Setting Up Camp

By Peter Bowden

He dropped the pack by the stump and stood for a moment, listening. The wind moved through the pines like a whisper you couldn’t quite hear. He squinted at the sky—gray with the promise of rain but not the kind that mattered. He’d made it in time. The light was still good. He unrolled the canvas and laid it flat. The earth was soft, not wet. That was luck.

The fire pit was ringed with stones someone else had placed long ago. He built a fire the way his father had taught him. Bark peeled thin, twigs dry and cracked, the match struck once and caught. The flame was real and small and beautiful. It warmed the knuckles of his left hand as he watched it grow.

He set the tin pot on the flat rock near the flame and poured in water from the canteen. He didn’t feel hungry yet, but he would. The sun dipped lower through the trees, and the air began to shift. He sat with his back against a tree, boots off, wool socks tight around his ankles. This was good. The silence, the fire, the weight of the pack no longer on his shoulders. He looked at the trail and thought of nothing.

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