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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. Je
“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 ru
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 ru
“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 ru
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 pla
Sue sat up in her sleeping bag and pushed her brown hair out of her face. “This isn’t fu
“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 stu
Sue was crying. “That’s why you sold the Lexus. Why you moved us to Eden Prairie. How’d you keep this from me, Roger? How did you—”
“Live with myself? I don’t know. I still don’t know.”
“Are you sure it’s him? That Donald’s the father of the girl you hit?”
“This thing happened in early October. Almost six years ago. In St. Paul.”
“But what if it’s just a horrible coin—”
“I still dream about the orange shoes and blue shorts, Sue.”
“Oh God, baby.” She turned over and pulled her husband down onto her chest, ran her fingernails across the back of his neck. “What do you think he’s go
“I don’t know, but he didn’t come all this way, follow us up into the middle of nowhere just to talk.”
“So we just leave? Right now?”
“Yes.”
“Can you get us back to the trailhead in the dark?”
“I think so. If not, we’ll just hide somewhere until morning. What’s important is getting out of this tent and away from our camp as soon as possible.”
“But he must know where we live, Roger.” Sue sat up, faced her husband. “He was able to find out we were coming to North Carolina. What keeps him from doing this when we get back to Mi
“I don’t think this is about bringing me to justice in any legal sense of the word.”
“We can’t just run away, Roger.”
“Sure we can. And we will.”
“He might know where our girls live. Might decide to go after them. We have no idea what he’s capable of.”
“So what are we supposed—”
“You wa