Dark Rivers of the Heart

and look through the gaping hole where the side window had been, but even if she could have seen much in the darkness, she knew that she wouldn't enjoy the view.
        The flood tide had lifted the truck more than ten feet above the floor of the arroyo before wedging it in that pincer of stone, on the brink of the cliff. Now that the river had vanished beneath it, the Explorer hung up there, its four wheels in midair, as though gripped in a pair of tweezers. When she'd first seen it, she'd stood in childlike wonder, mouth open and eyes wide. She was no less astonished than she would have been if she'd seen a flying saucer and its unearthly crew.
        She'd been certain that Grant had been swept out of the truck and carried to his death. Or that he was dead inside.
        To get up to his truck, she'd had to back her Rover under it, putting the rear wheels uncomfortably close to the edge of the cliff.
        Then she had stood on the roof, which brought her head just to the bottom of the Explorer's front passenger door. She had reached up to the handle and, in spite of the awkward angle, had managed to open the door.
        Water poured out, but the dog was what startled her. Whimpering and miserable, huddled on the passenger seat, he had peered down at her with a mixture of alarm and yearning.
        She didn't want him jumping onto the Rover. He might slip on that smooth surface and fracture a leg, or tumble and break his neck.
        Although the pooch hadn't looked as if he would perform any canine stunts, she had warned him to stay where he was. She climbed down from the Rover, drove it forward five yards, turned it around to direct the headlights on the ground under the Explorer, got out again, and coaxed the dog to jump to the sandy riverbed.
        He needed a lot of coaxing. Poised on the edge of the seat, he repeatedly built up the courage to jump. But each time, he turned his head away at the last moment and shrank back, as if he were facing a chasm instead of a ten- or twelve-foot drop.
        Finally, she remembered how Theda Davidowitz had often talked to Sparkle, and she tried the same approach with this dog: "Come on, sweetums, come to mama, come on. Little sweetums, little pretty-eyed snookie-wookums."
        In the truck above, the pooch pricked one ear and regarded her with acute interest.
        "Come here, come on, snookums, little sweetums."
        He began to quiver with excitement.
        "Come to mama. Come on, little pretty eyes."
        The dog crouched on the seat, muscles tensed, poised to leap.
        "Come give mama a kissie, little cutie, little cutie baby."
        She felt idiotic, but the dog jumped. He sprang out of the open door of the Explorer, sailed in a long graceful arc through the night air, and landed on all fours.
        He was so startled by his own agility and bravery that he turned to look up at the truck and then sat down as if in shock. He flopped onto his side, breathing hard.
        She had to car him to the Rover and la him in the car area directly behind the front seat. He repeatedly rolled his eyes at her, and he licked her hand once.
        "You're a strange one," she said, and the dog sighed.
        Then she had turned the Rover around again, backed it under the suspended Explorer, and climbed up to find Spencer Grant slumped behind the steering wheel, woozily conscious.
        Now he was out cold again. He was murmuring to someone in a dream, and she wondered how she would get him out of the Explorer if he didn't revive soon.
        She tried talking to him and shaking him gently, but she wasn't able to get a response from him. He was already damp and shivering, so there was no point in scooping a handful of water off the floor and splashing his face.
        His injuries needed to be treated as soon as possible, but that was not the primary reason that she was anxious to get him into the Rover and away from there. Dangerous people were searching for him.
        With their resources, even hampered by weather and terrain, they would find him if she didn't quickly move him to a secure place.
        Grant solved her dilemma not merely by regaining consciousness but by virtually exploding out of his unnatural sleep. With a gasp and a wordless cry, he bolted upright in his seat, bathed in a sudden sweat yet shuddering so fiiriously that his teeth chattered.
        He was face-to-face with her, inches away, and