A Taste of My Novel

Shivering, he stretched his legs into the blackness and tried
to touch bottom. The river had narrowed, slowing the
current, but the water was deeper. And colder. On either
side the banks were black with tag alder. He was at least half a mile
downstream, farther than he’d ever been. Could June still be
waiting? She had to be all right. For a time he’d just floated,
thinking about her, wondering if he’d made a mistake. Could she
have been his chance at something closer to normal?
Still reaching, his toe touched the gravel bottom. Then he lost
it again. Finding it seconds later, he tried to root himself. He was
only able to keep light contact. The banks felt miles away. Ahead
lay only more flowing blackness. He’d lost the feelings he had
earlier, when he didn’t care, when more than anything he had
wanted to escape June and her question: “What will you do now?”
He still heard her voice, but the question had more immediacy.
Minutes ago, he’d drifted with the current. He slowed when the
river slowed and crawled over the bottom when it went shallow.
Ignoring stumps, partially submerged logs, boulders just beneath
the surface, shallow runs of rapid water, or any of the structures
that Fish andWildlife had put in, he’d moved thoughtlessly, easily,
without fear. Drifting, he’d experienced the feelings he’d had at
the cabin for the last three months. When he wanted to get
out—as soon as he knew that he couldn’t just drift—every possible
way of harming himself rushed into his head. Skimming the
bottom with his foot, he imagined jamming a toe against a log or
rock. Maybe the hole would never shallow out. The river would get
deeper—go into a reservoir. Thoughts like these seized him, and
he began to thrash, going underwater a few times, surfacing to
cough and spit out mouthfuls of water.
Despite his panic, the bottom rose to him. First he tiptoed,
then walked on the balls of his feet, and finally moved normally up
the slope and into water only three feet deep. The river widened
and the tag alder thinned. He stopped moving, and the current
worked around his legs.
He angled toward the knee-deep, then shin-deep water near
shore. The pebble bottom gave way to mud. He sank past his
ankles. The muck was colder than the water and it oozed up
around his calves, musky and rotten, redolent of sewage.
He wrenched his feet out, imagining sharp branches that might
be embedded in the soft bottom or the rare broken bottle.
Everything on the water glowed in the moon’s light. Downstream
the river kept going without him, ghost-lit and gliding, until it
finally turned a bend. Out of its pull, he saw it as beautiful again,
something he wanted back. His breathing steadied. He stood and
watched, and as he did June came into his mind. If he’d done this
differently, he could be with her, naked in the cabin’s darkness. It
might have gone that far. There was no mistaking the signs. She’d
wanted him.

Seems like a good place to stop. What you have just read is the beginning
to my novel, Into the Desperate Country. Want to read more? Well, it's
available on Amazon, through March Street Press, or through me.

Just send a check for $11.59 payable to Jeff Vande Zande to:

Jeff Vande Zande
P.O. Box 2042
Bay City, MI 48707