“You’re not taking me back. You’ll never get me across that river. I’ll drown myself first, and I’ll take you with me.”

Max pulled Reed’s Leatherman from his pocket and cut the cord. He stabbed the blade into the ground beside him and rolled Reed onto his back.

“You think you’re saving Pip?” Reed said. “Is that what you think? You don’t know the whole story. You don’t know the truth.”

Max doubled up the bindings around Reed’s wrists.

“Your buddy Lyle molested him.”

Something hot came alive in Max’s gut.

“He’s got you fooled. He’s got everybody fooled.”

Max couldn’t ignore him anymore. “Shut up, you piece of shit!”

“You teamed up with a child molester.”

“I said shut up!”

“He’s the one who should go to prison. Why do you think I took Pip? I was saving him from that child-fucking—”

Max grabbed the Leatherman and held the blade to Reed’s throat. “You’re gonna shut your goddamned mouth. You understand me?”

“Do it!” Reed locked eyes with Max. “Here and now—get it over with.”

A drop of blood trickled down where the blade pressed in to Reed’s skin.

“Do it, you fucking coward!”

Max dropped the Leatherman and punched Reed hard in the face, again and again until Reed’s head swiveled loose on his shoulders.

Max rubbed his knuckles and shook his hand to get some feeling back in his fingers. He would get Reed across that river—he would see Reed Harris in prison for what he had done.

Max went to Reed’s backpack and dumped its contents to the ground in search of something to gag him with. He wouldn’t listen to one more bark from that cur. He settled on a shirtsleeve, which he cut free using the Leatherman blade.

Reed was awake, but dazed, unable to comprehend what was happening. With the gag in place, Max faced the problem of getting Reed across the river. Reed would buck and squirm all the way back, and once in the river, that squirming would become a wrestling match.

An idea came to Max. He returned to the pile of Reed’s gear and picked up a hatchet. He walked through the mechanics in his head and nodded. It would work.

CHAPTER 73

Max tucked a loop of cord around the bindings at Reed’s ankles. He slung the loop over his shoulders, the rope crossing Max’s chest. With the hatchet hooked to his belt, he began his climb up to the top of the ridge, pulling like a husky at the lead of a sled. Reed lay on his back, his legs lifted in the air as Max pulled him feet-first up the slope.

Reed thrashed and jerked as Max dragged his bundle a few inches at a time, using the trees and roots to pull himself forward, digging his feet to keep from sliding back. He thought about the Roman soldiers at Masada building a path up the side of a mountain stone by stone. He thought about Sultan Mehmed II pulling a fleet of ships over the hills at Galata during the siege of Constantinople. He thought about the Little Engine That Could, and the tortoise who outran the hare. Inch by inch, he pulled Reed up the hill.