Impact (Book 5): Black

Liam, who remained on his lap. He’d expected the chubby little dog to get off right away, but he’d stayed put for the past hour, which suggested the loud motor scared him.
“Good point,” she replied, pulling out his leash. Liam was accepting of being put on a rope. He licked her hands as she fidgeted with his collar but didn’t hop down or move a paw to surrender his spot at the steering wheel.
Ezra was happy to have the company, so he made sure the pup was comfy.
Soon after his chat with Haley, Butch pointed ahead. “Veer left!”
“Whoa!” he said, making the turn.
A giant white rectangle floated by. “It’s a fiberglass swimming pool.” Ezra was impressed watching it go by. Where had it come from?
“Can we stop for a swim?” Butch joked. A little water sloshed inside, as if it had been filled with splashing overflow from the river. If there’d been time, he could have docked with the pool and taken a dip. As it was…
“Crap,” he exclaimed. The pool was the leading piece of a flotilla of debris floating in the water. “We’ve got to pull over.”
He regretted saying the puggle was going to bring them luck. Still, he rubbed the dog behind the ears as he avoided the oncoming mess.
From the safety of the riverbank, they watched as a thick patch of trash and household goods floated by. It was almost as bad as the mashup of junk that made them take shelter in St. Charles. For a long time, they watched with interest as numerous floating objects went by. The backs of tanker trucks. Flipped speed boats. Runaway cargo barges. A stray grain silo.
“This must be from another town, farther up the river from Kansas City. It took longer to get here.” Ezra imagined he was watching the lifeblood of a city float by.
“How long do you think this will take?” Haley asked, holding Victoria to her chest.
“It could be hours. When we saw the remains of Kansas City float by, it took most of a day to clear out.”
“It’s why we ran into you,” Butch said proudly.
She smiled. “I can be patient.”
It took until lunch time before the river cleared up enough he thought it was safe to drive into the muddy current again. He even waited another half hour to be absolutely sure. If they blew a propeller, there was nowhere close to get a replacement.
“And away we go!” he said dramatically as he got the boat moving again.
They’d cruised about five minutes before a bridge appeared ahead of them.
“Let’s see where we are.” Ezra had borrowed a Missouri map during their visit to Bass Pro, which he’d studied many times since leaving St. Charles. He pointed to the upcoming bridge featuring gray metal trusswork above a small portion of the span closest to the eastern shore. “That’s the crossing for Interstate 70. We’re beyond Columbia, now. The next bridge is at Boonville, which isn’t far.”
She looked over her shoulder to him. “You’re measuring our progress using bridges?”
He smiled, face buffeted by the wind flow. “They’re the only markers I can make sense of. There are so many trees along the banks, sometimes I don’t even know when we pass these little towns. The bridges, we can’t miss. I know we have five of them before we get to the outskirts of Kansas City.”
“Will we get there today?” she asked.
“Yep. As long as we can get gas, it’s only about a hundred and fifty miles from this bridge coming up. We could knock it out in four or five hours, under ideal conditions.” The speedometer hovered around thirty miles an hour; it wasn’t as fast as the pontoon boat would go, but it was a safe cruising speed for fuel economy. He had his map, and knew there were towns ahead, but finding gas was never a given. Better to temper the speed and keep extra in the tank.
She patted Liam on the head and spoke in her silly doggy voice. “Who’s a happy puppy? Are you driving the ship, you little puffball?”
Liam tried to lick her on the chin.
“All right, let’s not interrupt the driver,” she laughed, going back to her seat.
Cars and trucks zoomed across the span as they got closer, but he also took note of a few vehicles stopped almost above the middle of the river. There was a huge concrete pylon directly beneath them, so he needed to veer to the right to avoid the middle section.
He watched Haley find a seat near Butch on his left. She barely noticed Victoria had stretched her cord and gone under his legs, tucking herself into the less windy nook created by the steering wheel and dashboard.
I didn’t know I was going to be the one taking care of the pets.
Ezra found it humorous. How many times had Grace come home with guinea pigs, hamsters, or other rodents, swearing this would be the time she finally learned to take care of them herself? And each time, it was dear old dad cleaning cages or filling food bowls. It was—
Movement up on the bridge caught his eye. Men ran alongside the parked cars. Men who seemed interested in looking over the side. He held the throttle tight, though he wasn’t sure why.
“Are those trucks up there? Blue trucks?” He’d spoken loud enough for Butch to hear him. The young man looked back to Ezra, then up to the bridge. They were approaching at an angle, and were only a couple hundred yards away, so it was getting difficult to see the trucks on the deck. However, the men scurrying at the edge were easier to identify.
So were their rifles.
He hit the throttle and banked to the right, shoving Liam between his legs.
“We’re in trouble,” he confirmed.
Denver, CO
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