Chapter 6 - The Broken Span
The Land Rover bounced violently down the rocky track, its leaf springs screaming under the punishment as pine branches slapped against the glass like whipcracks.
Claire held onto the door handle with both hands, her teeth clamped shut to keep from biting her tongue as the vehicle vaulted over boulder-strewn washes.
Behind them, on the upper road, Arthur’s searchlights swept frantically across the treetops, searching for where they had left the pavement.
"He’ll see the tracks in the snow within thirty seconds," Ethan said, wiping sweat and road dust from his eyes. "Where is that bridge, Claire?"
"Two hundred yards!" she shouted over the roar of the diesel engine. "At the bottom of the incline! But Ethan... if the bridge is gone, it's a hundred-foot drop into the rapids!"
The trees suddenly thinned out, revealing a wide, black chasm carved through the granite cliffs by the raging Deerfield River.
Stretching across the gap were two rusted steel I-beams supported by crumbling stone piers—the remains of the old 1920s mining bridge. The wooden deck planks had rotted away decades ago, leaving only two narrow six-inch steel tracks suspended over the boiling black water below.
Ethan brought the Land Rover to a sliding halt ten feet from the edge of the abyss.
He jumped out of the cab, swept his flashlight across the span, and evaluated the ironwork in three seconds.
"The main beams are four-inch structural steel," Ethan said, running back to the driver's seat. "The wheelbase of this Defender matches the width of the main girders."
Claire stared through the windshield at the narrow steel beams covered in ice, then down at the white foam of the rapids roaring through the dark canyon below.
"If you miss the beam by an inch," she said, her voice surprisingly steady, "we drop."
"I don't miss," Ethan said, though his own palm was slick with sweat against the rubber steering wheel.
A hundred yards up the trail, the headlights of Arthur’s Range Rover burst through the treeline, accelerating down the incline toward the quarry gap.
"No time to think," Ethan muttered.
He aligned the front left tire with the edge of the driver's side I-beam, dropped the transmission into low-range second gear, and let the clutch out smoothly.
The Land Rover moved onto the bridge.
The sound of rubber creeping across frozen, rusted steel echoed through the gorge—a high-pitched, metallic screech that vibrated through the frame of the truck.
To their left and right, there was nothing. No guardrails. No planks. Just a drop into white water and jagged granite.
Through the passenger window, Claire looked directly down into the void. She didn't close her eyes. She didn't scream. She stared into the dark with a strange, fierce fascination, her hand resting on the dashboard.
"Halfway," Ethan whispered, his shoulder muscles locked tight as he held the wheel perfectly centered.
Behind them, Arthur’s Range Rover reached the edge of the gap. Arthur slammed on his brakes, his high beams illuminating the old Land Rover suspended on the two bare steel beams in the center of the river.
Arthur stepped out of his vehicle, raising his shotgun, but the distance was too great.
With a final, jarring thud, the Land Rover’s front tires cleared the span and struck the solid gravel of the southern bank. Ethan stomped on the gas, dragging the rear axle off the ironwork just as a section of rusted support bracket surrendered under the weight, collapsing into the river below with a heavy splash.
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The bridge was now completely impassable.
On the northern cliff, Arthur stood beside his vehicle, watching helplessly as the two shafts of yellow light from the old Land Rover disappeared into the southern woods, heading toward the state highway.
