up the river

A small swarm of state cruisers wails past just as we get our bikes onto the highway, spreading a wake of pebbles and dust around our tires, and just as quickly they fade into the horizon. Whatever is going on is way up past the bridge, it would seem.

Just over a mile later we make our way to that spot where the guard rail sprouts from the ground, as if it has roots, and marks a flat clearing where anglers and whoever else can head along the south shore.

For whatever reason we find this overcast morning rife with excitement and what better place to start than the riverbank, since it's probably too early for weirdos to be roaming around yet, not that we've ever seen one. We coast off the road a little ways and come to a stop facing the steep bank with about 40 yards of thick brush to water's edge. A group of us sometimes go hunting down there in winter when the growth is dead, but after a rainy spring it's a world of its own that doesn't welcome our kind.

And that's when it appeared. From beneath the bridge some type of craft emerges, at first maybe a bass boat, but no, it's a wooden raft and with someone on it, or maybe a mannequin. I turn to Jake and quip about there being a float parade here in the middle of nowhere.

As more of the barge comes into view there are several men, all wearing suits and lying in and about a white four-door Continental. Not sure what to think of this until I note the flat tires and blown-out windshield, and then the bullet wounds magically appear, as if someone had switched on a black light in some macabre special effects show.

By now I am unable to look away. It's somehow zooming towards me, forming a full-body death grip and filling my veins with the icy murk of the currents below. Finally I turn to Jake, finding him pale and still as a limestone monument straddling his bike seat.

"Hey -"

He doesn't move. I lean to take a swat and barely get the sleeve of his faded gray t-shirt, having to catch myself from falling over in the process. This brings him out of the spell a bit and he shifts his lifeless gaze down into the foreboding vastness of vegetation.

"Let's go."

Jake draws a deep breath and starts maneuvering his bike toward the road. I hold off at first to make sure he's able to keep it together, and then, I follow.