As the tiny blaze began to lick upward into the kindling, Maury turned to study the place. Well-furnished, plenty of blankets, electric range and a decent shower. Behind the cabins, he knew, lay an unbroken white expanse leading into the soaring trees beyond. Too bad he had only one set of snowshoes for his morning trek, but— "What on earth are you doing, Gina?"
"Setting our detectors," she said absently, adjusting a dial on the device she had taken from her bag. "I can sleep with this little rig, and I don't want to be roused by every passing field mouse."
"That's new Oracle hardware," he laughed, and stood up to see. He explained his history with the firm that marketed her detectors, oddly warmed to find that the little wireless motion sensors were as useful as his sales people had claimed they would be. With one inside the Firebird, a second dropped into the snow outside the bathroom window, and another placed adhesively under the eaves away from steady winds, they would be forewarned of approach by anything larger than a rabbit. Gina emplaced the sensors while Everett rummaged in their groceries. When she returned he had spread the stuff on the table. He saw her turn quickly to sit on the bed, her head down.
"Problems?"
"I don't know," she said groggily, her breathing deep and rapid. "It's not time for my period. I just feel like a wet rag." She looked up, hearing him chuckle. "I'm glad it meets with your approval" she growled.
"The altitude," he said gently; and turned his chair to sit facing her. "Hey, lady, you're two kilometers high, here. Takes a few days before you can scurry around, jock or no jock, without getting spots before your eyes."
He placed a tentative hand on her shoulder, felt her stiffen, patted her once, withdrew the hand. "Prescription is simple: just keep breathin'," he said, and moved back to the table. "Prognosis is simpler stilclass="underline" you'll be hungry as a hoot-owl in another five minutes."
Presently, as he sliced a second hunk of the petrified salami to go with his corn chips, he heard bedsprings creak. A moment later she was sitting across from him, the brunette wig discarded, her hair gleaming beryllium bronze in the firelight. "Don't mind me," she said, her buoyancy gradually returning. "When I'm not fully fit I feel vulnerable. And when I feel vulnerable, I am not the easiest person to approach. You know?" Her frown was questioning, serious.
He nodded. "Like being fresh out of videotape when the bridge collapses," he offered.
"At least," she smiled, then sniffed. "What's this stuff?"
He watched her finger the soft disc of cheese he had taken from its airtight tin. "Camembert; Give it an hour to soften, and it makes the worst beer in Colorado taste like dark Lowenbrau."
"Can't just be dead, huh? It has to putrify."
She saw something shatter behind his eyes before he squeezed them shut. He shook off the outward display, turning to stare into the fire. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "That was stupid of me."
Everett told her, inflections low and halting, of the youth who almost certainly lay under swirling rapids in his expensive metal coffin several kilometers away. "I keep hearing him yelling. He was scared out of his sphincter, Gina. I don't think he knew what was happening."
"My synopsis said he had an automatic weapon. He knew."
"That was the third guy, the one in the back seat; the one I—I aimed at."
"Then you didn't actually pull the plug on the kid driving?"
"Not intentionally." He swallowed with an effort. "I'm not like you, Gina. I don't have the killer instinct very well honed." He saw her start to protest and held up a restraining hand. "I've seen you move in when you didn't have to, lady. And I'm grateful, I admire you for it. Wouldn't want you any other way. Okay?" She gnawed her lip and gave silent assent. "But I think, I honestly think I wouldn't've pulled that trigger if I hadn't found myself within spitting distance of that Czech automatic. I was going to round the bastards up. I think."
She began to tear small shreds of celery leaf, placing them atop corn chips like hors d'oeuvres. "And I think we simply have different views of what constitutes self-defense," she mused, voice low and calm. "You defend only against immediate threat to your life. I have another view: when something has demonstrated that it is ready and willing to screw me good—and I'm wearing my Freudian half-slip there—I'm likely to defend against the possibility; one demonstration is all I need."
"Screw me twice, shame on me," Everett quoted.
"Absolutely. I got screwed twice, 'way back when, and it left me with a sense of shame I don't want to feel again. Ever." the last word intense.
A thin piercing tone stuttered from the Oracle detector. Gina flashed to it, flicked off the audio alarm and checked the tiny lamp glowing on the detector face. "In back," she whispered. "Leave the lights alone but get down." He followed instructions, watched her check the Beretta before she closed the bathroom door. A musical laugh, barely audible from the bathroom: "Come here a minute, Maury. This, you have to see."
He found her peering through the back window, the scene outside a dazzling blue-white against black. Twenty meters away, a sleek four-point buck stood quartering toward them, the long neck arched up, antlers stark against the sky. "Testing our scent," Everett breathed, lips brushing her hair. They watched in silence for a long moment. "He doesn't want to get screwed, either."
"Is he in season?"
"Not for me. Always, for a camera. Maybe we can track him tomorrow."
"You're out of your mind," she chuckled. The buck, startled perhaps by some faint transmission of her voice, swung gracefully around, sprang away into the trees with vast heart-stopping leaps.
"Nijinsky," Everett said. "They used to say his leaps were magic. Maybe he was just part deer."
Moving back toward their catastrophic array of foods on the table, Gina paused to reset the detector audio. Everett found his wine, wrenched the cork out, found two coffee cups and poured, yawning as she sat down again.
"Did I understand you right?" She was smiling quizzically. "You only hunt with a camera?"
"Don't let it get around. Some of my friends wouldn't understand."
"Or maybe they would, which'd be worse."
He swigged the wine, crooning happily. "Much worse," he agreed. "Don't get me wrong: I shot an elk once, to get his hide for a pair of trousers. Could've just bought the goddam hide but if I really needed a set of elkhides I figured it was only right to get 'em the hard way."
"How did you feel afterward?"
"Pretty good, to tell the truth. I packed a hindquarter down with the green hide. God, I was a bloody mess. The trousers turned out to be heavy as guilt, but I still have 'em. And if I ever need another pair, I'll go after another elk. It's all the shit we go after that we don't need; that's what puts my hackles up."
She tasted the wine. "Sherry? Wow."
"Harvey's Bristol Cream," he nodded. "The dirty old men with their Madeira just haven't discovered this stuff."
She slouched in her chair, feeling for the rungs beneath his own, and he moved his legs companionably aside. "You don't need a whole lot, do you," she asked shrewdly. "I mean, you don't chase after much. Women, trophies over your mantel, man-of-the-year nominations—"
"Mark of the year, maybe," he snorted.
"Mr. and Mrs. Marks," she said; "I noticed that. But you're avoiding my interview, Commissioner."
"Ah, yes." Pompous clearing of his throat. "I chase what I need, Gina. Well, hell, sometimes I don't even do that. When my wife left me a lo-o-ong time back, I needed her. It wasn't pride that kept me from chasing her. It was knowing she'd just leave again. I didn't have what she needed, you see. Someone who'd stay down off the timberline and build furniture, mix drinks, mow lawns, lust after a silk tie or a smoking jacket."