The batteries in the flashlight were almost dead, mak-ing it maddeningly difficult to determine the extent of the damage. Like anxious misers, they counted their remain-ing food. The skills the nightstalkers used to invade mammal's burrows had served them well in this case also. The tunnels were small, but obviously sufficient. Half the food was gone.
Con had a sick feeling in her stomach. She felt as-saulted in a fundamental way. She needed that food to live, and these creatures had taken it. Rage and despair fought within her.
'We'll get them!' said Joe with murderous intensity. 'Tonight, we'll wait for them like we did before. They'll repay us for what they stole. They'll pay with their own damned flesh!' They left the plundered cache and returned with the food sack to the tent. They did not need the flashlight to guide them, for a hint of light had returned to the sky, and they could discern the tent against the snow.
'They're able to see in dimmer light than we can,' said Rick, 'and they've taken advantage of it, but I suspect they're as blind as we are in the middle of these black nights.'
'So far,' said Joe, 'most of your theories about night-stalkers have not panned out.'
'You're right,' said Rick, 'but we should be extra careful right after dusk and just before dawn.'
'I'm going to be careful every damn minute until those two are dead!' said Joe. Rick built a tiny fire to boil some dried meat in an attempt to extend it by making broth. By the time the pot boiled, the fire had reduced to embers. Rick, Joe, and Con huddled around them, passing the pot to drink. After-ward, they shared the gray, soggy meat. It was a meager breakfast and a melancholy one. Rick was starting to pack up when he heard Con say 'Oh, great!' and saw her head for the bag of clothes. She began to rummage through it with a frustrated and upset look on her face.
'What's wrong, Con?' he asked.
Con did not answer. Instead she muttered to herself. 'Of all times, why now?' She pulled a faded tee shirt from the bag. It had a dinosaur skull printed on it, along with the words 'Hell Creek Dig—2056.' She turned to Rick, and asked, 'Can I have this?'
Rick looked at his favorite shirt, one that evoked mem-ories of a special summer with Tom. Nevertheless, he said, 'Sure.'
'You won't get it back,' said Con.
'That's okay.'
Con read the puzzled look on Rick's face. She red-dened a bit, and said, 'It's that time of the month. Can I borrow your knife? I'll need to cut this up.'
Rick handed Con his knife, and she retreated to the tent. She emerged after fifteen minutes, looking grumpy and uncomfortable.
'Will you be all right today?' he asked.
Con sighed. 'I'll be fine, but this is going to be a real pain. I'll have to stop every once in a while, and I'll have to wash these damned things out each night. God knows how I'll dry them.' Con looked' so miserable, Rick gave her a kiss, and said, 'I'm sorry.'
'Just be glad you're not a woman.'
They finished breaking camp and followed the river through the cold, desolate landscape. Rick assumed they were traveling over an upland plain like the one where they had found the ceratopsid herds. Only a trace of car-bonized vegetation hinted he was correct. He had seen the aftermath of a wildfire once, but it was nothing com-pared to this. He imagined a hurricane of fire passing over the plain, incinerating everything to ash. The land it left behind appeared devoid of life, sterilized by flame and scoured by flood. If there were any creatures about, they were hidden.
Joe, for one, was absolutely sure there were at least two creatures about. He stared into the gloom, hoping to spot the two nightstalkers. The gun was slung in front of him, ready at an instant's notice. Yet Joe was almost cer-tain his adversaries would not reveal themselves. They would wait until dark. The three slowly trudged mile after mile. Twice, they had to ford streams. Both were shallow, merely requiring that they remove their shoes and roll up their pants. De-spite that, the brief crossings were torture. The streams' edges were lined with ice, and the near- freezing water left their feet stinging long after they had crossed. Later, they encountered a thirty-foot meteor crater, filled with floodwater. A scum of slushy ice covered the water's sur-face. They halted there for lunch. Rick handed out extra rations, for in his careful arith-metic of calories, he had decided to gamble on catching the two nightstalkers. He looked at the extra food they ate at the meal as an investment that could be recouped, even multiplied, through a successful hunt. Success would require they be alert and rested. They would stop early today, build a fire, and eat well. He made these decisions without consulting Joe or Con. The burden of leadership had become his alone. When he rationed out extra meat, they accepted it without questioning. Like-wise, they accepted his other decisions—even those that risked their lives.
Rick had not grown comfortable with risk, as much as he had grown numb to its danger. Everything they did was potentially life-threatening. In the twenty-first cen-tury, none of them would have drunk from a river. Here, they often had no choice, even though a waterborne ill-ness could easily be fatal. So could a simple scratch. Luck, as
