But the reasons change depending on the circumstances, I said, and we babbled like the river all night, bickering while the fire burned, her fire burned, that is, while we slept, while the big lizards spooled up their activity but steered clear of our oily reek, and every once in a while we would wake to the sound of violence, then drift back to sleep, wondering if it had been real, or simply dreamtime hallucination.
