I don't know if I have ever experienced a chapter as action packed as this one was. There was page after page of action, it seemed like it would never stop. The basic story line is that Ed shoots a man who he thinks is the second attacker. After releasing the arrow the recoil of the bow knocks Ed out of the tree. On his fall down his last arrow positions itself between his side and the ground and when Ed hits the ground the arrow pierces Ed's side. This injury really affects Ed. He is hardly able to move and must cut the arrow out. After somewhat recovering from the arrow injury Ed must immediately decide what to do with the body. He examines it and sees that this man has all of his teeth. Ed thinks to himself that he might have shot the wrong person. However, he cannot think about that right now. He must focus on disposing of the body. He decides to lower the body off the edge of the cliff with his rope. After he has done that he takes hold of the rope and slides down himself. The rope breaks when he nears the bottom and the corpse and he fall into the water. Bobby helps Ed out and then helps Ed sink the body. Now that the three men are united once again they proceed down the river. They come across a large and fierce set of rapids that almost throws them out of the boat, but they make it through. On the other side of the rapids they find Drew's body. Ed examines it and is unsure if he was shot or if he hit his head on a rock and drowned. Ed also decides that they will tell the authorities that that last set of rapids is where everything went wrong. Just a few miles after the last rapids is a farm where the three men are finally able to get off the river.
Just like I said in a previous posting, I had the feeling that Ed would need to shoot at something later on. This time he was successful. I think the main reason he succeed was because he had to shoot the man or the man would have shot him. It was kill or be killed. Luckily Ed was able to hold his nerves together enough to keep the arrow steady during the release.
Ed getting impaled by his own arrow didn't really surprise me. Every other character had had something bad happen to them, so it only made since that Ed need to get hurt too.
As I mentioned earlier, when Ed looks over the attacker's body he notices that he has all his teeth. Ed was almost positive that the attacker at the scene was missing some teeth. At first he is a little worried about this, but he realizes that he can't do anything about it now. I agree with him. What is done is done. If he would have sat there and thought about it, he would have just gotten himself in more trouble.
After Bobby pulls Ed out of the water Ed goes off on Bobby. He yells at him for not leaving on time and numerous other things. Ed is upset that Bobby did not follow the directions. If Ed had not killed the attacker then Bobby and Lewis would have probably been shot and Ed's efforts would have been in vein. It kind of works out for Ed though. If Bobby would have left on time he would not have been there to help Ed out of the water and Ed would have had to find another way off of the river.
Ed seems very interested in looking over Drew's body. He really wants to know how he died. I think the main reason he wants to know is because if Drew was not shot, then Ed's murder is not really justified. However, if the attacker did shoot Drew, then Ed will a little bit better about what he did.
Bobby says on page 219 "There's no end to it." This is entirely true. Bobby, Lewis, and Ed will never forget what happened on the river. They will have to live with the events for the rest of their lives. Even if they get the authorities to believe their story they are not really free of their guilt. They will always have to live with what they did.
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