Their fourth day in Shining Rock, as the evening cooled and the light began to wane, Roger suggested to his wife that she take a walk through the meadow with a book, find a spot to read for a half hour or so before the light went bad.
“Why do you want me out of camp all the sudden?” she asked. “You up to something?”
When Sue returned forty minutes later, a red-and-white checkered picnic blanket lay spread out in the grass a little ways from their tent. Roger was opening a bottle of wine, and upon two dinner plates rested a bed of steaming pasta. There was a baguette, a block of gruyere, even two of their crystal wineglasses from home and a pair of brass candlesticks, flames motionless in the evening calm.
“You brought all this from home?” she asked. “That’s why your pack was so heavy.”
“I’m just glad the crystal didn’t break when I fell climbing up the Old Butt.”
Roger stood, offered his arm, helped Sue down onto the picnic blanket.
“A little wine?”
“God, yes. Honey, this is amazing.”
He didn’t know if it was the elevation or the novelty of eating food that hadn’t been freeze-dried, but the noodles and tomato sauce and bread and cheese tasted better than anything Roger had eaten in years. It didn’t take long for the wine to set in behind his eyes, and he looked down at the mountains through a haze of intoxication, watching the light sour, bronzing the woods a thousand feet below. First time in a long while that things had felt right, and Sue must have sensed it, because she said, “You look peaceful, Roge.”
It was so quiet he could hear the purr of the river flowing down in the gorge.
Sue set her plate aside and scooted over on the blanket.
“Is it the girls?” she asked. “That what’s been bothering you?”
He reached his arm around her, pulled her in close.
“Let’s just think about right now,” he said. “In this moment, I’m happy and—”
“Evening folks.”
Roger unhanded his wife and rolled over on the picnic blanket to see who was there.
A stocky man with wavy, gray hair and a white-stubbled chin smiled down at them through reflective sunglasses. He wore well-scuffed hiking boots, tight blue shorts, and a frayed gray vest, bulging with an assortment of supplies. His chest hair was white, skin freckled and deeply tanned. Roger estimated him to be ten years their senior.
“Hope I’m not interrupting. I’m camped up in the rhododendron thicket and was just on a stroll through the meadow when I saw your tent. Wow, crystal wineglasses. You guys went all out.”
“We just finished eating,” Sue said, “but there are leftovers if—”
“Oh, I’ve got my dinner simmering back at camp, but maybe you two would be interested in a card game later?”
“Sounds lovely,” Sue said.
“Then I’ll come back in two hours. I’m Donald, by the way.”
“Sue.”
“I’m Roger.”
“Good to meet you both.”
Roger watched Donald march off across the meadow toward the rhododendron thicket at the base of Shining Rock Mountain, didn’t realize he was scowling until his wife said, “Oh come on, Roge, you antisocial party-poop. It’ll be fun.”
No campfires are permitted within the boundary of Shining Rock Wilderness, but the moon would be up soon. Roger and Sue relit the candles for ambience and sat on the picnic blanket, waiting on their guest, watching for the flare of meteors in the southern sky.
Roger never heard his footsteps. Donald was suddenly just standing there at the edge of the red-and-white checkered blanket, grinning.
“Lovely night,” he said.
“We were just sitting here, looking for shooting stars,” Sue said.
“May I?”
“Please.”
Donald set some items in the grass and knelt to unlace his boots, stepping at last in wooly sockfeet onto the blanket, easing down across from Roger and Sue.
“I brought playing cards, an UNO deck, whatever your pleasure, and some not too shabby scotch.”
“Now we’re talking,” Roger said as Donald handed him the bottle. “Ooh…twenty-one year Macallan?”
“Roge and I have become scotch aficionados since a trip to Scotland last year.”
Donald said, “Nothing like a good single malt in the backcountry on a quiet night.”
Roger uncorked the Macallan, offered the bottle to Sue.
“I’ll drink to that.” She brought it to her lips, let a small mouthful slide down her throat. “Oh my God. Tastes more like a fifty-year.”
“Everything tastes better on the mountain,” Donald said.
Sue passed the bottle to her husband. “So how many nights have you been up here?”
“My second.”
“You’ve been here before?”
Roger wiped his mouth. “Goddamn that’s smooth.”
“Actually, this is my first trip to Shining Rock.” Donald took the scotch from Roger and after a long, deliberate swallow, looked at the bottle a moment before passing it back to Sue. “I usually do my camping up in northern Minnesota, but figured these southern highlands would be worth the drive.”
“Where’s home?” Roger asked.
“St. Paul.”
Roger and Sue glanced at each other, smiled.
“What? No, don’t tell me the pair of you are Minnesotans.” He drew out the “o” in stereotypical Midwestern fashion, and they all laughed.
“Eden Prairie as a matter of fact,” Sue said.
“You could make a strong case for us being neighbors,” Donald said and he looked at Roger. “What are the chances?”
Midway through his second hand of UNO, Roger realized he’d gotten himself drunk—not a sick, topsy-turvy binge, but a tired, pleasant glow. He hadn’t meant to, but the scotch was so smooth. Even Sue had let it get away from her. She was laughing louder and with greater frequency, and she kept grabbing his arm and pretending to steal glances at the twenty-plus cards in his hand.
Sue finally threw down her last card and fell over laughing on the blanket.
“Two in a row,” Donald said. “Impressive.”
He pulled out the cork and took a slow pull of scotch, then offered the bottle to Roger.
“Oh Don, I think I’m done for the night.”
“Come on.”
“No, I’m good.”
“One more. Bad luck to skip a nightcap.”
Roger felt the twinge of something in his gut he thought forty-eight-year-old men were impervious to. He took the bottle and drank and passed it back to Donald.
Sue sat up. “Say, I meant to ask why you had a machete lashed to your back?”
Donald smiled. “Sometimes I like to get off-trail, do a little bushwhacking. I did a few tours in Vietnam, and let me tell you, that was the only way to travel upcountry.”
“What branch of the military?” Roger asked.
“Green berets.”
“Wow. Saw some shit, huh?”
“You could definitely say that.”
