The River and I

by John G. Neihardt

I cranked. Nothing doing! I cranked some more. No news from the crimping department. I continued to crank; also, I continued to drift. Somehow the current seemed to have increased alarmingly in speed.

I thought I heard a sound of merriment. I looked up. The little weazened man was gesticulating wildly with that forefinger of his. He was explaining something. The information bureau, steadily dwindling into the distance, was not listening. It seemed to be enjoying itself immensely.

I swallowed a half-spoken word that tasted bitter as it went down. Then I cranked again. There seemed to be nothing else to do. It was a hot day; hot sweat blinded me, and trickled off the tip of my nose. My hands began to develop blisters. Finally, a deep disgust seized me. I once saw a tender-hearted lady on her knees in the dust before a balky auto. I remembered her half-sobbed words: "You mean thing, you! What is the matter with you, anyway! Oh, you mean, mean thing!"

I sat down in front of that engine and abandoned myself to a great feeling of tenderness and chivalry for that unfortunate lady. In that moment I believe I would have fought a bear for her! Oh that all the gasoline engines in the world could be concentrated somehow into one big woolly, scary black bear, how I could have set my teeth in its neck and died chewing!

I heard a roaring of waters that broke my vision of bear fights and gentle ladies in distress. A hundred yards ahead of me I saw rapids. The words of the information bureau came back to me with terrible distinctness: "Why, her light timbers will go to pieces on the first rock!"

Although I am no hero, I didn't get frightened. I got sore. "Go ahead, and smash yourself up, if you like!" I cried to the balky craft. And then I waited to see her do it. She swung 'round sharply with the first suck of the rapids, struck a rock, side-stepped, struck another, and went on down, grinding and dragging on a stony reef.

It suddenly came to me that this was what they called the Grocondunez Rapids. I remembered that they said the name meant "the big bridge of the nose." The name had a powerful fascination for me—I wanted to hit something good and hard somewhere in that region!

Finally she swung clear of the reef, caught the swirl of the main current, and started for New Orleans with the bit in her teeth. I wasn't ready to arrive in New Orleans at once; I had made other arrangements. So I grasped a paddle and drove her into shallow water. I leaped out, waist-deep in the cold stream, and threw my weight against her. Pantingly, I wondered what was the exact distance to the nearest axe. I resolved to crank her once more, and then for the axe hunt!

I leaned over the gunwale and began to grind. For the life of me, I don't know just what I did to her; but it seemed that she had taken some offence. Without the least warning, she leaped forward at three-quarter speed, and started up stream with that haughty head of her thrust skyward!

I clung desperately to her gunwale, and she dragged me insultingly in the drink! She made a soppy rag of me! I managed to scramble aboard—something after the fashion of a bronco-buster who mounts at a gallop.