Chapter 25: Forty Feet of Air

Rhett didn't look at the lane again.

He looked into the left mirror of the borrowed bike, and I looked past his shoulder at the same small square of glass.

A gray pickup was coming up the empty oncoming lane with its headlights dark.

It had already passed the last six bikes in the column.

"Hold on," Rhett said.

I locked my arms around his ribs, and he grunted at the pain and opened the throttle.

Behind us the column broke apart.

Riders braked and bunched onto the right shoulder, and engines screamed all down the bridge.

Morton's bike was the only one that didn't swerve.

He stayed in his slot with one hand on the grip, and he did not turn his head.

I saw it in the mirror, and I will see it until I die.

The truck came level with us, and the grille filled the glass.

"Left!" I shouted.

Rhett leaned right instead, away from it, and the bumper took our back wheel.

The bike snapped sideways.

The road came up and hit me across the hip and the shoulder, and I slid, and the sky and the iron rail spun past.

I stopped with my cheek on the cold deck and the taste of blood in my mouth.

I heard the truck brake.

I heard no engine from the bike we had gone down on, and no sound at all from Rhett.

I rolled onto my hands.

The old rail on the narrow span had a gap in it where a post had been missing since spring.

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