Part 3
Tom reached the sandbar first.
It was barely a sandbar now, more a ridge of soaked earth under six inches of fast water, but it gave them a few feet closer to the channel. Grace came behind him with the cutting kit slung across her shoulder and Maya at her heels carrying a second rope. Mark shouted from the bank, but the river tore his words apart before they reached them.
“Stay behind me,” Tom snapped.
Grace nearly laughed. “You’re seventy-one.”
“And still smarter near water than you are.”
He was right, which annoyed her enough to keep her from stepping past him. Tom planted his boots wide and swung the throw bag once, twice, testing the weight. The orange line trailed behind him in loose coils, bright against the brown water.
Mara resurfaced twenty yards upstream.
She was weaker now. Grace saw it in the way the calf no longer fought every turn of the tire. She rode lower, her head lifting late, her trunk fumbling for the center hole instead of finding it cleanly. Panic had burned through the first reserve of strength. What came after panic was worse.
After panic came surrender.
“Not yet,” Grace whispered. “Don’t you dare.”
Kito surfaced again, farther out than before. He shook his head once, water flying from his ears, then sank with a heavy roll of his back. His body passed beneath the muddy surface like a moving bank.
Tom threw.
The line sailed cleanly, but the current caught the bag and pulled it short of the tire. Maya lunged to retrieve the slack while Tom cursed under his breath and drew the rope back hand over hand.
“Again,” Grace said.
“Wait for the shelf.”
“We may not get another chance.”
“We don’t get a chance if I miss.”
Behind them, Nia screamed. Grace did not turn. She could not afford to see the mother’s face again, not while her own hands had to work.
The tire moved into the ferry cut.
The river widened there, spreading over the shallow shelf. The water slowed, not much, but enough for the tire to wobble instead of spin. Kito appeared below it at an angle, his body nearly invisible beneath the surface except for the rounded slope of his back.
“He’s trying again,” Maya said.
Mark’s voice came through the radio on Grace’s belt, sharp with static. “Grace, answer me. Do not enter that water.”
Grace pulled the radio free and handed it to Maya without taking her eyes off Mara. “Tell him I’m busy.”
Maya looked terrified and delighted for one split second. Then she pressed the radio button. “Dr. Bennett is busy.”
Tom threw again.
This time the bag struck the tire’s outer rim and bounced off. Grace’s heart kicked hard, but the trailing line slid across the rubber and caught in one of the deep treads. Tom pulled gently, trying to set it without yanking Mara sideways.
“I’ve got contact,” he said. “Not enough.”
Mara’s trunk came up. Water poured from it. She drew one thin breath, then another.
Kito shoved from below.
Grace could not see exactly what he did, but she saw the result. The tire tilted toward the sandbar, its black rim lifting high enough that Mara’s front foot broke through the center for an instant. The calf kicked once, weak and wild.
“Now,” Tom said.
Grace splashed forward to her knees before Tom could stop her. She grabbed the line with both hands. Maya grabbed behind her. Together they pulled, not hard enough to drag the calf, only enough to change the tire’s angle. The rope burned across Grace’s wet gloves. The current pressed against her legs until she felt the sand shift under her boots.
“Easy,” Tom barked. “You pull too hard, you roll her.”
“I know.”
“You’re pulling too hard.”
“I know.”
She eased. The line slackened, then caught again.
For one breath, everything held: Kito braced beneath the water, Tom anchoring from the ridge, Maya shaking with effort, Grace trying to feel through the rope what she could not see through the river. Mara’s head lifted. Her trunk reached air.
Then a broken fence rail came spinning down the current and struck the rope.
The line snapped.
Grace fell backward into Maya. Tom caught both of them by the back of their jackets before the river could take them off their feet. The loose rope whipped away downstream.
Mara rolled.
Kito surged up, startled by the sudden shift. His shoulder struck the tire again, but this time the force turned it the wrong direction. Mara’s body slid deeper through the opening until the rubber wedged tighter behind her shoulders.
The calf cried, a ragged sound that ended in water.
Grace scrambled back to her feet. “Get another line.”
Maya was already running.
Tom grabbed Grace’s arm. “Look at the tire.”
“What?”
“Look at it.”
Grace blinked rain from her eyes and focused on the black rubber as it turned in the shallows. There was yellow paint on the sidewall. Not much, just a smeared industrial stencil worn nearly smooth.
C.C. CONTRACTING.
Her stomach tightened.
Cane Creek Contracting had done the maintenance work on the lower service road in May. They had brought in gravel, repaired the culvert, reinforced the gate, and hauled away old equipment from the abandoned farm parcel Cedar Bend had purchased two years earlier. Grace had signed the environmental hazard note after the job because Mark said the remaining debris had been moved above the flood line.
Above the flood line.
The tire turned again, and for a second she saw another mark under the yellow letters: a white inspection tag wired through the rim, fluttering like a drowned label. Grace knew that tag. She had initialed it herself…
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