Sam spluttered as he got a mouthful of Nina's drenched hair. "Dead?" he laughed. "Why would I be dead?"
"Why wouldn't you? I didn't realize you weren't following, and then when I came back you weren't there. Where were you?"
As always, Sam's first instinct was to tell Nina everything. It was not in his nature to keep things to himself, he enjoyed having a partner in crime. Despite his promise to Cody, he made up his mind to tell her later. It's just Nina, he thought. Telling her hardly counts. For the moment, in front of Julia Rose, he kept the secret. "Cody found me," he said, preferring a half-truth to a lie. "He took me into one of the other tents. If truth be told, I'm still a bit out of it. Excuse me a minute."
He gulped down a deep breath and plunged under the water, where he ruffled his fingers through his hair to shake out the sand. A quick scrub down later, he was ready to pull on his clean (though wet) clothes and follow the two women in search of breakfast.
"What the hell is this?" Sam scowled at his plate. Kneeling among the reeds on the floor of the connection tent, his bamboo plate in one hand and wooden spork in the other, he reminded Nina of a moody schoolboy.
"Breakfast," she said. "Didn't you listen when they were telling you what was what?"
"No," Sam harrumphed. "Enlighten me, then — because I take it you did."
"Nope." Nina scooped up a mouthful of the alien food and shoveled it into her mouth. "I didn't listen to a thing. All I needed to know was that it's breakfast. This is the important bit." She held up her tin mug in a cheeky salute, and then took a deep draft. As soon as the liquid hit her tongue she gagged and barely forced herself to swallow. "What the hell is this?" she demanded. "That's not coffee!"
"Nope," said Julia Rose, "it's chicory and carob or some shit like that. Look." She pointed back toward the long table where breakfast was being served. At the far end, up by the loaves of bread waiting to be cut, there hung a sign which read "All foods are organic, and free of gluten, meat, soya, sugar, milk, eggs, caffeine, and animal derivatives."
"No caffeine?" Nina stared at the treacherous contents of her mug in dismay.
"That's right," Cody appeared beside them, walking around with a jug to offer more of the wretched coffee substitute. "I know it's a culture shock, Nina, but you'll get used to it really fast. It's a lot better for you, and it'll help you unblock your energies. You can't connect with the divinity when you're full of caffeine! Oh, by the way — if you want your cigarettes back at the end of the Mind Meld, don't forget to reclaim them. You probably won't need them by then, but some people prefer to throw away that last pack for themselves. Sort of a symbolic thing, I guess."
Before either Sam or Nina had time to reply, Cody had moved on, weaving his way through the cross-legged diners. Nina's face was a perfect study of horror.
Neither Sam nor Nina was impressed to learn that the second day of their FireStorm experience would involve climbing the ancient rock that was said to have been the home of the fire giant. After their sleepless night, neither was in the mood for physical exertion in the desert heat, and Nina was still outraged by the loss of their cigarettes. She sulkily trailed along at the back off the group, kicking at the tumbleweeds that occasionally rolled past.
"What I want to know is how he got our cigarettes in the first place," she ranted. Sam was paying scant attention by this time. He had heard these words two or three times already, and while he shared her anger, he was more concerned with sizing up the other delegates and trying to figure out whether any of them were likely to have a packet stashed away. He did not fancy the prospect of spending his remaining time out here smokefree any more than Nina did.
Just behind them, huffing with the strain of keeping up, was Hunter. He was dragging himself up the hillside with the aid of two walking poles, his T-shirt and ponytail already drenched with sweat. "Are you talking about your cigarettes?" he asked, a malevolent smile creeping across his doughy face. "Yeah, I told Cody where to find them. He came around this morning when you were all out and said he had to collect any drugs that anyone had." He turned to Sam. "So if you're looking for those miniature bottles of Scotch, you know where they are. Nice job of not sharing, by the way."
The effort of walking and talking simultaneously became too much for him, and with a hacking wheeze, he came to a halt and fumbled in his pockets for an inhaler. Sam and Nina walked on, picking up the pace to leave him behind. "If I get through this trip without smothering him in his sleep, I'll be doing well," said Nina. "Why did we have to get stuck sharing a tent with such a tosser?"
Despite their objections to the hike, neither Sam nor Nina could deny that the view from the top of the hill was stunning. By the time they caught up to the group, everyone was gathered around Jefferson, who was standing on a boulder pointing out the things they could see in each direction. The Havasupai Indian Reservation lay to the east, beyond Mount Trumbull and its wilderness. To the north was Utah, and to the west they could see Nevada, where a shimmer of smog hung high in the air, marking out the location of Las Vegas. In the distance, far to the south, the craggy beginnings of the Grand Canyon were just visible.
The ground dipped slightly toward the center of the hilltop, betraying the hill's volcanic origins and offering a little bit of shelter from the clean, chilly wind that took the edge off the desert heat. The sky was clear and blue, and the sun beat down intensely. There was little shade to be had — the only vegetation on the hilltop was sagebrush and pinion pine, nothing that grew high enough to offer an escape from the heat. The legend, according to Jefferson, stated that plants would only grow as the fire giant's heart healed, which would only happen when he saw true connections forming between living creatures. "So tonight should go some way toward covering this place in greenery!" he finished enthusiastically. "Find a place to settle down, ladies and gentlemen, and let's get started on your Vision Quests!"
Chapter Sixteen
As the blue of the sky gave way to oranges and pinks and eventual darkness, Sam took hold of one end of a long, heavy log and helped to haul it uphill. The crater of the cinder cone offered little by way of substantial firewood, forcing the group to search farther down the slope where the ponderosa pines grew. Fortunately it was cooler on the hilltop, but Sam was still sweating buckets by the time he returned to the summit.
Julia Rose had been given the task of taking care of the water bucket, filled from the stream that wound its way down the far side of the hill. A tied muslin cloth hung over the inside of the bucket, filled with herbs that were infusing into the water. "Sara says they purify the water," she explained, catching the skeptical look on Sam's face. "Well, some of them do. Some of them cover up the taste of the iodine, so it's kind of a mix of mystical stuff and good old-fashioned science. Here, smell it — I think most of it's just mint."
She took up the ladle and poured a cup for Sam, who gratefully gulped it. He was far too thirsty to quibble about what was in the water. Besides, once he had tasted it, he had to admit that it was actually quite pleasant. The water was cool and sharp and the herbs made it sweeter and infinitely more refreshing. "Is there enough to go around?" he asked.
"Yeah, there will be," Julia Rose took his cup and refilled it. "Cody's gone to get another bucket. Have as much as you want! It's not like the stream's going to run out."