Lone Star 01 Read Free

flinty grin. “Did we expect anything else?”
    â€œNo, but I didn’t expect it this soon. How did they know—”
    Her troubled question was interrupted by a harsh, shuddering rumble in the bridge beneath them. Almost tumbling out of the side of the wagon, Jessie clutched desperately for the dashboard handhold as the bridge trembled violently again, creaking and groaning.
    Alarmed, Ki stood up and peered out over the railing. They were virtually midway across the span, and the North Laramie was a dark, boiling cauldren flowing far below. A phosphorescent stroke of lightning lit the black sky for an instant, and by its white glare, he could see that an old thick spruce had been swept downriver, and had lodged lengthwise against the bridge pilings. Its gnarled branches and roots were gathering other debris—pine and yucca and scrub brush—adding to the weight pressing against the weak, spindly supports.
    Ki slapped the reins, sending the team into a protesting gallop. The bridge began twisting, undulating from the mounting force pushing at its pilings, its creaking now growing almost intolerably loud.
    There was a wrenching shake as the creaking was drowned out by a sundering roar. The bridge swayed, then dipped, the railings splintering and the deck buckling, dropping apart. The planks fractured in bunches, falling, leaving a gaping hole.
    The team plunged through the hole, taking the wagon with it.

Chapter 2
    The wagon tilted, upending beneath them. Ki scarcely had time to grip Jessica by one arm before they were hurled, tumbling, out into space and plummeted toward the raging river below. The wagon fell like a stone, shattering in the wreckage of bridge supports and driftwood. But thrown free, Jessica and Ki struck open water on the downriver side, dropping deep underwater and striking submerged rocks.
    Dazed and gasping, they surfaced, only to be caught by the surging current. They swam with hard strokes, hampered by their slickers, hardly able to keep from being swept toward a series of sawtoothed boulders through which the river was cascading in deadly, foaming rapids. Half drowned, one hand still clinging to her arm, Ki helped Jessica fight out of the tugging current toward the bank, frantically trying to miss the flotsam of bridge beams, wagon parts, and running gear that were churning around them.
    They were less than ten yards from the north bank when a side panel of the wagon reared out of the surface and rammed into Jessica. Ki’s grasp was torn loose, and Jessica was thrust, rolling, back into the irresistible hold of the swirling flow. Ki made a lunge for her, but Jessica was already gone, plunging with the side panel toward the bone-smashing, whirling rapids.
    Ki dove after her, swimming now with the current in an effort to intercept Jessica. He reached out, missed, stroked, and reached again, fingers tightening on the collar of her slicker. Then he battled one-handedly for the bank again. Taxing his muscles to the utmost, almost losing her again in his frenzied struggle, Ki managed to maneuver them out of the torrent. His boots scraped against stone, and he dug in for a better footing, half climbing, half crawling into a shallow break.
    The backwash in this break in the bank created a whirling eddy, and two or three swimming strokes took them to the river’s edge. The rain had turned the earth there into a grease-slick ooze, and it was only by clutching at an overhanging limb of a cottonwood that Ki was able at last to drag them both out of the cold rushing water.
    Jessica lay on her back, arms flung out, eyes closed, soundless.
    Ki knelt and placed his ear to her chest. “You’re breathing.”
    â€œOf course I’m breathing,” Jessie whispered hoarsely, still not moving. “Wait a minute, it’s all I can do right now.”
    A few moments later, Jessie slowly sat up. She coughed, threw up a small quantity of water, then gingerly felt her left