Powder Burn (Burn with Sam Blackett #1) (2 page)

“
Yup.”

“
Awesome!” he exclaimed, moving a little too quickly and disturbing the delicate equilibrium that had been briefly established in his head. He closed his eyes to stop the room swimming.

“
Yo, dude, you the man,” said Vegas.

Lens opened his eyes again.
“The publicity’s just going to be fabulous ...
National Geographic
...” Then he had another thought. “You didn’t tell her ...”

“
No, no, no,” replied Pete. “But I told her it was six hundred bucks for the food and everything, like you said.”

“
Cool.” Lens gingerly slumped back against the wall, fingers massaging his temples. They’d only gone out for a meal and a couple of cold beers, but it had turned into a big night. Still, last chance for a while. “And we’ve definitely got enough food for one extra person?” he asked Vegas.

“
We have, like, so got enough food,” said Vegas, in his best Valley Girl. “Unless the natives have stolen it.”

“
Don’t call them natives,” said Lens.

“
Whatever, dude,” Vegas grunted, rolling onto his back, scratching the hairs on his chest. “Just kind of a bummer she’s a chick, you know? Another bro would’ve been more use.”

Lens shrugged.
“I don’t care; we need that publicity, Batman.” He chewed his gum thoughtfully. “We’ll leave it right to the last minute before we tell her, when we get to the boards and gear. We don’t want her changing her mind when she finds out, and there’s a lot less risk of her blabbing that way. She’ll more or less have to carry on.”

“
I don’t think that’ll be a problem, not after she’s been hiking for ten days,” said Vegas.

Lens grimaced.
“Probably not, but you never know. Pete, nice work, buddy.”

Pete just shrugged.

“All right,” said Lens. “I need coffee and a big pile of greasy dead animal, and then we’d better start packing this lot up.”

Sam took a quick swig of water from her bottle as she walked up the hill to the hotel, sidestepping a rickshaw with a wild-eyed driver and narrowly avoiding a pile of rotten cabbages. She’d sent the query letter to the nineteen editors on her list, plus
National Geographic
magazine – because, what the hell, they were the best and you never knew. Now it was just a question of keeping her fingers crossed. She felt in her pocket for the printout of the email from her mother. She’d been putting it off. But she had to face it before she left; she was going to be out of touch with email and everything else for over a month. Reluctantly, she pulled the folded sheet out and started to read:

Dear Samantha,

We are all bumping along without you here in Jeffersonville. Grandma misses you lots, she’s always asking where you are and what you’re doing – I’m sure you can imagine.

So the exciting news is that the paper
in New York phoned up yesterday looking for you – they want you to come back, with a promotion and a pay raise, isn’t that something? Of course, I didn’t ask them how much (!), but I’m sure it’ll be very good, as they sounded pretty damn anxious to have you back.

Now the other news
– Tim called! I didn’t realize that you hadn’t given him your new email address. He sounded so sad, and you know how much I always liked him. I’m sure he just wants to say hello and find out how you are, rather than hearing it from me.

I told him all about the new job and how you were sure to come home now, and he told me how much he wanted you back! Isn’t that wonderful? We are all so looking forward to having you home.

Anyway, gotta fly now, there’s lots to do. Penelope has left things in a bit of a state.

Yours with love,

Mother

Sweet Jesus. She crumpled the letter
– it was every bit as bad as she had thought. Promotion. Huh. She couldn’t go home now, she couldn’t prove her mother right.

It was almost four by the time she got to her hotel room. She stripped and showered, somehow making it a quick one,
toweling hard and fast. Then she saw the bag of dirty clothes. Tomorrow was wash day; she was all out of clean underwear. Well, not quite. There was a single black lacy thong she kept for special occasions. What the hell, at least it was clean, which was more than you could say for any of the selection of shirts and trousers. She dressed – unhappily – in the least dirty clothes she could find, and then packed the rest in her backpack. The few toiletries neatly lined up above the sink followed into the bag. And that was about it; she never unpacked much of her stuff. She transferred a few things that she wouldn’t need on the trek into her day sack, zipped up both bags and took a last look in the mirror. Her hair was everywhere. She found a tie in her pants pocket and gathered it up into a single bunch, then fished a wool beanie out of her pack and pulled it down to her ears.

She checked out, getting a receipt for the
day sack left in storage. Once out of the hotel gates, she turned left for a phone center she’d used a couple of times previously, got a booth and dialed the number. The ring tone sounded far away, but when her mother picked up the line was clear and crisp. Sam faintly heard a truck start in the background during the pause before her mother spoke.

“
Blacketts.”

“
It’s Sam,” she said.

“
Samantha, honey, where are you calling from?”

“
Still in the Himalayas.”

“
Oh. Did you get my email?”

“
Yes.”

“
Isn’t that wonderful news – the job, Tim, everything.”

“
Well ...”

“
When are you coming home, darling?”

It was an eye-closing moment. All that
came down the line from Vermont was the deep-throated background burble of the truck ticking over. She would have to reply, everyone did. Even monks that had taken a thousand-year vow of silence would be reduced to pointless jabbering in the face of her mother’s loaded silences. “I just called to tell you I’m going on another trek and won’t be in touch for three or four weeks.”

“
Three or four weeks ...”

“
It’s a pretty special trip, a great opportunity for an article. And I’ve already paid up front ...” Sam tailed off after the lie, but it was all right, she had her fingers crossed. There was another silence, and she picked at the peeling Formica that lined the table of the booth. She had to fill it somehow. “So how’s Grandma?”

“
You know it’s difficult on my own, her hip’s not so good. When are you coming home, Samantha?”

“
I don’t know, I’ve got a lot of things I want to do.”

“
But what about the job, and Tim?”

“
We’ve discussed this over and over. I want to write more than I want to be a sub-editor, even at the
Daily Standard
, and I don’t want to be with Tim.”

“
I just don’t understand, Samantha, it’s a fabulous job, and Tim would be such a wonderful catch, so nice and reliable. You should be so happy he’ll still have you back.”

“
There’s nothing wrong with the job, it’s just not what I want. I want to write, to be a journalist. If I don’t give this my absolute best effort, then I’ll regret it for the rest of my life.”

“
And you won’t regret being alone, unemployed and penniless at fifty? I won’t be around forever, darling, and Tim’s such a lovely boy.”

“
Mother. That’s ridiculous and you know it. The choice is not that stark. And we’ve been over this a thousand times. You know I think Tim’s very sweet, and we get on very well, but he just isn’t ...”

“
What?”

Sexy, exciting, my type
,
thought Sam. He’d caught her on the rebound and that should have been it – but he was everything that her mother thought she needed and the path of least resistance had led to a relationship that became a difficult habit to break. “I dunno,” she said, finally.

“
You were so
good
together.”

“
No! It was a mistake. I dunno ... I changed my mind. I’m allowed to do that. I’m a girl. I’m not in love with him. He’s got no fire.”

“
Darling, your father had enough fire to set forests ablaze, but where’s he when I need him?”

Sam slammed the phone down and
swore loudly. There were only three people in the phone center and, not surprisingly, they were now all looking at her. She barely noticed, glowering at the phone. That could have gone better – but what had she expected? It was always like this, it wasn’t enough that they were poles apart on the little things, like soft furnishings, crop tops and whether a thong and black lacy bra were essential features of a girl’s lingerie drawer. Well, OK, those were quite big, but there was the “assign a priority from one to five to the following items” stuff too: marriage, financial security, job satisfaction ... But despite these differences they should be able to get along, shouldn’t they? All her friends got on great with their mothers ... but there was this other thing, this spark that could light a conflagration that could last for days, weeks – even months. It was an absent father, a dead husband – a man her mother would never forgive for dying a hero instead of coming home alive.

At the bus station, Pete Halland tapped Sam’s arm as she was pulling her pack out of the back of the rickshaw.
“Come on,” he said.

She looked
around, her mind still on the argument with her mother. The air was thick with diesel fumes. The shouts of bus drivers, rickshaw men and hotel wallahs competed to be heard over the rumble of engines.

“
We’ve got the tickets and right now we’ve still got our seats,” he went on.

She squatted down and dragged her pack onto her back. Pete was now ten yards away, dodging through the crowds
, and she had to jog after him.

“
I was starting to think you weren’t coming,” he said over his shoulder. “I said four o’clock, it’s nearly half five.”

“
I said I had plenty to do and you told me not to worry, we’d leave when I got here,” she barked back at him.

Pete turned, then bumped into a woman carrying a wooden crate with two chickens in it.
“Sorry,” he said to her. “Did I?” he said, swiveling back to Sam. “At least you’re here now.” He pointed to a battered-looking grey bus with a fading go-fast red stripe. “It’s that one. Get your pack on board if you can, it’s safer.”

Pete led the way up the steps and Sam followed. She heard the other two before she saw them. They were the only westerners on the bus, and they were engaged
in a heated argument with a very overweight man about the two unoccupied seats behind them – currently full of their backpacks. Pete charged in, passing the packs forward to make a space for her. Seeing that the argument was lost, the man moved on up the bus. Much swearing and shoving followed, before finally the four of them were settled, their gear jammed on their laps and between their knees.

She found herself at the window with Pete beside her. She reached forward to the other two in front.
“Sam Blackett, pleased to meet you, again. Vegas, isn’t it?” she said, noting ginger, collar-length hair and catching a glimpse of an expression that was all features and no face.

Vegas wriggled until a muscular forearm
– stretching a “Skate and Destroy” tattoo – punched out. He took her hand. “Sure is, honey. Vegas by name, Vegas by nature.”

She nodded
. She didn’t like being called honey by someone she’d barely met, but she had to concede that she might have given him good cause last night. She didn’t remember the nose ring he was now wearing either, but it had been pretty dark in that bar. And she had spent most of the time looking at Pete. She sat forward until she could just see the third guy’s face. “Hi,” she said.

“
I’m Lens.” His stubble creased into a smile. “Pleased to meet you.” The fingers propped on the top of his bag came up in a brief hello.

She sat back in her seat.
“So here we are,” she said more softly to Pete. “When does this thing leave?”

“
When it’s ready,” he replied. “Now. Later. Who knows?”

“
Oh ...” she replied. She slumped back against the window, glad to be sitting down after the rush to get to the bus. “So, aren’t you guys missing something?”

“
What?”

“
Snowboards?”

Pete smiled
. “We already took the boards and food supplies in, and dumped it all just before the final approach to the mountain. We won’t have to carry them till the end.”

“
Smart,” replied Sam, wriggling to try to get comfortable. Now that she’d sat down, tiredness was creeping up like a rising tide. When was the last time she’d had a friendly conversation with her mother? Just before she broke the news that she was going traveling. Sam’s throat tightened and she sniffed, turning her face to the window – god, she
was
tired. Outside, a young mother was reaming out her son.
No time for tears, girl, better buck your ideas up, or these guys will dump you before you get anywhere near the mountain.
Then the thought surfaced that maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing. Four weeks, three strangers, to the middle of nowhere – with her future dependent on the outcome.
Brilliant, Sam, how did it come to this?

“
You OK?” It was Pete’s voice.

“
Fine,” she said, tightly, conscious that her voice was shaky, blinking to clear her eyes. She carried on staring out of the window, trying not to think about her father ... Then the engine sparked into life after several cranks, and they were off. She wrestled her black jacket out of the top of her pack to use as a pillow. “How long is this going to take?” she asked Pete, plumping the down into place.

“
Best part of a day.”

“
Oh boy,” she mumbled, staring out of the window into the gathering darkness. Then, more practically, she tidied her hair away from her face and tried to get comfortable.

When she woke,
her head was banging against the glass. The jacket had slipped as the bus slowed up a hill. “God,” she muttered, “this is nearly as bad as flying economy.” There was no response from beside her; she could just make out Pete in the gloom, slumped on his backpack, using his arms as a pillow. She tried to settle again, but it was a long night of broken sleep and cramped muscles, her thoughts whirring into life sporadically – about her mother, her father; about what lay ahead. Daylight came eventually, the bus stopped; a crate with two rabbits in it was passed over their heads to join the owner at the door. She bought pastries and drinks from roadside sellers, handing stuff through the window. Then off again, grinding up hills at barely walking pace, another stop at the next village, the routine repeated over and over as they wound their way into the highlands.

It finally ended with Pete’s elbow in her ribs, jolting her from her somnolent stupor. She opened both eyes slowly; the bus was stationary, engine off. It was still
daylight; she could see a dirt road and a hut with a Coca-Cola sign hanging askew over a muddy terrace. Wooden buildings with tin roofs were scattered ahead – was this another road stop? Although the idea of movement, food and a bathroom was attractive, she was going to have trouble persuading her body that it was worth the effort. Lethargy had glued her to the seat.

“
How’re you feeling?” asked Pete.

She settled for a shake of the head.

“This is it, our stop,” he said.

Passengers were rising to exit; Lens, Vegas, Pete and finally Sam followed. Lens led them to the
hotel; no one spoke a word, numbed into silence by the journey. After she’d had a wash and the chance to lie down flat for half an hour, she felt a little better, and desperately hungry. She laundered some clothes and headed out to meet the others for dinner.

“
We got a meal in the Himali last time we were here – pretty little waitress with pert boobies and no one puked, so we thought we’d head there again,” said Vegas.

She
was about to pick up on the waitress remark, and then a sudden lightheaded rush had her grabbing at the wall for support. She took a few slow breaths until the feeling subsided. The others were already headed out onto the street and hadn’t noticed. She hurried after them, now painfully hungry. The smell of spices and the sound of laughter greeted them from the kitchen of the Himali and it only made it worse. The dining room was dark, lit by candles, the tiled floor scuffed and dirty. Fortunately, the food came quickly, the beer quicker – both were good, but conversation lagged; the others were almost as tired as she was and just as hungry.

She tilted her chair back
onto two legs as she finished the meal, the rough wooden joints moving under the strain; but she kept going until she was balanced with her head resting against the wall.

“
So,” she said, to no one in particular, “I know we could have flown here, there’s an airfield two days’ walk down the road. For myself, I’m happy enough to take the bus – all grist to the journalistic mill – but it seems to me that you shit-hot pro-sportsman types ought to be traveling in a little more style. So what happened? Did the sponsorship checks bounce this month?”

Lens tossed his fork on his empty plate and said,
“You got the wrong guys.”

“
How do you mean?” she asked.

“
We’re doing this differently, this is guerrilla filmmaking. The concept is just a couple of guys busting their ass to ride the toughest line in the world. No planes, no choppers, no glamour, just total backcountry commitment, maximum exposure.”

“
Good, honest toil,” said Pete, with a flick of the eyebrows that suggested it wasn’t the whole story.

“
Huh. Speak for yourself,” grunted Vegas, as he chased another mouthful round his plate.

“
So, Sam, what sort of stories did you come up here to work on originally?” asked Lens, before anyone else could say anything.

Sam looked at him for a moment,
and then glanced at Vegas – had Lens changed the subject deliberately? If so, there was no time to worry about why; the question was dangerous territory. “Just a general research trip, really, it’s partly a holiday – hoping to turn up something interesting,” she said.

“
You certainly did that,” replied Lens.

“
Let’s hope so,” answered Sam, a little more tartly than she intended.

There was a brief silence,
and then Vegas growled, “You’d damn well better make us interesting, because we sure as shit aren’t dragging your pretty ass along for the ride. All that food you’ll be eating – you need to pull your weight, girl, and that ain’t easy for a chick in the mountains.”

Sam opened her mouth to speak, or maybe it was her jaw dropping. Either way, nothing came out. She closed her eyes, and her head started to spin
again. She opened her eyes quickly and managed to mutter a single word. “Idiot.” Then she kicked her chair back and walked out. She heard the raised voices behind her, but didn’t look back. It was Lens that eventually caught up with her about a hundred yards down the road. He slowed to her pace.

“
I can tell you weren’t very happy about that,” he said.

“
Prick,” she muttered.

“
Hmm, quite,” murmured Lens, running a hand across the stubble of his hair. “Vegas has a pretty unsophisticated view of the world, but, er ... he’s one of those people that it’s really not worth arguing with – he’s always right, even when he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Especially if you’re a girl.”

“
Maybe I should have just slapped his ugly mug,” she replied, shaking her head.

“
I don’t think that ... er, violence is ever the answer ...”

She looked across
at him. “That’s a sweet idea – but in practice, a good smack is the only thing that some people understand,” she said.

“
I can’t agree with you,” replied Lens, “but apart from that, I don’t think that Vegas is the type to make too much distinction between hitting men and women. I calmed him down this time, but ...”

She looked over
at him; in the darkness she couldn’t see his expression. “And what? I should be frightened?”

“
No, well, I mean ... It’s just that we’re all going to be together for a while, so we need to get along. And that means working a little harder at getting along with Vegas than some other people – most people, in fact – but the three of us have been working on this project a long time and there’s a lot at stake. So be cool and we’ll all be happy and have a good time, that’s all.”

“
Right,” she said, eventually. They finished the walk to the hotel in silence.