With one eye on the gathering clouds and the other on his object detector Jim searches the slush field for his equipment. Jim finds his tent, stove, and food packets. Some of this stuff is on the surface, some is a meter deep. If it’s deep and not useful in his current situation, Jim leaves it.
Tinkerbell! There it is on its side, buried about six inches deep. Jim walks on.
“Jim, you can’t do that.”
“I just did.”
“You’re in there to serve the public.”
“They’ve been served.”
“Tinkerbell can help you.”
“How?” Jim finds another food pack and rescues it.
The hiss of the communications line increases slightly.
“Jim, I’m talking with you on a private channel.” It’s Olsen, “Please don’t acknowledge that you hear me.” Jim keeps searching. “You aren’t the only one upset by this accident. The animal-rights geeks have flooded the Park Service switchboards and Richard Moonan, the Park Chief, says he’s got a leak from one of their underground bulletin boards about a rock-throwing demonstration somewhere this evening. He’s ready to pull your plug.”
Jim stiffens a little and looks up and down, up and down, in a sort of half-nod.
“One of my friends in the Service heard him wondering out loud how likely a beeper failure would be at this point, and some rooky brown-noser was promising him a full report on failure modes within the hour.
“Jim, the Park Service doesn’t control Tinkerbell. It’s a media thing and it’s another set of eyes that you’ll need if the Park Service turns on you.
Jim looks up and down again. “I was just thinking of the bighorn sheep I see up here. I know what I see in them, But I wonder, what do they see in me?”
“Ratings, Jim. Right now it’s you versus the wilderness. If the Park Service acts, it’s you versus the wilderness and Park Service. The ratings will skyrocket.”
Jim’s searching brings him back near Tinkerbell. He looks at it and gives it a vicious kick.
“Silicon-for-brains piece of scrap!” he spits out, then walks back to Celeste. Tinkerbell isn’t completely free but it’s lying upright and the sun will finish freeing it in about ten minutes.
“Thanks,” says Olson, and the private line cuts off.
There’s a meter-wide red stain around Celeste’s neck. Jim sits on her and does a final sorting out of what he will carry.
Finally he stands and faces her. “Celeste, you weren’t much of a mountain horse but you deserved better. You had the heart, just no head for this kind of stuff.” He kicks the skirt. “No horse should have to wear such claptrap.”
He bends down and unfastens the side he can reach; the other fastener is hopelessly buried. He removes the beeper, yanks the skirt, and twists it around until it stretches over her.
“It wasn’t much of a skirt, it isn’t much of a shroud, but it’s the best I’ve got. Goodbye.”
Under a gray sky filling with rain or perhaps snow Jim walks out of the treeless cirque down Oweep Creek.
<<<*>>>
He’s moving fast. Two miles away, he’s passing the first scrubby pines when he hears a series of explosions echo off the cliff walls.
Behind him a Park Service glider is vaporizing the equipment he left behind, and Celeste. The slush vaporizes too, creating the explosions and a white cloud of mist. He continues walking until he notices the glider is moving towards him and the shooting isn’t stopping!
“Control, what’s going on? Why’s that glider still shooting?” He runs down the slope beside the creek.
“We’re checking, Jim.”
The glider keeps coming. It’s no longer over slush so the shots aren’t as clearly marked, but it’s clearly chasing something and that something is dodging. The glider circles back a couple times. Jim is out of breath. He slows to a trot. The ground is rough here. He’s gasping for air.
“Control!”
“We’ve got no explanation. We’re trying to contact Park Service now.”
The glider is banking back toward him and it’s only 300 meters behind. No turning away this time, and no out-running it. Next to the creek he spots a rough overhang between two rocks and races for it. Ten seconds before the glider arrives he dives in, turns, and looks out. The glider is lined up on the creek. He hears a snap each time it shoots. He sees the target: Tinkerbell!