Take Me to the River by Will Hobbs

Author:Will Hobbs
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: young adult, Adventure, Childrens
ISBN: 9780060741464
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2010-12-07T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter 14

We’re in the Big-Time Now

WE MADE IT ANOTHER eight miles on rapidly rising water to a possible shelter pictured in the Lower Canyons guidebook. Twenty-seven miles below the put-in at the bridge, a rock house stood back from the river on the Texas side, maybe fifty feet above the elevation of the river. The one-room structure was a remnant of an old candelilla works, the mile-by-mile guide said. A nearby spring provided an optimum water supply, always clear and clean, for rendering the wax.

Before we walked up the slope to check out the rock house, we located the spring and filled our water jugs to the brim. From here on, the springs might be flooded out.

On our way up to the rock house we caught a good view of the scaly mountains on the Mexican side. Their tops were shrouded in clouds. We climbed a little higher and saw that our rock house lacked a roof. That was okay, we figured—our big blue tarp could do the job.

It didn’t work out. The inside of the building was choked with giant prickly pear cactus, their pads big as frying pans. The needles in the pads were as long as my little finger. Rio informed me that the pads were edible, if prepared correctly. “Uh, some other time,” I told him.

Two miles downriver, at Mile 29, we found a place to camp on the Texas side. The large grassy sandbar there stood ten feet above the river and looked like a safe bet. While we were unloading the boats, however, the river came up another six inches. If it rose another nine and a half feet and flooded the campsite, we would be out of luck. Behind the sandbar, the cactus- and ocotillo-studded slope was as steep as a playground slide.

We liked our chances. Rio had never seen the river rise nine feet overnight. Unless we were very unlucky we would be okay, but what were we going to do for a shelter?

Rio wasn’t worried. “No problem,” he said. “Let’s make like Comanches, and build ourselves a wickiup out of cane.”

“Ever built one before?”

“No, but I’ve seen pictures.”

Amid lightning and thunder and a new squall with pelting rain, we gathered cane. Our rescue knives borrowed from our life jackets went through the stalks like butter. “Ever seen this much water in the river?” I asked.

“It usually gets this high every summer.”

“So, you don’t think this is Dolly we’re looking at?”

“It could be just a West Texas toad strangler. My dad and I have had the raft out a couple of times on five thousand cubic feet per second. We aren’t looking at that much yet, but we’re getting close.”

“What’s the biggest flow you’ve ever heard of?”

“At the takeout below Santa Elena Canyon, on the outside of one of the johns, the Park Service painted a black stripe to show the high-water mark from the summer of 1958. The mark is higher than the door.”

“How much water was it?”

A huge grin spread across his face.

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