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cranberries, the berries long gone, leaves turned to crimson. I wedged the shotgun under the rear seat and we turned the canoe over. If someone lifted one edge and looked, they’d see the paddles, but maybe not the shotgun. Still, I had the feeling I’d seen the last of the gun, and probably the canoe as well.
    Angie looked at me and wrinkled her nose. “If you’re planning to hitchhike, you’d better wash your face. You look like the Night of the Living Dead .”
    I knelt on the bank and scooped handsful of cold water onto my face, but still had that sunburned feeling. I blotted rather than rubbed, and noticed it was about time for a shave. Angie reached for my handkerchief and cleaned around the cut on my forehead.
    “Okay, you look sick, but not frightening. You do carry a pocket comb?” She accepted the comb and worked the twigs out of her hair. That was an amazing process with pulling that would have snatched me bald. Her hair hangs well past her shoulders and she was holding strands in front of her to untangle the ends. Finally she shrugged it all back in place, ran the comb through it one more time, then worked on me. I had a terrible case of split ends, or maybe frizzies, where I’d been singed. We brushed down clothes, pronounced each other acceptable, and climbed through the bushes. Badger Loop Road was just over the hill.
    Angie surveyed the empty gravel road with a skeptical scowl. “Which way shall we walk?”
    “Doesn’t matter much, either way leads to Richardson Highway so we can hitchhike in either direction, but let’s head toward town. When we snag a ride, I’d rather it was headed for Fairbanks than Eielson. Fact is, I’m ready for some breakfast, or the dinner we didn’t have last night.”
    “Yeah, I know what you mean. I’d sell my soul for a cup of coffee.” We turned right and trudged down the center of the road.
    “You’re selling your soul too cheap. How about a big stack of blueberry pancakes, plenty of melted butter, with a couple of poached eggs and link sausage on the side?” We were leaving trees behind with the slough, passing scrub alders and willows. Thirty feet on each side of the road were dust covered. Beyond the gray dusting, tufts of grass looked brown and dead, leaves scraggly and dying.
    Angie seemed to be considering. “How about a big order of eggs Benedict, really good hollandaise with lots of lemon juice, black olives on top and no turkey slice?”
    “Good, toss in a couple of glasses of orange juice and our own coffeepot.”
    We’d walked in silence for ten minutes when the sound of a motor turned us around in unison. We nipped to the side of the road and stuck out our thumbs. If it was our pursuers we were dead anyway, no place to run or hide. It was a big blue crew-cab pickup with only the driver, and he looked young. He was wearing civvies, but he was clean-shaven and his haircut looked military. He slid to a stop, covering us with dust, but unintentionally. He rolled down a window.
    “Hi, you guys are a long ways from nowhere.”
    “Right,” I said, “car trouble. Can you give us a lift toward Fairbanks?”
    “Sure, hop in. I’m headed for Fort Wainright.”
    He unlocked the passenger door and pushed it open. Angie scrambled up with me right behind her. He’d stopped in the middle of the road, so no need to check mirrors. He dropped the big rig into drive and we were off with a surge of quiet power.
    “You have a car accident?” he asked. He was looking at the cut on my forehead.
    “Not really, had to take the ditch to miss a moose. Car’s fine, we just need to grab our truck to pull it out.”
    He nodded. That’s such a classic Alaskan story that it almost goes without saying.
    “You live out here?” Angie asked.
    “Yep, wife and I bought five acres from the Markey homestead. Right now we just have a trailer house, but we have electricity and we have a company coming next week to bore a well. We’ll start building a real house next