On A Cliff Above the Water
by Jack McNeel
The mosquitoes had stopped bothering him several days ago.
They didn’t stop biting; rather, George stopped paying attention to the
half-opaque swarm that surrounded him. Several days ago, the bites
swelled up like a boil and itched worse than poison ivy. But he figured
that in the past nine days, he’d been bitten by so many mosquitoes that
their poison didn’t bother him anymore—the bites ceased itching and
welting.
*
Nine days ago, George embarked on a two-week kayaking
expedition with two dear friends from the venturing crew he had been a
part of since his early teens. Randy, Ken, and George had gone every year
on a vigorous trek with the rest of their crew. The venturing crew was
an organization like Boy Scouts, but the members chose who could join.
This created a harmonious group of young men, who all shared the same
need for adventure. After heading off to different colleges and exceeding
the age threshold for being a crew member, the three continued to go on
their own yearly outing in late summer.
This year, it was a long-distance kayak expedition with an
aggressive itinerary. The trek was taking place in the uninhabited lakeregion of Manitoba, far north of the Canadian-Minnesotan border. The
reasons it was uninhabited were its extreme mosquito problem, extreme
climate, and the fact that the only effective means of transportation was
a float-plane. Many years ago, the trio had completed a canoe trip in
the same region with the crew, though it was shorter in both distance
and duration. It had been the crew’s hardest trek. But now, with
several times the experience, higher quality gear, and at the peak of their
physical ability, the men felt it was time to return to the beautiful and
unforgiving region, which had administered a straining test on their
mental toughness. A test that some of their less indefatigable members
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