Shaded Amethysts - Ann Omasta Page 0,2
wouldn’t be able to help anyone.
After kneeling down, I sprawled out and crawled as fast as I could the rest of the way toward the hole. Pepper surfaced with the child’s coat still clutched in her teeth. She was kicking with all her might and scrabbling to find a spot where she could pull them up onto the slick ice. The whites of her eyes were visible as she worked to save them both.
As soon as I reached the edge of the hole, I reached down to grab the dog’s purple collar. I pulled up on the collar with all of my strength. Just as I started to make some headway, the collar slipped off over the dog’s head.
I’m not normally much of a curser, but an expletive fell from my lips as I realized this would make it even harder to pull the dog and child out. I contemplated putting the dog’s collar back on, but I didn’t want to use the time to try to wrangle the panicked animal only to have the blasted thing slip off again. Besides, I wasn’t sure my cold, gloved hands could handle the task.
Instead, I tried wrapping my arms around the dog’s thick neck and pulling. Her toenails scratched at me as she frantically tried to keep the two of them afloat. Despite the adrenaline rush that must be pumping through my veins, I wasn’t able to lift them out of the water.
My helplessness made me want to shout in frustration, but I refrained. Instead, a scream of terror threatened to emerge when I felt my body begin sliding. If something didn’t quickly change, I was going to end up in the water, too.
I clutched onto the terrified animal, refusing to let her face this battle on her own. The section of ice I was on began to give way. The cold water started to seep into my down coat, making me suck in a breath involuntarily.
Rather than me pulling Pepper and Scout out, they were pulling me in. Between that and the breaking ice, I braced myself to be fully submerged in the icy water.
Just as my upper body began to fall through, a strong hand wrapped around the boot of my skate and yanked me backwards. I didn’t take the time to contemplate what had happened to bring me back to safety because Scout and Pepper were still in the water fighting for their lives.
Suddenly a rope appeared by my side. A man’s voice ordered me, “Put that around the dog’s middle and tie a knot.”
I rushed to do as he instructed. Pepper’s panicked dog paddling made it nearly impossible to get the rope around her chest, but I knew I had to make it work. Pulling her up by her neck would run the risk of strangling her.
Eventually, I got the rope in place. The hero behind me yelled, “We are going to pull together on three. One… Two… Three.”
When he reached three, we both pulled on the rope with all of our strength. After we made a tiny bit of headway, we both inched backward. Pepper’s front paws were on the ice, and she was doing her best to scoot her way up with the child in tow as we pulled.
Molly’s frantic screech pierced the air. “Scout, I’m coming!”
She had been far away, where Grant’s wheelchair had gotten stuck in the ice and snow on the path to the pond, so it had taken her a while to sprint out to us.
My eyes widened in horror as I watched her run frantically in our direction. Fear for her son’s safety had obviously made her forget that she could easily make this already precarious situation much worse.
“Freeze!” The man behind me shouted.
His firm tone stopped Molly in her tracks. She blinked in our direction as he said, “The best way for you to help is to crawl behind me and help pull.”
Molly’s gaze darted to the hole. Her mother’s instinct to rush to her little boy was clearly at war with her rational side that said to listen to the wisdom of our helper.
The man seemed to sense her indecision, so he added, “If you run over there, the ice will break, putting us all in even more jeopardy.”
Making her decision, Molly lowered to all fours and shuffled quickly to make her way to the back of our human chain.
With a giant pull that had all three of us grunting and scooting backward, we yanked the drenched duo onto