This Don’t Happen in Apalachicola

It was darker than anywhere he’d ever been. Colder too. Colder than darker if that was possible. The dim light from the tent he just left in the camp now distant behind him was the only thing that made it possible to see. But he knew where he was going. He’d gone there dozens of times. He measured out the steps, counted them. The sound of the snow crunching under his boots served as a cadence as he walked. 

“Stone? Is that you?” a voice came from somewhere in the void before him. 

“Who else would be stupid enough to be out here?” Stone answered.

Stone finally got close enough to make out Johnson hunkered against the frozen wall of earth and rock and snow. He could hear his breath before he could see it, before he could just make out his face, features mostly indistinct in the darkness.

Stone slid down next to him, stamping his feet on the hard earth. They were already starting to grow numb in just the ten minutes since he’d left the tent.

“I musta done something really bad in a past life to end up here,” Stone grumbled.

“Hell, boy. It ain’t all that bad,” Johnson said, shielding his face from the wind, lighting up a cigarette, the Zippo providing the first light sufficient enough for Stone to distinguish Johnson’s features, his red hair, what stuck out from under the wool hat jammed down over his ears, a few days growth of red beard, ice crystals clinging to it around the corners of his mouth and just under his nostrils.

“Maybe for North Dakota,” Stone said.

“South Dakota,” Johnson corrected.

“What’s the difference,” Stone said, laughing.

“Them’s fightin’ words where I come from.” Back home the warning would have been serious. Here, now, not so much. “Been through a lot colder than this,” Johnson added. “Had a winter so bad once, we lost five hundred head of cattle in one night.”

“Well,” Stone said, settling into the limited bit of shelter from the wind, cupping his hands over his mouth, breathing some warmth back onto his numbing face. “This don’t happen in Apalachicola”

Stone’s mind drifted back to his home. To the sunshine, the beaches, the crystal blue water and the humidity that he used to complain about every summer and swore never to complain about ever again once he got back.

“Does anything happen in Apalachicola?” Johnson’s turn to take a shot.

Stone thought about time with his father, fishing off a pier just south of town, the redfish, flounder and sheepshead his mother would fry up for dinner or sometimes breakfast, joined by pompano, his favorite in the summer and early fall. He could see it all so clearly, hours sitting there waiting for something to happen, his father and he rarely talking, just enjoying the tranquility of the moment. The peace.

“Nothing happening sounds pretty damn good just about now,” Stone said quietly.

“You’ll get no argument from me,” Johnson agreed. He turned his attention to a small Coleman camp stove at his feet. It was so dark, Stone hadn’t even noticed it. A quick spark and a small flame, Johnson quickly adjusting it down to its lowest level, both men looking around them in the dark to see if it had drawn any attention.

Johnson set his metal cup over the flame and poured something from his canteen into it. It was dark, Stone could see that in the limited light. Definitely not water.

“Coffee?” Stone asked.

Johnson just grinned at him but said nothing.

Two minutes passed, the two men watching the flame, the liquid in the cup, waiting for it to boil. The thought about a watched pot never boiling crossed Stone’s mind, but what else did he have to do? Was as good a way to pass the time as any.

The wind howled out of the reservoir beneath them, continuing unobstructed up the incline toward where they sat. The cold became impossibly colder, Stone pulling his coat tighter around him. He could feel it in his eyes, his nose drying out, his toes and fingertips beginning to hurt, paradoxically feeling like they were starting to burn.

He wished he were anywhere else but here.

“Here you go,” Johnson said, handing Stone the cup of hot liquid, his hands shaking as he shivered.

Stone smelled it right away.

“Where the hell did you get hot chocolate?” Stone asked, his voice louder than he intended, quickly looking around again and lowering his volume. “Where did you get hot chocolate?” he repeated at a whisper.

Johnson just chuckled.

Stone inhaled deeply, savoring the aroma, the moment. He lifted the cup to his lips. The metal was still hot. He didn’t care. He welcomed the heat, even if it burned a little. A little sip, enough to taste, burning the tip of his tongue. It didn’t matter. The rest of his body warmed just a bit from the heat, from the taste, from the whole of the moment. A burned tongue didn’t matter. It was glorious.

He took a second sip and passed it back to Johnson who took his turn.

Stone felt the blood move through him a little more, enough to make him feel the discomfort of having been squatting next to the frozen wall of earth. Now that part of him felt better, he noticed more the parts that did not. He stretched his legs, twisted his body back and forth. 

He needed to stand.

Pushing himself to his feet, he stretched his arms and shoulders outward, upward, backward. Anyway to work out the cold and the kinks. 

Johnson handed him the cup again, Stone taking a larger mouthful. In the frigid night, it was no longer hot but still plenty warm.

“You know what would make this even better?” Stone asked.

“Bourbon,” Johnson said.

Stone pointed at him. “Exactly.” And they both laughed.

Then the night turned to day.

Except it wasn’t day.

And the wind was drowned out by the sound of a thousand distant voices crying out in unison. And then the sound of explosions and the earth erupting all around them. Orange and red flaming new color to the brown and white landscape. 

The concussions deafening. Stone’s voice caught in his throat. Johnson shouting, looking like he was shouting, waving at Stone to get down.

And then Johnson was gone, and Stone lay on his back in the snow. All sound was gone. All feeling. The cup of hot chocolate was still in his hand, outstretched in the snow, the brown liquid leaking onto the white, mixing with the red running from Stone’s arm where it used to be attached to Stone.

And his last thought was of the Pier. And the water. And the sun. And the warmth. And how he wished he’d never left Apalachicola.