title: Reflections on the Golden River
author: Jack Wolf
description: A native of Omaha, Nebraska, born in 1922, Wolf began his checkered career at an early age, first as a vegetable seller to beat Depression hunger, and then as a World War II soldier in the jungles of India, mountains of Burma, vast lands of China. After the war, he earned a university degree in chemisty and worked briefly in the U.S.A. before moving to Europe to study, write, paint. Today the Whitney Museum in New York City owns one of his paintings from that era. He walked the streets of Paris, explored the caves of Spain, and became a foreign television correspondent in Africa and the Middle East. After his first of nine books found a publisher, and his paintings were being shown in the galleries of London, he and his wife returned to the U.S.A. to open an art gallery. This led to becoming a university professor. Despite his checkered career, his first love was and continues to be poetry.
zlib_text: 
  
  
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  Chapter One
  
  
  
  
  
  TheSundowner
  
  
  WITH EYES fixed thoughtfully on the slow-moving muddy stream of the River
  Darling, William Clair lounged in the golden light of the setting sun. His
  frame was gaunt, his complexion burnt-umber, his eyes were blue and
  unflickering, his moustache drooping like that of a Chinese mandarin was jet-
  black, despite his fifty-eight years.
  
  
  It was the beginning of March, and the river was low. The birds, perched on
  the up-thrusting snags, were taking their evening drink; the galah, the
  cockatoo, and the kookaburra mingling their screeches, chatterings, and
  maniacal laughter with the funeral caw-cawing of the sinister crows. Not a
  breath of wind stirred the light-reflecting leaves of the giant gums bordering
  the river. From gold the sunlight turned to crimson.
  
  
  Just below Clair were moored three small boats. Behind him was the homestead
  of Barrakee Station, set amid theparadisaic oasis of cool green lawns edged by
  orange trees. A little down the river,