Excerpt from Tornado Fever

Here is an excerpt from the upcoming new book, Tornado Fever (third in the series):


Velvet Fall Rapids comes up fast, and I knew many rafters had misjudged its strength by its seemingly harmless appearance. I kept in the middle of the channel, and head for the clear chute between obstructions, the current steeper and faster than the surrounding water. Down river and around a bend, I watch the boil line—where upwelling water misleads, some of the surface current going upriver, and the below surface current going downriver. Five miles past Velvet Creek Rapids, I steer past a boulder fan from an incoming Horn Creek on the left side—the sloping fan-shaped mass of boulders deposited by the tributary stream where it enters the middle fork, constricting the river and causing rapids. Six miles further down I think I’m back in Heavy Artillery, Army, at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. I encounter Artillery Rapids, go past Rapid River Pack Bridge, then watch for rapids from Mortar Creek, followed by rapids from incoming Cannon Creek.

Five miles further, I hit the famous Pistol Creek Rapids. We accelerated coming into a lower S curve, as I guard against striking a house boulder on my near left. Now I’m heading straight into the three huge rocks looming in midstream on the right, but in the middle of the S curve. I cranked the oar blade madly to the right for forty feet and then madly to the left, so as to sail parallel to the granite obstructions. I have to steer for the outside—as if I want to kill myself on those huge rocks--but at the last minute the main current catches me as I suspected and sharply sweeps me laterally left. On a parallel course, I shoot past the Pistol Creek rocks going by on my near right shoulder.