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Show RIVER known the fall before, Rosie and I wanted to take our skiff part of the way down the river between Memphis and Vicksburg. After endless hours of driving through the soggy heat of the central South, we came to the river at Arkansas City, Arkansas. The sun had just set when we rolled into town. The ancient riverfront, dominated by deserted hotels and empty saloons, looked like an abandoned wild west movie set. The migrating river was now miles away from town, across thick jungle and dismal swamp, having been moved there some years ago by the Army Corps of Engineers. Arkansas City had been deserted by its people and repopulated by mosquitoes, who did pretty well by it. We parked in front of a white wood-frame Baptist church and spent a bad night fighting the insects and enduring the heat. The mosquitoes swam through the thick humidity with a high, sickening whine: you could sweep your hand through the air and it would come up black with the bugs. After hours of fighting the airborne hordes, the sheriff showed up. He wanted us to give him some marijuana, but we demurred and he escorted us out of the county. We drove through the rest of the night south into Louisiana and reached the bridge at Vicksburg shortly after dawn. The steamy Mississippi countryside was already shimmering under the heat. As we crossed the river, I was once again stunned by its size: it was even larger than I'd remembered it. Under the summer sun it took the blows of heat like sheet metal, even in the early morning. Rosie and I decided to pass on boating the Mississippi and we drove up the old Natchez Trace to Tennessee. Upon leaving California, Richard and Ann had resolved not to return, and he wanted to look for a farm to rent in the Smokey Mountains. Rosie and I launched -110- |
