LAKE OF THE SWANS
Book 2 of 3
Chapter 51
From the lake, the river began into the forest. A natural causeway lined with aspens, unbound by human construct, a forest hallway that drew the eyes to what lay ahead—its sky-blue ceiling dotted with lazy cloud puffs, some near, others at the far end of a seemingly endless hallway, gave reference by which to measure, or better put, to see a road into the ‘great wide open,’ and feel its allure. The current picked up as the lake funneled into the river. The once calm surface began to undulate—up and down, up and down like a magic carpet, gently but swiftly sweeping the family along.
Entering the first run of tiny rapids, Laureal turned to look back. Several stone’s throws behind, the form of the giant appeared like that of a dragon, flashing bright and dark amid passing tree shadows.
The raftmen, standing with poles at the ready, had little choice but to let the river decide their course. And that was okay in water flowing uniformly from shore to shore, what with rapids no bigger than perked-up undulations mixed with a bit of foam.
Laureal turned to the way ahead just in time to grab Noah, “Don’t lean out like that!”
“I want to see.”
“Yeah, well, next time, I’ll bop you.”
Noah hadn't leaned out far, but Laureal wasn't taking any chances.
“Are they coming?” asked Sophie, craning to look back but not leaning out.
“Yes. They’re moving right along.”
The water level, being a fair piece above normal, just did keep the raft from running aground under Ellie’s great weight. Emma claimed it the hand of God, but whatever it was, the river still hadn’t the depth for a rudder with which the raftmen might enjoy a measure of control—
“We’re moving a bit faster than I expected,” Anders shouted.
“Only a bit faster?” Julian asked with a shout, flashing a wry smile at his mentor.
The raftmen had to shout to make themselves heard above the sound of water rushing along the shores, the puppies whining in a chorus, and the giant like a sound barrier at their center.
The raft, like a confused carousel, slowly rotated as it swept along, pointing Ellie in one direction, then the other, her eyes bulging like eggs.
“Don’t worry girl,” said John.
“What’s that you say?”
“Nothing, just comforting my horse.”
“You wouldn’t lie to her, would you?”
“No, never,” chuckling.
“SMASH!” The raft struck a submerged boulder without warning and several of the men were thrown to the deck. The pups were thrown against their wicker cage and into one another, but being young and pliable, none were injured. Ellie’s heavy ropes and harness held her in place. She did not panic but instead concentrated on keeping her footing, instinctively understanding that more bumps were to come. The raft pivoted as the current pushed against it, causing it to rotate around and off the submerged boulder.
“Everyone okay?” asked Anders.
“Yeah.”
“You okay, Onak?”
“Yes, I’m good.”
Getting up off the deck, John began to laugh.
Julian got up and turned to Anders, his youthful face a picture of glee.
Between John, Onak, and Julian, it was hard to tell who was happier. John, because he was on his way to that which he’d trained his entire life for. Onak, because at long last he was on his way home. Or Julian, because he’d found the adventure of his dreams.
Turning to the way ahead, Anders half-joked to himself, “A pair of young maniacs and a runaway slave…what have I gotten myself into?”
Several hours later, at the front of the family flotilla, Harley and Cody entered an area where the river widened and its current slowed to a crawl—
“Let’s wait here for the others,” said Harley, looking back towards the second canoe. Then, turning back to Cody, he nodded downriver, “Toddy Rocky is around that bend.”
Toddy Rocky was the remnant of a low waterfall that had eroded over the millennia, leaving the river to pass through a modest gap. The gap squeezed the river into a large tongue. The fast-flowing water of the tongue dipped down like the tail end of a rollercoaster where it rammed into the slow water below, causing the current to stack up in three big rapid waves, one after the other. It then dissipated in the large pool, with a powerful eddy on its west side.
The family knew they could get their raft and dugout canoe through the gap, having last observed it two weeks before when traveling south on the forest trail. Regarding everything else, they knew they could portage the same as they had the prior winter. Back then, Toddy Rocky had looked very different, glistening like a falling-garden made of ice, the sound of water rushing through its various gaps.
Jessie and Rowena came coasting alongside Harley and Cody, “How we doing?”
“Cody and I are going to check and make sure the rapid is free of debris. Have everyone wait here until we return.”
While Harley and Cody went to scout the rapid, the dugout canoe arrived, followed shortly after by the raft.
“How goes it?”
“So far so good,” Anders replied, coasting in with the others, coming to a stop in the shallows along the shore.
“Did you hurt yourself?” asked Sophie, noticing a blood stain on John’s knee.
“It’s only a scrape,” getting out of his harness while smiling at his wife, just there in the dugout, “How’s our momma-to-be?”
“I’m good. How’s our ‘papa goose?’”
“Papa Eagle,” narrowing his eyes at her.
“Papa Goose.”
“Eagle,” firmly.
“Goose,” defiantly.
Seeing several of the men looking on strangely, John digressed, “It’s an inside joke.”
Hearing the whines of puppies, Mia spied Riley, Dora, and Bella peering out through the wicker, “How are the pups?”
“Not terribly happy.”
Sensing they’d been noticed, the pups elevated their protest. A chorus of whines from furry little faces, each impossibly cute. They were difficult to ignore.
No one knew the pups better than the children, with the exception of their mother, of course. And knowing as much, Laureal helped Noah and Sophie from the dugout to the raft. “You can let them out soon, but not yet.” As Laureal spoke, she followed the children, climbing onto the raft where she could stretch her legs.
At once, John put his arm around her and whispered, “Eagle.”
“Goose,” she whispered back.
“Here comes Harley and Cody,” Jessie announced.
“How’s it look down there?” asked Elkhart.
“The same as a few weeks ago,” Harley replied, coasting up and stopping alongside. ‘There’s no trees or debris in the shoot, and the big eddy pool is clear as well.”
Harley then turned to the raftmen, “I think you’ll go over the first crest alright, but you’re almost certain to clip the top half of the second, and it will collapse on your deck. Its weight will push you down…you’ll cut low into the third wave, and it will flood over you hard, but you’ll be going into the calm water at that point, so it should pour off the edges and you’ll be alright. Hopefully, the current will carry you into the big eddy, but if not, you have your poles.”
Obviously, everything on the raft needed to be offloaded and portaged around the rapid, which consisted of three deep water waves referred to as ‘haystacks’ (a term with 21st century origins).
To avoid being swept off the raft, each man would remain in his harness. In the unlikely event of a turnover, he would need to free himself, providing he hadn’t been knocked unconscious or killed outright.
Reading the worry in Mia’s expression, Anders pulled the quick-release knot at his waist to show how quickly he could free himself from the raft.
Elkhart, having studied the rapid when the family came south a few weeks before, knew the two-thousand-pound dugout was sure to swamp in the haystacks—
“We’ll take the raft through before the dugout,” he began, knowing the rapid dropped into a pool like a big swimming hole (measuring some forty yards wide), “and we’ll park it along the west shore at the back of the eddy. We’ll use it as a work platform and send swimmers to intercept the dugout when it enters the pool. Harley, Anders, John, Jessie, Mia, and Rowe…you will be our swimmers. When the dugout appears from the rapid, you will be waiting for it in the pool. Do not station yourselves in front of it! It will be swamped, and may appear sluggish, but do not be deceived…it will have great inertia! You will have to come at it from its sides. Team up and grab it by its gunwales, or push against its hull. Either way, kick hard. Guide it into the eddy. Once you have it in the eddy, the current should do most of the work for you. Bring it alongside the raft. We’ll bail out the water and reload it there.
“If you fail,” his expression turning grave, “it will continue downstream into the swift current. It will be nearly impossible to stop. If that happens, the men will stay with it and guide it little by little to run aground along the shore. In that event, guide it to an area that won’t damage it, but be careful! Do not put yourself in a position where it could run over and crush you!”
Elkhart turned to Julian and Cody. “You two are going to take the dugout to the mouth of the rapid. Julian, you will be in the stern. Cody, you’ll be in the bow. I’m going to direct you from the rocks above the gap. Then, just before you enter the rapid, you’re going to jump out.”
“We can take it through the rapid,” Julian protested.
“Yeah!” Cody agreed.
“No,” firmly. “I’ve thought this through, and here’s what you’re going to do. Cody, you will jump first. Leave your paddle in the boat. When you jump, try not to push off the boat in any direction except straight down. Otherwise, you could change the course of the boat, and Julian will not be able to correct it at that late stage…it could angle to one side and collide with the rocks. Julian, as the boat goes into the gap, jump out the back. Again, be careful not to push the boat off course when you jump. Then, when you hit the water, swim upstream as hard as you can. You only need to slow yourself down a little. The canoe will shoot on through. You’ll come down the tongue behind it. Take a deep breath and ride the haystacks.”
Rutin turned to the others, “Any objections?”
The thought of her little boy entering a rapid with a one-ton hollowed-out log stirred fear in Jessie’s heart, but for Cody’s sake, in front of the men, she did not object, and neither did Emma.
In the silence, there was only the faint sound of the rapids still some distance ahead, the music of songbirds, and the low drum beat of the dugout bumping the raft like a boat tied to a dock.
“Jessie,” said John, reading the worry in her eyes.
“Yes.”
“Cody’s half-fish. And so is Julian.”
“Portaging the dugout down that rocky incline would be a most arduous engagement!” Fischer threw in, thinking of the dugout, and what it would be to negotiate its immense size and weight on the rocky trail that dropped down and around the rapid.
“A ‘bear,’” said Cody as if to teach Fischer the proper lingo, “it would be a ‘bear.’”
“Success,” Elkhart interceded, “will come down to each of us doing our part.”
All exchanged looks, each understanding that danger waited just ahead. Not high danger, but not low either.
The quasi-Patriarch did not share his reasoning at that moment, but in choosing the two youngsters, he was bringing them a step further into the clan as men. He also knew that they were young, pliable, and, as John had said—they, like many young men grown up around rivers and lakes, were half fish.
“Let’s get started,” said Harley, his tone one of finality.
The canoes went ahead to the landing site above the rapid. The raft came along behind, with the raftmen poling to move their craft through the slow water. Laureal and the children remained aboard the raft, and when she asked her husband what it was like, he handed her his pole—
“Oh my gosh…forget this,” handing it back to him.
Harley soon appeared on the shore. “You can land here!”
The raftsmen put their combined strength into pushing with their poles, gaining momentum to run their raft aground firmly enough to unload the giant. Their muscles bulging, their bodies naked save for their leather loincloths, their skin painted in bug repellent, some of it colorless, some red, and some black—they were a sight to see.
“Laureal, Noah, Sophie,” ordered John, “take hold of the ropes and brace yourselves.”
The landing went easy as the skidded into the shallows.
Noah and Sophie were quick to the puppy pen, down on their knees, their little faces turned up to Laureal, did not seem all that different from those of the puppies, begging to get out—
“Laureal, can we let them out now?”
“Yes,” laughingly.
In the initial scramble to get out of the pen, Storm and Pumpkin got jammed up together in the exit. Struggling mightily, Storm popped out like a cork. Following on his heels, a flood of happiness came pouring from the pen. Thirteen pups, their legs not yet fully under them, danced chaotically about the raft.
With perfect timing, Weya barked from the river trail and the pups abandoned ship as though in a fire drill. Jumping for shore, splashing through the water, they raced across the bank and onto the trail, all hoping to get kisses from momma along with any rewards that might come in the form of regurgitated treats.
John would have preferred that Ellie step gently from the raft, but coming to the edge, the giant leaped to shore in a single bound as horses will do. John was ready for it. He installed her packsaddle and loaded it with gear before loading himself up with as much gear as he could safely carry while guiding Ellie. Everyone carried gear down the short trail that dropped to be a large swimming hole below the rapid. Laureal called for Weya to come along. The pups followed their mother, tussling happily. Yike and Nemo trotted at the front of the family procession.
In short order, everything including the birchbark canoes were portaged, leaving only the raft and dugout canoe to be brought through the tongue-shaped rapid.
The all-clear was given, and the raftmen began their approach while, in case of an emergency, Harley and Cody, and Jessie, and Rowena waited in their canoes along the edges of the large pool below the rapid.
From the rocks and trees above the gap, Rutin cupped his hands to his mouth and called out to the raftmen, “Remember, go into it as slow as possible.” His reasoning being that they not overshoot the eddy when they exited the rapid.
“What? “Anders shouted back, unable to hear.
The rapid, like a roaring beast, had washed out Elkhart's words.
“Did anyone hear what he said?”
“No.”
“Looks like we need to go to the left a bit,” John shouted.
Still a stone’s throw ahead, the rapid began where the river naturally dammed up before pouring through a gap like an emergency spillway from a dam.
Drawing close, Julian shouted up to Elkhart on the rocks above, “How are we looking?”
“Perfect,” came the reply. “Straight down the gut!”
Entering the gap, John glanced to see how Onak was holding up. Seeing the Inuk’s grin, he grinned back as if to say, “Geronimo!”
The current took hold and pulled the raft down the tongue. Each man went to a knee and, with his free hand, grasped hold of his anchor point. Through the trough and over the first crest they rode. The raft turned down and cut into the second wave deeper than expected. The wave rolled over the deck like a wall and knocked the men off their stances. With no time to recover, the raft lurched into the last wave but not as low as expected. The water rushed off the edges, and the deck reappeared as they entered calm water. Scrambling to their feet, the men poled to gain the eddy’s current.
“Can we do that again?” Julian joked as they poled towards the west shore, their progress assisted by the current of the eddy.
Jessie and Rowena came paddling, followed by Harley and Cody. “Well done!”
“Thank you.”
With rope in hand, John jumped from raft to shore. At the same time, Laureal came forward, “When the wave rolled over you, you disappeared completely!”
Pulling the rope tight around a birch tree to secure the raft, John paused, turned to Laureal, and shot her an adrenaline-fueled smile.
While Emma carefully made her way down from the rocks above the rapids, Cody and Julian took the forest trail to circumvent the rapids on their way to board the dugout canoe as Elkhart had instructed.
“Let’s do this,” Cody said to Julian, doing his best to walk and talk like a man.
Anders tossed John a second rope to tie off.
“Laureal,” called Emma, “I need your help.”
John pulled the second anchor line tight around another tree and, glancing over his shoulder, caught Laureal’s eye as she boarded the small birch bark canoe with Emma and Sophie. Their job would be to park along the downstream end of the swimming hole where they could watch for and retrieve Julian and Cody’s paddles, which were sure to wash out of the dugout when it swamped.
Fisher and Onak set to loading gear onto the raft. They first loaded the gear that belonged on the raft, then the gear that would be offloaded from raft to canoes. Noah was given the job of bailing water from the scout canoe, and Sophie from the lady’s canoe, as both had taken on water when the haystacks crashed over the gunwales.
In the water, Harley and Jessie enjoyed a few moments to themselves while they waited to swim out and retrieve the dugout. Anders and Mia did the same.
Ellie grazed along the trail. She and Weya had learned to coexist, albeit under the giant’s terms, being that every animal in the clan must accept her as their queen. Indifferent, the wolf princess lay like a sphinx, resting from her morning run, watching over her pups. Yike and Nemo sat along the shore, their physical senses far superior to humans, meant little escaped their observation.
From the rocks above the gap, Rutin signaled to let everyone know that Cody and Julian had begun their approach.
Harley, Anders, John, Jessie, Mia, and Rowe swam to the east side of the swimming hole where they lined up as a team, treading in the slow water, waiting for the dugout to come through the rapid.
From his vantage point above, Elkhart looked on as Cody and Julian approached the gap—their approach was slow, their entry angle good. As instructed, Cody jumped from the boat, followed by Julian. Then, swimming against the current for all their worth, the young men were pulled into the tongue.
At the bottom of the tongue, the big canoe hit the first haystack like a medieval battering ram that crashes into a castle gate. The two boys came next and quickly vanished in the turbulence. Watching them, Elkhart looked to the sky with praying eyes.
On the downstream end, John looked on in amazement as the dugout appeared from the rapids fully upright. It had not swamped! Directly behind it, Cody and Julian were spit out in the foam, their faces animated as if by a wild carnival ride.
Immediately, the swimmers set out in a race for the dugout only to see it enter the eddy on its own. From there, the dugout seemed to run away from them, banking like an airplane in the current of the eddy with the swimmers chasing it from behind.
At last, the big canoe, carried along in the eddy’s current, came fully about and coasted to a stop directly alongside the raft.
Standing at the edge of the raft, Fischer gazed down at the dugout, floating as if it had been moored there. Then, looking to the swimmers, he cried out in jovial disbelief, “WHAT ARE THE CHANCES OF THAT?”
“No chance at all,” Jessie replied, swimming with the others.
Threading water beside the dugout, the renaissance man in John knew there to be an unlimited number of paths the canoe could have traveled through the rapids. One path might see the canoe on the opposite side of the river. Another path might take it straight down the river. The possible outcomes were infinite.
Treading water, Cody looked about at the others, “That was the craziest thing I ever saw!”
Down on a knee, Onak reached into the dugout and ran his fingers over its interior. Then, lifting his eyes to the swimmers, he spoke in disbelief, “There’s not a drop of water inside.”
“No way,” said Fischer, shaking his head. Then, bending for a closer look, “How can this be possible?”
John grasped the raft and pulled himself up in one smooth motion. Then, on his hands and knees, he looked into the big canoe, but the only water he saw came from the tip of his nose as several droplets fell into the dry hull. At a loss for words, he looked up only to come eye-to-eye with Laureal, floating just there in the bow of the small birch bark canoe.
“The Great Spirit has given us a sign,” said Emma.
While family members traded looks, the roar of the rapid filled the silence. A thousand cubic feet of water raced through the gap with every passing second. Elkhart stepped forward, having come down from the rocks above—
“The Great Spirit has sent us a sign on this, the first day of our journey. He has shown us his power over the river, that we may know he is with us.”
Turning from Elkhart, Harley looked to the others, “He has brought this canoe through that we may know…come what may, he will bring us through.”
John had never seen Harley so solemn. And glancing about at the others, he knew what lay in store. The family was due for an evening of zealotry around the campfire.
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