Had fallen asleep ourselves,

  "Then what happened?" 

  "It was a funny thing 'cuz I woke up less nervous," I answered.  But my friend gently tossed a twisted blade of grass cross and said, "I'll tell you." Said that like she was poking a hearth fire.  The talking circle, home for the night, was quieted down.

  "Dog was missin'.  So I started to go look for 'im.  Wasn't maybe five yards away from where we fell asleep.  And there were people." 

  "What were they doing?" 

  "Not screwin' each other, put your salivating tongue away," she lashed.  "Anyway, they was just standing there like statues." 

  "They were.  She came and got me." 

  Like the creek running low in a stillshot photograph of mountains and mist, the "cammo" clothing and vests and gear and stuff kinda blended in with the scenery.  

  "But the scenery had a feeling." 

  "Cha.  It did." 

  "What did it feel like?" The short, muscled guy had a ring of orange all around his lips proving natural foods can dye.  

  "At first," my friend closed her eyes, "I wasn't sure.  But theeeen, I let it build up.  Like if I could feel something, what would it be?" 

  "Well, that doesn't answer the question." A thin red-headed twenty-something woman glanced up from an embroidery hoop.  She was sew-drawing some pine trees behind a skillet in thread on a towel.  They might hang the towel in their home.  After'n done mad at me, she'd explained about being past puppy love and sticking with a businessman through and through. 

  "Well, not right off it doesn't." 

  "But there's usually a point to most of her stories," I pointed my pen like it was a teacher's piece of chalk at anybody gonna interrupt.

  She closed her eyes again.  "Well, my feeling sensor was flummuxed.  I'd been so stressed.  Plus, I realized here we were just stumbling into something." She opened her eyes.  The preacher snorted in his snoring but didn't wake up.  "You think it was something?" Carrot Lips asked in a normal speaking volume.  The conversation continued.

  "Sound'n like New Mexico," a naturally auburn-haired woman in shirt sleeves and a tank top brought her leather longcoat to a rest on an abanoned blanket near us.  Nobody'd seen her walk up so some of us gave a little jump but nobody freaked. 

  "How so?" Someone asked. 

  Another skinny woman with short black hair and a fiddle case crept in closer and handed up a tobacco rollie.  The woman took it and took a dollar bill, folded neatly, out from under a shirt sleeve.  "Out there, sometimes it's so still, you can," she looked around at our faces in the headlamp campfire.  We were drooling to hear.  She thought of something quick as she licked the rolling paper and rolled the smoke smokeable.  "You can hear you're own perspiration dripping." 

  "What else?" 

  "Not even the hogs are clinking still cooling down." She fished in one sleeve, then moved stuff in the other around like it was a glove compartment in there.  Found a black lighter and torched the rollie.  "You wanna sit down?" 

  "Honey, if I sit down anymore today my asshole will be in my ears." She took savoring drag after savoring drag on that rollie.  For it was done the short-haired woman handed up another, already rolled, said barely above a lullaby volume, "Give'n ya two for the buck.  And here's your flask back." Before she took that she asked, "Anything in it?" Eyes flashed mean like the red-eyed cobra snake at the Fair but she forced a smile through muscles stiffening toward seizure.  "Of course," a man in clothing totally black stepped towards our blanket but not into any light.  That did make a couple people get up.  Some were better at act casual than others and it looked like people not quite understanding "yoga" in a class.  Carrot Lips had stood from Indian-style seated, hooked his backpack on an arm that slid it to his shoulder, and spread his arms into a yawning stretch, so others started stretching arms and mouths and saying stuff like, "Getting later than late," and, "Better get some sleep.". One youngish quiet guy in glasses and a tee-shirt with a generic doodle on it even said, "Yup, tomorrow's gonna be a good day.". Nobody mentioned it already was, just cleared out.