The melt was coming fast, and hard. The surface of the water breathed like a great animal, the sides of the creek surging up just over the bank, washing the concrete of the path and then retreating.
I was definitely going to be up until dawn, drying my bike out.
Somebody old and sensible, they probably would have gone the long way, the dry way.
My only concession was turning my headlight on, and hitching the strap of my knife-roll higher across my chest, like the bandolier it most definitely was.
The first mile, the water never even crested up over my valve stem. And, down here by the creek, the sound was massive. It felt like the mountains were bleeding out.
But I didn't forget the promise I'd made earlier: A mile into it, right at the bend where the creek turned west, I stepped my right foot over the top bar, rode sidesaddle on my left foot, and looked behind me, at the rooster tail of mist I was leaving.
It was stupid. It was wonderful.
Before the bike rolled all the way to a stop, I stepped down into the grabby muck, hitched the bike up onto my arm like I was racing cyclo-cross.
What I was really doing was playing detective.
The mud in the tall grass and brush and tangle of vines and trash turned out to be sloppier than I'd hoped, but I trudged and clumped through it, picked those clear glasses off the naked sapling like the fruit they were.
I'd been right, that afternoon. These were seriously antique, from another decade of cycling gear.
Usually, something like this hung in a tree or set up on a rock with another rock there to keep it from blowing away, it was just what you did when you stumbled onto something somebody else had dropped. It was only kind. Surely they'd be back, looking for it, right?
This was too far out for that, though. There were closer places to the path to hang a piece of equipment.
I stood there by the sapling, raised the wet glasses to my face and looked through them. At the shiny path. At the silhouette of trees waving back and forth. At the creek where the two college kids had been floating.
For maybe twenty seconds, I couldn't look away from that bend. It was like I was seeing them again. Like a puzzle piece in my head was nudging itself into some bigger picture. Before it could resolve, I looked over, to the right.
There was someone there. On a matte-black aluminum bike. You can tell aluminum from carbon by the turns in the frame.