Water bottle rains curses upon part of bicycle trip on North Mississippi's Tanglefoot Trail
DAVID PANNELL
Last Saturday we rode 100 miles on bicycles. You may ask why. Well, you know, for fun. You may also ask – how long did it take? Well, you know, mind your own business. Cyclists call it a century – 100 miles in a day – and it is considered a rite of passage into the serious-cyclist brotherhood. A fit, focused rider can do it in six or seven hours. Being neither fit nor focused, it took us 16. We left at 7, in the tender light of morning, and returned at 11 that night, on tender bottoms, by the light of a single headlamp – starving, soggy, and completely happy.
We were a party of four: my son, my brother, a friend from church, and me. My brother and I are in our 50s; my son is 20; our friend is 67 and recovering from open-heart surgery.
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We rode the Tanglefoot Trail from New Albany to Houston and back, for a total of 88 miles, plus 12 miles on back roads around Algoma, to give us our coveted, must-have 100. We rode through shade and sun, soaking in the scent of willow and pine straw, fresh-plowed ground and summer rain. We saw a copperhead, a dozen rabbits, a coyote, herds of cattle and sheep, and a gang of goats, their cloven hooves clicking as they ambled across the trial, trailing goat pellets behind them. Birds sang, frogs croaked, and the bikes whirred along. We rode past kudzu cliffs, rattled over slatted wooden bridges, watched turtles sunning in swamps skimmed with vivid green slime. Evening found us on a ridge above a new-planted bottom of tender beans giving way in the distance to a wooded horizon, and a sunset holy as a hymn. We all fell silent before it.
But something happened somewhere south of Algoma that changed our fortunes. It was late afternoon, and we stopped at a sheltered picnic area beside the trail at mile marker 15, and there, on the table, was a water bottle that someone had left. It was one of those hi-tec, insulated ones with the twist top, and my brother pointed out that it was worth about $15. I thought about it, and I could sense the members of my party were thinking, too. Should we take it or leave it?
I took it. It seemed like the right thing to do, or at least a not-wrong thing to do. There was no one around for miles, and no one would ride back for it. I strapped it to the rack of my bike and we rode away, and almost immediately, the skies turned purple and thunder started to rumble. By the time we got to Houston, the sky was black, the wind rising.
We rode north toward home in slashing, Old Testament rain for an hour, dodging lightning that turned the skies acid purple. Chilled to the bone, we stopped for dollar ponchos in Houlka. The other members of my party conspired against me, shouting over the gale that I should return the cursed water bottle, like the sailors on Jonah’s boat seeking to be shed of the evil cargo. I raised my fist to the sky, my face lit with crazy lightning, and shouted above the din, “Never! It’s mine, I tell you. Mine!”
We rode north, the path now nearly dark, the rain unrelenting. Just as we passed the spot where I had taken the bottle, behind me I could hear my brother shouting, “Put it back! For the love of all that’s holy, put it back!” and at that exact moment, a thick bolt of lightning struck so close to us I could feel the frame of my bike tingle with electricity. I put the bottle back.
Almost immediately the sky brightened, and a few weak stars began to shine hazily. The rain stopped, and we rode home by the light of a single headlamp, all in a tight cluster, following the fan of light. We all laughed about the curse of the water bottle, but not too hard.
If you’re ever on the Tangle-foot Trail, somewhere south of Algoma, at mile marker 15, and you see a water bottle, one of those nice ones, leave it. Just leave it.
DAVID PANNELL describes himself as “a recovering farmer and the reluctant pastor of Common Ground Christian Church in Wren, Mississippi.” Contact him at davidpan1963@gmail.com.