“No way am I gettin’ back in that thing, babe!” the soldier yelled at her and ran for the bank.
More snocles were jamming to a stop just short of the crack, which was widening by the minute as pieces crumbled into the river. The drivers crowded toward the crack, trying to help Seamus save their comrade.
“Lie down! Form a chain!” one driver yelled-the first smart thing one of them had done, Bunny thought.
Torn between climbing in the snocle to drive to the village for help and going to the aid of her uncle and the driver, Bunny chose the latter. She dove into a belly flop, skidding across the ice faster than any of the other would-be rescuers could walk, and grabbed one of Seamus’s ankles just as he managed to snag open the door of the imperiled snocle. The driver half jumped, half fell out of the vehicle and into the river just before the ice cracked wider. A piece of ice broke off, and the turbulent waters enveloped the rest of the snocle, the outstretched arms, head, and upper torso of the driver on the other side of the crack, and all of Seamus except the ankle to which Bunny was clinging.
His momentum dragged her forward but she held on, flailing in the water with her other hand, trying to grasp some other portion of him. She knew her actions might be holding his head underwater, but at least she could keep him from being pulled under the ice.
Something grabbed at her hand then and she caught her uncle’s arm, letting go of the ankle to grab his forearm with both hands. It was then that she suddenly realized that the water was warm! Not ice cold, as it ought to be, but almost hot. She had no time to think about what had caused that, because Seamus’s head broke the surface just as Bunny felt the ice under her chest loosen.
“Here! Over here!” cried the soldier on the other side of the crack. By then they had already hauled the driver of the sunken snocle out, and some of the other soldiers were hurrying him up the bank. “Come over here, old man, that little gal can’t handle you.”
Seamus, nodding in agreement, lunged away from Bunny and over to the soldier, who was immediately joined by a second man. Together they pulled Seamus from the river.
Bunny slithered backward until she felt more solid ice under her. She slid until she came up against the abandoned, still-running snocle. Levering herself onto the driver’s seat, she gunned the snocle down the softening ice so hard it flew across the gap at the side of the river and up onto the bank. She kept to the woods on the way back to Kilcoole to warn the village of the unseasonably early breakup, all the time wondering how that had happened.
After Bunny’s precipitous departure, Diego Metaxos and Steve Margolies headed back to their quarters.
“So, what is it with you and this girl?” Steve asked in a kidding tone. “Are her intentions honorable?”
Diego felt himself flushing uncomfortably. He had thought once Steve got here everything would be okay, but even with Steve, he felt edgy and uncertain. The only time he had felt good was that day in the village, when he had chanted his poem and all of the people had understood it. After he had met Steve, and Steve had spent some time at Dad’s bedside, Steve, Captain Fiske, and Colonel Giancarlo had spent hours closeted together, and that bothered Diego. The last couple of days, except for short visits with Frank at the hospital, Steve was occupied in organizing what he called his expedition.
Diego hadn’t had a chance to talk to him about that and seized the moment.
“What are you planning to do when you go back out there?” he asked Steve when they were safely back in their quarters.
“The same thing your dad was trying to do, only with more support. Locate the deposits, mark the spot, take samples.”
“Must make you feel good, taking over from Dad,” Diego said. His voice contained a bitterness he hadn’t known he felt-at least not toward Steve.