“Wouldn’t bet on that,” Bert said.
He felt her hand.
“Ah, I was right.” She patted his belly. “But enough of this. We’d better get dressed.”
She sat up. Her back was speckled with grit. The smooth face of the rock still bore her wet imprint.
They both stood. Rick used his open hands to brush off her back and rump. Then he turned around, and she did the same for him. “For a man,” she said, “you have a very nice ass.”
“Well, don’t beat it to death.”
She squeezed it and stepped away.
When they were dressed, they crossed the stream, leaping from rock to rock, and made their way down to the campsite. The shaded clearing had a fireplace with a grate, and a good flat area where they decided their tent would go.
“Looks fine to me,” Rick said.
“Any more qualms about abandoning the girls?”
“They’ll be all right.”
“Would you feel better if we asked them to come over here? I’m not willing to give up this place, but if they want to bring their stuff over...”
“You’ve sure changed your tune.”
Bert shrugged. “I guess Andrea doesn’t seem like such a big threat anymore.”
“I guess she wouldn’t,” Rick said.
Bert reached forward and clasped her hands behind Rick’s neck. “So, what do you think? Should we allow them into our nice little hideaway?”
He slipped his hands inside her open shirt. He curled them over her breasts, lightly caressing the smooth skin and stiff nipples. “I don’t think so,” he said. “They’d just be in the way.”
“Let’s bring our packs over.” She tipped back her head and squirmed against his moving hands.
“What’s the hurry?”
“I want to ... lie out on the rocks again ... while the sun’s still on them.”
“That’s certainly worth hurrying for.”
She swallowed. “Thought you might think so.”
Rick drew the front of her shirt together and fastened the middle button. She released his neck. Her hands glided down his shoulders, then dropped away.
He followed Bert across the clearing and up the rock slabs to the stream. They hopped across it. The flat surface on the other side, where they had made love, was dry now.
Rick remembered how her wet skin had been cold at first, and stippled with goosebumps.
Then he remembered what his mind had done.
How could he have let himself imagine such things?
It had been Bert under him, but sometimes it was Andrea; Andrea naked on the trail to Dead Mule Pass, but not dead, not decapitated, alive and writhing, gasping and clutching at him as he rammed; and then she was Julie sprawled beneath him in nothing but her knee socks, Julie his stepmother, but she was no more dead than Andrea or Bert and those were her hands tugging at his buttocks to urge him deeper into her wet, hugging heat. Rick had thought, this is wrong, this is bad. But he couldn’t help it. He loved it. He was having Bert and Andrea and Julie all at once.
It’s these damn mountains, he thought, ashamed now that he’d allowed such fantasies to take hold. It’s the mountains and not enough sleep last night and hiking all day in the heat. It’s what happened with Julie all those years ago. It’s Jase and Luke and Wally and knowing what they’d do to the women if they got the chance. Or is it what I would like to do to them?
Hadn’t Bert suggested as much this morning?
You’re scaring me, she’d said. What tbe hell is going on inside your head?
Your imagination is revolting.
Sounds to me like you’re projecting your own fantasies onto those guys.
Yeah? And what was I projecting when we caught them spying on us with their binoculars? Was that my imagination, too?
But you have to admit, he thought, your imagination’s been throwing some real curves lately. Some wild stuff. Dreaming up that slaughter on the trail, turning Bert into Andrea, which was bad enough but understandable; turning her into Julie, which was sick.
Need to get home. All this will stop when I’m home.
God, we almost turned back this morning before the girls came along. We’d be home tonight, or at least out of the damned mountains, maybe in a hotel at Tahoe, but I had to open my big mouth and talk Bert into staying. To watch out for the girls. To watch them, more like it. Had nothing to do with protecting them.
What did I think, I’d get in their pants? Fat chance of that, unless I bashed in Bert’s head ...
Or slit her throat.
“Oh my God!” Bert gasped. She stopped abruptly and grabbed his arm.
Rick felt a surge of dread that she’d somehow read his mind. His face burned. She’s not psychic anymore than I am, he told himself. And I’m not. That trail massacre was mind garbage, paranoia, not a premonition.
But it came roaring back through his head—the sprawled naked bodies, the mutilations, the death—when he saw what Bert was pointing at.
Jase, Wally and Luke.
The three were crouched side by side among the rocks of an outcropping that jutted into the lake.
They had their backs to Rick and Bert.
The way they peered over the top reminded Rick of old westerns, of outlaws waiting to ambush a stagecoach.
“Those bastards,” Bert muttered.
Rick pulled her off the path and into the trees, where they couldn’t be seen if the boys should turn around.
“Those assholes are spying on the girls,” she said. Her eyes looked fierce and unafraid.
“Close up, this time.”
“Can you imagine? If that was them with the binoculars, they actually came all the way back down.”
“Obviously liked what they saw.”
“The nerve of those ...” A red hue washed over her face. “You don’t think they watched us, do you?”
Rick shook his head. “No. They don’t know where we are.”
“They would’ve, though. If they’d known.”
“Yep.”
“I’d like to rip out their eyes.” -
“It could come to that,” Rick said. “They might not be happy, just looking.”
“We’d better do something. Maybe we can sneak up and take them by surprise.”
“And then what? I forgot to bring my black belt.” And my revolver’s in my pack. “I don’t think this is the right time to confront them. We’d be... catching them red-handed. I don’t think they’d like that at all.”
“Screw what they’d like.”
“If they feel cornered, they might decide to go for broke and have at us. I seriously doubt that we’d come out on top. Let’s just stay out of their way. If we circle the lake, we can come around from the front and join up with the girls, and those three scums won’t know that we’re onto them.”
“That makes sense,” Bert said. “Yeah. That’s what we’ll do.”
“Guess we can write this place off,” Bert said when they came to the stream. “Now we’ve gotta stick with the girls.”
“Maybe we can all come over here.”
“Doesn’t matter,” she muttered. “It’s no good now, anyway.”
“I’m sorry.”
She shrugged and looked at him. “It was nice, though, wasn’t it?” .
“Fantastic.”
“At least we had that.”
They hiked through the trees, staying away from the shoreline path, until they heard faint splashing sounds. Then Rick led the way to the edge of the lake. They ducked behind a deadfall and peered out through the rotted limbs.
“Oh great,” Bert said. “Just great.”
Andrea and Bonnie were directly across the lake from them, knee-deep in the water near the shore. Bonnie, in her yellow bikini, was bent over and splashing herself. Andrea, in a black bikini, stood closer to the shore, rigid and hugging her chest as if she were freezing.