“Got it,” Bob said. I hope, he thought.
“You notice that I built a small wall of stones on that side of the fire,” Doug said, pointing. “That’s to keep the smoke rising in that direction. Don’t ask me why that works, I have no idea. It does though.”
Bob smiled. “I didn’t notice that before,” he said.
“Tricks of the trade, Bobby,” Doug said. “By the way, don’t ever try to put out a fire by pouring water over it. That can make rocks explode too. Knew a guy who got blinded that way.”
“Jesus.” Bob grimaced.
“Fires are tricky,” Doug said. “Getting them lit is one thing, keeping them lit is another. They’ll do anything you want—burn slow, fast, anything—but you have to know what you’re doing. Flick the coals one way and it’s a goner. Flick them the right way and you’ve got a fire that’ll burn for hours.”
“Well, you’re the expert, I leave campfires up to you.”
“No, no, it’ll be one of your chores,” Doug said. “I’ll show you how to start a fire tomorrow.”
“My chores,” Bob said.
“Sure, you didn’t think this was going to be a free ride, did you?” Doug said, his tone hardening slightly. “You’ll do the fires, do cleanup work. I’ll take care of the sleeping arrangements, keep us supplied with purified water.” His smile seemed vaguely unpleasant, Bob thought. “In addition to being your guide and protector.”
Bob only nodded. “Okay,” he said then.
“I think from now on we’ll use my grate to cook on,” Doug said. “Easier than your stove.”
“You mean I brought it for nothing?” Bob asked, looking pained.
“Well, Bobby, I didn’t tell you to buy it, did I?”
“No.” Bob’s tone was glum. “That damn salesman…”
“You can use the stove on your own if you want,” Doug said. “There’s just not much point to it.”
“Yeah.” Bob nodded. Sighed. “And I suppose I can’t just leave it here,” he said.
“No, no. What you pack in—”
“—you pack out,” Bob finished.
“Exactly,” Doug said.
9:38 PM
The fire was low now, little more than glowing embers with a few small tongues of flame licking upward.
“Have you checked for ticks?” Doug asked.
“Ticks?” Bob answered, wincing.
“Yeah, ticks,” Doug said. “If you find any attached to your body, cover them with something that’ll cut off their air supply—Vaseline, oil, tree sap if you have nothing better. That’ll make the tick release its grip and you can remove it. Make sure you get the whole tick though. Grasp it where the mouth parts are attached to the skin. Don’t squeeze its body. And wash your hands after touching it. It has fluids that cause lyme disease.”
“Oh, Jesus Christ,” Bob said grimly.
Doug chuckled. “Don’t despair. It probably won’t happen. You have on long pants and a long sleeve jacket, a hat. Tuck the hems of your pants into your socks for protection.”
Now he tells me, Bob thought. “I can see it all. I’ll get lyme disease, catch rabies from some demented squirrel, get bitten by a rattlesnake, torn to pieces by a mountain lion.”
Doug laughed loudly. “Well, you have a lot to look forward to, don’t you?”
“A lot.”
“See, there’s one,” Doug said. Reaching out he brushed a tick off Bob’s hat. “All there is to it. Now get out all your food.”
“What?” Bob looked at him, not understanding.
“Your food, your food,” Doug said, “we have to hang it up so the bears can’t get at it.”
“Oh, Jesus, bears too?” Bob reacted. “How many of them are out here?”
“Not that many,” Doug told him, “but they can smell food if it’s anywhere around.”
Bob swallowed, nodding. He felt as though he were sinking into a pit. What next? Attack by Indians? An earthquake? A volcanic eruption?
He opened his pack and started taking out the food he had in plastic bags. “Plastic bottles too?” he asked.
“May as well,” Doug said, “I’ve seen bears open bottles with their teeth. I don’t know how they can smell what’s in the bottles but…”
His voice faded as he started removing plastic sacks from his pack.
“Why the different colors?” Bob asked.
“Breakfast, lunch, snack, and dinner,” Doug told him. “And coffee, of course. All double-sacked; I notice you didn’t do that.”
You never told me to, Mr. Crowley, sir, he heard himself kvetching in his mind.
“You can also put different kinds of food in different sacks—soup powder, beans, whatever.”
By now, he had taken two heavy cloth bags and a quarter-inch nylon rope from his pack. He tossed one of the bags to Bob. “Put your food in there,” he said. “They’re called stuff packs. For an obvious reason, I guess.”
He was finished filling and tying up his pack before Bob. Taking hold of the rope, he coiled it and began tossing the end of it at an oak limb about twenty feet above them. On the third try, he got the rope end over the branch so that it hung down in two lengths in front of them.
“You notice I’m putting the rope about ten feet from the trunk,” he said. “Not that that’ll stop a really acrobatic bear but it’s better than hanging the bags close to the trunk.”
He chuckled. “I’ve never seen it myself but some guy I met once told me that he saw a mother bear stand on her hind feet and her cub stand on her shoulders, trying to knock down a food bag.”
“No,” Bob said incredulously.
“That’s what the guy told me.”
Bob laughed. “What a sight that must have been.”
Doug nodded, chuckling again. “That’s for sure,” he said. “Like some greaser kid trying to knock down a pinñata.”
Greaser kid, Bob thought, frowning. Just how prejudiced was Doug? They’d never had a conversation revealing it in any way. Was that because Marian was almost always there?
Tying his bag to one end of the rope now, Doug pulled it up close to the limb. Then, taking Bob’s sack, he tied it to the other length of the rope, reaching up as high as he could and looping up the excess rope. Bob noticed that there was a monofilament line on that end of the rope. “What’s that for?” he asked.
“In case there isn’t a stick or a branch to pull them down,” Doug said. He tossed the bag with Bob’s food in it up toward the limb. The other bag dropped down so that both bags now hung about twelve feet from the ground.
“That should do it,” Doug said, “unless a twelve-foot bear comes by.”
“If it does, I’ll have died of a heart attack long before it can get our food,” Bob said.
Doug snickered. “You and Marian,” he said. “Oh, before I forget. Cover your pack with your pack cover in case it rains. And make sure you leave the pockets open so mice and raccoons can check them out without chewing their way in.”
“Anything else we can expect?” Bob asked. “A pack of coyotes maybe?”
Doug only shook his head. “A backpacker you will never be,” he said solemnly.
That’s for damn sure, Bob thought.
“Take anything into the tent you might need during the night,” Doug told him. “Flashlight, water bottle, toilet paper, et cetera.”
As they started for the tent, Doug reached up and broke off a small branch hanging above its entrance.