“What’s your name?”  I asked in a rather aggressive, booming voice.

She lowered her eyes to her knobby knees and her feet as she leant against the side of a pickup.  For my part, I could see I would have to try a different tactic.  For hers, I supposed she hoped I would go away.  I feel the same sometimes.

Eventually she looked in my general direction.  I tried again.  “What’s your name?”  I asked, softer this time.

“Lola.”

“How old are you, Lola?”

“11”

We were getting ready to put three kayaks and a canoe in Middle River.  Had it not been for Lola, we would have been a grizzled group of beer drinkers with our shirts off talking like truckers.  The presence of the 11 year old, then, added some maturity.

It was Saturday.  We would float a few miles of river and look for a few deep holes to set poles on.  We’d return on Sunday to see if we caught anything.

Generally the crew would select a site on the outside of a river bend, driving the pole into the bank that was stratified with the deposits left by time and exposed to us because of what time was taking.  On the pole was several feet of line, a sinker, and a hook that would go through the tail of a live bluegill.  Generally I would try not to drown, nor let my beer get warm.

Half way down we stopped at a sandbar.

“Banks, have you told Lola about the Indians yet?”

“Indians?”  She asked.

“I don’t know if we should tell her about that yet.”

“What Indians?”

“A little farther down there’s a large creek that comes into Middle River, called Clanton.  At the junction used to be a favorite Indian campsite.  They say if you look along the bank you’ll sometimes find arrowheads or pottery shards.”

“Will we go there?”

“Yea, it’s just a little farther.”

Had it been a week earlier, I would have thought of another girl, about her age, to take there.  She was gone, though.  Complicated thing, this time of ours.

 

We hopped back in, continuing to set poles and making our way to the junction.  The music of Sturgill Simpson came from her father’s speaker.  Over it I could hear him softly give her instruction as she sat in the front of the canoe, sharing with her the things time had given to him.

“Do you see that ripple up there?  Place the oar on this side.  Good.  See how it did that?”

We would scour the banks where Clanton and Middle came together.  We found nothing but time.  In time, though, is room for everything.  May it be kind to Lola.  May she learn to float it regardless.  May the rest of us figure it out too.