"You should get dressed," David said as he finished sharing his thoughts. He sat on the bedrolls, leaning against the gabbro, with Maria between his legs, her back against his chest and her head resting against the front of his shoulder "You're making a pair of points showing you're starting to chill."

She lifted her head slightly and looked down at her breasts. "And behind my back, you're making a much bigger point that you're interested." She finished with a quiet giggle.

"You're still quite troubled in here," he said, rubbing her head gently. "That was not your usual joyful and carefree giggle."

He turned his head and kissed her, moved his hands from her head down to cup and lightly juggle her breasts. "The fire in here will last. Come, let's build a different fire. Get dressed, and we'll put together a warm bonfire for tonight."

"But what about your lump?"

"That fire will last as well. Regardless, with tinder like you, it's easy to reignite. While you girls dress, I'll head across and start bringing in more wood – here's a lot of dry windfall along the ledge."

"We'll gather the twigs and branches in the nook," Maria said, "and find the best place to build the fire. Thank you so much for your stability. I'm amazed by how your gentle calmness and reassuring manner add to my comfort and confidence. I'm sure they do the same for Mama."

They sidled together into a group hug. A long, tender hug before David moved toward the entrance and checked the mirror as he prepared to stoop out through the triangle. "All clear," he said as he continued out. "Perfectly reinstalled, Maria."

He was just around the entrance corner when he heard a gunshot rather close above. He stopped, turned and took three quick steps back to the corner, then carefully looked around it and upwards toward the sound of the shot.

There was a cracking sound, faint above the noise of the cascading water, then the clatter of rocks bouncing on the slab across the stream from him and continuing down into the trees beyond the brink until the sound was drowned by the waterfall below.

He scanned the cliff tops, looking for the source of the rocks, watching the fall change to twigs, soil and clumps of moss. Then a large rock crashed down, followed by the hooves, legs and rump of a large deer. It stopped sliding and hung there, more rocks clattering down as the deer struggled. A buck, he recognised as it twisted. Likely the mate.

A runnel of red came over the rock lip and slowly expanded. It grew in pulses with the struggle of the buck. Then a voice came from above: "Da ist es. Ein Geweih, das sich in einem Baum an der Klippe verfangen hat."

Another voice: "Wir sollten nicht hier sein. Denkt an Leutnant Herzog."

A third voice, yelling from farther away: "Ihr habt den Major gehört. Dies ist Sperrgebiet. Kehrt ins Lager zurück."

David was relieved by what he had learned from the short conversation, delighted they were out-of-bounds for Fritz. He continued watching the buck's fading struggles as it seemed to have given up. Maybe building strength for a big effort.

He looked across to the gabbro block and saw the girls also watching. There was a loud crack; he quickly looked back and caught the end of the buck's fall to the slab, followed by a big tree branch.

He waited for more voices from above, but there was none. The only voice he heard was his own. "Convenient meat delivery."

He sidled back along the ledge, past the bulge, sprang across the stream and went over to the dead buck, arriving just after the two girls. "Which one of you ordered the venison?" he asked as he neared with a big smile.

"I think God did," Rachel said, "I think He likes us."

"I think She does, too. I have no experience at all with butchering, but I'm willing to have a go at it," he said. He looked at both of them in turn and added, "Have either of you any experience with –?"

"Edom would always shoot a big buck in the autumn," Rachel interrupted. "I'd do the butchering. Quite similar to the goats I had done when I was growing up; we had a small herd of them for milk, cheese and meat."

She looked down at the twisted carcass. "The best cuts on a buck are the tenderloins, a pair of them inside straddling the spine near the back of the cavity. They're the muscles which provide the love thrust to the pelvis. In bucks, they don't get used often, so they're very tender." She laughed. "Yours are likely very tough, David."

"Did you hear the soldiers above, what they said?" he asked.

"We heard the voices. Some of the words were clear, but the echoes and the waterfall made it hard to understand much of it."

"I heard most of it quite clearly," he said, "Missed a few of the words, but it seems the stag had caught its antlers in a tree. There was talk that they shouldn't be here – that this was where Herzog fell. Finally, the loud one, probably the corporal, shouting about out of bounds and back to camp."

"That all makes sense," Maria said, adding with a big grin, "I love the idea we're out of bounds."

"As do I. What can I do to make it easier for the butchering, Mama?"

Rachel looked around the area, then said, "If we can hang it over there near the waterfall, that would be the easiest for me. Lots of cold running water to wash away the guts, to wash the carcass and to cool it."

David walked over to the face beside the cascade and studied the rock. "There's a nice crack here. I can jam a rope knot in it and hang it here. How's this spot?"

"That looks close to perfect. We can put Herzog's knife to work."

"Head up or head down?"

"I prefer head up; that's what I'm used to."

By the time they had finished the short back-and-forth, Maria had brought over a roll of sisal line and a length of hemp. "Which do you prefer?" she asked, holding them out to David.

"The thicker piece of hemp will be better. I can make a larger jam knot in it, a tight figure-of-eight."

He took the line, quickly turned the knot in its end and fed it into a widening in the crack almost at arm's reach above him. With a small twig, he poked the knot in deeper, then ran his hand along the line a foot or so and pulled lightly, working the knot down into the narrowing. He moved his hands another yard along the line, sat on the slab and yanked it with increasing force.

Next, he bowlined a noose, put his foot in it, stood and bounced lightly, then stepped out, saying, "That should hold."

Rachel and Maria had started dragging the carcass across the slab, and he assisted them with the final short distance. "What a grand team we are," he said. "No yelling, no bossing. Simply acting in harmony."

David unbent the bowline, turned a figure-of-eight noose into the line near the upper end, took a bight near the middle of the line around the antlers, then threaded the line's end through the eye and pulled down on it to load the system. "Mama and I will take the weight, Maria, you take the line and pull the slack out of it as we lift."

Within a minute, they had the buck strung up by its antlers; its hindquarters lifted just off the slab. David took the line from Maria and turned it down on the staghorns. "We used bronze staghorns for mooring our sailing skiffs in Victoria. I'd never thought of the origin of the word until now."

"What an elegant system you've put together," Rachel said. "So simple and easy to use."

"Does this design also date back to a spa in the Schwarzwald?" Maria looked at him and chuckled.

"You know the answer, Maria. It's simply a matter of being aware of the surroundings and allowing possibilities to emerge. I had no plans; I had no idea what form it would take until we finished."

He turned to Rachel and asked, "What else do you need?"

"Herzog's knife. You still have it strapped to your case."

"I had forgotten I was still armed. This thing sits so nicely." He slung the case around, flipped the catch and slipped out the knife. "This is extremely sharp. Be careful."

He slung the holster back around and then gave them each a kiss. "I'm heading off to forage for more firewood. Even though we're out of bounds, I'll keep the gun with me. It's foolish to think nobody else would ignore the orders and wander over here."

"Search for mushrooms while you're out there," Rachel said. "They'll go wonderfully with our tenderloin. This time of year, there should be some Austernseitling; the French call them pleurottes. Probably still some Steinpilzen, the ones they call Porcini in southern Switzerland. If we're lucky, there may even be some late Morcheln, morilles in French, morels in English. They're my favourites."

"I don't know mushrooms at all to pick them, only to eat them."

"Bring back samples and remember where you found them. Look on the dead trees for the pleurottes; they're like small pale grey or cream-coloured bracket shelves."

"I saw a lot of those on a couple of trees up the slope. I'll take my small pack. How can I identify some of the other good ones?"

"Morels, my favourites, are like honeycombs. Pointy honeycombs, somewhat like little elf caps. Probably still in season up here. Search the ground, under hardwood trees like elm and oak. They range in size from a bit smaller than your little finger, mostly the size of your thumb, a few really large ones, closer to the size of your ..."

"Here's your pack," Maria said as she walked back across the slab. She reached down and caressed his bulge, asking with a delighted giggle, "Is this what you were talking about, Mama? I've never seen morels this big ... Now even more. My God, what a fast response you have."

David grinned, looked down, shifted himself with his hand, took the pack and kissed them again. "I'm off foraging, see you shortly."

From the corner, he slowly moved along the ledge, looking for wood and mushrooms. Again, he climbed the steep, narrow ramp on the bluff to where he remembered seeing mushrooms on the trees. They seem so slimy, but they don't feel that way at all. Appear they'd squish easily, but they're surprisingly firm.

He picked the best-looking examples into his pack, stopping when it was half-filled. They're surprisingly light.

Then, looking around, he spotted a stand of leafless trees up the slope beside the next line of cliffs. Hardwood. Let's see if there are any morels under those.

It was a young grove, trees four and five inches through. They were leafless because they were dead; many of them lightly charred. Likely from a fire through here a few years ago. A great stand of dried firewood. Should have brought the bone saw.

Then he spotted two mushrooms, one the size of his thumb, the other larger. Like Mama's description – little honeycombed elf caps. He picked them and searched further, spotted several others and almost stepped on another as he moved across to them. His harvesting continued for a quarter hour, finding several twice the thickness of his thumb, but mostly thumb size or a bit bigger. When his pack was full, he stopped.

He picked up two thick fallen tree branches as he headed across the ramp toward the entrance, hefted them to his downhill shoulder and continued to the corner, where he stopped and looked in. "Ladies, we have mushrooms. I've picked a full pack of pleurottes and morels."

They turned as he tossed the branches to the slab. "And we have tenderloin and backstrap," Rachel replied with a big smile. "We're now working on some racks of ribs to lean up beside the fire. We'll need more firewood than that."

"I was too busy picking mushrooms," he said as he sidled along the ledge. "But I found a large supply of standing fire-kill. I need the saw for that."

"We're using the bone saw," Maria said with a laugh. "Using it for its intended purpose; excising and amputating. We're nearly finished."

"Are these the right ones?" he asked, kneeling and opening the pack as soon as he hit the slab beside them.

"Mein Himmel! I have never seen so many so quickly."

"The bottom half of the pack is filled with pleurottes, at least that's what I hope they are. I also brought one of these; there are lots of them up there."

"Those are good too, März-Schneckling, March something, probably March mushroom; I know of no other name for them," Rachel said. "But they pale in comparison to the other two. Let me see the pleurottes."

Maria called from the shelter, "Hold a moment. I'm getting a cloth to pour them out on." She arrived with it, and David gently poured and finger-raked the morels off the top of the pleurottes.

He pulled one out and held it up. "Is this a pleurotte?"

"A superb one. Nicely firm, yet soft. Dry surface, smooth edges. I can't believe you've never before hunted mushrooms."

"I haven't, but you're the one who found them. You described how to identify them and where to search. I simply brought them here."