He struggled arduously through the underbrush, ill-fitting rubber boots clawing at his raw and blistered heels. His cotton socks had become sponges for all the muck and pine needles that had seen fit to find their way into the small boy's boots. The cheerful banter of the two adults preceding him on the trail only seemed to add more weight to the boy's frustration, as he was too busy trying to avoid tripping over the rain-slick roots that criss-crossed the bare mud pathway to pay attention to their conversation.
"I probably wouldn't understand anyway," thought the boy, who couldn't even understand why his mother had chosen to bring him along on this sodden endeavor.
The smell of rotting leaves assailed him with every step he took, and he had to concentrate on his feet to avoid slipping in the thick muck that coated every available surface. He could feel his socks gradually inching their way down his Achilles tendon, straining to find just the right spot that they could rub until it would blister. He knew all this, but at the same time he was too tired to make any conscious effort to stop the process. As he had already realized, any such effort would be futile, and then he would have to walk extra fast to catch up with his mother and her friend.
The world-weary 8-year-old trekked onward. Featureless gray skies stretched overhead like dusty curtains.
Finally they stopped after hiking for what seemed like hours. The boy sat upon a knotted root beneath the shelter of an ancient pine and ate a cold cheese sandwich. He examined his hands with almost scientific detachment, noting the swollen knuckles and bright red color as one would note that the sky was gray, or that it was raining. Pulling the feeble protection of his hood up over his ears, he wandered from beneath the shelter of the tree and stood, gazing at his surroundings.
His mother's friend laughed, a harsh sound that sounded almost at home in the damp wood. He examined her face for some sign of happiness, but it was gone with the sound of her laughter. She had a pinched-looking face with a large beaklike nose, framed by iron-gray hair and large glasses. She was talking very animatedly with his mother in her public-radio voice. They spoke of some subject as far removed from his life as palm trees.
His mother rose to her feet and packed the remaining food away in her backpack. Pulling him under the tree by the collar of his green raincoat, she knelt down and zipped his coat up with an uncomfortable amount of force, but then she hugged him, and for an instant he was warm.
He thrust his hands into his coat pockets and turned to follow the adults down the trail and hopefully to the cars. He could picture his mother's red Volvo parked next to the other woman's white truck; the two automobiles perched in the turnoff above the river.
They walked for a few more minutes before he noticed a break in the trail up ahead. Here the trees stopped growing, and he prayed that the cars would be there, the warm interior of the Volvo waiting to carry the boy home to his room. He could lie on his bed, content with just being there, warm and sheltered.
It was then that they broke through the tree line, and he saw his problem. A log lay across the river, its sides worn smooth by the constant motion of the river, its top glossy and polished to a satin finish by the rain and the boots of whichever lunatics had chosen to risk life and limb in the crossing. On any normal spring day, the log might have seemed a fine bridge to the casual hiker, but as it was the river was swollen from the constant downpour of the last several days, and the cloudy water frothed in brown and indigo coils along the upstream side of the log, as if attempting to reach up and pull in anyone foolish enough to attempt crossing. The boy was suddenly very conscious of the wadded socks under his numb heels and the screaming of his cold-torn knuckles. His mother's friend picked up a dead limb from the ground and began to test the log with her rain boot.
After the log was pronounced "safe," (the boy would have protested if he thought it would do him any good), his mother's friend began to cross it the dead limb held out in front of her, as if in supplication to the gray-green cradle of the horizon. She inched her way across the log with painful caution, one boot in front of the other. Finally she was across and standing on the opposite bank. He watched his mother approach the log next, noting with pride the way she strode confidently onto the makeshift bridge, the clay-colored backpack a rust spot on the green canvas of trees on the opposite bank.
Then it was his turn to cross. He picked up a limb like the ones his mother and her friend had used, and began to step on the base of the log. His mother coaxed him with imploring hand gestures, so he began to cross. Instantly he could feel the worn tread of his boots scrabbling for purchase on the sweat-slick log, and he dropped the limb into the river. He had no time to watch it be swept away, as he was now desperately seeking firm footing upon the tree trunk. He dropped to his hands and knees and began to try to inch across the bridge, the cold river water soaking through the knees of his corduroy pants. His mother leaned forward and extended her arm, but as he half-rose to grasp her welcome hand, the log shifted slightly in the current. The boy's boot slipped from its tenuous perch and he toppled into the river.
He could distantly hear his mother screaming, but the sound seemed muffled and unimportant through the tumbling actuality of the river. He struggled to lift his head above the water, and was surprised to find that he could see clearly. His mother was nowhere to be found, but he could still hear her cries over the angry murmur of the river. He flailed about and somehow contacted a floating piece of driftwood.
Clinging to the frozen stick, the boy could already feel the icy grasp of the river creeping into his bones. He screamed aloud as he felt frozen tendrils reach out and grasp his leg, and then he was choking on the cloudy brown river water. He pulled himself out of the water and onto the floating limb with sheer willpower. He could see the roots of the trees hanging into the water through the rain-eroded bank, and then he knew what the tentacles had been. Still, that did not help his present situation, as he saw the bank was too steep for him to possibly climb, even with the roots as handholds.
Tears threatened to cloud his vision and his reason, so he tried to fight them back by thinking of the Volvo. Instead, all he could see were palm trees. His mind had a picture of palm trees that he must have taken from the television, because he realized that he'd never seen a real palm tree in his life. The trees in his head were set against a blazing red-orange sunset, crossed with streaks of gold. The image crumbled as his body slammed against something hard and unyielding beneath the surface of the water. He felt the knobby slime-covered limbs of the snag grasp and tear at his pant leg, like some kind of giant crab trying to pull him down. He kicked out as hard as he could with his numb legs and felt the current tear him away from the dead tree.
The river curved sharply up ahead, and he twisted in the river's grasp to avoid more snags and large rocks that threatened to wrench his frail body apart. He rounded the bend in the river, and there, silhouetted against the gathering dark, was his mother's red Volvo. He noted (almost with relief) that the other woman's white truck was gone.
The river broadened out as it flowed beneath the steel-reinforced underpass, and the boy struggled sharply against the current to reach the gravel bar he could not see but remembered as being below the turnout. He noticed with growing horror that the river picked up speed as it flowed toward the man-made tunnel, and waves of nausea washed over him as he imagined a scabby troll huddled beneath the overpass, waiting to snuff out his life with a twist of its barnacled hands. He tried to scream through his raw throat but only swallowed more of the hateful water. He kicked out with his boots in a childish fit, and it was then that he made a most amazing discovery.
His feet touched the river bottom and he cried out in joy. With painful effort he maneuvered himself into the shallows and collapsed upon the gravel bar.
His mother must have heard his cries from the water, for she crested the rise above him at that moment and sprinted down through the rain-soaked sea grass to capture the shivering boy as he collapsed.
She made soft sounds as she carried him up the slope and put him in the Volvo. Peeling off his saturated clothes, she rubbed him down with a towel and wrapped him an old quilt she produced from the back of the car. He heard the drivers' side door close as she climbed in and started the engine, heard the rush of air as the old car's heater began to pump life-giving warmth back into his glacial limbs. He heard the crunch of gravel underneath the car's tires as they headed back towards home, and he heard the pattering of the rain on the roof and windows of the Volvo.
The car moved towards town, where streetlights stood slumped as if they were exhausted. The boy laughed and his mother looked at him questioningly. The scattered illumination of oncoming headlights revealed a square upon the patchwork quilt. He rubbed the square absentmindedly, trying to grasp at what now seemed a half-remembered dream. He shrugged and closed his eyes. The streetlights revealed the square again, a red-orange background bearing two black palm trees stretching towards the setting sun.