15
A deep, guttural murmur penetrated the darkness beyond the ring of firelight that exposed the lone, strangely dressed figure. A man hunched near the campfire flames. He was balanced in a low squat making it appear at first that he sat, but in reality he was positioned like a bird resting, his knees fully bent but only his feet touching the ground. The position allowed him to shuffle across the ground for a few feet without truly standing. Sometimes he moved to pick up a stick from a nearby pile of wood that he then fed to the fire. Sometimes he moved out of the way of drifting smoke. The majority of the time, however, he stayed in a fixed position, holding a long stick with a charred tip and using it to push and poke at the logs deeply engulfed in the campfire he tended. Occasionally,
