Wrecking Rock
Clang! Bang! Clang! Bang!
The gentle sounds of our canoes slicing through the current had been overpowered. It was as though an out-of-synch marching band was approaching on water—drums around waists pounding away, tambourines tapping and shaking, and kazoos, clarinets, and trombones exploding with sound. We turned around and shooting up through the middle of our canoes there they were, just two men in a canoe, heads down, but wildly hell-bent on destination. In fact, they didn’t even notice us until now, surrounded by canoes, someone said in our group said, “Hi.”
Startled, the man in front looked up from the map draped over his knees and asked, “Do you know where Wrecking Rock is? It’s supposed to be pretty bad.”
“No,” we replied.
Head back down into his map, they took off, oars against metal so painful we winced and cringed until they were well ahead. We saw them, too, right before they rounded a bend in the river, heads still down, their focus somewhere between the map and the determination to win the gold, then heard the horrible crunch of metal against rock. Wrecking Rock.