After recovering from Maria's examination, David glanced at his watch. "It's nearly four thirty. The sun's going to leave this side of the nook in less than half an hour. After it goes, it will quickly chill, but we can light a fire in here this evening."

"But won't Fritz see it?"

"No, Mama," Maria answered. "There's still smoke and flames on the slopes above us, so our fire will fit in with the scene. Ours won't look different from the rest of the fire."

"Exactly my thoughts," David said. "I'm going to dress and go back up the opposite slope to take another look."

He checked the safety, unclipped the case from the handle, flipped the lid open and slid the pistol inside. Then slipping the case into the harness, he looped the strap over his belt and fastened it. "Just in case I've a need for protection. We have this, we may as well use it. I've been so comfortable here, so relaxed and well cared for, that I keep forgetting I'm deep in enemy territory."

After kissing them both, he checked the mirror and headed out. "The snow should be mostly gone by now from the sun. I'll likely be less than a quarter hour."

He dipped his hand in the shallowest pool.

The water's still the same temperature as yesterday. Must be a flow of thermal water across the slabs.

He examined the strata junction, smiled and nodded.

David quickly regained his previous outlook perch. The snow was almost completely gone from the forest floor, down to a few patches which had remained in the shade and in places it had stacked up from sloughing off tree branches. There were still many small fires around the periphery of the charred scar with flames licking both standing and fallen trees. Dirty white smoke rose from underground fires across the whole area.

Our little fire will fit in well. I wonder where Fritz is.

He scanned the area again, then he relaxed his eyes and set them out of focus on the slopes opposite as he sat still, waiting for motion. There was none for several minutes, then he caught movement and focused on a doe and a fawn picking their way across a small clearing in the trees beyond the fire scar. He watched in appreciation.

Then there was a gunshot, then quickly two more as both animals collapsed. Half a minute later, five soldiers walked into the clearing toward the fallen deer.

So Fritz is still up there. What bloody cowards, killing a defenceless doe and her fawn. But elsewhere they're also killing defenceless mothers and children.

He watched as the soldiers approached their kill, raising their arms and weapons in victory. The biggest man tucked the small fawn under his arm, the four others each took a leg of the doe, and they carried their meat across the slope, angling slightly upwards and then out of sight.

David retraced his route back to the bottom of the bluff and followed the ramp back along toward the gully, picking up a thick fallen branch from the slope as he went. He tossed the branch across the stream, and it landed on the slab with a clatter. Then he stood in the mirror's view until he saw Maria poke her head out from behind the gabbro block.

She ran out across the slab to the stream's edge, Rachel close behind her. Her face was streaked with tears, she looked distraught. "We thought those shots were for you. We didn't know what to think."

Rachel's face was also glistening wet with tears. "What was that about? What were those shots? We were so worried."

"Fritz shooting some meat for dinner. Looks like you both need a hug," he said as he sidled along the narrow ledge. He manoeuvred around the bulge, leapt across the stream onto the slab, took a few steps and wrapped them both in a huge warm hug.

Maria was still jerking, almost convulsing with deep sobs. "We thought you... you were... gone," she blubbered out between sobs.

"You need to keep such thoughts out of your mind." He cupped the back of her head with his hand and gently pulsed. "In times such as these, it's important to keep only positive thoughts in here. It's cold here in the shade, let's go over into the sun before you catch a chill. You're still in your nursing uniform."

The three walked back across the slab and into the sun, then he pointed to the triangle. "Inside, it's much warmer inside. You're still crying. I don't understand."

"I'm crying for relief now, not for loss, I'm so relieved you're safe, uninjured, alive." She reached out and stroked the stubble on his cheek.

"Just because you heard gunfire? We've heard a lot of gunfire the last two days. Why are these shots different?"

"You weren't here. You were out there. I watched my dreams, my expectations dissolve. Maybe my mind was too busy, it just took over and started telling me the worst. I went along with it."

"Dreams are for ideas, for reviews. Dreams are not for living. Being present, being here, living the reality of now is all that's possible. What was the dream that had devastated you?"

"I've been dreaming of spending my life with you. Since I first saw you. The gunshots put a hole right through that dream."

"But you are spending your life with me. Right here, right now. And the beauty of this is it's not a dream. All that we have, all that we can live, is the present. We can plan and have expectations for the future, but we're not there. We cannot determine what will evolve. Have you ever pondered the source of disappointment?"

"No..." She tilted her head and looked at him. "No, not that I can remember."

"Let me tell you another story. A few years ago, high on a rib in the Bugaboos, approaching the summit of an unclimbed spire, I was stopped by a nearly holdless vertical wall. I could see the top only twenty feet above me. I tried several times to get up the wall, but alone and without the support of a roped belay, it was far too risky. A slip would be certain death. I had to give up.

"I searched for a traverse to the left. Nothing. Same to the right. I started back down bitterly disappointed. My mind was clouded. I stopped for a break at an easing of the steepness, moved around to a ledge to sit and ponder. I had expected the route would go. After I'd..."

"Route would go? What's that mean?" Maria asked.

"A mountaineering term I use; could be only Canadian. It means the route leads to the goal." He looked at her and laughed. "In this instance, it didn't, and I remember being unable to relax. I was still deeply disappointed. My mind was darkened, and I sat trying to understand why. I had expected the route would go, that it would lead me to the summit."

He looked into her eyes. "And that's the thing. I had expectations. Without expectations, there are no disappointments. Expectations are nothing other than our minds trying to project us forward, out of the present, out of reality. We can live only here, only now. There is no other time or place." He gave her a gentle squeeze.

"Emptying our minds of the future, of the past, gives us so much more space and time to fully appreciate the present, to much more fully live, fully experience. Have I told you lately I think you are absolutely gorgeous? That I love you?"

"It's all over you. You ooze it. How can I help but see? But what about planning, how do you do that?"

"Our core, our soul will guide us. Appreciate the surroundings, drink everything in. Possibilities are constantly emerging, expanding, diminishing. By being fully present, we see the evolution, we're aware of a much broader picture, of tangential possibilities, of links to still further possibilities. We don't dwell on them, we allow them to flow through.

"From every point, there's a full circle of possibilities. A hair's breadth farther along, there's an entirely fresh range. From every moment there's infinity. Always be ready to change. Change is constant. Change is the force of life. If we try to resist change, we stagnate."

He looked into Maria's eyes. "The state when all change stops is called death. Don't resist change; to do so is fatal."

"Your thinking is so deep, so clear," Rachel said. "You sound like you've lived a thousand years. Where does it all come from?"

"From inside. From climbing alone in the mountains. Wasted time, my father called it. It's amazing what thoughts come when we've no distraction when we're fully involved in being where we are, doing whatever we're doing. Not trying to design our lives, but simply fully living them."

"So were you satisfied as you headed back down?"

"Wonderfully so. After my mind had cleared, as I was preparing to continue down, I looked back up to bid the peak à bien tôt, and spotted a narrow layback crack a bit to the left. With a few thin moves, the crack led me onto the summit. I hadn't seen it previously, I had been distracted by expecting the rib would go."