The contestants were shown being taken to the site, first by airplane, then helicopter. They were left there on noon Friday and had until midnight Sunday to reach one of the dozen trucks that ringed the area. The first one to report in at one of the trucks was the winner.
Lottie made up her bed on the couch while Butcher opened his recliner full length and brought out a blanket and pillow from the bedroom. He had another beer and Lottie drank milk and ate cookies, and presently they turned off the light and there was only the glow from the screen in the room.
The contestants were settled down for the night, each in a sleeping bag, campfires burning low, the long northern twilight still not faded. Andy began to explain the contents of the backpacks.
Lottie closed her eyes, opened them several times, just to check, and finally fell asleep.
Lottie sat up suddenly, wide awake, her heart thumping. The red beeper had come on. On center screen the girl was sitting up, staring into darkness, obviously frightened. She must have heard something. Only her dot showed on her screen, but there was no way for her to know that. Lottie lay down again, watching, and became aware of Butcher’s heavy snoring. She shook his leg and he shifted and for a few moments breathed deeply, without the snore, then began again.
Francine Dumont was the night M.C.; now she stepped to one side of the screen. “If she panics,” Francine said in a hushed voice, “it could be the end of the game for her.” She pointed out the hazards in the area-boulders, a steep drop-off, the thickening trees on two sides. “Let’s watch,” she whispered and stepped back out of the way.
The volume was turned up; there were rustlings in the undergrowth. Lottie closed her eyes and tried to hear them through the girl’s ears, and felt only contempt for her. The girl was stiff with fear. She began to build up her campfire. Lottie nodded. She’d stay awake all night, and by late tomorrow she’d be finished. She would be lifted out, the end of Miss Smarty Pants Dawes.
Lottie sniffed and closed her eyes, but now Butcher’s snores were louder. If only he didn’t sound like a dying man, she thought-sucking in air, holding it, holding it, then suddenly erupting into a loud snort that turned into a gurgle. She pressed her hands over her ears and finally slept again.
There were beer cans on the table, on the floor around it. There was half a loaf of bread and a knife with dried mustard and the mustard jar without a top. The salami was drying out, hard, and there were onion skins and bits of brown lettuce and an open jar of pickles. The butter had melted in its dish, and the butter knife was on the floor, spreading a dark stain on the rug.
Nothing was happening on the screen now. Angie Dawes hadn’t left the fern patch. She was brushing her hair.
Mildred was following the stream, but it became a waterfall ahead and she would have to think of something else.
The stout man was still making his way downward as directly as possible, obviously convinced it was the fastest way and no more dangerous than any other.
The black man was being logical, like Mildred, Lottie admitted. He watched the shadows and continued in a southeasterly direction, tackling the hurdles as he came to them, methodically, without haste. Ahead of him, invisible to him, but clearly visible to the floating cameras and the audience, were a mother bear and two cubs in a field of blueberries.
Things would pick up again in an hour or so, Lottie knew. Butcher came back. “You have time for a quick shower,” Lottie said. He was beginning to smell.
“Shut up.” Butcher sprawled in the recliner, his feet bare.
Lottie tried not to see his thick toes, grimy with warehouse dust. She got up and went to the kitchen for a bag, and started to throw the garbage into it. The cans clattered.
“Knock it off, will ya!” Butcher yelled. He stretched to see around her. He was watching the blond braid her hair. Lottie threw another can into the bag.
Butcher sat on the edge of the chair, biting a fingernail. “See that?” he breathed. “You see it?” He was shiny with perspiration.
Lottie nodded, watching the white dots move on the aerial map, watching the blue dot moving, stopping for a long time, moving again. Clyde and the bears were approaching each other minute by minute, and Clyde knew now that there was something ahead of him.
“You see that?” Butcher cried out hoarsely.
“Just be still, will you?” Lottie said through her teeth. The black man was sniffing the air.
“You can smell a goddam lousy bear a country mile!” Butcher said. “He knows.”
“For God’s sake, shut up!”
“Yeah, he knows all right,” Butcher said softly. “Mother bear, cubs… she’ll tear him apart.”
“Shut up! Shut up!”
Clyde began to back away. He took half a dozen steps, then turned and ran. The bear stood up; behind her the cubs tumbled in play. She turned her head in a listening attitude. She growled and dropped to four feet and began to amble in the direction Clyde had taken. They were about an eighth of a mile apart. Any second she would be able to see him.
Clyde ran faster, heading for thick trees. Past the trees was a cliff he had skirted earlier.
“Saw a cave or something up there,” Butcher muttered. “Betcha. Heading for a cave.”
Lottie pressed her hands hard over her ears. The bear was closing the gap; the cubs followed erratically, and now and again the mother bear paused to glance at them and growl softly. Clyde began to climb the face of the cliff. The bear came into view and saw him. She ran. Clyde was out of her reach; she began to climb, and rocks were loosened by her great body. When one of the cubs bawled, she let go and half slid, half fell back to the bottom. Standing on her hind legs, she growled at the man above her. She was nine feet tall. She shook her great head from side to side another moment, then turned and waddled back toward the blueberries, trailed by her two cubs.
“Smart bastard,” Butcher muttered. “Good thinking. Knew he couldn’t outrun a bear. Good thinking.”
Lottie went to the bathroom. She had smelled the bear, she thought. If he had only shut up a minute! She was certain she had smelled the bear. Her hands were trembling.
The phone was ringing when she returned to the living room. She answered, watching the screen. Clyde looked shaken, the first time he had been rattled since the beginning.
“Yeah,” she said into the phone. “He’s here.” She put the receiver down. “Your sister.”
“She can’t come over,” Butcher said ominously. “Not unless she’s drowned that brat.”
“Funny,” Lottie said, scowling. Corinne should have enough consideration not to make an issue of it week after week.
“Yeah,” Butcher was saying into the phone. “I know it’s tough on a floor set, but what the hell, get the old man to buy a wall unit. What’s he planning to do, take it with him?” He listened. “Like I said, you know how it is. I say okay, then Lottie gives me hell. Know what I mean? I mean, it ain’t worth it. You know?” Presently he banged the receiver down.
“Frank’s out of town?”
He didn’t answer, settled himself down into his chair and reached for his beer.
“He’s in a fancy hotel lobby where they got a unit screen the size of a barn and she’s got that lousy little portable…”
“Just drop it, will ya? She’s the one that wanted the kid, remember. She’s bawling her head off but she’s not coming over. So drop it!”