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.”
Donald suddenly tilted to one side and squelched out a noisy fart, then chuckled, “Damn mountain frogs.”
Roger thinking, Well he’s definitely a little drunk.
Donald corked the scotch, said, “You have children?”
“Twin girls,” Sue said.
“No kidding. How old?”
“They’ll turn twenty next month. They’re in college at Iowa. Michelle wants to be a writer. Jennifer, more practical of the two, is pre-law.”
“How nice.”
“Yeah, this trip has been a sea change for Roger and me. Our family’s been coming to Shining Rock, God, forever, but this is the first time it’s just the two of us.”
“Empty nesters.”
“How about you, Don? Any kids?”
Donald bit down softly on his bottom lip and looked away from Roger and Sue at the moon edging up behind the black mass of Cold Mountain.
“I didn’t pick twenty-one-year-old scotch to share with you two on a whim. This whiskey,” he swirled what liquid remained in the bottle, “was put into an oak barrel to begin aging the year my little girl was born.”
He pulled out the cork, tilted up the bottle.
Sue said, “Is she in school somewhere or—”
“No, she’s dead.”
Sue gasped, and through the gale in his head, Roger sensed something attempting to piece itself together.
“I’m so sorry,” Sue said.
“Yeah.” Donald nodding.
“What happened, if it’s not too—”
“She’ll have been gone six years this coming fall.”
“She was sixteen when…”
“Yeah.”
Roger reached for the scotch and Donald let him take it.
The bottom edge of the moon had cleared the summit ridge of Cold Mountain, and somewhere in the meadows of Beech Spring Gap, a bird chirped.
“Was it a car wreck?” Sue asked.
“Tab was a cross-country runner in high school. Captain of her team when she was only a sophomore. Very devoted, disciplined runner. It was just a thing of beauty to watch her run. She made the state championship her freshman year.”
Roger noticed Donald’s hands trembling.
His were, too.
“Morning of October third, I was on my way to work when I came to a roadblock about a mile from our house. There were police cars, a fire truck, ambulances. I’d heard the sirens while I was getting dressed but didn’t think anything of it.
“I was swearing up a storm ‘cause I was late for a meeting and getting ready to do a u-turn, find an alternate route, when one of the EMTs stepped out of the way. Even from fifty yards back, I recognized Tabitha’s blue shorts, orange running shoes, her legs.
“Next thing I remember was throwing up on the side of the road. They say I broke through the barrier, that it took two firemen and four cops to drag me away from her body. I don’t remember seeing her broken skull. Or the blood. Just her legs, orange shoes, and blue running shorts, from fifty yards back in my car.”
Sue leaned across the blanket and draped her arms around Donald’s neck.
Roger heard her whisper, “I’m so sorry,” but Donald didn’t return the embrace, just stared at him instead.
Sue pulled back, said, “Someone had hit her.”
“Yeah. But whoever did was gone by the time the police arrived.”
“No.”
“This occurred in a residential area, and in one of the nearby houses, someone had happened to look out a window, see a man standing in the street over my daughter. But he was gone when the police showed up.”
“A hit-and-run.”
“Yeah.”
“Oh my God. What about your wife? What—”
“We separated four years ago.”
Roger couldn’t look at him, turned instead to the summer moon, nearly full, and as large and white as he would ever see it, the Ocean of Storms clearly visible as a gray blemish two hundred thousand miles away.
Donald said, “Sometimes, I can talk about it without ripping the stitches, but not tonight, I guess. I better go.” He got to his feet, leaving the scotch and cards on the blanket, and walked off into the dark.