Love, Lust 'n Geology (2ND DRAFT)

Scene 1.1

This book is the 2nd Draft of the story Love, Lust 'n Geology. The story remains relatively unchanged from the 1st Draft, which is posted and still not finished, but the way I tell the story is different. When I first started writing this story — see 1st Draft — I believed that I knew how to write well. It took me a few years to realize that I didn't. Since then, I've made an effort to learn how to write fiction. I may still not write it well, but I believe I write it better than I did before ;-). You, the reader, are the ultimate judge :-).

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There's something about the moose that bothers Samina, but she can't put her finger on it. Maybe she's just tired from the ten-hour field day she's put in. And frustrated. She doesn't want to be here, checking out a strange moose. She wants to be back in the cabin, relaxing, or entering in some data. Instead, she had to take off after dinner. Chris and Phil didn't leave her much choice. Why can't field assistants stay put after draining field days where you're outdoors and on your feet all day?

* * * * * *

CHRIS WAS SETTING the table. She was on her way to the fridge for a bottle of water.

"Phil and I are heading to Scottsdale after dinner. Want to come?" he asked.

She wheeled around and ran into Chris's sky blue eyes. She usually found the experience pleasant, but not this time.

"Scottsdale? Scottsdale's an hour away, Chris. Why not save it till tomorrow?" Tomorrow was her day off, Chris's too -- he was her field assistant.

"Phil doesn't want to hang around here tonight. He says he wants entertainment."

"Entertainment? What kind of entertainment does Phil think he's going to find in Scottsdale?"

Scottsdale, the closest town to them, had a population of five thousand. Her extended family back in India numbered in the hundreds. That made Scottsdale equivalent to what ... about twenty Indian families?

Chris shrugged. "I don't know what Phil has in mind. There aren't any strip joints there. We'd have to go to Thunder Bay for that."

"Christ, Chris!" Samina cried, gaping.

Chris grinned. "Just kidding, Samina. We'll walk around and take a look. If we don't find anything, we can always hit The Hare and the Dog."

"Why not just go to The Bear Paw then?"

The Bear Paw was the local hangout, a bar about twenty minutes away, in Stonebridge. Stonebridge was a township, not a town. The province of Ontario obviously had standards. It didn't let a place with twelve hundred people call itself a town.

"The Bear Paw? Hmm." Chris looked up at the ceiling and tapped his chin with his index finger. "Bear Paw, how do I abhor thee? Let me count the ways ..."

Samina giggled. "You're a Geology major, Chris, not an English major!"

Wagging his finger at an invisible entity above him, he said, "Bear Paw, I abhor that thou art housed in a barn!"

Samina couldn't help smiling. "We're in northern Ontario, Chris, not in Toronto."

"I abhor how thy wooden floor hast lost its varnish and thou hast not seen fit to replace it!"

"C'mon, Chris, we're practically in wilderness."

Chris pointed to the floor with a flourish. All four of them were in the habit of wandering around the cabin in their hiking boots, leaving bits of dirt behind, but the floor was varnished.