Gordon nearly laughed out loud when he saw the sheaf of almost valueless letters. He stopped short, though, when he saw what else she held: a small, ragged, black-bound volume. Gordon could only blink then, thinking of the risks she must have taken to get it.

“All right,” he said, taking the packet and tying it up again. “Follow us, and keep quiet! When I wave like this, stay low and wait for us.”

Both women nodded solemnly. Gordon turned, intending to take point, but Johnny had already ducked ahead, leading the way down the trail to the river.

Don’t argue this time. He’s right, damn it.

Freedom was wonderful beyond relief. But with it came that bitch, Duty.

Hating the fact that he was “important” once again, he crouched and followed Johnny, leading the women toward the canoes.

15

There was no choice of which way to go. Spring’s thaw had begun, and the Rogue was already a rushing torrent. The only thing to do was head downstream and pray.

Johnny still exulted over his successful kill. The sentry hadn’t turned until he was within two steps, and had gone down nearly silently as Johnny tackled him, ending his struggles with three quick knife thrusts. The young man from Cottage Grove was full of his own prowess as they loaded the women into the boat and set off, letting the current pull them into midstream.

Gordon hadn’t the heart to tell his young friend. But he had seen the guard’s face before they tumbled him into the river. Poor Roger Septien had looked surprised — hurt — hardly the image of a Holnist superman.

Gordon remembered his own first time, nearly two decades ago, firing at looters and arsonists while there still remained a chain of command, before the militia units dissolved into the riots they had been sent to put down. He did not recall being proud, then. He had cried at night, mourning the men he killed.

Still, these were different times, and a dead Holnist was a good thing, no matter how you cut it.

They had left a beach littered with crippled canoes. Every moment of delay had been an agony, but they had to make sure they weren’t followed too easily. Anyway, the chore gave the women something to do and they went at it with gusto. Afterward, both Marcie and Heather seemed a bit less cowed and skittish.

The women huddled down in the center of the canoe as Gordon and Johnny hefted paddles and struggled with the unfamiliar craft. The moon kept ducking in and out behind clouds as they dipped and pulled, trying to learn the proper rhythm as they went.

They had not gone far before reaching the first set of riffles. In moments the time for practice was over as they went crashing through foamy rapids, barely skimming past glistening, rocky crags, often seen only at the last moment.

The river was fierce, driven by snow melt. Her roar filled the air, and spray diffracted the intermittent moonlight. It was impossible to fight her, only to cajole, persuade, divert, and guide their frail vessel through hazards barely seen.

At the first calm stretch, Gordon guided them into an eddy. He and Johnny rested over their oars, looked at each other, and at the same moment burst out laughing. Marcie and Heather stared at the two men — giggling breathlessly from adrenaline and the roar of freedom in their blood and ears. Johnny whooped and slapped the water with his paddle.

“Come on, Gordon. That was fun! Let’s get on with it.”

Gordon caught his breath and wiped river spume out of his eyes. “Okay,” he said, shaking his head. “But carefully, okay?”

They stroked together and banked steeply as the current caught them again.

“Oh, shit,” Johnny cursed. “I thought the last one…”

His words were drowned out, but Gordon finished the thought.

And I thought the last one was bad!

Gaps between the rocks were narrow, deadly shoots. Their canoe scraped horribly through the first, then shot out, canting precipitously. “Lean hard!” Gordon shouted. He wasn’t laughing now, but fighting to survive.

We should have walked… we should have walked… we should have walked…

The inevitable happened sooner, though, than even he expected… less than three miles downstream. A sunken tree — a hidden snag just beyond the hard rock face of a turn in the canyon wall — a streak of rolling water cloaked in darkness until it was too late for him to do more than curse and dig in his paddle to try to turn.

An aluminum canoe might have survived the collision, but there were none left after years of war. The homemade wood-and-bark model tore with an agonized shriek, harmonized by the women’s screams as they all spilled into the icy flood.

The sudden chill was stunning. Gordon gulped air and grabbed at the capsized canoe with one arm. His other hand darted out and seized a grip on Heather’s dark hair, barely in time to keep her from being swept away. He struggled to avoid her desperate clutching and to keep her head above water… all the while fighting for his own breath in the choppy foam.

At last he felt sand beneath his feet. It took every last effort to fight the river’s pull and the sucking mud until he was able at last to haul his gasping burden out and collapse onto the mat of rotting vegetation by the steep shore.

Heather coughed and sobbed next to him. He heard Johnny and Marcie spluttering not far away, and knew that they had made it, too. There wasn’t a flicker of energy to spare for celebration, though. He lay breathing hard, unable even to move for what felt like hours.

Johnny spoke at last. “We didn’t really have any gear to lose. I guess my ammo’s wet, though. Your rifle gone, Gordon?”

“Yeah.” He sat up groaning, touching a thin gash where the breaking canoe had stroked his forehead.

There did not seem to have been any serious injuries, though the coughing was now starting to shift over to general shivers. Marcie’s borrowed clothes stuck to the blond concubine in ways that Gordon might have found interesting had he not been so miserable.

“W-what do we do now?” she asked.

Gordon shrugged. “For starters we go back in and get rid of the wreck.”

They stared at him. He explained. “If they don’t find it, they’ll probably assume we went a whole lot farther than this, tonight. That could turn out to be our only advantage.

“Then, when that’s done, we head overland.”

“I’ve never been to California,” Johnny suggested, and Gordon had to smile. Since they had discovered that the Holnists had another enemy, the boy had spoken of little else.

The idea was tempting. South was one direction their pursuers wouldn’t expect them to go.

But that would mean crossing the river. And anyway, if Gordon remembered correctly, the Salmon River was a long way south of here. Even if it were practical to sneak through a couple of hundred miles of survivalist baronies, there just wasn’t time. With spring here, they were needed back home worse than ever.

“We’ll wait up in the hills until pursuit’s gone past,” he said. “Then we might as well try for the Coquille.”

Johnny, forever cheerful and willing, did not let their dim chances get him down. He shrugged. “Let’s go get the canoe then.” He jumped into the frigid, waist-deep water. Gordon picked up a sturdy piece of driftwood to use as a gaff, and followed a little more gingerly. The water wasn’t any less bitterly cold the second time. His toes were starting to go numb.

Together they had almost reached the belly-up canoe when Johnny cried out and pointed, “The mail!”

At the fringe of their eddy, a glistening oilskin packet could be seen drifting outward, toward the swift center of the current.

“No!” Gordon cried. “Let it go!”

But Johnny had already leaped head first into the rushing waters. He swam hard toward the receding package, even as Gordon screamed after him. “Corne back here. Johnny, you fool! It’s worthless!