A bizarre and profoundly "off-the-map" local campground in southern Virginia:
In the morning there were pancakes on the open fire, at 10AM, when the daylight hours had come and bloomed and flushed out the details that night made obscure.
Here a fallen tree that bridged the creek, a cluster of tea bags hanging from its branches.
Here a string of deer vertebrae, tied together with bailing twine at the end of a grass rope, suspended from a limb, bending in the wind.
Here a plywood checkerboard with the squares sketched out in charcoal, and pebbles from the creek-bed in lieu of pieces, the two armies distinguished by a single shade of gray.
“Checkers,” said Dig. “I was never any good.”
He proved it over breakfast: a five-game series, one of which he won.
He washed the dishes in penance.
Knelt by the creek to scrub off the grease.
Put his hands in the water and startled up a crawfish from underneath a rock.
The crawfish watched him for a moment or two, the sunlight glinting off the pinkness of its body, its miniature antennae bending in the current, and then it flicked into motion again, wriggling forward to the safety of Dig’s shadow.
In the morning there were pancakes on the open fire, at 10AM, when the daylight hours had come and bloomed and flushed out the details that night made obscure.
Here a fallen tree that bridged the creek, a cluster of tea bags hanging from its branches.
Here a string of deer vertebrae, tied together with bailing twine at the end of a grass rope, suspended from a limb, bending in the wind.
Here a plywood checkerboard with the squares sketched out in charcoal, and pebbles from the creek-bed in lieu of pieces, the two armies distinguished by a single shade of gray.
“Checkers,” said Dig. “I was never any good.”
He proved it over breakfast: a five-game series, one of which he won.
He washed the dishes in penance.
Knelt by the creek to scrub off the grease.
Put his hands in the water and startled up a crawfish from underneath a rock.
The crawfish watched him for a moment or two, the sunlight glinting off the pinkness of its body, its miniature antennae bending in the current, and then it flicked into motion again, wriggling forward to the safety of Dig’s shadow.
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