MISSOURI 200
THE DARK CLOUDS CHASED US. THEY gained on us, minute by minute, as we paddled down the Missouri River, following the slim serpentine channel in the wide river as best we could as we tried to outrun the storm behind us. As ominous as the clouds looked, the rain remained within them, their lightning and thunder bottled up. Until, finally, like an impatient driver laying on his horn behind a slow car, those dark clouds announced their presence with an angry clap.
As the organizer of this three-day trip across Missouri, I felt responsible for the safety of our six-man crew. “Paddle to the shore, now,” I said to my five friends spread across a raft and a canoe that we had lashed together.
As I dug my paddle into the water, I glanced over my left shoulder to get a look at the storm. I wanted to know: How bad is it? In the foreground between me and the storm was my friend Micah. His straw hat shaded his intense eyes, and his face glowed red from the exertion of paddling on top of a base layer of sunburn from hours in Missouri’s baking heat.
My eyes jumped from Micah to the storm behind him. Now rain fell straight down, still far behind us but getting closer, ever closer. The rain looked like a charcoal sketch tinted green. The storm moved from left to right, across the river, as if God His-Very-Self was closing a shower curtain.
The rain didn’t worry me. It had been in the 90s all day on the river, and I almost welcomed the cool-down. What worried me was the lightning that came with that rain. Getting wet I looked
