A story about a boy weaving between the riverbanks.

A boy dipped the raw wood oars into the bronze, shimmering water and drew them toward his heaving chest to push himself backward down a wide river. His hands, laced with callus on the knuckles and on the palms right where his fingers met his hand, scraped against the raw wood of the oar handles. He felt sawdust trickle between his fingers and fall snow-like toward the bottom of the blonde canoe.

The sun was setting over the river in front of him, lining the river’s surface with spines of bone white. The boy peered out from beneath his tattered hat, scowling against its radiant intensity. He swore as he took the hat off and wiped his face with his shirt. The starchy denim dragged roughly over the boy’s brow, the bridge of his nose, then finally his chin before dropping coiled over his chest. As soon as the collar rested against the boy’s skin, a drop of sweat fell from beside his ear. He felt the sharp cold of it melt into his collarbone. The boy closed his eyes and hung onto that icy sting for a while, willing it to radiate itself through the rest of his torso.

Some time later, a sound like wind sweeping away a pile of newspapers snapped the boy’s eyes open. At the end of his canoe, not three feet from his starchy denim-clad knees, perched a Great Blue Heron. The boy started at the sight of it, not because of its grand size or its shocking white chest, but because of its stillness. The bird had just landed, or so the boy thought due to the recency of the sound, but it now sat so still that the boy began to wonder if it had been there longer without him noticing. Its head was turned left, and its yellow eye pierced the boy’s stare.

“Go on now. Boat’s heavy enough. Get.”

The heron turned its head and peered at the boy with its other yellow eye. The sudden movement made the boy jump again, then the heron sat just as still as before.

“Boat’s heavy, bird. Go on, get. Can’t slow down now.”

The heron’s eye betrayed nothing, nor did it move again. The boy scoffed and gave his passenger an incredulous look. He held the bird’s gaze while he propelled the canoe with another swing of the oars, thinking that the motion would set it to flight. Three strokes later, the boy and the bird still sat eye to eye in the canoe.

“Why you here, bird? I don’t have no food. No fish, no bread. What you want?”

The boy wiped the thick sweat from his face, his denim shirt again dragging roughly across his features. He rubbed at the raw spots around his wrists as he grimaced at the bird’s silhouette against the sun. The heron cocked its head, studying the boy, then slowly stood. It towered over him on its thin brown legs, and the boy felt his heart jump into his throat. He choked on his words, wanting to yell at the thing to go away, and squeezed his eyes shut. The bird raised its great wings, held them there, and waited.

The boy’s vision morphed from a muted scarlet to a deep grey beneath his eyelids. He slowly opened his eyes and looked up at the heron. The great bird stretched its wings in a grandiose pose that eclipsed the sun behind it, casting a shadow over the boy and his canoe. The boy closed his eyes again, but this time was for the enjoyment of the shade rather than for the fear of the bird. After a moment, he swept his gaze across the heron’s silhouette. No longer impeded by the sun’s brilliance, the boy found it easier to discern the heron’s patterns. The heron’s grey wings and shoulders reminded the boy of warm overcast nights spent on a porch miles from here; he would watch the heat lightning flash across the clouds and imagine giants in the sky clapping their great hands together. The blue, black, and white striations on the heron’s neck reminded the boy of more recent, less pleasant memories. Long thin shadows cast across a stone floor. The sound of rattling metal. Old brown bloodstains on a shabby cot.

“Thank you, bird. Ain’t been no shade for miles.”

The bird stood still as the boy picked up the oars again and paddled. The canoe glided across the smooth, brown water.

“Boat don’t feel heavier no more. You keep shading me, I’ll take you as far as I go. Alright now?”

The heron turned its head silently, again peering at the boy with its yellow eye. Its pupil remained locked on the boy and its wings did not drop from their position. The canoe and its passengers continued until the sun began to set on the river behind the bird. As the sun lowered, the heron’s wings matched it. The boy remained shaded as he paddled down the bronze river.

“Should’ve known you were alright, bird. My mama liked herons. Had a big ol’ wood one her daddy made when she was little. Kept it on the porch by the steps.”

The heron faced the boy straight on now, hunched in its mass like a robed clergyman. The sun had fully set behind it, leaving a rim of orange, red, and purple bleeding into the oncoming night sky. The boy dipped the oars into the water again and pulled the canoe backward down the river. He felt the weight of the boat and the cool air of the night settle in around him.

“Still a ways to go. Can’t stop. You sleep, bird. Gonna need more shade tomorrow when that sun comes up.”

The heron shuffled in place and rested again. For the first time since it landed, it looked beyond the boy to something behind the boy’s back.

“You looking over my shoulder for me, bird? You let me know if I am about to hit a bank, alright now?”

The boy laughed softly. It was a low, tired laugh that betrayed the length of time that had elapsed between this one and its predecessor. He locked eyes with the heron once again who relighted its yellow eyes upon the boy. The boy could swear he saw pitiful sorrow in those eyes where there had once been sharp inspection.

“I’m glad I’m not alone. We go together.”

The boy and the Great Blue Heron paddled down the river away from the sunset and into the night.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………

“That’s little Howie’s boat, ain’t it?”

“Yeah, #213 must’ve found it tied up on the bank back at the edge of town. His daddy’s gonna tan his hide for leaving it out there.”

“It’s stained pretty good now, too.”

The two tall, uniformed men stood over a little blonde wooden boat that had careened into a riverbank. One of the men held a long rifle slung casually over his shoulder. A boy lay longways in the canoe. A leaking red rose blossomed from his chest right below his collarbone, staining his tattered uniform.

“Hell of a shot, Langford. Surprised he didn’t see you upriver.”

“Thank you, Warden. Nah, they can never see through that sun on the water. Blinds ‘em bad.”

“Well, call it in. Night’s comin’.”

The two men turned away from the boy in the canoe and walked away.