There was no gunfire. Maybe I’d actually done some damage by throwing the pistol. The rumble of the engine behind us crescendoed. I looked back-we weren’t going to make it.
I braced myself uselessly, thinking a collision was inevitable. But suddenly the gap between us and the Humvee widened. The truck braked, sliding toward us across the ice. We shot between the cottonwoods and up a snowy slope. The Humvee slammed into one of the trees with a shriek of tortured steel.
We reached the top of the ridge we’d been climbing, and the trail leveled out, leading into a large clearing with a huge oak. Its branches spread so low we had to duck to pass beneath it. At the far side of the meadow the trail dove back into the woods, down the other side of the ridge toward the river.
Blood rushed in my ears, and my breath came in gasps. But even over the noises of my body, I heard a roar ahead-water rushing over the roller dam.
We came around a bend and the woods opened up, the trail suddenly ending at the frothing pool at the base of the dam. Darla slammed on the brakes, but Bikezilla slid inexorably toward the pool.
“Darla!” I screamed.
“Jump!” She swerved, trying to miss the open water. I jumped and landed with a thud in the snow on the hillside. The bike fell sideways, trapping Darla’s leg and dragging her in a rush toward the deadly, roiling water at the base of the dam.
Chapter 19
Without hesitation or forethought, I jumped. I stretched out in a flying leap, Superman-style, hurling myself down the hill toward Darla. I landed half on top of her, our arms entangled, both of us sliding toward the frothing water.
Darla was digging her fingers into the snow, desperately trying to stop her slide. But the weight of Bikezilla, trapping her leg, dragged us toward the edge. I dug my toes into the hillside, groaning with effort.
We slid to a stop. Bikezilla’s rear track hung out over the water. Ice from the spray was already freezing on our gear.
“I’ve. Got. You!” I whispered through clenched teeth.
Darla wrapped one arm around my shoulder. “Maybe you could pull me away from the water now, numbnuts?”
I heaved a huge sigh of thanks and started tugging Darla back toward the bank. A sound like a gunshot rent the air, and the ice under Bikezilla broke. I watched in horror as the whole sheet was instantly sucked under by the vicious undertow.
Darla’s legs fell into the pool. She twisted, clinging desperately to me. I scrabbled backward, trying to stay on the unbroken ice. Bikezilla slid off her, sucked down into the gray, foaming water.
The undertow pulled at Darla. It was surprisingly strong-I felt like I was playing tug-of-war with the river, with Darla as the rope and both of our lives hanging in the balance. I couldn’t get enough leverage on the icy bank to drag her out of the river. I tightened my grip on her. I would
Darla heaved her right knee up, trying to get it up over the ice shelf, but she bashed it instead against the edge of the ice. I plunged my left hand into the icy water and got a grip on the back of her knee. I howled and dragged her leg up onto the bank, and she rolled toward me, heaving her other leg free of the pool in a splash of freezing water.
She lay on her back, gasping. I looked across the water and ice of the Mississippi-I didn’t see anyone at the barge. Maybe they’d left for the evening.
Bikezilla was thrown to the surface. It slammed into the concrete base of the dam and was sucked back under. The churning water coming over the dam was tossing it around like a tennis shoe in a washing machine. I shuddered-if we’d fallen in there, neither of us would have survived.
“S-s-so c-c-cold,” Darla said.
She was sopping wet to her waist. The water was already starting to freeze in little icy patches on her coveralls. I moved my wet left arm experimentally-I could barely feel it. Flakes of ice fell off my sleeve. “We’ve got to get out of the open.”
“All our s-s-supplies.” Darla stretched one arm toward the roller dam.
“It’s hopeless. They’re gone.” I stood and helped Darla up. She was shivering violently. We had to hide. Had to get warm-and do it in a way that Black Lake couldn’t track us. “Come on. Try to stay in the tracks.” I pulled her back up the hill, trudging along the path Bikezilla’s rear track had made.
Darla stumbled and fell. She lay shivering in the snow. I hauled her to her feet. “Can you jog?” I asked. “You’ve got to warm up.”
“I’ll t-t-try.” Darla stumbled up the hill in a shambling half-jog. We were moving a lot slower than I would have liked, but at least we were out of sight of the barge.
Darla started to fall, and I caught her again. I looked down and saw I’d stepped outside of Bikezilla’s track. We were leaving a clear trail despite our efforts to stay in the path.
Darla fell once more before we made it to the top of the ridge. The woods were silent and still. On the mostly level ground at the top of the hill, Darla stretched out her pace, and we made better time. Maybe the jogging was warming her up, though she was still shivering. I rubbed my wet arm as we ran. I still couldn’t feel it.
I stopped when we got to the massive, spreading oak in the clearing. “We can get off the path without leaving a trail here.”
“How?” Darla asked.
“That branch.” I pointed above our heads. “I’ll boost you up. We’ll crawl along it to the trunk, climb around, and crawl out another branch on the far side.”
“G-g-good idea.”
I wasn’t so sure it was a good idea. If Darla fell and hurt herself, it would be a disastrously bad idea. And I’d never been much of a tree climber-I don’t like heights. “Can you do it?”
Darla just nodded, shivering.
I squatted and grabbed Darla by her thighs. Water squished out of her coveralls onto my coat. I lifted her high enough that all she had to do was flop her arms over the branch to hang by her armpits. She kicked out-I had to duck to save my head-and got one leg up over the branch. Then she swung herself up on top of it and started dragging herself toward the trunk, inchworm-style.
I jumped and grabbed the branch in both hands, facing away from Darla. I swung my legs back and forth a few times, working up momentum, and threw them up and around the branch. Then I just had to roll over, pulling myself to the top of the tree limb. Darla was already about halfway to the trunk. I dragged myself along behind her.
“There’s a great view from back here,” I said.
“Q-quit looking!” Darla snapped, but I could hear a hint of a smile in her voice. Maybe my stupid joke had worked. I needed something, anything, to distract from the desperation building in my gut.
Darla stopped at the oak’s huge trunk. “There’s no way to climb around.”
“What about up to that fork in the tree?” I asked.
“Maybe. I might need a boost.”
Darla wasn’t stuttering or shivering as much. I hoped that was a good sign. I let my legs dangle over either side of the icy branch and scooched over to help. She sat up and threw one knee up on the branch and reached to try to get a handhold in the fork of the tree. I held her waist, trying to keep her steady. Darla stood up on the branch so she could reach farther into the fork. “Push me up.”
I put my palms under her butt and shoved. She pulled herself upward until her chest was wedged into the split in the tree. She rested there for a moment and then pulled herself the rest of the way up.
“There’s a branch here that goes the right way,” Darla said. “We can get at least another thirty feet from the path.”
“Okay, good. I’m coming up.” I pulled my knees onto the branch. Standing was tricky. I got one foot flat on the ice-coated branch, but I felt wobbly. I stood, trying to keep the unsteadiness in my knees under control and
