At Scottsville the James River makes a hairpin turn, veering to the southeast, the course it will take in its remaining 190 miles to its mouth at Hampton Roads. The bend, and the fact that the town is roughly halfway between Lynchburg and Richmond, has long made the place an important stopover in navigation. The puppy is crawling over one of the women, whose name is Madonna, as she reads a paperback. As I pass, the dog suddenly leaps off her shoulder and vanishes in the river. Without looking up from her book, Madonna reaches into the water, fishes around for what seems an eternity and finally hoists the puppy from the deep by the scruff of its neck.
Rain dimples the river's surface.
Thunder, more annoyed-sounding than threatening, rumbles overhead. A few things might give it away, I figure. But not immediately. Then I catch a movement in the corner of my eye and turn to see a bald eagle, head and tail glowing white even in the rainstorm's gloomy light, leap from a tree on the James' edge and flap silently downriver.