Treasures of Morrow by H M Hoover

Author:H M Hoover
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General Fiction
Published: 1976-03-26T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 14

The wind rose before dawn and swept the mosquitoes away with the clouds. In her tent, Tia woke groggy and grumpy. Like all but the heaviest sleepers, she had spent much of the night tense and listening for the next maddening whine of a mosquito buzzing her ear.

The wind buffeted gently against the tent. Through the low window she could see mountain peaks gleaming snow-bright in the sun’s rays. There were stealthy footsteps in the wet grass as someone passed the back of the tent. She heard a car door open and metal clank lightly on metal. Someone was up and working but trying not to waken anyone else, she thought.

She eased out of her sleeping bag, silently picked up a change of clothes from her pack and crawled to the tent door. Outside she stood erect beneath the tent flap and surveyed the morning. Heavy dew silvered the grass and tents. Drops sparkled on the amphibians. No one else was in sight. The silence seemed odd to her; no roosters crowed, no birds sang. The bushes whispered when the wind brushed them and the lake lapped its shore. Without the fog, the lake view looked familiar to her and then she realized with a sense of shock that it was the same lake she and Rabbit had camped beside. They were getting closer.

Hoping activity would still the butterflies in her stomach, she headed toward the toilet and shower. The little fuel cell had kept the water tepid through the night and when she emerged from the shower, she felt much better. Ashira was right, she decided as she walked along. Not having a bath before going to bed affected your personality.

There was still no one else up. The fire pit was cold. She raked out the ashes and looked about for the hatchet Ivan had left in the log he’d used as a chopping block. The hatchet was gone. Thinking he’d put it in out of the damp, she went over to the No. 3 amphibian to get it. It wasn’t readily visible.

She shrugged and was about to close the car door again when it struck her that the inside of the car looked very messy. As if someone else had been hunting something they couldn’t find and had lost patience. Mark would be irked if he saw that. She straightened things up as best she could and went over to Ashira’s car to get the hatchet in the car tool box.

When the fire was burning brightly, she filled two coffee pots with lake water and put them on to perk, then opened the dry food chest to get herself some bread to toast. The bread was gone, all of it, along with the box of dough Ivan had packed to bake on the journey. For a moment she was simply confused. Who would have moved it? For what reason? The box was weatherproof, nothing would spoil . . . .

There was the branch-cracking sound of a large animal moving in the bushes on the other side of the cars.

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