He found the hatchet. As he walked back toward the tent, he saw Nick staring into space. No, not into space. At Julie. The girl was holding the small stove high, waving a lighted match under its base to warm the fuel for priming.
Wouldn't that be something, Flash thought, if Nick and Julie got together? He wondered if Scott would approve. No reason why he shouldn't. Nick's a fine lad, an Eagle Scout, a good student, and my son. The girl could sure do worse.
So could Nick. A lot worse. As far as Flash knew, the boy had never dated a gal half as attractive as Julie.
She shook out the match, turned a metal key to start the gas jetting, and frowned.
"I'll take care of the stakes, Nick. Go on over and see if Julie needs a hand with the stove."
The boy shrugged.
"Go on. Maybe the nozzle's clogged."
"Well. okay. Be right back." He walked toward her. Julie smiled when she saw him approach. "Having some trouble?" he asked.
"This thing doesn't want to cooperate."
"Here, let me take a look."
Go to it, boy, Flash thought, and picked up a stake.
Chapter Eight
Crouched by the stream, Karen shivered and gritted her teeth. Only a couple of hours ago, she'd been splashing herself to cool off. Then the water had felt like ice on her hot skin. Now, with the sun down and a chilly breeze blowing, the water seemed almost warm.
Except for Benny, everyone else had already finished washing their cook kits and returned to camp. He stood on the opposite bank, shaking and waving his aluminum dish to dry it while Karen scrubbed out the big pot. He was smart. He'd put on a jacket before coming over. Karen was still in her shorts and thin blouse. The blouse did no good at all. The cold breeze passed through the cloth as if it weren't there.
Benny sat down on a rock across from her. He wiped the dish across a leg of his jeans. "Aren't you awfully cold?" he asked.
"I'm one giant goosebump."
"You want me to get a jacket for you?"
"That's all right, I'm about done. Thanks, though."
"It's funny how it gets so cold."
"The altitude, I guess. You bake during the day and freeze at night."
"Yeah. It's weird. It sure isn't like home."
"That's one of the great things about camping," she said. "Home looks so good after you've been out here a while. You start dreaming about a hot bath, a soft bed. "
"Yeah!" Benny leaned forward, elbows on knees. "Last year, we were out for a week and I got so I had to have a chocolate milkshake. I wanted one so bad I couldn't stand it. Then Dad stopped at Burger King on the way home and. gee, I think that was the best milkshake I ever had. I can taste it, just thinking about it."
"Just thinking about it makes me cold." Karen rinsed out the pot, stood up, and shook the water from it. "Right now, I could go for some coffee."
"We've got cocoa, too," Benny said. Standing up, he brushed off the seat of his jeans. "And marshmallows."
"Maybe I'll have a marshmallow in my coffee."
He laughed, and hopped across the stream.
"Thanks for keeping me company," Karen told him as they walked up the granite slab.
"Ah, that's all right."
The clearing ahead shimmered with firelight. Most of the others were seated close to the fire.
"Thought we'd lost you," Scott called.
"Save me some coffee," Karen called back. She handed the pot to Benny, and carried her cook kit down a gradual slope to the tent. "Right with you," she said over her shoulder.
Her backpack was propped against a rock near the tent entrance. She lifted the flap, dropped her kit into the darkness, and dug through the equipment trying to find her jeans and parka. They were near the bottom, of course. What you wanted was always at the bottom.
Clamping the jeans between her legs, she quickly shook open the parka and put it on. She sighed with relief at its warmth.
Then she crawled into the tent. It was very dark inside, but she didn't need her light for this. She sat on her soft, down-filled sleeping bag, took off her boots, and changed from her shorts to the long-legged jeans. Pushing into her boots, she left the tent. She hurried toward the fire, hoping she wouldn't trip on the laces.
Her cup was still on the stump where she'd left it after dinner. "All set," she said.
"Coffee?" Scott asked.
"You bet." She held out the cup. Scott spooned in granules of instant from a plastic bag, then poured hot water into her cup and gave it a stir. Steam rose against Karen's face as she took a sip. "Ah, that's good." She sat on the stump, and drank more.
Benny, she saw, already had cocoa with a couple of marshmallows floating on the surface.
"How about some songs?" Alice suggested.
They started with "Michael, Row the Boat Ashore." Then it was "Shenandoah." Flash led them in "Danny Boy," to which he knew all the words, and seemed almost tearful as he sang of the boy returning to his father's grave.
"Let's get into something more upbeat," Scott said when that one ended. In a loud baritone, he started "The Marine Corps Hymn" and everyone joined in, their voices booming.
" 'The Caisson Song'!" Nick called out.
Then "The Battle Hymn of the Republic," then, "Dixie." When that was done, the Gordons sang a song about a logger who stirred his coffee with his thumb.
"That puts me in mind of Robert Service," Scott said. " 'There are strange things done in the midnight sun. ' "
" 'By the men who moil for gold,' " Karen said along with him, smiling that they both knew the same poem. They continued with it, line after line, one remembering what the other forgot until they finally got Sam McGee cremated on the marge of Lake LaBarge.
Their performance drew applause, and a two-fingered whistle from Julie.
Alice urged the twins to recite "Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening."
"Sissy stuff," Flash said when they finished. "How's about this one? 'You may talk o' gin and beer/When you're quartered safe out here,/And you're sent to penny-fights and Aldershot it. ' "
Karen knew "Gunga Din" by heart, but she kept silent as he proceeded. He messed up the middle badly. Nobody seemed to notice, though.
"Bravo!" Scott called, clapping as he finished. "Benny, why don't you do one?"
The boy shrugged. He glanced shyly at Karen.
"Come on," she urged him.
"Well. Is The Raven' okay?"
"Great! I love Poe."
Benny leaned forward on his rock, and set his empty cup on the ground between his feet. "Well, here goes." He began to recite the poem in a low, ominous voice. When the raven spoke, he screeched its "Nevermore" like a demented parrot.
Rose giggled. Heather elbowed her for silence.
Benny ignored them. He spoke slowly, a haunted look on his firelit face as if he'd become the lonely, tormented man of the poem. He grew frenzied, then furious. " 'Quit the bust above my door!' " he cried out. " 'Take thy beak from out my heart and take thy form from off my door!' "
When he finished, there was silence. Everyone looked a bit stunned. Until he stood up, grinning, and bowed. Everyone clapped. Even Rose. Even Julie.
"Terrific," Karen told him. "That was great!"
"Do you know some others?" Rose asked.
"Maybe," he said. "Maybe tomorrow night."
"Let's tell stories," Julie suggested. "Anybody know a really scary one?"
"How about 'The Hook'?" Nick asked.
Rose wrinkled her nose. "That's an old one."
"I could tell you something," Karen said, "that happened to a friend of mine. It happened just a few years ago when she was camping with some friends — not very far from here."