They watched her as she crossed the common ground; three heads swiveling slowly on necks like automated cameras while their hands hovered motionless over the fire. She waved at them and winked as she passed by on the way to her home.
“Jesus,” one of them said. “Fucking goddess, that one…”
“And there’s Paul, right on time!” Carlo giggled.
There, indeed, was Paul coming back out to resume his position in front of the camper, struggling briefly with his jacket, cap, and rifle. They watched him for a bit, and when he’d appeared to finish adjusting himself, Carlo hissed across the field, “Hey, Paul!”
He glanced back in their direction and shrugged.
“Okay?” Carlo hissed again in a stage whisper, offering the boy a thumbs-up.
Paul nodded and returned the gesture.
Carlo giggled again and asked, “Reza, what does the clock say?”
“Looks like it was something like four minutes, twenty-eight seconds, even accounting for the jeering and gestures.”
“Hah!” Carlo barked. “An even five, was it not?”
“Fuck you, Carlo…”
“That must be a supplemental transaction, my dear friend. For now, a fiver, I believe, was the bet. We’re properly witnessed…”
“Yeah, goddamn it, I know. We’ll settle it up with a mini-Johnny if we ever get the fuck back home.”
“I rely upon you, Reza,” Carlo chided. “You’re my witness, now.”
“Of course, Carlo. Of course.”
48
PHILOSOPHER PUGILISTS
Fred was already waiting behind the back wall of the garage when Wang arrived. He stood among the trees trying like hell not to fidget, trying his best to conceal his giant frame when Wang swung unceremoniously around the back corner with less forewarning than a surprise sneeze. He’d gotten pretty good on those damned crutches. He could move rather silently when he desired to do so.
There was a brief interval where the two men stared at each other uncertainly, seeing, as they did, only the dark outlines of each other; frozen in place and unwilling to breathe until Wang raised a hand and slowly waved. Fred gasped, finally allowing himself to believe that it really was his friend, despite the obvious appearance of the crutches, and he surged forth to join him.
“We good?” Fred whispered.
“So far,” Wang nodded. “Did you get it?”
“‘Did you get it?’ he says…”
Fred pulled the hardcase out from behind a tree, groaned down to his knees, popped the clasps, and began to affix the suppressor to the XM2010’s giant barrel. “You gonna be able to muscle this bitch up the mountain?” he muttered as he worked.
“I’m gonna have to,” Wang said. He dropped to his remaining knee and began stuffing ammunition into his pack.
“Huh,” Fred grunted. “I’d better help you. At least some of the way.”
“I got it, man.”
“Sure. I’ll help you anyway.”
“Look, I said I go—”
“Goddamn it!” Fred hissed, surprising the other. “Haven’t we got enough to contend with? Without you pullin’ some kind of bull-headed, stubborn-assed cripple shit? I know you can make it, Wang! I know I can help you, too! There is too goddamned much riding on you gettin’ to where you need to be! I’m helping your ass up that hill; learn to deal with that fact right now!”
“Jesus Christ, okay! Take it easy!”
Fred jerked the case shut, slowing the descent of the lid at the last minute to avoid a loud bang, and latched it with hands that shook slightly. Wang saw the tremor even in the darkness.
“Fred… you okay?”
“I’ll just get you up that goddamned mountain!”
“Okay, Fred! Okay.”
They approached the foot of the mountain together and threaded their way up the first trail through the initial spill of granite. Wang went first while Fred followed close behind, hands extended to grab his friend in case he went pinwheeling backward, as his wobbling form sometimes threatened to do. The giant rifle swung pendulously from Wang’s shoulder, interfered with by his backpack, and he often had to stop climbing to readjust everything lest the rifle slip off his shoulder. They only made about fifty feet of distance before Wang was reslinging the rifle cross-body to counter its maddening desire to come undone, and then ten feet later he was fussing with it again as it rode awkwardly over the top of the backpack.
Fred stood behind him as he worked, crestfallen in the realization that they wouldn’t gain the spar for three more days at their current rate. He began searching his brain in a panic for some alternate plan when Wang finally spat a curse and laid his crutches against the nearby rocks.
“Can you carry me?” he asked in a bitter grunt.
“How’s that?” Fred asked.
“Carry me up the first half. The fighting’ll be over by the time I get up there, otherwise.”
“What about your crutches?”
“Leave ’em. They’re not helping anyway. And once we get past the worse part, the slope is too steep for them to be useful. It’ll be all hands and foot from then on.”
“Hell. Yeah… yeah, okay. Lemme get in front.”
Fred got around Wang and took a knee in the dirt. A moment later, he felt hands on his shoulder and a single leg wrapped over his right hip.
“Not a goddamned word to anyone!” Wang said.
“Naw…” Fred agreed. He lifted to his feet, noting the combined weight of Wang, his rifle, and whatever he had in the pack didn’t feel so bad just then, but he imagined he’d be gassing out before long. He came upright and shifted the weight around on his back clumsily. Wang groaned.
“What is it?” Fred whispered.
“Take it easy, okay? It’s hard to, uh, protect myself with just the one leg.”
“Protect yourself? What the hell does that mean? Protect yourself from what?”
“Geez, Fred, protect my balls from getting hammered flat against your spine, okay?”
Fred’s face twisted in dismay. “Aw, Christ’s sake, Wang. Could we not have made it through this without you tellin’ me about your boys rubbing up on my back?!”
“Well, it’s nothing I’m proud of! Let’s just get this over with… and never tell anyone!”
“I didn’t plan to make it a topic of damned conversation, Wang!”
Despite the uncomfortable load—and despite the fact that the stock of the rifle sometimes caught on trees and jutting bits of rock—Fred was able to make up for lost time. He soon found that the best way to go was to trust Wang to hang on rather than struggle to hold him in place. Instead, Fred leaned forward and grabbed every handhold within reach, scaling the slope in a near vertical crawl, and the added stability of going nearly on all fours alleviated some of the strain required in keeping his balance. His knees protested a lot less when his arms took a portion of the weight, and he began to wonder idly if those forearm crutches of Wang’s weren’t such a bad idea. Then he realized his mind was beginning to wander under the strain of his labor and he brought his attention back, focusing on each dig of his fingers; on each heave of his body. They could not afford him losing his footing and going over.
They climbed forever, it seemed. At one point, the ground leveled off enough for Fred to pause for a breather and he asked Wang to hit the light on his little diving watch and check the time. Time being a relative concept anymore, they couldn’t say precisely what time it actually was—Wang was only able to say with any certainty they’d been at it for about seventeen minutes.
Fred nodded and leaned back into the climb, balancing the requirement to get his ass moving against a general need for safety. He imagined Tom standing down there with his ass hanging out in the open, of Monica and Oscar and Patty—how they must be fit to jump from their skins as they awaited the first shot. Then he thought of Alan back at their trailer and remembered the boy intended to make for the cleft entrance soon, whether the fighting had kicked off according to schedule or not. He took a deep breath and dug into the mountain, clawing scoops from the rock with his giant hands. His left began to sting in a dull throb, and he wondered if he’d cut it or ripped off a callus or something. He began to calculate for the possibility of running blood fouling his grip and chewed the lining of his cheek unconsciously.