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| Full moon over the White River at Batesville |
It all started with a phone call. My buddy had gone out after work to fish a nearby bayou. There's this mysterious "pipe" you see that we have actually been OVER in a boat...but it still retains its mystery and we talk about getting "over" it like an inmate would talk of escape. He tried to go "over" it today...and was not quite successful.
As I said...it all started with a phone call.
“Be on standby, dude, “ I heard him say. “You may have to come get me.” I knew who it was before I answered, but I never expected it to be those words. This is the guy who was born with a piece of rope in his hands, already tied into a neatly configured bowline knot before he exited the womb. One of THOSE guys. Lifelong Boy scout. Eagle Scout nonetheless. On one particular trip together, in my boat at the time, he single-handedly rescued a boat full of crazed drunken people with nothing but half an anchor rope and a Zippo lighter. He IS the real-life Macgyver. I would rather be stranded in a nuclear holocaust with no other person. So...to hear the words, “You may have to come get me” from him was a bit strange. But it got stranger still.
“The current is pulling me, and I still have my trolling motor, but I don’t have enough battery. Not to mention it’s getting dark.”
“What’s wrong with your Merc?, “ I asked him. He was also known to be meticulous with anything motorized. He was also a walking Auto-Parts-Store mechanic.
“It just won’t start. I took up up and down the river a few times before I hit the bayou...it started a bit funky, but leveled right on out. But it won’t crank at all. I’m gonna give it another shot, but I don’t wanna ruin my battery--I’ll have to use it to get her on the trailer”
“No problem, man...I’ll be right here, “ I ended the call and immediately began finding something warm to wear. Now would be a good time to introduce some facts about this newly-developing situation. The ramp is located about 100 yards upstream from the dam. Not a Hoover Dam type dam...not even Greers Ferry or Norfork...this is a White River dam and the water pretty much just flows right on over. Of course, especially at the level it’s at now, there would be no surviving if one’s boat happened to be sent spiraling over it. This was a point of concern at the moment, because he had no motor. He was going to depend on his trolling motor (so small in stature next to that monstrous 90 horsepower sitting like a lump of jet black coal on the back of his aluminum tub. It would be up to me and a 45 pound thrust MotorGuide to keep his boat from one last joyride--over the dam.
By the time, he called back, I had already found and donned my coveralls, coat, boots, and thrown together some flashlights and duct tape. Let me add here that I don’t function well in emergencies. I make a GREAT assistant. As the second-in-command, I take orders, I listen, and I follow instructions. And I do those things very well. So what good would duct tape do me? I don’t know...but it’s a pattern in my life. When I’m summoned to help someone in need...be it on the water, in the woods, or on the interstate, I usually grab most things that would come in handy. But there’s always one thing that I see...like an impulse purchase in the checkout line...that I put in my pocket on the way out the door. And that object never has any relevance to the task at hand. None whatsoever. Tonight it was a roll of duct tape. In the past, it’s been a deck of cards, or a dull knife. When rolling out the door once to help a friend on the side of the road with a flat tire, I grabbed a baseball bat. When I stepped out of the truck wielding a Louisville Slugger, my friend asked me, “What in the name of all things holy did you bring a bat for?”
“It just seemed appropriate. I’ll be over here with my flashlight and bat if you need anything”
So tonight was no different. With boat in tow, lights on the ready, and duct tape, I made my way to the ramp.
I hate this ramp with everything in me. It’s steep and hard to navigate--there are tire-destroying creatures (scientific name: BigRockius Sharpius) on both sides of the concrete slabs and a whirling slough of muddy water to sink your trailer into. When you finally do deposit your craft safely, the whole chute is lined with prop-eating, fiberglass-chewing boulders lining both sides.
Trailer in...boat off...motor started...boat onto ramp...truck parked...boat in reverse....pulling out of the chute....boat spinning.....I drive terribly in reverse...turn in 7 circles trying to get out into the channel while not destroying boat.
Escape. River. Current. Dam. Damn! Start motor, make way to bayou.
Now it’s easy. Driving, cool air. Feels like an adventure. It’s almost twilight out, but there are no bugs. It’s beautiful. I think of a newly-discovered individual that works professionally in just such environments as a guide, and how much he would like the air, the water, and the feeling. Of course, he’s seen sunrise and sunset in Alaska. Still...I think they are all special...we only get the opportunity to see so many. They are a finite resource in our lives.
I make my way into the bayou, around corners, skimming over brushpiles and dodging overhangs until I can make out his boat in the waning light. It’s only a silhouette--I see a shape of a boat rather than the boat, then I slowly make out his almost 7’ tall frame arise from the boat that’s drifting on the bayou current as it takes the water out to the river proper.
“Hello buddy,” I call out to him with a smile. He’s smiling back, which is good news. This individual, when angry, is not a force to be reckoned with. I’m glad he’s happy, even though I know he’s pissed. If he’s smiling, then I am pretty sure that we are going to make out alive.
I tossed him the rope and he did his magical Eagle Scout knotology on it, and connected him bow to my stern. We sat and talked for a few minutes--and it’s during those small moments that life-changing things happen. I’m not saying my life changed--it’s just at that very moment, I was there because he needed me...it was still and quiet on the water, a slight breeze was coming in over the river, settling into what would eventually become a fog. I’m glad he didn’t ask to stay out there...I would have stayed in a heartbeat. It was so peaceful, and even though my sole purpose there was to tow him back in, it just felt like the whole universe was aligned the right way for a change. His bad luck for his motor evil behavior, sure...but sometimes things are as we make them. And in that very moment...things really weren’t all that bad.
I cranked up and made a looping circle across the width of the bayou and he followed me. I could barely hear anything over my outboard, but he would shout directions from time to time, like “Keep ‘er straight,” or “Pull it like it’s your boat trailer.” He knew what I knew and didn’t know, and he also knows (whether he admits it or not) that if he had told me to jump and swim back to his boat, I would have done so, and wouldn’t have given it a second thought. I trust him. So he knew what things to tell me to make this whole thing end peacefully
By the time we made it to back to the river channel, the full moon was showing herself quite nicely (as you can probably tell by the pictures...even though pictures cannot capture accurately what the scene really felt like). She was riding low in the sky tonight, and her light was a firm yet pale yellow that bathed the traffic from the bridge and the park beyond. It wasn’t far back to the ramp, but I sure felt at that moment that I could have stared at the scene for an eternity.
We made it safely back into the chute and between the two of us, trailered both boats and parked them side-by-side in the parking lot and between strapping, checking, and wrapping them up for the drive home, we talked of fishing past and future...fish caught and those that got away. We talked about the moon and about being out again soon. Eventually, both boats were tucked in tightly and in a eons-old ritual of two men talking while leaning on either side of a boat, we talked for a few more moments. We work together, so there was no great need or desire to linger, and with a “See you in the morning, “ we circled the empty parking lot that looked out over a city park bathed in moonlight. Usually on warm nights, you can see people coming and going, but this night was a more bare park crowd. Only in the distance could you see a handful of smaller children with neon-glow hula hoops spinning magical circles around their waists. Even they disappeared into the darkness as two trailers left two paths of river water dripping from them--in my side mirror, I could see the moonlight as it washed over the parking lot, and I could those two trails as the water glowed almost golden in the moon.
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