Shot Down Read Free Page A

classes.”
    Behind us, the hounds were getting larger. They wove through trees and bushes like they’d memorized a map.
    The Captain started to jog ahead of me as I got my bearings. With one hand he held the wrapped-up burner at an arm’s length, and with the other he waved in front of us. A narrow ledge jutted out in both directions, clinging along the hill from left to right as far as I could see.
    â€œWe find a way farther down, past that,” the Captain huffed, “an’ maybe the dogs can’t follow...”
    Or maybe we get trapped
, I thought, running again. The ledge looked sixty strides away, maybe seventy. The dogs would reach it a few moments after we did. More sharp barks sounded throughout the trees.
    I stepped out onto the short cliff a few breaths before the Captain.
    â€œWhere was this when we headed up?” I shouted.
    â€œWe musta climbed around it. We run along the edge for long enough and there’s gotta be a path toward the river!”
    The Captain waved for me to take lead, and I picked left. After twenty or thirty strides it sounded like the hounds had touched down on the ledge. I stole a look back and saw nothing, then turned in time to hit a fence. No—not a fence. A lean-to.
    The sheet of sticks and leaves lay stretched across the narrow path. “Get behind this!” I told the Captain.
    â€œWha—?”
    â€œIt’s a lean-to—a shelter. We weren’t the only ones making camp.”
    We pushed the lean-to sideways on the path between the dogs and us and braced ourselves. And waited.
    â€œYou think the man we saw running was hiding out here too?” I asked.
    â€œHe looked like he mighta been out here for weeks,” the Captain said. He looked up and down the lean-to. “Think this’ll hold?”
    â€œI wasn’t sure your balloon would ever leave the ground, but that worked.”
    He thought about that for a moment and shrugged. “Here they come.”
    The dogs bounded around the corner side by side. They didn’t slow down as they approached the lean-to. I held tight to the long branch that ran across the top and closed my eyes.
    I opened them again and hopped backward with both feet, keeping my arms stretched forward to hold the lean-to in place. A glance to my right showed the Captain had done the same. Both of the hounds snarled and bared their teeth. Their heads were stuck between different pairs of up-and-down poles. On the other side of the lean-to, the dogs tried to twist free, hind legs kicking up dirt and pebbles. One hound snapped its jaws in fury an arm’s length from my waist.
    The Captain looked to the bodiless heads of the trapped dogs and then to me.
    â€œI’m about to propose somethin’ I’m not very proud of, Malik.”
    â€œPropose it fast!” I yelled.
    â€œIt’s a few steps to yer left before the big drop-off—”
    The dog nearest the Captain wiggled its neck back, then drove its head forward again, toward his groin.
    â€œâ€”an’ if we don’t want these dogs on us in another minute, we gotta push in that direction.”
    Still gripping the lean-to’s heavy crossbar, the Captain and I tugged toward the end of the ledge. The wood poles of the lean-to dragged the hounds along with it. Again I heard the dogs’ legs scramble, pushing in the other direction.
    At a foot’s length away, I stared down the long drop-off. The height of ten men, maybe fifteen.
    â€œAlright now,” the Captain shouted. “Heave!”
    The lean-to slid off the ledge, the dogs dangling with it in the air. And then—“Ack!”—the Captain fell to the ground and started to slide toward the ledge’s rim too. The limp balloon envelope, burner inside, was tangled around a bar on the lean-to’s frame. Still tied to the Captain’s shoulder, it dragged him forward.
    â€œYour coat!” I shouted. “Take off your