Raft of Stars by Andrew Graff (good books for high schoolers .txt) 📕

“Keep pushing,” said Bread.

Fish put his head down and pushed even harder. His foot slipped on algae-covered rocks, but he was in deep enough water that he didn’t fall. The raft was in the eddy now. The boys were chest-deep. Soon the current would catch it.

“I said stop!”

Fish glanced back. Ignoring the sharp stones, the sheriff sprinted into the water. A few steps in, he slipped on a rock and crashed beneath the surface. His dog swam in a circle and barked. The sheriff came up gasping and facing the wrong direction. He turned, wiped water from his face, and started staggering toward the boys.

“Fish, get on!”

The raft was in the current and pulling away. Bread was on board already, crouched and waving him up, reaching out his hand. Fish swam a few strokes, but the raft pulled away from him. He put his head down and kicked as hard as he could but couldn’t catch it. Behind him, he heard the sheriff swimming with powerful strokes.

“Fish, rope!”

Fish looked up to see a coil of rope unfold in the sky. It landed on top of him and Fish grabbed an armful of it. He was turned onto his back as Bread pulled the rope in, which gave him an upriver view of the approaching sheriff. The raft was moving fast now, but the sheriff was keeping up, gaining even. He swam even better than Bread. The dog trailed behind with wide eyes. Fish felt Bread’s hands grip his armpits, and he was dragged on board across the cedar. Panting and wet in the pile of rope, his hair dripping in his eyes, Fish watched helplessly as the sheriff came closer. He was in the current now too, and about twenty feet from the raft. He looked like a machine, like he had his own motor. The sheriff would catch them.

“You,” Bread yelled, so loudly it startled Fish, “are not taking us in!”

The sheriff kept swimming. Fish watched with wide eyes. He heard Bread behind him, rustling around in one of the packs. The sheriff was only fifteen feet away now. Fish could hear the man’s breathing. Then he saw Bread’s shoes appear next to the piled rope and looked up to see Bread holding the revolver into the orange and purple sky.

Bread’s chest thumped with his breath. His jaw was tight. He had power in his eyes.

“This is the Poachers’ Hope of Lantern Rock!” he shouted, so loudly that his voice cracked with the effort.

Fish looked back at the sheriff and saw the man’s expression of surprise when he raised his face for a breath. He’d spotted the revolver.

“And you will not,” yelled Bread, “take this ship!”

Bread cocked the hammer of the giant revolver, squinted his eyes, and unleashed a thunderous blast overhead. The muzzle whipped backward, and Bread fell onto the deck.

The sheriff stopped swimming, and his head rose higher as he treaded water. The shot echoed through the river valley, through the forest and sky. A flock of birds lifted from a tree. Bread cocked the revolver again, and the sheriff drifted. As the raft peeled slowly away, Fish locked eyes with the man. The sheriff glared at him from beneath plastered wet hair. His eyes looked as black as the river. Fish wasn’t sure what he saw there, but he had the distinct feeling he got when he knew he’d screwed up badly. It summoned in his mind the look his dad could give him when angered. It was a look that stopped the earth from spinning. And all Fish could do now was stare back into those eyes, as if he’d come across some animal in a forest. Fish heard Bread catch his breath on the deck behind him. Fish was still too winded to speak. His knee hurt. He held it, and let his head fall onto the wet pile of rope as the sheriff waded to shore with his dog, and then Fish closed his eyes.

Eleven

TIFFANY STAGGERED DOWNHILL, STRUGGLING TO HOLD HER HALF of the canoe and a flashlight at the same time. Her arms ached. The grass on the riverbank was slippery, wet with evening dew.

“Okay,” said Miranda, nosing the front of the canoe into the water. “We made it.”

Tiffany dropped the back end of the overloaded canoe onto the grass, and it landed with a muffled thump. She worried that she should have set it down gently, but Miranda didn’t seem to notice, and Tiffany was nearly too bug-bitten and winded to care. She wasn’t good at this sort of thing, carrying canoes, running from law enforcement, breaking into hospitals. Ever since she found herself relying on Miranda as a guide, her reservations about the woman grew. The more she trusted her, the more dangerous she seemed to become. Tiffany stretched her back and arms. Blood flowed back like needles into her forearms. The stars shone brightly across the full breadth of the sky. Tiffany recognized Ursa Major and Minor, the Great Bear and Little Bear, the mother and son circling each other in all that darkness and light. We’re on our way, she thought. She caught her breath and closed her eyes and rubbed the cramps from her hands.

Tiffany felt she had to prove something to Miranda, though what that was, exactly, she didn’t know. The widowed woman was stoic and fiercely attached to her son, and these were admirable qualities. But why Tiffany felt so obliged to stand by her in all of this was a mystery. It wasn’t like her to attach herself to others. She’d been alone a long time, and her own troubles were plenty. But here she was, on the lam and about to push a canoe into a black river with a woman she’d known for a night and a day. Tiffany smiled in the darkness. Despite the reckless abandon of it all, or perhaps because of it, she felt more alive than she had in a very long