"Twilight’s Eve..." Part III A  By Trisha Von Doss AKA Xenamour
Note: Please see Part I for Disclaimers   They pitched camp
against a large rock formation, the base of which had been
carved out by a nearby stream. Here in the transitional
foothills, monoliths of solid stone jutted up here and there
amongst the trees, risen from the colliding surfaces of the
shifting earth's crust centuries before.  During the spring and
early summer months, when the run off from the melting snow made
it swell to capacity, the stream ran up against the stones
surface, etching out the face of it a bit at a time, over the
course of many years. Now, at the end of a dry fall season, the
waterway barely tinkled its existence. What was left of it ran
far enough away from the rock base that they could camp next to
its curved underside, and be sheltered from both behind and
above.  Xena tethered Argo to a small bush, and pulled the
saddle bags and their bedrolls from the mare's back. She carried
them over to the camp site where Gabri