Figuring out the ending had been okay, but telling Maria had obviously been a bad move. Actually, he still didn't understand what had been so bad about telling her; after all, she'd been dying to know what was really going on. But that had only been until he'd told her the trick. Then she was mad at him… again.

Perry strung the story out, building up the suspense and the gruesome horror of the grizzly bear that had attacked the trapped Mesaliko Indians and killed them one by one. The story was perfect camp tale fare, and the approaching storm added to the overall effect. Junior and Flynn were bug-eyed as they listened to Perry detail the bloodthirsty attacks by the bear.

Tiller kept to himself.

Too late Michael realized that with Tiller's dad committing suicide, ghost stories might not have been the best choice for an evening's entertainment. But there was nothing to do about it now that wouldn't make the situation worse by calling attention to Tiller.

"So Head-Eater's been lying there for days," Perry went on, "and he's getting hungrier than he's ever been. He starts looking at the dead warriors lying around him, and he starts thinking maybe they wouldn't taste so bad. So he starts a fire… "

"In the middle of a blizzard?" Flynn challenged.

Perry looked irritated. "The blizzards been over for days."

"What did he burn?" Flynn went on. "If there were any sticks up in the mountains, they'd all be covered by the snow."

"He found some sticks, okay?"

"Not in no blizzard," Flynn said.

"Besides," Junior said, "it would be better if the heads were raw. Grosser."

Michael reached for a nearby bag of marshmallows, took a couple out, and pierced them with the wire cooking utensil he'd used to fix hot dogs earlier. As the marshmallows caught fire, he thought about the way they looked kind of skull-like. He considered telling the others, but decided against it.