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“This is why you like nature, isn’t it?” June asks after a while, her head nestled against my shoulder.
“Yes,” I say simply. “Have you convinced yourself that you like it yet?”
She laughs softly, her body shaking against mine.
“Almost,” she says. “This is nice. I kinda see why you like it.”
Then she pauses. I don’t say anything, because there’s nothing that needs to be said.
“But on the other hand, how do you not think that there’s a mountain lion hiding just beyond those trees over there, waiting to eat you?” she says. “Or a human murderer, or a bear, or, I don’t know, a swarm of bees.”
I glance over at the trees she’s indicating.
“Maybe there is,” I say, shrugging. “Probably not, though. But it’s definitely quiet, and peaceful, and the air smells good and there’s dirt below your feet and all you have to think about right now is when to put the fire out and go to bed.”
“Is this the time to mention that I brought whiskey?” June asks.
“So you forget about the mountain lions?”
“And the bears.”
“The bears are probably asleep by now, since it’s dark. They’re crepuscular,” I remind her, and she laughs.
“Like Dave?”
I grin at the fire.
“Right, like Dave,” I say. “I assume you’ve heard all about him?”
“For sure,” June says, and heaves herself to her feet, leaving a cold spot on my side as she walks to her pack and starts rummaging through it. “I’m surprised she hasn’t talked me into doing a special investigative report yet.”
The she in that sentence is my niece Rusty, and Dave is, of course, Deepwood Dave, our very own alleged lake monster. Rusty’s been on a cryptozoological kick lately, and Dave is her current object of fascination.
He is, of course, crepuscular, meaning he only comes out around twilight and dawn.
June finally finds a slim flask, comes back, sits where she was before, settles back into me.
“I owe you a new bottle,” she says, unscrewing the top of the flask. “This is the last of it.”
“Don’t bother, I’ll get another barrel from the cave next week,” I say as she takes a sip, then hands me the flask.
June clears her throat slightly.
“The cave?” she asks.
“Mhm,” I confirm, taking a pull from the flask. This whiskey burns a little more than the last batch, but it’s still pretty good stuff.
“A whiskey cave?”
“It’s just for aging it,” I tell her, screwing the top onto the flask. “I make it in the still behind my mom’s house.”
June turns and looks at me like I’m an alien.
“You make whiskey?” she asks, like she’s scandalized.
I open my mouth, then close it, trying not to laugh.
“You’re not a cop, are you?” I ask.
“Okay, first, this would be the wildest undercover operation ever if I were, and two, you make whiskey?”
“It’s been a while since I made a batch, but yes,” I confirm, handing her the flask. “I figured someone ought to put great-granddaddy’s still to use.”
“Levi. That’s illegal,” June says, but now she’s laughing.
“Only technically.”
“Technically illegal is illegal,” she points out.
“Guess I’m a criminal, then,” I say, stretching my legs a little further toward the fire and grinning at her. “You like bad boys, June?”
She turns her face away and takes another quick bolt from the flask.
“No,” she says, laughing. “I like nice men who rescue sweet dogs, grow their own tomatoes, and make their beds every morning.”
“And distill illegal whiskey.”
“That sounds dangerous,” she says, leaning against me, the cap back on the flask.
“I’m not running whiskey, just making it,” I say. “According to family legend, that’s the dangerous part.”
“Don’t stills explode sometimes?” she asks, her cheeks slightly pink in the firelight.
“Only if you do it wrong,” I say, taking the flask again. “It’s not as if I’m running a meth lab. That’s dangerous.”
“If you tell me you’ve got a meth lab I will freak out,” June says.
“I don’t have a meth lab and I’ve got no intention whatsoever of starting one,” I say. “That sort of thing crosses the line from technically illegal to illegal illegal, besides which I’ve got no desire at all to mess with that shit.”
“What else do you secretly do that I don’t know about?” she asks, her voice low, teasing.
“I thought you knew about the whiskey,” I tell her, honestly. “I figured Silas would have told you by now.”
“Silas thinks I’m still thirteen,” she says, sighing. “He gets weird about it if I have a beer in front of him. Joke’s on him, though.”
“Why?”
“Because I also had a huge crush on you when I was thirteen.”
I’m mid-pull, and I’m so surprised that I start coughing.
June turns, gives me a surprised look.
“What?” I ask.
“You didn’t know?”
I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand, the whiskey slowly making its way into my brain. It’s not much — two sips, probably not even a full shot — but it’s just enough to make me a little warmer, a little bolder.
