The Efficient Paddler

 Traveling down our natural waterways, paddle in hand, we all know is one of life’s great joys. The connection with the natural world, wholesome mini-adventures, scenic surroundings and freedom from daily issues, is a tonic that is hard to beat.

 But traveling without hassle takes just a bit of planning. No one wants to deal with annoyances and issues that can easily be avoided so at least a modicum of pre-planning is time well spent. That is where I usually hit my first snag. Planning ahead has never been one of my strong points.

 Its not that I’m not organized or too lazy to plan. I just don’t think of myself as the average canoedler.

I have decades of float trips under my belt and several have gone off without a hitch. For that I thank my wife for just elbowing me out of the way and taking charge. When I stand back and take orders and act as the pack mule things generally work out well.

 And then there are those times when I paddle solo. These trips aren’t always total chaos but they seldom seem to work out as flawlessly as I’d wish. I mean I’ve never forgotten my boat or anything like that. Though I did have to reload one out of a road ditch one time (broken strap). And I seldom need the extra paddle I always pack along. Unless I drop my first paddle in the river (dozed off).

 My dry bags usually have packed, just what I need. Unless its dry clothes. I often find those in the bilge water in the bottom of the boat where I left them when rooting around for the gummy bears in the dry bag (gummy bears must be kept dry).

 Good preparation has kept me from ever going hungry while on the water, though the menu has often had an unusual twist. I’ve enjoyed breakfasts like fried beef jerky and taco chips (the bacon turned green when I forgot to ice down the cooler). Dinners like fresh wilted salad with A1 sauce (the french dressing was back on the tailgate with the ice bag). And suppers like GBS (gooey brown stuff from the bottom of the cooler). But as I say, I’ve never gone hungry.

 Ok, so as a camp cook maybe I don’t excell, but no one can be good at everything. Right?

 But I do have my strong points. I’ve never lost my lifejacket (Kathy ties it on before I leave with some kind of tricky knot that only she can undo), And I’ve learned to sleep quite well in it on those multi-day trips. I’ve never gotten lost (after I launch my boat}. Getting to a remote access did take me an extra day one time but it was an innocent mistake. I suppose I could have asked directions but by the third time I passed that roadside vegetable stand they had closed up and gone home.

 I have an uncanny ability to build great camp fires. But the guys from the forest service have remarked about the unusual size a time or two. I don’t know why they were concerned, they had everything on their truck any good firefighter could want (both times).

 After years of practice I know how to avoid carrying unnecessary items. Like bug spray, I never carry bug spray. Green leaves on the campfire put out a cloud of smoke that bugs just can’t take. You just have to remember to step outside the cloud before you pass out. And smoked watermelon slices are a very underrated bedtime snack (though if you don’t do it right it’s kind of hard to tell the bugs from the seeds). And the dried juice in your beard does seem to attract small critters on an overnighter.

 And coffee pots, I never carry coffee pots. You can easily just throw a handful or two of coffee into a small pan and boil away. A clean sock works fine as a strainer to get the used grounds out of your drink. But in a pinch any sock will do. And after a couple of days all you have to do is boil your sock to make your coffee (the coffee stains only take a week or so to wear off your feet).

 So you see, I am a very accomplished outdoorsman and quite capable of pulling off a great float trip.

But I do have to admit I enjoy it a lot more when my wife is in charge,    

A Time to Worry

 The rock was the first thing he saw as he opened his eyes. It was a tall slender spire and the rising sun sat square atop it like a great blazing lighthouse still surrounded by the darkness lower down. That was when Arney knew he had been here before and that was when the weight in his stomach seemed to turn to stone.

 He stretched sore muscles and rubbed the sand from his face and wanted to wash the grit from his eyes and his teeth. But that took water. He felt the grains imbedded in his skin like a thousand needles and now he worried.

 It had been most of a week ago, give or take, he remembered, when he had awoke beneath this same pillar of stone. He had been traveling with other two miners headed for the Nevada silver country, the Comstock they were beginning to call it.

 He and his companions had stopped here beneath the lighthouse rock, taking a break and getting their bearings. It was a wild, rough, dry country and dangerous. It seemed to Arney that the only things that thrived around here were out to get you.

 The “Sand Eating Savages”, that’s what the old man had called them, they topped the list. How else the old man had said, could they live out here? Anyway they were leaving tracks and sign all around. Even the rattlesnakes seemed more cantankerous than normal. And they were as thick as the old man’s hair used to be. That’s how he’d put it anyway, Arney remembered with a wry smile. Damn, he thought, he’d liked that old man.

 That day the three had ridden out to look for the small spring, by a large butte where they planned to lay up for a real rest. As it turned out it was the final rest for his companions. As they camped at the spring, Arney had ridden out for a simple look-see at the surrounding country. And what he’d seen of it convinced him that just maybe the rattlesnakes were the best part of it.

 At least, in a pinch, you could eat them if they didn’t set their teeth into you first. Away from the spring it was all just rocks and sand and more of the same.

 Then he’d returned and found his companions, minus their hair and shot full of arrows.

 That was a hard thing to look on. They hadn’t been together long, but when you’re riding this kind of trail, any companion counts. And these two had stood the test well. To look on them like this, killed and cut so bad they were hardly worth burying, that left a hole in a man’s heart like it was him that was shot.

 Their packs were scattered and their horses were gone and the small spring was tinged red with blood. Even this small oasis had become an evil place in a hot and hellish land.

 He had set out then hoping he was headed in the right direction. He’d had a full canteen and a rested horse. But the only one who really knew the trail was buried back by the spring.

 So he had ridden alone for a day, carefully watching his back trail. He’d avoided the rocks and ridges, wary of ambush. He gave a wide berth to anything large enough to hide an Indian.

 It wasn’t fear, he told himself but caution that guided him now. Yes a man in these straits needed a healthy dose of caution. But deep down he knew, fear rode with him now.

 Arney thought about how he had arrived in these straits. A wish for wealth in the silver fields was his excuse. But that really wasn’t it, he knew. It was more a simple wish for change. An excuse to travel a new trail, to see things he hadn’t had goaded him on. The silver fields and then on to San Francisco had been his plan a week ago. Now to just see another day was what he hoped for.  

 So he made poor time and covered less distance than he had planned. But that night he was still alive. He still had his horse and his canteen was still three quarters full. All in all he figured he couldn’t complain.

 The next day the wind had picked up and the sand began to blow. He had holed up among some rocks to dodge the storm but it had blown for two days before it stopped.

 Somewhere in the blinding blowing hell of fly sand, sometime during the forty eight hours he had spent sweating and choking beneath his slicker, trying to breath air instead of dust, his horse had wandered away. And when the wind had gone so had any tracks. Now he was afoot, lost and down to a few good swallows of water. Complaints he’d guessed were justified. But there was no one to hear.

 So yesterday he had walked, not sure of the way and when night had fallen he’d just kept walking. Hell, he’d thought, when you’re already lost what’s left to lose?

 He’d walked and then stumbled as the weariness overtook him. He’d swallowed his water and forced himself on until even the rattlers didn’t matter much anymore. Sometime during the night he’d just stopped and slept. Weariness was a good pain killer.

 So now here he lay. Dawn breaking over the rock that looked like a lighthouse. No friends left. No horse, no water, no help.

 A pair of quail flushed from somewhere nearby and he heard the soft scuffling sounds of moccasins on rock. Many pairs from all around.

 Yes he thought grimly, now might just be the time to worry.

 

Voodoo, Witchcraft and winning a Race

In a week or so the time to sign up for the 2015 running of the MR340 will have arrived. As a past competitor it’s time for me to again contemplate the race and what it means.

 When I think of this 10th running of the world’s longest non-stop canoe race I tend to think of the past nine years more than the coming tenth.

 I think mostly of the friends I have made because of this race. Some are one time entrants, some have competed since the beginning. But all are special people that have made my life richer by their presence.

 I’ve been there and done that. I know what all must endure to achieve success (Ok the success part is a stretch for me). I’m proud to stand shoulder to shoulder with this group and look around and realize I am one of them, I have competed and I belong here.

 My problem is while many have accomplished greatness in this circle and even though I have tried, I have achieved only the greatest degree of mediocrity. What, I wonder has separated me from the level of competition my friends have succeeded in reaching? I know it isn’t simple strength. I’ve been beaten by smaller and weaker paddlers (I’ve been whupped by girls too).

 I know many have better technique but that can’t make all the difference. I’m not that uncoordinated.

Many are younger but I’ve been whipped soundly by some real geezers as well. It can’t be time on the water, I’ve played on and in this greatest of rivers nearly all my life. I don’t fall for bad advice because I seldom listen anyway. So what I ask, have I done so wrong.

 I’ve heard the Texans talk about only eating when they encounter a competitor. But I didn’t really believe them. I’ve heard guys nonchalantly discuss how they stayed awake for 40 hours straight. But I can’t say that’s the truth because while they were supposedly doing this I was napping on a sand bar somewhere.

 I don’t have as nice a boat or fancy a paddle as some but I don’t paddle junk either. So I think somehow I’m missing something. Like maybe a secret meeting where witchcraft and spells are involved.

 Or maybe the one where a voodoo priest puts a hex on those not buying a magic charm.

I’ve wondered how all the winners do it and I realize its mostly by getting there first. But their secrets continue to elude me So I tried narrowing it to the things I don’t know about.

 Like space aliens. I don’t know a lot about space aliens so maybe that’s my problem.

 Is it possible I ask myself, do Chuck and Di really live in the Ozarks as they claim, or are they from “Out there?” Is Wally really from Illinois? Is Illinois the name of his mother ship? Are those pesky Texans from south of Oklahoma or north of the moon? And the list goes on and on. Are there really two Anderson brothers or is one a clone? Does Carter really have a time machine hidden below his deck? I didn’t even know one of those would fit in there.

 The list of paddlers who achieve near legendary status on my river is growing by the year and here I sit near the back of the pack not losing much ground but never winning, just whining.

 Katie and Robyn both have the ability make me look like one of those geezers (but not the fast ones).

 Am I surrounded by more advanced life forms? That is an unsettling thought.

 Sure I know these guys and ladies aren’t really supermen/women. I saw West fail to finish once but

suspiciously it was a year when I didn’t compete. And I’ve always thought that for that to happen either gunfire or a freeze beam had to be involved. But I wasn’t there! I didn’t see it. Scotty might have just beamed him up by accident. I just don’t know.

 I have a suspicion Shane would still beat me if he had a rocking chair on that paddleboard.  Bryan and Joe teamed up to beat me but even so I’m pretty sure the guy in the stern napped a lot.

 So many great paddlers compete, so many good paddlers have become great. So I’m breaking my own tradition and asking for advice. Does anyone know a reputable voodooer?

Promises, Promises

 Long thin streamers of clouds hung, draped across the sky as the gentle breeze pulled lightly at their tails and drew them ever so slowly toward the horizon. Slim white lines in a sky so blue that it fairly glowed. And beneath the great blue dome lay the spring prairie, bright green, and flecked with brown stalks of last year’s grass still showing through.

 She turned slowly and realized there was nothing else to see and a fear began to rise. She’d walked only a hundred yards from her doorway, but even this near, the low dugout cabin with the tamped dirt floor and the hard mud walls and the grass covered sod roof was invisible.

 How could she ever survive here, she wondered. But how could she ever leave? Her husband had ridden off to the south ten days ago. And he was three days over due now and that was long enough to mean trouble. He’d be back he had promised her and he had always kept his promises. But she worried about him and prayed for him, and now she was worrying and praying for herself too.

 Raised in the Missouri hill country, this flat Kansas land was as foreign to her as would be the streets of Chicago or New York and the lost feeling in her breast was growing, the hollowness was turning to fear.

 She retraced her steps over the gentle rise and stopped. There was the door to the dugout with the shallow hand dug well nearby. A few paces away lay the plow. their most prized possession as yet unused. Three hens and a rooster scratched in the dirt near the door, these were her only companions, and she hated them for their insolence.

 You can’t talk to a chicken any easier than a door post she thought. But between them they at least had something. Maybe just companionship or a miniature society of their own. She didn’t know what the chickens had but at least they weren’t alone, they had each other. No, only she was alone. Her world had become such a small place in a universe of grass and sky.  

 Finally on the eleventh day the fear crystallized and the thoughts couldn’t be suppressed any longer. And her imagination began to work. There were indians on these plains, and gunmen in the town. There were prairie dog holes that could snap a horse’s leg and rattlers.

There was always fever and disease and there was the law. Any of them could spell doom for her husband. Any of them could sentence her to death by proxy. But he’d be back, he had promised her a new life and he had always kept his promises.

 Coming out here had seemed like a fine idea at the time. The war was over and former Confederates were being hunted like outlaws back in Missouri. Here on the plains, here her husband said, they could start fresh. They would rebuild what they had lost. They would have a home, safe and insulated by time and distance from the past, It would be a whole new world, he had promised her.

But now as she stood on the rise behind the dugout, hopefully scanning the horizon, that insulating blanket of time and space began to suffocate her.

 She looked at the marks scratched on the door post and counted them for what must have been the tenth time that day. Thirteen days since her husband had left. Thirteen days since she had heard any sound except the wind and the chickens. And she looked into the yard before the door. There were two hens now and a rooster scratching and clucking and rooting out the bugs on which they survived. One of the hens hadn’t come in last night to the lean-to coop on the side of the dugout. She didn’t know what had gotten it. It could have been a hawk or a fox, maybe a coyote or a snake. But she knew her world had shrunk again, smaller by a hen than it had been before.

 On the eighteenth day she realized that for sometime now she hadn’t seen even a cloud. She now lived in a world without the color white. She surveyed the plains and saw that the grass had grown and last years dead stems were no longer visible. The loss of the tan streaks on the prairie made the land seem even wider and more featureless than before. She sat down on the doorsill on a bright, clear, warm afternoon and cried until dark.

 Three weeks after her husband had left, two days after the last chicken had disappeared, she tried to remember which direction he had gone, but now her world was shrinking one memory at a time. She tried to picture his face but it wasn’t clear. To remember his voice and realized how foreign even her own sounded now and she sat down to cry again. Only this time there were no tears and the only sound in her world was the wind.

 Six weeks after her husband had left, the two Cheyenne warriors sat their mounts and stared in wonder at the white woman lying in the grass before them. She looked hungry, dirty and lost. Her clothes were stained and torn, ragged and revealing. She slept a troubled sleep, that they could see, but how had she gotten here? Cradled by the tall grass as she was, they had nearly ridden over her before they had seen her.

 There was no trail here that they could see. There were no riders or ranches in this area. No road ran through these hills, no town was within days of this place.

 She woke but didn’t resist when they placed her on a mount behind the smaller warrior. She said nothing when they turned toward their camp.

 Her husband had promised her hadn’t he? A new start, in a different world, and he nearly always kept his promises.   

A Summer Night's Tale

I've just returned and I've a tale to tell

of an Ozark trip that I remember so well.

You can believe it or not, but I've no reason to lie.

And to make it all up? Well, I'm just not that sly.

  We had pulled the canoes up onto the gravel bar and began to unload our gear.

Joe dug out the tents and sleeping bags while I began to rattle up wood for the fire. It would be a race to get one going before dark as the sun settled behind the tall Ozark ridge to the west.

Bill and Doug were sorting through the food box and cooler looking for the cheese and summer sausage that would be our evening meal. 
  We tended to scrimp a bit at night in favor of large hot breakfasts to carry us through the day, with nuts and jerky and fruit scattered about in place of a noon day meal.

  And we were enjoying the cool evening air here in the valley of the Meramec River.

As we stoked the fire and settled down to rub the aches from shoulders and backs not used to twelve hour shifts of paddling the campfire banter began. 
  But it was immediately interrupted.

Out of the brush lining the riverbank shuffled a strange figure. Moving slowly but deliberately towards our small fire. His dress was a bit ragged and worn. His complexion grey and deeply lined. But he had a wiry tough look that seemed to hide a certain physical power easily missed at first glance.

  He stopped short of the fire and held out his hands as if to draw the heat toward him. And slowly surveyed the four of us.

  We were all confused by his presence. Miles from any road we knew of and with no boat apparent, I wondered from where he had come.

  Doug, recovering first, asked the apparition ”Can we help you sir?” And I’ll admit I was kind of surprised when finally he deemed to answer.

  The odd fellow was of indeterminate age but his voice seemed old and deep.

“Tis an evil place you’ve choose to light” he responded. “Never been a good thing happened on this here site.”

  "What do you mean?" Joe demanded.

  The stranger again surveyed our group before he answered.

“There was four men camped here once before. It didn’t go well for them” a pause, and then “That was 1864” he said. Another pause, longer this time and then “What is the date.... now I mean?” he asked.

  “July 10th” Doug answered.

  “And the year?” the ragged man asked.

  With a pause of his own Doug answered, “2014” as we all looked oddly at the man.

He took the words in and slowly, silently shook his head.  

  I had begun to feel a cold discomfort as he spoke. My stomach was slowly going sour and a chill crept up my back. I turned to face the woods from which he’d come and backed closer to the fire.

  “What are you saying anyway?” Joe again challenged the stranger.

The stranger shuffled a bit to his right and around the fire. He pointed to the high riverbank and said, “It was there they stood when they fired their guns.”

  We all were looking at the woods now.

  “Four men sat here on the gravel and two were killed outright.” he continued. And after a pause he spoke again, “Bushwackers they were”.
Another short pause, and then finished quietly with “Damned rebels.”

  We were becoming consumed with his tale. And the fellow continued as he stepped again farther around the fire.

  “One fellow, Davy Burns was his name, jumped and ran but he was hit low in the back and fell over yonder by the water.”

Our eyes followed his outstretched arm as he waved to where our canoes sat on the beach.

Again we looked this odd fellow over. He seemed so sure of this tale that he he told.

  He repeated his warning “This ain’t a good place to camp”. Again he was silent a moment before continuing.

  “They come down off the bank and grabbed the fourth fellow and held him while they hashed out what little future he had."

“Took’em only a few minutes to plan the hangin”. his voice now seemed to drip with regret.

  But he seemed to project such a knowledge as he spoke no one dared challenge him now.

Again he thrust out a long arm and pointed to a spot higher on the bank.

  “Was there where that willow grows now” he said, “though at the time there was a big ‘ol Chestnut stood there. As purty a tree as as ever you beheld”. he said with what almost seemed pride.

  And as we all sat with our backs now to the stranger, we looked at the spot he had indicated, silently visualizing the lynching right here near our little camp.

  After a bit I was the first to speak. “How is it you know such a story Oldtimer?” 

And from behind us the gravelly voice rumbled “Because I was the fourth man to die that night.”

  As the weight of his words slowly sank in we turned in unison to look at the man.

But our visitor was nowhere to be seen. The beach lay empty. The boats were untouched and the river stretched as calm as glass in the late twilight..........
  

  We gathered as dawn broke over another gravel bar on the Meramec River. The four of us stood, exhausted in a silent circle.
   Gratefully we welcomed the early sun and nervously remembered last evenings apparition.

  Still now we were almost afraid to talk. Still we didn't know just what to think. But thankful we were to be together. Relying on each other for strength or courage or possibly confirmation or maybe just companionship.

  But thirty odd miles downstream of the bar we were; from where the ambush had taken place.