“Hellllooo! Anyone alive down there?!”
“Hellllooooooooo?”
“HEY! C’mon now, no fuss. I can hear you swearing.”
“I’m not saying anything.”
“Hah! Now you are!”
“Oh fine, you caught me. I’m here. Now will you stop trying to shoot me?”
“If I said yes would you step out from behind that hummock?”
“Yes.”
“Yes.”
“You’re not stepping out from behind that hummock.”
“I don’t think I can trust you, not after you shot Lord Archie.”
“I shot him fair and square!”
“You yelled ‘ahoy the climb!’ and then when he looked up you popped one right between his monocles. It was pretty dirty.”
“Nonsense! Nothing can be dirty on top of a mountain! Look around you – nothing but the most pristine white snow such as God himself could have laid down on the third day!”
“Fourth day.”
“Beg pardon?”
“Third day is the separation of water and land and the plants show up. Fourth day is when you get day, night, seasons, and so on.”
“Don’t be stupid. Snow up here exists year-round.”
“Alright, fine, have your technicalities.”
“I shall, thank you!”
“Now that you’re in a better mood, will you stop trying to shoot me?”
“Yes.”
“Well, that didn’t work again.”
“I’m sorry, but I’m still a little reluctant to take the word of a man squatting on a mountain peak shooting honest mountaineers for no reason.”
“I’ve got plenty of reason!”
“Name it.”
“Well… I’m on break.”
“I can wait.”
“Well I can’t. Not while you’re here.”
“Why not?”
“You might steal it.”
“I might steal a mountain?”
“You might climb it. Before I can.”
“I could just let you climb up first.”
“And nip away the glory the moment I let my guard down? Fat chance. You may as well ask me to stop trying to shoot you!”
“I’ve done that already.”
“And now you can see the serious breach of trust I’m already trying to work through.”
“Why don’t you work through it by climbing that peak so you can stop trying to shoot me?”
“You’ll just shoot me in the back the moment I take my eyes off you.”
“How?”
“With the gun you’ve got on you.”
“I don’t have a gun on me.”
“Prove it. Throw it out and come out with your hands up.”
“There, now you see why I can’t trust you.”
“Even if you thought I had a gun, why not just climb the damned peak already? It’s twenty foot from where you’re sitting!”
“You’d shoot me in the back.”
“Why?”
“To claim all the glory for yourself!”
“Glory? On a glorified hillock?”
“None more glorious.”
“We only climbed this thing because Lord Archie said it had a lovely picturesque front slope. It’s practically rolling.”
“Grand horns are a dime a dozen. Truly lovely little summits like this are PRICELESS and I will not have you stealing my thunder.”
“What thunder? ‘Mad hiker arrested for murder after defending summit of hill’?”
“Well, nobody has to know about that.”
“How in your paranoid little delusions do you reckon that?”
“Well, just come up here and promise me you’ll never tell.”
“Come on.”
“No.”
“Aw, c’mon now, no whinging.”
“No.”
“You can’t wait there forever.”
“Longer than you can. I’ve got a thermos.”
“Oh, lucky. What’ve you got in there, hot chocolate?”
“Soup.”
“Oh wonderful. What kind?”
“Tomato.”
“Marvelous. Mind sharing?”
“Yes.”
“Selfish bastard. You can’t live on soup forever!”
“Lord Archie had a thermos too.”
“Oh no.”
“What wa-”
“Also tomato.”
“You fiend.”
“Tell you what. Both my hands are definitely busy while I’m eating this soup. Why not make a dash for the peak?”
“You could hold the gun in your mouth.”
“I’ve got a short tongue. Could never pull the trigger.”
“You could hold the thermos in your mouth.”
“It’s a broad-necked sort, although I’m flattered at your appraisal of my gape.”
“I’m still feeling a bit bushed.”
“Well, never failed just means never tried.”
“Promise not to shoot me?”
“I can promise not to shoot you.”
“You sure?”
“Only one of us has a history of shooting people on this hill, and it isn’t me.”
“Uppity little thing, aren’t you?”
“Mother always said as much.”
“Alright. No budging, right?”
“Right.”
“And no peeking, right?”
“Right.”
“And no trying to race at the last minute, right?”
“Right.”
“Alright! Here I goooOOOOoWOOOOOPS”
“SHIT”
“shit”
“shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii”
thump
“Huh.”
“I guess I claim this peak in the name of, well, Lord Archie, who died a little before reaching it but who the hell’ll ever know better. He was a peculiar man, but he did know the front slope was a lot safer than the back, which from this angle appears to be a sheer cliff of some three hundred feet. May this offering of tomato soup light your way, ol’ buddy.”