The River and I

by John G. Neihardt

The time was early August; but nevertheless there was a tang of frost in the air and the river seemed to flow not water but a thick frore fog. I smelled persimmons distinctly—it was that cold; brown spicy persimmons smashed on crisp autumn leaves down in old Missouri! The smell haunted me all morning like a bitter-sweet regret.

We breakfasted on flapjacks and, separating the boats, put off. The skiff left us easily and disappeared. A head wind arose with the sun and increased steadily. By eleven o'clock it blew so strongly that we could make no headway with the rude paddles, and the waves, rolling at least four feet from trough to crest, made it impossible to hold the boat in course. We quit paddling, and got out in the water with the line. Two pulled and one pushed. All day we waded, sometimes up to our necks; sometimes we swam a bit, and sometimes we clung to the boat and kicked it on to the next shallows. Our progress was ridiculously slow, but we kept moving. When we stopped for a few minutes to smoke under the lee of a bank, our legs cramped.

To lay up one day would be only to establish a precedent for day after day of inactivity. The prevailing winds would be head winds. We clung to the shoddy hope held out by that magic name—Milk River. We knew too well that Milk River was only a snare and a delusion; but one must fight toward something—it makes little difference what you call that something. A goal, in itself, is an empty thing; all the virtue lies in the moving toward the goal.

Often we sank deep in the mud; often at the bends we could scarcely forge against the blast that held us leaning to the pull. Noon came and still we had not overtaken the skiff. Dark came, and we had not yet sighted it. But with the sun, the wind fell, and we paddled on, lank and chilled. About ten o'clock we sighted the campfire.

We ate flapjacks once more—delicious, butterless flapjacks!—and then once more we put off into the chill night. We made twelve miles that day, and every foot had been a fight. I wanted to raise it to twenty-five before sunrise. No one grumbled this time; but in the light of the campfire the faces looked cheerless—except the Kid's face.

We huddled up in our blankets and, naturally, all of us went to sleep. A great shock brought us to our feet. The moon had set and the sky was overcast. Thick night clung around us. We saw nothing, but by the rocking of the boats and the roaring of the river, we knew we were shooting rapids.

Still dazed with sleep, I had a curious sense of being whirled at a terrific speed into some subterranean suck of waters. There was nothing to do but wait. We struck rocks and went rolling, shipping buckets of water at every dip. Then there was a long sickening swoop through utter blackness. It ended abruptly with a thud that knocked us down.

We found that we were no longer moving. We got out, hanging to the gunwales. The boats were lodged on a reef of rock, and we were obliged to "walk" them for some distance, when suddenly the water deepened, and we all went up to our necks. And the night seemed bitterly cold. I never shivered more in January.

It was yet too dark to find a camping place; so we drifted on until the east paled. Then we built a great log fire and baked ourselves until sunrise.