He and Mister Earl loaded two pigs into the back of the pickup and headed down to the pig sale on the border of Oklahoma and Kansas. The transaction was completed quickly, allowing them to reach their real destination in the late morning: The River.
They traveled down the same network of gravel roads, through the woods, to find a spot where they could fish.
“Let’s see.” Mister Earl scratched his face. “I think we’ll try somewhere a little different today.” He pulled a sharp left and headed down another trail. New budding branches brushed the top of the truck as they moved through the woods. They exited onto a large expanse where the Arkansas River was in plain sight, just a few hundred yards away. The tires rolled along the dirt road, crunching baby wildflower sprouts as they turned. They were about a football field’s length from The River when Mister Earl rolled to a stop.
“We’ll walk the rest of the way. I’m not sure if it’s going to be muddy up ahead.” He shut the engine off.
“Hear that?” he asked Gabriel. “It’s my favorite sound— nothing. Nothing but The River moving. You have to listen close to hear it, especially from here. Most folks don’t take time to get quiet long enough to listen.”
Mister Earl opened his door and took a deep breath. “Ahhh,” he said, stretching his arms. “You smell that, young man? It’s fish!”
Gabriel giggled as he pulled his knit cap on and climbed out of the truck. They untied their fishing poles, grabbed their buckets and bait, and headed toward The River. Mister Earl said it got easier to catch fish in warmer weather, but that didn’t guarantee them success. The older man led Gabriel toward a bend in The River.
“You go ahead and get set here, and I’ll go upstream a bit.”
Gabriel smiled. “Hey, that’s not fair. That means you’ll get to the fish first.”
“Aw, quit your bellyachin’,” he said with a matching grin.
They got set in their places and began to cast their lines into the moving water. All Gabriel could hear was the whirl of the fishing line with each cast. There was nothing around for miles.
Ten minutes later, Gabriel heard something in the distance—a low-pitched growl. They both heard it at the same time and turned to see what the noise was.
Gabriel turned toward the truck and spotted a large dog—or was it a wolf? His heart began to pound. The animal—a dog with a long, gray-colored coat with streaks of brown and black—had tucked its head down and was baring its razor white teeth, growling aggressively. The creature’s crystal blue eyes glared right at Gabriel. He pawed at the ground and hunched over, ready to launch like a racehorse in the gate.
“Don’t move, Gabriel. Just stay still,” Mister Earl said with a hushed sense of urgency in his voice.
“He’s looking at me, Mister Earl. He’s looking at me.” Gabriel felt panic rising in his throat.
“He’ll leave you alone. Just don’t move.”
The seconds seemed like minutes as the large dog had them pinned against The River. There was no way out. He began to bark and get even more aggressive as the white foam of his saliva dripped from his jowls.
“Mister Earl! Mister Earl!” Gabriel shouted frantically.
“Gabriel, no!”
The boy dropped his fishing pole and darted toward a tree about thirty yards away. He didn’t get two steps when the dog began to charge. Mister Earl dropped his pole and lumbered as quickly as he could after Gabriel.
Terror struck Gabriel’s heart as he realized that he couldn’t outrun the dog. He froze in place and cried out in fear. The ferocious animal was within ten yards of Gabriel when it stopped in its tracks and dove to the ground, shaking its head violently. Mister Earl picked up a large stick and ran toward the dog, ready to swing.
“Holy moly! It’s okay, Gabriel. It’s okay.” Mister Earl held up the stick while keeping a healthy distance from the dog, who was obviously distracted.
“It’s a rattler. That dog just saved your life.” The dog dropped the deadly viper and began to circle it as he licked his bloodied chops.
“I’ve never seen anything quite like that,” Mister Earl said.
Gabriel slowly regained his composure. “Is it dead?”
“Oh yeah, it’s in two pieces!”
The body of the snake stopped writhing. Mister Earl took a handkerchief out of his back pocket and reached down and picked up the headless body. Then he held up the carcass like a trophy.
“See? That dog took care of him.” The dog sat down on all fours and started wagging its tail.
“You gave us a good scare, boy,” Gabriel said, although he wasn’t about to pet the creature.
The dog licked his mouth and stood up. He slowly approached Gabriel in a supplicant manner, tail wagging in happiness. Gabriel remained still and allowed the dog to nuzzle his leg. Gabriel, who had been nervous, realized the dog wouldn’t hurt him. He stretched out his hand, which the dog licked.
“I guess he likes you!” Mister Earl smiled. The dog started to scamper around Gabriel, bucking playfully.
“You’re not so mean after all,” Gabriel said as he cautiously stroked the dog’s thick fur. “And you saved my life.”
After the snake incident, the two fishermen got back to fishing. The dog stayed glued to Gabriel’s side. Whenever the boy took a break to the truck, the dog followed. Whenever Gabriel waded into the stream, the dog stood alert on the riverbank. More than once, Mister Earl tried to shoo him away and send him home, but the dog wouldn’t leave.
“This dog has no collar. He probably doesn’t have a home,” Gabriel commented as they packed up their fishing gear.
“He’s probably a stray. By the looks of how he handled that snake, I’d say he’s pretty wild.”
“Mister Earl. . .”
“Don’t even think about it, young man.”
“Come on! You can see he likes me! He won’t be any trouble. I’ll take care of him.”
“That dog has mischief written all over him. I don’t want him after my chickens. Or worse yet, turning on you or the ladies.”
“We can make him a pen out back. I’ll feed him and. . . and if he steals a chicken, I’ll pay for it.”
“With what?”
“I’ll do extra chores. . . please?” Gabriel was relentless.
“Your momma will kill me.”
“I’ve never had my own animal before. Besides, he saved my life! We can’t just leave him out here by himself.”
Mister Earl walked back up to The River to rinse out one of the buckets. Gabriel sat patiently on the tailgate. When Mister Earl came back, the dog was lying next to the boy with his head resting on his lap, panting contentedly.
“Listen. If your momma says no, then he’s gotta go to the pound.”
“Yes, sir!”
Gabriel turned toward the dog. “Did you hear that? You’re going home with me!”
They finished putting the gear back in the truck along with the large canine. Time to head home.
“Just to be sure, when we get to the first town, we’re gonna need to post a couple of signs describing the dog we found in case there’s an owner who wants to claim him.”
“Okay. But he didn’t have a collar or anything.”
“It doesn’t matter. It’s the right thing to do. He ain’t yours until nobody claims him.”
After about thirty minutes of driving, they arrived in Kiowa, Kansas. Mister Earl wrote down a brief description of the dog and the farm’s telephone number and posted it at the local diner.
After another several minutes of silent driving, Mister Earl spoke up. “What are you going to name him?”
Gabriel thought for a moment. “What about Rio Sky?”
“That was fast. Where’d you come up with that?”
“Well, we found him at The River. Miss Collingsworth told me Rio is another word for river, and his eyes look like they have the sky in them. So Rio Sky will be his full name, but I’ll call him Rio for short.”
“I like it. Rio Sky it is.”
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After leaving another notice at an AFW Veteran’s hall, Mister Earl said, “I guess you’ve had quite a birthday.”
“Best I ever had.”
With a new fishing pole and his own dog, Gabriel couldn’t get enough of The River that spring and summer. New surprises were waiting for him with every visit. Everything was magical—the way The River sounded, the way it smelled, and the way it “spoke” as Mister Earl said it would. The River was constant and unceasing, yet it had a fresh creativity with each encounter. He now knew why Mister Earl used to say that a visit to The River was always worth the effort.
As for the dog, Maggie was skeptical at first, but Rio Sky became part of their small family after no one responded to Mister Earl’s signs. Once she saw how much Gabriel loved his dog, she knew he was an extraordinary gift. Rio gave Gabriel friendship and strength. Everyone could tell his confidence had grown, especially the boys at the pond. When they saw him with Rio, their respect level skyrocketed.
The best thing of all was that Rio Sky never turned Gabriel away. He always had time, and he always listened to everything Gabriel wanted to talk about—which was a lot.
NINE
The Phone Call
1971
TIME DIDN’T MOVE TOO QUICKLY DURING GABRIEL’S middle and high school years. Even though his teachers told him, “These are the best years of your life,” Gabriel felt like he was pedaling on a stationary bike—expending energy but not really going anywhere. He had his friends— especially Jimmy Bly, who’d stuck by him since grade school—but then life ground to a halt after he graduated from Cairo High.
From his vantage point, everyone but him moved on to better things. Many from the Class of ’69, including Jimmy, headed off to college or the big city to try their luck. Others apprenticed at the family business or worked the family farm, but Gabriel was stuck in downtown Cairo, working at the Five & Dime, stocking shelves and cleaning bathrooms.
His mother hadn’t saved any money for his higher education because she couldn’t, even after picking up a second job answering phones for an insurance agency in town. She worked several afternoons a week after the lunch crowd cleared out of the restaurant.
Mister Earl was aging into his eighties, and the fishing trips to The River were fewer and farther between. Miss Vonda was slowing down, period. Everyone was slowing down, and Gabriel languished as well.
For him, the sense of loneliness and isolation was unbearable at times, but he didn’t know how to unlock the chains. The grief, scars, and rejection that plagued his childhood and adolescence had led to on-again, off-again friendships with the other kids, but no deep friendships to rely on at the brink of adulthood.
When he could—if no one was around—Gabriel retreated into his thoughts. They were the only safe place in his life, the only place he could control. Indifferent to the world and his future, Gabriel plodded along, performing the same routines day in and day out: chores at the farm, cleaning up at the variety store, and little else. At twenty years of age, he was a shell of the person who came alive when he met the Magic River Man or when he caught his first catfish with Mister Earl.
“Gabriel, does the supply room look clean to you?” Fred Baggers, the store owner, interrupted Gabriel’s daydream.
“Uh, no, sir,” he replied. That was always the safe answer.
“I’m going to the post office and will be back in half an hour. I want everything spic and span by the time I get back.” Mister B, who had purchased the Five & Dime seventeen years ago, was a prickly, overweight bald man with an uneven mustache. He had a way of making folks feel like they were two feet tall.
Gabriel was heading over to the supply room to check things out when the store phone rang.
“Five and Dime,” Gabriel stated curtly.
“Is Gabriel Clarke there?” a confident male voice asked.
“Yeah. I’m Gabriel.”
“Hey, big guy. What are you doing?”
“Who is this?”
“Ah, come on. You don’t know? I’ll give you five bucks if you can guess.”
Gabriel was intrigued. No one ever called him at the store—or at the farm. Then something about the brusque voice tripped his memory.
“Jimmy?”
“Bingo!”
Gabriel smiled in disbelief. Jimmy Bly. They hadn’t talked much since Jimmy went off to college a couple of years ago.
The conversation quickly became one-sided as Jimmy regaled Gabriel on what life was like at the University of Kansas—the Jayhawks football games, the late nights, and the cute girls in the sororities. Jimmy was a pied piper of sorts. Ever since grade school, his friend had a certain way with people and went out of his way to include Gabriel in his circle.
“Some guys in my fraternity are organizing a big trip out west before the spring semester is over, and I want you to join us.”
“A trip doing what?” Gabriel wasn’t very interested in going, but he had to at least pretend that it sounded like fun.
“We’re heading to Colorado for hiking and camping. Maybe a little rafting too, if the weather cooperates. You gotta come, man! We’ll have a blast. Just chip in a few bucks for gas and food, and you’ll be covered. I’m swinging by Cairo to see my parents, so I can give you a ride. We’re leaving two weeks from today. You in?”
Gabriel was filled with mixed emotions. The thought of going on an out-of-town trip and meeting new people created butterflies in his stomach. He couldn’t see how he could go camping in the Colorado Rockies. All he had known from the time he was five years old was the farm in Kansas and those occasional day trips to the Kansas-Oklahoma border to fish in the Arkansas River with Mister Earl. This all seemed dangerously close to his most difficult memories.
“Uh, I don’t know, Jimmy. I’ve got a lot going on. My mom needs me at the farm ’cuz Mister Earl is getting older. And I don’t think Mister B would give me the time off.”
“Aw, come on, man! Seriously, you need a break. You haven’t left that farm since I’ve known ya. Don’t you want to see the place you’re from? I bet you don’t even remember it!”
No way. Gabriel was shaking his head. No. Way.
“Besides,” Jimmy continued, “one of my buddies has a friend out there who will introduce us to some of the local girls. What do you say? I’m not taking no for an answer, by the way.”
Gabriel chuckled nervously. Jimmy could be persuasive.
“Uh. . . let me do some checking at the store and get back to you. If I go, I hope I don’t regret this, though. Colorado is a long way.”
“You’ll never know if you stay in Cairo, buddy. You gotta take some chances sometimes. It’s called living. Call me at the Sigma Chi house. I’ll see ya.”
Gabriel made his way to the supply closet. His mind was racing at the possibilities of disaster. . . and fun.
He opened the door to the supply room and flicked on the light. He glanced around the dingy concrete room at all the lifeless clutter—the mops and brooms, the cleaning supplies, the boxes of retail stock, and a few dead bugs upside down in the corner. He began to feel the discontent of his existence closing in on him. It would be great to get a break from the broom and Mister B.
Even if Mister B doesn’t give me the time off. He can fire me if he wants. Mom and Mister Earl will just have to manage the farm without me. It’s just for a few days anyway.
I’ve got to get out of Kansas.
It’s time.
It was daybreak, a lazy late May morning in Cairo. Already, the air was thick and warm, a harbinger of summer-like heat to come. To the east, an orange glow was fading into the azure blue ceiling over the farm.
Gabriel woke at the crack of dawn, a little nervous but excited too. He wasn’t worried about Jimmy, even though his old friend was probably as full of craziness and mischief in college as he was in high school. Jimmy liked to take things to the limit—just to find where the boundaries lay. He liked life to be a little dangerous, and that feeling was infectious for those in hi
s orbit.
Gabriel wouldn’t have even considered this trip if it weren’t for Jimmy. Once again, even though he hadn’t really seen Jimmy since high school graduation, his old buddy was including him in one of his activities. He didn’t have to do that, but he did.
Jimmy used to say, “Life is meant to be lived together. ‘Together’ is where the best stuff happens.” His old friend knew he was shy, dating back to the time in elementary school when Gabriel wanted to stay on the sidelines for the big wrestling matches at the pond. Either way, Jimmy lived his words.
After not seeing Jimmy for a couple of years, getting that phone call was like an infusion of light in a pitch-black room. For all of Gabriel’s twenty years, he’d felt like an outsider, left alone to fend for himself. He was grateful for his mom and the Cartwrights, but something profound was missing. He felt like he was looking at life through the bottom of a Coke bottle—blurry and ill-formed. It was like he could see laughter and joy on the other side of the thick glass, but he couldn’t hear or experience it.
Maybe this trip to Colorado would shatter that glass forever.
He could only hope.
At about six forty-five a.m., the peaceful silence of the cornfields was broken by the jarring sound of a 1964 two-tone, red-and-white Chevrolet Corvair 95 van swerving into the farm like a getaway car running from the law. Jimmy Bly was behind the wheel.
He wasn’t alone.
Inside the van were three other guys with shaggy hair and scruffy faces, and all manner of camping gear was tied to the roof. The Corvair kicked up clouds of dust as the van slid to a stop about thirty yards in front of the farmhouse. Jimmy leaned half of his body out of the van window.
“Gabriel! Let’s go, my brother! Adventure awaits!”
Gabriel was taking the last couple of bites of the eggs and bacon that his mother had fixed him when Mister Earl knocked and walked into their kitchen.
“Those boys sure are loud for this early in the mornin’,” he grumbled.
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