The following is just one of the stories which will appear in the book. I thought y'all might enjoy being my beta test victims...er, I mean, I thought y'all might like to get a sneak peak.

Robert N Pruden

The Muskrat

I remember one particular stretch of river especially well. The prairie summer sky was a stunning azure blue with puffy marshmallow clouds floating on high. The suns brilliant light and basking heat was radiating into the soil, baking the sweet scents from the soil and lush plant life growing in the river valley. I breathed this airy nectar in through my nose as deeply as my lungs would allow. I had just paddled past a town, perhaps Heinsburg: it is set right on the flood plain, and decided that I needed to stretch my legs a little. I carefully pulled one leg out of the cockpit at a time and set them on the deck top. Anyone who knows a whit about kayak stability understands that this position is somewhat precarious at the best of times. It wouldn’t take much to cause an upset, especially on a river as restless as the North Saskatchewan. I wasn’t very worried about the increase in instability I caused by having my legs on top of the deck, the VJ is a very stable kayak, the river was calm today, the sun hot and the air relatively still: what could go wrong?
I had the center of the paddle loom half resting on my stomach while I made lazy corrective strokes to keep the kayak bow-forward while I half dozed. I had tilted my hat forward to keep the sun out of my eyes while I lazed. Occasionally, I let my feet dangle in the river to let them cool off. I listened to the sounds of shore birds and waterfowl as I passed by. Soon, I was feeling very dozy so I stopped making corrective strokes and allowed myself to enjoy a catnap while the kayak floated with the easy current. It seemed as if everything was lazy today: the air, the river, me, even the land which seemed to show no activity at all. The shoreline was graced with verdant forest and shrub that stood tall in the streaming light of the day. The sunshine seemed to inspire the universe to relax and bask in the glory of its golden wealth of warmth. My mind roamed free and random thoughts popped into and out of existence as the river eased around a wide slow bend. Occasionally, I would awaken enough to peep out of one eye to see where I was in relation to the shore, I’d make a corrective stroke or two then settle the paddle back on my stomach and go back to dozing. Eventually, the kayak had drifted toward the south bank as the river made a lazy turn to the right. The kayak was still running straight so I left matters to the current as I continued my afternoon reverie.
At one point I opened my eyes to see how the kayak was taking the curve. I noticed an object floating closer to shore. It looked organic and I was idly thinking that I was looking at another dead animal. Up to this point, I had seen a wide variety of dead animals either floating on the river or laying on the shore, from possible human remains to beaver to waterfowl and even a cow or two. I eyed the floating object with very little direct interest other than to see if it was a stick or a corpse. My legs were still atop the deck and the bow of the kayak was slowly beginning to shift toward the shore. Just as the object of interest was passing not more than two feet aside between the kayak and two feet from the shore, I saw that it was an animal. There were four tiny feet poking up into the air along a body which was floating downstream tail first on its back. I was thinking that it must have been a muskrat which died while in the water, probably of old age. I needed to make a stroke to steer the kayak away from the shore so I slowly moved my arms to dip the paddle blade into the water between the kayak and the apparently dead muskrat.
Everything that happened next occurred with the span of a few seconds. As I lazily moved my arms to dip the paddle blade into the water for the needed correction stroke, the dead muskrat suddenly sprang vigorously to life, jumped above the water and rotated its body around to a feet-down position while it was still in the air. How the hell it did that I will never know but it moved with such a startled violence that it frightened the beegeebers out of me. My reverent ease erupted into a defensive action to protect myself from whatever might happen. Remember that my legs were not inside the cockpit at this time but were still upon the deck, the most compromising and unstable position you can be in while paddling a kayak. My startle reaction, I very rarely have a startle reaction, caused me to shift my center of balance toward the muskrat, which by this time, was splashing water toward the high heavens until it was quite literally running on top of the water. I struggled to stabilize my situation while watching that darned muskrat miraculously rotate its body in mid-air, land on the surface of the water at a dead run, churn its feet in the same spot until they built up enough water pressure, then thrust itself forward with good momentum only to leap into the air. It formed a furry little spear with its body with its front legs forming the cone of this missile then dove into the rivers depths.
By this time I was struggling terribly to maintain my balance using my paddle and various body contortions while whispering quiet invectives like, “Shit!” and “Damn!” and “Whoa!” Once I found my center of balance and stabilized the kayak again the only traces of evidence that the muskrat had been present were the circles of water moving away from the spot where it disappeared into the water.
My heart slowed a beat as I turned my head back to the forward position. Instead of making a corrective stroke to straighten out the kayak, I began to laugh while the keel of the kayak continued its slow drift to shore. I laughed at the surprise I was given and even more so, I laughed at the surprise both me and the muskrat were given. We were both lulled by the bright afternoon sun, the slow hot air, the easy river current and equally startled by each other’s very quiet peaceful presence. The kayak eventually hit shore. I used this as an excuse to get out, make a pit stop and get back into the kayak with my legs in the cockpit instead of upon the deck. I didn’t want to go through another startling experience like that again. Had I tipped, it would have been a non-issue since I was floating over the shallows near the shore line. Had I been in deeper water, it would have been a pain to set things right. In hindsight, swimming during such a hot day might have been a great idea.