A strip of land on both sides of the river had been denuded.   Rome plows were at work, the machines bulldozing the tree trunks into huge piles.   As they watched, a distant pile of logs was set on fire.  Thick black smoke rose into the cloudless blue sky.  Dense stands of trees awaited the Rome plows as they worked their way outward from the banks of the river.

“Why did they have to start next to the river?”  Prentiss said.

They had all expected this to be their last trip on this section.  By fall all they were looking at would be underwater, even the bridge and the road it serviced.

“Let’s go shoot pool at Dotson’s,” Franklin said.

“Before we do, Prentiss better go home and take down that gone fishing sign,” Arnold said.

“Yeah, got himself kicked out over a fishing trip he never took,” Franklin said.

The men laughed.  Prentiss tried to ignore them.

“I’m going,” Prentiss said.

“It’s gonna be a hot one” Franklin said.

They all looked up at the cloudless sky, the only mark on it an insignificant smudge from the fire.

“I’ll fill the ice chest up,” Prentiss said.

“They’re all yours,” Arnold said.

Arnold and Franklin helped him carry his canoe and his gear to the water.  They would drive their trucks down to Frog Eye and leave one of them there for him when he got off the river.  Prentiss would drive the truck to his mother’s house.

“We’ll think about you while we’re drinking some cold ones,” Franklin said.

Prentiss dismissed them with a wave of his hand and aimed the canoe at a gap between two rocks.  He did not look back.

***

By early afternoon Prentiss guessed the temperature was well over a hundred.  The calm surface of the river shimmered in the light. From time to time he heard the sound of a Rome plow’s engine.  He imagined the operator positioning the massive blade against a tree, sharp polished steel slicing through the trunk. 

No shade, he thought. 

From time to time he considered putting the boat into the earthen bank and walking until he reached a stand of trees still untouched by the plows.  He would sit in the shade of a big tulip poplar and drink ice water.  

Fortunately on this last trip on the river the fish were biting.  The fishing was good in the deep pools at the foot of the shoals.  He was filling the ice chest with bass.  He tried to lose himself in the act of fishing, erasing thoughts of Danielle and jobs from his mind.  It was pleasant to hear nothing but the gentle rush of the water over a small drop, the rumble of a Rome plow, whose exhaust he saw now and then, black puffs above the bank, lost to the flow of the river. 

***