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Show Remember? 77 I t seemed that way to me. Oh, come on. Give me a break. Let's talk about i t , he said, right here. He maneuvred out of his pack. We'll get up early and be back before they know that we're not there. I t ' l l be all right. He helped her pick at the knots that fastened her bedroll to the aluminum frame. They didn't look at each other as they straightened the corners of the tarpaulin and arranged their bedrolls side by side. They sat down on their sleeping bags and loosened the laces on their hiking boots. She pulled off her two pairs of wool socks, rolled them neatly and stuffed them in her boots. Before she curled into her bag, she untied the know in her shirt and buttoned i t . He picked at the moleskin that he had put on his heels and over the tops of his bare toes to ease the pressure and protect them from blistering. The sticky surface had attracted a collection of particles, some fine, some closer to rock than sand. How does this stuff get inside your shoes and your socks, way down at your toes? I ' l l never understand. He climbed inside of his sleeping bag, folded his arms across the logo on his T-shirt, and lay back in the dark. This breeze is picking up a l i t t l e too fast, he said, linking his hands behind his head to support his neck. You know, there's nothing more lonely than wind. They both stared into the parabola of sky. The pinon branches overhead shifted from side to side. Stars crowded the spaces between the boughs of pine needles. I hated the wind more than anything else about the desert, she said, the way i t screamed around the corners. Remember how the cattle would bawl on windy nights, almost as i f they were going to stampede through our walls |