“I'm aiming for a twenty-year series. When I was a kid I did a project for school on global warming and my grandfather was telling me how you could see subtle difference in the climate. You know, he’d noticed that the winters were shorter, summers hotter since he moved into the cabin, but it was the last ten or fifteen years they started really noticing differences in the migration patterns of some of the birds and the butterflies. The water levels of the streams and rivers, even the foliage. I wanted to visually document changes in the mountain as a whole. Some universities have been using some of my stuff too.”
“That's really cool. And a little bit frightening. We’re all gonna die.”
“Too true. But this will all go on, unless we nuke the planet down the center. I'll show you more of my shots from this spot when we get back.”
I look out over the Western rise and start snapping photos of that side of the valley. Claudia is quiet beside me, only whispering to Titus every now and then when he tries to convince her to follow him on an adventure into the trees. The sun crests over the peak in the East and I am able to capture the perfect outline of its shadow. When I have what I want, I lean on the bolder next to Claudia.
“You in a hurry to head back? Are you hungry?”
“A little. But we don’t need to rush. It’s nice up here.”
I lift my camera off my chest and turn to her. “Do you mind?”
Her eyes go a little wide for a moment, but then she shakes her head. “Do I need to pose or act natural?”
“Do what feels right.”
“’Kay,” she says. Then she crosses her eyes and sticks out her tongue at me. Then she’s smiling and then she’s making a kissy face. “Wait, get me with my new best buddy.” She hops off the boulder and squats next to Titus and I get a few shots of him trying to lick her face and Claudia laughing.
“Okay it’s my turn.” I watch her as she takes her phone out of her coat pocket and turns its camera on me. “You ready?”
I try not to roll my eyes. “Yeah, sure.” I never intentionally smile in pictures.
“Let me help you.” She steps in front of me and starts snapping selfies of us both. I cave and kiss her forehead and she’s able to capture that. Then she turns to me. “I fucking hate when people do this, but whatever.” She leans up and kisses me and when she pulls back, she pulls up her photo album. She’d managed to snap two slightly crooked pictures of us kissing.
“See the light here? I wanted this to express the elements of hopefulness and helplessness that plague the modern, yet slightly older millennials,” she says.
“We should frame it.”
“You want me to send it to you? As soon as we get back to your place ’cause there is no service out here.” She sings the last bit.
“Yeah, send me all of them. And I’ll email you the photos I took.”
“Thank you.” She leans against my arm and I shift my camera out of the way and wrap my arm around her shoulder. I want to tell her that I’m enjoying the mountain in a different way now that she’s here. I want to tell her that she’s making the trek out to these more remote spots easier. She’s quieting the dull buzz in my head that usually comes with the noises of the forest. I like having her with me.
“What brought your grandfather up here?” she asks.
“The tent boom in the seventies.”
“What?” She looks up at me. She has this little smile on her face.
“Lightweight tent engineering was a game changer. They needed more rangers and he was the first to show up.”
“And now here you are.”
“Yup.” A natural silence falls between us again. I just need to enjoy this morning and not think ahead. She’s going to leave, she has to. I pull her closer and kiss the top of her head. And then I hear it. Movement on the trail.
“There's some people coming, that way,” I say as I nod to where the trail splits down to the southwest It’s less worn, more overgrown and not the way I usually travel to this point.
She stands away from me and I watch her as she presses her hands behind her against the boulder. She swallows and keeps her eyes trained on the trees.
“You okay?” I ask.
“Yeah. I'm fine,” she says, but her eyes have suddenly gone wild.
A few moments later two hikers come up the trail, two women. One Black, one Asian. They’re holding hands even though they're loaded down with gear.
“Good morning,” the Black woman says in a chipper voice.