“A little stiff and sore, but I’ll be fine. I was wondering if I could get something to eat. A peanut butter and jelly sandwich will be fine. Maybe a Coke. My throat’s kind of dry.”

“Sure, sure. Come on, I’ll make it for you. No point in waking up Pop. Are you sure you’re okay?” He thought his voice sounded tender and compassionate.

“I’m fine. Thanks for the use of your bed. I’ll be leaving as soon as it’s light if you can see your way to letting me go down in the cable car. I brought your dog back. He missed you. He doesn’t belong with me.” Her voice was so cool it bordered on frosty. Whatever she might have hoped for, she wasn’t seeing it. She felt like crying.

All Pappy heard was that she was leaving when the sun came up. That was in a few hours. Suddenly, he felt sick to his stomach.

They were standing at the back door leading to the kitchen. He wanted to say something profound, something meaningful, but the words stuck in his throat.

Sam mistook his silence. “And,” she said, “I wanted to tell you to go to hell to your face. You are the most arrogant, the most infuriating, the most obnoxious man I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing. You had no right to bounce me off this mountain the way you did. You have no couth. You have no anything. You humiliated me, you son of a bitch. I gave you a hundred ten percent! You want to go six rounds with me, let’s do it. I’ll have you flat on the ground in ten seconds. You…you…has-been terrorist. I wouldn’t work for you or those people you work for if you paid me my weight in gold. I’ll make my own sandwich, thank you very much.”

Stunned, Pappy backed up one step, then another. He still couldn’t find the words he wanted to say. Has-been terrorist. That one hurt. The kitchen door slammed in his face. Has-been terrorist. He’d never been a terrorist, much less a has-been terrorist.

Inside, Kyros held out a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a bottle of Coca-Cola. “I heard. Weren’t you kind of hard on my son, Samantha?”

“No,” Sam snapped. She gobbled down the sandwich and asked for another one. Kyros made it for her.

Kyros sighed unhappily. As he prepared two sandwiches, one for Sam and one for himself, he spoke. “Sometimes my son gets tongue-tied. Especially around women he cares for. We went to see you in June, but you weren’t there. Kollar was devastated. He wanted to explain what happened and why he did what he did. He left the mountain, Samantha. I never thought he would do that. Never!”