Fiction
The Plunge Pool • Part 3
Girls, Guns, and Graffiti
Continued from Part 1 • Part 2
There is no comfortable way to sit on the ground in a miniskirt. I lounged in the weeds on our ledge, watching groups of people trickle in through the woods, as the afternoon ripened. I had a buzz on. A bottle of High Life warmed in my hand. Vin had gone up among the locals to try to bum a smoke. I didn’t know where Warren and Trace had got to, and I didn’t care. The woods crowded over the creek from the steep sides of the valley, as if to protect it. The springtime crispness of the morning had given way to muggy summer heat. Down the valley, the hills receded, green and grainy, to a sky whitening with haze. The deep notes of the falls rumbled beneath layers of rush and hiss.
We had gotten there early. As more people arrived, a rough organization emerged among the locals and tourists like us. The falls formed a kind of dividing line. The locals, many driving down in pickup trucks and jeeps, came with lawn furniture and grills and claimed the broad flat area above the falls. The tourists came on foot and traveled light. They dumped their backpacks and small coolers on the banks and ledges around the pool, below the falls.
