The Raft and Rope

High Prairie Creek was swollen nearly beyond its limits. It was the start of the spring thaw and the snow was melting high in the mountains far beyond where Adam or I could see it.

The water rushed by, sounding like a thousand sticks being beaten on a rock. The creek was a giving us a challenge and were accepting it.

Adam pounded the last nail in. It was bent over and rammed down flat with a hand-sized rock. Most of the nails that we had driven into the raft that cloudy morning were that way.

How a nail had been driven did not matter. How crooked the boards were cut did not matter, either.

What was important was whether the raft would float or not. A piece of rope that I had scrounged was not enough to build the raft. Besides, it had failed to hold even two lengths of timber together as we dragged them to the creeks edge.

Nails, it was decided would do for this job. Finally, we set our tools aside to look at what we had made. The hull of their raft was built out of old planking that we had dragged down from the old barn.

The planks were laid side-by-side and nailed together at either end with more planking. Together the raft was heavy. It was almost too heavy to lift, but that also told us it was a sturdy raft.

We were pleased with our craftsmanship. Now all that was left to do was get the raft into the water.

In school, I had learned the Egyptians had moved the giant stone blocks used to build the Pyramids over logs. Every time a log was rolled over and it came out from underneath the stone, it would be rushed up to the front to make another pass under the stone.

So we set ourselves to work looking for as many small logs as we could carry. This came to nine or ten. They were all different in size, but they worked.

Finally at the creeks edge we made one final push to get the raft into the water. With a mighty splash it was in the swift moving current.

It was at that moment I figured out a use for the rope, but by then though all we could do was stand there and watch our raft disappear.