forgetting rivers

forgetting rivers.


Setting her paddle across her lap, Claudia tucked a loose strand of jet-black hair back into her thick ponytail. She squinted her eyes and leaned back against the Duluth Packs behind her, hot noontime sun sizzling on her already sunburned cheeks.
         “Slacker!” Mrs. Ambrose teased and splashed water on Claudia’s back.
         Claudia turned around and stuck her tongue out at her mother. “The current’s fast, and Josef and Henry are way behind us.” She gestured towards the red Penobscot Old Town canoe just coming around the bend. “Cover your ears, mom. I’m calling to them.” She cupped her hands around her mouth and turned around in the canoe.
         “To-o-on-go-o!” she sang in a loud, clear voice.
         “To-o-on-go-o!” Her Uncle Josef’s voice echoed across the river. It was their traditional river call, something she would never tell her friends back home about.
         “Jim-ne-pa-a-pa-eh-oh!”
         “Jim-ne-pa-a-pa-eh-oh!”
         “Oo-a-leh!”
         “Oo-a-leh!” The last note lingered in the air.
         “I can’t believe you still remember that,” said Mrs. Ambrose, steering the canoe expertly around a snag in the river.
         “You don’t forget those things.” Claudia picked up her paddle and helped steer away from the snag. The light brown Missouri River swirled around their canoe and made little eddies in their trail. Claudia let her arm hang over the gunwale, her hand dragging in the water. The sky above her was vibrant blue and cloudless. She took a deep breath and smelled Montana: pine trees, cattle, and suntan lotion. You don’t forget things about rivers, she thought.

. . .

“I don’t want to sleep on another cow pie,” Claudia complained to her mother. The day had drifted into afternoon and they were searching for flat bank to set up their tents. “We’ve had cow pies under our tent four nights in a row.”
         “Montana has cow-pies,” Mrs. Ambrose replied, “There’s not much I can do about that.” With one long stroke of her paddle, she directed the canoe towards the bank and pulled up along side of it. Claudia climbed out of the canoe and stood knee-deep in the river, throwing gear up onto the shore. The other canoe landed just behind them, and Josef and Henry climbed onto the bank and started hauling gear.
         Josef lifted a bulging pack carefully from the red Penobscot and carried it away from shore.
         “What’s that pack?” Claudia asked him, as he set it carefully on a rock and checked that everything was alright.
         “My beloved,” he replied, smiling. “My reason for living. My life’s inspiration. My pride and joy.”
         “What are you talking about?” Claudia’s eyebrows furrowed.
         Josef opened the pack and exposed his coffeepot, travel percolator, coffee press, and hoards of gourmet beans, pre-ground.
         “You’re insane,” Claudia said.
         “And that’s why I’m your favorite uncle,” he replied and laughed like a madman.
         He and Claudia pitched the two tents while Mrs. Ambrose and Henry made spaghetti on the small camp stove. “I get the spot with no cow-pies for our tent!” yelled Claudia, standing over a relatively clean patch of grass.
         “Then I call the spot under the tree for our tent,” said Josef, “It’s going to pour.”
         Claudia looked up. Dark clouds were forming above them, and the air was growing thick.
         “I hope it storms,” she said, tying the rain fly down as tightly as she could.
         Mrs. Ambrose called Josef and Claudia for dinner. They all sat around the camp stove and ate starchy spaghetti out of their tin sierra cups. Henry spun his fork around in his noodles but ate nothing. He never ate on the river. Henry was Claudia’s favorite cousin. He was a history buff, ridiculously intelligent for a seven-year-old, at home he could down twelve pancakes in one sitting, and they both liked Han Solo better than Luke.
         Finishing his own spaghetti, Josef went to work on Henry’s and then Claudia’s. Mrs. Ambrose watched her skinny younger brother inhale everyone’s dinner and wondered where he put it all. She barely touched her own portion. After the cups were licked clean, Josef collected them all and took them to the river. He rinsed them quickly and laid them out on a rock.
         “I’ll wash them in the morning,” he said. “It’s going to rain anyway.” Looking up at the sky, Claudia saw dark storm clouds looming low to the ground. She helped Mrs. Ambrose stash their loose gear under the canoes, and they retired to their tents. By the time they were zipped in, the sky was black and heavy raindrops were already pelting the sides of their tent.
         “Don’t you wish you got the tent under the tree?” mocked Josef from inside his tent. Claudia and Mrs. Ambrose ignored him and climbed inside of their sleeping bags. The steady drumming of raindrops soon lulled them to sleep.

. . .

Claudia awoke suddenly to a loud crack outside her tent. She saw a blaze of white and yellow through the tent wall and heard shouts. Mrs. Ambrose was sitting up next to her and trying to wrestle her way out of her sleeping bag. She got out at last and threw open the tent door, ripping a hole in the side. Claudia followed her and stepped into a puddle outside the tent. Tripping through pounding rain and darkness, she trailed after her mother. Her bulky sweatshirt soaked up water and clung to her wet skin, and her hair lay wet and plastered to her brow. Squinting through the driving rain, Claudia could see Henry and Josef’s tent. She wiped the water form her eyes. The tree above it had been struck by lightning and tongues of flame blazed about its trunk. With a terrible splintering sound, the tree broke off at the middle and landed on Henry and Josef’s tent, sending up a cloud of sparks that fizzled in the rain. Mrs. Ambrose let out a whimper. She and Claudia stood with rain running down their faces and watched steam rise from the dying flames.
         Mrs. Ambrose fell to her knees and sank into the mud, shaking with sobs.
         “Shit,” whispered Claudia and bit her bottom lip.

. . .

Claudia climbed into the stern of her brand new red Penobscot Old Town, a beautiful 17-foot canoe, and held it steady for her mother to get in. Claudia held her paddle awkwardly. In only five years she had nearly forgotten her grip. They glided across the lake, small waves lapping at the sides of their canoe.
         “You’re braver than me,” said Mrs. Ambrose.
         “It’s just a day trip mom. Small lakes.”
         “I know, but I’m haunted. I can’t forget. I’m not as brave as you.”
         I’m haunted too, she thought gripping the paddle tightly to keep from shaking, you don’t forget things about rivers.











we wear flannel...

we know the trees
we know the flowers
we know the calls of birds
we can start fires in the rain
we sleep best on the ground, under stars
we live without hair dryers or air conditioning
we have t-shirt tans and sock tans
we are not afraid of bats or bugs
we have calluses on our hands
we have scars from the rivers we have conquered
we like the taste of freeze-dried peas
we eat granola with condensed milk
we drink coffee that crunches from so many grounds
we have closets full of flannel
we have more canoe paddles than friends
we have a problem
an addiction
a disease
we are campers