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Show RIVER growing twilight I could see the expressions of her pilot and crew: their tanned faces were twisted and nervous with the weather. Her wake slammed against the rocks on the shore like rolling thunder. This proved a truly miserable piece of riverbank for a camp, but I didn't have many choices. An old wooden pallet had washed up amidst the weeds and saplings and I used it to make a bed: it would at least keep me off the soggy ground. I built a fire in the shelter of a log and managed to cook up some beans before the rain came. When the sheets of water began to fall, I crawled under my tarp and listened to the wind and the rain and watched the fireworks for a while, falling asleep in the heart of the storm. I awoke in the morning having managed to stay dry through the wind and the rain and finally the hail. I was getting better at the business of survival. The rest of the world had taken a real bath and there was no dry wood to build a fire for breakfast. I poured the water out of my boat, floated it, loaded my gear, and set out on the cold, gray river. There are many places much warmer than an open boat, especially in a stiff March wind. I spent a lot of time rowing just to keep the blood circulating. When that got old I'd climb under my gear and drift and freeze. This was the coldest day of the trip-flurries of snow fell now and again-and under the influence of the cold I pondered the dimensions of my stupidity. I was learning firsthand that only someone feeble minded or mad would attempt to take a rowboat down the Mississippi in the tag-end of winter, and thaf s how I felt most of the time, like a feeble-minded madman. Hunkered down out of the cool, wet breeze, Thor stared at me with undisguised contempt, his gaze steady and unrelenting. -161- |