Free The Killing Sea by Richard Lewis Page A

shudder. “I can’t swim.”
    The scarred man patted his shoulder. “You’re not swimming.”
    â€œWhat if I fall?”
    â€œGood point. I’d better take that bag.”
    Ruslan was third onto the girder, a metal I-beam whose flat top was the width of his hands. Wide enough, with the cable’s guy wires offeringgood handholds. But in the middle of the crossing, Ruslan no longer had to fake his nervousness. The river below seemed so far away, its brown eddies deep and powerful. He almost abandoned his idea, but he knew he’d never have another chance to escape these men and get to Ie Mameh. He took several deep breaths and pretended to slip. He wailed with a flailing of arms and let himself fall backward into the air.
    The drop seemed endless. He hit the water with a painful smack. The rebels on the girder shouted down at him. He remembered he was playing a role and splashed ineffectively for a few moments before ducking under the opaque surface and letting the current carry him for as long as his breath could hold.
    Several minutes later he’d been swept around a curve and out of sight of the bridge. He kept to the deepest, strongest part of the river. The swirling energy of this water was nothing compared to what he’d lived through in Meulaboh. Its current slowed as the river opened up onto a wide estuary. Ruslan began swimming awkwardly in his jeans and shoes to the high northern bank, beyond which lay Teunom.
    Several bodies floated in shoreline reeds. Ruslan ignored them. The dead, it seemed, wouldnow be as much a part of his life as the living had been.
    After he squished up the opposite bank, it took only one glance to know there was no more Teunom, no more farmers tending to their fields, no more fishermen hauling their catch to market.
    Twenty miles to the north rose the coastal hills of Calang. From where Ruslan stood he could see that the highway along the coast had been ripped apart, great slabs of asphalt torn up and tossed aside. It’d be easier to walk along the beach. He drank one of the bottles of water from his knapsack and trudged along the riverbank to the shoreline.
    For a mile out to sea, the waters were still brown and streaked with long patches of foam. The beach’s soft gray sand spilled hot into his wet shoes. Muddy waves rose and crashed in foam that hissed up toward his feet. One wave larger than the others wobbled up out of the depths, and in Ruslan’s imagination its brown darkened to black as it rose and rose and rose.
    He turned and ran, screaming.

Chapter 14
    Sarah pounded the water buffalo’s head with the oar as water poured into the tilted hull.
    â€œPeter, help!” she screamed.
    He kicked at the closest hoof. Sarah swung the oar again. It broke in half on the creature’s head. She threw down the pieces and picked up the machete, using the flat of the blade to smack its nose. At the same time, Peter gave its snout a hard shove with his foot. The buffalo’s front hooves slipped off the boat. Sarah paddled furiously with the broken oar to get away, the half-submerged boat heavy in the water. The buffalo swam after the boat, but it couldn’t keep up, the waves swamping its massive head, which sank lower and lowerin the water. Finally the head sank altogether and didn’t come back up.
    Sarah stopped paddling and hung her head, panting hard to catch her breath. She felt sorry for the beast, but what else could she have done?
    â€œWhat was that water buffalo doing way out here?” Peter asked.
    â€œMaybe a boat sank.”
    The sheet had loosened on its peg, and the sail flapped. The sun blazed overhead. She’d been asleep at the wheel— helm , she heard her father say—for at least three hours. Tiger Island was a blob in the distance, and the opposite horizon was filled with a glorious sight, the mountains, foothills, and plains of the Sumatran mainland.
    Using coconut shells, she and Peter