Sticks and Stones (29 page)

Zane thought maybe he should work on changing that.

T
HEIR
plan had been a good one, in theory.

Earl and Deuce had packed up several bags and lashed them to a couple of ATVs while Ty and Zane got the prisoners situated on the other two. Strapped down like cargo, they wouldn’t be giving anyone any trouble, and Zane had yanked off the duct tape, figuring the engines would cover any badmouthing that might send Ty overboard. The group reviewed the maps Ty found in one of the satchels, and after Earl said he had a general idea of where they were, with the help of a beaten-up old compass, they’d set off a little after dawn with hopes of making it to something resembling civilization before dusk.

But at high noon, they hit a snag.

Zane stood several feet away from the raging floodwaters the storms had created, arms crossed, wondering why he was surprised. It wasn’t like anything had really gone right yet on this nice little hike.

What had probably been a three-foot-deep babbling brook in the narrow ravine was now a rushing river full of debris, including broken tree branches as big around as his bicep. When it surged up toward him, it was probably rising about five to six feet out of the ravine. There was no way the ATVs would be able to ford it.

“I’m beginning to hate this vacation,” Ty muttered to Zane as they stood and watched the water rage past.

Zane stifled a groan and rubbed his eyes. “How about after this we agree not to say the word ‘vacation’ again, okay? Actually, no, we agree to not even
think
the word ‘vacation’ again.”

Ty glanced sideways at him. “We’ll use code,” he agreed. “Call it time off. Time off from hell.”

“Hell would be more relaxing than this,” Zane muttered as he glared at the water. “And I could get a tan.”

“Well,” Earl said with a heavy sigh as he came to stand beside them and look out at the water. “ATV ain’t gonna cross that. Everybody in shape to hoof it?” he asked as he looked over at them. The sound of the rushing water forced him to shout.

“Yes, sir,” Ty and Deuce both answered at the same time, their voices tired and defeated. Zane shrugged, feeling their pain. It wasn’t like they had a choice.

“What do we do with them?” Deuce asked as he turned and gestured at the two prisoners.

“Toss them in, see how deep the water is,” Ty suggested without looking away from the river.

“You really think we’re going to be able to
wade
through that?” Earflaps asked, voice a little thin.

“I hope you can swim,” Zane called back to them.

“We can’t untie them and let them get across,” Ty was saying distractedly. “We risk them escaping. I say we leave them.”

“We can’t let them get loose and go back to what they were doing,” Zane agreed evenly.

“Neither of you is stable,” Deuce muttered as he turned to watch the water rush by again. He and Ty stood shoulder to shoulder, squabbling quietly.

Zane turned slightly away from them. “We’re going to have to take one each with us to cross,” he said to Earl.

Earl nodded grimly. “We can’t leave ’em,” he said to Zane in a low voice. “But I’d be with Ty on this one otherwise,” he confided. “Let ’em rot.”

Shaking his head, Zane walked over to Ty and Deuce. “Guys,” he said, “let’s get going, huh? Bitching about it won’t make it easier.” Ty nodded and gave Deuce’s cheek a pat before turning to head for the nearest ATV. Zane followed along after him.

“Kinda wish we’d kept some of that rope free,” Ty said to him as soon as Zane came up to him. He looked back at the river, his eyes searching for the easiest place to cross. There wasn’t one.

“Winch on the ATV?” Zane suggested.

Ty was already pulling out the blue synthetic rope from the Gorilla winch mounted on the front of the vehicle, wrapping it around his hand and elbow. “If we move it closer to the water, it might reach,” he agreed. When it hit the end, he looked up and said, “’Bout fifty feet, thereabouts.” He looked across the water. It wasn’t actually a big river. It was just a creek overfull from the downpours and roiling along at too fast a clip to make it safe to cross. “It might make it,” he wagered again as he looked down at the rope. He sounded nervous, though, as he weighed his chances of making it across.

“I could take it,” Zane suggested, though he didn’t really expect Ty to let go of that rope.

Ty looked at him and nodded. “I know you could,” he said seriously.

The corner of Zane’s mouth curled. That was a compliment. “You’re probably a stronger swimmer than me,” he allowed as he looked at the current. “You’ll almost certainly be off your feet in that mess.”

“Yeah,” Ty agreed. He glanced up at Zane and looked back down at the rope as he slid it off his forearm and placed the coil on the ground. He untied his boots, stood back up, and began unbuttoning his jacket. “But someone’s gotta anchor it on the other side,” he said finally as he stripped off every piece of clothing he could afford to. “Maybe I can pull myself along the bottom rather than trying to swim it,” he hedged.

“I know me saying I don’t like this won’t make a difference, but I’m saying it anyway,” Zane said as he took each item as Ty handed it over.

Ty laughed softly. “Believe me, neither do I.” The water wasn’t the only danger. The logs and other debris it carried were moving at a fast clip, fast enough that a large piece could knock a man unconscious.

“Are we sure this is the only idea we have?” Earl asked finally.

“You want to get home?” Zane answered without even looking over at the older man, his voice a little sharp.

Earl didn’t reply. There was no arguing that trying to find a different place to cross would be futile and time-consuming, nor was there any question that Ty was the best choice to make the attempt.

Ty got down to his briefs, folding his discarded clothing neatly before handing it to Zane so it could be packed and kept dry.

“Get the ATV going, Deuce,” Zane ordered. “We’ll need the nose right up at the edge of the water.”

Deuce moved to mount the ATV, shaking his head and muttering about heroes. He nudged the four-wheeler closer to the water as carefully as possible, slipping and sliding in the deep mud.

As he positioned the ATV, Ty stood barefoot between Zane and Earl, already shivering in the chilly air. He held the end of the blue synthetic rope and clenched his jaw as he looked out at the water. After another long moment of nothing, Zane huffed, although the sound of it was lost under the rushing water. He turned to help Ty secure the blue rope to himself, tying it around his chest where it wouldn’t hinder his swimming strokes. Then he stepped in front of Ty and reached out and cupped Ty’s face with both hands. Ty looked up in surprise as his shoulders snapped back.

Leaning close to Ty’s ear, Zane whispered, “Don’t make me come after you. You get swept off, I’m eating your share of the pie.”

Ty’s eyes tracked sideways as he listened, and his lips quirked into a wry smile as he looked away. “Understood,” he responded, loud enough that the river didn’t cover it.

Zane nodded, squeezed Ty’s shoulder, and took a couple steps back before looking out at the deluge. Well, at least it wasn’t dark, he thought grimly.

Ty was checking the end loop of the rope when Earl took hold of his shoulder. Deuce looked up at them from where he sat on the ATV, holding his breath as he watched them just like Zane was.

“Be quick about it!” Zane heard Earl shout over the sound of the river. Ty nodded, said something Zane couldn’t hear, and then turned to look over his shoulder, raising his chin at Deuce. Deuce nodded wordlessly at his brother in return.

Ty turned his head to look at Zane one last time before he glanced back out at the water, rolling his neck as he tried to convince himself that the cold water wasn’t going to hurt like hell when he hit it. When he started wading in, broken branches and other debris almost immediately smacking into him, Zane flinched harder than Ty did and curled one hand into a fist. Ty visibly struggled as he waded in up to his knees, the water yanking at his feet and the larger pieces of debris trying to upend him. Zane and the others watched helplessly. Each one of them would have gladly done the task, but all they could do now was watch and wait as sticks and stones did their best to batter Ty to his knees in those cold waves.

Ty stood knee-deep in the water, wasting precious seconds before he went hypothermic, trying to decide the best way to continue. Zane knew what he was thinking: did he keep trying to walk it and risk getting broadsided by a log, or did he give up the footing and try to swim it, putting himself at even more risk for being swept away downstream?

As long as the rope stayed attached to his chest, though, the biggest danger was being dragged under and not being reeled in faster than he could drown.

Before Zane could ponder the dangers any further, Ty dove headfirst into the water, disappearing under the little whitecaps and the sticks and other debris that floated past.

“Goddamnit, Ty!” Zane yelled, even though he knew Ty wouldn’t hear him. He turned and kicked the ATV’s tire before running a hand over his head and beginning to pace. He looked back out over the water, every part of him tense. He hadn’t thought it could be worse than watching his partner wade across the river. But not being able to see him at all? That was so much worse.

He knew they should be doing something—securing the ATV so it wouldn’t slide, packing up their equipment into the ponchos to keep it dry as they crossed, manning the winch in case Ty got washed downstream—but he couldn’t. He had to watch for Ty.

The blue coil of rope on the ground in front of the ATV unwound steadily, whether because Ty was actually making progress across the river or because the water was pulling it in was hard to tell. Zane found himself counting the seconds, wondering how long Ty could hold his breath. A few minutes at least, give or take.

After a full minute had passed, they caught sight of Ty’s hand breaking the water much further downstream. It was the only glimpse of him, though. He didn’t come up for air.

“He’s going down instead of across!” Zane said over the river noise.

“Current’s gonna take him that way,” Earl yelled as he worked hard at packing everything he could fit into the packs to be carried across. “He’ll correct it,” he said with utmost confidence.

Zane spared a moment to wish Earl would say things like that when Ty could actually hear him. The confidence he had in his son bordered on blind faith sometimes. Zane wondered suddenly if Ty knew it and that was why he took everything his father said in stride.
Be quick about it
, his father had said. It implied complete confidence that Ty could make it across, didn’t it? But it was also a fairly common psychological device, Zane knew, impressing onto others your belief of what should—and thus
would
—happen to achieve an end. He glanced at Earl, hoping that confidence was real and seeing their relationship in a slightly different light.

All their eyes snapped to the rope when the coil suddenly started rolling out far too quickly for Ty’s progress. Deuce stood up on the seat of the ATV, trying to look downriver and find any telltale signs of his brother.

Something had to have snagged him for him to be moving that quickly. The rope was swiftly playing out. It would hit its end far too soon for them to do anything but hope Ty wasn’t crushed by whatever had hit him and he could free himself without assistance.

But they were coming up on three minutes that Ty had been without air.

Zane wasn’t watching anymore. Something was wrong. He jerked into motion around the ATV, skidded over the rocks and mud to get down to the water’s edge, and went splashing in after the rope. He was up to his knees before Earl got him by the arm, hauling him back toward the bank with surprising strength. As Earl pulled him out of the freezing water, Zane glanced over to see Deuce gripping the winch controls until his knuckles turned white, trying to give Ty as much time as he could before pulling him back. They all knew the more attempts he had to make at crossing, the less likely he was to make it at all.

Just as Zane was about to get away from Earl and wade back into the river along the rope, Ty’s head broke the surface of the water, much closer than Zane thought he would be. Deuce shouted as soon as he saw him and pointed.

Ty gasped for air and took a few strong strokes through the water, but he didn’t go anywhere as the current beat him back. He ducked back under the water again, disappearing from view to use the rocks along the river’s bottom to pull himself across.

Zane shook Earl off but didn’t go any deeper; he watched where Ty had been, willing him to surface again, looking back and forth between there and the ATV, checking the rope, oblivious to the water splashing up his thighs and soaking his jeans.

After what seemed an eternity, Zane caught sight of Ty dragging himself out of the frigid water on the far side of the river, and the vise around his chest let loose so he could breathe again. Earl stood there staring at his son for a long moment before turning to get himself out of the cold water. He began taking his soaked shoes and socks off, his eyes on the opposite riverbank the entire time.