identify me by a hat pin, no, my 

 belt-buckle, unless the packrats 

 carried it off. Here I would lie as 

 uncounted as the salmon skeletons 

 that strewed the bank, worthless re- 

 mains of a bears' banquet. 



I put a stick in the fire. It re- 

 verberated to China. I knew then 

 the stillness and greyness that was 

 before the Creation. I had lived cycles 

 since Nimrod left, taking reality 

 with him. 



I started up, anything would be 

 better than this. It was worse stand- 

 ing. I crouched again for a few more 

 aeons, straining every nerve to hear 

 some sound of returning humanity. 

 I could have heard a hair drop; then 

 I did hear a sound as of a low body 

 going through the grass, not twenty 

 feet away. I froze with a vast new 

 kind of terror, but it was a better 

 brand than the last. Here at least 

 might be action, and it was real, un- 

 mistakable. There again that low 

 rustle coming. A mountain lion! 



A twig snapped. No, it made too 

 much noise, a faint swish, a very 

 faint thud, thud, it had passed me 

 and was going to the water. I heard 



