Inflatable Kayak Blog

(Candace Clayton is an author who’s written novels, poetry and other short stories. She was kind enough to write this fictional adventure story specifically for the Inflatable Kayak Blog about ‘The Traveling Man’, a kayaker who tells us a tale about a youthful adventure with his buddies on the river where he grew up. We hope you enjoy it!)

(When left our hero, he was about to join his buddies to chase off some ‘dad burned females’ from their swimming hole. However, suddenly, in the middle of the river, where the water ran the deepest and coolest, emerged the most beautiful mermaid he had ever seen.)

Water dripped off her and caught the sunlight in millions of sparkly prisms. I was struck nearly blind by her radiance.

I  figured this glorious beauty was part of that annoying group invading our water hole. What to do! If my buddies succeeded in running off that gaggle of chicks, this vision of pure loveliness would leave too. I just couldn’t let that happen, so I did some quick thinking.

My plan was ingenious, or so I thought at the time. I reached out and ducked John under the surface, by way of the fact that he was closest to me and had the loudest voice. That feller come up out of the river spitting and sputtering with blood in his eyes!

I never even saw what was headed my way. I was still in awe of the angel so innocently floating in the river having no idea of the trouble her mere presence was causing. Next thing I knew, John jumped on me and was swinging as fast and as hard as he could. He got me with a quick upper cut and knocked me clean out.

John says, my inner tube, with no regard to my condition, kept floating down river. right past them women folk. And as soon as they saw me they set up a hue and holler fit to bring down the gates of heaven.

My buddies, seeing me floating down river, with no never mind of where I was headed, left off their plan to scare those girls outta’ the river and set up a chase after me. By this time I was getting closer to the next bend in the river.  Devil’s Peak, we locals all called it. I am sure you can prolly guess as to why we called it that.

Devil’s Peak was not big as waterfall’s go. We were in Texas after all… not a lot of hills and such in those parts of the country, but I can guarantee a waterfall can be powerful mean to a body when it has the mind to.

So there I was, floating unaware to what could very well be my last trip down any river. John was hollering at the top of his loud lungs, “Wake up, wake up! You gonna’ go and get yourself killed!”  As I was just comin’ to, naturally, I wasn’t in the mood to take another hit.

I looked up just in time to see the roiling white water. The instant I hit the rapids, my tube flipped and dumped me headfirst into the churning river.

Good thing was I was now wide-awake and aware of my pending doom. Bad thing was, my tube popped.

I could barely see John waving his arms and yelling something at me, but couldn’t understand what he was saying.  Whether this was due to the water rushing around me or the fact that I had been dealt one of the hardest punches I had ever taken in my life, I don’t rightly know.

I went under the water again, but this time when I popped back up, I cold see John at the riverbank ahead of me. He was holding a limb out over the water. I struggled to reach for the tree branch on my way past him. Just when I thought I wasn’t gonna be able to grab the branch, something pushed me up from underneath the water.

As soon as the branch touched my palm, I grabbed on to that bit of bark as tightly as I could while John and the rest of my buddies pulled me to the shore.

I never did see what gave me that shove out of the river and saved my life, but my gut told me it was that golden haired vision I’d snuck a glance at before all the ruckus started. In my opinion, I was saved by a real live mermaid!

I didn’t tell anyone at home the truth of what happened that day. I didn’t have too. John had seen the whole thing. We never spoke of it together, but the look in his eye when he pulled me to shore told me he knew.

That’s how my life of traveling the rivers and oceans came to be. I went back to that river time and time again, but she was gone. So, I packed my camping gear and hitched a ride to the bus depot.

That’s where I ran into John, carrying his backpack.  Seems we were of the same mind. The two of us climbed on that ole bus without looking back and headed out to find that dream.

What’s that? Did we ever see the mermaid again? In later years, paddling one of my fancy, new folding kayaks? Well, I ain’t saying we did, and I ain’t saying we didn’t. You’ll have to come visit again sometime for another story and find out.

The author, Candace Clayton, lives in Granbury, Texas with her Husband and family, spending as much time in the outdoors as she can.