Chapter 10 - Across the Water
The river was forty feet wide, its current foaming white against jagged limestone boulders. In summer, it might have been a knee-deep stream, but the autumn deluge had transformed it into a torrent that could easily sweep a grown man off his feet.
Nora stood at the water’s edge, feeling the cold spray misting against her face. To turn back meant walking straight into the search perimeter Victoria Vance’s team was surely establishing along the highway. To stay here meant hypothermia; the temperature was dropping rapidly, and their wet clothes would freeze by midnight.
“Can we swim, Mom?” Mia asked, peering into the rushing water with obvious dread.
“No, baby. It’s too strong,” Nora said, scanning the riverbank. Fifty yards upstream, an ancient white pine had fallen across the gorge, its massive trunk wedged between two granite ledges roughly six feet above the churning water. It was slick with moss and rain, but it was solid.
“We’re going to cross on that log,” Nora said, pointing.
Mia shrank back slightly. “What if I fall?”
Nora knelt down in the mud, bringing herself eye-to-eye with her daughter. She reached up and unzipped her hoodie, pulling Mia close against her chest. “I’m going to tie you to me, Mia. We cross together. You hold on to my shoulders with everything you have. Don't look down at the water. You look right at the back of my neck and tell me about that toy car you want to rebuild. Deal?”
Mia swallowed hard, her small fingers clutching Nora’s lapels. “Deal.”
Using Frank’s heavy canvas tow-strap, which she had taken from the truck’s emergency kit, Nora bound Mia tightly to her back, wrapping the strap around their waists and shoulders until the child was anchored securely against her spine. The added weight sent an agonizing spasm through her damaged ribs, but Nora locked her teeth and pushed herself up.
She mounted the fallen pine trunk on hands and knees, refusing to stand upright on the slick bark. Inch by inch, she crawled forward over the roaring chasm.
Below, the dark river roared like a hungry animal. Cold wind whipped through the gorge, threatening to strip them from the log. Halfway across, Nora’s right hand slipped on a patch of wet lichen; her body tilted sideways, her left knee sliding off the wood.
Mia let out a sharp cry, her arms clamping around Nora’s throat like iron bands. “Mom!”
Nora caught herself with her forearm, bark biting into her skin, her ribs screaming in protest. She hung suspended over the current for three agonizing seconds, her breath ragged.
“I’ve got you,” Nora gasped out between gritted teeth. “I’ve got you, Mia. Hold on!”
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Summoning the last reserve of strength buried deep within her trembling limbs, Nora pulled herself back onto the center of the trunk. She did not stop again. She dragged herself forward, inch by painful inch, until her hands struck the wet mud and tangled brambles of the opposite bank.
They tumbled together onto the soft earth, safe on the other side. Nora lay on her back in the rain, gasping for air, Mia sobbing softly against her collarbone. They had crossed the barrier.
