this. This was roaring and fierce, a wild beast, untamable and unavoidable

The waters rocked her, and the winds blew her, but she was a true old boat. And she landed on the opposite bank, and the people smiled and relaxed and unloaded their horses and carts, barrels and their stuff.

She smiled for a moment, feeling the sturdiness and hardness of land and smelling the greenness of grass.  The horses stamped their feet and remembered the rocking of the boat and they were afraid.  But she led them off and let them eat the soft meadow.  The next boat would make the crossing soon.

“See that man?” She said to a girl.  They stood on the bank and watched the others attempt the crossing.  “The one in the red vest?  Well, that man is my husband.”  She smiled across the lake at him, and her confidence had been restored in the true old boat.  She did not fear his drowning. 

And then the good memories flowered in her mind, and she thought about how she’d met him by a river, fishing.  She thought about how they grew up in the town by the waterfall, one rather like this.  The children played near the dam, and sometimes got swept downriver, but no one died there.  Just like here. 

She thought of his smile and his laugh, and how he’d taken her down to the river one night to look at the stars - and then, with the light of a thousand suns in his eyes, he’d told her he loved her.  And then he kissed her, at the river.  The memory formed a smile at her lips, watching him cross, and she was still smiling as the old boat hit a rock midway through, and the cracks spread like lightning across its wooden surfaces, and the people screamed in vain and fell into the freezing, icy death.

His red vest soaked a blood-scarlet, he grabbed a rock and just barely, barely, breathed.  The water churned around the broken wood, the bodies that floated to the surface, and the one live man among them.  He held on with nails, scratching white lines into the rock.

She screamed his name across the river and the world, the world that had shrunk to this rock and this man.  He looked at her face, saw through the spray it’s terror and horror, and he knew he wouldn’t get out of this. 
“Adam,” She cried.  “Adam! Please-”
The water churned and his hands slipped on the rock.  Feet scrabbling for purchase.  Maybe- maybe the next boat that came around could save him.  If he could just hang on long enough-

“Adam!”

He found her eyes.  “I love you!  I love-”  Slip.  Now he was under the rock, and the current kept him there.
Looking up with waterlogged eyes at the sky above, and the blue and the swirling of the water, he thought that maybe drowning wasn’t such a bad death after all.  So beautiful. 

But he’d always loved the stars, and he couldn’t see them now, save the ones that formed in his mind as the last of the air in his lungs ran out.

On the bank, the woman stopped and stared.  She was alone now.  Her hands trembled and then stilled, and the horses stopped their grazing to look at her with questioning faces.  She sat down in the grass.
The girl next to her had her hands over her mouth.  She sat down as well, shocked to heaven and back.
“Oh- oh-” she could only say, tears spilling down her face.  “He’s...he’s dead…”
“I know,” said the woman.  Her husband was dead, but no tears spilled from her eyes.  There would be time to grieve later.
The two sat in silence while the boats came with more people, regardless of the danger.  This was, after all, the only place to cross.  Presently the horses went back to their munching.
“What’s your name…?”
The woman jumped in surprise.  What an odd question.  “It’s...Evelyn.  Evelyn.”
“Nice name.”
“Thanks.”