These early mornings, then and now

Snow's in the forecast. When I looked outside just now, it's already doing its wintry snake dance over the street out front. And I hear it. We're without protection from the wind here in the country, so when it arrives from the great northwest, our front room turns tea pot.

It's hard to believe that when I was 11 or 12 years old, I'd get up every morning, long before my parents. I'd get dressed, take my J.C. Higgens downtown to meet my buddy, then head out of town, a mile west, to the river. If the early morning was really cold or rainy or snowy, we'd con his mom into driving us. We had business down by the river that had to be attended to.

Most people wouldn't have a clue why I grabbed this picture yesterday at the river's edge. But when I spot things like this, I'm a kid again. That hole in the middle isn't a hole at all. It's a playground ride, a slide down and into the river--see how the matted grasses flow? There's no chewed up stumps close, and that band of trees just fifty feet away doesn't look at all scarred, so I'm guessing the fun belongs to muskrats. There are beaver around--I've seen 'em--and this spot looks well-used, a favorite. Who knows? That joy-ride may well belong to whoever happens to be in the neighborhood.

I stood there for a while yesterday to determine exactly where I'd set the trap, where I'd stake it down, where I'd stand the best chance of snagging one of those furry creatures. Some trace of a boyhood is still there in me, an instinct long, long gone but never forgotten.

Like always, that morning Hattie had let us off at the bridge down county trunk A. We’d scrambled down the embankment to the edge of the river, our flashlights shining out front of us as if in the thick morning darkness we might otherwise stumble on the Loch Ness monster. The east was already flushed with the dawn, but cottonwoods along the bank kept the bluff grasses shadowed until the sky glowed in muted grays over our heads.

The river's flow was a slow drone, a hum from some distant secret source, the water whispering past half‑sunken branches and tall stands of wild oats that fell heavily into the current's edge. Early in the morning, crows would scold and gulls whine, sitting aboard the stippled snowcaps on the plowed fields just off the banks. Occasionally, in the semi-darkness, something would thrash in the water, breaking the peace--a duck maybe, or a muskrat.

All of that is from a novel I wrote years ago, Romey's Place, a story that's got a lot of me in it. Yesterday, standing there on the banks of the Floyd River, 500 miles west of the old Onion, sixty years--a lifetime--later, that muskrat run made me feel twelve years old again.

Occasionally, a gnawed-off foot would still be in the trap--that's all. That happened. And during those winter mornings, I drowned my share of muskrats with a forked stick in my own hands. Maybe trapping was barbaric. I understand why people say that. I don't believe I considered those muskrats creatures of my Father in Heaven. I was born Dutch Calvinist, not Native. 

But this is not confession, and I'm not repenting. Even in the cold and wet darkness, those beautiful mornings taught me a reverence I didn't feel in a pew as a boy. Still do.

Outside my window right now, the wind is having its moment through the prairie grasses. It's still pitch dark out there, an hour maybe from first light. Here in this house, not a creature is stirring, not even the cat. 

But I'm up. Maybe I'm still up.

I checked yesterday. Look for yourself in that picture--the river is nowhere near frozen. That trapline of ours could still be out. With any luck this morning, we'd be in the warm and smoky comfort of Hattie's old Ford. But with this December cold, those muskrat pelts would be thick and glossy, wonderfully prime. 

The adventure was part of it, tramping along humming to the music of the river. Back then, you never knew arise out there in the darkness--sometimes nothing, sometimes two or three to throw in the gunny sack and take home to skin out after school. Years later, I found out the neighbor lady used to retch when she'd look out her window at the dead rats strung from our clothes line. 

We loved it all so much that, after a fashion, I can't help but think sometimes that I'm still at it. On this cold December morning, I'm not about to pull on my downy snorkel, climb into long underwear, and string up the winter boots--no way. But it's dark out there, and I'm up, still up maybe, my fingers curled up over keys. Who knows really what might show up on the screen in front of me? Who knows what's here in the early, early morning? Who knows the words I might find? 

Once upon a time at dawn I was a kid with a trapline. Sometimes, three score years later, I can't help but feel that nothing has really changed.