Night Magic Part 11

Puff was crouched in the center of the raft, training those furious golden eyes on McClain, moaning for all he was worth. McClain's mouth twitched.

"He's all right," he said, answering his own question as he turned back to guide the raft.

"What about you?" Clara was so shaken that the words were scarcely more than a whisper. She had to repeat them before he heard.

"Me? Not a scratch." But she noticed he sounded worried, and that his face was grim as he stared down the river. Of course, he must be thinking about the falls. But surely they still had time to get ash.o.r.e, maybe on the other side...

"What's that?" An ominous rumble was just barely audible. As the raft rushed onward, the sound increased in volume until in a matter of just a few minutes it was a full throated roar.

"The falls!" McClain yelled over his shoulder, paddling feverishly for sh.o.r.e without making any noticeable headway against the swooshing water. As Clara absorbed that bad news the raft shot around a bend in the river. What she saw next made her stiffen and grab hold of the sides of the raft with both hands.

Walls of stark rock towered on either side of the river, forming a canyon through which the water rushed. Spray shot up along the rock walls with a hissing sound as the water, its force telescoped, picked up speed and power. Getting off the river would be impossible now, Clara saw. They would have to stay the course, whatever that might be.

"Climb onto the rim and hook your leg over!"

"What?" They were shouting to be heard over the roar, and Clara was not even sure that McClain heard. He was already straddling the rolled side like a rodeo rider mounting a bucking bronc. Clara goggled at him. He had to be joking! As the raft tipped precariously with the shift in his weight, he leaned inward. Clara grabbed the sides again. Puff moaned, his eyes slits of desperation as they scanned the trees far above for succor.

"Hook your leg under like this!" McClain demonstrated how the leg that was still inside the raft was clamped under the rolled side. Clara watched him with growing horror. She couldn't do that. There was no way- "Do you want to drown?" he bellowed. The roar was getting louder; the current growing swifter. Spumes of icy spray showered the raft, which was b.u.mping along like an airplane in heavy turbulence. They were sluicing through the water at breakneck speed. Puff was moaning in terror, eyes closed, ears flattened, fur beaded by spray as he crouched in the center of the raft. Could cats swim? Could anybody swim in this torrent?

"We're going to drown whether I do it or not!" she wailed. Courage had never been her strong suit, and faced with imminent horrible death she thought she would likely keel over of a heart attack before the water ever got her. Her heart was pumping so hard against the wall of her chest that a heart attack seemed a foregone conclusion.

"Get on the rim!" This time the order was given in a roar to rival the waterfall's. "Over there!"

He gestured with the oar to a spot roughly opposite to where he was stationed. His clothes were soaked already, his black hair glistening like a seal's. Water ran down his face in streams. His teeth chattered. But the look in his eyes was chillingly familiar: a brilliant green glitter that made him seem vibrantly alive.

"You're enjoying this, aren't you, you lunatic?" Clara screeched at him bitterly. Then, realizing she had no choice, she scooted on her bottom to the place he indicated and gingerly lifted one leg over the rim. Immediately the leg dangling in the water protested the icy wetness. But as Clara maneuvered herself upright she forgot all about bodily discomfort. She forgot all about everything as she stared in terror at what was ahead.

The river rushed onward in gushing streams of brown water, each with a current so strong that it was separately visible, leaping and intertwining as if braided by a giant hand before disappearing some two hundred feet away. Just disappearing, with a tremendous roar, beneath a cloud of foggy spray.

"Oh, my G.o.d!" she moaned, lying down along the rim and gripping it with both hands in response to McClain's shouted direction. The raft was bucking like a bronco now; its every movement seemed designed to throw her off into the water that boiled like an icy cauldron all about. She clung grimly to the rubber, hardly feeling the cold, so wet she couldn't get any wetter. Her hair streamed over her eyes, practically blinding her. She could just make out Puff's crouched figure in the middle of the raft, ears flat against his head as he stared wildly all around.

"Puff!" she cried. "McClain, what about Puff? He'll drown!"

McClain stared at her from his perch on the opposite side of the crazily spinning raft, then shifted his attention to the soggy, shivering, moaning animal in the center.

"G.o.dd.a.m.n it to h.e.l.l!" she thought she heard him mutter. Then, in the most heroic action Clara had ever seen, he reached out an arm to catch Puff by the collar, dragging him close until he could scoop him up and hold him clamped between his chest and the rubber side.

Clara screamed as the raft bucked wildly over a sea of hissing white froth before shooting straight out into s.p.a.ce. For just an instant they hung suspended, a bright orange pellet against an eternity of baby blue sky, then her eyes shut tightly and her stomach jumped into her throat as they plunged down.

Clara clung to the raft with every ounce of her strength, her nails digging into the rubber, her knees gripping it so hard that she could feel them meet even with the air-filled roll between them. The jolt of the landing took them under; then the raft righted itself, surfacing with a shake like a dog shedding water, only to go under again and then up in the turbulent maelstrom below the dam. Under and up, under and up they went until she lost all sense of where she was and what was happening. All she knew was that she had to hang on despite the river's attempts to tear her free and the icy, numbing water that, with a malevolent will of its own, was trying to drown her.

"Grab the rope! For G.o.d's sake, Clara, grab the rope!"

Clara blinked, shaking her head to clear the hair from in front of her eyes so that she could see. McClain was still hanging on, she saw, but barely, clinging to the raft with one arm as the rest of him dangled out of sight in the water.

"d.a.m.n it, Clara, grab the rope! You stupid b.i.t.c.h!"

Those words shocked a little fighting spirit back into Clara. She lifted her head to glare at him and then saw the rope that dangled just a few feet from her nose. Following it upward with her eyes she saw that it hung from an army green helicopter that hovered some thirty feet over their heads. The roar of the falls drowned out the roar of the helicopter. It was just there, silently suspended, an angel sent from heaven to save her, all of them... Her eyes traveled back down the lifeline that hung from the helicopter's open door. The end of the rope had been made into a loop. It jumped and twitched as the helicopter's pilot fought to keep it within reach of the spinning raft. Without warning, the raft went under again. When it surfaced, bringing her with it, spluttering and gasping for air, she leaped for the dangling loop like the drowning woman she was. It didn't take McClain's shouted instructions to make her pull it over her head and fasten it beneath her arms.

Then with a jerk she was lifted into the air. Her body dangled limply as she was pulled up through the bright blue autumn sky. The rope was cutting into the skin beneath her arms through her clothes, and she felt like she was literally freezing to death as the brisk wind hit her soaked body. But it was such a wonderful relief to be out of reach of the suffocating water! She sucked in great gulps of air and thanked G.o.d that she was alive.

Another looped rope dropped past her as she ascended. For McClain, of course. He would be saved, too. Thank you, G.o.d, she thought again before exhaustion blanked her mind. Her body swung in an arc like a pendulum as she was hauled upward. Her hands were too numb to allow her to even grip the rope to ease some of the pain beneath her arms. All her life she had had a morbid fear of heights. The disasters that had befallen her in the last forty-eight hours had immunized her against that particular fear, she discovered as she looked down on the tops of bushy pines. Or else her mind was as numb as her body. In any case, she was able to watch with a curious detachment as the raft, swirling and bucking in the murderous basin at the foot of the falls, was sucked under and then shot high into the air. At the very top of its flight, McClain seemed to launch himself through the air from nowhere, grabbing the dangling rope one-handed. He swung from its end, his body still half submerged in water. Apparently he was having trouble getting the loop around his body. Then Clara saw what he had done: instead of saving himself, he had put the loop around the sopping gray bundle that was Puff. Puff was saved! Clara laughed hysterically, then cried as she watched Puff, swatting wildly at the air and spitting for all he was worth, being hauled upward in her wake.

But what about McClain? Even as she thought that, her head hit the bottom of the helicopter with a crack that made her see stars. Then, before she had quite recovered her senses, she was being hauled up and over the side.

"Don't move!" ordered a no-nonsense voice even as hands dragged her forward to sprawl on the floor of the cabin. "You are under arrest! You have the right to remain silent; if you give up that right, anything you say may be used against you in a court of law..."

Half drowned, more than half frozen, still seeing stars from hitting her head, Clara looked up through this spiel to see two uniformed National Guardsmen crouching over her, guns pointed at her head.

"Oh my G.o.d!" She subsided with a groan, lying limply in the puddle she had made on the floor, too tired to even think. Out of the river straight into Bigfoot's arms... Suddenly drowning didn't seem like such a bad way to die.

"Look out, he's-" The shout was followed by a scream. Everything happened so fast that Clara received only a jumble of impressions: a wet black head appearing over the side, silhouetted against the dreamy blue sky, a pair of gleaming green eyes meeting hers for the merest instant, a lean brown hand snaking out and hooking into the belt of the nearest guardsman, and then a scream as the man went flying through the air to disappear out the open door. The other one jumped to his feet just as McClain launched himself through the opening like a missile, head b.u.t.ting the guardsman in the stomach as a bullet sang out harmlessly over McClain's diving form. Then, while Clara gaped from her position flat on the floor, the second man was flying through the opening to disappear with a scream. The helicopter jerked as the pilot turned around, fumbling with the gun at his belt.

"Don't be an a.s.s, buddy," McClain said, pointing the rifle he had jerked from the hold of the second guardsman at the pilot's whitening face. The man subsided back into his seat while McClain stood behind him, dripping with water, hair plastered to his skull so that his ears stuck out more than ever while he grinned his satyr's grin and held the rifle tight against the base of the pilot's skull. "Just keep this thing steady and you'll see your next birthday."

Now that bullets had stopped flying, Clara managed to get up on her knees. Her wits were still a little slow, not having quite recovered from her near drowning, near freezing and the b.u.mp on her head, but she had no doubt that she had just seen McClain save their lives- and in the process throw two men to their deaths. She shuddered. Did they still electrocute people in Virginia? she wondered. Of course, it was a moot point. Bigfoot would undoubtedly put a period to them first.

The radio crackled. "C-193, this is C-204. Chuck, can you read me? What the h.e.l.l's going on up there? Chuck-"

The pilot moved his hand sharply. The helicopter heeled at a ninety degree angle. Clara was almost thrown out the door. Gasping with terror, she grabbed the legs of the co-pilot's seat and hung on for dear life. Her legs were dangling over empty s.p.a.ce. Clara threw a scared look down at the wildly twirling kaleidoscope below her, then shut her eyes. She could feel her blood vessels pop as she clung to the metal legs of the seat. The copter righted itself abruptly, then dove the other way. Clara was jerked violently up into the air; her body tumbled back inside the cabin. Still she hung on. McClain had been thrown against the other door, she saw. Thankfully it had stayed closed. Now he was pulling himself upright, groping for the rifle which he had lost.

"Jerry, I'm in trouble here," she heard the pilot say desperately into the radio. "Tony and Keith are gone. This guy-"

He grunted in pained surprise, then stopped talking abruptly. McClain, holding onto the back of the pilot's seat, had jammed the rifle hard into the small of his back.

"Chuck! Chuck, can you read me?" the radio cackled.

"Say another G.o.dd.a.m.n word and I'll blow you straight to h.e.l.l," McClain growled. Even Clara shivered. From his tone she had no doubt that he meant what he said.

"Get over here, Clara."

The words were an order. Clara didn't argue with them. She crawled over next to his feet, then pulled herself up by the pilot's seat, taking care not to let go. She had learned her lesson about that.

"Fly back over the river. At about twenty feet."

The pilot turned the craft. Clara didn't blame him. She wouldn't have dared defy McClain either when he used that tone of voice.

"Clara, you sit over in the co-pilot's seat. See that thing he has his hand on? That's the collective pitch lever. I want you to keep it just like it is for just a moment. And keep both pedals pushed about halfway down. See, just like he has them. Now do it!"

"You want me to fly this thing?" Her voice rose until the last word was a squeak. Her eyes were horrified as she stared at him. There was no way she could- "Not fly it. Just hold it steady for a minute or two. For Christ's sake, all you have to do is hold onto one lever and keep your feet on two pedals. Even you should be able to do that."

"But, Jack, I-"

"Do it!"

Clara gave up. If they were going to die, the exact manner of it didn't much matter, she told herself numbly, and did as he directed. The pilot's hand felt cold beneath hers as she took the controls from him; she was sure hers was even colder. She was scared silly. Beneath her hand, the lever vibrated with angry power. The helicopter, now that she was in charge of it, pulsed with malevolent life.

McClain dragged the pilot from his seat, his hand hooked in the man's collar, the rifle pressed to his spine. Clara, frightened at what he meant to do, could not forbear watching. The helicopter bucked; McClain and the pilot nearly went out the door.

"G.o.dd.a.m.n it, Clara, keep your mind on your business!" McClain yelled. Clara turned her back on the men silhouetted against the sky. She had to concentrate on keeping the whatever-he-had-called-it lever steady, and not moving her feet on the pedals.

"Jump," she heard McClain say. Her heart pounded. Seconds later her soaking wet spy was sliding into the seat beside her, taking over the controls.

"What did you do to that poor man?" Her voice was shaky as she slumped back in the seat.

"He was trying to kill us, in case you haven't figured it out." McClain worked some sort of voodoo with the lever and peddles that had them turning around and rising at the same time. "But if you want to see what I did to him, look out the door. And haul that d.a.m.ned furball up while you're at it. There's a b.u.t.ton overhead that works the pulley."

Clara gasped. She had forgotten about Puff. Poor cat, hanging suspended beneath a jerking, plunging helicopter. She pushed the b.u.t.ton, heard the wheezing crank of the gears, and then hurried to the side, taking care to hold on as she looked out. Sure enough Puff was coming up fast. He was fighting the air for all he was worth, swinging wildly in a wide arc as he clawed furiously at s.p.a.ce. Beneath and behind them, rapidly receding into the distance, Clara saw the river. Just below the falls floated their raft. It was in peaceful waters now. Another raft was on the river. This one had men in it, and as she watched they fished something over the side: another man. They wrapped him in a blanket as he sat on the raft's bottom and began to paddle downstream.

"You threw them into the river," she said, understanding suddenly.

"I don't murder people in cold blood," McClain returned, concentrating on flying. "Unless, of course, I'm left with no choice."

Clara was left to ponder those chilling words as she hauled a spitting, fighting, furious wet cat into the cabin.

XV.

"Jack."

"Hmmm?"

"Thank you. For saving Puff. That was the bravest, most unselfish thing I've ever seen. He would have drowned. Most men would have let him. And you- you're allergic to cats."

"I'm not allergic to cats. I hate them."

Clara smiled slightly. She was sitting in the co-pilot's seat, a soggy Puff huddled on her lap. He was shivering and her teeth were chattering despite the fact that McClain had turned the helicopter's heater up as high as it would go as soon as he had taken over the controls.

"That makes it all the more heroic," she said, and impulsively reached over to plant a soft kiss on his unshaven cheek. Considering his soaked state, his skin felt surprisingly warm against her mouth. His musky smell brought back unexpectedly vivid memories of what they had done together that morning... Clara sank back in her seat, feeling her face heat. McClain gave her a quick, glinting look but said nothing. Clara got the impression that tenderness was something of which he was wary.

"You'd better get out of those wet clothes."

His voice was matter-of-fact. Clara smiled at him. His eyes narrowed.

"Just because I didn't let the d.a.m.ned cat drown doesn't make me some kind of hero, you know," he said. His voice was vaguely defensive.

"I know," she agreed, and smiled at him again. He scowled, and switched his attention back out the windshield. Clara stood up to remove her soaked clothes. Unb.u.t.toning her saturated blouse and peeling off her dripping jeans were becoming familiar ch.o.r.es. Clara did them automatically, wringing them out with quick twists of her wrists while she stood shivering in the sopping white silk teddy.

"Why don't you wear a bra and panties like most women?" He sounded disgruntled. Clara cast him a startled look. She had not expected him to be watching her. Despite the thorough introduction he had already had to her body, she felt ridiculously embarra.s.sed about being seen in the nearly transparent teddy. With her hair tangled around her head in a wild wet bush and her white skin splotched with mud and ridged with gooseb.u.mps, she doubted that she was the most appealing thing he had ever seen. And she wanted to appeal to him... That sudden flare of self-knowledge was as unwelcome as it was shocking.

"I usually do. This is what I wear to sleep in. Usually. But with all the excitement, I forgot to pack my underwear when I ran away from Rostov."

She tried hard to sound matter-of-fact, but she couldn't stop herself from blushing. Automatically, her hands came up in the most casual way possible to hold the wet jeans and blouse between her body and his too-knowing green eyes. Those eyes suddenly lifted to meet hers, glimmered briefly, then were switched to the instruments in front of him.

"You have a great body."

"What?" Clara couldn't believe she'd heard the gruff mutter correctly. His eyes flicked back in her direction. Her hands holding the jeans, which had lowered with his lack of attention, came up again. He switched his eyes forward once more.

"I said you have a great body. You should be proud of it, not hiding it all the time."

Clara stared at the back of his black head. If she remembered correctly, this was the man who'd told her she could stand to lose some weight.

"You said I needed to lose about ten pounds!"

He shook his head. "I hadn't had a real close look at that point. I take it back."

Clara blushed scarlet at the memory of exactly how close that look had been. He cast a quick, glimmering grin over his shoulder at her.

"I've always been a sucker for big t.i.ts and a nice round a.s.s," continued the flatterer. Clara recovered from her embarra.s.sment in time to glare at him.

"You sweet talker, you," she said with bite. Though she could see only about a quarter of his face, there was no missing his sudden grin. He was teasing her, she realized, and realized also that she had a lot to learn about men. At least his breed of man. He was all male, and she had no experience with the species at all. Except for Mark, whom she had inherited from Lena in high school, and John Williamson, an earnest law student with whom she had had a rather tepid love affair while she was at Wesleyan and he was at the University of Virginia (they had even been engaged for a while, much to her mother's joy, until John had eloped with another student in his torts cla.s.s), she had lived in a world of women. Her father had died when she was five; her mother had had lots of husbands since then, but none that she had allowed to get too close to her only daughter. As a result, Clara had always been shy of men. Now she found that she was getting to know this all-male male in a totally new way, as a person, like herself.

"There should be a blanket in the rescue kit in the locker over there."

In fact there were two. Clara pulled one out, wrapped it around herself squaw fashion and, using it as a shield from shifting eyes, wriggled out of her teddy. Then, clutching the blanket close, she draped her wet clothes from the hydraulic lines overhead and returned to the co-pilot's seat. Puff hissed as she picked him up. Poor cat, he'd had a traumatic day. As had they all. And it was barely afternoon yet.

"Think you can hold her steady again while I strip off?"

"I'll give it my best shot." Try as she might to banish the image from her mind, her pulse speeded up at the idea of seeing him in those clingy maroon underpants again. Despite everything, she found him more attractive than any man she had ever met. And when she remembered what he had done to her that morning, how he had made her feel, she felt her toes curl. And then her face turn red. What a fool she had made of herself; he must have women falling all over him.

"Don't crash us," he said. Then her hands and feet were on the controls and he was sliding out of his seat. She heard the thump of his wet sweatshirt hitting the floor, the sound of his zipper being lowered, and had to fight an impulse to look over her shoulder. But beyond the embarra.s.sment she would feel at being caught in such an action, the helicopter demanded all her attention. Even holding it at a steady alt.i.tude and pace required all her concentration. For which she was grateful. It kept her from thinking of the man taking off his clothes less than two feet behind her.

In just a few minutes he was sliding back into the pilot's seat, wrapped in a blanket, tossing something into her lap as he took over the controls.

"What...?"

"Peanuts," he said, already ripping open his own bag with his teeth.

"Peanuts!" A steak dinner wouldn't have been more welcome at that point. Clara tore into her own bag, devouring them in a few handfuls.

"Greedy, aren't you?" But McClain had done the same thing to his, so Clara stuck her tongue out at him without rancor. On her lap, Puff sat up and meowed, voice plaintive. Clara looked down at him guiltily.

"Sorry, Puff, but cats can't eat peanuts," she explained.

Meow!

"Oh, no," Clara said, knowing from experience that the mildly demanding meows would soon escalate into a cacophony of yowls, howls, and more yowls.

"No worries, mate," McClain said in a broad parody of a popular Australian phrase. "Here."

And he tossed a packet of dried beef strips into her lap.

"Are there more?" Clara was already tearing open the package and handing one of the strips to Puff, who accepted it with alacrity. For the first time since being hauled aboard the helicopter he left her lap, leaping to the floor, prize in his jaws.

"A few packages of peanuts, a couple of packages of beef strips, some boxes of raisins and chocolate chips. Survival rations."

"Oh, yum."

"We have to save some of it. It might be a long time until we're able to hit a McDonald's."