On his way in to the airstrip this morning he had swung by the ranch office and picked up a fifth-wheel travel trailer that was supposed to be the lodgings of Thordis and Carmelita until better arrangements could be made. This jounced along behind them as the roads got worse and the mountains got closer. As a conversationalist, Rufus never got out of first gear until they came in view of the mine head and Bildad came strolling out to investigate. Thordis turned out to be a horse person. Apparently horses were a big deal in Iceland. So everything literally came to a stop as Bildad shoved his face into the back of the truck looking for hay, and jostled Nimrod’s box. Carmelita urgently wanted out so that she could make sure Nimrod wasn’t in a bad situation, but Thordis had to get out first because of how the seats and the doors worked. And Thordis had eyes only for Bildad. So after some delay the final leg of the trip was as follows: Thordis escorting her new best friend Bildad, followed at a distance by Carmelita carrying Nimrod on her arm—this involved a special glove—and finally Rufus in his truck idling along in low gear and towing the trailer toward a site he had taken the liberty of picking out that would keep it out of the midday sun while remaining far enough away from Rufus’s trailer to give the ladies a feeling of privacy. Earlier those two had engaged in a minor public display of affection and then turned to look at Rufus to see whether he would spontaneously combust. He had given them the Bildad treatment. It seemed to have had the same reassuring effect. Which was all well and good, but Rufus could have used a bit of reassurance himself as his formerly isolated hermit’s retreat had suddenly acquired a horse, an eagle, and two ladies.