Dawn brought a crisp, gorgeous morning, perfect for a day of hiking. The crew planned to complete their hike and then return to camp for another night before heading home the next day so they left their tents standing and gear in place. After making sure their breakfast fire was out the five friends were off for their intended purpose. First stop was the Ranger Station to check in and let the Rangers know that they would be on the mountain that day with plans to return the same day. Conditions on the mountain could change quickly and the Rangers preferred keeping a close eye on how many were on the mountain should rescues be needed. They didn't want to waste time looking for people who weren't there, or worse, miss ones who were. A short drive from the station put them in a small parking lot at the base of a big, big rock. The five stood at the base for a long time looking straight up.

A soft whistle from Chet preceded, "You sure you want to climb THAT?!"

"Well, that's what we're here to find out." The huge grin on Johnny's face said that this hike was just a preliminary precaution and one day soon he would be back and climbing the face of Tahquitz Peak. Everyone took a moment to orient themselves to direction and landmarks. The trail was well marked, but getting lost would be highly embarrassing to each of them. They made their way to the trail head which was well posted with warnings about the difficulty of the trail ahead. A deep breath from each and they were off.

The trail climbed quickly and was quite steep in some places, but it took them through some of the most beautiful scenery they'd seen. Johnny stopped at a break in the trees and pointed across the valley to another rock. Where Tahquitz was tall and jagged, this one was broad and flat across the top.

"That's another option for rock climbing. There's a trail to the top of that one, but it's easier and faster than this one, but that's also why I wanted to check out this rock more," said Johnny with that famous crooked grin on his face. The grin faded as he said, "It's called Suicide Rock."

Mike shook his head, "I can see why. A jump off of that and you'd be beyond help."

"Molly, I know you know about the legend, you want to tell it while we walk?" Johnny asked.

"Sure. Like so much in Southern California there is an Indian legend attached to Suicide Rock. This story is a bit like Romeo and Juliet in the English tradition. A young warrior and a young maiden fell in love, but their tribal leader didn't approve of the match. The young lovers decided to meet and chose the rock you see across the valley as the meeting place. They did meet, but they had both been followed. The angry tribe members tried to separate the lovers, but they decided that they would rather be together in death, than apart in life, and together leapt from the rock to their deaths."

"That is so sad," Marco sighed.

"Yeah," said Mike.

Chet just bowed his head and studied the trail under his feet.

They all missed a slightly sad, but significant look between the other two members. They couldn't help but feel for the lovers separated by circumstance.

"Hey, Chet, why so quiet today?" Molly had noticed the lineman's lack of chatter.

"Nothin' just focused on the hike."

" 'K, just wondering. So, Chet, what got you into the fire business. I haven't had a lot of chances to get to know more about you. I think we kinda got started on the wrong foot. Sorry about short sheeting your bed. I couldn't resist. Cap had told me so many Phantom stories I had to try."

Chet grinned at her confession. Everyone had known it had been Molly who had short sheeted Chet's bunk on her very first day. "That's okay. It was a good joke. It isn't often that anyone gets one over on the Phantom. You know the Phantom would have gone after you if Cap hadn't warned him off."

"Oh, I'm sorry. No wonder the Phantom has been so nice to me. I had a feeling that wasn't normal. Hey, Chet, tell that Phantom for me that I'll tell Cap that I can handle myself and as long as he doesn't do anything to me he wouldn't do to one of the guys it's all good. Fair warning though, my brothers taught me to give as good as I get and I know A LOT of pranks. You'd be surprised."

"Nothing surprises the Phantom." Although if he had to admit it, Chet would have to say that this turn in the conversation did surprise him.

The next couple of miles were spent discussing different pranks they had all experienced. Many of the classics had been discussed, like chicken bouillon in a shower head, or shaving cream in the toothpaste. Chet had to admit he'd never heard of one that Molly told about. Turns out her brothers were expert pranksters themselves and one summer her oldest brother brought home some supplies from college to work the ultimate prank.

"So Sean, that's the oldest boy, loves to run and run for a long time, like Marathon running, so he is always mixing up these special concoctions for electrolyte replacement and such. Some of them are really disgusting, so when he comes up with a good batch he likes to hoard it. His favorite is Grape Kool-aid mixed with salt and some other stuff. I think it's gross, but he likes it and so does Shane.

She continued her story, "So, anyway, Shane is always drinking Sean's Kool-aid stuff, even though he puts his name all over it. Sean comes home for the summer and promptly mixes up a batch of his favorite stuff and puts it in the fridge. Later that day the pitcher was empty and Sean hadn't had a drop. That night Shane is in the bathroom taking care of business and everyone in the house is startled by this horrible scream. It sounds like Shane is dying in the bathroom. Seriously, it sounds like someone snuck in there and was stabbing him. Mom goes running to the door and was doing the whole mom thing. 'Shaney, are you okay. Open the door Shane. I need to see what's wrong. Are you bleeding?' So Shane finally opens the door and lets Mom in and tells her all about what's wrong. Mom comes out of the bathroom and marches right up to Sean and demands to know what he did. Sean is trying so hard not to laugh, but he loses it and spills the beans. He explains that it is totally harmless and nothing is going to happen to Shane except his pee might stay blue for a little while. He couldn't be sure exactly how long it would last. He had brought home a chemical called Methylene Blue and put it in the Kool-aid."

Mike jumped in, "I know about that stuff. It is pretty harmless. It's the dye they use in labs to make cells show up and stuff so you can see it better under a microscope."

"Yep, that's the stuff, turns out it's hugely useful in science and does all sorts of things including treat Malaria and even Cyanide poisoning. Turns out there are a few other side effects, like nausea, but Shane got off easy, all things considered. He peed blue for a few days and that was all. It taught him to not take Shane's stuff."

Everyone had to stop walking for several minutes until they could stop laughing and wipe the tears of laughter from their eyes. Chet had to admit that he'd never heard of that one and wondered where he could find Methylene Blue until Johnny said, "Don't even think about it Chet. We all know about it now and if it happens to anyone at the station we'll all come after you."

"Okay Johnny, but Molly's given me several other good ideas," Chet chuckled in a slightly evil way for quite a while.

Molly felt badly about giving the Phantom even more ideas, but her tactic had worked and Chet had finally come out of whatever funk he'd been in and was opening up. That made her happy.

Soon the trail started to level out and the mountain that had hovered above them was gone. They'd reached the top of the mountain. Molly pointed them down a new trail which turned out to be a piece of the PCT, or Pacific Crest Trail. The PCT ran from the California-Mexico border all the way to Canada and the trail they wanted now was just a small little section of that. The trail here was almost flat most of the way with just slight changes in up or down, it was a nice change after the steep inclines they'd just left behind. Finally they reached a big, flat clearing. Turning to the right they could see they had almost reached the top of Tahquitz Peak. From here the trail became narrow and rocky. The peak continued to rise on the left, but dropped off suddenly and steeply on the right. Molly warned them to watch their footing, it was a long ways down. Each person took a moment to stop and look over the edge. It WAS a long ways down, straight down. They followed the trail until it took another steep climb and then they were on the point of the rock where Johnny wanted to be to figure out some of the semantics of climbing Tahquitz. From his vantage point on top of the rock he could see that there were many good handholds and several possible ways up the rock. He could see a number of routes previous climbers had taken. He knew for sure he'd be coming back and tackling Tahquitz. They walked a short distance further to a lookout station. From here the Rangers could see for miles and miles and the station was here specifically to watch for forest fires. They stopped to talk to the Ranger on duty for a bit since they had something in common to discuss. They didn't stay long, they still had a long trek back to the car.

Coming back they had just reached the narrowest section of trail. They had to walk single file and were lined up with Marco in the front, then Chet, Molly, and Mike with Johnny bringing up the rear. Normally Johnny would want to be in front, but from his vantage point in back he could keep an eye on everyone through this most dangerous section of trail. It didn't happen often, but there had been several occasions where a hiker or rock climber had fallen to their death from this trail. Just as he thought they were past the most difficult section the worst thing happened and happened so fast he didn't know what had occurred until he thought about it after the fact.

"Chet, watch your footing right here, there's some loose stone," Marco called behind him.

Almost at that exact moment rocks began to fall from the ledge above them. The small rock slide headed straight for Chet and Molly.

"Chet, watch out!" Johnny heard Molly yell just before all hell broke loose.