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  So here he was, on the great adventure with the big kids, and Jimmy had to live with the decision. There was no turning back now.

  “Maybe we’ll become archaeologists,” he said. He tightened his brow and nodded in agreement with himself. Inch by inch he urged them toward the middle of the rope walk. “Hack through rain forests looking for the ancient Mayan city-states. Find out why they went extinct after a thousand years of—”

  “They found those.”

  Jimmy stopped. So did everybody else. The bridge shuddered.

  “What?” he snapped. “What’d you say?”

  Quentin clung to the ropes and blinked. “They found them. The Mayan palaces. A long time ago. You know . . . how the twentieth-century archaeologists found lance heads in the walls, and later they proved that the city was under siege, and how the siege forced them to do all their farming behind the walls, and how the crop yields fell off, and how—”

  “Where’d you hear all this?”

  “It was . . . in our history of science book.”

  “Books!” Jimmy spat out. “You’re going to believe what you read in some book? Why waste your time with a book when you can get out and live!”

  Quentin fell silent, ashamed that he had wasted his time.

  Jimmy shook his head and barked, “Keep moving.”

  Suddenly an arm of wind swept downriver, pushing the bridge with its enormous hand. The ropes started whining and the whole footbridge began to sway.

  “Damn, I almost dropped my pack!” Zack complained, and tried to rearrange his load.

  “Don’t do that,” Jimmy said. “You’ve got the fake IDs.”

  “How’d you get those, Zack?” Quentin asked.

  “Tapped into the voting records for people who hadn’t voted in five years. Figured they were long gone, so we took the IDs of any children they had who were the right age five years ago to be eighteen now. Took their numbers, and bing—we’re legal.”

  “Damn. Good idea.”

  “It was Jimmy’s idea. I just did the hardware.”

  “Told you,” Jimmy said. “You don’t have to worry about anything. I’ve got it all stitched up.”

  Lucy grimaced. “These ropes stink! What if they’re rotten? What if they break? We’ll die here like some goddamned trout in that rolling throw-up down there.”

  “We’re only thirty feet over the water.”

  “Water can break your neck if you hit it at the wrong angle,” Zack provided.

  Lucy let her lips peel back and broke the looking-down rule. “My astrologer told me not to do anything dangerous this week. I knew I should’ve paid attention to the signs—now look where I am.”

  With a stern scowl Jimmy said, “Don’t believe in it.”

  Zack nudged Lucy another sidestep west and called to Jimmy over the wind as it howled between them. “You don’t believe in destiny?”

  “Didn’t say that,” Jimmy called. “Said I don’t believe in predestiny.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because somebody else has to tell me what mine is. That means somebody else is in charge. Means somebody else knows more about me than I do. Malkin, see this main line?” He put his hand on the only braided line on the side of the rope bridge. “That’s the one you hang on to. No, the other one. Look at me. This one.”

  Lucy’s voice sounded a little steadier when she spoke again. “I know there’s something about the stars and when you’re born and all. I’ve seen enough. I’ve had crazy things happen that can’t be coincidence. Like when they advised me to start packing a knife, and the next week I had to use it.”

  Glad he had managed to distract her, Jimmy said, “The stars care whether Lucy Pogue carries a knife? We know what stars are. We know that’s one.” He spared a hand and poked a forefinger at the bright golden sky. “Am I supposed to believe some arrangement of things in the sky makes life just a package deal? A frame-up all set before we’re born? What if your mother trips on a pig like mine did and you’re born a month early? Which date sets destiny—my birthday, or a month later? Which stars should I look at? A batch of hot atoms a billion light-years away has some influence on my future?” He snorted.

  Some of the gang nodded. Others didn’t. So he continued talking as long as they were moving.

  “Destiny and predestiny are two different things. Predestiny is pointless. If it’s true, we might as well turn around right now, go back to Riverside, and sit on our bulkheads, because whatever’s going to happen’s gonna happen anyway.”

  “How’s destiny any different?” Tom Beauvais challenged.

  A crooked grin danced on Jimmy’s face as he leered back at them.

  “That’s the one I’m in charge of.”

  From the west, the sun buttered his apricot curls and sweat glittered on his brow. To the others, he looked like a demon with a license to smile. If anyone in the group wondered how he had talked them into running away, a moment like this snuffed the thought. Something in the ballistics of Jimmy Kirk was tough enough and vivid enough to keep them going across the shabby old rope bridge, stepping one by one over their better judgments.

  Zack coughed as the wind filled his lungs, and he forced himself to move along the ropes, to stay distracted, and not to look down. “Sounds like plain luck to me.”

  “It sounds like that, but it’s not,” Jimmy said. He held out one hand, fingers spread, as though gripping the imaginary brick with which he would lay his foundation. “Luck is blind chance. Destiny . . . that you build.”

  He eyed them, one by one, even Beauvais, until the belief returned to each face.

  Then he said, “Move along. Twenty more feet and we’re there.”

  The river whispered below. They moved slowly toward the west bank, a few inches at a time, each burdened with a backpack of survival supplies and foodstuffs.

  Lucy’s voice showed she was trying to keep control as she asked, “How are we going to find our way to Omaha?”

  Jimmy helped Emily find a handhold. “Dead reckoning.”

  “Dead what?”

  “Basic sail training.”

  “Who’s gonna sail?” Tom cracked. “We’re going on a cargo carrier!”

  “It’s basic seamanship, Beauvais. Get used to it. The captain’s going to expect us to know this stuff. The STD formula. Speed, time, distance. If you know your constant speed and distance, like how far you’ll go and how fast, you can figure how long it’ll take. If you know your time and speed, you can figure how far—”

  “Maybe we should go to space instead,” Zack suggested.

  “Space? Cold and empty. We got it all right here.”

  He dismissed the subject with his tone and twisted forward, watching Emily’s tiny feet custodially. He moved his own feet carefully after hers, along the miserable knots and fraying lines that once had been sturdy enough to carry teams of Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts across the Skunk River. Long abandoned, the sixty-foot ropewalk had been left up for sentimental value as part of the Tramview of the Oregon Trail. He and Zack had worked for almost an hour breaking through the protective grating that kept hikers off the old footbridge. Zack could break into anything. That’s how they’d gotten the food in the backpacks—it was how they’d gotten the backpacks. That’s how they’d finagled tickets for the Stampede Tubetrain.

  All they had to do was get to Omaha without being spotted for runaways, and they’d never be seen again.

  Jimmy shook his head and forced himself to stop thinking about what they’d stolen. What choice did they have? They hadn’t been given anything, so they just had to take somebody else’s. That was fair.

  Snap

  “Ah—ah—Jimmyyyyy!”

  The shriek cracked across the ravine at the same moment as the rope bridge waggled hideously to the snap of parting jute—and Quentin went over backward. His hand clawed uselessly at a broken line, then at open air.

  Lucy screamed, driving the needle of terror under all their skin.

  Jimmy cranked around in
time to see Quentin bounce against the ropes on the other side of the bridge and bend them almost all the way down to the level of the walkway. Part of the braided walkway caught the small of Quentin’s back and bounced him stiffly, but finally held. And there he was, hanging.

  The boy was arched backward over the outermost strands, his upper body in midair, hanging halfway out over the greedy water. His loaded pack yanked at his shoulders and held his arms straight out sideways. The whole bridge wobbled back and forth, back and forth, in a sickening bounce.

  None of them did any more than freeze in place, clinging to their own ropes.

  “Nobody move!” Jimmy bellowed. “I’ll do it!”

  “Goddammit!” Beauvais shouted. His face twisted. “This was your stupid idea! We could’ve just taken the long way, over ground, but no! We had to do it Kirk’s way! Why does anybody listen to a blowfish like you!”

  “Cram it, bulkhead. I’m busy.” Jimmy unkinked his fingers from the scratchy ropes and forced himself to move back toward Lucy.

  “Please, Jimmy,” Emily murmured, “don’t let him fall . . . ”

  Jimmy pressed her hand just before she was out of reach. “I’m not going to let him fall. Nobody else move. Quentin, hold still.”

  They were only a couple of stories up, but Jimmy knew it was enough to kill. Below, the muddy water chewed and gurgled.

  Jimmy maneuvered around Lucy, then around Zack, careful not to dislodge either of them from their hold. The ropes shivered, but no more parted or frayed.

  “It’ll be all right,” he said steadily. “Everybody stay calm. He just put his foot on the wrong braid. Nothing else is breaking.”

  “Tell the ropes,” Beauvais snarled.

  Jimmy’s face flamed, and he stopped moving toward Quentin. “I’m telling the damn ropes!” he bellowed. “Leave me alone and let me do this.”

  Beauvais rearranged his grip and muttered, “Okay, okay . . . just get him.”

  Below them Quentin dangled backward, his hips tangled in the old ropes, and gasped as though he couldn’t remember how to breathe. “J-J-Jimmy—”

  “I’m almost there. Don’t whine.”

  Jimmy reached Quentin and lowered himself to the braided cordage, his own breath coming in rags. Old tendons wobbled and grated against the cross-braids, threatening to open beneath him. By the time he got above the dangling boy, his palms were bleeding.

  Quentin’s left foot was caught between two braids that had twisted as he went backward. If he turned his foot now, it would slip through and he would be tossed out like a circus performer on a springboard. No one wanted to point that out; they all saw it.

  A finger, a limb, a joint at a time, Jimmy lowered himself to his hands and knees onto the walkway of the bridge. The old jute cut into the flesh of his kneecaps right through his clothing. He bit his lip, ignored the pain, and searched for a secure position over Quentin’s entangled legs.

  There wasn’t one.

  The ropes quivered defiantly under him, refusing to cooperate. Ultimately he arranged himself on his stomach across the braids, right beside Quentin’s leg. He shoved an arm through the side ropes of the bridge.

  “Monroe, give me your hand.”

  Nothing happened. Spread halfway out in open air, the younger boy was muttering unintelligible sounds.

  “Monroe, what are you doing?”

  “P-p-praying.”

  “Well, do that later, will you? Give me your hand.”

  “I can’t—move—”

  Jimmy lowered his voice, literally made it darker, grittier, meaner. “This is one of those times when you’ve got two possible destinies, right?”

  “Mmmm . . . ”

  “Pick the best one.”

  No one else breathed, no matter how the rising wind pushed air between their clenched teeth.

  “Now!” Jimmy ordered.

  A brown hand arched upward toward the sky. Jimmy caught it, and hauled.

  “My arm! My arm!” Quentin bellowed as his body cranked sideways, upward.

  Jimmy twisted his fingers into the boy’s shirt collar. “Beauvais, take his backpack. The rest of you, keep moving. Zack, you’re in charge.”

  “What? I don’t want to be in charge.”

  “You don’t have any choice, do you?”

  “This was your idea.”

  “Fine. Lucy can be in charge.”

  The bridge waggled.

  “I don’t want it either!” Lucy protested.

  “We’re more than halfway across!” Jimmy shouted. “All you have to do is go twenty more feet! How many decisions do you have to make?”

  “I’ll be in charge,” Tom said as he slung the extra backpack over his shoulder.

  Jimmy cranked upward the other way. “I didn’t pick you!”

  “We didn’t ‘pick’ you either.”

  “Yes, you did. This was all my plan.”

  “Some plan! We’re not even out of Iowa and we’re already in trouble. You’re all gas, Kirk.”

  “Look, any time you’re ready to turn back—”

  “Jimmy . . . ”

  The soft beck from above drifted down and silenced the disharmony.

  Jimmy twisted back toward the others. “What is it, Emily?”

  The girl stood with each narrow white hand on a side of the bridge, unable to push back her hair as the wind blew it forward over her cheeks and into her eyes. “Quentin,” she murmured.

  “I know, I’ve got him,” he grumbled, and returned his attention to where it should have been.

  Quentin’s brown face had gone to clay by the time Jimmy hauled him up and pulled his legs out of the ropes he’d gotten tangled in. He had both eyes knotted shut and refused to open them until Jimmy threatened to leave him in the middle of the bridge.

  Then Jimmy took him by the shoulders and almost broke his shoulder blades. “Quentin, this is how it is,” he said. “We’re going on. It’s just rope. We’re not going to be beaten by rope. Are you with me?”

  He didn’t wait for an answer. He straightened, placed Quentin’s hands on the side support lines, nodded toward the bank, and started picking his way westward again. He didn’t look back. Quentin would follow, or be left out there.

  But through his boots he felt the pressure on the braided rope behind him, and knew he would win that bet.

  On the bank Tom Beauvais was the last to jump onto solid ground. They turned to watch Jimmy bring Quentin all the way in.

  Jimmy jumped onto the hard, rocky ground, pulled Quentin up behind him, then stepped aside as Zack and Lucy came forward to help Quentin stumble onto the grass.

  When he turned and looked up at Tom Beauvais, there was mercury in his eyes. He took two steps forward, and boom—

  A roundhouse right pitched Tom’s head backward, and he staggered but didn’t go down. He gathered himself and let fly a rabbit punch to Jimmy’s midriff, but Jimmy saw the punch coming in time to tighten up. He had the advantage of not being too lean.

  His buff curls flickered, his brow drew in, his eyes turned to arrowheads, and the heels of his hands struck Tom in the shoulder hollows. Another flash spun Tom around, and Jimmy had his challenger’s wrist forced halfway up his spine.

  Tom ground out a senseless protest and arched his back, then bellowed in pain.

  Forcing the arm upward another inch, Jimmy asked, “Your way or my way?”

  “Okay, okay, your way! Don’t break it!”

  Jimmy shoved him off and dropped back a pace, satisfied. Holding his arm and swearing, Tom stumbled away.

  “I’ll break it next time,” Jimmy said.

  The others looked away from both boys, embarrassed and unsure about their adventure.

  He pushed through the others to Quentin, and his entire demeanor changed as he took Quentin by the shoulder and said, “Take a deep breath. Now take another one . . . you did it. You beat it.”

  Quentin managed a nod.

  Jimmy turned him to look at the shaggy rope bridge as it waved in
the wind as though to say good-bye. “There it is . . . everything you were afraid of. You went one step at a time and you trusted somebody. Now it’s all behind you. Understand?”

  As Quentin looked at the rope bridge, at how far it was back to the other cliff, and at how far he had come, his trembling slowly faded away.

  It was behind him. He never had to cross it again. He’d done it.

  He cleared his throat and said, “You’re stronger than you look.”

  Jimmy smiled. “All right, everybody, mount up. Get your packs on and let’s get moving. We’ve got a schedule to keep.”

  He strode cockily away from Quentin, leaving most of the group to stare at the back of his head, closed almost his whole hand around Emily’s upper arm, and started walking her west.

  “I,” he said, “will take care of you. You don’t need anybody. You don’t need your teachers, you don’t need your parents, you don’t need your sisters . . . you need only me. By morning we’ll be in Omaha. Then, four hours on the Stampede, and zam—we’re in Bremerton, Oregon, signing on as deckhands of dynacarrier Sir Christopher Cockerell.”

  “How old you are?”

  “Old enough to get here on our own.”

  “From where you come?”

  “From over two thousand miles. You guess the direction. We want to sign on. Work our passage.”

  As the six young people stood on the windy dock, looking very small, oafish, and overwhelmed beside the 58,000-ton dynacarrier, the German first mate gazed down on them from far above. The ship’s rail was two stories up, and he wasn’t going to waste time going down to the dock to talk to these children, no matter how they had demanded audience with an “officer.” Suddenly he wished he could be wearing a uniform instead of denim and deck shoes. That would be funny. He could scare them even more.

  He paused to light a cigar, shoved back his shaggy yellow hair, and tried not to laugh. Only two of the teenagers looked fit for duty at sea.

  The others were . . . uncertain. He could see it in their eyes.

  “You got your mama’s okay to come here?”