I’d like to sleep naked up in the tent in December, with nothing up in there but the pillowtop, the vent hose pumping warm fresh air in, and my 9mm Beretta just in case a leader or a follower comes to Out of the Way with malign intentions, whether they are overtly malign or is as more typical, cloaked in some variant of their acquisitive civility.

That would be a night of simple joy, although stained with the knowing that in time I would need smooth warm flesh and the scent of perfume to share it with to make the joy complete.

Sometimes though all you need is a few pints of plain water to sluice out the tub. But they need to come on top of the gallons of viciously hot water that make a tub useful in the first place. I haven’t worked any of that out.

Except the mattress, the sheets, and the ammunition.

Tonight as the storms try to tiptoe south without being recognized I will do what I can to push the little complicated dream forward.