Where the River Ends Read Online Free
fingers to my lips. “Hey.” She wanted my eyes. The edges were blurring and I knew that added to the weight she already lived under. I turned. “Have you ever broken a promise to me?”
“Not that I know of.”
She folded the article and stuffed it in my shirt pocket. “Then don’t start now.”
Neither option was very good. “Abbie, the river is no place to—”
“It’s where we started.”
“I know that.”
“Then take me back.”
“Honey, there’s nothing but a bunch of hurt down there. It won’t be the same.”
“You let me be the judge of that.” She gazed south out the window.
I tried one last time. “You know what Gary said.”
She nodded. “Doss, I know what I’m asking.” She tapped me in the chest. “They say we have reached the end.” She shook her head and pressed her lips to my face. “So let’s start over.”
And so we did.
2
JUNE 1, 2 A.M.
R ain pelted the windshield in sheets. Every few seconds, golf ball–sized hail smacked the hood and rooftop, thundering like firecrackers. I leaned forward and rubbed the backside of the glass with my palm, but that did about as much good as the wipers. Ninety miles ago, a semitrailer dragging a broken hydraulic line passed us in the left lane and sprayed the front of the Jeep with brake fluid and sparks. The oil-and-water smear, mixed with headlights and early-morning darkness, gave the world a Coca-Cola tint. The region was suffering a drought. The aquifer was down and people from South Georgia to North Florida were subject to watering restrictions. Few areas felt the effects more than the river. She was eight to ten feet below normal, and while this deluge was needed, most of it would never reach the river.
In the 1950’s, before the federal interstate highways cut the U.S. in six-lane precision, wonder, efficiency and freedom, their smaller and less efficient two-lane twin brothers politely meandered through and around small-town America—careful not to upset the balance of pecan trees, live oaks and fourth-generation chicken farms. Dotted with concrete-block, mom-and-pop motels, full-serve gas stations and all-u-can-eat buffets, U.S. 1—something like an east coast Route 66—was the life-line of every traveling salesman and vacationing family from Maine to Miami. Between the free orange juice stands, junk stores, alligator farms and state-line souvenir stores brimming with stale Claxton fruit cakes and Mountain Dew, the route represented Americana in its heyday.
Trying to stay awake, I clicked on the radio. A weatherman was in mid-report and hard rain smacked his microphone. He was yelling above the sound of the wind: “Four weeks ago, a tropical depression moved across the southern portion of West Africa. For the next seven days, the tropical storm system continued across the coast of Africa and the tropical Atlantic. After moving through the Caribbean Sea, satellite pictures on May twentieth showed an organizing cloud pattern over the south-central Caribbean Sea. And on May twenty-third, Tropical Storm Annie—so named as the first storm of the year—strengthened and moved northward. And at six a.m. this morning, Annie spun herself into a hurricane.” I turned it off and stared through the windshield. River guides, by default, become closet weathermen. We have to. It’s just the nature of the job. I wiped the backside of the windshield again. Towering pines now lined both sides of the road. I crossed her off. The rain we were experiencing had nothing to do with Annie, and given her location, she’d fizzle long before Florida.
Stretching southward from Waycross, Georgia, to the Florida border, sits a seven-hundred-square-mile peat-filled bog that hovers like a poached egg inside a saucer-shaped depression that was, more than likely, once part of the ocean floor. When plants die, they fall to the swamp floor where they decompose—a process which emits both methane and carbon dioxide—producing peat. And because
“Not that I know of.”
She folded the article and stuffed it in my shirt pocket. “Then don’t start now.”
Neither option was very good. “Abbie, the river is no place to—”
“It’s where we started.”
“I know that.”
“Then take me back.”
“Honey, there’s nothing but a bunch of hurt down there. It won’t be the same.”
“You let me be the judge of that.” She gazed south out the window.
I tried one last time. “You know what Gary said.”
She nodded. “Doss, I know what I’m asking.” She tapped me in the chest. “They say we have reached the end.” She shook her head and pressed her lips to my face. “So let’s start over.”
And so we did.
2
JUNE 1, 2 A.M.
R ain pelted the windshield in sheets. Every few seconds, golf ball–sized hail smacked the hood and rooftop, thundering like firecrackers. I leaned forward and rubbed the backside of the glass with my palm, but that did about as much good as the wipers. Ninety miles ago, a semitrailer dragging a broken hydraulic line passed us in the left lane and sprayed the front of the Jeep with brake fluid and sparks. The oil-and-water smear, mixed with headlights and early-morning darkness, gave the world a Coca-Cola tint. The region was suffering a drought. The aquifer was down and people from South Georgia to North Florida were subject to watering restrictions. Few areas felt the effects more than the river. She was eight to ten feet below normal, and while this deluge was needed, most of it would never reach the river.
In the 1950’s, before the federal interstate highways cut the U.S. in six-lane precision, wonder, efficiency and freedom, their smaller and less efficient two-lane twin brothers politely meandered through and around small-town America—careful not to upset the balance of pecan trees, live oaks and fourth-generation chicken farms. Dotted with concrete-block, mom-and-pop motels, full-serve gas stations and all-u-can-eat buffets, U.S. 1—something like an east coast Route 66—was the life-line of every traveling salesman and vacationing family from Maine to Miami. Between the free orange juice stands, junk stores, alligator farms and state-line souvenir stores brimming with stale Claxton fruit cakes and Mountain Dew, the route represented Americana in its heyday.
Trying to stay awake, I clicked on the radio. A weatherman was in mid-report and hard rain smacked his microphone. He was yelling above the sound of the wind: “Four weeks ago, a tropical depression moved across the southern portion of West Africa. For the next seven days, the tropical storm system continued across the coast of Africa and the tropical Atlantic. After moving through the Caribbean Sea, satellite pictures on May twentieth showed an organizing cloud pattern over the south-central Caribbean Sea. And on May twenty-third, Tropical Storm Annie—so named as the first storm of the year—strengthened and moved northward. And at six a.m. this morning, Annie spun herself into a hurricane.” I turned it off and stared through the windshield. River guides, by default, become closet weathermen. We have to. It’s just the nature of the job. I wiped the backside of the windshield again. Towering pines now lined both sides of the road. I crossed her off. The rain we were experiencing had nothing to do with Annie, and given her location, she’d fizzle long before Florida.
Stretching southward from Waycross, Georgia, to the Florida border, sits a seven-hundred-square-mile peat-filled bog that hovers like a poached egg inside a saucer-shaped depression that was, more than likely, once part of the ocean floor. When plants die, they fall to the swamp floor where they decompose—a process which emits both methane and carbon dioxide—producing peat. And because
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