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By Root 901 0

it served as a clearing house for lumber. There was even a treaty signed here. The U.S. and Spain signed the Treaty of San Lorenzo, or Pinckney’s Treaty, declaring that the boundary of Georgia and Florida would run to the start of the St. Marys River inside the Okefenokee. Today, Trader’s Hill provides a much-used boat ramp because it’s the first truly navigable place in the river for fishing boats and other watercraft. It’s here that the tubers, wakeboarders and Jet Skiers begin to populate the water. There’s a public phone and bathroom, camping hookups and several big blue Dumpsters covered in maggots, flies, blue-tailed skinks and fat lizards. Here, the river cuts deeper, grows bigger fish and even bigger alligators. Some as long as twelve feet. Reports say that sturgeon, too, grow here. Some as long as eight feet and weighing as much as two hundred pounds. Sightings are rare, but twice in the last year, kids on Jet Skis have been unseated and knocked unconscious by a sturgeon that wanted something its own size to play with. In both cases the kids survived, but when they woke up they had one heck of a fish story. Trader’s Hill is also the first place we began to notice the tidal influence. Meaning, if I began timing our runs, we could hitch a ride on the outgoing tide, saving energy in the process. And if timed incorrectly, it would cost me dearly as I’d have to pull against a swelling incoming tide. Lastly, and most importantly, it was here that the river became recreational.

If I had grown “uncomfortable” between Spread Oak and St. George, the hair was really raised on my back now. I just could not shake the idea that the trees had eyes.

U.S. 1 runs across the St. Marys at a little border town called Boulogne. Gas station, bait shop, lottery tickets and beer are the hot commodities. We reached the bridge at nightfall where a hundred purple martins were engaged in aerial combat. The bridge sat on huge concrete pads and pilings the size of houses. A wooden ladder hung down off the center pad. I tied off the canoe and we climbed up the ladder to the platform some ten feet off the surface of the water. Every few minutes a truck or car would drive across the metal grate, sending echoes off the water. It was dry and safe, so I carried up Abbie’s fleece sleeping bag and her towel pillow. I wrapped her up and then smelled the air. Yesterday’s rest on the beach had allowed her to store some energy in reserves. She was awake and listening. I eyed the thick white clouds on the horizon. “I think it’s gonna come a rain.”

She turned up one eye. “Come a rain?” I nodded. She slid both hands under her face and pulled her knees up. “Where did you learn to talk?”

I pointed upriver. “About fifty miles that way.”

A raised eyebrow. “Well, you can take the boy out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the boy.”

Under the bridge, some local artist had written REPENT—JESUS IS COMING SOON and FOR A GOOD TIME CALL RHONDA, and then given her phone number with extension. On the bank, a thigh-thick wisteria vine climbed up the underside of the bridge where it met a Confederate jasmine that had come up from the other side. Both were in bloom and draping us in fragrance. Dozens of honeybees and five feisty hummingbirds flew from one bloom to the next, sucking in the nectar.

For us, U.S. 1 was significant. I stretched out alongside Abbie and took her into my arms. “Guess what?”

“What?”

“We’re halfway.”

25

Six years passed. Abbie handpicked only the design jobs she wanted her name associated with. I supported her, helped her manage a sometimes insane schedule and continued to dust off the canvas. Somewhere in there I bought a twenty-two-foot Hewes flats boat and taught Abbie how to bait her own hook. While Abbie had tried to put modeling behind her, it simply wouldn’t go away. Unlike other teen-wonder models, Abbie aged beautifully, so New York kept calling. Occasionally, she’d accept a job if it meant a getaway for us. Given her success in two careers, we couldn’t go out in public—at least in Charleston—without feeling