I didn’t know how he knew when he got through the ice and into the water below, but when he stopped feeding it out, I ducked down to the ice and took the reading.
“Four inches,” I said, glancing up at him. “Is that enough? Does that make it safe?”
He bit his lip. “Well, four inches is the minimum that’s safe for humans to walk on when it’s clear ice, like this,” he said. “But with the weight of our packs and the sled, I was hoping for more like five to seven inches, to be completely sure, especially since we’ll be traveling—who knows how thick the ice will be further down the river.”
Another shot rang out, and we both jumped, then looked at each other, our eyes wide.
And in that moment, I knew that we were in absolute agreement. Five to seven inches of ice might have been ideal, but it wasn’t what we had. And we were out of options.
“I’m willing to take that gamble,” I told him quietly. “You?”
He blew out a breath, but was already moving toward the bank when he answered. “Honestly, John, I don’t think we have much of a choice. Let’s get Angie over here and get the hell around that bend ahead of us before Randall and his men show up. We’re going to be more exposed on the river than we were in the trees, and if we can put a bend or two between us and them it’ll make me feel a whole lot better.”
20
It took us about ten minutes to get Angie situated the way we wanted her to be. We decided on our way back over the ice that we weren’t going to let her try to walk herself. Not yet—and maybe not at all. The sled made things chancier, with its weight, but the way she’d have to walk with the exoskeleton could be even more dangerous.
I was seriously questioning our decision to bring it at this point, with how heavy it had been, but I was also counseling myself to be patient. We didn’t know yet if we’d need it. And if we did, we would kick ourselves if we’d left it behind.
“She’ll stomp,” Marlon told me bluntly. When I looked at him with surprise, he shook his head. “It’s not her fault. Nothing to do with her natural carriage, and everything to do with the fact that the leg’s mechanics are going to be messed up. That thing has her leg in a vice, more or less, and it’s going to make it incredibly difficult for her to do anything more than swing the leg outward in a half-circle to make it move forward. If we’re going out on thin ice, the last thing we need is for her to be walking in a way that makes her even heavier.”
We’d arrived back at Angie’s litter by the time he finished the statement, which meant she got to hear the end of it, and I could already see her nodding.
“He’s right. I’ve tried moving my leg with this thing on and there’s nothing natural about it. I don’t know about stomping, but it’s not going to be a smooth gait, and I don’t want to cause any trouble. But maybe if I lay on my stomach, I can help to push with my hands.”
I shook my head at that. “Once we’re on the ice, pulling you is going to be easy as pie,” I told her. “We’re going to have more trouble getting a grip on the ice ourselves than we are pulling you. In fact—”
“Only if we have to,” Marlon broke in, correctly reading my mind and putting the idea on a list that we might use later. “If we have to move somewhere very quickly, we’ll consider all of us getting into the sled. But I don’t want to do that unless it’s an absolute necessity. It’ll concentrate all of our weight into one place, and every engineering class I’ve ever taken says that doing that is a very, very dangerous idea.”
“Agreed. But if we have to move quickly, it’s the first thing we’ll consider,” I confirmed. “In the meantime, Angie stays in the sled, and I say we pull her together.” I gave her a quick grin. “You’ll have two carriage horses rather than one at a time.”
Marlon gave me an answering grin and a nod, and with that we were each taking a side of the sled and scooting it over the mud and debris at the side of the river and to the banks, where the ice met that mud. There, we both paused, without having discussed it.
“We sure about this?” I asked.
“Sure about what?” There was a tinge of concern in Angie’s voice.
Marlon met my gaze and a hundred and one thoughts flowed between us as if our minds were actually wirelessly connected. This was the best way we had of getting back to Ellis Woods quickly. It was the best way we had of covering our tracks and making it harder for Randall and his crew to find us—or effectively follow us. If we were incredibly lucky, taking the river would give us both of those outcomes at the same time.
If we were incredibly lucky.
If we were unlucky, it would be exactly the opposite. We were asking the ice to take more weight than we were sure it could hold, and we’d be pounding on it ourselves as we moved forward. We were also concentrating a whole lot of weight in one place—on one sled.
Even more concerning was the idea that if the ice broke under the sled, it was Angie who’d be going into the water. Angie with her leg not only broken, but also weighted down with metal and leather. She’d go into the water with a handicap that might actually kill her.
Was it worth the risk? Were we willing to gamble her life at least, and all our lives, potentially, on the too-thin ice, just to get away more quickly?
“We stay as close to shore as possible, where the ice is thickest,” Marlon finally said. “We step as lightly as we can but go as quickly as we can. And the moment we see a likely spot, we get up off the ice and away from danger.” He looked down at the sled, then, and added one more thing. “And Angie doesn’t get to keep the additional pack. I’m sorry, John, but you’re going to have to actually wear it.”
It was an absolutely minimal price to pay. I reached down, scooped it up, and slid it onto my back.
“You ready?” I asked Angie. “You’re going to be our eyes and ears out there. If you hear or feel or see anything that looks even remotely like the ice giving in, you shout before you even blink, you got me?”
“I got you,” she said solemnly. “Now let’s go. This decision isn’t going to get any easier with us standing around talking about it, and we’ve got a madman on our tail. If this river gives us the best chance of getting away from him, let’s do it.”
Her words gave me all the motivation I needed. I ducked down, grabbed one of the ropes, and wrapped it around my waist, then waited for Marlon to do the same. Once he had, we stepped gingerly out onto the ice together and started pulling.
We worked hard to get to the bend in the river as quickly as possible, Marlon and I digging the toes of our boots into the ice, leaning forward against the ropes, and charging forward like bulls. Behind me, I could hear the sled gliding along, and I’d been right about what I told Angie earlier: At several points, I actually thought the sled was going to pass us. It was moving a lot faster than we were, particularly now that we’d moved the second pack from the sled to my back, and we had absolutely no trouble making quick time. The only drawback was the debris on the ice, courtesy of being so close to the banks. We hit tree branches, leaves, and even mud as we slid and skated forward—but that was a small price to pay for the thicker ice right here.
It also, I had realized, gave us a quicker escape route if we needed it. If Randall and his boys suddenly appeared behind us—with their guns—we’d need to get up into the woods as quickly as possible, and being so close to the shore meant we’d be able to do that a lot faster. Sure, it might have just been a coincidence. A lucky side effect of sticking close to the shore, where the ice was thicker.