“Hey, Eddie,” Scotty Parsons said, looking up from the lounge chair on the front porch. “How goes the beer hunt?”

“Making a little progress,” Eddie replied. “Allen Untermeyer gave me a real good lead. It’s not a sure thing, but he used to know a guy he thinks used to get beer over on the Three Pines Reservation some place.”

“You know, that doesn’t surprise me,” Scotty replied. “They get away with a lot of shit over there that people around here could never do. I mean, how come they get to have casinos over there and not over here?”

“Yeah, and cigarettes without paying any state sales tax, either,” Eddie added. “I mean, I don’t know a damn thing about it other than the guy’s name is Lame Beaver or some damn thing, and the guy may not still be in business, but I figure it doesn’t cost anything but time and gas to go over and ask around.”

“So how come you’re not on your way over there?”

“I thought you might like to come along,” Eddie said. “I don’t know how crazy I’d be about heading over to the rez by myself. There’s some people over there that aren’t too crazy about white people, you know.”

“Yeah, no shit,” Scotty agreed. “I don’t know if I’d be real crazy about going over there by myself, either, but with two of us it might not be quite so bad. Besides, I ain’t doing nothing much this afternoon anyway. Let me get some shoes on.”

In a few minutes they were heading up the state road in Eddie’s ten year old Chevy Malibu. It wasn’t a real cool car like some of the kids around school drove, and given a choice Eddie would rather have had a four wheel drive pickup truck, but it was a hand-me-down from his mother and beat having no wheels at all. It got him around, and maybe when he got out of high school and got a job someplace he could afford the truck.

“Damn, I hope this works out,” Scotty said as they got out on the highway. “I was really bummed about the thought of the party going bust.”

“Yeah, me too,” Eddie agreed. “It’s gonna have to be a good one, since practice starts Tuesday, and it’ll be hard to party much after that. It’s going to be hot and sweaty running around out there on the football field, but as soon as school gets under way it ought to be worth it.”

“Especially if you get elected team captain,” Scotty snickered.

“There is that,” Eddie grinned. “I mean, that’s a good way to get some cheerleaders to be real nice to me. I mean, there are some benefits to the job, and better me than Frenchy is the way I look at it.”

“So how much beer are you planning on getting?”

“All I can get in the trunk,” Eddie said. “Or at least all I’ve got the money for, and I’ve got six hundred bucks on me I’ve been saving for something else. I figure I might not use all of it for the party, if I can get enough. The more I think about it, I figure I need at least five hundred cans.”

“Is that going to be enough?”

“I think so. I figure about thirty football players, maybe less since there will be a few pussies that won’t show up, there always are. I’m just guessing, but figure a dozen cans each on the average, and that’s three hundred and sixty or somewhere about like that. Then there’ll be some other people show up, cheerleaders and other girls. Say twenty, and figure them at six cans apiece, so there’s another hundred and twenty. So five hundred might cover it pretty well and it probably wouldn’t hurt to have a little extra to make sure that everyone that shows up gets well and truly fucked up. I mean, that’s the point of the whole thing, after all. If I can get more, I’ll get more but I might not take it to the party. After all, it’d be handy to have a few extra brews sitting around after a hot day at practice sometime.”

“Yeah, looking at the numbers five hundred seems like it might be a little on the light side,” Scotty said after thinking about it for a moment. “You don’t want to run out too early.”

“True, but there are a few people that will consider it their absolute duty to make sure that there’s nothing left but empties,” Eddie pointed out. “People like that goddamn Lethbridge will want to show off how big a man they are by trying to down more than anyone else can, and he’s not the only one like that. So there’s no point in overdoing it. If we get the kids out we expect, five hundred ought to be enough.”

“Maybe you ought to get a count on how many people are planning on coming,” Scotty suggested. “That way you could figure it a little closer, and maybe you’d have a little left over to spread around among your friends.”

“That’s a possibility,” Eddie agreed. “But I’ll tell you what, except for this I don’t think I want to get in the business of hauling the shit into town like Frenchy did. I mean, that could turn into a major pain in the ass in a hurry, and I don’t think I’d want to have Frenchy for a cell mate.”

“Yeah, especially if he thinks you’ve been trying to horn in on his business,” Scotty replied thoughtfully. “He probably thinks he’s going to be able to get right back into business when they let him out, too, and he won’t like having the competition.”

“You know, I don’t know how crazy I am about letting him do that,” Eddie said. “He could be a real pain in the ass. I think if this turns into the real deal, I might not keep where we’re getting this stuff a secret. I mean, if a lot of people know about it then he won’t have a corner on the business. His being able to provide beer made him think he was king of the hill, and that sort of pissed me off at times.”

“Well, yeah, me too,” Scotty agreed. “That’d serve him right. So I guess you’re planning on getting cheap beer, then?”

“The cheapest I can,” Eddie agreed. “I mean, there’s no point in providing good beer for people to guzzle and puke up. Besides, Allen said that’s the only kind that this Lame whatever sells, shit like Schadler’s or Red and White.”

“Shit, it makes me puke to just think about drinking that stuff, especially warm,” Scotty said. “It’d be a hell of a lot better if you could get it cold.”

“No shit,” Eddie said. “That means we have to come up with a couple hundred pounds or so of ice somewhere, maybe more. I’m thinking maybe we get a couple bags of rock salt to go with it to make it cool down quicker. But that means we’ve got to come up with some place to dump all that stuff.”

“We’ve got an old wading pool we don’t use anymore, and it’s pretty big,” Scotty offered. “It ought to be big enough for all that. Where are you going to stash the beer till the party?”

“I’m thinking right in the car,” Eddie said. “I know it’s not the safest place in the world, but I figure it’s safer to leave it in the car than it is to unload it in town, and then reload it a few hours later. That means I’m going to have to have some other wheels to get around for the ice and rock salt and shit.”

“Well, I can help with that,” Scotty shrugged. At least this way, he thought, if Eddie got caught with the beer in his car, it would be his ass, not mine. If we get the beer, I just hope we don’t get caught on the way back to town. “God,” he added, covering up his thinking, “this is going to be a great start to the football season after all.”

As far as Jack knew – and he would have known if anyone did – the little pond out in the forest well to the west of Spearfish Lake didn’t have a name. He and his friends weren’t the only ones who went there, since there was a faint two-rut that led up to it, one that he’d discovered in his driving around on woods roads in the Jeep. But he’d never seen anyone there, except for the friends he’d brought with him – Vixen, Alan, and Summer. The pond mostly had a sandy bottom, and there was a nice sandy spot right where the two-rut emerged onto the pond. It was a great place to go with friends, and to be alone with them.

The girls had stripped down to their bikinis now; he thought Vixen looked exceptionally fine in her very brief one, although he thought Summer looked pretty darn good, too. There was a good chance that all of them would be in bare skin before heading back to town; their last trip out here had involved skinny-dipping, and all of them thought it had been thrilling. But just now, they were working their way through lunch, which turned out to be rather good. The macaroni salad from the Super Market tasted even better than Jack remembered.

“Yeah, this is a great place,” Alan said, glancing at Summer. A piece of macaroni had fallen off her fork and down into her cleavage. He would love to dig it out for her, but not in front of Jack and Vixen – not yet, anyway. He and Summer hadn’t gotten quite that far in their relationship yet, although it seemed likely that things were moving that way, and more quickly than he had ever imagined. “I sure hope the football players don’t know about it and decide to have their party here. That would really louse the place up.”

“No shit,” Jack agreed. “That’ll be this weekend, too. Fortunately, I don’t think they’ll have the party here. You just about have to have four wheel drive to get in here, and that ought to keep the place safe.”

“A lot of those guys have four wheel drive pickups,” Summer said, fishing out the piece of macaroni, to the great interest of both Jack and Alan. Vixen just sighed with a little disgust at the guys – she just didn’t have a chest like Summer’s and was a little envious, but at least Jack had told her that he didn’t mind and that he liked her just the way she was.

“Yeah, but there’s always going to be a few who have to drive their cool wheels to something like that,” Vixen pointed out. “Oh, well, if they have it here, we could clean up the cans and make forty or fifty bucks on it.”

“That’s assuming Michigan cans,” Alan pointed out. “If they get the beer in Wisconsin, then there’s no deposit and we’d be screwed. Besides, I don’t want to have to clean up after those bastards anyway.”

“Either way, there’s not a hell of a lot we can do about it,” Jack said. “I’ll admit, if I knew they were going to be having the party here I’d be tempted to call the cops just on general principles, but there’s no way we’re going to hear about it. They keep that pretty close to their chests, and none of us know any football players well enough to think they’d tell us about it.”

“Howie plays football,” Summer pointed out.

“Well, yeah, but he’s a sophomore so he’s on JVs,” Jack replied. “From what I’ve heard they don’t let the JVs in on that thing. Besides, if Mom and Dad were to hear he’d been at that party he wouldn’t be playing football anyway.”

“Oh, well, I guess we just have to put up with those jokers,” Vixen said. “But a year from now it’s not going to matter. We’ll all be out of high school and getting set to head off to college some place, at least I hope.”

“You’re a good student,” Summer smiled. “You shouldn’t have any problems getting accepted.”

“Getting accepted is one thing, and paying for it is another,” Vixen pointed out. “I know we’ve all been talking about going to college some place, but every place is expensive, and I’m not a good enough student to get the kind of scholarships that Alan is able to pull down. That means student loans and lots of them, and I’m not sure how far my folks are able to go along with them.”

“It’s a concern for me, too,” Jack said. “I know this would probably louse up the plans for us all going to school together, but a couple times I’ve kicked around the notion of going down to the community college in Camden for a couple years to build up some credits. It would save a few bucks, that’s for sure.”

“My folks aren’t made of money either,” Summer sighed, “and there are community colleges with pretty good nursing programs. I sure would rather have my degree out of a state school, but it might be hard to transfer after a couple years.”

“I’m not saying I wouldn’t consider that,” Alan said, “but I would point out that a lot of community colleges don’t have sports programs, and that was one of the things we were looking for, anyway.”

“And none of them have religious affiliations,” Summer added, warming to the notion.

“Well, yeah, there is that,” Vixen agreed.

“But the thing is that it would leave us stuck in Spearfish Lake,” Alan pointed out. “And that’s a hell of a long drive down to Camden to have to do it as much as we’d have to. I suppose we could ride together some and that would cut down on the cost and the amount of time we’d have to waste on the road.”

“Yeah, no doubt about that,” Summer agreed. “That would cut into the study time, too. And what happens if one of us gets stuck with an evening class? That means everybody else would just have to stay late, or that someone would have to make a special trip.”

“Well, it’s not an unsolvable problem,” Jack said. “Suppose we were to get together and rent an apartment or a small house? It might cover the cost of the driving plus a little, maybe cover the cost of the food. And it would save wasting a lot of driving time.”

“Oh, sure,” Vixen snorted. “I can just hear my mother now when she finds out about me staying with a couple guys.”

“A couple guys and Summer,” Jack replied. “I mean, we could have a girls’ room and a guys’ room, and it wouldn’t be a lot different than living in a co-ed dorm.”

“Except cheaper,” Alan said. “I may have some scholarship money coming, but that doesn’t always pay for dorm expenses, and from what looking I’ve done they’re pretty high, even at a state school. At least at a community college they don’t insist on you living on campus.”

“It would be a lot cheaper if the four of us did it,” Summer said hopefully. “I mean, we’d be splitting the expenses four ways. But Vixen is right. I’m not too sure how thrilled my mother would be about the four of us sharing an apartment. Maybe we could do two apartments. It wouldn’t be the cost savings, but would be better than paying dorm room rates at a big college somewhere. And if the apartments were next to each other, well . . .”

“What they don’t know won’t hurt them,” Vixen finished for her. “But that’s still a year off, and things could change a lot by then.” She left unsaid the thought that she didn’t think Alan and Summer were quite that close yet, and neither were she and Jack – though if things continued to go the way they had been going, the roommates might well not be guys with guys and girls with girls. It was a strange thought; a week ago it would never have crossed her mind. But that was a week ago, and an awful lot had happened in that week.

“Well, it’s an option we need to keep in mind,” Jack smiled, his thoughts pretty close to Vixen’s, although just as unsaid; glancing at Alan and Summer, he suspected that they had much the same thoughts as well. “A lot could happen in a year. I’ll admit, the community college option isn’t quite as good as going straight to some state school, but it might be a little more affordable for all of us. We’d still have to transfer someplace after two years, but from what I understand it’s not quite as difficult to get accepted for a transfer to some of the bigger places as it is for getting accepted in the first place.”

“Right,” Alan said. “At least if you get good grades. They know you can do the work. And it would go a long way toward getting some of the prerequisites out of the way.”

“One thing to keep in mind is that at most state schools they expect you to live in the dorms for the first year or two,” Vixen pointed out, with the prospect of living with Jack unspoken, though clearly on her mind. “That would get us around that issue real easily.”

“That’s definitely a point on the plus side,” Summer pointed out. “I think it’s something we ought to look into a little bit more than just sitting around the pond and talking about it.”

“Well, there’s not a lot we can do out here in the woods except sit around and talk about it,” Alan smiled at his girlfriend, and maybe – hopefully – his future lover. Maybe not all that far in the future, either; there had been some things said in the last few days that hinted that Summer was about as anxious as he was. “It’s something we need to look into, and at least we can do it online. My real big concern is getting the prerequisites I’d need for transferring.”

“I’m pretty much the same way,” Summer agreed. “Just a slightly different angle on it, since I need to know how hard it’s going to be to transfer between nursing programs. But maybe it won’t be that difficult if we go to a community college that has an LPN program. If I was an LPN, maybe I could do the upgrade to being an RN at a different school. Jack, how about you and Vixen?”

“Good question,” Jack said. “I have to think that the basics are much the same anywhere, and what we really need to do is to get them down so they’ll transfer into a big college wildlife biology program somewhere. I’m just thinking that we may not be able to get everything we want in one place. Yeah, the community college option gets us away from having to deal with jocks, and that’s pretty appealing to me. But we may not be able to manage that at a big school, and we may well wind up not being able to go to the same big school.”

“I’ll tell you what, I’d settle for a two-year breather from being away from jocks,” Alan said. “Four would be nice but we may not be able to get it.”

“That’s about how I feel,” Vixen agreed. “I sure hope we can work it out.”

“There’s a chance we can,” Summer said. “We just have to find the right place, and work out the details. This is something we hadn’t considered until now, but right at the moment it sounds like it would work.”

“From what little I know it sounds to me like it should work,” Vixen said. “But like Alan said, there’s not much we can do out here but discuss it without knowing what we’re talking about. That’s a nice warm pond out there, and we came out here to go swimming. Let’s do it.”

“Actually, that makes about as much sense as anything,” Jack said. “We won’t be able to go swimming in it in a couple months.”

“Boy, you got that right,” Summer said, standing up and untying her bikini top. “Let’s get wet.”

“You want to go skinny-dipping now?” Alan said, more out of curiosity than anything else. He’d only seen Summer nude a couple times before, and it was a very interesting sight indeed.

“Might as well,” she said, throwing the bikini top onto the blanket where the four of them had been sitting, then untying one of the strings of her bottom. “I hate sitting around in a wet swimsuit, even as tiny as this one is.”

“Well, if you’re going to be that way about it,” Vixen said, starting to untie her own bikini top as Jack began to peel down his shorts. “You might have a point about it.”

It wasn’t long before the four naked teenagers were out in the sun-warmed waters of the pond, yelling and splashing and having a great time. Though the four had been nude with each other as a group before, it had always been after dark when they really couldn’t see much detail. This was just innocent fun, a little thrilling in that it flouted the rules a bit. After a while things began to die down; Jack and Vixen headed up to the blanket, dried off, got their swimsuits back on and settled down to a little serious necking. Alan and Summer stayed in the water for a while, chest deep and chest to chest, doing a little serious necking of their own – and, more importantly, taking the time for a little serious private talking. “I kind of like the idea of the four of us sharing an apartment, or maybe a couple apartments,” Alan said softly into Summer’s ear. “What do you think?”

“It has some possibilities,” Summer replied just as softly. “But Alan, any way we did it, they’d have to know.”

“Yeah, that’s pretty clear,” he agreed. “I’ll tell you this much, it’s something that they need to know pretty soon, and not have it sprung on them at the last minute. That could really louse things up.”

“I know,” she sighed, “but I’ve kept it a secret for so long it’s going to be hard to tell them. Hell, it was hard enough to tell you.”

“It wasn’t easy for me to come clean with you about it,” Alan said, “and I’m nowhere near as paranoid about it as you are. But I’m sure glad I did.”

“I am, too,” she grinned. “My Goddess, I never thought I’d find another one of us in Spearfish Lake, of all places, until I found out about you.”

“That makes two of us,” he said. “But I can tell you this much. I think after everything that’s gone down, we can trust Jack and Vixen if we can trust anyone, and I don’t think they’re going to fly off the handle about it. I don’t think we want to try to do it today, but it does have to be pretty soon, especially if we’re going to try going to college together. It has a lot of potential in a lot of different ways.”

“Do you really think they’d keep it a secret? Like you said, I’m more paranoid about it than you are.”

“It’s a gamble,” he shrugged, “but so is anything else. I seriously doubt that they’d join us. They don’t seem to think that way. But I think they’d respect our beliefs and be willing to keep it to themselves if they’re asked. Jack and Vixen might think we’re nuts, but I don’t think it’d keep them from being friends. And the last few days I’ve learned just how nice it is to have friends.”

“Boy, is that ever right,” she smiled at him. “You’re right, too, in that I don’t think we want to tell them today. Besides, I want a few days to think about how we’re going to do it and do it right.”

“There is that,” he admitted. “If it did go wrong, it could screw up what has the makings of being a pretty good day. Now let’s kiss for a while, then head back up and join them.”

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