today. Now he was farther away from L.A., and it would take longer. It wasn’t a trip he was relishing.
He could try to figure out where they were going next and meet them there. According to the notebook, they were planning to visit Glacier and Yellowstone parks for the next few days. He was not planning to do any more camping, and other options were few inside the parks. It would be difficult to keep tabs on them. Besides, his money supply was approaching the precarious stage, and he couldn’t afford to keep doing this forever. He needed to have the Penny situation resolved quickly.
He could wait here tomorrow morning and meet them when they came down from the chalet. That would mean going back out of the park to find a place to sleep and returning in the morning. It might work, but among the other things he was running out of was patience for waiting.
Or-and this would have been unthinkable a couple of days ago-he could hike up to the chalet and have it out with them there. They wouldn’t be able to avoid him in an isolated environment. The more he thought about it, the better he liked the idea.
There were a few niggling problems. He didn’t have hiking boots. However, the start of the trail looked fairly smooth. Maybe he didn’t need them. He didn’t have a pack. But then, he didn’t have anything to carry in a pack. He had his jacket with a hood, so he shouldn’t be cold. When the temperature was warm enough that he didn’t have to wear it, he could tie it around his waist.
On the plus side, he had a bottle he had filled with water that he could carry with him. It had contained orange soda, originally. It was made of glass; he would have to be careful not to drop it, but it couldn’t weight much over two pounds filled. He would travel light and move fast.
Alfred started along the trail, striding briskly and whistling. One hundred yards later, his ankle started hurting. He had completely forgotten about that damned ankle. He wasn’t going to let that stop him. He would tough it out. He kept going, albeit a little slower and with a slight limp.
They were enjoying dinner in the rock building that contained the kitchen and the dining room when a commotion occurred at the entrance. Penny wouldn’t have paid any attention, figuring that it was just a latecomer for dinner, but the door was opened with enough force that it swung in a 180-degree arc and slammed against a doorstop, making all the diners look up.
Then a hooded figure fell into the room, landing facedown on the floor. The figure lay there, not moving, while dead silence replaced the normal buzz of conversation. Everybody was frozen in place for several seconds, like a tableau painted by a French impressionist.
Just when Penny started thinking that time had stopped altogether, a man who was sitting at a table near the door got up from his chair and walked over to the prone figure. He put a hand on the figure’s shoulder and said, “Are you okay?” Penny didn’t hear a response. The man lifted the hood of the figure, revealing a head with short hair. It belonged to a male.
The man on the floor groaned and slowly lifted himself to his hands and knees. He groaned again and lifted one knee off the floor. Penny saw that his pants were ripped, and the knee poking through the hole had blood on it.
“That’s your friend from high school,” Gary said.
Penny recognized Alfred at the same time. What in the world was he doing here? And in this condition? She instinctively got up and ran over to him. She knelt beside him and helped him get to a sitting position.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
He stared at her, and she wondered whether he recognized her. “I broke my water bottle. It smashed when I fell.”
“Is that when you hurt your knee?”
He looked at his bloody knee, as if seeing it for the first time. He nodded.
Gary was extremely dissatisfied with what appeared to be the only solution to the situation. He walked back toward their table where Alfred was now sitting with Penny, showing a voracious appetite, eating everything in sight. The scrape on his knee had been cleaned and bandaged, using the first aid kit belonging to the chalet. Gary helped him take off his wet shoes and socks. The socks, especially, stuck to his feet and had to be peeled off. Gary lent him a pair of socks, which he now wore. He still wore his jacket to help him warm up, but at least he wasn’t wearing the hood.
Gary caught Penny’s eye and motioned to her. She got up and followed him to the corner of the dining room, underneath one of the gas lights, hanging from the ceiling, that was now lit. Tom Edison’s electric lights hadn’t found their way here yet.
“They don’t have any rooms available,” Gary said. “They’re full. They’re willing to put a cot in our room and let him sleep there.” The tone of his voice betrayed how much he liked that idea.
Penny put an arm on his shoulder and said, “It’s a terrible imposition, honey, but it’s only for one night. If it’s any consolation, I got my period today.”
That was slight consolation. “Did you find out what he’s doing here?”
“He said that we made it sound like so much fun when we told him about the chalet that he decided he wanted to stay here.”
“So he drove all the way from Seattle with no equipment and no hiking experience, just to hike up here. It’s a wonder he didn’t kill himself. And of course he didn’t have a reservation either.”
“I agree, it wasn’t the smartest thing in the world to do. But then, as I recall, he was never very swift upstairs in high school, either.” She tapped her head.
Gary didn’t want to be the bad guy. He knew that showing compassion for Alfred would reflect favorably in Penny’s eyes. It was only for one night. He felt a little better, knowing the number of points he would make with her.
The cot wasn’t that uncomfortable. It was definitely more comfortable than the front seat of his car. Alfred lay on his back with the blankets pulled up to his chin and grinned into the dark. He could see the stars shining brightly through the uncovered window. Stars were fine, just as long as they were outside and he was inside.
In spite of the primitiveness of this place-no electricity, no hot water, no indoor toilets-things had turned out a lot better than he could have anticipated when he was halfway up the trail, wondering whether he would make it to the chalet before dark, or perhaps get lost and eaten by bears.
He was finally warm, under five blankets, after having wet feet for most of the hike. His knee didn’t hurt. He had devoured a good dinner. He was feeling better than he had felt for a long time, even though he was exhausted. There were no lights in the bedroom. Since the only light was provided by a small flashlight that Penny and Gary had brought, they had all gone to bed as soon as they had come from the other building.
After dinner, Penny and Gary had played dominoes in the dining room. Alfred claimed he was too tired to play, but he watched them. Gary was merciless, beating Penny in every game. This was another reason she would be glad to get rid of him. He was dominating her. Alfred knew that Gary would probably beat him, too. He didn’t know whether this would be good or bad in Penny’s eyes, so he made the wise decision to stay out of it.
He listened for sounds of movement from the double bed. Aside from a few whispers when they first turned off the flashlight, there hadn’t been much noise forthcoming from that direction. They certainly weren’t doing anything of a sexual nature. That was one thing he was happy about.
He would never attempt a hike like this again. Why any sane person would engage in such misery on purpose, he didn’t know. He did have to hike down in the morning, but going down should be a lot easier than coming up.
During the few minutes he had been alone with Penny, he considered trying to win her over. There wasn’t time to do it, and he was too tired and too hungry. His brain wasn’t working. He didn’t want to negotiate from a position of weakness. Tomorrow he would have a much better opportunity. He had spent the last few minutes
