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mat of dried leaves and he began moving the rocks around to see if he could find any twigs. |
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"Hey!" he said. "Look at this." |
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He crawled out and handed Kyna a piece of broken pottery. She turned the shard over in her hands. |
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"Look," she whispered. "You can still see a faint design." |
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"What do you think it was?" |
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"From the shape, probably a water pot. Are there any more back there?" |
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"There's stuff all over the place." |
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"Let me see." Kyna dropped to her knees. |
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"And spiders and about two years' worth of badger poop." |
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"Oh." She sat back on her heels. |
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Cyrus made three more trips to the rock pile. When he had accumulated a nice mound of kindling, he surrounded it with rocks and tossed in a few pieces of dried dung. |
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"Is that what I think it is?" Kyna asked. |
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"Yep. Makes for a good fire." |
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"Is this where you start rubbing two sticks together?" |
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He pulled a matchbook out of his pocket. Scrawled across the cover was the name of the ski lodge where they had eaten lunch. Seeing her expression, his face reddened. "I collect souvenirs. So sue me." |
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On his last trip back from the rock pile, Cyrus noticed a good-sized stick at the bottom of the pile. He grabbed hold of it and pulled and the whole top of the pile came rolling down, raising a cloud of dust and freeing an icy blast of air that hit him in the face like a two-by-four. Crouching down flat, he saw a black hole in the back wall that had been hidden behind the pile of rocks. |
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Oh shit! he thought, and he quickly began replacing the fallen rocks. |
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Scurrying back to the fire, he dropped the stick into the flames, then crawled over to the entrance of the cave. |
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Kyna muttered, "You know, sometimes living with you is like living with a freaking bird dog." |
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The stench from the opening had been as bad as anything |
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