Chapter 19 #2
"She's not pulling a loaded wagon behind her," Curtis said, before David had said a word.
"I know."
Curtis walked the entry again, checking where the wheels would need to run, finding firm gravel and stone across most of the width.
One stretch near the center resisted judgment — water obscured the bottom there, and neither of them could say for certain what the wagon would find when it reached it.
"Bridge means backtracking and showing the load," David said, mostly thinking out loud.
"And waiting on the water to drop could mean waiting a week we don't have," Curtis said.
"Can they do it?" Karen asked, watching the team.
Curtis looked at Waylon and Willie a long moment. "The horses can."
"The wagon?" David asked.
"That's the question."
They spent the better part of an hour preparing before Curtis would commit to anything.
He checked every trace, every buckle on the harness, the pole where it joined the wagon, testing connections David wouldn't have thought to test. They repositioned the most vulnerable medical cartons toward the center and top of the load, away from the sides where water would rise first if it came to that.
The clothing layer got resecured over the top.
David suggested making the crossing lighter by carrying some cargo across on horseback first.
Curtis shook his head. They could lighten it some, but not enough without unloading most of what they'd come all this way to get. That meant hours exposed on the riverbank, carrying boxes across by hand or horseback, then loading everything again on the far side.
They'd cross loaded.
David checked the surrounding country with Smokey before committing to anything further. Nobody visible. No riders on either bank, no sign of the bridge guards or anybody else. Whatever danger waited here, it wasn't a person.
"Should Whiskey carry anything extra?" Karen asked.
"No," Curtis said. "He's sound. No reason to load that shoulder for nothing."
They settled the order. Karen would take Whiskey across first and wait on the far side.
David would confirm the exit, come back for the wagon crossing, and stay close alongside on June where he could help Curtis if the team needed it.
Smokey crossed with Karen, out of the way of moving wheels and harness.
Karen and Whiskey made the crossing without trouble, the gelding picking his way through with the same careful confidence June had shown. She waited on the far bank, watching.
Curtis took up the lines and asked for the first step.
Waylon and Willie hesitated at the water's edge, ears working, unsettled by how different it looked and felt from a road.
Curtis gave them the time they needed rather than pushing — no raised voice, no snap of the lines.
After a moment, Waylon stepped in first, and Willie followed rather than be left behind.
The wagon wheels entered the water behind them, and for a stretch it went exactly as David hoped. The current pushed at the wheels without moving them. Curtis kept the team pointed steady toward the far exit, voice low and even.
"Easy."
Waylon worked steady. Willie matched him, more attentive to the job than David had seen him be about anything since Southern Breezes.
David rode alongside on June, giving the team room, watching the water rather than the horses for the first stretch, because the water was what would tell him if something changed.
For the first third of the crossing, David let himself believe Curtis had judged it right.
The change started small enough that David almost dismissed it.
The rear of the wagon shifted a few inches downstream, and his first thought was a wheel rolling over a submerged rock. Then it happened again.
"David," Curtis said, already looking back at it himself.
Enough of the wagon body sat in the water now that the current had real surface to push against, and the rear wheels weren't gripping the bottom the way they had a minute earlier.
Another shove, harder this time, and the wagon yawed downstream, the tongue's angle shifting with it.
Waylon felt the change first, pressure on one side of his collar increasing without warning.
Willie's side went slack for a beat, then snapped tight again as the wagon corrected.
"Come on. Easy," Curtis said, and for a moment the pull held. The wagon moved forward a few feet, and David thought they'd cleared the worst of it.
Then the downstream rear wheel dropped into a cut in the riverbed David hadn't been able to see from the bank, and the current caught the exposed side hard.
The wagon turned further, water piling up against its upstream flank now instead of sliding past it. David understood what was happening before he had words for it — the wagon had gotten light enough in the water that the current was moving it faster than the wheels could resist.
Somewhere under the clothing layer, a carton shifted, the sound of it just audible over the water.
"What do you need?" Karen shouted from the far bank.
Curtis didn't have attention to spare for an answer. Waylon braced against the pull. Willie tried to step sideways against the pole's angle, fighting to find ground that made sense under the pressure.
"Willie! Come up!" Curtis called, and Willie fought himself back into position.
David moved June closer, meaning to help however he could.
"Stay clear of the pole!" Curtis shouted, and David understood exactly why. If the wagon turned hard enough, the tongue and traces could catch a horse or a rider between them and the wagon body, and there wouldn't be time to think his way out of it once it happened.
The wagon shifted again. Harder.
Current hit the wagon's broad side and shoved it another foot downstream. One wheel lost solid bottom entirely for a moment, and the whole frame tilted before settling again, not overturning, but close enough that David's chest went tight watching it.
"Pull!" Curtis called, and Waylon lunged into his collar with everything he had. Willie followed a half-second behind. The wagon lurched forward, gained a few feet.
Then the downstream rear wheel caught on something solid, and the sudden stop swung the wagon's rear end hard, twisting the pole with it. Waylon managed to stay ahead of the motion, but Willie took the twist straight through his harness, forced sideways before he could brace for it.
His footing went. One hind leg slid downstream on the riverbed, and for a second David saw the whites of his eyes.
The harness pulled Willie sideways while the current swept against his legs.
"Easy, Willie! Easy!" Curtis called, fighting to keep Waylon moving without letting the pull drag Willie down with him.
Another surge of current swung Willie's hindquarters wide.
Water rose higher against his flank. He scrambled, found one hoof under himself again, but the wagon shifted sideways once more, and a trace snapped tight at an angle that told David exactly what could happen next — if Willie went down while attached and the wagon kept moving, the harness itself could hold him under.
David came off June before he'd fully decided to, dropping into the water on the upstream side, careful to stay clear of the pole the way Curtis had warned him.
"Don't get between them!" Curtis shouted.
David kept moving anyway, sending June clear with a slap to her hindquarters. The current hit him harder than he expected the moment his boots found the riverbed, nearly taking his feet out from under him.
Karen started toward the water from the far bank.
"Stay there!" David shouted, and she stopped, because one more person in the current wasn't going to help anybody. Smokey stayed pressed against her leg, tense but obedient.
David worked toward Willie into deeper water, the current above his knees now and strong enough to make every step a fight.
Curtis held the lines, fighting to keep Waylon's pull steady without adding more pressure to Willie's side. The wagon shifted downstream again, the rear wheel lifting and dropping against the riverbed.
"David!" Curtis shouted.
David saw it the same instant Curtis did. The wagon's downstream rear wheel lost contact again, the whole frame slewing sideways, the pole jerking hard enough to snap through the water.
Willie's front feet scrambled for purchase. One found the bottom.
The other didn't.
He went down onto his knee, hindquarters swinging into the current's pull, and David closed the last few feet between them with everything he had left.
"Willie!" Curtis shouted.
The wagon shifted again, sideways, harder.
David reached for the harness as the current took the horse's legs out from under him.