“There, you see?” Doug was at the top of the slope now, pointing at the ground.
Bob reached the top and found Doug standing beside another dead raccoon. This one was swarming with maggots. Bob made a sickened noise and averted his face.
“Rabies,” Doug told him.
Bob nodded, starting past him. After a few paces, he stopped abruptly at a loud, clashing sound in the distance. “What’s that?” he asked, turning back to Doug.
“Probably a couple of horny stags fighting for a female. They butt their heads together, it makes their antlers clatter.”
That’s right, lecture me again, Bob thought disgruntledly. Can’t get enough of that, can you?
He waited until Doug had passed by him, then followed, looking at the back of Doug’s head with a resentful glare.
4:32 PM
It was more than a stream this time. Closer to being a river, Bob thought. Fast-moving, frothing, and bubbling, its current so rapid that in striking boulders it flung up explosive sprays of water drops. It looked very cold and threatening to him. “No log bridge here,” he said.
“No more log bridges, buddy,” Doug told him, “we’re backpacking now, not taking a stroll through the park.”
Bob sighed. You already said that, Doug, he thought. “So what do we do?” he asked.
“We cross, what else?” Doug said.
“How?”
Doug looked at him as though he couldn’t believe that Bob had asked the question. “Wade, Bobby, wade,” he said.
“Wade,” Bob murmured. He couldn’t see how they could possibly wade across such a rushing stream.
Doug started to remove his backpack.
“Think it might be less wide a little farther downstream?” Bob asked hopefully.
“I presume you mean upstream.” Doug’s smile was thin.
“Upstream, downstream, what’s the difference?” Bob snapped.
“Upstream gets narrower; downstream gets wider,” Doug told him.
“Okay, okay, it’ll be less wide in one of those directions.”
“Not necessarily,” Doug said. “Take off your pack.”
“How do you know?” Bob asked.
“Bobby, this isn’t the first time I’ve been out here, you know. Take my word for it, it doesn’t get any narrower farther down or farther up. Besides, the campsite we’ll use is that way.” He pointed across the stream.
Bob nodded reluctantly. Just stop calling me Bobby, will you? he thought. Marian was right. It did definitely sound as though Doug was talking to a ten-year-old. Maybe that’s how he sees me, he thought. With another sigh, heavier this time, he started to unbuckle his backpack straps.
Doug had his pack off now. Moving to the bank of the stream, holding on to its straps, he turned himself halfway around, paused, then took a deep breath and flung the backpack across the stream. It landed several yards from the opposite bank.
He turned to Bob. “I told you how I lost a pack once in a stream like this. I don’t intend to take a chance on it happening again.”
“Uh-huh.” Bob nodded. His pack was off now. He looked at Doug questioningly.
“Well, go ahead, throw it,” Doug told him.
Bob winced. “What if I don’t make it?” he asked. “I’d lose everything.”
“It’s not that wide, Bobby,” Doug said edgily.
“I know, but—”
“Just sling the damn thing,” Doug told him.
Bob hesitated. If his throw was short, he’d be obligated to Doug for everything. The prospect was more than a little daunting.
“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Doug snapped. Pulling the pack out of Bob’s grip, he moved to the bank of the stream, cocked his arm, and threw the pack. It landed about a foot from the opposite bank. Great, Bob thought. You didn’t try as hard with my pack, did you?
“Doug,” he said.
“Yessir.” Doug’s tone was irritated.
“Why are you expecting me to act like a professional backpacker?”
Doug scowled. “Didn’t think that tossing a backpack across a stream is something only a professional backpacker could do.”
“Okay, okay.” Bob nodded. “Now what, do we jump across the stream in one leap? Oh, no, you said we wade.”
Doug was already sitting on the ground, unlacing his boots. He glanced up at Bob. “Do likewise, Bobby,” he said. He bared his teeth, pulling at the laces of his boots. “Unless you’d prefer getting your boots soaking wet. They take a hell of a long time to dry, let me tell you.”
“All right,” Bob said. He felt like sighing again but repressed it. I could be home, sitting in my chair, enjoying a vodka and tonic with a slice of lemon, he thought. He sat down and started to unlace his boots. Instead, I’m here, doing research for a goddamn novel. Why didn’t I go all the way and write a novel about a Welsh coal miner and work in a mine for a couple of weeks?
“Tie the laces together,” Doug told him, “and put your socks inside the boots, roll up your pants. I warn you, the water’s going to be cold.”
Thanks for telling me, Bob thought. The colder the better. I love wading in fast-moving ice water. The next book I write will be about an Olympic swimmer who trains in Antarctica. He couldn’t restrain another sigh.
“All right, let’s go,” Doug said, standing. “Stay behind me and feel your way ahead as you cross. There could be rocks on the bottom that move under you.”
“Right,” Bob said. Anything you say, Dougie boy, his mind added.
Doug walked over to a fallen tree and broke off two thick branches. “To brace yourself against the current,” he said, handing one of the branches to Bob. “Cross facing upstream so you have a triangle of support.”
“Okay,” Bob said, not sure he understood what Doug had just said.
Doug moved to the edge of the stream, swung his boots around a few times by their laces, then threw them across the stream. They landed beyond his pack.
“You want me to throw yours?” he asked.
No, goddamn it, I can throw my own boots, thank you, Bob thought resentfully. “I’ll do it,” he said.
Immediately, he visualized both boots landing in the fast-moving water and being carried off by the swift current. Or, just as bad, the laces coming untied and the boots landing separately, maybe one in the water, one on the other side of the stream. Then he’d have to hop his way through the forest, he thought, visualizing himself doing that for the next two or three days.
He held out the boots by their tied laces. “I changed my mind,” he said.
He knew Doug’s smile was one of disparagement but let it go. Better a little disparagement than one or both of his boots flying down the stream like lost canoes.
Doug took the boots from him and, twirling them twice by their tied laces, flung them across the stream. They bounced off the ground several feet beyond Doug’s boots. The winner and still champion! Bob thought.
His first step into the stream made him cry out involuntarily. “Jesus!”
“I told you it was cold,” Doug said. If the temperature of the water bothered him, he wasn’t showing it. Or would rather die than show it, Bob decided. Macho Man! his mind sang out.
“Lean a little against the current,” Doug told him. “And use your branch.”
Bob tilted himself a little to the left, feeling the strong push of the current against his legs, bracing his branch on the bottom to help remain balanced. He hadn’t folded his pants up far enough, he realized, the rolled-up bottoms were getting soaked even though he’d raised them above his knees.
Doug waded slowly but steadily across the stream using his branch to fight the current. Bob followed, feeling as though, at any moment, the force of the water might knock him over. Then what? he wondered. Would he be carried off like a piece of wood? Or just be sprawled on the stream bottom, getting soaked from head to toe?