Anna was breathing fairly heavily, clearly agitated though not speaking up as to why. She finally did find her voice again as she looked to Emily. "Well we should leave it like we found it. Let it be someone else's scare, right?"
"Works for me," the strawberry blond replied. "Kinda creepy anyway. Let's move on."
The group continued to make their way through the valley for another hour or so. Whenever there was a bend in the trail, Jack would try to slip ahead and hide in the bushes along the path. He succeeded only once, emerging suddenly from behind a large beech tree and shouting loudly. Katie screamed in fear and jumped into Paul's arms, clutching him tight.
Jack bent over at the waist, holding his stomach as he laughed loudly.
Katie was still whimpering in Paul's arms as he began to scream at Jack.
"That wasn't funny, asshole!" he shouted.
"Yes, ... yes it was," Jack managed to say between his laughs. "And, you should've seen your face! Did'ya bring an extra set of underwear on the hike?"
"Shut up!" Anna cautioned, there was a guttural quality in her voice that made it much deeper. She grabbed Jack by the scruff of the neck and pushed him into the trunk of the tree. "Don't do THAT anymorrrre," she said, as her last word slipped into a growl.
"Chill, Bitch," Jack replied as Anna released her grip and let him move back onto the path. "I was just havin' some fun. Besides," Jack continued as he looked at Katie, "if you can't handle a little scare in broad daylight, what're you gonna do on the trail tonight?"
Jack's rhetorical question was left unanswered and the group walked in silence, save Jack's muttering, all the way back to camp.
Once there, they set about to make dinner. Jack struggled to re-light the campfire that had burned done to warm embers in their absence. The three beers he had gupled down on their return to camp weren't helping. It was clear he had no idea what he was doing - green wood that was too big to catch was stacked in a tight pile. At one point, in his frustration, Jack threw a handful of dead leaves into the firepit. Red and orange flame flashed for a couple of seconds then disappeared leaving only a thich cloud of grey smoke that filled Jack's lungs, making him cough uncontrollably.
"Let me take care of that," Shanna said, as Jack tried to breathe. She quickly discarded the green wood and made a tee-pee out of some nearby kindling. She fished in the pocket of her hoodie and found the dryer lint she had put there just of this purpose. Placing it in the center of the tee-pee, she knelt next to the fire and blew softly. The lint ignighted in seconds from the heat of the embers and the blast of air, and soon it caught the kindling and the fire was on it's way.
"Add these," Shanna said, "...slowly, or you'll smother it again," and she handed Jack a fistfull of twigs and branches.
"But I want a BIG fire to cook my steak!" Jack shouted.
"A big fire'll just burn the outside," Anna said from over at the picnic table. "You need hot coals to cook this properly."
"Damn it!" Paul shouted.
Everyone looked to the table where Paul had been cutting up the salad. He held the fingers of his left hand tightly and shook the hand about.
"What's wrong?" Jack asked.
Emily sniffed the air. "He cut himself," she said in a matter of fact manner no different from her commenting about the weather.
"How could you tell?" Jack asked.
Emily sniffed the air again, "I just sorta knew," she said softly.
Paul found his first aid kit and bandaged his fingers. It was a deep cut across the tips of three of his fingers. Only his thumb and pinky were spared the onslaught.
Meanwhile, the women dropped their steaks on the grill that had positioned over the fire. Each watched as the meat turned from read to brown. Each sniffed the air with delight as the scent of the cooking meat overcame every other smell around the fire. Surprisingly each of them removed their steak from the grill while it was remarkably rare.
Jack and Paul cooked their steaks to around medium and joined the women at the table. No one was talking as each of the women tore ravenously into the meat.
"Easy, girl," Paul said, grabbing Katie's arm as she lifted the slab of meat in her hands and tore at it with her teeth.
Katie regained her composure and the meal was finished. As Paul deposited the remains of dinner in a trash bag that was left by the camp enterance to be picked up before the bears had a picnic of their own, he was stuck by what each of the women had consumed - the steaks, obviously - and that was about it. A potato, the salad and a vegetable had also been served. Most still lay on the plates. He shook it off as nothing of importance, then rejoined the group.
"We'll need to get our tickets b 7:00," Paul said. "If we don't hit the trail by 7:30, we won't finish it before it closes."
"Well," Shanna sighed, "that'll give us about an hour and half until we need to leave."
"Wanta spend some time alone," Jack whispered to Emily as he cocked his head toward his tent. Yet, Anna, who was standing more than 10 feet away heard it.
She snarled at Jack, "errr, we need to go back to our campsite to get ready for tonight."
Emily shrugged and gave Jack a soft peck in the cheek.
"See you later," she said.