“I read the newspapers,” he muttered, stunned by her reaction.
“Sounds to me like you’re projecting your own fantasies onto those guys.”
“My fears,” he said.
Her eyes seemed to soften. “Oh, Rick.” Her hand lifted to his face, gently stroked his cheek. “I shouldn’t have dragged you out here, should I?”
“I was doing all right till those three came along.”
“Doing all right? That’s why you got yourself shit-faced last night?” Her tone was sympathetic, not accusing.
“I didn’t get shit-faced.”
“Maybe we’d better hike on back to the car and get out of here.”
“Hell,” he muttered.
“It’s no good if you’re a basket-case the whole time. It isn’t fair to you.”
“I’m sorry. I promised myself that I wouldn’t ruin things. But I won’t get this stuff out of my head.”
“I’m the one who pushed you into this. I knew you hated the idea.” A comer of her mouth curled up. “Guess we should’ve gone to Maui after all.”
“I’d feel awful if we quit,” he said.
“You’d feel worse if we stayed. Besides, you might be right about those guys. I mean, I don’t really expect them to attack us or anything, but just the fact that they’re around—truth is, I’ve had some of the same thoughts as you.”
“Really?”
She nodded. “My thoughts didn’t go quite as far as yours. But it crossed my mind that Jase might talk the others into jumping us.” Her smile widened. “In my version, they thumped you on the head with a rock, but I fended them off with my knife.”
“Always the optimist.”
“That’s me. Anyway, all things considered, I won’t be too disappointed if we leave.”
“I guess we could head over to Lake Tahoe, check into a nice hotel....”
“Nothing to wear.”
“They’ve got stores.”
“Sounds good to—”
Her voice stopped.
Rick heard faint, distant talking. Fear clamped his chest. He handed the water bottle to Bert. Standing, he slipped his arms from the pack straps. He turned to his pack, reached for the side pocket where he’d put his revolver, and pulled at the zipper with trembling fingers. It was half open when he realized that the voices were female.
He glanced at Bert. She was watching him. With a shake of his head as if he were confused, he shut the zipper. He took the water bottle from Bert and slipped it into the other pocket.
“Afraid they’ll try to bum our water?” Bert asked, grinning.
“Exactly. Wouldn’t be sanitary.” He rested against his pack again. He still heard the voices, but he saw nobody on the trail.
“From the sound of them,” Bert said, “they’re either girls or sissies.”
They were girls. They came striding, side by side, around a bend in the trail.
The one on the right looked up, saw them, smiled and said, “Howdy.” The other, flushed and panting, nodded a greeting.
“Hi there,” Bert said.
“Hi,” said Rick.
“Let’s take a load off,” the girl said to her haggard friend. She stepped to the side of the trail across from Rick and Bert, swung her pack down, and boosted herself onto a hip-high shelf of rock. The other girl kept her pack on. It scraped against the vertical block of stone as she sagged. Her rump met the trail and she stretched out her legs. She sighed.
Her slim legs were tanned, her shins mottled with trail dust that had turned dark on her sweaty skin. She wore faded blue gym shorts and a gray T-shirt that read UCSC. Her shirt had a wet V, wide at the crew neck and narrowing as it descended between her breasts. Her chest rose and fell as she fought to catch her breath. The bill of her ballcap was tipped upward. A fringe of blond hair clung to her forehead and glossy wisps curled around her ears. In spite of her grimace and sunglasses, Rick could see that she was a beauty.
“From Santa Cruz?” Bert asked.
“I shoulda boogerin’ stayed there,” said the one on the ground.
The one sitting on the rock laughed. “We just got done with final,” she said.
“Great way to start the summer break.”
“Andrea isn’t used to this sort of thing.”
“Neither am I,” Rick said.
“I love it.” The girl swept off her straw cowboy hat. Her thick, brown hair was pinned up except for bangs that fluttered in the breeze. Unlike Andrea, she looked cool and dry. She wore no sunglasses. Her brows were thick, her eyes bright green. Though she lacked Andrea’s delicate features, she had a fresh, athletic look that Rick found appealing.
She tossed her hat. It landed on her pack, slid off, and dropped onto the trail. Leaning back, she braced herself with straight arms. She was wearing a yellow blouse. The sleeves were cut off, and it was unbuttoned and tied below her breasts. From the yellow cord across the gap, Rick guessed that she was wearing a bikini. Her flat belly was tanned. She wore jeans, the legs cut off so high that the ends of her front pockets hung out white against her thighs.
The way her jeans looked disturbed Rick. For a moment, he didn’t know why. Then he remembered that Julie had worn jeans like these, cut so short the pockets showed. He’d been watching her instead of the trail.
My fault, he thought as a warm wave of shame swept through him. If I hadn’t been trying to see up her pants ...
It’s not my fault, he told himself. She shouldn’t have worn something like that if I wasn’t supposed to look. A guy will look. Any guy will look. It was her fault more than mine.
“... your car we parked next to this morning,” the girl in the cut-offs was saying. Rick realized he had missed some of the conversation.
“A blue Pontiac?” Bert asked.
“Yeah, that’s the one.”
“So you just got in this morning?” Rick asked.
“Seems like a century ago,” Andrea said. Still on the ground, she had slipped out of her pack straps without Rick noticing. Her gray T-shirt was dark around the armpits. She was no longer panting. “Bonnie doesn’t believe in resting. You ask me, I don’t know what’s the big rush.”
“I thought we’d make it over the pass today,” Bonnie said, “but that’s starting to look doubtful. There’s a lake just this side, though. Fern Lake? I suppose we’ll wind up there. What about you?”
Bert shrugged. “We’re not too sure at this point.”
“Are you going over the pass?” Bonnie asked.
“We might head back,” Bert told her. “I’m not feeling too swift.”
Bonnie frowned. “That’s too bad. You might just pack it in?”
“We’re considering it.”
“That’d be a shame, you came this far.”
“Sounds like a good move to me,” Andrea said. She raised one knee and folded her hands around it. Her other leg was still extended. Through the gaping leg-holes of her shorts, Rick saw her shadowed thigh. He looked away.
Bonnie had her ankles crossed.
“There are some guys up the trail,” Rick said. “You may run into them.”
“Guys?” Bonnie asked.
“Three of them,” Bert said. “They’re probably about your age.”
“Oh great,” Andrea muttered.
“What sort of guys?” Bonnie asked.
“How many kinds are there,” Andrea said.
Bonnie uncrossed her feet and swung a boot sideways as if to knock her friend in the head. She missed. “Did they seem all right?” she asked Bert.
“I guess so.”
“They’re not a contingent from Stanford,” Rick said, with a smile in Andrea’s direction. Bonnie threw him a challenging look. He could’ve been mistaken, but he thought it said, Get off my patch, master. And lay off Andrea. She’s mine.