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with the view of snow. Do you think he would like my strawberry tart? Maybe with chocolate sauce and a Valium, I'd thought.
     
     
"Cam?" I called when there was no response to my knock at the guest house door. "You in there?" I listened for the twang of sitar music but heard none, thank goodness. Unfortunately, there was no hum and pop of Cameron's printer, either, which I found more worrisome. Cameron wrote articles on the historic West; according to Marla, who knew everything, he hadn't written a word or made a sale in the past sixteen months, not since Gerald Eliot had made such a mess of their home. That, combined with his mounting depression and Barbara's illness - she might not be able to return to her teaching job - were distressing. For politeness, I knocked again, although it was a point of pride for Cameron that he always kept his door unlocked. I turned the knob and the door opened.
     
     
One of the sloped, wood-paneled walls was given over to the TV, the computer-printer setup, a kitchenette, and a tiny bath. The other featured a long shelf chockablock with framed photographs of Cameron and Barbara visiting ghost towns, abandoned mines, and historic sites. In the pictures, stocky, jovial Cameron and blond, plump Barbara looked as excited as kids.
     
     
But these photos did not reflect the way Cameron I looked now. Disheveled, grizzled, he was snoring loudly on an unmade sofabed pushed up against the wide part of the A. His gray hair, pushed askew like windblown barbecue ash, desperately needed cutting. Mouth open, his chunky body contorted, he looked more like a wrestler on the skids than a historian. One shoe lay on the floor; there was no sign of a second. He.wore muddied ;j socks, rumpled dark chinos, and a denim shirt. He'd wrenched a patchwork quilt around him so that It knotted his middle.
     
     
He snorted, then jerked violently awake. "What? Who's there?"
     
     
"I'm sorry, I'll leave. It's just Goldy Schulz."
     
     
He scratched his scalp, then sighed. "Come on in, Goldy." His leathery face was even more deeply furrowed than the last time I'd seen him; his red-rimmed eyes lingered on the kitchenette side of the room. "Checking on me again, eh?" With sudden decision, he yanked the quilt around him and stumped toward the tiny bathroom. "Be right back."
     
     
Shower water began to run. I unpacked the basket and checked the refrigerator. It smelled terrible and contained only a green-edged, muddy-brown package of ground beef. When had Cameron had his last meal? For that matter, when had he last had contact with the outside world? I checked the bottles of pills on his bedside table: Librium and Restoril - tranquilizers and sleeping pills. The message light on his phone was blinking. On the floor next to his discarded shoe lay a half-empty bottle of Bacardi, a nibbled bar of chocolate, and a box of crackers. Great. The man obviously needed coffee and decent food, in that order. I knew from my previous food-bearing trips that Cameron kept an old-fashioned chrome percolator beside the kitchenette's yellow ceramic cannisters. Unfortunately, it was nowhere to be seen.
     
     
"Where's your coffeepot?" I called.
     
     
"Oh, hell," he yelled over the spray. "The coffeepot? Let's see." For a moment all I heard was the hiss of shower water. "I was watching one of those home improvement shows. You know, where they teach you to glaze your own windows? So I thought, why not?" The valve squealed as he turned off the water. "See any aspirin out there?"
     
     
I scanned the counter, the tables, even the tops of the TV and computer: no aspirin. "Nope. I'll go get you some, if you want."
     
     
"Aspirin would be in the main house bathroom. The coffeepot's in the sun room." He grunted, undoubtedly pulling clothes on over damp skin. "I bought some old window frames and glass... thought I'd do the glazing myself. Made a pot of coffee, started working, broke two pieces of glass, got frustrated. Poured some rum into