Creature Discomforts Read Free Page A

the female’s red dogpack. My pack yielded a staggering number of brand-new, medium-size pale brown plastic bags with handle ties, an old and sadly cracked Nikon camera, a ring of keys, and the kind of survival blanket that looks like a giant sheet of aluminum foil. After swathing myself in it, I ripped the female’s pack from its Velcro fasteners and began to empty its contents onto the ledge. The dogs took a tremendous interest in the unpacking, mainly, as I rapidly saw, because some of the supplies were ready-to-eat snacks: a blueberry muffin tightly encased in plastic wrap, cheese and crackers wrapped in aluminum foil, and a Granny Smith apple. Driven by some unexamined impulse, I quickly stashed the food in my own pack and zipped it shut. In a burst of common sense, I realized that there was something terribly wrong with me. The precise word eluded me. What came to mind was head injury. I couldn’t remember whether a person who’d sustained one was allowed to eat. The dogs had no such worries about themselves. As I stashed the goodies, they posed rather formally, wagged their tails over their backs, lifted their heads, and favored me with twin expressions of irresistible charm. On its own, my left hand reached into the pocket of my anorak and emerged bearing small cubes of cheese dusted with lint.
    Some of the remaining items in the dogpack made sense: two big bottles of spring water, a fabric water bowl for dogs, four heavy-duty nylon dog booties, two leashes, a flashlight, a pocket knife, a first-aid kit in a plastic box, hand towels apparently used as padding to prevent hard objects from poking into the dog, a collection of very small bungee cords, a hiking guide to Acadia National Park folded open to a page about Dorr Mountain, a map of Mount Desert Island, and a cobalt blue fleece pullover covered with what appeared to be dog hair. After unwrapping myself from the survival blanket and removing the waterproof anorak, I donned the pullover, then put the anorak back on, and again wrapped myself in foil. Acadia National Park! Mount Desert Island! (Let me note in passing that in mentally pronouncing Desert, I correctly stressed the second syllable, making the word sound like dessert, as in chocolate mousse, as opposed to the Sahara. French: Ile des Monts Deserts, Isle of the Barren Mountains.) The coast of northern Maine! No wonder the weather was cool and foggy! But the flashlight, the knife, the first-aid kit, and the water? What fool had put survival gear in a dog’s pack? The essentials belonged with the person, not with the dog!
    The dogpack also contained something that utterly mystified me, namely, fourteen pounds of plain, uncooked generic-brand rice in plastic bags that had never been opened: two five-pound bags, two two-pound bags. All four packages of rice were separately sealed in extra-strong food-storage bags. I could understand why someone had wanted to guard against having the original packaging give way and fill the saddlebags with loose rice. But why set out with this ludicrous quantity of rice? Clearly, the two dogs had an Asian owner with a morbid fear of starvation. I decided that the owner, Holly Winter, had anglicized her name or taken her husband’s last name.
    Comforted by the certainty that I, at least, was not about to die of hunger, dehydration, or hypothermia, I drank some of the spring water and used the handy little fabric bowl to water the dogs. With the towels, the water, and the first-aid kit, I bathed my wounds and patched myself together. By now, New England being what it is, the temperature was abruptly shifting from too cold to too hot. As the fog evaporated, land appeared in the valley below. Sunlight beat on the side of a hill or mountain opposite this one. If I could see, I could be seen. The red of my day pack and the matching red of the dogs’ gear might have been selected to grab attention. Minute by minute, the ledge became increasingly exposed. Had I wanted to attract