Four Live Rounds (8 page)

They crested Chestnut Ridge in the early
afternoon, saw that the sky looked cancerous in the west, a bank of
tumor-black clouds rolling toward them, the air reeking of that
attic mustiness that heralds the approach of rain. They broke out
the raingear. The pack flies. Huddled together in a grove of
rhododendron as the storm swept over them, thunder cracking so loud
and close that it shook the ground beneath their boots.

They reached Shangri-La a few hours shy of
dusk. Sue had named it on their first trip here, thirteen years
ago, having taken the wrong trail and accidentally stumbled upon
this highland paradise. The maps called it Beech Spring Gap, a
stretch of grassy meadows at 5,500 feet, just below the micaceous
outcroppings of Shining Rock Mountain. Even the hottest summer
afternoons rarely saw temperatures exceed eighty degrees. The
nights were always cool and often clear, with the lights of
Asheville twinkling forty miles to the north. Best of all, Beech
Spring Gap was largely untraveled. They’d spent a week here four
years ago and never seen a soul.

By 8:30, they were in their sleeping bags,
listening to a gentle rain pattering on the tent.

‘Night girls, Roger thought. It would be easy
to fall asleep tonight. Too easy. He used to stay up listening to
the twins talking and laughing. Their tent would have been twenty
yards away in a glade of its own, and he’d have given anything to
hear their voices in the dark.

The next two days transpired like mirrors of
each other.

Warm, bright mornings. Storms in the
afternoon. Cool, clear evenings.

Roger and Sue passed the time lying in the
grass, reading books, watching clouds, flying a kite off the nearby
peak.

The emptiness seemed to abate, and they even
laughed some.

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.”

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.

They were lying in their sleeping bags in the
tent when Roger leaned over and whispered in Sue’s ear, “We have to
leave right now.”

“I was almost asleep, Roge, what are
you—”

“Just listen.” The whites of her eyes
appeared in the dark. “I want you to quietly get dressed, put your
boots on. We’ll leave everything here, just take our wallets and
keys.”

“Why?”

“Donald’s planning to kill us tonight.”

Sue sat up in her sleeping bag and pushed her
brown hair out of her face. “This isn’t funny, Roger. Not even a
little—”

“Do I sound like I’m joking?”

“Why are you saying this? ‘Cause he walks
around with a machete and was in Vietnam and…” Sue covered her
mouth. “Oh, Roger, no. Oh God, please tell me…” Sue turned away
from him and buried her face in her sleeping bag.

Roger lay beside her, whispering in her
ear.

“I was late for a meeting downtown. I turned
a corner on Oak Street and the coffee spilled between my legs,
burned me. I swerved, and when I looked up…

“At first, I just sat stunned behind the
wheel, like I could will the moment away, press undo on the
keyboard. I got out and saw her on the pavement, half under the
front bumper. I looked around. No other cars coming. No one else in
the vicinity. Just a quiet Thursday morning, the trees turning, wet
red leaves on the street. I thought about you, about Jennifer and
Michelle, all the things that could be taken from me ‘cause of one
stupid fucking lapse in concentration, and the next thing I knew I
was on I-94.”