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ambled over.
    "Why are you talking like he's a suspect or something?"
    I took my gear from Fred. He'd thrown mine in the back of their truck. Who knew what would happen if I'd put it in the pit Ramon called a vehicle. Shouldering my pack, I answered,
    "'Cause he is."
    "But," Kabe shrugged into his own rack, "his wife fell."
    "That's what he told you." As I started up the trail, I kept talking. I could hear Ramon's grumbles about not much of anything. Kabe and I had our gear, Fred packed the emergency equipment and Nadia soldiered on in an altitude she wasn't used to. "And that very well may have happened.
    But in situations like this, you treat it like a crime until you're 36

    Hard Fall
    by James Buchanan
    sure it's not. Much easier to go back to a guy and say, 'sorry for the inconvenience, y'all understand though, it's just procedure,' rather than having to haul your butt back out to a scene, find evidence and locate witnesses if it turns out five days from now not to be an accident."
    "Oh."
    "So, Sugar," Nadia kept a good pace, staying pretty much in step with me. Given how much longer my legs were than hers, I was suitably impressed. "We treat everyone as a suspect, everything as a crime until we know better."
    For a while Kabe trudged along in silence. Finally, he mumbled out, "Everyone?"
    "Everyone who had any connection." I nodded, "Yep, that means you."
    "Then why do you want me to help you get the body? Is that a little strange, having a suspect help you?"
    "If there was another way, I'd take it. You'll have to do
    'cause we ain't got better." I grinned. "I ain't gonna let you touch anything, anyhow."
    He sped up. "Gee thanks."
    I guess he didn't like my faint praise. "No problem." I called to Kabe's back. If that wounded him, Kabe could darn sure get over it. 'Course it was hard to see anything getting under that boy's skin.
    The rest of the hike he stayed a bit ahead. Nadia, Fred and I kept together and, after I'd filled them in on Kabe's version, we yawed about other rescues that weren't so ill-fated as this. Ramon struggled somewhere behind us. Nadia looked back a couple of times, but since Fred and I didn't seem 37

    Hard Fall
    by James Buchanan
    concerned, I guess she let it slide. If I'd actually thought the man was having problems keeping up, I'd have dropped back.
    But Ramon liked his drama. He wanted us all to understand just how much he suffered for his job. When Ramon wasn't the center of attention he was planning how to get to be.
    The center of my attention ... that was ten feet ahead and wrapped in faded blue climbing shorts. Every muscle flexed as he hiked, the etched line standing out like a wind carved escarpment. And man, that butt was so tight you could have bounced a quarter off it. I wondered what the crack of it would taste like. Throw him against a tree, yank down his shorts and lick him all over.
    Thinking on things like that would do me no good. Still, I tortured myself with images dredged up from my own mind.
    Things I'd seen online done with ropes. Well, I don't think I needed anything all that fancy, but the idea of it, I could live on that.
    My thin fantasies were cut short when we came up over a rise. Not a far piece ahead a neon yellow, high-priced, high-tech two-man tent squatted in a clearing. A pair of equally high-end mountain bikes leaned against a tree. One of the bikes caught the sun and blazed bright gold. Had to be the woman's with the frame set up ... no ball whacker bar.
    A man, maybe late thirties or thereabouts, knelt next to a duffle pack. Clothing scattered about was either in the process of coming out or going into the bag, couldn't really tell from where I was. Given the amount of pink mixed in, I doubted they were part of the man's gear. At the sound of 38

    Hard Fall
    by James Buchanan
    our feet he stood and I got my first good look at Gunter Warner.
    It took me all of a second to decide I didn't much care for the man. Don't know if it was the sour scowl that gripped