Free Take Me to the River by Will Hobbs Page A

lengths of heavy construction rebar.
    We put together two juglines with two leaders apiece. At the end of each leader we tied on a hook.
    For bait, Rio had brought along a block of Zote Soap. That, I’d never heard of. “Made in Mexico,” I read aloud. “Sixty-six percent animal fat. Zote Soap is safe for the environment and safe for your family.”
    â€œNot to mention, catfish go crazy over it,” Rio added. “The citronella scent is what does it.” He sliced off four chunks and baited the hooks. “We’ll try Spam if the soap doesn’t do the trick.”
    We deployed the juglines in the pool just down from our campsite. One of them produced a yellow catfish, a ten pounder. Rio carved two fillets and fried them up. As the sun was setting and the full moon was rising over that big wide-open country, we feasted. Ten more miles and we would be inside the Lower Canyons.
    I slept well on a belly full of catfish, and woke to clear skies. By the time we were pouring pancake batter on the griddle, things were changing. A skirmish line of clouds was heading our way from downstream. Rio remarked that it was early in the day for thunderstorms to be cooking. This looked more like a front.
    â€œFront?” I repeated. “Front, as in tropical storm front?”
    â€œPossibly. Our garden-variety thunderstorms boil up out of the clear blue sky. This is something else.”
    â€œCan’t be Dolly,” I said after some thought.
    â€œWhy not, Dylan?”
    â€œThis front is coming from downstream. The map shows us running north and a little east until the last fifteen miles of our trip. The Gulf of Mexico is south and east.”
    Rio shook his head. “Nice try! Tropical storms have a counterclockwise spin. The first band would arrive from the northeast.”
    â€œHmmm . . . ,” I said. “That might be exciting.”
    â€œSomething to tell my dad about. He’d be sick that he missed it.”
    Just then came the sound of a snapping twig from the brush at the back of the campsite. We heard shuffling feet. We spun around on our chairs. Scarcely twenty feet away, a man and a boy stood at the edge of the clearing. I about jumped out of my skin. What were they doing here, in the absolute middle of nowhere?
    â€œDon’t be alarmed, my friends,” the man said in heavily accented English, raising his hand in a peaceful gesture.
    Their clothes were torn, and their faces, hands, and arms were badly scratched. They looked like they hadn’t slept for a week.
    â€œWe lost our way . . . had a rough time . . . need some help,” the man said. About forty, he was wearing jeans and a short-sleeved shirt—white polyester. The boy was my little brother’s age, right around seven. He was wearing a soccer jersey. Underneath the name of the team, LIVERPOOL FOOTBALL CLUB , were the words You’ll Never Walk Alone .
    The man had a beard of sorts, a week’s growth of coarse black stubble. The scar dead center on his forehead, mostly above his hairline, made you want to look away. His eyes were all over the place, assessing us and our gear—the kitchen, the tent, the boats.
    The boy had yet to look at us. His eyes were on the ground. One eye was blackened, and the cheek on the same side was bruised. He was covered with cuts and scratches. As my own hands would testify, nearly every plant in the desert had its way to draw blood, and it looked like the boy had stumbled or fallen into more than a few. The man kept one hand clamped on his shoulder.
    Evidently they weren’t related. They weren’t acting like it, and their faces didn’t bear a family resemblance.
    â€œAre you hungry?” Rio asked. “How about some breakfast?”
    â€œPlease,” the man replied. “We haven’t eaten in days.”
    The man and the boy approached us. The man had a small backpack that he placed under our table, next to the gas bottle.