Ida gasped, twisted loose, and ran. Roddie ran after her.
She wasn't so easily caught. Like a frightened doe, she dashed in and out among the trees, leaped to the bridge's underpinnings where they thrust rustedly from a cliff, and scrambled up the ramp.
Roddie sighed and slowed down. The pavement ended just beyond the cable anchors. From there to the south tower, only an occasional dangling support wire showed where the actual bridge had been suspended. Ida was trapped.
He could take his time. Let the soldiers come up, as they undoubtedly would, to finish the job....
But Ida didn't seem to realize she was trapped. Without hesitation she dashed up the main left-hand suspension cable and ran along its curved steel surface.
For a moment, Roddie thought of letting her go, letting her run up the ever-steepening catenary until—because there were no guard-ropes or handgrips—she simply fell. That would solve his problem.
Except it wouldn't be his solution. Her death wouldn't prove him to his friends.
He set out quickly, before Ida was lost to sight in the thick fog that billowed in straight from the ocean. At first he ran erect along the top of the yard-wide cylinder of twisted metal, but soon the curve steepened. He had to go on all fours, clinging palm and sole.
Blood was on the cable where she'd passed. More blood stained it when he'd followed.
But because his friends knew neither pain nor fatigue, Roddie would admit none either. Nor would he give in to the fear that dizzied him at every downward look. He scrambled on like an automaton, watching only his holds, till he rammed Ida's rear with his head.