Earth Angel

"I figure the travel vest should do for a one-night camping trip," I said, rolling it i to my backpack. "What do you think, little man?"

"I want the pink sleeping bag," said Paul.

"You can have the pink one," I said. "I got a speech to give at Hyner Run this weekend, but when I'm not doing the speech, we have free time. You wanna help me look for a ghost?"
"Sure."

"The Swamp Angel haunts the are up near Hyner Run," I said. "We've looked for the Swamp Angel before. She was a Native American girl who drowned in the river, and now she haunts the water areas up there, and the legend is that if you need help, you can ask, and she might help you."

"Cool," said Paul. "Can I swim, too?"

"Yeah, they got the pool up there. You can swim, too. And we'll roast a few hot dogs for dinner."

"Can we roast hamburgers?"

"I can manage to fry some hamburgers. We'll have the cooking equipment. Have I ever taught you the egg-in-an-orange trick?"

Paul frowned. "I don't think so."

"For breakfast, you cut an orange in half. You eat the fruit out and leave the peel. Then you crack an egg and it cooks right inside the peel."

"Could we scramble it?"
"I don't see why not."

"That's cool," Paul said, looking impressed.

"Your grandfather taught me that when I was about your age. I'm pretty sure my grandfather taught him."

I sat at my desk, looking at an online map of the greater Hyner area. I was already very familiar with it, but I was bored at work, so, you know. I had a couple of choices---I could go and process some books, or I could prepare for my speech tonight. So I chose to go and look up some stuff about lumbering.

Mills. Good. North Bend had the biggest mill in the county---Even better. I got some index cards and scribbled down a few notes. Claire walked past, and said,"You look busy."

'Work, work, work," I said.

I put the sleeping bags in the SUV while the kids watched. Little Soriayah from next door asked,"Where are you going?"

"We're camping out tonight at Hyner Run," I said. "I've been asked to give a speech up there."

"Wow," she said. "It's almost like you're important!"
"Almost," I agreed.

"No, he is famous," said Serena, her older sister. "He's been in books, and he gives tours, and is friends with the mayor."

I put my pack in, the big green pack I used for camping. "We might look into some ghosts while we're there, too."

"Because we always do that," said Paul.

"This is our campsite," I said, getting out of the SUV. I looked around. "Hey, kid, guess what? We got a bridge."

There was a tree that had fallen over Hyner Run, stretching from one side to the other. Paul looked at it with some fascination. "This is a bridge?"

"Well, nobody exactly planned this, but it's not going anyplace. It'll hold."

Paul walked across it, balancing nicely. He jumped down onto a small rock outcropping in the water. It's kind of nice to see him in these moments; playing like an average little boy.

"I know you guys want to hit the pool," I said. "If you wan to go up and swim, I'll get things set up here."

"Sounds like a good plan," said Michelle.

They headed up to the pool to go swimming. I got the tent out of the SUV. Truth is, I can probably get things set up more efficiently without any help. My Boy Scout troop, when I was a kid, was known as one of the quickest, most efficient groups, and a lot of that had stuck. I got the tent set up easily enough---We'd bought that tent before we were married, and it had been through over twenty years of adventures with us. I looked it over; it was still in good condition, but it was beginning to show signs of wear. Best tent I'd ever had; replacing it one day was going to hurt. Not yet.

I got the cooler out and made myself a sandwich before my speech. I had a little time before showtime, so I checked around and made sure everything was okay. Then I walked up to the pool, where I found my wife and son splashing around.

I knelt beside the pool. "How's it going?" I asked.

Paul held up one thumb, and then dived back down underwater.

I walked up to the picnic area nearby, where Ian was waiting. Ian is the ranger up at Hyner, and has been inviting me to do talks in the state parks for years. We shook hands.

"How are you, my friend?" he asked.

"I'm good, Ian, really good."

"Got the family with you this time?"
"Yeah, they're down enjoying the pool. I got a great speech for you tonight---I think everyone is really going to enjoy it."

"That's good, that's really good. Of course, you always do a really good job. Everyone loves when I get you up here."

"Nice to hear. I can see we have a few lawn chairs, reserving the spaces."

"Yeah, a few people wanted to leave their chairs from the last talk."

"Well, good, we have some front-row seating then."

I walked back to camp after my speech, which had gone well. Paul and Michelle were waiting, dried off.

"Everyone ready for dinner?" I asked.

"I'm pretty hungry," agreed Michelle. Paul went over to the fallen log to play some more.

With minimal difficulty, I got a fire started. Then I got out the cook kit---My dad had given me this. It was the same one we'd used on camping trips when I was a kid, some forty years ago. They made this stuff to last back then.

I clipped together the frying pan and set it on the grill, then threw in half the hot dogs and some hamburger meat. It went much better than I'd expected, the hamburgers frying up in a few minutes. I flipped them over, and then said,"Looks like they're done. Who wants one?"

Paul was first. He smeared ketchup all over his, and tasted it.

"How is it?" I asked.

"It's great!" he said.

I had a hot dog and a hamburger myself; the sandwich had only been enough to get through the speech. We all had enough to eat, and then I cleaned up. Afterward, I had some free time. So I did what I do. I dug into my pack, got out my vest, and pulled it on.

It was one of my travel vests, not the big pre-packed tactical model, which is hard to pack. I wandered downstream, periodically stopping to check things out. I'd managed to work some sort of adventure at Hyner Run in every summer for the past few, looking for cryptids or ghosts. Last year, it had been the Susquehanna Seal. This year, it was the Swamp Angel.

I'd last checked for the Swamp Angel two years ago, when COVID had driven me into a deep depression. I was doing a lot better this time around.

At the far end of the camp was a nice little grassy area, where the creek ran through. It was where I figured the Swamp Angel was most likely to show up. I jumped the guiderail and walked down to the creek.

I got out the all-in-one EMF detector as I walked through the grass. It didn't register, but I kept at it.

Hi, Swamp Angel. How you been? Been a while.

I walked to the edge of the forest, turned around, walked back. I wasn't finding anything, but I was in no rush. It was nice here. Peaceful.

I wandered back up the hill and onto the road. I turned and walked onto the bridge.

Midway across, the EMF detector shot up to red.

I stopped, surprised. There seemed to be a span of bridge where there was a reading---Something invisible, but electric. I backed up, and it went down. Moved ahead, and it came back.

I raised the detector over my head, and it went out. So something at eye level, then.

I picked up a stone and marked an X on the bridge where the reading began. Then I followed it---About three steps---And marked where it ended. There was a span of a few feet where I was getting a reading for no reason.

Except, maybe, the Swamp Angel.

The sun was down, and everything was dark. I was sitting and reading a paperback book by lantern, smoking a celebratory cigar. 

Paul crawled out of the tent. This is common on these camping trips. I've never known him to sleep before eleven when we travel. He sat down in the chair beside me.

"Daddy, I can't sleep," he said.

"Want to sit here with me a while?" I asked.

"Okay. Are there any hamburgers left?"

"A couple. They're in the cooler."

"Can you heat one up for me?"

"Might be possible; we still have some embers in the fire. Let me see what I can do."

"Thank you."

I got a long skewer and started reheating the hamburger. I could hear it start to sizzle almost instantly. "You know, your grandpa and me used to go camping like this. I did a lot of this in the summer when I was a kid."

"You've told me."

"Here's your hamburger," I said. He put it in a bun, started eating, and smiled. And my son and I sat in companionable silence for a while in the night.