Free Honeymoon for Three by Alan Cook Page A

nude before, but
he thought it had turned out pretty well, considering the fact that
he only caught a glimpse of her. He remembered the mole on her left
breast. He spent a long time trying to get her bellybutton correct.
He really should take an art class sometime.
    Seeing the drawings made him want to see
Penny again in person. A good night’s sleep in the comfortable bed
of the motel refreshed him and reinforced the feeling. He had come
a long way. He wasn’t going to go home until he saw her one more
time. Just to make sure she was all right.
    He ate breakfast and then went to a clothing
store and bought himself a winter jacket, gloves, and a hat. It
cost him a significant portion of his financial resources, but he
wasn’t going to freeze again.
    Then he drove north to Crater Lake. He had
never seen so many trees in his life as he had during the last
three days. Especially evergreen trees. He didn’t know there were
this many trees in the world. Most forests in the East were much
smaller than the ones around here. There weren’t any forests in
parts of the Midwest. After this trip he would be completely
satisfied if he never saw another forest.
    Alfred drove openly through the campground.
Penny and Gary wouldn’t be here right now. They would be out
sightseeing. They must love sightseeing or they wouldn’t have come
here. Looking at trees. And mountains. And lakes. He didn’t
understand anybody who could go gaga over a tree. It must be Gary’s
doing. Penny was more sensible than that. This was evidence that he
was leading her around by the nose.
    He spotted an olive drab tent. It must be
theirs. It was smaller than any of the other tents. He hadn’t
gotten a good look at it during his night perambulations at Lake
Tahoe because it had been almost pitch dark. A green stove sat on a
picnic table near the tent. It looked familiar, but many campers
had similar stoves.
    He stopped the car and got out. He became
immediately glad he had purchased warm clothes as the cold wind hit
him. There was nobody around. Time for some investigation. He
unzipped the vertical zipper that held the two front tent flaps
together and the two horizontal zippers at the bottom and folded
the flaps back, so that daylight filled the inside. It was small in
there—claustrophobic. How could anybody sleep in a space this
size?
    Alfred noted the double sleeping bag, and
his blood started to boil. There were other things inside the tent:
a cooking pot, a frying pan, plastic utensils, bowls, and cups. Put
in there so they wouldn’t blow away if the wind came up. No food,
however. He had read a sign about bears at the entrance to the
campground. They must be keeping their food in the car.
    The sleeping bag was unzipped, and the top
half had been folded back, airing out the inside. He lay down on
the padded cloth and wondered which side of the bag Penny slept in.
He could smell some body odors, but he couldn’t tell one from
another. The ground was hard. How could she sleep in this
environment? Gary was torturing her. Alfred would never treat a
girl like this.
    There were also some items of clothing. What
interested him most were a pile of maps and a spiral notebook. He
picked up the notebook and opened it to the first page. It
contained dates and locations. He glanced through it and realized
that this was their itinerary. Valuable information.
    He turned several pages and found what must
be a journal of their trip in neat, schoolteacher handwriting. The
first sentence that caught his eye read, “The ceremony was just
perfect for us.” Penny must be writing the journal. That sentence
could only have been written by a girl. He backed up to just before
the description of the wedding to see what it said about Gary’s
run-in with the police.
    Not much. The narrative stated that Gary had
been taken to the police station for questioning. Penny went to the
station and talked to a motherly woman. Gary was released in about
an hour. It was all a