Drop City

whose plane it was. It was coming at them, low over the ice-flecked water, low in the dusk and urged on by the wind. He didn't have time to think, didn't have time to jam the paddle down and jerk the bow out of plumb or run for the cover of the trees, because the Cessna was right there in his face, in Pamela's face, and even as they ducked their heads and the pontoons lifted he felt the shock of the concussion and a hippie fruit bowl burst to fragments and there was water--Yukon water, cold as death--roiling in through the invisible tear in the hull.
    Now he acted. He hit the water, hard, and held the paddle down till the canoe swung round a hundred eighty degrees like the needle of a compass and they were suddenly running downriver with the current and the wind. There was a dark clump of trees projecting out into the river five hundred yards ahead of them on the near bank and he shouted to Pamela to run for them even as he fumbled for the rifle amidst the strapped-down clutter of cans and boxes and hippie pottery, thinking _This is it, this is war,__ thinking _Make one more pass, you son of a bitch, one more.__
    The flashing blue lights faded to nothing downriver, then sparked back to life as the plane banked and reversed direction. “Dig!” Sess shouted, working a bullet into the chamber and laying the rifle across the thwarts so he could lean into the paddle and keep the stern from swinging out. Pamela's face came to him in profile, a faint pale emanation against the obscure band of the shore. “He was--” she stammered. “He didn't--?” They could hear the plane whining for power, see the lights sharpening as the distance closed. “You better fucking believe he did!” Sess roared, driving the paddle with the piston of his shoulder, and they were no more than two hundred yards from where the shore ice was forming under the cover of the trees.
    Bosky came at them too fast. He'd been expecting to find them upriver still, lagging in the current, and the roar gathered itself up and the naked pontoons rocketed past them before he could lean out and fire again, but Sess was ready and Sess let the boat swing out lateral to the current while Pamela fought for control up front and he got off three shots, three hard copper-jacketed thank-you notes hurtled up into the cauldron of the sky that probably caught nothing but air. He couldn't say. He didn't know. He was too lathered with adrenaline even to feel anger yet and outrage. He laid down the rifle and took up the paddle and a moment later they hit the shore ice and broke through it to the cover of the trees.
    Everything was silent. A hard, pelting, wind-driven snow began to rush down out of the sky as if awaiting release. He heard the river then, the ice on the river slipping and squealing like two wet hands rubbed together, and he heard Pamela. She was hunched over her shoulders, a shadow amongst the deeper shadows, and she was crying so softly he thought at first it was the whisper of the hard white pellets finding their way between the last, lingering blades of grass. The bottom of the canoe had shipped two inches of water, two inches at least, and their feet--they were wearing hiking boots, ankle-high suede, the best shoes they owned for a jaunt in the city--their feet were wet. They had no sleeping bags, no ground cloth, no tent, and who needed a tent in the Williwaw Motor Inn? “It's okay, Pamela,” he said, the words stuck in his throat, “it's all right, everything's going to be fine.”
    The first thing was a fire, but he was afraid of a fire because Bosky might see it and come back for them, so he concentrated on hauling the canoe up out of the water, unloading the wet groceries and the wet clothes and the tools and equipment and all the rest of the things they just couldn't live without, and then propping the hull up as a windbreak. Pamela worked beside him, and they didn't have to talk, didn't have to say a word, working in consonance to unload everything and cut spruce boughs to lay down under the canoe and collect driftwood to mound up for the fire if there was going to be a fire, and they would have to wait and see about that. In the meanwhile, the snow stiffened, rattling off their hoods and sleeves in pellets and granules, sifting to the ground with the soft shush of rice spilled from a sack, and soon the dark vacancy of the riverbank began to fill in with the pale glowing substance of it. “He's not coming back, is he, Sess?” Pamela said