Chapter 11
The ride up to the campsite hadn't been all that bad. The boys in her station wagon had been rowdy, but Ann had managed to handle them. She was dressed in slacks and a blouse, both blue, and she had a blue jacket on top, because she knew it would be cold at night. Fortunately for the kids, unfortunately for Ann, the weather on that weekend in October was predicted to be unusually mild.
They arrived at the campsite at three in the afternoon, and while Ann and Phyllis, who had also agreed to come along, set up the tents, then went about getting supper ready, Mike Refizzo, the other mother, and his two assistant scoutmasters, took the boys hiking in the woods. Mike had been there before, and he knew all the trails. There was no wild game in this part of the state, so there would be no one worrying about whether or not there were hunters.
At six-thirty, Mike brought the kids back, and they had hamburgers, beans, and baked potatoes waiting for them. They ate heartily, sat around a large camp-fire for a while, then they all went to bed. Ann slept in a tent with Phyllis, and she drifted off to sleep pretty quickly, too.
The following day, Ann went with Mike and the other adults when they took the boys on a nature study walk. The walk began in the morning, ended at noon, at which time Ann and Phyllis showed the boys, according to the scout manual, how to cook over a campfire. That afternoon, Ann and Phyllis rested, while Mike took the kids on another hike, a longer one this time. When they returned, they were tired out and had just enough strength to eat. Afterward, they all undressed, washed in a nearby brook which ran downhill because they were perched on one side of a cliff, with a heavy wooden railing to insure the kids not accidentally sleep-walking off the cliff, and they went to sleep. Mike spoke with the assistant scoutmasters. They agreed they would share the nightwatch between them. Phyllis and the other mother who had come along decided to hit the hay early, and Ann was hoping Mike had forgotten what he intended doing to her, but he hadn't.
"Okay," he said, walking over to her. "Come on, we're gonna take us a little ride."
"Where are we going?" she asked. "To have some fun. C'mon, ain't no one gonna know you and me are missing. That hike knocked out everyone-the kids, the other scoutmasters, and even the redheaded dame, who came on the hike with us. I see that blonde dame with you knocked off early, so she ain't gonna know you're with me, so let's go. Don't worry, we'll be back in plenty of time to help the kids pack up and go home."
Ann knew the futility of arguing with him. Shrugging, she got into his van, and sat back as he drove along small, backwoods trails, trails hard enough to see during the day, and almost impossible to see at night. But Mike Refizzo knew the way, and sure enough, after a while she saw lights up ahead. He headed for the lights, and she saw what looked like a gigantic rustic log cabin, two stories high, with an immense parking lot around it. The lot was more than half-filled. Who would have believed so many people would come from hundreds of miles away to some cockamamie place out in the woods.
Mike parked the van, they got out, and went inside. Ann felt as long as they were in public, she ought to be safe, but a prickling on the back of her neck was already warning her. Not that she would have been able to do anything about it, anyway, with Mike holding her arm. His tight grip was like a vise, and she shuddered.