Chapter 2

Northern Sunsets

George Foster had dreaded this conversation. It wasn’t as if Sylvia was unreasonable. She knew an anthropologist needed to go on expeditions; he couldn’t simply teach what others had discovered. Even so, he didn’t look forward to their separation while he spent three months at Colville Lake; and he hadn’t looked forward to telling her either. Missing their first wedding anniversary was bad enough, being apart from her for a three-month period which included that anniversary sucked.

Still, her first question expressed concern for him.

“Arctic?” she asked, “Will you be cold?”

“Not particularly,” he replied. “I’ll only be at Colville in the summer, after all. It’ll be warmer than it is outside right now. But I will be lonely.”

“Well, why can’t I go along? Would we go broke if I stopped waiting tables for the summer?” Sylvia saw everybody as living from one paycheck to the next.

“Not at all. We’ve been saving up the trust payments for expeditions like this. And, after all, we decide how that money is to be used; it’s not like some agency is looking over our shoulders saying, ‘George is the anthropologist, so only George can go.’” He’d explained that. His grandfather’s trust was never going to make them really rich; it did save him from half the begging that his profession required. “Moreover, despite the transport expenses, the cost of living at Colville Lake is fairly low. Of course, that’s ‘cause we’ll be consuming only bare necessities. I just don’t want you living like that. Tents, outhouses, and all.”

“I’d rather live in a tent with you than in this apartment by myself.”

“All right.” he said. And it was more than all right. Sylvia wasn’t bored with him yet. “I’ll ask.”

He did ask Vrooman. “My wife would like to come along on the expedition. She’s not trained, but she’d make herself useful.”

“There is no way that the funders would pay for that.”

“They aren’t paying for me. We’d pay her airfare; we’d share a tent and pay for that. What are the incidentals?”

“Very well, but I want to talk to her and warn her of the consequences.” And he did. That didn’t dissuade Sylvia, and she spoke enthusiastically about typing his notes.

You had to balance the need to be prepared for the culture you were about to meet with the danger of going in so full of the answers that you didn’t see what was really going on. Sylvia wasn’t going to be writing a report, but she’d provide him with another set of eyes. As such, he preferred them to be fairly wide eyes. Still, there were limits. He explained the name, “Hare Indians.”

“I thought that they grew lots of hair,” Sylvia said.

“They used to dress in clothes made from rabbit skins,” he explained. “Tribes in that area only have European names. Probably, they only have colonial identities. The people we’ll be seeing probably think of themselves as ‘The people of Colville Lake.’ You know the story of Manhattan Island?”

“No.”

“The first Dutch explorers found a bunch of Indians there. They bought the entire island from them for a few handfuls of beads. We used to think that the Dutch had pulled a fast one. Closer investigation revealed that those Indians were just visiting for the day to fish. You might buy the Brooklyn Bridge for a couple of hundred dollars in the same neighborhood as legitimately today.

“Anyway,” he concluded, “European visitors were often much more certain about the limits of membership in a group, ownership of property, and executive leadership than the people who they were describing.”

Sylvia really did want to be helpful. She got a typewriter she could use there, and he got cassette recorders, cassettes, and batteries. He could put his notes on cassette with one of the recorders and she could type them from the second.

Still, he regarded her typing as a cover story for why she was with him. He liked having her around in the daytime, but she almost never was during their regular life. What he would have missed was making love. You couldn’t hope to hide that, especially from his colleagues. George suspected that most kids who’d decided to major in anthro had their first introduction to the field reading the published descriptions of sex. They’d guess; he just hoped to keep them guessing.

Sylvia didn’t cooperate in that -- maybe he should have explained his plans. He set up their tent with the cots far enough apart to provide walls for a very private room on the floor between them. Sylvia moved those cots right together. That would be fine for sleeping on the cots, but he hadn’t brought her with him just to sleep.

When he got back from the outhouse that night, she was a good deal readier for bed than he was. He separated the cots and turned them on their sides. “Why did you do that?” she asked.

He shushed her and got in his bag. When she got in hers their heads were close together. Leaning closer, he whispered, “Anything you say in a normal tone of voice can be heard. And anyone walking south of the tent can see a shadow of us on the tent walls.”

“That’s why you dumped the cots?” she whispered back.

“Anyway, I don’t think one cot would hold two of us comfortably.” He kissed her.

“You’re devious,” she whispered. She might disagree with him, but she followed his lead. “We are wearing wedding rings. Don’t Hare married couples sleep together?”

“Yup. And with their kids in the same house, which means in the same room. I just want to exercise a little discretion.”

He kissed her more thoroughly and started stroking her. When she pulled back, it was to breathe and to remove the nightie.

He crawled into her bag. When he kissed her again, his hands could reach her skin. So, for that matter, could the rest of him. He kissed her breast while his hands stroked her vulva.

Sylvia spread her legs in invitation. He nestled there for a minute, caressing her vulva and sucking on her breast. Then he slid into her. So sweet. After adjusting his position so he could reach her breasts, he began his motions in and out.

Sylvia encouraged these motions with her hands on his butt. He sped up and felt his reaction rising within him. He tried to hold it back, but he suddenly found he didn’t need to. He felt her bite his shoulder as she convulsed around his cock. His orgasm followed hers.

He collapsed gasping above her as she was gasping beneath him. He dozed for a minute on her softness. She shoved his shoulder. He couldn’t simply roll over as he could at home. Instead he crawled into his own bag. The distance, nothing when he’d been approaching his love, seemed great on the way back.