The Call of the Mild

by William Rabkin

  Gus felt all the muscles in his back tense as he waited for the first bullet to strike.

  But there were no bullets. The leader dropped his gun on the ground. The four guards threw their own weapons into the woods. Gwendolyn dived into the trees and came back leveling one at her former captors.

  “You’re all going to put your hands up now,” she said.

  “No, they’re not,” Shawn said. “Those guns are loaded with blanks.”

  The lawyers exchanged baffled looks. “But we saw them kill the waiters,” Jade finally said.

  “What you saw was an exercise in team building,” Shawn said. He nodded at the guards, and all four reached up and pulled off their masks. Their faces were red from the heat, and one of them seemed to be breaking out from some kind of wool allergy. But there was no mistaking who they were. The faces were even more recognizable than Cody’s bald spot had been once he pulled his balaclava off the back of his head. “As Tubs here told you hours ago. If you ever listened to anyone but yourselves, this all would have been over before it started.”

  “We were kidnapped by a bunch of waiters?” Savage said.

  “Worse,” Shawn said. “You were kidnapped by a bunch of actors.”

  “But we saw them,” Jade said. “We saw them executed.”

  “What you saw was the cruel and brutal murder of innocent five-gallon cans of catsup,” Gus said.

  “Or ketchup,” Shawn said. “Although I’m not sure there’s a difference in the criminal penalty.”

  “And pillows,” Gus continued. “Stuffed into the waiters’ clothes. Amazing how a trick that never fooled my mother managed to work with all these brilliant lawyers.”

  “And all those psychic detectives.” Balowsky nearly spit out the words.

  “Didn’t fool us,” Shawn said. “We were just playing along.”

  “Playing along?” Mathis looked like he wanted to kill everyone at the clearing. “Playing along with what?”

  Shawn turned to the leader. “I believe that’s your line.”

  The leader nodded, then turned to face the lawyers and bowed deeply. Then he pulled at the beard. It peeled off his face, taking with it the shaggy red wig that covered his head, and revealing the features of last night’s chef. “Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Bron Helstrom, and these are the Triton Players. I’d like to thank you personally for being such an appreciative audience for our little performance. And I’d like thank my fellow performers, Cody, Coty, Bismarck, and Miranda, without whose inspired acting I could never have hoped to pull this off. And of course our employers, High Mountain Wilderness Retreats, and the author and sponsor of today’s entertainment, Mr. Oliver Rushton.”

  “Rushton!” The word escaped from Savage’s mouth like a curse shouted after the improper application of hammer to thumb.

  “He referred to our little play as a bonding exercise,” Helstrom said. “Apparently you were all supposed to unite and work together when faced with a common peril. In fact, we had specific instructions to drop character the instant you all agreed on how to handle the situation.”

  “We could have been here forever,” Jade said.

  “That’s why Rushton gave them a safe word,” Gus said. “As soon as one of you said ‘Archie Kane sent me,’ the show would end.”

  “And we were supposed to figure that out how, exactly?” Gwendolyn said.

  “Well, it would have helped if you were psychic like me,” Shawn said.

  Or at least smart like him, Gus thought. Shawn had explained he’d figured out the safe word the same way hackers come up with passwords—he started from the assumption that Rushton would have used words that had particular meaning to him. And while this particular set of safe words wouldn’t have worked so well if Archie Kane had been along on the trip, as was undoubtedly Rushton’s original plan, Shawn assumed that the old lawyer wouldn’t have delivered the code to the actors until the last possible moment, to keep any of the others from finding it out somehow.

  “Psychic, my ass,” Balowsky said. “Rushton told you. And when we get back, you may expect to be served papers in my lawsuit over this charade. You had the ability to stop it at any time, and you refused, which makes you as culpable as Rushton.”

  “Do you really want to split the culpability like that?” Savage looked concerned. “My polo shirts have deeper pockets than these yutzes. We should focus our suit solely on Rushton.”

  “Good point,” Balowsky said. “We can talk to the police about criminal charges against these two, along with the Powder Puff Players here. Anyone disagree?”

  For once, there wasn’t a single argument from the rest of the lawyers.

  “I am moved by your concern for the small businessman,” Gus said. “Not to mention touched to see how you are finally coming together to work as a team. I know Mr. Rushton would be so proud.”

  “But there is still one thing you need to know,” Shawn said. “And that is that neither Gus nor I was ever told anything about this entire event, from the kidnapping to the safe words. We had as little idea as any of you.”

  “Any of you except one, that is,” Gus said.

  “Right,” Shawn said. “Because there’s no point in setting a safe word if nobody knows what it is. So that means that one of you was in on Rushton’s plan all along—and chose not to tell the others, or to stop the insanity.”

  The lawyers glared at one another suspiciously. Gwendolyn gripped her weapon as if wishing the Blue Fairy would turn the blanks into real bullets just like she turned Pinocchio into a real boy.

  “And if that’s not going to get you to work together as a team, I don’t know what will,” Shawn said. “Now, who’s in the mood for a hike?”

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Gus had thought the forced march down the mountain was as unpleasant as any hike could be. But back then, at least, the lawyers were all united in misery. As they trudged back up the steep switchbacks towards the previous night’s campsite where they’d been forced to abandon their backpacks, Gus could see them casting suspicious glares at one another, trying to figure out which one was the traitor secretly working for Rushton.

  The Triton Players, for reasons Gus couldn’t begin to figure out, had gone back into character. The four servers marched in formation, rifles slung across their shoulders, behind Bron Helstrom. It would have been a more convincing performance without their leader, who did his best approximation of a military stride for as many as five steps at a time, then sank to his knees gasping for breath. In the spirit of improvisation, his troops would surround him, weapons at the ready, every time he stopped for air, but Gus could see why Helstrom hadn’t accompanied them on the earlier hike.

  At least Shawn was in a much better mood. His shoulders were loose and relaxed, and the spring was back in his step. His step was so springy, in fact, that Gus practically had to run to keep up with him.

  “So who was it?” Gus said.

  “Kristin,” Shawn said.

  “Who’s Kristin?” Gus said.

  “J.R.’s devious sister-in-law and mistress,” Shawn said. “Or did you mean who shot Mr. Burns? Because that was just stupid.”

  “I meant who was the one who knew the safe word all along and didn’t use it?” Gus said.

  “Oh, that,” Shawn said. “It’s got to be Mathis. He had to know that as soon as the play was revealed, the rest of them would refuse to stay in the mountains any longer, and he was the only one who had any reason to keep us all here.”

  “Oh, good,” Gus said. “We’re trapped a zillion miles away from civilization with a mad killer and an insane FBI agent who now has two reasons to want us dead.”

  “Yup,” Shawn said. He didn’t seem to be troubled by Gus’ assessment of the situation. He didn’t seem to be troubled by anything at all.

  “What are you so cheerful about?” Gus said.

  “What’s not to be?” Shawn said. “We defeated an armed band of terrorists and freed all the hostages—including ourselves.”


  “Except they weren’t terrorists and we weren’t really hostages,” Gus pointed out.

  “Which makes it even better,” Shawn said. “It had all the sense of doom and incipient panic of a real kidnapping with none of the actual danger. Which means it’s like riding the roller coasters at Magic Mountain, only with less danger of being hit by a stray bullet.”

  “We’re still stuck in the mountains,” Gus said.

  “Not for long,” Shawn corrected him. “Because as soon as we get back to the original campsite, you’re going to see seven emergency beacons going off at once.”

  It was more than two hours before they made it back to the meadow, but as soon as they stepped off the trail Gus was delighted to see that the tents were still standing, along with the entire kitchen setup. Suddenly he realized they hadn’t eaten since last night’s dinner, and he was starving. Even the sight of the “dead bodies” lying in the middle of the camp—in the bright daylight, now clearly pillows dressed as waiters, with burst ketchup cans for heads—couldn’t dampen his appetite.

  But food was far from the first thing the lawyers were thinking of. They exploded across the meadow like sprinters at the gun, each one racing to grab one of the emergency beacons that dangled off the line of backpacks sitting next to the supply tent.

  All of them except Mathis. He ran, too, and he got to the packs before the rest of them, trying to position himself in such a way that the others couldn’t get around him. It might have worked, too, if he’d been three times as wide as he was tall. Or if his gun hadn’t been lying at the bottom of a sylvan spring.

  “Don’t do this,” Mathis implored the others as they grabbed for the packs. “Let’s complete the retreat.”

  “I have finished,” Savage said. He reached for a pack, but Mathis pushed him away.

  “We’ve all finished,” Gwendolyn said, grabbing for a pack on the other side of the line. Mathis made it down in time to block her. But as he did so, Balowsky sidled in behind him and yanked one of the yellow plastic cylinders off a pack.

  “I’m warning you,” Mathis said. “Do not open that beacon.”

  “Why are you so interested in keeping us in the mountains, Mathis?” Savage said.

  “It was our assignment,” Mathis said. “We made a contract with Rushton.”

  “Under duress,” Jade said. “And that contract said nothing about fake kidnappings. If anyone violated the agreement it was Rushton. And since we can’t launch our suits until we get back to town, it’s time to go.”

  Balowsky took the body of the cylinder in one hand and grabbed the cap at its bottom with the other. Then he gave the cap a savage twist.

  Gus realized he didn’t have any idea what would happen. If he’d tried to picture it in his mind, the image would have been the cylinder Klaatu pulls out in the original The Day the Earth Stood Still, the one that erupts into spiny blades before an overeager soldier shoots it out of his hand, thus preventing the president from seeing what life is like on other planets.

  The last thing Gus expected to happen was what did. When Balowsky screwed off the bottom of the cylinder, three tiny pink objects, each about the size of the nail on Gus’ pinkie, dropped to the grass.

  “What the hell is that?” Gwendolyn demanded as Balowsky turned the cylinder over and peered in, looking for any signs of advanced electronics.

  Shawn and Gus walked over and looked down at the three objects on the ground. At first Gus thought they might be pebbles, or some kind of pellet. But as he looked closer, he realized they weren’t round. They were heart-shaped. He knew what these were—and they weren’t about to send an electronic signal anywhere.

  “I believe they’re called Sweethearts,” Shawn said, bending down and scooping them into his hand. “Sort of like a nineteenth-century version of the Kindle, only they never really caught on as a reading device because each piece of candy can fit only one word, so if you wanted to take Moby Dick on the train, you’d need something like ten thousand pounds of the things. But they’re very good for delivering shorter messages, like I LOVE YOU or BE MINE.”

  Gus stared down at the three candy hearts in Shawn’s hand. He read the words over and over again, arranging them in every possible combination, hoping against hope that there was a second way to read the message that Rushton had sent to his employees. There wasn’t. There was only one way to order the hearts so that they made any sense at all.

  “Or,” Gus said finally, “YOU’RE FIRED, LOSER.”

  Chapter Forty-Four

  It took only seconds for the other lawyers to tear open the rest of the “beacons” and discover that each one contained nothing but the same three candy hearts.

  “There were no beacons,” Balowsky said.

  “No wonder you were first in your class at Moron State Law School,” Gwendolyn said. “Thank you for pointing out what is agonizingly obvious to everyone.”

  “What’s happening?” Jade wailed. “Did Rushton send us out here to die?”

  “Almost everyone,” Gwendolyn said. “I almost forgot our remedial student.”

  “Nobody’s going to die,” Mathis barked, his hand flicking out of habit to pull out the gun that hadn’t been there in close to twenty-four hours. He moved towards Helstrom with the kind of menace only an FBI lifer can muster. “What was the plan?”

  “The plan?” Helstrom said, taking a step back. “We weren’t exactly going to take this show to Broadway, if that’s what you mean.”

  “How were you getting out of here?” Mathis barked. “How were you supposed to signal Rushton when your little skit was over so he could have you picked up?”

  Helstrom dug in his pocket and pulled out a yellow plastic cylinder. He twisted open the bottom and let three candy hearts fall into his open palm.

  “Mine say, HAVE FUN WALKING,” Helstrom said.

  Mathis looked like he was wanted to throttle someone. “This is not acceptable,” he said. “I am going to get us out of here.”

  “What are you going to do, flap your arms really hard and fly us all down the mountain?” Gwendolyn said.

  “I’m an FBI agent,” Mathis said. He pulled out his wallet and flashed his badge at them.

  The lawyers looked at him, stunned.

  “Did Rushton know?” Savage said.

  “He was cooperating in an ongoing investigation,” Mathis said.

  “Apparently we’ve found the limits to his cooperation,” Balowsky said.

  “So what’s the FBI going to do for us?” Gwendolyn said. “Can you contact your field office and have them send a chopper?”

  “I could—if I had a cell phone,” Mathis said.

  “That’s great,” Balowsky said. “An FBI agent with no gun, no cell phone, and no backup. That’s almost as useless as a psychic.”

  “Excuse me?” Shawn said. “Are you talking about me?”

  “I do believe he is talking about you,” Gus said.

  “And he’s calling me useless?”

  “He is calling you useless. And not for the first time, I believe.”

  “I have thousands of uses,” Shawn said. “I slice, I dice, I chop. I can cut a tomato so thin it has only one side. And I get rid of the slimy egg whites in your scrambled egg.”

  “But wait, there’s more,” Gus said. Then he whispered to Shawn, “There is more, isn’t there?”

  “There’s always more,” Shawn said. “I can speak to the spirits of the mountain.”

  “As long as we don’t have to listen,” Mathis said. “We’ve got grown-up work to do.”

  “You go ahead and do what you need to,” Shawn said. “We’ll be quiet.”

  “Fine,” Mathis said. “First thing we need is—”

  Shawn let out a low moan that quickly ascended to a piercing shriek. “What’s that, spirit of the mountains?” he howled. “You can show us the way out of here? You can send me a vision?”

  “Now our lives are supposed to depend on his visions?” Balowsky said. “Can anyone picture a scena
rio in which we’re not all dead?”

  “What’s that?” Shawn said loudly, cupping a hand to his ear. “You say you already sent me a vision of the way out of here? And all I need to do is reach out and touch it?”

  Shawn stretched his hands out in front of him and took one staggering step forward.

  “You might want to step out of his way,” Gus said. “When he’s possessed by a vision, he might as well be a zombie.”

  But the lawyers were in a huddle and barely glanced up from their conversation. Only Gwendolyn could be bothered to expend the necessary energy to express her contempt with a sneer. Until Shawn lurched forward and started to run towards them, his eyes still squeezed shut, arms waving furiously in front of him.

  Gus cleared his throat loudly. “A zombie in an old George Romero movie,” he said. “The ones that stagger along slowly. Because the zombies in newer movies go so fast they might run right off a cliff.”

  Shawn slowed down immediately, sneaking a quick peek through squinted eyelids to make sure he wasn’t about to plummet to his doom. He wasn’t, although he was close to a fatal impaling on the daggers Gwendolyn was shooting out of her eyes.

  Shawn corrected his course and staggered towards the packs. His body jerked left and right, then fell forwards onto the one bright green pack in the line. He shoved his hand under the top flap, dug around in the freeze-dried food and the clothes, and came out clutching a fan-folded piece of paper.

  “Thank you, spirit of the mountains,” Shawn said to the sky, then looked at the topographical map he was holding. “As I said, I have a vision of the way to get out of here.”

  “That’s mine!” Jade squealed. “Oliver Rushton entrusted it to me. No one else is supposed to look at it, or even know I have it.”

  “I stopped caring about what Rushton wants a while back,” Balowsky said. “Something about seeing my life about to end gave me a new perspective on things.”

  “Give me the map,” Mathis commanded.

  “So you can destroy it?” Gwendolyn said. “We haven’t forgotten you were the one who didn’t want us to use the beacons.”