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“Almost there,” Remi said. “Let’s hope for a busy
lot.”
Sam brought the Rover through the last switchback, and the road widened into a small parking lot covered with diagonal white lines. To the right was a forested embankment; to the left, beyond a strip of well-manicured grass, was a river, this one flat and calm. There were eight cars in the parking lot. At the far end, sitting before a wall of trees, was a gazebo-like ticket hut. To the right of this was what appeared to be a service road blocked by a chain draped between two fence posts.
“I don’t see the ferry,” Sam said, accelerating across the lot.
“It just left.” Remi pointed.
To the left of the ticket hut Sam saw a fan of froth on the river’s surface. He rolled down his window and they could hear the distinct overlapping chop of paddle wheels.
“They’re here,” Remi said.
Sam glanced in the rearview mirror. The blue Nissan accelerated out of the last switchback, closely followed by the red one.
“I’ve got a tricky idea,” Sam said. “Or a really dumb one.”
“Either way, it’s better than sitting here.”
Sam slammed the gas pedal to the floor, swerved around the parked cars like a slalom racer, then bumped over the curb and onto the grass before the ticket hut. The tires slipped on the damp grass; the rear end fishtailed. Sam corrected, eased right, and aimed the hood at the entrance to the utility road.
“Cross your fingers those posts aren’t buried deep,” he said. “Here we go!”
Remi hunched down in her seat, braced her feet against the dashboard.
The Rover’s bumper crashed into the chain. Sam and Remi were thrown forward against their seat belts. Sam’s forehead bonked into the steering wheel. He looked up, half expecting them to be sitting still, but was instead greeted by the sight of tree branches whipping past the windshield. Remi checked the side mirror. Both entrance posts had been uprooted like rotten stumps.
“Are they following?” Sam asked.
“Not yet. They’re both still sitting in the parking lot.”
“Good. Let them debate it.”
What Sam had thought was a service road was in fact little more than a rutted trail barely wider than the Rover. As in the parking lot, the right side was bordered by an embankment; to the left, through a veil of trees, was the riverbank. He gripped the steering wheel tighter and tried to keep the Rover from lurching off the path.
“You’ve got a knot on your forehead,” Remi said, touching the spot. “What’s the plan?”
“Get ahead of the ferry and race to the next landing. That’s where you and your guidebook come in.”
She began flipping through it. “It’s less than thorough, I’m afraid.”
“There’s no stop listed?”
Remi shook her head, then checked the map. “And according to this, there’s no road.”
“Interesting. We’re on a road that doesn’t exist going nowhere. Are our friends nonexistent as well?”
Remi glanced back and ducked her head this way and that to see through the trees. “No, sorry, they’re coming.”
“The ferry?”
“No, I don’t . . . Wait! There it is! About two hundred yards behind us.” Her eyes brightened. “It’s a Mississippi-style stern-wheeler, Sam.”
The tract slanted upward and the ground grew more cratered until the Rover was bumping over exposed roots. At the top of the rise the ground flattened out. Sam slammed on the brakes. Twenty feet ahead stood a wall of trees; paralleling this, a hiking trail.
Sam said, “The trail to the left . . .”
“Goes down to the river.”