The Quicksand That Ate My Shoes
One
summer when I was about eleven, I was scolded for losing
my flip-flops, my rubber sandals.
It happened this way.
We lived in quicksand country. The Rio Grande flowed four miles west of our house. Along its banks my friends and I sometimes found holes and puddles of sandy mud that was thick, like pea soup. The holes were not land. They were not water. They were something in between. They were quicksand.
Whenever we waded along the river we would often discover the “sucking mud” (our name for it) by accident. We would come across it without expecting to because river water sometimes flowed over it, concealing it from view.
We discovered that the important thing to do when crossing this quicksand was to keep moving. We could skip over it, racing across it. But if we stood on top of it without moving, we began to sink.
We were careful because we’d been warned enough times.
“Watch out for that stuff,” adults would say. “It’s nothing to fool around with.”
I was something of a daredevil as a kid, but I kept a sharp eye out for quicksand. I believed what I had been told of its dangers.
I had trained myself to know quicksand when I saw it. If it was not covered by water, a hole usually had a thin layer of sun-dried mud on it, like the skin over a drum. Some holes were greasy on top, with bubbles that rose and floated. Below the surface the mud was quivery, like jelly or homemade mayonnaise after it has been left standing too long.
When I found a good hole, I would stand at the side of it and experiment by tossing in rocks, sticks, or feathers. I would count out loud, waiting to see how long it took these objects to sink out of sight.
I never got in myself. We had heard too many stories, all our lives, of old-time wagon trains vanishing in quicksand, or whole herds of cattle. Of course most of these stories were fiction, the lore of the West, but we believed them, every word.
The truth is, I never wanted to lose my flip-flops. They were my favorites. They were black and orange, with soles thicker than usual for this kind of shoe.
The day I lost my shoes I was at the river with my friend Martha. We were cautiously picking our way across a wide expanse of very slippery, shiny mud. The river had been high, and it was gradually lowering. Water was being drained off by farmers for irrigating their fields.
The funny thing is that I was being careful when it happened. I took a step forward with my right leg and suddenly found myself unable to pull my foot free of the mud. The more I tried, the more I felt stuck. To keep from falling sideways, I dropped my left foot into the hole. This foot, like the other, refused to come free.
“Quicksand!” I yelled.
Martha was right behind me. She had not yet stepped into the hole. She backed away, calling, “I’ll get you a stick!”
The fat willow stick Martha came back with was the perfect “tool” to get me out. I stuck it into firm mud at the edge of the hole, then leaned on it and pulled until both feet were liberated. But my flip-flops stayed behind. There was no way to get them back. They were gone for good.
My first thought was: How will I explain the absence of my shoes when I get home?
I was right. I did have to tell what had happened. I was scolded for being “careless,” running along the muddy river’s edge. The funny thing was, Martha and I were also complimented for knowing instantly what to do to get me out.
This praise came later, after the scolding part. Maybe that’s why I remember it. At the age of eleven, scoldings came often. Compliments were remembered.
