It took a few minutes of blinking and staring to pull himself from the remnants of the dream. The coming down from the high of the freedom he felt as his feet left the ground was crushing as weight returned to his limbs, the ache returned to his ribs, and the nausea returned to his stomach. As he went to lift his head his frustration and regret was channeled into a single long drawn out groan.

Warrick's toes were wiggling in earnest, the tops of his boots waving side to side, the motion carried up his long limbs so Nick could feel the tightening of muscles under his head. Another sigh of frustration as he realized how disappointed he was that he didn't feel the same way.

Energy expended that he didn't think he had left, he somehow managed to get himself sitting upright, the position awkward as his feet were still propped up high on the backpacks. Warrick immediately pulled his knees up and began rubbing at his calves.

"Damn, you got a heavy head, bro. Put my legs to sleep."

Nick mumbled a sorry he only half meant as he dug his fingers into the nape of his knotted up neck.

"Still cranky I see. How you feelin'?"

He felt his lip curling involuntarily and a snarky reply was barely held back as he looked over at his partner with a 'how the hell do you think I feel?' look. He tamed his response to, "I'll take that as a rhetorical question," especially after getting a good luck at the taller man's face. The swelling on his cheekbone had gotten worse overnight. Redder, softer looking. Rawer. The puffiness had spread to above his eye making his eyebrow and forehead protrude like he was half Neanderthal.

Further observation had his partner rubbing at his arm, fingers jerking back with a hiss each time but soon returning to rub gently at his skin.

Nick shoved his chin at Warrick. "It's the glochidia. They get in under your skin and drive you crazy. Can't decide if they hurt more or itch more."

The tall man nodded. "Good description. You learn the hard way?"

"Couldn't wear pants for a week," was his reply along with a rueful smile. "Spent every waking minute in a tub of oatmeal."

"Guess I'm glad I was wearin' jeans then. Not sure I wanna know…"

"Her name was Jenny… something Italian. From Jersey. No- Lawn Guyland. Was like dating someone from the Sopranos. She'd never seen anything of Texas but the college campus. Figured as a Native Son I'd do the honors."

"Yeah, I'll bet."

With his own groan that practically shook the mountain Warrick climbed slowly, awkwardly, painfully to his feet. "Lemme go take care of business and come back to help you. You need to uh…?" Finger pointing over to the edge.

Not even bothering to hide his disappointment Nick shook his head shortly.

Warrick acknowledged his answer with a short nod of his own and limped his way over to the edge.

Nick grabbed his good leg in his hands and lifted it off the piled backpacks with a bit back groan. When it came time to lift the bad leg off no amount of effort was able to keep his jaws clenched together and he felt a cry rip from his throat at the movement.

By the time he got his breathing under control and had swallowed back the bile that had risen in his throat he felt his partner back at his side, hands gently checking the handkerchief bandage. A few minutes later he heard Warrick sit back on his heels with a sigh.

"Here."

Nick looked up to see the taller man extending a hand to him and he stared at it. Dumbly holding his own hand out he took what was offered. A green Lifesaver and the package of Tylenol, the corner of the foil now ripped open.

"What's this? Breakfast?" he grunted.

"The candy's to get some spit goin' in your mouth so you can swallow the pills. Your leg feels hot, bro."

"Hate the green ones," Nick mumbled but dropped the sweet circle on his tongue and worked it around, rubbing free the coating that had formed between puking and sleeping on his back. He knew he snored on his back, and he only hoped Rick had managed to sleep through all the noise.

Maybe his leg felt warm, but the rest of his body felt like he'd slept on an ice floe all night. Stiff, sore, cold sunk into the marrow of his bones. If he closed his eyes he could just barely feel the balmy Texas sun warming away the chill, smell the musty dusty barn…

An abrupt sound from above brought him out of his reverie. Warrick was rubbing the toe of his boot into the sandy shelf, looking like he wanted to say something, the only sound coming from him an odd throat clearing.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm up. I'm up. How's the trail look?"

"Looks pretty dry from here. A few muddy parts but the sun is already baking it away. You know… I know you want to come with me, Nick, but… I just really don't see how you're planning on making it down on your own."

"I played the last four innings of a ball game with a broken ankle, bro. I can play through this too." It had hurt like a mother the whole time, and the orthopod blasted him for a full twenty minutes in the ER, his mother standing white-lipped next to him as the possibility of needing pins was discussed over his ankle swollen to the size of a picnic ham. No pins, but a to-the-knee cast and he was done for the season. Ironically, the game hadn't even been that important, and his coach was actually more pissed at him for ruining himself for the rest of their games. You'd think coaching guys from Texas that he woulda understood how stubborn they could grow 'em there.

Stubborn, yes. But it was more than being obstinate, or perversely committed to hauling his broken carcass down the mountainside. While wild horses wouldn't have dragged the real reason out of him, Nick knew he was scared shitless of being left alone on the mountain while infection crept up his veins or he succumbed to shock or bled out.

If his partner wanted to see him as just being mule-headed, he could live with that.

"Gimme a hand up." His hand thrust forward, hanging in mid-air, waiting for Warrick to take it. When the taller man hesitated he swore under his breath, then planted both hands on the shelf and pushed himself up, dragging the heel of his bad leg along the ground, struggling to get his good foot under him. Just when he thought he was going to be forced to drop back down and attack it a different way he felt strong hands under his armpits and with Warrick's aid was hoisted to his foot. The hands stayed there while he wavered a bit.

The weightlessness he had yearned for after his dream was there. Problem was, it was in his head, and only his head. His body was cement, his arteries filled with lead, an immovable bulk of entropy. His head was a helium balloon, tethered to his body by a thin ribbon that let his head bobble and bump/pull against its string. He found his hands fighting gravity as he raised them to his head attempting to hold it in place. Eyes squinched shut against the spinning canyon, he allowed himself to trust in those hands holding him firm as he took several deep breaths, the acidic sugar of the candy sharp in his throat as it met bile irritated tissue.

With a light moan he dropped his heavy arms and righted himself, pulling away from Warrick, but maintaining a grip on his sleeve in order to keep his balance. He opened his eyes and the shelf stayed horizontal and he stayed vertical and all was temporarily okay in the world.

"This is such a bad idea," he heard his friend mutter.

He cuffed his partner lightly with his free hand and put on a game smile. "Just dizzy. Like waking up after sleeping fourteen hours."

"Four-- you can sleep fourteen hours?"

"Hell, yeah. After a couple double shifts in a row, throw a triple in there like we get sometimes, my bod doesn't leave my bed 'til it's time to go to work the next night."

Warrick shook his head impressed. "Haven't been able to sleep like that since college. And that was usually weekends after working all week, school all day, partying all night."

"Yeah. I miss that too," Nick said with a laugh. "I'm telling you, bro. You and me, next spring break…"

"Yeah, yeah. The only trip I've got on my mind right now is off this damn mountain. So, you got a system figured out or are you planning on hoppin' down on one foot the whole way?"

"Told ya. Three-legged race. C'mon. It'll be fun- just picture yourself back at camp."

"Never went to camp. 'Less you count the one year they rounded up all the poor urban kids from the Boys Club and took us all out to Lake Mead. Bunch of nascent thugs and bangers and me, eating stale sandwiches and staring at the white folks playing tetherball in their khaki cargo shorts and polos. Was ridiculous, man."

"Now that's just sad, bro."

"Yeah, yeah, pity party later. Whatcha got in mind?"


What Nick had in mind may have worked for a picnic of drunken fools tying their legs together and laughing as they tumbled over onto soft grass, but in operation a few thousand miles up on rough and rocky terrain… not so much.

What started out as Nick thinking to bind his bad leg to Warrick's and have the two men actually walk down on three began okay. Nick grit his teeth and with the aid of his partner as a crutch managed to make it down several hundred feet before collapsing in agony and bringing Warrick, of course, down with him.

After giving Nick a breather, or more appropriately, a gasper, Warrick undid the cloth bindings (his long sleeves sacrificed now that the heat of the morning was growing) from around their legs.

He hauled Nick to his feet and with an arm around his friend's waist and Nick's arm slung around his shoulder he supported Nick while he walk-hopped for another few hundred feet. Actually, it was more like walk-hop a few feet. Stop. Wait. Walk-hop. Stop. Wait. At this rate it would take them until the next night to get to the bottom.

And Nick didn't look like he had 'til that night. Sweat poured from him in rivulets, but the air wasn't that warm yet. The down coat had been doffed, shoved back in Nick's bag, currently slung with his own over Warrick's back. Now shirtless and coatless, Nick's flesh was pale and waxen, covered in a sheen of perspiration, and accented horribly with dark bruising covering the whole side he'd landed on; hip to shoulder.

The Texan had started out their descent in good spirits, game face on, joking and laughing. Not any more. Now it was all he could do to breathe through the pain the constant jarring of his leg was causing. And the way his eyes were pinwheeling in their sockets and the shivers that were wracking his body despite the growing heat of the new morning had Warrick tightening his grasp around his waist, his arm slipping in the sweat that gathered at Nick's belt line.

A missed step, his ankle twisting briefly on loose rock, and Warrick stumbled, Nick's arm slipping from his shoulder as he began to slump to the ground. "Nope, not gonna happen," he mumbled to himself more than anything as he wrapped a hand around Nick's wrist and heaved him back upright.

The bottom of Nick's pant leg was now shiny with jarred loose blood loss, the thick red fluid puddling on top of the leather boot.

Warrick renewed his efforts at the sight, eyes flicking back and forth from the ground immediately in front of him to the canyon floor, closer now but yet so fucking far away, anywhere but at the blood trail they were leaving or Nick's alternately scarily lax and screwed up face.

Like the old car salesman patter used to go, Drive it in, haul it in, drag it in, tow it in, we'll give you $500 bucks for your piece of shit, or words to that effect, and that's what Warrick was gonna do. Bodily haul Nick down to the truck if that's what it took.

The taller man was now sweating like a stuck pig himself with the effort of keeping both men on their feet. He stopped on a flat open shelf and eased Nick off of his shoulder, waiting a second to see if Nick's balance was good enough to stand on his own. The Texan limped a few feet away and stood, wavering a bit, but held his own.

Warrick took the opportunity to bring the tail of his shirt up to his face and wipe away the salty perspiration from his eyes.

When done he dropped the material and blinked a few times, clearing his vision, then turned to see Nick taking a step closer to the edge.

He held his breath, stunned, scared shitless, watching as his best friend wobbled a thousand feet up on the precipice. "Nick?" He almost whispered it, afraid of startling his friend.

The injured man turned his head, glassy eyes blinking rapidly, swaying slightly like a blade of grass in the wind, though not a hint of breeze lightened the air.

"You ever wish you could fly?"

The words turned Warrick's overheated blood to icy slush.

"Oh, Hell, no!" Without a second thought, Warrick took two long strides over, muscle memory taking over as he flashed back to the days in college when he'd played pick up football, leaning over, shoulder planted in Nick's midsection as if tackling him, and Jesus, wasn't that just what he was doing, trying to keep him from the Eternal End Zone? bending at the knees as he lifted the shorter man up in the air to haul him up over one shoulder.

Nick never made a word of objection, which was even more disturbing, Warrick figuring he would let loose a string of obscenities along with his protestations. He shifted his load with a grunt, shoulders rolling to resituate the bags on his back and his passenger, and headed back down the path. He tried not to notice the blood dripping from the boot now hanging in front of him.


Morning had given way to late afternoon by the now blazing sun high above. A giant golden sphere of fire, unfettered by even a single wisp of cloud cover, it turned Warrick's view of their surroundings wavy with heat.

His boot finally landed on the canyon floor and all he wanted to do was whoop with joy and share well-earned high fives with his buddy, but Nick hadn't done much more than moan and mumble, his head lolling against Warrick's back.

The truck. He could see the truck now. Like a hulking black gas-guzzling beacon of hope.

His partner may have looked lean, but he swore the man had lead in his veins. "You weigh a freakin' ton, bro," he huffed to himself, he thought, then heard from behind him the muffled and mumbled but still clear reply, "Muscle weighs more than fat."

"You okay back there? Almost there, bro, almost there."

"Then put me down. Tired of starin' at your non-existent ass."

"Hey! I paid good money for these jeans; supposed to make me look like I have an ass."

"Get your money back. And put me down."

"I'll be dumping your ungrateful ass in just a minute. Just hang on there."

"Ha ha. Very funny."

Warrick smiled briefly, glad to hear his partner had some of his faculties back. He could feel Nick beginning to move uncomfortably on his shoulder, shifting his weight, knocking the taller man off balance. He made it to the truck just in time to slide Nick off his shoulder, the Texan stumbling a few feet away to bend at the waist and heave painfully. Nothing came up but bile and he watched as Nick stood back up, balanced precariously on one leg, spitting repeatedly, then wiping his wrist across his mouth.

A few hops and Nick leaned against the truck, hissing and drawing back in pain as his flesh touched the black metal. His thoughts of supporting himself on the vehicle thwarted he eased himself down to the ground to fall against a tire.

"Any reason you ain't gotten this thing goin' yet?" he asked with a small smile, hooking a thumb at the truck behind him.

Warrick rolled his eyes, not even bothering with a comeback, and dug his hand into his pocket.

The pocket that had gotten torn off during his fall into the prickly pear.

The pocket that no longer was attached to his four hundred dollar jeans.

And no longer contained the keys to the truck.