Читать книгу Canoeing with Jose онлайн

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The following morning, we descended through the mud and tiptoed across floating tree trunks to the waiting canoe. Kocher came down the jam last, heaving a pack before him. He stood at the edge of the canoe, considering how to get into the boat. Then, in one hasty move, he manhandled the weighty pack and dropped his body, ass first, into the boat. The canoe’s crew and contents would have been upset and submerged in thick, smelly muskeg had I not made a split decision to rebalance the load, splashing overboard into the stagnant pool. When I emerged, neck deep in the shit, I saw that José felt badly. “That’s rough, bro,” he said, sympathy in his voice.

I pulled myself up over the gunwales, silently relishing the opportunity to show José how tough I was. When I met Kocher’s glare I recognized immediately that his flop had been motivated by the fact that this was the lousiest three-day adventure imaginable. José and I had weeks of paddling ahead of us, and at least a vague sense that this miserable beginning would be repaid with warm tailwinds, magnificent campsites, and redemption in the rapids. But this was as good as it would get for Kocher. This was the most time he had taken off in years, and he was spending it in the mud of the Red River Valley.