nodded toward a level area closer to the lake.
'You want one that far off?'
'Sure. Why not? Give everybody a little breathing room.'
'Breathing room, eh?' He winked.
Scott looked amused as he pulled a tubular plastic bag from his pack.
'Which place do we get?' Benny asked.
'We should let the ladies pick.'
'How about it?' Karen asked Julie.
The girl shrugged.
'Over by the lake?'
'I don't care.'
'I wanta be close to the fire,' Benny said.
Karen grinned. 'You've got it. Julie and I'll take the scenic tent.' For a moment, her eyes met Flash's. There was mischief in them. Fooled you, they seemed to say.
Flash was fooled, all right. If he'd been in Scott's shoes, nothing in the world could've kept him from tenting with a woman like Karen. He hadn't put it quite that way to Alice, when they'd discussed it last night. He'd simply bet her a dinner at Victoria Station against a dinner at Casa Escobar that the couple would share a tent. 'I don't know about the girl,' she said, 'but Scott isn't that way.' Flash had smiled at that. He managed to refrain from telling about the time in Saigon when he and Scott, bare-ass and side by side, humped the daylights out of a couple of whores — then traded. No point in tarnishing Scott's image. Hell, Scott was about the only friend of his that Alice approved of. 'Aside from just good manners,' Alice had continued, 'he wouldn't put Julie and Benny together. They're too old to be sleeping together.' That point nearly succeeded in changing Flash's mind. Still, he hadn't called off the bet. Maybe they'd show up with three tents, one for each kid and.,
'Over here?' Nick asked.
Flash turned around. His son was standing in a six-foot space between two spruces, a rolled-up tent in his arms. 'That'll be fine. Hold up a minute, though, till we clear the ground.'
Together, they brushed away the twigs and pinecones littering the area. Then they rolled out the red tent, and spread it flat. They joined the fiberglass wands, slid them in at the four corners, inserted the tips into eyelets at the top and bottom, and lifted the roof. In less than five minutes, the tent was up. All that remained was to tie out the guy lines and stake it down.
'I'll get the hatchet,' Flash said.
He headed for his pack. Scott, Karen, and Benny had nearly finished setting up a blue, two-man tent similar to his own. Julie was crouched by the fireplace, pouring fuel from an aluminum bottle into the base of a Primus stove.
Flash rummaged through his pack. As he looked for the hatchet, his stomach growled. He tried to remember the menu he'd worked out with Scott, but couldn't recall what was planned for tonight's meal. One of the Dri-Lite stews, probably. With pudding for dessert — either vanilla or chocolate. He hoped for vanilla. Nothing could beat that vanilla pudding, especially when it didn't get mixed up real good and still had some of those lumps in it.
He found the hatchet. As he walked back toward the tent, he saw Nick staring into space. No, not into space. At Julie. The girl was holding the small stove high, waving a lighted match under its base to warm the fuel for priming.
Wouldn't that be something, Flash thought, if Nick and Julie got together? He wondered if Scott would approve. No reason why he shouldn't. Nick's a fine lad, an Eagle Scout, a good student, and my son. The girl could sure do worse.
So could Nick. A lot worse. As far as Flash knew, the boy had never dated a gal half as attractive as Julie.
She shook out the match, turned a metal key to start the gas jetting, and frowned.
'I'll take care of the stakes, Nick. Go on over and see if Julie needs a hand with the stove.'
The boy shrugged.
'Go on. Maybe the nozzle's clogged.'
'Well. okay. Be right back.' He walked toward her. Julie smiled when she saw him approach. 'Having some trouble?' he asked.
'This thing doesn't want to cooperate.'
'Here, let me take a look.'
Go to it, boy, Flash thought, and picked up a stake.
Crouched by the stream, Karen shivered and gritted her teeth. Only a couple of hours ago, she'd been splashing herself to cool off. Then the water had felt like ice on her hot skin. Now, with the sun down and a chilly breeze blowing, the water seemed almost warm.
Except for Benny, everyone else had already finished washing their cook kits and returned to camp. He stood on the opposite bank, shaking and waving his aluminum dish to dry it while Karen scrubbed out the big pot. He was smart. He'd put on a jacket before coming over. Karen was still in her shorts and thin blouse. The blouse did no good at all. The cold breeze passed through the cloth as if it weren't there.
Benny sat down on a rock across from her. He wiped the dish across a leg of his jeans. 'Aren't you awfully cold?' he asked.
'I'm one giant goosebump.'
'You want me to get a jacket for you?'
'That's all right, I'm about done. Thanks, though.'
'It's funny how it gets so cold.'
'The altitude, I guess. You bake during the day and freeze at night.'
'Yeah. It's weird. It sure isn't like home.'
'That's one of the great things about camping,' she said. 'Home looks so good after you've been out here a while. You start dreaming about a hot bath, a soft bed. '
'Yeah!' Benny leaned forward, elbows on knees. 'Last year, we were out for a week and I got so I
'Just thinking about it makes me cold.' Karen rinsed out the pot, stood up, and shook the water from it. 'Right now, I could go for some coffee.'
'We've got cocoa, too,' Benny said. Standing up, he brushed off the seat of his jeans. 'And marshmallows.'
'Maybe I'll have a marshmallow in my coffee.'
He laughed, and hopped across the stream.
'Thanks for keeping me company,' Karen told him as they walked up the granite slab.
'Ah, that's all right.'
The clearing ahead shimmered with firelight. Most of the others were seated close to the fire.
'Thought we'd lost you,' Scott called.
'Save me some coffee,' Karen called back. She handed the pot to Benny, and carried her cook kit down a gradual slope to the tent. 'Right with you,' she said over her shoulder.
Her backpack was propped against a rock near the tent entrance. She lifted the flap, dropped her kit into the darkness, and dug through the equipment trying to find her jeans and parka. They were near the bottom, of course. What you wanted was always at the bottom.
Clamping the jeans between her legs, she quickly shook open the parka and put it on. She sighed with relief at its warmth.
Then she crawled into the tent. It was very dark inside, but she didn't need her light for this. She sat on her
