OCR Text |
Show RIVER sheltered water of the marina, the raft had seemed big, but in mid-river the wide waters dwarfed the raft. We cut the engine and tried to drift, but the wind spun us around like a leaf. We cut away the tires we'd hung around the raft to use as bumpers, trying to improve her sailing qualities. It did some good, but it was clear we had a long, slow trip in front of us. About noon the overcast broke and the wind eased up. The day blossomed, glistening with sunlight and color. We'd left Rock Island behind and there were only a few summer cabins and shacks scattered along the shore. Soon even these disappeared and nothing covered the banks but elms, oaks, cottonwoods, maples, and pines growing tall and majestic with knotted roots that spilled down into the gnawing water. We passed a maze of islands, some long and spidery, some as misshapen as ink blots, with names like Andalusia and Martin and Cisco. In the middle of the afternoon we tied up to the first town we came to, Buffalo, a sleepy hamlet on the rocky Iowa shore. The railroad tracks running through town were rusted and weed choked. Sleep seemed to hang over the town like a fog: it was as if Buffalo was waiting for the steamboats and lost trains that never returned. Rosie struck up a conversation with an old man who'd worked on the river for many years. She asked him what he thought the raft looked like. "Why child," he said. "She looks like exactly what she is, a shanty." The first evening on the river I came to appreciate Midwestern skies. The sun set behind the green and yellow hills of Iowa and turned the cloud-streaked sky red, purple, and orange. The river reflected the sky, on fire. As the last light and color disappeared, the twilight faded like an echo and from the east an aura of white light shone over the Illinois shore as a great yellow moon began to rise. It -65- |