Armen gazed up at the countless fireballs of the galaxy, imagining the brightest to be nearest and the dimmest to be the most remote, just as Heraclitus—that Greek subject of the Persian Empire—had proposed. He flexed his eye muscles as he tried to see the stars in three dimensions. “Maybe somebody could make 3-D glasses for the stars,” he told himself.
“Wha’d you say?” Sam asked.
“Nothing.” Armen answered. “You know me. Talking to my imaginary friend.”
“You too?” Sam asked, and he drifted off to sleep.
In the morning, Sam and Armen packed up and climbed out of the river-carved basalt flow, and then headed upstream on the Hockett Trail. Armen wondered whether they might pass right by the cowboy and miss him without the aid of Cindy’s eye for tracks. Sam just thought about Cindy.
By evening, they had finally made Rifle Creek corral with no visible sign of the cowboy. They made camp and discussed the next day’s hike. They might head back downstream, cross the river at the first ford, and work their way back to the trailhead on the west side of the river.
Just before dawn, Sam awoke from a dream to a nearly imperceptible scent of smoke in the air. He’d been dreaming of the girl and her mirror again. “Must have been the smoke,” he explained to himself. He crawled out of his bag and stood up to better catch the air, but he couldn’t make sense of it. He gave up on it and revived the fire.
At first light, they spotted a dark cloud peering out from behind the ridge to the west. It wasn’t dark like a storm cloud. It was dark like a fire cloud, dirty and scattering. Sam and Armen decided to break camp and move upslope and east without breakfast, not merely to put some distance between themselves and the fire, but to see if they could get a better look at it from the Great Western Divide.
Armen’s National Forest map showed a trail ascending the ridge, but there wasn’t much left of it. There were sections that they followed, and others were too overgrown. As they ascended, they became less and less interested in following the trail and just cut up the ridge. They would stop to rest more and more frequently, getting better and better views of the column of smoke each time. They watched the bombers and helicopters circle and pass in the distance.
On one occasion, Sam thought he saw someone walk behind a tree. He caught it in the corner of his eye, so he didn’t catch more than a shadow. He strayed off toward it to check it out, and found nothing; not even a footprint. Armen didn’t notice, thinking nothing of such a minor detour during a long ascent full of detours.
The boys finally reached the pass trail, which was refreshingly well maintained. What a relief. It was like stumbling out of a jungle onto a paved highway. They took an extended break, filling their canteens and quenching their thirsts with cold spring water spilling through an alpine garden down near the ridgeline of the Great Western Divide.
When they finally gained the ridge, they took one last long look at the pillar of smoke, and turned down-ridge toward the Big Ditch. It was a long, knee-knocking descent.