Dante left a note wrapped in the sacking telling Chiarina to go to his grandparents if she needed help.
* * *
November is the rainy month, but that year the skies opened early. Dante and Fred made a sad descent through a curtain of precipitation, water trickling down the neck of their capes, wetting battle dress, dampening shirt and underwear. But their misery paled beside a sad Modestino weighed down by the load, stepping, faltering among rocks, her mane saturated, dripping, and chill reaching into her bones.
By dusk the wind got up and they found damp shelter under a rocky overhang. They unloaded Modestino and moved her load under the projecting rock. They hobbled her front legs and kept her in the limited shelter of the overhang edge. Fred foraged for twigs and dead wood to light a f
