The Creek

Mom and Dad came home from going to Daddy's doctor appointment. The air in the house changed from relaxed to tense as they moved around not talking to each other.

Mom was mad, I had found out earlier from Daddy. He had sold our two remaining horses to my Aunt and Uncle. Mary and John were the horses names. Brother and sister.

My aunt had only wanted Mary, but my dad refused to sell one without the other going along. He didn't want to seperate them.

The horses being gone now for three days, mom missed them. She had wanted to keep John, but daddy had sold him anyways. She had told him that she wanted to get him and bring him back home. He told her that we weren't going to have anymore horses.

Daddy went to take a nap and mom went around cleaning, a thing she often did when she was angry. Not really wanting to stay in the house I decided to go down to the creek and swim.

I didn't understand why she was angry. Monday when I had came home from getting my air conditioner fixed in my new car, messing around a bit and going grocery shopping for her she told me all about how my uncle and cousin had came for the horses.

She had went with them to my Uncle's house to see them get settled into their new home. She told me how good they had been, getting in the horse trailer with no fuss.

She told me how pretty the pasture looked, a stream running beside it. How the horses, after being let out of the trailer had ran about their new grounds, running and playing.

They would probably have a grand time there. With kids to play and ride them. New grass to eat and someone to pay attention to them more often then they had here.

I cast my thoughts of the horses aside and found my swimsuit. It was a few years old and didn't fit as loose as it once did.

I put it on, covering up with a loose t-shirt and a pair of pink shorts. I put on a pair of dirty white flip flops, put my long hair in a bun and grabbed a towel out of the cabinet.

I lingered in the house for awhile not wanting to disturb my mother. After awkardly standing around I asked her if it was okay if I drove the four wheeler down to the creek.

She said it was and I told her of my plans. How I was probably going to have to walk down to the swimming hole that I had long ago found with my neice.

It was a hot summer day years ago, we had decided to go for a walk. We were walking along the country, gravel road talking and confiding in each other.

I was about fifteen, she was seven. And even though eight years seperated us, we were best friends.

As close as sisters.

We decided to walk as far away as the creek that ran under a bridge a mile or two away from the house. When we got there we were hot and tired. We played in the creek, trying to catch crawdads and baby fish in our shoes.

We were in the shallow part where only thin streams of water traveled over the gravel floor. We didn't know where the creek went to, but in the distance we could see a clearing.

Wanting to know what lay ahead down there we set off walking. It was a good distance and we kept looking back to see how far we had gone.

Pretty soon we looked back and we hardly saw the bridge. I thought about turning back, but we had gone so far and the end was coming into sight.

When we finally came to the spot we had seen in the distance we were shocked and happily suprised to see a wide body of slowly moving water.

The water from the bridge had trickled down to join Whitewater creek, a bigger creek then the one we had just been to. In the middle the water looked pretty deep, it had to be four foot deep atleast by looking at it.

It was so beautiful and private down there. The big body of water surrounded by beds of gravel and tall trees.

It was the perfect swimming spot.

No snakes and away from the prying eyes of the travelers going across the bridge.

After just a few minutes we decided to head back and tell my dad what we had found. We couldn't go swimming without permission or supervision so we had to get him. Tired, hot and thirsty we made our way back, a baby crawdad in one of my neice's shoes.

My parents had become worried so he and my nephew found us about half way home. We were so releived to see him. We were about too hot and tired to walk any further.

We got a ride home, set the crawdad free in the little creek by our barn since we couldn't keep it and told them all about the swimming hole we had found.

After that we always made the trip to where one creek led to another. For years we swam there. The body of water changing over the years with rain or lack of rain.

I had no idea what it would look like now, how deep it would be or even if it would be worth the walk. But, I got onto the four wheeler and made my way down there.