matchbook

aryl disappeared while we were gathering wood. He’d stayed back to prep dinner. We returned to an empty camp. 

“Daryl?” Ollie yelled. “Where you at?”

One of us had gone north, another south, the others east and west. How did Daryl get past us?

Ollie, Alice, and Miranda searched for Daryl. They looked in his tent. They looked in everybody’s tent.

I was focused on Miranda. Last trip, she sat next to me by the fire. She’d also set her tent up next to mine—she did so again today. On the hike in, she either walked directly in front of me or directly behind. When I slipped by the falls that morning, she caught me, grasped my forearm, asked if I was okay—she seemed genuinely concerned. I thought about her the next eleven miles, pictured us by the fire. She’d lean against me, rest her head on my shoulder. When it was time for bed, she’d follow me inside my tent. We’d not need separate tents again.

“Pack’s still here,” Alice said.

“He could be crapping,” Ollie said.

“TP’s in his bag. Trowel, too,” Alice countered.

Daryl was the best of us. He planned the treks. He had the best gear yet the lightest pack. He pushed us, another mile, a higher altitude. He wouldn’t just leave us.

“What if something took him?” Alice said.

“Daryl doesn’t get taken,” Ollie said. “Daryl takes.”

“What the fuck does that mean?” Miranda asked.

It was dark. We were hours from anywhere. First light, we’d search again, hoping Darryl’d return in the meantime. We’d follow the path to the trailhead, then we could drive out, find cell service.

Until then, there was Miranda.

*

We cooked MREs and beans. Alice made cherry chocolate dump cake. The fire raged. Miranda sat next to me. Sparks spit into the air. Logs toppled. Smoke got in our eyes.

“I hate white rabbits I hate white rabbits I hate white rabbits,” Miranda chanted.

“What’s that mean?” I asked.

“It’s what you say to change the direction of the smoke—Daryl taught me at Crater Lake. 

“I hate white rabbits.” We took turns saying it when the smoke came our way. 

It worked.

“Want to hear another?” Miranda said.

“If there’s a predator in your camp, a bear or whatever, and you’re the first to see it, you calmly sing ‘Happy Birthday’ until everyone sings with you. That’s how you announce it, how you know everyone else knows.”

We burned through our wood pile. Daryl didn’t return. 

We hung our bear bag twelve feet high in a cedar—Ollie got on my shoulders, was good with knots. We stamped out the embers, suffocating stubborn coals with stones. Miranda and Alice volunteered to clean pots, marching the two hundred feet out.

Only Miranda returned.

“Where’s Alice?” 

Miranda twisted, double-took.

“She was right behind me.”

We called for Alice. Nothing. All of us retraced their steps, found the bean scrapings, the dump cake. We returned to camp. Alice was gone.

We regretted extinguishing the fire. We considered relighting, but Daryl had the matches, Alice the char cloth.

Miranda hovered close, nervous. I put my arm around her. Her breathing calmed at my touch.

We decided to sleep in shifts. Ollie drew first watch. Miranda and I crawled into her tent: safety in numbers. Ollie sat with his back to our door, headlamp on, hatchet in hand. He’d wake me in three hours. “Holler if you see anything,” I said. “Or sing ‘Happy Birthday.’” 

Miranda wondered if Ollie should come into the tent. She whispered that she didn’t think he’d make it, that we’d wake up and Ollie’d be gone.

“He has his hatchet,” I said. Miranda started to strip. “He’s fine where he is.”

*

Aside from the Daryl and Alice disappearances, everything was going as planned, perhaps better. Miranda had zipped our mummy bags together and invited me inside. Ollie a foot away, just a thin wall of nylon in-between, didn’t detract at all.

“Do you think they’re dead?” Miranda whispered.

I shushed her.

“What?”

“Listen: I can feel your heart beating against mine. We’re in sync.”

Miranda buried her face into my neck. I kissed her forehead and pulled her closer. Her skin was hot shale, burning smooth.

Miranda kissed her way to my mouth. “We are in sync,” she said.

It had fallen to the low 40s, but the tent was suddenly ablaze. Miranda peeled off more layers and I followed, the flannels, the cottons, the wickings. She moaned as I attacked her nipple.

“What’s going on in there?” Ollie said.

Miranda and I froze. “Nothing,” we said in unison.

“Are you guys having sex?” 

“Leg cramp,” Miranda said, squirming, my mouth reattached.

We attempted to be stiller and quieter. I could see the outline of Miranda’s body in the glimmer from Ollie’s headlamp. Even her silhouette was stunning.

Miranda mounted me. She reached for her flint and steel and bit down to keep from yelling out. Suddenly she disappeared—Ollie’s light had gone out. Apparently, he’d had enough.

*

At sunrise, Ollie was gone. He never woke me. His headlamp sat right outside the tent, alongside one of his boots. His hatchet was snapped in half.

“Fuck.”

We dressed then packed, limiting ourselves to water, car keys, and our phones. It was three hours to the parking lot if we boogied. We hiked side by side; a quarter mile in, we held hands.

“I’d never heard that before,” I said, breaking a silence.

“Heard what?”

“The white rabbits thing. Or ‘Happy Birthday.’”

We walked another mile or two when Miranda suddenly stopped and started singing: “Happy Birthday.” I looked around. There was nothing but Miranda. She sang on. I stared at her. She nodded. 

I started singing “Happy Birthday,” too.