Momentum by Christopher Thomas
by Christopher Thomas
Jamey scurried up the side of the hill, he kept low as he crossed over the old logging road, and then he ran down into the ravine on the other side at a pace mostly out of his control. He could feel the muscles in his thighs grab and his knees crunch with each jarring stomp on the steep and uneven ground.
He could hear the dogs again. There were at least three of them and they were closing in. If he could stay on his feet he could make it to the treeline and then there was a creek, not fifty feet further, that carved a scar through the base of the ridge hills and curled around the other side of Stafford’s farm – if he could get that far.
When he made it to the treeline he glanced back – nothing in sight, only the din of a barking posse fast approaching from over the rise. Jamey forged through the brambled edge, jumped a rotten log and nearly hit his head on a low-growing branch before reaching the creek and quickly submerging himself to try to scatter his scent. He reckoned he had to be within a half-mile of the track at Carver High School. If he could just beat the dogs to the track, he thought, things would be better.
He sloshed down the creekside, staying on the bedrock wherever he could for better footing. His feet were numb, and his side ached and his heart pounded so hard it made his head hurt. He leapt onto an old tractor tyre he saw half-buried in the bank and used it to launch himself up a rocky face, grasping at tree roots and crags and pulling himself up onto a higher, flatter stretch of ground. From there he could see one of the dogs coming down the creek in full stride. He didn’t know if the dogs could scale that bluff, or if they would find a way around, but he didn’t wait to find out. It was dusk and the light was fading and he could hear the dogs gathering as one behind him, not slowed by the terrain and taunting him with their tortured yowls.
Jamey cut through the last stand of trees and burst out into the rising field that led to the track. He had nothing left in him but fear and fury, so he fell forward onto all fours as he struggled to even scamper up the last few yards of the hill, gasping for air and digging his feet and fingers into the earth until he had somehow actually done it. He crested the hill at the edge of the track where he gathered his remaining strength to stand tall and turn toward the dogs, fully invested in his own fate. The ninety-pound chestnut-red bloodhound jumped up and knocked Jamey over before quickly being joined by two black-and-tans as they surrounded him, climbed over him, licking and nuzzling and slobbering.
Two men walked over to get a hold of the dogs. “Son,” yelled one of them, “I ain’t never seen nobody outrun these here dogs before. I guess you think you’re somethin’ special, don’t you?”
“Leave ‘em be,” Jamey heard a crusty voice say. It was Coach Howard. The coach walked over, grabbed Jamey by the arm, snatched him off the ground and set him to standing. The coach studied Jamey who stood there sagging and depleted, looking as pitiful as any end-of-season scarecrow. “He ain’t lyin’. No one’s ever beat them dogs.” The coach shook his head in amusement, “Most come up the logging road at the end there. Why’d you drop down into that holler?”
Jamey put his hands on his knees to prop himself up, to keep himself standing, “I don’t know, exactly. Maybe I thought I could get a little rest while coming down that last hill, and maybe that the water would slow the boys down,” he nodded in the direction of the dogs who were being lovingly rewarded for catching their quarry.
“Well,” the coach nodded. “It don’t much matter now, does it? A deal’s a deal. You beat them dogs over five miles, son. Welcome to varsity.”
WENSUM 