Wilderness Run by Maria Hummel Page B

of the corner of his eye, Laurence saw a sparrow dive deep into the hedgerow, vanishing. Its wings were flecked with blood.
    Soon after, a retreating soldier vaulted right through the bushes and splashed clumsily into the water. The soldier’s momentum took him to midstream, where he floundered, batting his hands against the current. So few fellows had ever learned to swim, but Laurence knew how, because his uncle Daniel had taught him in the summers on Lake Champlain. Uncle Daniel entered the water the same slow way each time, walking deeper and deeper, a little smile on his face, as if he enjoyed his own disappearance, limb by limb.
    â€œHelp me, goddamn it,” the soldier shouted from midriver, waking Laurence from his reverie. He realized he had been waiting for orders and that none would come. It was up to him to save Pike and this stranger, too. His lungs swelled with air. Grasping Pike’s skinny ankles, he pulled him gently toward the bank, then leapt into the river. The bridge downstream echoed with the high-pitched screams of horses. Another tug and Pike rolled into the river beside him, his eyes fluttering as his body hit the cool water. Laurence towed the boy by his coat as he swam for the other side. The water sucked at his uniform. His boot-weighted feet felt like hooves, but he had never before felt so sure of his own strength. He kicked hard, and they caught up with the other man, whose arms windmilled wildly but did not propel him forward.
    â€œStay there. I’ll come back and get you,” Laurence shouted to the soldier, cupping Pike’s skull to keep his nose above water. The gashed neck gurgled as Pike tried to breathe. He hadn’t expected the boy to be so heavy. “I just have to get him across, and then I’ll come back.”
    But as the pair began to pass him, the man’s wet eyes bulged, and he launched up from the water. Laurence swerved too late. The other soldier managed to wrap his arms around Laurence’s neck, plunging him down. He felt the water ride over his head, green-brown and flecked with slow light, and he hung suspended there a moment opposite Pike, too surprised to fight back. He could not hear the battle anymore except for the far-off crash of feet pounding through a crowded ford upstream.
    Before him, Pike frowned and twisted his face toward the sky, and for a minute it seemed like the boy might save himself. Pike’s arms beat feebly once and his ankles twitched, but the effort failed and he began to sink again. Bits of moss and river silt drifted into his open mouth. A necklace of bubbles spiraled from his throat.
    â€œGoddamn you,” Laurence shouted, wasting his last breath, and punched upward at the panicked soldier with his free hand. But the current slowed his fist. Pike’s collar tore from his grasp. The boy’s body went down, casting a boat-shaped shadow into the river. Laurence punched again, this time kicking with his own frenzied strength. He thrust the man off him and gagged on the wet air. The river tasted like sweat.
    â€œGoddamn you,” he screamed again, thrashing around for Pike, but the boy had sunk, irretrievable, to the bottom. When the man lunged again, Laurence bunched his knees and pushed off from the soldier’s ribs, cracking them to power himself swiftly toward the bank from which he had come. He closed his eyes to the water streaming over his face. The distance seemed endless as he darted, fishlike, freed of weight. When at last he lifted his waterlogged body onto the muddy earth, he heard the man give a last shout, but he did not look back. Thundering in him was the urge to fight again, even though his weapon was lost, and he started running blindly uphill against a tide of fleeing men.
    â€œThere’s a black horse cavalry coming,” a retreating soldier yelled, his legs tumbling fast down the bank. He wore the tight government-issue coat of New York and his lips were smeared black with