She bent first to peel the headlamp from around Dan’s head. She stuffed it into her strange rags of clothing. The light glowed from some nether space inside. The .270 was tipped from the crook of her arm. She went to the chestnut next. She shifted the blanket forward on his withers, spoke to him, lifted the saddle on. The bridles were never taken off, the bits. She bent and checked his legs. She stepped to the sorrel, the blanket, the saddle, then the paint next, then the yellow horse, then the packhorse, then the two mules last. The dun walked in and she checked him over.

She tied them together in no order, tail to harness, tail to harness. When Ella leaned toward a coil of rope, Ginny aimed and fired at the coil. She stuffed the rope in a satchel. She added snow to the pot when she found it. It melted at once.

Ginny leaned over Ella and dug in Saul’s pockets, found his knife, two sticks of gum, unwrapped both, stuffed them in her mouth, breathed, chewed slowly. She gathered panniers and rifled through them, dropping items out, stuffing others, small bags, crumbs, a ripped-up poncho, a lighter on the ground, a blue tin cup, a fork with a tine bent back. She wore Saul’s headlamp. She turned it on and off. The light was very weak. She tapped the light and the beam doubled. She poured the hot water into the tin cup and drank it. She adjusted the headlamp strap and wound the light back onto her head. She bent once again to Dan and looked at him for a long time. She pulled his poncho back from his face.

She let the chestnut sniff her down.

She bent over Ella, shut off the one-burner. It cooled and she unscrewed the white gas canister. Gloves, several pairs. She stuffed these in the pannier. A pencil, a book. She lifted a water jug, shook it, shook a canteen, a cartridge for the magnum. She slid Dan’s belt from his belt loops. He was still and cooling. She wrapped the belt around her middle, with the knife cut a new hole.

“Where’s Maul?” Ginny said.

“Over there somewhere. Below the cliff.”

An empty ammo can. Another pannier.

“Where’s Bowman?” Ella said.

“Over there,” Ginny said. “Groggy. He’ll get himself loose after we go,” and Ella thought he doesn’t deserve to live, but didn’t say it. It was the end of that time in her, and the beginning of something else. Continents inside her were breaking past each other. She had never believed in it. Change. Evolution of the self.

Rope. A bit of string, a spatula.

“Get his shirt,” Ginny said. “His coat. Socks.”

Ella undressed Saul down to his bloody T-shirt. Ginny did the same with Dan and disappeared again. She wore Bowman’s gloves.