Of Truth and Angels 9

From behind, large brown hands grabbed Preston, lifting him slightly off the ground.
Purely by instinct, Preston simultaneous thrust the camera out at arm’s length while kicking where he thought the legs should be on whomever grappled with him from behind. The next instant he was bent over with a huge weight pressing him down as one hand reached for the camera. Preston knew instantly the arms were covered in the fancy suit he had seen Gordy wearing that morning.
Even the best trained fighters were seldom as skillful in combat as they hoped. Preston was barely keeping the camera from the grasping hands. His hat was gone and forgotten. They must have spun around two or three times. Things happened too quickly for him to tell.
Meanwhile, Angie recovered. For just an instant she watched in pain and horror as the dark-skinned giant wrestled with Preston. Suddenly she felt anger, as if all the things ever done wrong to her boiled over all at once. Worst of all, this brute was attacking her man, a capital offense in her world. She could have ripped his head off with teeth and claws if necessary. Hardly conscious of her actions, she simply acted on pure fury. Sprinting a couple of steps toward the flowerpot, she jumped up, planting her left foot smartly on the edge. She wasn’t sure what to do next, but getting up closer to the man’s head seemed an obvious necessity.
At that moment, Preston realized Gordy’s face was behind his head. He pushed back, and then snapped his head forward and backward again with all his might. The crown of his head connected to something not entirely hard. Suddenly the grip on him loosened just a bit. He had planned to spin around and add an elbow strike, but the man had backed off out of reach, standing almost upright, one hand instinctively rising to touch his face where the mouth and nose began bleeding profusely. The attempt still spun Preston around.
It was at this instant Angie launched herself at Gordy. She drew her feet up together and stomped at him with all she had. Her right foot impacted on the joint between his chest and left shoulder. The left foot hit him full in the sternum, driving his tie tack through the fabric and into his flesh. Already stunned from the hard headbutt to his face, he rose up full length and flailed this arms, trying to keep his balance as he back-pedaled.
Preston was already turned and instinctively caught Angie as she rebounded from the impact with Gordy. They watched for the split second it took to see him back forcefully into the railing. On most folks, it was almost chest high, but for Gordy it was just below waist level. Instead of arresting his backward momentum, the high aluminum bar only redirected it. His hands continued arcing back over his head and he flipped over the railing. His body managed to somersault once completely, landing him flat on his back with a very loud smack into the murky water of the Meuse.
Instinctively, Preston grabbed Angie’s hand as they sprinted off the bridge. There was only a slight hesitation as they dodged between two vehicles where they crossed the street. Glancing back, Preston saw a couple more nicely dressed men behind them. Straight ahead was the foot of the ancient stairway up the bluff to the citadel.
Neither he nor Angie hesitated. The entrance to the cable car ride was packed and spilling into their path. They managed to dodge through without hitting anyone and began sprinting, two steps at a time, threading past the tourists not nearly so hurried on the steps. With Preston’s hand pulling her, Angie was able to match his giant strides. Some part of Preston’s mind realized this moment alone justified all those times they had sprinted up the sandy hills of the Brunssumerheide for the past few weeks, repeating it until he nearly puked. He was just a bit faster on the hills than Angie, but she could repeat it more times. With such a lazy morning so far, they had plenty of energy to spare this time.
A bit of yelling behind them signaled the necessity of driving ahead full speed. Apparently none of those in pursuit were in any kind of shape at all. At the top of the first long run, Preston turned to glance back as the well dressed men were struggling to merely walk up the steps quite some distance behind. Preston whipped out his camera and took a quick shot of them, then grabbed Angie and sprinted up the next section. They hit the landing two-thirds of the way up, and without slowing, sprinted around the crowded photographers there and up the final run in the opposite direction. The men in fancy suits had either stopped or were simply too far behind to have any hope of catching them.
Preston got a couple more shots and followed Angie inside the fort. They climbed the interior stairs at a slower pace, then entered the interior courtyard. With so very many tourists and photographers already crowding the place, they simply bypassed the shops and ticket window and walked out the arched tunnel on the far end. They found out how to get out of the place. Hesitatingly they approached the gateway up the terraces, scanning to see if they recognized any trouble ahead. There were no suits and no limos in the parking lot.
They walked at a good hiking pace, already recovering their breath from the run up those four-hundred-plus steps. It was a short walk to the trails and Preston led the way off to the right. Just a short way into the woods, Preston pulled Angie off the trail to one side. He fished out his first aid kit and began dressing her skinned knee. “It’s a good thing you were on my side. Poor Gordy never had a chance.”
Angie nearly collapsed with laughter. Preston kept working as best he could. Then she recovered and asked, “Did he hurt you?”
“Just some bruises and sore spots. Lost my hat, but he apparently didn’t damage the camera any. Even if he had, it wouldn’t have done him any good. We had uploaded it all and I was live streaming at the time. He didn’t even unplug it from the tether. I did that when we got inside the fort.”
In essence they retraced their hike in the opposite direction from the day they had taken the kayak ride. There were a lot more hikers, so they were never quite alone this time.
After crossing La Lesse, they went farther upriver to another set of sluice gates and lock. This was a very broad path zigzagging over an island in the river. Only the part where they crossed the actual gate was narrow. Here the Meuse bent hard around, the far bank ran east and west. Just a short hike downstream toward the city brought them to a low underpass on one set of railroad tracks, then up a narrow lane where a trail permitted them to cross another set of tracks. They were careful to avoid touching any metal parts because this one was electrified, with heavy cables overhead suspended by metal and concrete frames. In the trees on the far side was a trail. Quite steep in places and slippery, they eventually gained the high ground next to the autobahn. There was a grassy cut through the trees along the south side of this all the way down to a farm road running into the backside of a village called Onhaye.
Passing through, they stayed on the small lanes and woodland paths, coming around behind their erstwhile quarters.
It had been a long and beautiful hike, and it was time to go home.