Mildred suddenly laughed, breaking the tension.
“What’s funny?” Krysty asked.
“The way we’re all standing here. One of the most famous war pictures in American history was the Marines raising the flag over Iwo Jima after it had been captured from the Japanese in the Second World War. It occurred to me that we look exactly like that photograph.”
Jak knelt on the slick planking of what had been the floor of the attic. “You ready, Ryan?”
“Sure. Let’s do it. If I feel things breaking up, I’ll be the first to yell.”
Jak stood again, finding a place on the steel for his own white hands. “Now,” he said.
Ryan was at the heart of things, his whole body sensitive to the slightest movement of the gripping timbers. The scaffolding pole was firmly grounded, and everyone’s weight made it bite hard into the wreckage. There was a squealing sound, and one of the joists snapped with a report like a revolver shot.
“Hold it!” Jak yelled. “You all right, Ryan?”
“Sure. Some of the pressure’s gone off of my chest. Try and tilt it a bit more that wayyeah. Bit more. That’s it. Now go for it again.”
Once again everyone strained. Doc’s knee boots slipped and he fell sideways, splashing himself with the water. “By the Three! Sorry, people”
“Shifting something,” Ryan said.
The weight on his chest was much easier, but something was still gripping his left ankle like a mantrap. More wood split and cracked, and he could finally take deep breaths.
“Done it?” Jak asked.
“Nearly. Lot easier and I could almost climb out. Except for my foot. Left foot.”
Jak slapped the cold steel. “Easy all,” he said, then knelt and peered into the murk. “Need to get down there and slide end of pole into exactly right place.”
“I could do that,” Krysty said.
Jak grinned at her. “No. Me. Smallest. Agile. Slip down easy.”
“You could get yourself caught,” Ryan protested. “No way anyone could rescue you from that tangle down there.”
“Take chance.” He drew one of his throwing knives. “When right place I’ll rap with this. Listen for it. Then shove with all strength.”
Without another word he slipped down into the dark water and disappeared, though Mildred, leaning over, could still see the white flare of his hair, floating like a baby’s caul around Jak’s narrow skull.
Ryan could feel the teenager’s lithe body, twisting sinuously around his legs, while the end of the steel scaffolding pole also moved from side to side.
“Listen for the sound,” he whispered to the others. “Been down there close on a full minute,” J.B. warned. “Can you signal to him to come up, Ryan?”
“No.”
Jak seemed motionless and the tip of the pole was no longer moving. “Eighty seconds,” J.B. said. Simultaneously there was a swirl in the water, as though a large fish had passed by, and there was the clearly audible chinking of the steel blade on the tube. “Go,” Doc roared, and everyone threw their strength against the twenty-foot length of steel.
Ryan felt the pressure slip off his ankle and he kicked out, reaching to pull himself up onto the section of planking, looking behind him for “Jak!”
The young man erupted from the water in a froth of bubbles, a blade gripped in his teeth, his hair flattened against his face, eyes wide, panting with the effort.
“By the gods!” Doc exclaimed. “You look damnably like Israel Hands from Treasure Island. Well done, young man, wonderfully well done.”
Ryan embraced the albino, feeling his own body still trembling from the tension of the experience. “Thanks, Jak, thanks.”
“We’ve got a fire going, lover,” Krysty said. “Let’s all get ourselves dry.”
“Best offer I’ve had in days,” he replied.
Chapter Thirty
They reached the Brown Burro diner in Fairplay just as the sun was setting.
The small ville seemed untouched by the ravening gang, with smoke coming from several chimneys and the smell of cooking drifting from open windows.
Ryan was little the worse from his ordeal, though Mildred insisted on bathing his many cuts, bites and scratches with boiled water, as hot as he could bear it, to try to remove the risk of any infection. He’d quickly walked off the stiffness of being trapped.