Scott Williams - The Pulse

When they crossed the gravel driveway leading into the house from the east, Grant could see no sign that anyone was there. They waited and watched for a few minutes, and when he was completely satisfied that they were alone, they walked to the boathouse and, much to his delight, found the canoes on the racks he’d remembered, overlooking the river from the bank where he’d seen them as he’d floated past over a year ago. Four of them were well-used Grumman 17-foot aluminum canoes, the kind that was popular with canoe rental outfitters for their durability and low maintenance. One was a short solo canoe made by Mad River, and the other was a 16-foot Kevlar-hulled Mohawk. The Mohawk was the best of the lot, but a little small for three adults. All of the canoes were locked to the wooden racks with light chains and padlocks. Grant selected one of the Grummans that looked to be in the best shape, and, with his machete, easily liberated it from the chains by simply hacking through the two-by-fours they were passed around. Jessica helped him set it outside, then he picked out three decent wooden paddles and a spare, as well as three life jackets, and put all these in the canoe. This done, he hastily scribbled out a note explaining his actions and describing the location of the bicycles. He didn’t mention their destination in the canoe, of course, and figured anyone would assume it was downstream somewhere anyway, as no one in these parts ever paddled upstream. He wedged the note into a gash he cut in the canoe rack and looked around the shed one more time. One item that looked too tempting to pass up was one of a dozen fishing rods and reels hanging on one wall. He grabbed one and also found a small tackle box with a few artificial lures and hooks in it.

“You don’t eat fish, either, do you, Jessica?”

“No. I used to, when I was growing up, but not since I became a vegetarian.”

“We’re getting pretty low on supplies, and I don’t know how long it’s going to take to buck that current up to the cabin. We may be reduced to what we can catch before long. I hope you don’t get hungry.”

“I’ll be all right,” Jessica said. “I don’t eat much anyway.”

Grant dropped the topic. He felt certain Jessica would be changing her diet sooner than she thought, but there was no point in pressing it now. Satisfied that he had what they needed for the trip, he was ready to get the canoe to the river and get going. There was a path winding down from the boathouse to a small deck built at the water’s edge; it had turned to slippery mud after two days of rain. By the time they got the canoe to the bottom of the high bank, both of them had slipped and fallen and had gotten mud smeared all over the knees and seats of their pants. Grant pushed the bow of the canoe into the river pointing upstream, and held it steady so Jessica could step in.

“Shouldn’t I be in the back, since I don’t know what I’m doing?” she asked.

“No, that’s exactly why you need to sit up front. The stern paddler is the one who does all the steering and keeps the boat going straight. All you have to do from the front is paddle to provide extra power. It’ll take both of us to paddle against the current.”

When Jessica was situated, Grant grabbed the gunwales with both hands and put one foot in the boat while he shoved them off with the other. The canoe immediately started drifting backwards until he dug in with his paddle and began stroking hard to gain momentum against the river. Jessica splashed her paddle awkwardly until Grant told her how to properly hold it and how deep to dip it on each stroke. They made progress at a crawling pace at first, slowly leaving the cabin behind them as they paddled past the woods they’d crept through on foot to get there. The river made a gradual bend to the right and it was not until they had followed that curve around to the end that they could get a glimpse of the distant bridge where Casey would be waiting with the bikes.

“There it is!” Jessica said. “We made it, but this is a lot harder than riding the bikes, even uphill. How far did we paddle, a mile?”

“Not hardly,” Grant said. “More like a little over a quarter of a mile. It’ll be a half by the time we get to the bridge.”

“Oh wow. We’ll never get to the cabin at this rate then. Didn’t you say it was like 10 miles?”

“It is, but it’s still just like riding the bikes. Remember when we left New Orleans? I said don’t think about the whole distance. Just focus on riding and the miles will slip by. It’s the same with paddling, it’s just a lot slower—but we don’t have nearly as far to travel by canoe as we did by bike. We’ll get there, probably by tomorrow night, in spite of the current.”

As he spoke these words of encouragement to Jessica, he knew it was going to be a hard slog upstream, but had no doubt they would make it. By the time they got to the cabin, Jessica and Casey would know how to paddle a canoe, he figured. Now that they had a canoe, he felt a whole lot better about their overall situation than he had earlier that day when faced with the prospect of being turned back at the roadblock. It had always amazed him how practically no one in this country utilized the rivers any more for anything other than occasional recreation. In Guyana, the rivers were the highways of the jungle. One seldom traveled far without passing local dugouts, going both upstream and down. He was just wondering if anyone else would be using the Bogue Chitto as a travel route when he saw the flash of a reflection off a wet paddle under the bridge ahead. Sure enough, it was a canoe coming downstream. Jessica saw it too as they continued to paddle, hugging the bank next to the woods to stay out of the strongest current. The downstream-bound canoe, however, was closer to the other side of the river, taking advantage of the main flow. As it came closer, they could see the hull was a dull aluminum color, identical to the one they were in. It was guided by a lone paddler with a mountain of gear in front of him, all of it covered by a camouflage tarp lashed over it. The other canoeist saw them too; there was no way to avoid it. Grant hoped he wasn’t a local resident who knew the owners of the cabin they’d “borrowed” their boat from, but from the amount of stuff he had with him it seemed unlikely. This guy looked like he was planning to stay in the woods for a long time, and was just passing through here as quickly as possible.

The solitary paddler looked right at them as he went by going downstream, and Grant waved. The distance was a little too far for comfortable conversation, and Grant figured if he had wanted to talk, he would have steered his canoe closer to their side of the river when he first saw them. Instead, he waved back, watching them as he paddled by, but showing no intention of slowing down. Grant wondered if Casey had seen him go by or if the man had seen her when he paddled past the bridge.

“I wonder where he’s going?” Jessica asked.

“I don’t know, but it looks like he knows what he’s doing. See how he’s only paddling on one side of the canoe? He’s using a guide stroke to keep it tracking straight, and he’s right in the middle of the current for better speed. Not at all your typical weekend canoe renter like you usually see around here. He’s probably traveling the river to avoid people, which is a smart idea. It looks like he’s loaded to bug out to the woods for a long time too. He may be headed for the big swamps downstream, where the Bogue Chitto runs into the Pearl River.”

When Grant and Jessica were out of sight, Casey began thinking about how nice it would be to clean up a bit while she had the privacy. The rain had stopped and the afternoon sky was starting to brighten a bit in the west, giving her hope that the cloudy overcast would soon give way to sunshine again. She felt awful after riding in the rain for two days, and knew a quick bath and changing back into dry clothes would do wonders for her attitude. The river did not look inviting at the edge of the canebrake where they had hidden the bicycles. The bank there was muddy and it looked like it dropped off into a deep hole with swirling currents where she could not see anything below the surface. But when they had pushed the bikes down the bank from the highway, she had noticed a large sandbar just upstream of the bridge. Part of it was probably visible from the roadway above, but it looked to her like it continued on, beyond where the river curved around out of sight to where it would be obscured by trees and secluded enough for a quick dip before Grant and Jessica returned. She knew Grant wouldn’t want her to wander off and leave the bikes, but they had seen no one on the road in the vicinity of the bridge and she couldn’t imagine anyone finding them before she got back.