He emptied the contents of the bag onto the ground and lined up the poles for the tent.
“It’s beautiful up here. Have you been before?”
“Been a few years, but yeah.”
“It’s so quiet. Even more than the desert.”
Neil pulled the deep scent of the pines into his nose. “The highway noise travels for miles in the desert. Up here, the forest muddles the sound.” He closed his eyes and listened. He moved his face away from the sun. “Listen.”
He opened his eyes to find Gwen looking at him with a smile. He walked to her and turned her toward the east. “Close your eyes.”
“What is it?”
“Shhh.” He rested his hands on her shoulders and leaned down to her ear. “Take a few slow deep breaths and just listen.”
Gwen followed his instructions and he joined her in silence. When he closed his eyes, the world of sound opened like a flood.
“Now…what do you hear?”
“Birds. Maybe a chipmunk chirping.”
He heard those too. “What else?” He watched her now, the smile on her face as she listened to the sounds of the forest.
“The wind in the top of the trees…and something else.” She opened her eyes and pointed east. “Over there.”
“A stream if it’s close, a river if it’s farther away.”
“How lovely. We should find it.”
He rubbed the coolness from her arms. “Tomorrow. We need to set up camp before dark.”
“All right.”
“But first. Close your eyes again and tell me what you don’t hear.”
Her eyes drifted close again. Neil glanced at the ground at his feet and saw a twig.
“No cars. No distant horns or sounds of people other than us. No air traffic. Nothing mechanical.”
Neil lifted his foot over the branch and waited. “Anything else?”
She hesitated and started to shake her head.
Neil snapped the twig and she jumped.
“What was that?”
She watched him now, hand to her chest.
“Just a branch. But you heard it because you removed one of your senses. Listen to how I walk, memorize it. And if anyone else approaches you, you’ll know it before you see them.”
Gwen turned and circled his waist with her arms. “No one would dare get close to me with you around, Neil.”
“You can never be too careful out here.”
She grinned, lifted on her tiptoes and kissed him briefly, and settled back to her feet. “I’ll practice. Now, why don’t you set up the tent while I find some firewood?”
He kept an eye on her as she foraged about, gathering wood. It didn’t take him long to construct the tent and set up their sleeping gear.
“I’ve never camped,” Gwen said from several yards away. “Not once. The closest I came was when I was twelve. I had a friend spend the night and we ended up sleeping on the lounge chairs on the patio outside my room at Albany.”
He smirked. “Doesn’t count.”
“I suppose that’s true.” She dumped a few larger logs into her pile and moved away to gather more branches. “There are a few cabins on the property back home. I used to escape to them when I needed time to myself. My mother always wanted people around. There were guests at Albany continually when my father was alive and I often sought refuge in the cabins.”
“Did you get along with your father?” He knew Blake didn’t.
“He discounted me because of my gender. I was someone my mother needed to deal with. Not him. When Blake decided to find his own path, I mistakenly thought my father would notice that I was more than an ornament to be introduced to his friends and then set aside. Naive of me. He was an awful husband and father. If he were born a hundred and fifty years ago, he could have fit in quite well.”
“Sounds like a hard man to live with.”
She placed more wood on her pile and sat on a fallen log. “He was. I probably shouldn’t speak ill of the dead.”
Leave it to Gwen to worry about a spirit’s feelings. “I won’t tell.” He took a log and carved into the soft earth to make a small pit for their fire.
“What about your parents? I don’t think I’ve ever heard you talk about them.”
Neil hadn’t thought about his parents in a long time and it had been even longer since he spoke of them. “Mom ran off when I was a kid. My dad raised me. He was a marine. Served for twenty plus years before he died.”
“When did he pass?”
“Seven years now. Lung cancer. He chain smoked himself to death.”
“How awful.”
Neil shrugged. “It could have been worse. Once he was diagnosed, he went quick. Count your blessings and all that.”
Gwen smiled and leaned her chin on her folded hands. “What was he like?”
“He was one of the good guys. Dad didn’t have a lot to say most of the time. I knew he cared for me. He had a good group of friends whose wives helped out with me when I was younger. We moved around a lot in the beginning. Settled here in Colorado when he was close to retiring.” Poor bastard didn’t even have a chance to enjoy his retirement. Neil gathered the smaller pieces of wood, discarding the branches he knew would cause an excessive amount of smoke, and piled them to start the fire.
“He must be the reason you joined the military.”
“It’s the only life I knew. Worked for him. I never thought of being something other than a marine.”