It was true. They all watched, riveted, as the shape that was Archie circled the shape that was the kid, two heads in the water. Susan couldn’t look, and at the same time she couldn’t look away. Archie was still an arm’s length from the kid, who seemed to be shrinking in the water, so much so that it was difficult to keep sight of him in the rough current.

“Why doesn’t he just grab him?” Susan asked.

“He’s trying to get him from behind, under the arms,” Carter said. And then, as if to explain his sudden authority, he added, “Lifeguard, all four years of high school.”

Suddenly, the two forms joined. Archie had him. He had the boy.

There was more applause and another soldier joined Carter and Susan. “They’re slowing down,” the new soldier said.

Susan hadn’t noticed until he said it, but he was right. They weren’t moving nearly as fast. That was good, wasn’t it?

“He’s swimming against the current, Captain,” Carter said.

That didn’t make sense. He couldn’t fight it, couldn’t get back to them, couldn’t get to the seawall. And even if he did, what then? There were rusty metal ladders that led up the concrete from the water, but they were only every hundred feet or so. What were the odds he’d be able to get to one?

“What’s he thinking?” the captain asked. “He’s going to exhaust himself.”

Susan knew what that meant. If Archie lost strength, they’d go under. They’d drown.

She saw Carter glance away from the light, upriver, then back at Archie and the kid. “The bridge,” he said. “Captain, I can get them from the bridge.”

The captain hesitated.

“I won the fifty-yard freestyle at State,” Carter said. “I’m six-foot-two. If someone holds on to me, I can reach them. We can pull them out of there. I can do this. Sir.” He bent his head toward Archie and the kid, who were now nearly holding ground. “He’s buying us time.”

The Steel Bridge, built in 1912, was one of Portland’s oldest. It was a double-lift bridge, which meant that the whole middle of the structure could be lifted straight up to allow vessels to pass underneath. It was also a double-decker bridge, cars and light rail on the top deck, trains and pedestrians below, and the lower deck was only twenty-five feet from the river, at normal levels.

But the river was not at normal levels. The river was high. Very high. So high that the lower deck was probably only five feet above the water. They could reach him.