“Come on,” she said, teasing, “I have the buggy already hitched.”
“Buggy,” he said, smiling as he followed her out the door. Maybe ol’ Hamish had a car buried under that mess in the barn and Edi’d found it. Maybe—
All good thoughts stopped when he saw Edi drive out of the barn in a contraption that looked like it was made in the 1890s. It was a horse carriage with two big wheels in back and two smaller ones in the front. There was a frayed and worn padded seat in the front and what looked to be a standing area in the back. Hamish’s old horse was tied to it with lots of leather straps, and Hamish himself was standing to the side, looking so pleased he was almost smiling.
“You know how to use it, do you?” he asked Edi, who looked as though she’d been born sitting on a buggy.
She had a long whip in her hand and she gave it a snap over the horse’s head, then a few clicks, and the animal moved quickly in a perfect circle.
“Oh, aye,” Hamish said, “you know how to drive.”
“I have about a hundred ribbons and trophies at home,” she said. “Oh, but look at him, how he loves it.”
She was referring to the horse—certainly not David, who was already backing toward the house.
“That he does,” Hamish said as he lovingly stroked the horse’s nose. “He won many a race in his time, and he remembers them. The war people said he was too old to be of any use to them, but he’s got a lot in him yet.”
“We won’t be long,” Edi said. “David’s going to tie me to the bridge and I’m going back into the car to get some things. Maybe we can get that horrible contraption off his leg.”
“Don’t need it, do he?” Hamish said.
Edi smiled at the top of the man’s head. He may be old, but he saw a lot. “Come on,” she called to David. “Hamish will help you get up on the back. You’ll need to hold on when we go downhill, but I think you’ll be all right.”
“Think we should tie him on?” Hamish asked.
“No, I do not need to be tied on,” David said, making Edi and Hamish smile at each other. It was easy to see that David thought the buggy might as well have been a mastodon. To his eyes, it was old and dangerous.
Since th
e old horse was dancing about, remembering the days when he was young and fast, it took Hamish’s help to get David up on the buggy. The back of it was flat and open, so it couldn’t be used for carrying things. There were a couple of handles, but it was difficult for David to sit, his leg out straight, and hold on to them. “What good is this thing? You can’t carry anything with it.”
“What good is a race car?” Edi asked, and Hamish nodded.
“All right, girl, take her down. But be careful. He pulls to the right.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t let him,” she said, then clicked to the horse, who took off as though someone had fired a starting pistol.
In the back, David hung on with both arms and the jarring made the steel cut into his skin, and his teeth were rattling together. “Do you have to go this fast?” he yelled up at Edi, but all he heard was her laughter.
To David, it seemed about three hours before they reached the river, but it was only a few minutes. They could have walked through the woods, but with David’s leg that would have been torture.
He could see that the water had receded enough that it no longer went over the bridge, and to one side he could see the bottom of the tires of the car. If the water kept going down, within a day or two half of the wheels would be visible.
By the time he got down from the buggy, Edi was already tying a rope about her waist. He brushed her hands away and redid it. “Listen to me,” he said softly. “If anything goes wrong and you want me to pull you up, jerk on the rope twice. If the rope tangles and you need to get it off of you, pull this end. See?” He gave it a firm jerk and the rope fell away. “I’m going to count, and if you stay longer than fifty-eight seconds, I’m going in after you. Do you understand?”
“Perfectly,” she said as she kicked off the big old boots she’d been wearing for two days. Then she pulled on the cord and let the rope fall to the bridge. The water had receded and the wood was dry, but it still didn’t look safe.
“What are you doing?” David asked.
“I can’t swim in all these clothes. Do you mind if I strip down?”
“I don’t even know how to answer that,” he said in a whisper, then stepped back to watch her unbutton her shirt, then slip out of it. She was wearing the peach-colored teddy that she’d had on when he undressed her the first night—and he’d never seen anything more beautiful than she.
She dropped the old shirt on the bridge, then went to her belt, but the horse began to act up and Edi started to go to him.
“Shut up!” David said to the horse, and it instantly became still.
Smiling, Edi unfastened her belt buckle and let the trousers fall to the bridge.