Oliver, who had done more camping than Skip and Pender (no great feat: Stephen Hawking had probably done more camping than Skip and Pender), supervised the laying of the fire, with a little nest of dry grass and dead leaves in the center, an understory of twigs and smaller sticks, and a pyramidal superstructure of interwoven branches supporting the heavier logs.
Then a flick of Pender’s reliable old Zippo, a puff of orange, and soon the flames were leaping merrily, a beacon to guide the rescue helicopter that wheeled out of the western sky like an evening star less than an hour later and alighted in the middle of the bluff, blowing Oliver’s campfire all to flinders.
Unfortunately, the little medevac chopper had only enough room for the injured man and two others.
“We’ll be back for you in no time,” the pilot shouted to Skip and Pender as the chopper lifted off with Steve, Dr. O, and Beryl aboard.
Skip had to laugh at that. “What does he know about no time?” he called to Pender, who had finished stomping out sparks at the edge of the woods and was now gathering kindling to revive the fire.
“I second that emotion,” said Pender. “There was one…time back there when I looked at my watch and it was actually melting. I’d always thought that was just a cliche, like in the movies when they want to show the characters are tripping.”
“That’s how things get to be cliches-because they happen a lot,” Skip pointed out. “Hey, you know what I just realized? I haven’t taken a Norco since this morning, and nothing hurts!” Then, after thinking it over: “Of course, they’ll probably have to carry me home on a stretcher when the acid wears off.”
When they had the fire going again, the two huddled under the blankets the paramedics had left behind for them, arranging their zafus so they could watch the fire and keep an eye on Mesker, who appeared to be asleep. Pender took out his flask and took a sip, started to offer it to Skip, then remembered. “Oh, right, you don’t drink.”
“Oh, I drink,” Skip said sensibly. “I drink plenty. Just not alcohol.” He turned and brushed off the ground behind him, pried out a few of the larger rocks and tossed them aside, then lay back, propped himself up on his elbows, and watched the fire for either a long moment or a short eon. It all felt so elemental-the darkness, the crackle of the fire, the sparks shooting heavenward. “All we need is some marshmallows,” he told Pender.
“I always thought toasting marshmallows was overrated,” said Pender. “Picking that black shit out of your teeth-yucch!”
“You don’t have to burn them black, y’know.”
“I’m a man of extremes.” They watched the fire for, well, for however long they watched the fire, then Pender broke the silence again. “Hey, Magnum, you want to hear something amazing?”
“Sure,” said Skip. “But I have to warn you, my definition of amazing is a lot different than it was, I don’t know, six, seven hours ago.”
“Is that how long we’ve been tripping?”
“Beats me,” replied Skip.
“And vice versa,” said Pender, confusing both of them.
“You were going to tell me something amazing?” Skip prompted, after what may have been a long pause.
“Oh, right. Here it is: if it wasn’t for Big Luke-you know, Little Luke’s father?”
Skip nodded.
“If it wasn’t for Big Luke, I wouldn’t be sitting here talking to you.”
Skip waited a few whatevers, then asked Pender if there was an explanation that came with that.
“Oh, right. The thing is, ten years ago, after Big Luke outdrew me in the post office, I swore to myself I’d never wear a kidney holster again. So last year, when the Bureau in its wisdom ordered everybody who was still wearing shoulder holsters to switch to behind-the-backs, I didn’t make a big fuss-that’s not how you do it in the Bureau. Instead I just sort of pretended I never got the memo, and my boss, bless his heart, sort of pretended not to notice. And the kicker, of course…”
Pender opened his jacket to show Skip his calfskin holster, with an inch of shaft sticking out from the safety flap and the arrowhead embedded in the bent trigger guard of the Model 10. “The kicker is that if I’d been wearing a kidney holster instead of old faithful here, then instead of sitting here talking to you I’d be lying dead in the clover with an arrow sticking out of my ribs.”
“That is pretty amazing,” said Skip. “But you know what’s really, really amazing?”
“What’s that?” said Pender.
Skip waved his hand around in a grand gesture loosely encompassing himself, Pender, the slumbering Charles Mesker, the breathtaking view, the earth below and the sky above. “Everything,” he said. “Just…everything.”
Special Agent E. L. Pender raised his pewter flask to the shimmering stars. “I’ll drink to that,” he said.
And he did.