Day Three
July 23, 1952
Wednesday Morning
River’s wind was giving out and his legs were getting heavy. He kept running, fighting through the pain, but his body was working against him. January was either dead or dying and he was to blame. He’d hunt Spencer’s ass down to the ends of the earth. That would be his life mission from this moment on.
Screw everything else.
From behind him, a noise cut through the silence, something in the nature of an engine. He twisted and saw a motorcycle approaching, still a ways off but coming fast.
He brought his body to a stop.
His chest heaved.
Sweat rolled down his forehead.
As the bike got closer, he got in front of it and waved his arms for it to stop. It slowed to twenty or so but then held steady. The driver was a man, a big man.
The man didn’t stop.
He gave River a look, then swung around and accelerated.
Shit!
River grabbed a rock the size of a baseball and threw it with all his might. It connected with the driver’s back near the shoulder. The front tire wobbled violently then the bike went down and raked against the road with an awful noise.
River ran over.
By the time he got there the man was on his feet, squared off with a long blade in his grip.
“I need to borrow your bike,” River said.
The man charged.
Five minutes later, River was on the bike with a serious twist on the throttle. He didn’t kill the biker. He just beat him enough to get him out of the way.
Miles up the road he came to the place where January had been dumped.
Spencer’s car wasn’t on the shoulder.
That was good.
Maybe the man had just kept going.
River turned left off the road, into the terrain. The bike bucked violently but River kept the handlebars in a python grip.
When he got to January, she wasn’t there.
She was gone.
Spencer had taken her.
River twisted the throttle, spun the rear wheel in a one-eighty and accelerated towards the road. The front end wobbled.
The tire was flat.
River kept full-speed on the gas.
That was a bad move.
The rubber shredded off and the rim dug into the dirt, jerking the bike to the left and throwing River over the handlebars.