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A
For most visitors this was not a trick question. It was one they were dying to answer in great effusive gusts. McCaskil acted as if she'd asked for the solution to a complex algebraic problem.
"Why does anybody decide to go anywhere?" he countered finally.
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"You wouldn't believe the way she talked to that old boy," was how he put it.
"Did they fight?" A
"Not fight. I don't think there's any fight left in that man if there was any to begin with."
"What then?"
"She was a carper. Carped on him all the time. Snide little comments about his paunch, his bald head. He couldn't do anything right. The poor bastard. A woman talked that way to me would get a fat lip. Not that boy: 'yes dear, no dear.' " Bill laughed, showing big white teeth, the two front incisors turned in toward each other giving him a jagged animal bite. The laughter was derisive and aimed, it seemed to A
Leaving his camp, threading her way down the footpath past the other sites, A
She stopped again at the camp where the midwestern couple was staying. The woman, as domestic as you please, was neatly hanging socks from a tent rope.
"One more thing," A
"Yes?" the woman said politely.
"Do you remember why you thought the blond woman was married to the tall man camped back up there?"
The woman paused a moment, a sock held before her in two hands. "It's just that they were always together, I suppose. Not holding hands or huggy-kissy but just together. Here and there. I do remember seeing the little man, her husband I guess he is, but not so much with her."
"Thanks." A
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Unaware she did so A
"A
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"How many fingers am I holding up?" Joan asked.
"Sorry," A
"I've heard of people being in a brown study," Joan said. "I'd just never seen anybody get locked in before."
"My powers of concentration frighten even me," A
Joan laughed. "Well, concentrate on walking. Weneed to get back before dark. If you remember, Mr. Bear left our campsite at sixes and sevens."
Sixes and sevens hardly described the utter ruin of their camp. Twilight was settling toward night as they arrived. The three of them stopped on the edge of the little clearing, no one in a hurry to go into it. Overhead the sky was the sea green peculiar to mountain dusk. No shadows fell, they merely gathered beneath the trees, growing stronger as night neared.
An anxiousness as cold as the sweat of sickness balled behind A
The tents she and Joan had piled up were ragged with great tears. Fragments of cloth and clothing littered the grass. It was way too easy to believe the bear was nearby, just waiting for darkness.
"He's moved on by now," Joan said, as if the same fear raked her insides. "They have a huge range and he didn't get any food reward here."
"Maybe he wasn't looking for food," A
"What?"
A
"There're the new tents." Rory pointed to two undamaged blue stuff sacks set by the boulder that dominated the green.
"Let's get to it." A
Tents were pitched. By common, unspoken consent the shredded remains of those they'd slept in two nights before were bundled out of sight behind the rock. The "fed" portion of A
"What the hell do they think we're supposed to eat?" A
"Maybe they were more concerned with what might eat us," Joan returned.
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From what she could observe, Joan wasn't doing much better and Rory was just about jumping out of his skin every time one of them shifted in their seat and made a scuffling noise that could be attributed to bears stalking. Cold was rushing in with the darkness; A
The divvying up went on. Joan, like Mrs. Santa, disappeared head and arms into the bag and brought out the things one at a time.
Moccasins for A
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