The Boys from Santa Cruz

To keep the deluge of song lyrics at bay, Pender counted his steps as he marched, and had reached sixty-two when the trees to his left parted, revealing what looked like the mouth of a narrow, twisting tunnel. A rush of triumph, then a sudden wrench of panic-what if this wasn’t the path? What if it was some other path? Or no path at all? How goddamn lost would he be then?

His momentum halted, Pender was on the brink of the condition known as paralysis by analysis when a voice that sounded suspiciously like his own growled, “Nothin’ to it but to do it,” and the next thing he knew, he was twelve, thirteen, fourteen paces up the tunnel, and counting.

The rocky, uneven path from the main trail to the Omphalos hadn’t been easy to descend in daylight, without psychedelics; the ascent in the dark, alone, on acid, must have been nearly heroic. Or so Pender had to assume when he reached the top, because he had no memory of the climb whatsoever: his runaway mind had switched his body over to automatic pilot.

Coming upon the golf cart parked by the side of the marked trail, Pender felt as though he’d stumbled on a relic of a lost civilization. Just beyond it, the trail forked downhill into the darkness to the left, uphill into the darkness to the right. The left fork, Pender somehow recognized, would take him back the way they’d come this afternoon, back to the Center and the hot springs and a telephone he could use to call for the cavalry to come bail his ass out of this one, because he had definitely screwed the pooch trying to handle it with only a gimpy P.I. for a partner.

“Left fork it is, then,” he said aloud.

On the other hand, said that little voice inside Pender’s head, not the one that knew all the song lyrics, but the one that listened to them.

“On the other hand, what?”

On the other hand, if they all went that way, they’re probably already back and they’ve already called in the cavalry, so what do they need you for?

“And if they went the other way?”

If they went the other way, and they’re in the shit, then you are the cavalry.

“Okay, right fork it is.”

Good thinking.

3

Acid trips ebb and flow. The roller-coaster car is slowing down, clanking back to the start-finish line; convinced the ride is coming to an end, you’ve just unsnapped your seat belt and are waiting for the safety bar to release, when whooosh-off you go again.

Skip lost his hold on reality not long after everybody split up. The going got progressively weirder. At one point in time (insofar as there was such a thing), he saw himself in a great open-air ballroom, listening to a distant orchestra playing schmaltzy waltz music. And not long after that, he found himself limping with the aid of his staff down what seemed to be a long, dark tunnel with writhing walls and a lacy ceiling made of flickering stars and whispering leaves.

With only a vague idea where he was or how he’d come to be there, Skip realized he might have been dreaming-either that or he had just awakened from a dream. He also had a strong sense that he was either lost himself or searching for somebody else who was lost. In his free hand, he held a slender flashlight pointing down at the ground. Fascinated by the way the bobbing oblong splash of light on the ground managed to stay the same distance in front of him, a few feet ahead of his feet no matter how fast or slow he went, Skip forgot to look up even after the oblong of light began to climb a tree trunk, and splat! he walked right into the tree.

He bounced off, embarrassed but uninjured. Shining the flashlight around, he discovered that the path had taken a ninety-degree turn.

“My mistake,” he murmured politely to the tree, then corrected course. Rounding the bend, Skip raised the flashlight to direct the beam straight ahead, and suddenly the weirdness quotient soared to heights he was totally unprepared to deal with. For standing sideways in the middle of the trail, caught dead center in the beam of the flashlight, a humanoid-shaped archer with a black face and round, protruding insect eyes dropped the arrow it was aiming at Skip’s heart and threw up its arm to shield its bug eyes from the glare of Skip’s flashlight.

While Skip’s mind was still trying to make sense of that, a towering, ursine figure loomed up out of the darkness and seized the insect man from behind in a bear hug. Skip stood there dumbfounded, watching helplessly as the struggle raged on, the insect man throwing himself from side to side in an attempt to free himself from the encircling arms, the bear man heaving and grunting in an attempt to lift the insect man off his feet.

And just when Skip had convinced himself that things couldn’t possibly get any weirder, the bear spoke. To him. “Hey, Magnum!” it called. “I could use a little help here, if it’s not too much goddamn trouble.”

4

“Ollee ollee in freeee! Ollee ollee in freeee!”

After subduing Charles Mesker, a.k.a. Asmador, and binding him hand and foot with his own bowstrings, Skip and Pender led, tugged, pushed, dragged, and half-carried their struggling captive all the way back to the bluff at the top of the hill, yelling Owen Oliver’s version of “home free all” at the top of their lungs every few steps.

Dr. Oliver, carrying Steve Stahl in his arms, was the last of the hide-and-seekers to emerge from the forest, his white pajamas torn and stained, tear tracks cutting through the dirt on his cheeks, leaf crumbs in his bushy beard. Gently, he laid Stahl on the ground with the arrow still sticking out of his chest.

Beryl bustled over and gave Steve a cursory examination by flashlight, then lay down with her ear pressed against his chest, taking care not to disturb the embedded arrow. He’d definitely lost a lot of blood, she told Oliver, and his left lung had probably collapsed. While they desperately needed to get him to a hospital as soon as possible, she was also concerned that he might not survive much more jostling.

In the end, they decided to send the fastest runners to summon help. Tom, who’d run track in college, and George Speaks, a marathoner, volunteered. Pender, Skip, Oliver, and Beryl were to remain behind, two to keep an eye on Mesker, two to nurse the injured man.

As for the others, suggested a visibly chastened Dr. O, casting an uneasy glance in Pender’s direction, it might be best if Candace led them back to their tents or cabins while they waited for the “sacrament” to wear off, rather than subject them to a grilling by the authorities in their present, vulnerable condition.

“What condition is that?” said Pender, pointedly. Humiliation was the best outcome he could hope for if the gang back at Liaison Support learned he’d gotten himself dosed on LSD; more likely, he’d end up on the couch of some Bureau psychiatrist, trying to prove he hadn’t been rendered permanently unfit for duty. “How about you, Skip-you know what condition he’s talking about?”

“Not a clue.”

“Thank you.” Oliver’s entire being sagged with relief-he looked as though he’d just had a twelve-hour massage. But there was something in him that wouldn’t let him let it go. “You know, if you two had leveled with me in the beginning…”

“Don’t push it, sir,” snapped Pender. “I don’t know what the penalty is for dosing a federal officer with an illicit substance, but I’m guessing it’s serious.”

Somewhat startled, Oliver apologized, then nodded toward their wildly struggling captive, whom they’d tied to a tall, slender tree at the wider, landward end of the arrowhead-shaped bluff. “Would you mind if I had a chat with our friend there? Maybe I can help him calm down a little.”

“Be my guest.” Embarrassed now at how readily he’d reverted to his asshole FBI guy persona, Pender began patting self-consciously through the pockets of his ruined sport coat, looking for his cigarettes. He was relieved to find his smokes undamaged-thank God for the Marlboro hard pack. Nor had the battered pewter flask in his right