The Thanatos Syndrome

fiberglass with two seats like a canoe. The uncle sits comfortably on the bottom amidships, arms resting on the gunwales, back against a thwart, like an easy chair. It’s a big pirogue. There are perhaps three inches of freeboard.
    The going is easy in the dead water, even downriver from the towhead. But there’s a noise ahead like the suck of floodwater in a storm drain.
    Then it takes us, the current of the Chute. Something grabs the bow at my knee. It’s like starting out from the siding in a roller coaster car and being jerked by the big cable. A sluice of brown water ships over my paddle hand and catches the uncle. “Shit!” breathes the uncle. This isn’t going to work, I’m thinking. But as soon as we’re airborne, caught up in the current, it’s better. We could be standing still if you didn’t notice the green shapes of the batture slipping by like stage scenery.
    It comes down to Vergil steering from the stern and me paddling some, mainly to keep heading up. Dark shapes, logs, scraps of dunnage nuzzle up, drift off, as friendly as dolphins.
    â€œLook out for snags, Doc,” says Vergil.
    â€œThe snags are going faster than we are.”
    â€œShit, those are not snags,” says the uncle at my ear. “Those are stumps, whole trees. Don’t worry about them. Do what the man says.”
    We’re settling down. It’s even quiet out here. The current carries us close to the Pointe Coupée bank. The pale quilted concrete of a revetment shoots past like railroad cars.
    The river turns. Sunlight glitters in the boils and eddies of the current. We’re around Tunica Bend and at the foot of Raccourci Island. The levee runs out and the Chute slams straight into the dark hills of Feliciana. We find easier water near the inside of the bend. Now we’re gliding along a pencil-size strip of beach on the Pointe Coupée bank. There is a break in the treeline and, beyond, what looks like a tufted lake. It’s a hummocky swamp. We’re out of the Chute. The racket is behind us. Now it’s as quiet here as a bayou, but we’re still making good time.
    â€œYou know what that is, Mr. Hugh Bob?” asks Vergil behind me. He must be pointing with his paddle.
    â€œI ought to,” says the uncle to me. “I been there enough. That’s Paul’s Slough.”
    â€œThat’s right,” says Vergil. “It’s also the western end of the Tuscaloosa Trend.”
    â€œI know that,” says the uncle.
    â€œYou go another ten miles west and you got to drill forty thousand feet just to hit gas. This is where the Devonian fault takes a dip.”
    â€œThat’s right,” says the uncle to me. “And that ain’t all. I’ll tell you something else about that piece of water that some folks don’t know. I’m talking about that steamboat. Some people don’t know about, but his daddy knows about it.” His voice went away behind me. He must have jerked his head toward Vergil.
    Vergil doesn’t answer. We’ve got crossways of the current and are busy heading up.
    The uncle, piqued by Vergil’s showing off his geological knowledge, enlists me by tapping my shoulder. He knows some stuff too. “We heard it many a time when we were running our traps. Vergil Senior, his daddy, told me he heard it when he used to spend the night over there before a duck hunt.”
    â€œHeard what?” I say, thinking about Belle Ame. “How much farther to Belle Ame, Uncle?”
    â€œNot all that far. Well, you know right here is where the old river used to come in. Right here. You know the Raccourci Cut happened one night during a June rise just like this. All it takes is one little trickle across the neck, then another little rise, a little more water, and before you know it, here comes the whole river piling across and ain’t nothing in the world is going to stop it, not the U.S. engineers, nothing. If this river wants to go, it’s going to go. Look out! The old river is still over there, you know, about twenty miles of the old river still looping around Raccourci Island, right there, blocked off, right across that neck where the swamp is. You can walk across to it in ten minutes. What happened was this. The night the river decided to come down the Chute, a stern-wheeler was working up the old river. They had a river pilot of course, and he was cussing. I mean, what with the fog and the