Where the River Ends - Charles Martin [122]
His dad shook his head and didn’t look up. “Not now, son. Just pay attention to what you’re doing.”
We’d come twenty-eight miles. My skin was sunburned, hot to the touch, and my hands were raw. Most of my fingers were bleeding around the nails where the constant pressure had split the skin. Touching the paddle was excruciating, much less pulling on it. I watched the kid grow smaller while the wind swirled around us.
We snaked through the S-turn, slipped through the tips of the marsh grass, passed out of the shadow of I-95, cut the corner and headed for Crandall—a public boat ramp tucked up into the woods and owned by Georgia Power. If I kept my head and paddle down, we could skirt the edge and not be seen from the bridge, because at this point the river was a half mile to even a mile wide. In the distance, southeast of us, white smoke poured from the tops of the smokestacks of the paper mills in Fernandina. The smoke billowed then faded south. At night, the stacks send sparks shooting up through the smoke. When I was working for Gus, we called it the light at the end of the tunnel.
While Crandall is public, few know about it. It’s a wide, deepwater ramp made of crushed oyster shells. Huge oaks tower above a grassy bluff where years back somebody built a stone picnic table and drove a four-inch, free-flowing well deep into the aquifer. I wanted the water. Another half mile and we slid onto the ramp. The water was whipping through her, so, steadying the canoe, I lifted my right foot onto the ramp and was nearly crippled by a piercing pain. The pain brought up a wave of nausea and a black circle crept in around the edge of my eyes. I gabbed the bowline, stepped out of the boat and pulled as I fell. The boat swung into the current, then slid quietly onto the shells. Fish skeletons littered the ramp. Some were three feet long and other than the heads, had been picked clean. I tied off the bowline, lifted Abbie from the boat and limped her to the table. My foot was throbbing and staining the grass behind me. I laid her across the table, propped up her head on a red plastic inner tube and then turned on the spigot at the well. Around us, forearm-thick bamboo grew up through the live oaks and water oaks competing for the same sun. Growing wild amongst the trees were camellia, azalea and mimosa trees. Above us, shading Abbie, spread a crape myrtle in half bloom. It’s branches were heavy with hundreds of berries that would soon burst and bloom in pink bouquets. Under pressure, the well coughed air, bubbled then shot sideways some eight feet, making a decent shower for an Oompa Loompa. The water flowed rusty for several seconds, finally turning cold and clear and smelling of eggs. I drenched my head, then filled a water bottle, returning to dab Abbie’s lips and bathe her face. After she’d sipped, I sat on the bench and looked at my foot. A four-inch fish bone was sticking up through the center of my foot. It was thick, maybe three millimeters, and had pierced the sole of my Tevas. I un-velcroed the sandal and lifted my foot, pulling out the bone. The hole bled and painted the bottom of my foot and sandal red. I held it beneath the water and pulled the bone out of my sandal. I drank long and deep and soaked my hat, letting it drip on my sunburned neck and shoulders.
The sun was falling and I knew we didn’t have much time. I placed Abbie back on her pallet and pushed the