Creature Discomforts

which would take us past the turn for Kurt Diederich’s Climb, then to the split near my Rock of Ages, where the right fork led to the top of Dorr, the left to the upper stretch of the Ladder Trail. The mental map was sharp. So were my memories of visiting the area this morning and of regaining consciousness there on the previous day. Of the events preceding my fall I still remembered nothing.
    I spoke to Rowdy and Kimi. “So far. So far, I remember nothing. I can’t remember. I can’t yet remember. Not quite yet.”
    The contrast between the nasty climb through the barricade of logs and this unimpeded hike along the trail and up the stone steps was so great that the distance to the crucial fork really felt like almost nothing. When the dogs and I arrived, the group had already gathered near the cedar signpost, which was prominently located right at the fork. The trail widened to become an open space with natural-looking, smooth rock flooring. Slabs of granite surrounded the base of the signpost. Even in fog, the signpost would have been all but impossible to miss. The three wooden arrows nailed to it pointed, respectively, toward the summit of Dorr, the Ladder Trail, and the Sieur de Monts Spring. No one could possibly have misinterpreted the arrows. Dorr was unambiguously to the right; the Ladder Trail, to the left. Before my fall, I must have passed these signs. I’d known where I was going. From my observations this morning, I knew we had started toward the ladders and that I’d hitched Rowdy and Kimi to the trees from which they had subsequently freed themselves. Norman Axelrod, I was convinced, hadn’t fallen down the stone steps. No, from the high cliff above the top of the Ladder Trail, Norman Axelrod had plunged to his death on the stone stairway. Bruised and unconscious, I had ended up only yards from where he had landed.
    No one, however, was discussing Axelrod’s death or my own fall. Rather, I had walked into the midst of another outraged argument about the Pine Tree Foundation.
    “If this were some scheme to bilk us,” Gabrielle was indignantly pointing out, “we’d have lost money. In fact, over the course of more than two years, we have consistently made money.”
    Addressing herself to Buck, Opal said, “The point that’s escaping you is that this is a very personal arrangement. Not just anyone gets to participate. Take Zeke, for example. He didn’t show up today, but when he works on our crew, he works hard, and he’s a nice guy, but he isn’t really one of us.”
    “If anything were amiss with the foundation,” Quint said, “we’d be the first to know. If there’d ever been a hint of anything not quite comme il faut, we’d hardly have reinvested. ”
    “And,” Opal told Buck, “you have to understand that although you are in the dark about the workings of the foundation, we receive regular quarterly reports, which are, you have to understand, to a very large extent, financial reports. The whole thing seems mysterious to you, and too good to be true, because you have no way of knowing what’s going on.”
    “If we were in your position,” Eifie said gently, “we’d probably feel the same way.”
    I assumed that she meant financial position. Although she was trying to be tactful, her condescension irked me. Buck, however, responded with a sort of sinister joviality. “No question about it!” he boomed. “I’m in no position to be fleeced in a Ponzi scheme.”
    “Oh, for heaven’s sake, let’s stop it!” Gabrielle urged. Catching sight of a family of hikers emerging from the trail to the top of Dorr, she paused. Everyone remained silent until the people had moved off. “Among other things,” Gabrielle resumed, “I’m not even sure I know what a Ponzi scheme is.”
    Steve Delaney broke his long silence. “There’s an easy way to see the basics of how that kind of thing works.” He bent down and filled both hands with fistfuls of the pine needles that formed a natural mulch at the edge of the granite-paved clearing. In the tone he’d have used to explain a veterinary condition to a pet owner, he said, “Now, We’re going to let this be money. Gabrielle, you have some to begin with.” He placed a small pile of pine needles in front of her. “And you, Effie. And you, Quint.” He doled out two more mock supplies of cash. Then he gathered some small stones, lined them up, and gave each of them a supply of pine needles. “And these people have some ready