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you go in Sherry’s wagon. Gina asked to be on her own. Emily and her kids will take the third Conestoga, and I’ll drive number four. Now, if everybody’s satisfied, can we get this show on the road? I have bedding to buy before the stores close.”
    It was hard to tell who was more disgruntled by his capitulation, Emily Benton’s children or Camp himself. Megan Benton stamped a dainty foot, declaring her mother couldn’t make her go. As if to prove it, she flung herself down on a park bench. Mark grabbed his mp3 player and turned it up to deafening decibels, refusing to turn it down as Emily ordered. He glared when Camp walked over and shut it off. Sullen, the boy flopped next to his sister. “This summer sucks.”
    Camp was relieved that Lyle and Jeff had trundled off to Sammy’s Bar with the last of the nosy reporters. He felt doubly glad they were gone when Maizie gave his team of teddy-bear Clydesdales to strangers—Doris and Vi, two elementary-school teachers from St. Louis who’d joined the trek. Then she delivered to Camp a quartet of nasty-tempered Belgians. One stepped on his foot, possibly crippling him for life. Another continually tried to eat his hair, blowing foul-smelling breath in his face. “Stop it,” he hissed.
    An hour after all the women had mastered the task of hitching and unhitching, Camp remained in the park, tangled in the harnesses and singletrees that yoked the teams together. The face-saver was that a loudmouthed man from Philadelphia had done no better. Philly, as Camp dubbed the braggart, claimed he’d fished Alaska, shot the rapids of Oregon’s Rogue River and single-handedly sailed through the Greek islands. That was where Camp tuned him out and got down to business. He wouldn’t let a few scrawny women and four fat horses make a fool out of him.
    By the time he’d performed to Maizie’s liking, Camp was more than ready to eat the wings the woman owed him. But it was four-thirty. He had less than thirty minutes to make it to the general store to purchase bedding. No way would he sleep on bare planks just to prove he was a manly man.
    Let the women jeer. He intended to scare up spare batteries for his laptop, too. It turned out no store in town carried the type he needed. Giving up, Camp raced into a stationery store at five minutes to five to buy every ruled tablet they had in stock. At this point he was beyond caring that the pads came only in pink and lavender. Although he drew the line at pencils with grape- and
strawberry-scented erasers.
    By the time he poked his head through Sammy’s swinging doors at six-thirty, he found the place jammed with Saturday-night locals. Ah, well, he could do without the wings. Maizie had warned everyone it was “wagons ho” at 5 a.m. She didn’t sound as if she’d be inclined to wait for anyone shuffling in late. Besides, the wail from the jukebox only intensified Camp’s headache. All in all, it’d been a most trying day. He recalled passing a mom-and-pop café somewhere between Sammy’s Bar and Maizie’s office. A quiet dinner appealed more than eating in such a crowded place.
    He found the café easily enough. But as he reached for the door, Camp noticed Emily Benton and her kids seated in a front booth. Megan and Mark were clearly still sulking, and Emily looked positively grim. The very last thing he needed to round out his day was to step into the middle of a family feud.
    “Oh, well,” he said with a yawn, “I’ll skip dinner in favor of extra z’s.” Retracing his steps, he again resisted the smell of onions wafting from Sammy’s. At the corner, he crossed the street and didn’t stop until he’d claimed his room at the motel. Too tired to shower, Camp shucked his clothes and tumbled into bed—the last real one he’d see for weeks. He sighed as the mattress adjusted to his contours. Seconds before sleep took him, he sat up, snapped on the light and set the alarm on his watch, advancing the time to allow for a