Читать книгу Canoeing with Jose онлайн

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I was eager to empty the boat and get back in the water, but José was furious. “Why the fuck did you do that? You tipped us. You said we’d get through it.”

I ignored him, focused on emptying and then reloading the canoe. As we returned to the river, I noticed a bearded man in a black pickup parked across the channel near the dam. I had seen the same vehicle at the boat landing in Breckenridge. The driver was watching us, smiling cruelly.

I could see the rage in José’s eyes. As if things weren’t bad enough, now a redneck was laughing at him. Standing knee-deep in the water, he demanded to use my phone. He said he was going to call Homegirl J, so she could come pick him up. I dug the soaked phone out of a dripping pack and handed it to him. José burrowed into the duffer spot, pulled his headphones over his ears, and went unresponsive.

Kocher and I paddled a docile draw over the next mostly sunny 25 miles. Around every bend, as if the river hadn’t seen humans since Sevareid, deer bolted between the cottonwoods, and bald eagles, startled from their nests, took wing on fabulous spans, often swooping down to take a closer look at us. Canadian geese honked, warning us to keep our distance, and scurried to shore to shepherd goslings among the vegetation. Throughout this first extended leg of the voyage, José spit out C-Murder lyrics, moving only to slap with his paddle at the larger geese when they swam close to the boat.