The river had a name. The name was Big. It was the Big River, though nobody ever called it the Big like they might say the Mississippi or the Missouri. Mostly people just called it the river if they called it anything. When Jaybird thought about it, which he did now and then, he always wondered why it was named the Big River because whatever else you could say about this river, you could not say that it was big. Calm maybe, or peaceful ... that was how Jaybird thought of the river ... not big. Here at Giessow's Cottage Farm the river was narrow enough that even Jaybird could almost throw a rock all the way across to the other side. How could you call that big?
But calm and peaceful was not how Phil and Jaybird found the Big River at this time. Following the mountain stream down the hill toward the river, they could hear the sound of rushing water before they saw it, blocked from view as it was by Sweet Gum, Paw Paw, and Sycamore trees. When they did see it Jaybird shuddered at the sight. Following the previous night's thunderstorm, the river was far out of its banks ... a raging torrent of muddy brown water carrying sticks, logs, tree branches, and even pieces of furniture ... Jaybird saw a wooden chair, in the sitting position, rush past. Where normally it was maybe 100 to 150 feet to the opposite bank at its widest spot, now it was at least 300 feet across. Jaybird could see that the water across the way on the opposite side of the river was up into Farmer Huskey's cornfield. There was no farmland on this side of the river as the land rose quickly to the high bluffs where Grampa Giessow's cottages were located.
Jaybird liked the feel of the soft squishy mud oozing up between his toes though he was not too crazy about the musty smells rising from the muddy ground. Noting the high water line marked by the soft mud Jaybird was wallowing in Phil said, "She's fallin'."
Phil was right, the water level was receding. In contrast to long and persistent Spring rains which caused the river to flood for days at a time, Summer thunderstorms raised and lowered the water in the Big River as quickly as filling and emptying a bathtub.
"Your daddy got a trotline along here anywhere?" Phil asked.
Jaybird was proud to say he did. "He's got more than one ... him and my Uncle George. They got some drop lines too."
"We goin' to wait some while this water goes down," said Phil, "then we'll check them trot lines." He sat down on a thick Sycamore log which was splayed out over the muddy ground.
Jaybird didn't think that was such a good idea. Of all the plentiful taboos connected with Giessow's Cottage Farm, running another man's trotline was close to the top of the list. Jaybird remembered the time his dad had caught somebody running his line. He had never seen his dad so angry; he was afraid his dad was going to kill the guy.
"My daddy says there ain't nothin' worse in the whole world than to run somebody else's trotline," said Jaybird.
Phil shook his head. "They's worse things," he said.
Jaybird waited for Phil to tell him what was worse than running somebody else's trotline, but Phil did not elaborate. Jaybird thought about his own worse-thing-in-the-world list. Outhouses. He felt a touch of nausea.
Phil and Jaybird sat on the log watching the water rush by. The high water was receding quickly and it wasn't long before they were able to walk through the mud to the normal bank of the river.
"You know how to swim, Jaybird?" asked Phil.
Jaybird could swim, but he wasn't very good at it. He couldn't swim with his glasses on and there was always the problem of where to put them if he went into the water. Without his glasses everything was blurry and out of focus. But in spite of this difficulty the river, when it wasn't running wild like it was now, was like an old friend to Jaybird. He came here with his mom and dad late in the afternoon two or three times a week, and every day in July and August when the summer sun scorched the Farm and by the end of the day everybody smelled like a locker room. His mom had all these wise sayings ... "cleanliness is next to godliness" was one of her favorites, but Jaybird had the impression that more than cleanliness was involved when his mom scrubbed behind his ears with her Ivory Soap. Ivory Soap was a cherished item at Giessow's Cottage Farm, the women liked it because it didn't sink in the river, and the men liked it because it was a cheap and effective bait to attract the big catfish to their trotlines. In July and August at Giessow's Cottage Farm it was not unusual for afternoon temperatures to hit the high 90s and often spill over the 100 degree mark. When he wasn't busy building his cottages, Grampa Giessow had found time to pour a path of concrete leading down to the river, which included 180 cement steps covering the steepest part of the hill. In the hot summer months skipping down those 180 steps to the river was the highlight of the day. The trudge back up those steps was the price.
Jaybird was daydreaming about cool dips in the Big River and water fights with the rest of the kids when he felt a nudge and heard Phil repeating his question. "Wake up Jaybird," he said, " I asked if you could swim."
Jaybird blinked. " I ain't no fish," he answered, " but I reckon I can swim all right." He looked at Phil suspiciously. "What you got in mind Phil? I don't reckon I could swim very far in this high water."
Phil did have something on his mind. "We need to get some of that there corn over there." He pointed to Farmer Huskey's cornfield on the opposite side of the river.
For a frantic moment Jaybird thought Phil was going to shove him into the river. Thinking fast, he said, "What about them trotlines?"
Phil's face lighted up. "Yeah," he said eagerly, "them trotlines. Is they somewhere along here?"
Jaybird had a pretty good idea where his daddy's trotline was because he had been here only a few days before helping his dad bait the hooks. Jaybird also knew that you couldn't run a trotline, which stretched from one side of the river to the other, without a boat. Looking out at the fast-running water and then at the eager Phil, Jaybird had a sinking feeling. Even with the world's best boat equipped with the world's best high-powered outboard motor they would not be a match for this raging river. "Ain't no way," he said.
Phil was splashing through puddles of water and squishy mud moving upriver along a crude path a few feet away from the river bank. Jaybird hesitated, thinking the smart thing for him to do would be to head off in the opposite direction and get away from this guy Phil who was beginning to look to him like some kind of nutcase. Jaybird headed off after Phil.
"Looky there, Jaybird."
Jaybird looked where Phil was pointing. He saw a rope about the size of a clothes line tied to a sycamore tree branch hanging a few feet out over the river; the taut line was vibrating like a plucked guitar string.
"They's a pretty nice fish on that there line, Jaybird, and we's goin' to get it." Phil rubbed his hands together in eager anticipation.
"How we goin' to get it?" Jaybird asked. Jaybird was pretty good at solving problems, but the only way he could see to collect whatever it was that was making that line twitch was to wait a couple of days for the river to calm down then get a boat and run the line in the usual way, one hook at a time.
Phil seemed to be in a hurry. He crawled out on the sturdy branch, clamped his legs around it, and reached down to grab the line. He started to pull. "Come on Jaybird," he said, "gimme a hand here."
"How'm I goin' to do that, Phil? They ain't room on that there branch for me and you both. And besides, you cain't pull that there line loose from the other side of the river."
Phil let go of the line and lay flat out on his stomach clutching the branch in a tight embrace. "It's a big one, Jaybird," he said, "I could feel it pull. We got to haul it in."
"It's a good thing you is skinny, Phil," said Jaybird seeing the branch almost touching the water under Phil's weight, "otherwise you'd be down in the water with the fish." Jaybird couldn't resist the temptation to laugh at the image of Phil hanging onto that branch with the water flowing over him.
Phil inched his way back along the branch until he could drop back down onto solid but soupy ground. "Come on Jaybird," he said, "we got to find us a boat. They's a monster catfish hooked up to that there trotline and we's goin' to get it."
Jaybird knew where Grampa Giessow's summer customers kept their boats down here by the river.
"Come on," he said, "the boats are down this way, close to the dock." He started to run among the sycamore trees along the path leading down river, the soft mud feeling good under his bare feet. Jaybird never walked when he could run.
Phil tried to keep up. "Hey, Jaybird, slow down," he yelled, "what's the damn rush?"
Soon Jaybird came to a clearing under the trees next to the place where the wooden dock was supposed to be. But there was no dock, it was either gone or totally submerged by the high water, Jaybird couldn't be sure which. Jaybird remembered his dad and his Uncle George working under water to help build that dock. Off to his right was the path leading to Grampa Giessow's concrete staircase, and alongside that path were three boat racks. The boat racks were crude wooden constructions that allowed small rowboats to be stacked off the ground. Each rack provided space for three boats, one above the other. Jaybird saw two boats on the racks and two lying bottom up on the ground near the racks. He looked around for oars but did not see any.
Phil came puffing up. "Ahm too old for that kind of runnin' Jaybird," he said, gasping for breath.
"They's only one boat that ain't chained and locked, and there ain't no oars that I could see," said Jaybird.
Phil shook his head. "We don't need no oars," he said, "which one is the boat?"
Jaybird pointed to one of the boats lying on the ground. "That one right there," he said, "I don't know if it'll even hold water, it looks pretty old."
Phil examined the boat. It was an old wooden johnboat, about 8 feet long and 4 feet across at its widest point. It was lying upside down in high grass as though it had been forgotten or more likely, abandoned. "This boat ain't seen no water for a long spell," Phil pronounced, "come on Jaybird, let's give it a lift."
Jaybird reached for one end of the boat and tried to lift it. With all the strength he could gather he only managed to raise it a few inches. "I cain't do it, Phil," he said, "it weighs a ton."
Phil was undaunted. "Never mind," he said, "we can drag it. Come on." With a great effort he turned the heavy boat over and started to pull it along the ground toward the river.
Jaybird helped as best he could. After a few strenuous yards he asked, "You sure this is a good idea, Phil?"
Phil seemed to be excited. "Sure it is, Jaybird," he said, "we goin' to get us a big ol' catfish. It'll be just grand, you'll see."
The mid morning July sun was beginning to have its effect, even down here by the cool banks of the river, and before long Jaybird and Phil were drenched in perspiration from their labors. Jaybird released his hold on the boat and sat heavily on the muddy underbrush next to the river path. Then he lay back flat out on the ground. "I'm pooped," he said.
Phil continued to drag the boat for a short distance, but finally stopped and sat on the boat. "We almost there, Jaybird," he said.
Jaybird knew they were doing a bad thing ... that trotline belonged to somebody else, in fact he was almost sure it belonged to his dad. The more he thought about it, the more he wanted to get up and run away from Phil, but something held him back. Maybe it was the prospect of that big fish., maybe it was something else. He stood and walked slowly toward the boat. "Yeah," he said, "we almost there. What we goin' to do when we get there?"
"We goin' to put this here boat into that there water," Phil pointed to the river, " and then we goin' to get us that big ole catfish. I thought you knew that, Jaybird."
"I knew what you was tryin' to do," Jaybird said, "but it still looks to me like it's a plum crazy idea because that there water is runnin' too fast even if we had oars, which we ain't."
Phil shook his head. "Naw, you worryin' too much Jaybird, look at that there river, it ain't runnin' near as fast as it was. We goin' to get that fish easy as pie. Come on." He started to pull the boat again.
Soon they reached the still twitching trotline. Phil started to ease the boat toward the water. The river had fallen to the point where it was no longer bank full, but it was still running faster than normal.
"Now here's what we goin' to do, Jaybird," said Phil. "Ahm goin' to hang onto this here trotline and pull us along, and you sit up there in the front of the boat and check the hooks as we move along. Can you do that, Jaybird?"
"Sure I can, " said Jaybird.
Phil got the boat into the water at last and stood unsteadily, gripping the line with both hands as Jaybird scrambled aboard. But Phil had made a major miscalculation. The fast current quickly swung the front of the boat downstream. Jaybird saw what was happening and began to crawl along the bottom of the boat towards Phil. It did not take him long to realize that the boat was taking on water. "It's leakin', Phil," he called out.
Phil had his hands full trying to hold onto the line. "Come on, Jaybird," he yelled, "git on up here and grab a holt of this here line."
When Jaybird finally pulled himself up alongside Phil, and managed to get his hands on the rope, the two of them held tight, water beginning to pool around their feet, looking at each other and wondering what to do next. They didn't have long to wonder. The trotline, secured to the end of the Sycamore branch, was intended to withstand the weight of a few catfish, perhaps even a few big catfish, it was not designed to hold a bit more than 200 pounds of man and boy desperately hanging on, trying to keep a 75 pound boat from drifting aimlessly down the Big River on a swift current.
Phil saw too late what was happening although even if he had seen it sooner there was nothing he could do but watch in horror as the line began to slip along the branch, as if in slow motion, and soon enough detach itself from the branch. The boat, still tethered to the opposite shore, quickly swung out into the middle of the river, Phil and Jaybird hanging onto the 150 foot line for dear life.
Phil was laughing and yelling like a maniac. "Hang on Jaybird, we goin' for a ride."
It was a short ride, albeit fast and sweet. In less than a minute they swung all the way across the river and banged into the opposite bank, the length of the rope downstream from where it was attached. Phil was still laughing. Jaybird laughed too, partly because his initial terror had given way to a sense of relief that they seemed relatively safe out of the reckless current of the rushing river. He would worry later how to get back across the river to Giessow's Cottage Farm. For the moment he could do nothing but sit in this leaky boat hanging onto to the wet trotline with this odd companion, and wondering what to do next. "What we goin' to do now, Phil?" he asked.
Phil was still giggling over the wondrous ride across the river. It apparently had not yet occurred to him that something needed to be done. He looked at Jaybird as though he were seeing him for the first time. He seemed to have forgotten that they were holding onto one end of a trotline that held some kind of fish.
"What about them fish?" Jaybird asked.
Phil shook his head as if to clear it. "We goin' to get that big ole catfish," he said. Still holding the trotline tightly in both hands, he moved to the side of the boat toward the muddy bank the boat was pushed up against. He looked at the bank, then he looked at Jaybird. "We got to get up onto that there bank," he said.
Jaybird could see the problem that faced them. How to get from the boat to the bank while continuing to hang onto the trotline. The river was now dropping at a steady and fairly rapid rate. There was about a two foot drop, straight down from the top of the bank to the water. A few scraggly, recently submerged green bushes, coated with slimy mud, were growing out from the side of the bank. Phil reached for one of the bushes with his right hand while continuing to hold the line with his left hand. Jaybird could feel the extra pull of the line when Phil reached for the bush. He wasn't sure he was strong enough to hold the line by himself should Phil let go with his left hand also. "Can you hold it Jaybird?" asked Phil.
When Jaybird didn't answer right away, Phil jumped to the wrong conclusion at the same time that he let go of the line and tried to jump onto the bank. His foot slipped on the muddy bank and he was left hanging onto the slippery bush, his feet dragging in the water. Jaybird was taken by surprise at Phil's quick movement, and before he could do anything he felt the trotline slip from his grasp. Quick as a wink he found himself adrift on the river floating alone, out of control, and heading down river at a rapid rate. Moving quickly downstream, he caught a glimpse of Phil desperately hanging to the bush trying to pull himself up onto the bank. Phil was leaving his life as abruptly as he had entered it without even time to advise him: "I wouldn't do that if I was you, kid."
Jaybird didn't even have time to be afraid as he flashed by Grampa Giessow's dock and headed for that part of the river a quarter mile away where it narrowed and accordingly, due to some law of physics that Jaybird was not aware of, speeded up. Jaybird knew about these rapids though, he had been warned enough times by his mom to stay away from them. What he did not know, but was soon to find out, was that in this narrow part of the river the fast water flowed over a series of large rocks.
The old wooden boat hit the first rock with a thundering crash and broke into splinters. Jaybird was thrown into the air by the force of the impact and landed, arms and legs flailing, with a great splash flat on his back. It happened so fast that he was powerless to do anything, but after hitting the water he was fully aware of what had happened and instantly realized that he was underwater ... if he expected to get out of this mess alive he had better do something quick. He bobbed to the surface with a great effort and in the blurred and fuzzy way he could see without his glasses, noted that he had cleared the rocks and was being swept downstream at a rapid rate. Ahead he could make out what appeared to be the river curving around a point of land. He wondered what was waiting for him beyond the bend.
He struggled to keep his head above water. It was quickly apparent that swimming to the bank was out of the question, but Jaybird was an inventive 10-year-old, and it didn't take him long to discover that if he turned himself into an arrow by putting his extended palms together in front of him and stretching his legs out behind him, he could exert some control over the direction he was headed. His natural buoyancy held him on top of the water, and he was moving too fast to sink. He aimed for the point of land and sooner than he had expected found himself crawling like a frog through a mud bank. When at last he pulled himself up onto solid ground he was covered with a mass of brown sticky mud. It felt wonderful. In fact it felt so good that he rolled over back and forth a few times and finally lay exhausted, flat on his back looking up at the warm July sun slanting down through the Sycamore leaves.
Jaybird opened his eyes at what sounded like a loud grunt. He had no idea how long he had slept, but apparently it was long enough to attract the attention of a pair of Turkey buzzards. He sat up quickly, much to the surprise of the two large black birds with red heads who for some time had been eyeing him from ground level trying to decide if he was what he appeared to be ...a piece of dead meat. When he jumped to his feet, clapped his hands, and feinted toward them, they reluctantly took off in a flurry of flapping feathers and complaining squawks. Jaybird picked up a long black feather they had left behind and stood for a moment thinking about those vultures, and how close he had been to being buzzard meat. It occurred to him that if he didn't figure out a way to get out of the mess he was in he might very well end up that way. He was safe on land, but he didn't know where he was, and he was hungry and thirsty. He looked around hopefully, but all he saw was water on one side, trees and bushes on the other. He was startled by a chorus of cicadas that crescendoed from somewhere off to his left then quickly diminuendoed. A second chorus from the opposite direction soon followed. Jaybird had the feeling they were laughing at him., pathetic figure that he was. He was standing on a piece of the earth that no one had ever stood on before. He was alone in the universe with only buzzards and cicadas for company ... a forlorn mud-caked, nearsighted 10-year-old lump of flesh. But forlorn and pathetic as he might be, he also harbored a fierce determination to find his way back to civilization ... the vision of a tall root beer float danced in his head.
One thing was clear ... the way back to Giessow's Cottage Farm was upriver. How far upriver he couldn't guess. In his initial optimism, judging by how long he had been in the water, he thought it couldn't be too far. He was right about his time in the water ... a little short of 10 minutes, but time and distance are related to speed and although Jaybird knew he was moving fast, he did not know that the speed of the racing river approached a mile a minute. It was a long walk back to Giessow's Cottage Farm, to say nothing of the climb up the hill.
Instinctively Jaybird knew that the best chance to find his way back was to stick close to the river. If he did that he would sooner or later arrive at the dock area he was familiar with. Then he remembered that a mile or so downriver from the dock was the place they called Tie Chute where 50 years earlier men from the logging industry had built a stone slide to solve the problem of how to get freshly cut cedar logs down the steep hill to the river where they could be floated off to Morse's Mill 15 miles downstream.
Jaybird took a deep breath and headed for Tie Chute, the Big River rushing downstream unconcerned off to his right.