The Adventures of FireFox and BlackDog
Episode 2: The Mountain Road
Sakaki leaned down onto the handlebars of his motorcycle. He was balanced on top of the machine in a sort of half-sitting half-sprawling position, his legs hanging awkwardly off one side. Robin sat almost backwards on the seat of her Vespa in the next parking space.
"Are you okay?" she asked. Her voice echoed slightly off the walls of the parking garage buried under Raven's Flat.
"Why me?" Sakaki growled, softly at first but getting louder. "Why do I always get blamed when things go wrong? Amon was in front of me. He ran right into that witch's attack. We both barely made it out of there alive. But somehow, I'm the one that gets slammed. Why? As if he's so perfect all the time. As if he never makes a mistake."
"He isn't perfect. And he does make mistakes," Robin said.
"Since when?" Sakaki asked hopelessly.
"Since always. Did I ever tell you about what happened to us in the California mountains?"
"No." Sakaki turned his head and studied Robin. It was obvious that she wanted to tell him. "Okay, tell me."
Robin took a deep breath and started her story.
"We had spent three days in San Francisco and Amon was anxious to move on. We decided to take a bus to Las Vegas since it was cheaper. We were passing through the mountains when a big snowstorm hit. The bus had to stop in a little mountain valley. We sat there on the side of the road for hours until the storm passed. But when the coast was clear, we still couldn't leave. The storm had blocked both of the mountain passes leading out of the valley. There were some little farms there and the people put us all up for the night. The phone lines were down so the valley was completely cut off. In the morning, the farmers had to get right to work clearing the roads and preparing for flooding. They didn't have time to help us get out of the valley. But they were willing to lend us a couple of horses."
"Horses?" Sakaki asked incredulously.
"Yes. With the roads blocked, the only way to get out of the valley was for someone to horseback ride around the pass and get help in the next town. I volunteered to go right away. The monastery where I grew up had a stable and my grandfather taught me to ride when I was a little girl. Amon said he'd go with me but he didn't know how to horseback ride. I told him I should go alone, but he insisted. The other bus passengers were depending on us by then, so I decided I'd teach Amon to ride along the way. I don't know how many times I had to tell him to relax. He almost rode right off a cliff once. And by the time we got to the next town, he still couldn't steer properly."
Sakaki snickered lightheartedly. "Now that's something I'd like to see," he said.
"You see, Amon is human… mostly, just like the rest of us," Robin said. "He doesn't know everything and sometimes he gets things wrong. Nobody's perfect, you know."
"Ya'know what, I feel a lot better," Sakaki said with a smile. "Thanks."
Robin just smiled back at him.
A moment later, the steel gate that led into the building opened and Amon stepped out. He was heading for his car when he noticed Robin and Sakaki watching him and smiling.
"Did you tell him?" Amon asked accusingly.
"Tell him what?" Robin answered with another question.
"You know what. The Pagoda Restaurant."
"Of course not."
Amon narrowed his eyes as he continued to study his two friends. He could tell that they had been talking about him. He decided not to make an issue out of it and escaped into his car instead.
As soon as Amon had driven out of the parking garage, Sakaki burst into giggles.
"Ride 'em, cowboy," he jeered at the retreating tail lights.
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Well, that was episode 2. I know that some of you are wondering why Robin was talking about the "California mountains" instead of the Rocky Mountains. If you look at a map of the United States, you'll notice that the Rocky Mountains lie in Colorado, east of Nevada. So Robin and Amon's bus would not have crossed the Rockies on its way from San Francisco to Las Vegas. But there are several smaller mountain ranges in between those two cities that they would have to cross. These include the Cascade Range and the Sierra Nevada, and both would play good hosts to a story like this. Since I can't remember those names without an atlas, I assumed that Robin wouldn't be able to either. So she called them the "California mountains". Thank you to all the reviewers.
