I can see you, buddy, but how do I get to you?

James West's initial relief at finding his missing partner and Dr. Loveless still alive had faded fast at the realization of how precarious their position was. He wasn't even sure how they'd been set out on the end of that hook-and-beam arrangement to begin with. He'd seen a lot of complex traps before – hell, experienced them, but this one took the cake – or the smoked sausage to use a more apt metaphor. Jim and Tequila had made their way up a narrow path to where the wooden beam attached to what appeared to be a turning lever. They'd tried with all their might to get it to budge, but it hadn't worked. What's more, Jim noticed, the heavy beam had none too secure an attachment. It might not survive any more attempts to turn it. He saw some very ominous-looking cracks at the beam's base. Too-long exposure to the volcano's emissions and dry heat had rendered even this thickest piece of wood brittle. It looked like it wouldn't support Jim's added bulk if he tried to climb out onto it, even if he was capable of pull-lifting Arte and Loveless' combined weight – which he wasn't sure at this point he was.

"Hey, Jim," Arte called out to him. Jim hadn't told him how bad the situation was, but his partner must have known by the fact that their rescue wasn't accomplished yet.

"Yeah, Arte?" Jim's heart lurched again at his best friend's next words.

"If I don't make it," Arte called, "will you tell my mother it was just a freak accident and it was over instantly? She'll know it's a lie, but she'll be grateful anyway."

"Don't give up on me yet!" Jim yelled back. "You still owe me five bucks from last Friday's poker game, remember?"

"You know, I was hoping you'd forgotten about that," Arte chuckled.

Jim felt like hitting something in his frustration. Damn it, he had never failed a mission before and he was not going to start now – not with Artemus' life on the line, literally.

On the line . . . .

There had to be a way to get Arte and Loveless anchored to some safer line or perch than what they were attached to now, and disconnected from the beam which, if it cracked and fell, would pull the bound men down into the glowing hot vent of lava with it. But how? Jim and Tequila had brought one long rope with them that had been with the horses. Jim still had his pistol-grapple hook and its cable, but that hardly seemed enough. The only thing he could see to fire the hook into was Dr. Loveless, and tempting as that thought was, they really did need him alive. Plus the little wizard probably wasn't a strong enough anchor.

Got to be a way, got to be a way . . . .

Jim felt around the pockets of the shirt he'd retrieved to see if any of the small gadgets Arte had left for him might be in any way helpful. Explosive putty was definitely not called for in this situation. Likewise lockpicks, fuses or smoke bombs. And the only other chemical compound Arte had included in Jim's stash – kept carefully separate from the explosive stuff – was a big glob of his chemical 'leech,' the sticky putty that could hold a man's full weight for ten seconds on contact with just about anything.

"I don't suppose I get to have a say in whether I am rescued by either one of you?" Loveless complained.

"No!" Jim and Arte replied in unison, Jim thinking Loveless was a different sort of leech all right.

"And the least you can do, Mr. Gordon," Loveless grumbled, "is stop moving us around like that! I'm a very sensitive individual, you know, and I'm already dizzy from all this swinging."

"You're tempting me to do it some more," Arte muttered.

Jim saw the two of them twisting and swaying in the hot air currents. He hoped any gyrations wouldn't worsen the cracking at the beam's base. But feeling the lump of chemical leech in his pocket began to give him the germ of an idea . . . .

"Jim, look!" Tequila cried.

Jim turned around to see what she was pointing to – their friend Enrique Leon coming up to join them with three of his men. The cavalry had never looked so good.

"You've done it, my friend!" Enrique grinned. "You have saved Santa Bonita from the grip of the Tiger!"

He and his soldiers started to congratulate Jim and hold out their hands to shake his, but their cheery mood sobered as Jim pointed out the dangling, bound men, the cracks in the wooden beam, and explained the situation. Enrique's group had brought more ropes with them, and their rifles. Seeing these, Jim began to have hope again, and asked them about their roping and sharpshooting skills. Luckily, their small party had both. Jim took out the blob of chemical leech and explained the plan that was forming in his head. Enrique's joyous expression turned grim.

"That sounds . . . dangerous, my friend."

"If you've got any better ideas, I'm all ears," Jim said. "Believe me!" Enrique was right – it was dangerous, for Arte, Loveless and Jim himself, and one chance might be all they could get. But Enrique was shaking his head, and Jim became even more determined as he heard a small cry of pain from his partner. Another glowing ash spark had landed on Arte, burning a small hole in his clothing and scorching the man himself, though not setting him ablaze. Time was running out. For this maneuver to have any chance at all of succeeding, it needed Arte's efforts as well as Jim's.

I'm going to save you, partner!

While Enrique's men discussed Jim's plan and got themselves into position, Jim began measuring out his own rope and making his way toward a particular rocky outcropping he'd spotted. As he reached it, he and Tequila tested its solidity, then began tying one end of the rope firmly around the outcrop and the other around Jim's waist. Below, lower than the base of the wooden beam, two of Enrique's men were fashioning lariats as Enrique and his third man prepared their rifles and sighted them at some point above Arte's and Loveless' heads. Arte, teeth still clenched from discomfort, watched all these preparations, but said nothing, no doubt trying to figure out what they were up to without distracting them. Loveless, of course, could be counted on to show no such consideration.

"No, no, no!" the little villain squealed. "I don't want to be rescued by him! I'd rather be thrown to the volcano!"

Arte sighed.

"Just think of it as another one of your plans being foiled by us again," Arte whispered. "I'm sure that ought to make it a much more familiar experience!" He wished he could see the expression on their archenemy's face, wondering if it was any match for the wordless exhalation of sheer frustration and anger he heard coming out of ol' Miguelito.

Jim, up on the outcropping, couldn't hear all of that conversation, but from the looks on the conversants' faces, he could imagine it. He checked down with Enrique and the others, who all signaled their own readiness. Everyone was in position.

Almost everyone.

"Hey, Arte!" Jim called down.

"Yes?"

"You remember using a swing when you were a kid? How you pump your legs to make the swing move back and forth?"

"Uh, yeah," Arte frowned. He still had no way of knowing all of what Jim hoped to accomplish, and under the circumstances it might be better that way, Jim thought. Jim was edgy enough for both of them. He'd calculated the timing and trajectories as best he could, and hoped he'd done a good enough job.

Because I sure as hell don't want to lie to your mother!

"Listen," he shouted. "I'm going to be coming down there myself, and I'm going to try to swing toward you as hard as I can. I need you to swing toward me – as gently as you can! We need to get close enough that I can grab onto you, okay?"

"You want us to crash into each other?"

"If that's what it takes," Jim told him.

"Uh, is there some reason you need me to swing as gently as I can?"

"Yes." And you really don't want to know what it is.

Arte didn't need to be told that. The two men had known each other long enough to tell what one another was thinking most of the time. Arte understood what wasn't being communicated here, and why. He was trying to be as brave as he could and gave his partner a slight smile and a nod, then stretched out his cramped legs and got ready to do his part.

"Right," he called up to Jim.

Tequila reached out to Jim as he got ready to climb down with the rope attached and kissed him.

"Para la suerte,"1 she said.

"Thanks," Jim answered back, then began what he hoped wouldn't be the last daring feat he ever attempted. He had a less dangerous position than the other two, but if the beam fell into the volcano while all three of them were briefly attached, it would take an extra victim down with it. That would no doubt please Dr. Loveless for the final seconds of his hate-filled life, but Jim had no intention of pleasing him. Carefully, he lowered himself down to what he had estimated would be the right depth. With a nod to his partner, he began pumping his legs back and forth, arching and swinging his entire body like a circus aerialist. Across the gap Arte was trying to do the same, but with noticeably less energy. It wasn't all a concern for gracefulness or gentle movement. Jim had felt the radical increase in temperature surrounding him as soon as he'd gotten level with the other two, and he was amazed that his partner hadn't baked already. He could see the strain on Arte's face as the other man struggled to find the energy to swing using only his legs, while the hostile person tied to his back did nothing to try to help.

C'mon, buddy, you can do it!

One moment of solid contact was all they needed. One moment and ten seconds . . . .

And then Jim started to hear the sound he had dreaded. The sound of cracking. He didn't know if Arte could hear it too, or if he'd know what it was. Jim redoubled his own efforts, rocking back and forth, rolling forward, almost somersaulting on the backswing, swinging within inches of being able to grab onto the other two as they arced toward one another. He had the chemical leech ready in his hand.

"Just a little more, partner!" he shouted. "We're almost there!"

Artemus Gordon looked red and ready to pass out, but in spite of that, he was managing to arc a little bit higher with each swing, coming closer and closer and . . . .

Now!

The moment Jim had been hoping for came. The two men came within arm's reach of one another, and though Arte couldn't reach at all with his arms tied behind him, Jim could. He grabbed his partner, slapping the chemical leech onto his chest in the process, and then pulled Arte and Loveless into a desperate bear hug, sticking the three of them together for what he prayed would be just long enough. Now it was all up to Enrique's squad.

Ten seconds. They had ten seconds . . . .

If that . . . .

With a ponderous creaking, the wooden beam began to list toward the gaping vent. Now rifle fire joined the noise, as Enrique and the other rifleman fired at the rope holding the three men to the beam. It was a thick rope – not to be frayed with one shot. But they were true marksmen, and with a second volley, that connection came apart just as another pair of ropes grabbed the three from below. Jim felt first one lariat loop, then another, rise up past their legs and pull tight, tying them together in one neat bundle. Still holding onto Arte as hard as he could, knowing that the leech's peculiar clinging ability might give way at any second, he'd never been so glad to be lassoed in all his life.

Just in the nick of time. The great wooden beam, which they were now separated and anchored away from at an angle by three separate ropes, split with a mighty final crack and took the dive into hot magma that el Tigre had intended for his victims. It missed all three as it fell, but it was a close enough call that even Loveless was silent, watching as it splashed down and caught fire a hundred feet below. That just made things hotter, but it was a degree of hot they could survive as Enrique and the other rifleman raced up to where Tequila was waiting, untied the first rope, and began lowering Jim, Arte and Loveless slowly enough so that the men holding onto the lassoes down below could start hauling them in to safety.

"Uhhh . . . ." Arte, mouth gaping, looked up at the splintered remains of the wooden beam's base, and then back toward the huge, dark chunk of wood already vanishing in pool of flame far below.

"That's why," Jim told him.

"Oh. I'm so glad you didn't tell me," Arte said tremulously, then looked at Jim and must have realized the risk he'd been taking to pull this rescue off. "You're crazy, you know that?"

"Hey, five bucks is five bucks," Jim laughed. "You're just lucky I don't still smell like that 'special perfume' of yours!"

"Ah, yes," Arte agreed. "Eau de cadavre! Powerful stuff, but very unstable. It dissolves instantly on contact with human sweat."

So that was how it had worn off so suddenly all at once.

"Of course, it may be lucky you're the cool-as-a-cucumber type," Arte added. "I'll explain later, unless the good doctor would care to elaborate on his study of ravens?"

The good doctor did not care to elaborate, for a change. It was hard for Jim even to see him, with Artemus sandwiched between the two of them, but from what he could see, Loveless was deliberately keeping his mouth pursed shut in an expression of profound fury and indignation. He was Not On Speaking Terms with them and doing his best to let them know that during the long, hot minutes it took Tequila, Enrique and his men to haul the roped trio to safety. Either that or Loveless had finally managed to wear out his voice completely, Arte mumbled cheerfully to Jim.

Dawn was just starting to appear on the horizon as the three men were brought back on solid ground to safety. As the soldiers untied Jim and Arte, Enrique and Tequila joined them, and the beauteous Ruiseñor gazed at Jim in admiration and astonishment.

"You really are capable of working miracles!"

"Oh, he's no saint," Arte rasped. "But he is pretty amazing – and a very, very good friend." With hands still numb from being tied up for so long, he tried to give his partner a salute, genuine gratitude in those tired eyes. "Thanks, Jim."

"And you managed to find Dr. Loveless, I see," Jim said. While Enrique's men helped Arte to sit up and gave him water from one of their canteens to drink, the malicious midget was also offered water – but kept bound hand and foot for the moment. He drank from the proffered canteen even more greedily than Arte had, but was still red-faced and evidently not all from the heat.

"Well?" Loveless demanded, looking up at his rescuer with an expression that showed something other than gratitude. "Aren't you going to untie me too?"

"If I do that," Jim said, crouching down to look his nemesis right in the eye, "you're going to attempt to escape at the first opportunity so you can plot to take over the world, probably with some cockamamie plan for getting revenge on me first, am I right?"

Loveless considered these words while taking another deep swig of water.

"A fair assessment," he conceded after swallowing. "However, my plan would be brilliant and not – to use your phrase – cockamamie at all."

"So – no." Jim answered.

In fact, Jim had no intention of entrusting anyone but himself for the responsibility of transporting Loveless back to the Wanderer. With some help from Enrique and Tequila, he had Loveless further constrained by being stuffed into one of the soldier's emptied out backpacks with only his head protruding, then fastened onto Jim's own back like an enraged papoose.

"Ready to go, Arte?" Jim said, swinging around as Enrique helped Artemus up from the ground.

"Am I ever!" his partner exclaimed.

"Gently! You – you clumsy fool!" Loveless complained, as if Jim were his servant sedan chair-bearer. "As I said once before, all the swinging out there has made me dizzy. Now watch what you're doing!"

Jim, of course, swung around sharply toward Tequila and looked at her as if hearing a distant birdcall.

"Did you say something?" he asked, a puckish smile on his face as Loveless gasped in frustrated fury.

Tequila shook her head, trying hard not laugh as Jim turned just as sharply the other way toward his partner.

"You, Arte?" Jim asked.

"Not me," Arte chuckled and shrugged.

"You're both enjoying this, aren't you?" Loveless accused.

Jim's only answer was a wicked grin that the little doctor couldn't possibly see. Then, in spite of his fatigue, aches and the extra weight on his shoulders, James West skipped merrily all the way back to where the horses were waiting.

1 "For luck."