It took a surprising number of measures of water from the orange soda can before it started trickling through. The charcoal had to be saturated with water before it ran through and the filter grew heavy. When it finally began to pass through it was amazing to see clear water stream from the cap into the glass jars as ugly brown water was poured in. She filled six empty water bottles and put them on the fire to boil.
The others crowded around making noises of wonder and joy. Tía said she was very smart to know how to do this. That was a sudden change of attitude.
A half-hour later, taking a bottle in-hand, Karen sniffed it. “Seems okay, bueno.” With everyone anxiously watching, she took a little sip. Looking back at them with her eyes open wide, she took another, and this time swallowed. It had a smoky charcoal taste and was a tad gritty. She suddenly slapped her hands to her throat and gagged as everyone jumped back startled. Karen started laughing and they joined in, yucking it up themselves. They all had to taste it. Karen thought some Kool-Aid would do the trick, but like everything else, they would have to get by with what they had.
Jay doused out the fire as Karen washed up. Tía directed him to put some charcoal in the hubcap. It would be good for stomach sickness, she said. Karen had heard of that, but had never tried it. I hope we don’t need it. Everything was loaded in the boat and Karen secured the bags and packs in-place with the rope untied from the stern. The chickens were loaded into the tool bag voicing a great deal of protest. The cluckers were set in the bow as lookouts and Karen asked the crew to board.
Jay, looking a tad uncomfortable, sat in the stern. Tía and Lomara merely stood looking at the boat. That’s when Tía announced they’d never been in a boat. Neither had Jay, until Karen had helped him in yesterday.
“Okay,” she reasoned, “if he can ride in it, you ladies can too.”
With Karen giving them a hand, they climbed into the rocking boat with apprehensive expressions. Jay’s own anxious face didn’t help. Seated forward, they both looked expectant as Karen unfastened the towing strap and sat on the middle seat facing the stern. Setting the oars, she deftly turned the boat one-hundred-eighty degrees and felt the current take hold. She made oar sweeps only to keep the boat midstream. Tía watched her closely for a while, as if she knew whether Karen rowed correctly or not. Karen peered down the stretch of unknown Rio Machuca. At last, they were on their way! Toward what she knew not, but they had no other choice.
That’s when Karen remembered they were only on a small tributary leading to the Rio Hauhau. She asked Tía how far it was to the main river.
“No se.” She’d heard the men talk about it, but she was unsure if they had ever gone that far.
It was not long before Karen realized this was going to be a long slow trip. They might have been traveling three miles an hour, maybe. She tried rowing, but their speed, if it could be called that, was increased to maybe five miles per and that was with hard pulling. She couldn’t keep it up for long. She’d row periodically, more for something to do. Within a couple of hours she could feel it in her arms, thighs, and belly. It was none too kind to her hands either.
Karen thought about a sail made from the hammocks, but the air was mostly still and what puffs of breeze there were blew toward them. She could make a mast, but there was nothing to fasten it to.
Lomara amused them by singing little songs. Karen couldn’t understand half the words, but that was okay. Birds called to them in greeting, or in protest of their incursion.
Dipping the oars occasionally to keep the boat on course, Karen suddenly felt relaxed in a guarded sort of way. It was their third day “on the run,” as she thought of it; like they were fugitives. Outlaws on the run from Mother Nature.
Karen was starting to feel she could deal with this. She had a lot of experience, and then there was Tía. She, too, knew a lot from practical experience. She simply couldn’t do anything herself.
She’d had this feeling before. It comes over her after a day or two on a trip, when her body and mind felt comfortable with the air and earth. Her mind told her all was well and that the comforts of civilization were far away, so accept what she had.
The river wound its way through the jungle. Dragonflies of all colors flitted about. It grew hotter and the humidity rose as the sun climbed. Shadows no longer shaded the river. Karen remembered her sunglasses were back in the van.
Tía directed Karen to shore to an overhanging clump of big leafed tropical plants Karen’s mom had called caladiums. Jay, jumbling, lopped off several of the big leaves with the machete. Karen held her breath waiting for him to whack off his own hand. Tía seemed to think any boy could use a machete. Jay probably couldn’t spell it. Farther down the bank Tía pointed out some wiry vines for him to cut.
Karen watched in fascination as Tía talked Lomara through fashioning hats out of the leaves. At the top of the shield-shaped leaves was a notch. She overlapped these and punching little holes with a pointed stick, she laced the vine through the holes and she had a hat. The pointed end protected the back of the neck. Placing it solemnly on Jay’s head, she made one for herself.
Nature provides, Karen said to herself as she pulled hardily on the oars for a time.
They entered a relatively straight stretch. She regarded her shipmates. Jay was a good looking guy. Thin and lanky, he was no slouch. He was holding up well, physically anyway.
“You play any sports, Jay?”
“Golf.”
“Golf? The game where you hit a little ball as far as you can and walk after it?”
He looked up at her. “Let’s see, you backpack?”
“Yeah.”
“So you put on a pack half as heavy as yourself and walk as far as you can? At least I have a little ball to go after.”
She ginned. “You got me.”
He ginned back. One of the few she’d seen on his face.
He was coming out of his disorientation. Karen had feared he might become worse and freak out or something. He wasn’t much of a self-starter, did next to nothing on his own. For now he stared at the passing shore.
Karen turned about to look forward. Lomara was holding stems of lush green leaves she’d broken off from an overhanging limb as the chickens plucked at them.
She’s a doll. Very bright and in surprisingly good spirits, but Karen caught her at times with a remorseful gaze on her pretty face. She’d paste on a smile if she saw Karen looking at her during those times.
To Karen’s eyes, Tía Ramona looked older than her forty-four years. It was a hard life here. Her tangled black hair was veined with white strands. Her eyes were raw-edged from the constant pain, her loss, and concerns for their future. Nonetheless, she had a strong handsome, brown river-clay face.
A little water sloshed in the boat’s bottom. They’d have to bail occasionally with the drink can and bowl.
If it was possible, it had grown hotter. Sweat was actually puddling on her seat. With the sun high overhead the trees lining the river offered no shade and the water seemed to reflect the heat into them.
Chapter Eighteen
“Necesito ir al baño,”—I need to go to the bathroom, said Tía.
Time for a pit stop anyway, Karen thought. She angled the boat to the left shore pulling hard to nose into the bank. The shore was actually a little tree-covered island. Much was still flooded, more so on the right bank.
Everyone did their business in the bushes, fighting off ants refugeeing on the islet. The red biters were everywhere, on the ground, in the brush, on tree trunks. Everyone was swatting, brushing, and stamping their feet as they rushed back to the boat. They saw a couple of snakes too, which head for high ground during flooding. And rats; at least the snakes would eat.
Tía asked Karen to take a piece a charcoal and write something on the bow. She spelled out Nuestra Esperanza.—Our Hope.
“¡Excelente nombre!”—Excellent name. said Karen, laughing.
“What’s that about?” asked Jay.
“It means Ou
r Hope. Good name for the boat. I had something else in mind.”
Leaning over the bow’s opposite side she wrote it again, rather sloppily since she was doing it upside-down. She couldn’t resist christening the boat with her own name and wrote Huck Finn on the stern transom.
“What’s that mean?
“You’ve never read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn?”
Jay shook his head.
“Mark Twain?” Another head shake.
“It’s about two guys going down the Mississippi River on a raft and their adventures?” Guys, they just don’t read.
He shrugged.
Shoving off from Ant Island, they discovered six-legged boarders had to be jettisoned. Karen realized the land was lower, as water had flooded far through the trees on both shores. The river’s edge was defined only by the trees and brush emerging from the flowing water.
The leafy crown of a fallen tree blocked part of the river and Karen angled the boat around it with Jay ready to fend off with the pole. She’d explained to him what she needed for him to do. Wind shear must have struck the area, as there were other fallen trees and broken limbs throughout the flooded forest. She had to pull around a logjam extending from the submerged right shore. Trees were denser and larger here with intertwined branches arching over the river. They were in constant shadow, but the thick foliage choked out any moving air. It felt as humid as a steamy sauna.
There was a peculiar sound, nothing she recognized, loud, but muffled. It was followed by cracks, pops, and snaps and then a rushing sound, more cracks, and a roar. Karen back-watered the oar to stop. This is too strange, she thought. A blur of steam rushed through the trees and on its heels a swell in the water set the boat bobbing.
Everyone was rattled and staring straight ahead. Jay shouted, “What the…” Tía was trying to grip the gunwales. Karen was just as bewildered as the others. All the time she’d spent on rivers, she had no idea what this was, not even a guess. The passed swell was followed by spreading wavelets.
The current slowed. What would cause that? She had to pull harder on the oars.
The river gradually curved to the left and rounding the bend they found a barricade of brush and limbs barring their way. Falling leaves were still settling toward the water.
Karen back-watered the oars to slow their drift and they nosed into the mass of tangled vegetation and debris. There were dead birds and rats and a bloated pig among the flotsam. It all smelled bad.
Karen could see that a huge tree had fallen from the right bank and completely spanned the river, its mass of limbs crashed into the opposite shore. The massive tangle of mud-covered roots jutted out of the flood. The saturated riverbank must have given away and the tree’s own mass had pulled it over. The horizontal trunk rose two feet out of the water.
They were in a pickle. They had to get the boat over. The trees and brush on the flooded shores were too thick to allow it to be bypassed. Two feet wasn’t much of an obstacle, but it might as well have been the Hoover Dam. More than just a speed bump.
Jay and she would have to lift the bow up onto the trunk and then pull it over. It wasn’t as easy as it sounded. She considered trying to find a way through the flooded trees, but while they may be far enough apart to pass the Huck Finn through, there wasn’t room to use the oars. There was also too much submerged brush to hang up on. They’d have to pull her over.
First she thought about getting everyone and everything out to make it lighter. She turned to the crew and said, “Let’s consider the physics,” in English resulting in perplexed stares. She laughed and said, “Jalemos.”—We pull.
Hauling hard on the oars she pulled the boat into the debris, bumping into the trunk. After tying the boat onto a limb jutting out of the water, she macheted off those in the way.
Instead of lightening the boat for now she wanted all the weight in the stern.
“Do you know what you’re doing?” asked Jay.
“Nope, I’m making it up as I go along.”
She had Tía and Lomara stay on the stern seat and she and Jay moved all the gear aft, piling it at their feet. The boat was noticeably lower at the stern and the bow actually rose a few inches out of the water. It would rise even more once she and Jay climbed out.
Hooking both ends of the towing strap to the bow cleat, the two of them climbed onto the log. It was solidly in place, almost five feet in diameter. They grasped the strap. Jay seemed to understand what was going on. Looking at him she said, “One, two, three, pull!”
They heaved and the bow rose, and then splashed into the water. They hadn’t pulled it quite high enough. They did it again with the same result.
Okay, they’d try something different.
The trunk had ridged lengthwise corrugations running its length. They worked the boat to the left where there was a more predominate ridge.
“Okay, we’ve got to get the chin lodged on this ridge since we can’t pull it all the way on top.” She slapped her hand on the ridge a foot above the water, indicating their target, a small ledge.
“The chin?”
“The boat has a flat bottom, so the chin of the bow is like a wedge, not rounded. If we can get the bow up on that, then we can lift it up onto the trunk. Once on the trunk, we’ll have to pull back to keep it from slipping off.”
“How do you know all this?”
“I don’t know, from reading I guess. Now grab ahold the rope.”
He did it even though he didn’t like being told.
“One, two, three, pull!”
They did it. It was on the ridge. She told the girls in the boat to not move.
“Okay, una vez más. —One more time. ¡Uno, dos, tres, estiren!”
Jay got serious about it for once. They heaved with everything they had and got the chin atop the truck.
“Haul back for everything you’re worth!” she shouted. They had to keep it from slipping off.
“¡No se muevan!”—Do not move! she shouted to the passengers as water slopped over the stern transom.
She wrapped the towing strap around a stout limb. Now it was time to lighten the boat.
“Vamos,” she said waving them forward.
Jay helped Tía out with Lomara following and Karen guided them along the trunk toward the roots. They needed to be out of the way. Karen boarded and passed the bags, rope, oars, everything out of the boat, even the complaining chickens. Its stern rode much higher now.
Untying the strap Karen felt the boat start to slip. She shouted to Jay and they both tugged hard and tied it off again. She took the short rope off the stern, fastened it to the bow cleat and tied it off to the same limb as the strap. Then she untied the strap from around the limb.
They pulled on the strap, but they were standing over the bow virtually pulling straight up. They got nowhere. There was no place for them to stand farther from the boat for a better angle of pull, only water.
Looking around, she spied a tree about thirty feet away. If she took the hundred-foot rope, fastened it to the bow, turned it around the tree and ran it back to the trunk they might be able to pull the bow higher onto the trunk while standing beside it.
“Make it so, Number One,” she muttered to herself.
Retying the strap to the limb, she removed the short rope, tied the long one to the cleat and worked her way to the roots. She’d have to swim to the tree and there was no telling what obstacles were underwater. No snakes I hope. Let’s not think about them. She tied a loop at the end of the rope and placed it over her shoulder.
“What are you doing?”
“Swimming to that tree and laying the rope around it.”
“You’re going to get in that water?” His eyes wide with disbelief. “What for?”
She told him.
“And you’re getting in the water?”
“Unless you want to do it.”
“I’ll watch.”
“Good, because if I get in trouble you need to pull me back, fast.”
�
��Well, okay.”
Tía begged her to be careful. Concern lay in her eyes.
Removing her running shoes, she gingerly slipped in after probing around with the pole in search of obstacles. She ordered herself not to think about that movie, Anaconda. Breast-stroking to the tree she pulled herself through submerged bushes telling herself it was only vines slithering around her legs. She rounded the tree and swam back to the trunk encountering no problems. It was scary anyway. This wasn’t the Cypress Falls High School swimming pool.
Standing on the trunk and pulling in the slack, she and Jay heaved on the rope. Nothing happened. It didn’t budge.
“Great plan,” Jay smarted off.
She felt like sitting on the trunk and giving up. Everyone was looking at her. They were counting on her. Grinding her knuckles into her forehead, she struggled to ignore her frustration and decide what to do.
Studying the problem she saw that the rope was barely above water-level. It needed to be higher up the tree, level with the bow cleat it was tied to, almost four feet above the water. It was wet, which increased the friction. Nothing to be done for that. The tree’s bark was rough and binding the rope. She could do something about that.
Gripping the machete, she pulled herself to the tree along the taut tied-off rope. “You’ve got a second chance, Anaconda.” Tía looked at her funny.
Wrapping her legs and left arm around the tree, reaching high, she whacked a shallow four-inch wide groove halfway around the tree’s circumference on the side opposite the boat. It wore out her arm. It was rough on her legs too. Maybe she shouldn’t have cut off her jeans. She tried to smooth the groove the best she could, but her left arm was rubbed raw hanging onto the tree and her legs kept slipping in the water. She worked the rope up into the groove.
Pulling herself back, she had to rest and drink some water before she could do anything more. Finally forcing herself up, she said to Jay, “Let’s try it again.”
Tears of the River Page 10
