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Show RIVER like sound of his outboard fading in the distance. Thor was intrigued by the new passenger and sniffed, snapped, and poked at it for hours. The damn thing was nearly three feet long. I camped that evening in the harbor at Hickman, Kentucky, next to a Coast Guard dock that was surrounded by a chain-link fence. I landed about mid-afternoon and walked around town. Toward sunset many single females in cars and trucks began to show up at the river wall. I thought my luck had changed, but then the Coast Guard cutter came in and docked. It was a large, very clean, three-decked boat named Chickasaw, built just like a towboat though not designed to push barges. The crew of about twenty-five spent the better part of an hour getting everything ship shape. Then they walked through the gate in the fence and up to their cars and wives. Not one of them came over to talk, none of them even looked at me or Thor or the fish. It was as if we were invisible. I couldn't figure it out. I cooked the catfish, after a fashion, and wandered around the waterfront. As it got dark I met two young children, a brother and sister, who had come down to meet their father. He ran a towboat, and after the trim and friendly Irishman landed I talked to him and even asked him for a job. He ran the boat with a cook and a young kid and didn't need any help, but he assured me I could find work farther down the river. In the morning I got up and rowed out of Hickman before any of the Coast Guard crew had shown up. It was brilliantly clear, windy and cold as hell. I hadn't drifted very far before I was frozen to the bone, so I landed and built a fire. Even the rising sun was too weak to overpower the knife-edged cold of the wind, so eventually I put on all my clothes and launched the boat again. Out on -156- |
