“We’ll be all right,” he said.
“Yeah? You got an Uzi or something?”
“No, but I’m good with my dukes.”
She smiled. “That’s consoling.”
“Is this banter absolutely necessary?” Bert asked.
Rick faced forward again. “Just trying to keep up the morale of the troops.”
Her eyes flashed. She looked shaky. Rick realized, suddenly, that he no longer felt loose and shivery inside. “The banter helps,” he said. “Why don’t I take over the lead.” Bert nodded. She stepped aside. Though the late afternoon was mild and they had been walking in the shade, she was wet. Honey-colored curls were stuck to her forehead. Her face and neck looked slick. The sides of her pale blue shirt were dark. Rick saw that she had buttoned it all the way up. He stopped in front of her.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
A corner of her mouth twitched. “Maybe we should turn back,” she said. “The more I think about it...”
“Why don’t I go on ahead,” Rick suggested. “You and the girls could wait here. There’s no need for all of us to confront those creeps.”
“I’m not going to let you do it alone,” Bert said.
“Besides,” Bonnie added, “we don’t even know for sure where they are. Or the wildlife, and I’m talking cats, here, for that matter.”
“Yeah,” Andrea said. “What if you go on your own, and the guys, or the cats, jump the rest of us?”
“The bastards are probably up near those rocks,” Rick said, pointing. He deliberately didn’t mention cats. They hadn’t actually seen a cougar anyway, so in his opinion, The Thugateers posed a more immediate danger.
The rocks suddenly seemed very close. There it was again. Whoever,
For godsake, what is it about this place?
One thing’s for sure.
Too right...
Best not alarm the girls till I know the score about our mystery stalker.
“We’d better all stick together,” Andrea said. “It’ll be four against three. Even if some of us are of the female variety, it doesn’t mean we’re helpless.”
“And we’ve got our knives,” Bonnie added.
“We’ll stay together,” Bert said.
Rick kept going. She moved on behind him. He felt her hand rub lightly for a moment between his shoulder blades. Then it was gone.
He walked along the shoreline path, closer and closer to the rocks where the boys had been crouching to watch Bonnie and Andrea. He saw no heads among the rocks.
They would’ve seen us coming by now, he thought. They probably took to the trees. We may not find them at all.
He passed the rocks, and looked back at the place where they’d been.
Gone.
Bert touched his shoulder. He snapped his head to the left.
Jase was sitting on a log beside the fire ring of a campsite not far from shore. He wore jeans and no shirt. He was staring at them. A cigarette hung from a comer of his mouth.
Luke was stretched out on a sleeping bag in a patch of sunlight. His hands were folded under his head. He wore sunglasses and jockey shorts. His skin looked almost as white as his underwear, except for a cluster of zits in the center of his chest.
Wally, sitting cross-legged in the shade, was stripping the wrapper off a Mars bar. He still wore his cut-off jeans and camouflage shirt.
“Hi there,” Jase said as Rick entered the clearing. Bert moved up beside him, and he heard the footsteps of the girls to the rear.
Wally looked up from his candy bar. A smile spread across his broad face. Luke propped himself up with straight arms and crossed his outstretched legs at the ankles.
“Thought you people would be on the other side of the pass by now,” Jase said.
“We thought you would, too,” Bert told him.
“Nope. When we got to this place, we decided to flake out.”
“Wally was whining about his feet,” Luke said.
Wally, chewing on his candy bar, nodded agreement.
“So you didn’t go up the mountain at all?” Bert asked.
“Nope. Been here since about noon.”
“Funny. We walked right by this place a couple of hours ago and you weren’t here.”
“Don’t know how that happened.”
“Must’ve been while we were gathering firewood,” Luke said.
Rick glanced at the pile of kindling and branches near the fireplace. He hadn’t noticed it when he and Bert had looked at the campsite earlier. But he was certain that the boys’ packs hadn’t been here either.
They’re lying, he thought. Of course they are. They’d been the ones with the binoculars high up on the trail, and they’d come back down because of the women.
“Are you going to introduce us to your friends?” Jase asked.
“Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dum,” Andrea said.
Luke grinned.
“The friendly type,” Jase said, and mashed his cigarette under his boot.
“I don’t like being spied on,” Andrea said.
“Shut up, would you?” Bonnie muttered.
“Has somebody been spying on you?” Jase asked.
“Sounds like she means us,” Luke said. “Do you mean us?”
“Who do you think I mean, anus-face?”
“Woooo.”
Bert whirled around and glared at Andrea. “Would you
“You people must have us mixed up with someone else,” Jase said, all innocence. “We haven’t been spying on anyone. We’ve just been hanging out, relaxing. Isn’t that right, Wally?”
Wally swallowed and nodded. His face was bright red.
“Isn’t that right, Luke?”
“We have simply been minding our own business. Frankly, I find myself disgruntled. Not only are we being unjustly accused, but my face has been maligned by this vicious wench.”
“I think you’re the one getting spied on,” Wally blurted.
“Indeed. I believe they came here for the sole purpose of ogling me in my dainties.”
“Nothing there to ogle,” Andrea said.
Wally whooped. Jase’s thin lips turned up. Bonnie squeezed Andrea’s shoulder, making her grimace for a moment before she knocked the hand away.
With a thumb, Luke hooked out his waistband and peered down the front. “Oh yeah,” he said, “something there all right. Want to see?”
“That’s about enough,” Rick said.
The elastic snapped down. Luke grinned at him.
“I don’t know what you guys think you’re up to, but rd suggest you pack up your stuff and get out of here,” Rick said.
Jase narrowed his eyes. “Hey, man, it’s a free country. You don’t like us here, you move on.”
“And have you follow us there, too?”
