Feeling a tender hand stroking his forehead, Skip opened his eyes and found himself lying on his back with his head in Anna’s lap, posing for the Pieta. But when she smiled down at him, light streaming around her round, light brown face, he realized this wasn’t Anna, who was dead, but Juana, who was alive. Only there wasn’t really any difference, because they were all made of the same…stuff. And death wasn’t real, either-it couldn’t be, because time wasn’t real.
“Wow,” he breathed reverently. He wanted to tell Anna/Juana so many things. How he felt as if he’d been away for eons, flying through other universes; how he’d seen terrible and wonderful sights; how he’d learned all these important lessons about life and death, time and eternity, fear and wonder, and why they call a trip a trip. He also wanted to tell her how great it felt to be back, but when he opened his mouth, all that came out was another, longer “Wow.”
He looked past Juana and saw that Oliver, Steve, and Candace had gathered around and were looking down at him all relieved and happy like the farmhands at the end of The Wizard of Oz. Then he remembered how he’d seen Oliver turn into a lion. How mind-blowingly perfect and interconnected everything was.
But that’s acid for you. Like existence, only more so. Skip spent the last hour of full daylight in a state of pure cosmic bliss. Colors were otherworldly bright in that sun-kissed clearing, and human contact profound. They took off their tops, even the women-even old Beryl-and worshiped the sun, whose light was everywhere broken into crystalline prisms and streaming rainbows; they turned druid and bowed to the whispering aspens; they found the keys to koans that had stumped generations of seekers. The answer to “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” was Schwingggg! The perfect answer to “What was your face before your mother was born?” was, for some obscure reason, Larry.
As the sun neared the treetops, Oliver asked everyone to join him on a hike up to a bluff where they could celebrate the sunset by performing something called a Bija ceremony. The others cheered, but Skip’s heart sank. To him, hike was just a four-letter word. He’d tried hiking before, and it was hard to say which he hated more, the pain of struggling to keep up or the anxiety and sense of abandonment he experienced when he inevitably fell behind.
Maybe it would be different this time, though, with these people. And besides, it seemed to Skip that there was a reason he needed to go with them, needed to keep Oliver in sight. The same reason why the sky seemed to darken when he thought about staying behind, alone. Something about-
But his new friends had gathered up their zafus and flashlights and jackets to follow their teacher up the rocky, uneven path leading back to the marked trail. Skip found his tan jacket folded neatly on his zafu. He put it on and zipped it up, vaguely aware that something was missing but unable to remember what it was. Then a nice thing happened. George Speaks, the American Indian with the Eskimo features and the long black braid, doubled back to present Skip with an aspen-limb staff, its bark and leaves stripped away to make a stout, smooth-skinned walking stick that fit Skip’s hand so perfectly it might have been cut to his measure.
Skip was so moved by the gesture that he clean forgot all about…whatever it was he’d been trying to remember. Leaning gratefully on the staff as he hurried to catch up with the procession, he heard someone behind him calling his name. He turned at the edge of the clearing, puzzled-how could anyone be behind him when everyone was in front of him? — and saw a big, bearlike figure in a little tweed hat emerging from the trees on the far side of the clearing. The sharply angled sunlight made his dark red sport coat look as if it were glowing.
It took another instant for the name to come-Pender! he thought.You forgot all about Pender! — and another few seconds for the larger implications to register. As soon as he remembered who Pender was and why the two of them were there, Skip reached behind his back for the Beretta in his holster. His empty holster.
So that’s what was missing before, thought Skip, as Pender charged toward him through the clover, holding his hat with one hand and waving at him with the other. Halfway across the clearing, though, Pender stumbled, seemed to catch his balance, then collapsed heavily to the ground with a feather-tipped arrow shaft sticking out of his left rib cage.
Skip started toward him, then glimpsed a black-clad figure with a bow silhouetted in profile between two thin, now sunlit aspens on the far side of the clearing. He hit the deck as an arrow sizzled over his head, so close to his scalp that if his hair had been any longer, it would now be parted straight down the center.