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KIM BALDWIN. “Hang on!” Gable shouted
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“Hang on!” Gable shouted. Her heartbeat kicked up double time.
The boy’s head swiveled around and his eyes found her. “Help me! Hurry! Please hurry!”
“Hang on! Was anyone else in the car with you?”
“No!” the boy screamed.
“I’ll be right there!” Gable hurried back to the Jeep, slipping and sliding with every step, and switched on her emergency radio. “Dispatch from McCoy. Car off Peterson Bridge at Belknap Road. Driver in the river. Send ambulance and water rescue.”
She heard the dispatcher acknowledge her as she clipped the radio to her belt and hustled to the back of the Jeep. There was a pair of hundred-foot lengths of sturdy nylon rope there, neatly coiled. She grabbed them both. She also shoved a screwdriver from her tool kit into the back pocket of her jeans.
The bank was steep to the water’s edge, and she skidded down almost on her butt. The teenager had stopped trying to pull himself onto the ice. Now he was F ghting just to keep his head above water. His ragged gasps for air sounded loud in the still morning.
“I’m going to throw you a rope! Try to grab it!” Gable anchored the end of one of the ropes beneath her foot and prepared for her throw.
“I can’t!” the boy sobbed.
She tossed the coil of rope, and it fell across the hole in the ice. The boy’s head slipped under, then popped up again. He started hyperventilating, desperate for air.
“Grab the rope!” Gable urged.
His arms and legs f ailed about in clumsy, jerky movements as he tried for the rope.
It was then that Gable got a good look at the boy’s hands. They were clubs of ice. Useless. No way could he save himself, and he wasn’t going to be able to keep himself up much longer. She had to go after him.
She tried to calm her racing heart with deep breaths as she quickly prepared the ropes. The one across the ice would be the rescue rope; she tied off her end to a large sturdy oak at the water’s edge.
The other rope would be for her. One end around the oak, the other around her waist. A strong current swept down the middle of the river, and Gable knew that if she fell through, there was a good chance she’d get swept downstream under the thick ice.
• 222 •
FORCE OF NATURE
She was quickly out onto the ice, crawling on her belly toward the teenager. The adrenaline rush energized her and brought all her senses into sharp focus. The boy’s eyes were huge, pulling at her, beseeching her to hurry. His head slipped under again, and when it popped back up he was on the downstream edge of the hole. He coughed and gulped loudly for air. If he went under again, the current would take him under the ice.
Thirty feet away. Then twenty, halfway between the boy and shore.
When Gable was F fteen feet away, she heard a cracking sound beneath her, and her heart began pounding in her ears. She went fully spread-eagle and froze, her face pressed up against the slick, hard surface.
The ice held. Inching toward him, she shouted encouragement.
“Keep your head up! Hang on, I’m almost to you!”
Another sharp report sounded as the ice cracked again. This time she could clearly see the thin F ssure of separation, directly under the right side of her body. Once more she froze, trying to keep her weight evenly distributed.
The moment Gable actually fell through seemed to take forever.
Everything happened in slow motion. One crack became two, then six, then forty—a spider web of fractures beneath her.
The terrifying cracking sounds got louder and louder.
She watched in horriF ed fascination as the bottom dropped out and she was plunged into the icy water, still a body length from the boy.
The frigid immersion was such a shock to her system that it squeezed the air from her lungs, inducing a long moment of panic as she started kicking. She sucked in air greedily. Pinpricks of pain everywhere, like she had fallen on a bed of tiny nails. Then cold. A kind of cold she’d never experienced before: a numbing cold, relentless. It soaked through her clothing, weighing her down. Damn. Got to befast.
She focused on the boy, taking great gulps of air as she fought through the broken ice to reach him, grabbing the rescue rope on the way.
Though he had seemed to be all done in, the teenager came to life when she got to him. With a F nal burst of energy he grabbed at her, desperately trying to use her to keep himself af oat.
Gable went under.
• 223 •
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