We're moving on to the 2nd post in this week's Signature author feature for AC Benus's story, Campires and Starlight. Where do you like to camp? Do you think your favorite spot is as beautiful as the one AC Benus describes in this story? 

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Chuck keeps eyes on his driving, but even so, Lee sees the mood of his best friend become reflective. The driver leans closer to the windshield again. “Hope the rain holds off.”

“Me too, buddy. Me too.”

About ten minutes later, the car slows and pulls off the blacktop along the beach. Not into a parking space per se, but the low foliage growing up against the pavement suddenly steps back with room enough for a few cars to park. Heading towards the sea, a wide strip of scrubland levels off with the road and offers a place for hearty plants to eke out a living. Beyond this, gorgeous white sand gradually slopes down to the line of breakers cresting in from the Pacific.

It matches pretty well his buddy’s earlier description of this being among the most beautiful spots to camp in the world. The beach is a perfectly isolated stretch about a mile long, bound at both ends by verdant hills jutting directly into the ocean. The grouping on the right forms a series of camelbacks, undulating smoothly. But the boundary on Lee’s left better resembles those old-master Chinese paintings of craggy mountain peaks sticking straight into the air and having living green plants clinging to their sides.

“Well, here we are, buddy.”

Lee mumbles in admiration, “Fuck….”

Failing a response, Lee turns to find his best friend simply smiling like he’s done good; in Lee’s mind, he has. Opening the door, he says, “Let’s set up!”

They first grab the bags holding the tent fabric and poles, plus the hammer Chuck had brought to drive the stakes.

Going down the path through the scrubland patch, the sand felt pretty firm underfoot, but once they hit the silky-smooth incline down to the waterline, Lee kicks off his flipflops for better footing; he’ll pick them up next trip to the car.

Chuck takes the lead, and a couple hundred feet along the beach from the trail claims “Our spot!” He drops his hammer and tent bags. “The wind’s blowing to the car, so let’s set the shelter here, and I’ll dig a firepit a little farther back along the path.”

“Sounds good,” Lee says.

From there, the boys go about their tasks with silent concentration. Just when Lee gets the body of the nylon shelter assembled, he glances over to see Chuck had not only excavated a 24-inch circle, but had gone back to the car for the load of firewood and tinder they’d brought. He starts to build the fire.

Having staked the tent, Lee trudges along the sand, past his buddy, and up the trail, nabbing his thongs along the way. At the car, he grabs their sleeping bags and pillows, noticing how the light is fading. It’ll be twilight soon. Back outside the open tent door, Lee lets his flipflops go, and kneels with the bedding hugged to his chest. He brushes the warm sand off his feet and goes inside to work.

While he does, Lee thinks back over the day. He tries to act “the same” around his buddy, but knows somehow, something has been left unsaid. It eats him up, this wondering just how bad he’d hurt Chuck with his coming out, and questions of what to do to make it better. In the car on the drive down here, Lee’s lead zeppelin of a joke suggesting Chuck has some hidden secret was too much. Lee chides himself as a rotten friend if he’s unable to edit the crap swirling in his brain before it comes farting out of his mouth.

As Lee completes his task by fluffing the pillows and setting one atop each sleeping bag, swirling of a different kind comes to his consciousness. Namely, the wind in the trees by the Altar Stone. Through the warmth of evening, a few goose bumps arise to remember what the howling sounded like; how voice-like it seemed, and how unmistakable its message.

“Hey.” Chuck stands at the entrance, hands on top of the tent, crouching down to peer in. “No, no, Lee. Not like that.”

He puzzles, his mind still far up the green slopes behind them. “Not like what?”

 

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