The Lost Skiff

by Donald Wetzel

  And then I got up and looked around, and the sky seemed about ten times bigger than it had ever seemed before, and the sun brighter and the trees taller, and I, myself, seemed to have changed, as though I had never really noticed myself before, or at least not in this way, as alive in the woods and a part of it all, like anything else that lives. It was a strange feeling.

  Then I got a little more reasonable about it and started wondering what kind of animal it was that made such a path, and I got down again and searched around in the path and finally came up with one little hair of some kind left hanging on a twig, pretty much like a dog’s hair, about an inch or so long and grey-colored. It didn’t give me too much of a clue. Just about any small animal I could think of could have a grey-colored hair somewhere on it, whether a rabbit, squirrel, raccoon or even a fox. Squirrels seemed the least likely to me to have made such a path, mostly because they are known to live in trees, so I ruled out squirrels. But for the rest, it could have been anything. I had looked for animal tracks, but the ground was dry and slick as cement where the path was down to bare dirt, and anyhow if I had seen a dozen different tracks clear I wouldn’t have been able to tell one from the other.

  But by this time my curiosity had been aroused, and I thought, well, it is still a path, even if one for some animal and not for people, but a path of any sort still has got to lead to someplace. I figured that if I could go around the thicket I might see where the path came out of it on the other side, if it did come out, then I could follow it until it finally led to wherever it was that whatever it was lived. It seemed worth a try anyhow.

  So I started working my way around the thicket, staying as close to it as I could, and lucky for me it turned out not to be too big a thicket, and soon I was on the other side of it, with the woods just beyond. I looked for the path again, at first with no luck, and I was about to give up on it when I found it, leading out of the thicket on this side as clear as it had led into it on the other. The way this pleased me, you would have thought I had just solved a murder or something. Once I had found the path again, it was easy enough to follow it on over and into the woods, but there in the pine straw and leaves on the ground it wasn’t nearly as clear. But it could still be followed, and for a ways more I followed it, and then, just as if it had been done to throw anyone following it off the track, the path split up and became first two paths and then a whole bunch of them, with all of them getting fainter until one by one I lost them all and had to give up on it.

  I sat down on a log and rested and thought about it, and what it amounted to, I decided, was that I had been outwitted by some unknown animal about the size of a cat with at least some grey hair on it. That was as close as I could come to the truth of it. But what the meaning was of the path leading to no place, of it just breaking up into a bunch of paths and then plain disappearing, this bugged me. But then heading back to the river and the skiff, going by the thicket again, it came to me. Why would any animal bother to make a path through a thicket that big when he would go out of his way to go around even a couple of small bushes? Because that was where he lived; in the thicket. And then the whole thing made sense to me, disappearing paths and all. The paths didn’t disappear where I had thought they did; that was where they started, and where they led to, naturally, was the thicket and home. Home for what I still didn’t know, but I was almost as satisfied as if I did.

  As animals go, it seemed to me I hadn’t proved to be such a dumb one finally myself. As for the other animal, whatever it was, I hoped it wouldn’t notice or mind the way I had spent so much time tramping up and down on his own little path. At least I had stayed out of his thicket, and if I had really wanted to, I think I could have crawled on in there, though no doubt the branches would have scratched me up considerably.

  And I was feeling pretty good about the whole thing when I got back to the creek, even though it had taken more time than I had meant it to, and even though it didn’t strike me as something I could very well explain or brag about to Jack or Ellen when I got back to The Landing. And I guess I stood on the bank of the creek for a good sixty seconds or so, right where the path starts up from it and right where I had left the skiff, before I could really get it through my head that the skiff was gone.

  4

  It was an awful feeling, standing there in that bright sun looking out at the creek and seeing it clear and empty both ways for as far as I could see, and Mr. Haywood’s skiff absolutely gone, nowhere in sight, vanished, like it had gone up in thin air. I had never really thought about that expression much, gone up in thin air, but if you have ever stood like I did then, looking around on the ground where you had left it and then up and down a river as far as you could see and finally looking up in the air even, up in the treetops and beyond, wondering what has happened to your lost skiff, then you can appreciate such an expression. That’s about the way you feel. Like it has gone up in thin air, or anyway, however impossible it seems, it is gone and that’s that.

  It was an awful feeling, and the longer I stood there the worse it got. For a while I think I could have cried. It wasn’t that I was scared or worried about getting back to The Landing, although I could see that was going to be a problem worth thinking about. It was that it was Mr. Haywood’s skiff, and that it was gone and it was nobody’s fault but mine. And it was not just any skiff, but a wonderful, amazing little skiff that he had built himself, and which Jack had claimed would practically last forever. Well, not now, it won’t, I thought, not up at The Landing, anyhow, or where Mr. Haywood will know about it.

  It had plainly been stolen. Someone passing by had known what a worthless-looking old skiff like that was really worth and had simply tied it behind their own boat and sneaked on down the creek with it. And if I had tied it to a tree, or if I hadn’t of gone off and just left it, looking like it might have drifted there, even, then most likely it would still be right where I had left it instead of gone. And whether somebody had stolen it or had just thought they had found it didn’t matter too much. The thing was that it was gone, and for all I knew, gone forever. For a while it made me just about half sick, the plain straight shock of it. If there had been some others around and we had all talked about it, then it might have been different. But all there was was the creek and this little scrubby clearing and the sky and the quiet and no skiff. And that was the way I had to face it finally, and decide about what I had to do next.

  I decided to swim back up to The Landing. It seemed the only sensible thing to do. The one thing I do well, along with basketball, is swim. I am not always happy about some of the creatures you can find yourself swimming with in an Alabama river, such as gars and alligators and snakes of all kinds, but they will generally mind their business, I’m told, if you mind yours, and anyhow my experience is that you hear more about these creatures than you actually see them. Once I did see an alligator in a swimming hole over in back of The Hill, and while I wasn’t swimming in it at the time, I had got out of it not more than five minutes before I did see it, and probably would have got out a good deal sooner if I had known for sure it was there. That was what the hole was called, the gator hole. But water itself holds no fear for me.

  It would be a long swim, a couple of miles, at least, but I knew I could rest along the way if I had to. But it was either swim or wait to be missed and looked for and found, and that seemed too much of a humiliation. Having lost the skiff was bad enough. And if I swam back, I figured, it might sort of prove to them that I cared, because nobody would swim that far just to get back home and say they had lost a skiff unless they felt about as sorry about it as a person could feel.

  Looking at it this way made me feel a little better, so I looked up at the sky and figured it must be right about noon, and then I slipped into the creek and started swimming. I was sure glad I had worn my trunks.

  The day had heated up to such a point that at first the water was a welcome relief, and I swam right along, as though I was taking a dip in the pool at the Y, but soon enough
I realized that this was no sensible way to start out on a two mile swim up a river, going against the current at that, and I slowed down to a more reasonable speed. Coming down in the skiff, I had noticed how the woods on either side seemed to glide right by, but I could soon see that going back I would be getting a different look at them. One tree at a time, so to speak.

  It was slow going. But pretty soon I reached the clearing with the fence and the sign saying private, and because I remembered that it was a good ways up to the island where the next clearing was, I ignored the sign and swam in and went ashore and sat in the clearing and rested for a time. I could have used some shade, but there wasn’t any, so as soon as I noticed I was starting to sweat some from the sun I decided I could rest better in the creek if I had to, and I started back up it, going slow and easy and not bothering to look at the shore too much to see how much distance I was making. It was too discouraging.

  After a while it was clear that easy as I was taking it I was still tiring some, so I started loafing along on my back quite a bit. This arrangement would have been fine except that I was looking straight up into the sun most of the time, which meant I had to go swimming along on my back with my eyes closed. And while I probably couldn’t have done a thing about it if I had seen a snake or an alligator or gar swimming along with me, I sure didn’t like the idea of not being able even to see it. It just didn’t seem natural to swim in a river such as this as though it were nothing but a lot of water. Also, up to then, hopeless as it seemed, I had been keeping my eye out for Mr. Haywood’s skiff, just in case whoever had taken it might have later thought better of it and turned it loose or put it ashore somewhere. But to get rested, some of the time that was the way I had to do it, with my eyes closed, an easy prey if it should come to that for just about anything.

  I tried not to think about this, but sometimes I couldn’t help it. Finally it happened that some floating pine straw, a whole bunch of it, green, I later discovered, although I had thought green wood was supposed to sink, came floating along with the current and I was on my back resting with my eyes closed and without warning it caught up right alongside of my ear. I didn’t holler or anything, but I believe that for a second there I was almost clear of the water. I know for certain anyhow that I hit my own ear so hard that I had a ringing in it long after the commotion had all died down. And until I beat that prickly bunch of pine needles off the back of my neck where they had lodged and saw that I had not been attacked after all, there was quite a commotion all right.

  After that I decided that sink or swim I was through with resting on my back for the rest of the trip. And by this time, too, I had noticed that I had got my second wind, and I settled down to some serious swimming and moved along steady for maybe another half an hour or so. Judging from the way the sun had moved in the sky from where I had spotted it when I first started back, I figured I had been swimming for an hour and a half or so by the time I reached the island and could crawl up on that nice sandy beach and get a decent rest.

  I guess I sat and rested, in the shade this time, for fifteen minutes or more. It wasn’t much farther up to The Landing, and as a point of pride I didn’t want to get there not only minus Mr. Haywood’s skiff but altogether out of breath and looking half drowned. I don’t mind having someone feel sorry for me if there is something to feel sorry about, but not when I have been wrong. And sitting there resting and thinking about Mr. Haywood’s skiff I knew how wrong I had been. The least I could have done was to have tied it to a tree; then whoever took it would have clearly been a thief and the fault would hardly have been mine. But the way I had just dragged it up a bit on the shore and walked off and left it there, a person could have come by and honestly believed it had just drifted down the river and got stuck there. I would have thought so myself, if it had of been me. And I knew I would have to tell Mr. Haywood just how it happened and take the blame that would be due. It’s not that I am a Boy Scout in a situation such as this, but that I have found out with experience that somehow I cannot tell a real lie and get away with it.

  I had already made up my mind to tell the truth before, but sitting there resting I thought it all through again. Maybe I did it just to kill some time. Now that I was almost at The Landing, I began to start feeling pretty much the same way I had felt when I first found the skiff gone, a kind of sick feeling. I believe I felt worse about losing Mr. Haywood’s skiff than I felt last summer at the time it was pretty much decided that my smoking in my uncle’s barn had been the cause of its being burned to the ground. In the end, in that case, I gave up smoking anyhow; but I couldn’t see one thing in the world I could do about the stolen skiff, except maybe get another skiff, if anybody would trust me with it, and go looking for the one I lost. I could make such an offer anyhow, and see what happened.

  The more I thought about it the more it seemed the best idea I had had yet and a thing I would have to do, even if I had to build my own skiff first or steal one myself just to have one to go looking for Mr. Haywood’s in. After all, I figured, nobody would steal a skiff and take it home and set it out in their back yard for a birdbath or something; they would use it to row around in, and if I looked long enough up and down the creek or wherever there was water I would sooner or later come across it. I doubted if there was another skiff quite like it, anywhere, especially with that little piece missing out of one end of it.

  I made up my mind about it, right then and there; and if such things were still possible and I had known how to do it I would have made a solemn vow to that effect. As it was, I just made a promise to myself that I would find Mr. Haywood’s skiff for him again if it was the last thing I was ever to do. So feeling fairly human again, I got back into the creek and started swimming away on the last stretch back to The Landing.

  I expected to make it without any strain, but somehow or other in the time I had sat resting and thinking on the island it seemed as though the current had increased to about twice as fast as it had been before. I couldn’t account for it and didn’t really believe it was so at first, but pretty soon there was no doubt about it in my mind. There was a current going against me now that was an altogether different thing and nothing to fool around with, and I knew I was in for a real swim all right before I would make it to The Landing. So I forgot about the skiff and the scenery and everything else and just settled down to swimming.

  I guess it wasn’t more than a half a mile from the island to the clearing, but it was the longest half a mile I ever tackled, and when I finally got there I was swimming on my back again, altogether winded and closer to being half drowned than I wanted to admit. I guess they weren’t looking for me to show up finally swimming but were watching only for the skiff; anyhow, when I got near they were all busy loading stuff in the truck at the back of the clearing, and once they gave a loud blast on the horn, for me, I guess, but by that time I was in near the pier and out of their sight. I had just got even with the pier and was wondering if I had the strength to pull myself out when I heard a little scream, sort of, and I turned my head as best I could and there was Mrs. Haywood standing there with a bucket in her hand staring at me like I was a ghost. Then she dropped the bucket and hollered out, “It’s Rodney,” and the next thing I knew they were all lined up on the pier staring down at me, where I was floating on my back trying to pretend I wasn’t tired and so not even taking ahold of the pier yet, their heads lined up against the sky with every one of them looking more surprised and serious than if I had floated in there a corpse. I could see Mrs. Haywood must have been worried about me because she started hollering for Jack and Ellen to help me out and couldn’t they see I was already half drowned and then she started to cry and it got quiet for a minute and I said, “I am all right, Mrs. Haywood, I am just resting.”

  And then Mr. Haywood said, “What happened, boy?” and they waited, because I guess that was the question on all their minds and it got quiet again and I said, “I’m sorry, Mr. Haywood, but somebody either stole your skiff or thought they foun
d it, but I will find it myself again if it is the last thing I do.”

  “Oh, you poor boy you,” Mrs. Haywood said and started crying again, which made me feel awful, and I turned over and put both hands on the pier, and Jack grabbed one hand and Ellen the other and they started dragging me out. And I couldn’t believe it but even at a time like that I noticed the way the top of Ellen’s bathing suit fell away and how perfectly smooth and rounded and how much of her there really was, in just the one sight I had, looking up, before I shut my eyes. Then I was standing there on the pier, suddenly dizzy and not even sure why, with Ellen holding her arm around me and holding me up close, and everybody asking me a million questions at once, until finally not knowing what else to do but not wanting to stand there any more like some poor kid being comforted by his mother, I pulled away from Ellen and turned to Jack and said, “Thank you, Jack,” and reached out and took his hand and shook it as though he had saved my life.

  It took him somewhat by surprise, but I could see it pleased him, too.

  5

  The trip back in the pickup from The Landing to The Hill was about as educational and as miserable a trip as I’ve ever had. I would have just as soon been up in an airplane being taught how to fly. It was Jack who took the trouble to set me straight on all the things I had done wrong and figured wrong through the day, although Ellen was some help to him along these lines, too. And Jack wasn’t even being the kind of wise guy about it that you would have expected. Seemed clear that he just really believed that no one should be allowed to stay as dumb about things as I was.

  We no sooner got started back than he started in. “What your trouble is, Rodney,” he said, as though he had been thinking it over now for some time, “is ignorance.”