Lost and found_ a novel - Alan Dean Foster [5]
Instead, he had extricated himself quickly and cleanly from what could have been an exceedingly unpleasant situation. By the time he reached the lake and turned east along its southern shore, he was almost whistling to himself.
As far as he knew, he’d had the whole lake to himself for at least a day. The last campers, a cheerful elderly couple up from Grass Valley, had packed up and trundled out in their aged camper on Tuesday. In contrast to his increasing unease at the lack of human company, after tonight’s confrontation he found himself looking forward to a night, and perhaps a following day, of isolation. Just him and the birds, the fish, the flowers, and an occasional grazing deer.
His tent by the lake was undisturbed, the gear stored inside untouched. That was the nice thing about insured rental equipment, he reflected as he braked the 4X4 to a halt, switched off the engine, and hopped out. You could wander off on a hike or a fishing expedition and just leave everything. This wasn’t Yosemite or Sequoia. Cawley Lake was pretty out of the way, even for the north-central Sierras. That was why he and his friends had chosen it as the site of their little bet.
The compact propane heater soon had the interior of the dome tent toasty warm while the battery-powered lantern rendered the interior bright enough for him to read from one of the paperbacks he had brought along. Not one to stint when it wasn’t necessary, Walker had rented a pop-up shelter large enough to accommodate three adequately and himself in comparative comfort. Having filled up in town on bar snacks, he decided to skip what at that point in time would have been an uncomfortably late supper. After the tension of the near fight, the rented microfiber sleeping bag beckoned enticingly.
He allowed himself an imported chocolate bar (perhaps made with chocolate liquor whose base component he himself had once bid on) and some cold water, then slipped out of his clothes and into the sleeping bag. Reaching up, he switched off the light, then the propane heater. It would get cold in the tent, but not in the bag. Come morning, he would switch the heater on again before emerging. Anyway, the cold didn’t really bother him. He was from Chicago.
The territorial night owl began hoo-hooting again, and he wondered at its species. Certainly it was more mellow than the night owls he was used to dealing with back home. Occasionally, something snapped twigs or rustled leaf litter outside the tent. The first couple of nights, the furtive noises had kept him awake. Initial worrisome thoughts of mountain lions and bears gave way to those of coyotes, then beavers, and finally, mice and ground squirrels. Nothing nibbled at his toes. He was not the natural food of the local predators, he reassured himself, and the tent not the kind of burrow they were used to invading in search of prey.
Subsiding adrenaline had kept him alert on the road. Now, as he relaxed, its effects diminished while those of the Russian lemonade grew stronger. Consciousness faded quickly, along with any lingering concerns.
2
The crunching woke him. Lying in the sleeping bag, half awake and half asleep, he struggled to revive his muzzy mental faculties. Had he imagined the sound? Had he dreamed it?
Sss-crunchh—there it was again. He raised himself up on one elbow, suddenly wide awake. The noise had not been made by a mouse, or by one of the pushy pack rats that haunted his campsite keen on petty theft. It was loud and distinctive and strongly hinted at significant weight being applied to the talkative earth. Bear? he wondered as he sat all the way up inside the tent. Deer?
Or worse—one or more of the transalpine drunken troublemakers who habituated the sole drinking