“Maybe we should melt some snow for the horses to drink,” I suggested, trying to sound helpful.
“The horses can find their way to licking up snow,” Merle said. Then he switched subjects and started lecturing me about the fire. “You can’t take a bunch of wet leaves off a tree and expect to keep a fire going. New leaves ain’t no good for a fire. You’ve got to have dead leaves and brush like this here.” He showed me a pile of sticks and dead leaves and dried brush.
“Well, where the hell did that come from? I looked all up and down for something like that. I looked everywhere. Everything was wet! Did you maybe get that out of your saddlebag?"
“I doubt you looked down,” Merle said. “Because that’s where it was. All of this stuff came from down around the base of this tree.”
“Oh,” I said, lo
