Days past the canyon, the country opened into cracked-earth plains under a white sun, and ahead of them the air began to carry a sound underneath the wind — water, moving fast. Ethan's leg held on the long marches now, though it ached deep in the muscle by evening and he favored it on the climbs without thinking about it.
They heard the river before they saw it. Then the plain dropped away, and there it was: a wide, churning expanse of muddy water tearing between its banks, the far side rising into jagged, forested hills. It threw the bruised sky back at them in broken pieces.
Joel stopped at the bank and kicked a stone into the current. It vanished instantly. "Wider than I thought. And moving fast — rain upstream, probably. No bridge, no ferry. Just water."
"Can we swim it?" Ellie asked, squinting across. "The middle doesn't look that deep."
"Too fast, and too cold," Joel said. "Current takes you, you're gone. And you never know what's under it. Not all of us." His eyes flicked, briefly, to Ethan's leg.
Ethan was watching the water — not the whole of it, but the way it moved. Downstream, where the river bent hard, the current piled debris against a small island of rock and tangled logs. And further out, half-drowned and black with age, a massive tree lay anchored to the bank, its branches reaching over the flow like fingers.
"Down there," Ethan said, pointing. "The bend collects debris — that island's solid enough to stand on. And that tree's been there for years. If we can build something that floats, the tree gives us something to catch."
Joel followed his gaze. "That current looks nasty."
"It is," Ethan admitted. "But it's the only crossing we've got."
They worked their way downstream hugging the bank, the roar of the water swelling until it drowned everything else. Near the bend, Joel suddenly stopped dead, one hand up, his shotgun raised.
"Hold it," he breathed. "Company. Far bank, up in the trees."
Ethan squinted through the foliage across the water and caught it — faint glints of sun off metal, there and gone. "Snipers. Two, at least. Set up proper, covering the crossing points."
"Human," Joel said grimly. "Well-armed. They've got this whole stretch mapped."
Ellie had gone quiet, her eyes fixed past them, downstream. "There's a shack," she said suddenly. "Fishing shack, on stilts, past those willows. It's falling down, but the roof's metal. Rusty metal."
Ethan turned to look at her, then at Joel. The idea landed between them without needing words.
"I can get there," Joel said, already judging the cover. "Make enough noise to pull every eye on that bank. You two stay hid. When you hear it — you build. Fast, and stay low."
"Be careful," Ellie said.
Joel melted into the undergrowth, moving quiet for a big man, and was gone along the bank.
Ethan and Ellie waited in the willows with the river roaring in their ears. Minutes dragged. Then it came — a metallic CLANG, CLANG, CLANG from downstream, rhythmic and brutal, someone beating hell out of a metal roof. Across the river, the glints of the snipers' scopes swung toward the sound. Shouts carried faint over the water.
"Now," Ethan hissed. "Logs. Thick ones."
They moved. Ellie wrestled fallen deadwood out of the undergrowth, her small frame straining, dragging branches twice her weight. Ethan worked with his hunting knife, cutting and trimming, choosing the straightest, lightest pieces by feel — the way Grandpa's hands had once guided his on rope and wood, the knots coming back to his fingers unasked. Ellie sprinted upstream to a collapsed bridge and came back with her arms full of frayed rope, face flushed.
They lashed the logs side by side, Ethan's fingers flying through the knots, Ellie mirroring him, pulling each one tight. Six logs. It was crude and it was ugly and it floated.
Across the river, the banging stopped. A frustrated shout went up from the far bank.
"They're onto him," Ethan said, yanking the last knot home. "Joel's pulling back. We go now."
They shoved the raft into the current and scrambled aboard — Ellie first, then Ethan, his leg screaming as he heaved himself up and over. The river grabbed the logs instantly, spinning them, dragging them downstream at a terrifying clip.
Joel burst out of the undergrowth downstream, shotgun in his hands, reloaded — and across his pack, slung tight, the long rifle he carried for distance work. He plunged into the river and swam for them with powerful strokes, fighting the current meter by meter.
"Grab him!" Ethan shouted.
Ellie leaned out over the churning water without hesitation, caught Joel's wrist, and hauled — the two of them together dragging his streaming weight aboard. He collapsed across the logs, gasping, water pouring off him.
The current had them now, sweeping them toward the half-drowned tree. Ethan jammed his crossbow against the logs as a makeshift rudder, fighting to angle them toward the overhanging branches.
"Those branches — grab them!"
Joel launched himself off the raft, caught a thick limb, and hung there with his muscles standing out, slowing them. Ellie scrambled up after him like she was born to it. Ethan came last, dragging himself hand over hand out of the racing water, his leg on fire, his grip the only thing that mattered. Behind them the empty raft spun away downstream, and on the far bank the snipers fired wildly at the empty water where it had been, their shouts thinning into the river's roar.
They clung to the ancient tree, soaked and shaking, bark rough under their hands. The far bank fell behind. The river bent, and the shouting faded, and then there was only the water and the three of them in the branches, breathing hard.
Ellie looked at Ethan across the tangle of limbs — soaked, grinning despite herself — and stuck her hand out. He met it with his own, palm to palm, the slap of it sharp over the water's roar.
Joel watched them from his branch, saying nothing, water dripping from his hair.