River Guide: Pawprints on the Riverbank

Natural Carving

Cherish, or anyone else living in that old mountain river basin, couldn't possibly be aware of how it was formed ages ago. Of how, every few hundred years, a rainy season came like none other. Long long ago, what used to be a lake at the base of distant mountains finally found a path carved by the immense storm floodwaters to drain the lake completely dry. That was how the flat basin that Cherish and many people lived in had been formed long ago. That's how the river that fell along its edge to the channel it carved far below first came to be. The normal rains still fell each year on those lands. That water washed down the torn river channel that Cherish had come to know well from her days of fishing. She would travel much of the upper river gorge to its plateau getting water for the home, bait for fishing, and below that top plain into its rough channel for catching fish. She had some idea of the rains that carved the river gorge but no idea of the flooding that had formed it all in the first place. She was about to find out first-hand. It would change her life forever.

She woke from her strangely transformed dreams to hear the dense, powerful rains pounding against the house. That sound was drowned out only by lightning flashes and snapping thunder that came too close for comfort. It was amazing that she had slept as long as she had. She rose and went into her mother's room quickly. She was wrapped in her bedspread over her heavy nightgown. Mother had been awake for a short while now herself. She was not surprised at all to see Cherish come in and lay with her on the bed. "It sounds bad out there, mother!" Cherish said as she buried herself in bedding and pillows against the light show and thunder raging outside. Cherish had seen many storms in her life. This felt different. It felt dangerous.

"There's nothing to be afraid of, girl. We either get to live, or the Lord takes us home soon enough. I'm praying the Lord either takes me quickly or leaves me here to care for you." her mother said and then started singing a familiar hymn. Cherish knew the song and appreciated any sound other than that of the raging storm. Her mother knew this from when her mother had comforted her as a child. She sang the old tune softly until Cherish finally drifted off to sleep again. Still, her mother was deeply worried about this storm. She had lived in this house her whole life and couldn't remember a storm that felt this bad. She prayed earnestly as she sang the songs a few more times to comfort herself as she lay next to her daughter. Finally exhausted, she fell asleep. The storm did lessen as it moved away upstream toward the mountain source of the river. The waters being cried onto the lands soon had nowhere to go in greater and greater quantities not seen in centuries. This would be the last night this house would be on that land or anywhere. Massive changes were coming fast, and nothing could stop them.

In the morning, the women woke to a dry bed but a wet floor. At least the roof had held its own through that night of driving rains and rattling thunder. The floor was wet because the house had been lightly flooded during the heaviest rain deluge. Cherish got dressed after finding her boots. She dressed extra warmly, and the boots kept her feet out of the slimy, muddy residue now coating the floor of that old home. As she went outside to see how things were, she was devastated. The whole of that plateau was flooded. Many of the places she knew that once held homes and families, and the town itself, were now flowing water and debris that she could see. The trees still standing showed that the water wasn't deep at all. In the night, people were stranded in the darkness. Some had lost their homes, and some lost even more. She heard a constant roaring behind her now. She turned around to see its source.

The river! It was swollen as she had never seen it before. The old high water marks were well below the now terrifying splashing flow that was proof of how the gorge it followed was carved. She heard the grinding and falling of boulders in that spraying flow. It was amazingly fearful for her to see. She understood for the first time that water could take all the life away that it so generously gave. She started crying silently in her fear. Cherish ran back inside and told her mother what was happening outside, but it was already plain to her mother. They both looked out the kitchen window of their endangered home and knew all there was to tell. It was likely they were going to die. The waters were rising, not draining down and away. The whole great valley between them and the distant mountains was draining right toward them now, and they had nowhere to go. There was no escape across the river and away. Their only hope was somehow to make their way upstream and into the mouth of the floodwaters. Or they could wait and die in the deadly debris-filled wash surrounding them. Mother held her heart. Saying goodbye to this home that served so well and for so long was difficult, but they had to go.