The Adventures of Jack and Billy Joe

by A. Jeff Tisdale

  “Now we couldn’t help it if the river rose and Mr. Ezell’s boat got away. We had plenty of food and a good fire on that sandbar. The only danger was in our mommas’ minds,” Billy Joe pointed out.

  “Yeah, but it’s still in their minds and they ain’t gonna let us go,” Jack rightly stated.

  “Okay, I’ll go, but only ’cause my momma will let me go with the Methodist Youth Fellowship but she wouldn’t let us go by ourselves,” Billy Joe agreed.

  The boys rode their bicycles up to the Methodist Church, where church ladies were signing up boys to go on the weeklong campout.

  Mrs. Nelson gave each boy a paper and said, “Give this to your momma. It tells them what we are doing to make sure you are safe and tells them that we will have a car out there to bring anyone back to town if need be. On the back, there’s a list of the things you will need to bring. All the food will be furnished by George Moyers’ grocery store and on Jamboree night, Mr. Moyers and Mr. Dick Mills will come out and fry chicken for everybody. Just give this paper to your mommas and tell them they can call me if they have any questions.” She paused then added, “Oh yes, each of you must have a bicycle in good shape with a basket on it. The campers will leave from right here at the church at seven AM the morning of June fifteenth.”

  “Yes, ma’am, thank you,” both boys said and left, each with his sheet of paper.

  “That fried chicken by Mr. Moyers and Mr. Mills does sound good,” Billy Joe said.

  “Yeah, and I like hearing that we are gonna ride our bikes and not have to walk. Walkin’ on a gravel road is not good,” Jack said. “On a bike, I can ride the hard ruts or the shoulder and make good time.”

  “They’re not gonna let you ‘make good time,’” Billy Joe said. “You’re gonna have to wait for the slowest ones.”

  “At least I can pump on up ahead a bit and then wait for the slow ones.”

  “Yeah, I guess,” Billy Joe agreed.

  The boys easily got their parents’ blessing to go on the campout, and their mothers made sure they had everything called for on the list, including soap, a toothbrush with toothpaste and a towel. The mothers also added essentials of their own conception, such as a small first aid kit, a flashlight, an extra cap and pencil and paper to write what happened every day. The boys called this their “daily report.”

  On June 15th, Jack and Billy Joe were at the door of the church recreation center at six thirty, the first ones there.

  Louis Jackson came at about a quarter to seven. He made all the boys lay out the items in their packs for his inspection and yelled at them if he didn’t like what he saw.

  In the end, none of the boys were not allowed to go, but he seemed to think this little bit of marine boot camp was necessary before they departed.

  “Okay, men,” Mr. Jackson bellowed, “we’ll ride single file on the left shoulder facing the traffic. I don’t want to see anybody wandering off. I’ll be riding in the back and if I see you horsin’ around, I’ll make you wish you hadn’t. Do you understand me?”

  There was a half-hearted chorus of “Yes, sir” from the boys.

  They started off down the road with Jack and Billy Joe making sure they were in the lead. Mr. Ward was driving to the camp in his car so they would have an emergency way back to town if anyone needed it. Mr. Jackson was the only adult riding a bicycle and, the boys reckoned, he would be in the rear and out of their sight.

  Jack led the string of about twenty-five bicycles through town at a leisurely pace. This gave the boys and Mr. Jackson a chance to get used to that pace and to settle in.

  Jack had to stop for the red light at US11, the only traffic light in town. He glanced at the service station across the highway and saw Lige Garner standing there watching him. Jack could swear it was an evil glare. When the light turned red, Jack moved on but Lige’s eyes followed him until the bike procession was out of sight.

  Outside of town, Jack started to pick up the pace a little at a time. For a while, all the riders were able to keep up, but when they hit the slow rolling hills outside of town, some started to drop back. Jack knew that Mr. Jackson couldn’t pump his pedals fast enough or long enough to catch him to slow him down.

  The bicycle ride to Leaf River was something that Jack and Billy Joe had done many times. They both could go twice as fast as the other riders with little strain.

  “Mr. Jackson’s gonna chew you out when he gets here,” Billy Joe warned Jack.

  “I don’t think he will.” Jack smiled. “What’s he gonna say, ‘You pumped too fast for me to keep up’? Not that marine. He’ll never admit that I put him under any kinda strain.”

  Jack and Billy Joe arrived at the scout camp on Leaf River with the next nearest bicycler not in sight.

  The main structure of the camp was a very well-built shelter with a roof and open sides on three walls and a very large fireplace in the end wall. The roof was held up by twelve-inch-by-twelve-inch wooden rough sawn posts firmly implanted in a concrete floor. There were six large plank tables with seats built onto their sides placed around the big room. No trees that didn’t actually stand where a building was to be placed were cut. The camp was very well built.

  The lumber had been donated and specially cut by the Jones Lumber Company. All nails and other hardware were donated by Will Smith’s Hardware Store. The county road supervisor, who was also a building contractor, supervised the county road gang—prisoners—in building the camp.

  Within forty-five minutes, the first bicyclers started to come in but it was a full two hours before Mr. Jackson appeared. Mr. Ward kidded him a little but not too much.

  “You did a good job in the lead, Jack,” Mr. Jackson said. “I didn’t think you could keep up that pace. Sometime you and I will have to go on a bike trip, just the two of us. Riding behind the other boys, I couldn’t go any faster than the slowest ones.”

  “Yes, sir,” Jack said.

  “Okay, boys,” Mr. Ward said, “pick out your sleeping place and pile your gear there. I want you all outside and not under the shelter to sleep unless it rains. Let’s build a big bonfire in the center of the opening where there are no trees. To do that, we can dig a fire pit and clean off the ground of all plants, leaves and twigs for fifteen feet all the way around it. There will be details of boys to take care of all our chores. The water truck will come out every day to fill the water tank but we still need to conserve water. Bathing and washing will be done in the river. The tank water is only for drinking. Any questions?”

  “Yes, sir,” one boy said, holding up his hand. “How do we know what detail we are on?”

  “I’m gonna sit down at this table”—he pointed toward one of the tables under the shelter—“and you’ll form a line. As it is your turn, I will assign you to a detail. Whatever that detail is, you will be stuck with it for that day. Each day, I will post a new detail list beside the fireplace in the shelter. Each of you will check it each morning and be on that detail for that day.”

  “What are the details?” another boy asked.

  “The fire pit detail I have already mentioned,” Mr. Ward said. “We have the firewood detail, the generator detail, the police-up detail and the lifeguard detail. The duties of each one will also be posted with the detail list. Each detail should elect a captain who will be in charge.” He paused, looked around the boys and asked, “Any other questions?”

  There were none, so he took his place at the table to make the list and the boys lined up.

  “Let’s go to the river,” Jack said after they had both signed up and were on the generator detail. “We’ve got an hour until we have to be at the generator.”

  They walked the fifty yards or so to the clay bank overlooking the river and looked down. It was a high bank, about thirty feet above the water.

  The river itself appeared to be at a normal level, not too high and not too low. At this point, the river was more narrow than usual so the water flowed fairly swiftly, but at no point was the Leaf a fast-moving river at its n
ormal level. As a matter of fact, the boys camping here swam every day and had no problem swimming against the current.

  The two boys walked down the clay steps that earlier camping groups had hewn into the clay bank to get to the water’s edge.

  “We’re not far from where Mr. Ezell docks his boat,” Jack pointed out. “Maybe a mile up river.”

  “Yeah,” Billy Joe agreed. “But you know Mr. Jackson won’t let us go get it and if we did, he’d make us haul other boys.”

  “Maybe next week our mommas will let us camp out on the river and we can run some trotlines,” Jack speculated.

  “Nah, they won’t unless we can get our daddies to ask them for us,” Billy Joe said. “We better go put on our bathing suits if we’re gonna make it to the generator detail on time.”

  The generator was the camp’s source of power—for lights only—and was run by the river itself. The camp’s builders had used a pile driver to sink two large poles into the bottom of the river and had run guy wires from the tops of the poles to the base of trees on both sides of the river to hold them steady and straight up. The generator was on a moving contraption between the poles and could be lowered to water level by a windlass. The windlass had a crank on both sides so four boys could operate it at one time, two on each side.

  The generator, of course, never touched the water. It was on a shaft with a cog on one end that meshed with a cog on the water wheel. The water wheel floated up and down on two fifty-five-gallon drums so that only its paddle fins touched the water no matter what the river level.

  The job of the generator detail was to swim out to the poles, climb them using the climbing spikes that had been driven into each pole and lower the generator until the cogs meshed and the generator started to turn.

  Any time the generator was on the lights would be on. The lights furnished the proper load for the generator output.

  Jack and Billy Joe liked this detail since it involved swimming in the river, and that was the only time they were allowed to dive off the generator tower.

  Mr. Ward was in charge of this detail and explained each part of the operation to the boys as they went along.

  The boys all liked Mr. Ward. He treated them as if they could understand what he was saying. Not like some adults who acted as if boys were not smart enough to understand so there was no use taking the time to explain.

  The generator was lowered and meshed, and the lights came on all over the camp.

  The boys cheered and dived off the generator tower. Mr. Ward let them climb back up and do it a couple more times.

  “Let’s go have some lunch, boys,” Mr. Ward said as they walked back toward the shelter.

  On one of the tables in the shelter, another detail had set out loaves of bread, peanut butter, pimiento cheese and pints of milk in a tub of ice. The boys made sandwiches and drank milk until each had had enough.

  It wasn’t necessary to demand that the boys take an after-lunch nap. They took their blankets, as did the men, and found a shady place under a tree.

  Jack and Billy Joe were among the first ones up.

  “What we gonna do?” Jack asked.

  “We still got our bathing suits on so let’s go swimming.”

  “We’re not supposed to without one of the men being there,” Billy Joe said.

  “Yeah, I forgot,” Jack said, being used to making his own decisions in the woods. “Well, let’s just walk down there and look. That can’t hurt.”

  They walked over to the edge of the clay bank and looked down to the river. There were four or five boys in the water having a ball.

  “If they can do it, we can do it,” Billy Joe said.

  “Nah,” Jack warned, “it won’t matter if there’s one or a hundred, Mr. Jackson will punish ’em all. He enjoys that.”

  “Yeah, you’re right,” Billy Joe conceded. “No sense getting cut outta the fun just for a few minutes of swimming.”

  The tone of the boys playing in the water changed noticeably. There was an added sound of fear.

  Jack and Billy Joe looked to see what the cause of this change was.

  All the boys were looking down the river and shouting. What they were saying was unintelligible but it appeared that someone had been swept away.

  “I think somebody is floating down the river and can’t swim back,” Billy Joe said.

  Jack turned and ran back to the sleeping campers near the shelter. He ran directly to Mr. Ward and shook his shoulder. “Mr. Ward, Mr. Ward,” he said.

  “What’s the matter, Jack?” Ward asked, instantly awake.

  “I think one of the boys has washed off down the river, sir,” Jack explained.

  “What, what’s he doin’ in the river?”

  “I don’t know, sir, but somebody better get him back. There’s snakes and alligators in that river,” Jack said.

  Ward jumped up and ran over to Louis Jackson and shook him.

  “What’s the matter?” Jackson asked sleepily.

  “A boy’s in trouble at the river, I guess.” Ward gave the best explanation he had.

  Jackson jumped up and ran to the clay bank overlooking the river.

  Recognizing one of the boys, Jackson yelled, “What’s the matter, George?”

  “Tom Nelson swam out to the center and couldn’t get back,” George said. “He floated off down the river.”

  “Can you see him?” Jackson asked.

  “No, sir, he’s gone way down the river,” George replied.

  “What are we gonna do?” Ward asked Jackson.

  “One of us needs to take a couple of the boys and go down the riverbank as far as we can to find him,” Jackson said, still clearing his head of sleep. “The other needs to get in the car and drive to the next bridge crossing and pull him out in case he goes that far.”

  “The next bridge is at least five miles downriver,” Ward said. “If he stays afloat that long, he’s a better swimmer than I thought he was.”

  “That’s all we can do,” Jackson said. “You go—I’ll walk the river.”

  “Okay,” Ward said as he turned toward the car.

  Jackson picked two boys—big strong guys who looked as if they could handle themselves.

  “The rest of you,” Jackson said, “stay out of the river and stay out of trouble. We’ll be back with Tom soon.”

  And they walked into the woods south along the river.

  A quiet had fallen over the boys waiting. They each imagined the worst, depending on his own inner fears.

  “Boy, I wish we had Mr. Ezell’s boat,” Jack said.

  “Yeah, and it’s not all that far from here,” Billy Joe said.

  “Hey, you know, it’s not,” Jack said. “Why don’t we ride our bicycles over there and get the boat?” Jack suggested. “We could float back here in no time, especially if we paddled hard.”

  “Yeah, Mr. Ezell’s house is right along the way,” Billy Joe said. “We can tell him on the way.”

  The boys ran to their bicycles and started off toward the main road. At the main road, they turned toward the bridge and Mr. Ezell’s driveway—actually a rut road about a mile long that Mr. Ezell had made driving through the woods to his cabin.

  The boys made good time to the driveway and down it to Ezell’s house. They knocked on his door but got no answer.

  “He won’t mind if we take his boat. We use it all the time and he never says no.”

  They raced to the boat landing—just an easy sloping bank of the river where you would drag the wooden boat out.

  They pushed the boat out into the river and jumped in as they had done so many times. The roughly cut “paddles” were in the boat and the boys wasted no time in digging into the river to hurry the boat along.

  “Here comes the bridge,” Jack observed while still paddling as hard as he could.

  They passed under the bridge in a hurry.

  “We’re going at least ninety miles an hour,” Billy Joe exaggerated.

  “Nah, but we’re moving pretty fas
t,” Jack corrected.

  They made the mile to the campground in short order. The boys along the bank yelled encouragement and waved until the boat was out of their sight.

  “We had better look for Mr. Jackson and the others,” Jack said.

  “Yeah, we can’t all fit in this boat but Mr. Jackson can,” Billy Joe pointed out.

  They kept looking and paddling.

  “Help,” they heard a weak voice say.

  “Where’d that come from?” Billy Joe asked.

  “I don’t know, but keep a sharp eye,” Jack said.

  “Help,” the little voice said a bit louder.

  “Where are you?” Jack yelled.

  “Over here on this tree,” the voice said, obviously very tired.

  “I see him,” Billy Joe said. “Over there.” He pointed toward a dead, leafless tree that had fallen into the water.

  Both boys paddled as fast as they could to overcome the current to get across the river to the dead tree and Tom Nelson.

  They pulled the bow of the boat past Tom and toward the bank where Billy Joe could grab the tree. The current continued to push the boat downriver and into Tom. Jack had to hold the boat away from the dead tree to keep from mashing Tom.

  Billy Joe managed to tie the boat to the tree trunk with the short piece of rope that dangled from the bow. He could then come back and help Jack get Tom into the boat.

  Jack was still holding the boat off Tom but he was assisting him by putting one hand under Tom’s armpit and pulling. When Billy Joe got there, he reached into the water, grabbed Tom by the seat of the pants and pulled. Tom rolled over the side and into the boat.

  He may have been crying before, Jack and Billy Joe didn’t know, but now he was all smiles.

  “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” he kept saying over and over.

  Jack and Billy Joe didn’t have a jacket or even a shirt to give Tom to keep him warm. They were still in their bathing suits.

  “Get down low in the boat so the wind won’t hit you so much, Tom,” Jack said. “Maybe you won’t be too cold until we can get you back to the camp.”

  “We had better go back across the river to the ‘slow side,’” Jack said. “It will be easier paddling upstream.”