“What about you, Professor Wells?” from Rachel.

“I’ve been lost more times than I can count,” I said. “Being lost is a good thing. Generally, a good thing. It’s a good thing if you get found. I was lost not too far from here about twenty years ago. I was part of a search party looking for a lost girl. She was ten, if my memory is correct, and had gotten separated from her parents. I wandered into what I thought was a box canyon that turned out not to be a box canyon, and I got turned around. At first I couldn’t believe I was lost, but I caught on pretty quickly. No one had cell phones back then, and they wouldn’t have worked out here anyway.”

“What did you do?” This from a woman who looked alarmingly like Rachel Charles.

“I found the highest ground I could and looked around. I was certain I would see other members of the search team, but there was no one. I considered panicking for a couple of minutes, realizing that no one would think to look for one of the searchers. I had some water and I found myself measuring it, thinking about rationing. I stayed there on that ridge and night came. I thought I was going to freeze to death, it was so cold.”

“Then?” a young man asked.

“I shined my flashlight out into the darkness, but nobody saw me. Morning came and I decided to walk back in the general direction from which I had come. I walked for miles. The sun beat down on me. I could feel my tongue swelling slightly. I was dragging my feet. I tried to get water out of a prickly pear, but I didn’t know what I was doing.”

“What happened?” Rachel asked.

“Oh, they never found me. I died out here.”

They laughed not because I was funny but because I had caught them. We sat around a little longer. A girl with a guitar sang a song that I didn’t know and didn’t much like, but it was sweet, old fashioned, her doing that.

It was suddenly late, and as I looked at their faces, it dawned on me that they were afraid of turning in because of the snake incident. “I think I’m going to turn in,” I told them. And I left them there.

I grabbed my canteen and wandered far off so I could brush my teeth and pee in peace, then returned to my bag. I was tired and my legs ached, though I’d done very little. This made me feel old. I removed my shirt, boots, and belt and slipped in. I was nearly asleep when the crunch of footfalls came close. I looked up to see Rachel.

“What do you want, Rachel?”

“I’m afraid of snakes,” she said.

“Don’t worry about snakes. The snakes don’t want you. You’re too skinny to keep them warm.”

“I can’t get them out of my head.”