Thief River

Thief River

It seemed like yesterday; the heat, humidity, the sun beginning to disappear behind a veil of ominous clouds. The blankets spread along the river, tables filled with assorted summer staples; potato salad, cheese, sandwiches, fruit; the 4th of July once again had descended upon the town.

Porches and doorways display the patriot fervor that continued to grip the community and country after the war finally ended. The boys who left returned as men to take up where they left off tending the fields.

The corn was knee high; a gage of how well the summer had progressed to that point. Corn was destined by a short growing season to become silage; its tender ears and leaves chopped and blown into silos where it would ferment and become the cows staple food over the long upcoming winter. Wheat swayed gracefully in the breeze, as did the flags that rippled like waves on a lake.

A tethered wooden platform, several hundred feet from the bank, was the destination for those that swam well enough to stave off the river’s current. Diving for clams from its weathered planks was an enjoyable distraction from the monotony of the ever-present humidity and heat.

We spent our steamy summers by the river. It twisted its way through the glacier swept valley; its banks lined with birch and cottonwood trees provided the sought-after shade and a respite from the suns burning rays. Backwashes formed by fallen trees provided an environment for lily pads, turtles, and frogs. A floating log would often coax several dozen mud turtles from the cool water; they’d line up along its algae covered bark, their helmet like shells taking advantage of the sun’s warmth.

An old dock disrupted the otherwise pristine vision of a hundred years ago; its shadow displayed in the black water beneath it; a mirrored clone from another time. I’d never seen the dock used; no boats or canoes, no fisherman, only decaying wood that had taken on the color and crevice’s of an old souls reflection, those that had come before times changed and memories were forgotten.

The solemness the war brought remained a reminder of a time when laughter was replaced by whispers, songs were hummed, not sung. I was ten years old the summer the river breathed the eagerness of a new start into those that lived on its banks and had the courage to both forget and remember what mattered, what was important; seemingly vanishing a day at a time.

I remember lying on a towel by the river’s edge listening to the frogs tell a story of a boy, my age, who too believed in the magic nature provided. I was not from there, and yet I was. I lived in a city and came north during the summer months to stay with my grandparents who owned a farm where my father had been raised. I watched the leaves dance to the winds music; splashes of light, bursts of shadowy brilliance painting the ground, forcing your eyes to close.

I listened to the murmur of the water as it flowed slowly past, the chatter of the leaves as they were thrust against one another by the wind, and the cricket song that emanated from the cat tails that thrived in the warm water of the ditch beside the road. I could feel the splashes of warm light move across my face. Thinking of everything and nothing, I became hypnotized by my own thoughts and must have fallen asleep, or under the spell of the river named for its cunning and deceitful ways, Thief.

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The silvery backs of the birch leaves had turned an luminescent yellow and had become nearly transparent as the humidity and heat abandoned the prairie; a prelude to the upcoming season of miracles that made it possible to walk on water and watch your breath as it left you, turn into a cloud that would disappear before you could determine the image it abandoned.

Before the landscape would become a portrait not captured by human intervention, a period of preparation instilled a nervousness in those that had experienced the seasons ability to both inspire and immobilize the best intentions, of those not willing to be forgiven for their arrogance.

During that time when summer has retired and winter has yet to grip your imagination, comes fall, a season of preparation, contemplation, and the anxiety that comes with never being as prepared as you know you need be. It is my favorite time of year. Not only because of the color and smells, a decaying promise of new life waits under the steel-like ground for the sun to return and free it from its capture, allowing it to release what it has protected through the long months of darkness and cold.

Cold has a way of creeping past the guards of hope and slipping unseen into the complacency of memories. We wake to find the still waters no longer penetrable, but a crystalline barrier that distorts the shapes that slip beneath it. Everything within its grasp becomes a prisoner, although, unable to escape, it provides all the necessities for a continued existence.

The river has been named Thief for what it is, what it does, and how it acts. I don’t believe it takes any pleasure in returning life to its origins, leaving only trails of tears that reach back to future generations; perhaps before the time the glaciers receded, filling the scars of its retreat with the source of both life and death.

I watch as the first flakes fall from the sky and begin to color the frozen surface an opaque dullness, that with the aid of time will block out all the suns attempts to free the rivers captives and seal their fate.

I see a boy dressed in a wool coat, a blue knit hat pulled over his ears, and a red scarf that trails behind him as he glides toward the river. The water has as yet found the time to become dormant and lulled by the sinking air into a peaceful existence. The battle continues as the water beneath him moves slowly, allowing only small pieces of itself to remain a link to the now, and the promise of a tomorrow.

The boy is smiling, his eyes bright with the anticipation of things yet imagined. He slides across the surface, his red scarf reminiscent of a flag planted on a moon, it belongs to no one, and yet belongs to everyone, but it is his for the day.

The water has solidified to a measure, not thick enough to support more than the flakes that accumulate on its surface. The boys momentum decreases and then ends, as his weight has overcome the ability of the thin ice to support him. I watch him disappear into the slow-moving water and disappear, taking with him the remnants of his failed environment. I watch as his face surfaces beneath the transparent shield, water dripping from his knit hat, rivulets of possibility cascading down his cheeks; his eyes no longer exuberant over the nature that has brought him here.

I run to watch as the boy slips beneath the shield that prevents his escape. Not thinking I step onto the ice and search for a sign of who was, and now, is no more. I catch a glimpse of red being moved effortlessly beneath the crystal shield, his face, the cap, all a blur as his eyes meet mine, and plead for what is supposed to be, not what it has become.

I attempt to kick a hole in the miracle water with the heel of my boot but fail to do more than disturb the remnants of the first flakes that have gathered in companionship, forming small islands on the crystalline surface.

I run farther hoping to catch sight of the boy again. I see the flash of red, no cap, no eyes, no pleading soundless words, only stillness and the recognition that to every place and time there is a purpose under the heavens.

I attempt a prayer, although I knew I’d forgotten how to pray. I should go for help, but would time not render that act irrelevant in the nature of things? I walk slowly questioning why the boy had to leave, and yet I remained standing on the invisible shield, knowing that I am on one side of eternity, while he has found his way to the other.

What or who decides whether the crystalline surface will carry us toward a tomorrow or leave us stranded beneath its surface looking for a new realm, where it is said it never snows, your breath remains invisible, and futures are not whisked away by a moveable source beneath a clandestine destiny; one made of luck or purpose, that we can only hope to understand one day.

I return to the gossiping leaves, and splashes of warmth being dragged across my face. I open my eyes and can see the clear blue sky; the clouds having moved on. The color is impossible to capture with dignity, on either canvas or paper. I can see the boy’s eyes searching in the dimming light for a reason, knowing there needn’t be one. Not all things have explanations, nor should they. Some are to obvious, some too complex, and some are best left alone.

Mysteries, particularly those guarded by nature, surface as the seasons do, having forgotten the dark and lonely times that are necessary if the light is to return, and the earth is to forfeit its bounty. I remember now the rippling water, the chirps of the crickets, and the stories the river shares with those who listen.

I say goodbye for the thousandth time to a boy I never knew, but who I’ve always believed knew me.