Page 77 of Duke
Puck went down first. He stepped into a harness and just sort of swung out of the side of the helicopter like he was climbing over the side of a boat for a swim. Anselm was working the controls and lowering Puck to the ground. When he was down, Anselm drew the cable back up, worked it in a complicated series of knots and loops around the cooler and lowered that to Puck, and then it was my turn. I’m not afraid of heights, but getting into a stupid harness and dangling out the side of a stupid helicopter just seemed ridiculous. Did I mention this was stupid? But yet I got into the harness, let Anselm clip the carabiner to the harness, and then I climbed carefully out onto the strut, my heart in my throat, my stomach doing backflips and pirouettes, my palms sweating.
“You must slide off of the strut, Temple,” Anselm called to me. “You will be safe, I swear to you. I have done this countless times.”
I should point out that a hovering helicopter doesn’t just sort of float there like a balloon. It moves this way and that as the pilot—in this case, Harris—feathers the controls. So it’s not, like, steady. Harris was a talented pilot, I’d been told, but this was terrifying. Sitting on the strut of a helicopter a hundred feet off the ground, trees looking small beneath my feet, nothing to stop me from falling except some material around my hips and waist and a thin cable? Yeah, it’s not exactly mimosas for brunch, which was, up until I woke up in that basement next to Duke, the most demanding thing I’d ever done in my short, stupid life.
“If you do not move,” Anselm shouted down to me, “Harris will tip you out. Believe me on this,bitte.”
So…I swallowed hard, closed my eyes and said a prayer to whoever or whatever was out there, and angled myself forward so the thick cold metal of the strut slid out from beneath my butt. And then I was dangling in open space, twisting this way and that, the downblast of the rotors battering and buffeting me, the noise deafening, the ground hurling up at me. Yeah, I know, I was actually descending at a slow, measured pace, but when it’syourass hanging out over nothing, you tell me it feels slow.
I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment, and then I felt ground beneath my feet and Puck was helping me to my feet and deftly freeing me from the harness—without copping a feel, which kind of surprised me. Honestly, he just seemed like the type who would “accidentally” brush his hand across my ass.
The cable retracted, and a few short minutes later Lola was descending. She was whooping the whole time and laughing, and trying to get Anselm to let her down faster. Because of course she would, the bitch. Just kidding, Lola was awesome, and we were going to be BFFs, I was pretty sure. But it was annoying that she loved it when I was so relieved just to be on the ground.
Puck reached to help Lola out of the harness, and she slapped his arm.
“What was that for?” Puck asked, staring at her.
“That was for grabbing my ass when you take the harness off,” Lola replied, quirking an eyebrow.
Puck frowned at her. “But I haven’t even done anything yet.”
“Yeah, well you were going to.”
Puck shook his head, grumbling under his breath as he undid the harness without touching her and then jerked the cable to tell Anselm he could retract it.
The cable spooled back where it belonged, Harris tipped the helicopter to one side and drifted away.
I nudged Lola. “I expected him cop a feel, myself, actually. But he didn’t.”
Puck clapped a hand over his heart. “You wound me, ladies. I do havesomehonor, I’ll have you know. You two are my buddies’ girlfriends. There’s a code about that shit, all right?” He seemed genuinely affronted. “I’d never make a move on you. If you two were single ladies I was helping out of a harness, yeah, my hands would be all over you. But you’re with Duke and Thresh, so that means that my hands stay to themselves, and that you’re as safe with me as you would be the rest of the guys.”
“Puck, I was just—” Lola started.
“I may be—what was it Harris called me?—a creepy, lecherous, nymphomaniacal douchebag, but I do havesomestandards.”
“Puck, I’m sorry,” Lola said. “I was kidding.”
He pointed at her. “Never bullshit a bullshitter, sweetheart. You weren’t kidding.”
She shrugged. “No, but I misjudged you, so Iamsorry.”
He grinned, then. “Eh, no hard feelings. None of us are exactly the types you’d want to bring home to mama, and I’m the worst of us.” He fished a cigar from a pocket, this one fresh, unclipped, and full-size; a cigar clipper appeared in his hands— he clipped the end and stuck it unlit between his teeth. “Now, if we’re done with the judgmental portion of the program, I’d like to get moving.” He crouched, swung the YETI cooler up onto his shoulder, and set off marching up a hill.
Lola and I trotted after him. He seemed to know exactly where we were going, even though Harris had let us down in what seemed to be a random clearing in the middle of a seemingly endless forest in the Arkansas Ozarks. We followed Puck up the side of the hill for a good ten or fifteen minutes, until he stopped, again somewhat randomly, peering around at the trees, all of which seemed identical.
“Are we lost, Puck?” I asked.
He chewed on the cigar for a moment, and then glanced back at me. “Nah, I just ain’t been back here in a spell. Always takes me a minute to get my bearings.” He peered around a bit longer, and then set off marching again, reaching up to tap a weathered symbol carved deep into the trunk of a tall, thick, ancient tree as he passed it. “See? My great-great-great grandpappy’s mark, right there. Cabin’s just over the rise.”
“Puck?” Lola said, trotting to catch up to him. “I didn’t meant to be judgmental, I just—”
“I give off a certain…aura,” Puck cut in. “I know that. I’m rough around the edges, and that’s puttin’ it lightly. Manners ain’t ever been my strong suit, and won’t never be, I don’t guess. I like naked women, and I like booze, and I like poker, and I like shootin’ guns—the bigger the better. Maybe it’s the redneck in me, I dunno. So…it’s easy to cut a quick judgment on me, and I get that. I ain’t gonna hold nothin’ against you, because I get it. But I got honor. I live by a code. I’m good at gettin’ bitches naked and on their knees, but I wouldn’t ever pull that shit on a woman claimed by someone I’ve spilled blood with. ’Specially those two—Duke and Thresh are just about the only family I got. The whole crew is family, but those two are my boys. They get me in a way Harris, Anselm, and Lear just don’t.”
“Well, I think you’re sweet,” Lola said.
Puck snorted. “Honey, I’m about as sweet as salt. But thanks all the same, and I think you’re pretty all right myself.” He rolled the cigar from one side of his mouth to the other. “Now, the sooner we quit gabbing, the sooner we get to the cabin. This cooler ain’t exactly light.” He hiked the YETI higher on his shoulder and set off up the slope again, heading on an angle rather than directly upward.
Lola and I followed him at a distance of a few feet.