“Okay, guys, we’re going to do a little white-water swimming. It’s only about three to four feet deep here, so I want us to practice getting into the water off of this rock and then ferrying over to that eddy. Before we do that, I want some upstream and downstream safety in place. Sadie, I want you to head upriver about thirty yards where that tree leans out over the water. Watch for any other boats, logs, or anything that might cause trouble for our swimmers. Samuel, you’re one of our strongest swimmers. Why don’t you take Jeff with you down to the Ferris wheel in case someone gets past us. He’s dead-on with the throw bag. Samuel, take the rope down with you. We’ll set up some cross-river lines and do some raft extraction.”
Jacob looked at Gabriel.
“You see I spread the team out in areas of their strengths. This way we have multiple points of rescue instead of all of us being in the same place.”
“Got it.” Gabriel responded through his nerves as he tightened the straps on his life vest.
Everyone got into position upriver and downriver. Now it was time to practice some swims.
“Freddie, you wanna go first?”
“Sure!” Freddie didn’t hesitate. He stepped up on a rock jutting out over the water.
“Freddie!” Jacob yelled.
He turned.
“Your brain bucket?” Jacob pointed to his own head.
“Shoot!” Freddie jumped back down and got his helmet and strapped it on.
Jacob continued instructing. “Okay. Remember, forty-five degree angle to the current. Shallow landing knees; face, feet, and chest hit the water at the same time. Then swim hard.”
Freddie didn’t waste a second. He got up on the rock and dove without hesitation.
“Go, Freddie!” The others cheered him on.
He smacked the water and immediately started a violent swimming stroke. The water was swift and carried Freddie along as he swam. In a matter of just a few seconds, Freddie traversed the forty feet to the eddy on the other side.
“He’s so light and strong he just skips across like a june bug.”
Freddie stood up in the eddy and shot everyone a thumbs-up.
“Tabby, you ready?”
“Sure.”
Tabitha stepped up and splashed in. Her long, lean body darted across the water in perfect form.
“Wow, she made that look easy,” Gabriel commented to Jacob.
A couple more guides followed Tabitha.
“You see how they are doing it? You ready?”
Jacob cinched up the straps on Gabriel’s vest. Gabriel tightened his helmet.
“Stay shallow,” Jacob said as Gabriel took his position on the rock.
He splashed in. His six-foot-one-inch, one-hundred-eighty-pound frame started the short journey.
“Forty-five!” Gabriel heard Jacob shout. “You’re at a ninety. You’re going to miss the eddy.”
Gabriel pounded the water but could sense his trajectory was already off. He knew the water was not that deep, so he put his feet down to try to wade the final fifteen feet or so.
“Don’t stand up! Samuel will get you downriver!” Jacob bellowed, but Gabriel didn’t hear him in time. His adrenaline kicked in, and he was reacting. Gabriel looked back as he stood up in the current waist-deep. He glanced forward to see Tabitha and the others telling him to just let go and let the water take him downstream. His instincts wouldn’t allow him to surrender to the water, so he plodded one more step.
“No, Gabriel!” Jacob shouted.
The next thing Gabriel knew, his head was bobbing in and out of the water. He gasped for breath every time he hit air, flailing his arms desperately, but he couldn’t move. His foot was stuck under a rock, and he couldn’t get enough footing with the other foot to free himself.
Gabriel suddenly saw stars. How long had it been since he’d taken a breath? He tried desperately one last time to free his foot, but the stars were more powerful. He surrendered.
So this is it. The River took my dad, and now it’s taking me too.
Suddenly, he was above the water, gasping for air. Jacob was holding on to the back of his life vest.
“Pull yourself up on the rope!” Jacob yelled. Gabriel flailed as Jacob grabbed his wrist and guided his hand to the rope that was positioned directly over his head, with Freddie manning one end on one bank and the other end tied to a tree on the opposite bank. Gabriel mustered the effort to hoist his face up out of the water again. His strength was waning. Then Jacob positioned himself upstream of Gabriel to create an eddy to ease the pressure. He reached down and grabbed Gabriel’s foot by the heel and jerked it violently back and forth, and it dislodged.
“Let go!” Gabriel released the rope at Jacob’s command, and the two men rode the current feet-first into the next rapid. They cascaded through one hundred yards of white water at the mercy of The River. Jacob held on to Gabriel with his left hand. Samuel cast a throw bag to Jacob and pulled them to safety.
As the two men caught their breath on the shore, Gabriel lay on his back, exhausted. Jacob saved me. He saved me. Gabriel unclasped his helmet and looked up at Jacob who was standing over him.
“Thank you,” he said faintly.
Jacob removed his vest and helmet.
“That was fun, huh? Let’s you know who is in charge out here. That’s why they call it the wilderness.” Jacob smiled. “I should have reminded you about foot entrapment possibilities. Next time, if you miss your mark, just ride the water feet-first until you can swim out. That’s why we have multiple rescue points downstream. Trying to stand up alone in that kind of water can get you killed”—Jacob snapped his fingers—“like that.”
The team worked on a few more exercises over the next few hours. Gabriel was embarrassed at the scare he gave everyone. He participated but was distracted at the thought of his close call. He hated everyone asking him if he was okay, especially Tabitha. It made him question things again, feeling like he didn’t belong. He wondered if he could really do it. On The River, it felt like there was always something that could go wrong. It was exhilarating and terrifying at the same time. He hated feeling out of control and fearful. He had a long way to go to follow in his father’s footsteps.
11
The River Books of Ezra
Monday Night, 9:30 p.m., On the Porch at Ezra’s Cabin
The melodic lilting sound and quick tremolo of Ezra’s whistling grew louder as Gabriel approached the cabin. He trudged up the steps to see Ezra, rocking back and forth in rhythm. His reading glasses rested halfway down his nose. He sat in a pile of wood shavings as he carved away on a small piece of wood.
“How do you do that?” Gabriel asked.
“Do what?” Ezra looked over his reading glasses at Gabriel without moving his head.
“Whistle, rock, and carve at the same time. I think I’d cut off my finger if I tried that.”
Ezra chuckled.
“Maybe they all go together for me or somethin’.”
“What are you making?”
“I just started. I’ll know soon, though. Sometimes I just have to start, then I get inspired for what the wood wants to reveal.”
“So you just start without knowing what you’re carving?”
“That’s right. If I worry too much about the end at the very beginning, it gets a little too big for my brain to handle. If I just start, then I see where the process takes me. It’s fun to be surprised and trust the wood and the knife.”
“I’m going to grab a quick shower. It’s been a long day. Maybe I’ll join you when I’m done.”
“I would like that.”
Gabriel knew deep down that he was supposed to be at The River. Parts of him were coming alive to the exhilaration of adventure in this new life. He was learning more every day about what it meant to be a guide. Jacob told him about how you learn just by running The River. The challenges that arise teach you. The guides who have gone before teach you. You can only learn so much from the shore, and then you just have to ride the w
aves. His love for Tabitha grew by the day, but learning to relate to her was brand new. He certainly didn’t want to go back to the five-and-dime in Cairo, but embracing this newfound world felt risky. Life at The River was pregnant with the possibility for incredible life-changing experiences, both good and bad. His childhood fears of water and death were real, and they gripped his mind from time to time. With each passing day, he felt like he moved further away from those painful memories that tried to control him, and that was good.
“You done yet?” Gabriel said sarcastically as he let the flimsy screen door to his room slam.
Ezra held up the pineapple-sized chunk of wood. A couple of divots that loosely resembled eyes were emerging.
“Well, it’s got eyes, I see.” Gabriel squinted and tilted his head as he looked.
“I believe I know who this is going to be now. She’s beautiful.” Ezra stared at the lump of wood.
Gabriel sat down, his bushy blond hair only towel-dried. He breathed in deeply and rested his head on the back of the wooden rocker. The air was damp and cool. The sound of The River moving just a few yards away created a lush and unceasing ambience.
“Why is it hard to talk about things, Ezra?” Gabriel stared ahead.
“What things?”
“I don’t know. I just find it hard to . . .”
“Let people in?” Ezra finished his sentence.
“Yeah, I guess.”
“Half the battle is admitting it isn’t easy for you. Things take time.”
“I see some of the others, and it’s easy for them. Like Tabitha . . . she’s uninhibited.”
Ezra kept carving.
“Maybe I just overthink things.”
Ezra looked over the top of his reading glasses at Gabriel.
“Thinking is not a bad thing. That’s why the Maker gave you a brain. The trick is thinking right and true . . . especially about you.”
“What do you mean by that?”
Ezra paused.
“What are you afraid of?”
“Huh?”
“What are you afraid of?” Ezra asked again.
“I don’t know . . . Losing someone I care about, maybe.”
“That all?”
“The white water can be pretty scary.”
“Oh, yes, it can.”
Gabriel wondered where this was going.
“What about you, Ezra?”
“What about me?”
“What are you afraid of?”
“Too many things to count . . . have been my whole life.”
Gabriel was surprised by Ezra’s answer.
“Really? You always seem so calm, not fazed by anything.”
“Fear comes to us all. Anyone who says they aren’t afraid of anything is saying that straight through their terrified teeth.” Ezra chuckled. “For starters, they are afraid of what people would think of them if they knew they were scared. Everyone has fear. Ah, but courage in the face of fear, now that’s the good stuff.”
“How did you come to The River, Ezra?”
“Oh, that’s a long story.”
“I’m in no hurry.”
Ezra held up the piece he was working on.
“Look at that.”
He showed it to Gabriel.
“What?”
“Look right there. The wood had a crack on the inside. How about that? I cut that piece out and there it was. Now that line will go right down her cheek. Interesting.”
It was just past ten thirty, and large raindrops, one at a time, began to pelt the tin roof of the old cabin. Splat. Splat. Split splat. They sped up into a steady downpour.
“I love that sound,” Gabriel commented as he looked out and saw the rain droplets shimmer in the porch light. “It reminds me of the sound of rain on the barn back in Cairo. I would go out there and sit on Mr. Earl’s tractor, especially on hard days. Sometimes I just cried and cried, and when the rain came, it felt like maybe God knew how sad I was. The rain made me feel like He was crying with me. Sounds silly saying it out loud.”
“That’s not silly at all. Don’t discount those things you feel. When it feels like the Maker is crying with you, I think He probably is.”
“So you believe in God?”
“From the top of my head all the way down to the bottom of my shoes.”
“I want to. There’s just too much suffering. I don’t know how a God . . . at least a good God, could allow that.” Ezra didn’t respond. Gabriel leaned back in his chair to ponder his statement before he continued. “I’m still waiting on an answer to my first question.”
The rain slowed to a soft and steady shower.
“What question, son? You remember I’m old.”
“How did you come to The River?”
Ezra set his carving down and grabbed his antique pipe and tobacco tin off of the old wood barrel they used as a table. His thick, weathered hands packed a pinch into the pipe bowl.
“It was bad . . . real bad . . . if you looked like this.” Ezra rubbed the dark-brown wrinkled skin of his right hand with his left.
“My momma worked for a very wealthy family in Mississippi. She cleaned their house, cooked dinners, and did all sorts of chores for them. They had a large cotton farm, a few cattle, and some chickens. We lived in a tiny room off the back of the house. It wasn’t much, but it was somethin’.”
Ezra struck a match on the barrel and lit the pipe. After several rapid tokes, he shook the match out and laid it on the barrel. The nutty vanilla smoke floated across the porch and into the rain.
“I tried to be the man of our little house, since I had no daddy around. My momma never said too much about him; she would just kiss my forehead and say, ‘God will get us through.’ I never knew Him. Oh, did I hate going to school. The stuff the kids would say was just awful. The names and the insults never stopped. I remember one day in grade school it was a scorcher. I was so thirsty I just took a drink out of the first drinking fountain I came to. Wham! I felt a smack on the back of my head, jammed my mouth into the spicket. My lip was bleeding somethin’ fierce. I turned around to see an older white boy pointing to the sign above the fountain. ‘Can’t you read, nig—?’ I don’t even want to say it.” Ezra started to smile. “He didn’t even know what he was doin’. Just the product of an angry home.”
Gabriel hung on every word in a concentrated stare.
“One day, I was about sixteen years old or so, when I came back from fishing in a small pond on the back of the property. I used to catch some good catfish in there.”
Gabriel interrupted, “That’s where the legend of Ezra’s fishing started, then, huh?”
The old man smiled as he continued.
“It was a beautiful late afternoon. Sun was going down. I still remember how the dandelions exploded into the air as I kicked my old boots through the field. I came around the edge of the old barn carrying a string of two- and three-pounders over my shoulder. As I looked up . . . the site I saw still haunts me to this day.” Ezra took a deep breath and looked away. “I need some hot cocoa. You want some?” His husky voice quivered. Ezra stood up abruptly and went into his room.
“Sure,” Gabriel answered through the screen door.
He leaned back in his rocker and wondered what the next part of the story held.
Ezra emerged a few minutes later with two mugs. He handed Gabriel one and lowered himself gingerly into his rocker.
“Ezra, if you don’t want to talk about it . . .”
“It’s okay.”
He sipped from the steaming mug.
“That man had his back to me. Then I heard him shout, ‘How dare you steal from me after all I’ve done for you!’ I could tell he’d been drinkin’. He would get powerful mean on the bottle. My momma was on her knees looking up at him like a beggar. She was cryin’. She said, ‘I didn’t take nothin’!’ He wasn’t having any of it. He balled his fist and hit my momma so hard I thought her head would come off. I was so angry. Momma was out cold on the ground, and then he
started to kick her. I threw my pole and the fish down and started runnin’.”
Ezra paused, sniffed, and gathered his composure before he continued.
“I think he would’ve killed her. I saw a rock the size of that carving down there. I picked it up and . . . Mistah Jones never kicked or insulted my momma again.”
Gabriel didn’t speak.
“I ain’t proud of what I did. I didn’t want him to die. I just wanted him to stop.”
After several seconds of waiting, Gabriel broke the silence. “Ezra, I had no idea.”
“I haven’t told that to too many people, son.”
“Did your mom recover?”
“I was in the hospital with Momma that night, and the police came and took me away. They took me out back and gave me a beating I’ll never forget. I thought I’d never get out of that cell. She came and saw me in prison every Sunday . . . Yep, she never missed. She got real sick and passed away while I was in there. I still remember the Sunday she didn’t show up. Mrs. Jones, the widow of the man I killed, did. She gave me a letter from Momma and said some words to me that I carry with me to this day.”
Ezra sat up in his chair and looked over into Gabriel’s eyes.
“She said, ‘Ezra, you are a good boy. Mr. Jones . . . he wasn’t right in his mind, and what he did to your momma was pure evil. I’m working on some things for you. I’m trying to get you out of here. You deserve a new beginning.’ With that she just walked out and I never saw her again. The next day they came and got me. The officers told me the judge said I was free to go. Just like that. So there I was, a twenty-three-year-old orphaned black man, free as a bird, with nowhere to go and not a dime to my name.”
He tipped his mug all the way up to get the last bit of chocolate out.
“I think this is a two-cup story, Gabriel. You want some more?”
The old man inched his way to the edge of the rocker and got up again.
“Okay, sure. But I have to hear more, if you’re up to it.”
While Ezra disappeared back into his room to make another cup, Gabriel sat ruminating on all that he just heard. The suffering, the injustice, the fact that Ezra grew up in the back of a farmhouse without a father . . . it was surreal . . . almost too much to take in.
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