Fleda, breathing heavily because of the long, steep climb, returned from the whirlpool late in the morning. At the top of the bank she leaned her back against a fir tree which grew out at an angle over the drop. She could feel the roughness of the bark push its way through her cotton clothing, and with one hand she absently caressed this uneven texture while she waited for her heartbeat to return to normal. When it did, she placed her two palms against the tree behind her and levered herself into an upright standing position. Then she walked over to the tent to search for her diary.

David had repaired the makeshift desk at the edge of the bank so Fleda, journal now in hand, headed in its direction. When she arrived she pulled up a suitable stump, fastidiously removed one or two bird droppings from her workplace, and placed the notebook on the weathered planks. Taking a pencil from her pocket she began to write.

25 June 1889

Every day when David leaves, either for the camp or for the rooms in town, I go down to the whirlpool.

All by myself at the water’s edge I make small boats out of folded birch bark and then I push them out into the current.

This takes most of the morning.

Little white vessels departing from the shore, set adrift on a long tour of the whirlpool. Like people, just like people. A complete revolution would be a long, long life. Not many are able to go the distance. Those that do I am unsure of. Have they moved around the full circumference or have they doubled back somehow on an unknown current? Have they been affected by wind? I have begun to mark my boats in some way, making each one different from the others. And I have begun to give them names, like real ships. “Adonais,” “Dreamhouse,” “Warrior,” “Angel.”

With a pencil from my apron pocket I write the words on the birch bark in clear block letters. Then I launch my small craft from the shore and pick up Browning in order to read while I wait for them to return.

Yesterday, the Old River Man passed by and I spoke to him but he didn’t answer. He walks around the edge of the whirlpool as if he is looking for something among the stones, even pushes his walking stick into the tall grass that grows beyond them. He seems, at these times, to be completely ignoring the water. I think I understand this.

He knows the water. There is hardly anything that he doesn’t know about the water. He knows the whole river. He can’t live in the water but he lives as close to it as he can. But he has to be careful. The land is something he will never entirely learn, so, for him, each step there is investigative, an exploration. He won’t ever speak to me because I belong to the land, which is what I know. For me, the water is dangerous. I suppose I’ll never really understand it. So I study it. He stands at the very edge of the water and looks at that land which, for him, is as unfathomable as the whirlpool is to me, as undecipherable as the upper and lower rapids.

People are always building houses out of the materials they know so that they can crawl inside and think about the materials that they don’t. The River Man lives beside the water, which is safe for him and he thinks about dry rocks, sand, grasses, trees, cliffs, hills, fields. He can’t kill in a territory he doesn’t understand, so he doesn’t hunt, he fishes. Everything he swallows is either made of water or comes from the water. It is his survival.

I am surrounded by grasses, trees, earth. Everything I eat grows on the land, but I think about the water all the time. It is constantly on my mind.

My games are played with small, benign toys. Today “Warrior” came in first, followed shortly thereafter by “Adonais” and “Dreamhouse.”

Fleda lifted her head and tightened the muscles in her neck, shoulders, and back. In this alert posture she resembled a small animal who was trying to ascertain the level of danger in a distant, barely discernible sound.

In fact she was not listening to, or for, anything; had merely startled herself by what she had written.

The little boat, “Angel,” had not returned, or if it had, she had completely failed to notice it.