River-Horse: A Voyage Across America

by William Least Heat-Moon

  Onto river under continued excellent skies—how long can such perfection hold for us in open rafts? I move to paddleboat, snap on required helmet; each person slowly matching expectations to vessel proper to fulfill them; moving over to big sweepboat are those who put too high a price on exhilaration. Under way, mild water. Stop at hot spring once used by scowmen; climb rocks to semi-natural cauldron and, six at a time, get in. Water, although cooled by second spring, at first so hot it’s uncomfortable; men make interesting faces when they feel their ballocks about to be cooked, surely some atavism to preserve generations. Soak out Atlantic anxietudes. Photog: “This is the first time you’ve gotten us into hot water that I’ve liked.”

  Return to cold rapids, standing waves we can paddle through, wetted but not thrown; then Bailey Rapids where sweepboat cannot set up in time and gets pulled through sideways. Little oarsman pitched down, struggles to feet only to catch wildly swinging rudder across jaw that puts him down again; rises slowly, gamely, automatically, and grabs control as boat emerges; terribly close call. Worst part of watching friends go through bad rapids is being helpless to prevent accident. Soon after, we pull up at narrow sand ledge for night, supper of grilled chicken, rice, salad, stories. Cap Harry Guleke, a century ago one of first to descend river and perhaps greatest of Salmon scowmen—his motto, “Until a man is afraid, he’ll be all right”—went downstream to assist injured person and returned some weeks later. Asked how things went, he said, “Done what I could for him.” What was that? “Buried him.” We’re a hundred miles down the No Return.

  SUNDAY, DAY SIX

  Before breakfast seven of us hike toward rumor of fine waterfall. Route goes up edge of forested canyon, trail only eight inches wide; no place for misstep; one fellow turns back, but seventy-eight-year-old V—[of the Doctor Robert] continues but can’t keep pace. Bringing up rear, I find him standing dazed, stung by hornets when he stumbled against ground nest; lumps on forehead, neck; says he’ll pause and maybe return to camp; I go on; way gets worse in boulder field with rocks size of haycocks. Hear yell from behind; go back to find V— has taken tumble; bleeding but determined to see alleged waterfall; wait with him then on we go, up big rocks, using hands to climb; rumor turns to splendid cataract of three drops into pools. Our other hikers there. In 4,500 miles we’ve had no accidents until we became thirteen people; feel I’d overstep myself were I to set down guidelines, but what if I don’t? I say only to stay together on return. They don’t.

  Stop to watch moose; hear birdsong somewhere above, telltale notes. Can it be at last? The one I want to see most? Scan ponderosa with binocs—yes! Most brilliantly colored western songbird—western tanager! M. Lewis first to describe it, coincidentally, one he saw not far north of here. More participatory history.

  Return to camp, breakfast of eggs and asparagus that horrifies Photog whose culinary acme is mashed potatoes. Set out into day promising to be continual rapids, including Big Mallard, second only to the Slide in threat. High water turns lesser ones into jolly rollers that merely drench; “coxswain” calls to paddlers “Right!” or “Left!” to align raft for drops. Above Big Mallard, pull ashore to dispatch Photog and J[ohn]B for photos of our passage. Give them time to climb high bank, then we push off. Hear roaring around bend; noise with unseen cause more alarming than when source evident; finally see rapids ahead. Oh no, view is worse: two great rocks to shoot between, wall of water, river gone vertical, battling stone for dominance; we’re innocents wanting only passage. Uneasy chattering, then we fall dead silent, adjust helmets, boatman tries to align with slot, paddlers ready for commands, current locks on, tension of commitment, into standing wave, up, pause, ahead black hole, worst I’ve seen, all around water confounded, down the bejeezis we go into thundering pit, spines slammed, necks whipped back, center of maelstrom, raft twisting, contorting, waiting for kick-out, only sound of roaring water, then up, charging forward again into daylight. Saved! Oh god! Into another vortex that holds water higher than sides of boat. Raft more vertical than I thought possible, down again, ditto, ditto, ditto, then onto tailwaters, emergence, sunshine, alive. Eventually, P: “That, friends, is one reason the Northwest Passage is a fiction.” Pause to watch sweep come through—logbook aboard—down, up, and out, once more safely; away from rapids they look like kiddie play. Ashore to pick up Photog and JB, but they don’t appear. Impatient member grumbles about waiting: “Let the oarboat take them.” Thinking of my indecision of morning and injuries, I say we’re not moving until they turn up. Muttering. Finally I get out and start up bank of jeopardous boulders treacherous as rapids in front of them; could snap leg clean off in here. Men nowhere to be seen. Return to boat—not there either. Waiting. “We’re wasting time!” P speaks for me: “So would you waste a life?” Back over rocky shore. See glint off helmet, go toward it. JB sitting blankly, not speaking, ashen. Photog says JB fell headfirst down bouldered bank. Ask: Can you wiggle your fingers? Does so. Raise your arm? Does. Stand? No answer. What’s your name? What year is it? Who’s President? Slow answers. Down to cold river to soak my shirt and wrap around his head and neck; begins to revive, talks sentences, lifts legs. Stay here. Return to raft and two of us cordelle it upstream, terrible task over rocks, current against us; put JB aboard; he’s considerably unnerved. On downriver to shady lunch stop; he revives further and goes into talking jag; calms slowly. Who would have thought walking around Big Mallardwould be more dangerous than rafting through it? What if he hadn’t been wearing helmet? Dead probably. Someone: “How long would it take to get a guy out of here?” Another: “In this place, he who dies slowest has the best chance.” P: “Enough!”

  Again to river: onward, downward, seaward. Elkhorn Rapids almost equal to Big Mallard; on farther, high water turns Growler into purring rollers. At Ruff Creek pull up for night on another fine, if narrow, sand strip where we swim until 65-degree water too much; strike out against current to see what it’s like—I manage only to stay in place. After much paddlework today, P says, “I feel my hands turning to fins.” Supper is trout we carried in; two anglers have caught only three squawfish and one old tire, probably from abandoned mining camp. As stars appear, I tell an intimate story to my friend who worries about his memory, then say, Forget it now. He: “Easily done.” Made only nine miles today.

  MONDAY, DAY SEVEN

  Years ago old cargoman took big wooden scow down the Salmon. One rapids after another tore it up, forcing him to cannibalize it for repairs; by time he reached Riggins he was in boat “without hardly room for his butt.” Day uneventful although we stop often, once at gold mine abandoned sixty years ago but recently bought by jerk who hauled bulldozer to his pocket of private land within Wild & Scenic segment and began tearing things up, threatening to subdivide acres, all with idea he could scare government into buying him out; feds ignored him, and now dozer sits rusting, trapped by River of No Return. Reach Mackay Bar and old ranch, now lodge served by pocket airstrip; a few of us rent house there; showers, beverages on porch where P says, “That last rapids we’ll face, it keeps turning up in odd corners of my mind. A while ago the part of my brain that helps me dress found the Slide under a clean shirt.” Yes, I confess too, I got a glimpse of it behind the bathroom mirror. “What’s happening to us?”

  TUESDAY, DAY EIGHT

  Morning. Someone calls into room, “Did you know Nikawa spelled backwards is Awakin?” Throw boot. River full of long backeddies we enter to wait until sweepboat comes along; currents gently haul us upstream right next to the hard charge down of main river; weird sensation, seems impossible. Metamorphosed canyon walls cooked brown by ancient subterranean fires; a few stands of Pacific yew (Taxol), more ponderosa. Along north bank is Gospel Hump Wilderness. P: “What’s a gospel hump?” Somebody: “Ask one of those de-churched evangelists.” Rapids mild, helmsman lets me steer paddleboat through. Pleasure of white water lies in its navigation; otherwise it’s theme-park ride—almost. Dried Meat Rapids our oarsman calls Dead Meat because five people drowned
here thirty years ago, including helmsman named Lucky; but for us Wet Meat is more accurate. Hot day produces water fight. After twenty quiet miles, we make camp on triple terrace beach at Johnson Creek; take nippy swim. Around evening campfire—our fire in large metal pan so we don’t mark sand—our baker’s dozen, on last night together, bestow on me Trogdon Memorial Peckerwood Award (unspecified whether for conduct or frequent use of term); trophy is driftwood remarkably like Lewis’s woodpecker (jokes about that and Clark’s nutcracker); all sign it; lucky they didn’t find one shaped like posterior of horse. Night so lovely we sleep outside tents, under rotation of stars, beneath clock of heavens; all around small conversations dying out slowly like embers until only river speaks, and I remember old riddle-song:

  You passers-by

  who share my journey,

  you move and change,

  I move and am the same;

  you move and are gone,

  I move and remain.

  WEDNESDAY, DAY NINE

  Pack for departures; quickly under way and soon out of Wild & Scenic portion. Only five miles to our point of separation but way is hearty rapids, fitting farewells to those leaving; soak all peckerwoods down. Arrive Carey Creek at head of west-end road; reorganize gear and four of us move to another oarboat, this one fitted with small outboard motor for run from here to Clarkston. Goodbyes.

  Four of us, plus BB at helm, continue on; pass accurately named Fall Creek—drops five thousand feet in five miles—now that’s a wet elevator. An hour out, the Salmon deepens and slows enough to use ten-horsemotor for first time, and we putt through warm afternoon, country much more open, vast treeless hills, no longer gorge but valley, gravel road again alongside, a few dwellings, great wilderness behind. We all feel a letdown, especially when we pass island some screw-you-world guy keeps sheep on in winter; when spring rise comes, it flushes manure— E. coli and giardia—right on downstream; such poisoning still permitted. Past Music Bar, name having nothing to do with harmonics; rather, years ago German miner Fritz Music lived near; so fearful of serpents he walked the seven miles to town with metal stovepipes clanking around his legs. Explain to P how snake is ancient Indian symbol for river.

  Water makes sweeping curve toward little Riggins atop steep and high bank; find rooms, showers, and supper where BB says, “We had one old raft we’d pump up in the morning to get it going, pump it again at lunch to keep it going, pump it at bedtime to keep it from sinking.” P: “There’s my life in a sentence.”

  THURSDAY, DAY TEN

  From Riggins, the Salmon runs about fifty miles north before making broad loop topped by six-mile horseshoe, then continues due south to confluence with Snake River. Photog asks will we meet the Slide today, and BB: “Don’t rush it. Give it time to drop.” Every hour should help. Photog: “I just want it over with.” If we rush it, that’s exactly what could happen. Below Riggins, pass under “Time Zone Bridge” and enter Pacific clock; small cheer goes up. Water easy although many jolly rollers; to starboard for about thirty miles runs U.S. 95; people wave from car; reminds me of I-90 along Erie Canal—seems I’ve lived many lives since then. On the Salmon I descend like Cleopatra in her barge; sit royally atop baggage which I fashion into soft throne; or, in slack water, sometimes stretch out on locker box; take notes, pictures, speak little, just delight in such happy pace down miles toward ocean. From shore, oyster plants releasing parachute seeds, and in places on hills hackberry and mountain mahogany, but also invasive yellow-star thistle, exotic taking over whole slopes through root inhibitor lethal to other plants; nasty spines prevent even cattle from eating it.

  Snack at Hammer Creek; 92 degrees; on again; river sloshes us cool at right intervals as if it knows our need. Rollercoaster Rapids leave us laughing. Into Green Canyon, first of four splendid gorges—Cougar, Snow Hole, Blue—each one successively more austere and magnificent, fuliginous stone having tinges of color; grand gifts of gravity-driven water. Into Demon’s Drop, curling waves and good pounding, then series of rapids with names better than their challenge, at least in high water: Lorna’s Lulu, Lower Bunghole (where else?), Bodacious Bounce (especially if you don’t hit it right), Half-and-Half (half the time you make it), Gobbler (eats your lunch). But Snow Hole is different, partly because motor quits twice on approach and BB has to grab oars at last second; sharp drop, huge boulders, deep pit. Holey rollers help interrupt miles—could have used a few on the Missouri. Stop at long sandbar to unkink legs; near here, Chief Joseph and Nez Perce in 1877 crossed as cavalry chased them north, conflict that eventually led him to utter perhaps most famous of Indian sentences: “I will fight no more forever.” Sudden smashing wind rips down narrow defile like cannonball in gun barrel, blasts us with blinding sand, then gone as swiftly; a shock of wind. P: “Was that Chief Joseph or the cavalry?”

  Make camp near Skeleton Creek, a name we trust not prognostic; last night we hope; tomorrow the Slide, only six miles below, perhaps final block between us and Pacific. Having shed baker’s dozen contingent, our reduced company made seventy-three miles. For future transcontinental crossers, DoggeRule of River Road:

  Fine be a pair,

  and four be fair,

  but more beware.

  FRIDAY, DAY ELEVEN

  Sleep under stars again and rise dewed over; to river to check rock placed at water line as I’ve done last few nights; the Salmon dropped a few more inches; no better morning message. Decamp and enter multiple but easy moils that get us ready for big one. Blue Canyon is steep black walls free of vegetation; stretches out cold and lonely, lovely like beautiful corpse. Listening for the Slide to announce itself.

  BB unusually quiet except to say twenty thousand cubic feet per second of water passing through will send us back upriver to wait it out; do we have enough food? Sheer walls prevent portaging or lining raft down. Nobody shoots hard rapids flawlessly every time, yet we trust in ourcraftsman-raftsman. Slide lies only three miles from very end of the Salmon—theatrical suspense; drama increases as we hear it, hidden around bend, echo up canyon; hear it even better when motor abruptly quits again just above thundering. BB rushes forward to oars, nearly sending me overboard, his pell-mell revealing what his wordless calm covers. He strokes hard to pull into backwater. Tie up so he can clamber over boulders to scout passage. As he loops line around rock, I ask, Did you kill that motor to make good drama? No. He gives smile that, were it any grimmer, would be a scowl. What if motor quits when we enter? “That would be drama.” Can’t believe timing—the luck, she is still running good?

  The Slide a result of collapsing canyon wall forty years ago constricting river to about half its width—now a fire hose trying to shoot through keyhole. Does good job of standing river on end. Unnoticed, P and I climb high above to see rapids and observe BB who studies a long time, turns away only to come back; studies more; starts toward raft, stops, returns again. I say, It’s that third look that bothers me. P: “More drama?” Don’t think so, I’m sorry to say.

  At boat we wait for bad news. BB: “In low water you can run plumb through, but this is the highest I’ve ever known it, about seventeen thousand cfs.” A couple hundred cfs in this channel would float canoe. And? “Just low enough to give it a try.” A try? I think, A try is something where alternative to failure isn’t death. Photog to BB: “Are you sure about this?” I answer for him: Let’s go.

  Motor still dead—bad word. Oar into center of river, negotiate for position, get set as current locks on; decision made like parachutist’s first step out of plane; rapids of no return; lying behind us now only our deeds done, and ahead maybe nothing more than Judgment Day. To myself: Too-nuts! Raft begins to shimmy, standing waves hump it, violate it; coming on fast white dread of water bashing hell out of boulders, working to grind them down and unconstrict passage; rivers eat mountains, not vice versa. Sucked forward fast, barely miss nasty flipper wave, bump and bounce; pitch, yaw, and roll at same time, then skim easily onto tailwaters; we’re barely dampened. BB’s cautiously masterful ste
ering is perfect except for negating ten days of expectations and chance for dramatics. Feel like one who just died in sleep and wakes on other side: “That was it? That’s what I dwelt on for a lifetime?” P oxymoronically: “That’s the happiest letdown I ever had.”

  BB sends me to oars while he tinkers with motor. On to Sluicebox, Checkerboard, and Eye of Needle; I head smack into centers, drenching us, “wahooing it,” as BB says; just trying to bid proper farewell to River of No Return. He glances up, says casually, “That green ridge ahead is Oregon.” Sentence overwhelms me. Oregon? I remember shouting to workman at Third Avenue Bridge on Harlem River, We’re bound for Oregon! Now it’s there, it’s there, we are goddamn-the-hell there! Between us and Pacific only two more rivers, fully navigable; no Snow Imperatives. We’re alive and we’re down-bound.

  XI

  THE SNAKE RIVER

  NEAR RIGGINS, IDAHO

  Iconogram XI

  [On the Snake River] Ice Harbor Dam was finished in 1962, Lower Monumental in 1970, Little Goose in 1970, and Lower Granite in 1975. Hydroelectric generators produce 1,305 average megawatts—enough for Seattle. Though navigation was the impetus for the project with power being incidental, hydroelectricity provides ninety-six percent of the benefits, navigation two percent. Construction of Lower Granite alone cost $370 million; annual operations require $14 million. No one has analyzed actual benefits and costs since the projects were built. “We don’t sit around and worry about that anymore,” says “Dug" Dugger, public affairs director for the Army Corps of Engineers in Walla Walla.