And beside him, he sensed every other Indian on the site doing the same thing.
Fly! he told her, prayed for her. Fly, little girl! You can do it!
But he knew by her faltering wingbeats that she was in trouble.
Jennie was definitely in trouble. Her guts were filled with the ice of pure fear; she bit her lip and tasted blood.
She hadn't reckoned on the fact that she would be going uphill. All the advantages of her smaller car were outweighed by the fact that the engine was smaller too.
The bad guys were catching up to her, and there was still about a half mile of switchbacks yet to go.
Come on, she begged her laboring engine. Come on! Just a little farther-
The Lincoln loomed up in her rearview mirror again, filling it.
Fear closed a cold hand around her throat.
Come on, you can do it-
The man driving was smiling.
And he vanished from her mirror as he pulled into the left-hand lane.
He's gonna force me off the road-
And right here, 'off the road' meant down. About a hundred and fifty feet worth of 'down.' No one could survive a drop like that.
They turned, together, and he was right at her rear bumper; he nudged the accelerator and came right alongside. A blind corner, a left-hand switchback, loomed right up ahead-the last turn before the top-if she could just keep him from forcing her off there-
Then, a flash of inspiration.
There's two pedals, stupid! she screamed at herself just as he pulled alongside, grinning at her across his partner in the front seat. Use the other one!
No more than a hundred feet from the corner, she jammed on the brakes.
He went sailing by, staring at her, mouth agape with shock-
Just as a bus rounded the corner up ahead. In his lane.
He had just enough time to react; he jerked the wheel wildly to the right-
At the same instant that the bus driver, in a panic, jerked his to the left to avoid the oncoming car…
Jennie could only watch, hand stuffed into her mouth, as the bus tried to swerve back into its own lane, and hit the Lincoln a glancing blow along the driver's side, just in front of the rear wheel.
Just enough to send it spinning right over the edge, tumbling over the side of the bluff.
The kestrel went into another dive, but this one had the feeling of desperation about it. The Black Birds were right on her tail, and she was either going to plow into the dirt of the Arkansas bluffs, or fly right up into their claws. Do something! Larry Bushyhead told the white eye of the sun, fiercely. Help her! Do something!
And at that precise moment, someone did do something.
The kestrel skimmed the surface of the river, the Black Birds following-so intent on her that they paid no attention to anything else.
Like the pair of Bald Eagles that suddenly dove down out of the sun, straight for them.
Larry watched in stunned joy. He remembered something a falconer friend had once told him. 'If you want to really know what the fastest bird alive is, ask someone who just had their prize peregrine falcon taken by an eagle.'
The Eagles were like twin thunderbolts-and evidently no one had ever told them that Bald Eagles were fish and carrion eaters, because they were obviously after those Black Birds, and the Black Birds didn't even know they were there!
A second later, they knew all right-but by then it was too late.
It happened so quickly that Larry could hardly believe it. Just the two plummeting Eagles, and three little explosions of black feathers as the Eagles fisted their prey, knocking the birds out of the sky and into the river.
They fanned their wings and tails to brake down, then made a graceful, leisurely circle to land on the sandbar beside the skinny black bodies. Larry found himself cheering like a madman as they made their fly-by, and it seemed to him that they bowed once, like star performers for an appreciative audience, before bending to dine.
The kestrel soared wearily up into the air, and was lost in the blue of the sky.
Larry cheered himself hoarse, then turned-
And found himself staring into the face of his boss, Rod Calligan.
A face that was transfixed with such rage and hate that for a moment, Larry didn't even recognize him.
The bus bounced off the wall of the bluff and skidded along it to a halt, the white-faced driver fighting the wheel and the momentum of multiple tons of steel and plastic and passengers. The passengers themselves screamed loudly enough to be heard over the shrieking of air brakes, the scrape of metal on rock; and the dull thud of an explosion as flame blossomed over the edge of the curve.
The bus slid to a stop mere inches away, just off her bumper. The driver stared down at her through his windshield, statuelike, whiter than marble.
Jennie just sat, frozen, her hands clutching her steering wheel, her heart trying to beat its way out of her rib cage.
It was the shrieking of the passengers that finally galvanized her into movement. She slammed the Brat's door open and sprinted for the bus, certain from all the noise that there were people sprawled in various states of broken all over the interior.
But miraculously, no one was hurt.
The driver was in a complete state of shock, as well he might be, but Jennie and a couple of the passengers who had their wits about them began helping the others out of the bus. Within a few moments, more cars appeared on both sides of the road, some of whose drivers had seen the plume of flame and smoke from the Lincoln. One driver had a cellular phone, and two had C.B. radios; all three called police and ambulances.
Jennie stayed there anyway, as the only witness to the entire 'accident.' She told the police, when they finally arrived, that the driver of the Lincoln had been trying to pass her on the blind curve, and that the bus driver had pulled off the best 'save' she had ever seen in her life.
Since no one in the Lincoln survived to dispute her version of the story, and the driver honestly did not remember much besides seeing the Lincoln on the wrong side of the road and swerving to avoid it, the cops were perfectly willing to believe her.
It was only when she finally pulled her Brat away from the scene that she saw what was written on the side of the bus.
Eagle Tours.
David gritted his teeth and went on with his part of the 'plan,' even though he wanted to go chasing right after the three guys in the Lincoln as it sped off after Jennie's Brat. This whole thing depended on everyone doing his part, doing it right, and doing it without interfering with the rest of the plan. He wouldn't help either her or Toni Calligan by rushing off and doing something stupid.
Toni was not even aware of what else was going on. But the dual threat of her soon-to-be-ex husband and the mi-ah-luschka was probably more than enough for her. She was white as a sheet under her makeup and healing bruises, and the two kids, poor little mites, were clearly just as terrified when David came to the door. He wondered what had been going on in that house in the past forty-eight hours-
-then decided that maybe he really didn't want to know, after all. It would only make him madder. And he might lose his temper, go down to Calligan's construction site, and beat the bastard's face in. He was only heartbeats from doing that as it was; only his promise to Jennie had kept him from dashing out to kill the man when he realized Calligan had sent those goons to drown her.
But David had promised. She would not respect him for breaking a promise. She would neyer forgive him for messing up the case by breaking Calligan's head. Logically, he knew that. Emotionally, though, countless generations of warrior ancestry told him to go collect some blood.
He hustled all three of his charges into the backseat of Mooncrow's car and threw their luggage into the trunk; the sooner they got out of this neighborhood, the less chance there was of getting caught. Mrs. Nebles waved good-bye from her front window, and gave Toni the high-sign as they pulled away. Toni smiled weakly and returned it.
Everything was ready and waiting at the office; a small and private room, the Shelter lawyer, the papers, the
