Sunspot Read Free Page B

said.
    “Droolie sure can run,” J.B. admitted.
    “Better catch them,” Ryan said, again bringing up the rear.
    As the companions tightened ranks, winding past a maze of dry channel braids, the raindrops got bigger and closer together. The wind whipped the branches of the scrub brush and sent chest-high tumbleweeds bounding and rolling down the riverbed past them. No matter how hard the rain came down, Ryan knew they couldn’t stop to wait out the storm, even if the trail they left behind was obscured. The only thing that was going to save them from the pursuit was distance. Only if the dogs and horses couldn’t recover the lost trail were they home free.
    In a couple of minutes Ryan’s clothes were completely soaked through. Falling raindrops hit the earth with such force that they jumped two feet in the air. Daylight began to fade. He looked over his shoulder, squinting into the wind and the looming darkness. In a strobe flash of lightning he saw the approaching squall line, like a vast waterfall stretching across the plain from edge to edge. Amid the wind’s howl and the thunder’s boom, he could hear dogs baying, not far behind.
    As the storm closed on them, it rained even harder. So hard it came down in rattling roar. So hard that it hurt as it hammered upon unprotected heads and shoulders. So hard it was difficult to breathe with all the water vapor in the air. The parched desert earth couldn’t soak it up. The ground turned to cooked oatmeal underfoot, boot prints filled with water as fast as they were made. A section of saturated bluff to their right collapsed, sliding partway across the channel. Ryan veered and jumped the barrier, splashing down knee-deep in a muddy, coffee-and-cream-colored pool. The runoff was funneling from high ground to low. Ahead, shallow stream channels filled and overflowed, coalescing into broad stretches of shin-high rapids.
    The muffled baying grew suddenly louder. When Ryan looked back again, through the shifting downpour, he saw the dogs—drop-jawed, with lolling tongues, legs driving, splashing through the stream. Behind the hellhounds, torrents of water sheeted over the backs of charging horses and riders.
    “Up!” he bellowed at Jak through a cupped hand.
    The albino was already doing just that. Because the crumbling bank on the right would never have held the companions’ weight, he led them in the opposite direction, to the crest of a teardrop-shaped, scrub-covered island, high ground where they could make a stand.
    As Ryan high-stepped through the boot-sucking muck of the island’s beach, he heard a growing rumble like an earthquake and half turned. Surging up behind the dogs and horses was a foaming wall of milky-brown water ten feet high.
    “Hang on to something!” Krysty cried out to him.
    As Ryan grabbed hold of the branches of a low bush, the flash flood slammed into the mounted pursuit. The force of the wave and its load of debris bowled over the horses and riders. It swept away the dogs in an instant. For a split second Ryan glimpsed the head of a horse as it bobbed up, rushing past, its eyes wild with fear, then it disappeared under the churning surface.
    The one-eyed man used the scrub limbs to pull himself to higher ground where his companions stood braced, their legs sinking deep into the soggy soil, their miserable, streaming faces lit by lightning. Ryan jammed his boots against the roots of the brush to help hold his position.
    “What happened to the pursuit?” Krysty asked.
    “Long gone,” Ryan told her.
    “The water level is still rising,” Doc said. “It appears we’ve departed the frying pan only to land squarely in the fire.”
    There was no doubt about that. Their little mound of safety was growing smaller and smaller by the minute; the river flowed around their knees. Ryan could feel the ground eroding from underfoot.
    “What are we going to do?” Mildred said.
    Krysty looked across the mocha-colored river. “Too strong a current to